Circuit Breaker- Page 4

Acer needs to get its mojo back

The once-high-flying Acer has hit some turbulence.

Yesterday, Acer Chairman J.T. Wang told a meeting of shareholders that the company misjudged how many of its new Iconia Tab touch-screen tablets it can sell this year and reduced its projections by 60 percent.

Its PC shipments are not doing much better. The most recent PC market health report by IDC showed Acer's shipments down 16 percent in the last quarter, and down 15 percent the quarter before that. It's a major shift for the Taiwanese PC maker who, just four years ago, surprised many as it kept on … Read more

Dolby says BlackBerry, PlayBook violate patents

Dolby has filed a lawsuit against Research In Motion for patent infringement, the audio technology company announced today.

Dolby is suing the maker of the BlackBerry in the U.S. and Germany for using "highly efficient digital audio compression technologies which allow manufacturers and consumers to provide and enjoy high quality audio while using extremely limited amounts of transmission and/or storage space for such audio."

Dolby asserts that it owns patents covering the technology used in RIM's BlackBerry smartphones and new tablet, the PlayBook, and claims "all other major" smartphone makers have agreed to … Read more

Study: DVR, set-top box use most energy at home

The Natural Resources Defense Council has ranked the biggest energy hogs in the home, and the thing that's gobbling up the most is probably not what you think: the pairing of your digital video recorder and set-top box.

The environmental monitoring group released a study today that says that a high-definition cable or satellite set-top box when combined with a high-definition DVR uses up 446 kilowatt hours per year. That's more than a new Energy Star rated 21 cubic-foot refrigerator, which uses 415 kWh per year, according to the NRDC's data.

The combination of an HD DVR … Read more

Apple: Samsung request for iPad 3, iPhone 5 is harassment

It was easy to predict that Samsung's request to see early copies of Apple products as part of an ongoing legal dispute between the two companies wouldn't go over well with Apple.

Apple finally responded to Samsung's late May request to see the "final, commercial version(s)" of the "iPhone 4S," "iPhone 5," "iPad 3," "third-generation iPad," and their retail packaging. Yesterday, Apple filed a motion in the District Court for the Northern District of California asking the judge to deny Samsung's request.

The reason? Samsung'… Read more

Apple retail chief headed to J.C. Penney

The man responsible for Apple's iconic retail stores is leaving the company.

Ron Johnson is becoming president and CEO of department store chain J.C. Penney. The Wall Street Journal first reported the move this morning.

Johnson, 52, will officially take the CEO mantle on November 1. He joins J.C. Penney's board of directors beginning August 1, the retail chain said today.

Apple confirmed Johnson's departure to AllThingsD and said the company is "actively recruiting for his replacement."

"I've always dreamed of leading a major retail company as CEO, and I am … Read more

HP shuffles top-ranking executives

Hewlett-Packard just announced some big changes to its executive team.

Ann Livermore is stepping down from running HP's Enterprise Business unit, and will join the company's board of directors, the company said in a statement. Her new seat will be added to the board and will not replace any current member's.

Until HP names a replacement, Livermore will serve as interim head of Enterprise Services.

HP also said it is eliminating the position of chief administrative officer. The man who currently holds that position, Pete Bocian, is leaving immediately, reportedly for a job in investment banking.

Chief … Read more

LulzSec targets video game maker ZeniMax Media

LulzSec is at it again. Today, after much taunting on Twitter, the hacking group has posted online the source code and database passwords of Bethesda Softworks, a subsidiary of gaming company ZeniMax Media.

ZeniMax owns several studios besides Bethesda and is the company behind popular games like Fallout 3, Doom, Quake, and Brink.

LulzSec says in its statement that it initially launched a distributed denial-of-service attack on Bethesda and then found a weakness that provided administrator access to the Web server, and eventually other servers in the network.

"After mapping their internal network and thoroughly pillaging all of their servers, we grabbed all their source code and database passwords, which we proceeded to shift silently back to our storage deck," the group wrote in a statement posted to code-sharing site Pastebin.

In an earlier tweet, LulzSec said the actual attack took place months ago.

"Bethesda, we broke into your site over two months ago. We've had all of your Brink users for weeks. Please fix your junk, thanks!"

Members of the group also profess to be fans of the company. LulzSec says it has data pertaining to more than 200,000 registered users of the game Brink, but says it held back that information because "we actually like this company and would like for them to speed up the production of Skyrim, so we'll give them one less thing to worry about. You're welcome!" … Read more

Verizon finds new partner for mobile payments

Verizon is working on a mobile payments service for smartphones, tablets, and PCs with mobile payments start-up Payfone.

The two companies made the announcement today, but did not reveal many details about how the service would work or a target date for when it will be ready for customers.

According to the release, Verizon customers will be able to make "online purchases" from a phone, tablet, or PC and send the charges to their monthly Verizon bill, or "traditional payment methods through financial partners," which implies credit cards.

Payfone's system will handle the routing, pre-authorization, … Read more

Arrests in Spain don't mean Sony's troubles are over

The Spanish police say they've taken down three of the people allegedly behind the massive PlayStation Network security breach in April. But while it's probably comforting for Sony to have someone to blame, this doesn't mean the company has any reason to rest easy when it comes to security threats.

For the record, Sony doesn't have anything to say about the arrests. "We don't comment on pending investigations," said company spokesman Patrick Seybold in a statement. But whether or not Sony was in any way involved with identifying the three detained by Spanish … Read more

Asus boasts it'll outship other tablet makers, except iPad

Asus is ramping up production of its EeePad Transformer tablet and wants its competitors to know.

Asus CEO Jerry Shen was quoted yesterday in the Taiwan Economic News saying that he plans to outship all other tablet makers this month. Except for the iPad.

Asus will ship 300,000 of the 10-inch Android tablets in the month of June, according to Shen. That, he points out, is an increase over the 200,000 per month Asus was shipping in April and May. Shen believes the tablet will account for 10 percent of Asus' revenue.

His comments appeared to be aimed … Read more