exit

Yesterday, Zynga announced a big write-off and told Wall Street its growth was slowing. Today, Wall Street returned the favor by crushing Zynga shares, forcing them down 12 percent to $2.48.

Analysts say Zynga could still recover. It remains a leader in the casual-gaming industry, with more than 300 million monthly users, and as of July 30, it held a decent financial cushion in the form of $436 million in cash and equivalents on hand -- a good chunk of the $1 billion it raised in its IPO late last year.

It's starting to look like Zynga's … Read more

Sony will exit the business of making optical drives for PCs, another sign that traditional PC design is fading.

Japan-based Sony is getting out of the optical disk business as part of its restructuring effort, according to a Japanese-language report in the Asahi Shimbun.

A similar report appeared in Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun.

About 400 people, both domestic and overseas, will be offered early retirement, the reports said, adding that the move is coming in the wake of a $312 million net loss posted earlier this month.

Sony is aiming to close its Sony Opitarc optical disk division by March … Read more

If you have ever got up and left a Private Browsing session unattended, your private information is sitting there for any passer-by to see. With PB Exit, a Private Browsing window will close after 10 minutes of inactivity, either the last page load or tab switch.

This Firefox extension could not be easier to use; simply install it and let it run in the background. In my trial, it worked as advertised, closing Private Browsing tabs after I let them sit idle for 10 minutes. There are no settings to muss with, though the developer has a note on the … Read more

Shift 2 is the sequel to Shift, a unique puzzle game that uses a Shift button to invert black-and-white objects, letting you walk on different surfaces to try to reach the goal. Though difficult to describe, you'll quickly understand once you start playing, and Shift 2 takes the unique game mechanic to new heights across 120 levels. Like the original, you only have a couple of controls on the bottom for running and jumping, and then Shift buttons on both sides at the top to invert the colors.

To get you started, Shift 2 gives you onscreen hints to … Read more

Is Apple really the next big gaming-hardware company? I mean, sure, I'm aware there are thousands upon thousands of games in the app store and that the iPhone and iPad are changing the way we think of touch-screen games, but I never would have guessed Apple would be in the same conversation with Sony's PS3, Microsoft's XBox 360, or the Nintendo Wii.

Apparently, Apple is making a much bigger splash in the gaming market than I thought because now, according to the Times Online UK, Nintendo's president, Satoru Iwata, is calling Apple the "enemy of the future." … Read more

It's hard to believe that anyone would want to unsubscribe from The 404 Podcast, but we're here to say that the unspeakable act comes with a $250 termination fee, which actually ain't that bad considering Verizon recently doubled its early termination fees from $175 to $350. Verizon attempts to justify it by reducing the fee by $10 as each month of your contract passes, but we're not entirely convinced you're saving money. Case in point: if you buy a Droid with a two-year contract on Verizon but want to jump ship after a year, the penalty is still a rip-off at $230, which is already $80 more than what I paid to terminate my fee when I switched to AT&T for the iPhone three years ago. With a Verizon iPhone around the corner, we're hoping to finally have a way to escape AT&T's frustratingly spotty 3G service. Sing it with me..."We want prenup, we want prenup, YEAHHH."

If you just couldn't wait for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 to come out and modded your Xbox 360 to play a pirated version of the game, you might want to check the status of your Gamertag because you might be one of the 1 million players that Microsoft banned earlier this week. This week's release of the popular Call of Duty sequel caused a spike in players altering their consoles to play a bootleg version of the game, but many are unaware that Xbox 360s all contain "digital right management technologies designed to detect pirated software," says a report in InformationWeek. Unfortunately, once a Gamertag is banned, the person responsible is banished for life and must purchase a brand new console in order to reregister and play again. There's no doubt that Modern Warfare 2 is an amazing game, but it's worth it to keep your Xbox 360 clean and shell out the dough for the legit game. Piracy doesn't pay!

Finally, all our New York listeners should pay special attention to our next segment, because this new iPhone app could literally shave minutes off your commute time. I joke you not, any time saved on the subway is a blessing, so we're all very excited about Exit Strategy NYC, a mapping application that downloads an entire map of the city to your iPhone, so it works underground. It displays zoomable, scrollable, and interactive maps of the subway system as well, and even shows you which specific car to board so you'll exit exactly at the street level stairs.

The app is available on the iPhone App Store for $4.99, and it's well worth the purchase if you live in New York or plan to travel in the area. You can also download it for the BlackBerry, Android, and Amazon Kindle. The good folks at Exit Strategy were generous enough to give our listeners a handful of codes to download the app for free! All you have to do is comment on this blog with the words "EXIT STRATEGY" and you'll be automatically entered into the random lottery. We'll choose five winners over the weekend and send out the codes on Tuesday, so leave a comment now!

Also, don't forget that Tony Hawk will be on the show Monday to chat with us and do an in-studio demo of his latest video game, Tony Hawk Ride, so be sure to send in any questions to the404[at]cnet{dot}com and pick a few to ask. Have a great weekend, everyone!

RebootEx offers users a simple, fast, and easy way to turn your machine off from anywhere and even log back on when it restarts. While the average user probably won't have a need for its remote shutdown capabilities, it works on a local PC as well.

This program has an interface that will look familiar to anyone who has used Windows. A small bar pops up on the desktop featuring the exact same icons as Windows for Shut Down, Restart, and Log Off. In addition, there is a button for Remote. Below these are a clock for scheduled restarts … Read more

ExitReality is the latest virtual world to come onto the scene and is launching out of private beta tonight. Its big bold feature is the capability to turn any site you're on into its own 3D world with interactive elements created from content found on the page. This includes photos, videos, and music files.

The service requires a small system plug-in that currently runs only on PCs. I was told no Mac version is planned, but may come into the picture if there's enough of a demand. Once the plug-in is installed, you just need to click a button in your browser and it will take you to the 3D version of that site. The tool will automatically scan any page you're on and make a "default" world where bits and pieces of content are pulled together and organized within a giant room. Site creators can put together their own creations, complete with a developer toolbox that lets people create some Second Life-esq environments using open-source 3D modeling standards.

In a demo earlier this month co-founder and CTO Danny Stefanic walked me through something that looked like the Ewok village from Star Wars. Unfortunately Webware.com did not look as lush, although my byline has never been bigger. Stefanic says site owners can put together their own worlds that would become destinations, or companions to their existing sites, and offer yet another place to monetize their content.

To that end, the entire Exit Reality platform is tied to two important things: a social and ad network. Users can have their own Exit Reality specific profiles that come with them from site to site, and there's a built-in directory and search tool used to browse some of the best creations. The advertising side is a little more vanilla, with contextual ads that layer on top of your site's content. There are also special branded 3D elements such as a Carl's Jr. moving bull which was shown off to me in reference to a 2-year-old TV advertisement, which can be found when visiting the Carl's Jr. site in Exit Reality.

Ultimately my only beef with Exit Reality's approach is that it's not offering a whole lot more than something like Me.dium when it comes to the social side of browsing. Me.dium doesn't try to re-think what site creators have come up with and makes the discovery process no different from the experience everyone else on the Web is having. Exit Reality seems to be focused on the 3D attraction, which is certainly not a bad thing, but the experience you get coming to a default version of a site is just not up to snuff with the handful places that have been meticulously created to be immersive. It's a classic chicken and egg problem, with users bound to get bored of it unless there are plenty of interesting places to visit.

Another problem is that the 3D virtual world space is getting crowded fast. Last week at the TechCrunch50 conference we saw the launch of Hangout.net which looks a little more visually impressive and includes things like VoIP chat and a really neat physics engine that lets you throw things around with some level of realism. There's also the Home service coming to Playstation 3 owners in the next few months, alongside the other myriad online choices like Doppelganger, Kaneva, and There.com which also partially compete with gaming heavyweights like Second Life and World of Warcraft.

The one thing that's really going to keep people coming back is something different, be it the people there or the available activities once you're on a site. Whether the open-source creation tools (which I think are one of the strong points) are enough to make that happen is anyone's guess.

… Read more

When most of us quit a job, we give two weeks notice, collect our final check and we're out the door. Maybe we have some stock options to exercise within 30 days, but that's about it. When we get fired it's even simpler - same thing except no notice.

In a prior post, we discussed strategies for negotiating an exit package - a sort of self-inflicted layoff. If you're lucky and a great negotiator, that might get you a few months of salary, stock option vesting, and extension of benefits, depending on your management level and longevity with the company.

So, when we exit a company through whichever door, we're talking a few thousand bucks if you're a regular Joe, maybe up to six figures if you're a VP who's been with the company a while.

CEO exit packages are similar in concept to those mere mortals might hope to negotiate, but that's where the similarity ends. The end result is more like hitting the lottery.… Read more