starboard

AOL takes heavy fire from Starboard side

Starboard Value, a $1 billion hedge fund with a 5 percent stake in AOL, claims the media company is poorly managed and is preparing for a proxy fight to replace three members of AOL's board.

Starboard said today that it filed a copy of the presentation it plans to make at AOL's annual meeting in June. Starboard is backing a slate of nominees that would replace AOL directors Alberto Ibarguen, Patricia Mitchell, and James Stengel.

For months, Starboard has bashed AOL and CEO Tim Armstrong's leadership record. The hedge fund has grown impatient with AOL's effort … Read more

AOL strikes back at Starboard Value over proxy fight

AOL has been getting hit from all sides by activist investor Starboard Value. But in a letter to shareholders, the company is hitting back.

"Starboard, and in particular its principal, Mr. Jeffrey Smith, have rebuffed AOL's numerous efforts to avoid a destructive and expensive proxy fight," AOL wrote in a letter to shareholders that was released today and dated yesterday. "We believe that Starboard's misleading proxy campaign not only prevents stockholders from making an informed vote at the Annual Meeting, but has created a destructive atmosphere for AOL and the long-term interests of all of … Read more

Here we go again: AOL investor might start proxy war

If you ever run a declining Web company, be sure to keep one thing in mind: activist investors are waiting to pounce.

Just days after Yahoo activist shareholder Daniel Loeb proposed plans to take over four seats on that company's board, a new report from All Things Digital claims that a fund called Starboard Value is planning to launch its own proxy war with AOL.

According to All Things Digital's sources, Starboard Value, which owns about 5 percent of AOL, could propose an entirely new group of directors as early as today. And tomorrow is the last day … Read more

Presenting to presenters: Hitachi StarBoard WT-1 wireless tablet

Personally, I'm completely happy with my USB keyboard and optical mouse. But if you're a fan of alternative input devices, such as the PaperShow, you now have another choice.

Hitachi Software announced Tuesday its new StarBoard WT-1 interactive wireless tablet. Basically, it's a mouse and keyboard replacement that lets presenters in educational facilities and corporate environments interact with their audiences.

The device has a range up to 30 feet thanks to RF wireless technology, and a battery life of up to 16 hours of continuous use. This seems nice as the PaperShow offer only a few hours … Read more

Hitachi giant multi-touch interface

At the Consumer Electronics Show, Hitachi is demo'ing a product called Starboard that is a multi-touch interface at a very large scale. You can use it to control a regular PC, and they've also got some custom apps for it. One of those is shown in the video.

What's interesting is that this is a projected interface, so it's untethered from the need to have a touch-sensitive LCD. This allows it to scale very large relatively inexpensively. They were also showing a wall-size version.

The projector in both cases was a very short throw Hitachi model … Read more