The Netflix board of directors has adopted a stockholder rights plan known as a poison-pill defense to prevent billionaire investor Carl Icahn from acquiring more shares in the company.
“The stockholder rights plan, approved unanimously by Netflix’s board on November 2, would be triggered if an ‘activist shareholder’ acquired 10 percent of the stock, or an institutional investor bought 20 percent,” reports Bloomberg.
The move is designed to make a potential hostile takeover too expensive, and fend off larger companies such as Amazon and Verizon.
“Netflix has received no takeover offer and has had no discussions with Icahn, said a person familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified because it is private,” explains the article.
Icahn, who owns nearly 10 percent of Netflix’s shares, said in a regulatory filing that the company’s new poison pill was “particularly troubling” and criticized Netflix for “poor corporate governance.”
Last week, analyst Anthony DiClemente of Barclays Capital issued a report suggesting Icahn might have purchased his stake in Netflix with the intent of eventually selling the company. The assertion was based on Icahn’s prior history at Blockbuster and Lionsgate.
Amazon may be targeting Netflix and Hulu with its new monthly payment option for Amazon Prime.
The new subscription “includes free two-day shipping, access to e-books and instant streaming of movies and TV shows,” reports the Los Angeles Times.
Priced at $7.99, the new monthly option is actually more expensive than the $79 subscribers currently pay annually for Prime. However, this may not be an issue for consumers when they look at Netflix, Hulu Plus and Amazon Prime, and realize all three have the same monthly fee — but Prime includes more perks.
“The monthly subscription comes as brick-and-mortar retailers are furiously battling with Amazon for shoppers this holiday season and rolling out all kinds of promotions such as price matching and free layaway,” notes the article.
“Analysts say the option could entice shoppers who don’t want to be locked into Amazon Prime for an entire year to sign up during the holiday months for free shipping.”
Additionally, Amazon has been installing “lockers” in retail, convenience and grocery stores, hoping that online shoppers looking for a more secure pick-up location will turn to the lockers. Staples announced on Monday that it will also install Amazon Lockers in its stores.
Hulu has announced a deal with CBS that will bring 2,600 episodes of shows such as “Medium,” “Star Trek,” “I Love Lucy,” “The Twilight Zone” and “CSI: Miami” to the video service starting in January.
CBS content will be restricted to classic series and recently canceled shows. The CBS website will continue as the sole venue for ad-driven episodes of current series.
The network finally joins competitors such as NBC and Fox, which have been offering content via Hulu for years. The streaming service currently has more than 400 content partners.
“Hulu says that the deal with CBS will be in effect for multiple years, but the company did not provide financial details on the agreement,” reports CNET. “Some CBS library shows will be available on the free Hulu.com, though Hulu wouldn’t say which programs will make the list.”
The majority of titles from the CBS library will be made available on the premium version, Hulu Plus, for customers who pay the $8 per month subscription fee.
“The CBS deal comes as Hulu faces a number of internal questions in the wake of buying out early investor Providence Equity Partners,” notes TechCrunch in a related post. That means that Hulu is controlled entirely by its parents and content partners Fox, Disney, and NBCUniversal.”
“That deal triggered a liquidity event, through which all employees with stock were able to cash out, leaving some key executives — like CEO Jason Kilar — little reason to stick around. There’s a lot to change ahead for Hulu in the next 12 months, so getting an unexpected content partner on board is positive news.”
With various freemium alternatives, it seems that consumers aren’t as willing to pay for content. However, a new study from Forrester suggests otherwise, finding that the number of people in western Europe purchasing digital content will grow by eight to 12 percent in five years.
The findings predict that by 2017, 20 percent of tablet users in western Europe will pay for news; the number of people who pay for online games will increase 27 percent; digital content will account for 60 percent of video-buying; and the number of music subscribers will double.
“The boom will be fueled partly by the currently-radiating explosion in new devices designed for media consumption, many with attractive built-in payment mechanisms,” paidContent reports.
“The potential impact on marketers is huge,” says Forrester analyst Darika Ahrens. “Successful online content providers no longer need to rely on ad spend. (There will be) fewer chances to reach consumers with ads.”
“She says marketers should respond by building their own content channels, sponsoring content packages within a paid content environment and otherwise start advertising as though it were creating content for end consumers,” explains the article.
“The consequence of such a model is that as more content becomes marketer-created, disclosures describing the relationship between advertiser and publisher must be visible to readers, who are as used to the traditional church-and-state separation of editorial and commercial as content producers themselves are.”
The article notes some companies that offer subscriptions still rely on advertising revenue, like Hulu and the Financial Times. Even so, ad rates and premium ad opportunities are shrinking as advertising becomes available on more websites.
Remember Furby? Hasbro’s hit robot from the 1990s is getting a second life thanks to a tech upgrade in which the furry little critter develops a personality as a child interacts with it.
An expensive and complex development project for Hasbro, the Furby reboot is already being promoted by Walmart, Target and Toys R Us.
The new Furby is one of more than 20 products that Hasbro is bringing back with improved tech capabilities. The company needs a hit, as the popularity of mobile devices has led to sagging sales for traditional toys.
Manufacturers are hoping that kids familiar with smartphones and tablets will gravitate toward a new generation of “app toys” (a new product category dubbed by toymakers).
“One of the best-selling gadgets at electronics chain Brookstone is the Rover Spy Tank, which is remotely controlled by an app on an iPhone or iPad,” reports Businessweek. “Mattel has a line that it calls ‘apptivity’ toys that includes Hot Wheels cars a child can move along the screen of a tablet as a digital racetrack scrolls underneath. Mattel’s Fisher-Price brand is even incorporating smart devices into toys for preschoolers.”
Upgraded sensors and a computerized brain will lead to each Furby behaving somewhat differently, depending on how it is treated by its owner.
“Furby also works with mobile devices,” notes the article. “A free app for Apple’s iOS operating software and one for Google’s Android later this year will allow users to translate what Furby is saying and feed him everything from coffee to a dirty sock, potentially eliciting a burp or other adorably rude noises.”
Microsoft is betting big on “Halo 4,” the latest installment of the popular Xbox 360 game, a series many gamers thought had concluded with “Halo 3.”
To convince consumers that “Halo” lives on and to advertise today’s debut, Microsoft has ramped up promotion. The company has launched a slick two-minute trailer from director David Fincher (included in article). Microsoft has also teamed up to put out “Halo”-themed Mountain Dew, Doritos and Axe deodorant, targeting the predominantly male gaming demographic.
The upcoming game is only available on the Xbox console, unlike its rival “Call of Duty,” which is also available on Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Nintendo’s new Wii U.
“The intense competition has put pressure on the ‘Halo’ developers to make sure the game arrives on time,” reports the Wall Street Journal. “Microsoft estimates a week of lost momentum could wipe out roughly a third of projected ‘Halo’ sales.”
“‘Halo 4,’ with roughly 340 employees working on the project, cost about $40 million to produce, more than twice the industry average, estimates Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities,” notes the article. “That compares to Internet games which can have development teams a fraction of that size and cost as little as $1 million to $5 million. Some mobile games are created by single developers in a matter of months with almost no investment.”
Development of “Halo 4” started in 2008 but just 19 weeks before launch, only about a fourth of the game was ready for shipment. Improved technology helped game makers create a more realistic and rich game but slowed the game down. Numerous bugs also plagued developers.
Google Wallet promised quick, seamless payments by replacing credit cards with smartphones. But the tap and pay technology is not widely available at check outs and “let’s face it, tap payments are rarely painless anyway,” comments Android Police.
A leaked version of the Google Wallet app shows that Google has come up with a solution: a physical Google Wallet card that will work just like a regular credit card wherever major cards are accepted. Users select a default card on the Wallet app and the Wallet card will charge that account.
“The physical Wallet card could make carrier approval for Wallet a thing of the past unless you want to use tap payments,” suggests the post. “Google could publish a version of the Wallet app without NFC permissions that just allows you to switch between your cards, that could be installed on any phone (even iOS or Windows Phone, theoretically), and you just use the Wallet card for payments.”
Users can order their card through the app and have it mailed to their home.
“Other awesome new features are coming to Wallet as well,” the article continues. “The ability to deposit and withdraw money to and from a ‘Wallet Balance’ is being added (hopefully, this will integrate with the Play Store), as well as person to person money transfers. Transit cards? Wallet’s got transit cards.”
Android Police suggests the updated app will “reduce the chance of rival mobile payment systems of catching on,” giving Google a lead on competing systems.
ARM controls much of the mobile chip world, while Intel has dominated the server world. Now, ARM is looking to put cellphone chips in supercomputers and Intel is working on integrating supercomputer capabilities into smartphones.
With its experimental Single-chip Cloud Computer, or SCC, Intel hopes to turn smartphones into supercomputers in the next five years. The company is looking into possible mobile applications for SCC and is creating tools for developers to take advantage of the technology.
“Intel Labs has been working on many-core chips since around 2004,” Wired explains, “and the more immediate applications will probably be in servers and, yes, supercomputers, which are essentially a bunch of servers working in tandem. This is often called high-performance computing, or HPC.”
“HPC depends on parallel processing — breaking down big problems into smaller problems that are solved by different processors running in parallel,” the article continues. “What Intel Labs is now researching is whether this approach will make sense for mobile computing.”
The technology could be used in augmented reality applications and rendering 3D graphics for games.
The distinction between mobile hardware and data-center hardware is fading as big data-center operations look for ultra-low-power profiles of cellphones and mobile devices strive for the computational power of larger systems.
ARM’s challenge to Intel’s SCC is its new chip called Atlas that aspires to launch ARM into the server world.
Twitter has a new policy for responding to DMCA copyright notices that aims to provide more transparency.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act does not hold companies like Twitter or Google responsible for copyrighted material that their users post; however, it does require the companies to take down the content when they receive copyright complaints. Users can then counter the notice to get their content reinstated.
Previously, Twitter would simply remove the content without providing any public notice of copyright notices. Now the company is “withdrawing” tweets, replacing them with a statement explaining the takedown.
“This is important to reporters and scholars who use Twitter as a news source and now have an explanation when a piece of news vanishes due to copyright reasons,” notes GigaOM. “This is consistent with other efforts by Twitter to shine light on a copyright process that critics say is susceptible to abuse by content owners.”
After Twitter withdraws the tweet, it also sends the requests to the Chilling Effects clearinghouse for online publication, according to a Twitter spokesman.
“The new Twitter policy comes as both Internet companies and copyright owners are growing frustrated with the existing DMCA regime,” GigaOM writes.
“On one hand, content creators say it is too much effort to track and send DMCA notices for each infringement. On the other hand, rights owners may be growing trigger happy with notices; Google, for instance, is now receiving more than 1 million copyright requests a month, some of which are not justified and can create a ‘chilling effect’ for users.”
Facebook is developing a classifieds application for its users to help them engage with each other, expand their social circles and sell that couch.
“The new tool, which is tentatively called Marketplace… would allow users to create short advertisements that appear in their friends’ news feeds notifying them of everything from apartment rentals to furniture sales to job boards,” reports The Daily. “In short, practically anything you do on Craigslist can be done with this new service.”
For some ads — like those for a couch — users may have to pay a small fee (likely under $5) for the post to show in friends’ news feeds. “The new ads could include multiple photos and links to external resources. Users can also elect to ‘share’ a post on their own timeline,” expanding the message’s reach, the article explains.
The tool helps Facebook users create posts for targeted audiences, based on location or other criteria. For example, if a user is sharing a career opportunity, the ad could be restricted to those who have a Master’s degree.
“But it’s the projects section that is maybe the most interesting,” The Daily suggests. “Similar to Craigslist’s Gigs section, it would let users post tips and information about a variety of topics from clearing brush to installing WordPress. It would also let people share ‘ideas,’ or broadly scoped ventures they’d like to flesh out with help.”
Seagate Technology, supplier of disc drives and data storage products, announced it has joined the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) — the cross-industry consortium behind the cloud-based UltraViolet digital content ecosystem.
“Digital distribution beyond DVDs and Blu-ray Discs is not only the way of the future, it is the present and we know that storage is key to this ongoing transition,” says Scott Horn, VP of marketing for Seagate.
“Seagate sees UltraViolet as a leader in bringing content to consumers in this new digital age and we are excited to be helping them make their vision a reality,” he adds.
“With UltraViolet, consumers enjoy the flexibility and security of cloud-based entertainment rights combined with the choice-expanding benefits of a widely-honored industry standard,” notes Mark Teitell, general manager of UltraViolet.
“As a DECE member, Seagate’s expertise and perspective on cloud solutions and storage devices will help the organization continue to evolve these benefits,” he says.
Seagate joins the nearly 70 member companies of DECE including Sony, Warner Bros., Fox, Paramount, NBCUniversal, LG, Samsung, Sony, Panasonic, Netflix, Intel and others.
Barnes & Noble announced it has struck deals with NBCUniversal, Fox Home Entertainment and other major studios to bring more movies and TV shows to its NOOK tablets.
Consumers can now stream or download popular television series or movie titles such as “Snow White and the Huntsman,” “Battleship,” “Ice Age: Continental Drift” and “Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax.”
The NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ (which started shipping last week) also connect users’ UltraViolet video libraries “right out of the box,” reports RTTNews.
“The company stated that customers will be able to easily link their UltraViolet accounts to the NOOK Cloud allowing them to view their previously and newly purchased UltraViolet-enabled movies and TV shows across NOOK HD and NOOK HD+ devices and free NOOK Video apps coming soon,” the article explains.
According to the press release: “In addition to purchasing movies and TV shows via NOOK Video, customers can shop for DVDs and Blu-ray Discs with the UltraViolet logo in Barnes & Noble and other retail stores, add them to their digital collection, and instantly watch compatible titles from the NOOK Cloud to enjoy wherever they go and however they choose.”
“This is certainly a huge bonus for consumers that have a big UV library, and coupled with all the new content, we wouldn’t be surprised if NOOK sales start stealing a little heat from the Fire,” comments Engadget in a related post, referring to NOOK competitor — the Kindle Fire from Amazon.
Tech giant eBay decided to generate its own power for its Utah data center rather than rely on power grids, reports GigaOM. EBay installed 6 megawatts worth of Bloom Energy solid oxide fuel cells on site in Utah, which marks the largest non-utility fuel cell system in America, according to GigaOM.
“Fuel cells are primary power for the computers and then the grid is used as backup. We have a higher available data center with this design than we would have with a traditional generator and UPS design. That was a big ah-ha moment for me,” said Dean Nelson, eBay’s Vice President who was behind the provisioning and consolidating of the data centers.
While fuel cells are more expensive than grid power in the short run, “the elimination of UPS and generators along with the simplification of the building design that included changing the height of the building as well as the structural support needed” could help eBay economically in the future, reports GigaOM.
While eBay paid the upfront costs for the fuel cells, Bloom Energy now offers an energy-as-a-service option to deal with the considerable capital costs.
EBay’s move could be the first of many companies taking control of their own power production. Generating power and using grid power as a backup gives companies more control over their operations, even if it is more expensive.
Imagine having a wireless Internet connection everywhere. That’s what the Electronic Frontier Foundation and nine other groups in the Open Wireless Movement coalition hope to see as they advocate for universal sharing of Internet access.
“We envision a world where sharing one’s Internet connection is the norm,” EFF Activist Adi Kamdar said in a press release. “A world of open wireless would encourage privacy, promote innovation, and benefit the public good, giving us network access whenever we need it. And everyone – users, businesses, developers, and Internet service providers – can get involved to help make it happen.”
There have been concerns about security and legal responsibility on open networks, which the Open Wireless Movement website tries to address. The FAQs discuss Transport Layer Security (TLS), WPA2 and other Wi-Fi security protections.
As for legal liability for others’ illegal activity on the network, the coalition’s site simply says it doesn’t think it will be a problem and links to a longer explanation. “The detailed explanation isn’t much more reassuring than ‘we don’t think so,'” Network World writes.
Also on the site are how-to tips for users, small businesses, ISPs and developers. Many ISPs don’t allow open sharing, but the Open Wireless Movement provides a list of those that do, saying all ISPs should just be open.
HTML5 promises to allow web-based apps to run on any device, regardless of operating system. But as it stands now, native platform-dependent apps remain dominant, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has openly criticized HTML5 as inadequate.
That said, Business Insider Intelligence has published a report that supports the idea that HTML 5 will eventually surpass native apps.
“It’s currently less good than native apps at lots of things,” the report concedes. “But the technology is improving. And it is cheaper to produce HTML5 apps than native apps. Over time, the new, cheaper technology of HTML5 will get better and better, and as it does it will start to eat the rest of the market.”
Ad/subscription-based apps that display text, images and video can be created more effectively and inexpensively with HTML5, BI Intelligence concludes. As such, media apps and “access” apps that provide mobile access to existing accounts (like banks) will benefit most from this new standard. These apps will also be the jumping off point for HTML5 with gaming apps expected to follow suit later.
“Shell” or “wrapper” apps will also help the expansion of HTML5. These apps get the “best of both worlds” by having a native “shell” that allows them to be sold in platform-specific app stores but operating entirely with HTML5, the article explains.
“But, it will still take a while,” BI concludes. “HTML5 comes from a consortium, which means the technology will evolve slowly. It still isn’t ready for prime time, as there are many things that HTML5 apps just can’t do right now…So HTML5 will likely progressively replace apps as the feature set improves…”
