Digital Trends
Being a highly visible and influential tech pundit can be rough business. Ask TechCrunch’s well-known founder Michael Arrington, who, after an abrasive run-in at a recent conference in Munich, Germany, has decided to call it quits for a while.
In a detailed post on TechCrunch, Arrington tells the story of how he was recently spat on at a conference in Germany, which became the last straw in a long line of abuse he has endured as part of his site’s rise to prominence. Arrington also cited a barrage of nonstop criticism from competitors, and a previously little-known threat to his life last year that had him holed up at his parents’ house for days in fear.
DRAM menufacturer Qimonda has filed for bankrupcty protection in a local court in Munich, Germany, after a bailout financing deal between Qimonda’s parent company, Infineon, a Portuguese investment firm, and the German state of Saxony failed to come through. Qimonda is the first DRAM manufacturer forced to seek bankruptcy protection in the recent global economic downturn; the company has also been hit hard by a worldwide glut in memory products that kept prices for RAM near (or even below) the costs of manufacturing DRAM for most of 2008.
If Google Earth’s cumbersome 3D navigation system made you feel more like you were designing L-brackets in AutoCAD than soaring over the mountaintops as a bird, the latest revision of the software may just fix that problem. Google released version 4.3 of Google Earth on Wednesday, with a host of updates including improved navigation, more buildings, and Street View.
To fix the somewhat clunky way of interacting with 3D maps, Google changed the interface to automatically look “up” as a user zooms closer to Earth, giving a view similar to parachuting down to Earth. Google also added a “look” joystick for browsing around without moving when close to the ground.
It’s not what anyone expected, but perhaps that’s the whole point. According to the BBC, yesterday the Munich, Germany offices of chip maker Intel wereraided by EU competition regulators. Intel itself confirmed the raid and said it was co-operating with investigators. The EU would only claim it had carried out an “unannouncedinspection” of an unnamed chipmaker. So what’s the problem? It all boils down to claims that Intel is abusing its market position and not only selling chips below cost, but alsomaking cash payments to customers. It all began with a complaint from rival AMD, and an initial investigation last year by the European Commission found that Intel had indeed indulged inanti-competitive practices. "I can confirm that there has been a raid on our offices in Munich. As is our normal practice, we are co-operating with authorities," said Chuck Mulloy,an Intel spokesman. Companies that supply Intel have also had their places of business raided. The next step for Intel is a closed-door hearing next month in Brussels. If it’sfound that they did restrict competition, Intel could be fined up to 10% of its annual turnover.
Electronic Arts used the International Developers Conference in Munich on Monday to unveil not just a new game, but a new business model. Battlefield Heroes will follow in the footsteps of previous Battlefield games save for one enormous difference: it will be completely free to download and play.
The game will be the first in EA’s new Play 4 Free business model, which the company says will generate income through advertising and microtransactions. In the past, microtransactions have generally been used to unlock bits and pieces of content through small purchases, for instance, buying a new car in a racing game. Since EA is claiming Heroes will feature “robust character customization,” there should likely be many opportunities for microtransactions to take place.
In a statement distributed via email, BenQ Mobile’s insolvency administrator Martin Prager said negotiations with its last potential buyer had ended without a deal, and he sees “no realistic chance to sell the entire company in one piece and enable a new start.” BenQ Mobile’s plan now: auction off its assets, including real estate, facilities, machinery, patents, and other intellectual property.
The name of the final potential buyer wasn’t disclosed, but Sentex Sensing Technologies and SF Capital have both been named as potential suitors for BenQ’s operations. According to reports, Prager has held talks with more than 100 potential buyers, and serious negotiations undertaken when more than two dozen.
The phone will use a tiny chip measuring less than one millimeter to detect unpleasant odors, a spokeswoman for Siemens Mobile said. A research team in the southern city of Munich is developing the device using new sensor technology.
“It examines the air in the immediate vicinity for anything from bad breath and alcohol to atmospheric gas levels,” the spokeswoman said. “Some people take smelling good rather seriously.”
Source: Reuters
A spokeswoman for the Finance Ministry, which oversees government purchases, said Tuesday that government agencies would use existing Microsoft Office products for the time being rather than upgrade to newer versions.
The Israeli government also will encourage the development of lower-priced alternatives to Microsoft software in an effort to help expand computer use by the public.
To that end, the Finance Ministry has cooperated with Sun Microsystems and IBM in designing the Hebrew language version of OpenOffice software, a freely distributed open-source alternative to Microsoft Office.
It says it remains committed to flogging CDMA phones in Japan, one of its heartlands, and it will continue to develop CDMA machine-to-machine modules. But it is otherwise retrenching around GSM, UTMS and EDGE mobile platforms.
In another cost-cutting move, the struggling mobile phone maker is shutting down its Munich R&D centre, and cutting back at its US CDMA research facility, leading to the loss of 500 jobs.
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