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| BlackBerry ends licensing deal with T-Mobile Tuesday, Apr 01, 2014 08:24 PM PDT  (Reuters) - BlackBerry Ltd said on Tuesday it will not renew its license with T-Mobile U.S. Inc to sell BlackBerry products after the current contract expires on April 25. The Canadian company said it will continue to provide service and support to existing customers on T-Mobile's network or those who will buy products from the carrier's inventory. "Regretfully, at this time, our strategies are not complementary and we must act in the best interest of our BlackBerry customers," BlackBerry Chief Executive John Chen said in a statement. BlackBerry said it is "working closely" with other carrier partners to provide users with alternatives should they decide to switch from T-Mobile. Full Story | Top |
| Renesas has talked with Apple, others on chip unit sale: source Tuesday, Apr 01, 2014 08:04 PM PDT  Japan's Renesas Electronics Corp has talked with several companies, including Apple Inc, on a possible sale of its display chip design unit, a source familiar with the situation said on Wednesday. Renesas has been restructuring to focus on its business supplying semiconductors to the automotive sector and said on Wednesday it was considering a sale of Renesas SP Drivers, but declined to comment further. The Nikkei business daily said Apple was in talks to buy the unit and could pay 50 billion yen ($483 million), with a transaction due to be completed by summer. Apple did not respond to an email request for comment. Full Story | Top |
| Apple seeks decisive U.S. court ruling against Samsung Tuesday, Apr 01, 2014 05:24 PM PDT  By Dan Levine SAN JOSE, California (Reuters) - Apple Inc and Samsung faced off once again in their long-running courtroom battle, with the iPhone maker asking jurors to award more than $2 billion for patent violations and Samsung trying to cast its rival as a sore loser in the smartphone market. Apple marketing chief Philip Schiller also testified about his shock at how similar Samsung's smartphones were to the iPhone. Jurors awarded the iPhone maker about $930 million after a 2012 trial in San Jose, California, but Apple failed to persuade U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh to issue a permanent injunction against the sale of Samsung phones. A sales ban would be a far more serious threat to Samsung, which earned $7.7 billion in the quarter that ended in December. Full Story | Top |
| Brazil watchdog lifts suspension of Oi offer, paves way for merger Tuesday, Apr 01, 2014 03:43 PM PDT  By Joan Magee and Guillermo Parra-Bernal NEW YORK/SAO PAULO (Reuters) - Brazil's securities industry watchdog CVM on Tuesday lifted a suspension on Grupo Oi SA's 6 billion real ($2.7 billion) share offering, paving the way for the Brazilian telecommunications company's merger with Portugal Telecom SGPS SA. Regulators last week halted the offering after Oi Chief Executive Officer Zeinal Bava breached a mandatory quiet period ahead of the transaction. Grupo BTG Pactual SA, the bank handling the deal, and Oi agreed to urge investors to ignore Bava's remarks, a condition CVM said in a statement was enough to lift the suspension. The decision takes effect past midnight and allows Oi to launch the offering within hours. The offering is the backbone of Oi's planned capital increase of 14 billion reais that will allow it to tie up with Portugal Telecom, its biggest shareholder. Full Story | Top |
| Comcast: Business services is sweet spot in Time Warner Cable deal Tuesday, Apr 01, 2014 02:44 PM PDT  Selling Internet and phone service to businesses is hardly the sexiest part of the cable industry, but it has got a definite allure for the architects of the $45.2 billion merger of Comcast and Time Warner Cable. The two companies' sales to businesses of broadband Internet, voice lines and network services already total more than $5 billion, with the growth rate of 20 percent or more expected to be kept up at both the companies' business units. If the merger is approved, the two companies' networks will run through 23 of the 25 largest cities - including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco and Dallas - giving the merged company a reach that rivals AT&T and Verizon in the $60 billion market for core telecom services such as Internet access and voice services, according to IDC. The push to grab more business clients also reflects how cable companies are searching for new growth avenues as their traditional business, selling TV services to residential clients, matures. Full Story | Top |
| Judge orders Mt Gox CEO to U.S. for questions on failed bitcoin exchange Tuesday, Apr 01, 2014 02:27 PM PDT  The chief executive of Japan's Mt. Gox, once the world's leading bitcoin exchange, was ordered to the United States to answer questions related to its U.S. bankruptcy case, filed after the company lost $400 million of customers' digital currency. U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Stacey Jernigan on Tuesday ordered Karpeles to appear on April 17 in Dallas at the offices of Baker & McKenzie, the law firm that represents Mt. Gox. Mt. Gox customers want its chief executive and majority owner, Mark Karpeles, to explain why the exchange shut down in February and what happened to their 750,000 bitcoins, which the company said were stolen in a computer hacking attack. Customers have alleged that insiders including Karpeles may have stolen the money, and employees told Reuters they were worried as early as 2012 that customers' money was being diverted for operating expenses. Full Story | Top |
| Bitcoin derivatives platform BTC gets funding from Seedcoin Tuesday, Apr 01, 2014 02:05 PM PDT  By Gertrude Chavez-Dreyfuss NEW YORK (Reuters) - Bitcoin derivatives trading platform BTC.sx has secured funding from Seedcoin Fund, BTC.sx Chief Operating Officer George Samman told Reuters on Tuesday. The other five businesses are Cryptopay, CoinSimple, MexBT, Hive and zSIM, Seedcoin said in a statement. BTC, which started with a $150,000 investment, briefly suspended trading on its platform after its bitcoin exchange partner, Tokyo-based Mt. Gox, went dark in February following weeks of turmoil. Mt. Gox eventually filed for bankruptcy protection. Full Story | Top |
| Apple again seeks decisive U.S. court ruling against Samsung Tuesday, Apr 01, 2014 12:47 PM PDT  By Dan Levine SAN JOSE, California (Reuters) - An Apple Inc attorney told jurors the company deserves about $2 billion from Samsung for copying the iPhone, but a Samsung lawyer said Apple was merely seeking to make up for losing its lead in the smartphone market. Jurors awarded the iPhone maker about $930 million after a 2012 trial in San Jose, California, but Apple failed to persuade U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh to issue a permanent injunction against the sale of Samsung phones. A sales ban would be a far more serious threat to Samsung Electronics Co Ltd, which earned $7.7 billion in the quarter that ended in December. Samsung's mobile division, which includes smartphones, generated operating profit of 5.47 trillion won ($5.1 billion). Full Story | Top |
| Bouygues extends SFR deadline offer, sets break-up fee Tuesday, Apr 01, 2014 12:12 PM PDT  By Leila Abboud PARIS (Reuters) - French conglomerate Bouygues turned up the heat in its battle for control of Vivendi's telecom unit SFR on Tuesday by extending its offer to April 25 from April 8 and presenting a 500 million euro ($689 million) break-up fee. Bouygues is seeking to muscle its way back into the running for SFR despite Vivendi being in exclusive talks with cable group Numericable until Friday. To that end, Bouygues last week increased the cash portion of its bid by 1.85 billion euros to 13.15 billion euros and offered Vivendi a 21.5 percent stake in the new entity, instead of 43 percent under its previous proposal. Full Story | Top |
| Startup completes first equity crowdfunding drive in Italy Tuesday, Apr 01, 2014 11:28 AM PDT By Naomi O'Leary ROME (Reuters) - A software firm has become the first Italian company since the country introduced a pioneering crowdfunding law to raise target capital from investors buying equity through an online portal. Rome was an early mover in implementing a legal framework for equity crowdfunding, passed as part of a 2012 package of laws intended to encourage startups, which the government sees as a way to boost growth and employment in a struggling economy with record joblessness. Equity crowdfunding resembles services offered by online fundraising sites such as Kickstarter, through which creative projects gather donations from supporters. The startup, Diaman Tech Srl, raised 157,780 euro ($217,500), exceeding an initial target of 147,000 euro from 65 investors in a three-month fundraising effort that concluded on Monday on online platform Unicaseed, the website shows. Full Story | Top |
| Apple in talks to buy Renesas stake in chip design unit - Nikkei Tuesday, Apr 01, 2014 11:09 AM PDT  (Reuters) - Apple Inc is in talks to buy Japan-based Renesas Electronics Corp's stake in a unit that designs liquid crystal display chips for iPhones for about 50 billion yen ($483 million), the Nikkei reported, without identifying a source. Renesas owns 55 percent stake in Renesas SP Drivers, its joint venture with Sharp Corp and Taiwan's Powerchip. Apple expects to complete the stake purchase by summer, the business daily reported on Tuesday. Sharp, which owns 25 percent in Renesas SP, is expected to sell its stake to Apple if the U.S. company asks, the newspaper said. Full Story | Top |
| YouTube sees money in gaming-video eyeballs Tuesday, Apr 01, 2014 10:18 AM PDT  By Malathi Nayak SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - To imagine how YouTube might one day become a money-spinner for content producers, consider the power of the irreverent video gamer and online star PewDiePie over his young, free-spending audience. Each time the wildly popular YouTube impresario has donned Razer headphones in one of the many zany videos that feature him playing games, the product has sold out. "It's incredible that YouTube personalities are coming up ... and I think it can only grow." PewDiePie's uncanny trendsetting talent highlights the potential that content related to video games holds for Google Inc as it looks for ways to build its YouTube video platform into a powerful new revenue stream. Just last week Walt Disney Co agreed to fork over as much as $950 million to buy Maker Studios, one of YouTube's largest production and distribution networks. Full Story | Top |
| Marvell patent verdict grows to $1.54 billion Tuesday, Apr 01, 2014 06:01 AM PDT  A federal judge ordered Marvell Technology Group Ltd to pay nearly $1.54 billion for infringing two hard disk drive patents held by Carnegie Mellon University, nearly one-third more than a jury had previously awarded. The award, however, was less than half the maximum $3.75 billion that Carnegie Mellon had sought, though Marvell still plans an appeal. In her decision late Monday, U.S. District Judge Nora Barry Fischer in Pittsburgh, where Carnegie Mellon is based, said "enhanced damages" were justified against Marvell and its Marvell Semiconductor unit because the university showed that they deliberately copied its patents through "known willful infringement." The payout is equal to 1.23 times the sum of the original $1.17 billion jury verdict from December 2012, plus $79.6 million for alleged infringements that the jury did not consider because it had lacked recent financial information at the time. She also denied Carnegie Mellon's request to stop further sales of the chips. Full Story | Top |
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