San Rafael,
Calif. – LucasArts has named Paul
Meegan, the former CEO of Epic Games China, as president and general manager,
IndustryGamers reported. The appointment follows last month’s resignation of
former president Darrell Rodriguez and several other executives from LucasArts,
the game studio unit founded by director George Lucas.
Related Links:
http://www.industrygamers.com/news/lucasarts-names-new-president/
San Francisco
– Linden Lab, the parent company behind 3D virtual world "Second
Life," on Wednesday announced a restructuring that includes laying off 30%
of employees. "We’ve emerged from a two-year investment period during
which, among other things, we’ve spent a considerable amount of time improving
reliability and the overall user experience," said Linden Lab CEO Mark
Kingdon. "Today’s announcement about our reorganization will help us make
Second Life even simpler, more enjoyable, relevant and engaging for consumers
starting with their first experience.
"It will also enable us to invest in
bringing 3D to the web and will strengthen our profitability."
Kingdon
said Second Life aims to create a browser-based 3D experience that does not
require any additional software download, and will look to extend the service
onto social networks.
The company said that the restructuring will include
reconfiguring customer support, and aims to improve its geographic and cost
efficiencies, by combining its product and engineering divisions, and
consolidating software development teams in North America.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/x9aqx
New York
– Kaplan, a provider of educational and career services owned by The Washington
Post, said on Wednesday that it has launched a new investment unit, to be known
as Kaplan VC.
The unit will aim to help outside entrepreneurs develop
technologies and products in the field of education.
"Our goal is to
nurture these new technologies to bring them to market, and to ensure our
students and programs will benefit," said Jim Rosenthal, the CEO of Kaplan
Ventures.
Kaplan VC initially will focus on U.S. and European investments in
new learning technologies and online business models in the K12, higher
education, test prep and professional compliance areas.
The firm expects to
acquire minority interests in about a half-dozen companies over the next 12
months.
The new group will be led by Jason Palmer, who assumes the position of
senior vice president.
Related Links:
http://www.kaplan.com/aboutkaplan/newsroom/Pages/newsroom.aspx?ID=575
Washington
– A federal judge has given attorneys for the U.S. Copyright Group, which is in
the process of filing suit against thousands of alleged illegal movie
downloaders, two weeks to defend their joining of thousands of defendants
together in single lawsuits rather than having to file them separately, Ars Technica
reports.
One lawsuit to be heard by U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary Collyer names
over 4,000 anonymous "John Doe" defendants, who allegedly used the BitTorrent
file-sharing network to illegally download the movie "Far Cry."
Last
week, the ACLU, Electronic Frontier Foundation and Public Citizen Litigation
Group filed legal briefs asking the court to block these multiple-defendant
subpoenas.
"Members of the movie industry have the right to challenge
alleged copyright infringement, but they must do so in a way that upholds the
law and individuals’ due process rights," said Aden Fine, staff attorney
with the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.
"Lumping thousands
of unconnected individuals into a few cases in a court far from where they
live, without providing them adequate notice and a real opportunity to
challenge the subpoenas, is not that way."
Judge Collyer gave the U.S. Copyright Group — which is representing the interests of the producers of films including "The Hurt Locker," "Far Cry" and other titles — until June 21 to defend its grouping of thousands of defendants into single suits.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/x9a80
(Ars Technica)
http://snipurl.com/x9ag1
(DMW previous coverage)
http://snipurl.com/x9aem
(DMW previous coverage)
San Francisco
– Twitter has announced plans to take over URL shortening on its service, so
that users can share links directly without having to use a third-party service
— potentially threatening the cottage industry created by Bit.ly and others.
The company has been wrapping links shared in Direct Messages in its own twt.tl
URL since March, as a means of preventing the spread of malware links.
Twitter
says it now wants to both offer an automatic link-shortener on the main service, and
expand its control over security.
Starting this summer, all links — including
any still posted via Bit.ly or other third-party services — will be wrapped
with a t.co URL.
"Ultimately, we want to display links in a way that
removes the obscurity of shortened link and lets you know where a link will
take you," Twitter’s Sean Garrett wrote in a blog post.
Related Links:
http://blog.twitter.com/2010/06/links-and-twitter-length-shouldnt.html
Mountain View,
Calif. – Google (NASD: GOOG) announced that it
has completed work on its new Web indexing system, "Caffeine," which
is says "provides 50 percent fresher results for web searches" than
the company’s previous index, and is the largest collection of Web content that
Google has offered.
The company elaborated in a blog post, noting that when it went
through the process of analyzing the entire Web with its old index, "there
was a significant delay between when we found a page and made it available to
you."
"With Caffeine, we analyze the web in small portions and update
our search index on a continuous basis, globally. As we find new pages, or new
information on existing pages, we can add these straight to the index,"
the company said.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/x99oo
(Google blog)
Cupertino,
Calif. – Apple has altered the
terms of its license agreement with iPhone and iPad application developers to
clarify what kind of ad networks may be integrated on the platform, according
to reports. After initial terms released in April were taken to effectively ban
third-party ad networks in favor of Apple’s own nascent iAd platform, Apple (NASD: AAPL)
yesterday changed the terms to reflect that it wishes to ban third-party
analytics software — such as Flurry.
All Things D and Ars Technica noted that
the new terms may still lock out Google’s (NASD: GOOG) newly acquired mobile ad network
AdMob from the iPhone, as it only permits "independent" third-party
mobile ad networks on the platform.
"For example, an advertising service
provider owned by or affiliated with a developer or distributor of mobile
devices, mobile operating systems or development environments other than Apple
would not qualify as independent," Apple explains, in the new developer
terms of service.
"Let’s be clear. This change is not in the
best interests of users or developers," AdMob founder and CEO Omar Hamoui
wrote in a blog post responding to Apple’s new terms.
"In the history of technology and innovation, it’s
clear that competition delivers the best outcome. Artificial barriers to
competition hurt users and developers and, in the long run, stall technological
progress."
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/x98ut
(All Things D)
http://snipurl.com/x98w0
(Ars Technica)
http://blog.admob.com/2010/06/09/mobile-advertising-and-the-iphone/
Overland Park,
Kan. – Sprint (NYSE: S) on Wednesday
recanted its statement from Monday where it claimed the HTC EVO 4G smartphone,
which launched on Friday, had broken a particular sales record.
While the
company reiterated that the EVO broke the company’s single-day sales record for
a handset, it said that EVO sales were not in fact "three times the number
of Samsung Instinct and Palm Pre devices sold over their first three days on
the market combined."
Sprint clarified that first-day EVO sales were six
times greater than launch day sales of the Instinct and nearly twice the launch
day sales for Palm Pre.
CNET News.com cited BTIG analyst Walter Piecyk, who now
estimates Sprint sold 150,000 EVO units over the first weekend, down from an
earlier forecast of 250,000-300,000 units.
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/x94wh
San Francisco
– Sugar, a network of blogs focused on women that counts 16 million unique
monthly visitors, announced on Wednesday that it will acquire FreshGuide, an online,
women-focused city guide with daily shopping offers.
Financial terms of the
deal were not disclosed.
Founded in 2008, FreshGuide operates in San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles
and Seattle,
offering FreshGuide.com and BookFresh — an online booking service for local businesses
like spas and salons.
"We felt there were tremendous synergies between
Sugar and FreshGuide that could be achieved by combining our large audience
with their local service," said Sugar founder and CEO Brian Sugar.
"We are very excited to be able to bring to our
readers exclusive daily offers at the best places to eat, exercise, shop and
relax in their local areas."
Related Links:
http://snipurl.com/x94lb
Berlin, Germany – SponsorPay, the provider of a virtual
currency monetization platform in Europe, announced
on Wednesday that it has raised $5 million in its first round of funding, led
by Hasso Plattner Ventures.
Previous backers Team Europe Ventures and Kite
Ventures also participated in the round, proceeds from which will be used to
accelerate growth in international markets.
Founded in 2009, Berlin-based
SponsorPay says it works with all major Europe-based online game publishers,
and plans to expand to work with at least half of the largest U.S.-based
publishers by the end of the year.
The company’s virtual currency platform now
serves local advertising offers to over 150 million users in more than 100
countries.
Related Links:
http://www.sponsorpay.com/us/en/press-releases
