Hasta La Gadget!

It seemed like the failure of OnLive came out of nowhere when we first heard of it a few days ago. Everyone was excited about OnLive being supported on the Ouya console that did so well on Kickstarter and then rumors started late last week that OnLive was in serious trouble. Shortly after those rumors started we learned that OnLive was in dire financial straits.

A large portion of OnLive’s workforce was laid off, and the company began restructuring that led to smartphone maker HTC losing its $40 million investment. When things go so badly for a company, I expect to see the CEO and other executives move on, and new blood come in. That assumes the company is still viable at all. Therefore, it is somewhat surprising to me to hear that OnLive is keeping their CEO Steve Perlman.

An official statement was issued by OnLive this week giving more details on what’s going on at the company and what fans can expect moving forward. OnLive said in the statement that it has a new investor and assured subscribers that all their purchases, achievements, videos, and other content were still there and would not be interrupted. The company says it plans to continue operating its service 24/7 just as it has since launch.

OnLive announced that Perlman will continue as CEO and was concentrating on the major transition. Once the company transition is complete, OnLive said that Pearlman would focus on the company’s next product releases and promised more major announcements large and small. Those announcements include the Vizio CoStar and the Ouya console. Other major announcements are promised to be coming soon.

[via OnLiveFans]

OnLive CEO stays with the company is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

It hardly seems like it has been a year since Tim Cook took over as CEO of Apple. In fact, it has very close to a year since Steve Jobs passed away. That sad anniversary will happen on October 5. Cook has now been on the job for a year, and it’s hard to say he has done anything other than a fantastic job over at Apple. I think many people expected to see Apple on the decline after the death of Steve Jobs.

Apple has certainly thrived, and under Cook’s leadership with the company becoming the most viable firm on the planet with a $621 billion market cap only a few days before Cook’s one-year anniversary. Cook did inherit much of Apple’s success from Steve Jobs with huge demand in massive success with the iPhone and the iPad.

However, Mercury News reports that Cook has used his supply chain expertise, which is what landed him a job at Apple 14 years ago, to help Apple build and ship more and more gadgets all around the world. Interestingly, Mercury News believes that it could be five years or so before we get a clear picture of whether or not Apple can continue to be innovative with Cook at the helm. The launch of the iPhone 5 under Cook’s watch will be the first major product launch in the post Jobs Apple landscape.

I guess we can assume even with Steve Jobs gone almost a year, work on the next-generation iPhone, expected to launch in a few weeks, had begun before Jobs passed away. That could make the iPhone 5 one of the last products to bear Jobs’ fingerprints.

[via Mercury News]

Tim Cook wraps up his first year as Apple CEO is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The global PC market has been taking a beating thanks to several factors, including some rather boring products and a sluggish global economy. Research firm IDC recently released its outlook for the global PC market and has announced that it expects the market to grow only 0.9% in 2012 thanks to slow mid-year shipments. The research firm expects 367 million PCs to ship this year.

If IDC’s predictions prove true 2012 would be the second consecutive year of growth below 2%. One big factor that has affected the market according to the research firm is slowing PC growth in Asia/Pacific that has reduced the impact of emerging market growth. While growth is slowing in emerging markets, mature areas like the US are also seeing shipments of PCs decline. IDC attributes the shipping decline in the US and other mature markets to factors other than weak economic conditions alone.

According to IDC, consumers are waiting to see what Windows 8 and ultrabooks will look like before purchasing. Considering the ultrabook has been on the market for a while now and people have pretty much stayed away I think the market has a very good idea of what the ultrabook looks like they simply don’t want one at the current price. IDC also says PC shipments are declining because people are spending on other products like smartphones and tablets.

IDC expects updates later this year, such as Windows 8, to revive PC growth, to some extent. IDC expects worldwide PC shipment growth to average 7.1% from 2013 through 2016, which is a decline from 8.4% compound annual growth rate IDC predicted previously.

“IDC remains optimistic that PC penetration opportunities in emerging markets will form the bulwark of the market and help sustain double-digit Portable PC growth in the long run. However, a host of all-too-familiar variables will lead to a subdued second half of the year with only consumer notebooks remaining in growth mode for all of 2012,” said Jay Chou, senior research analyst with IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly PC Tracker. “Factors such as Windows 8 coupled with Ultrabooks could present a positive turn of events next year, but it also faces some initial hurdles; chief of which is that buyers must acclimate themselves to an operating system that is a dramatic departure from existing PC paradigms. The PC ecosystem faces some work to properly educate the market.”

IDC lowers PC shipment outlook is written by Shane McGlaun & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Kodak is selling off its renowned film arm in order to revive its moribund fortunes. It’ll join sales of the company’s patent portfolio, online gallery, commercial scanning, photo kiosk and theme park businesses so it can concentrate on a not-yet successful printer enterprise. It needs to raise more than $660 million to pay back creditors before it can emerge from Chapter 11, which it aims to do early next year — but not in any form that we’re likely to recognize.

[Image Credit: MercerFilm]

Filed under: Cameras

Kodak to sell the film business that made it so famous originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Aug 2012 05:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Software support and security certificates are coming to an end for Victorinox’s line of secure USB drives, but the firm announced on Facebook that it’s offering customers full refunds until December 31 if they’d like to return their products in light of the developments. In order to avoid losing data, owners of the flash drives should perform a backup before the encryption application meets its untimely end on September 15th. However, files stored on non-encrypted areas of the device will remain accessible without further action. The Slim, Secure and Presentation Master storage sticks can still be used as run-of-the-mill thumb drives after the cut-off date, but the Swiss Army Knife maker’s application will no longer be able to scramble or unscramble their contents.

Filed under: Storage

Victorinox offers refunds for secure USB drives in light of discontinued software updates originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 24 Aug 2012 04:31:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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