Hasta La Gadget!

Sad news for a number of folks working at PopCap today, as studio co-founder John Vechey has announced a round of North American layoffs. The bad news doesn’t stop there either, as Vechey also says that the studio is being forced to “evaluate the future of our PopCap office in Dublin, Ireland.” There seems to be a chance of the Dublin offices shutting down entirely, which only makes the news go from bad to worse.

In all, Vechey says that around 50 people will be losing their jobs, and most of those cuts will be happening at PopCap’s Seattle headquarters. The fate of the Dublin offices is up in the air at the moment, as Vechey says PopCap is talking to the Dublin branch to find a way to make the company’s European efforts profitable “without having to close the operation.” Regardless of what ends up happening in Dublin, you can tell that this is a depressing time for the folks at PopCap, as Vechey comes off as sincerely remorseful in his blog post. That’s not something you often get from executives of big companies, even when people are losing their jobs.

Vechey also took some time his post to clarify a few things. He says that PopCap is still expanding and by the end of the year, the studio should have the same number of people working for as it did at the beginning of the year. He explains that the reason why PopCap is cutting back in some areas while expanding in others is because of the way the mobile and social games market has suddenly exploded in popularity. PopCap, Vechey says, needs to adapt to stay profitable, otherwise it may one day go out of business.

Also mentioned in the blog post is whether or not Electronic Arts had any involvement in these layoffs. Vechey says that EA had nothing to do with them, and that the massive publisher is letting PopCap stay completely independent, despite rumors which claim otherwise. PopCap’s decision to reorganize the business was “100 percent made by us,” and Vechey assures that EA didn’t pressure PopCap executives into this round of layoffs. At the very least, it’s nice to hear that PopCap executives still have control over the company, even if that means they sometimes need to make the tough calls that no one ever wants to make.

PopCap co-founder confirms round of layoffs is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The Internet is both a blessing and a curse. Awesome, because it’s a digital treasure trove of information. But it’s horrible because without a little help, you might drown in the tidal wave of stories. That’s what makes NextDraft, a guided tour through the best stories of the day, so useful. More »

For those of you wishing to stay in the Apple vs Samsung trial in the heat of the battle will love to see the highlights in Apple’s closing statement, complete with a few clips from a document that very well may have Samsung on the ropes. This document is what Apple calls the “copycat” document and was acquired by Apple from Samsung’s internal design process labs, a massive set of pages that include the screenshots you see here. The massive bulk of the document has Samsung making side-by-side comparisons between the original iPhone and their own original Galaxy smartphone, making notes on how iPhone design cues could help them improve their own smartphone lineup.

It was Apple attorney Harold McElhinny that spoke up in the case before Apple would rest, with words such as, “Witnesses can be mistaken. They can be mistaken in good faith. Exhibits that are created in a trial are always created with a purpose. They can confuse, and can mislead” stated to make way for the presentation of the documents you see above and below. “Historical documents are almost always where the truth lies,” noted MyElhinny, quoted by CNET, pointing out the internal Samsung documents.

With items such as curving the corners of the icons offered up in Samsung’s version of Android in response to the iPhone’s strikingly similar offering, Apple has here a document that’s going to play a giant role in the jury’s decisions in this case.

“They sat with the iPhone and went feature by feature, copying it to the smallest detail. In those critical three months, Samsung was able to copy and incorporate the core part of Apple’s four-year investment without taking any of the risks, because they were copying the world’s most successful product.” – McElhinny

Apple also came in for the throat with comments on how Samsung didn’t bring in as high a class of witness collection as they did. Apple brought in both Phil Schiller and Scott Forstall, for example, Apple senior executives, while Samsung did not bring any executives whatsoever. Part of the reasoning behind this decision may have been the fact that Samsung’s executives reside mainly in Korea, but no comment to this effect has been made.

“From the very beginning, Samsung has disrespected this process. Apple brought you two of its most senior executives: Schiller and Forstall. They were willing to face cross. No Samsung execs were willing to come here from Korea and answer questions under oath. Instead of witnesses, they sent you lawyers.” – McElhinny

Stay tuned to our legal tag as well as our tags for both Samsung and Apple to see what the end of this case will bring. It is quite possible that one or both of the players in this case will face millions of dollars in penalties and far-reaching legal damages well into the future. Judge Koh at the head of this case has made it clear that now with a 109 page instructions document ahead of them, the jury has some reading to do: “I need everyone to stay conscious during the reading of the jury instructions, including myself. …we’re going to periodically stand up, just to make sure we’re all alive.”

[Illustration via Vicki Ellen Behringer]

Apple closing statement brings most damning documents yet vs Samsung is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Intellectual Ventures is best known for its tendency to sue everyone, but it’s going some distance to mend that bruised image through a newly spun out company, Kymeta. The startup hopes to improve the quality of satellite broadband through mTenna-branded, Ka-band hotspots made from metamaterials — substances that can boost and manipulate a satellite signal while occupying virtually no space, leading to self-pointing transceivers that are just a fraction of the size of what we use today. That still amounts to equipment the size of a laptop running at a peak 5Mbps, although it’s small enough that Kymeta sees hotspots reaching individual customers who want access from a boat, a car or the field. We’d just advise against tossing out the MiFi too quickly. Kymeta doesn’t expect the hotspot to be ready before late 2014 at the earliest, and that leaves many questions about how much of a hit we’ll take to the pocketbook.

Filed under: Wireless, Networking

Intellectual Ventures launches Kymeta spinoff, promises slim satellite broadband hotspots originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Aug 2012 17:29:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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It’s time to get serious about a solid state drive upgrade with Drobo’s brand new B1200i SSD, complete with what the manufacturer says will be a performance boost of up to 300 percent over previous product iterations. This hardware will bring on a hybrid of solid state technology and traditional hard disk drives like SAS or SATA. And what’s fabulous for current owners of the B1200i is this: a software update is all you’ll need to gain new performance and functionality from Drobo, and it’s free!

This software update for you ol’ B1200i owners will be listed at http://www.drobo.com/support/updates.php where you’ll be able to download and load it all for free. The new new B1200i SSD release announced this week has the ability to make use of a small number of SSDs alongside hard disk drives to make one single economically sound storage system. This system has also attained VMware Ready status with vSphere 5.0 certification.

Microsoft, VMware and Citrix environments will be able to make good use of the Drobo B1200i SSD, as will data protection solutions supporting Veeam, Acronis and Symantec backup and replication. Essentially you’re getting a product that works essentially anywhere you need it to – and with its ability to combine the many bits of storage and backup hardware you’ve already got on hand, you’ll be saving a ton of potential dollars you’d otherwise be spending in the future.

Have a peek at the lovely selection of Drobo content we’ve got in our Drobo portal and make sure you check out our Drobo timeline below as well to see which products appeared over the past few weeks and months that landed us here with the new and improved Drobo B1200i SSD!

Drobo B1200i SSD announced with 300x performance is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.