Hasta La Gadget!

AT&T has announced that it will be acquiring Leap Wireless for the hefty sum of about $1.19 billion, something that will bring the prepaid service Cricket under its ownership. The move still needs to be approved by regulators, but one source who spoke to The Wall Street Journal states that there are “pretty good” odds it will go through.

The announcement was made by AT&T today, with the carrier paying $15 per share for the company, more than double its current stock price of $7.98 per share. Leap Wireless is currently the sixth largest company in the industry, while AT&T holds position as fourth out of the four major U.S. carriers. Such a merge, as many have pointed out, will further centralize the wireless carriers in the country.

Leap Wireless currently has in excess of 5 million subscribers, all of which will be transitioned under AT&T’s wing if the merger goes through. As part of the acquisition, the buyer will be taking over Leap’s wireless spectrum, boosting its 4G rollout, as well as the carrier’s retail stores and its substantial $2.8 billion worth of debt.

In addition, AT&T will be retaining the Cricket name while giving those users access to its 4G network, as well as expanding service under Cricket to additional US markets. Overall, Leap will bring with it spectrum that covers approximately 137 million people in the US, which is said to be “largely complementary” to what it already has.

Such a move comes at a time when other carriers have been involved in various acquisitions, such as T-Mobile US taking over MetroPCS earlier this year, as well as SoftBank Corporation nabbing Sprint Nextel. Presently, AT&T has about 107 million subscribers.

SOURCE: Android Community

AT&T purchase of Leap Wireless brings Cricket under new ownership is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

After a long-winded period of being up for sale with a few nibbles from big companies, Hulu has decided to exit the market and have its current share of owners maintain ownership once again. Instead, Disney, 21st Century Fox, and NBC Universal will invest $750 million in Hulu to keep it growing into the future.

For the past couple of months, it’s been rumored that several big companies were interested in buying Hulu, including Yahoo, DirecTV, and even private equity firms like KKR and Silver Lake. However, it seems these companies couldn’t come to a successful negotiation, and after what we can only suspect to be numerous failed negotiations, Hulu’s been taken off the market.

21st Century Fox President and COO Chase Carey said that Hulu’s owners had “meaningful conversations with a number of potential partners and buyers,” and he called He called the offers that Hulu received “impressive,” but it seems that ultimately there wasn’t a consensus as far as agreeing to a final price for the streaming video service.

However, Disney, Fox and NBC most likely found a future value with Hulu, and they might have realized that selling the service wouldn’t be the best option. Hulu certainly has a lot of potential, and we reckon that if another company did acquire Hulu, it might have spelled bad news for consumers as the new owners would clean house and completely change around the service.

As for what the extra $750 million will serve for Hulu, it’s just said that the money will help “to propel future growth.” So it’s a good bet that we’ll see even more content from Hulu in the future, and we’ll see the owners continue to work at growing Hulu’s user base. Now, if they could just get rid of ads for paying subscribers, then we have a deal.

Hulu no longer for sale as Disney, Fox, NBC maintain ownership is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Caviar was once so inexpensive and so common in the United States that it was served for free in saloons in the early 19th century. The salty fish roe was tasty and made the saloon patrons thirsty so that they would order more beer. Nowadays the food has been relegated back to the wealthier segments of the population. Much of the caviar available comes from Russia, but there is a new venue on the rise for caviar production — Oklahoma.

The Moto X rumors and news haven’t slowed, and today another source has come forward with some information about Google’s marketing budget for the flagship handset, which is said to be up to $500 million. The information was given to the folks over at The Wall Street Journal, which also comments on claims regarding the handset’s prices and carriers.

Reportedly, Google’s market plans are part of the reason the Moto X will be carried by the four big carrier in the United States: AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, and Verizon. It was suggested that Google may exceed the reported $500 million marketing budget, which is mostly reserved for the United States, as well as for “some overseas markets” that weren’t specified.

In addition, and what is no doubt good news, Motorola worked it out with the carriers that bloatware will be kept to a “minimum,” according to the sources. The same sources also confirmed that the customization features we’ve been seeing in various leaks are true, saying that various color options will be available for the handset, as well as custom engraving on the back of the device if desired.

The sources then went on to talk about pricing, saying that it will have “comparable” pricing to competing smartphones, with the iPhone 5, HTC One, and Samsung GALAXY S 4 all be specified. As such, users are likely looking at a price of $199 with a two-year contract, or several hundred dollars without contract subsidization. It is also said the handset’s pricing then could drop a little while after its launch.

This follows in line with comments regarding the Moto X’s pricing made by Motorola’s Dennis Woodside during the D11 conference. Says Woodside, he doesn’t anticipate the wide range in handset pricing to persist, and that he feels Motorola is now in an industry receptive to it “building a low-cost, high-quality market.”

SOURCE: Android Community

Moto X reportedly to have up to half a billion marketing budget is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2013, SlashGear. All right reserved.

You know when there’s a business idea that is just so simple, and
fantastic, and obvious you wonder how we’ve existed on this planet
without someone creating it before? Well, one of those ideas has
surfaced, it has to do with key-cutting, and it is so simple it is
genius.