Hasta La Gadget!

Best Buy has revealed a definitive agreement to sell its 50-percent share of Best Buy Europe to Carphone Warehouse, which it entered into a joint venture with back in 2008. The sale will take place for the equivalent of $775 million, with the majority of it coming in the form of cash and the rest of it being offered in Carphone Warehouse Group stock with a one-year restriction, during which time the group can sell the shares on Best Buy’s behalf at issued prices and higher.

If such happens, the agreement has Carphone Warehouse pegged to pay whatever difference may result under an approximate $99 million agreement based on the sum total of the aforementioned proceeds Best Buy receives in addition to the market value of whatever shares may remain. In addition, says the announcement, Best Buy has to pay nearly $45 million to Carphone Warehouse to settle some current obligations it has with the group.

Although it is a definitive agreement, it isn’t yet completely settled, something that is currently slated to take place this upcoming June. Carphpne Warehouse shareholders need to approve the deal, but its board of directions have agreed and signed letters of commitment to the transaction. Likewise, Best Buy’s board also agrees with the deal. There are currently Best Buy stores being run in eight countries as part of the joint venture between the two companies.

Best Buy’s President and CEO Hubert Joly said about the announcement: “After reviewing the business and spending time with our partners, we concluded that the timing and economics were right to enter into this agreement with CPW. This transaction allows us to 1) simplify our business; 2) substantially improve our Return on Invested Capital, one of the five pillars of our Renew Blue transformation; and 3) strengthen our balance sheet.”

[via Best Buy]

Best Buy to sell EU stake to Carphone Warehouse is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Makers of the Opera web browser have sued a former employee claiming that he took the trade secrets that was given at Opera and used them at Mozilla, the company behind the popular Firefox web browser. The man being accused, Trond Werner Hansen, left Opera in 2006, but returned in 2009 and 2010 as a consultant.

Opera is claiming a large $3.4 million in damages in the lawsuit, and they point to a video with Hansen talking about some of the innovations behind a prototype web browser for the iPad, called Junior. Hansen talks about some the features used in the browser that Opera claims that they were, or are, working on.

Hansen refused to comment about his work history with Opera, but he said that he is working with lawyers to prove that he did nothing wrong. As for Opera’s side of the story, they believed that Hansen “acted contrary to his contractual and other legal obligations towards Opera, among other things, the duty of loyalty and his contractual and statutory confidentiality obligations.”

The court hearing is set to take place sometime in late August, and the dispute is currently pending, so there’s not a lot of details to go around just yet, but we’re sure that come August when the hearing takes place, we’ll find out which party gets the win, but in the meantime, it seems Hansen will receive a lot of grief over the summer.

[via The Next Web]

Opera sues former employee for giving trade secrets to Firefox devs is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week the folks at Facebook and Parse have announced that they’re joining teams, effectively, as the social networking giant acquires the company known for backend infrastructure for mobile apps. As a selection of notes from developers has appeared in comments and forums surrounding the acquisition suggesting they’d leave Parse in fear of Facebook, Parse CEO suggests the opposite has been happening. Noting the service’s growth rate has increased by more than 9.4 times its normal rate, Parse CEO Ilya Suhkar has made a case for Facebook’s influence as wholly positive.

Parse developer user base sits at around 60,000 at the moment, and heads at both Facebook and Parse has been adamant thus far about making sure they know the full extent of Facebook’s influence in the near future. A statement has been released making it relatively clear that Facebook has no intent on changing the way that Parse-developed app data is used. Parse competitors are using this situation as an opportunity to drain the company of disloyal developers.

One example of a competing service looking to capitalize on the Facebook acquisition of Parse is StackMob. This company has created a set of import tools made to make the move between Parse and themselves as simple as possible, and Parse developers have suggested they’ve been contacted by other services since the announcement as well.

“Q: Will my Parse app be affected in any way? No.
Q: Will Parse apps have to use Facebook functionality? No.
Q: Will Parse honor my contract? Yes, of course.” – Ilya Sukhar, Parse CEO

In the acquisition of Parse, Facebook has claimed it will bring several next-generation tools to the fold, making Parse’s draw more powerful under the rule of the social network. Advertisement-selling features will be added for developers to make use of, and new Facebook login tools will be made much easier to work with, of course. Parse developers will also be able to work with Facebook’s Open Graph for mobile as well.

[via TechCrunch]

Parse Facebook deal sees developer boost in face of naysayers is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Subaru has been forced to recall its 2014 Forester SUV over problems with its floor mats that could lead to problems with using the brake and accelerator pedels, according to a report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. According to Subaru, the SUVs that are affected were made between January and March of this year.

This particular problem isn’t terribly troublesome, but does have the potential to cause a crash if the brake pedal or accelerator can’t be pressed properly. Says Subaru, the backing on the floor mats wasn’t made correctly, and because of the problem are prone to curling up when they get too warm, such as on a hot summer day. Upon curling, they could interfere with the pedals.

According to the report, this problem hasn’t caused any injuries, but has been the cause of unintended accerlation that resulted in runaway vehicles, a situation that could have a fatal outcome. The total number of vehicles involved in this recall tally out to 10,137, and will see the auto maker replacing the mats with new ones. Recall notifications are expected to go out to affected vehicle owners this month.

This is Subaru’s second recall this month, with the first happening back on April 9 due to brake lines that could corrode when they come in contact with salt water. That particular recall involved 200,000 Outback and Legacy vehicles made from 2005 to 2009. And that recall followed one shortly before thatinvolving a remote starter glitch that made the cars start up on their own.

[via Wall Street Journal]

2014 Subaru Forester recalled due to curling floor mats is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Prepare for an influx of lower-cost laptops to make their way into the market. Intel CEO Paul Otellini claims that laptop prices will go down to as low as $200 in the next few months, which makes us reminisce about the netbook days and whether or not Otellini is predicting a comeback for the smaller form factor machines, but that’s not the case here.

Intel’s Dadi Perlmutter, who is the company’s executive vice president and chief product officer, says that these $200 laptops will mostly be running Android, rather than the traditional Windows 8 operating system. The low-cost laptops would also be running Intel’s Atom series of processors, the same chips that were used in a lot of netbooks.

As to whether or not Windows 8-based laptops will reach the $200 price range, or even $300 for that matter, largely depends on Microsoft itself, says Intel. The cost of a laptop usually comes down to how Microsoft would want to price Windows 8, considering that a copy of the new operatings system retails in the triple-digit price point.

Furthermore, Perlmutter says that while Atom-based laptops could reach $200, notebooks running Intel’s faster Core series of processor could be priced as low as $399, with some higher-end Android laptops ringing in at the price as well. Does this spell the comeback of netbooks, or are we actually at a point where full-blown laptops will cost way less?

[via CNET]

Intel: Android-based laptops to hit record-low prices is written by Craig Lloyd & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.