Hasta La Gadget!

The news isn’t surprising to anyone who has been following the Hulu business saga, but word has it that Disney and News Corp. are reaching out to potential buyers to see what kind of interest there is out there for acquiring the company. The information comes from two sources who are said to be familiar with the matter, and follows soon after it was announced that Andy Forssell will be serving as acting CEO.

According to the sources, the company’s board still has not made a decision about whether the popular video streaming service will be sold, or if other steps will be taken instead. As we reported on March 1, Disney and News Corp., which own the majority of the company, can’t agree on how the service should be monetized. That information came from sources who likewise claimed the two were considering selling Hulu.

Reportedly, News Corp. is leaning towards using subscriptions as the primary way of funding the service, such as the already available Hulu Plus monthly subscription that costs $8 USD. This differs from how Disney thinks it should be run, however, with the latter company maintaining that Hulu should utilize an advertisement-based business mode, relying on ads, which are displayed on videos regardless of whether users have a monthly subscription.

Thus far, it is said that both the majority holders have approached Dick Clark Productions, Hollywood Reporter, and Guggenheim Partners LLC, and all of them are said to have shown interest in the possibility. Beyond that, nothing else is known, and nothing official has been stated. When asked, Hulu declined commenting on the rumor.

[via Bloomberg]

Hulu’s board reportedly looking into selling the service is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Yahoo has just purchased the mobile news reader app, Summly, in an attempt to make Yahoo a more mobile-centric service. Sources have told All Things D that Yahoo paid $30 million to buy out the iOS app. They paid 90% in cash, and the other 10% in stock. They have also enlisted Nick D’Aloisio, the 17-year old who developed the app, to work with the company for at least 18 months.

Summly is a news reading app that takes a news article and summarizes its main points in only 400 characters. That way users can quickly decide whether or not they want to read the article. While the Summly app was getting popular, Yahoo doesn’t plan on continuing it. The company plans on shutting down the app and using the app’s technology and coding for its own products.

While the Summly app technology would be beneficial for Yahoo’s products, its believed that Yahoo’s real acquisition is Nick D’Aloisio. Sources told All Things D that Yahoo plans on using D’Aloisio to represent its brand in front of both the media and consumers. The company hopes that D’Aloisio’s presence will help make Yahoo seem like a place that “loves both entrepreneurs and mobile experiences, which in turn will presumably attract others like him”.

D’Aloisio is excited about starting his new chapter with Yahoo. Being only 17-years old and having his first entrepreneurial project being bought out for $30 million is a dream come true. He believes that being acquired by Yahoo was a perfect fit for both the company and his app. He stated, “Yahoo has an inspirational goal to make people’s daily routines entertaining and meaningful, and mobile will be a central part of that vision. For us, it’s the perfect fit.” Hopefully D’Aloisio’s venture with Yahoo goes much better than Michael Katz venture with Yahoo.

[via All Things D]

Yahoo buys Summly news app for $30m is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Yahoo is considering acquiring video website Dailymotion, says sources. Such an acquisition would give Yahoo a popular piece of online video real estate, but nothing is guaranteed. The alleged acquisition is still in talks, and nothing may come of it. Dailymotion is owned by France Telecom-Orange, a telecommunications company.

According to the sources, Yahoo is looking at buying 75-percent of the video service, which is estimated to be worth about $300 million and would prove to be the largest purchase made under CEO Mayer’s reign. Dailymotion has been through quite a bit in the business world lately, having been acquired by Orange in a two-part deal, the last of which was sealed this past January.

Dailymotion’s Managing Director Roland Hamilton was a tad coy when responding to questions about the acquisition, telling Reuters: “We are unable to confirm, deny, or comment on speculation regarding potential talks between Yahoo and Orange at this time.” Yahoo and Orange, meanwhile, straight out declined commenting.

If the plan goes through, Yahoo will hold the majority of a video company currently ranked as the 12th online video property in the world, with YouTube (obviously) being #1. Reports Reuters, Dailymotion has had approximately 2 billion videos, and averages 116 million unique visitors every month. We’ll keep you updated as more information on the alleged acquisition, so stay tuned!

[via Reuters]

Yahoo considering Dailymotion video service acquisition, says sources is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Two men were charged for an elaborate hacking scheme. They have been identified as Shahin Abdollahi, whose alias was Sean Holdt, and Jeffrey Thomas Wilkinson. The two men hacked over 13 point-of-sale (POS) computers at a variety of Subways located in Massachusetts, Wyoming, and California. This isn’t the first time Subway’s been hacked. Last September, the franchise’s credit card terminals were hacked at over 150 of its locations. It suffered $10 million in losses and 146,000 accounts were compromised.

Abdollahi and Wilkinson went through an elaborate scheme to execute their plans. Abdollahi operated his own POS business, called “POS Doctor”. There he sold POS computers to various Subways, and he preloaded his LogMeIn (remote desktop tool) information into those machines. In order to get a better understanding of how Subway and their POS systems worked, he operated a few of his own Subway franchises in Southern California.

After learning how Subway operates and how they use their POS system, he and Wilkinson then remotely accessed Subway’s POS systems to create fake gift cards totaling up to $40,000. They took the fake gift cards and sold them either on eBay, or Craigslist. According to the reports, Abdollahi’s hacked systems were sold to a variety of other businesses besides Subway as well.

The two men were charged with computer intrusion and wire fraud. It seems like they did an awful lot of scheming and prep work just to create fake gift cards. Abdollahi went through alot of hassle of owning his own POS company and a few Subways just to get this plan into motion. It’s speculated that Subway was just the testing grounds for an even bigger scheme the two had planned.

[via Ars Technica]

Two men hacked Subway to steal gift cards totaling $40,000 is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The W.M. Keck Observatory, which has the two largest optical and infrared telescopes in the world, is celebrating its 20th anniversary this week. Its twin Keck telescopes have been instrumental to finding exoplanets, exploring the universe, and observing galaxies. They are highly coveted telescopes, with scientists, who are working on research projects, only being able to use the telescope two days out of the entire year.

However, despite its immense popularity, the W.M. Keck Observatory will be seeing some financial set backs this year, and in anticipation of that, the Keck foundation will be working hard to secure donations from philanthropists. The observatory receives about 1/4th of its money from the U.S. National Science Foundation. However, because of so many federal budget cuts, that number could be reduced immensely.

While the observatory will still have a set $11.5 million from the University of California, and the California Institute of Technology, it still relies on government funding to pull through. Philanthropists usually give about $5 million a year to the Keck Observatory, bringing its finances to roughly about $23 million a year, however it needs philanthropists to give even more this year. The Keck Foundation hopes that since it’s the observatory’s 20th anniversary, people will be more generous with their checkbooks.

The Keck telescopes have done a lot for the field of astronomy, from “co-discovering the methane on Mars to charting the acceleration of the universe.” The telescopes will be facing tough competition within the next decade, so it needs more financing than ever to compete. The observatory plans on putting in a new laser system for its Keck II telescope in 2015, as well as launch a cosmic web imager within the next 5 years.

[via Space.com]

Keck Telescopes to seek funding on 20th anniversary is written by Brian Sin & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.