Hasta La Gadget!

BT thinks that it’s “highly likely” it’ll let its 2.6 percent stake in OnLive go to the wall. It told TechRadar that it was keeping a “close eye” on the gaming venture which is restructuring in the face of spiraling debt costs. The telecoms provider has promised that its customers will be able to access the service (for as long as it exists, we guess) and that the investment is a small enough figure that it won’t be worrying too much about its balance sheet.

Filed under: Gaming, Internet

BT planning to write off 2.6 percent stake in troubled OnLive originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 21 Aug 2012 16:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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As cloud-based gaming service OnLive struggles to reform itself and cope with its pricey infrastructure, HTC’s $40 million investment made last year will disappear completely, according to a recent filing to the Taiwan Stock exchange. OnLive began streaming its gaming selection to Android smartphones and tablets at the end of the same year but we never saw any exclusive features for HTC hardware. Following some tough financial results, it packed up its Korean office and recently returned half its stake in Beats, although its involvement with OnLive had never resulted in the same degree of publicity.

Filed under: Cellphones, Gaming, Tablet PCs

HTC to lose its $40 million investment from OnLive’s financial restructuring originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 20 Aug 2012 03:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Apple has been on a social networking kick lately, what with Twitter’s footings in iOS 5 and OS X Mountain Lion as well as Facebook’s upcoming presence in iOS 6. From what the New York Times hears, that fascination could become more of a fixation. The company has reportedly chatted with Twitter in past months about the possibility of investing money on the scale you’d normally expect from a later-stage venture capitalist: the newspaper is talking “hundreds of millions” of dollars based on Twitter being valued at more than $10 billion. Any such deal would be less about funding (Twitter purportedly has $600 million-plus in the bank) and more about getting cozy in a social world where Apple still has some learning to do. Apple might equally want to dissuade competitors from getting any ideas, we’d add. Neither side will comment, and the negotiations aren’t even supposed to be active at present. Regardless, that Apple might have even toyed with a social networking investment could represent a major change in tack for a company that’s not always known for playing well with others.

Filed under: Internet

NYT claims Apple has dallied with investing ‘hundreds of millions’ in Twitter originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 27 Jul 2012 23:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The Roku is a hell of a media streamer: its only real competitor is the Apple TV, but it costs half as much. No brainer. And when News Corp and British Sky Broadcasting pony up $45 million to help Roku win the streaming race, the possibilities start to seem limitless. More »

Running DARPA has always demanded a certain amount of tech-savviness — it created what ultimately became the internet, after all — but it may get an extra coat of green paint with a new leader. The agency has reportedly taken on Arati Prabhakar as its new director, and Wired notes that she has a lot more than just the agency itself under her belt. Along with going so far as to found DARPA’s Microelectronics Technology Office, she ran the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and eventually signed on with Interval Research the venture capital firm that backed the solar power company Solyndra as well as numerous other green tech projects. That last decision has drawn a fair share of flak: Solyndra got about $500 million of public funding and still went under. With that in mind, an anonymous senior military staffer claims that Prabhakar wasn’t involved in the questionable government loan and went through “extensive vetting,” so it’s doubtful that the funding will cast the same shadow over her DARPA technology investments as it did for the outgoing director, Regina Dugan. Even so, there will no doubt be a close watch over Prabhakar if the appointment is made public, both for those who want to keep her honest as well as for the potentially huge amount of insight into clean energy and general technology that she can wield.

[Image credit: SRI]

Filed under: Science

Reported new DARPA chief brings true geek, dash of green tech controversy originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 Jul 2012 06:48:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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