Last week, a fierce debate erupted over a range of social networks and in the media about a story we posted on Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s new decree that employees at the Silicon Valley Internet company would no longer be able to work from home.

In a sometimes awkwardly worded internal memo I posted from Yahoo HR head Jackie Reses, the company rolled out the new rule — pushed through by Mayer — which requires that Yahoo employees who work remotely relocate to company facilities by June 1.

“Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home,” read the memo to employees. “We need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically being together.”

The goal of Mayer to cure what ails Yahoo: Reviving a moribund and enervated workforce that has struggled to innovate and excel over many years. One of the many problems has been the liberal use of work-from-home policies that have been woefully mismanaged to create a culture that is simply not energized.

But, unless I am reading the memo wrong, the ban is not just limited to those who have arrangements to work from home full time — which number in the hundreds — but also employees who take one or two days a week at home.

Top sources told me that Mayer has been particularly irked about Yahoo parking lots that are slow to fill in the morning and quick to empty by 5 pm — which is atypical at other tech companies such as Google. (Mayer was a longtime exec at the search giant.)

At first, she tried to change culture in ways that rained down tasty perks on employees — such as free food and smartphones. Mayer has also been practical, instituting please-be-here Friday afternoon FYI weekly meetings and stricter performance reviews.

But she is now inevitably doling out more unpleasant medicine to the troops, starting with the banning of work from home, which has caused a big ruckus both internally and externally.

Some inside the company are clearly appalled, especially since it might more severely impact working mothers.

“When a working mother is standing behind this, you know we are a long way from a culture that will honor the thankless sacrifices that women too often make,” read one email I got from an internal source, referring to the recent birth of Mayer’s baby.

Many others at Yahoo’s Sunnyvale, Calif., HQ pointed to the nursery Mayer had built — for which she paid personally — next to her office as a perk others at Yahoo do not get.

“I wonder what would happen if my wife brought our kids and nanny to work and set em up in the cube next door?” joked a husband of another employee who will be losing her work-from-home privileges.

Yahoo employees, as far as I can see from its company careers page, offers the typical Dependent Day Care Flexible Spending Account, where staff can pay “dependent care expenses, such as day care or after-school care, with pre-tax dollars.”

While it is fair to raise the issue of how employees will cope given the sudden change in HR policy, others also think that limiting work at home is a good idea because it galvanizes culture and creates a spirit of collaboration that has been missing at Yahoo for far too long.

“Marissa is doing what good leaders do,” wrote one person on Twitter. “Making sure her Yahoo team is communicating & working TOGETHER.”

That is actually a sentiment expressed by Google CFO Patrick Pichette at a recent talk in Australia, when asked about telecommuting at Google:

“The surprising question we get is: ‘How many people telecommute at Google?’ And our answer is: ‘As few as possible’ … There is something magical about sharing meals. There is something magical about spending the time together, about noodling on ideas, about asking at the computer ‘What do you think of this?’ These are [the] magical moments that we think at Google are immensely important in the development of your company, of your own personal development and [of] building much stronger communities.”

That said, officially, many Googlers are allowed and even encouraged to work at home. The company told me when asked about work-from-home policies: “We do not have a formal policy and leave Googlers to use good judgment.”

It is the same for Facebook, which confirmed a “policy to provide flexibility as work permits.” In fact, one exec at the social network giant noted to me that its entire camera app was built from an engineer’s garage, with the group staying away from the office as long as they wanted to build it from home.

Business networking site LinkedIn also said it had “no formal policy at present,” but noted that many employees work from home full-time and part-time as the situation warrants and in consultation with managers.

It goes on and on like that throughout the tech scene, part of an ethos of letting tech talent make its own rules — from what they wear to when and where they work — that is deeply ingrained in the culture.

A Hewlett-Packard spokesperson said of the tech giant: “We do not ban [work from home] and many HP people do it … it is not at all an issue at HP and hasn’t been for years. Some folks have a regular schedule, while others can do it from time to time with the okay of their supervisors.”

An AOL spokesperson said the company doesn’t ban work from home.

A Netflix spokesperson referenced a well-known premium video company’s job deck, which stressed a “freedom and responsibility culture” and notes, “We don’t measure people by how many hours they work or how much they are in the office. We do care about accomplishing great work.”

Twitter had a different twist, but still supports working from home. Said a spokesperson: “We believe there are significant tangible and intangible benefits when employees are working under the same roof. We also recognize that every so often it’s important to be able to work remotely, and we allow for that flexibility.”

A Cisco spokesperson said the networking company also allows it, but it has to be approved by a direct manager: “It is certainly utilized by those employees who earn it. And, of course, with our collaborative suite of technologies like Webex (with video) and telepresence it is the next best thing to being there in person.”

A Microsoft spokesman said that the software company “offers flexible work schedules for all employees.”

Perhaps one of the best companies for a long time in the telecommuting space has been IBM. From its corporate Web page, also touting the environmental benefits:

“IBM was one of the first global companies to pioneer programs to reduce employee commuting. It has sustained these programs for nearly two decades. Two key aspects are its (a) work-at-home program and (b) mobile employees program. Today, more than 128,000 (29 percent) of employees globally participate in one of these programs. In 2011, in just the U.S. alone, IBM’s work-at-home program conserved approximately 6.4 million gallons of fuel and avoided more than 50,000 metric tons of CO2 emissions.”

Startups are much the same.

Said an Airbnb spokesperson of the online housing rentals site: “It’s a flexible policy and managers determine what’s appropriate on a case-by-case basis.”

At location startup Foursquare, a spokesperson said, “Our policy is to allow for ‘flexible work hours’ — and that applies to both the hours you work, and where you work from. While we don’t have any dedicated remote employees, our folks do work from home on occasion and we’re fine with that.”

Private social networking company Path is much the same, according to a spokesperson: “Path has a work-from-home policy. The manager and employee work out the details together.”

The only company I queried that did not respond immediately is Apple, which has been known for a long time to have much tighter rules with its employees. I will update when I hear from the company.

I also have emails in to Amazon, which is already known for flexible working policies.

But, overall, Mayer is forging new ground with her work-from-home ban. Whether that is enough to turbocharge the Yahoo culture is anybody’s guess.

The move to seek testimony comes as the Australian dollar remains above parity against the U.S. dollar, which should make imports cheaper. But consumer advocacy groups and lawmakers say the exchange rate isn’t reflected in prices paid for software in Australia.

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Yesterday, HP fired the head of its Enterprise Services unit, John Visentin, though the decision to let him go came before last week’s embarrassing service disruption that hit Commonwealth Bank, Australia’s largest bank, caused by a software upgrade gone awry.

Australian tech blog Delimiter published details of the problems said to have hit the bank. An operating system patch intended only for desktop PCs was pushed to server machines as well, causing service disruptions to many branches.

Commonwealth Bank has long been a client of EDS, the IT services firm that HP acquired in 2008. Sources confirm that Whitman, already in Australia on other business, went to meet with the bank’s CIO, Michael Harte, in the wake of the troubles in hopes of salvaging the relationship. Meanwhile, Oracle and IBM are eagerly seeking to make sure that HP doesn’t win its business back.

The disruption is about as ill-timed as could be. The bank has a six-year contract with EDS — and thus with HP — dating to 2006 that is up for renewal right about now. Its status is unclear.

Visentin, a former IBM general manager named last year to run HP Enterprise Services by former CEO Léo Apotheker, was let go yesterday because of ongoing problems at HP’s ES unit. And while the problems at Commonwealth Bank came after Whitman’s decision to replace him, sources say it’s an example of the sorts of problems that have plagued the troubled Enterprise Services group in recent months.

The unit has also had difficulty meeting its numbers. Though it’s hard to figure out exactly what’s going on because HP doesn’t break out ES results specifically, there are clues in the filings and public comments. The unit sits under the umbrella of the Services segment that reported about $36 billion in revenue last year. It combines two smaller units, the Application and Business Services group, and the Infrastructure Technology Outsourcing group, known internally at HP by their three-letter acronyms “ABS” and “ITO.”

For the first six months of this year, the overall Services segment reported $17.5 billion in sales, about flat from the year-ago period, though its earnings as a percentage of HP’s overall revenue has dropped from nearly 16 percent last year to about 11 percent this year. The worst performer of the bunch has been ITO, which last quarter saw its revenue drop 3 percent to $3.7 billion. CFO Cathie Lesjak attributed the drop to “being more selective” with the deals HP chooses to pursue.

Mike Nefkens, the senior vice president and general manager for ES in Europe, was named to run the unit on an interim basis, while Jean-Jacques “JJ” Charhon, the unit’s CFO, was promoted to its COO. Nefkens isn’t assumed to be Visentin’s replacement, and sources tell me that HP will be looking both inside and outside the company for the services unit’s next boss.

I said it yesterday and I’ll say it again today: Expect a lot more questions about, and a lot more attention on, HP’s services business in the weeks ahead.

On Monday, after listening to Samsung argue that Apple has refused to license three standard essential patents covering 3G wireless data transmission — and Apple argue that it offered to pay Samsung what it presumably feels to be a fair and reasonable licensing fee, which it refused — Bennett threw up her hands in frustration, declaring the case ludicrous.

“Why on earth are these proceedings going ahead?” Bennett asked. “It’s just ridiculous. … Why shouldn’t I order the parties to mediation?”

Indeed, why not?

Well, here’s one reason: Mediation has been tried before with these two players, and it hasn’t worked. In the U.S., court-mediated settlement talks between the warring companies began and ended at the same impasse, with Apple continuing to insist that Samsung “slavishly” copied the design of its iPhone and iPad, and Samsung demanding that Apple pay royalties on the wireless patents it believes the company infringed. It’s hard to imagine the outcome would be any different in Australia. As I’ve noted here before, the stakes in this battle are far too high and the fronts it’s being fought on far too numerous; Apple and Samsung have more than 50 lawsuits pending against one another in some 10 countries. And that fact alone would seem to belie any chance of an amicable resolution.

Apple, you’ll recall, was one of the parties, along with Google’s Motorola Mobility, in the most recent patent spat to irritate a judge beyond words. So, one more and we can officially call it a trend.

An Australian federal court judge Thursday ordered Apple to pay a $2.29 million fine for potentially misleading consumers over the 4G capabilities of its new iPad tablet. Judge Mordecai Bromberg found that Apple deceived Australian consumers by claiming in its advertising that the “iPad with WiFi + 4G” could connect with 4G cellular networks in Australia, despite its incompatibility with the country’s sole 4G network.

Apple earlier this year agreed to offer refunds to Australians who purchased the device with the expectation of 4G connectivity, and adjusted its marketing to clarify that it does not support Australia’s 4G LTE network. But Bromberg said that is simply not remedy enough.

“I have no doubt that given the promotion by Telstra of the superiority of its 4G network, many purchasers will have felt decidedly short-changed, despite the fact that only a very small percentage of them took up the opportunity of a refund, offered by Apple on 28 March 2012 as part of the undertakings given to the Court,” Bromberg said in his order. “Beyond that, all that I am able to do on the evidence before me, is recognise that the wide-ranging reach of the conduct is likely to have resulted in many hundreds of thousands of consumers being exposed to Apple’s misleading use of the term ‘4G.’”

Reached for comment, Apple didn’t directly address the fine or Bromberg’s order, but it did concede that the iPad’s original branding needed an update to address differences in wireless terminology around the world.

“The new iPad supports many high speed networks around the world, including LTE in the U.S. and Canada and HSPA+ and DC-HSDPA in many countries,” Apple spokeswoman Kristin Huguet told AllThingsD. “Carriers do not all refer to their high-speed networks with the same terminology, therefore we’ve decided to use ‘Wi-Fi + Cellular’ as a simple term which describes all the high speed networks supported by the new iPad. The advanced wireless features of the new iPad have not changed.”

On Friday, the company agreed to pay A$2.25 million in fines and A$300,000 in legal fees to settle the case brought against it by the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission, though the presiding judge, Mordecai Bromberg of the Federal Court in Victoria, is unsure whether that’s a sufficient penalty. He has declined to approve the settlement until he’s told how many customers felt they’d been misled by the “iPad + 4G” branding Apple used in Australia, and learns more about the company’s finances.

“I don’t know whether we’re talking about a corporation that makes $10 million or $300 million,” Bromberg said. “How do I know that (the penalty) is meaningful for Apple if you don’t put before me any idea of what its financial position is?”

Apple says neither of those things matter. It argues that there was no loss to customers, because it has offered refunds to customers who bought the new iPad believing it supported Australian 4G, and that the fine for its behavior shouldn’t be based on its finances. But it provided Bromberg with the information he requested, nonetheless. Now Apple awaits his final ruling on the settlement, which should be issued within a week or so.

And you won’t find purple cows or other decorations in Kixeye’s games — just blood.

Kixeye CEO Will Harbin

That’s how Will Harbin, Kixeye’s CEO, described his company’s social games to me last week over the phone.

Harbin is passionate about building games for Facebook, but we are not necessarily talking about the ones that appeal to 40-year-old housewives. The company’s titles include Backyard Monsters, War Commander and Battle Pirates, and 97 percent of the company’s audience is male.

Because of the small niche it is serving, the games don’t appear in Facebook’s Top 40. But they do monetize extremely well.

Kixeye is currently registering about one million users a day, and while most social game companies make roughly four cents per user, Kixeye claims it makes closer to 60 cents.

The San Francisco company has been profitable for the past two years, and this year it is projecting revenue in excess of $100 million.

It’s similar to the story Kabam and other social game makers have started to tell as Facebook becomes a more mature gaming platform. Developers are starting to see that if they target a more hardcore gaming demographic, with more sophisticated kinds of games, the players will be more engrossed and, therefore will spend more time and money in the game.

Besides, it is these players who are typically used to spending $60 per videogame for a console system, so getting a few dollars out of them is much easier.

But even though this all sounds great, don’t expect Harbin to hype the company’s prospects. Instead of pumping up the company as a prospective IPO candidate, or raising millions of dollars in private equity — just because he can — he is fairly pragmatic.

In fact, the lack of sensationalism in his voice would be considered almost boring if the conversation weren’t actually such a breath of fresh air in what is becoming an overheated sector. And despite having plenty of good things to say, talking to me seemed like a real chore, something he was only mildly tolerating.

What’s more, when I reacted positively to Harbin’s disinterest in our conversation — because it is so different from most pitchmen who talk to me — he was almost disappointed, saying that most people think he’s a jerk.

“I’ve had successes under my belt, but more importantly, I’ve had failures,” Harbin said. “I know what I’d be in for, and I’m not in a rush to IPO. It’s got to be the right time. Too many companies go public too early and have ruined their growth trajectory. No one here has incentive to cash out and get out quickly. We love what we are doing, and this has been a passion of mine since I was a child — videogames, that is — and it would have to make real sense for me to change my day-to-day job.”

Without IPO pressures, and without being accountable to shareholders on a quarterly basis, Harbin can aim for the fences.

The company, which is on track to have 300 employees by the end of the year (up from 35 a year ago), has raised $22 million in funding, and is announcing today that it has opened a development studio in Australia.

Harbin said he was able to pick up employees from 3 Blokes Studios, which RockYou acquired and subsequently shut down. He was going to acquire the studio, but when the deal fell through, he was able to hire everyone anyway. So far, there are about 10 people, and he thinks the studio will max out at 20.

A similar occurrence happened closer to home, when he was able to hire six employees from Crowdstar when that company shifted gears away from building Facebook games.

Harbin said he sees three areas of focus for the company: Building its own game platform so players don’t have to play via Facebook, developing mobile games, and expanding internationally.

The first mobile game, Backyard Monsters, is expected to come out for iOS and Android this summer, and will be distributed on Ngmoco’s Mobage network.

Still, Harbin is reluctant to grow too fast or stretch the company’s resources too thin.

“We are trying to be pragmatic and do what we can with the management bandwidth we have. We don’t want to get too big too fast,” he said.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Defense approved RIM’s BlackBerry 7 devices for agencywide use. And now the device has won similar approvals in the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.

CESG, the National Technical Authority for Information Assurance in the U.K., on Thursday certified BlackBerry 7 as fit for government and law enforcement use. And the Defense Signals Directorate of the Australian Government did the same for Australia and New Zealand. The reason: Those industry-leading security features RIM is so fond of talking up. Consumers may not pay them much mind, but in government they clearly matter a great deal.

Which is great for RIM’s business, but not quite central to its long-term success. While government sales will certainly help keep RIM afloat, it’s the enterprise and consumer markets where the company really needs some wins. RIM insists that BlackBerry 10 will deliver them, but it won’t launch until later this year.

Facebook filed an updated version of its S-1 public offering document today, which included somewhat disappointing first-quarter financials.

In the new filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, its fourth update for its upcoming public offering, the social networking giant’s revenue was $1.058 billion, up 46 percent for the year, but down six percent from the previous quarter.

In the first quarter of 2012, Facebook’s net income was $205 million, which was down from $233 million a year ago. The company attributed the decline to rising costs, including in marketing and in research.

Facebook also said its current share price was $30.89 each, which values the entire company at about $77 billion.

Some investors might worry about the latest results, which show a slowing in Facebook’s torrid growth. But Facebook said the quarterly decline was due to seasonality — it was flat in the same period a year ago.

As it noted in the document:

“We believe that our rates of user and revenue growth will decline over time. For example, our revenue grew 154% from 2009 to 2010, 88% from 2010 to 2011, and 45% from the first quarter of 2011 to the same period in 2012. Historically, our user growth has been a primary driver of growth in our revenue. We expect that our user growth and revenue growth rates will decline as the size of our active user base increases and as we achieve higher market penetration rates.”

Its audience, though, was still growing strongly: Facebook also said it had 532 million daily active users, up from 372 million a year ago and 483 million in December. Its monthly active users were up from 680 million last year to just over 900 million and up from 845 million from December.

Facebook also added an explicit figure for average revenue per user, which was $1.21, up six percent year over year. It also said the number of full-time employees grew 46 percent from last year to 3,539 at the end of March.

The last update to Facebook’s regulatory filing for its mid-May IPO was in late March. That one gave investors more information about a patent infringement lawsuit waged by Yahoo — Facebook noted its counter claim in the newest filing — and also its motion to dismiss Paul Ceglia’s legal attempt to garner half of the company. It then included more information about growing engagement by users of the social networking site.

Along with some other minor changes in the new document, Facebook noted, in news that was already known, that it would trade its stock on the Nasdaq market under the ticker symbol “FB.” It also said it had bought photo-sharing start-up Instagram, another piece of old news, and noted its just-struck patent deal with Microsoft.

One new detail about Instagram: Facebook forked over “approximately 23 million shares of our common stock and $300 million in cash” to buy it.

Also, said Facebook, in an interesting new section on its global business:

“In the first quarter of 2012, 50% of our revenue was generated by users in the United States and Canada, a decrease from 54% of our revenue for the first quarter of 2011, and in 2011, 52% of our revenue was generated by users in the United States and Canada, as compared to 58% in 2010, as we experienced more rapid revenue growth in markets such as Germany, Brazil, Australia, and India.”

Here is the whole updated file, if you want to peruse yourself:

4thfbs1update

It’s not the iPad that’s been mislabeled. It’s Australia’s 3G networks.

In a brief filed with the Federal Court in Melbourne, Australia, this week, Apple — which last month agreed to notify consumers that its new iPad is not compatible with Australia’s 4G LTE network, and to offer refunds to early purchasers who feel they were misled by its branding — refused to stop marketing the device as “iPad Wi-Fi + 4G.”

Its argument for doing so? Many of Australia’s 3G networks can reasonably be described as 4G under international definitions.

“The iPad with WiFi + 4G is a device which performs in accordance with the descriptor ‘4G’ in terms of data transfer speed,” Apple argued in its brief, according to the Australian, which first reported on the document. “The descriptor ‘4G’ … conveys to consumers in Australia that the iPad with WiFi + 4G will deliver a superior level of service in terms of data transfer speed (consistent with accepted industry and regulatory use of that term), and not that the iPad with WiFi + 4G is compatible with any particular network technology promoted by a particular mobile service provider in Australia.”

In other words: No, the iPad with WiFi + 4G doesn’t support Australia’s true 4G LTE network, but it does support networks that are fast enough to be defined as 4G. So, no harm, no foul.

And as silly as that might sound, it’s technically true. When the International Telecommunications Union, which sets the marketing standards for wireless networks, expanded its definition of 4G service in December of 2010, it said this of the term 4G:

“As the most advanced technologies currently defined for global wireless mobile broadband communications, IMT-Advanced is considered as ’4G,’ although it is recognized that this term, while undefined, may also be applied to the forerunners of these technologies, LTE and WiMax, and to other evolved 3G technologies providing a substantial level of improvement in performance and capabilities with respect to the initial third generation systems now deployed.”

And if that’s the definition, Apple argues, then there’s no reason to change the branding on the “iPad Wi-Fi + 4G” in Australia.

It’s all semantics.

But will a court buy that argument? We’ll find out in May, when the case is expected to be given a full hearing.

(Image courtesy of Someecards)

In the interim, the Cupertino, Calif., company agreed with the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC) to clarify claims that the new iPad is compatible with 4G telecommunications networks, and to offer refunds to early purchasers who feel they were misled.

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So says the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which today accused Apple of misleading consumers about the iPad’s true capabilities, in violation of Australian law.

“The ACCC alleges that Apple’s recent promotion of the new ‘iPad with WiFi + 4G’ is misleading,” the agency said in a statement today. “It represents to Australian consumers that the product ‘iPad with WiFi + 4G’ can, with a SIM card, connect to a 4G mobile data network in Australia, when this is not the case.”

And it’s not.

You see, the new iPad only supports 4G LTE networks in the 700MHz or 2100MHz spectrum band. And since Australia’s 4G LTE network uses the 1800MHz band, the 4G iPad is effectively 3G-only Down Under. Which is obviously quite frustrating for Australians who purchased the device assuming it would connect to their local 4G network.

And so the ACCC is taking Apple to the mat, seeking all manner of penalities for what it alleges is misleading and deceptive conduct: Injunctions, financial penalties, corrective advertising and refunds to consumers affected.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment.

“There’s an excellent growth opportunity for U.S. retailers outside the U.S.,” said Michael DeSimone, CEO of FiftyOne, a logistics company. “E-commerce is much more nascent [outside the U.S.], but our merchants are seeing extraordinary growth by building their brand with a new customer base.”

As it turns out, however, shipping and selling goods internationally is extremely complex.

First, there’s currency translation, then there’s the complexity of dealing with customs. And there are other considerations: For instance, a down pillow or a snakeskin purse may have to be cleared by the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife or require a permit if the animal is on an endangered list.

“The opportunity for a bad customer experience is very high, unless you have a repeatable process in place,” DeSimone said.

In other words, done well and executed efficiently, it can be a moneymaker, but if done poorly, you can hurt the brand.

FiftyOne helps U.S. retailers ship products to 106 countries worldwide, by assisting retailers with currency conversion and global shipping logistics, including customs and returns. It manages a central distribution in Columbus, Ohio, where all the packages exit and enter the U.S.

The New York company works with dozens of online retailers, including Macy’s, J.Crew, Overstock.com, Saks Fifth Avenue, Nordstrom, Pottery Barn, Gilt Groupe and Wet Seal. Since FiftyOne started focusing on international logistics, back in 2008, it has seen e-commerce start to take off internationally, DeSimone said.

Last year, the company’s gross merchandise volume, accounting for the total amount of all international purchases made, was $136 million, almost up twice from the year before, when it recorded $78 million. In 2009, its business totaled $26 million.

The biggest international markets for U.S. retailers today, FiftyOne said, are English-speaking countries such as Canada, Australia and the U.K. But South Korea, Brazil and Mexico are also all growing close to 50 percent year over year.

In addition, DeSimone said, the average order size increased to $265 in 2011, up from $237 the year earlier.

Here’s a graphic detailing some of the challenges in shipping internationally:

On Friday, Australia’s High Court dismissed Apple’s bid to have a ban on the sale of the 10.1 extended. And it denied the motion “with costs,” slapping Cupertino with the bill for all the legal wrangling.

It’s an important victory for Samsung, one that brings the Galaxy Tab 10.1 to retailers’ shelves just in time for the biggest shopping season of the year. And it’s another setback for Apple’s legal campaign against it, which now spans some 10 countries.

Today’s decision by Australia’s High Court follows a recent U.S. court ruling denying Apple’s request for a preliminary injunction prohibiting sales of some of Samsung’s Galaxy smartphones and tablets in the States.

Rovio was one of the first to try out the model on a large scale through the sale of plush Angry Birds, and now there are plenty of fast followers.

The Australian game studio Halfbrick is the latest copycat.

Today, it started selling stuffed toys based on the characters found in its hit mobile game Fruit Ninja. It closely follows others, such as ZeptoLab, which sells plush toys based on the main character in Cut the Rope, Om Nom, a critter that likes to eat candy.

While cross-branding has worked well for Rovio, it’s unclear whether consumers will lose interest as other game makers pile on.

However, if the entertainment industry is any guide, there are plenty of brands that have successfully made millions selling merchandise.

The Fruit Ninja options are fairly limited for now. Fruit Ninja fans will have their pick of only two toys: A grey-haired sensei dressed in a kimono and wearing flip flops, or a ninja watermelon cut in half.  (Unfortunately, there’s no toy warrior swords or throwing stars, and the fruit doesn’t really explode on contact as it does in the game.)

Halfbrick has partnered with ToyFoundry, a brand merchandise company, to launch its own Fruit Ninja store, where the toys went on sale today. The sensei costs $16 and the sliced watermelon will sell for $15. A training pack that includes both will save you $1.

In addition to the store, Halfbrick will be working on a new iteration of its Fruit Ninja game. The company has received $3 million in capital from Australia’s New South Whales Interactive Media Fund to support a new studio, according to Inside Social Games.

Apple, which argues that Samsung copied the design from the iPad, had already succeeded in persuading a court in Germany to bar the sale of some of its tablets there. The U.S company turned up the heat further this week by asking the same German court to ban sales of a modified Samsung device throughout the entire European Union.

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In an appeal hearing at the Federal Court in Sydney, Samsung lawyer Neil Young said Justice Annabelle Bennett’s granting of an injunction to Apple preventing the distribution of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 in Australia was based on “irrelevant considerations.”

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The Korean company said it filed on Monday for preliminary injunctions in the Tokyo District Court and in the New South Wales Registry, Australia, to stop the sale of iPhone 4S smartphones in both countries. Samsung also asked the Japanese court to stop the sale of Apple’s iPhone 4 and iPad 2 devices.

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Justice Annabelle Bennett ruled that the Galaxy Tab can’t be sold in Australia until Samsung’s patent dispute with Apple is resolved. “Despite the force of Samsung’s submissions, I have found that Apple has established a ‘prima facie case’ for the infringement of claims of both the Touch Screen Patent and the Heuristics Patent within the O’Neill test,” Bennett wrote. “That is, it has established a probability, not necessarily in the mathematical sense, that it will, on the present evidence, succeed at trial. … I am satisfied that it is appropriate to grant an interim injunction, however I propose again the opportunity of an early final hearing on the issues presented in this application.”

Lousy news for Samsung, which will now likely miss the approaching holiday shopping season, and may as a result opt not to launch the current iteration of the Galaxy Tab in Australia at all. Earlier this month, the company’s legal counsel said as much, telling Bennett that Samsung would likely abandon plans to launch the tablet Down Under altogether, because missing the Christmas season would essentially mean it was “commercially dead” by the time it reached market.

But for now, Samsung has vowed to fight on, saying it is confident it will prevail in its counterclaim alleging Apple infringes its wireless standard patents. “We are disappointed with this ruling and Samsung will be seeking legal advice on its options,” the company said in a written statement. “We will continue to legally assert our intellectual property rights against those who violate Samsung’s patents and free ride on our technology.”

Apple Inc. is seeking a temporary injunction against sales of the Galaxy Tab in Australia ahead of a final hearing that could go on for months on the U.S. company’s claim that aspects of Samsung’s touch-screen technology infringe Apple’s patents on its popular iPad tablet.

But after a day of testimony in Federal Court here, Justice Annabelle Bennett gave no firm date for when she would rule on the patent dispute that since early August has prevented Samsung from releasing its iPad challenger. “It’s going to take me a little time, but I will do it as quickly as possible given the urgency for both parties,” Justice Bennett said as she ended the hearing.

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The agreement, if accepted by Apple, could see the tablet’s launch next week, Samsung’s attorney David Catterns told Dow Jones Newswires after a hearing at the country’s Federal Court in Sydney.

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Delivering on a threat it made in late August, the South Korean company has countersued Apple in Australia, alleging that the company’s iPhone and iPad product lines violate seven of its wireless patents, covering everything from methods of data transmission and decoding to power management.

“Samsung has a proud history of innovation in the mobile industry,” the company said in a statement. “It has invested continuously in R&D, design and technology to produce our innovative and cutting-edge mobile devices. To defend our intellectual property, Samsung filed a cross claim for Apple’s violation of its wireless technology patents.”

The counterclaim, which argues that the patents Apple has asserted against Samsung should be invalidated and revoked by the court, comes ahead of a hearing later this month that will determine whether Samsung will be allowed to sell its Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet in Australia.