AllThingsD » motion http://allthingsd.com Sun, 27 May 2012 01:54:58 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 http://allthingsd.com/theme/images/logo-rss.jpg All Things Digital http://allthingsd.com/ 144 22 Loeb Lobs Lawsuit, as Expected, at Yahoo's Borked Bio Mess http://allthingsd.com/20120507/loeb-lobs-lawsuit-as-expected-at-yahoos-borked-bio-mess/ http://allthingsd.com/20120507/loeb-lobs-lawsuit-as-expected-at-yahoos-borked-bio-mess/#comments Mon, 07 May 2012 16:23:59 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=204506

Botched CEO bio. Activist shareholder. Screwy board of directors. Mix it all together and what do you get?

More legal filings, natch!

This — as I reported this weekend would happen today — from Dan Loeb of Third Point, which is waging a proxy fight against Yahoo.

The aggressive hedge-fund investor — who owns close to 6 percent of Yahoo — recently scored a direct hit by revealing that new CEO Scott Thompson had added a faux degree in computer science to his bio, which somehow made its way into regulatory filings of the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

This, despite a supposed thorough vetting by Yahoo’s board of the former president of eBay’s PayPal payments unit.

Not so much, as it turns out — which is why Loeb is asking for all the information about Thompson’s hiring process and more.

Third Point said it was making a demand “under Section 220(b) of the Delaware General Corporation Law to inspect books and records relating to the hiring of CEO Scott Thompson, the appointment of Patti Hart to the Yahoo! Board, and the selection of Board Members Peter Liguori, John Hayes, Thomas McInerney, Maynard Webb, Jr., and Fred Amoroso.”

And its press release added:

“Third Point believes that Yahoo! shareholders and employees will be best served if the Board accepts responsibility quickly for this latest debacle … We believe that this internal investigation by this Board must not be conducted behind a veil of secrecy and shareholders deserve total transparency.”

Well, it looks like it will eventually be all out in the open, what with all the legal motions flying.

Expect a Yahoo response soon, which sources said will focus on a board investigation — using an outside law firm, and headed by independent director Amoroso.

Here you go on Loeb’s shot today:

Third Point May 7 Demand Letter Release

RELATED POSTS:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120507/loeb-lobs-lawsuit-as-expected-at-yahoos-borked-bio-mess/feed/ 0 Updated S-1: Facebook's Yearly Revenue Growth Up 45 Percent, But Down Six Percent From Last Quarter http://allthingsd.com/20120423/new-s-1-facebooks-yearly-growth-up-45-percent-but-down-six-percent-from-last-quarter/ http://allthingsd.com/20120423/new-s-1-facebooks-yearly-growth-up-45-percent-but-down-six-percent-from-last-quarter/#comments Mon, 23 Apr 2012 19:13:53 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=199091

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

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120423/new-s-1-facebooks-yearly-growth-up-45-percent-but-down-six-percent-from-last-quarter/feed/ 0 Gesture Tech Company Hillcrest Labs Moves Into Smartphone Territory http://allthingsd.com/20120325/gesture-tech-company-hillcrest-labs-moves-into-smartphone-territory/ http://allthingsd.com/20120325/gesture-tech-company-hillcrest-labs-moves-into-smartphone-territory/#comments Mon, 26 Mar 2012 04:00:56 +0000 Ina Fried http://allthingsd.com/?p=189875 Hillcrest Labs is the latest company promising to bring Kinect-style gesture recognition to the smartphone.

Hillcrest, which has been working in the gesture and motion technology field for a decade, says the addition of gyroscopes, accelerometers and other sensors to the phone make it a perfect candidate for gesture recognition.

The Rockville, Md.-based company’s FreeSpace motion engine is already used in smart TVs and Roku set-top boxes. Hillcrest said it has adapted its software to also work with devices running Android and Windows 8.

Phones and tablets using its technology should show up starting in the first quarter of next year, Senior VP Chad Lucien told AllThingsD.

“We have a customer today,” Lucien said. “We are not in a position to announce who it is.”

Qualcomm demonstrated its gesture-recognition technology to AllThingsD last month, and Korea’s Pantech has announced gesture-capable phones using technology from Israel’s eyeSight Mobile Technologies.

Gesture recognition has wide potential, Lucien said. In addition to being used in such obvious areas as gaming and augmented reality, sensors can detect when a phone is in a car, and can change the interface and aid indoor navigation by detecting where a phone has headed once it leaves GPS range.

Lucien said Hillcrest’s approach sits in between the sensors and the operating system, allowing it to easily work with a variety of sensors, while at the same time ensuring that programs gain some gesture support without having to customize their software.

Device makers that want to further differentiate their user interface could take things further, Lucien said, and build on top of additional software hooks that Hillcrest has developed.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120325/gesture-tech-company-hillcrest-labs-moves-into-smartphone-territory/feed/ 0 Oracle to SAP: How's This for Grossly Excessive–We Want Another Half-Billion in Damages http://allthingsd.com/20110224/sap-oracle-motion/ http://allthingsd.com/20110224/sap-oracle-motion/#comments Thu, 24 Feb 2011 17:41:28 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=58327 The $1.3 billion jury award given Oracle in its intellectual property infringement case against SAP is not only “grossly excessive,” it’s a “miscarriage of justice” that “shocks the conscience.”

So says SAP in a new motion seeking to sharply reduce that award, which it says is in conflict with copyright law and founded on sheer speculation.

“The jury’s $1.3 billion ‘hypothetical license’ fee award was an unreasonable amount that went far beyond what was needed to make Oracle whole,” SAP argued in its motion. “The enormous fee did not–indeed, could not–represent Oracle’s actual damages because Oracle never lost a license fee from Defendants or anyone else. The Copyright Act does not permit such awards that are un-tethered to a plaintiff’s actual harm, and the hypothetical license claim should not have gone to the jury.”

And so SAP is asking the court to drop the award to no more than $408.7 million or order a new trial.

Oracle, of course, believes the verdict should stand and opposes SAP’s motion. But if its rival should be granted a new trial, Oracle wants to seek an additional half a billion dollars in damages that it feels it lost when the court unfairly excluded its up-sell and cross-sell projections.

“In the event the Court were to order a new trial, however, Oracle respectfully submits that this Court would be required to review all errors at trial, including those errors that prejudiced Oracle and resulted in a reduction of the damages to which it was entitled,” the company argues. “While Oracle believes the jury’s verdict fairly reflects the evidence properly admitted, it also notes that the verdict fell toward the bottom of the range of reasonable license amounts Oracle presented, and that the Court’s rulings on certain issues shifted that range significantly downward. … [It] cut half a billion dollars from the damages opinion that Oracle’s damages expert would have offered and that fact witnesses would have supported with additional testimony and documentary evidence.”

In other words, SAP’s motion is bogus, it doesn’t deserve a new trial, and if it’s granted one Oracle wants the chance at a $1.8 billion award. Oracle’s motion in full below.


1046_Conditional New Trial Motion –

PREVIOUSLY:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20110224/sap-oracle-motion/feed/ 0 Mark Hurd Really Wants to Keep the Jodie Fisher Letter Private http://allthingsd.com/20101228/mark-hurd-really-wants-to-keep-the-jodie-fisher-letter-private/ http://allthingsd.com/20101228/mark-hurd-really-wants-to-keep-the-jodie-fisher-letter-private/#comments Tue, 28 Dec 2010 21:45:30 +0000 Arik Hesseldahl http://newenterprise.allthingsd.com/?p=1117 Lawyers for former Hewlett-Packard CEO and now Oracle Co-President Mark Hurd today asked a judge in Delaware to allow him to intervene in a shareholder lawsuit against HP.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit are seeking records related to Hurd’s departure from HP in August, including a letter that accused him of sexually harassing Jodie Fisher, a sometimes-actress who worked as a contractor for HP. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is also looking into the possibility that Hurd told Fisher about HP’s then-confidential plans to acquire IT services firm EDS.

Hurd has been trying to keep the letter from being made public, and argued to the judge that since it is his personal property, he should be allowed to join the lawsuit as a party to that end. In the motion, Hurd’s lawyers argue that the letter was sent to “achieve private resolution of a potential dispute” between Hurd and Fisher.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101228/mark-hurd-really-wants-to-keep-the-jodie-fisher-letter-private/feed/ 1 Microsoft Eyes Wider Net as Xbox Turns to Entertainment http://allthingsd.com/20101220/microsoft-eyes-wider-net-as-xbox-turns-to-entertainment/ http://allthingsd.com/20101220/microsoft-eyes-wider-net-as-xbox-turns-to-entertainment/#comments Mon, 20 Dec 2010 13:30:22 +0000 Tricia Duryee http://emoney.allthingsd.com/?p=838 The Kinect has been an early hit for Microsoft, but an even bigger moment to celebrate will be if the new gaming accessory can help move the Xbox beyond the hard-core gamer demographic to appeal to a mass audience for general living-room entertainment.

In the first 25 days at market, Microsoft sold 2.5 million Kinect accessories and now aims to sell five million this holiday season. The sales helped the Xbox become the best-selling console in November.

The Kinect is a motion detection system similar to the Nintendo Wii, but is hands-free and doesn’t require any controllers. Xbox 360 owners can purchase one for $150.

During our visit last week to the Xbox offices in Redmond, Wash., Craig Davison, the senior director of marketing for Xbox LIVE, told us the goal is to broaden the audience for Xbox. He said the competition is no longer limited to PlayStation or the Wii, but extends to Google TV and Apple TV.

Hard-core gamers enthralled with Call of Duty and Halo may shudder at the prospect, but the trend is already in play.

But adding a new kind of player to the platform is critical if Microsoft wants the console to be an entertainment hub. Kinect allows users who’ve never picked up a controller to play, and brings new functionality to hardware, which historically has been marketed as something that must be replaced frequently.

Game console owners are most likely to use the boxes to play games and watch DVDs, but after that, Nielsen reports, entertainment services are a close third. Video-on-demand and streaming services such as Netflix, MLB Network and ESPN3 account for 20 percent of Wii users’ time, 10 percent of Xbox 360 users’ time and 9 percent of PlayStation 3 users’ time.

Davison said the demographics for Xbox started to shift in 2008 when it introduced Netflix streaming to the console. Since then, it has launched a partnership with ESPN, and will launch Hulu Plus early next year. It’s even helping out the top line: Close to 85 percent of Xbox Live’s revenues come from games, with the remainder coming from Zune, he said.

Here are some other numbers to consider:

–Since the launch of Zune on Xbox 360 in November 2009, the pace of HD movie and TV consumption–downloads and streaming–has more than doubled.

–In the last year, Microsoft has seen a 157 percent increase in the time spent watching movies over Xbox LIVE.

–42 percent of Xbox LIVE users who spring for Gold status at $59 a year are watching an average of one hour of TV or movies every day–or more than 30 hours a month.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101220/microsoft-eyes-wider-net-as-xbox-turns-to-entertainment/feed/ 5 Kinect Score: 2.5 Million Down, 2.5 Million to Go http://allthingsd.com/20101130/kinect-score-2-5-million-down-2-5-million-to-go/ http://allthingsd.com/20101130/kinect-score-2-5-million-down-2-5-million-to-go/#comments Tue, 30 Nov 2010 11:00:04 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=53294

Microsoft’s Kinect videogame motion sensor passed the one-million-sold milestone after just 10 days at market. And now, 15 days later, it’s passed another: 2.5 million sold in 25 days.

That’s 100,000 units sold per day.

Evidently, already strong demand for the device grew stronger still over the Black Friday weekend, so much so that there’s little doubt that Microsoft will hit the aggressive sales forecast it set for the device at launch. Said Don Mattrick, president of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment Business, “With sales already exceeding two and a half million units in just 25 days, we are on pace to reach our forecast of 5 million units sold to consumers this holiday.”

Below, video of Microsoft showing off Kinect at D8.


[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101130/kinect-score-2-5-million-down-2-5-million-to-go/feed/ 0 New Motion Control Patent Could Shake Up Smartphone Industry http://allthingsd.com/20100324/motion-control-a-powder-keg-in-the-mobile-patent-war/ http://allthingsd.com/20100324/motion-control-a-powder-keg-in-the-mobile-patent-war/#comments Wed, 24 Mar 2010 12:00:43 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=36907

Here’s a potentially noteworthy development in the patent litigation-riddled mobile device market. Last week, the United States Patent and Trademark Office issued a very broad patent on motion-based smartphone control, one that could have significant implications for the industry.

The patent is #7,679,604, “Method and apparatus for controlling a computer system,” and it describes motion control as a means of interacting with smartphones and the like.

The invention, the patent’s authors explain, “facilitates an intuitive motion control of the application by physically manipulating the electronic device…it enables a user to intuitively control the state and/or displayed content of a computing device without the conventional need of pressing button(s), or manipulating a trackpad, trackball, etc. In this regard, the motion control agent represents a new paradigm in user control of computing systems.”

Sounds quite a bit like the motion control you find today in Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone, doesn’t it? Or in Palm’s (PALM) Pre. Or Google’s (GOOG) Nexus One (ironically, one of the inventors to which the patent is credited is a Google engineer). Or Motorola’s (MOT) Droid. Or Nokia’s (NOK) 5800.

Which is interesting, because none of those companies owns patent #7,679,604. It belongs to Durham Logistics, a Las Vegas limited liability company about which I can find little information.

When I contacted the Nevada Secretary of State’s office about Durham Logistics, it referred me to CSC Services of Nevada, the company that did the paperwork on Durham’s LLC status. CSC Services Of Nevada refused to provide any information. Ygomi, the company that now owns ArrayComm, the software outfit to which the patent was first assigned, doesn’t know much about it either. The law firm listed on Durham Logistics’ patent assignment hasn’t responded to my inquiries. Nor has ArrayComm founder Marty Cooper, who might be able to shed a bit of light on the transfer of the patent to Durham.

Finally, the lead inventor to which the patent is credited declined to comment on the record.

Is Durham Logistics a legitimate company? Is it an IP holding company for another entity? A patent troll? Who knows? But, it’s sitting on this patent.

Now, I’m no expert on intellectual property, but it’s worrisome to me that a patent as broad as this exists at all, let alone that it’s in the hands of some mysterious Vegas LLC we know nothing about. After all, patent #7,679,604 seems to apply not just to any smartphone with an accelerometer, but to any device that uses any method of measuring motion as a means of control. As one patent attorney told me, “It’s obscenely broad.” And it’s old enough to predate many of the motion-sensing smartphones currently on the market.

Though issued just last week, the patent was filed in July 2006. And it was preceded by a nearly identical patent granted in 2004 after a 2001 application.

The first smartphones to feature built-in accelerometers–among them, the Sony Ericsson W910i and the iPhone–didn’t begin arriving at market until 2007-2008, right around the time the companies building them began filing motion-interface patents of their own.

For example, at least two major motion-related Apple patent applications–“Movement-based interfaces for personal media device” and “Varying User Interface Element Based on Movement”–weren’t filed until October 2007.

Which means that Durham Logistics could be sitting on a powder keg of a patent, one that, if allowed to stand, extends to a technology that has been widely built into today’s smartphones–the one sitting on my desk and perhaps yours as well.

Question is, will the company assert it? And if it does, is there prior art that would render its claims anticipated?

COMPLETE COVERAGE:


US7679604

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100324/motion-control-a-powder-keg-in-the-mobile-patent-war/feed/ 0 Psyonara: Apple Wins Permanent Injunction Against Mac Clone Maker http://allthingsd.com/20091216/psyonara-apple-wins-permanent-injunction-against-mac-clone-maker/ http://allthingsd.com/20091216/psyonara-apple-wins-permanent-injunction-against-mac-clone-maker/#comments Wed, 16 Dec 2009 08:01:20 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=30866 psystarstompedAfter 17 months of litigation, the hammer has finally fallen on Psystar. The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Tuesday granted Apple’s request for permanent injunction against the Mac clone maker, barring it from peddling PCs with the Mac OS X operating system preinstalled, circumventing the technological measures Apple (AAPL) uses to prevent unauthorized copying of Mac OS X and assisting others in doing so.

“Defendant must bring its conduct into compliance with the injunction by midnight on December 31, 2009, at the latest,” U.S. District Judge William Alsup wrote in his ruling. “Defendant must immediately begin this process, and take the quickest path to compliance; thus, if compliance can be achieved within one hour after this order is filed, defendant shall reasonably see it done.”

It would seem, then, to be over for Psystar, though we likely haven’t yet heard the last of it. Alsup’s injunction doesn’t include the company’s Rebel EFI software, which allows Mac OS X to be installed on PCs. So for now, the company can continue to sell it, though Alsup warns that to do so is a risky legal proposition at best.

“Rebel EFI will not be expressly excluded from the terms of the injunction,” Alsup wrote. “It should be clear, however, that this ruling is without prejudice to Psystar bringing a new motion before the undersigned that includes real details about Rebel EFI, and opening itself up to formal discovery thereon. This would serve the purpose–akin to a post-injunction motion vetting a ‘design-around’ in a patent action–of potentially vetting (or not vetting) a product like Rebel EFI under this order’s decree.”

The wiggle room allowed, however, is scant. “Moreover, Psystar may raise in such a motion any defenses it believes should apply to the factual circumstances of its new product, such as the 17 U.S.C. 117 defense raised in its opposition and at oral argument. Whether such a defense would be successful on the merits, or face preclusion or other hurdles, this order cannot predict. What is certain, however, is that until such a motion is brought, Psystar will be selling Rebel EFI at its peril, and risks finding itself held in contempt if its new venture falls within the scope of the injunction.”

Below, the injunction in full:


Case3-08-cv-03251-WHADocument242 –

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091216/psyonara-apple-wins-permanent-injunction-against-mac-clone-maker/feed/ 0 Volpi and Index Smack Back at Skype Founders With Motion to Dismiss (Plus Filings!) http://allthingsd.com/20091015/volpi-and-index-smack-back-at-skype-founders-with-motion-to-dismiss/ http://allthingsd.com/20091015/volpi-and-index-smack-back-at-skype-founders-with-motion-to-dismiss/#comments Thu, 15 Oct 2009 22:49:30 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=19462 funny-pictures-fighting-cats-constructive-feedback

The legal high jinks in the contentious battle over the fate of Skype got worse this afternoon, as former Joost CEO Michelangelo Volpi and Index Ventures filed a motion to dismiss a lawsuit brought by the founders of Skype–Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, via Joost and Joltid–against them.

It’s yet another chess move among a group of well-known tech players, who used to work together closely and are now at odds.

In a filing in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, Volpi and the London-based Index–where Volpi now works–noted, referring to a bid Zennström and Friis made to regain control of Skype, which they sold to eBay (EBAY) years ago:

“Instead of accepting the fact that their bid failed in the marketplace, Friis and Zennström are now using inflammatory and highly-charged litigation–through companies that have no relationship to the Skype purchase–to try to achieve their personal business goals.”

A spokesman for Joost and Joltid did not agree with Volpi’s assessment:

“Mr. Volpi’s latest motion appears to have been prepared prior to Defendants receiving Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction, which is filled with evidence supporting Plaintiffs’ claims. In light of this strong showing of substantive evidence, much of it from Mr. Volpi’s own correspondence, there is no basis for Mr. Volpi’s assertion that Plaintiffs have somehow failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted.”

Index was a small player within a group that won Skype, putting in $75 million, in a $2 billion deal that is set to close in the next few weeks.

The motion to dismiss the filing is not surprising given that Joost and Joltid filed a motion for preliminary injunction against Volpi and Index yesterday.

They are asking that he not use knowledge or confidential information he got at the video start-up in current dealings with Skype.

To complicate things further, the innovative and entrepreneurial pair also own a company called Joltid, which has licensed key technology for Skype to eBay.

Joltid and eBay have already been fighting in court over that agreement, bickering back and forth about whether eBay violated the terms of that deal or not.

Via Joltid, Zennström and Friis also filed suit again against Skype and its owner, eBay, for copyright violations in the U.S.

For good measure, they added the winning buyout group, including Index, Silver Lake Partners, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

And both Joltid and Joost have also sued Volpi personally, as well as Index, making serious allegations about his behavior as Joost CEO.

Here are several key legal filings to peruse, for all you “Law & Order” types:


Motion to Dismiss _00302105_ –


Opposition to Motion For Expedition _00302104_ –


Volpi Opening Brief 10.15.09 _00302101_ –

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091015/volpi-and-index-smack-back-at-skype-founders-with-motion-to-dismiss/feed/ 0 Fox Slaps Back (Legally) at Redbox http://allthingsd.com/20091001/fox-slaps-back-legally-at-redbox/ http://allthingsd.com/20091001/fox-slaps-back-legally-at-redbox/#comments Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:03:13 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=19038 redboxlogo

In the ongoing fight between Redbox–which rents DVDs from kiosks for $1–and major Hollywood studios, 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment just filed a brief to dismiss Redbox’s lawsuit against it.

Said Fox in a statement:

“Redbox’s legal claims are fatally flawed. Fox’s filing today makes clear that, in the end, the case is all about Redbox’s refusal to make a business deal on general terms similar to those paid by others in this industry. Instead, Redbox has insisted that Fox sell DVDs to them through distributors, on the date they demand, at the price they want to pay. Unable to get the terms it wanted at the bargaining table, Redbox instead decided to file this meritless lawsuit.”

In a statement, Redbox president Mitch Lowe responded to the filing by stating that Fox was anti-consumer.

“Twentieth Century Fox continues its pursuit to prohibit consumer access to new release DVDs at affordable prices…Redbox remains steadfast in our commitment to protecting consumers’ rights and to providing our customers the DVDs they want, where they want and at the low price they want.”

In two briefs filed this afternoon, refuting Redbox’s allegations, Fox is asserting that it has not refused to provide DVDs to the outfit and has tried to negotiate a deal.

Under contention between the two are the price and terms of when DVDs of hit movies can be released to Redbox.

Redbox has asserted that Fox is violating antitrust laws and copyright misuse in not selling DVDs to the company.

Fox denied that claim in the brief, noting that Redbox simply did not want to pay up in order to get certain DVDs on the “street date,” as do other retailers.

Fox is one of three studios that have become embroiled in lawsuits with Redbox.

Located in Oakbrook Terrace, Ill., and is wholly owned by Bellevue, Wash.-based Coinstar (CSTR), Redbox is seeing strong rental growth due to its $1-a-night price for first-run movies, which the company distributes via its 15,000 freestanding machines in supermarkets and convenience stores, as well as in big chains like McDonald’s (MCD), Wal-Mart (WMT) and Walgreens (WAG).

Its fascinating legal battle with the studios centers around the issues of steep discounting, release windowing and the price for premium content.

Redbox recently sued Warner Home Video, owned by Time Warner (TWX), for denying it the opportunity to buy DVDs without being required to wait a month or more to rent them out.

It has previously gone after NBC Universal’s Universal Studios Home Entertainment, owned by GE (GE) and Fox, a unit of News Corp. (NWS), for similar release restrictions.

The trio’s movies make up 40 percent of the DVD rental market.

In its brief today, Fox noted that it was willing to sell to Redbox directly, rather than via wholesalers, but that talks collapsed over pricing issues.

And while some studios are holding fast to fighting price declines represented by consumer-friendly, idiot-proof tech solutions like Redbox, others are not.

Redbox has inked deals with Sony (SNE); Lions Gate (LGF); Paramount, a unit of Viacom (VIA); and also gets movies from Walt Disney (DIS).

Here are two briefs filed by Fox in U.S. District Court in Delaware, the first, a motion to dismiss the lawsuit by Redbox, and the second to transfer venue to California:

FINAL Opening Brief in Support of Fox’s Motion to Dismiss

Redacted Transfer Venue Brief

(Full disclosure: Fox is owned by News Corp., which also owns Dow Jones, owner of this site.)

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20091001/fox-slaps-back-legally-at-redbox/feed/ 1 Fullpower: The Full D7 Demo http://allthingsd.com/20090611/fullpower-the-full-d7-demo/ http://allthingsd.com/20090611/fullpower-the-full-d7-demo/#comments Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:15:30 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=14391 547630922_ck5eb-m-2jpg

Did we have demos of new products at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference?

Oh, yes we did!

First up, legendary entrepreneur Philippe Kahn’s new company, Fullpower, which has developed the innovative MotionX Recognition Engine.

In the full demo below, Kahn shows Walt Mossberg and me a technology that studies how the body moves, as opposed to reacting to it.

The company is developing accelerometer-based hardware and software intended to do for motion and gesture what speech recognition did for speech.

There is also some jogging around the D7 audience–thankfully, not by Kahn, Walt or lazy, lazy BoomTown.

Here is the full video of the Fullpower demo:


[ See post to watch video ]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090611/fullpower-the-full-d7-demo/feed/ 1 D7 Tech Demo: Fullpower http://allthingsd.com/20090527/d7-tech-demo-fullpower/ http://allthingsd.com/20090527/d7-tech-demo-fullpower/#comments Wed, 27 May 2009 16:05:51 +0000 John Paczkowski http://d7.allthingsd.com/?p=242 fullpower

Philippe Kahn’s history of entrepreneurship is nearly as old as the PC itself. He developed software for the Micral N, one of the earliest commercial personal computers, back in 1973. As CEO of Borland Software (BORL), he touted himself the “barbarian” of the software industry and embraced that identity by holding one of the first press conferences for his company in a McDonald’s (MCD) in Las Vegas during Comdex. Ousted from Borland in 1995, Kahn went on to found wireless synchronization outfit Starfish Software, which he sold to Motorola (MOT). He followed that up with LightSurf Technologies, a picture-messaging company acquired by Verisign (VRSN) in 2005. Today Philippe Kahn is at D7 as CEO of Fullpower, a company developing accelerometer-based hardware and software.

Session Highlights


[ See post to watch video ]

Live Blog

  • Walt and Kara welcome Kahn to the stage.
  • Fullpower, says Kahn, has developed the MotionX Recognition Engine, a technology intended to do for motion and gesture what speech recognition did for speech. “We’ve created a system that studies how you move, as opposed to reacting to it.”
  • The first demo involves a headset with onboard motion sensing, the MotionX-Headset. “Basically what we’ve done is build a motion-sensing headset,” says Kahn. The headset will differentiate between the sources of motion of its user–if the user is walking or running for example.
  • Kahn calls a colleague wearing the headset onstage. The colleague demonstrates how calls can be answered by tapping the headset, without using any buttons. Then the colleague begins walking and running around the stage — the technology is able to differentiate between actual user taps and all the other motion.
  • The device also notices whether its user is walking or running, using the MotionX Recognition Engine and accelerometer to obtain an accurate measurement of distance and speed traveled. The headset tracks the user’s speed and distance, and the user can tap it for spoken updates about his or her progress. The headset automatically turns off when set down, thus saving power, and turns back on when the user picks it up again. Kahn: The same technology used in the headset can be embedded in phones and other devices.
  • Moving on to the next demo, MotionX-Imaging, the technology demonstrated was full image stabilization using the MotionX Recognition engine and an accelerometer. These were built in to the smartphone. In order to demonstrate this for presentations, every time a picture is taken, the MotionX image stabilization is either applied (“stabilized”) or not applied (“unstabilized”) at random. The pictures are then sorted so you can compare all the regular pictures with the stabilized ones and see the benefit of the technology.

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