EU begins investigating Seagate's and Western Digital's HDD acquisitions

EU regulators opened in-depth probes today into two takeover bids in the hard disk drive market involving two Asian and two US companies: Western Digital buying Hitachi Global Storage Technologies (GST) and Seagate buying Samsung Electronics' HDD unit. The EU is concerned the deals would reduce the number of rivals.

"Hard drives are the backbone of the digital economy," EU competition commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in a statement announcing the investigation. "The sector has already experienced significant consolidation and the proposed acquisitions will further reduce competition."

Western Digital announced in March 2011 its intentions to buy Hitachi GST in a cash and stock deal valued at about $4.3 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, Japan's Hitachi will sell its wholly owned HDD business for $3.5 billion in cash and 25 million Western Digital common shares valued at $750 million, based on a stock price of $30.01.

Seagate Technology announced in April 2011 its plan to buy Samsung's HDD business for $1.375 billion in cash and stock. In addition, the companies will enter into a NAND flash memory supply agreement under which Samsung will provide Seagate with its NAND flash memory chips for use in Seagate's enterprise SSDs, solid state hybrid drives and other products.

The Seagate and Samsung deal would consolidate the US company's position in the HDD market, leaving only two rivals, Western Digital and Hitachi. The Western Digital and Hitachi transaction would result in only one company competing in desktop HDDs and just two rivals in mobile HDDs, according to the EU Commission.

The original deadlines for a decision on the deals were both this week: Seagate-Samsung on Monday and WD-Hitachi on Tuesday. The Commission has now delayed its decision whether to clear or block the two deals to October 10, 2011.

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/44009-eu-begins-investigating-seagates-and-western-digitals-hdd-acquisitions.html

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TypeClock: An iOS app for typography lovers

Can?t breathe without Helvetica? We know the feeling. If typography gets you out of bed in the morning, Designer and Creative Technologist Dong Yoon Park has created an app for you. The TypeClock app features four different types of design, the ability to assign characters displayed, change type size and animation speed and grid mode.

Design Options include Black on White, White on Black, Black on Kraft Paper, Black on Matte Paper, Display Type Name and Display Grid. Typefaces provided by iOS include Cochin, Times New Roman, Palatino, Hoefler Text, Didot, Bodoni, Baskerville, Georgia, Arial, Verdana, Futura, Gill Sans, Optima, Trebuchet and of course, Helvetica.

Watch a video of the app in action here:

Download it here ($.99). Want to know what fonts are used in some of the web?s most famous logos? Read here.

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Source: http://thenextweb.com/apps/2011/05/31/typeclock-an-ios-app-for-typography-lovers/

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The 3D podcast with Nvidia

The 3D podcast with Nvidia

Posted on 29th May 2011 at 10:48 by Podcast with 4 comments

As the final part of our 3D week, Clive, Joe and James sit down to discuss 3D with Nvidia's PR manager for Northern Europe, Ben Berraondo.

The team pose Ben a range of questions about everything from why people should be using 3D to whether or not it?s just a gimmick and what we can expect to see from 3D in the future. We also discuss what?s holding 3D back from catching on in the mainstream.

Ben also takes the time to actually explain how game developers go about adding 3D to their games and what Nvidia does to help them and make sure their implementation is tip top. It was also interesting to hear about how 3D technology isn?t just about gaming, but can also be used to help people who have problems with their vision.

The debate about how long we'll have to wait for glasses-free 3D also raises its head, with Ben predicting that it?ll be a good five or seven years before you?ll be able to ditch your special glasses.

As ever, the bit-tech podcast features music by Brad Sucks, and was recorded on Shure microphones. You can download the podcast direct, listen in-browser or subscribe through iTunes using the links below. Also, be sure to let us know your thoughts about the discussion in the forums.

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The Kindle Swindle

Liberty Land is no more: administrators face jail time, Â?500,000 fine

Liberty Land, stylized "LiBerTy-LanD - La Liberté Sans Limite !" (translation: liberty without limits), was one of France's most popular file-sharing forums. We say this in the past tense because the website was taken down over the weekend, according to the AFP.

Liberty Land had been in operation since September 2009 and had over 800,000 members. It provided links (via services such as MegaUpload and RapidShare) to a wide variety of pirated material, including movies, music, software, and video games. Some estimates said the site had 30,000 links to albums and 100,000 links to movies and TV shows.

Liberty Land's administrators have since been charged with organized counterfeiting. The three men, aged between 25 and 30, were arrested in Marseille, near Le Havre and in the Paris suburb of Montreuil. They have been released pending trial, and now face five years in prison and a fine of ?500,000 ($713,000).

The arrests come at the end of a year-long probe after copyright protection groups ALPA and SACEM tracked a Liberty Land contributor to Rennes, France. Jean-Philippe Vidal, chief of the Rennes gendarmerie leading the probe, said investigators succeeded in tracing the operators of the site, who had setup multiple barriers to protect themselves, including a server in Canada. Vidal said the site generated "a lot of money" through advertising but could not confirm a reported figure of ?200,000 ($285,000).

Due to the differences in copyright law around the world, pirates often host their website in different countries, such as Canada, to make their illegal activities harder to bring to court. Nevertheless, these obstacles are usually overcome with time, as shown with Liberty Land.

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/44003-liberty-land-is-no-more-administrators-face-jail-time-500000-fine.html

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A Crackdown on Employing Illegal Workers

After months of criticism from Republicans who said President Obama was relaxing immigration enforcement in workplaces, the scope of the administration?s strategy has become clear as long-running investigations of employers have culminated in indictments, convictions, exponentially increased fines and jail sentences. While conducting fewer headline-making factory raids, the immigration authorities have greatly expanded the number of businesses facing scrutiny and the cases where employers face severe sanctions.

In a break with Bush-era policies, the number of criminal cases against unauthorized immigrant workers has dropped sharply over the last two years.

Among the employers who have felt the impact of the administration?s tactics are two owners of Mexican restaurants in the Chuy?s Mesquite Broiler chain, which are popular for their laid-back Margaritaville mood and their broiled mahi tacos. On April 20, immigration agents descended on 14 Chuy?s restaurants in coordinated raids in Arizona and California, detaining kitchen workers and carrying away boxes of payroll books and other evidence.

But at the arraignment days later in federal court here, no immigrant workers stood before the judge. The only criminal defendants were the owners, Mark Evenson and his son Christopher, and an accountant who worked with them, Diane Ingrid Strehlow. If the Evensons are convicted on all charges against them of tax fraud and harboring illegal workers, they each could face more than 80 years in jail.

Of 42 illegal immigrants caught in the Chuy?s sweep, only one was charged with a crime, and it was not related to the raid. Thirteen workers were processed for immigration violations ? which are civil offenses ? and detained or deported. The others remained in this country as witnesses or to seek legal status through the immigration courts.

Under President George W. Bush, immigration agents frequently conducted high-profile factory raids, leading away scores of unauthorized workers in handcuffs, often to face jail time for document fraud or identity theft before being deported. After a raid in Postville, Iowa, in 2008, nearly 300 immigrant workers went to federal prison.

The Chuy?s prosecution contrasted with the application by state and county authorities of a law that Arizona adopted in 2007 to punish employers who hire illegal immigrants; the measure was upheld by the Supreme Court on Thursday. Despite the political furor over that law, only a handful of cases have been brought against employers under its terms, which provide mainly for civil penalties. But state authorities have continued to bring criminal cases against illegal immigrant workers, leading to their deportations.

The Obama administration?s record on workplace enforcement has been fiercely debated in Washington since President Obama announced that he would try, against steep odds, to pass an immigration overhaul this year. Administration officials say that their audits and investigations of employers have laid the groundwork for a system that would dissuade companies from hiring illegal immigrants.

?We have steadily increased our efforts to investigate and prosecute employers who violate the law on a serious and grand scale,? said John Morton, the director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, also known as ICE. The next step, administration officials said, is to open a pathway that would allow millions of illegal immigrants in the country to live and work here legally.

Republicans, pointing to the decline in arrests of unauthorized workers, say the administration is failing to remove those immigrants from the work force just when Americans are grappling with high rates of unemployment.

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Surprise Victory in N.Y. Gives House Democrats Hope in 2012

?The New York race confirmed what I thought citizens would feel about Medicare,? said Mr. Pace, who is expecting to soon begin a campaign to oust Representative Scott Tipton, a freshman Republican, in southwestern Colorado. ?People are very hesitant to end Medicare as we know it.?

In the aftermath of the New York victory, which hinged on a Republican plan to reshape the health care program for older Americans, members of both parties and independent analysts now predict a more competitive race next year for control of the House, with expanded opportunities for Democrats to reclaim seats they lost in the Republican wave of 2010.

?No one believes that 2012 will be the same type of election for Republicans with the wind at our back,? said Tom Reynolds, a former New York congressman who ran the Republican Party?s House campaign effort in 2004 and 2006. ?Neither will it be ?08 or ?06 with the wind in our face. Republican office holders will have to go out and explain what the problem is and what they are trying to do to fix it.?

Buoyed by the New York surprise and bolstered by the prospect of a larger and friendlier electorate in a year when President Obama will be running, House Democrats say they can argue credibly that they are poised to cut into the Republican majority, though they were careful not to predict a takeover, which would require a gain of 24 seats.

?Democrats can win the House back in 2012,? said Representative Steve Israel, the New Yorker who is chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. ?I?m not saying we will ? yet.?

As the case of Mr. Pace and other experienced contenders who are entering races in races in districts in Illinois, Washington and Wisconsin and elsewhere shows, the victory in New York can help prospective candidates make their run-or-not decision while opening the wallets of contributors uncertain about giving if there was no hope of party gain.

?It is a sign of the pendulum swinging back the other way,? said Brad Schneider, an Illinois businessman who announced last Wednesday that he would be among the Democrats running in a Republican-held district in the suburbs north of Chicago.

But Republicans remain confident that they can protect their hold on the House, suggesting that Democrats are exaggerating the meaning of the outcome in the New York race.

?The hubris on their side is ever-expanding,? said Guy Harrison, executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

And major questions still surround the 2012 House landscape, since new Congressional district lines have not been finalized in most states, including such crucial battlegrounds as California, Florida, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.

Republicans control the redistricting power in the bulk of the states, enabling them to potentially erect a firewall against substantial Democratic gains.

?The redistricting process provides a degree of protection for House Republicans against any potential losses,? said Jonathan Collegio, a spokesman for American Crossroads, the pro-Republican group that spent $690,000 in the unsuccessful effort to hold on to House seat in New York?s 26th district.

One exception is Illinois, where a new proposed map gives significant advantages to Democrats in efforts to knock off Republicans.

But the win in New York was galvanizing for Democrats, and for now at least has given them confidence that they can use Medicare to press their broader case that Republicans are going too far in their drive to cut spending and reduce the reach of government while continuing to provide tax breaks for the wealthy. Democrats intend to seize on that issue, which could help them recapture older voters, who rallied to Republicans in the last election. ?Democrats have a message that they are going to use from now until Election Day,? said Stuart Rothenberg, a nonpartisan Congressional analyst. ?It is a weapon they didn?t have three or four months ago.?

But Mr. Harrison, the Republican House strategist, and others say Republicans will counter the Democratic attack by offering the argument that without changes, Medicare will become insolvent.

?We are going to talk about the fact that they bankrupt Medicare,? he said. ?In that framework, we have the facts on our side.?

The Democratic argument against the Republican position on Medicare could also be undercut if the White House and Congressional Democrats and Republicans reach agreement on a deal to raise the national debt ceiling that includes substantial steps to rein in the growth of Medicare.

Democrats say the Medicare plan is just one element of an emerging campaign message that will help them topple Republicans as they try to tie the Medicare overhaul to other elements of the conservative agenda being pursued by the House majority.

?Medicare is part of a narrative that voters are beginning to understand and solidify in their own minds,? said Alixandria Lapp, who is running a new independent political action committee, House Majority PAC, aiding Democrats. ?Republicans are putting together a budget and policies that ask only some Americans to sacrifice. It is fundamentally unfair.?

A hint of where Democrats see their potential 2012 openings can be gleaned from the Republicans who were singled out in radio attack advertisements paid for by Ms. Lapp?s organization, which spent more than $300,000 in the New York race.

After the House budget vote in April, the group went after 10 freshmen Republicans in potential swing districts, including Representatives Paul Gosar of Arizona, Allen B. West of Florida, Chip Cravaack of Minnesota, Ann Marie Buerkle of New York and Sean P. Duffy of Wisconsin.

Depending on how redistricting goes, Democrats also see opportunities for pickups in Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, New York and Texas as well as other states.

Democrats say they do not intend to rely solely on the fight over Medicare to carry their candidates, with Mr. Israel noting that the victory in New York?s 26th District ?will inform our strategy; it will not be our strategy.?

?We are not going to get cocky out of New York 26,? he said. ?It was a shot in the arm, but it does not define the 2012 election.?

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Asus unveils smartphone-tablet combo, the Padfone

Asus has unveiled a range of new products at the Computex 2011 trade show in Taipei, including notebooks, netbooks and a curious tablet device that houses with a 4.3-inch phone on the back. Dubbed Padfone, the latter is somewhat similar in concept to the Motorola Atrix, except you dock your phone with a tablet instead of laptop.

Details are scarce at the moment but we know the tablet shell is fully powered by the smartphone, and as such it will allow users to access all the phone's features on the larger 10.1-inch screen of the tablet as soon as it is inserted. Asus says the tablet will display content in its native resolution as opposed to simply upscaling the smartphone's display. It will also feature an extended battery and an I/O extender that will allow other devices to communicate with the phone.

 

The modular system means Asus could introduce other docking solutions to its ecosystem down the road, all powered by the smartphone while keeping a single data plan for connectivity -- that is of course unless carriers have a say in it, which is possible seeing how AT&T requires a paid tethering plan for using the Atrix 4G with the laptop dock.

Besides sharing one SIM card for 3G access, storage will also be shared across both devices. It's unclear which flavor of Android will power the hybrid device. Although during the company's Computex presentation, Chairman Jonney Shih was showing off a Honeycomb tablet, it's possible the device will end up running the upcoming Ice Cream Sandwich release, which will finally unify the Android user experience for smartphones and tablets.

There aren?t any pricing details yet either as Asus is aiming for a release towards the end of this year. In the meantime, you can watch Asus' promotional video for the Padfone above and another one discussing the device's design process.

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Source: http://www.techspot.com/news/43999-asus-unveils-smartphone-tablet-combo-the-padfone.html

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Palin?s Path May Be Unclear, but Her Ride Is Revved Up

Ms. Palin, the former governor of Alaska, let the anticipation build for hours on Sunday in the Pentagon?s North Parking Lot, where thousands of bikers (and their rumbling Harleys) had gathered for the annual Rolling Thunder rally ahead of Memorial Day.

And then, suddenly, there she was: Ms. Palin, with her husband, Todd, and the rest of the family. Wearing matching black Harley-Davidson helmets, they rode motorcycles toward the front of the procession through a crush of cameramen, photographers, reporters and leather-clad bikers, all jostling for just a peek at the woman who might be president.

A traditional political appearance it was not. She did not make any public remarks or shake hands with dignitaries. There was no news release accompanying her visit. And after the short ride to the National Mall ? she rode on the back of a volunteer?s bike ? she sped off in a black sport utility vehicle to points unknown to anyone outside her small circle, even to the reporters covering her.

Ms. Palin?s visit here ? to start her still-mysterious One Nation bus tour along the East Coast ? provided no clarity about whether she will run for the Republican presidential nomination. But it did reinforce the idea that if she does, her campaign will not be conducted in the usual way.

Indeed, the appearance offered a study in contrasts between Ms. Palin and her would-be Republican rivals, who, as she rumbled through Washington clad in black leather, did the things that candidates for president usually do.

Tim Pawlenty, the former governor of Minnesota, appeared on the ABC News program ?This Week? dressed for the part: navy suit, pressed white shirt, light-blue tie. He said the usual things about policies and positions, praising the House Republican budget and insisting that the nation face its debt problem.

?I don?t think we should raise the debt ceiling,? Mr. Pawlenty told the program?s host, Christiane Amanpour. ?And if the Congress moves in that direction,? he said, ?they better get something really good for it. It better be permanent, and it better be structural, like a balanced budget amendment, and like permanent caps and limits on spending that are specific.?

Jon M. Huntsman Jr., the former governor of Utah who is also considering a jump into the presidential race, recently took a textbook swing through New Hampshire, stopping at the gun shops that politicians like to visit. Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, went to Iowa last week for a speech, and he promises to announce his candidacy formally in New Hampshire on Thursday.

And then there is Ms. Palin. The multistate tour she announced with fanfare on the Web site of her political action committee last week remains obscure to most. Her aides refused to say where she was going or when, pointing reporters and others to her Web site, which, as of late Sunday, gave no details.

Her brief statement about the tour on the Web is filled only with gauzy imagery about the ?patriotic sites? she will visit in the days ahead.

?We encourage you to support the pro-America events we?ll be privileged to participate in during these coming weeks,? she said in a written statement. ?Discover the ties that bind Americans, our history, our traditions, and the exceptional nature of our country!?

The first of those stops, the biker rally, was mostly friendly territory, though some in the crowd said they wondered whether she was there to support their causes or to further her own celebrity-driven political career. Many said they would welcome a presidential campaign by Ms. Palin.

?I think it?s fantastic,? said Richard Oldham, 71, who had ridden his motorcycle for three days from Battle Creek, Mich. ?She?s a supporter of the armed forces. She?s a patriot.?

Doug Ludlow, 61, who rode with Mr. Oldham from Battle Creek, said other bikers would agree. ?This lot is full of American patriots,? he said. ?Palin is an American patriot.?

But others said they did not believe she would run for president. And some said they did not want her to run. Ron Kubowicz, 61, who rode from Scranton, Pa., said he would not vote for her.

?I don?t think she?s qualified,? he said. ?And that?s from a gun-toting, motorcycle-riding veteran from Pennsylvania.?

Although she made no public statements during the rally, she was effusive in remarks posted on her Web site afterward.

?There?s no better way to see D.C. than on the back of a Harley!? Ms. Palin wrote. ?Whether you?re riding the open road or the frozen tundra, you?re celebrating a free spirit. What could be more American than that??

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The Kindle Swindle

I know that many, many people have observed that all books and articles tend to look the same on the screen of an iPhone or Kindle or on the Kindle app of the iPad, and this strips the reading experience of texture?the array of sensory experiences that have come to be represented as the "book smell." This has become such a cliché by writers nostalgic for the simpler, more book-smell-redolent past that some humorist has even invented a fictitious aerosol spray, "for sale" at smellofbooks.com, that purports to allow readers to "finally enjoy reading e-books without giving up the smell you love so much."

In the introduction to the 2006 edition of his prescient 1994 essay collection The Gutenberg Elegies, Sven Birkerts summed up the deeper concern that those superficial aesthetic concerns stand in for: "The electronic impulse works against the durational reverie of reading. And however much other media take up the slack ... what is lost is the contemplative register. And this, in the chain of consequences, alters subjectivity, dissipates its intensity." In other words, what's at stake when we lose the book-specific experience of reading isn't just the emotional connection to the book or magazine as an object; we've redefined what reading is. The consequences of this redefinition can be positive, negative, or indifferent.  I set out to experience and describe device-reading with this set of concerns in mind, as someone who loves reading on, and writing for, both page and screen, but worries a lot about the growing primacy of the latter. 

The iPad and its brothers will never completely succeed in replicating the experience of reading a book, and that's fine: that's what books are for, and will continue to be for. What we need is?I hesitate to write the word, but there seems to be no substitute for it in this context?"content" that is actually tailored to the medium from which it will be consumed.  And for examples of how a medium can shape media, for better and for worse, we need only look to the Internet.

Looking to the Internet is what I haven't been doing lately. A few months ago?so, very belatedly?I became aware that the kind of mental rhythms that online reading and writing evoke and celebrate were inimical to the kind of work I'm trying to do.  (I'm working on a novel.) This won't be the kind of essay where the author has just discovered that the Internet is bad and that microblogging platforms are designed to be maximally addictive and that the only way to live a good, pure, intellectually whole-wheatish lifestyle is to abstain from rolling around in the Internet's glittering piles of trash and candy. (I have written that essay a weirdly huge number of times, and often in the form of blog posts.) But while I may not have been reading much online lately, like Jaron Lanier, the virtual reality impresario and author of the manifesto You Are Not a Gadget, I acknowledge that the Internet has excellent bright spots, without crediting it for being a semi-magical repository for all the world's knowledge and creativity. Also like Lanier, I think it's too bad that the infrastructure of most blogging and social media platforms devalues authorship and privileges semi-anonymous, consequence-free collaboration. But I also value blog writing on its own terms.

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Source: http://feeds.technologyreview.com/click.phdo?i=3c9611208157abd65569a378e16c1e84

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