}r\Ŭ}O*(1OQ[+V-8`F4+٪UZΥJ0$eJLN͑% 4ݍOa{W"R%?= #O$d2Q֣?ILt{$"z4au‡JUC5'7MGpȓDS.X<=;c2cO6{|j%b9d>ݓH0it>\#reoXgj4K=I2/aT<| œݿ7*dr0̟^nIX:qџ -+=٘~'iۃ?=RIū5ggFkfd}#69=Y>W'r4 Qd7ƈ]ШՁ?|dMbp'Ȳ ltCV+ =`s߷ps81 0RȯT{H9^/$d@fMKx0ŏ5$צ<Ayu6P9o /?xΘ_ǶhQvtv^NޫVp6,-:Տ"k'wgo1jsw;gչ;;?;9=?}W{9u?>eAAO6y<|hٝBEҐ\?IS8(Q?jOFvH0X90RU< stJ3Amr4=M`"?^%"'y#]PϠŇg$P##2_rdxou2cGy**{=x><&)G/Ox?"!7{.V$<Ѫ@k-5x7')0tbp}dc9QĬڬڬ=YRAg?)\*C$dFwƥuh8`D<1` wpD#^=4;z_ϑ(D5 1?Z~Ӱ/*QŽ7;ɯ:oN6_惝ap_~mVwNuNO_e`Z@DHR8xy1D ;q"#&ÚiŠ-`L HE"&=jbYJ6ǪWVpO7FVo7Z}sX}=KB:sm<ю;hek+2{=ޱ;@tus*>u?lo4پ-m5t7u׆`mֆ �#,cp^U=fn0F-ҋ۟wZ[{x0}۵F/ f+[[Q]~Gv}ۿqAJol6`@UQ-. :5nKcܮ!GO쿖6n*?;U}*몂1L"kO*.x0*ÊKȿGL*Y_1vci+rc-Qd"|6ņ88G92\&V'FLܕ4TCXf!P͈Zr 2h ri;},t-zARB]76,EЅba'$@d<2ؾFCMp1LȪw&*zHDGo\{E&d}al.7!+oJǶdZ,=c> 0V\a»)}#> "jSQGM`3X,bC]c23YFe,lVm{{_;#vl>[ |5[X]J3 =&EfU9Al"#(ZJPlձn/~U}wMk/WźJnopfd>89{ǎO^,:a^AV> xJ/@b;|1n;'ǝ۲X @:&Uc-F.A=DZ6/84 sƜ &CS.,,4Y|̚X!] WfO3fN(?đf_TJ(M3`Yb5:cd01%Z.BБ4Amw:}TFp]s\xo\t)0t<8aou]ۊXۊog+ݰ"2={rwga!b]2_Ԇ:3e"˦D4Cofo-]rqf wYx6fj9u_?geԉP^9%+TߠSdKw9rsYMg&%bԎM2I`/hdFepLb[.Rap"R p)7ࡌ)"1E&\LDL\綨U[uy g]%RS _[s(͠AgqQڔӬ|^ZLY\\bnTjύx(X$2h W! Viu!8@kU0/SW/L7Mq7f2vPo7kNJVI7jmzө'&H_=NeJFl«ZI2C9QcZ[FE&lnwq7G;^_^u(ZW2[pҙV88] ?u 0b@Mf0'dVf9^awQTvEڀSo*~p7Yex}y(|XK=HR5ÿNS5!" YN` R)B.a]9D!)B~45H"*PFUa~R7ܔHj2p(JcHl%&?Dpc'71scLU\Ims,?呋8@Q3 P:Z+Ⅶ9toܾ4ۋY>l7j`+/g /G˾sk;sk;w/vJXPBʑIoI\ \~WpQcbJfy-PkUJ2oȯEh*?<(#fJ>b7ݬl~9!rgD%ߋȸHgK"wi{x̮ 75`vjQ'pҡmVU6I!>8/[-"u5U8nc,tJH3ųuϝׇ/*p*\ZJV)!M 5fTS dv^Hx^tHWS~VB_"Wz~&wSw*u;1N Vdž grm¤e#}̰-p#["o/\-B`_/&8V%aiMX/ucRpE 7c> "H4#zH-7P P9YQu,(1xiZ!'3p^' 1Ӡtbpfǐ*0b^3<0~l&5Fxee3Pa8^21Pla'4qy62:qγ}7w~9^/#߯3Rv('E aGrzIAZ4914agcodZ
Written By Bersemangat on Senin, 25 Februari 2013 | 17.56
Here's a Cute Cat Watching Hockey
Written By Bersemangat on Minggu, 24 Februari 2013 | 17.56
(Recasts, adds witness and driver quotes, details) Feb 23 (Reuters) - A fiery pile-up at the Daytona speedway on Saturday injured at least 28 fans and a driver after the 10-car crash sent car debris, including a tire, flying into the crowd in the final lap of the Nationwide NASCAR race. Race officials said 14 fans were sent to nearby hospitals and another 14 were treated at the Florida track, which will host the prestigious Daytona 500 race on Sunday. "Stuff was flying everywhere," spectator Terry Huckaby, whose brother was sent to the hospital with a leg injury, told the ESPN sports network. ...
Could This Be the iPhone 5S?
Photos of what may be Apple's next iPhone surfaced online Monday.
Posted by a Chinese technology site, the images allegedly show the iPhone 5S already going into production. Nearly identical to the iPhone 5, the handset shown in the photos has an updated vibration motor (some have complained the iPhone 5's is too noisy). Beyond that minor difference, however, it looks identical to the model currently on the market. Apple launched the iPhone 5 last September.
[More from Mashable: iMadeFace Turns You Into a Cartoon]
The Chinese site also suggested that an iPhone 6 was on the way, soon. It said the 6 will sport a larger display, increasing from 4.8 inches to 5 inches.
[More from Mashable: Apple Might Be Building a Wristwatch And Two Other Stories You Need to Know]
This past weekend, rumors surfaced that the Cupertino, Calif. company was also working on a smart watch. Made out of curved glass, the watch can potentially let users to make calls, answer texts and run apps from their wrists.
What do you want to see from Apple's next iPhone? Let us know your thoughts in the comments, below.
Click here to view the gallery: Apple Smart Watch Concepts
Images courtesy of Sjbbs Zol
This story originally published on Mashable here.
EU sees Google competition deal after August
PARIS (Reuters) - EU regulators hope to resolve a two-year investigation into U.S. internet company Google in the latter half of the year, the EU's antitrust chief said on Friday, although a rival expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of any solution.
The European Commission - the EU's executive arm - has been examining proposals put forward by Google to resolve complaints from more than a dozen companies, including Microsoft, that Google was using its market dominance to block competitors.
"We can reach an agreement after the summer break. We can envisage this as a possible deadline," EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia told a Concurrences Journal conference.
The Commission is closed for its summer break for most of August.
Almunia said there would only be a decision "if everything was okay." Neither Google nor the EU antitrust authority have detailed what concessions the U.S. group has offered. If the EU authority accepts the offer, it would mean no fine for Google.
People familiar with the matter have previously told Reuters that Google offered to label its own services in search results to differentiate them from rival services, and also to impose fewer restrictions on advertisers.
The Commission is expected to seek feedback from Google rivals and other third parties once it completes its examination of the concessions.
However, British price comparison site and Google complainant Foundem had doubts about the efficacy of any proposals from the U.S. company.
"We will withhold judgment on Google's proposals until we have seen them, but everything we have learned about Google makes us sceptical that it would volunteer truly effective remedies until it has been formally charged with infringement," said Foundem Chief Executive Shivaun Raff.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission last month ended its own investigation without any significant action, handing Google a major victory.
EU regulators have said Google may have favored its own search services over those of rivals, copied travel and restaurant reviews from competing sites without permission, and placed restrictions on advertisers and advertising.
(Editing by Dan Lalor and Mark Potter)
Einhorn scores legal victory versus Apple in cash scuffle
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. judge handed outspoken hedge fund manager David Einhorn a victory in his battle with Apple Inc on Friday, blocking the iPhone maker from moving forward with a shareholder vote on a controversial proposal to limit the company's ability to issue preferred stock.
U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan in Manhattan granted a motion by Einhorn's Greenlight Capital for a preliminary injunction stopping a vote on that proposal, scheduled for the company's February 27 stockholders' meeting.
The decision could hand Einhorn more leverage as he pursues his pitch for Apple to issue what he has called the "iPref": preferred stock with a perpetual dividend that he contends would reward investors and help boost the company's share price.
Greenlight sued Apple on February 7 as part of a broader pitch to unlock more of its $137 billion in cash. The hedge fund manager has lobbied Apple to issue preferred stock with a perpetual 4 percent dividend, and on Thursday made a direct appeal to shareholders on a teleconference.
Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook last week dismissed the lawsuit as a "silly sideshow."
The lawsuit itself challenged a measure called Proposal No. 2 that Apple put forward, which would eliminate its power to issue preferred shares without a shareholder vote.
At issue is Apple's "bundling" of that measure with two other unrelated matters into a single proxy proposal.
Greenlight said it supported two of the proposed amendments, but not the one on preferred shares.
In his ruling, Sullivan said Greenlight and another investor who also sued Apple "are likely to succeed on the merits and face irreparable harm if the vote on Proposal No. 2 is permitted to proceed."
"We are disappointed with the court's ruling. Proposal No. 2 is part of our efforts to further enhance corporate governance and serve our shareholders' best interests," Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said. "Unfortunately, due to today's decision, shareholders will not be able to vote on Proposal No. 2 at our annual meeting next week."
A spokesman for Greenlight called the ruling a "significant win for all Apple shareholders and for good corporate governance."
But not all shareholders were happy. California pension fund Calpers, a major Apple investor and public supporter of Apple's proposal, said implementation of "majority voting and shareholder approval for the issuance of new stock - preferred or otherwise - is worth waiting for."
"We encourage Apple to reintroduce these measures as soon as is practical so that all investors can be heard," Anne Simpson, Calpers' director of global governance, said in a statement.
BUNDLES
The ruling could be a warning for other companies when issuing proxy proposals, said James Cox, a professor at Duke University School of Law.
"It's going to make managers reluctant to bundle things together, because you're never going to know when you send them out if there's an Einhorn out there," he said.
The lawsuit was centered on a narrow issue of whether Apple violated U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules by "bundling" the preferred shares item with two other unrelated matters into one proxy proposal.
Greenlight's lawyers contended the SEC rules were intended to protect shareholders from being forced to vote for a proxy proposal involving materially different issues that the investors might not entirely support.
Apple had argued Proposal No. 2, which only dealt with amendments to its charter, constitute a single matter and wasn't bundled. Sullivan called the company's arguments "unavailing."
"Given the language and purpose of the rules, it is plain to the Court that Proposal No. 2 impermissibly bundles 'separate matters' for shareholder consideration," Sullivan wrote.
Judge Sullivan also found that Greenlight would be irreparably harmed without the injunction, since it would be forced to vote against its own interests. Denying Greenlight's motion would prevent it and other investors from exercising their rights to a fair vote, Sullivan said.
Sullivan separately declined to block a vote from going forward on a separate proxy proposal, Proposal No. 4, which sought an advisory "say on pay" vote on Apple executives' compensation.
The proposal had been challenged by investor Brian Gralnick of Pennsylvania, who contends Apple did not disclose enough details about how it made its compensation decisions.
Sullivan rejected that argument, saying Apple's disclosures were "plainly sufficient under SEC rules."
Arnold Gershon, a lawyer for Gralnick at Barrack, Rodos & Bacine, said he was "very pleased" with Sullivan's decision to the extent it enjoined the Proposal No. 2 vote, though said he would have to decide what to do next with regard to the say-on-pay proposal.
Sullivan directed the parties to submit a joint letter by March 1 outlining the next contemplated steps in this case.
Apple shares closed up 1.1 percent at $450.81 on Friday.
The case is Greenlight Capital LP, et al., v. Apple Inc., U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, 13-900.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Additional reporting by Poornima Gupta in San Francisco; Editing by Martha Graybow, Gary Hill, Leslie Adler, Carol Bishopric and Lisa Shumaker)
Analysis: The near impossible battle against hackers everywhere
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Dire warnings from Washington about a "cyber Pearl Harbor" envision a single surprise strike from a formidable enemy that could destroy power plants nationwide, disable the financial system or cripple the U.S. government.
But those on the front lines say it isn't all about protecting U.S. government and corporate networks from a single sudden attack. They report fending off many intrusions at once from perhaps dozens of countries, plus well-funded electronic guerrillas and skilled criminals.
Security officers and their consultants say they are overwhelmed. The attacks are not only from China, which Washington has long accused of spying on U.S. companies, many emanate from Russia, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Western countries. Perpetrators range from elite military units to organized criminal rings to activist teenagers.
"They outspend us and they outman us in almost every way," said Dell Inc's chief security officer, John McClurg. "I don't recall, in my adult life, a more challenging time."
The big fear is that one day a major company or government agency will face a severe and very costly disruption to their business when hackers steal or damage critical data, sabotage infrastructure or destroy consumers' confidence in the safety of their information.
Elite security firm Mandiant Corp on Monday published a 74-page report that accused a unit of the Chinese army of stealing data from more than 100 companies. While China immediately denied the allegations, Mandiant and other security experts say the hacker group is just one of more than 20 with origins in China.
Chinese hackers tend to take aim at the largest corporations and most innovative technology companies, using trick emails that appear to come from trusted colleagues but bear attachments tainted with viruses, spyware and other malicious software, according to Western cyber investigators.
Eastern European criminal rings, meanwhile, use "drive-by downloads" to corrupt popular websites, such as NBC.com last week, to infect visitors. Though the malicious programs vary, they often include software for recording keystrokes as computer users enter financial account passwords.
Others getting into the game include activists in the style of the loosely associated group known as Anonymous, who favor denial-of-service attacks that temporarily block websites from view and automated searches for common vulnerabilities that give them a way in to access to corporate information.
An increasing number of countries are sponsoring cyber weapons and electronic spying programs, law enforcement officials said. The reported involvement of the United States in the production of electronic worms including Stuxnet, which hurt Iran's uranium enrichment program, is viewed as among the most successful.
Iran has also been blamed for a series of unusually effective denial-of-service attacks against major U.S. banks in the past six months that blocked their online banking sites. Iran is suspected of penetrating at least one U.S. oil company, two people familiar with the ongoing investigation told Reuters.
"There is a battle looming in any direction you look," said Jeff Moss, the chief information security officer of ICANN, a group that manages some of the Internet's key infrastructure.
"Everybody's personal objectives go by the wayside when there is just fire after fire," said Moss, who also advises the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
HUNDREDS OF CASES UNREPORTED
Industry veterans say the growth in the number of hackers, the software tools available to them, and the thriving economic underground serving them have made any computer network connected to the Internet impossible to defend flawlessly.
"Your average operational security engineer feels somewhat under siege," said Bruce Murphy, a Deloitte & Touche LLP principal who studies the security workforce. "It feels like Sisyphus rolling a rock up the hill, and the hill keeps getting steeper."
In the same month that President Barack Obama decried enemies "seeking the ability to sabotage our power grids, our financial institutions, our air traffic control systems," cyber attacks on some prominent U.S. companies were reported.
Three leading U.S. newspapers, Apple Inc, Facebook Inc, Twitter and Microsoft Corp all admitted in February they had been hacked. The malicious software inserted on employee computers at the technology companies has been detected at hundreds of other firms that have chosen to keep silent about the incidents, two people familiar with the case told Reuters.
"I don't remember a time when so many companies have been so visibly 'owned' and were so ill-equipped," said Adam O'Donnell, an executive at security firm Sourcefire Inc, using the hacker slang for unauthorized control.
Far from being hyped, cyber intrusions remain so under-disclosed — for fear leaks about the attacks will spook investors — that the new head of the FBI's cyber crime effort, Executive Assistant Director Richard McFeely, said the secrecy has become a major challenge.
"Our biggest issue right now is getting the private sector to a comfort level where they can report anomalies, malware, incidences within their networks," McFeely said. "It has been very difficult with a lot of major companies to get them to cooperate fully."
McFeely said the FBI plans to open a repository of malicious software to encourage information sharing among companies in the same industry. Obama also recently issued an executive order on cyber security that encourages cooperation.
The former head of the National Security Agency, Michael Hayden, supports the use of trade and diplomatic channels to pressure hacking nations, as called for under a new White House strategy that was announced on Wednesday.
"The Chinese, with some legitimacy, will say 'You spy on us.' And as former director of the NSA I'll say, 'Yeah, and we're better at it than you are," said Hayden, now a principal at security consultant Chertoff Group.
He said what worries him the most is Chinese presence on networks that have no espionage value, such as systems that run infrastructure like energy and water plants. "There's no intellectual property to be pilfered there, no trade secrets, no negotiating positions. So that makes you frightened because it seems to be attack preparation," Hayden said.
Amid the rising angst, many of the top professionals in the field will convene in San Francisco on Monday for the best-known U.S. security industry conference, named after host company and EMC Corp unit RSA.
Several experts said they were convinced that companies are spending money on the wrong stuff, such as antivirus subscriptions that cannot recognize new or targeted attacks.
RSA Executive Chairman Art Coviello and Francis deSouza, head of products at top vendor Symantec Corp, both said they will give keynote speeches calling for a focus on more sophisticated analytical tools that look for unusual behavior on the network — which sounds expensive.
Others urge a more basic approach of limiting users' computer privileges, rapidly installing software updates, and allowing only trusted programs to function.
Some security companies are starting over with new designs, such as forcing all of their customers' programs to run on walled-off virtual machines.
With such divergent views, so much money at stake, and so many problems, there are perhaps just two areas of agreement.
Most people in the industry and government believe things will get worse. Coviello, for his part, predicted that a first-of-its kind - but relatively simple - virus that deleted all data on tens of thousands of PCs at Saudi Arabia's national oil company last year is a harbinger of what will come.
And most say that the increased mainstream attention on cyber security, even if it fixes uncomfortably on the industry's failings and tenacious adversaries, will help drive a desperately needed debate about what do to internationally and at home.
(Reporting by Joseph Menn in San Francisco; Additional reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston and Deborah Charles in Washington; Editing by Tiffany Wu and Jackie Frank)
Here's a Cute Cat Watching Hockey
Written By Bersemangat on Sabtu, 23 Februari 2013 | 17.56
It's one thing to say that Lindsay Lohan wore a killer dress but it's another to say that she killed a dress! Ripped and extremely re-altered is how the actress returned a Theia couture gown and her personal stylist, Phillip Bloch -- who has styled winning Oscar looks for Halle Berry and Hilary Swank -- deconstructed the dress debacle for Access Hollywood.
Could This Be the iPhone 5S?
Photos of what may be Apple's next iPhone surfaced online Monday.
Posted by a Chinese technology site, the images allegedly show the iPhone 5S already going into production. Nearly identical to the iPhone 5, the handset shown in the photos has an updated vibration motor (some have complained the iPhone 5's is too noisy). Beyond that minor difference, however, it looks identical to the model currently on the market. Apple launched the iPhone 5 last September.
[More from Mashable: iMadeFace Turns You Into a Cartoon]
The Chinese site also suggested that an iPhone 6 was on the way, soon. It said the 6 will sport a larger display, increasing from 4.8 inches to 5 inches.
[More from Mashable: Apple Might Be Building a Wristwatch And Two Other Stories You Need to Know]
This past weekend, rumors surfaced that the Cupertino, Calif. company was also working on a smart watch. Made out of curved glass, the watch can potentially let users to make calls, answer texts and run apps from their wrists.
What do you want to see from Apple's next iPhone? Let us know your thoughts in the comments, below.
Click here to view the gallery: Apple Smart Watch Concepts
Images courtesy of Sjbbs Zol
This story originally published on Mashable here.
EU sees Google competition deal after August
PARIS (Reuters) - EU regulators hope to resolve a two-year investigation into U.S. internet company Google in the latter half of the year, the EU's antitrust chief said on Friday, although a rival expressed skepticism about the effectiveness of any solution.
The European Commission - the EU's executive arm - has been examining proposals put forward by Google to resolve complaints from more than a dozen companies, including Microsoft, that Google was using its market dominance to block competitors.
"We can reach an agreement after the summer break. We can envisage this as a possible deadline," EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia told a Concurrences Journal conference.
The Commission is closed for its summer break for most of August.
Almunia said there would only be a decision "if everything was okay." Neither Google nor the EU antitrust authority have detailed what concessions the U.S. group has offered. If the EU authority accepts the offer, it would mean no fine for Google.
People familiar with the matter have previously told Reuters that Google offered to label its own services in search results to differentiate them from rival services, and also to impose fewer restrictions on advertisers.
The Commission is expected to seek feedback from Google rivals and other third parties once it completes its examination of the concessions.
However, British price comparison site and Google complainant Foundem had doubts about the efficacy of any proposals from the U.S. company.
"We will withhold judgment on Google's proposals until we have seen them, but everything we have learned about Google makes us sceptical that it would volunteer truly effective remedies until it has been formally charged with infringement," said Foundem Chief Executive Shivaun Raff.
The U.S. Federal Trade Commission last month ended its own investigation without any significant action, handing Google a major victory.
EU regulators have said Google may have favored its own search services over those of rivals, copied travel and restaurant reviews from competing sites without permission, and placed restrictions on advertisers and advertising.
(Editing by Dan Lalor and Mark Potter)
Microsoft says small number of its computers hacked
SEATTLE (Reuters) - Microsoft Corp said on Friday a small number of its computers, including some in its Mac software business unit, were infected with malware, but there was no evidence of customer data being affected and it is continuing its investigation.
The world's largest software company said the security intrusion was "similar" to recent ones reported by Apple Inc and Facebook Inc.
The incident, reported on one of the company's public blogs happened "recently", but Microsoft said it chose not to make any statement publicly while it gathered information about the attack.
"This type of cyberattack is no surprise to Microsoft and other companies that must grapple with determined and persistent adversaries," said Matt Thomlinson, general manager of Trustworthy Computing Security at Microsoft, in the company's blog post.
Over the past week or so, both Apple and Facebook said computers used by employees were attacked after visiting a software developer website infected with malicious software.
The attacks come at a time of broader concern about computer security.
Newspaper websites, including those of The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, have been infiltrated recently. Earlier this month U.S. President Barack Obama issued an executive order seeking better protection of the country's critical infrastructure from cyber attacks.
(Reporting By Bill Rigby; Editing by Gary Hill and Andrew Hay)
Einhorn scores legal victory versus Apple in cash scuffle
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. judge handed outspoken hedge fund manager David Einhorn a victory in his battle with Apple Inc on Friday, blocking the iPhone maker from moving forward with a shareholder vote on a controversial proposal to limit the company's ability to issue preferred stock.
U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan in Manhattan granted a motion by Einhorn's Greenlight Capital for a preliminary injunction stopping a vote on that proposal, scheduled for the company's February 27 stockholders' meeting.
The decision could hand Einhorn more leverage as he pursues his pitch for Apple to issue what he has called the "iPref": preferred stock with a perpetual dividend that he contends would reward investors and help boost the company's share price.
Greenlight sued Apple on February 7 as part of a broader pitch to unlock more of its $137 billion in cash. The hedge fund manager has lobbied Apple to issue preferred stock with a perpetual 4 percent dividend, and on Thursday made a direct appeal to shareholders on a teleconference.
Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook last week dismissed the lawsuit as a "silly sideshow."
The lawsuit itself challenged a measure called Proposal No. 2 that Apple put forward, which would eliminate its power to issue preferred shares without a shareholder vote.
At issue is Apple's "bundling" of that measure with two other unrelated matters into a single proxy proposal.
Greenlight said it supported two of the proposed amendments, but not the one on preferred shares.
In his ruling, Sullivan said Greenlight and another investor who also sued Apple "are likely to succeed on the merits and face irreparable harm if the vote on Proposal No. 2 is permitted to proceed."
"We are disappointed with the court's ruling. Proposal No. 2 is part of our efforts to further enhance corporate governance and serve our shareholders' best interests," Apple spokesman Steve Dowling said. "Unfortunately, due to today's decision, shareholders will not be able to vote on Proposal No. 2 at our annual meeting next week."
A spokesman for Greenlight called the ruling a "significant win for all Apple shareholders and for good corporate governance."
But not all shareholders were happy. California pension fund Calpers, a major Apple investor and public supporter of Apple's proposal, said implementation of "majority voting and shareholder approval for the issuance of new stock - preferred or otherwise - is worth waiting for."
"We encourage Apple to reintroduce these measures as soon as is practical so that all investors can be heard," Anne Simpson, Calpers' director of global governance, said in a statement.
BUNDLES
The ruling could be a warning for other companies when issuing proxy proposals, said James Cox, a professor at Duke University School of Law.
"It's going to make managers reluctant to bundle things together, because you're never going to know when you send them out if there's an Einhorn out there," he said.
The lawsuit was centered on a narrow issue of whether Apple violated U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission rules by "bundling" the preferred shares item with two other unrelated matters into one proxy proposal.
Greenlight's lawyers contended the SEC rules were intended to protect shareholders from being forced to vote for a proxy proposal involving materially different issues that the investors might not entirely support.
Apple had argued Proposal No. 2, which only dealt with amendments to its charter, constitute a single matter and wasn't bundled. Sullivan called the company's arguments "unavailing."
"Given the language and purpose of the rules, it is plain to the Court that Proposal No. 2 impermissibly bundles 'separate matters' for shareholder consideration," Sullivan wrote.
Judge Sullivan also found that Greenlight would be irreparably harmed without the injunction, since it would be forced to vote against its own interests. Denying Greenlight's motion would prevent it and other investors from exercising their rights to a fair vote, Sullivan said.
Sullivan separately declined to block a vote from going forward on a separate proxy proposal, Proposal No. 4, which sought an advisory "say on pay" vote on Apple executives' compensation.
The proposal had been challenged by investor Brian Gralnick of Pennsylvania, who contends Apple did not disclose enough details about how it made its compensation decisions.
Sullivan rejected that argument, saying Apple's disclosures were "plainly sufficient under SEC rules."
Arnold Gershon, a lawyer for Gralnick at Barrack, Rodos & Bacine, said he was "very pleased" with Sullivan's decision to the extent it enjoined the Proposal No. 2 vote, though said he would have to decide what to do next with regard to the say-on-pay proposal.
Sullivan directed the parties to submit a joint letter by March 1 outlining the next contemplated steps in this case.
Apple shares closed up 1.1 percent at $450.81 on Friday.
The case is Greenlight Capital LP, et al., v. Apple Inc., U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, 13-900.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Additional reporting by Poornima Gupta in San Francisco; Editing by Martha Graybow, Gary Hill, Leslie Adler, Carol Bishopric and Lisa Shumaker)
Written By Bersemangat on Jumat, 22 Februari 2013 | 17.56
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Here's a Cute Cat Watching Hockey
Written By Bersemangat on Kamis, 21 Februari 2013 | 17.56
TORONTO, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Canada's Rebecca Marino, a rising star in women's tennis, stepped away from the sport in search of a normal life on Wednesday, weary of battling depression and cyber-bullies. Ranked number 38 in the world two years ago, the 22-year-old admitted she had long suffered from depression and was no longer willing to make the sacrifices necessary to reach the top. "After thinking long and hard, I do not have the passion or enjoyment to drive myself to the level I would like to be at in professional tennis," Marino explained in a conference call. ...
Could This Be the iPhone 5S?
Photos of what may be Apple's next iPhone surfaced online Monday.
Posted by a Chinese technology site, the images allegedly show the iPhone 5S already going into production. Nearly identical to the iPhone 5, the handset shown in the photos has an updated vibration motor (some have complained the iPhone 5's is too noisy). Beyond that minor difference, however, it looks identical to the model currently on the market. Apple launched the iPhone 5 last September.
[More from Mashable: iMadeFace Turns You Into a Cartoon]
The Chinese site also suggested that an iPhone 6 was on the way, soon. It said the 6 will sport a larger display, increasing from 4.8 inches to 5 inches.
[More from Mashable: Apple Might Be Building a Wristwatch And Two Other Stories You Need to Know]
This past weekend, rumors surfaced that the Cupertino, Calif. company was also working on a smart watch. Made out of curved glass, the watch can potentially let users to make calls, answer texts and run apps from their wrists.
What do you want to see from Apple's next iPhone? Let us know your thoughts in the comments, below.
Click here to view the gallery: Apple Smart Watch Concepts
Images courtesy of Sjbbs Zol
This story originally published on Mashable here.
U.S. seeks to tackle trade-secret theft by China, others
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Faced with the growing theft of U.S. trade secrets, the White House said on Wednesday it was stepping up diplomatic pressure and mulling tougher laws to stem the threat to American businesses and security from China and other nations.
The plan includes working with like-minded governments to put pressure on bad actors, using trade policy tools, increasing criminal prosecutions and launching a 120-day review to see whether new U.S. legislation is needed.
"A hacker in China can acquire source code from a software company in Virginia without leaving his or her desk," U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said at a White House event to unveil the strategy.
Although the White House report did not cite China by name, many see the Asian giant as the main threat. A study released this week by a private security firm accused the Chinese military of orchestrating numerous cyber attacks against U.S. businesses, a charge Beijing has denied.
The Obama administration said its strategy aims to counter what Holder called "a significant and steadily increasing threat to America's economy and national security interests."
"As new technology has torn down traditional barriers to international business and global commerce, they also make it easier for criminals to steal secrets and to do so from anywhere, anywhere in the world," Holder said.
Last week, Representative Dutch Ruppersberger, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, said U.S. companies suffered estimated losses in 2012 of more than $300 billion due to theft of trade secrets, a large share due to Chinese cyber espionage.
The White House report listed 17 cases of trade-secret theft by Chinese companies or individuals since 2010, far more than any other country mentioned in the report.
U.S. corporate victims of trade-secret theft have included General Motors, Ford, DuPont, Dow Chemical, Motorola, Boeing and Cargill. A target company can see the payoff from research investment evaporate as a result of corporate espionage and lose market position, competitive advantage and efficiencies.
"We have repeatedly raised our concerns about trade-secret theft by any means at the highest levels with senior Chinese officials and we will continue to do so," said Robert Hormats, an undersecretary of state.
Those cases cited mostly involved employees stealing trade secrets on the job rather than cyber attacks.
Victoria Espinel, the White House intellectual property rights enforcement coordinator, said the effort aims to protect the innovation that drives the U.S. economy and job creation.
MIXED RESPONSE
Cybersecurity and intelligence experts welcomed the White House plan as a first step, but some said much more needed to be done.
"You've got a nation-state taking on private corporations," said former CIA Director Michael Hayden. "That's kind of unprecedented ... We have not approached resolution with this at all."
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the nation's largest business lobby, offered a lukewarm statement of support, while other industry groups expressed more enthusiasm for the effort.
"We strongly endorse and applaud the administration's focus on curbing theft of trade secrets, which poses a serious and growing threat to the software industry around the world," said Business Software Alliance President and CEO Robert Holleyman.
The report that laid out the strategy repeated a 2011 White House recommendation that the maximum sentence for economic espionage be increased to at least 20 years, from 15 currently.
Another part of the solution is promoting a set of "best practices" that companies can use to protect themselves against cyber attacks and other espionage, Espinel said.
The report also said the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation was "expanding its efforts to fight computer intrusions that involve the theft of trade secrets by individual, corporate and nation-state cyber hackers."
In an interview, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said the problem of trade-secret theft in China was a factor in the decisions of some U.S. companies to move operations back to the United States.
The companies have "had very frank conversations with the Chinese, (saying) 'You know it's one thing to accept a certain level of copyright knock-offs, but if you're going to take our core technology, then we're better off being in our home country,'" Kirk told Reuters.
(Additional reporting by Matt Spetalnick and Deborah Charles; Editing by Tim Ahmann and Eric Beech)
Sony seeks head start over Microsoft with new PlayStation
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Sony Corp said it will launch its next-generation PlayStation this year, hoping its first video game console in seven years will give it a much-needed head start over the next version of Microsoft's Xbox and help revive its stumbling electronics business.
The new console will have a revamped interface, let users stream and play video games hosted on servers, and allow users to play while downloading titles as well as share videos with friends. Its new controller, dubbed DualShock 4, will have a touchpad and a camera that can sense the depth of the environment in front of it.
Sony, which only displayed the controller but not the console, said on Wednesday the PlayStation 4 would be available for the year-end holiday season and flagged games from the likes of Ubisoft Entertainment SA and Activision Blizzard Inc, whose top executives also attended the glitzy launch event.
It did not disclose pricing or an exact launch date.
Sony's announcement comes amid industry speculation that Microsoft Corp is set to unveil the successor to its Xbox 360 later this summer. The current Xbox 360 beats the seven-year-old PlayStation 3's online network with features such as voice commands on interactive gaming and better connectivity to smartphones and tablets.
But all video game console makers are grappling with the onslaught of mobile devices into their turf.
Tablets and smartphones built by rivals such as Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd already account for around 10 percent of the $80 billion gaming market. Those mobile devices, analysts predict, will within a few years be as powerful as the current slew of game-only consoles.
"It looks good and had a lot of great games but the industry is different now," Billy Pidgeon, an analyst at Inside Network Research, said of the new PlayStation.
"It'll be a slow burn and not heavy uptake right away."
MIGRATION TO MOBILE
Console makers will also have to tackle flagging video game hardware and software sales, which research firm NPD group says have dropped consistently every month over the last year as users migrate to free game content on mobile devices.
PlayStation 4 will have an app on Android and Apple mobile devices that connects to console games and can act as a second screen, Jack Tretton, President and CEO of Sony Computer Entertainment of America, said in an interview.
"Playstation 4 ... really connects every device in the office and the smartphone and the tablet out there in the world," Tretton said.
The console, which has been in development for the last five years, will have 8 GB of memory and will instantly stream game content from the console to Sony's handheld PlayStation Vita through a feature called "Remote Play," the company said.
"What Sony is banking on is the ease of the use of this system," Greg Miller, PlayStation executive editor at video game site IGN.com, said.
After six years, Sony PlayStation sales are just shy of Xbox's 67 million installed base and well behind the 100 million Wii consoles sold by Nintendo Co Ltd, according to analysts.
Tretton said it would be a big undertaking to manufacture and distribute the console in Sony's four major markets by the end of the year, adding that it would be a "phased rollout" that starts before the end of the year.
Sterne Agee analyst Arvind Bhatia predicted Sony would probably get a couple of million units of the PlayStation 4 out by the 2013 holiday season and 7 million or 8 million out a year later.
Sony also announced a strategic partnership with video game publisher Activision Blizzard to take its Diablo III game to the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 3 consoles.
Activision's upcoming sci-fi shooter game "Destiny" in development by its Bungie Studio will also be available on PlayStation consoles.
(Editing by Gary Hill, Bernard Orr and Edwina Gibbs)
Hedge fund manager Einhorn takes Apple campaign to shareholders
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Hedge fund manager David Einhorn, who is battling Apple Inc in court as part of a wider effort to get the iPhone-maker to share more of its cash pile, will now make a direct appeal to the company's shareholders.
He will host a conference call on Thursday to argue the merits of distributing perpetual preferred stock -- his favored way of rewarding shareholders.
Einhorn's $8 billion Greenlight Capital is seeking an injunction to block a February 27 shareholders' vote on "Proposal 2" in Apple's proxy statement, which would abolish a system for issuing preferred stock at its discretion.
Apple declined to comment on Einhorn's plan to appeal directly to shareholders. Chief Executive Tim Cook last week dismissed the lawsuit as a "silly sideshow".
But Cook said the idea of issuing preferred stock was creative and one that Apple's board was carefully considering, while it ponders other ways to share its $137 billion in cash and securities -- something Wall Street investors have been seeking for years.
But even as the hedge fund star tries to rally Apple shareholders to his cause, the Nathan Cummings Foundation, which says it has been a limited partner of Greenlight's through its endowment, said it was "dismayed" that Einhorn was suing Apple to prevent a vote on Proposal 2.
"We very much oppose your decision to enjoin the 2013 annual meeting and the vote on Resolution #2," Simon Greer, president and CEO of the foundation, said in a letter to Einhorn that was obtained by Reuters.
In response, Greenlight said in a statement: "This is a former investor who redeemed. We wish them well."
Greer however said later in an emailed statement that the foundation remained an investor with Greenlight through a "pooled fund", without elaborating.
(Editing by Edwina Gibbs and Stephen Coates)
Here's a Cute Cat Watching Hockey
Written By Bersemangat on Rabu, 20 Februari 2013 | 17.56
DEAR ABBY: My boyfriend, "Doug" (24), and I (22) have been in a long-distance relationship for a year, but we were friends for a couple of years before that. I had never had a serious relationship before and lacked experience. Doug has not only been in two other long-term relationships, but has had sex with more than 15 women. One of them is an amateur porn actress.I knew about this, but it didn't bother me until recently. Doug had a party, and while he was drunk he told one of his buddies -- in front of me -- that he should watch a certain porn film starring his ex-girlfriend. ...
Could This Be the iPhone 5S?
Photos of what may be Apple's next iPhone surfaced online Monday.
Posted by a Chinese technology site, the images allegedly show the iPhone 5S already going into production. Nearly identical to the iPhone 5, the handset shown in the photos has an updated vibration motor (some have complained the iPhone 5's is too noisy). Beyond that minor difference, however, it looks identical to the model currently on the market. Apple launched the iPhone 5 last September.
[More from Mashable: iMadeFace Turns You Into a Cartoon]
The Chinese site also suggested that an iPhone 6 was on the way, soon. It said the 6 will sport a larger display, increasing from 4.8 inches to 5 inches.
[More from Mashable: Apple Might Be Building a Wristwatch And Two Other Stories You Need to Know]
This past weekend, rumors surfaced that the Cupertino, Calif. company was also working on a smart watch. Made out of curved glass, the watch can potentially let users to make calls, answer texts and run apps from their wrists.
What do you want to see from Apple's next iPhone? Let us know your thoughts in the comments, below.
Click here to view the gallery: Apple Smart Watch Concepts
Images courtesy of Sjbbs Zol
This story originally published on Mashable here.
Exclusive: Apple, Macs hit by hackers who targeted Facebook
BOSTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Apple Inc was recently attacked by hackers who infected Macintosh computers of some employees, the company said Tuesday in an unprecedented disclosure describing the widest known cyber attacks targeting Apple computers used by corporations.
Unknown hackers infected the computers of some Apple workers when they visited a website for software developers that had been infected with malicious software. The malware had been designed to attack Mac computers.
The same software, which infected Macs by exploiting a flaw in a version of Oracle Corp's Java software used as a plug-in on Web browsers, was used to launch attacks against Facebook, which the social network disclosed on Friday.
The malware was also employed in attacks against Mac computers used by "other companies," Apple said, without elaborating on the scale of the assault.
Twitter, which disclosed that it had been breached February 1 and that hackers might gave accessed some information on about 250,000 users, was hit in the same campaign, according to a person close to the investigation.
Another person briefed on the case said that hundreds of companies, including defense contractors, had been infected with the same malicious software. Though this person said that the malware could have originated from China, there was no proof.
"This is a new campaign. It's not like the other ones you read about where everyone can tell it's China," the first person said.
Investigations into the breaches are ongoing. It was not immediately clear when the attacks had begun, the extent to which the hackers had succeeded in stealing data from targeted systems, or whether all infected machines have been identified.
The malware was distributed at least in part through a site aimed at iPhone developers, which might still be infecting visitors who haven't disabled Java in their browser, the person close to the case said. There is a version that infects computers running Microsoft Windows as well.
Security firm F-Secure wrote that the attackers might have been trying to get access to the code for apps on smartphones, seeking a way to infect millions of end-users. It urged developers to check their source code for unintended changes.
Apple disclosed the breach as tensions are heating up over U.S. allegations that the Chinese military engages in cyber espionage on U.S. companies.
U.S. cyber security firm Mandiant reported over the weekend that it has uncovered evidence that the Chinese military is behind a slew of cyber attacks on U.S. businesses. The White House said it has repeatedly raised concerns about Chinese cyber theft with Beijing.
The breaches described by Apple mark the highest-profile cyber attacks to date on businesses running Mac computers. Hackers have traditionally focused on attacking machines running the Windows operating system, though they have gradually turned their attention to Apple products over the past couple of years as the company gained market share over Microsoft Corp.
"This is the first really big attack on Macs," said the source, who declined to be identified because the person was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly. "Apple has more on its hands than the attack on itself."
Charlie Miller, a prominent expert on Apple security who is co-author of the Mac Hacker's Handbook, said the attacks show that criminal hackers are investing more time studying the Mac OS X operating system so they can attack Apple computers.
For example, he noted, hackers recently figured out a fairly sophisticated way to attack Macs by exploiting a flaw in Adobe Systems Inc's Flash software.
"The only thing that was making it safe before is that nobody bothered to attack it. That goes away if somebody bothers to attack it," Miller said.
NATIONAL SECURITY
Cyber security attacks have been on the rise. In last week's State of the Union address, U.S. President Barack Obama issued an executive order seeking better protection of the country's critical infrastructure from cyber attacks.
White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters on Tuesday that the Obama administration has repeatedly taken up its concerns about Chinese cyber theft with Beijing, including the country's military. There was no indication as to whether the group described by Mandiant was involved in the attacks described by Apple and Facebook.
An Apple spokesman declined to specify how many companies had been breached in the campaign targeting Macs, saying he could not elaborate further on the statement it provided.
"Apple has identified malware which infected a limited number of Mac systems through a vulnerability in the Java plug-in for browsers. The malware was employed in an attack against Apple and other companies, and was spread through a website for software developers," the statement said.
"We identified a small number of systems within Apple that were infected and isolated them from our network. There is no evidence that any data left Apple," it continued.
The statement said Apple was working closely with law enforcement to find the culprits, but the spokesman would not elaborate. The Federal Bureau of Investigation declined to comment.
Apple said it plans to release a piece of software on Tuesday that customers can use to identify and repair Macs infected with the malware used in the attacks.
(Editing by Andre Grenon, Edwin Chan and Richard Chang)
China says U.S. hacking accusations lack technical proof
BEIJING (Reuters) - Accusations by a U.S. computer security company that a secretive Chinese military unit is likely behind a series of hacking attacks are scientifically flawed and hence unreliable, China's Defence Ministry said on Wednesday.
The statement came after the White House said overnight that the Obama administration has repeatedly taken up its concerns about cyber-theft at the highest levels of the Chinese government, including with Chinese military officials.
The security company, Mandiant, identified the People's Liberation Army's Shanghai-based Unit 61398 as the most likely driving force behind the hacking. Mandiant said it believed the unit had carried out "sustained" attacks on a wide range of industries.
The Chinese Defence Ministry, which has already denied the charges, went further in a new statement, slamming Mandiant for relying on spurious data.
"The report, in only relying on linking IP address to reach a conclusion the hacking attacks originated from China, lacks technical proof," the ministry said in a statement on its website (www.mod.gov.cn).
"Everyone knows that the use of usurped IP addresses to carry out hacking attacks happens on an almost daily basis," it added.
"Second, there is still no internationally clear, unified definition of what consists of a 'hacking attack'. There is no legal evidence behind the report subjectively inducing that the everyday gathering of online (information) is online spying."
As hacking is a cross-border, anonymous and deceptive phenomenon, by its very nature it is hard to work out exactly where hacks originated, the statement said.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei, asked about the U.S. taking up its concerns about hacking with Beijing, said: "China and the U.S. have maintained communication over the relevant issue".
Unit 61398 is located in Shanghai's Pudong district, China's financial and banking hub, and is staffed by perhaps thousands of people proficient in English as well as computer programming and network operations, Mandiant said in its report.
The unit had stolen "hundreds of terabytes of data from at least 141 organizations across a diverse set of industries beginning as early as 2006", it said.
Most of the victims were located in the United States, with smaller numbers in Canada and Britain. The information stolen ranged from details on mergers and acquisitions to the emails of senior employees, the company said.
But the Chinese Defence Ministry said China's own figures show that a "considerable" number of hacking attacks it is subjected to come from the United States.
"But we don't use this as a reason to criticize the United States," the ministry said.
However, the Global Times, a widely read tabloid published by Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily, said China should be more active in publicly airing its complaints about hacking attacks, especially as the United States does so.
"Some officials have been punished for internally reporting that government websites have been hacked and secrets leaked, but almost no details have come out," it wrote.
"The Americans really know how to talk this (issue) up. All China can do is concede defeat."
(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Additional reporting by Sui-Lee Wee and Huang Yan; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
Sony set to make pre-emptive strike on Microsoft with PS4
TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp is expected to showcase a new PlayStation console on Wednesday in a pre-emptive strike against Microsoft Corp's bid to make its Xbox the world's leading hub for household entertainment.
The rare PlayStation event in New York comes amid industry speculation that Microsoft is set to unveil the successor to its Xbox 360, which beats the seven-year-old PlayStation 3's online network with features such as voice commands on interactive gaming and superior connectivity to smartphones and tablets.
"Their focus is on establishing a beachhead for the next generation of consoles, and that's what February 20 is all about," said P.J. McNealy, CEO and founder of Digital World Research. "The reality is they have been playing catch-up."
Pushing ahead of Microsoft's Xbox and Nintendo Co Ltd's new Wii U could help Sony revive an electronics business hurt by a dearth of hit gadgets, a collapse in TV sales and the convergence of consumer interest around tablets and smartphones built by rivals Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.
Tablets and smartphones already account for around 10 percent of the $80 billion gaming market. Those mobile devices, analysts predict, will within a few years be as powerful as the current slew of game-only consoles.
After six years, Sony PlayStation sales are just shy of Xbox's 67 million installed base and well behind the 100-million selling Wii, analysts said.
A lackluster launch in November of the Wii successor, the Wii U, gives Sony a chance to focus on toppling Microsoft as all three battle the encroachment of casual gaming on tablets and smartphones. Nintendo cut its sales target to 4 million machines from 5.5 million for the year ending March 31.
STREAMING
Microsoft's answer to the casual gaming threat has been software that gives users extra content and allows them to surf the Internet from their mobile devices. The Xbox already streams Netflix and ESPN and links to tablets and smartphones using Windows or Apple's iOS and Google Inc's Android. Sony's PS3 online network has lagged.
"For Sony, they have to come out and make this PlayStation event the definitive statement of why gamers need to adopt the PlayStation 4 or PlayStation Orbis or whatever they end up calling it," said Greg Miller, PlayStation executive editor at video game site IGN.com.
Sony's purchase in July of U.S. cloud-based gaming company Gaikai for $380 million hints that the Japanese company will pursue a similar streaming strategy to Microsoft. Sony, industry watchers say, may also offer an expanded range of free games to counter the threat from casual gaming.
Sony, which under its CEO Kazuo Hirai is focusing on gaming, mobile devices and cameras, needs a hit product. But by betting on a PS3 successor, Hirai, whose most profitable business is life insurance, risks deepening consumer electronic losses as he will have to sell consoles at below the manufacturing cost to gain market traction.
That choice is made harder because the other two pillars of Hirai's new Sony - cameras and mobile - are losing money.
Sony expects to post a $1.4 billion operating profit in the current fiscal year. Yet, much of that rebound is gains from offloading real estate, including $1.1 billion for its New York headquarters.
The PlayStation event in New York starts at 2300 GMT (1800 EST).
($1 = 93.5200 Japanese yen)
(Additional reporting by Reiji Murai; Editing by Ryan Woo)
Here's a Cute Cat Watching Hockey
Written By Bersemangat on Selasa, 19 Februari 2013 | 17.56
Feb 19 (Infostrada Sports) - Fixtures from the La Liga matches on Tuesday Friday, February 22 (GMT)Athletic Bilbao v Real Sociedad (2030) Saturday, February 23 (GMT)Real Mallorca v Getafe (1500) Real Zaragoza v Valencia (1700) Deportivo Coruna v Real Madrid (1900) Barcelona v Sevilla (2100) Sunday, February 24 (GMT)Rayo Vallecano v Real Valladolid (1100) Celta Vigo v Granada CF (1600) Atletico Madrid v Espanyol (1800) Real Betis v Malaga (2000) Monday, February 25 (GMT)Levante v Osasuna (2000)
Could This Be the iPhone 5S?
Photos of what may be Apple's next iPhone surfaced online Monday.
Posted by a Chinese technology site, the images allegedly show the iPhone 5S already going into production. Nearly identical to the iPhone 5, the handset shown in the photos has an updated vibration motor (some have complained the iPhone 5's is too noisy). Beyond that minor difference, however, it looks identical to the model currently on the market. Apple launched the iPhone 5 last September.
[More from Mashable: iMadeFace Turns You Into a Cartoon]
The Chinese site also suggested that an iPhone 6 was on the way, soon. It said the 6 will sport a larger display, increasing from 4.8 inches to 5 inches.
[More from Mashable: Apple Might Be Building a Wristwatch And Two Other Stories You Need to Know]
This past weekend, rumors surfaced that the Cupertino, Calif. company was also working on a smart watch. Made out of curved glass, the watch can potentially let users to make calls, answer texts and run apps from their wrists.
What do you want to see from Apple's next iPhone? Let us know your thoughts in the comments, below.
Click here to view the gallery: Apple Smart Watch Concepts
Images courtesy of Sjbbs Zol
This story originally published on Mashable here.
Burger King takes down Twitter account after hack attack
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Hackers breached the Twitter account of fast-food chain Burger King, posting the online equivalent of graffiti and sometimes making little sense.
Burger King Worldwide Inc suspended its Twitter account about an hour after it learned of the attack at 12:24 p.m. EST on Monday, company spokesman Bryson Thornton said in an email.
"It has come to our attention that the Twitter account of the BURGER KING® brand has been hacked," the company said in a statement. "We have worked directly with administrators to suspend the account until we are able to re-establish our legitimate site and authentic postings."
Several tweets carried the logo of Burger King's larger rival McDonald's, but spelled the latter company's name incorrectly. Others sought to tarnish Burger King, the third-largest U.S. hamburger chain, and its employees.
"Just got sold to McDonalds," one tweet said, adding "FREDOM IS FAILURE".
(Reporting by Ilaina Jonas; Editing by Dale Hudson)
AU fundraising spurs share rally, seen signaling demand for panels
TAIPEI (Reuters) - AU Optronics' plans to raise as much as $350 million in an overseas share issue sparked a surge in its shares, signaling that strong demand for high-definition displays in tablets and TVs is breathing new life into the loss-making panel maker's fortunes.
Shares in the Taiwanese company, which supplies screens for Apple Inc's iPad mini, surged their 7 percent daily limit for a second day in a row on Tuesday after it announced plans to sell 640 million to 800 million shares as American depositary receipts (ADRs).
"It's urgent and necessary for AU to raise the funds to upgrade its technology," said Oscar Chung, a fund manager at Capital Securities Investment Trust in Taipei, pointing to rising demand for high-definition panels.
"This year will be the first in a few years that sees the industry's gap between demand and supply narrowing," said Chung, who manages $372 million and has been accumulating AU shares this month.
The company did not put a figure on how much it aimed to raise or how the money would be used, saying only that proceeds from the sale will be used for raw material purchases. At AU's latest share price, the issue could raise up to $350 million.
CONFIDENCE IMPROVED
The company earlier this month posted a net loss for a second year in a row in 2012 as panel oversupply weighed on the industry.
The loss forced it to forgo a dividend payment, which it announced along with the rights issue late on Monday. It also said it would cut its capital expenditure budget by T$8.6 billion ($290 million).
"The cut in capex is in line with their peers in Taiwan. In the past 10 years capex was for new capacity, but the industry is in an oversupply situation now," said one technology analyst at a European bank.
"They don't need to build capacity, the money should be spent on new technology," the analyst said.
"The operating cash flow is improving and they should be able to pay down debt. They are in a better financial position compared with previous years so they should be able to negotiate new loans and be in a better position to raise money in the market as their customers are top-tier names, including Apple."
The company has T$77 billion cash in hand, which is more than enough to cover short-term debt of T$54 billion out of total borrowings of T$220 billion.
AU's stock has bounced more than 15 percent from a three-month low hit late last week, as its prospects brighten. It nevertheless is virtually flat with its level at the start of last year, compared with a nearly 15 percent rise in Taiwan's benchmark index.
Its convertible zero coupon convertible bonds due in 2015, while trading below par at $94/94.75, have recovered from their June low of $76 as confidence improves in its debt-servicing ability. The convertible bonds now trade like straight debt as they are far out of the money.
($1 = 29.6165 Taiwan dollars)
(Additional reporting by Umesh Desai in Hong Kong; Writing by Edmund Klamann; Editing by Richard Pullin)
Security group suspects Chinese military is behind hacking attacks
BEIJING/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - A secretive Chinese military unit is believed to be behind a series of hacking attacks, a U.S. computer security company said, prompting a strong denial by China and accusations that it was in fact the victim of U.S. hacking.
The company, Mandiant, identified the People's Liberation Army's Shanghai-based Unit 61398 as the most likely driving force behind the hacking. Mandiant said it believed the unit had carried out "sustained" attacks on a wide range of industries.
"The nature of 'Unit 61398's' work is considered by China to be a state secret; however, we believe it engages in harmful 'Computer Network Operations'," Mandiant said in a report released in the United States on Monday.
"It is time to acknowledge the threat is originating in China, and we wanted to do our part to arm and prepare security professionals to combat that threat effectively," it said.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the government firmly opposed hacking, adding that it doubted the evidence provided in the report.
"Hacking attacks are transnational and anonymous. Determining their origins are extremely difficult. We don't know how the evidence in this so-called report can be tenable," spokesman Hong Lei told a daily news briefing.
"Arbitrary criticism based on rudimentary data is irresponsible, unprofessional and not helpful in resolving the issue."
Hong cited a Chinese study which pointed to the United States as being behind hacking in China.
"Of the above mentioned Internet hacking attacks, attacks originating from the United States rank first."
China's Defense Ministry did not immediately respond to faxed questions about the report.
Unit 61398 is located in Shanghai's Pudong district, China's financial and banking hub, and is staffed by perhaps thousands of people proficient in English as well as computer programming and network operations, Mandiant said in its report.
The unit had stolen "hundreds of terabytes of data from at least 141 organizations across a diverse set of industries beginning as early as 2006", it said.
Most of the victims were located in the United States, with smaller numbers in Canada and Britain. The information stolen ranged from details on mergers and acquisitions to the emails of senior employees, the company said.
The 12-storey building, which houses the unit, sits in an unassuming residential area and is surrounded by a wall adorned with military propaganda photos and slogans; outside the gate a sign warns members of the public they are in a restricted military area and should not take pictures.
There were no obvious signs of extra security on Tuesday.
"ECONOMIC CYBER ESPIONAGE"
Some experts said they doubted Chinese government denials of military involvement in the hacking.
"The PLA plays a key role in China's multi-faceted security strategy, so it makes sense that its resources would be used to facilitate economic cyber espionage that helps the Chinese economy," said Dmitri Alperovitch, chief technology officer and co-founder of CrowdStrike, one of Mandiant's competitors.
Though privately held and little known to the general public, Mandiant is one of a handful of U.S. cyber-security companies that specialize in attempting to detect, prevent and trace the most advanced hacking attacks, instead of the garden-variety viruses and criminal intrusions that befoul corporate networks on a daily basis.
But Mandiant does not promote its analysis in public and only rarely issues topical papers about changes in techniques or behaviors.
It has never before given the apparent proper names of suspected hackers or directly tied them to a military branch of the Chinese government, giving the new report special resonance.
The company published details of the attack programs and dummy websites used to infiltrate U.S. companies, typically via deceptive emails.
U.S. officials have complained in the past to China about sanctioned trade-secret theft, but have had a limited public record to point to.
Mandiant said it knew the PLA would shift tactics and programs in response to its report but concluded that the disclosure was worth it because of the scale of the harm and the ability of China to issue denials in the past and duck accountability.
The company traced Unit 61398's presence on the Internet - including registration data for a question-and-answer session with a Chinese professor and numeric Internet addresses within a block assigned to the PLA unit - and concluded that it was a major contributor to operations against the U.S. companies.
Members of Congress and intelligence authorities in the United States have publicized the same general conclusions: that economic espionage is an official mission of the PLA and other elements of the Chinese government, and that hacking is a primary method.
In November 2011, the U.S. National Counterintelligence Executive publicly decried China in particular as the biggest known thief of U.S. trade secrets.
The Mandiant report comes a week after U.S. President Barack Obama issued a long-awaited executive order aimed at getting the private owners of power plants and other critical infrastructure to share data on attacks with officials and to begin to follow consensus best practices on security.
Both U.S. Democrats and Republicans have said more powerful legislation is needed, citing Chinese penetration not just of the largest companies but of operations essential to a functioning country, including those comprising the electric grid.
(Additional reporting by Michael Martina in BEIJING, Carlos Barria in SHANGHAI and Jim Finkle in BOSTON; Editing by Robert Birsel and Sanjeev Miglani)
Here's a Cute Cat Watching Hockey
Written By Bersemangat on Senin, 18 Februari 2013 | 17.56
HOUSTON (Reuters) - Michael Jordan never played against LeBron James but that has not stopped the two from going one-on-one over how to determine greatness on the basketball court. Jordan, widely hailed as the best player of all-time and who turns 50 on Sunday, believes it is all about championship rings, while James, 28, thinks that view is a little too simplistic. The debate has been the chief talking point of reporters and players in the run-up to the National Basketball Association's (NBA) All-Star game in Houston on Sunday. ...
Facebook hacked, social media company says
(Reuters) - Facebook said on Friday that it been the target of a series of attacks by an unidentified hacker group, but it had found no evidence that user data was compromised.
"Last month, Facebook security discovered that our systems had been targeted in a sophisticated attack," the company said in a blog post. "The attack occurred when a handful of employees visited a mobile developer website that was compromised."
The social network, which says it has more than one billion active users worldwide, added: "Facebook was not alone in this attack. It is clear that others were attacked and infiltrated recently as well."
Facebook's announcement follows recent cyber attacks on other prominent websites. Twitter, the microblogging social network, said this month that it had been hacked, and that approximately 250,000 user accounts were potentially compromised, with attackers gaining access to information including user names and email addresses.
Newspaper websites including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal have also been infiltrated, according to the news organizations. Those attacks were attributed by the news organizations to Chinese hackers targeting their coverage of China.
(Reporting By Tim Reid; Editing by Gary Hill)
Intel Israel more than doubles exports, mulls new investment
TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Intel's Israeli subsidiary more than doubled its exports in 2012 to $4.6 billion and is seeking to bring manufacturing of the company's next generation of chips to Israel.
Intel's exports, which rose 109 percent from $2.2 billion in 2011, were boosted by the start of production of chips using 22 nanometer technology at its Kiryat Gat plant in southern Israel, which is now operating at full capacity.
Intel, the world's No. 1 chipmaker, will build chips over the next two to three years with features measuring just 14 nm in Ireland and the United States but the company is already thinking about where it will produce 10 nm chips. The narrower the features, the more transistors can fit on a single chip, improving performance.
Intel Israel executives said they would like to see 10 nm production in Israel.
"The average life of a technology is two to six years so we need to be busy to get the next technology, 10 nanometer," Maxine Fassberg, general manager of Intel Israel, told a news conference on Sunday. "We need to get a decision far enough in advance to be able to upgrade the plant. So for 10 nanometer, decisions will need to be made this year."
Fassberg said upgrading the existing Fab 28 plant in Israel would require a lower investment than building a new plant but would still involve several billion dollars.
Intel Israel has in the past received government grants to help with the costs of its investments and Fassberg told Reuters the company was "constantly in talks with the government".
Intel has invested $10.5 billion in Israel in the past decade, including $1.1 billion in 2012, and has received $1.3 billion in government grants.
The company accounted for 20 percent of Israel's high-tech exports last year and 10 percent of its industrial exports, excluding diamonds.
"If Intel had not increased its exports, Israel's high-tech exports would have shrunk by 10 percent," Intel Israel President Mooly Eden said.
Most of Intel Israel's exports - $3.5 billion - came from its chip manufacturing activities.
Intel is Israel's largest private employer, with 8,542 workers, up 10 percent from 2011. The company has two plants - in Jerusalem and Kiryat Gat - as well as four research and development centers.
Eden said Intel was also committed to investing in start-ups, having invested in 64 Israeli companies since 1996. In July its global investment arm Intel Capital said it would expand its operations in Israel.
(Reporting by Tova Cohen; Editing by Helen Massy-Beresford)
Sony cuts price of Vita handheld games console in Japan
TOKYO (Reuters) - Sony Corp on Monday slashed the price of its struggling Vita handheld games console in Japan in a bid to spur sales of the device as gamers switch to free or cheap games played on tablet computers and smartphones.
The maker of Playstation consoles trimmed the price of its 3G Wifi version by 10,000 yen ($110) to 19,980 yen, with all other models also reduced, it said in a statement.
Tablets and smartphones are encroaching on the gaming market, with handheld consoles in particular suffering. Sony this month trimmed its forecast for handheld sales, including the Vita and older PSP, to 7 million machines in the year ending March 31 compared with an estimate of 16 million at the start of the business term.
The Vita price comes ahead of a rare Playstation gathering in New York on February 20, when Sony is expected to reveal the successor to its Playstation 3 home console.
(Reporting by Tim Kelly; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)
Here's a Cute Cat Watching Hockey
Written By Bersemangat on Minggu, 17 Februari 2013 | 17.56
In Beyoncé's new documentary about Beyoncé co-directed by Beyoncé there's a shot of her flying in a helicopter checking her iPhone. As we see the real world below, the world of people who don't get to take those luxurious rides, Beyoncé says the following, in Beyoncé voiceover: "I think people have an idea in their heads about entertainers, celebrities. I think they feel like their lives are so perfect, and it's really hard to go through painful experiences when you're in the public eye, because it's hard to have closure. ...
Could This Be the iPhone 5S?
Photos of what may be Apple's next iPhone surfaced online Monday.
Posted by a Chinese technology site, the images allegedly show the iPhone 5S already going into production. Nearly identical to the iPhone 5, the handset shown in the photos has an updated vibration motor (some have complained the iPhone 5's is too noisy). Beyond that minor difference, however, it looks identical to the model currently on the market. Apple launched the iPhone 5 last September.
[More from Mashable: iMadeFace Turns You Into a Cartoon]
The Chinese site also suggested that an iPhone 6 was on the way, soon. It said the 6 will sport a larger display, increasing from 4.8 inches to 5 inches.
[More from Mashable: Apple Might Be Building a Wristwatch And Two Other Stories You Need to Know]
This past weekend, rumors surfaced that the Cupertino, Calif. company was also working on a smart watch. Made out of curved glass, the watch can potentially let users to make calls, answer texts and run apps from their wrists.
What do you want to see from Apple's next iPhone? Let us know your thoughts in the comments, below.
Click here to view the gallery: Apple Smart Watch Concepts
Images courtesy of Sjbbs Zol
This story originally published on Mashable here.
Ahead of hearing, Einhorn reiterates case against Apple
NEW YORK (Reuters) - David Einhorn reiterated his arguments Friday that a judge should block a shareholder vote on Apple Inc's proposal to eliminate its ability to issue preferred shares without investor approval, days before a court hearing.
In court filings in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Einhorn's Greenlight Capital attempted to rebut Apple's arguments that the company's proposal was "pro-shareholder."
"Apple should not be allowed to substitute its judgment for its shareholders' judgment, and should be enjoined" from letting the vote proceed, Greenlight said in a motion.
A hearing on Einhorn's motion for an injunction against the February 27 vote on the proxy proposal is set for Tuesday. A spokesman for Apple declined comment.
Greenlight sued Apple last week as part of Einhorn's larger effort to have the iPhone maker share more of its $137 billion in cash with investors.
As part of that goal, Einhorn has pushed for Apple to issue to its shareholders perpetual preferred stock with a 4 percent dividend.
Among the Apple proxy proposals up for a vote February 27 is Proposal No. 2, which would remove the company's current system of issuing preferred stock at its discretion without a shareholder vote.
Greenlight's lawsuit contends Apple violated U.S. Securities and Exchange rules by "bundling" three separate amendments to its charter into Proposal No. 2. While Greenlight supports two of the amendments, it does not back the one related to preferred stock.
Apple in a Wednesday filing argued the proposal was not bundled and that it had not forced shareholders into an unfair choice. It also noted Proposal No. 2 was supported by proxy advisory services Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass, Lewis & Co.
But Einhorn argued on Friday that ISS and Glass Lewis's support is premised on the belief that eliminating so-called "blank check" preferred stock powers enables a company to defend itself against a takeover.
"In my view, Apple is not a realistic take-over candidate because of, among other things, its enormous market capitalization," Einhorn wrote.
At Tuesday's hearing, U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan will also hear a separate challenge by an Apple investor from Pennsylvania to block not just the Proposal No. 2 vote, but also an advisory "say-on-pay" vote on executives compensation.
The investor, Brian Gralnick, contends Apple has not disclose enough details about how it made its decisions in awarding restricted stock units to certain executives.
Apple responded that its disclosures were adequate and appropriate.
The case is Greenlight Capital LP, et al., v. Apple Inc., U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, 13-900.
(Reporting By Nate Raymond; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)
Facebook hacked, social media company says
(Reuters) - Facebook said on Friday that it been the target of a series of attacks by an unidentified hacker group, but it had found no evidence that user data was compromised.
"Last month, Facebook security discovered that our systems had been targeted in a sophisticated attack," the company said in a blog post. "The attack occurred when a handful of employees visited a mobile developer website that was compromised."
The social network, which says it has more than one billion active users worldwide, added: "Facebook was not alone in this attack. It is clear that others were attacked and infiltrated recently as well."
Facebook's announcement follows recent cyber attacks on other prominent websites. Twitter, the microblogging social network, said this month that it had been hacked, and that approximately 250,000 user accounts were potentially compromised, with attackers gaining access to information including user names and email addresses.
Newspaper websites including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal have also been infiltrated, according to the news organizations. Those attacks were attributed by the news organizations to Chinese hackers targeting their coverage of China.
(Reporting By Tim Reid; Editing by Gary Hill)
Exclusive: News Corp, popular tech blog contemplate split - sources
(Reuters) - AllThingsD, the widely read technology blog run by Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, has begun discussions with owner News Corp about extending or ending their partnership, sources familiar with the situation told Reuters.
According to these sources, AllThingsD's contract with News Corp expires at the end of the year. One of the sources said Swisher and Mossberg have to deliver a business plan by next week to Robert Thomson, the former Wall Street Journal managing editor who will helm News Corp's publishing unit as CEO after it is spun off.
The fact that AllThingsD's contract is up this year is well known, and sources said the website is receiving a lot of "inbound interest" from potential buyers parallel to its talks with News Corp.
Among the names mentioned as having reached out to AllThingsD were Conde Nast, where Swisher recently signed to work as a contributing writer for Vanity Fair, and Hearst.
Sources also speculated that former Yahoo and News Corp executive Ross Levinsohn might be looking at the website given his new role as Chief Executive of Guggenheim Digital Media, which comes complete with "significant capital to acquire and invest in new media companies." The private equity shop already owns Billboard, Hollywood Reporter, and Adweek.
AllThingsD has reported that AOL expressed interest in acquiring it in the past, but said those talks "were preliminary at best."
Calls to AllThingsD were referred to a News Corp representative who declined comment. A Conde Nast representative declined comment. Calls to Hearst were not immediately returned. Calls and emails to Ross Levinsohn were not returned.
While AllThingsD is recognized as the brainchild of Swisher and Mossberg, News Corp actually owns the website and its name. However, according to provisions in their contract, Swisher and Mossberg have approval authority over any sale, the first source said.
Technically, News Corp could retain the AllThingsD name in the event of a sale, forcing Swisher and Mossberg to start a new venture under a different brand name. But historically in these types of situations a deal is usually worked out to allow the founders to take the company name with them as part of a settlement.
Sources described the website and conference business combined as profitable. It has grown into a technology industry must-read, and features a popular conference division known for snagging A-list corporate executives for intimate interview sessions. Apple's Steve Jobs, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and virtually every other major technology executive has spoken at the D Conference, as it is known.
Earlier this week, AllThingsD's well-regarded media writer, Peter Kafka, led a media-centric conference for the website that included panels with Intel's Erik Huggers, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino, and Netflix's programming boss Ted Sarandos, among others.
The website has two more conferences on the docket for this year: a mobile one that was postponed until April due to Hurricane Sandy, and the main D Conference in May.
Sources described the relationship between News Corp and AllThingsD as amicable but stressed.
"Like all partnership, there could be more cooperation between the two," said one source. "There is tension between AllThingsD and the Wall Street Journal, for example."
As a result of management changes, over the last few years the website has reported to numerous News Corp executives, among them Gordon Crovitz, Les Hinton, and now Lex Fenwick and Robert Thomson.
Should the two sides reach a deal on a new contract, AllThingsD would be included as part of the publishing unit in the News Corp split.
(Additional reporting by Jennifer Saba; Editing by David Gregorio)
(This story corrects the 10th paragraph to show source said website is profitable in combination with conference business, instead of website is profitable. Corrects spelling of Erik Huggers name in paragraph 11 to Erik, from Eric)
Here's a Cute Cat Watching Hockey
Written By Bersemangat on Sabtu, 16 Februari 2013 | 17.56
In Beyoncé's new documentary about Beyoncé co-directed by Beyoncé there's a shot of her flying in a helicopter checking her iPhone. As we see the real world below, the world of people who don't get to take those luxurious rides, Beyoncé says the following, in Beyoncé voiceover: "I think people have an idea in their heads about entertainers, celebrities. I think they feel like their lives are so perfect, and it's really hard to go through painful experiences when you're in the public eye, because it's hard to have closure. ...
Could This Be the iPhone 5S?
Photos of what may be Apple's next iPhone surfaced online Monday.
Posted by a Chinese technology site, the images allegedly show the iPhone 5S already going into production. Nearly identical to the iPhone 5, the handset shown in the photos has an updated vibration motor (some have complained the iPhone 5's is too noisy). Beyond that minor difference, however, it looks identical to the model currently on the market. Apple launched the iPhone 5 last September.
[More from Mashable: iMadeFace Turns You Into a Cartoon]
The Chinese site also suggested that an iPhone 6 was on the way, soon. It said the 6 will sport a larger display, increasing from 4.8 inches to 5 inches.
[More from Mashable: Apple Might Be Building a Wristwatch And Two Other Stories You Need to Know]
This past weekend, rumors surfaced that the Cupertino, Calif. company was also working on a smart watch. Made out of curved glass, the watch can potentially let users to make calls, answer texts and run apps from their wrists.
What do you want to see from Apple's next iPhone? Let us know your thoughts in the comments, below.
Click here to view the gallery: Apple Smart Watch Concepts
Images courtesy of Sjbbs Zol
This story originally published on Mashable here.
Ahead of hearing, Einhorn reiterates case against Apple
NEW YORK (Reuters) - David Einhorn reiterated his arguments Friday that a judge should block a shareholder vote on Apple Inc's proposal to eliminate its ability to issue preferred shares without investor approval, days before a court hearing.
In court filings in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, Einhorn's Greenlight Capital attempted to rebut Apple's arguments that the company's proposal was "pro-shareholder."
"Apple should not be allowed to substitute its judgment for its shareholders' judgment, and should be enjoined" from letting the vote proceed, Greenlight said in a motion.
A hearing on Einhorn's motion for an injunction against the February 27 vote on the proxy proposal is set for Tuesday. A spokesman for Apple declined comment.
Greenlight sued Apple last week as part of Einhorn's larger effort to have the iPhone maker share more of its $137 billion in cash with investors.
As part of that goal, Einhorn has pushed for Apple to issue to its shareholders perpetual preferred stock with a 4 percent dividend.
Among the Apple proxy proposals up for a vote February 27 is Proposal No. 2, which would remove the company's current system of issuing preferred stock at its discretion without a shareholder vote.
Greenlight's lawsuit contends Apple violated U.S. Securities and Exchange rules by "bundling" three separate amendments to its charter into Proposal No. 2. While Greenlight supports two of the amendments, it does not back the one related to preferred stock.
Apple in a Wednesday filing argued the proposal was not bundled and that it had not forced shareholders into an unfair choice. It also noted Proposal No. 2 was supported by proxy advisory services Institutional Shareholder Services and Glass, Lewis & Co.
But Einhorn argued on Friday that ISS and Glass Lewis's support is premised on the belief that eliminating so-called "blank check" preferred stock powers enables a company to defend itself against a takeover.
"In my view, Apple is not a realistic take-over candidate because of, among other things, its enormous market capitalization," Einhorn wrote.
At Tuesday's hearing, U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan will also hear a separate challenge by an Apple investor from Pennsylvania to block not just the Proposal No. 2 vote, but also an advisory "say-on-pay" vote on executives compensation.
The investor, Brian Gralnick, contends Apple has not disclose enough details about how it made its decisions in awarding restricted stock units to certain executives.
Apple responded that its disclosures were adequate and appropriate.
The case is Greenlight Capital LP, et al., v. Apple Inc., U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, 13-900.
(Reporting By Nate Raymond; Editing by Leslie Gevirtz)
Exclusive: News Corp, popular tech blog contemplate split-sources
(Reuters) - AllThingsD, the widely read technology blog run by Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, has begun discussions with owner News Corp about extending or ending their partnership, sources familiar with the situation told Reuters.
According to these sources, AllThingsD's contract with News Corp expires at the end of the year. One of the sources said Swisher and Mossberg have to deliver a business plan by next week to Robert Thomson, the former Wall Street Journal managing editor who will helm News Corp's publishing unit as CEO after it is spun off.
The fact that AllThingsD's contract is up this year is well known, and sources said the website is receiving a lot of "inbound interest" from potential buyers parallel to its talks with News Corp.
Among the names mentioned as having reached out to AllThingsD were Conde Nast, where Swisher recently signed to work as a contributing writer for Vanity Fair, and Hearst.
Sources also speculated that former Yahoo and News Corp executive Ross Levinsohn might be looking at the website given his new role as Chief Executive of Guggenheim Digital Media, which comes complete with "significant capital to acquire and invest in new media companies." The private equity shop already owns Billboard, Hollywood Reporter, and Adweek.
AllThingsD has reported that AOL expressed interest in acquiring it in the past, but said those talks "were preliminary at best."
Calls to AllThingsD were referred to a News Corp representative who declined comment. A Conde Nast representative declined comment. Calls to Hearst were not immediately returned. Calls and emails to Ross Levinsohn were not returned.
While AllThingsD is recognized as the brainchild of Swisher and Mossberg, News Corp actually owns the website and its name. However, according to provisions in their contract, Swisher and Mossberg have approval authority over any sale, the first source said.
Technically, News Corp could retain the AllThingsD name in the event of a sale, forcing Swisher and Mossberg to start a new venture under a different brand name. But historically in these types of situations a deal is usually worked out to allow the founders to take the company name with them as part of a settlement.
Sources described the website and conference business combined as profitable. It has grown into a technology industry must-read, and features a popular conference division known for snagging A-list corporate executives for intimate interview sessions. Apple's Steve Jobs, Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, and virtually every other major technology executive has spoken at the D Conference, as it is known.
Earlier this week, AllThingsD's well-regarded media writer, Peter Kafka, led a media-centric conference for the website that included panels with Intel's Erik Huggers, Live Nation CEO Michael Rapino, and Netflix's programming boss Ted Sarandos, among others.
The website has two more conferences on the docket for this year: a mobile one that was postponed until April due to Hurricane Sandy, and the main D Conference in May.
Sources described the relationship between News Corp and AllThingsD as amicable but stressed.
"Like all partnership, there could be more cooperation between the two," said one source. "There is tension between AllThingsD and the Wall Street Journal, for example."
As a result of management changes, over the last few years the website has reported to numerous News Corp executives, among them Gordon Crovitz, Les Hinton, and now Lex Fenwick and Robert Thomson.
Should the two sides reach a deal on a new contract, AllThingsD would be included as part of the publishing unit in the News Corp split.
(Additional reporting by Jennifer Saba; Editing by David Gregorio)
(This story corrects the 10th paragraph to show source said website is profitable in combination with conference business, instead of website is profitable. Corrects spelling of Erik Huggers name in paragraph 11 to Erik, from Eric)
Facebook says it was a target of sophisticated hacking
SAN FRANCISCO/LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Facebook Inc said on Friday hackers had infiltrated some of its employees' laptops in recent weeks, making the world's No.1 social network the latest victim of a wave of cyber attacks, many of which have been traced to China.
It said none of its users' data was compromised in the attack, which occurred after a handful of employees visited a website last month that infected their machines with so-called malware, according to a post on Facebook's official blog released just before the three-day U.S. President's Day weekend.
"As soon as we discovered the presence of the malware, we remediated all infected machines, informed law enforcement, and began a significant investigation that continues to this day," Facebook said.
It was not immediately clear why Facebook waited until now to announce the incident. Facebook declined to comment on the reason or the origin of the attack.
A security expert at another company with knowledge of the matter said he was told the Facebook attack appeared to have originated in China.
The attack on Facebook, which says it has more than 1 billion members, underscores the growing threat of cyber attacks aimed at a broad variety of targets.
Twitter, the micro blogging social network, said earlier this month it had been hacked and that about 250,000 user accounts were potentially compromised, with attackers gaining access to information, including user names and email addresses.
Newspaper websites, including those of The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal, have also been infiltrated. Those attacks were attributed by the news organizations to Chinese hackers targeting coverage of China.
Earlier this week, U.S. President Barack Obama issued an executive order seeking better protection of the country's critical infrastructure from cyber attacks.
"INFILTRATED"
Facebook noted in its blog post that it was not alone in the attack, and that "others were attacked and infiltrated recently as well," although it did not specify who.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation declined to comment, while the U.S. Department of Homeland Security did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
In its blog post, Facebook described the attack as a "zero-day" attack, considered to be among the most sophisticated and dangerous types of computer hacks. Zero-day attacks, which are rarely discovered or disclosed by their targets, are costly to launch and often suggest government involvement.
While Facebook said no user data was compromised, the incident could raise consumer concerns about privacy and the vulnerability of personal information stored within the social network.
Facebook has made several privacy missteps in the past because of the way it handled user data. It settled a privacy investigation with federal regulators in 2011.
According to one person familiar with the situation, the type of information on the employee laptops that were compromised included "snippets" of Facebook source code and employee emails.
Facebook said it spotted a suspicious file and traced it back to an employee's laptop. After conducting a forensic examination of the laptop, Facebook said it identified a malicious file, then searched company-wide and identified "several other compromised employee laptops".
Another person briefed on the matter said the first Facebook employee had been infected via a website where coding strategies were discussed.
The company also said it identified a previously unseen attempt to bypass its built-in cyber defenses and that new protections were added on February 1.
Because the attack used a third-party website, it might have been an early-stage attempt to penetrate as many companies as possible.
If they followed established patterns, the attackers would learn about the people and computer networks at all the infected companies. They could then use that data in more targeted attacks to steal source code and other intellectual property.
Another fear for such a popular website is that hackers could use central controls to infect wide swathes of its user base at once.
In January 2010, Google reported it had been penetrated via a "zero-day" flaw in an older version of the Internet Explorer Web browser. The attackers were seeking source code and were also interested in Chinese dissidents. Google reduced its operations in China as a result.
(Additional reporting by Alexei Oreskovic in San Francisco and Tim Reid in Los Angeles; Editing by Paul Tait)
