2008 January

31 01 2008

Helio’s Sky Dayton steps down as CEO

Posted by: in Mobile Phone

Sky Dayton, founder and chairman of the phantasmagorical Helio, has announced that he’s stepping down as CEO to become chairman of the board of the last-man-standing MVNO. Helio’s new CEO will be Wonhee Sull, formerly the company’s president and COO, and obviously a direct conduit to co-owner SK Telecom. “Helio has reached a point in its development where I feel the timing is right for this change… As we have for the past three years, the two of us will continue to define Helio’s direction and future,” said Dayton. Whether Sky’s really ready to move on or not we’ll never know, but it’s certainly possible that the recent influx of cash (and increased ownership) from its Korean parents and dwindling marketshare of US MVNOs led SK to step in and get things on track.

Update: Lots of fun inaccuracies going on up in here, our bad. We ironed out the kinks, see above for the latest, correct edits to Helio’s executive musical chairs.

31 01 2008

Apparent third-party Wiimote makes its purple debut

Posted by: in Gamespot

It’s not the first third-party Wiimote we’ve seen, but if the very purple device you see above is what it purports to be, it could well be the very first to actually hit the market, albeit in Europe-only for the time being. Dubbed the “Riimote,” this one comes to us from peripheral maker Snakebyte, which apparently isn’t providing many details on the remote just yet but is promising that it’ll be available in Europe on Feburary 8th for the not-so-bargain price of €39.99 (or just under $60). Those slightly less nostalgic about a certain purple game console than some of us can also rest assured that the controller will also be available in basic black, although it seems you’ll have to stick with the official gear if you want to keep everything coordinated.

[Via Wii Fanboy]

31 01 2008

Hoovers Buys Visible Path; Launches Hoover’s Connect

Posted by: in Network-Community-News

Hoover’s today launched officially the Hoover’s Connect social network, a very highly engineered social network for businessmen intent on networking and establishing relationships with targeted prospects. The launch announcement comes hand in hand with confirmation of the rumored agreement Hoovers has made to acquire Visible Path, a company responsible for powering Hoover’s Connect in it’s beta last year.

Visible Path is a service that provides connections for businesses, mapping a company’s social graphs. Or, as Kristen put it in her review last month, “a custom LinkedIn for just your company, and the peripheral contacts outside of the company that are made through individual connections.”

Visible Path scans desktop applications like Outlook, and keeps an up-to-date graph those in your immediate network, detailing who you’re strongest and most numerous connections are. Hoovers Connect takes the functionality of Visible Path and adds to it the layers of privacy protection they’ve been working on in the system allowing the users to have full control over who to invite into their network and to whom they want to grant others access within their network. Users have the option to either stay cloaked or identify themselves.

The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

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31 01 2008

Motorola CABO bringing RAZR 2 style to iDEN?

Posted by: in Mobile Phone

Wow, never thought we’d see the day that an iDEN handset came along that lacked that distinct iDENness. Motorola will definitely set that marketplace on fire if this beautifully RAZR 2-esque thing actually proves to be real, check out the frickin external screen on this thing! Featuring a 3 megapixel camera, external touch screen — we’re not positive if this only refers to the controls pictured above — Bluetooth, support for up to a 6 GB SD card, and have we mentioned how glorious the whole thing looks? Look for this to land Q4 this year, that is, if it ever gets out of Photoshop the design room. Color us pretty unsure until we hear more.

[Thanks, iDENguy]

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31 01 2008

Grant’s Appliances reportedly ditching HD DVD

Posted by: in Blu-ray

We wouldn’t call this one definite just yet, but according to “sources” cited by TGDaily, a Chicagoland retailer is shedding its purple skin in favor of Blu. Reportedly, it has “stopped ordering new HD DVD supply” entirely, and while it’s said that existing inventory has been depleted, we reckon you may be able to score a real deal should you find a locale with one last HD-A3 just begging for an owner. ‘Course, whether or not you should plunk down any coin whatsoever on HD DVD — considering the state of things and all — is another matter entirely.

[Thanks, Dave]

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31 01 2008

JVC and Funai hold hands, enter into LCD partnership

Posted by: in HDTV

Before long, we suppose all of these mainstays in the LCD biz will have at least one firm watching their back. The next pair of outfits to purportedly sync up is JVC and Funai, which are — according to an “industry source” — joining hands to “jointly develop and supply LCD television sets.” Of course, such an alliance is far from extraordinary at this point, but this particular partnership will apparently enable JVC to supply Funai with sets made in Mexico, after which Funai will sell them under its own brand name in North America. Meanwhile, JVC will be marketing LCD HDTVs in Europe produced by a Funai plant in Poland. Moving forward, it’s said that the two hope to collaborate on a TV to be released in 2009, but as of now, bigwigs from both firms have yet to confirm or deny these reports.

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31 01 2008

Which nuvi is the right nuvi for you?

Posted by: in GPS

Yeah, we sure love our charts / tables too, and with Garmin’s nüvi lineup now bordering on thoroughly overwhelming, we’re glad to see the folks over at NaviGadget doing the dirty work and cranking out “the ultimate nüvi comparison table.” Click on for a much easier way to digest the latest outpouring of nüvis, will ya?

31 01 2008

Nokia’s Comes with Music revenue to be shared with operators

Posted by: in Mobile Phone

Remember Nokia’s Comes with Music (CWM) service? The service which includes a full year of free DRM’d music downloads with the purchase of a CWM cellphone. Up to this point, Nokia has refused to comment on the financial details of the service. Important since “free” is expected to be anything but free with those music costs tucked neatly into the price of the handset, the carrier’s data plan, or both. In an interview published by Bloomberg, Tero Ojanpera, Nokia Executive VP, discussed CWM and says that, “In those cases where we cooperate with operators, there will be an arrangement so they can get a piece.” Something previously hinted at by Nokia’s CEO back in December. Still no word on who, beyond Universal, will offer their music on the new service or how much the new bundled handsets will cost. Ojanpera did repeat that CWM won’t be available on existing Nokia devices. For its part, Universal says that DRM is a definite component of the service — a possible deal-breaker if that DRM limits your CWM downloads to a single handset and PC for eternity.

30 01 2008

Nintendo’s 2007 profits almost double fiscal 2006

Posted by: in Gamespot

While a few companies have posted some hefty earnings this year, it’s hard not to be impressed with the sort explosive growth Nintendo — a 100 or so year old company — has seen in 2007. Profit for the nine months leading up to December 31st was $2.45 billion, up 96.3 percent from the same timespan in fiscal 2006. Naturally a huge chunk of that is the 20 million Wii consoles sold, 14.29 million of those in the last three quarters, and the related software title, but it’s pretty clear that the DS continues to shine, with 24.5 million sold in the last nine months, and most likely a higher per-unit profit. Nintendo shares are down 2.4 percent in Tokyo.