Blog

Having been an official company for less than a month, EMC and VMware backed Pivotallaunched as a stand-alone company Wednesday, detailing its new enterprise Platform as a Service (PaaS) offering, and a $105 million investment from GE.

Former VMware CEO Paul Maritz addressed a webcast press event Wednesday in San Francisco, delivering the story line and mission of the newly formed company, positioning it as a new platform for a new era. Citing the changing market forces of cloud, big data, mobile, and social Maritz said that the enterprise needs a new class of applications that deliver better user experiences and that consumer-grade capabilities are needed in the enterprise. While still servicing the legacy needs of the enterprise, Pivotal One will integrate new data fabrics, modern programming frameworks, cloud portability for legacy systems.

“It is clear that there is a widespread need emerging for new solutions that allow customers to drive new business value by cost-effectively reasoning over large datasets, ingesting information that is rapidly arriving from multiple sources, writing applications that allow real-time reactions, and doing all of this in a cloud-independent or portable manner,’ said Maritz, the CEO of Pivotal. “The need for these solutions can be found across a wide range of industries and it is our belief that these solutions will drive the need for new platforms. Pivotal aims to be a leading provider of such a platform. We are honored to work with GE, as they seek to drive new business value in the age of the Industrial Internet.”

Pivotal One

The Pivotal One enterprise PaaS platform combines cloud fabric, data fabric and application fabric, to address what the company sees as an $8 billion market that is expected to grow to $20 billion in five years. Three components make up the Pivotal One platform: Data Fabric, Cloud and Application Platform, and Pivotal Expert Services. The Pivotal HD  data fabric was announced in February by EMC Greenplum as a SQL parallel database on top of the Hadoop Distributed File System. With the addition of Greenplum HAWQ data services and Pivotal in-memory data grid technology, Pivotal HD provides proven technologies for analytical queries and transactional environments.

Pivotal Cloud and Application Platform is based on Cloud Foundry, the open source PaaS, and Spring, the application development framework for enterprise Java. The application fabric provides a rich developer ecosystem that enables rapid application development and support for messaging, database services and robust analytic and visualization instrumentation. Pivotal Expert Services delivers the business value of agile development and sophisticated data analytics to enterprise companies on a project-by-project basis.

As a new stand-alone company Pivotal draws on an experienced set of talent from EMC, VMware, Greenplum, and many other technology giants. Along with Martiz, former EMC Greenplum executives Scott Yara and Bill Cook join Pivotal as Senior Vice President, Products and Platform, and Chief Operating Officer. Pivotal begins operations with 1,250 employees, including over 700 developers.

Strategic investment from GE

At the launch event Wednesday, GE announced its plans to invest approximately $105 million in Pivotal. The companies also announced their intent to enter into a broad research and development and commercial agreement aimed at accelerating GE’s ability to create new analytic services and solutions for its customers. The investment in Pivotal and new business agreement align with GE’s focus on the Industrial Internet. The partnership is key for GE, as it is working to develop a software platform that it will deliver as a service to industrial customers in aviation, transportation, healthcare, energy and manufacturing.

There’s been some confusion in recent months over whether Voyager 1 has actually exited the Solar System. NASA scientists have reported multiple times that they’ve seen indications that the probe may be outside the heliosphere, only to roll back the fanfare with a deeper analysis of the data.

Now, NASA is letting everyone in on the agonizing wait with a new feature incorporated into its Eyes on the Solar System software. Eyes on the Solar System is an interactive, 3-D web app that uses up-to-date NASA mission data to depict the Solar System.

The new module allows users to watch the Voyager 1 probe as it hurtles toward interstellar space. Astronomers believe that Voyager 1 entered a “magnetic highway” at the edge of the Solar System late last year. The ‘Highway” is a region where charged particles can pass both in and out of the heliosphere, the bubble of charged particles that surrounds the sun.

The app will speed up Voyager 1′s journey to one day per second. Navigation data from the project is used to show the probe roll and maneuver through the Solar System.

NASA researchers are tracking the particles coming from inside the heliosphere and outside of it. They believe that a sustained increase in detected outside charged particles indicates the “magnetic highway” Voyager 1 currently occupies. Scientists are waiting for a magnetic field shift before confirming the probe has left the Solar System.

(Image courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech)

Rapper Snoop — formerly known as Snoop Dogg, and now going by the name Snoop Lion — has a new iOS app to promote his latest album, Reincarnated. The app, “Snoop Lion’s Reincarnated: Track Notes,” was developed by creative marketing agency Cashmere and Citia, a New York-based startup that formerly focused on book apps and is now expanding to other forms of media.

The release of Snoop’s new app also marks Citia’s expansion of its offerings from iPad apps only to iPhone and web. The “Reincarnated” app works on Chrome and Safari, as well as on iOS. A free version of the app is available in the iOS App Store today, and Citia plans to release a premium version of the app that includes interviews with Snoop and other exclusive content this summer.

Citia sees the “Reincarnated” app as a demonstration of the capabilities of its platform. Each app — whether it’s for a book or an album — includes a set of virtual “cards” that users can navigate through quickly. A user can also flip a card with a flick of her finger to see a number of buy links. In the case of the “Reincarnated” app, a user can buy Snoop’s DVD, download the Reincarnated album, or buy Snoop’s “house shoes” or “grindtainers.” (See a video preview below.)

In March, Citia CEO Linda Halliday told me that the company now thinks of its clients as the “new content creators,” whether they’re publishers, artists or something else. “We define them either by their audience or by their point of view, and those two things are flip sides of the same coin,” she said. A book is just “a container,” and “I don’t confuse the container and the contents. We can’t hold the book up as some kind of requirement.”

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Mobile Q2: Smartphone growth surges; iPad’s rule continues
• Why iPad 2 Will Lead Consumers Into the Post-PC Era
• How to deliver the next-generation web experience

For those who followed Nokia closely in the past decade, some of Tim Cook’s comments are starting to trigger a weird sense of dislocation. “Our competitors have made some significant tradeoffs in many of these areas to ship a larger display. We would not ship a larger display iPhone while these tradeoffs exist.” Is this Apple’s CEO in 2013 or Nokia’s CEO in 2007? The strongest parallel is in the weird way both companies started fighting the consumer preference for larger displays at the peak of their profitability… and then dug in as margins began eroding rapidly.

Continue reading…

LinkedIn announced the new LinkedIn Contacts today. This is described as a way to bring all your contacts into one place.

Specifically, LinkedIn Contacts brings contacts from your address books, email accounts, and calendars together with your LinkedIn network.

“From these sources, we’ll automatically pull in the details of your past conversations and meetings, and bring these details directly onto your contact’s profile,” says LinkedIn’s Sachin Rekhi.

Introducing the New LinkedIn Contacts from LinkedIn

LinkedIn Contacts is available on LinkedIn.com, and has a standalone app for the iPhone. Stilly, you have to get an invite, and the company will start sending them to a limited number of users in the U.S. over the coming weeks.

While LinkedIn does not mention Android or other mobile platforms, one can only assume that the app will broaden its audience at some point.

A North Carolina man has been arrested on charges of murder and assault with a deadly weapon after stabbing a friend and the friend’s wife, who died from her wounds.

Jonathan Broyhill, who was best man in the couple’s wedding in 2009, attacked Nation Hahn and Jamie Kirk Hahn in their home on Monday night before turning the knife on himself. He was treated for his wounds and now faces serious charges, and police are investigating a possible motive.

Broyhill worked with Jamie Hahn at her company, Sky Blue Strategies, which dealt with high-profile Democratic candidates. Investigators say they’ve found large discrepancies in the amounts of funds paid out to donors in the form of refunds; $8,250 was given by those donors in 2012 but a document shows they allegedly received $15,900 in return. Whether that money ever made it back to them is under investigation.

“Some of the things that Jonathan said about the campaign finances were inconsistent with other information,” former Democratic Rep. Brad Miller said. “It’s probably the case that Jamie was asking questions on behalf of the campaign about campaign finances. I think it’s bound to be part of the investigation of Jon’s motive.”

Jamie’s family released a statement regarding her death:

“It is our fervent hope that an even larger community will be inspired now by the way she lived her life,” the family said. “She dedicated her life and her work to the ideal that we were put on this earth to care for those who need an extra measure of care. She believed in justice, opportunity and fairness for all. She loved politics and she saw the Democratic Party as the path to realize her ideals. She had a gift for bringing us together – black and white, young and old, gay and straight. She challenged us to work together for a better world. Her light will shine on in all of us who knew and loved her.”

Think some cloud-storage options are no good for privacy-sensitive applications like health care? Box wants you to think again.  Keen on boosting its enterprise customer base and prepping for an IPO, the company said Wednesday it’s now HIPAA-compliant, enabling Box to handle personal health information.

Compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act means that Box provides file redundancy to prevent data loss in a disaster, restrictions on employees’ access to documents, a breach-notification policy, data encryption and other features.

Beyond talking about meeting regulatory standards, Box is also promoting 10 new partner applications in its marketplace, including the drchrono iPad application for viewing electronic health records and the TigerText Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) for texting and sharing documents among health care providers.

It’s not as though Box has yet to take on business from health care companies, though. It’s got hundreds of paying health care customers, said Whitney Bouck, general manager of Box Enterprise. Customers include the Garden City Hospital and the Henry Ford Health System, both in Michigan, according to a Box statement. Still, Bouck said that because of the HIPAA compliance and application partnerships, the company expects a much higher annual revenue growth rate in the health care area than the companywide figure, which stands at 160 percent.

Adding creature comforts to entice customers in health care and other sectors is important for the cloud-storage contenders such as Box, Dropbox and at least a dozen other storage providers, all of which want to become the Dropbox of the enterprise. Box is following Salesforce.com, Microsoft and other cloud collaboration providers by connecting with apps catering to industries. At the same time, those software giants are adding Box-like cloud storage capabilities of their own.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• NewNet Q4: Platform mania and social commerce shakeout
• The role of converged infrastructure in the data center
• Cloud computing 2013: how to navigate without a map

Managing subcontractors can be a draining, thankless task. How many times have you had to adjust project plans or schedules because a sub failed to deliver?

We used to burn a lot of valuable time babysitting our subs through projects. Sometimes we had to practically take over managing their tasks for them in order to prevent them from crashing the whole project.

But then, on a job that required us to use a small subcontractor we’ll call Quantum Robotics, we figured out how we could solve that problem. Roger managed the project, so we’ll let him tell it in his own words:

I knew from experience that Quantum required intense supervision to make schedule. I was also worried that the company might lose money on the project. When you contract with small subs, you need to concern yourself with their financial situation. If they go belly-up before they deliver their work, things can get messy for the whole project.

Midway through our project Quantum ran into issues that I thought might compromise their profitability. So I asked the owner, “Dave, are you making money on this project?” He said, “Relax. We’ll make up for the problems.”

At first I figured Dave was just being his usual closed-mouth self. Then I got a sinking feeling: He didn’t know the answer to my question. When I asked again, he sighed. “Honestly, I won’t know how profitable this project is until we can crunch the final numbers.”

I had grown accustomed to the weekly financial updates we do on our own projects, including metrics such as gross profit per hour. Quantum had nothing like that, which meant I’d have to babysit the company every step of the way. And then it dawned on me: If I could teach Dave a few of the methods we use to generate and track project metrics, he’d have similar data at his fingertips. So would I.

It took some coaxing, but I managed to convince him to give our metrics a shot. We took his project budget, added up hours spent and materials costs, and came up with a forecast of remaining expenditures. That allowed us to estimate his gross profit per hour for the entire project. We could see he had some challenges — but if he met them, he’d be OK. The key was for him to keep a close watch on performance so he could correct course immediately when the project metrics showed a dip in the profitability of his team’s efforts.

For the rest of the project I eased off on the babysitting. Quantum now had metrics that would highlight critical issues, so the folks there could oversee their own progress. Eventually, they completed the project on time and everyone profited from the job.

No PM likes interfering with a sub’s business, and the sub usually likes it even less. But if you can help them monitor their work accurately early on — in a way that makes sense to both parties — you won’t have to intervene nearly as much later to keep things on track.

This is the fourth post in the authors’ blog series on project management. The series draws on advice from their book Project Management for Profit.

Post #1: The Dirty Little Secret of Project Management

Post #2: When Tracking Projects, Ignore Your Accountants

Post #3: Project Managers Should Share Their Stress

Dallas-based startup BookShout, which aims to promote social reading and aid book discovery, has raised $6 million in a Series B funding round, the company announced Thursday. But the company is, at least temporarily, no longer permitting users to import their Kindle and Nook books onto the platform — the feature that it showed off as the main perk of its platform at the Frankfurt Book Fair last fall.

That hasn’t stopped Ambassador Enterprises, a Fort Wayne, Ind.-based venture firm, from investing again. “By serving authors and publishers in a process-oriented, measurable way, BookShout is eliminating the guesswork and building tools that let content creators take control of their audience,” Ambassador CEO Daryle Doden said in a statement.

BookShout, which is available on the web and for Android and iOS, recently rolled out tools for digital bulk sales and promotions. It offers gift cards and promo codes and added an “author circles” feature that lets authors communicate with their fans. The company says it is working with 250 publishers and sells over 100,000 ebooks on its platform. But it would not reveal how many users it has.

As for the Kindle and Nook importation — which seemed suspect at the time it was launched, even though CEO Jason Illian said the company wasn’t breaking Amazon or Barnes & Noble’s terms of service — the feature is turned off for now but could return, Illian told me. “We’ll see if we do [turn it back on] or not based on our relationships and partnerships with publishers,” he said. “We are here to serve them.”

BookShout was founded in 2010 and has gone through a number of incarnations before its current model. It has also received backing from Ingram Content Group CEO John Ingram. Including the newest round of funding, the company has raised $8.75 million in total.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Connected consumer third-quarter 2012
• Tablet market to hit over 377 million units by 2016
• Forecast: the evolution of the e-book market

A man accused of housing child pornography on multiple hard drives will not be forced to give authorities access, after a Wisconsin judge rules that doing so would violate his 5th Amendment rights against self-incrimination.

The case involves Jeffrey Feldman, a software engineer with a degree in computer science from University of Wisconsin-Madison. Suspected of possessing child pornography, FBI agents raided his home and seized 16 storage devices, 9 of which were encrypted.

The FBI filed an order to compel Feldman to decrypt his devices, and order which has been shot down by Judge William Callahan.

“This is a close call, but I conclude that Feldman’s act of production, which would necessarily require his using a password of some type to decrypt the storage device, would be tantamount to telling the government something it does not already know with “reasonably particularity” – namely, that Feldman has personal access to and control over the encrypted storage devices. Accordingly, in my opinion, Fifth Amendment protection is available to Feldman. Stated another way, ordering Feldman to decrypt the storage devices would be in violation of his Fifth Amendment right against compelled self-incrimination,” said Judge William E. Callahan Jr.

The Judge concedes that the state knows the encrypted devices contain data, and that they already know the names of the files and that they probably exist on said devices. He also concedes that the state has shown that Feldman is surely capable of decrypting the devices.

But the following question remains: Is it reasonably clear, in the absence of compelled decryption, that Feldman actually has access to and control over the encrypted storage devices and, therefore, the files contained therein? To be sure, the storage devices were all found in Feldman’s residence, where he has admittedly lived alone for the past 15 years. In addition, the unencrypted Dell computer, which showed connections to the encrypted storage devices, has a login screen with only one username, “Jeff.” Nevertheless, unlike in Boucher and Fricosu, here, Feldman has not admitted access and control.

It’s clear that the Judge thinks that this is a very tricky case, and his decision toes the line.

In the end, however, the conclusion is that the state simply doesn’t know enough already about the contents of the drives and the defendant’s ties to them to compel him to access them.

An attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation told Wired that “this isn’t just about child porn. It’s about anything on your computer that prosecutors or government officials may want.”

Don’t think that encrypting your data shields you from the long reach of the law, however. Not only is encryption less than 100% effective, but this is simply one ruling. In the past, we’ve seen courts compel decryption – for instance in the aforementioned Boucher case, where a man was forced to unlock like laptop after authorities suspected it contained child pornography.

The DualShock design has remained fairly consistent since its introduction in 1997. Even the DualShock 3, with its motion controls and curved analog triggers, looked almost just like previous incarnations. Sony is changing all that with the PlayStation 4, and (Sony’s) developers couldn’t be happier.

Sony released a new video detailing the DualShock 4 and what developers think about it. Those speaking are internal Sony developers so they are somewhat obligated to love the new controller. That being said, there does seem to be a lot of love that went into the controller, and Sony says that it was designed with input from studios around the world.

While it’s nice to know a bit more about the controller, gamers are eager to get a look at the actual PlayStation 4 hardware itself. We probably won’t be able to see that until E3 in June though. Until then, we’ll just have to make due with more videos about the DualShock 4 and other PS4 services.

Microsoft has big plans for this year’s Electronic Entertainment Expo. Following its unveiling of the next-generation Xbox video game console on May 21st, the company plans to “continue the conversation” at the annual gaming convention. A Microsoft spokesperson confirmed to Polygon that the company will “showcase the new console’s software line-up” and a “full line-up of blockbuster gaming experiences” for the next-generation Xbox.

Continue reading…

Yesterday, Nintendo posted its annual earnings, which were a bit disappointing due to slow sales of its newest console, the Wii U.

Buried inside Nintendo President Satoru Iwata’s statements about Nintendo’s financial standing is something of great intrest to gamers who are looking forward to this year’s E3. It turns out that Nintendo will not be hosting a huge press conference at the event, which is common for console makers and large publishers.

Since Nintendo does not have a new console to launch the way Microsoft and Sony do, the company will use its presence at E3 to show off upcoming Wii U games. Iwata stated that the company will be working on a “new presentation style for E3″ that includes smaller events focused on Nintendo’s U.S. software lineup. For Japan and the rest of the world, Nintendo will be releasing Nintendo Direct presentations to show off its software.

Iwata’s statement on E3:

In the past we invited reporters, investors and analysts, industry partners, such as software publishers, and distributors who attended E3 to our large-scale presentations. We also used them as a communication tool in which we broadcast our presentations on the Internet to reach out to video game fans around the globe. I believe that many are expecting us to host a similar event this year.

On the other hand, since we set out on new endeavors such as Nintendo Direct two years ago in October, we have been paying special attention to the fact that different people demand different types of information from us. For example, as video game fans are looking for information about games, it seems that they are less interested in sales figures that investors and analysts on the other hand attach much greater importance to, and distribution partners are looking for information on how we are going to market our products in the immediate future. At previous financial briefing sessions we announced information about our products, showed videos and even uploaded the recording of these events onto our website, but given that we now have an established method such as Nintendo Direct, we feel that we will be able to deliver our messages more appropriately and effectively by doing so individually based on the various needs of different groups of people.

At E3 this year, we are not planning to launch new hardware, and our main activity at E3 will be to announce and have people experience our software. Many people are certainly very interested in learning more about the Wii U titles that we are going to announce. We will use E3 as an ideal opportunity to talk in detail mainly about the Wii U titles that we are going to launch this year, and we also plan to make it possible for visitors to try the games immediately. As a brand new challenge, we are working to establish a new presentation style for E3.

First, we decided not to host a large-scale presentation targeted at everyone in the international audience where we announce new information as we did in the past.

Instead, at the E3 show this year, we are planning to host a few smaller events that are specifically focused on our software lineup for the U.S. market. There will be one closed event for American distributors, and we will hold another closed hands-on experience event, for mainly the Western gaming media. Also, I did not speak at last year’s presentation, and I am not planning to speak at these events at the E3 show this year either. Apart from these exclusive events for visitors, we are continuing to investigate ways to deliver information about our games directly to our home audience around the time of E3. We will share more information about them once they have officially been decided.

During the E3 period, we will utilize our direct communication tools, such as Nintendo Direct, to deliver information to our Japanese audience, including those who are at this financial briefing, mainly focusing on the software that we are going to launch in Japan, and we will take the same approach outside Japan for the overseas fans as well.

(via Endless)

“M*A*S*H” actor Allan Arbus, who played psychiatrist Sidney Freedman on the show, has died. He was 95.

Arbus was a film actor who appeared in “Coffy” and “Damien: Omen II”, but he was best known for his work on television. Throughout the ’70s, he appeared on many of the most popular shows, including “Mod Squad”, “The Odd Couple”, and “Hawaii 5-0″. But it was his portrayal of Major Sidney Freedman on “M*A*S*H” which won him favor with audiences. It would become his most famous role.

“I was so convinced that he was a psychiatrist I used to sit and talk with him between scenes,” co-star Alan Alda said. “After a couple months of that I noticed he was giving me these strange looks, like ‘How would I know the answer to that?’ ”

Before his acting career took off, Arbus worked with his wife, Diane, as a photographer. He also snapped photos for the Army during WWII, but he would make a name for himself later with Diane when they discovered a gift for fashion photography. The couple made huge names for themselves in the fashion world, shooting for Vogue and Glamour before Diane decided to take her own creative path.

Diane and Allan divorced in 1969, and she took her own life in 1971. Many who knew Allan believed such a tragic loss helped him put a believable spin on his “M*A*S*H” character.

“He brought a depth … to what he faced as a psychiatrist on the show,” said Alan Alda. “It helped the audience and … actors believe some of the stresses our characters were under.”

HTC is clearing the air in regards to the injunction that was ordered in the Netherlands on Nokia’s behalf. They want to make it clear the injunction wasn’t on the HTC one, but it was on STM, manufacturers of the microphone on the HTC One. Nokia had an exclusive arrangement with STM for these microphones and HTC bought them in good faith. In fact, HTC was found to be blameless in the case. Regardless, HTC can’t buy microphones from STM anymore, but HTC wanted to make it clear that they are still able to utilize the microphones they bought before the injunction was granted. HTC is already working on an improved design and will transition to it when the current STM supply runs out. Hit the break for HTC’s full statement.

In light of several misleading stories regarding a recent injunction obtained by Nokia against STM (a supplier of components to HTC in The Netherlands) HTC looks to clarify the following points:

• Nokia has NOT obtained an injunction in The Netherlands, or anywhere else, against the HTC One.
• The Dutch proceedings were brought by Nokia solely against STM. HTC was not sued by Nokia in the Netherlands.
• The Dutch injunction prohibits STM from selling certain microphones to any company other than Nokia for a limited period.
• The judgment against STM states that HTC can continue to use microphones already purchased from STM in its products, because they were purchased in good-faith. Nokia’s attempt to obtain a recall of microphones already sold to HTC failed.
• HTC will transition to improved microphone designs once its inventory of STM microphones is exhausted.

Come comment on this article: HTC makes statement regarding injunction, will transition to improved microphones

Pro-touring is the art of taking and old car and fitting it with modern components so as to give it the performance to be able to run head-to-head with today’s modern sports cars. Now when most people think of this, they immediately think of modernized muscle cars. But what about taking vintage imports and doing the same thing. MotorTrend recently got two amazing Nissan Z cars together for an all-out track comparison. Car 1 was a modern day 370z fitted with just about every bolt-on you could possibly purchase over the parts counter. Car 2 was a vintage 1970 Datsun 240z with an RB26 engine transplant that was built by Gordon MacSwain of Ohio. Both cars are fast, nimble and have serious track cred, but at days end, who will be the victor? Click through to find out.

Source: MotorTrend.com

I was actually wondering if it would ever happen, but it looks like the Jelly Bean update is officially rolling for the T-Mobile HTC One S. Of course it isn’t the latest version of Jelly Bean, but Android 4.1.1 still brings a lot of new features such as Google Now. The file size is pretty high at 675.49MB so you need to be connected to WiFI for this one. You should receive your update automatically, but you can always check to see if you can manually pull it by going to Settings/About/Software Updates. Let us know if you received your update yet.

source: TmoNews

Come comment on this article: T-Mobile HTC One S gets Jelly Bean

Topless photos of Kate Middleton which showed up in a French magazine last year are at the center of some trouble for two people, who have now had charges filed against them.

Ernesto Mauri, the chief executive of the company that owns Closer Magazine, has been charged with invasion of privacy. A photographer, Valerie Suau, has been charged as well for taking the photos and publishing them in her newspaper, La Provence; however, Suau claims she didn’t take the topless photos, only snapping Kate in her bikini. An investigation has been launched to determine whether she took the photos that appeared in Closer.

The Duchess was photographed while sunbathing on vacation at a private residence in France last September, causing a huge uproar in Britain and launching a crusade by Middleton and Prince William against paparazzi being so intrusive. However, Closer editor Laurence Pieau claimed that Middleton was doing what millions of other European women do, and that the photos shouldn’t have come as such a shock to people.

“These photos are not in the least shocking. They show a young woman sunbathing topless, like the millions of women you see on beaches,” he said.

Perhaps what was most unsettling to many was not the fact that Middleton was sunbathing topless, but that she was doing it at a private residence in front of a secret audience with a long lens. Prince William made the decision to sue Closer after the photos were published and compared the invasion of his wife’s privacy to the behavior of the media towards his mother, Princess Diana, who died tragically in a car accident in France while allegedly trying to outrun photographers.

Apple has been hit with a fine in China after being found to have illegally distributed copywrited materials. China Daily reports that the Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court ruled against Apple in a case brought by book writers claiming their works were being sold in Apple’s eBook store without their permission. The court determined that it was indeed Apple’s job to verify that works uploaded to its iOS book store for the iPhone and iPad were the property of the parties uploading them, and it fined Apple 730,000 yuan, or approximately $118,000, for its irresponsible verification policies.

Continue reading…

Rayman Legends was supposed to be a Wii U-exclusive title, launching sometime during Nintendo’s “extended launch window.” In February, however, Ubisoft announced that the game would be ported to all consoles, and delayed the near-complete Wii U version so as to launch the game simultaneously on all platforms.

Early adopters of the Wii U were, understandably, upset. Ubisoft responded to the severe criticism, but only by releasing a new demo for the game on Wii U.

This week, the final release date for the game has been set. Rayman Legends will launch on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii U on September 3 (August 30 in Europe), putting the game’s launch just weeks before the release of Grand Theft Auto V.

In the meantime, Ubisoft is still trying to make things right with Wii U owners. The publisher has launched a new Rayman Legends Challenges app for the Wii U. The app is free and includes different challenge modes and randomly-generated levels that allow players to earn “cups,” which unlock daily an weekly challenges.