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Electronic Arts Acquires Mobile Game Publisher Jamdat for $680 Million

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 9, 2005 - 4:44am.
Redwood City, Calif. - Looking to expand its offerings for mobile phones, Electronic Arts, the developer and publisher of video games, said late Thursday that it plans to acquire Los Angeles-based Jamdat Mobile, a publisher of wireless entertainment content, for approximately $680 million in cash. The two companies together plan to publish over 50 games for mobile phones in the first year following completion of the deal, including such titles as "Tetris," "Bejeweled," "Need For Speed" and "Madden NFL 06." Jamdat has 350 employees at offices in Honolulu, Montreal, Tokyo, London, Bucharest and Hyderabad. Mitch Lasky, Jamdata's CEO, will lead EA's mobile games business worldwide.
tags: Deals | VC | Jamdat | Game | Electronic Arts |

NBA Partners with Silicon Graphics to Create Online Video Archive

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 9, 2005 - 4:41am.
Mountain View, Calif. - The National Basketball Association (NBA) has partnered with Silicon Graphics, a provider of high-performance computing and storage products, to digitize all of the league's historical archive of video and post it on NBA.com, CNET News.com reported on Friday. The project that will digitize 60 years of video footage may take up to six years, but the NBA may begin posting some video as early as next year. "This is a migration that all sports leagues are going to have to make," Stephen Hellmuth, senior vice president of operations and technology for NBA Entertainment, told News.com. "We're thinking of making the video available to (fans) so they could edit their own highlight videos and hopefully make them available (in turn) to NBA.com." Hellmuth added that the archive will eventually include a searchable database of plays that would "note the players involved, their exact location on the court, at what point in the game the play happened, the outcome of the play and a rating for it."
tags: Internet | NBA | Silicon Graphics | Online Video Archive |

Report: November Video Game Sales Possibly Down 15% from 2004

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 9, 2005 - 4:37am.
London - Market research firm NPD Group recently posted its data on November U.S. game sales, indicating a 4% decline from last November -- but quickly withdrew those figures -- prompting analysts to expect the restated data to indicate a drop of closer to 15%, GamesIndustry.biz reported. NPD did measure a 21% decline in sales of games for video game consoles in November, but the 4% overall drop wasn't nearly as precipitous as analysts expected, with some blaming the fact that the company doesn't measure, but rather estimates sales from leading game retailers including Wal-Mart and Costco. Wedbush Morgan Securities analyst Michael Pachter told GamesIndustry.biz he expects the revised NPD figures to show a game sales decline closer to 15% for November.
tags: Reports | Down | Video Game Sales |

Loudeye to Shutter Overpeer P2P Anti-Piracy Unit

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 9, 2005 - 4:35am.
Seattle - Loudeye, a provider of branded digital song stores and other digital media services, announced on Friday that it has shuttered its Overpeer unit, which developed media content protection technology. Overpeer provided services to record labels and movie studios that included seeding illicit file-sharing networks with "spoof" files, which contained only noise, or copyright warnings, instead of the expected song or video file. Overpeer "will continue to pursue options to maximize the value of its assets," Loudeye said. As a result, Loudeye will realize savings of $1.6 million, or 10%, in the current quarter as compared with the previous quarter, but added that the shutdown of Overpeer will incur $200,000 in severance pay and other associated costs. "We continue to focus our business on growth opportunities with digital distribution. Our actions to exit content protection services will substantially improve our go-forward cost structure," said Loudeye president and CEO Mike Brochu.
tags: Loudeye | P2P Anti-Piracy Unit | Shutter Overpeer |

MP3 Player Maker Creative Hints At Patent Claim Against Apple iPod

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 9, 2005 - 4:32am.
London - Consumer electronics firm Creative Technology, maker of the Zen line of portable MP3 and video players, has told the BBC it intends to "pursue aggressively" a patent it holds on player software that would likely include Apple's iPod. The company -- which this week introduced its 30GB Zen Vision:M video and MP3 player -- won a patent in August that covers a hierarchical, multi-screen menu system for organizing files on a portable player. "We will pursue all manufacturers that use the same navigation system," Creative CEO Sim Wong told the BBC. "Hopefully this will be friendly, but people have to respect intellectual property." In a thinly-veiled reference to the marketing success for the iPod, Wong added, "We are focused on the technology…this is the key difference between a technology company and a branding company."
tags: Apple iPod | MP3 Player Maker | Creative Hints At Patent |

Report: Semiconductor Sales Reach Historic $235 Billion in 2005

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 9, 2005 - 4:30am.
Stamford, Conn. - Worldwide semiconductor revenue will total $235 billion in 2005 -- a 6.9% increase from 2004 -- breaking the previous record-setting year in 2000, when sales reached $223 billion, according to preliminary survey results from the market research firm Gartner. Intel remained the No. 1 vendor in 2005, with a 14.3% growth in sales, which was twice the market average. Broadly, demand for "flash" memory was a key driver in the overall market, according to Gartner. "The continuing strong demand for flash card and USB flash drives in 2005, along with the successful launch of the iPod shuffle by Apple at the start of 2005 and the release later in the year of the iPod nano, will drive this device market to the highest revenue performance in 2005," said Andrew Norwood, research vice president at Gartner.
tags: Deals | VC | Reports | Semiconductor Sales |

Napster Launches Digital Music Subscription Service in Germany

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 9, 2005 - 4:28am.
Los Angeles - Napster announced that is has launched its digital music subscription service in Germany, the first such service to launch in the country. Napster Germany will offer a library of 1.5 million songs, including 20,000 German albums and 135,000 local artists, for euro 9.95 per month ($11.75). Also available are individual songs for 99 euro cents ($1.17) and unlimited downloads to portable players for euro 14.95 per month ($17.67). Napster said it partnered with German electronics retailer MarkoMart, TV broadcaster SAT1 and MP3 player maker Trekstor to promote the service.
tags: Music | Germany | Napster | Digital Music Subscription Service |

Motorola, Burton Snowboards Introduce Bluetooth Ski Jackets

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 9, 2005 - 4:26am.
Libertyville, Ill. - Motorola and partner Burton Snowboards on Friday announced the commercial availability of their Bluetooth-enabled Audex line of winter sports jackets. The wearable technology features a control panel on the sleeve, which controls incoming and outgoing calls and music selections on a cell phone and iPod or other portable player stashed inside the jacket. Speakers and a microphone are also embedded within the hood of the Audex jackets, which start at $599. The companies also plan to introduce an Audex Helmet and Audex Padded Hat equipped with Bluetooth stereo headphones in the spring of 2006.
tags: Motorola | Burton Snowboards | Bluetooth Ski Jackets |

Proteus Launches SMS Interactive TV Feature for Fuel TV

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 9, 2005 - 4:23am.
Washington - Mobile entertainment publisher Proteus said that it has teamed with Fox Cable Networks' FUEL TV, an action sports network, to launch a new live "text-to-screen" application. The technology will allow viewers of the channel's "The Daily Habit" show to send text messages directly to the show and watch their "shoutouts," questions and requests telecast in a live ticker scrolling along the screen. Proteus also has created a web storefront where fans can download original artwork from FUEL TV to personalize their mobile phones.
tags: Proteus | SMS Interactive TV Feature | Fuel TV |

Washingtonpost.com Launches Archive of Congressional Voting Records

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 9, 2005 - 4:21am.
Arlington, Va. - Washingtonpost.com, the web site of The Washington Post, said that it has launched a new online tool that allows users to search the full voting records of Congress from 1991 through this year. The daily updated tool also offers the ability to download RSS feeds for each member of Congress to track individual votes as they are recorded.
tags: Internet | Washingtonpost.com | Congressional Voting Records |

PublicDomainTorrents Offers Over 500 Free iPod-Formatted Films

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 9, 2005 - 4:17am.
San Francisco - Wired News' "Cult of Mac" blog this week drew attention to a site called PublicDomainTorrents.com, which hosts over 500 free and legal movies for download -- most of which have also been formatted for the video iPod. The films are mainly B-movies, with titles like "Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women," but also include George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead," F.W. Murnau's "Nosferatu," and the 1932 screen adaptation of Hemingway's "A Farewell to Arms," starring Gary Cooper.
tags: PublicDomainTorrents | iPod-Formatted Films |

N.Y. Times Op-Ed: CD Copy-Protection is Bad for Consumers, Musicians, Labels

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on December 9, 2005 - 4:13am.
New York - The New York Times this week published an op-ed piece written by Damian Kulash, Jr., the lead singer for the U.K. band OK Go, on the Sony BMG copy-protected CD debacle and how such anti-piracy technology is actually hurting up-and-coming bands like his. "Sony BMG and the other major labels need to face reality: copy-protection software is bad for everyone, consumers, musicians and labels alike," writes Kulash. "It's much better to have copies of albums on lots of iPods, even if only half of them have been paid for, than to have a few CD's sitting on a shelf and not being played."
tags: Consumers | Labels | N.Y. Times Op-Ed | CD Copy-Protection | Musicians |