Apple Sued by Shareholders Over Anti-Poaching Agreements with Other Companies
Apple shareholder R. Andre Klein is suing Apple on behalf of all of its shareholders over the company’s anti-poaching agreements, reports Patently Apple.
The lawsuit claims that Apple’s no-hire agreements with other companies including Google, Adobe, and Intel caused the company to grossly mismanage its assets, mislead its investors, breach the duty of “honest services”, and hurt its overall value. The suit seeks damages for all shareholders through a jury trial, and names a number of Apple executives as individual defendants including current CEO Tim Cook and even former CEO Steve Jobs.
The suit follows a rejection of a $324 million settlement proposal between the four tech companies and tech workers by a California court. In the filing’s court documents, Judge Lucy Koh stated that the total settlement “falls below the range of reasonableness” when compared a $20 million settlement given last year by Pixar, Lucasfilm, and Intuit. Comparatively speaking, Apple and others should pay a minimum of $380 million.
Employees of the various tech companies originally brought forth a lawsuit against the companies no-hire agreements in 2011, with a trial revealing anti-poaching tactics dating back to 2005. The United States Department of Justice intervened in the case in 2010, forcing the companies to stop engaging in anti-poaching agreements. However, the class-action civil lawsuit brought against the aforementioned companies by over 64,000 employees will remain open until a settlement has been reached.
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PlayStation 4’s new digital game-sharing trick sounds simple
Okay, we know that the PlayStation 4′s Share Play feature is coming, but how does letting a friend on an entirely different console (possibly around the globe) play one of your games work? A lot like how PS4′s remote play with the PS Vita does, apparently. In an interview with Famitsu Weekly, Sony’s head of Worldwide Studios Shuhei Yoshida said that game developers don’t have to do anything special to enable the feature, and that barring a game requiring the PlayStation Camera, any title should be compatible. Once firmware 2.0 launches, all a friend has to do is send you a Share Play invite and voila you can start playing their copy of Destiny on your TV. If it sounds like we’re living in the future, that’s because we pretty much are.
Don’t, however, go thinking that this is a loophole you can exploit to sidestep ever buying another game: Sony clarified to Kotaku that the guest’s progress would not be saved to their account, but to the host’s. It’s going to be interesting seeing how the feature deals with lag and just what the image quality’s going to look like once it launches. Given our hands-on time with Sony’s PlayStation Now streaming service, though, we’re cautiously optimistic.
Filed under: Gaming, Home Entertainment, HD, Sony
Via: Kotaku
Source: Famitsu
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Get Apex Notifier on Android Wear
Loving your new Android Wear smartwatch? Well, you might just love it even more with the Apex Notifier update that now supports Android Wear. On your smartwatch, the app can show you how much battery remains on your smartphone, so you don’t have to take it out of your pocket just to check how much…… Read more »
The post Get Apex Notifier on Android Wear appeared first on AndroidGuys.
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Pēq will let you control and automate your home for a monthly fee
Thinking about upgrading your home? There are plenty of home automation systems to choose from — and now, there’s one more. Pēq (pronounced ‘peek’) is a new smart home service designed to take the guesswork out of device compatibility by offering a store of self-branded products that integrate seamlessly with the system’s central control hub. It’s kind of like SmartThings, but with a monthly subscription fee. Pēq’s $9.99 service gives users access to smartphone, PC and tablet control apps, the ability to receive e-mail or text message alerts, remote video streaming capabilities, automatic firmware updates and, of course, access to customer service seven days a week.
The system is said to be heading to Best Buy exclusively, but Pēq’s collection of hubs, plugs, thermostats and sensors can also be purchased from the company’s own website. Pēq selling point seems to be about making smart home setup simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s cheap: systems start at $120 for a simple door and window sensor kit and can cost as much as $490 for bundles with motion sensors and lamp modules. Paired with the monthly fee, that could get expensive – but who doesn’t want to pay $10 month to see when nana is playing Nintendo Wii? Check out a quick demo (in all it’s grandma spying glory) in the video below.
Source: Zats Not Funny, Peq
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Galaxy Note 4 Specs Leak?! Moto 360 Release Date Septemember 5th? – ManDroid Daily
Happy Thursday folks. The ManDroid Daily is here. Seems an Indonesian retailer outed the Galaxy Note 4 specs, which is not the first time that has happened with a new phone.The Moto 360 might have a release date FINALLY. September 5th might be a happy day for us nerds that want a circle on our wrist. All articles down below, and enjoy the video as well.
Android News
Galaxy Note 4 Specs
Moto 360 release date
HTC Zoe in the Play Store
Google Mobile releases four Android Wear commercials
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The post Galaxy Note 4 Specs Leak?! Moto 360 Release Date Septemember 5th? – ManDroid Daily appeared first on AndroidSPIN.
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You can carry a privacy-minded wireless hotspot in your pocket
Devices like the Safeplug can deter companies and governments from snooping on your devices at home, but they’re not much good when you’re on the road. That’s where the PORTAL (Personal Onion Router To Assure Liberty) project comes into play. Load the customized firmware on to certain travel hotspots (some TP-Link models and their clones) and you can maintain strong privacy anywhere you have internet access, without using special software; think of it as an anti-surveillance tool in your pocket. It not only puts you on the Tor anonymity network that spies hate so much, but supports connection masking add-ons that prevent your Tor data from being blocked. You can visit China without worrying that you’ll have to use an insecure, heavily censored connection just to get online.
The catch? It’s not all that easy to set up. You have to be comfortable with loading unofficial code like OpenWRT, for a start. It’s also “highly recommended” that you use a modified router; there isn’t enough room on stock devices to load PORTAL without plugging in a USB drive, robbing you of the chance to use a cellular data stick. The team behind the firmware is working on simplifying the install process, though, and any headaches you deal with might be worthwhile if they curb anxiety later on.
Filed under: Wireless, Networking, Internet
Via: Ars Technica, Geek
Source: Portalmasq.com (PDF), GitHub
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The next industrial revolution will be robot-based (video)
You’re probably getting tired of hearing that robots will take your jobs (and, ugh, ours) in the future over and over again. But, here’s the deal: perhaps it’s necessary keep repeating it so it sinks in, because there’s a huge chance that it’ll actually happen. The video after the break explains how the event mirrors the industrial revolution, when machines replaced a lot of manual laborers. See, those robots that are supposed to put us all out of jobs are already here: some of them (general-purpose robots, like Baxter in the image above) still need quite a lot of work, but others such as driverless cars are really close to deployment. Even white-collar workers, creatives and professionals aren’t safe now that more and more sophisticated software and hardware emerge, including IBM’s Watson, which can diagnose patients like a doctor. We’re like horses, says video creator CGP Grey, horses that were replaced by automobiles back in the day.
Okay, so we admit that all those points make the video sound depressing as hell, but that’s not actually its intention: Grey merely wants to point out that robots taking over everyone’s workplace is an inevitable development. We need to start thinking of what to do when that happens, because unlike our equine friends, we actually have the power to plan for the future.
[Image credit: Rethink Robotics]
Filed under: Robots
Via: The Verge
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Harvard provides a glimpse at how the robot plague will overrun us all
Think that fancy 3D printer of yours is a technological marvel? Well, it’s got nothing on these tiny coin-sized robots. Computer scientists at Harvard University have built an army of 1,024 bots that collaborate to create various shapes, much in the way ants link to form bridges or birds fly in formation. The Kilobots, as they’re called, communicate using infrared light, moving from one precise location to another based on issued commands. To form each object, four robots mark the origin, then each secondary Kilobot very slowly moves into place based on the transmitted image — the short GIF above represents several hours of work. Of course, that’s simplifying the process significantly, so head on over to Harvard’s site for all the juicy details.
Filed under: Robots
Via: Ars Technica
Source: Harvard University
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New Xbox One features now rolling out to preview members, all owners in coming months
Remember those new Xbox One features Microsoft announced at Gamescom this week? They’re available right now — at least to members who are part of the company’s preview program. Major Nelson just announced that Xbox Live users that have access to preview updates will be able to download the new features today. This includes the updated Friends section announced earlier this week as well as SmartGlass TV streaming, the system’s new boot to TV mode and the long awaited Media Player app. The announcement also revealed a host of previously unannounced updates, including tweaks to the Party app and Xbox One’s GameDVR.
For the most part, the new features are about getting organized: the Party app has been retooled to give specified “party leaders” more control over the group and the entire interface has been tweaked for clarity. The GameDVR allows users to select and delete multiple files at once, too — which should make it easier to keep your console’s hard drive clean. Finally, the update will reorganize a few sections of the Xbox One’s settings menu and bring “Xbox On” voice functionality to Australia, French Canada, Italy, Spain, Brazil and Mexico. All in all, not a bad set of updates. Not part of the preview program? Don’t worry, the update will roll out to you (and the rest of the community) in the coming months. In the meantime, you can check out a quick walkthrough of the upcoming Media Player below.
Filed under: Gaming, HD, Microsoft
Source: Xbox
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Grade-school gamers test the foundation of DARPA’s next training software
Inside the University of Washington’s Center for Game Science (CGS), there’s a department that is making video games for children, and it’s funded mostly by DARPA. If you’ll recall, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency is the part of the US Department of Defense that looks into emerging tech and its potential use by the armed forces — things like robots, for example. But in order to gauge software components, the educational titles developed at the CGS cultivate “adaptive learning” tech that could be employed for military training. With tools that foster school-age students’ STEM skills, researchers can test a game’s adaptive teaching abilities and potential for use in other learning scenarios. Developers examine how AI that changes to suit education level could be leveraged for real-world use, which moves beyond the DOD to include science and biochemistry queries. In fact, it was the CGS’ game Foldit that crowdsources scientific research through protein puzzle solving that caught the attention of DARPA in the first place. You can have a look at that particular title on the other side of the break.
[Photo credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images]
Filed under: Gaming, Robots, Science, Software
Source: Vice
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AIVAnet 