Twitter paid IBM $36 million for patents to avoid infringement claims

It looks as though Twitter is finally getting into the intellectual property war game. The company purchased more than 900 patents from IBM recently, according to reports. Like many cases when companies scoop up patents in mass quantity, Twitter isn't interested in the content of the trademarks themselves as much as it is keen on protecting itself from copyright infringement claims.

By purchasing the specific patents at hand, Twitter is protecting itself from at least three different infringement claims put upon it from IBM, not to mention any future claims. Instead of going through the legal hassles of litigation and settlement, Twitter decided to just buy the patents covering the claims set against them in order to bury the issue. The deal between the microblogging giant and IBM was struck back in December but no financial details were disclosed.

Surprisingly for a company of its size, previous to the deal with IBM Twitter held only nine patents, making it extremely susceptible to copyright attacks. The company now increases its portfolio to 

956 patents and 100 patents pending in the US, according to reports Twitter filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission pertaining to the IBM transaction.

“We presently are involved in a number of intellectual property lawsuits, and as we face increasing competition and gain an increasingly high profile, we expect the number of patent and other intellectual property claims against us to grow,” Twitter explained in the filing. It sounds as though the company will continue to grow its patent portfolio and the IBM deal could have been to protect it from other infringement claims as well.

While this marks the first time Twitter has made a deal of this nature outside of patents acquired through the purchase of other companies, IBM on the other hand has had the most patents granted in the US for 21 consecutive years.

AMD announces low-cost desktop chipset AM1

With an aim to dominate the desktop in emerging markets, chipmaker AMD has announced the AM1, a new low-cost SoC. It's effectively a sibling of the Kabini family of chips, that were launched last year with both dual- and quad-core CPUs and GPUs on the same chipset -- very similar to what just landed on both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. While Kabini was destined primarily for portables, AM1 is designed to take on desktops.

The company is offering the chipset and motherboard combo at an estimated starting price of $60. While the price seems quite reasonable, the chipset has some restrictions. According to ArsTechnica, motherboard manufacturers ASRock and Gigabyte say that AM1 will be limited to a 25W maximum power draw from the chipset, along with a PCIe 2.0 restriction. The company hasn't yet formally announced specs for the AM1.

AMD says that the new chipset is better than Intel's Bay Trail platform, as it has higher memory speeds, 16 GB memory support, an upgradable socket, and Windows XP support. With emerging markets witnessing a decline in PC sales due to an increase in adoption of smartphones and tablets, it would be interesting to see how well the AM1 is received. The new chipset is set for launch on April 9.

Second significant update for Xbox One rolling out ahead of Titanfall launch

Microsoft’s second significant update for Xbox One is rolling out to gamers as we speak. It delivers a number of features across the board ahead of next week’s launch of Titanfall, the highly anticipated multiplayer first-person shooter.

In a blog post on the matter, Microsoft said they’ve received a ton of feedback since the launch of the console last November. The update addresses much of this feedback including the ability to get to your friends list faster, enabling party chat by default and making it easier to invite friends to multiplayer games.

HP CEO Meg Whitman says Chromebooks are doing better than expected

Microsoft’s recent marketing efforts have focused on how Chromebooks are not real laptops because they don’t have Windows or Office, how they are supposedly useless when offline, and how they just make it easier for Google to capture your personal information. The software giant says you are basically getting “Scroogled” when buying one of these but, if anything, the bashing suggest it sees the web-centric OS as a threat. And rightly so.

Speaking at a technology conference this week, Hewlett-Packard CEO Meg Whitman said she is surprised by the appeal of Chromebooks, not just in the education market but for small and mid-sized businesses as well. Even large enterprises are expressing interest. The findings, Whitman claims, validate HP’s multi-OS, multi-architecture, multi-form factor strategy and they intend to continue on that path going forward.

"There are some groups [who] do not need Windows backward compatibility in their laptop," she said.

Google's share of the traditional PC market is tiny and unlikely to overtake Windows for years to come. Only 2.5 million laptops powered by Google's operating system were shipped last year according to IDC, totaling about 1% of global PC sales. But the mere fact that Chromebooks are one of the fastest growing segments in an otherwise stagnant market is reason enough for Microsoft to worry.

Not only do they threaten its business on a few different levels -- from its Office cash cow to online advertising -- pretty much all of Microsoft's biggest hardware partners have jumped on the Chromebook bandwagon, a sign that they might be slowly moving away from a years-long dependence on Redmond’s software.

Windows still dominates the PC market with a ~90% share of the OS install base, and there are some segments that aren’t going anywhere anytime soon -- enthusiasts and PC gamers, for instance. But Microsoft might have a hard time retaining casual users who ‘live’ on the web and now have access to a range of supplementary devices like smartphones and tablets. Windows 8 certainly hasn’t done much to pep up interest on the platform.

Dorian S. Nakamoto denies he's Bitcoin founder, says he was misunderstood

According to an AP report, Dorian Prentice Satoshi Nakamoto, the 64-year-old man Newsweek claims is the founder of Bitcoin, has now said that he had nothing to do with the cryptocurrency, adding that he came to know about Bitcoin only three weeks ago when a Newsweek reporter contacted his son.

Just hours after Newsweek published the report yesterday, Nakamoto's home, in Temple City, Los Angeles, California, was flocked by reporters. After a long wait, he finally came out saying that he wanted to speak to only one of them, and demanded a free lunch too.

In a two-hour-long exclusive interview with AP, he acknowledged that most of the details in Newsweek's report are correct, including that he once worked for a defense contractor, and that Satoshi is his birth name. But on the claim that he is the face behind Bitcoin, he said he was misunderstood by the Newsweek reporter.

According to Nakamoto, when he said "I am no longer involved in that and I cannot discuss it", he meant that he is no longer in engineering. "And even if I was, when we get hired, you have to sign this document, contract saying you will not reveal anything we divulge during and after employment. So that's what I implied," he added.

On the other hand, Newsweek, which spent a considerable amount of time researching, stands by its story. According to Leah McGrath Goodman, the reporter who covered the story, there was no confusion about the context of conversation between him and Nakamoto, who clearly acknowledged his involvement in Bitcoin.

Besides the report, Nakamoto also talked about his his life, career, and family in the interview.

'The Last of Us' is coming to the big screen in the form of a live-action movie

The Last of Us was one of the most critically acclaimed games of 2013 across any platform, winning numerous awards including Game of the Year from several publications. It was so good, in fact, that it was recently picked up by Screen Gems for a live-action movie adaptation according to a new report from Deadline.

The film’s script will be written by Neil Druckmann, the creative director for the game. Evan Wells and Christophe Balestra, co-presidents of Naughty Dog (the game’s developer) will serve as creative architects alongside Druckmann and game director Bruce Straley. Sam Raimi from Ghost House Pictures is also on board, we’ve heard.

According to the logline, hardened survivor Joel teams with young and capable companion Ellie to journey through a radically transformed world some 20 years after an infectious pandemic ravaged humanity.

Screen Gems president Clint Culpepper said staffers Brian Dukes and Eric Ling brought the game to his attention and insisted they go after it. After he saw the quality of the storytelling, Culpepper realized the audience for the project was far greater than just the gaming community and that Druckmann must write the screenplay.

Wells said they’ve talked with several companies about a film adaptation since the game was released last June. They believe they’ve found the perfect fit with the combination of Screen Gems and Ghose House.

No word yet on when the project will get under way or how long it will be until we can expect it to hit theaters, however.

'The Last of Us' is coming to the big screen in the form of a live-action movie

The Last of Us was one of the most critically acclaimed games of 2013 across any platform, winning numerous awards including Game of the Year from several publications. It was so good, in fact, that it was recently picked up by Screen Gems for a live-action movie adaptation according to a new report from Deadline.

The film’s script will be written by Neil Druckmann, the creative director for the game. Evan Wells and Christophe Balestra, co-presidents of Naughty Dog (the game’s developer) will serve as creative architects alongside Druckmann and game director Bruce Straley. Sam Raimi from Ghost House Pictures is also on board, we’ve heard.

According to the logline, hardened survivor Joel teams with young and capable companion Ellie to journey through a radically transformed world some 20 years after an infectious pandemic ravaged humanity.

Screen Gems president Clint Culpepper said staffers Brian Dukes and Eric Ling brought the game to his attention and insisted they go after it. After he saw the quality of the storytelling, Culpepper realized the audience for the project was far greater than just the gaming community and that Druckmann must write the screenplay.

Wells said they’ve talked with several companies about a film adaptation since the game was released last June. They believe they’ve found the perfect fit with the combination of Screen Gems and Ghose House.

No word yet on when the project will get under way or how long it will be until we can expect it to hit theaters, however.