LITTLE ROCK — QUOTE OF THE DAY “This is needed for the healthy development of the Internet.” Li Fei, deputy director of the Chinese legislature’s Legal Work Committee, on a new law requiring Internet users to register their real names with service providers.
Article, 1D HP says its Autonomy unit faces probe
NEW YORK - Autonomy, the British business software company now owned by Hewlett-Packard Co., is facing a U.S. Justice Department investigation over improper accounting under previous management, according to HP.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Thursday, HP said Justice Department officials had informed the company on Nov. 21 that they were opening an investigation into the allegations, which HP said in November that it had uncovered after a senior Autonomy executive came forward.
HP also reiterated that it provided information to the SEC and the U.K. Serious Fraud Office related to “accounting improprieties, disclosure failures and misrepresentations at Autonomy.” HP said it was cooperating with all three government agencies.
Justice Department officials had no comment.
HP, which bought Autonomy for $10 billion in 2011, took an $8.8 billion charge to reflect that the U.K. company isn’t worth what it paid. HP says about $5 billion of that charge stemmed from improper accounting. HP also faces shareholders’ lawsuits related to the troubles at Autonomy.
Autonomy founder and former CEO Mike Lynch has said the allegations are false. He responded in a statement Thursday that HP had yet to provide a detailed calculation of that $5 billion or provide any explanation of the allegations. The statement was posted online at Forbes magazine’s website.
- The Associated Press
U.K. firm to invest in Nook e-reader
LONDON - Pearson, the U.K. publisher and education company, is to take a 5 percent stake in Barnes & Noble’s Nook e-reader as technology companies seek new inroads into the potentially lucrative business of digital textbooks for schools.
Pearson PLC will pay $89.5 million cash for a 5 percent stake in Nook Media LLC, which includes the bookseller’s e-reader and tablets, its digital bookstore and its 674 stores serving U.S. colleges. Barnes & Noble will hold 78.2 percent of the business and Microsoft will have about 16.8 percent, the company said Friday.
Major tech companies have looked for inroads into the industry, seeing tablets like the iPad and the NOOK as replacements for the dozens of books that students must lug each day.
Janney Capital Markets described the tie-up between Pearson and Barnes & Noble as an “online education dream team.”
“After this investment from Pearson, it is more clear that Nook Media has its sight set on transforming the way education is administered in the U.S. and around the world,” Janney analyst David Strasser wrote.
Pearson is the largest higher educational publisher in the world and the largest in kindergarten-throughhigh school publisher in the United States, Janney said.
The company, which also owns the Financial Times and whose Penguin book brand is being merged with Random House, reported that its textbooks and training generated $3 billion in revenue the first six months of 2012.
- The Associated Press
Japan’s industrial output plummets
TOKYO - Japan’s industrial output tumbled more than forecast to the lowest level since the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, bolstering the case for Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to unleash large-scale stimulus.
The 1.7 percent drop in November from October exceeded all 27 forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey, a government report showed Friday in Tokyo. The nation also remained mired in deflation, with consumer prices excluding fresh food dropping 0.1 percent from a year before, compared with a central bank goal of 1 percent inflation and Abe’s desired inflation target of 2 percent.
With neighbor South Korea reporting a jump in production almost double the highest estimate among economists surveyed, Japan’s data may strengthen the new Abe administration’s determination to drive down the value of the yen.
“Weakness in exports is the major drag on Japan’s economy,” said Yoshimasa Maruyama, chief economist at Itochu Corp. in Tokyo. “Given the weak state of the economy, Abe’s government may need a large-scale stimulus program to boost growth.”
Retail sales stagnated in November, a separate report showed in Tokyo on Friday, while the jobless rate was 4.1 percent.
Japan’s economy contracted for the two quarters through September, meeting the textbook definition of a recession.
- Bloomberg NewsIn China dispute, Apple ordered to pay
BEIJING - A Chinese court has ordered Apple Inc.
to pay $165,000 to eight Chinese writers and two companies who say unlicensed copies of their work were distributed through Apple’s online store.
The Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court ruled Thursday that Apple violated the writers’ copyrights by allowing applications containing their work to be distributed through its App Store, according to an official who answered the phone at the court and said he was the judge in the case. He refused to give his name, as is common among Chinese officials.
The award was less than the $1.9 million sought by the authors. The case grouped together eight lawsuits filed by them and their publishers.
An Apple spokesman, Carolyn Wu, said the company’s managers “take copyright infringement complaints very seriously.” She declined to say whether the company would appeal.
Apple’s agreement with application developers requires them to confirm they have obtained rights to material distributed through the company’s App Store.
“We’re always updating our service to better assist content owners in protecting their rights,” Wu said.
The Chinese writers said they saw applications containing unlicensed versions of their books last year.
- The Associated Press
Business, Pages 26 on 12/29/2012