LITTLE ROCK — Intel: TV set-top box to replace cable
Intel Corp. said that it will sell a set-top box that brings Internet-delivered movies and shows to a TV set this year.
Erik Huggers, general manager of Intel Media, said last week that the company plans to sell a box that will offer “a vastly superior experience” to existing cable boxes.
While there are various boxes that bring Internet content to TV sets, with popular ones made by Roku and Apple, Intel wants to make its box and streaming service a replacement for cable.
Rumors of an Intel set-top box and video service emerged last year. Huggers didn’t say what the box and service would cost, or when this year such a device would come out. He said Intel’s goal is to provide quality rather than undercutting cable pricing.
The video service would also be available on non-TV devices such as the iPad, Huggers said. Cable companies have been making some content available on smart phone and tablet computers as part of their TV Everywhere initiative, but the selection of programs and channels is limited.
Intel is the world’s largest chip maker, but has little direct contact with consumers. Its chief business, making processors for PCs, is stagnating as PC sales are declining and consumers are moving to tablets and smart phones, most of which don’t run on Intel chips. Huggers said the company was motivated to get into the consumer business after realizing that it needed to control every aspect of the service, from chips to software, to get it right.
“I think we can bring an incredible TV experience via the Internet, to consumers, and that is a great opportunity for programmers,” he said at the D: Dive Into Media conference in Dana Point, Calif.
One of the features of the Intel box would be the ability to identify, through a camera, which family member is watching and offer him or her personalized recommendations, Huggers said.
Zygna, EA agree to settle copyright suit
Electronic Arts Inc. and Zynga Inc. have agreed to settle claims in a lawsuit alleging Zynga’s The Ville game copied The Sims Social, an EA game that runs on Facebook Inc.’s social network.
“EA and Zynga have resolved their respective claims and have reached a settlement of their litigation in the Northern District of California,” Zinga spokesman Kelly Kunz and John Reseburg, an EA spokesman, said in separate e-mailed statements last week.
Electronic Arts, the second-biggest U.S. video-game publisher, filed suit in San Francisco in August, claiming that senior executives who left for Zynga had details about The Sims Social strategy and development.
Zynga, the biggest developer of games played on Facebook, had counter sued, seeking to bar Electronic Arts from threatening litigation or interfering with its hiring. It called the copyright claims meritless and said Electronic Arts’ suit breached the terms of an earlier settlement.
The settlement was first disclosed in a court filing in the lawsuit. Neither company would provide details of the accord.
The case is Electronic Arts v. Zynga, 12-4099, U.S.
District Court, Northern District of California (San Francisco).
- Bloomberg News
Facebook bests German regulator in court
Facebook Inc. scored a court victory in Germany in a dispute with a local data regulator over which nation’s laws apply to its European operations.
The administrative court for Schleswig-Holstein suspended enforcement of an order saying Facebook must let users register under a pseudonym. The order is most likely illegal and shouldn’t apply while Facebook fights it, the court said in a statement on its website Friday.
“The regulator wrongfully based its order on German data protection law,” the judges said. “Irish data protection law exclusively applies,” because Facebook handles the data in Ireland.
Facebook has been fighting orders from German regulators, arguing it’s only subject to Irish law, which is generally less strict then German privacy rules. Facebook Ireland, in Dublin, is responsible for all the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company’s users outside the U.S. and Canada.
Thilo Weichert, the state regulator who issued the pseudonym order, said he will appeal the ruling. German law clearly backs his order, he said in a statement on his website. Companies shouldn’t be allowed to withdraw to a European member state with “low data protection standard,” according to his statement.
European rules say German law doesn’t apply if the data is processed by a branch in another EU member state, the court said. Facebook’s German unit only works in marketing and sales and thus can’t trigger the application of German data protection law, the judges said.
Business, Pages 24 on 02/18/2013