Corporate and legal

Clearwire delays Sprint takeover vote for review of Dish offer

Clearwire has decided to delay its shareholder vote on Sprint's takeover proposal in order to review Dish Network's surprise revised offer.

The wireless broadband provider had initially scheduled a special shareholders meeting for Friday to hold a vote on the proposal, but the company announced Thursday it had rescheduled the meeting for June 13. While the company said it has not changed its recommendation that shareholders accept the current Sprint bid of $3.40 per share, Clearwire said Dish's revised proposal "appears to be more actionable than Dish's previous proposal."

Dish upped its ante in the bidding war … Read more

Google exec sees Google Fiber as a 'moneymaker'

KANSAS CITY -- Google is in it to win it when it comes to building fiber broadband networks. Despite speculation to the contrary, Google sees its Google Fiber broadband business as a moneymaker, and not just an overpriced test network.

And it's very likely that the company will continue expanding the service into other cities willing to partner to keep costs down.

Speaking at the Fiber-to-the-Home Council meeting here late Wednesday, Milo Medin, vice president of access services for Google, told an audience of city planners, engineers, and city mayors that Google is not just building a testbed for … Read more

Google shows off vision of connected life

NEW YORK--Google wants to play a bigger part in your life.

That's the message the company was likely conveying with its model home here in the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Google took over a building on Thursday to show off its many newer services and hardware, including Google Now, Hangouts, and Google Glass.

Google Now is a big initiative and appears to be the glue that ties many of its products together. Google Now on Android, which is called Google Search on iOS, uses your device's GPS, e-mail, calendar, and other personal information to deliver relevant and … Read more

Sony eyes two former Apple executives for board

Sony is planning to add two new people to its board of directors, and both can trace their roots to Apple.

Eikoh Harada, current president of McDonalds Holdings Japan, and Tim Schaaff, Sony's former Network Entertainment chief, have been nominated to join the electronics giant's board of directors. Although people are elected for boards all the time, Harada and Schaaff's shared histories make these nominations rather interesting.

Harada spent 14 years at Apple and left in 2004 when he was head of the iPhone maker's Japan operations. Schaaff also spent 14 years at Apple and was … Read more

EC leader calls for unified European mobile networks

International barriers in the telecommunications industry such as roaming fees are hurting consumers and should be eliminated within a year, a top European Commission official said today.

"I want you to be able to go back to your constituents and say that you were able to end mobile roaming costs," said Neelie Kroes, the EC vice president in charge of its digital agenda, in a speech to members of a European Parliament committee on Thursday. "Whether they need it for travel, for trade, or for transactions -- our people need this reform."

With roaming fees, the … Read more

Hacker accused of massive Stratfor attack pleads guilty

Jeremy Hammond was arrested in a major federal sweep last year on charges of computer hacking conspiracy, computer hacking, and conspiracy to commit access device fraud.

The self-described hacktivist pled guilty to these counts in court on Tuesday, according to the Associated Press.

"As part of each of these hacks, I took and decimated confidential information stored on computer systems websites used by each of the entities," Hammond told a judge in federal court in Manhattan, according to the Associated Press. "For each of these hacks, I knew what I was doing was against the law."… Read more

Dish increases offer for Clearwire to edge Sprint

Dish Network has upped the ante in its bid to acquire Clearwire, an escalation of its bidding war with Sprint Nextel over the wireless broadband provider.

A week after Sprint boosted its offer to $3.40 a share for the 50 percent of the company it does not currently own, the satellite TV provider countered on Wednesday with an offer of $4.40 per share in cash, a 29 percent premium over Sprint's offer. Dish will officially tender the offer before the Clearwire shareholders meeting on Friday, where a vote on Sprint's offer is planned.

Sprint announced in … Read more

Facebook pulls pages depicting violence against women

Several Facebook pages have popped up that encourage or make a joke of violence against women, pages like Fly Kicking Sluts in the Uterus, Violently Raping Your Friend Just for Laughs, and Raping your Girlfriend.

Facebook has now decided to take these pages down.

"In recent days, it has become clear that our systems to identify and remove hate speech have failed to work as effectively as we would like, particularly around issues of gender-based hate," Facebook's VP of Global Public Policy Marne Levine wrote in a blog post Tuesday. "We have been working over the … Read more

AT&T's LTE network blankets more than 200 million people

AT&T announced on Wednesday that 11 new markets are seeing the faster data speeds from the carrier's 4G network. What's more, another seven markets are receiving expanded LTE coverage.

The new markets are: 

Dover, Del. Leonardtown, Md. Ocean City, Md. Asheville, N.C. Goldsboro, N.C. Salem, Ore. Culpeper, Va. Roanoke, Va. Longview, Wash. Port Townsend-North Whidbey Island-Camano Island, Wash. Shelton, Wash.

As for the expanded markets, the growth is spread out over a half dozen states. They include areas near Chicago, Phoenix, and Washington, D.C.

With the newly expanded 4G LTE coverage, AT&… Read more