Corporate & legal

So. Carolina eyes 'criminal investigation' of Craigslist

The attorney general of South Carolina is ready to launch a criminal investigation of Craigslist in connection with erotic ads appearing on the classified ads Web site.

Attorney General Henry McMaster had given Craigslist until Friday afternoon to remove erotically charged material from its South Carolina listings. The AG's Web site now has this statement posted:

As of 5:00 p.m. this afternoon, the craigslist South Carolina site continues to display advertisements for prostitution and graphic pornographic material. This content was not removed as we requested. We have no alternative but to move forward with criminal investigation and … Read more

AMD shrugs off Intel cross-licensing threat

Advanced Micro Devices is "not concerned" over rival Intel's threat to pull out of a patent cross-licensing agreement between the two chipmakers, says an AMD Asia-Pacific executive, even as the Intel-issued deadline for supposed action looms.

According to Intel, GlobalFoundaries, AMD's manufacturing spinoff and a joint venture with the Abu Dhabi government, is not a subsidiary of AMD and cannot be accorded the same rights under the cross-licensing pact. Intel said it would terminate all rights and licenses under the agreement if AMD does not correct the "alleged breach" by the given deadline, which … Read more

Prepaid wireless: In search of the perfect bargain

After the economic meltdown over this past year, many Americans are looking for ways to cut back their monthly expenses. And prepaid wireless plans offer a great alternative to expensive contract plans.

Traditional prepaid services or pay as you go services allow people to buy their own phone at full retail price and then put a certain amount of money in an account that is deducted based on usage. Some plans offer buckets of minutes for a set price, and some allow people to just put however much money they want in their prepaid phone accounts. These plans allow people to know exactly how much they are spending each month, and if they run out of minutes or money in their accounts, they simply add more online, over the phone, or at a retail location.

These plans differ from post-paid plans, which offer buckets of minutes for a set price, and then bill customers at the end of each month, sometimes resulting in surprisingly high phone bills or excess charges for services that were never used.

Prepaid services have long been popular in Europe and other parts of the world, but in the U.S. these services have traditionally served only niche markets. But now prepaid is gaining steam in the U.S. And consumers of all stripes looking for good deals with no service contracts are considering canceling their post-paid services and going to prepaid.

Ideal candidates for prepaid services include people who use their phones rarely to call friends or family when they are out and about or who only own a cell phone because they think they may need it for an emergency. My 66-year-old, retired father falls into this category. Teenagers are also prime candidates for prepaid services, especially for plans specific to text messaging, such as Virgin Mobile's Texter's Delight or T-Mobile's Sidekick plan. These plans offer loads of free texting and cheap per-minute voice charges.

And now a new category of prepaid services has emerged that will likely appeal to traditional post-paid customers, who talk, text, and access the mobile Web a fair amount each month. Several carriers including Virgin Mobile, Boost Mobile, MetroPCS, and Leap Wireless' Cricket offer low-cost unlimited plans that include voice calling, messaging, and unlimited Web surfing. And the beauty of these all-you-can-eat plans is that customers aren't required to agree to a pesky one-year or two-year contract and risk paying expensive early termination fees.… Read more

Sony hires a professional fixer

It's not really a secret that Sony is in trouble. But the consumer electronics company is taking some calculated steps to change its fortunes.

On Friday, Sony announced it has hired longtime IBM executive George Bailey as chief transformation officer. He will report to Sony CEO Howard Stringer beginning June 1 as head of the Transformation Management Office and consult with two main company divisions: Consumer Products and Devices and Networked Products and Services.

Bailey served for five years as the global managing partner of IBM's electronics industry consulting practice. His new title at Sony--though grand--describes exactly what … Read more

McAfee to buy whitelisting vendor Solidcore

Intent on beefing up its security offerings, McAfee is adding another company to its mix. McAfee announced on Friday an agreement to buy Solidcore Systems, a vendor of whitelisting technology.

McAfee will pay $33 million upfront to acquire privately held Solidcore, with the promise of an extra $14 million if Solidcore hits certain performance targets.

Solidcore's whitelisting technology combats viruses, worms, and other malware by allowing only approved, preauthorized software to run on servers, mobile, devices, and other computer systems. Cupertino, Calif.-based Solidcore's products also help customers protect ATMs, cash registers, and other systems used in the … Read more

Is an IBM purchase of Red Hat inevitable?

This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

Despite a bevy of questions--looming competition from Oracle, takeover rumors, and a weak economy--Red Hat appears to be humming along, according to Jeffries analyst Katherine Egbert. But in the long run, Red Hat will have to be subsumed into a large company--most likely IBM.

In a research note, Egbert touches on the short-term and long-term prognosis for Red Hat. In the short run, she notes that there's solid demand for Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Jboss in a down economy. Meanwhile, sales to the government--Red Hat has just beefed … Read more

HP laptop batteries recalled for overheating

After two reports of flaming laptop batteries, the Consumer Product Safety Commission announced Thursday that Hewlett-Packard is voluntarily recalling 70,000 lithium-ion batteries that shipped with several models of its HP and Compaq laptops.

The recall affects nine models of HP Pavilions, nine models of Compaq Presarios, two models of HPs, and one HP Compaq laptop model sold between August 2007 and March 2008. For the full list, see the CPSC's site.

There were two separate reports of batteries that "overheated and ruptured, resulting in flames/fire that caused minor property damage" but no injuries, according to … Read more

T-Mobile proposes settlement for early termination fees

Class action suits against carrier early termination fees (ETFs) are nothing new, but now it appears one case may come to an end.

Though it has yet to be approved by the court, T-Mobile has proposed a settlement in an $11.5 million class action suit filed in August 2008 in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey. The suit alleges that T-Mobile broke federal and state laws when charging the ETFs.

The settlement would cover T-Mobile subscribers who were charged a flat-rate ETF from July 23, 1999 to February 19, 2009, or those whose service … Read more

Sony reports $1 billion annual loss

The global recession has hit Sony hard--the company on Thursday reported its first annual loss in 14 years.

Sony lost 165 billion yen ($1.72 billion) in the quarter that ended March 31, the fourth quarter of its fiscal year, compared with net income of 29 billion yen in the year-ago period. Revenue for the three-month period was 1.5 trillion yen ($15.5 billion), a drop of 22 percent from a year earlier.

Adding that to the previous three quarters of fiscal 2008, the company saw an annual loss of 98.9 billion yen ($1 billion). The loss was … Read more