Samsung hopes to become a big player in the e-reader market by manufacturing a line of pocket-sized e-readers. The company introduced a pocket-sized e-reader yesterday. It hopes to compete with Amazon’s kindle and other e-book readers. The Samsung e-reader is currently only available in South Korea.

The reader comes with a 5 inch screen and no Wi-Fi. It can only hold 2,500 books.

“We seek to become a bigger player than Amazon or Sony in the e-book market,” Samsung Electronics VP Lew Jae-young said at a news conference.

Samsung’s e-reader costs $270.

Samsung is currently negotiating with publishers for content. It plans to release an e-reader to international markets next year.

Via

Last week a man at the Foxconn plant committed suicide because an iPhone prototype went missing.  Foxconn is a manufacturing plant that builds gadgets for Nintendo, HP, and Apple.  Due to the man killing himself over an incident that took place at work, the company will be giving compensation to his family.  The suicidal man’s family will receive $52,600 plus $4,000 per year afterwards.  The man’s girlfriend was also given an Apple laptop.

Twenty five year old Sun Danyong jumped off a high-rise apartment in South China last week after executives at Foxconn questioned him about where an iPhone prototype had gone missing.  Sun was responsible for sending the phone to Apple.  Critics have also blamed this incident on Apple’s devotion to secrecy on all of their products until release date.

Foxconn’s suspended security chief Gu Qinming admitted to once grabbing Sun by the shoulder, but denied ever beating him.  Before committing suicide, Sun claimed that security at Foxconn had beat and abused him.

Earlier this month, Bloomberg also reported that 45 out of 83 of Apple’s factories in China did not pay adequate overtime pay.  Twenty three of those factories paid workers less than minimum wage.  Apple has been working on ensuring fairer practices to their factory workers overseas.

IBM announced its plans to acquire SPSS for $1.2 billion in cash. IBM is paying a 42 percent premium to SPSS’ Monday closing price of $35.09 a share.

Chicago based SPSS is a worldwide provider of predictive analytics software and solutions. The company provides solutions to help businesses stay competitive.

SPSS was founded in 1968. It has over 1,200 employees.

“With this acquisition, we are extending our capabilities around a new level of analytics that not only provides clients with greater insight — but true foresight,” said Ambuj Goyal, IBM’s general manager of information management.

The deal is expected to close by the end of the year.

Via

Amanda Bonnen is a Chicago resident that was not very active on Twitter.  She had about 20 followers and recently deleted her account.  Bonnen most likely deleted her account because the real estate company that she wrote about on Twitter is suing her for about $50,000.  Bonnen was staying at 4242 N. Sheridan, an apartment complex owned by Horizon Realty.

The tweet that irked Horizon was “Who said sleeping in a moldy apartment was bad for you? Horizon realty thinks it’s okay.”  I do not see that tweet listed in the Google cached image of Bonnen’s Twitter account so that individual tweet must have been deleted.

In an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times Horizon’s Jeffrey Michael said “The statements are obviously false, and it’s our intention to prove that.”  Bonnen was not contacted before the lawsuit was filed.  “We’re a sue first, ask questions later kind of an organization”.

Sprint has agreed to acquire Virgin Mobile USA for $483 million. Sprint already owns 13 percent of Virgin Mobile. It is buying the carrier to expand its prepaid operations.

Sprint has been struggling to keep its contract subscribers from moving to larger carriers such as AT&T. Its prepaid service, Boost Mobile, however, has been successful. Boost offers a prepaid unlimited plan that has been a hit with the lower-end mobile prepaid market. Virgin Mobile USA is one of Sprint’s largest prepaid competitors. It has 5.2 million customers.

The deal is a stock-swap deal that values Virgin Mobile at a 31 percent premium over its Monday closing price.

Sprint plans to keep the brand’s name and CEO.

The prepaid mobile market is lucrative but highly competitive. In an economic climate where cash-strapped consumers are looking for ways to cut costs,  prepaid cell plans are luring consumers in by offering no credit checks and low monthly costs.

Via

Apple is not allowing Google to have a native Google Voice app on the iPhone. This news comes a week after Google said that Apple did not allow a native Latitude app on the iPhone. The Latitude app was rejected because it was supposedly too similar to Maps on the iPhone.

Google said, “We work hard to bring Google applications to a number of mobile platforms, including the iPhone. Apple did not approve the Google Voice application we submitted six weeks ago to the Apple App Store. We will continue to work to bring our services to iPhone users – for example, by taking advantage of advances in mobile browsers.”

The Google Voice app was most likely rejected by AT&T because it competes against some of AT&T’s paid services. Google Voice allows users to send free text messages, make cheap international calls, and make free domestic calls.

Google Voice is available on Android and Blackberry. iPhone users however will have to settle for a web based mobile browser version.

Via

In December 20, 2005, Google announced a strategic alliance with AOL.  The financial agreement was that Google would invest $1 billion in AOL for 5% ownership.  According to the press release sent out at the time, the strategic agreement would go as follows:

*  Creating an AOL Marketplace through white labeling of Google’s advertising technology – enabling AOL to sell search advertising directly to advertisers on AOL-owned properties;
* Expanding display advertising throughout the Google network;
* Making AOL content more accessible to Google Web crawlers;
* Collaborating in video search and showcasing AOL’s premium video service within Google Video;
* Enabling Google Talk and AIM instant messaging users to communicate with each other, provided certain conditions are met; and
* Providing AOL marketing credits for its Internet properties.

Due to Time Warner’s desire to spin off AOL as its own separate entity and several other complications, Google decided to cancel the deal and cash their losses.

Google took a major hit financially when cashing out on their 5% AOL ownership. Even though they invested $1 billion, they sold the equity for $283 million back to Time Warner.  The transaction took place on July 8th and is based on pegging AOL’s valuation at $5.7 billion.

As of right now it is unclear what changes will be made strategically between Google and AOL after the Time Warner subsidiary spins off as an independent entity.  I doubt much will change.

[via BusinessInsider]

A report from InfoTimes, a Taiwanese site, says that Apple plans to release its tablet by October for around $800. The said says that the device will have a 9.7 inch touch screen.

InfoTimes sources its information to Apple’s manufacturing partners. Apple has not said a thing about the release of a tablet.

A tablet from Apple could easily become a hot holiday gift. It could also revolutionize the App Store. Developers would be able to create and sell some very cool apps that run on a tablet.

Via