Gadgets & Gizmos

Activist investor Carl Icahn spoke out in favor of a search deal between Yahoo Inc and Microsoft Corp, as talks between the two companies appeared to regain momentum. Icahn declined to comment on the state of any negotiations between Yahoo and Microsoft. He had tried to broker a partnership between the two companies last year, when talks on Microsoft’s $47.5 billion takeover bid for Yahoo fell apart. “I’ve been a strong advocate of getting a search deal done with Microsoft,” Icahn, who owns about 5 percent of Yahoo and is a director on its board, told Reuters on Friday. “It would enhance value if a deal got done, because of the synergies involved,” he said in a phone interview.

Microsoft and Yahoo are close to a long-discussed search and online advertising deal, which could be announced in the next week, according to another source familiar with the matter who is not associated with Icahn. The news was first reported by the AllThingsDigital blog, which said a deal would involve Microsoft paying Yahoo several billion dollars upfront to take over its search advertising business and guarantee certain payments back to Yahoo. The two companies have talked about cooperating for months, after Microsoft’s bid to buy Yahoo was rebuffed last year and Yahoo’s attempt to seal a search advertising deal with Google Inc fell apart under regulatory scrutiny. Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz said in May that any deal to spin off or combine its search assets will require a partner with “boatloads of money.” She said at the time that Yahoo was talking “a little bit” with Microsoft, but gave no details. Bartz is currently out of the office for two weeks, following knee replacement surgery, according to an email that she sent to her employees earlier this month. Icahn, whose firm had a 5.4 percent stake in Yahoo as of March 31, said he remains a “strong supporter” of Bartz, who took the reins in January from Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang. Bartz has made a number of changes since joining Yahoo, including shutting down underperforming websites and laying off 5 percent of the Sunnyvale, California company’s staff. But many investors continue to see a deal with Microsoft as Yahoo’s best option, saying it will cut costs and create an online entity big enough to better compete with Google, the top search company in the United States.

The latest discussions involve a partnership in which Microsoft would handle search capabilities for Yahoo, while Yahoo could potentially handle online advertising for the two online sites. According to Kara Swisher, co-executive editor of AllThingsDigital, a group of high-powered Microsoft online executives flew to Silicon Valley on Thursday to iron out remaining issues related to technology deployment. They included Senior Vice President of Online Audience Business Group Yusuf Mehdi, search head Satya Nadella, top digital executive Qi Lu. Representatives for Microsoft and Yahoo declined to comment. Yahoo is scheduled to report quarterly results next Tuesday, and Microsoft on Thursday. Microsoft withdrew its $47.5 billion offer to buy Yahoo in May 2008 after Yahoo’s board said the price was too low. The software giant then offered to buy Yahoo’s search advertising assets for $1 billion upfront, and guarantee $2.3 billion in annual revenue for five years, in a proposal backed by Icahn. Google is the dominant player in the search market, with a 65 percent market share in June, according to comScore. Yahoo was second with 19.6 percent, while Microsoft was third with 8.4 percent. While Microsoft’s share remains small, its new search engine Bing has won positive early reviews.

Audiences are voicing snap judgments on movies faster and to more people than ever before on Twitter, and their ability to create a box office hit or a flop is forcing major studios to revamp marketing campaigns.

The stakes are especially high this summer season when big budget movies like “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,” which opened on Wednesday, play to a core audience of young, plugged-in moviegoers. Box office watchers say Twitter, a micro-blogging service that allows anyone to post on-the-fly wisecracks for all the world to see, is the latest weapon in an arsenal of cell phones and computers that audiences use to critique films quickly, often when they are still sitting in theaters. Such word-of-mouth publicity from fan to fan can boost, or bomb, ticket sales. “Has everything speeded up? The answer is yes,” said Adam Fogelson, Universal’s president of marketing and distribution. “Depending on how big your opening day audience is, word-of-mouth starts playing a factor immediately,” he said. Film marketers look at weekly declines in ticket sales to judge fan buzz. In recent years those “drops” have widened significantly as communication has speeded up thanks to the Internet and more recently social networking services like Twitter and Facebook. This summer, which is the most lucrative movie season and can make up as much as 40 percent of annual box office, ticket revenues for new films have dropped 51 percent, on average, from week No. 1 to week No. 2, a figure matched only in 2007, according to tracking firm Box Office Mojo. “If people don’t like the movie now on Friday it can die by Saturday,” said Paul Dergarabedian, president of tracking firm Hollywood.com Box Office.

Last Friday, actor Sacha Baron Cohen’s gay-themed comedy “Bruno,” which was distributed by Universal Pictures, made an impressive one-day debut of $14.4 million at U.S. and Canadian box offices, but the next day it suffered a large single-day drop, falling 39 percent to $8.8 million. Media reports speculated that “Bruno” suffered from the “Twitter effect,” meaning audiences reacted quickly online to raunchy scenes of sex and nudity, scaring people away. Soon after the movie’s opening, Twitter was awash with comments such as this from user Cathy Zhang: “Some scenes from Bruno I’ll never erase from my mind.” On the flip side, many Twitter commentators raved about “Bruno.” Universal’s Fogelson said even Twitter comments that seem critical can be good publicity because they show people are passionate about the movie and can spark discussion that increases attendance. He attributed “Bruno’s” lopsided opening day not to negative fan buzz, but to an unusually large crowd of Cohen’s fans rushing to see the film on its first day. Hollywood has a long history of both embracing and spurning new technology. In the case of Twitter, it is giving an early embrace. Sony Pictures, for instance, has been notably aggressive, creating Twitter pages for upcoming movies “District 9,” “Julie & Julia” and “The Ugly Truth.” Using Twitter, actor Ashton Kutcher has raised his profile and that of his production company among the most tech-savvy, and he is not alone. Filmmakers and actors often “tweet” from the set with the blessing of publicists looking to create interest in a film. “As much as it seems chaotic, it’s not. It’s just extremely quick and real-time,” said online marketing consultant Gordon Paddison.

LG’s mobile division just recently announced the development of the next generation Chocolate, the company’s most successful mobile handset to date. From the design team that created the original Chocolate, the new phone will showcase a highly distinctive design that takes optimal advantage of the device’s features and performance.

“We’re returning to an all-time favorite to re-create the original experience,” said Skott Ahn, President and CEO of LG Electronics Mobile Communications Company. “Over 21 million Chocolate handsets have been sold across 54 countries to date and we believe the next generation Chocolate will have a tremendous impact on the market, extending the growth that LG experienced during the first half of this year.”

LG’s new Chocolate phone is the fourth model in the LG Black Label Series. The original Chocolate debuted globally in May 2006 and went on to become the most popular phone in the company’s history. The same year, this mobile phone was recognized internationally for its design innovation by winning the prestigious Red Dot Design and the iF Design awards. Other Black Label Series handsets include LG Shine with its revolutionary full-metal body and LG Secret, an elegant carbon fiber and tempered glass classic.

The handset will feature -

• a 4-inch scratch-resistant multi-touch enabled display that will sport an 800 x 345 pixel resolution and a 21:9 aspect ratio
• 3G with HSDPA, EDGE/GPRS
• Wi-Fi
• Bluetooth with A2DP
• A-GPS
• 3.5mm earphone socket

There don’t seem to be any available images of the handset itself, but check out the hot teaser video making the rounds.

The handset will be using a variation of LG’s proprietary new S-Class UI. There’s no word on the camera’s resolution yet but hopefully we’ll see more of the specs getting confirmed in the coming month as the new LG Chocolate phone is expected to be unveiled in August. Stay tuned.