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Canadian author and technologist Cory Doctorow talks about digital ownership, Canada’s Bill C-11 and the U.S. DMCA, which say that if a manufacturer uses computer code to control what you do with the things you buy, you can’t overrule them

Ever felt like shooting your PC? This guy did it! (And more news in our weekly one-minute security video.)

The European Union is considering the creation of a regulatory body to oversee some of the largest e-companies in the world, including Google Inc. and Amazon.com Inc., according to a leaked document obtained by the Wall Street Journal.

The document, written in February, was prepared for the EU digital commissioner Günther Oettinger and warns of a possible “point of no return” where the economy becomes irrevocably tied to a few major Internet companies.

The report’s authors warn that certain digital businesses “are transforming into super-nodes that can be of systemic importance.”

While the report speaks to European fears of U.S. dominance, it is just the starting point for discussion (a long way from policy, as the WSJ points out).

“If this was to kickstart a debate about what actually is going on when I’m doing a Google search,” then it will even further impact the consumer, said Burkard Eberlein, professor at Schulich School of Business.

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The EU charges Google of manipulating their search engine to promote their own services over those of competitors.

Amazon and Etsy Inc. are two retailers mentioned in the document for their alleged ability to exclude companies from their listings. TripAdvisor Inc. is another website mentioned, with the EU paper saying they are the “main point of entry” to the travel sector and are “able to charge fees with full discretion.”

Google, currently under investigation by the EU Competition Commission in an anti-trust case, is the search engine of choice for hundreds of millions around the world. The company has a 90 per cent market share in the EU and 80 per cent in Canada. Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com trail Google in Canada, with 8 per cent, 4 per cent and 2 per cent respectively. (The final 6 per cent would be taken up by much smaller search engines.)

Mihkel M. Tombak, professor of technology, management and strategy at the University of Toronto, has concerns about Canada’s governmental protective bodies. “The Canadian authorities have been . . . fairly lax in protecting the Canadian consumer,” he said.

However, the Canadian Bureau of Competition has been “conducting an investigation into alleged anti-competitive conduct by Google Inc.,” according to an email from spokesperson Greg Scott.

The investigation started in 2013, but there was some sense of movement last week. The Financial Post reported April 21 that the Competition Bureau is seeking experts in online search and advertising to assist with an investigation – almost certainly its probe of Google Inc., Internet legal experts said.

Financial Post

The Wi-Fi security software "wpa_supplicant," found in Android amongst many other places, has a potentially hackable security hole...

Nomi has been ordered to tidy up its business practices as part of a settlement with the FTC over its tracking of retail customers' smartphones.

If this had been a physical heist it would have been well up among the largest ever - a Nigerian man has been charged with hacking into a bank server and siphoning out more than N68 billion (over $340 million).

It turns out gamers aren’t afraid of the unknown. Or at least they’re not afraid of investing in it.

Toronto-based independent game studio Massive Damage, Inc. (Please Stay Calm, Shadow Wars) last month launched a Kickstarter campaign for its new retro-styled sci-fi game, Halcyon 6, describing it using a variety of seemingly disparate terms including “roguelike,” “4X strategy,” “survival,” and “crew management.”

Even lifelong fans of the medium and these genres might have a tough time conjuring up a precise picture of what such a game might look and play like.

But that didn’t stop thousands of people from throwing their money at it.

Ken Seto – who, along with his brother Garry, spun Massive Damage out of their successful app development company Endloop (you might be familiar with iMockups, a wireframing productivity app that launched with the original iPad) – asked the gaming crowd for a relatively modest $40,000.

However, buoyed by vocal support from respected gaming sites like Rock, Paper, Shotgun and benefiting from promotional assistance offered by the Square Enix Collective, the project ended up earning nearly five times that amount, taking in more than $187,000 during its thirty day pledge period.

Post Arcade connected with Seto via email to learn more about his new game and try to wring out the secret to running such a successful Kickstarter campaign.

Massive Damage, Inc.

Halcyon 6 looks ridiculously ambitious. Can you distill it into a simple concept that our readers can understand?

The official one-sentence description we used on our Kickstarter was:

“Halcyon 6 is a rogue-like sci-fi strategy survival game with base building, tactical combat, crew management and emergent storytelling.”

We’re still working on a tighter tagline.

What made you think about combining all of these seemingly incongruent elements into a single game? 

One of our design pillars was to make a game that gave you the same feeling as when you’ve just finished watching your favourite sci-fi shows, like Star Trek or Firefly.

Having established the core concept of a ragtag team working together to conquer challenges, we started exploring the idea of incorporating classic gameplay elements from long lost gems, like the Master of Orion, Jagged Alliance, and Star Control series.

Taking these elements together, streamlining and modernizing them along with a fresh modern take on retro style graphics, we found we had put together something very compelling.

Let’s talk about your Kickstarter campaign. How far along were you when you decided to launch it? Did the response surprise you?

We actually started talking about Halcyon 6 as early as March of 2014. We posted a bunch of early concept art to TIGSource forums, a site dedicated to indie game development. We then heard about the Square Enix Collective program from a friend at Kitfox Games.

Square Enix created this platform to allow indie game developers to pitch their concept to Square Enix’s player community. Games that got great feedback were offered to receive promotional assistance for their Kickstarter campaign.

We entered the Collective in the summer of 2014 with our early Halcyon 6 game concept art and game design. The response was amazing and Square Enix offered to help us with our Kickstarter campaign whenever we decided to start one.

After the Collective success, we got tied up with other projects and put Halcyon 6 on hold for a few months. We picked up the thread again in late fall and decided to take the art style up a notch. We then worked on new art as well as a more detailed game design and a working combat demo before we launched our Kickstarter in March 2015.

The response was tremendous and overwhelming. We knew we had something special but we had no idea that it would do that well. We hit our $40,000 target in less than 40 hours. Both me and Halcyon 6 game producer Peter McLean barely slept for the first 3 days of the campaign as we were scrambling to finish the material needed for the updates as our goal was met way earlier than expected.

We never anticipated that we would raise $187,706 for our passion project but we are extremely grateful to have the funding to build the best possible version of Halcyon 6 that we can dream of.

How has Kickstarter changed the game for developers like you? To what do you credit your game’s Kickstarter success?

During my pre-campaign research, I noticed a trend of fewer video game campaign successes in the recent years compared to the early days of Kickstarter.

For the indie games that did have successful campaigns, I noticed a few common traits. They clearly prepared for many months prior to the campaign launch. They had a great trailer. They had beautiful, modern art direction. Their backer reward levels were well thought out and not confusing. Their updates were frequent and they engaged their backers in the comments area. And they clearly understood how to make their concept appealing to their potential audience.

As for our campaign, I did all of the above and followed closely to the campaign designs for Darkest Dungeons and Moon Hunters. I thought those two did a fantastic job with their campaigns.

While we certainly got a lot of help from the Square Enix Collective’s mailing list campaigns, our day-one head start indicated that we were already on our way to success regardless.

Before the campaign, I warned everyone on my Facebook and Twitter that I would be talking quite a lot about Halcyon 6 in the coming days. I told them that not only was this very important to me and my company, but that I would also likely email them directly for support when the campaign launches. I got a lot of support on Facebook for my frankness and consideration.

Then, on day one, I did as I said. I emailed everyone in my contact book that remotely could help us with our outreach, even if I thought they probably wouldn’t back the campaign itself. I also emailed about 150 other game developers and studio CEOs to tell them about our game and campaign. That day, I probably wrote nearly 250 emails, each with a personal blurb at the beginning.

We managed to get about $10,000 in funding on day one. That was already 25% of our ask – a great start by any standard. Having such a great start was key to converting backers once Square Enix sent their email campaign to their player base on day two.

From there, we  worked on creating great campaign updates and stretch goals for our backers to get excited about. It was almost a 24-7 kind of job during the campaign. Preparation, hard work and community engagement were the keys to our success.

Will new game elements dictated by the many stretch goals you’ve met delay release?

No, we’ve stated early on that we wouldn’t let the stretch goals delay our initial game launch. There will be some elements we’ll incorporate for the main release but most extra content will be released post-launch.

If people missed the campaign is there any way for them to jump on board now? Are you doing any post-Kickstarter crowd funding? 

For a limited time, we’re letting people who missed out or couldn’t use Kickstarter access to still back the project. The link is here: http://www.h6game.net/paypal.

The reason it’s time limited is that we don’t want to be continuously distracted with fundraising. We have what we need to build what we wanted to build so we’re going to focus solely on development to ensure we get the game out as soon as possible for all of our backers and fans.

What are you focused on at this minute?

Primarily we’re focused on building Halcyon 6. We’re super excited that we raised the amount we did as it’ll allow us to just keep our heads down and focus on making an awesome game and getting it out there for the world to play as soon as possible.

The preceding interview was lightly edited for length and flow.

The retail sector has received a lot of attention from investors looking for a play on lower gasoline prices. But with that trade looking crowded, and the seasonally weak summer period for retail stocks approaching, names such as Best Buy Co. Inc. appear vulnerable to softer sales.

It’s already been a slow start to 2015 for the big-box electronics company, which is one reason why Best Buy was downgraded to neutral from overweight at J.P. Morgan on Friday. Analyst Christopher Horvers, who also cut his price target on the stock to US$40 from US$45, anticipates further uncertainty as Best Buy faces tough comparables in the second half of the year.

“We believe sales are off to a slow start to the year with TV shipment data slowing and Census sales at electronics and appliance stores turning negative,” Horvers told clients.

He expects this will raise investors’ focus on the second half of the year, and the fourth quarter in particular since it accounts for 57 per cent of Best Buy’s earnings.

The television sales cycle hit an inflection point in Q2 as comps were positive for the first time since early 2010. It further accelerated and generated 11-per-cent growth in the domestic consumer electronics category, which accounted for 33 per cent of Best Buy’s product mix in Q4.

The highly-anticipated iPhone 6/6S launch late in 2014 also appears to have boosted domestic same-store sales by 200 basis points in Q4, serving to offset slowing tablet sales.

The company’s move to close its Future Shop stores in Canada is expected to boost EPS by an estimated six cents U.S. for each of the next four quarters, but Horvers believes the risks associated with a crowded retail sector — mostly driven by a rotation-led revaluation — and the historically weak summer period for retail stocks, warrants more cautious on names that don’t have comp sustainability or upside.

These factors have the analyst seeing a lid on Best Buy’s valuation until the all-important fourth quarter.

Comcast Corp and Time Warner Cable Inc said on Friday they had abandoned their proposed US$45 billion merger after U.S. regulators said the deal would give Comcast an unfair advantage in the Internet-based services market.

The Department of Justice said the plan to merge the two biggest U.S. cable companies would have made Comcast an “unavoidable gatekeeper” for broadband services.

The deal had faced vocal criticism from some politicians, media company executives and diverse consumer and industry groups, who had worried it would create a monolith with too much control over what Americans do online and watch on TV.

Related

• What’s next if Comcast Corp-Time Warner Cable Inc deal falls through

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler said on Friday that the merger would have posed an “unacceptable risk to competition and innovation.”

The U.S. cable TV industry has been rapidly consolidating in the past few years as it grapples with the rising popularity of satellite TV and Web-based entrants such as Netflix Inc.

“Today, we move on,” Comcast Chief Executive Brian Roberts said in a statement.

Comcast shares were up 1.3 per cent at US$59.99 in premarket trading, while Time Warner Cable shares were up 0.83 per cent at US$149.99.

© Thomson Reuters 2015

TOKYO — The Apple Watch launched globally on Friday with a small queue of Japanese tech-addicts lining up in Tokyo for Apple Inc.’s first wearable gadget, but there was no sign of the excitement usually attached to the company’s product rollouts.

Buyers can take the smartwatch home from a handful of upscale boutiques and department stores, including The Corner in Berlin, Maxfield in Los Angeles and Dover Street Market in Tokyo and London, which Apple courted to help position the watch as a fashion item.

But the gadget will not be sold at Apple stores on Friday. The company is directing people to order online instead, which should prevent the long lines of Apple devotees who typically flock to iPhone and iPad launches.

About 50 people lined up to buy the watch at electronic store Bic Camera in Tokyo’s Ginza district, while at the nearby Apple Store it was like any other Friday, according to Reuters reporters at the shops.

“I buy one or two Apple products every time they release something new,” Chiu Long, a 40-year-old IT worker from Taiwan, told Reuters while queuing up at Bic Camera.

“I like to run, so the heart rate reader is a progress,” he added.

At a retail outlet of mobile carrier SoftBank Corp around 20 people queued to get their hands on the gadget.

I’m also an Apple fan. I simply want it

“I want to develop my own application that’s compatible with the smartwatch,” 27-year-old IT worker Tatsuya Omori said as he waited in line outside the store.

“I’m also an Apple fan. I simply want it.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8GtyB3cees&w=560&h=315]

Technology lovers and investors keen to find out the components of the watch were left frustrated, with a tough resin coating protecting the core computing module from scrutiny.

Gadget repair firm iFixit, which has successfully prised open other Apple products on their launch day to reveal their components, said the U.S. company also appeared to be promoting its brand on the watch’s inner workings, complicating detailed analysis of the parts’ origins.

GAUGING DEMAND

The lack of queues at Apple stores will make it hard to judge popular demand for the watch, which comes in 38 variations with prices ranging from US$349 for the Sport version to $10,000 and more for the gold Edition.

Apple has not released any numbers since it opened for pre-orders on April 10, although many buyers were told their watches would not arrive for a month or more as supply appeared to dry up.

Wall Street estimates of Apple Watch sales vary widely. FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives raised his sales estimate this week to 20 million watches from 17 million, based in part on online order backlogs.

“There was a question over whether the trajectory and demand for wearables in the Apple ecosystem was there and real,” said Ives. “But it’s a resounding yes.”

Apple itself said on Wednesday that some customers will get watches faster than promised.

“Our team is working to fill orders as quickly as possible based on the available supply and the order in which they were received,” Apple said in a statement.

The Cupertino, California company previously predicted that demand would exceed supply at product launch.

© Thomson Reuters 2015

Two more families say they've had baby monitors turned into nursery-room eavesdropping bugs. Here's how to button up your baby's security, camera, Wi-Fi, router and all.

Networking supergiant Cisco has become the latest big firm to release a transparency report, detailing its approach to dealing with requests for information from governments and police forces.

Sure, we'd love to wipe away those rude/racy/rebellious posts, but how erasable is erasable? Two phrases come to mind: "screen capture" and "digital archive!"

For the first time, Amazon.com, a company known primarily for its online retail portal, broke out the sales of its Amazon Web Services unit, which offers cloud computing to a variety of high-profile apps

Amazon.com Inc. reported first-quarter sales that beat analysts’ estimates as investments in speedy delivery services, data centres and original video programming lured more customers to the world’s biggest online retailer.

Sales jumped 15 per cent to US$22.7 billion, the company said Thursday in a statement. Analysts on average projected US$22.4 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The company, also the largest seller of cloud-computing services, broke out results from its Amazon Web Services unit for the first time, saying revenue rose 49 per cent to US$1.57 billion.

Chief executive officer Jeff Bezos has pumped money into building new warehouses and data centres, and adding media content and services such as a marketplace for home-improvement professionals and a hotel-booking site. His aim is to keep users on Amazon for more of their everyday needs and to convert occasional shoppers into Prime members, who pay US$99 a year for delivery discounts and online streaming of music, movies and TV shows.

“For a company of this size, for them to continue to generate this kind of revenue growth is nothing short of impressive,” said Robert Drbul, an analyst at Nomura Securities International Inc., who recommends buying the stock. “When you think of other companies in retail of this magnitude, it’s a big deal.”

The shares gained 4.9 per cent in extended trading, after briefly dropping following the report. Amazon stock rose less than one per cent to US$389.99 at the close in New York, leaving the stock up 26 per cent this year.

Related

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International sales dropped 1.8 per cent to US$7.75 billion in the first quarter. Sucharita Mulpuru, analyst at Forrester Research Inc., said that shows weakness in the U.K., Germany and Japan, where Amazon generates most of its overseas sales.

“The only really bad news was international,” she said. “Lots of other companies have struggled with international growth.”

For the first quarter, operating expenses totalled US$22.5 billion, up 15 per cent from a year ago and just shy of the amount the company brought in as revenue. Amazon said its first-quarter net loss was US$57 million, or US12 cents a share, matching estimates. A year earlier, net income was US$108 million, or 23 cents.

Seattle-based Amazon forecast second-quarter sales of US$20.6 billion to US$22.8 billion, in line with analysts’ average projection of US$22.1 billion. Operating results will range from a loss of US$500 million to a profit of US$50 million. Analysts were predicting operating profit of US$9.16 million.

The Amazon Web Services division, which provides data storage and computing power to other businesses, helps Amazon benefit from growth in traffic to the websites of other companies, including Pinterest Inc. and Netflix Inc. The unit generated first-quarter profit of US$265 million, helping to make up for losses in other parts of the company’s business.

“People should be positive on this,” said Michael Pachter, an analyst at Wedbush Securities in Los Angeles. “They’re making a very healthy margin with AWS and they should get a higher margin as they continue to grow.”

Amazon is primarily known for selling goods directly to consumers. Providing warehouse space and packaging to other online retailers and selling computing services helps Amazon convert competitors into clients. More than 2 million merchants sell goods through Amazon.com, sharing a cut of each sale in exchange for access to Amazon’s 270 million active shoppers.

The solid first-quarter growth follows a profitable fourth quarter, which helped blunt a decline in investor confidence in Bezos’s investment spree that sent the stock down by almost a fourth last year.

Amazon pledged to continue investing in data centres and fast delivery this year. It expanded its one-hour delivery of certain products, which is now available in six cities, including Manhattan, Dallas and Miami. It also unveiled the Amazon Dash Button, which lets customers order delivery of laundry detergent or macaroni and cheese with one touch, and announced new features for its US$199 interactive Echo speaker that makes it a voice-activated light switch.

Macquarie Research analyst Ben Schachter estimates Amazon has at least 35 million Prime members and that approximately 50 per cent of U.S. households will have a membership by 2020.

“This has major implications for both Amazon and key retail competitors,” Schachter wrote in a report on Tuesday.

Bloomberg.com

Amazon’s sales from North America rose 24 per cent to $13.4-billion (U.S.) in the first quarter ended March 31

Comcast Corp. is planning to walk away from its proposed takeover of Time Warner Cable Inc., people with knowledge of the matter said, after regulators planned to oppose the deal.

Comcast is planning to make a final decision on its plans Thursday, and a announcement on the deal’s fate may come as soon as Friday, said one of the people, who asked not to be named discussing private information.

This week, U.S. Federal Communications Commission staff joined lawyers at the Justice Department in opposing the planned $45.2 billion transaction. FCC officials told the two biggest U.S. cable companies on Wednesday that they are leaning toward concluding the merger doesn’t help consumer consumers, a person with knowledge of the matter said.

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An FCC hearing can take months to complete and effectively kill a deal by dragging out the approval process beyond the companies’ time frame for completion. Justice Department staff is also leaning against the deal, Bloomberg reported last  week.

Comcast shares rose 2.2 percent to $60.06 at 3:07 p.m. in New York, while Time Warner Cable climbed 0.5 percent.

Sena Fitzmaurice, a spokeswoman for Comcast, declined to comment.

While the DOJ has to present a case in court to block the deal, an FCC hearing referral could prove to be the bigger obstacle to Comcast’s bid to expand its cable and Internet footprint.

The last time the FCC staff proposed sending a merger to a hearing was over AT&T Inc.’s bid to buy T-Mobile USA Inc. in 2011, prompting the companies to drop the deal. The Justice Department had already brought a lawsuit seeking to block the merger.

Comcast representatives came away from the FCC meeting with the impression the deal was in trouble, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Bloomberg.com

Microsoft’s revenue rose 6 per cent to $21.7-billion, helped by the inclusion of Nokia’s phone handset business

Google’s ad revenue has been pressured as more consumers access its online services on mobiles devices such as smartphones and tablets, where ad rates are typically lower

Microsoft Corp., in its second year under Satya Nadella, reported profit that exceeded analysts’ estimates as growth in corporate and cloud software sales made up for slowing demand for personal-computer programs.

Profit, excluding costs related to restructuring and integration, was 62 cents a share on sales of $21.7 billion in the fiscal third quarter ended March 31, the company said Thursday in a statement. Analysts had estimated 53 cents on sales of $21.1 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Nadella has been shifting strategy at the world’s largest software maker to focus on cloud and mobile software, including products that work with rival’s offerings. While cloud revenue is growing, a cycle in which companies upgraded computers has run out of steam and Microsoft’s overseas sales have been hurt by a strong dollar and geopolitical concerns in China and Russia.

“They’ve got a growing cloud number that isn’t stopping,” said Mark Moerdler, an analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. who rates the shares the equivalent of a buy.

Net income fell to $4.99 billion, or 61 cents, from $5.66 billion, or 68 cents, a year earlier.

Unearned revenue, a measure of future sales, was $20.2 billion, compared with the $20.95 billion average estimate of four analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Bloomberg.com