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For all the talk and fear about so-called cord cutters and competition from Netflix, the total sales generated by television services in Canada actually grew in 2014 compared to the previous year.

According to financial data released Thursday by the country’s broadcast regulator, revenues for specialty, pay, pay-per-view and video-on-demand offerings rose 3.1 per cent to $4.2 billion in the year ending August 31, propelled by a 13.6 per cent gain posted by sports channels such as TSN and Sportsnet.

A 5.9 per cent rise in subscription sales offset the 4.2 per cent slump in national advertising, as the sector continues to fight for audiences and ad budgets with the plethora of alternative burgeoning mediums. This contraction snaps what had been a streak of at least three years of rising national ad revenue.

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The calculations include submissions from the licensees of English, French and Ethnic services.

But these stations are spending more to generate more content, with expenditures increasing to $3.1 billion and, in the process, squeezing profit margins before interest and taxes (PBIT) to 23.7 per cent from 26.5 per cent. Costs to produce Canadian content are up, too, reaching $1.5 billion in 2014; costs related to foreign programming also increased to $574 million from $528 million spent in the prior year.

More specifically, the 230 reporting units in the latest financial results are spending more on scripts, filler programming and local Canadian rights — but investing less in programming.

cpellegrini@nationalpost.com

T-Mobile US Inc. shares surged as much as 6.4 per cent after a report that the fourth-largest U.S. wireless company is in talks to merge with Dish Network Corp.

The purchase price is unresolved, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the negotiations. John Legere, T-Mobile US’s chief executive officer, would take the top role at the combined company, and Dish’s Charlie Ergen would be chairman, according to the report.

Ergen has said as recently as February that he is interested in deals and intrigued by T-Mobile. A combination of Dish and T-Mobile could advance Ergen’s plan for streaming mobile video to challenge cable companies and employ a vast airwave holding to compete in wireless service against the two largest carriers, Verizon Communications Inc. and AT&T Inc.

“Dish investors have seen this movie before,” said Paul Sweeney, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence. “Charlie is very disciplined and if he does not get the exact terms he wants, he will walk away.”

T-Mobile shares increased 5.9 percent to US$40.60 as of 10:02 a.m. in New York, after reaching US$40.77, the highest intraday price since 2008. Dish gained 7.1 percent to US$75.84. T-Mobile’s German parent Deutsche Telekom AG rose in Frankfurt trading, up 3.1 percent to 16.03 euros.

In September, after scuttling a possible combination with Sprint Corp., Ergen talked to Deutsche Telekom about his interest in a deal, people with knowledge of the matter said at the time.

Deutsche Telekom and T-Mobile representatives declined to comment on the Wall Street Journal report. Bob Toevs, a spokesman for Englewood, Colorado-based Dish, also declined to comment.

Deutsche Telekom has gained about 19 per cent this year, giving the company a market value of 71.4 billion euros (US$81 billion). Dish and Bellevue, Washington-based T-Mobile have a combined market value of about US$64 billion, based on their closing prices Wednesday.

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Airwaves Stockpile

Ergen has said he’s looking for acquisitions that will help him put a US$50 billion stockpile of airwaves to work.

“If the article proves to be correct and the companies really are in serious talks, we suspect it will flush out competing bidders, perhaps for both T-Mobile and Dish,” Jonathan Chaplin, an analyst with New Street Research, wrote in a research note.

T-Mobile last year rejected a US$33-a-share bid by France’s Iliad SA and talks to merge with Sprint failed over conditions for the deal and concern that U.S. regulators wouldn’t approve a combination of the third- and fourth-largest wireless operators in the country.

In August, Deutsche Telekom senior managers discussed US$35 to US$40 as a realistic valuation range for T-Mobile, according to a person familiar with the matter at the time. T-Mobile’s stock has since gained about 33 per cent as rollover offers and price cuts fueled subscriber growth, enabling the carrier to outpace bigger competitors.

Adding T-Mobile’s 57 million wireless subscribers would help Dish fend off gains in video-streaming customers by Netflix Inc., Hulu and
Amazon.com Inc. Dish and T-Mobile had a combined US$45 billion in sales and US$1.5 billion in profit during the past 12 months, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

–With assistance from Amy Thomson and Mark Beech in London and Dave McCombs in Tokyo.

The twins had purchased an armored door for their apartment, and they set up text message alerts to warn their associates to destroy evidence once the police showed up. It wasn't enough to keep the cops out, or themselves out of jail.

Bad week for messaging apps, with Skype choking on http://: and iOS on... well, it hasn't been fixed, so let's just say "some characters!"

Patriot Act provisions snap back to life, but spying will be a tad more inconvenient for the NSA, and there'll be a bit more transparency.

Deal would combine the second-largest satellite TV operator in the U.S. with the fourth-largest wireless carrier

This daily Signal Boost is our attempt to give readers a morning head’s up on the news that will matter to Canadians interested in media, technology and telecom

To everyone who voted for us in this year's European Security Blogger Awards, thank you so much. We were nominated in two categories, and we won in both of them.

Stingray Digital Group Inc. celebrated with a surprise staff party at their Montreal offices Wednesday following the company's $140-million initial public offering.

It’s always tempting – and not entirely wrong – to judge downloadable content by comparing it to previous DLC drops for the game in question. But do that for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare – Supremacy, the third bit of DLC for Activision’s monster military shooter, and it comes off deceptively deficient.

The first DLC, Havoc, introduced an entirely new four-player co-op mode called Exo Zombies, in which players battled waves of undead in the roles of memorable characters played by Hollywood celebrities including John Malkovich and Rose McGowan, plus four new multiplayer maps.

The second, Ascendance, added a fresh level to Exo Zombies, four more multiplayer maps, introduced a great new dual-mode energy weapon, and brought the grappling hook from the campaign to online play, altering environmental traversal in fast and fun ways.

The third drop, Supremacy, simply adds four more multiplayer maps and another Exo Zombies level. Nothing particularly fresh or novel. Just some maps.

And yet sometimes it’s not solely about innovation.

ActivisionCall of Duty: Advanced Warfare - Supremacy's new Parliament map for competitive multiplayer.

Advanced Warfare‘s penultimate Exo Zombie chapter is maybe the best yet.

An intro cinematic picks up with the four previous heroes captured by Atlas on an aircraft carrier, with newcomer Lennox – played by Bruce Campbell in full ham mode – shooting Oz (Malkovich) in the head. Lennox explains that all four members of the group are carriers of whatever caused the undead outbreak, then takes Oz’s place as a playable character. Oz isn’t completely dead, though, so Malkovich fans needn’t despair.

The map begins with the four heroes split into two groups on board the carrier. The first order of business is to dispatch enough dead to earn the money necessary to open a door or two and regroup. There’s no right way to do this, but you’ll soon learn certain rooms are better suited for fending off the undead as a group early on.

Once you’re a team again it’s pretty much business as usual. Stick together, earn cash, buy weapons and ammo, and get your hands on an exo suit and an exo upgrade as soon as you can. There are some twists thrown in – like enemy Atlas troops who join the fray and drop bombs that need to be disarmed – but it’s all pretty familiar.

What makes this map so much fun is its layout. Unlike the two previous Exo Zombie maps, this maze makes sense. It’s easy to find and reach other characters to group up or revive them, the cure zones necessary to disinfect yourself are readily accessible, and there are several good spots to make a stand as a foursome during a siege – plus some good avenues of escape should things get too hectic.

Exo Zombies is on a roll heading into the concluding episode, which will come in Advanced Warfare‘s final DLC later this summer.

ActivisionCall of Duty: Advanced Warfare - Supremacy's new Compound map for competitive multiplayer.

The new competitive multiplayer maps – all available to be played with the grappling hook modifier introduced in the previous DLC – are a treat, too. They’re not as shtick-y as those in previous drops, but what they lack in panache they make up for in fun, balanced, strategic firefights.

Parliament is the standout. Set on a series of ships and docks along the River Thames in London, it’s a near-perfect blend of vertical and traditional play. A central blockage breaks the action into several hot zones; two main, plus a few smaller ones pocked with barriers. It’s good for just about any game type, but most fun in Hardpoint, which lets players make smart use of exo boosts while attacking and defending specific locations.

Compound is a ton of fun, too. It’s a close-quarters training facility with walls and windows positioned to create a disorienting maze. Human targets painted on walls fooled me into firing at them when coming around corners more than once. There aren’t many long sight lines, so shotgunners and melee attackers rule the day here. There isn’t much opportunity for camping. Very fast-paced.

The third map, set in Moscow, is called Kremlin. Its signature feature is a pair of machine guns in the windows of facing buildings overlooking a bridge. These wildly powerful weapons can help you rack up kills quickly – especially when the opposing team is trying to take a control point set in the centre of the bridge in Domination – but also make you an easy target for enemy snipers. It’s got one big, multi-level kill zone in the centre of the map, though the fight frequently moves into nearby structures.

The fourth, Skyrise, is Supremacy‘s requisite sniper map. It, too, has a large kill zone that lies between two buildings, but this area is broken into several smaller spaces at different heights with varying degrees of cover. Long gun wielders can sit on the second levels or roofs of the two wide buildings at either end and wait for enemies to show themselves while crossing the battlefield. However, unlike Havoc‘s notorious Sideshow sniper map, there aren’t any truly wide open spaces here, which means smart, quick players can usually make it safely between buildings with only a little luck.

ActivisionCall of Duty: Advanced Warfare - Supremacy's new Kremlin map for competitive multiplayer.

Advanced Warfare and its previous DLC packs proved Sledgehammer is capable of coming up with fun innovations. Supremacy, on the other hand, seems to be where the California studio is showing off its ability to make improvements of a subtler nature.

It may lack new and novel features that we can use to easily define it, but Supremacy gives us something that might be even better: Some Advanced Warfare‘s most sophisticated and entertaining competitive and cooperative maps yet.

ActivisionCall of Duty: Advanced Warfare - Supremacy's new Skyrise map for competitive multiplayer.

With more people online, the time has come to think through what this means in terms of who gets what, when and how

The new boss at BCE Inc.’s Bell Media division thinks some public shaming can go a long way to combat piracy.

Mary Ann Turcke, who replaced Kevin Crull less than two months ago, has seen how far people will go to find the content they want to watch both in her role as president and as a parent. To her dismay, Turcke’s younger daughter told her she had been using a Virtual Private Network (VPN) to disguise her location and access Netflix Inc.’s richer U.S. video library, which is otherwise off-limits to Canadian subscribers.

“Mom, did you know that you can hack into U.S. Netflix and get sooo many more shows?” she recalled her 15-year-old daughter saying. A scolding lecture ensued, putting an end to the VPNing at the Turcke house. She says more conversations about what’s right and wrong should be had at dinner tables across Canada.

“It has to become socially unacceptable to admit to another human being that you are VPNing into U.S. Netflix,” Turcke said in a keynote Wednesday at the Canadian Telecom Summit. “Like throwing garbage out of your car window, you just don’t do it. We have to get engaged and tell people they’re stealing.”

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The industry can’t just rely on government and the broadcasting watchdog to police and solve this growing problem, she says. It’s up to ordinary people to tell their guilty friend, colleague or child that stealing is wrong. But Turcke should know that relying on people to share and spread her belief is a Hail Mary at best.

In addition to tightening the security and integrity of online marketplaces, wowing people by offering them top-notch content that’s accessible at any time and on every screen can help, too. After all, the livelihoods of 125,000 people in this country’s production industry are at stake – and “nobody here works for free.”

The financial challenges plaguing the media business are no secret, and Bell hasn’t been immune. Costs to serve programming are escalating, while the fight for viewer attention is as fierce as it’s ever been. Then there’s Bell’s long-festering feud with the CRTC, which saw a combative Crull publicly go toe-to-toe with the regulator on several occasions. It’s still unclear whether Turcke will adopt a similar approach.

It’s early days for Turcke in her new role, she reminds the audience — a mere 55.5 days to be exact. She says she’ll put her master’s degree in numerical methods and modelling to use during her “deep and rigorous” strategic analysis of the specialty TV division, promising to take chances on innovation and get it right. The economics of it all are “intimidating,” she adds, “but that is what we get paid to figure out.”

For now, Turcke is focusing on what she can control, including her primetime line-up of shows for the fall, which she’ll unveil Thursday at CTV’s Upfront event.

“We, Bell Media, we, the industry, need to make our content more accessible. Just make it easy,” she said. “Viewers are demanding simplicity and they will seek it out.”

Mark Zuckerberg’s former neighbours have an ax to grind with the developer who got the rights to their property and then extracted a payment from the Facebook Inc. founder to not build a mansion overlooking his house.

The couple who lived directly behind the 31-year-old billionaire contend that if anyone deserved an extra US$1.7 million from the sale of their home, it was them.

As developer Mircea Voskerician advances toward a trial over claims Zuckerberg reneged on a promise to introduce him to Silicon Valley’s tech elites as part of their deal for the land, he’s now accused of cheating the couple who owned the property. A Nov. 9 trial date for the case against Zuckerberg was set Tuesday by a state judge in San Jose, California, over an objection from his lawyer who wanted to delay it.

Moris Kori and Betty Frayman-Kori claim in a separate lawsuit that Voskerician secretly conspired with their real estate agent to acquire rights to their home and sell to Zuckerberg in 2012 — even though they had been trying since the year before to get Zuckerberg to buy them out.

The Koris contend the fair market value of their property in in Palo Alto, California, was significantly more than the US$4.8 million they agreed to take from Voskerician. Saying they were duped, they want the developer to hand over the $1.7 million he collected from Zuckerberg to drop plans to build a 9,600-square-foot home with a view into the Facebook chief executive officer’s master bedroom.

Two law school professors who have followed Zuckerberg’s fight with Voskerician voiced doubt that the Koris have a strong case.

Miriam Cherry at Saint Louis University law school said that while the lawsuit “thickens the plot,” Voskerician had no obligation to look after the Koris’ interests and that his transfer of the property rights to Zuckerberg is irrelevant as long as he paid the Koris what he promised.

David Min, who teaches at the University of California at Irvine, said there is no basis for a court to unwind the deal between the Koris and Voskerician, even if the couple is able to prove fraud and win monetary damages.

The Koris claim that while they were in final negotiations with Voskerician, their agent at Alain Pinel Realtors Inc. prodded them to quickly sign a contract even though the developer hadn’t put down a deposit, giving him more time to negotiate behind the scenes with Zuckerberg.

In reality, he never intended to perform and instead intended to market the contract

The Koris said in their complaint that they agreed to their contract with Voskerician being passed along to what they were led to believe was an entity controlled by his development company. That entity, SFRP LLC, was actually owned by Zuckerberg, they said.

The couple alleges they didn’t learn Zuckerberg was the intended and ultimate buyer of their home until his lawyers told them in May 2014, the month that Zuckerberg was sued by Voskerician over the alleged broken promise to help him network with tech executives.

Voskerician “falsely represented his intent to purchase the property,” according to the complaint. “In reality, he never intended to perform and instead intended to market the contract” to Zuckerberg.

Voskerician’s lawyer, David Draper, called the lawsuit “sour grapes.” He said the Koris weren’t able to close a deal with Zuckerberg because he initially wasn’t interested.

When the Koris signed a contract with Voskerician in 2012, they got US$400,000 more than their asking price.

In 2013, a firm that handles Zuckerberg’s finances, Iconiq Capital LLC, snapped up three other properties surrounding his home, buying one for US$10.5 million, another for US$14 million and a third for US$14.5 million, according to the Santa Clara County tax assessor’s office.

“The Koris bring this lawsuit because they are unhappy that they sold their property a year before the Zuckerbergs paid three of their old neighbours US$38.5 million for the neighbourhood,” Draper said in a phone interview. “We have documented evidence that shows that what they are saying about Mr. Voskerician is not true and they know it.”

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Derk Brill, a real estate agent at Alain Pinel who represented the Koris and is named as a defendant in their lawsuit, didn’t respond to a phone call Monday seeking comment on it.

Zuckerberg’s lawyer, Patrick Gunn, didn’t immediately respond to an e-mail seeking comment on the Kori lawsuit.

Zuckerberg’s attorneys have said in court filings that the developer employed “extortive” tactics to profit from the billionaire’s desire for privacy. Zuckerberg has denied claims that he broke his word on introducing Voskerician to contacts in Silicon Valley.

A lawyer for the Koris didn’t immediately respond to phone and e-mail messages seeking confirmation that Moris Kori was the chief executive officer of Palo Alto-based Luminescent Technologies Inc., which was acquired by KLA-Tencor Corp.

Bloomberg.com

NEW YORK — Users of Pinterest will soon be able to buy items directly through the company’s app using a new type of pin.

Pinterest and Ottawa-based e-commerce company Shopify said Tuesday that the “buyable pins” will debut in the next few weeks.

GLENN CHAPMAN/AFP/Getty ImagesPinterest displays a new 'buy' button for its application on an iPhone.

Pinterest says buyable items will have a blue pin displaying their price. Users will be able to search for similar items based on colour and price. The company says items from brands including Macy’s, Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom, Cole Haan, Michaels and thousands of Shopify stores will have the pins. Fabric and craft retailer Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores Inc. says it will also participate in the program.

Users can pay for the items they buy with Apple Pay or a credit card. Shopify says their credit card information will be stored by payment processors and not by Shopify itself.

Pinterest said iPhone and iPad users will see the pins in the next few weeks, and they’ll be available on future releases of the Android OS or desktop computers.

Pinterest allows users to create collections of photos, articles, recipes, videos and other images that are called “pins.” The company is based in San Francisco and was recently valued at US$11 billion.

Shopify Inc. works with merchants who want to offer their own online checkout services, providing a platform for small- and mid-size businesses that sell products online. Clients can use Shopify’s software to handle sales made through mobile phones, the Web, physical stores and other means.

The Canadian company went public on May 21 with a US$131 million initial public offering. Shopify shares are up 59 per cent from their IPO price, with most of those gains coming from a 51-per cent jump on their first day of trading. The shares lost 38 cents to US$26.95 on Tuesday.

The Associated Press

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Apple has received eight reports of overheating speakers, CPSC said in a statement

It appears Apple Inc. inherited a fire hazard from Dr. Dre and music producer Jimmy Iovine.

The Cupertino, Calif.-based company said it is recalling Beats Pill XL portable wireless speakers due to a fire hazard from overheating batteries. The product was introduced by Beats by Dre in November 2013, prior to Apple’s US$3.2-billion acquisition of the Beats — which also makes headphones — in May 2014.

Customers can return their Beats Pill XL speaker to receive an Apple Store credit or electronic payment of $395, Apple said in a statement. The company also advised customers to stop using the product.

The iPhone maker will recall about 222,000 speakers in the United States and about 11,000 in Canada, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) said on Wednesday.

Apple has received eight reports of overheating speakers, the CPSC said in a statement. One person’s finger was burned and another reported damage to a desk.

They were sold at Apple’s stores and websites since January 2014. It was also sold at other retailers.

The company said the recall does not affect any other Beats or Apple products.

With files from Reuters, The Associated Press

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General Electric Co., eBay Inc. and others have decided to pay the hefty tax bill associated with repatriating massive amounts of cash stranded overseas, but Cisco Systems Inc. doesn’t look ready to follow just yet.

The Internet networking giant has US$50 billion in cash outside of the U.S., equivalent to about 35 per cent of its market cap. Despite this hefty sum, it’s taking a more methodical view than some of its peers.

If the current proposal for a 14 per cent tax rate is ratified, Cisco says it will bring all of its cash back. However, more legislative adjustments are expected, so the company anticipates tax-code changes in 2017, with related benefits coming the following year.

“Right now repatriating at the 35% rate (30% with overseas credits) doesn’t make sense for Cisco,” said Mark Sue, a New York-based analyst with RBC Capital Markets.

He noted that repatriating at the proposed 14 per cent tax rate would correspond with US$7 billion in tax and total cash of US$47.1 billion subsequently available on-shore.

Assuming Cisco puts aside US$5 billion to run its business and the rest goes to deploying a massive accelerated share buyback program, Sue thinks the company’s 2016 EPS could climb to US$3.40 from a current forecast of US$2.46.

If Cisco opts to use only half of its available cash post repatriation for share repurchases, 2016 EPS would still climb to an estimated US$2.85. The analyst noted that implies a stock price of US$37, representing upside of more than 25 per cent.

“Cisco’s a cash machine and while we’re not likely to see a massive ASR anytime soon, our meeting [with Treasurer Roger Biscay] gave us increased comfort on the steady cash returns,” Sue told clients.

With more than 250 million plastic character figurines sold since the franchise’s launch in 2011, Activision’s Skylanders video games are a toys-to-life juggernaut.

And with this fall’s Skylanders: SuperChargers – unveiled to journalists (including me) at an event last week in New York – the American game maker intends to grow its toy business beyond the plastic characters kids have come to know and covet to include fully articulated plastic vehicles.

ActivisionHot Streak, one of 20 articulated vehicle toys, will come with the Skylanders: Superchargers starter pack.

The new game will see 20 “SuperCharger” Skylanders characters – most new, but also some fresh takes on older ones, such as fan favourite Stealth Elf – matched with 20 cars, boats, and aircraft that they’ll be able to ride as they once again battle the evil lord Kaos and his new sky-eating Doomstation of Ultimate Doomstruction.

Shipping September 20th – likely to stay abreast of Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment’s new toys-to-life challenger Lego Dimensions (set for release the following week) and Disney Interactive’s Disney Infinity 3.0, which will have a Star Wars theme and likely launch around the same time – the Skylanders: SuperChargers starter pack is slated to come with two characters and a car, which is everything kids will need to play through the entire story.

However, kids will need to purchase at least one vehicle for each of the other two vehicle terrain types – sea and air – separately in order to access certain parts of the game. And while any Skylanders character can ride any vehicle, each of the new “supercharged” characters is designed to be paired with a matching ride in order to confer special attribute bonuses.

ActivisionDive Bomber, one of the new vehicles in Skylanders: Superchargers, is a sea-based craft that can dive underwater and fire torpedoes.

In other words, parents are probably going to feel the pinch in the wallets.

Each vehicle is slated to cost US$14.99, and each new figure will be priced at $12.99. Do the math, and die-hard players will likely spend around US$600 if they want to collect everything Superchargers has to offer – though you may be able to save a little money by buying and downloading a digital copy of the game (a first for the franchise), which comes with one virtual vehicle and character, and using your old portal and figures.

Indeed, frugal fans will also appreciate that all 300-plus previous Skylanders characters are supported. So are the elemental traps from last year’s Skylanders: Trap Team, which, if they contain a trapped villain, unlock special cards in the series’ signature Skystones mini-game, which is returning with new cards and rules.

But the real fun in SuperChargers lies in using the new vehicles, which include rockets, tanks, helicopters, monster trucks, and planes, each with its open weapons, movement, and abilities – much like the Skylanders themselves.

ActivisionSky Slicer, one of the new vehicles in Skylanders: Superchargers, will be sold separately from the starter pack for US$14.99.

Plus, many vehicle parts – including tires, propellers, and cranks – are designed to move or rotate, encouraging kids to play with them away from the game. Just don’t take them into the tub. There’s an NFC chip inside each toy, and the game’s makers can’t guarantee it’ll survive a bath.

Still, most kids are likely to spend more time playing with the virtual versions of each vehicle once they’ve been ported into the game. To that end, the hands-off demo Activision provided me elaborated on how vehicles are used in SuperChargers.

Levels are designed as they usually are in Skylanders games, with plenty of traditional on-foot melee action. Characters will defeat enemies, find hidden areas, collect treasures, and level up before heading back to gradually evolving hub world filled with activities where they can permanently upgrade their characters.

However, at certain points in each level players will prompted to summon a specific kind of vehicle and have their Skylander hop in. This might lead to a lengthy kart-style race filled with collectibles and secret routes, 360-degree dogfights in the air, large open areas at sea that they can freely explore, or even a major set piece battle that requires players to advantage of all of their vehicle’s abilities.

ActivisionStorm Blade is among the all-new Skylanders characters featured in Skylanders: Superchargers.

The boss battle shown in the demo involved a submarine riding waves and diving deep into a massive circular pool while avoiding rotating obstacles in the water and blasting groups of enemies with homing torpedoes. It appeared more tactical and skill oriented than previous Skylanders games, but we’ll need to wait for some hands-on time to see if that’s true.

Importantly, kids who like playing co-op on the couch (my daughter among them) won’t have to worry about arguing over who gets to control the vehicle in these sections. One will pilot while the other takes on gunnery duties, keeping both players in the action. This feature wasn’t shown in the demo.

What’s more, vehicles can be customized with dozens of collectible mod kits scattered throughout the game. These kits can augment stats such as speed, armour, and weapons. Permanent upgrades are applied via a new currency called “gear bits,” which can be found and collected during vehicle segments.

ActivisionSkylanders: Superchargers will feature several graphical upgrades compared to its predecessors, including dynamic volumetric clouds.

The introduction of vehicles also seems to have led to a graphical upgrade.

The undulating waves in water environments are beautiful. Aircaft sore through volumetric clouds, which also appear on land, growing to obscure architectural elements and enemies and then dissipating according to special in-game events. And the ground is frequently layered in thick, lush vegetation, giving Skylands a more organic appearance than in previous games.

Competition is clearly heating up in the toys-to-life category, but Skylanders: SuperChargers vehicles angle is evidence that Activision isn’t backing down from the challenge.

The gamer in me is excited to play all of this fall’s toy-based games with his daughter.

But the dad is getting a little worried about his bank account.

ActivisionSpitfire is one of 20 new figurines to be introduced in this fall's Skylanders: Superchargers.

As usual, consumers and investors alike will be monitoring Apple Inc.’s Worldwide Developers Conference closely for new products and services.

While they shouldn’t expect the tech giant to roll out an Apple-branded television, we’ll likely see a new version of the AppleTV device with more memory, improved graphics, and touch/speech capabilities.

These improvements, coupled with the AppleTV app store, should allow Apple better access to the US$35 billion console gaming software market. That could add 1 per cent to its earnings per share in 2016, based on conservative estimates from J.P. Morgan analyst Rod Hall.

He expects the new AppleTV will feature the same A8X processor featured in the iPad Air 2, which is considered a very capable chip when it comes to gaming.

“Given that the AppleTV will likely be priced significantly less than next generation consoles, we believe it will present an interesting option for casual gamers, particularly given the additional TV streaming features we expect the device to offer,” Hall said in a note to clients.

The rationale for such a push by Apple is obvious, as gamers spend an estimated an average of US$150 per year on video game software purchases. Meanwhile, both the total gaming software market and the amount of annual revenue per console have continued to trend higher, with Hall estimating that spending is up about eight per cent since 2012.

The analyst anticipates most AppleTV shipments will be in North America and Europe since better content is available in those regions relative to the rest of the world.

And while Hall doesn’t expect Apple to launch a streaming TV service at WWDC, he does anticipate it will arrive before the end of 2015.

The analyst forecasts AppleTV’s penetration will rise to five per cent in 2016, up from about 2.4 per cent at the end of 2014, assuming a TV replacement cycle of seven years.

It's not enough that ordinary people would find murderous rants threatening, the court said. Rather, courts have to consider frame of mind.