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Sony VAIO

Sony To Reform PC And TV Business, VAIO To Cease Design

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Sony announced today that it will be selling its PC business under the VAIO brand in order to focus on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.

It was reported recently that Sony might be looking at revising its product strategy for the VAIO PC business after the company denied having talks with Lenovo for a possible acquisition. Now, the Japanese electronics company has published a press release confirming that it will be selling its PC business to Japan Industrial Partners Inc., as the company does not expect the division to become profitable by the end of the 2013 fiscal year in March. Employees associated with the PC business will be inducted by JIP and current customers will be given service for the promised lifetime of their products.

Sony’s plan should not come as a surprise as the worldwide PC shipments have continued to decline throughout 2013 as more customers are buying mobile devices than traditional computers. With the exception of Lenovo, all PC makers have seen negative growth in desktop and laptop sales. Sony’s restructure plan which began in 2011 also included its mobile division which managed to break even, after the company dedicated its resources exclusively to smartphones and tablets.

Although the TV division has continued to struggle along with VAIO, Sony would continue to assess product strategies to make it profitable, which includes laying off 5000 employees worldwide and up to 70 billion yen in expenses, by the end of the 2014 fiscal year.

Original article release via Neowin | Image via Wikipedia

How does this affect your view of Sony VAIO? Will you keep yours?

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Sony Electronics, Nintendo and EA Drop Support for SOPA

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As seen on Business Insider earlier today, some of the largest players in the gaming and entertainment community (namely Sony Electronics, Nintendo and Electronic Arts) have pulled their names from a list of supporters of the SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) Bill currently undergoing markup by the US Congress.

In the article, BI outlines that according to this list the companies could no longer be found. They state this about SOPA:

SOPA, along with the PROTECT IP act in the Senate, give content-producing companies the right to order a take down for a website that they believe is infringing on a copyright. If you even host links to content that infringes on a copyright, you have to take it down.

Our stance on SOPA is quite simple: In its current form, we do not support it. We believe that linking to pirated content is supporting piracy, ergo the mindset the Representatives have is a worthwhile one. It’s surprising that it’s taken this long since the DMCA – which is a US-based law and really only enforceable within the United States only – for those who pass legislature to catch on. And by catching on, we mean to the actual methods like linking that piracy continues to prevail using. As of right now, Safe Harbor is granted to those who simply link to a file sharing website like MediaFire or MegaUpload since it’s passing the infringing Intellectual Property on to the place where the files actually are. In all fairness this is simply skirting around what is right and wrong, evading a DMCA takedown notice to the infringing party and more cat-and-mouse games.

Honestly, we’re glad to see that the list has dwindled down. It’s now down to makeup companies, music and book publishers and a few Federal agencies to push this through. As more awareness is being brought to the table, and as corporations and private entities continue to read more than the title of the Bill and do some research, it seems that they’re also realizing just how harmful doing something like blocking someone at the DNS level can be. No one company, government or organization should have total power over the .com and .net registry. And no one company, government or organization should have the ability to censor free speech – the very thing this bill states that it will not do on line #1.

“Unlimited power is apt to corrupt the minds of those who possess it.” – William Pitt, Earl of Chatham and British Prime Minister, 1766 to 1778. 
Spotted from: Business Insider

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