Month: October 2016

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Somehow, after watching yesterday's three-minute teaser trailer for the newly renamed Nintend Switch, we've been left with even more questions than we had when the system was still the completely mysterious "Project NX." The biggest of those questions—price, tech specs, battery life, specific launch date and titles, whether it has a touchscreen, etc.—will likely remain unanswered for quite a while (maybe even until next year).

That said, in the day since the Switch's coming-out party, a few tidbits of concrete information have dribbled out. Here's a quick round-up of what we now know:

(And while we wait for the system's official dimensions to be announced, don't forget to check out our visual analysis on the Switch's physical size)

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Tim Boyle)

Following up on news reported yesterday, AT&T has reached a deal to buy Time Warner Inc. for more than $80 billion, The Wall Street Journal wrote today. The boards of the companies are meeting today to approve the merger, "with a deal likely to be announced as soon as Saturday evening."

Original story from yesterday follows:

AT&T and Time Warner Inc. have recently met "to discuss various business strategies including a possible merger," Bloomberg reported Thursday.

Discussions are still in early stages, according to Bloomberg's anonymous sources. "The talks, which at this stage are informal, have focused on building relations between the companies rather than establishing the terms of a specific transaction, the people said, asking not to be identified as the deliberations are private," Bloomberg wrote. "Neither side has yet hired a financial adviser, the people said."

Enlarge (credit: DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images)

These days, it seems like software patents are falling down right and left. Hundreds of them have been invalidated by federal judges since the Supreme Court's 2014 Alice Corp v. CLS Bank. decision, and more patent-holders are getting sanctioned for their behavior in court. The economics of the patent-trolling business are changing in fundamental ways, and lawsuits are down.

It's tempting to think the whole mess is going to dry up and blow away—but the lawsuits coming from companies like Bartonfalls LLC show that some patent lawyers are going to keep on partying like it's 2009. Bartonfalls is a shell company formed in the patent hotspot of East Texas, and it sued 14 big media companies on October 11 over US Patent No. 7,917,922.

Bartonfalls is unusual in a couple ways. The company got a high-profile shout-out from a lawyer at The New York Times. The newspaper's associate general counsel, David McCraw, became a newsroom celebrity for a day when he wrote a sharply worded letter to Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who threatened to sue the newspaper when it published a story about two women claiming they were sexually assaulted by Trump. McCraw's response letter explained that the paper was protected by the First Amendment and that if Trump believed "the law of this country forces us and those who would dare to criticize him to stand silent or be punished, we welcome the opportunity to have a court set him straight."

Enlarge (credit: Jonas B / Flickr)

After 18 months of contract negotiations and over 12 months after first voting for strike authority, voice actors in the SAG-AFTRA union will stop working with a number of prominent game companies as of today. The strike is part of an attempt to negotiate a more favorable contract that gives voice actors residual payments on successful games.

As part of last-minute negotiations this week—overseen by a federal mediator—representatives from the affected game companies offered an immediate 9 percent increase in the prevailing wage offered under the contract, speeding up a previous offer of a 3 percent annual raise over three years. The companies also offered additional compensation for games that required multiple recording sessions. Combined, the companies say this would have amounted to a 23 percent or more wage increase for "typical" video game recording sessions.

The union didn't even put that proposed contract to a vote before going on strike at midnight Thursday night. In a statement, the union argued that increased upfront payments don't address their members' primary issue: continuing residuals:

Abigail Bassett

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is known for cutting-edge engineers, and Lamborghini is known for super cars. Just this week, the two paired up to ponder the future of an ultra-light, strong, and innovative automotive brand.

On Wednesday at the EmTech conference at MIT in Boston, Lamborghini Chairman and CEO Stefano Domenicali sat down with leaders from the university, other Italian companies, and the Italian Trade Agency. He was there to talk about Lamborghini’s long-time work in the development of carbon-fiber technologies for automotive, consumer, and aerospace industries.