Ubuntu Edge sets crowdfunding record, beating Pebble smartwatch

Canonical's Ubuntu Edge crowdfunding campaign has raised more money than any other venture of its kind.

Open source developer Canonical has raised $10,341,911 (roughly £6.6m), exceeding the $10,266,844 raised by Pebble Technology on Kickstarter last year for its Pebble smartwatch.

However, Canonical's target figure of $32m (£21.5m) is unlikely to be reached with only six days of the month-long campaign remaining, meaning that the firm will have to return pledges to those that backed it on crowd-funding platform, Indiegogo.

Victor Palau, vice president of mobile delivery at Canonical, told Techworld: “We can be proud of what's been achieved already – but we really want to hit that $32m! We're going to need a huge push, a surge in awareness that builds momentum to carry us over the line. No one here is giving up while the goal remains achievable, and our backers have gone out of their way to add their voices to the chorus.”

He continued: “Whatever happens in the next week, the Ubuntu Edge is already making a difference. This campaign lets enthusiast consumers signal their interest to a mobile industry that caters overwhelmingly to the mainstream. It's making it clear that we’re no longer satisfied with minor updates; we’re looking for true innovation and we’re ready to pay for it. And that message is getting through.”

If the target is reached, Canonical said it would deliver 40,000 Ubuntu Edge handsets by May 2014 to those that pledged over $600 (£394) on day one, or $830 (£592) thereafter.

However, if the target is missed Canonical told Techworld that Ubuntu will still bring a phone to market, but it won't be the Ubuntu Edge.“Canonical will continue to bring an Ubuntu phone to market with our industry partners and will continue to develop the vision of converged computing,”said Palau.

Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth told the BBC that the level of interest from the public, innovators and manufacturers has surprised him.

Last week, Bloomberg revealed that it had backed the Ubuntu Edge campaign with £80,000 because the converged personal computing device could benefit its clients and help shape the future of mobile computing.

If the Ubuntu Edge comes to fruition, it will be equipped with at least 4GB of RAM and 128GB of storage but the processor was not revealed. It will also come with dual-LTE, and a silicon anode battery.

Meanwhile, the phone itself will boast a 4.5-inch, 1,280 x 720 sapphire crystal screen, an 8MP rear/2MP front-facing camera and stereo speakers.

Mark Shuttleworth, founder of Ubuntu, told Techworld last month:“We got excited about the idea that we could engage with a community with crowd funding. It's a really powerful new way to connect innovators to early adopters and to spread the risk of innovation across people who are really interested.”

Samsung posts record profit, but mobile slips despite Galaxy S4 launch

Samsung Electronics said sales and profits soared in the second quarter from a year ago, but increasing competition in smartphones hurt performance in its core mobile division.

The company said it booked a net profit of 7.77 trillion won (US$6.89 billion) during the April-June period, up 50 percent from a year earlier. Sales were up 21 percent to 57.5 trillion won.

The strong showings were marked by strong quarterly gains in every division except its core mobile business. Samsung launched its flagship Galaxy S4 in April with a massive global marketing campaign, after introducing it at an event in New York City's Radio City Music Hall. The company said increased marketing costs and competition hurt its profitability during the period, pulling operating profit down 3 percent even as its sales increased.

Executives hinted in an earnings conference call that new high-end phones are on the way, noting that the product cycle of smartphones is now about a year and its component business expected a boost from new advanced handsets in the second half of the year. Jeeho Baek, an executive in Samsung's semiconductor business, said he expected more demand due to the company's "planned launch of a flagship smartphone model."

The company said that the recent explosive growth of smartphones is due to cool off in the near future.

"Although we expect the smartphone market to sustain growth in the third quarter, it is possible the pace of growth may slow down slightly," said Hyunjoon Kim, an executive in Samsung's mobile division.

Samsung is a dominant manufacturer of display panels, NAND flash memory and other components, but the vast majority of its sales and profit now comes from its mobile division. The company said the Galaxy S4 sold more than 10 million units less than a month after launch, but has been quiet about the phone's performance since. In some markets, such as Japan, the phone has been sharply outsold by rivals.

Samsung's earnings reported Friday were in line with the forecast it made earlier this month. Investors have been disappointed with the company despite the strong showing, and the company's shares are down nearly 15 percent over the last two months. A survey of analysts by Bloomberg taken before the earnings report predicted second-quarter net profit to be about 6 percent higher than reported.

Earlier this week, main rival Apple said profits were down 22 percent during the quarter, but analysts expected the decline as the company did not have a major product launch during the period. Apple CEO Tim Cook said new products will be released later this year.

The company said it booked strong sales in its chip business, and expects demand for DRAMs used in graphics to spike over the second half of the year due to demand from new gaming consoles. Both Microsoft and Sony are gearing up to release new game versions of their consoles.

Profits dip again for Apple, while iPhone sales beat record

Apple’s profits fell for a second consecutive quarter, even as the company enjoyed record iPhone sales for the April-to-June time period.

For its fiscal third quarter ended June 29, Apple reported sales of $35.3 billion, with net profit at $6.9 billion. That translated to earnings of $7.47 per diluted share. Apple’s revenue marked a record for the June quarter, ticking up 1 percent from the $35 billion Apple posted in last year’s third quarter. Still, profits fell 22 percent year-over-year, down from $8.88 billion in 2012. Apple also reported a drop in profit during its fiscal second quarter of 2013.

Apple’s performance for the third quarter topped analyst expectations. Analysts were looking for the company to earn $7.32 a share on $35 billion in revenue.

With a tiny increase in revenue but a drop in profit, you’d rightly conclude that Apple’s gross margin dropped: For the quarter, it was 36.9 percent, versus 42.8 percent on the year-ago quarter. That’s because Apple’s most popular products now have lower margins than the top-sellers a year ago.

Apple says international sales accounted for 57 percent of its revenue for the quarter.

The company also says it has issued $18.8 billion in cash to shareholders through dividends and buybacks.

While Apple generally keeps a tight lid on future product announcement, company officials did reiterate a point made during its second-quarter earnings announcement in April—that the company plans to roll out new products starting this fall and into the next year. “We are laser-focused and working hard on some amazing new products,” CEO Tim Cook said in an statement accompanying Apple’s earnings announcement.”

Apple says it sold 32.2 million iPhones—a record for the June quarter. That’s up from 26 million iPhones in the year-ago period. For the U.S., iPhone sales rose 51 percent year-over-year, Apple says.

“iPhone 5 remains by far the most popular [phone], but we’re also very happy with sales of iPhone 4 and 4S,” chief financial officer Peter Oppenheimer told analysts during a Tuesday conference call. Those older phones, of course, are lower-margin devices, since Apple charges customers $200 or $100 less for those phones, respectively, compared to the iPhone 5.

Oppenheimer said that iPhone sales remain ahead of expectations, and that Apple is particularly pleased with the iPhone’s strong year-over-year growth in both developed and emerging markets. Apple says that ComScore shows the iPhone holds the top spot in the U.S. market for the three month period ending in May, with a 39 percent share. And the iPhone is the top-selling smartphone in Japan, and the top or second-best selling smartphone in most markets IDC tracks.

With government, business, and education, iPhone holds a 62.5 percent share of the U.S. commercial market.

Cook suggested that Apple is at least open to the notion of trade-ins for smartphones. “I like the environmental aspect of it,” he said, though he stressed that Apple hasn’t announced any plans on that front. Cook pointed out that “residual value of iPhone stays high, and there’s so much demand around it. So that makes the trade-in program very lucrative.”

The picture was less rosy for iPad sales, but Apple has a perfectly reasonable explanation for the 14 percent drop in tablet sales from last year’s third quarter. A year ago, Apple introduced the third-generation iPad and enjoyed a full quarter’s worth of sales to the tune of 17 million units. This quarter, sales fell to 14.6 million iPads.

Still, Apple has plenty of reason to remain bullish on the iPad. Oppenheimer said that the iPad ranked tops in a 2013 U.S. tablet satisfaction survey by JD Power and Associates. And during the quarter, the company inked a deal with the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest district in the U.S., to roll out iPads to 640,000 students.

In fact, the iPad got the bulk of the credit for a strong quarter of sales to U.S. schools. According to Oppenheimer, the last three months generated the highest quarterly revenue ever for Apple’s U.S. education institution business.

Mac sales also fell in the quarter, down 7 percent from last year to 3.8 million units. Still, Oppenheimer pointed out that the 3.8 million Macs sold beat Apple’s own expectations. And Apple’s sales still were ahead of the total PC market, which saw sales contract by 11 percent according to estimates from research firm IDC (which is owned by the same company that owns Macworld). By Apple’s math, the Mac gained market share during the quarter.

The Mac was one of the few product lines to see any changes during the quarter, with Apple updating its MacBook Air lineup at the beginning of June by adding new Intel processors. Company executives had little to say about any impact those new laptops had on overall Mac sales, but Oppenheimer did call it the most successful MacBook Air launch to date, adding that customer response was great.

But during the call, executives implied that there were better things to come. Oppenheimer noted that June’s Worldwide Developers Conference included previews of both the Mac Pro and the next version of OS X, code-named Mavericks.

The iTunes Stores—which includes the App Store, Mac App Store, iBookstore, and the music, movies, and TV sections of iTunes—generated $4.3 billion in billings, Oppenheimer said, culminating in the best week and best month ever for App Store. That translated to quarterly revenue of $2.4 billion, up 29 percent year over year. Total quarterly revenue from iTunes, software, and services generated $4 billion in revenue.

Oppenheimer said that Apple now has over 320 million iCloud accounts, and 240 million Game Center accounts.

As for brick-and-mortar retail efforts, the Apple Store saw revenue of $4.1 billion for the quarter, virtually unchanged from the year-ago quarter. Oppenheimer reported that Apple saw 16,000 visitors per store each week.

For the quarter, Apple had an average of 405 stores, with average revenue per store at $10.1 million—down $1 million from the year-ago quarter. Apple opened six stores across five countries during the quarter, giving it 408 stores around the globe; 156 of those outlets are outside the U.S.

The company plans to open nine new stores during the September quarter, giving it 27 new openings during the 2013 fiscal year. It’s not just about new stores, however: Apple says that it relocated four of its stores to more appealing spots; it will complete 23 such relocations before the end 2013 fiscal year in September.

China has been a particularly critical part of Apple's business in recent years, but that took a hit in the third quarter. “China was weaker” in this quarter, Cook acknowledged, but maybe not as weak as it might seem at first blush, he argued. “Our sell-through in China was only down four percent from the year-ago quarter, when you normalize for channel inventory,” he said. Hong Kong drop was worse, though mainland China was up five percent year over year, “but that’s a lower growth rate than we have been seeing,” Cook added.

“I attribute that to many things, including [the fact that] the economy there clearly doesn’t help us there or others,” Cook said.

Still, China drove $4.9 billion of revenue—about 14 percent of the company’s earnings—Cook pointed out. “And a few years ago, that was within the hundreds of millions. We have a very strong market there.” He added that year-to-date, iPad sales are up 48 percent in China year over year, and half a million developers in China are working on iOS apps. He also said that Apple would double its number of retail stores in China “over the next couple years.”

Cook said that Apple will continue to work to boost iPhone and iPad sales, “both of which are currently lower then where we would like or need them to be. We’re doing that very cautiously, because we want to do it with quality.” He added that, “over the arc of time, China is a huge opportunity for Apple, so don’t get discouraged over the 90-day cycle with economic factors.”

Apple’s not done returning cash to investors. The company’s Board of Directors has announced another cash dividend, this one at $3.05 per share of common stock, payable on August 15 to any shareholder as of August 12.

For the next quarter, Apple is predicting revenue between $34 billion and $37 billion, with gross margins between 36 and 37 percent. That sales figure would put Apple’s performance in line with the $36 billion in revenue it reported in the fourth quarter of 2012. For the coming quarter, Apple also predicts operating expenses will be between $3.9 billion and $3.95 billion, with a tax rate of 26.5 percent.

That may dissatisfy some sections of Wall Street, where the focus is on growth and new products, but Apple’s Cook told analysts on Tuesday that he doesn’t think the company’s goals diverge from investors’ focus on profits.

“We’re here to make great products, and we think that if we focus on that and do that really well, the financial metrics will follow,” Cook said. “We don’t look at those two things as mutually exclusive.”

Bill Warner, Who Set Speed Record on Motorcycle, Dies at 44

As spectators looked on, Mr. Warner roared off on his blue Suzuki Hayabusa, a customized, fiberglass-swathed model muscled up with a 1,200-horsepower engine. About 4,000 feet down the track, after he had hit 285 m.p.h., the motorcycle veered to the right — the direction drivers usually turn if something is awry — headed into the grass and fell on its side, tossing Mr. Warner. Their speed had been so great that both man and machine slid, separately, for hundreds of feet.


Mr. Warner, though conscious after the crash, died a short time later at a hospital in Caribou, Me., said Tim Kelly, race director for the Loring Timing Association, which administers land speed events at the base. Mr. Warner was 44.


The police were investigating the accident, Mr. Kelly said.


Before Mr. Warner broke the record in 2011, the only way motorcyclists could go faster than 300 m.p.h. was by lying nearly flat on their backs inside a completely enclosed, custom-made streamliner bike — as much a rocket as a motorcycle. Streamliners are designed by teams of aerodynamics experts and engineers and can cost millions of dollars. Some have approached 400 m.p.h. in speed trials.


Mr. Warner competed in the conventional motorcycle class — a far more cost-effective one. But for its extensive modifications, his Suzuki could have been purchased in a showroom.


He began reconfiguring his bike in 2010. He replaced virtually the entire engine and converted it to run on methanol, which has a higher octane rating and burns at a lower temperature than gasoline. That allowed him to remove the bike’s heavy cooling unit.


He stretched the aluminum frame, added carbon-fiber wheels and built a fiberglass fairing, or aerodynamic cowl, by hand. He also added a turbocharger, which he called “ginormous” in an interview with The New York Times’s Wheels blog.


“People don’t even put that size on big trucks,” Mr. Warner said.

When he finished, he had increased the bike’s horsepower, originally 160, more than sevenfold.

William W. Warner was born on Feb. 11, 1969, in Little Falls, N.Y. He attended the University of Tampa, where he studied marine biology and chemistry. He lived in Wimauma, Fla., southeast of Tampa, where he ran a tropical fish business. His survivors include his parents, a brother and a sister.


Mr. Warner did not consider going more than 300 m.p.h. on a motorcycle especially unnerving. “It was very calm,” he told The Bangor Daily News, referring to his record-setting event in 2011.

Braking proved more challenging.


“The bike was bouncing, hopping, skipping and sliding,” he said. “It was a little scary.”

His record remains unbroken.


“I will be very frank about this,” Mr. Kelly said. “No one will touch Bill’s record in our lifetimes.” 

Lionsgate Stock Hits New Record Amid 'Hunger Games' Anticipation

"Hunger Games: Catching Fire" poster
TORONTO -- Lionsgate stock hit another all-time high Friday as analysts continue to boost their share price targets on the ministudio’s movie pipeline.

Lionsgate saw its stock touch $32.50 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange, up 71 cents or 2 percent from Thursday’s close.

The steady 125 percent climb in Lionsgate shares in the last year came as media analysts at Stifel Nicolaus on Thursday raised their price target to $35.00, from $31.00, while maintaining a buy rating.

Lionsgate, which has a market cap of $4.21 billion, has seen its shares rise on expectations for its movie pipeline, which includes the Twilight and Hunger Games franchises.

On the TV side, the Lionsgate series Orange Is the New Black has also bowed on Netflix this month.

Lionsgate’s stock began its meteoric rise in October 2011 after senior management at the Vancouver-based company fended off billionaire investor Carl Icahn.

The 'Butler' Fight: Harvey Weinstein's Mixed Track Record in His MPAA Feuds (Analysis

When it comes to battling the MPAA, Harvey Weinstein’s default position is to go into all-out attack mode. While other movie companies usually sort out their differences with the Motion Picture Association of America behind the scenes, Weinstein stages major public relations campaigns like the one he is currently conducting to attempt to win the right to call Lee Daniels’ upcoming movie The Butler.

But do they actually work?

Typically, Weinstein, one of the toughest moguls in Hollywood, portrays himself as the scrappy underdog standing up for some higher principle. While the current dispute revolves around whether The Weinstein Co. and Warner Bros. have played by the rules of the MPAA’s Title Registration Bureau, to which both companies subscribe, Weinstein is making every effort to turn the business dispute between movie companies into a major civil rights fight. “I’ve gone through this all my life,” Weinstein said Tuesday morning during an appearance on CBS This Morning. “My dad taught me to fight injustice. This is unjust.”

STORY: Harvey Weinstein Talks 'Butler' Dispute at 'Fruitvale Station' Screening

Over the years, Weinstein’s scorched-earth tactics have resulted in a mixed record of success. Sometimes he wins, managing to overturn NC-17 ratings in favor of less restrictive R ratings on movies ranging from 1994’s Clerks to 2010’s Blue Valentine. And sometimes he loses, failing to convince the ratings appeals board to downgrade its original NC-17 designations on films like 1995’s Kids or soften the R rating it gave to 2010’s The King’s Speech and 2012’s Bully.

Win or lose, though, the very public disputes almost always result in a torrent of publicity, which Weinstein’s critics say is his real objective. (Among Weinstein and the show’s hosts, the CBS Morning News appearance included three reminders that The Butler is scheduled for release Aug. 16, while also including a clip from the film.) But all that free press doesn’t necessarily translate into big bucks at the box office.

VIDEO: Harvey Weinstein Claims 'The Hobbit' Is Behind 'The Butler' Title Fight

Director Kevin Smith’s Clerks, for example, grossed $3.2 million domestically back in 1994, and that meant the low-budget, black-and-white indie was a solid success but not a runaway phenomenon. Blue Valentine, despite earning an Oscar nomination for its star Michelle Williams, grossed just $12.4 million worldwide. On the other hand, Michael Moore’s 2004 documentary Fahrenheit 9/11, which unsuccessfully appealed an R rating "for violent and disturbing images," went on to become the top grossing documentary of all time, collecting $222 million worldwide.

Sometimes, Weinstein has even used a ratings dispute as part of a movie’s awards campaign. While going head-to-head with the MPAA over Fahrenheit 9/11’s rating, the expert campaigner also took out ads inviting Academy members to screenings with the come-on, “Before the MPAA makes their decision, MAKE YOURS.”

Most of Weinstein’s MPAA battles have revolved around the Classification & Ratings Administration. But he’s also had previous run-ins with the Title Registration Bureau as well.

STORY: 'The Butler' Fight: David Boies Claims WB Extortion in New Letter

In 1995, Warner Bros. objected when Weinstein sought to release Michael Radford’s Italian-language film stateside under the title The Postman, a title Warners had registered for an upcoming Kevin Costner movie of its own. Weinstein backed off, releasing the movie as Il Postino (The Postman). The following year, Sony objected when the Weinstein brothers released Wes Craven’s horror spoof, Scream, because Sony had released a movie called Screamers earlier that year. Despite TRB sanctions, reported at the time to amount to $1,500 per day per screen on which the movie was playing, the Weinsteins stuck to their guns. And Disney, which was then the parent company of the Weinsteins’ Miramax Films, ultimately came to an undisclosed private resolution with Sony.

By now, the Weinstein battle plan is familiar -- and so when the current controversy over The Butler broke into the open last week, insiders at both Warners and the MPAA shook their heads and claimed the dispute was “just Harvey being Harvey.” Both sides, pending an appeal, have dug in. Warners believes it has the MPAA rules on its side, but the Weinstein forces are convinced that they can embarrass Warners and the MPAA into making concessions by arguing that the studio is trying to stand in the way of a racially uplifting film.

As familiar as his tactics have become, there is no underestimating them.

One of Weinstein’s first moves is always to call in high-powered lawyers, although the clashes rarely result in any actual litigation. In the cases of both Clerks and Kids, Weinstein enlisted Alan Dershowitz, famous for defending Claus von Bulow, a case that became the basis for the movie Reversal of Fortune. To appeal an NC-17 rating given a now-obscure 1994 movie called The Advocate, Weinstein drafted the late William Kunstler, who defended the Chicago Seven in the late ‘60s. David Boies, who is representing Weinstein Co. in The Butler case, also, working alongside Hollywood attorney Bert Fields, handled the unsuccessful appeal on The King’s Speech rating. Both Boies and Fields can command hourly fees in excess of $1,000.

Second, Weinstein and his allies ratchet up the rhetoric. “This rating for The King’s Speech is arbitrary and irrational. In my view, it violates The Weinstein Company’s right to freedom of speech under the state and U.S. constitution. It should strike fear in the heart of every director and producer,” Fields said during The King’s Speech dust-up. Boies has called Warners refusal to grant Weinstein Co. the right to call its movie The Butler “a transparent attempt to hold a major civil rights film hostage to extort unrelated concessions from TWC” -- a charge that Warners called “deeply offensive and untrue.” Weinstein said Tuesday that two Warners executives had asked him to give up his share of profits from The Hobbit movies to settle the matter. (The Weinsteins are entitled to back-end money from the first Hobbit movie and are locked in a dispute with Warners over whether they can share in the proceeds from the second and third installments.) Warners also called that assertion untrue.

But Weinstein -- whether he wins or loses -- generally gets away with such tactics because he usually has the press on his side, especially when he is tilting with the MPAA’s ratings regulations. Historically, the MPAA has often been slow to articulate its rationales, which to much of the media often look overly restrictive, penalizing language and sexual imagery while letting violence run wild.

Plus, Weinstein also has cultivated various media outlets over the years to be sure his views will have a ready platform. Pro-Weinstein items have often appeared on Page Six of the New York Post. And at May’s Cannes Film Festival, he enlisted Deadline.com’s Michael Fleming and Pete Hammond to moderate buyer presentations for upcoming Weinstein Co. movies. When Weinstein was ready to take The Butler dispute public, his camp leaked to Fleming the private letters to Warners and the MPAA.

But as heated as the battles often become, Weinstein also has shown himself to be a pragmatic businessman once the dust settles. In a number of cases when the MPAA has ruled against him on ratings, he’s simply gotten out the scissors for which he is famous and edited down the films to get a less restrictive rating.

When the 2012 documentary Bully got stuck with an R rating for six uses of the F-word, Weinstein Co. agreed to edit out three instances of the word and the MPAA then agreed to rerate it PG-13. And in the case of the Oscar-winning The King’s Speech, after the movie had played 12 weeks in theaters, during which it earned the bulk of its business, Weinstein decided to mute two uses of the F-word, and the MPAA agreed to a new PG-13 rating.

Lionsgate Stock Hits New Record High

"The Hunger Games: Catching Fire"
TORONTO – Stock in Lionsgate on Friday hit yet another all-time high as analysts and investors look ahead to young-adult tentpole movie profits.

Shares in the Vancouver-based indie studio at noon hit an intra-day and 52-week high of $31.08 on the New York Stock Exchange, up 79 cents or 2.25 percent, on an average volume of 680,000 shares.

PHOTOS: Teenage Dreams: 17 of the Most Popular YA Properties Adapted for TV and Film

Lionsgate, which has a market cap of $4.21 billion, has seen its shares rise by around 82 percent in the past year on its movie pipeline, which includes the Twilight and Hunger Games franchises.

On the TV side, the Lionsgate series Orange Is the New Black is set to bow on Netflix this month.

Lionsgate’s stock began its meteoric rise in October 2011 after senior management at the Vancouver-based company fended off billionaire investor Carl Icahn.

Microsoft asks to disclose FISA requests to set the record straight

Microsoft is seeking permission to disclose "aggregate statistics" about the number of requests for data it receives under the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, following a similar move by Google earlier this month.

 

FISA has been thrust into the national spotlight after leaks about the U.S. government's Prism surveillance program, which reportedly provides the National Security Agency with direct access to customer data stored by Microsoft, Facebook, Google and other big technology companies.

 

Currently, online firms can reveal how many FISA requests they receive only if they lump them together with all other requests from U.S. law enforcement agencies. That obscures the number of FISA requests those companies receive, so Microsoft, like Google before it, has asked for permission to break the numbers out. The FISA Amendments Act (FAA) is the law under which Prism's data collection is carried out.

 

"To promote additional transparency concerning the government's lawful access to Microsoft's customer data, Microsoft seeks to report aggregate information about FISA orders and FAA directives separately from all other local, state and federal law enforcement demands," Microsoft's lawyers wrote in a motion filed with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

 

Its goal is partly to correct the impression that it provides the government direct access to customer data in its servers, something that has led to criticism of Microsoft and other online firms.

 

"Microsoft has sought -- and continues to seek -- to correct the misimpression, furthered by such inaccurate media reporting, that it provides the U.S. government with direct access to its servers and network infrastructure and, thereby, indiscriminately discloses Microsoft users' information to the government," Microsoft's attorneys wrote.

 

Microsoft has not received permission from the FBI or the Department of Justice to disclose additional figures related to FISA requests in the aggregate, but "there is no statutory basis under FISA or the FAA for precluding Microsoft from disclosing the aggregate data," the company said.

 

Prohibiting such a disclosure, Microsoft argues, violates its First Amendment right to free speech.

 

Companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter have also called for greater transparency in disclosure of user data tied to government requests in the wake of Prism's revelations.

 

Yahoo, for instance, has disclosed the total number of law enforcement requests it receives for customer data, but it too is unable to provide greater transparency around FISA requests specifically.

 

Facebook has made some requests public in recent weeks, but was still criticized by others for not distinguishing between criminal and security information requests.

 

Microsoft disclosed its figures for the total number of requests it receives for customer information on June 14. For the last six months of 2012, the company received between 6,000 and 7,000 criminal and national security warrants, subpoenas and orders affecting between 31,000 and 32,000 consumer accounts from U.S. governmental entities, Microsoft reported in a recent blog post.

 

Follow me on Twitter @sajilpl

Microsoft asks to disclose FISA requests to set the record straight

Microsoft is seeking permission to disclose "aggregate statistics" about the number of requests for data it receives under the U.S. Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, following a similar move by Google earlier this month.

 

FISA has been thrust into the national spotlight after leaks about the U.S. government's Prism surveillance program, which reportedly provides the National Security Agency with direct access to customer data stored by Microsoft, Facebook, Google and other big technology companies.

 

Currently, online firms can reveal how many FISA requests they receive only if they lump them together with all other requests from U.S. law enforcement agencies. That obscures the number of FISA requests those companies receive, so Microsoft, like Google before it, has asked for permission to break the numbers out. The FISA Amendments Act (FAA) is the law under which Prism's data collection is carried out.

 

"To promote additional transparency concerning the government's lawful access to Microsoft's customer data, Microsoft seeks to report aggregate information about FISA orders and FAA directives separately from all other local, state and federal law enforcement demands," Microsoft's lawyers wrote in a motion filed with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

 

Its goal is partly to correct the impression that it provides the government direct access to customer data in its servers, something that has led to criticism of Microsoft and other online firms.

 

"Microsoft has sought -- and continues to seek -- to correct the misimpression, furthered by such inaccurate media reporting, that it provides the U.S. government with direct access to its servers and network infrastructure and, thereby, indiscriminately discloses Microsoft users' information to the government," Microsoft's attorneys wrote.

 

Microsoft has not received permission from the FBI or the Department of Justice to disclose additional figures related to FISA requests in the aggregate, but "there is no statutory basis under FISA or the FAA for precluding Microsoft from disclosing the aggregate data," the company said.

 

Prohibiting such a disclosure, Microsoft argues, violates its First Amendment right to free speech.

 

Companies like Facebook, Google and Twitter have also called for greater transparency in disclosure of user data tied to government requests in the wake of Prism's revelations.

 

Yahoo, for instance, has disclosed the total number of law enforcement requests it receives for customer data, but it too is unable to provide greater transparency around FISA requests specifically.

 

Facebook has made some requests public in recent weeks, but was still criticized by others for not distinguishing between criminal and security information requests.

 

Microsoft disclosed its figures for the total number of requests it receives for customer information on June 14. For the last six months of 2012, the company received between 6,000 and 7,000 criminal and national security warrants, subpoenas and orders affecting between 31,000 and 32,000 consumer accounts from U.S. governmental entities, Microsoft reported in a recent blog post.

 

 

Investors yank record $62 billion from bonds

Fears of Fed stimulus drying up has sent investors fleeing bonds.

So far this month, they've pulled a record $61.7 billion from bond mutual funds and exchange traded funds, according to TrimTabs.

The outflow, which surpassed the previous record of $41.8 billion at the height of the financial crisis in October 2008, is a sharp reversal of the recent trend.

Investors had plowed $111.2 billion into bond funds during the first five months of the year, but more than half of that has now been yanked out in June. And the month isn't over yet.

It's difficult to pinpoint where the money is going, said TrimTabs CEO David Santschi. But he said his "best guess" is that investors are parking it in money market funds or "bank products," such as CDs, savings and checking accounts.

"We know it's not going into equities, and we know it's not going into precious metals," he said.

According to the Investment Company Institute, investors added almost $27 billion to money market funds from May 16 through June 19. Prior to that, they had been pulling money pretty consistently this year.

The exodus from bonds comes as Federal Reserve officials, including chairman Ben Bernanke, have suggested that the central bank could taper the pace of its $85 billion-per-month bond buying program this year, assuming the economy continues to improve.

Related: Fed's Bernanke talk tab is $151 billion and counting

Investors have been dumping bonds, and driving yields higher, since early May. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note hit 2.65% this week. That's its highest level since August 2011 and sharply higher from 1.6% at the start of May. The 10-year yield hit a record low of 1.44% a little more than a year ago.

While bonds may stabilize once the current panic dies down, the sell-off has raised concerns about what many see as a bubble.

 

Investors put a record $1.21 trillion into bond mutual funds and ETFs from 2009 to 2012, creating "the biggest credit bubble in world history," according to TrimTab analysts.

Santschi said investors had been throwing money into bond funds "with little regard for value." They were confident, he added, "that endless central bank liquidity would inflate prices."

Now, the fear is that investors who thought bonds were safe will continue to rush out of the market as yields rise.

Related: Bonds in the bargain bin

While redemptions have been widespread, TrimTabs said foreign bond ETFs have been the hardest hit. Those funds have lost $1.4 billion, or 14.4% of total assets, so far this month.

The recent rise in interest rates has sparked a global "deleveraging" of bets on emerging markets, which had seen massive inflows in recent years thanks to the Fed's easy money policies.

By contrast, Treasury bond ETFs had more modest outflows, losing $3.3 billion, or 1.6% of total assets. ETFs that invest in corporate bonds lost $6.3 billion, or 3.7% of total assets.

Twitter: @sajilpl

Record sales for Smith & Wesson

Sales are surging for Smith & Wesson's M&P 10 rifle (pictured). The gun industry refers to these semiautomatics as modern sporting rifles but they're also known as assault rifles.

Smith & Wesson (SWHC) reported that its gun sales jumped by 42% for the 2013 fiscal year, which ended on April 30 with record sales of $587.5 million. The company reported net income of $78.7 million more than quadrupling it's prior-year results.

Going forward, the gun maker expects to keep breaking sales records.

Related: $27,500 rifle hits targets at 1,000 yards

Sales have surged for guns and ammunition ever since the presidential campaign of 2012. They were fueled even further by anxiety over the potential for strict new gun rules following the school massacre in Newtown, Conn., in December.

Gun shops have sold out, orders have backed up and factories have struggled to produce enough guns and ammo.

"Although the company continued to increase its production capacity, it was unable to meet the ongoing demand across most of its firearm product lines, resulting in additional growth in the company's order backlog," said Smith & Wesson, in its earnings statement.

Smith & Wesson's CEO said that increasing manufacturing capacity allowed the company to make "serious traction" in gaining market share. Smith & Wesson's top U.S. competitors include Sturm, Ruger (RGR), Colt Firearms and the Freedom Group, which owns Remington and Bushmaster.

Related: Remington jobs rule the Rust Belt

"Pistols continue to sell exceptionally well," said Chief Executive Officer P. James Debney. But he added that "inventory remains at a very low level."

 

While pistols are popular, the market has been especially hot for semiautomatic rifles, also known as assault rifles, though the industry prefers to call them modern sporting rifles. Debney specifically mentioned the M&P 10 modern sporting rifle as a brand for which the company is expanding capacity.

Prices for the rifles have increased and gun shop owners and managers -- even at major retailers like Cabela's (CAB) and WalMart (WMT, Fortune 500) -- have told CNNMoney they've had trouble keeping them in stock.

Twitter: @sajilpl

Murder Suspect in Hollywood Stabbing Had Lengthy Arrest Record

The man accused of stabbing a woman to death near Hollywood and Highland had a lengthy criminal record and a history of mental illness.                                 

Dustin James Kinnear, a homeless man known as an aggressive panhandler on Hollywood Boulevard, was arrested at least 46 times during the past eight years, The Los Angeles Times reports.

His rap sheet includes seven arrests for assault with a deadly weapon. He has been in and out of mental health treatment facilities since he was five and had lived on the streets of Hollywood since 2008, according to his mother. He left his native Tucson, Ariz., after he received a court order to undergo mental health treatment.

“I always knew I would get a call about him being dead or doing something awful,” April Pena, his mother and a Tucson police detective, told The Times. “Our family is beside itself. We are really sick because we know he’s taken a life. We think of him as the young person we once knew. But I’ve called the police on him many times.”

On June 18, Kinnear and another homeless man were together near the Hollywood & Highland  entertainment complex and were approached by Christine Calderon, 23, and a co-worker. She used her cell phone to take a picture of the men, who were with a sign reading "F--- You. Give me a dollar please” with a smiley face. When one of the men asked her to pay $1 for taking the picture, she refused.

Two men then allegedly held Calderon’s co-worker against a wall while Kinnear allegedly stabbed her. He has since plead not guilty to murder. LAist posted a picture of the suspect allegedly taken before the fatal incident.

Police officials and local prosecutors told The Times they had sought the maximum penalties for Kinnear’s previous crimes, though some said his case shows that offenders with mental health issues often fall through the cracks.

Kinnear’s other arrests include a November 2010 charge for attacking a Subway restaurant security guard with a broomstick and threatening to kill him. He plead guilty to assault with a great bodily injury and was incarcerated for several months before being released on probation. He broke his probation several weeks later for misdemeanor charges including public defecation and failing to appear in court.

He went on to be charged for allegedly using brass knuckles and a knife to assault his girlfriend, and in a separate incident for allegedly assaulting another homeless person. Both cases were dropped because the victims did not show up to court.

In 2011, his public defender Marya Shahriary explained to a judge: “We have a young man who is bipolar, paranoid schizophrenic and epileptic. Before this problem, he was described taking clonopin and dilantin,”

Before the murder, filmmaker Chadwick Davis interviewed the suspect as part of a documentary about the homeless. In the video (seen below) Kinnear says, “Hollywood is a full of nothing but a trendy bunch of [expletive deleted] stuck-up yuppies. That’s it, that’s all they are.”

In an interview with CBS Los Angeles, Davis said the men clearly did not want to be homeless.

“They all could have been on their last string of hope, of life, of desperation.”