NEWS IN BRIEF
Daily Digest 11 December
11-12-2009
by Deirdre McArdle
APC to close Mayo plant | Apple countersues Nokia on patents
US firm American Power Corporation (APC) is to close its plant in Castlebar, Co Mayo with the loss of 65 jobs. APC makes uninterrupted power supply units for the computer industry. While some of the jobs will be cut, some will be transferred to the company's Galway facility, to where production is being moved. The Castlebar plant employed as many as 1,000 in 1999, but the workforce has been gradually reduced over the past 10 years. APC said it is working closely with IDA Ireland on its plans, and still had a commitment to its Irish operations. The firm employs 280 workers in Galway.
A legal tussle between Finnish mobile giant Nokia and Apple took another turn on Friday with the news that the iPhone maker is countersuing Nokia for infringing 13 of its patents. The news follows Nokia's move in October when it charged Apple with violating 10 of its patents. In a short statement Apple said: "Other companies must compete with us by inventing their own technologies, not just by stealing ours." Apple has not yet revealed which patents are at issue. Nokia has not commented on the development.
Google has unveiled technology that will help scientists and environmentalists monitor the rate of deforestation. The technology, hosted by Google, lets scientists analyse raw satellite imagery data and extract information such as locations and measurements of deforestation or even regeneration of forests. The forest-tracking system is being tested by a small group of Google partners and will be made available as a not-for-profit service, according to Rebecca Moore and Amy Luers of Google's philanthropic arm, Google.org. "Being able to detect illegal logging activities faster can help support local law enforcement and prevent further deforestation from happening," Moore and Luers wrote in a blog post.
US sales of video games and games consoles declined by 7.6 percent in November to USD2.7 billion, according to NPD. The figures were worse than analysts had expected, with hardware sales falling 13.4 percent and software sales dropping by 3.1 percent. Nintendo Wii was the top-selling console in the month with 1.26 million units, followed by Microsoft Xbox 360 with 820,000 and Sony PlayStation 3 with 710,000. However, when compared with the same period last year the PS3 was the only one to show year-over-year growth, with sales rising nearly 90 percent. Wii sales were down more than 35 percent from last year, while Xbox sales dropped by 2 percent.
After a slow start, iPhone sales have picked up somewhat in China with China Unicom, Apple's Chinese partner, saying it has sold over 100,000 units since the official launch on 30 October, reports the Wall Street Journal. While this is a marked improvement on a figure from early November when China Unicom said it had sold just 5,000 iPhones, it still pales in comparison to sales in other countries. In the US, for example, Apple sold 270,000 iPhones in the first 30 hours after it first went on sale there in 2007.
Caped Koala Studios has built a virtual world for kids, combining education and social networking 