ARRI promotes Ukas-Bradley to director of strategic biz development & technical mktg.
LOS ANGELES–Stephan Ukas-Bradley has been promoted to director of strategic business development and technical marketing at ARRI Inc. This newly created position allows Ukas-Bradley to further expand relationships with business, technology and creative decision makers, engage and support technology partners, in addition to coordinating efforts with ARRI’s R&D and business units in Munich,
Germany.
Ukas-Bradley started his professional career at Arnold & Richter Cine Technik in 1988 as an apprentice. He worked in the camera service department in Munich from 1991 until 1994, before transferring to the US. At ARRI Inc., he has performed a variety of roles including supervising camera service, supporting the launch of the ARRILASER and ARRISCAN products, along with the development of the ARRIFLEX D-21 digital camera.
In 2005, he joined the camera sales team as product manager, digital production and was instrumental in the launch and industry adoption of the ALEXA camera. Earlier this year, he was honored with the prestigious ARRI Lion Award in recognition of his substantial contributions over his career at the company. Ukas-Bradley is an associate member of the American Society of Cinematographers. He will continue to be based out of the Burbank office.
Panasonic returns to annual profit on weak yen
By Yuri Kageyama, Business Writer
TOKYO (AP) — Panasonic returned to profit after deep losses for the past two fiscal years, as a weak yen and restructuring efforts helped a gradual recovery, and forecast a 16 percent increase in gains for the coming year.
Like other Japanese electronics companies, Panasonic Corp. has been struggling amid intense competition from Apple Inc. and South Korea’s Samsung Electronics Co. Prices of gadgets have been falling, adding to Panasonic’s woes.
The Osaka-based maker of the Lumix camera and Evolta batteries reported Monday 120.4 billion yen ($1.2 billion) in profit for the fiscal year through March 2014, a reversal from a 754.3 billion yen loss the previous fiscal year.
For the fiscal year through March 2015, it is projecting a net profit of 140 billion yen ($1.4 billion).
It had lost 772 billion yen in the fiscal year through March 2012, one of the biggest losses ever for a Japanese company.
Panasonic stayed in the red for the January-March quarter, racking up a 122.6 billion yen ($1.2 billion) of losses, but managed to get into the black for the full year. Quarterly sales jumped 10 percent to 2.06 trillion yen ($20 billion).
Sales for the fiscal year ended March 2014 gained 6 percent to 7.737 trillion yen ($75.85 billion), as sales improved in a variety of sectors, including appliances, auto parts and ecological products such as lighting.
A weak yen is a boon for Japanese exporters by boosting the value of overseas earnings.
The bad news is that the positive impact from a favorable exchange rate is not likely to keep up momentum in coming months.
Panasonic is expecting sales to stay flat for the fiscal year through March 2015.
The Japanese electronics brand that has been a longtime rival to Sony Corp. has also suffered because it lost out in the smartphone sector. But it has been working on its ambitions to grow its relatively newer auto and housing businesses.
Apple versus Samsung case goes to California jury
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — After listening to a month’s worth of testimony from expert witnesses hired by Apple and Samsung as well as executives from each company, a Silicon Valley jury of four men and four women were tasked with sorting out the latest legal dispute over technology between the world’s two largest smartphone makers.
Apple is demanding Samsung pay it $2.2 billion after accusing the South Korean company of infringing five software patents related to smartphones. Samsung denies the claims and counters that Apple owes it a little more than $6 million for infringing two of its patents.
The jury began deliberating late Tuesday and left at 4:30 p.m. PDT without reaching a verdict. The jurors are scheduled to resume deliberations Wednesday morning in San Jose.
A lawyer for Apple on Tuesday accused Samsung of copying key features of its iPhone and iPad products and demanded $2.2 billion in damages.
An attorney for Samsung denied the allegations and argued that its Google-developed software differs from Apple’s operating system.
In his closing argument, lawyer William Price referred to an email from Apple founder Steve Jobs indicating that he had ordered employees to wage a “holy war” against Google and its Android system, believing it was a rip-off of Apple’s operating system.
Price said that was the sole reason Apple filed the lawsuit against Samsung.
“We don’t think we owe Apple a nickel,” added John Quinn, one of four Samsung lawyers involved in the company’s closing argument.
Quinn also said Apple wants to monopolize the industry.
“They want to attack Google and Android by attacking the most successful Android maker,” he said.
Apple lawyer Harold McElhinny told jurors that Samsung’s “illegal strategy has been wildly successful” and insisted that Google had nothing to do with the case.
“Despite all the times Samsung mentioned it, you will not find a single question about Google in your jury form,” McElhinny said. “Google is not a defendant in this case.”
Google spokesman Matt Kallman declined comment on the proceedings.
The four men and four women on the jury began deliberating later in the day.
The case marks the latest legal fight between Samsung and Apple as each tries to dominate the $330 billion annual market for smartphones.
Samsung has captured about 31 percent of the smartphone market while Apple retains a 15 percent share.
A different jury in San Jose presiding over a previous trial regarding older technology ordered Samsung to pay Apple $930 million. Samsung has appealed that ruling.
Google may not be a defendant in the current trial, but evidence introduced by Apple attorneys showed the Internet search giant has agreed to reimburse Samsung if the South Korean company is ordered to pay damages on two of the five patents at issue.
In addition, Samsung lawyers called three Google engineers to the witness stand to testify.
The trial involves five Apple patents that the company accuses Samsung of using to create nine newer smartphones and a tablet. The features in question include slide-to-lock, universal searching, quick linking, background syncing and automatic word correction.
Samsung, meanwhile, has alleged that Apple infringed two of its patents related to camera use and video transmission. Samsung is seeking $6.2 million in damages.
Jobs, who died in 2011, is a Silicon Valley legend revered for launching Apple in his family’s garage in 1976. The Cupertino headquarters of the tech giant is a 15-mile (25-kilometer) drive from the San Jose federal courthouse where the patent case is playing.
Prospective jurors were closely questioned before the trial about connections and views about Apple, which employs about 80,000 workers worldwide.
Nokia eyes turnaround with new CEO, dividend
By Matti Huuhtanen
HELSINKI (AP) — Nokia is planning for a turnaround now that it has sold its lossmaking handset business to Microsoft, naming on Tuesday a new CEO, promising to pay dividends again and laying out its vision for its remaining operations.
For the first quarter — the last for which it will include figures for its cellphones unit — Nokia said its net loss was 239 million euros (173 million) compared with a loss of 272 million a year earlier. Revenue fell to 2.6 billion euros from 3.1 billion euros, with mobile device sales plunging 30 percent.
To lead the Finnish company in its focus on the remaining businesses of networks, software, and maps, it named Rajeev Suri, the Indian-born former head of Nokia Solutions and Networks, to become CEO in May. The 46-year-old, who joined Nokia in 1995, has been largely credited with a turnaround in the company’s networks sector.
Nokia Corp.’s shares closed up 3 percent at 5.29 euros on the Helsinki Stock Exchange.
Neil Mawston from Strategy Analytics said that a “relief factor” partly explained the increase in the company’s share price.
“The burden of old Nokia has gone and it’s a fresh start with the new Nokia,” Mawston said.
Nokia, which completed the 5.44 billion-euro sale of its troubled devices and services unit and a license to a portfolio of patents to Microsoft Corp. last week, said it plans to invest 5 billion euros to “optimize its capital structure,” including paying 1.8 billion euros in dividends for 2013 and 2014.
Suri gave an upbeat forecast, saying Nokia will continue expansion of its networks business, which serves 90 of the world’s 100 largest operators, and focus on its mapping services for car navigation systems, where it has an 80 percent market share with its HERE maps.
The technology division will further invest in improving its innovation portfolio and explore new technologies with a team that includes hundreds of scientists and engineers.
“Nokia’s strategy is to develop its three businesses in order to realize its vision of being a technology leader in a connected world and, in turn, create long-term shareholder value,” said Suri, who described Nokia as one of the world’s largest software companies.
He also said Nokia was set to negotiate new contracts concerning its licenses.
“All three areas looking a lot healthier for the new Nokia, now that the old Nokia partner has been jettisoned,” said Mawston from Strategy Analytics.
Despite the slide in smartphones, Nokia maintained its position in the first quarter as the world’s second largest maker of mobile phones, which includes feature phones, according to research released by Strategy Analytics on Tuesday.
It had a market share of 12 percent, shipping 47 million devices, behind Samsung’s 28 percent and 113 million units but just ahead of Apple’s 11 percent share and 43.7 million units, Strategy Analytics said.
Nokia began as a maker of paper and gum boots in 1865 and transformed into a home electronics company before becoming an innovator in the wireless industry from where it moved into mobile telephony. But it was unable to sustain its role as the trendsetter and since its peak in 2008 when it led the cellphone business with a 40 percent global market share, the company struggled to stay competitive in the lucrative smartphone sector against the likes of Apple Inc.’s iPhone, Samsung Electronics and Asian brands which sold cheaper smartphones.
Several Nokia models flopped and it failed to sense popular trends such as touchscreen models and folding clamshell phones. Its operating systems also lagged behind, particularly compared with Google Inc.’s popular Android.
In an attempt to reverse the slide, it teamed up with Microsoft in 2011, replacing its old operating system with one based on Windows, but consumers didn’t warm to the Windows Lumia handsets, and Microsoft bought the unit in an attempt to mount a challenge to Apple and Google as more technological tasks are done on mobile devices instead of personal computers.
As part of the Microsoft deal, 25,000 Nokia employees, including 4,700 in Finland, moved over to the U.S. giant, leaving Nokia with 55,300 workers worldwide.
Its headquarters in Espoo, near the Finnish capital Helsinki, were taken over by Microsoft last weekend and the company moved its personnel to a new head office nearby.
New York Yankees Install Front Porch Digital Solutions
LAFAYETTE, Colo.–Front Porch Digital, known for cloud-based content storage management (CSM) solutions, announced that the New York Yankees baseball franchise has installed a DIVArchive CSM system to manage the team’s valuable media assets within its demanding production workflows. The team is also using a SAMMA videotape migration system to migrate its legacy videotapes to digital files.
“The Yankees are one of America’s most beloved baseball teams, and in its more than 100-year history, the team has amassed an enormous archive of priceless visual materials. It’s an honor to be able to deliver a solution that not only preserves this venerable legacy but also increases the team’s production capabilities,” said Mike Knaisch, president and CEO of Front Porch Digital. “There is significant value in a team’s ability to leverage its media assets. This installation further demonstrates how Front Porch Digital solutions can scale to satisfy the most demanding workflows in the sports market — from broadcast and production at the league level, to monetizing assets for individual teams.”
The DIVArchive CSM system will serve as the heart of the Yankees’ editing and production environment, managing the team’s digital assets and making it possible to repurpose the content to enhance productions.
In order to be able to access the team’s many years of legacy content through DIVArchive, the Yankees installed a SAMMAsolo G4 HD single-stream migration solution, which supports a wide variety of videotape formats on input and then, in flight, simultaneously delivers multiple digital files including frame-accurate, lossless preservation-quality, broadcast-quality mezzanine, and proxy. The team also installed a SAMMAclean videotape cleaning unit to reduce defects from dirt and to identify other defects prior to tape migration. Leveraging SAMMA, the Yankees will migrate thousands of hours of videotape content to the digital domain.
Mistika, SGO’s color grading and finishing platform, to support Dolby Vision
LONDON–SGO announced that its flagship color grading and finishing platform, Mistika, now supports Dolby Vision technology, enabling the display of high dynamic range (HDR) images with wider color gamut capabilities. SGO, working in close collaboration with Dolby, will look to make the Dolby Vision workflow capabilities available in Mistika from version 8.2, which was previewed at NAB and is due for release shortly after IBC 2014.
Dolby Vision helps content creators and television manufacturers deliver true-to-life brightness, colors and contrast by augmenting the fidelity of Ultra HD (UHD) and HD video signals for over-the-top (OTT) online streaming, broadcast and gaming applications.
Mistika has inherently supported full HDR workflows for some time now, and is therefore positioned to enable its users to take full advantage of this technological step-change.
“Creative teams using SGO’s Mistika can embrace the full gamut of colors, peak brightness and local contrast available with Dolby Vision,” said Roland Vlaicu, sr. director, broadcast imaging, Dolby Laboratories. “Films and TV shows will look more like the real world, and viewers will notice details that might have previously gone unseen.”
