The long, drawn-out, oftentimes melodramatic saga revolving around Yahoo itself and co-founder Jerry Yang is well-documented. Perhaps too well. Thankfully for us all, that ends today. As of January 17th, he has resigned from Yahoo’s Board of Directors and all other positions with the company, and moreover, has resigned from the Boards of Yahoo Japan Corporation and Alibaba Group Holding Limited.

We most recently heard from Yang during his interview at AsiaD, where he sounded none too pleased about the going-ons there. We aren’t about to draw links of Yang’s exit to the hiring of Scott Thompson as CEO (in fact, Yang praises him in his exit blurb), but we are drawing links to his sudden purchase of a yacht, a new sauna and a round-the-round journey courtesy of Abercrombie & Kent.

Jokes aside, it’s no surprise to see Yahoo’s stock rallying, as many felt that Yang was the major roadblock holding up an outright sale or other significant shake-up within its ranks. As for Jerry? He’s off to “pursue other interests”.

SOURCE via Yahoo

Bill Veghte was already having his checks cut by HP (after cutting ties with Microsoft), but now he’ll be filling a slightly different corner office. The company today announced that he has been appointed chief strategy officer, but somehow, he’ll also have enough time to hold onto his current role as executive vice president of HP Software.

We’re told that he’ll be working with HP’s senior business and technology brass in order to innovate in ways that perhaps it hasn’t lately, with newly-appointed CEO Meg Whitman saying the following: “Every 10 to 15 years, fundamental shifts occur in the IT industry that redefine how technology is delivered. From mainframes to client/server to the internet, companies that identified the opportunity first and developed the right strategy came out on top. As we move forward, HP intends to stay on top, and I believe Bill has the knowledge and vision to keep us there.”

The press release from HP mentions that Bill will be leading HP’s “cloud and webOS open source initiatives,” but it fails to elaborate on what exactly those “initiatives” may be.

SOURCE via HP

Thought the White House was able to put enough of smackdown on SOPA to kill the bill entirely? You thought wrong. We’d heard that the extremely controversial legislation would be delayed until a few concerns were ironed out, and according to House Judiciary Committee Chair Lamar Smith — the author of the bill — markup is expected to continue next month, as soon as both parties return from their retreats. Let’s just hope that the “consensus” between Congress and the White House makes the bill look different than what we saw prior to the holiday break.

SOURCE via Tech Dirt

Back in April, Ericsson and ZTE filed patent infringement lawsuits against each other, with each party claiming that its 4G / WCDMA / GSM technology had been illegally appropriated. Today, though, the two have apparently decided to bury the hatchet, and withdraw their lawsuits. In a statement issued yesterday, ZTE said the two firms arrived at the decision after “extensive discussion and consultation,” adding that the move will bring an end to “the patent infringement lawsuits filed by Ericsson against ZTE in the U.K., Germany and Italy, as well as the patent infringement lawsuit filed by ZTE against Ericsson.” The company went on to deny earlier reports that it was forced to pay €500 million (about $647 million) to Ericsson, though Ericsson has yet to offer any comment on the matter.

SOURCE via Bloomberg

In addition to shutting down Megaupload, the DOJ made another choice chunk of information public last night: evidence of multiple Silicon Valley companies conspiring to not poach each other’s employees. On the surface, it may sound like tepid HR industry fodder, but it’s something that affects all of us through the products we use.

According to documents uncovered by TechCrunch, a DOJ investigation drudged up proof that Adobe, Apple, Google, Intel, Intuit, LucasFilm and Pixar all made agreements with one another to not only refrain from going after an employee from one of the other companies, but to not make them an offer if an employee voluntarily offered. The most prominent example being an email from Adobe CEO to Steve Jobs making explicit mention of such an agreement. The DOJ called this anti-competitive, and now these companies face a class-action lawsuit.

But more than just quelling the threat of a company losing employees, behavior like this can cause a chain effect. Not having to worry about losing an employee to another company gives an outfit less incentive to offer raises and/or promotions to deserving workers. That, in turn, can breed job dissatisfaction and poor morale for those who feel they can’t work their way up. And considering these are all firms who generate products we all like and use, why would an employee who doesn’t care about their job care about working their hardest to help develop something new and awesome? Then you get stuck with shitty products.

For their part, the companies contest that this agreement was not made en masse, but rather individual agreements were struck between certain companies, though the DOJ believes they have evidence pointing to the contrary.

…documents state that there is “strong evidence that the companies knew about the other express agreements, patterned their own agreements off of them, and operated them concurrently with the others to accomplish the same objective.”

If these companies choose to settle or plead guilty, a large, large percentage of people employed at these companies may be entitled to a payout. Which they very well may deserve.

SOURCE via TechCrunch

Game developer Red 5 Studios has gone offline in protest against SOPA and PIPA. A temporary page, set to be replaced on Thursday, currently greets users with reasons why SOPA will be bad news for the gaming industry. For one, the bill would stop the free flow of user-generated content. It also has the potential to shut down the streaming of games and e-Sports. On a broader scale, it inhibits free speech and places “broad powers to control the internet in the hands of corporations and the government.”

But Red 5 Studios’ Blackout Day protest doesn’t stop there. CEO Mark Kern said that he has created the League For Gamers in retaliation against the Entertainment Software Association’s decision to side with SOPA and PIPA despite the wishes of its members. The first order of business for LFG is a petition to ESA, asking the association to drop its support for both legislation.

“With our own lobbyists working against us, we needed an alternative voice for developers and gamers in Washington,” Kern reports, who serves as the LFG president. “LFG will remain open as a beacon for gamers who would like to join a new voice for opposing SOPA, PIPA, and similar legislation now, and in the future.”

In an interview with VentureBeat, Kern criticized the ESA as too focused on the large publisher, box retail product motif – part of their support for PIPA and SOPA stems from this. “When are we going to learn from what happened to the music industry, and find new ways and new business models that offer consumers better alternatives to piracy?” he said. “Rather than preserve a dying model in the face of digital distribution, free-to-play and cloud-based gaming, we should embrace the change and shift our focus to these new models.”

“The ESA is blind to any potential for abuse and feels they and the courts will be fair arbiters of this extensive power,” he added. “Anyone who has witnessed the recent DNS takedowns, and spurious DCMA actions last year, can see this is a ridiculous statement for blind and naive faith. I also pointed out that many developers oppose SOPA and PIPA, and [big companies] have all quietly dropped SOPA support… so who the heck is the ESA representing at this point?”

Kern launched the LFG using $50,000 USD of his own money, and will file for non-profit status. In addition to the current petition, Kern wants to add a paid membership plan with benefits that will foster gaming in addition to representing gamers in Washington.

“We aim to be the NRA for gamers,” he said.

At this point, SOPA needs no introduction. But if you’ve been diligently ignoring it up until this point, good luck getting through January 18th as an uninformed citizen. Google, Wikipedia and a host of other websites are either going dark or making huge, unmistakable statements on their homepages in protest. Google’s tagline? “End Piracy, Not Liberty.” Pretty much says it all, really. If you’ve spotted another site rebelling today, shout it out in comments below — and while you’re in the shouting mood, give your local officials a holler and let ‘em know just how much you disapprove.

P.S. – An amazing breakdown of this whole thing can be found here at reddit.

SOURCE via Wall Street Journal

When you’re producing chips for the iPad and iPhone, you need a serious facility to meet those demands. And evidently, Samsung’s not foreseeing its legal battles with Apple to cause any wrinkles in said plans. In fact, Bloomberg is reporting that Sammy has “sent requests for proposals to banks to borrow as much as $1 billion to expand production capacity at its factory in Austin, Texas,” with the bonds to be issued by Samsung’s US unit. It’s bruited that the company — which has around $19.2 billion in cash — may sell its first overseas bonds since 1997 due to the impossibly low cost of borrowing money these days, and in a time where positive economic news is tough to come by, it’s quite the relief to see a bit of forward progress come from historically low interest rates. Reuters is reporting that the investment will mostly be used to “boost production of mobile chips and next-generation OLED (organic light-emitting diode) display panels,” but specific details beyond that remain murky.

SOURCE via Reuters

IBM has been selling off a sizable number of its patents these past few months, but according to a new research report, the company still ended 2011 with the world’s largest artillery. For the 19th straight year, IBM has come out on top of IFI Claims Patent Services’ annual rankings of the world’s top 50 US utility patent holders, with a record 6,180 patents. That’s up five percent from 2010, though there are several contenders hot on its heels. Second-place Samsung saw an eight percent spike in its holdings, while Canon overtook Microsoft for third place, on the strength of an eleven percent year-on surge. Qualcomm, meanwhile, was among the biggest gainers, with a full 40 percent increase, along with RIM, which enjoyed 38 percent growth. Perhaps the biggest winner? The continent of Asia, where a full 25 of the top 50 companies are based.

SOURCE via Bloomberg

Kotaku reports that 300 employees of a Foxconn plant in Wuhan, China, threatened to kill themselves by jumping off the roof in a mass suicide attempt. The threat took place on January 2 after the workers were denied an increase in pay.

This particular plant manufacturers the Xbox 360 console, and the uproar ignited by the raise denial actually caused production to be temporarily suspended for an undisclosed amount of time.

According to the report, the workers asked for the raise, but were flat out denied by Foxconn. Instead, they were given the option of keeping their jobs with no pay raise, or to quit and receive compensation. Most decided on the latter option, wanting out of the Foxconn environment with a little cash in their pocket.

But the agreement was supposedly terminated, and those who quit and expected money never saw a dime. So on January 2, they all headed to the factory rooftop and threatened to jump. It wasn’t until 9pm the following day that they were talked into coming back down off the roof, reportedly coerced by the mayor of Wuhan himself.

Meanwhile, Microsoft has opened up an investigation, claiming that it takes working conditions in the factories that manufacture its products very seriously. “We have a stringent Vendor Code of Conduct that spells out our expectations, and we monitor working conditions closely on an ongoing basis and address issues as they emerge,” the company said. “Microsoft is committed to the fair treatment and safety of workers employed by our vendors, and to ensuring conformance with Microsoft policy.”

This isn’t the first time Foxconn has dealt with suicides. Back in 2010, over a dozen Foxconn employees committed suicide, forcing the company to install suicide prevention nets at some of its facilities. In addition to the Xbox 360, Foxconn builds products for Sony, Nintendo, Apple and many other well-known vendors.