Facebook has sent out invites to members of the press to attend an event that will focus on Facebook’s mobile offerings.
The event is sure to re-spark the immediately-denied rumors that there is a Facebook-branded handset (or handsets) on the horizon. The media event will be held at Facebook’s Palo Alto headquarters next Wednesday.
The social networking giant recently revealed that of its 500 million members, approximately 150 million use the website from their mobile phones. It offers native software applications for handsets as well as hosting a mobile-friendly version of its site.
That is likely to be the main focus of the event. A Facebook spokesperson denied rumors back in December that the company was working with device manufacturers on Facebook-branded handsets, saying that building phones is just not what Facebook does.
Result for: software application
RealNetworks has announced that they have settled their outstanding lawsuits with the major Hollywood studios over their Real DVD ripping software, effectively killing the product off after making just 2700 sales.
Additionally, Real will pay $4.5 million to pay off the legal costs of the litigation.
“We are pleased to put this litigation behind us,” adds Bob Kimball, president and acting CEO for Real. “This is another step toward fulfilling our commitment to simplify our company and focus on our core businesses. Until this dispute, Real had always enjoyed a productive working relationship with Hollywood. With this litigation resolved, I hope that in the future we can find mutually beneficial ways to use Real technology to bring Hollywood’s great work to consumers.”
The settlement also terms a permanent injunction that will block RealDVD and similar technologies forever from sale in the US or abroad.
The $30 USD software application allowed users to make a copy of their DVDs and it play it back on their PCs, allowing for, what Real thought, were legal backups. Clearly, Hollywood did not agree, despite the fact that Real’s backups also included DRM to stop sharing of the backups.
Result for: software application
In September, RealNetworks launched RealDVD, a $30 USD software application that allows users to make a copy of their DVDs and it play it back on their PCs.
By October however, the company had been sued by the MPAA and the Hollywood studios, and the software was taken down pending the verdict of the lawsuit.
Yesterday, lawyers for Real told a federal judge that they did not expect the studios to sue the company, and were somewhat shocked at the speed in which the lawsuit came down. Early in the month, the MPAA filed a new motion, accusing Real of destroying pertinent evidence relevant to the case but Real says they did not hold onto the evidence because they hadn’t expected to be sued.
Making the software legal is the fact that no copy protection is broken during the process, and after being ripped, the image of the DVD still uses CSS encryption as well as another layer of DRM from Real themselves. The MPAA believes the program does break copy protections.
