SONY FINANCIALS REVEAL HUGE LOSS, WITH MORE EXPECTED

Friv - Sony has posted its financial results for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2014, revealing a billion-dollar overall loss despite rising sales.

The company announced an overall loss of $1.29 billion, despite sales rising 14.3 percent to $75.4 billion. The reasons for this, as we’ve heard before, include aggressive restructuring with the PC business being sold off and the TV business getting spun out.

Despite Sony offices around the world being sold, along with shares in companies like Square Enix, the Japanese giant has been unable to mitigate the losses.

We know Sony’s PS4 is doing well, to the tune of 7 million consoles sold at the last count, but today’s results didn’t offer any more insight.

The company bundles figures for hardware sales together, so all we know is that 14.6 million PS3 and PS4s were sold in the last year. The year before saw PlayStation consoles hit sales of 16.5 million, though that included the PlayStation 2 as well.

Broken down on a quarterly basis, it’s clear adding the PS4 to its stable has served Sony well. In Q3, sales of PS3/PS4 rose to 7.8 million compared with 6.8 million the year before, which included PS2 figures. In Q4 we saw 3.7 million pieces of hardware sold, up slightly from last year’s 3.4 million.

The Games Segment saw sales rise 38.5 percent, though an operating loss of $78 million was posted, partially due to the huge cost of launching the PlayStation 4, though the decision to shutter certain Sony Online Entertainment MMOs also played a big part.

Sony expects home console sales to continue going strong in the year ahead, hitting 17 million for the PS3 and PS4 combined. The Vita, Vita TV and PSP aren’t looking so positive however, with sales falling from 7 million 12 months ago to 4.1 million this year, and a prediction of 3.5 million being made for the year ahead.

Though the bulk of the restructuring took place in the previous year, there’s still some scheduled for the next 12 months, meaning the company is expecting another big loss of $487 million, though the Games Division is hoping for a comparatively small profit. After that, however, it should be complete, placing the company in a stronger position from which to hunt for profit.

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Candy Crush Saga Creator’s Share Price Tumbles on Day One

Candy crush saga cheats - King Digital Entertainment has suffered an extremely difficult debut on the stockmarket,tumbling 15.56% from its opening $22.50 asking price.

King suffered one of the biggest day-one losses in the last six months, despite the seemingly endless popularity of the game the developer is best known for, Candy Crush Saga.

Observers have blamed the fact that Candy Crush accounted for over three-quarters of King’s revenue for the last three months of 2013, worrying investors that the company might be a one-trick pony.

“Once you have a hit, it’s hard to make a string of hits. How many bands were the Beatles?” Roger Kay, analyst at research firm Endpoint Technologies Associates toldReuters.

“Also, there’ve been a lot of high priced IPOs and mergers and acquisitions (of late) and when valuations get frothy, investors get disappointed when returns don’t measure up to expectations.”

The “freemium” title Candy Crush,  in which you must line candies of the same color together in a row, has been downloaded more than 500 million times, owing much of its profitability to eager players who shell out money for extra lives.

When fellow mobile giant Zynga debuted in 2011 it suffered a similarly tumultuous but ultimately more positive debut, with its stock down 5 percent at close of business. Candy crush tips and tricks website.

Kizi – Drew Pearce Talks All Hail the King, Doctor Strange and M:I5

kizi – Drew Pearce co-wrote Iron Man 3 and has both written and directed the Marvel One-Shot All Hail the King, which revolves around a documentary profile of Sir Ben Kingsley’s hugely popular character Trevor Slattery, and appears on the Thor: The Dark World Blu-ray and DVD.

We caught up with Pearce to discuss the making of the short and the other Marvel properties he’d like to adapt, including his ‘gigantic pipe-dream’. We also got an update about his work on the Mission: Impossible V script, and found out why the people of his home-town might not be all that happy with him.

What was the genesis of All Hail the King?

I’ve been talking to Kevin Feige and Louis D’Esposito on-and-off for four years about writing and directing one-shots. This is about the fifth character I’ve either written something for, or pitched, out of tens of ideas that I’ve had for one-shots.

And I think it’s an amazing program and scheme that Marvel have with the one-shots as it can be the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern of the MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe). It lets you not just look at different characters, but explore pockets that would never get their own movie necessarily. But also different genres within the MCU as well.

I love that Item 47 is essentially a Bonnie and Clyde movie too. I wanted this one when it came to fruition to feel like if I got to do Out of Sight in the MCU, albeit with Trevor Slattery.

The genesis of this one specifically was the very first day that Sir Ben was on the set of Iron Man 3. Up until that point I’d bugged Kevin about once every two days for two years about writing and directing a one-shot, to the point where I think he was going to have me killed.

We were both watching him and then went for lunch, and I said, ‘Maybe we should do a Trevor one-shot’. And for the first time Kevin said, ‘Definitely. Go away and write it’. So I wrote it that night in my corporate housing in North Carolina, and brought it in the next day. And we even showed it to Sir Ben that week. So the seed was planted.

Then it was happening, then it wasn’t happening, then it was going to go away, then I was going to do a different one. Then in a creative meeting with the brain trust of the MCU, it was Joss Whedon who said when I was running down the list of possible one-shots ‘So there’s a possibility that you could do a one-shot with Sir Ben Kingsley?’ at which point I said, ‘If I can convince him to do it, sure.’ Joss said

There is no doubt in my mind that that should be the first one you do’. And from then it was very simple – I wrote a different version of it, got it to Sir Ben, who I was quite close to on the set of Iron Man, and he instantly said yes. In fact he didn’t offer up any script changes. He’s shot I think seven movies back to-back recently, and yet he still found three days in that schedule to shoot a reprise with Trevor, which is just extraordinary.

What were you trying to achieve with the One-Shot?

Honestly, first and foremost, it’s just an opportunity to return to a character that I’m very proud of, and that is just so much fun to be around. It’s one of those ironies – Trevor is only really in the final cut of the movie for about two scenes, and yet he casts a very long shadow over the whole movie, and is quite indelible.

If you’re making a TV show and you create a character, and the actor creates a character with you, you get to revisit it week after week. But with a movie you kind of have to say goodbye to them. So principally it was the idea of getting to play with Sir Ben and Trevor again.

Then as that developed, that turned into ‘What’s the most entertaining way to catch up with Trevor?’ And I think one of the things that’s very true of him as a character is that you have to put him in very real, dangerous environments, where he is the only ludicrous thing in there, in order for the humour to land.

Otherwise it just feels like you’re doing a skit. Are you now done with Trevor or are there other things that you’d like to write for the character? Trevor writes himself. He’s definitely a monster, and he’s out there in the world.  Do I hope I write Trevor again? Absolutely! Do I know in what context that might be? Absolutely not.

Again, if Kevin finds a reason for Trevor to be back, and Sir Ben is willing… he loves doing the character, quite rightly because I don’t know if he’s ever been funnier than when he was Trevor Slattery. Look, I hope so. There’s certainly nothing where I can go ‘Oh yes, we’re planning the secret Trevor Slattery trilogy!’ Or maybe that’s a double-bluff.

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Games – What is the appeal of Candy Crush Saga ?

Candy Crush Saga – the “match-three” mobile game – was the highest grossing app on both iPhone and iPad in 2013. How did millions of commuters become entranced by a grid of brightly coloured sweets, asks Chris Stokel-Walker.

Stand on a crowded commuter train in New York, Paris, London, Tokyo, or Berlin and you will see a multitude of people. Goldfish-mouthed, eyes glazed, deeply breathing, fixated on one thing only.

Getting rows of red jelly beans or orange lozenges to disappear.

The game is also immensely popular on Facebook, with the site hosting support groups for self-confessed addicts.

Worldwide, Candy Crush Saga is estimated to make £610,000 ($1,000,000) per day from its users, according to Appdata. It is one of a growing number that is free to download but generates extraordinary revenues by nudging addicted players into paying more to get gizmos that help them progress through difficulty levels.

They buy add-ons, extra lives and access to higher levels. These microtransactions have been criticised, but its British-based developer King is quick to point out that more than half of players who reach the last level in Candy Crush Saga have done so without any financial outlay.

The hefty revenues have led to speculation that King, which has its HQ at London’s Kings Cross, is preparing for an initial public offering (IPO) of shares in the US.

King has taken advantage of a change in the way people play video games. There was a time when a particular demographic was overrepresented among gamers – young men at home, using consoles. The advent of smartphones and tablets has changed gaming – so much so that the typical Candy Crush Saga player is a woman aged 25-45.

Some people’s devotion to the game leads to them changing their smartphone’s internal clock so that they get more lives, an all-important (and scarce) commodity doled out at regular intervals.

One gamer, Laura Wilson, travelling on a Friday afternoon train from Kings Cross to Newcastle, played for only a few minutes before her lives ran out. With a small sigh she closed the app on her iPad and opened up an e-book. For her the e-book was scant consolation. “You get addicted,” she explains matter-of-factly. She isn’t alone.

Women holding iphones

An afternoon Tube journey across London saw a carriage full of players hunched over their phones. Two men, one in his 40s, one in his 20s, were sitting across from each other manipulating sweets into patterns, their lives measured out in cascading bon-bons and exploding chocolate buttons. Six in ten UK players while away their journey to work like this, though most are progressing through the hundreds of levels in the midevening, between 6pm and 9pm.

“It’s a good stress relief,” says Amy Bolton, a 21-year old student at Newcastle University.

Gamers like Bolton drop in and out during the course of the day, according to internal usage figures described by King. A quick session snatched here and there helps people progress through the hundreds of levels in the game. Some of the most eager gamers are keeping pace with King’s coders, who have released more than 500 levels to date, snaking up a path that King readily admits owes a debt to the layout of popular board games.

They can start a game over breakfast on their laptop while scrolling through Facebook. They can then play it on their phone on the train to work, where they can switch on their iPad and continue their game where they left off. This smooth continuity of gameplay is something King believe is part of their success.

Candy Crush is not so much a new type of game as an incredibly well-researched and careful fine-tuning of existing concepts.

There have been plenty of games that follow the same basic format as King’s creation. Candy Crush Saga owes a debt to the likes of Tetris and Puzzle Bobble/Bust-a-Move, both of which captivated audiences of yesteryear.

Candy Crush Saga displaced Bejeweled, a similar matching game originally developed 12 years ago, from the Facebook gaming charts earlier this year. Now other games aim to replicate Candy Crush’s success with minor tweaks.

An image from Candy Crush Saga game

Sebastian Knutsson, chief creative officer and co-founder of King, says that none of his team foresaw Candy Crush Saga’s success when developing the game, initially for the company’s website.

Knutsson was and remains an avid gamer, and was especially enamoured of the early 1990s arcade games and their bright, brash colours. Working with artists and designers from a small office, he produced a game that stood out from the other “match-three” games that were on the market. Sweets were chosen, he reveals, to appeal to their core audience, which is far from the stereotypical gamer.

Not that Candy Crush Saga was perfect from the first iteration. “We had an early theme based around the French Art Deco style,” Knutsson explains. That included an over-the-top French voice egging on players when they made good moves. “It didn’t work out,” Knutsson says. People hated the accent, finding it too jokey. It was replaced with a smooth, deep male voice whispering encouragement.

The function of the game, and the way it rations lives, has been carefully crafted by King to provide maximum enjoyment, and to keep people coming back for more. Players regularly check the countdown until their next life is released and they can play on. It’s precision-engineered addiction, and it has resonated with the public.

“They give you unlimited lives, or the levels don’t get more challenging in the same way,” says Bolton, explaining why she prefers Candy Crush to its competitors.

Though Knutsson says that “we don’t want to be a Candy Crush company”, the game is far and away King’s largest property. It makes up the lion’s share of the company’s 225 million unique monthly users. Appdata, an analyst of iOS and Facebook applications, estimates that Candy Crush Saga has 137 million active monthly users alone, topping charts.

There has been criticism of the revenue structure around the game – free to download but delicately engineered to get users spending money.

A recent Candy Crush expansion pack has had a 40-strong team of developers working on it, four times the number of programmers and artists who brought the original Facebook version of the game into existence.

Knutsson says that King will keep adding levels to the regular Candy Crush. The addiction will continue.

Nervously, Bolton admits that before she goes to sleep, she’ll often fit in a game.

“And when I close my eyes to go to sleep, I can see all the shapes still, like a virtual Candy Crush in my head.”

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Games – Dota 2 Three Spirits Update Introduces Two New Heroes And Coaching Mode

friv – Valve has revealed the massive Dota 2 update they recently hinted at during their DireTide apology address. The Three Spirits Update introduces the free-to-play game’s first two original Heroes, in addition to adding several features that the community has been asking for. These include a brand new in-depth coaching mode, crafting, socketing, and of course, DireTide.

The Three Spirits Update focuses on Dota 2′s rotund jolly blue Hero, Storm Spirit, and add his cousins Earth Spirit and Ember Spirit to the roster of over 100 characters. Earth Spirit is a glowing green elemental force who can become a boulder and pull enemies to him as well as push them away. Ember Spirit is an offensive fiery celestial whose signature attack is making and detonating Remnants of himself.

Ember Spirit

Ember Spirit

Aside from the new Heroes, the Three Spirits update brings in-game coaching tools for those who want to teach their friends how to play Dota 2. Coaches will be able to view games from the perspective of their students, draw on the ground and mini-map to help point out important strategies, and ping anywhere on the HUD. If you enjoy the best free online games from friv then check out this free games site – juegos friv

This will be especially useful for showing new players how and when to use specific items. In order to make everything less obtrusive for those not being coached, coaches and students will have their own text and voice chat channels.

For more information on the new crafting, socketing, showcase view, new player items, and the DireTide event, check out the official Three Spirits patch notes. According to Valve, the update is scheduled for surprising a November 14 release, so we should see it hit the live servers today.

Car Maker Jaguar Land Rover Drives Full Profit For Tata

Online business opportunities – The Indian owners of Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) have seen a 71% jump in quarterly profit, due to the success of its British unit.

Tata Motors reported the profit surge as the carmaker’s domestic business continued to suffer in a weak economy.

The company had net profit of 35bn rupees (£350m) for the quarter that ended September 30.

The figure was above analysts’ expectations.

The result was entirely due to JLR, where profit climbed 66% to £507m.

Tata said there was strong demand for JLR’s new Range Rover and other models.

That offset losses from slumping Indian sales of Tata’s own branded cars.

The company’s Indian vehicle sales declined 33% from the same quarter last year and the domestic business reported a loss of 8bn rupees (£79bn).

Tata Motors acquired Jaguar Land Rover in 2008.

What Car? editor in chief Chas Hallett told Sky News: “JLR is going from strength to strength and these financial results prove that making world class cars that are globally demanded is the way to make money.

“Jaguar is a little behind Land Rover at the moment but it has shown enough of its future models to make us believe that it may not be the junior partner forever.”

A slowing economy and high interest rates on loans have impacted India’s domestic car sales.

Shares of Tata Motors were up 1.1% on the Bombay Stock Exchange before the quarterly report, which was released after trading closed on Friday.

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y8 games – Video Game Championship Wrestling

y8 – The Weird, Sort Of Broken, Yet Oddly Compelling World Of Video Game Championship Wrestling

In the ring, an oversized abomination of a man wrapped in a brown carpet squares off against Vegeta from Dragon Ball Z. After a few moments it dawns on me that the larger man is supposed to be Donkey Kong. Now the situation makes much more sense.

Vegeta gains the upper hand, slamming Donkey Kong to the mat with a devastating maneuver. Donkey Kong’s furry bulk clips through the ring as a virtual fan in the crowd excitedly holds up a sign that simply declares “YOLO”.

“I just can’t get over the physicality of this match!” shouts an excited Jerry Lawler.

Donkey Kong pulls off a clean pinfall victory. As the 1,000+ members of the chat room go wild, an injured and exhausted Donkey Kong stumbles to his feet, the ref congratulating as the DK Rap blares.

This is Video Game Championship Wrestling, and it gets better – and stupider – as the night goes on.

VGCW is a livestream in which user-created wrestlers face off against one another in WWE ’13. Specifically, wrestlers that have some loose connection to video games, fighting in CPU vs. CPU matches. The results of each matchup determine what’s going to happen in the next event. There are even cinematic storylines that occasionally pop up, put together in the WWE ’13 editor.

Sitting in a chat room with thousands of people watching a computer play against itself seems odd. Somehow, though, I get the feeling that human competition would detract from the madness. This is a jarring combination of wrestling’s silly showmanship and gaming’s most nonsensical characters. You can play y8 games right here.

This is Mike Haggar raising a Kendo bamboo sword into the air and thumping his impossibly large chest as a geyser of phosphorous sparks erupt behind him. This is Dr. Wiley pulling up in a luxury car, stepping out, then slapping his championship belt with a cocky swagger. It’s only fitting to let the computer run wild in all its awkward, occasionally glitchy glory.

And there are plenty of technical oddities on display. Characters clear the announcer table as if preparing for an incredible move, then walk away and forget what they were about to do. One wrestler will attempt to wrap another up, only to find that his opponent has teleported behind him. When two dudes team up on one guy they bump against one another and walk in place as if they were both trying to walk through a small doorway at the same time.

Linked together by a suitably bizarre continuity, VGCW has more going for it than the average livestream. The results of each show feed into the next event, with in-game vignettes setting up storylines that equal anything currently on the WWE. I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not, but it works. You can play all the top y8 games right here on our partners free flash games website – y8.com

By the end of the stream that I caught, there were nearly 2,000 simultaneous viewers going nuts. Zangief was driven through the announcer’s table, spasming, the camera zooming in on his shocked face as a grisly wound on his forehead bled out. Flowing mane met majestic mullet as Liquid Snake faced off against Solid Snake. Phoenix Wright got on the mic to call out WWE commissioner Vince McMahon, hoping to get to the bottom of a compelling mystery. The referee awkwardly stumbled into the path of pretty much everyone.

This probably seems like a big fat waste of time. Well, everything in life that doesn’t involve bettering yourself or having fun is a waste of time. You probably won’t become a better person by tuning in to VGCW. If you’re able to enjoy entertainment that wears its absurdity as a badge of honor, you’ll probably have a blast.

Research Chemicals – Proton-Detected Solid-State NMR Spectroscopy at Aliphatic Sites: Application to Crystalline Systems

Research Chemicals – When applied to biomolecules, solid-state NMR suffers from low sensitivity and resolution. The major obstacle to applying proton detection in the solid state is the proton dipolar network, and deuteration can help avoid this problem. In the past, researchers had primarily focused on the investigation of exchangeable protons in these systems.

You can buy research chemicals here. In this Account, we review NMR spectroscopic strategies that allow researchers to observe aliphatic non-exchangeable proton resonances in proteins with high sensitivity and resolution. Our labeling scheme is based on u-[2H,13C]-glucose and 5–25% H2O (95–75% D2O) in the M9 bacterial growth medium, known as RAP (reduced adjoining protonation).

We highlight spectroscopic approaches for obtaining resonance assignments, a prerequisite for any study of structure and dynamics of a protein by NMR spectroscopy. Because of the dilution of the proton spin system in the solid state, solution-state NMR 1HCC1H type strategies cannot easily be transferred to these experiments. Instead, we needed to pursue (1H)CC1H, CC1H, 1HCC or (2H)CC1H type experiments. In protonated samples, we obtained distance restraints for structure calculations from samples grown in bacteria in media containing [1,3]-13C-glycerol, [2]-13C-glycerol, or selectively enriched glucose to dilute the 13C spin system.

In RAP-labeled samples, we obtained a similar dilution effect by randomly introducing protons into an otherwise deuterated matrix. This isotopic labeling scheme allows us to measure the long-range contacts among aliphatic protons, which can then serve as restraints for the three-dimensional structure calculation of a protein. Due to the high gyromagnetic ratio of protons, longer range contacts are more easily accessible for these nuclei than for carbon nuclei in homologous experiments.

Finally, the RAP labeling scheme allows access to dynamic parameters, such as longitudinal relaxation times T1, and order parameters S2 for backbone and side chain carbon resonances. We expect that these measurements will open up new opportunities to obtain a more detailed description of protein backbone and side chain dynamics.

Second Soldier named Edward John Maher Who Died on SAS selection training

A soldier who died during SAS selection training in the Brecon Beacons has been named as Edward John Maher.

Mr Maher died on 13 July alongside L/Cpl Craig Roberts from Conwy on one of the hottest days of the year while climbing south Wales’ highest mountain.

The Ministry of Defence confirmed his identity on Wednesday morning.

The family issued a short statement saying: “At this time of great sadness Edward’s family has asked that they be left alone to grieve in private”.

An MoD spokesman said: “Our thoughts are with his family and friends at this difficult time.

“Investigations are being carried out by Dyfed-Powys Police and the Army. We cannot comment any further until these investigations are complete.”

Mr Maher’s family had initially asked for him not to be named.

Inquests into the deaths of both soldiers are to be opened and adjourned this afternoon by Powys coroner Louise Hunt.

A third soldier who collapsed remains in hospital.

‘Distress’

Witnesses on the day said they saw two soldiers “clearly in distress” who pleaded with them for some drinking water.

The pair were understood to be taking part in the aptitude training element of the course to become SAS reservists.

They were climbing Pen Y Fan, the highest mountain in southern Britain, which is known for the “Fan Dance” where soldiers hoping to join the special forces march over the mountain carrying a heavy pack and a rifle, then do the route in reverse in a set time.

L/Cpl Roberts, 24, of Penrhyn Bay, had served with the Territorial Army for around five years and is understood to have served in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The former teaching assistant lived in London and had been due to start a job in the office of the Secretary of State for Education.

His father Kelvin Roberts said at the time of his death: “We are all devastated at the loss of our beloved Craig.

“This has left a massive hole in all our lives.

“We wholeheartedly supported Craig in his military endeavours and it gives us some comfort, though great sadness, that he died in the pursuit of his dream.”