The consumer electronics company Sony is not enjoying a good time it used to before. There’s a steep decline in company’s revenue in past few years and resultantly, Sony has decided to compensate the loss by focusing on camera sensors, entertainment and PlayStations entirely. The Japanese firm announced that it could shut down the audio and video business in order to boost 25-fold profit within three years.
Sony CEO and President Kazuo Hirai showcased an isolated picture the company’s future saying that it could exit smartphone and TV sector. He made a remark at the corporate strategy meeting –
The strategy starting from the next business year will be about generating profit and investing for growth.
As per Kazuo, Sony is not at all making money with their high-end smartphones and has been dragged back by Samsung, Apple and some cheaper Asian rivals.
Kazuo put forth the statistics of a profitable tomorrow saying that the spinoffs will raise the profits of the company by 500 billion yen ($4.2 billion) by the end of 2018, a massive leap from the 20 billion yen in previous forecasts. It’s yet not clear if Sony will not be dealing in the TV sector any more as the firm recently unveiled an Android-powered TV at CES 2015.
If Hirai is considering to cut out the smartphones and TVs division, Sony will be left out with three main businesses – Sony Pictures Entertainment; a major film studio in Hollywood, PlayStation; which has turned profitable for the company recently with its next-gen consoles; and the last one is the image sensors unit that is completely dependent on Apple for retailing camera sensors for its iPhones. The last one doesn’t seem to have long term dependency as Apple may anytime lose interest in Sony sensors and can move to other firms or decide to manufacture its own sensors. So the focus towards the PlayStation ecosystem is Sony’s best bet towards profitability.
The PlayStation business is Sony’s best bet towards profitability.
If Sony cuts off smartphone and TV business, it would probably be the end of Sony as a major and prominent electronics company. Meanwhile, the personal computer unit, VAIO, has already been sold out and if Sony Pictures is still reeling from the massive hacking attacks of last year. These are trying times for the Japanese electronics company and might have to take some calls to prevent following the path of Nokia.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) is the ultimate in nerdtastic adventure. Marvel has grown from an independent movie studio in 2008 to a multi-billion dollar Hollywood powerhouse. Everyone in the industry is looking to work with this movie studio. For a while, it was being rumored that one of the biggest stars of the Marvel Universe, Spiderman, would be joining the Marvel Universe, and now the news has been confirmed.
Spiderman is one of the major characters in Marvel comics, but the movie rights of the character were with Sony Pictures. Sony has made several successful movies based on the Spiderman franchise. But when Marvel came into the movie business, the fans started demanding one of the star Avengers to come join the big boys of Marvel. After months of negotiations, Sony Pictures and Marvels have signed the deal to get Spider in MCU.
There are speculations that Spiderman may make an appearance as soon as next year with the Captain America: Civil War. This would be a great news for the comic book enthusiasts as Spiderman is one of the major characters in the Civil War storyline.
Spiderman is one of Sony’s biggest cash cow, so the company is not giving up complete control over the character yet. They reserve the right to make independent standalone Spiderman movies. This seems like a precautionary act as Marvel can do much better job with the character than Sony has ever done.
A Spiderman Film is expected to come in place of Thor: Ragnarok
Marvel has reshuffled its release plans and introduced an Untitled Spiderman movie instead of Thor: Ragnarok. Andrew Garfield, who played Spiderman in the last two movies, is not going to be reprising that role so it’s still unclear who would be playing the new Spiderman. But this story has got us on the edge of our seats, and we can’t wait for the Captain America: Civil War to come to our nearest movie theater.
The world of technology saw many ups and down last year. It was predominantly a good year for the tech industry, but there were some visible failures as well. While the sales of smartphones reached new altitudes, the biggest name of mobile telephony, Nokia departed from the mobile phone business. Several high-level security breaches questioned the safety of online storage. As 2014 comes to a close, we decided to list the gleaming failures of the tech industry.
1. Sony Pictures:
Never before has a movie been called an ‘act of war’, and you wouldn’t have guessed that it would be a Seth Rogen movie. The film led to one of the biggest ever cyber-attacks on a major movie studio. Sony Pictures was brought down and humiliated by a group called the Guardians of Peace or #GOP. They claimed to have stolen more than 100 Terabytes of data from the studio. The hackers soon began unveiling details from the Sony data, that was embarrassing not just to the studio, but also to some big names from the entertainment industry including Angelina Jolie, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Adam Sandler. The hack is also the reason of heavy diplomatic tussle between the USA and North Korea.
2. iCloud Hack:
Another major cyber breach took place at Apple’s trusted iCloud storage. Thousands of private and intimate photos of celebrities were leaked online. This caused quite a furor around the world and put Apple in an awkward spot. Apple later confirmed that the hackers responsible for the leak had obtained the images using a “very targeted attack” on account information, such as passwords, rather than any specific security vulnerability in the iCloud service itself.
3. Uber:
The app based cab service had to face one PR disaster after another. There were multiple complaints of its driver harassing the passengers or sexually assaulting them. A highly publicized rape case in India led the company to temporarily cease its operations in many parts of the country. There were also revelations that Uber was spying on journalists who were being critical of the company. Uber also tried to take down its competition by ordering about 6000 rides and then canceling them. Even the drivers reported that they were exploited by the company. Guess for its new year resolution, Uber’s only resolution should be: Don’t be evil.
4. Malaysian Airlines MH 370:
On 8th March 2014, Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 disappeared – vanished, leaving behind many questions and limited answers. No one would have thought that in the age of satellites and modern communication equipments, a plane can just disappear from the radar screens. The disappearance also led to several conspiracy theories. The last signal from the aircraft was broadcasted when it was over South China sea. There was a massive multinational effort to locate the lost plane, but it yielded no results. The search was the largest and most expensive in aviation history. There was also added bad news for Malaysian Airlines whose other plane, MH 17 was shot down pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine using surface to air missiles.
5. Apple iPhone 6 Plus:
After months of speculations and ever present hysteria around it, the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus were launched with much fanfare albeit with a faulty livestream. The bigger variant, the iPhone 6 Plus soon became the butt of all jokes following reports of its bendability. Users found that the new device was easy to bend, and it quickly started trending on social media with the tag “#Bendgate”. There is an easy fix for the issue, and that is to use the phone with a protective case.
6. Amazon Fire Phone:
Amazon really hyped its phone. There was a lot of buzz before the launch of the device, but it failed to capture commercial appeal. The device had some features like 3D display that could have been its defining element but turned out to be gimmicky. That coupled with below average battery performance, and low app availability led to low sales and forced the company to slash prices rapidly. Some reviewers even called it more of a prototype than a real device. Amazon has now begun working on the Amazon Fire Phone 2, which is expected to come out in 2016.
7. BlackBerry:
The company that was identified as one of the pioneers of the smartphone market has rapidly lost market share ever since the advent of the iPhone and Android ecosystems. Seeing that it was not going to carve out a place for itself in the brutal touch screen device market, the company decided to go back to its roots. The first device in this new attempt by the company was the Passport. Though the company tried to bring innovations into the device like a keyboard that also acts as a touchpad and a square display, it hasn’t managed to entice a lot of folks. This ultra wide device cannot be used with one hand and takes its own sweet time to focus while taking photos. The second device from the company called the Classic, might help bring back the experience that BlackBerry users were used to and get the company out of these times of peril.
8. Sony:
The year 2014 wasn’t really kind to this consumer electronics giant. The company lost a massive amount of money, in terms of billions. Its smartphone market share constantly kept falling along with its other electronics. The end of the year brought it a massive torment when its Hollywood studio got hacked by the North Korean hackers. The only saving grace for the company was its PlayStation business which saw an upward trajectory this year. All these misfortunes caused the company to introspect and set a goal of returning back to profitability.
9. Microsoft Kinect 2.0:
Seems like consumers are not ready for motion capture or spending extra for a hands-free gaming experience. Microsoft bet big money on the Kinect 2.0 and brought it in the market with improved functionalities. Microsoft was selling Kinect with the Xbox One. Sales were slow, and so Microsoft decided to unbundle the Kinect and sold Xbox One without it and cut $100 off the price. The result: Microsoft’s console easily beat Sony’s PlayStation in holiday sales. Though it is not the end of the Kinect as of yet. As the motion-based games and technology gets better, more folks will get comfortable to give the boot to the good old controllers and get on the Kinect bandwagon. It’s just a matter of time.
There were tons of stories written and discussed about Sony Pictures’ controversial release of ‘The Interview’. Looks like all this free publicity has given Sony a good reason to celebrate. Earlier, there was fuss about Sony releasing The Interview online before it hit theatres as no one was sure how it will turn out.
Now the company has announced that The Interview made $15 million from online sales and rentals since its Christmas Eve release online. The film also made $2.8 million in theaters over the long Christmas weekend.
The Hollywood blockbuster, which follows a hapless TV host tasked with the assassinating Kim Jong-un, was originally intended to be released on roughly 3,000 screens on Christmas Day. It was expected to generate $20 million during its opening.
The studio said on Sunday the film had been purchased or rented online more than 2 million times on the four days through to Saturday, making it Sony Pictures’ No 1 online movie of all time. The comedy was at the center of a crippling security breach at Sony Pictures in November that resulted in an embarrassing spill of company secrets.
The announcement came few hours after ‘The Interview’ finally made its debut on Apple’s iTunes. The movie has been available since Wednesday on YouTube Movies, Google Play, Xbox and a dedicated Sony-built website, Seetheinterview.com. PlayStation Network and XBox Live also experienced some glitches in their server on Christmas Eve, after they started offering online streaming of the film.
Seth Rogen and James Franco’s new comedy about the assassination of Kim Jong-un was the most prominent piece of geopolitical news of the past month. A group of hackers had wreaked havoc on Sony Pictures; they threatened a 9/11 style attack if the movie was allowed to release. Heeding to concerns raised by several theatre chains, the company said that it won’t object if the chains choose not to screen the movie. That move brought in comments from all sides of the spectrum, from severe criticism for being anti-free speech to support for ensuring the safety of moviegoers. After many hassles, Sony has finally released the movie on multiple platforms.
We trace out the bizarre course of events that finally led to the film’s release.
The Interview shows two American journalists assassinating North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
On June 11: the first trailer of The Interview releases online. Following this, on June 25, North Korea issues a tough response to the trailer calling it “an act of war” and said there will be a “merciless response”, if the movie was allowed to release.
November 24: the employees of Sony Pictures, across the country, received a shock in the morning when they saw all their computers were compromised. There was just one message on the screen that said that the system was hacked by Guardians of Peace or #GOP. They said they have taken all the data hostage and would release it if their demands were not met; it wasn’t sure at the time what the demands were. They claimed to have stolen up to 100 terabytes of data. Sony calls it an IT issue and says the company is looking into it.
A week after the attack, the first wave of release started to show up. The hackers release four movies online before the release dates. These films soon found their way on torrent sites. Soon after this, hackers released the salaries and social security details of former and current employees.
Coming to the start of December, the story takes a nasty turn when the hackers start releasing stolen emails. It takes a teenage gossip mode when details of various conversations between Sony executives and others start leaking out. The leak that Sony Pictures Chief Amy Pascal called Angelina Jolie “a spoilt brat” lead to an awkward moment when they met. Amy’s emails also saw racially tainted discussion about the American president.
There were awkward moments between Stars and Sony following the revelations by the hackers
December 4: We get news that North Korea might be one of the suspects in the case. The hermit kingdom denies any involvement. But its involvement seems to get more evident when the hackers call for a stop on the release of The Interview, calling it a movie of terrorism. This further strengthened the idea of North Korea’s involvement.
December 6: The incident starts taking the shape of terrorism when multiple employees of Sony Pictures start receiving threatening emails. Some days later the hackers comment saying that they are about to offer a Christmas gift for the people, which consists of more leaked data.
The hackers leaked scripts and details of future movies including the next James bond movie.
December 15: The frustration starts to grow in the entertainment industry against the leak. This follows the release of the draft of the new James Bond Movie ‘Spectre’. Academy Award winning writer Aaron Sorkin scolds the media in an op-ed in the New York Times for reporting using stolen data. Brad Pitt also joins to condemn the media calling it an assault on privacy and comments saying that they are profiting by colluding with terrorists.
December 16: the most inflammatory threat comes from the group. They threaten a 9/11-style attack on cinemagoers if The Interview is allowed to release; this spooks a lot of cinema chains in the country. Sony also gets slapped with a class action suit by former employees who blame the company for not being vigilant with their data.
December 17: Other studios start claiming that the GOP attack and subsequent threats might deter other moviegoers from coming to the theatre thereby dampening the profit making holiday season for everyone.
[quote text_size=”small” author=”Barack Obama” author_title=”President, United States of America”]
We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship in the United States.
[/quote]
December 18: The Federal Bureau of Investigation says that it is ready to link North Korea with the attack. Sony finally pulls the plug on The Interview, which also leads Seth Rogen and James Franco to cancel further promotional events for the movie. Sony also cancels DVD and VOD of the movie. This results in widespread criticism of the company, many saying that it has bowed down to terrorists subsequently encouraging them and defeating the bedrock of democracy.
December 19: US authority officially links North Korea with the attack. President Obama says Sony “made a mistake” in pulling back the movie saying, “We will respond proportionately and in a space, time and manner that we choose.” He also added, “We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship in the United States.”
December 24: Google and Microsoft get in talks with Sony to release the movie on their platform. Independent theatre owners too join in the release, but the big chains still stay a safe distance away.
The people have spoken! Freedom has prevailed! Sony didn’t give up! The Interview will be shown at theaters willing to play it on Xmas day!
December 25: The movie is released on Google Play and YouTube movies. Seth Rogen tweets saying “…Freedom has prevailed!…” As soon as the movie hits the internet ,it is on the torrent sites and is downloaded massively. But the reviews for the movie are mixed.
It is a bit unsettling though that one of the biggest movie studios in the world was brought to its knees after this attack. It has been said that the company would need millions of dollars and may take years to recover from this attack. One thing is true though that this was an act of terror and if Sony did back down, as it was planning to, it could have set a precedent for other criminals to follow. It took the reassurance of the President of the United States to get the movie out to the public.
This incident has forced other major institutions to strengthen the security of their digital infrastructure. This hack has shown that in our present world, information is power, and your own data can be used against you. The technology sector should now put more focus on prevention of cyber-attacks and there is a need for training more professionals in cyber security. It’s time for the nerds to lead the war.
It seems like troubled times for folks working at Sony Pictures is not going to come to an end anytime soon. The company that faced a massive hack which rendered most of its computers useless also faced release of its movies online. The attack was handled by a hacker group which calls itself Guardians of Peace or #GOP. It is now being reported that the employees of Sony Pictures are now getting threatening e-mails.
Sony has lost a lot of ground in this attack. Not only has there been the loss of business days, but also they are not yet sure of the scale of the theft due to the hack. Four of Sony’s upcoming movies were released online along with the recently released and exceptional Brad Pitt movie, Fury. The hackers also released several documents relating to the company’s financial records, employee details and data relating to several movies.
Sony has hired security firm FireEye Inc and its Mandiant forensics unit to investigate the hacking. FBI spokesman Joshua Campbell has said that the department is aware of the threatening e-mails received by the employees at Sony. It is not yet clear though that if the e-mails were actually sent by the hackers or if it is a work of some prankster who scored the e-mails of the employees through the leaked documents. In either case, this is now a serious issue as this is criminal intimidation. The case has fast escalating from thievery and blackmail to terrorising the production company and the people who work for it.
This leak can lead to pernicious effects on people who work for the company. If the hackers have access to personal information, identification and financial details of people who’ve worked for Sony, they can attempt identity theft and cause harm to individuals. This attack can be easily be called a terrorist attack and maybe we could start seeing more of these in the coming future. The need of the hour is to train a massive workforce dedicated to cyber security just like a standing army. Our economies and identities have shifted from physical to the digital world, so it’s absolutely important to have soldiers online to protect our interests.
A few days back, Sony Pictures faced an unprecedented cyber attack where all the computers connected to its servers got hacked. All the computers of this major studio were rendered inaccessible. The hackers warned that if their demands weren’t met, they would release sensitive data. They had released .zip files that showed all the data that they had acquired by their contemptible doxxing of the company’s systems. The hackers have now released many upcoming and recently leaked movies from the production house online, along with other important documents. The hacker group, which calls itself Guardians of Peace or #GOP, is now linked to the hermit kingdom of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) or as they are better known, North Korea.
The country had previously threatened US of ‘merciless retaliation’ if a movie by Seth Rogen and James Franco was released. The movie called ‘The Interview’ shows the Hollywood duo in characters of a reporter and producer going to North Korea to assassinate Kim Jong-Un, the hereditary tyrannical leader of the secluded country. The country said that the release of the movie would be perceived as an act of war. The country’s diplomat though denies any role of Pyongyang in the high-level hack.
Right now, FBI is working with the studio to track down the culprits who purported the hack. It was Re/code that first reported on the possibility of North Korea’s involvement in the hack. After this even a former top US expert on North Korea said that circumstantial evidence including the extremely vocal denouncement of the movie points the arrow towards the country.
North Korea had taken serious offense against the movie and threatened merciless retaliation.
DPRK had previously taken serious offense against another movie called ‘Team America’ that parodied its previous ruler Kim Jong-Il. The country is also blamed for several hack attacks including an attack last year in which more than 30,000 PCs at South Korean banks and broadcasting companies were hit. Cyber-security experts at Kaspersky Labs claimed to have found technical links between attacks on Sony and other cyber-attacks that occurred in the Middle-East and South Korea. The experts are also considering an internal hand in hack amongst other possibilities.
Well, the identities of the hackers are still shrouded in mystery, but they have managed to cause major damage. The hackers have released four films from the studio into the wild that are getting downloaded actively. These include – Mr. Turner, To Write Love on Her Arms, a reboot of Annie produced by Jay-Z and Still Alice, along with the recently released Brad Pitt movie called Fury. They also leaked a 210-page document which allegedly contains the budget of ‘The Interview’ and salaries of Seth Rogen and James Franco.
The story is still in the making, and we’ll keep our eyes on it. This is the new genre of terrorism in the internet-based information age; seems like cyberspace is where the next generation wars will be fought. So it’s finally the time for the nerds of the world to be the soldiers instead of just being technical support. So if you consider yourself a hacker with skills and want to make tons of cash, both sides of the war will now be open for you.
All you Apple fans have something to look forward to. The new Steve Jobs movie has been picked up by Universal Studios. This news surfaced less than a week post Sony Pictures reportedly dropped the project. As per sources, the new Steve Jobs movie has been acquired at a price tag of more than $30 million. Following the last year’s flop Jobs, the yet untitled movie is said to have a much better script, director, and cast.
The upcoming movie based on Walter Isaacson’s biography ‘Steve Jobs’ will be penned by Aaron Sorkin. X-Men star Michael Fassbender is attached to star in the project. The film will be directed by Danny Boyle, the A-list director of Hollywood and winner of 8 Academy Awards. Aaron Sorkin, who has movies like The Social Network, A Few Good Men and The West Wing in his portfolio, has been a celebrated scriptwriter with a strong hold on biopics. Scott Rudin, the first producer to scoop an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony Award, Mark Gordon along with Guymon Casady are financially backing the project.
The film was due to start shooting this winter, but because Fassbender’s involvement is announced recently, the same is now likely to be delayed. You can expect the film to go on floors in early 2015.
One of the major movie studios is facing a hack attack. Sony Pictures’ computers have been rendered inactive by a hacker group which calls itself Guardians of Peace (#GOP). The group took control of some official twitter accounts and was tweeting the same message across all accounts.
Sony Pictures sits at the top brass of movie production studios in Hollywood. It has produced blockbuster franchises such as Spider-Man, Men in Black, Underworld, and Resident Evil. The hackers have captured the computers of Sony Pictures across the country with an image of CGI skeleton. This image warned that if GOP’s demands aren’t met then they will release sensitive information (that they have stolen from Sony’s repository) to the world at 6 p.m. Eastern Time today. Demands of GOP are unsure as of now.
This image has been flashing on all Sony Pictures’ computers across the country.
The group has posted .zip files that contain the details of data that they have stolen. These include sensitive data such as financial documents and a lot of passwords. Reddit users are already working on uncovering the .zip files, and it does have a list of important documents including passport information of major stars. Looking at the severity of this hack, the employees were told to shut off their system and go home. Sony Pictures have just said that they are investigating the ‘IT matter’.
Activism is an important aspect of society; it keeps the people in power under check. Hacktivists group like Anonymous constantly target websites and cyberinfrastructure to send out a message, but they do it ethically and don’t cause severe damage to the institutions they target. But this hack by GOP amounts to theft and blackmailing and can cause major harm to the company. Actions like this brings down the value of activism and changes perception of hackers in the eyes of the general public as high tech but lowly thieves. We still have to wait and see how this stand-off ends, but one thing is sure that this is a deplorable act by this hacking group.
