the wall street journal

Sony Revamps Retail Stores

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Aiming to take a bite out of Apple Inc., Sony Corp. is revamping its retail stores, integrating the Japanese electronics behemoth’s sprawling product line into a sleek and fresh new look.

On April 1, Sony opened a self-branded store, in the high-end Westfield Century City Mall in Los Angeles. The store, with hardwood floors and sleek lighting fixtures, echoes Apple’s airy retail concept.

Sony’s Los Angeles store is the first in a series that is expected to replace the company’s existing chain of retail shops, called Sony Style. The Tokyo-based company hopes the renewed retail presence will reinvigorate enthusiasm for products, like its Vaio laptops and Walkman music players, both of which have been lapped by Apple’s competing devices.

Apple’s Retail Secret: Full Service Stores

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Steve Jobs turned Apple Inc. into the world’s most valuable technology company with high-tech products like the iPad and iPhone. But one anchor of Apple’s success is surprisingly low tech: its chain of brick-and-mortar retail stores.

A look at confidential training manuals, a recording of a store meeting and interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees reveal some of Apple’s store secrets. They include: intensive control of how employees interact with customers, scripted training for on-site tech support and consideration of every store detail down to the pre-loaded photos and music on demo devices.

The Play by Play On Sony’s Massive Data Breach

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On a Tuesday afternoon last month, engineers working for Sony Corp. were baffled when several servers running the company’s PlayStation Network suddenly turned themselves off and then back on.

At the time, the unexpected rebooting seemed like an odd malfunction. The next day, however, the engineers found the first evidence that an intruder had penetrated Sony’s systems, prompting the Japanese company to take what it calls “the almost unprecedented step” of shutting down the popular online gaming network.

Sony Chief Executive Howard Stringer issued a public apology this week for what the company later disclosed was a data breach that compromised more than 100 million user accounts on three public networks, and a delay in informing users of the theft. Sony says the loss included users’ names, birthdates and passwords. It also hasn’t ruled out the loss of credit card numbers associated with the Sony PlayStation network.

Sony Brings In High-Tech Sleuths

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New details emerged about Sony Corp.’s investigation into one of the biggest data breaches in history, as the company attempts to piece together who stole personal information from more than 100 million accounts on its online game networks.

At least some of the attacks came from a Malaysia-based server, a person familiar with the matter said, though it wasn’t clear if any of the hacking was actually done from there, or whether only the server there was used.

Sony Faces Suits Over PlayStation Breach

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Plaintiffs lawyers are targeting Sony Corp. with class-action suits after a breach of the company’s online-game network compromised the personal information of millions of users.

In one lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court’s Northern District of California, videogame player Kristopher Johns said Sony’s security was negligently poor and the company failed to encrypt personal information.

Hacker Raids Sony Videogame Network

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A hacker stole the names, birth dates and possibly credit-card numbers for 77 million people who play online videogames through Sony Corp.’s PlayStation console, in what could rank among the biggest data breaches in history.

Sony, whose gaming network has been offline for six days, disclosed Tuesday that an “illegal and unauthorized intrusion” between April 17 and April 19 resulted in the loss of a significant amount of personal information that could be used in identity theft.

The PlayStation Network is used by owners of the company’s game machine to play against one another, chat online and watch movies streamed over the Internet. Sony warned users the intruders may have accessed billing addresses, purchase histories and account information for their children.

Fueled by fast Internet connections, online-gaming services have become global social hubs for tens of millions of people who spend hours competing and cooperating on fantasy quests, combat missions and other activities. People across the globe pay monthly fees to play online-computer games like “World of Warcraft.” Most titles for the PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Corp. Xbox 360 have online components.

Apple Sues Samsung Electronics Over ‘Galaxy’ Phone, Tab

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Apple Inc. filed a lawsuit claiming Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. copied the look and feel of its popular iPhone smartphones and iPad tablet computers, the latest in a series of legal skirmishes that underscore the increasingly high stakes of the mobile computing market.

The lawsuit, filed on April 15, alleged that Samsung’s smartphones, including the “Galaxy S 4G,” “Epic 4G,” “Nexus S” and its “Galaxy Tab” touchscreen tablet, violate Apple’s intellectual property. The 38-page lawsuit was filed in the U.S. court’s northern California district.

“Rather than innovate and develop its own technology and a unique Samsung style for its smart phone products and computer tablets, Samsung chose to copy Apple’s technology, user interface and innovative style in these infringing products,” Apple said in the filing.

Apple, Microsoft Hire Linguists in App Feud

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Microsoft Corp. and Apple Inc. have both hired linguists to serve as experts in the tech titan’s ongoing battle over whether or not the government can grant a trademark for the term “app store.”

Microsoft on Tuesday filed its latest argument with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, which included the opinions of a linguistic expert who supported the software giant’s argument that the term “app store” was generic and shouldn’t be trademarked by Apple.

“The compound noun app store means simply ‘store at which apps are offered for sale,’ which is merely a definition of the thing itself—a generic characterization,” linguist Ronald Butters wrote.

An Apple spokeswoman declined to comment.

Apple to Sell Tech Support for Small Businesses

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Apple Inc. is preparing to offer a package of services aimed at small- and mid-sized business that includes expanded support for company computer systems, part of the electronics maker’s efforts to appeal to users beyond its core consumer base.

Apple Wednesday will unveil “Joint Venture,” a $499-a-year service contract that gives companies using Apple’s computers, smartphones and tablets priority treatment for technical support, training programs and repairs, according to two Apple employees. The employees asked not to be identified because they weren’t authorized to speak about the initiative publicly.

LinkedIn Pushes Ad Tools

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LinkedIn Corp. is beefing up its advertising technologies, offering marketers more ways to target ads to the social network’s users and making it easier for big advertisers to connect to its website.

The business-oriented network, which has more than 90 million members, plans to roll out updates for its marketing tools that let advertisers zero in on people based upon job titles, seniority, age and location, people familiar with the matter said.

LinkedIn, which declined to comment, will be wading into an already competitive market where social-networking rival Facebook Inc. is rapidly gaining ground. Last month, more than a quarter of all online display ads in the U.S. appeared on Facebook, according to comScore Inc. By comparison, LinkedIn represented less than 1%.