Facebook and Yahoo announced on Friday a new advertising partnership as the two tech giants settled a court dispute over patents.
The deal includes “a patent portfolio cross-license” and will allow the two firms to “work together to bring consumers and advertisers premium media experiences promoted and distributed across both Yahoo and Facebook,” a statement by the companies said.
The deal comes after Yahoo filed suit against Facebook in March, accusing the social networking giant of infringing on 10 patents.
Facebook responded by accusing Yahoo of infringing on its patented technology in a broad array of products, including online venues for news, games, cars, travel and photo-sharing service Flickr.
The fight between Yahoo and Facebook heated up in April, with the floundering Internet pioneer accusing the social network star of buying patents just to retaliate in court.
However, in the peace accord, Yahoo and Facebook said they would “work together to bring Yahoo’s large media event coverage to Facebook users by collaborating on social integrations on the Yahoo site.”
“We are excited to develop a deeper partnership with Facebook,” said Ross Levinsohn, interim chief executive of Yahoo. “We are looking forward to building on the success we have already seen to provide innovative new products and experiences for both consumers and sponsors.”
Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg said the deal would “provide users with engaging social experiences while creating value for marketers.”
The two firms already have a multi-year partnership allowing users to discover and connect news and information on Yahoo sites and share them with their Facebook friends.
The new agreement deepens the ties between the struggling Internet pioneer and the fast-growing social network.
The statement said the firms “have agreed to work more closely and collaborate together on multiple tent-pole and anchor events annually over the next several years to provide unparalleled experiences for consumers and world-class sponsorship opportunities for advertisers.”
Patent suits are a frequent occurrence among smartphone and tablet computer makers, and the world’s best known brands are ensnared in a complex web of legal claims, but such suits are relatively rare among social media companies.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained