Summary: News: RIM CEO says company is open to licensing new OS, stock jumps 10 percent A week before BlackBerry 10's launch, exec says firm undergoing major "review." After Research in Motion's CEO told a German newspaper the company may be considering big changes, the company's stock shot up on the Toronto Stock Exchange, ending Monday more than 10 percent up, at CAN$17.41 ($17.41). In an interview with Die Welt (The World), Thorsten Heins, the German-born executive, suggested that the company could sell the company’s hardware division, or license its upcoming operating system, known as BlackBerry 10—as part of the company’s “comprehensive review.” "The main thing for now is to successfully introduce Blackberry 10. Then we'll see," he told the German paper (Google Translate). Given the company's struggles in recent years—against the iPhone and Android—it seems likely that licensing the OS would be one way of shoring up the company's finances. In a hands-on with the new OS at CES earlier this month, Ars editor Florence Ion found it to be very gestures-heavy, noting that “upon first use, we had a difficult time understanding which gestures to use and how to swipe between screens without bringing up something we weren't trying to.” That said, Canadian financial analysts seemed to be relatively bullish on the company and its pending launch of BlackBerry 10 on January 30. "There are several emerging datapoints that suggest this may be a more successful product cycle than many expected," Tom Astle of Byron Capital, wrote in an investor’s note, raising his price target from CAN$14 to CAN$18. http://arstechnica.com/business/2013/01/rim-ceo-says-company-is-open-to-licensing-new-os-stock-jumps-10-percent/ Atari files for bankruptcy protection in bid to save legendary brand The leadership of Atari Inc., what’s left of the gaming legend behind Pong and the Atari 2600, is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in an effort to free the company from French parent Atari SA, formerly Infogrames, reports the Los Angeles Times. An unnamed "knowledgeable person" says that the plan is to develop Atari, Inc. into a "modest" business based on "digital and mobile platforms," presumably along with licensed merchandise, which CEO Jim Wilson says brings in about 17 percent of the company's revenues. The report notes that Atari Inc.’s fortunes have been improving lately, thanks in part to the success of mobile titles like Atari Greatest Hits. And according to the Times, the company has several offers on the table for the $5.25 million it needs in debtor-in-possession financing in order to continue its operations. If its Chapter 11 efforts are successful and Atari finds a new buyer, it could possibly make a comeback, unobstructed by its considerable debt to London-based BlueBay Asset Management. http://www.theverge.com/2013/1/21/3898962/atari-files-for-bankruptcy-protection-in-bid-to-save-legendary-brand Mozilla devs working on Firefox for OUYA Sure the OUYA may have captured the imagination of indie game developerseverywhere, but open-source fans will be glad to know it's sparked the interest of Mozilla's Firefox team as well. According to an OUYAForum post by administrator Ed Krassenstein, a Mozilla developer had sent him a note detailing the process of bringing the popular browser to the Kickstarter-funded gaming console. The team apparently managed to get it running after some preliminary patches, but it still has a ways to go -- WebGL, Canvas and relevant API support are still lacking. The dev in question has since been identified as mobile platform engineer Chris Lord, who tweeted the revealing picture above along with the note that it's "kinda unusable" for now. Still, they do have around three months before the console ships, which could be enough for them to perfect an OUYA version of the foxy browser just in time for launch day. http://www.engadget.com/2013/01/22/mozilla-firefox-for-ouya/
