Panasonic Posts Further Losses On TV Sales

Via Panasonic: Panasonic has announced its latest set of results, posting a net loss of $5.49 billion in the first quarter of the year--ten times the losses the company faced in the same months last year. In large part, this is a fallout of stalling sales on televisions, down to 15.5 million this year, Panasonic estimates. Japan's slipping Yen is also to blame. Japan's Sony is also having a rough patch as a result of TV sales, and as Bloomberg points out, the fact that neither company has a hit electronics product as Google, Apple, Samsung and the rest diversify, doesn't help either. Now, with rumors that today's electronics titans are coming out with televisions as well--Google has a TV in the works with LG, and of course, there's Apple's long-rumored television too--things are looking all the grimmer for Panasonic and Sony, unless they reinvent themselves.

On Games: Rovio Plans Amazing Alex, Minecraft Breaks Sales Records
Via YLE, Joystiq. Rovio is following up its smash hit Angry Birds with a second game called Amazing Alex. Rovio CEO Michael Hed first introduced Amazing Alex on Finnish TV Yle. Angry Birds had a billion downloaders breaking stuff in Angry Birds, but this second Rovio creation will focus on making stuff--Amazing Alex will have an educational theme as its protagonist, Alex, likes to build things. Meanwhile, in other gaming news, Minecraft for Xbox 360 debuted yesterday, and broke sales records for Xbox Live Arcade games, Microsoft revealed. According to one estimate by the game's creator, the company sold 400,000 games in 24 hours, and earned back the cash Microsoft spent on development in the first hour of sales, numbers which were seconded by a blogger on the Xbox development team.

Facebook Tests Paid Posts

Microsoft Overhauls Bing With Social Media Suggestions

To better compete with Google, Microsoft has revealed a new makeover for its Bing search engine site. Designed to combat "search overload" the new Bing results page feature a new sidebar function that lists relevant posts from a user's Facebook and Twitter contacts as they search for keywords. The algorithm even intelligently suggests people who may have an opinon on the search words using information gleaned from their "Liking" habits. The revamp will hopefully bring more traffic to Bing and thus bump up Microsoft's income from advertising partners--to help offset Microsoft's online losses. The new design will roll out across the U.S. over the next several weeks, and then to other territories.

FTC Talks With Twitter, Google About Facebook's Instagram Deal

The Federal Trade Commission has approached both Google and Twitter concerning Facebook's $1 billion deal to purchase social photo-sharer company Instagram. According to a source speaking to Reuters it's not known exactly what details the FTC is curious about, but it was rumored that both these other companies and possibly others were interested in bidding for Instagram--itself growing at a swift rate and thus rapidly increasing in value--which caused Facebook's CEO to move very swiftly and conclude the deal in private without his board's full knowledge. Facebook still plans to conclude the Instagram purchase in the second quarter but first it has to complete its complex IPO, scheduled for next week.