Bits Blog: Verizon to Release First Transparency Report

BlackBerry Chief Admits Release of New Phones in U.S. Was Flawed

But Mr. Heins, speaking at the company’s annual meeting, told investors BlackBerry just needed more time for a turnaround — and he again sought their patience.

Not everyone was biting. One shareholder, referring to one of the new phones, the BlackBerry Z10, told Mr. Heins: “My sense is that the rollout of the Z10 was a disaster.”

“Were we perfect at the launch?” Mr. Heins responded. “Probably not. Was it a disaster? I don’t think so.”

After more than two years of development, the new phones and their new operating system were supposed to give BlackBerry smartphones capabilities similar to those of phones made by Apple and Samsung, the dominant forces in the market. But hopes have vanished that the new phones would swiftly increase market share in the United States — now just 0.9 percent, according to a survey from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech.

Late last month, BlackBerry said that it had shipped just 2.7 million of the new models, about a million fewer than analysts expected. That disappointing news set BlackBerry’s stock sharply downward and eliminated the possibility that the annual meeting would be a turnaround celebration.

When Mr. Heins introduced the company’s new phones in New York this year, he spoke to an excited crowd, a situation that was repeated at a meeting this spring with enthusiastic developers. But on Tuesday, when he faced a crowd of shareholders and questions about the weak sales of those phones, the reception was far more muted.

And maybe that is the best he could have hoped for. A few weeks ago, when the shipment numbers were released, the company also reported an $84 million loss in the latest quarter. BlackBerry shares still have not recovered — and a chorus of harsh questions about the direction of the business have not gone away.

Mr. Heins again warned investors to expect more losses during the current quarter, while the company increases its spending on marketing and other promotions for the new BlackBerry 10 line of phones. And although the company has spent the last two years saying the phones were the centerpiece to its future, Mr. Heins repeatedly said on Tuesday that “we are not a devices-only company,” and he outlined his hopes for growth in its data services business.

He attributed the disappointing reception for BlackBerry 10 to the United States market.

“It is really a challenge in the U.S.,” Mr. Heins said at the meeting, which was webcast from the University of Waterloo in Ontario. When another shareholder asked him why the company had been unable to win over American investors, particularly ones based in New York, he said: “I would absolutely admit that this is an uphill battle.”

Richard Piasentin, the managing director of sales and marketing for the United States, left BlackBerry last month, Adam Emery, a spokesman for the company, said on Tuesday.

Some of problems with the BlackBerry 10 release seemed more related to the products than to advertising or lack of prominence in carriers’ stores, which had been cited as problems.

Some buyers of the Q10, a model that includes BlackBerry’s signature keyboard, have said they were disappointed to discover that it initially could not synchronize calendar and contact information with corporate systems that use Microsoft Outlook. Others discovered mail syncing issues that they had not had with previous BlackBerrys. And although BlackBerry continues to expand the apps offered for the phone, many important ones are missing, and assessments of their overall quality are mixed.

Among the disappointed was Mark R. McQueen, the president and chief executive of Wellington Financial in Toronto. While Mr. McQueen is a BlackBerry loyalist, his frustration with the Q10 became so great that he wrote two detailed posts enumerating its problems on his blog, which is widely followed in Canada’s financial community. He wrote that the phone’s shortcomings had prompted him to sell his BlackBerry shares at a loss.

“The sad reality is that BlackBerry management has failed to deliver on the incredibly modest expectations of someone who has held shares in the company, on and off, since the late 1990s,” Mr. McQueen wrote.

Many technology reviewers praised several features of the new phones. Mike Gikas, the senior editor for electronics at Consumer Reports, said the new phones were “pretty good but they don’t have the pizazz of top-shelf performers. No one’s dying for these phones.”

He said that whenever he was asked for his thoughts about the new BlackBerrys, “the next question is: ‘Do you think they’re going to be around?’ And that’s a consideration for people on a two-year contract.”

Google Wants to Release Details on Classified Requests

SAN FRANCISCO — Google on Tuesday asked the government for permission to reveal details about the classified requests the technology company receives for the personal information of foreign users.

News from the technology industry, including start-ups, the Internet, enterprise and gadgets.
On Twitter: @nytimesbits.

It is the first time that Google has publicly acknowledged that it has received requests under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which forbids companies from acknowledging the existence of requests or revealing any details about them. The technology company added that it complies with far fewer of these requests than it receives.

Google made the request after revelations of the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance program, known as Prism. The data the government collects as part of Prism – including email messages, telephone records and online chats -- is legally authorized by FISA.

Google made the request in a letter from David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer, to Eric H. Holder, the attorney general, and Robert S. Mueller, the director of the F.B.I.

In the letter, Mr. Drummond expressed frustration that the company has been unable, because of a government gag order, to explain the details of how it shares user data with the government. He asked for permission to publish both the number of national security requests, including FISA disclosures, that Google receives, and their scope.

“Google’s numbers would clearly show that our compliance with these requests falls far short of the claims being made,” Mr. Drummond wrote. “Google has nothing to hide.”

Mr. Drummond was unavailable for an interview. In a statement, Leslie Miller, a Google spokeswoman, said that of Google’s hundreds of millions of users worldwide, “only a tiny fraction” are subject to government data requests each year.

“If we could publish those numbers openly, as we are asking, they would show that our compliance with these national security requests falls far short of the claims being made,” Ms. Miller said.

Media Decoder Blog: Disney Delays Release of Video Game and Toy Initiative

LOS ANGELES — The introduction of Disney Infinity, an ambitious video game and toy initiative, has been pushed from June to late August, a retail window that Disney said on Wednesday was more favorable.

But the delay also shifts Infinity from Disney’s fiscal third quarter to its fourth, meaning that any chance of a turnaround at the company’s video game unit will occur later than some investors expected.

Infinity will now reach stores on Aug. 18 in North America and on Aug. 20 overseas, said John Pleasants, co-president of Disney Interactive, in a telephone interview. A June rollout had been planned, pegged to the release of Pixar’s “Monsters University.”

Mr. Pleasants said retailers, impressed with the public reaction to Disney’s demonstration of Infinity in January, pushed for an introduction closer to the all-important holiday season, which starts in October. “The date became an issue in terms of them asking, ‘Is there a better opportunity here?’ ” Mr. Pleasants said.

There may also be competitive reasons for the August date. Disney hopes that Infinity will be its version of Skylanders, a popular product from Activision Blizzard in which players collect action figures and then transfer them into the game’s action by plugging them into a sensor base. Skylanders has generated more than $1 billion in sales since its 2011 arrival; about 100 million of its toys have been sold.

The next edition of Skylanders is scheduled to arrive in stores this fall. Mr. Pleasants downplayed comparisons, but said, “We think it’s good to be first and really lean into the most important selling season of the year.”

August is traditionally a quiet time for video games as families spend money on vacations and back-to-school clothes. But Mr. Pleasants said retailers were willing to devote significant shelf space to the Infinity product line. Disney also hopes that children will return to school with the Infinity action figures in their backpacks, leading to trading.

It is not unusual for video game studios to push back release dates, but the reason usually involves glitches and missed deadlines. Mr. Pleasants insisted that was not the case here.

“We could deliver in June if we wanted to,” he said, adding: “Will a two-month timing change help us? Sure, of course. It gives us a little more time to add bells and whistles and make sure it really sings and pops.”

Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive and chairman, told Wall Street analysts and investors in May that “we’re targeting 2013 as a year of profitability” for Disney Interactive. He technically fulfilled that pledge in the last quarter; Disney’s video game and Web business turned an operating profit of $9 million after 16 consecutive quarters of losses.

But most people interpreted Mr. Iger’s remark to mean that the unit, Disney’s smallest by far, would make money for the fiscal year, which ends in mid-September. There is now little chance of that, as revenue from Infinity will be mostly pushed into 2014. “This will definitely impact our goal of achieving profitability for the year,” Mr. Pleasants said.

Sports Champions 2 Release Date Announced

Sony has announced that Sports Champions 2 will hit stores on October 30th. According to a post from producer Jeremy Ray on the PlayStation Blog, Sony is “giving the game one final coat of polish and squashing bugs right now" and has “surpassed many of our lofty internal goals.”

Ray says the avatar creator feature in particular “has turned out so much better than we envisioned it” and could even see post-launch support to improve further. “The creativity we’ve seen with the QA team on the avatar creator has been inspiring, and we’re incredibly excited to see how much further the fans take it,” Ray wrote.

Sports Champions 2 was first announced back in May and includes skiing, boxing, tennis, golf, bowling and archery, plus a new Party Play mode in addition to the returning Free Play, Cup Play and Challenge modes. Ray says the game offers “big time improvements on core systems.”

PS3 Exclusive Retro/Grade Gets A Release Date

Over three years ago, we first informed you of a PlayStation Network exclusive called Retro/Grade. Under development at 24 Caret Games, Retro/Grade caught the eye of the judges at the Independent Games Festival in 2009, being nominated for two awards before falling off the radar until the next year, when we played it. But since then, all’s been quiet.

That is, until now. Retro/Grade finally has a release date for the PlayStation Network in North America. Look for it on Tuesday, August 21st. It’s release date in other territories is still unknown.

If you’re unfamiliar with Retro/Grade, co-founder of 24 Caret Games, Matt Gilgenbach, describes it like this. “[Retro/Grade is] similar to a classic Shoot ‘Em Up… in reverse! At the beginning of the game you stop a massive alien invasion, but all the destruction damages the space/time continuum, causing the flow of time itself to reverse. What would have been the final boss is actually the beginning of your backwards journey. You must help Rick Rocket restore the continuity of space/time, before the temporal anomaly rips the universe a new time-hole!”

This “mind-bending rhythm-based” game can be played with either a guitar peripheral or your standard PlayStation 3 DualShock controller. Its price, according to Gilgenbach, “hasn’t been quite finalized yet even this close to release.”

Ratchet Collection's Release Date and Sly 4 Demo

The Ratchet & Clank Collection – known as the Ratchet & Clank Trilogy overseas – came out in Europe and Australia back in June. And we really liked it. And now, we have word not only of Ratchet & Clank Collection’s release date for North America, but the fact that it comes with a rather tantalizing demo as well.

For starters, Ratchet & Clank Collection is due out on August 28th. It’ll be available both via retailers and on the PlayStation Network, and will cost $29.99. The Collection includes Ratchet & Clank, Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando and Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal. All of the games tote 3D, 1080p video and have Trophies.

Most interestingly, however, is that the North American version of the Ratchet & Clank Collection will come with a demo for Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time. This is “to reward” North American gamers for our “patience,” considering the Trilogy already came out everywhere else in the world.

So consider this a double-whammy: Ratchet & Clank Collection is finally coming to North America on the cheap, and you’ll get your first shot at playing Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, too.

City Room: Judge Orders Twitter to Release Protester's Messages

Thoughts may be ephemeral, but a tweet, apparently, is forever.

A Criminal Court judge in Manhattan ruled on Monday that Twitter must turn over to prosecutors messages sent by a Brooklyn writer during the Occupy Wall Street protests last fall. In doing so, the judge, Matthew A. Sciarrino Jr., indicated that although private speech was protected, the same did not apply to public comments on Twitter.

“The Constitution gives you the right to post, but as numerous people have learned, there are still consequences for your public posts,” Judge Sciarrino wrote. “What you give to the public belongs to the public. What you keep to yourself belongs only to you.”

The writer, Malcolm Harris, was one of about 700 protesters arrested in October while walking on the roadway of the Brooklyn Bridge. He was charged with disorderly conduct, a violation. In January, the Manhattan district attorney’s office subpoenaed all messages that he had posted to Twitter from two days before the Occupy Wall Street protests began in September through the end of 2011.

Mr. Harris’s messages, which are no longer publicly available, are of interest to prosecutors because they may contradict an argument they expect him to make at trial: that the police led or escorted protesters off the pedestrian paths and into the bridge’s roadway.

His lawyer, Martin R. Stolar, filed a motion to quash the subpoena, saying it had not been delivered properly, was overly broad and was issued for an improper purpose.

Judge Sciarrino dismissed the motion in April, writing that Mr. Harris lacked the standing to oppose the subpoena because under Twitter’s policies, he had granted the company the “worldwide, nonexclusive, royalty-free” right to distribute his messages, which were all publicly available.

Twitter itself then sought to quash the subpoena. But in the decision released on Monday, Judge Sciarrino ordered it to turn over Mr. Harris’s messages. While noting that laws regarding social media were evolving, he held that public speech, regardless of the forum, did not enjoy the same protections as private speech.

The case over a minor criminal charge raises significant issues in the still-new area of social media.

As is becoming more common, prosecutors requested Mr. Harris’s postings and member information directly from Twitter, which then notified Mr. Harris. The American Civil Liberties Union filed a friend-of-the-court brief in the case, arguing that prosecutors should be required to obtain a search warrant from a judge for each request and that the person whose posts were being sought should have an opportunity to oppose the demand in court.

For law enforcement, social-media postings that document a person’s immediate thoughts and precise location provide a potent tool.

“We are pleased that the court has ruled for a second time that the tweets at issue must be turned over,” said Daniel R. Alonso, the chief assistant district attorney in Manhattan. “We look forward to Twitter’s complying and to moving forward with the trial.”

Twitter had argued that demands for postings and account information placed it under an undue burden of either turning over the information or fighting each request on behalf of its users.

In a statement, the company said it was “disappointed” with the ruling and was considering its options.

“Twitter’s terms of service have long made it absolutely clear that its users own their content,” the statement said. “We continue to have a steadfast commitment to our users and their rights.”