Young Thug Signs Record Deal with Cash Money Records

Contact Us

Since dropping his gritty street bangers ‘Stoner’ and ‘Danny Glover,’ Young Thug has been courted by a few rap labels including Future’s Freebandz imprint. However, it appears that the Atlanta rhymer has signed with one of the biggest rap empires in hip-hop.

According to Mass Appeal, Young Thug has all but confirmed that he’s now an artist on Birdman’s Cash Money Records.

While attending the festivities at NBA All-Star Weekend in New Orleans, YT was asked if he signed with the storied label.

“Yeah. I signed,” he told Mass Appeal journalist Brian Padilla.

Young Thug went on his Facebook page today (Feb. 16) to further confirm his alliance with YMCMB. He posted:

Also, if you look at Birdman’s Instagram page, they are several photos of Young Thug getting cozy with the CEO and hanging out with his fellow labelmates. So it’s plausible that a deal has been finalized but the ink hasn’t dried as of yet.

If the news is true, signing with Cash Money Records sounds like a logical choice for the bubbling artist. Since Nicki Minaj bodied his ‘Danny Glover‘ track, could we see YT and Queen Barbz on a song together?

In the meantime, Young Thug is currently on a promotional tour in support of his latest mixtape ‘Black Portland.’ He’s also catching some slander on his Instagram page for his, uh, unique fashion sense and questionable photos.

It appears that you already have an account created within our VIP network of sites on . To keep your points and personal information safe, we need to verify that it's really you. To activate your account, please confirm your password. When you have confirmed your password, you will be able to log in through Facebook on both sites.

Enter your password Forgot your password?

It appears that you already have an account on this site associated with . To connect your existing account with your Facebook account, just click on the account activation button below. You will maintain your existing profile and VIP program points. After you do this, you will be able to always log in to http://theboombox.com/ using your Facebook account.

Sign up for an account to comment, share your thoughts, and earn points to get great prizes.

Register on The Boombox quickly by logging in with your Facebook account. It's just as secure, and no password to remember!

View the original article here

DealBook: In Loeb Rejection, Sony Cites Poor I.P.O. Record for Unit

Bits Blog: Vintage Apple-1 Sells for Record $671,400

Apple’s stock price may be well down from its peaks last year, but the market for the company’s oldest computers continues to set records.

Emmanuel Dunand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Sotheby’s sold an Apple-1 for $374,500 last year. A few months later in Germany, one sold for $640,000.

An Apple-1 computer, made in 1976, sold for a record $671,400 on Saturday at an auction in Germany, including all fees and taxes, said Uwe Breker, the German auctioneer.

That surpassed the $640,000 record for an Apple-1, set last November at a sale at the same auction house in Cologne, Germany, Auction Team Breker. The fall 2012 sale was a sharp rise from the previous record price for an Apple-1 of $374,500, set in June 2012 at Sotheby’s in New York.

The high prices paid for the machines seem to be explained by the combination of scarcity, a fascination with the early history of the computer age, and the mystique of Apple and its founders, Steven P. Jobs and Stephen G. Wozniak. And some irrational exuberance in the prices, for a machine that can do very little and originally sold for $666 (about $2,700 in current dollars).

“This really confirms the value of Apple-1’s,” Mr.Breker said in an interview on Saturday.

The buyer, Mr. Breker said, was a wealthy entrepreneur from the Far East, who wishes to remain anonymous.

Part of the allure of the earliest Apple machines, Mr. Breker said, is not what they are, but what they represent. “It is a superb symbol of the American dream,” he said. “You have two college dropouts from California who pursued an idea and a dream, and that dream becomes one of the most admired, successful and valuable companies in the world.”

The anonymous buyer, who can afford to spend more than $670,000 on an old computer, seems to have enjoyed some version of the entrepreneurial dream come true, as well.

In an e-mail last week, and a later telephone interview, Mr. Breker said the original owner of the Apple-1 on sale was Fred Hatfield, a former major league baseball player in the 1950s, who died in 1998. I included that account in an article published on Friday.

Early Saturday morning, I received an e-mail from another Fred Hatfield, a retired electrical engineer living in New Orleans, saying he was the original owner of the Apple-1 that was auctioned on Saturday. Mr. Hatfield attached an image of a letter, dated Jan, 18, 1978 and addressed to him, signed by Mr. Jobs.

Mr. Hatfield had complained about the lack of software for the Apple-1, also commonly known as Apple I, and Apple had a trade-in program for Apple-1’s. The letter offered to exchange an Apple II computer for the older machine, and to send a check for $400 as a further incentive.

When I called Mr. Breker on Saturday, I asked where he got his information that the original owner was Fred Hatfield, the ballplayer. Mr. Breker said he recalled that he was told that by Mike Willegal, who maintains an online registry of Apple-1’s. Mr. Willegal said on Saturday that he did not recall saying Fred Hatfield, the Apple-1 owner, was the former professional baseball player.

In any case, Mr. Hatfield in New Orleans said he held onto his Apple-1 until earlier this year. Then, a young man from Texas in the software business, whom Mr. Hatfield would not identify, inquired. They negotiated a price — $40,000.

The Apple-1, Mr. Hatfield said, was not then in working condition. The buyer apparently put in some new chips and wiring, since it was a working model when it sold on Saturday. After picking up the machine, Mr. Hatfield said, the young man flew off to California to get the machine signed by Mr. Wozniak, who designed the Apple-1. That also enhanced its value presumably.

Told the of sale price, Mr. Hatfield said, “My God.” Then, he added, “Best to him. He’s the one who fixed it up and figured the best way to sell it for all that money. Evidently, he’s very good at this.”

Mr. Hatfield, 84, gives historic tours of New Orleans, his hometown. Not surprisingly, he’s a jazz fan. He said he planned to use his proceeds to pay for some good dinners and nights of music on Frenchmen Street.

“I figure I might as well enjoy the money I got from that old machine,” he said.

Sharp Reshuffles Management After Record Loss

TOKYO (AP) — Japanese electronics maker Sharp Corp. named a new president Tuesday, reshuffling its top management to help restore profitability after reporting a record loss.

The Osaka, Japan-based maker of Aquos TVs said that Kozo Takahashi, currently an executive vice president, will become its president and CEO as of June 25. His appointment is part of a business reorganization aimed at returning to the black in the fiscal year ending March 2014 after years of losses.

The company also said it would reduce its capital to help improve its balance sheet and "make a fresh start" by shedding its legacy of cumulative losses.

Sharp's 545.4 billion yen net loss ($5.4 billion) in the fiscal year that ended in March exceeded its forecasts and compared with a 376 billion yen net loss in the previous fiscal year. The company forecasts a slim 5 billion yen net profit this fiscal year on net sales of 2.7 trillion yen ($26.6 billion), up 8.9 percent from the year before.

The company said its net loss in the past year was worsened by costs for restructuring despite improved demand for electronics components such as liquid crystal displays and solar cells. All product groups apart from Sharp's LCD panel business showed improved operating income in the second half of the year, it said.

Sharp has struggled to cut costs and reshape its business, partly because it has invested in expensive plants in Japan that make the panels for TVs and mobile devices and is getting hammered by plunging prices and intense competition. Its main banks have extended 150 billion yen ($1.48 billion) in fresh loans to help it meet a repayment deadline looming in September.

In a business plan issued Tuesday, the company said it planned to beef up its loss-making LCD panel business, which embodies its prized technology, as part of its alliance with South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co.

However, Sharp plans to cut capital investment by 3 percent to 80 billion yen ($789 million) after trimming it by nearly 31 percent in the last fiscal year.

The company has trimmed thousands of jobs as it adjusts its product mix and works to trim its debt.

The new president, Takahashi, comes from the company's product development group and has also been in charge of Sharp's American's division. He replaces Takashi Okuda, who will become Sharp's chairman.

Samsung Forecasts Record $8.3 Billion Profit

SEOUL — Samsung Electronics projected Tuesday a profit of $8.3 billion in the quarter that ended last month as demand picked up for the flat screens it makes for mobile devices, including those for products sold by Apple.

The forecast could signal a run of five consecutive record quarters, but it may end in the January-to-March period because of weaker seasonal demand. But a strong line of new smartphones — the biggest earner for Samsung, the South Korean giant — and improving chip prices have eased concerns that earnings growth could slow this year.

“Investors are a bit concerned that Samsung’s momentum may slow in the first half,” said Kim Sung-soo, a fund manager at LS Asset Management. “The smartphone market is unlikely to sustain its strong growth, as advanced markets are nearing saturation despite growth in emerging countries.”

Samsung has outpaced Apple — its biggest rival and also its biggest customer — with sales momentum bolstered by its Galaxy Note II phone-tablet hybrid in the fourth quarter. IPhone 5 sales were a little below expectations, analysts said.

While Apple introduced just a single new smartphone last year globally, Samsung bombarded the market with 37 variants adjusted to regional and consumer tastes, including both high-end and low-end smartphone models. By comparison, HTC of Taiwan released 18 models, Nokia of Finland released nine and LG Electronics of South Korea introduced 24.

HTC said Monday that its fourth-quarter profit had slumped about 90 percent as its sales had continued to trail those of the Galaxy range of phones and the iPhone.

Samsung gave its October-December earnings guidance before the full earnings release expected by Jan. 25.

Shipments of Samsung’s flagship phone, the Galaxy S III, which overtook the iPhone 4S in the third quarter to become the world’s best-selling smartphone, are likely to have slipped to about 15 million in the past quarter from 18 million in July to September, analysts estimate, but sales of about 8 million of the Galaxy Note II should more than make up for that, pushing overall smartphone shipments to about 63 million.

“The Note was selling well, boosting fourth-quarter profit, while iPhone 5 sales were less than expected,” said Song Myung-sub, an analyst at HI Investment & Securities. “Samsung’s profit will drop in the current quarter because of decreased phone profits. It will launch the Galaxy S IV only in March or April, so, without new models, phone sales prices will fall this quarter. For the whole year, Samsung will launch new models faster than Apple and have the upper hand in the smartphone market.”

The new Galaxy, widely expected to be released within months, may have an unbreakable screen and full high-definition resolution, with 440 pixels per inch, as well as a better camera and a more powerful processor.

“Samsung’s smartphone shipments are likely to grow, even in a seasonally weak first quarter,” said Peter Yu, a BNP Paribas Securities analyst. “The early launch of the Galaxy S IV would drive second-quarter growth momentum.”

He predicted Samsung’s 2013 operating profit would grow 25 percent to almost $35 billion.

Samsung is expected to increase its smartphone sales by more than a third this year, and widen its lead over Apple as it offers a broader range of mobile devices, said Neil Mawston, executive director at Strategy Analytics, a market researcher, which forecasts Samsung will sell 290 million smartphones this year, up from a projected 215 million in 2012.

Apple is expected to sell 180 million iPhones, up from 135 million sold last year, Mr. Mawston said last week.

Kim Sung-in, an analyst at Kiwoom Securities, said he expected Samsung to ship 320 million smartphones this year and double sales of its tablets to 32 million.

Samsung said its operating profit in October to December had jumped 89 percent to 8.8 trillion won, or about $8.3 billion, from a year ago, just higher than an average forecast of 8.7 trillion won by 16 analysts surveyed by Reuters. That is 8.6 percent higher than its previous record of 8.1 trillion won in July to September.

Analysts expect profits from the mobile division will more than double from last year and increase slightly from the previous quarter, to about 5.8 trillion won. A recovery in chip prices and flat screens should also bolster earnings, helped by booming sales of mobiles carrying Samsung’s chips, microprocessors and flat screens.

Common Sense: H.P.’s Autonomy Blunder Might Be One for the Record Books

The deal was considered so bad, and such an object lesson for a generation of deal makers and corporate executives, that it seemed likely never to be repeated, rivaled or surpassed.

Until now.

Hewlett-Packard’s acquisition last year of the British software maker Autonomy for $11.1 billion “may be worse than Time Warner,” Toni Sacconaghi, the respected technology analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein, told me, a view that was echoed this week by several H.P. analysts, rivals and disgruntled investors.

Last week, H.P. stunned investors still reeling from more than a year of management upheavals, corporate blunders and disappointing earnings when it said it was writing down $8.8 billion of its acquisition of Autonomy, in effect admitting that it had overpaid by an astonishing 79 percent.

And it attributed more than $5 billion of the write-off to what it called a “willful effort on behalf of certain former Autonomy employees to inflate the underlying financial metrics of the company in order to mislead investors and potential buyers,” adding, “These misrepresentations and lack of disclosure severely impacted H.P. management’s ability to fairly value Autonomy at the time of the deal.”

In an unusually aggressive public relations counterattack, Autonomy’s founder, Michael Lynch, a Cambridge-educated Ph.D., has denied the charges and accused Hewlett-Packard of mismanaging the acquisition. H.P. asked Mr. Lynch to step aside last May after Autonomy’s results fell far short of expectations.

But others say the issue of fraud, while it may offer a face-saving excuse for at least some of H.P.’s huge write-down, shouldn’t obscure the fact that the deal was wildly overpriced from the outset, that at least some people at Hewlett-Packard recognized that, and that H.P.’s chairman, Ray Lane, and the board that approved the deal should be held accountable.

A Hewlett-Packard spokesman said in a statement: “H.P.’s board of directors, like H.P. management and deal team, had no reason to believe that Autonomy’s audited financial statements were inaccurate and that its financial performance was materially overstated. It goes without saying that they are disappointed that much of the information they relied upon appears to have been manipulated or inaccurate.”

It’s true that H.P. directors and management can’t be blamed for a fraud that eluded teams of bankers and accountants, if that’s what it turns out to be. But the huge write-down and the disappointing results at Autonomy, combined with other missteps, have contributed to the widespread perception that H.P., once one of the country’s most admired companies, has lost its way.

Hewlett-Packard announced the acquisition of Autonomy, which focuses on so-called intelligent search and data analysis, on Aug. 18, 2011, along with its decision to abandon its tablet computer and consider getting out of the personal computer business. H.P. didn’t stress the price — $11.1 billion, or an eye-popping multiple of 12.6 times Autonomy’s 2010 revenue — but focused on Autonomy’s potential to transform H.P. from a low-margin producer of printers, PCs and other hardware into a high-margin, cutting-edge software company. “Together with Autonomy we plan to reinvent how both structured and unstructured data is processed, analyzed, optimized, automated and protected,” Léo Apotheker, H.P.’s chief executive at the time, proclaimed.

Autonomy had already been shopped by investment bankers by the time H.P. took the bait. But others who examined the data couldn’t come anywhere near the price that Autonomy was seeking. An executive at a rival software maker, Oracle, a company with many successful software acquisitions under its belt, told me: “We looked at Autonomy. After doing the math, we couldn’t make it work. We couldn’t figure out where the numbers came from. And taking the numbers at face value, even at $6 billion it was overvalued.” He didn’t want to be named because he was criticizing a competitor.

Samsung Expected to Reach End of Record Run

SEOUL — Samsung Electronics reported a record quarterly profit of 8.1 trillion South Korean won, nearly double the figure of last year, as strong sales of high-end televisions and Galaxy smartphones more than offset reduced orders for chips and screens from Apple, its main rival and leading customer.

Most analysts, however, expect a run of four record quarters — the most recent worth $7.3 billion — to end in December, as the South Korean group, one of the world’s leading makers of smartphones, televisions and memory chips, increases its marketing, countering the new Apple iPhone 5 and other products in a crowded smartphone market, valued at $200 billion globally.

Credit Suisse Group, an international financial services company, estimated that Samsung might have spent about $2.7 billion on marketing in July to September alone during the Olympic Games in London and on Galaxy promotions.

The expected record profit of 28 trillion won would mean higher payouts for performance to many of Samsung’s 206,000 staff members early next year. And Samsung may have to set money aside this quarter if it fails to overturn an appeal of a U.S. court verdict that awarded more than $1 billion in damages to Apple on Aug. 24 for patent infringements by Samsung.

“Fourth-quarter profit will be pressured by one-off expenses: performance payouts and some $1 billion in legal provisioning relating to the Apple litigation,” said Lee Sun-tae, an analyst at NH Investment & Securities.

“Excluding those, core earnings will remain solid, and a swing factor is how much Samsung spends on marketing.”

Analysts expect earnings to decline until the second quarter of next year as a slump in computer sales and a weak global economy sap demand for chips and electronics products.

“The biggest risk for Samsung is competitive product lineups from its rivals, such as the iPhone 5,” said Byun Han-joon, an analyst at KB Investment & Securities.

“Because handsets drive most of its profits, one misstep in handsets could result in losses for the whole Samsung group,” Mr. Byun said.

Profit at Samsung’s mobile division is likely to have more than doubled in the July-to-September period to about 5 trillion won as smartphone shipments topped 58 million, including as many as 20 million of the Galaxy S III.

Ahead of full quarterly results due Oct. 26, Samsung estimated that its July to September operating profit jumped to 8.1 trillion won from a year ago, beating an average forecast of 7.6 trillion won in a survey of analysts.

Strong handset sales made up for reduced profits from its chip business. Prices of dynamic random access memory, or DRAM, chips — used in computers and mobile phones — dropped 14 percent in the September quarter. Such chips now trade below what it costs most contract manufacturers to make them and will squeeze near-term earnings, analysts say. Tablets and smartphones, the real growth areas, use far smaller memory storage.

Samsung is expected to invest less in chips next year because of the drop in demand, which could be bad news for equipment manufacturers. Kwon Oh-hyun, who became chief executive of Samsung in June, said late last month that the group had yet to complete its 2013 investment plans.

Samsung is strengthening its product lineup, with its latest phone-tablet, the Galaxy Note, expected to go on sale in the United States this month; its ATIV smartphones, which run on Microsoft’s new Windows system, will compete with Nokia’s Lumia series.

Gadgetwise Blog: A Bike Camera to Record What's Sneaking Up

Carbon fiber frames and automatic shifters have brought bikes into the 21st century. The Cerevellum Hindsight 35 brings bike mirrors up to date as well. This $300 video camera system ($364 with a heart rate monitor) mounts on any bicycle and offers a bright image of what is coming up behind you as well as important speed information.

The Cerevellum Hindsight 35 rearview video camera system for bikes records what is coming at you from behind.

The Hindsight is encased in hard black plastic and is waterproof. A long cable runs from a3.5-inch LCD screen on the handlebars, along the bike to the rear seat post, where the camera and included LED safety lights survey the scene. The system also records five minutes of video as long as you’re riding. The recording system will shut itself off automatically if you crash (or are hit), in that way ensuring you have a record of the accident.

As Nick Wingfield reported in The New York Times on Saturday, video cameras are increasingly being used by cyclists to record accidents.

Because it is ANT+ compatible, the Hindsight can also take heart rate, speed and cadence readings from low-power wireless sensors on your body and bike. The upgradable hardware allows you to add new features as they become available. It runs for about five hours on one charge.

Bikers in bad parts of town can remove the screen with a few quick twists of a waterproof connector cable. While performance bikers may be put off by the weight–eight ounce– city riders will definitely appreciate the durability, and the security that comes with knowing what is behind them.