Viber Launches Sticky Fingers 2

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Viber, the country’s leading mobile messaging app known for its stickers that ooze with personality, is launching an exciting second run of its global sticker design initiative Sticky Fingers. This time around, Sticky Fingers focuses on having creatives from all over bring their favourite cities to life with the My City, My Vibe theme.

Stickers are a core part of Viber’s service and millions of people use them every day to convey an emotion, a reaction, or simply to share good vibes with their friends and families. In fact, Viber’s 600 million users sent more than 22 billion stickers last year. With this, Sticky Fingers 2 becomes a great opportunity for Filipino artists to showcase their design talent, represent their cities, each unique vibe they carry, and share it with the rest of the world.

20 finalists will be selected by Viber and its panel of judges, each to receive $1,000. From those top entries, 5 artists will be chosen to get the opportunity to work with the Viber design studio to develop their character into sticker packs, and a revenue share for every sticker sold of their design. Aside from these, the final five will of course receive exposure across Viber’s social media channels.

The competition is now open with Filipino creatives being able to send their entries up until November 18. As the 20 finalists will be picked based on the quality of their submissions, and not by their country of origin, the more entries the Philippines produces means higher chances for Pinoys to make it as finalists.

AMD Achieves High-End Embedded Performance Leadership with New R-Series Processors

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AMD today announced new AMD Embedded R-Series SOC processors that establish performance leadership across a targeted range of embedded application market requirements for digital signage, retail signage, medical imaging, electronic gaming, media storage and communications and networking. Designed for demanding embedded needs, the processors incorporate the newest AMD 64-bit x86 CPU core (“Excavator”), plus third-generation Graphics Core Next GPU architecture, and state-of-the-art power management for reduced energy consumption. Combined, these AMD innovations and technologies provide industry-leading graphics performance and key embedded features for next-generation designs.

The single-chip system-on-chip (SOC) architecture enables simplified, small form factor board and system designs from AMD customers and a number of third party development platform providers, while providing astounding graphics and multimedia performance, including capability for hardware-accelerated decode of 4K video playback. With a robust suite of peripheral support and interface options, high-end AMD Radeon™ graphics, designed for the industry’s first Heterogeneous Systems Architecture (HSA) 1.0 certification, and support for the latest DDR4 memory, the new AMD R-Series SOC addresses the needs of a wide range of markets and customers.

“AMD continues its push into x86 embedded platforms and that’s paying off with an increasing number of customers and applications,” said Jim McGregor, principal analyst, TIRIAS Research. “There is a need for immersive graphics, high-quality visualization, and parallel computing in an increasing number of embedded applications. Across these fronts, the AMD Embedded R-Series SOC is a very compelling solution.”

“With so much momentum around immersive experiences, especially for visual and parallel computing, the embedded industry needs a high-performance, low-power and efficient architecture with superior graphics and compute capabilities,” said Scott Aylor, corporate vice president and general manager, AMD Embedded Solutions. “Our new AMD Embedded R-Series SOC is a strong match for these needs in a variety of industries including digital signage, retail signage, medical imaging, electronic gaming machines, media storage, and communications and networking. The platform offers a strong value proposition for this next generation of high-performance, low-power embedded designs.”

Western Digital Announces Acquisition Of SanDisk

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Western Digital Corporation and SanDisk Corporation  today announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Western Digital will acquire all of the outstanding shares of SanDisk for a combination of cash and stock. The offer values SanDisk common stock at US$86.50 per share or a total equity value of approximately US$19 billion, using a five-day volume weighted average price ending on October 20, 2015 of US$79.60 per share of Western Digital common stock. If the previously announced investment in Western Digital by Unisplendour Corporation Limited closes prior to this acquisition, Western Digital will pay US$85.10 per share in cash and 0.0176 shares of Western Digital common stock per share of SanDisk common stock; and if the Unisplendour transaction has not closed or has been terminated, US$67.50 in cash and 0.2387 shares of Western Digital common stock per share of SanDisk common stock. The transaction has been approved by the boards of directors of both companies.

The combination is the next step in the transformation of Western Digital into a storage solutions company with global scale, extensive product and technology assets, and deep expertise in non-volatile memory (NVM). With this transaction, Western Digital will double its addressable market and expand its participation in higher-growth segments. SanDisk brings a 27-year history of innovation and expertise in NVM, systems solutions and manufacturing. The combination also enables Western Digital to vertically integrate into NAND, securing long-term access to solid state technology at lower cost.

The proposed combination creates significant value for both SanDisk and Western Digital shareholders. Western Digital brings a successful track record of M&A with a number of acquisitions over the last several years helping to fuel innovation, create value and strongly position the company to capture higher-growth opportunities. In addition, Western Digital's operational excellence, coupled with the recently announced decision by China's Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) allowing Western Digital to integrate substantial portions of its WD and HGST businesses, is expected to generate additional cost synergies.