Another first for Kingston Technology Inc.
The gaming division of the Fountain Valley-based company at the CES trade show in Las Vegas this month introduced the first memory modules featuring synchronized red, blue and green lighting with infrared technology.
So what’s the big deal?
In an era of customization, gamers want to trick out their PCs in the same fashion as obsessive muscle car and vintage motorcycle owners.
“It’s all about customizing now,” HyperX Corporate PR Manager Mark Tekunoff told the Business Journal during a product demo at the company’s suite at the Venetian Hotel. “This is all for visual quality. It’s never been done before.”
Kingston is no stranger to firsts. The company has introduced several in the industry over its 31-year history, including 1 terabyte and 2 terabyte USB flash drives.
The Predator DDR4 RGB utilizes patent-pending IR communication with every memory module, allowing synced LED lighting to produce deep color and pattern displays powered directly from the motherboard.
The product and pricing will be available next quarter.
HyperX at the world’s largest consumer electronics show touted several other new products, including the HyperX Cloud Flight, its first wireless gaming headset; the HyperX Alloy Elite RGB keyboard, its first RGB keyboard, which allows users to color customize the keyboard or individual keys through its NGenuity software; and the HyperX Pulsefire Surge, its first gaming mouse with Dynamic 360-degree RGB lighting effects.
The headset, which carries a 30-hour charge with the lights off and 13 with them on, costs $160 and is geared exclusively for PCs and PS4. The mechanical keyboard costs $170. The gaming mouse will be $70 and released next quarter.
Kingston is Orange County’s largest consumer electronics maker, with estimated 2016 revenue of $6.6 billion.
Pickens Slows Down
The declining health and investment portfolio of T. Boone Pickens could leave a lasting impact on Newport Beach-based Clean Energy Fuels Corp., a company he started in the late 1980s as a tiny part of his Dallas-based Mesa Petroleum, and split off a decade later.
The legendary oilman and corporate raider is shutting down his hedge fund as he winds down other business ventures, the Wall Street Journal recently reported.
Pickens recently tweeted that he will continue to focus on Clean Energy and remains passionate on its “ability to move natural gas into heavy duty truck fleets to address foreign oil threat.”
The 89-year-old Clean Energy director has been one of its biggest backers on and off the books, talking up the potential of natural gas in national print and broadcast interviews for years.
Clean Energy is the nation’s largest operator of natural gas stations, with a network of more than 575 spread along major transportation arteries in California, Texas, the Midwest, Southeast and Northeast.
Pickens, the founder of BP Capital, is the company’s largest inside shareholder, controlling about 13 million shares, or a roughly 8.6% stake, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
Clean Energy Chief Executive Andrew Littlefair is second with 1.3 million shares, less than a 1% stake.
The Business Journal caught up with Pickens in May 2016 at Santa Ana Country Club following Clean Energy’s first quarterly profit.
“I never believed it would take this long,” said Pickens, who established Pickens Fuel Corp. in Seal Beach in 1997 and changed the name four years later. “We’ll be profitable for the year.”
The company lost $12.1 million in 2016, compared to a loss of $134.2 million the prior year.
Clean Energy posted revenue of $81.8 million in the third quarter of last year, down 15.7% from a year earlier, and a loss of $74.1 million.
Both targets missed Wall Street expectations.
More LeEco Drama
Jia Yueting, the head of Chinese conglomerate LeEco who led a proposed $2 billion takeover last year of Vizio Inc., defied an order to return to China after Beijing First Intermediate People’s Court seized his assets, including about $200,000 from his bank account.
The latest development comes about six months after the Irvine-based brand filed two lawsuits against LeEco. Vizio seeks at least $60 million in damages, legal fees, and other relief after the deal collapsed in April amid LeEco’s financial troubles fueled by a U.S. launch into smartphones, bikes and TVs; new subscription services; a virtual reality headset; and an autonomous electric vehicle.
The lawsuits contend LeEco made false financial statements and claims in the run-up to its proposed buy of Vizio.
“Vizio can’t comment on ongoing litigation,” a company spokesperson told the Business Journal.
Vizio, which was co-founded in 2002 by William Wang, was the fifth-largest private company based in OC last year, with an estimated $3.5 billion in 2016 sales. The vast majority of its revenue is generated from sales of smart TVs.
