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Motorola Xoom Sales Better Than Expected
May 2, 2011 by admin
Filed under Consumer Electronics
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Motorola Mobility shipped 250,000 Xoom tablets in the first month the device was released, the company said on Thursday as part of their first-quarter earnings report.
The tablet, the first to run Google’s Android Honeycomb OS, went on sale in February. Within weeks, several analysts said early sales numbers were disappointing. By early April, one analyst estimated that Motorola had sold a total of 100,000 of the tablets.
Shipping a quarter of a million in a month isn’t quite the same as Apple first iPad shipment, but the number appears to be better than most had expected.
For the full year, Motorola is expecting to sell 1.5 million to 2 million tablets, it said. It plans to introduce new tablets, including some with new form factors, this year, executives said during a conference call to discuss first-quarter results.
During the quarter, Motorola Mobility also began selling the Atrix, a phone that can be docked into a device with a full keyboard and monitor. Some analysts have also said sales of the Atrix are unimpressive.
The company did not release Atrix sales numbers separately. It said it shipped 9.3 million mobile devices, including 4.1 million smartphones, during the quarter.
Motorola expects to record an operating profit for the full year, but faces challenges ahead. It has delayed the launch of the Bionic, its first LTE device, and on Thursday said the delay is related to a software problem. That same problem is also pushing back the launch of LTE on the Xoom, which was initially expected for the first half. Both the LTE Xoom and the Bionic are now expected to come in “summer,” which in North America could be as late as September.
Tegra 3 Smartphones Being Developed By Motorola
April 27, 2011 by admin
Filed under Smartphones
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Many sources around the Internet are a buzz with news that Motorola is apparently developing a couple of smartphones using Nvidia’s Tegra 3 SoC processor.
One of the smart is being called the Bullet which features a 4.3-inch touchscreen, 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage with a 12MP camera. The other phone is code named the Jet and is basically rhe same as the Bullet with a 4-inch screen and keyboard. The pair of phones are expected to debut in early 2012.
Samsung Sues Apple
April 25, 2011 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
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In the uber competitive world of mobile device development suing is fast becoming a sport engaged in by all of the titans of technology. Add another lawsuit to the pile as Samsung Electronics hits Apple with lawsuits in three countries alleging infringement of patents on smartphone technologies. Last week Apple sued Samsung for allegedly copying the designs of Apple’s iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone in its Galaxy smartphone and Galaxy Tab tablet PC.
On Thursday, the South Korean electronics maker sued Apple in Seoul alleging five patent infringements, in Tokyo over two alleged infringements and in Manheim, Germany, over three.
“Samsung is responding actively to the legal action taken against us in order to protect our intellectual property and to ensure our continued innovation and growth in the mobile communications business,” the company said in a statement.
According to Samsung, the lawsuits say Apple infringed on patents concerning reducing data transmission errors in WCDMA (Wideband CDMA) mobile networks, tethering mobile phones to PCs so the PC can use the phone’s wireless data connection, and reducing power consumption when transmitting data over HSPA (High Speed Packet Access) networks.
Apple’s lawsuit filed on April 15 in the U.S. says Samsung copied external design features on the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. The lawsuit further alleges that Samsung designed application icons for that come close to icons on Apple’s devices.
Verizon May Not Carry The PlayBook
April 22, 2011 by admin
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Verizon Wireless is still evaluating whether or not it will carry the PlayBook tablet computer from Research In Motion, the biggest U.S. mobile operator stated on Wednesday.
While BlackBerry maker RIM had said it expected Verizon Wireless to be one of its distribution partners for PlayBook, the company said it has yet to make such a determination.
“We’re still evaluating the BlackBerry Playbook and have not made a determination as to whether we’re going to distribute it,” Verizon Wireless Spokeswoman Brenda Raney said.
The comment came the day after PlayBook debuted at North American electronics retailers.
RIM’s PlayBook Gets Harsh Reviews
April 17, 2011 by admin
Filed under Around The Net
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RIM’s PlayBook tablet didn’t fare so well with influential technology reviewers who called the iPad competitor a rushed job that won’t even provide RIM’s wildly popular email service unless it’s hooked up to a BlackBerry.
The overwhelmingly bad initial response to a device the company hopes will get it attached to the tablet computing explosion overshadowed a splashy coming-out party in New York Thursday evening, where co-CEOs Jim Balsillie and Mike Lazaridis played up the gadget’s attractiveness with corporate users.
There was little mention of the blistering reviews only hours before.
“RIM has just shipped a BlackBerry product that cannot do email. It must be skating season in hell,” New York Times’ David Pogue wrote in a review published on Thursday.
Research In Motion built its reputation on a BlackBerry email service that it says is so secure that it can’t bow to government requests to tap messages, winning high-profile customers in business, defense and politics before branching out to a wider consumer market.
But the PlayBook, which hits North American store shelves on Tuesday, offers that secure service only in tandem with a BlackBerry. RIM says secure email and other key services will come later, not at launch.
Is Twitter Finally Getting A Competitor?
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Twitter your days alone at the top of the micro-blogging mountain may soon be ending. UberMedia, which owns major third-party mobile applications for the Twitter platform, is said to be building a service that will compete directly against Twitter. If it’s true, the move would come on the heels of Twitter briefly suspending the company’s apps for alleged use policy violations.
Citing unnamed sources, CNN.com reported today that UberMedia is looking to attract users to its own microblogging service by addressing common complaints about Twitter, such as its rules on message lengths as well as how the service can be confusing to new users.
UberMedia declined to comment on whether its programmers are building a new microblogging service. However, in an emailed statement to Computerworld, company marketing chief Steve Chadima said, “Our foremost desire is to continue to innovate on the Twitter platform and bring more users and usage to Twitter.”
UberMedia owns UberTwitter, which is for the BlackBerry platform; Twidroyd, for Android devices; and UberCurrent, which can be used on iPhones and iPads. The company also has been in the news in recent months because it’s moving to acquire popular Twitter client TweetDeck.
TweetDeck competes directly with Twitter’s Web and mobile clients.
Ezra Gottheil, an analyst with Technology Business Research, said he wouldn’t be surprised if UberMedia were to go after some of Twitter’s business, but the company would have an uphill climb.
HTC Profits Rise, Lead By Android Popularity
April 10, 2011 by admin
Filed under Around The Net, Smartphones
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Taiwan smartphone maker HTC Corp said first-quarter profit almost tripled, beating forecasts, driven by strong demand for its mobile devices, especially those running on Google’s Android operating system.
The company, which has just overtaken industry giant Nokia in terms of market capitalization, said on Friday that first-quarter net profit was $511 million.
“That its first quarter would be above expectations was well foreseen, Q1 seasonality was better than expected,” said Bonnie Chang, an analyst at Yuanta Securities in Hong Kong.
“For the second quarter everyone is expecting revenue sequential growth in the high teens to 20 percent, shipments will be strong and average selling prices are holding up pretty well.”
Growing demand for phones running on Google’s Android platform will help the smartphone market grow in 2011, boosting companies such as HTC and Samsung Electronics who are betting on the platform.
The smartphone market is likely to grow 58 percent this year and 35 percent the next, according to research firm Gartner.
Oak Trail Tablets Coming Next Month
April 5, 2011 by admin
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Word on the street is that Intel will keep their word and debut Oak Trail based tablets as promised next month. Apparently, the tablets will be introduced during the week of Computex, that opens May 31. An Intel representative was speaking with PC Advisor and basically confirmed that the first batch of tablets should be available in May. No pertinent information in reference to design and launch schedules were revealed. Nevertheless, many PC manufacturers such as Fujitsu, Lenovo and Samsung were said to be the first to show tablets that are based on Oak Trail and Windows 7.
NFC Support Coming to Windows Phone 7
April 3, 2011 by admin
Filed under Smartphones
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Microsoft is adding support for NFC (near field communication) to its Windows Phone mobile operating system, according to a report on Bloomberg Businessweek. NFC technology is a key component to the upcoming mobile payment and mobile wallet systems now reportedly under development at Google, RIM and Apple as well as the new carrier-led initiative Isis, a coalition of three of the four major cellular providers here in the U.S.
Support for NFC technology in Windows Phone 7 will be pushed out in an update to Microsoft’s mobile operating system, sources told Bloomberg reporters. Those updates may arrive sometime this year.
Bloomberg says that the addition of NFC is an effort to close the gap between Microsoft and Google, the latter which is currently the leading smartphone platform here in the U.S., and, according to at least one analyst firm, worldwide.
Google’s Android mobile operating system added in NFC support in the release code-named Gingerbread (Android 2.3) and has incrementally added new capabilities since then to broaden its feature set. In February 2011, for example, an update delivered the ability to both read and write to standard NFC tags, whereas before the NFC support was read-only.
Nvidia Stockholders Mad As Heck
Reports are coming out that stockholders of Nvidia are losing patience with executives as they do not believe the company does not have a sizable share of the smartphone and tablet space.
Analysts were giving warning signs about Nvidia’s share ability to compete against the Apple iPad and iPhone and what appears to be an overall weakness in the PC market. Incidentally, analyst have always speculated that the success of tablets cannibalize PC sales. That said, Nvidia stocks fell around 3.8 percent. Keep in mind there are some who do not want to kick Nvidia to the curb this early in the game.