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An Apple/Hulu Hookup In The Works?
Apple Inc is in very preliminary talks to join the bidding for Hulu, the online video site that Walt Disney Co, News Corp and its other owners have put up for sale, Bloomberg cited two anonymous sources as saying.
Apple has begun initial discussions that may eventually lead to an acquisition, Bloomberg reported without providing any more details.
An Apple spokesman declined to comment on the rumor.
Nokia Had Horrible Quarter
July 27, 2011 by admin
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Nokia has just posted very disturbing quarterly results this morning. The European smartphone giant outlook appears to be getting worse and CEO Stephen Elop has acknowledged that things will not turn around overnight.
Elop is reporting that Nokia’s operating profit is down 44 percent since Q1 and sales of mobile devices are down 23 percent consecutively. While the overall sales of mobile phones and smartphones are down, along with average selling prices.
Elop labelled the results as “clearly disappointing” and went on to say that competitive pressures are continuing. He tried to paint a somewhat more positive outlook for the rest of the year, thanks to Nokia’s clear strategy and several major product launches.
nVidia’s Tegra 3 Coming To Smartphones
July 18, 2011 by admin
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It appears as though Nvidia’s next generation quad-core Kal-El (Tegra 3) quad core SoC will also show up on smartphones too. Originally, it was believed that the SoC would only support the ever growing tablet space.
Inside sources have confirmed that projects are already underway and that Tegra 3 aka Kal-El smartphones will be make a debut as well.
Nvidia had hoped to get a lot of play out of Tegra 2, unfortunately the chip was not as embraced as Nvidia had wanted. Even though the Tegra 2 SoC did manage to get a few design wins.
Cisco To Cut Thousands Of Jobs
Word the street is that router giant Cisco is about to cut 14 percent of it’s worldwide workforce which is thought to be around ten thousand people.
The reports are saying that seven thousand people will be given pink slips by the end of August; and the other three thousand unfortunate souls will take an early retirement option.
It seems as though many companies go this route when the executive team does not adjust to the changing technology market; they try to boost profits in the short-term by firing those who have worked so hard for the company. That said, the massive cuts are expected to save Cisco about $1 billion in 2012. A company spokesperson told Bloomberg that additional cost cutting procedures will also be instituted.
New MacBook Includes Faster NAND Chip
The soon to be released new version of Apple’s MacBook Air, will feature NAND flash memory with up to 400Mbps performance, about one and a half times faster than its current technology, according to a recent report.
Unlike many notebooks, the MacBook Air has no hard drive or optical drive and instead uses a slim flash board for its internal mass storage device.
Citing an “Asian electronics component company person,” the blog site Macotakara stated that Apple will use flash memory chips that includes the new Double Data Rate (DDR) 2.0 interface. While the rumors could not be confirmed, the upgrade would come as no surprise, since Apple’s next MacBook Air, which originally used Toshiba’s Blade X-gale NAND flash board, has moved to using Samsung’s flash memory. The MacBook Air’s current Samsung flash sports read rates of 261Mbps and write rates of up to 209Mbps and is based on DDR 1.0 technology.
DDR 2.0 provides a tenfold increase over the 40Mbps Single Data Rate (SDR) NAND flash in widespread use today.
In May, Samsung announced that it was producing DDR 2.0 multilevel cell flash chips. Samsung’s flash chips are made using its smallest circuitry, only 20 nanometers wide. The chips boast a performance improvement of three times over its previous technology.
DDR NAND flash comes in two forms: Toggle Mode from Samsung and Toshiba; and ONFI NAND, from the Open NAND Flash Interface (ONFI) working group. The ONFI protocol is used by flash manufacturers, including Intel, Micron, SanDisk, Hynix and Spansion. In March, the ONFI working group announced its 3.0 specification for the DDR 2.0 interface, which also has up to 400Mbps throughput but with only half the number of pins, for a significant reduction in size.
Nokia Slashes Smartphone Prices
July 9, 2011 by admin
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Nokia has lowered the price of smartphones across its entire portfolio in an attempt to slow the decline of its share in the higher-end of the cellphone market, two industry sources said on Tuesday.
One of the sources with direct knowledge of Nokia’s pricing said the company’s flagship model, the N8, the multimedia phone C7, as well as the business user-targeted E6, saw the steepest cuts of around 15 percent.
Other price cuts were smaller, both sources said. “There are no very big cuts per model, but the scale — across the portfolio — is unseen for a very, very long time,” said one of the sources, who works at a European telecom operator.
A Nokia spokesman declined to comment on specific prices and said changes were part of its normal business. “It’s business as usual,” he said.
Samsung Asks ITC To Ban Apple Products
July 6, 2011 by admin
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Samsung requested that the U.S. International Trade Commission ban the importation of Apple’s iPhones, iPads and iPods, ratcheting up its fight with Apple.
The filing, dated Tuesday, states Apple’s iPhone, iPod digital music player and iPad tablet infringe on five of Samsung’s patents involving telecommunications standards and user interface inventions.
Samsung also filed a fresh patent lawsuit against Apple in a Delaware federal court on Wednesday.
The complaints are the latest salvo in a growing legal battle between the two electronics giants.
In April, Apple sued Samsung in a California federal court, claiming the South Korean firm’s Galaxy line of mobile phones and tablets “slavishly” copies the iPhone and iPad.
Samsung then countersued in California, and Apple last week filed another lawsuit in South Korea. An Apple spokesman could not be immediately reached on Wednesday.
As well as its own phones and tablets, Samsung manufactures microchips for Apple’s gadgets, a business that brought in about $5.7 billion in revenue for the South Korean company last year.
Before banning the importation of Apple’s popular devices, the ITC would first have to agree to look into Samsung’s allegations, a process that could be quite lengthy.
Skype Debuts Video Calls For Android
July 5, 2011 by admin
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Skype, which is being gobbled up by Microsoft for $8.5 billion, debuted a new service on Thursday allowing users of Android phones to make free video calls to Skype contacts, including those on Apple iPhones.
The company whose name has become synonymous with Internet calling said its updated Android app would initially support video calling on selected HTC and Sony Ericsson Phones, with more devices to follow shortly.
“We are committed to bringing Skype video calling to as many platforms as possible,” Skype’s product and marketing chief Neil Stevens said in a statement.
The move will help makers of phones based on Google’s Android software compete with Apple’s FaceTime video-calling service launched last year for the iPhone and now available on its iPad 2 tablet and Mac computers.
Video calling could also help new Skype owner Microsoft promote its Windows Phone smartphone platform, which it is merging with Nokia’s in an effort to become competitive with Android and Apple.
Apple Website Is Ripe For Hacking
July 4, 2011 by admin
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According to the Ethical Hacking group YGN, Apple’s website for developers is virtually wide open and gives the opportunity for hackers to introduce malware such asphishing attacks to gain access to subscriber’s vital personal information.
One group known as Networkworld identified three holes on Apple’s website that arbitrary URL redirects, cross-site scripting and HTTP response splitting. That said, these holes could allow hackers to arbitrarily redirect to other websites and make phishing attacks against developers login credentials more successful.
E-Readers More Popular Than Tablets
July 1, 2011 by admin
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More people are using e-readers than tablets, according to a Pew Research Institute study.
The Pew survey of 2,277 adults that finished on May 22 found that 12% of Americans owned an e-reader device in May compared to 8% who owned a tablet like Apple’s iPad.
Also, ownership grew faster for e-readers like the Nook or Kindle than ownership of tablets over the six months between November 2010 and May, the Pew survey found.
The telephone survey found that Hispanic Americans are the fastest-growing ownership group of both e-reader and tablet devices.
E-reader ownership increased from 6% of American adults in November 2010 to 12% in May, Pew said.
Tablet ownership grew from 5% to 8% over the same period. Tablet ownership had been increasing “relatively quickly” through Nov. 2010, Pew said, but growth was virtually flat from January to May, growing from only from 7% to 8%.
Pew also found that 3% of U.S. adults own both kinds of devices, while 9% own an e-reader but not a tablet, and 5% own a tablet but not an e-reader.