News Archive for 09/04/23
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Samsung Electronics on Thursday reported its first-quarter financial information, with net income totaling $459 million, which is 72-percent below last year's quarter, according to the Wall Street Journal. The lackluster performance was blamed on operating losses that exceeded a slight improvement in the consumer divisions. Despite the year-over-year decline, the company appears to have recovered from its first-ever operating loss reported last quarter.
AMD on Thursday announced its latest processor in the Phenom II series, the quad-core X4 955 Black Edition that is geared for gaming or overclocking. The CPU is claimed to be the company's fastest yet, running at 3.2 GHz, with a 4,000MHz bus, 2MB of L2 cache and 6MB of L3 cache. The platform, codenamed "Dragon," consists of the Black Edition processor, AMD 7-Series chipsets and ATI Radeon HD 4890 graphics.
In an attempt to save energy at the office, Japan's Eizo Nanao Corp has developed a pair of color LCD monitors that feature an infrared presence sensor that will switch the monitor to a power-saving standby mode when the user leaves the desk. Upon their return, the monitor powers up again thanks to the EcoView Sense function without any action on the part of the user. There are two products offered, including the 20-inch FlexScan EV2023W-H and the 23-inch FlexScan EV2303W-T. The former offers 1600x900 resolution, while the latter musters a native 1080p (1920x1080).
Dell has recently given its Inspiron Mini 10 netbook new options via its US webstore. The latest upgrade being offered is a six-cell, 56Whr battery, priced at $30. Otherwise, Dell has added more color options to the netbook, including six solid colors and five artwork designs. The netbook is powered by a 1.33GHz Intel Atom processor in base guise, or a 1.6GHZ Atom as an option, and all versions get a 10.1-inch screen good for 1024x576 resolution.
Microsoft today provided a sharp contrast to Apple's performance and reported a rare drop in its revenue for its March quarter. Compared to the same period in 2008, Microsoft's revenue sank 6 percent to $13.65 billion. The news was also compounded by troubles with income, as it gained 3 percent in operating income but plunged 32 percent in net income to $2.98 billion.
Last week's announcement by projector manufacturer InFocus that it is getting bought out by Image Holdings Corporation (IHC) for $39 million may have been premature, according to a Thursday Twice report. InFocus' board of directors said late on Wednesday that it received a last-minute take over proposal, but did not reveal the name of the new suitor. Little other information about the new deal was revealed, other than that the InFocus board will discuss the new offer, but still support the existing offer.
Samsung Electronics on Thursday announced it is planning on selling at least 2.5 times as many notebook computers worldwide in 2009 compared to last year. At a news conference in Seoul, South Korea, the hardware manufacturer said it aims to sell 5 million notebook PCs this year, a marked increase over the 2 million units it sold in 2008. At the same time, the electronics giant hopes to improve its number 10 standing in sales of notebooks to seventh.
The BlackBerry 9630 is likely to show up with a new name and slightly later than expected if a leak proves true. Originally codenamed the Niagra, the phone is now reported by BGR as poised to become the BlackBerry Tour and may be drawing its name from RIM's current sponsorship of the ongoing U2 tour. The same tip also points to an early summer release instead of the spring launch anticipated in the past.
MSI is planning on introducing an Android-based netbook at the Computex 2009 show in Taiwan at the start of June, according to a Thursday DigiTimes report. The Taiwanese hardware maker will take the opportunity offered by the show to secure orders from computer retailers. While MSI wouldn't comment on the report, the development of the netbook was done together with Taiwan's Institute for Information Industry (III).
Alltel Wireless on Thursday announced it will soon be offering the BlackBerry Pearl Flip 8230 smartphone on its network. The clamshell handset has a dual LCD display, with the larger, internal display's resolution set at 240x320 pixels. Once opened up, the familiar design remains with a SureType keyboard and access to driving directions and other mapping over GPS, which replaces the Wi-Fi from the Pearl Flip 8220 on T-Mobile.
The use of the iPhone online has accelerated to where it's now outranking Symbian in terms of sheer traffic, AdMob's March 2009 metrics report shows. Tracking access worldwide based on ad requests, the firm says OS X iPhone grew to represent 38 percent of smartphone traffic and just slightly edged out all Symbian phones, which have fallen to 37 percent. Both are sharp changes from February, when Symbian held a comfortable lead at 43 percent while the iPhone had just crossed the 33 percent mark.
At the Hack In The Box (HITB) Security Conference in Dubai on Thursday, security researchers demonstrated how software they developed can already take advantage of a design problem with the upcoming Windows 7 operating system, allowing them to hack into the system. VBootkit 2.0, created by researchers Vipin Kumar and Nitin Kumar, was used to demonstrate how hackers can take control of a Windows 7 computer while it's booting up. Unlike most exploits, though, the attack is said inherent to Windows 7 and may likely remain with the OS until it's replaced.
Samsung today confirmed the US launch of two of its new-wave netbooks. The N110 is styled like the company's full-size notebooks and has a 93 percent keyboard. While it has the standard 1.6GHz Atom, 1GB of RAM and 160GB of hard drive space of most 10-inch netbooks, it has a 6-cell battery that the company says provide an extra-long 9 hours of runtime.
Shuttle PC is shipping the X 5000TA touchscreen nettop in Europe, a close variant of the X50 all-in-one PC the company has announced for the North American market. It gets the same 15.6-inch, 1366x768 touchscreen monitor, a dual-core 1.6GHz Intel Atom CPU, 1GB of RAM and a 1.4-inch thick profile. There is also the same 160GB hard drive, though the European model's is pre-loaded with Windows Vista Home Basic operating system versus the X50's Windows XP. The European pricing of the X 5000TA, set at the equivalent of $651, is also an indication of what the X50 should cost in North America. A version without an OS is also be available in Europe, priced at $547.
Some information has emerged on Samsung's new 9 Series TVs, a report claims. The sets (not pictured) are expected to replace current A950 LCDs, and use a B9000 designation. Distinguishing the models from other Samsung hardware is said to be LED backlighting with local dimming, as opposed to edge lighting. Local dimming provides better contrast, by removing light entirely from black sections of an image.
Indirect OLPC offshoot Pixel Qi is developing a new display that would fulfill three different roles at once, the company's chief Mary Lou Jepsen said today. The panel is characterized for CNET as more advanced than that on the XO-1, which can only switch between an efficient black-and-white mode and a color screen. The new model would have these two features but could also assume an e-paper mode suitable for reading. It's not clear whether this would let images remain on the display when power is shut off, as with most e-book readers.
NewerTech has announced an update to its Guardian MAXimus RAID 1 Mirror storage device which provides support for quad-interface connection choices. The device now works with eSATA, FireWire 400, FireWire 800 and USB 2.0 interface ports, and offers a new improved energy efficient design that lowers power usage a maximum of 40 percent for high-performance live backup at speeds up to 300MB per second. The MAXimus writes all information in real-time in two separate drives, each with up to 2TB storage capacity, to provide a mirrored copy.
Sony's repeatedly rumored PSP slider redesign is now said to be a much more conventional design that still has some important changes. While keeping its sources close, PlayStation LifeStyle maintains the PSP won't necessarily be a slider and that the design changes are more aesthetic, resembling a more substantial change than Nintendo made between the original DS and the thinner, more advanced DS Lite. Among the features that are reportedly now false are rumors of a touchscreen, which some had thought would be added to give the PSP a better stance against the iPod touch.
Photos of a branded HTC Touch Pro2 have surfaced that all but confirm the handset will be coming to provider T-Mobile, as previously reported in separate leaks. Also known by the codename Rhodium, the handset may be formally titled as the T-Mobile Wing II when it arrives at the carrier. Little is known about the changes that would come to the provider-specific version of the smartphone.
T-Mobile has quietly revealed in its latest results that it has sold 1 million of its Android-based G1 phone in the US since the phone launched 6 months earlier, in October. The number is a relative strong point for the carrier, which is fourth among US carriers behind Verizon, AT&T and Sprint, but trails significantly behind sales of the iPhone 3G at AT&T; about 1.6 million iPhones sold through AT&T in just the most recent quarter, indicating a disproportionately larger demand for the iPhone.
The judge that ruled against the Pirate Bay has today been accused by one of the site's attorneys of an unfair bias that invalidates the case. Lawyer Peter Althin in his motion to the Court of Appeal alleges that Judge Tomas Norström is or has been a member of the same copyright support groups as the media companies involved in the lawsuits, giving him an incentive to rule in their favor. Althin plans to demand a retrial and notes that one judge was already excluded from the case in the fall for similar reasons.
Verizon announced on Thursday that the Samsung Trance slider handset will be available at the carrier this Friday. The mid-range, dual-band CDMA cellphone offers a 2.1-inch display with 176x220 resolution and has Bang & Olufsen ICEpower speakers for better-than-usual quality sound reproduction in a phone. There is also a 3.5mm headphone jack and 1GB of built-in memory that can be expanded by up to a 16GB microSDHC memory card.
Pentax may have confirmed rumors of its K7D flagship through a new Japanese teaser ad. The spot advertises a "new K" camera that will be unveiled on May 21st, falling in line with claims of a third-week introduction that month, and appears to provide a partial shot of the camera itself. No immediate clues have been given as to the feature set other than the presence of the expected flash hot shoe.
Nokia early on Thursday revealed one of its first phones built explicitly to use near-field communications (NFC) for close-up data. The 6216 classic uses special SIM cards from carriers to let the phone make a payment or get access, such as at a subway station or at a store, just by bringing the phone near the right device. The NFC link can also serve as very short-range networking and can let two similarly ready devices exchange info or media clips without a more complicated setup.
Taiwan-area integrated circuit maker WPG is said today to be shipping power management chips for Apple's next-generation iPhone. The United Daily News says the part production will ramp up to where WPG will be producing "several million" chips per month. While not necessarily connected to the supposed contract, the firm is expected to boost its revenue between 5 and 10 percent in the spring and may be helped by such a deal.
Western Digital has launched its My DVR Expander for the TiVo DVR, now with 1TB of hard drive storage capacity. Designed for storing HDTV shows beyond the stock storage, the upgraded DVR Expander uses a eSATA connection and can hold up to an additional 140 hours of HD television or a maximum of 600 hours standard definition, simply by attaching the device to any TiVo DVR, including those that normally restrict regular eSATA drives. The add-on is tailored to quiet and dark home theaters with both a no-fan passive cooling system and a low-intensity LED light.
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