Fickle Finance

Archive for the ‘Technology’ Category

After Apple lost a bid on blocking the tablet computers and Galaxy phones in the US, Samsung Electronics Co. sales went up in Seoul trading. The South Korea company continues to be the largest maker of mobile phones in the world.

A gain of 1.5 percent was posted by Samsung at the end of Seoul trading. Kospi Index gained 0.4 percent.

Last December, the District Court in San Jose, California released its verdict on Apple’s plea to block Samsung from selling their Galaxy Tab 10.1 and its 4G smartphones in the US.  They have lifted the sanction on the tablet. The same victory happened in Australia.

Apple and Samsung have went through many suits against each other for the past eight months, on over four continents.

According to Normura Holdings Inc. analysts, Marcello Ahn and C.W Chung, the situation has become positive for Samsung. In fact, at its best case, Samsung will be receiving patent license fees from its rival, Apple.

However, the conflict between the two may probably continue despite the recent San Jose ruling. Analysts believe that a negotiated settlement is still far from the picture.

In Australia, Apple gained a one-week extension on the injunction on Galaxy Tab 10.1.

Meanwhile, it is not only Samsung which faces ban, HTC may face the same case against Apple.  According to a statement released by Forbes, the worst case for HTC may be that after trade commission bans the Android phone during the peak of holidays shopping season, 25% of its market share may drop to as low as zero-percent (0%.)

Despite the fickle sales for video games this year, Call of Duty seems to surpass all of this and managed to get on top.

Activision Blizzard announced that Modern Warfare 3 topped $1 billion in the sales worldwide. Modern Warfare 3 is the latest addition to the blockbuster game series. The sales was gained just 16 days after it was released on November 8. This means Modern Warfare holds the new record which outdid the 2009 3D film Avatar of James Cameron. Avatar took 17 days to reach the same.

CEO of Activision Publishing, Eric Hirshberg, said that Call of Duty offers rare entertainment which transcends on its own genre. The franchise was loved by core gamers which can be proven in their stellar reviews.  Amazingly, every year, more people are drawn to the game.

The game was truly a hit.  For the first 24 hours it has been released, it already earned $400 million. And on its first five days, the game has set a new entertainment launch record by reaching $775 million. And soon after two weeks, an impressive $1 billion was attained by the game.

However, in another news, the video game developer loses in the market trading. For the first half of the trading session, the company’s sales declined by 2.05% or $11.99.  This may indicate that Activision’s shares may rebound by the first half of next year.  Analysts say the trader will have to sell chunks of 3,717 call options on May 2012 at $12 and $13.

Marvell announced  that their technology will be used for the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) education tablet. During the Consumer Electronics Show opening press reception, Marvel unveiled OLPC XO 3.0 tablet which will help every child in the world to get computing in their hands.

The brains of the new tablet will be Marvell’s low-power processors. These processors are installed in many cellphones and mobile devices as of now. The tablet is as thin as razor and is packed with computing power which is rugged for classroom environments.

Marvell of Santa Clara, California said the first ever laptop to be powered by their processor was the XO 1.75 from OLPC. It will be shipped starting this March to children studying in Nicaragua and Uruguay. Their current laptops have already been distributed in 42 countries with 25 languages with 2.4 million children. This is according to the chief technology officer of One Laptop per Child Edward McNierney.

Further, he said that the XO 3.0 builds on many breakthroughs they have made with the XO 1.75 which includes the use of Marvell Armada processor named PXA618. It has resulted into a decrease in power consumption which has been a critical concern for students in developing countries.

A gaming laptop was also unveiled on Thursday made by MSI called GT685. The laptop which displays on a 15.6 inch size features top-of-the-line hardware. Its graphics are controlled by Nvidia GeForce GTX 580M card and lies on a second generation Intel Core i7 processor.

Its graphics card can reach to 2GB of video RAM and has four memory slots for DDR3 which can be expanded up to 32GB. You can also mix an SSD with a traditional hard drive.

This is the toughest gorilla.

Corning introduced its next generation damage-resistant cover glass called Gorilla Glass 2. The company’s widely accepted glass will be used for consumer electronic device. The glass can act as either 20% thinner or 20% better on damage resistance.

Senior vice president and general manager, James R. Steiner said The Gorilla Glass adopted the high-growth of mobile handset and computing device market in the market today. Corning continually provides replacement for soda-lime glass and plastic as protective cover and a design solution.

Despite reducing 20 % of its thickness, Corning Gorilla Glass does not sacrifice quality. In fact, it maintains an industry-leading damage resistance, scratch-resistance, and toughness customers wanted and expected to have for most of the deployed cover glass in devices.

The thinner glass gives it a sleeker and slimmer feel. In fact, it also brightens images and has a greater sensitivity on touches. With these, electronics manufacturers can be provided by superior design flexibility, especially that consumers are demanding for an increased high-performance and touch sensitivity at the same time more durable mobile devices.

For the coming months, a number of Corning global customers are expected to use the Corning Gorilla Glass 2 on their new devices.

One of the firsts to announce its plan to incorporate the new glass into their 2012 devices is ASUS.

ASUS corporate vice president, Samson Hu, said they have already collaborated with Corning for a scratch resistance and durable Corning Gorilla Glass to their ASUS Transformer. They are certain that the new glass will deliver high-performing devices for an enhanced mobile computing experience.

In the next five years, password for ATMs and email will no longer be needed.  This is what International Business Machines (IBM) predicts. The company said users will be able to control laptops and smartphones through their “minds.” For now, it seems too good to be true. Researchers believes that this is not far from reality. IBM said that they are currently working on these ideas.

In fact, the idea will be included in IBM’s “5 in 5.” The event reports five technologies which may potentially change the way people live, work, and interact with each other for the next five years.

The 100-yr old tech giant along with other tech companies are working on devices that enables one to control with one’s mind. This works through imagining calling someone and a mind-reading phone will eventually get the connection and automatically does what your mind thinks.

The prediction also includes thinking where to move the cursor on the computer screen and actually controlling it.

The mind-reading technology is known as bioinformatics. The technology is already used in simple forms created by Mattel, a toy maker and IBM. These companies have designed headsets with sensors which read brain activity that recognize facial expressions, thoughts, and excitement and concentration levels.

Meanwhile, an ATM Supplier TestLink based in UK and Czech Republic has recently made a commitment to the environment. It launched its Standard ATM refurbishment and re-manufacturing services.  The TestLink offers businesses a choice of ecologically sound services which is said to reduce the non-biodegrable material buried in landfills. It also substantially saves a lot for the banks.

Intel Corporation (INTC) has already warned everyone about its probable fall on the fourth-quarter results. INTC feels its shares may fall below of what it really expected. Its previous projection was $14.7 or about $500 million. However, its view on quarterly revenue falls at $13.7 billion or $300 million.

Meanwhile, analyst predicts a revenue of $14.65 billion. The adjusted outlook is a result of the recent shortage for hard disk revenues. The same was due to the Thailand’s severe flooding and its crisis on global economy. Unfortunately, these shortages will continue until the first quarter of 2012. The rebuilding of microprocessor inventories for hard-disk drives supplies will be done for the first half of 2012.

But a slight majority of brokerage crowd is expected to be strong and optimistic according to Zacks. Most analysts are interested in semiconductor chip maker.  More than half believes that the stock is valuable for a better endorsement. INTC interest rate has also dropped by 6.4 % for the most of the reporting period.

Meanwhile, AirMedia Group Inc. has raised its prediction for the fourth-quarter revenues. They cited that it is better than what they previously expected on the advertising demand.

The company which is based in China streams advertisements on airport TVs. On Tuesday, Airmedia’s outlook for the quarterly revenue lies between $84 million to $86 million. Its previous view for revenue was between $79 million and $81 million.

But FactSet analysts predicted a lower revenue of $78.5 million. Yet, AirMedia insists that the outlook has progressed because of the weaker impact brought by the flood in Thailand.

Intel announced that it has prepared the Android 4.0 for tablets and smartphones. The OS is based on its atom processor with a codename Medfield. With this being announced, there are possibilities that handheld devices with Intel-inside OS will come out this year.

Alec Gefrides, head of the Google Program Office working at Intel, says this is not the first time Android 4.0 will be running for Medfield. It was once used as a Google open sourcing OS. Now, it is available to all device makers to package with tablets and smartphones.
Intel is currently working with the makers of the device to fine tune the OS and optimize the specific platforms and products it can be used basing on its Medfield chips. The OS is expected to be available as the products will be released. However, the decision still lies on the device makers if they are willing to implement the OS on their tablets and smartphones.
Gefrides confirmed that products having Gingerbread, Honeycomb, and Ice Cream Sandwich will be seen this year. He says that every OEM should have a stake in the ground so the product may be delivered.

Last September 2011, Intel said the first smartphones with Intel inside will be available to the market by the first half of 2012.
On the other hand, the Google Android 4.0 was already ported to desktop. The port is currently a work in progress. The source code provides Wi-Fi, hardware graphics acceleration capabilities and multi-touch. However, it is not designed to provide camera, sound, and Ethernet networking. It has also not developed any hardware acceleration for the Intel-based processors. The source code can be downloaded on Android-x86.org.

A data back-up hardware will be opened by Blackberry to iPads, iPhones and Android devices. This is in its struggle to hold on to its server market and in trying to cope with its decreasing sales on smartphones.

In the first quarter of 2012, Research in Motion is set to launch its software called Mobile Fusion. The software is designed to allow companies to chain their workers’ personal smartphones to databases which is presently available only for Blackberrys.

The Blackberry Enterprise Server is a system that duplicates the information stored on an employee’s smartphone, and when it is lost or stolen, the company may be able to delete its contents.

But Blackberry’s popularity is outpaced by the rise of iPhones and Androids, thus, RIM is finding ways to stay in action.

According to David Heit, RIM’s Director of Enterprise Management, they have acknowledged the fact that individuals want to choose their own device instead of using a Blackberry, which most employer issues. Since companies are liable for whatever data they have, a solution like this is of great help.

With RIM’s move, analysts speculate that the smartphone company based in Canada, which just recently tumbled $485 million worth of unsold PlayBook tablets will soon be phasing out their mobile devices.

But other network analysts look at Blackberry’s expansion of backup services as a risky action, since Android and Apple devices also have the same services.

Meanwhile, another service is being provided by smartphones all over the world. Shoppers can now shop through their mobile devices. ComScore Inc. said that shoppers can now compare prices through an application in their smartphone. The application is being offered by Amazon, EBay’s RedLaser, ShopSavvy and Google Shopper.

It seems like Nintendo is ready to battle up the video gaming experience with their newest version of the popular game: Mario Kart 7.

It took time for Nintendo to create a sequel for their very popular video game. At one time, they found it very tricky adding new features to engage their fans, and at another time found it was quite risky doing this and not messing up with their formula for success.

With this, Nintendo tried to be very cautious by delivering a familiar experience to a more familiar character. In addition to their 3D graphics through Nintendo 3D’s game system, wearing those pesky glasses to see the effect is now unnecessary. Further, they have added more twists to the game. More or less, it feels like it is just the same game with a fresh coat.

Buyers and gamers however should be aware how the game works before putting down$40 for the cartridge.

Just as how it works in the past games of Mario, players must choose a Nintendo character before hopping into the cart. The characters are Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, Donkey Dong, Toad, Yoshi, Koopa Troopa or your own character in Wii. After which, a player can now experience a wild cartoon race.  The goal of each player is to finish the race in its most minimum time at its maximum speed and also through using some weapons. These weapons include dropping bananas to your rivals. A player can also try bursting the speed to soar past opponents temporarily.

On the other hand, Nintendo is also trying out a fast-paced device. Boingo Wireless will be providing a free internet spot to access the 3Ds gaming console. Boingo Wireless is currently providing Wi-Fi at about 42 airports in America.

It’s a merry winter season for Samsung Galaxy SII and HTC Sensation owners. The two models will be receiving the latest and by far, the greatest iteration of Google’s Android OS, Android 4.0. The newest Android OS is named Ice Cream Sandwich which is named after a dessert, usually used for all Android OS. Other models will also benefit from the upgrade such as Samsung Galaxy Note and Motorola Droid Razr. Few multiple models by HTC, LG, Motorola, and Samsung will also use Android 4.0.

Recently, Samsung confirmed an official upgrade of OS for Galaxy SII, Galaxy Note, and Galaxy SII LTE (Long Term Evolution 4g Network). The future models of Galaxy Tab (8.9, 7.7, and 10.1) will also be getting the same progress.

Unfortunately, other users have started porting hacked version of the OS for Galaxy Tab 8.9 and HTC sensation. However, as results of this, the OS is not as smooth as the real 4.0 OS. Most of those which have been downloaded are marred because it lacks official support. Those brave enough to risk your set, guides and discussion topics on how to download 4.0 to their devices are already present in the net.

Meanwhile, users of Apple devices have reported a problem on Apple’s Support Communities. Apple OS users chimed that that can update their existing applications but they could not install new services into their devices. They can only sync apps from iTunes to their phones.

It was around mid-December when the issue began. The glitch has affected users of iPhone and iPod touch with OS 3.1.3 and earlier versions of 3.x. Some users have also started reporting the issue with their iPhone 4S.

Bridget Carey, CNET Senior Editor also encountered the same problem with her iPhone 4S which made her decide to back up her phone and reformat it to make the apps work again.