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Wednesday, April 24, 2013

Nintendo has another tough year, sells just 390,000 Wii Us in the last quarter

While there's no shortage of 3DS iterations headed to the market, Nintendo is having a harder time selling its new Wii U. Profits for the year are also half of its own predictions, despite the fact that Nintendo reduced its rosy estimates in the interim. Net sales are down 1.9 percent over the last year, down to 635 billion yen, but most importantly the company has managed to turn its net income into positive figures, netting 7 billion yen over the last year, compared to a 40 billion yen loss the year before. Following its launch, Wii U sales have slowed substantially, with only 390,000 units sold since December (now totaling 3.45 million), while the 3DS continues to sell in healthier numbers, with Nintendo shifting 1.25 million handhelds in the same period.

Focusing on the next year, the company maintains that it'll increase net income to 10 billion yen in the next twelve months, with a focus on selling "the compelling nature" of its gaming hardware, as well as pushing its 3DS more in foreign markets. The financial statement adds that the games maker plans to concentrate on "proactively releasing key Nintendo titles" starting the second half of this year "in order to regain momentum." Those key titles will have to hit hard, as certain competitors' new consoles are creeping closer.

In related news, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata is taking on a second role as CEO at Nintendo of America, today's report states. Current NoA figurehead Reggie Fils-Aime will stay on as COO, overseen directly by Iwata.

Source: Nintendo

More Coverage: Joystiq

Thursday, March 14, 2013

Galaxy S IV dam springs another leak with floating touch and SmartPause videos

Samsung's been laying on the marketing glitz for the upcoming Galaxy S IV ahead of its Samsung Unpacked 2013 event later today, perhaps because there'll be few surprises at the actual show thanks to all the breaches. A pair of videos from serial leaker IT168 have just been outed allegedly showing two new TouchWiz features from the upcoming handset: SmartPause and floating touch. The latter will display larger image thumbnails or an info box for contacts when you hover your finger over either, while SmartPause stops video from playing when you look away from it -- an eye-detection feature that had been rumored previously but never spotted in action. Naturally, this may not be the final hardware they're playing with, but you can judge for yourself after the break -- just turn down your speakers first, as the videos are a tad noisy.

Source: IT168 (YouTube) (1), (2)

Saturday, March 2, 2013

Japanese court declares Samsung patent invalid in another spat with Apple

Weary of the neverending legal back-and-forth between Apple and Samsung yet? No, we're not either (that's a terrible lie), and the latest exciting development comes from a courtroom in Japan, where it was decided Samsung does not hold rights to certain data transmission tech it accused Apple of pinching. So, what are the repercussions? None, really -- the status quo remains unchanged, and Apple can continue selling the products Sammy wanted off the shelf. The Times of India notes that cases in the US and South Korea over the same patent have gone one a piece, meaning Apple is up 2-1 in this particular bout. But, when you've been battling for this long, you've bound to win some, and lose just as many.

Source: Reuters

Source

By: Unknown On 11:05 PM

Friday, February 1, 2013

Verizon offers another way to pick up a Square reader, make your eventual fortune

Accepting Mobile Payments Comes Full Circle for Small Businesses: Rounding Out a Business with Square

For some small businesses, accepting credit or debit cards can be an expensive, time-consuming and complicated process.

Fortunately for small business owners, wireless technology can provide a simple solution to allow businesses of any size to expand payment options for customers. Using a mobile payment tool such as Square, businesses from boutique shops, to plumbers, to professional services, to salon professionals and independent contractors can accept credit or debit card payments using their smartphone or tablet.

Beginning on Jan. 31, the Square Card Reader will be available nationally at Verizon Wireless stores. Running on Android and iOS platforms, Square will sell for $9.97 and comes with $10 credit to a Square account. There are no contracts, minimums or set-up fees.

It takes just a few minutes for a merchant to set up Square. After the Square app is downloaded, the user completes a few quick sign-up steps, links the service to their bank account, and within moments, is up and running.

Transactions are completed with a swipe of the card on the Square Card Reader followed by the buyer's signature. The seller can email or text the receipt to the buyer. The seller pays a fee of 2.75 percent for swiped transactions and 3.5 percent plus 15 cents for sales that are manually keyed in. The funds are deposited in customers' bank accounts generally within 24 hours. Customers can also manage their Square account online at www.squareup.com.

Now merchants have a better chance to close the sale when a prospective customer doesn't have enough cash on hand, but truly wants the product or service.

Sourse

By: Dilusha On 9:06 PM

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Here is another iPhone game controller case, but does not need batteries or Bluetooth

This controller sets itself apart from the pack with no batteries and no Bluetooth. It is a really neat concept that utilizes the capacitive connection that most on-screen games rely on when playing games and your fingers get in the way of the action.

It is called the WynCASE, and we have to say it is one of the more interesting and practical ideas for a game-controller case we have seen. The case’s buttons make use of the capacitive touch functions of the screen which enables the case to operate without the need for a battery or Bluetooth connectivity. The screen responds as if your fingers are touching the screen.

This case will not cost a lot either, early backers that help out WynLABS with as little as $30 will get a case when it becomes available this coming spring. They will ship internationally for only $10 more. At the point of ringing in the New Year, they were at about $17,000 toward an $80,000 goal with 11 days to go. Check out the pictures and video below, then click the Kickstarter source link if you would like to get your hand on one of these.

sources: WynCASE (Kickstarter) via CNET

View the original article here

By: Dilusha On 9:27 PM

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Another new wave of Nexus 4s shipping

Nexus 4

Nary a moment too soon, word in our Nexus 4 forums is that another batch of the hard-to-buy (and harder-to-ship, apparently) smartphone is on its way to the good boys and girls. The phone's still sold out on Google Play, both in the 8- and 16-gigabyte versions, as are the rubber bumpers. (Interesting, though, is that it's saying we've reached our limit for bumper purchases, not that they're sold out. Apparently we're consider bumper horders or something.)

Anyhoo. Be on the lookout for a shipping e-mail if you haven't gotten on already.

More: Nexus 4 forums

View the original article here

By: Dilusha On 9:04 PM

Wednesday, December 26, 2012

U.S. Congress may not have stomach for another SOPA/PIPA fight

As a new session of the U.S. Congress convenes in early 2013, don't expect lawmakers to rush out a new version of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) or the Protect IP Act (PIPA).

While some groups representing copyright holders still want to see stronger online enforcement, U.S. lawmakers don't seem to have the collective will to reintroduce similar bills and potentially face another massive online protest. In January 2012, more than 10 million Web users signed petitions, 8 million attempted calls to Congress and 4 million sent email messages, and more than 100,000 websites went dark in protest as the Senate scheduled a vote on PIPA.

Lawmakers supporting the two bills baled out in droves, Senate leaders cancelled the PIPA vote, and SOPA's sponsor in the House of Representatives withdrew his legislation.

"That was an avalanche they've never seen," said Ed Black, president and CEO of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, a trade group that had opposed the two bills. "They're going to tiptoe in this area very carefully."

In Black's recent conversations, lawmakers have expressed wariness about moving forward on copyright enforcement legislation, he said. Even stripped down versions of the bills, affecting only advertisers and payment processors doing business with suspected infringing websites, are likely nonstarters, he said.

Early versions of SOPA and PIPA would have allowed the U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement to order domain-name registrars to stop providing service and search engines to stop linking to websites accused of online piracy and counterfeiting U.S. products. The court orders requested by the two agencies would have targeted online advertisers and payment processors as well.

Nearly a year after the online protests, a spokeswoman for Representative Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican and main sponsor of SOPA, said he has no plans to reintroduce similar legislation in 2013. Smith will defer to Representative Bob Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican replacing Smith as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, she said.

Goodlatte, a long-time member of the Congressional Internet Caucus, was an original cosponsor of SOPA. He wasn't available for comment on his plans for the next Congress.

A spokeswoman for Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and main sponsor of PIPA, also didn't respond to a request for comments on his plans for PIPA. Leahy recently turned down the opportunity to be chairman of the powerful Senate Appropriations Committee to return as chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, where he will again have jurisdiction over copyright issues.

The spokesman for another lawmaker who opposed SOPA said he sees little momentum for similar legislation in 2013.

Meanwhile, a representative of the Recording Industry Association of America, which pushed for passage of the two bills, said the trade group's focus will be elsewhere moving forward.

"The music business now earns more than half its revenues from an exciting array of digital formats," Jonathan Lamy, an RIAA spokesman, said in an email.Â "Our core mission is promoting that dynamic marketplace.Â Beyond that, our attention will be entirely focused on music licensing issues and voluntary, marketplace initiatives."

Opponents of the two bills are looking to engage the public in a dialog about copyright in the coming year, said Tiffiniy Cheng, co-founder of Fight for the Future, a digital rights group. and OpenCongress.org, a congressional watchdog site.

In November, the Republican Study Committee, a group of conservative House Republicans, first published, then retracted, a paper advocating the weakening of some copyright protections, Cheng noted.

"It seems like the SOPA protests and blackout has created an opening for a discussion on copyright reform," she said by email. "We'll be working with groups and the public on a plan in 2013. We're glad there is an opportunity."

View the original article here

By: Dilusha On 9:25 PM

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

Acer Iconia B1 is another 7-inch super-cheap tablet

Cheap as chips (credit: Benchmark.rs)

Acer is planning to launch a 7-inch budget tablet next year called the Iconia B1, as the PC maker looks to expand its reach in the handheld market.

This is according to the Wall Street Journal who says it's spoken to a source with direct knowledge of the Iconia B1 project over at Acer - a tablet which will come with a very low price tag.

Going head to head with the likes of the Google Nexus 7 and Amazon Kindle Fire HD, Acer is so-say planning on stealing the show by offering the Iconia B1 for just $99 (around $60/AU$95).

According to the source the Acer Iconia B1 will pack a 1.2GHz dual-core processor and a 7-inch 1024 x 600 display – neither of which matches the power and output of its closest rivals.

Images of the Acer Iconia B1 leaked last week on a Serbian forum, so it looks like Acer is certainly readying something, but whether it will sport that attractive price tag is another question.

Acer isn't the only company supposedly planning a ridiculously cheap tablet, with several rumours surrounding a $99 Nexus 7 also refusing to go away.

We will be visiting all the key manufacturers at CES 2013 and MWC 2013 to find out what their plans are for the 7-inch market, so stay tuned for more.

From WSJ and Benchmark

Samsung Galaxy Note 7.0 makes another benchmarking appearance

S-Pen as standard, probably

The likelihood of us seeing the Samsung Galaxy Note 7.0 has grown a little stronger as another benchmark for the anticipated device crops up online.

Earlier this month we saw a benchmark result for a device carrying the moniker GT-N5100, and now the GLBenchmark site has apparently witnessed the same tablet.

Running Android 4.1.2, so not quite the latest version of Jelly Bean, the supposedly Samsung-made tablet sports the same model number as the Nenamark benchmark a few weeks ago.

There's precious little information to gain from the latest benchmark, with the screen resolution the only other clue we have on the device, coming in at 1280 x 800 – which is different from the Nenamark result which had a 1280 x 720 resolution.

It comes as no surprise that Samsung could be planning a new 7-inch tablet after the rather muted effort of the Galaxy Tab 2 7.0 was overshadowed by the likes of the Amazon Kindle Fire HD, Nook HD and Google Nexus 7.

Samsung is staying quiet on the topic, as it does for any rumours surrounding future devices, but we'll be having a good root around at CES 2013 and MWC 2013 to see what we can find out.

From GLBenchmark via SamMobile

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Daisy, another music streaming service set to launch next year

Yet another music streaming service is set to debut next year for a piece of this booming market. According to a New Yorker article, entrepreneur and Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor has partnered up with Beats by Dre to launch the new venture (codenamed Daisy) in early 2013, taking on Spotify and similar services with what’s supposedly a superior music discovery experience based on algorithms and expert curators.

Of course, music curation is nothing new in the world of streaming services. With the launch of Spotify’s app platform quite a few alternatives have popped up, such as Digster and Tunigo, or some other apps by artists themselves. Likewise, music streaming services like Songza offer human-built playlists based on things like time of day and mood, genre, activity, or activity.

Daisy promises a mixed approach. Details are scarce at this point -- the New Yorker article itself isn't yet available online, but Pitchfork has a few quotes from Reznor, who explains that the service “uses mathematics to offer suggestions to the listener... [but also] would present choices based partly on suggestions made by connoisseurs, making it a platform in which the machine and the human would collide more intimately.”

He noted that Spotify boasts a huge song catalog but it’s not making it easy to stumble into anything new you might like, and argued that the model where “songs are chosen by algorithms that know who you listened to has begun to feel synthetic.”

Beats by Dre recently acquired streaming music service MOG. It’s unclear if the two services will run alongside or will be merged into something new.

View the original article here

By: Dilusha On 12:44 PM

Tuesday, November 13, 2012

YouTube sparks another round of content investment

YouTube will again invest in more original content this year

Last October, YouTube invested $100 million (UK £62.9, AUD$95.9) in 100 new channels as it hoped to expand the exclusive and original content it provided viewers.

The plan included new channels from celebrities like Madonna and Jay-Z, as well as outlets like the Wall Street Journal and The Onion.

Just over a year later, YouTube is again looking to bolster its original content by offering a second round of investments to a select number of those previous channels.

Not all of the 100 channels created during the $100 million investment ended up building big enough audiences to warrant more investing.

YouTube spent time researching what worked and what didn't, and will end up providing more funding to 30-40 percent of the original 100 channels.

The top 25 new channels garner more than 1,000,000 views per week, with the top 33 having earned some 100,000 subscribers.

That kind of return viewership will be a key factor in whether or not a given channel will receive more of YouTube's investment money.

"We looked at viewership they've been able to achieve, the cost of the content, and from that we are able to determine the channels that are delivering the best return on our investment," YouTube's Global Head of Content Strategy Jamie Byrne told Ad Age.

According to YouTube's deal with the channels it invested in, the funded money must be paid back before any ad revenue can be generated by the partners.

For example, if a channel received a $1 million (UK£630,000, AUD$959,000) investment, the product would have to garner 50 million views at $20 (around UK£12, AUD$19) CPM (cost per 1,000 views).

Ad Age reported many of the programmers involved don't know if those funds had been recouped, as YouTube hasn't been forthcoming with that information.

Considering some of the channels earned anywhere between $1 million and $5 million for a year's worth of exclusive content during the first round of investments, the odds of those funds being returned for channels outside the top 25 aren't very good.

That said, given another year of funding to better grow an audience, these channels may find greater success.

YouTube's monthly viewership is now near 4 hours per month, which is up 60 percent from 2011.

Though viewers still spend more time watching TV in a day (4 hours, 38 minutes) than they do YouTube in a month, that kind of growth could lead to YouTube being a premiere destination for more premium, exclusive content in the future, and thus more ad dollars down the line.

Via SlashGear, Ad Age