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Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Facebook considered building an operating system for Facebook Home, but wanted greater reach

Facebook we considered building an operating system for Facebook Home

"The [story behind the history of Home] was about making an experience that flows through friends and people. We saw three ways that we could do this. One, we could go and build an operating system. Second, we could dig into Android deeply in order to see how we could we fundamentally change / fork Android to make it different. Or, we could build an app to make it different." Those were the words just spoken by Cory Ondrejka -- the director of mobile engineering at Facebook -- here at D: Dive Into Mobile in NYC. This, in fact, confirms that Facebook not only gave thought to actually crafting its own operating system in order to usher Facebook Home into the world, but moved forward with prototypes.

Host Kara Swisher asked the duo how far along things actually got, to which Ondrejka replied: "The OS path was the least fleshed-out of the paths. Mark [Zuckerberg] talked on launch day that he wanted to build something for everyone. It's hard to get to the type of scale that's necessary for us [when building an OS]. We wanted Home in front of hundreds of millions of people -- even a successful OS would only give that experience to a few of them."

The two continued to talk about Facebook's internal shift into mobile. At this point, the company has broken down most every wall between desktop and mobile, and Home is the first major product to ship under this new scenario. "You can see the engines throttling up," Schroepfer said, speaking of how fast updates will soon be coming to iOS, Android and beyond. In fact, he confirmed that the first major update to Home was coming "during the second week of May," while international users will start to get Home access on select Android phones today. And, while Facebookers have been testing Home on tablets, it wants to truly nail the experience on phones first before pushing it elsewhere.

Source

By: Unknown On 11:19 AM

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Sony posts a net loss of $115 million for Q3, stays on track for full-year operating profit

Still-in-turnaround-mode Sony has reported its earnings for the October to December period, and has recorded a net loss of about 10.8 billion yen ($115 million). It did however improve its revenue to $21 billion as the yen weakened, despite slower sales of items like HDTVs and Blu-ray players. Key for Sony is that it managed an operating profit for the quarter of 46.4 billion yen ($496 million) and remains on track to make its business profitable in the next financial year.

Despite Sony's best efforts -- which include initiatives that you've heard about like its Triluminos HDTVs, PlayStation Mobile for tablets and phones, 4K and new software for the Vita -- it's cut sales targets in all of those divisions. Projected sales for TVs and cameras fell by 1 million units each, and portable game players by 3 million, as noted by Bloomberg. It's been a year since Kaz Hirai took the reins, and with his "One Sony" restructuring plan well underway and (what everyone suspects is) a PlayStation 4 event around the corner, 2013 is as important a year as the company has ever had. We'll check in for more info on the earnings call in just a bit, for now you can paw through all the numbers yourself in the slides and reports linked below.

Source: Sony Q3 earnings (PDF), Slides

More Coverage: Reuters, Nikkei, Bloomberg

Friday, February 1, 2013

Sharp manages an operating profit in Q3, but forecast remains cloudy

SHARP® GARNERS #1 SHARE IN LARGE SCREEN (60"+) CATEGORY IN 2012

More than Doubles Market Share on a Revenue Basis According to NPD Data

Mahwah, NJ, (January 28, 2013) – Sharp achieved the top U.S. market share in the 60"+ LED TV segment in 2012, according to The NPD Group's Retail Tracking Service. Fueled by an unmatched selection of large screen choices, picture quality performance and brand strength, Sharp more than doubled its market share between 2010 and 2012 (based on revenue share).

"The large screen market is a sweet spot right now for the TV industry," said Ben Arnold, Director of Industry Analysis at The NPD Group. "60"+ TV sales doubled in 2012 compared to 2011 and Sharp has top market share among U.S TV brands. This segment of the market is poised to grow even more in 2013."

Sharp offers the widest selection of 60" and larger LED TVs, including more than twenty 60" (diagonal) and above AQUOS LED televisions, including nine 60" class models, eight 70" class models, three 80" class models and the 90" class, the world's largest commercially available LED TV. This extensive lineup is tailored to meet the needs of virtually any large screen TV buyer, best positioning Sharp to meet the increasing consumer appetite for larger screens. In fact, Sharp's 60" class 6-Series AQUOS model (LC-60LE640U) was the number one selling large screen LED TV in 2012 on a revenue basis.

"Sharp is creating and leading the market for 60" and above LED TVs, making us the fastest growing brand in the industry," said John Herrington, President, Sharp Electronics Marketing Company of America. "In 2013, we will continue this momentum with an all-smart, all-LED, large screen Sharp AQUOS lineup that features more models with Quattron™ technology and striking new slim designs."

At CES 2013, Sharp unveiled its 2013 AQUOS large screen LED TV lineup, which will start rolling out in February. The all-smart, all-LED Sharp AQUOS large screen lineup will include 21 models in the 60" class or larger, more than half featuring Sharp's proprietary Quattron color technology.

For more information visit Sharp Electronics Corporation at www.SharpUSA.com. Find us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter and watch us on YouTube.

About Sharp Electronics Corporation:
Sharp Electronics Corporation is the U.S. subsidiary of Japan's Sharp Corporation, a worldwide developer of one-of-a-kind home entertainment products, appliances, networked multifunctional office solutions, solar energy solutions, LED lighting and mobile communication and information tools. Leading brands include AQUOS® LED TVs, Insight® Microwave Drawer® ovens, and Plasmacluster® air purifiers.

Sourse

By: Dilusha On 9:01 PM

Monday, November 26, 2012

Jolla offers first look at Sailfish mobile operating system

Nokia's N9 may not be the last we see of MeeGo

A group of former Nokia employees are working to revive the abandoned MeeGo operating system, now resurrected as Sailfish and teased it on the company's website this week.

In a YouTube video posted Wednesday, Finnish startup Jolla introduced the world to Sailfish, a new mobile operating system created from the ashes of MeeGo.

The minute-plus video offers the first peek into the company's slick new user interface, which attempts to blend the best elements of Windows Phone and Android, with a dash of BlackBerry 10 style thrown in for good measure.

The familiar Android icon also makes a brief appearance in the video - Sailfish includes a standalone app allowing it to run Google's open source platform on top of its own.

The brainchild of Intel, Nokia and Samsung, MeeGo was unceremoniously abandoned by Nokia following the release of its N9 handset, the only device ever launched with the mobile OS.

Jolla then picked up where Nokia left off, raising an impressive €200 million (US$258, AU$252.8, UK£160) last summer from a Hong Kong-based alliance to make its mobile ambitions a reality.

According to the video, Jolla plans to officially take the wraps off Sailfish in 2013, with the Sailfish Software Development Kit now available for interested developers.

Jolla faces the same uphill battle that MeeGo did against iOS and Android, now further complicated as Nokia gains traction with new Windows Phone 8 handsets and the forthcoming BlackBerry 10 attracts interest from carriers.