Motorola sees huge increase in profit thanks to smartphones, network equipment division
Motorola has reported a 600 percent increase in profit for the Q2, thanks mainly to its network equipment division and continued strong smartphone sales.
Droid smartphones, including the original Droid and new Droid X, continued strong sales, and both are well received, critically.
Both devices are sold through Verizon Wireless, the U.S.’ largest carrier.
Most of the quarterly profit came from the company’s networks equipment unit, which Motorola plans to sell to Nokia Siemens for $1.2 billion.
Overall earnings came to $162 million, up from $26 million last year.
Motorola shipped 2.7 million smartphones during the quarter with 14 million expected for the full year. Co-CEO Jha says he expects the phone business to be profitable by the fourth quarter, for the first time in four years.
LG, Warner, Sony bundling 3D Blu-rays with TVs, players
Warner Home Video has said this week that it has partnered up with LG and Sony to offer 3D Blu-rays bundled with select Blu-ray 3D players, 3D HDTVs and 3D projectors.
A few of the new 3D Blu-rays being bundled are Imax Under the Sea 3D, Imax Space Station 3D and Imax Deep Sea 3D.
The move marks the first time Warner has bundled 3D titles with third-party products.
Consumers in both the U.S. and Canada who purchase the LG BX580 or BX585 3D network Blu-ray players by the end of the year are eligible for Under the Sea 3D.
Buyers in Europe, Asia, South America and Central America who purchase any LG Blu-ray 3D player, Blu-ray 3D home theater, 3D projector or 3D HDTV will get Space Station 3D.
“Imax is simply the best in 3D, and these visually stunning titles are perfect for consumers who want to take full advantage of and show off their new Blu-ray 3D home theater systems,” adds WHV VP Dorinda Marticorena.
HTC Incredible costs $163 to make, says iSuppli
iSuppli has done a hardware component tear down of the popular HTC Incredible and found that the smartphone costs $163.35 to build.
It is important to note that the hardware tear down does not include R&D, manufacturing, shipping or advertising costs.
The device sells through Verizon for $200 with contract.
By comparison, iSuppli noted that the Apple iPhone 4, with 16GB of storage, costs about $188 to build.
Most of the cost of the Incredible came from three components, its $31.40 processor, its $31.20 multitouch display, and its $30 memory.
iSuppli manager Andrew Rassweiler says the Incredible “could have been dubbed the Nexus Two” because of its extreme similarities. The Nexus One, which launched in January, cost $174 to make.
YouTube increases video upload limit to 15 minutes
YouTube has reported this week that the streaming video giant will soon increase the video upload limit to 15 minutes, from the current 10.
While most uploaded videos are well under the 10 minute current limit, longer form works, (say an hour long movie) will now only need to be chopped into four installments instead of six, surely a welcome relief for some.
Until now, only YouTube Partners and other content owners were able to upload video longer than 10 minutes, leaving amateur filmmakers on the outside looking in.
Joshua Siegel, YouTube’s product manager says removing the limit was the most popular request by YouTube users.
Additionally, the site has started a new promotion dubbed “15 minutes of fame.”
Says the site: “Imagine that this video is all the world will ever know about you: what would you want to communicate? What will be the enduring stamp you’ve left on us all? Tag your video with “yt15minutes,” upload it by Wednesday, August 4, and we’ll select a handful of people to truly gain their 15 minutes of fame by featuring them on the YouTube homepage in a future spotlight.”
Google adds ‘phone home’ DRM to Android Market
Google has added a licensing server to the Android Marketplace which will allow an app to verify whether the user has purchased it or not before opening.
In order to use the new service an app must be sold through Google’s Android Market store and be on a device running Android 1.5 or later which also has the Market app installed. Free apps can’t make use of the service.
Communication with the licensing server will be done exclusively by the Market app itself using RSA public-key encryption.
RIM purchases BlackPad.com for upcoming tablet?
RIM’s still unconfirmed BlackBerry tablet may possibly have a name now, after the smartphone company registered BlackPad.com.
The domain was purchased by CSC, a company that specializes in corporate branding, on behalf of RIM.
BlackPad.com had been owned by others since 2002, but the domain had been completely unused in that period.
While a domain registration doesn’t necessarily confirm a future product plan, many companies will do so to avoid having to purchase a license in the future at a much higher price. Apple registered iPhone.org years before the product was introduced.
That being said, RIM is not often that subtle, with most of their registered domains purchased for products that have since been revealed.
There is nothing known about the still unconfirmed device, but many expect it to have a 1GHz processor, dual-cameras and run BlackBerry OS 6.
Hulu viewership nosedives after comScore changes methods
Hulu, the United States’ long-time second most popular streaming video site saw its viewership nosedive for the month ended June 30th, after comScore changed their measurement methods.
In May, the site had an estimated 44 million viewers, says comScore, with that number falling to 24 million in June.
The giant drop was the largest of any of the top Internet video sites, dropping the site from second to tenth, in terms of online video traffic in the U.S.
While the number drop seems huge, the new numbers mainly underscore a different and lingering problem; the fact that measuring online audiences remains unreliable.
Three companies, ComScore, Nielsen and Quantcast, each measure differently, so numbers may be similar but never equal.
Says one digital media strategist of the difference in numbers, and the overall problem of unreliability: “You would think 15 years on, we would be in a better place. But we’re still talking about fundamental discrepancies in things like page counts.”
Motorola fights back against Apple with Droid X ad
Apple, trying to deflect some of the bad press from their iPhone 4 ‘antennagate’ debacle has posted videos over the past weeks showing how other smartphones also lose cell reception when held in the “death grip.”
The most notable video shows the new Motorola Droid X losing reception within seconds after being gripped tightly.
Beginning tomorrow, Motorola is striking back at the controversial videos, by placing a full page ad in newspapers mocking the iPhone 4’s need for a case to avoid reception issues.
Reads the ad in full: “At Motorola, we believe a customer shouldn’t have to dress up their phone for it to work properly. That’s why the DROID X comes with a dual antenna design. The kind that allows you to hold the phone any way you like to make crystal clear calls without a bulky phone jacket. For us it’s just one of those things that comes as a given when you’ve been making mobile phones for over 30 years.”
Amazon introduces new Kindle for $139
Amazon has announced it will sell two new models of their popular Kindle e-reader beginning tomorrow, with one costing just $139, the cheapest price yet for a Kindle device.
To justify the price of the Kindle Wi-Fi, Amazon has removed the ability to connect to the Internet via 3G cell networks, making it Wi-Fi only.
The second model will replace the Kindle 2 and include 3G access, and will sell for $189.
Each new model is slimmer and include higher contrast screens and “crisper text.” Both have six-inch screens, but weigh 15 percent less and are 21 percent slimmer. Each also has twice the storage of the original Kindles, allowing for up to 3500 books to be stored.
Says CEO Jeff Bezos: “The hardware business for us has been so successful that we’re going to continue. I predict there will be a 10th-generation and a 20th-generation Kindle. We’re well-situated to be experts in purpose-built reading devices.”
The Kindle Wi-Fi is now cheaper than both the rival Nook and the lesser rival Sony Reader, and over $250 cheaper than the Apple iPad.
Pre-prders start tomorrow, and both devices ship August 27th.
Firefox 4 now in second beta
Mozilla has released the second beta of their upcoming Firefox 4 browser, fixing hundreds of bugs and improving speed along with adding support for CSS Transitions.
The company released the first beta at the beginning of July and promised the beta 2 for last week but hit small delays.
Beta 3 is expected to hit August 6th, with the first full release candidate (RC) expected to be released in October.
A main new feature for Firefox 4 is improved tab location, as shown in the picture at right. Beta 2 adds the ability for Mac users. The “tabs are given top visual priority for more efficient and intuitive browsing.” just like in Google Chrome.
Additionally, the browser supports full HMTL5 and WebM: “As pioneers of HTML5 video standards, Firefox also supports the WebM format so you can watch open HD quality video.”
As for CSS Transitions, part of the CSS3 specification, the browser will support it, thanks to the new Gecko 2.0 page layout engine.
Just like with each new update, JavaScript has been made speedier, with other performance enhancements, as well.
