BlackBerry Z10 review: a new life, or life support?

BlackBerry Z10 review: a new life, or life support?

By Unknown → Friday, December 13, 2013

BlackBerry Ltd said on Friday it was entering a handset production deal that lowers the risk it will have to take more massive writedowns on unsold smartphones, and its shares surged even though it posted dismal quarterly results.

The stock rose as much as 17 percent after the company announced the five-year partnership with FIH Mobile Ltd. The Hong Kong-listed unit of Taiwan's Foxconn will initially build low-end devices for sale in Indonesia and other emerging markets. BlackBerry said it hoped to expand the fledgling relationship to its top-of-the-line smartphones.

The deal is unconventional in that BlackBerry will no longer pay upfront for components used in the devices made on its behalf in Foxconn's Indonesian and Mexican factories.

Instead, Foxconn, the trading name of Hon Hai Precision Industry, will take a share of profit on each device in return for taking on inventory management, which can result in writedowns if smartphones go unsold. Foxconn will also help with developing, designing and distributing the handsets.

Chief Executive John Chen, who took the helm at BlackBerry last month, said he expected the Foxconn deal to help BlackBerry's handset business turn cash-flow positive, and for the company as a whole to post a profit for the fiscal year that begins in early 2015.

"It's almost like BlackBerry is disposing of its consumer handset business without actually disposing of it," said Jefferies analyst Peter Misek, who likened the deal to what Hewlett-Packard Co and Dell have done with laptops.

The move, which comes a month after BlackBerry said it was giving up on a plan to sell itself, helped take the sting out of the massive, $4.4 billion loss that it posted for the quarter ended November 30, as smartphone sales shrivelled.

A new line of devices running on BlackBerry 10 software has failed to gain traction, forcing the company to write off $1.6 billion of inventory and supply commitments for the quarter. The previous quarter it wrote off $934 million for unsold phones.

Make Better Presentations With the Instagram for Pitch Decks

Make Better Presentations With the Instagram for Pitch Decks

By Unknown →

Facebook will pay $1 billion in cash and stock for Instagram, a 2-year-old photo-sharing application developer, in its largest-ever acquisition just months before the No. 1 social media website is expected to go public.

SAN FRANCISCO, Apr 10 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) - Facebook will pay $1 billion in cash and stock for Instagram, a 2-year-old photo-sharing application developer, in its largest-ever acquisition just months before the No. 1 social media website is expected to go public.

The price was stunning for an apps-maker without any significant revenue, even when measured by the lofty standards of Silicon Valley, where startup valuations have soared in recent years. It highlights the rising stakes in the social networking market in which services such as Facebook need to constantly excite consumers with new features and mobile applications.

By acquiring Instagram - in a deal announced days after the startup closed a funding round that valued it at $500 million - Facebook may also have sought to absorb a potential rival or at least prevent it from falling into the hands of a major competitor like Twitter or Google Inc.

"Anytime you see a social platform that's growing that quickly, that's got to be cause to be nervous," said Paul Buchheit, a partner at the start-up incubator program Y Combinator and a co-founder of FriendFeed, which Facebook acquired in 2009.

"It would be better to have bought Twitter at this stage," he said of Facebook. "So if you're thinking this could be the next Twitter, it could be a smart thing to do."

The Instagram application, which allows users to add filters and effects to pictures taken on their iPhone and Android devices and to share those photos with their friends, has gained about 30 million users since it launched in January 2011.

Instagram says that as of the end of 2011, its users had uploaded some 400 million photos or about 60 pix per second, suggesting the sort of activity that Facebook seeks as it tries to wring revenue from mobile devices. Instagram launched its Android app just last week, garnering more than one million downloads already.

As Instagram's popularity has shot up in recent months, the company's leadership has mulled possible strategies to expand the service into a fully featured social network - much like a photo-driven, stripped-down version of Facebook, Twitter, or even Path, a company insider said.

Instagram is "a property that would have been amazingly valuable to not just Facebook, certainly Twitter was in the hunt as well," said Lou Kerner, founder of the Social Internet Fund.

"I'm sure Google was interested as well. So to some degree an acquisition like this is both offensive and defensive. It would be a highly leveragable asset for anybody who wanted to compete against Facebook."

Makerbot Digitizer Will Let Anyone Scan and Print Physical Items in 3D

Makerbot Digitizer Will Let Anyone Scan and Print Physical Items in 3D

By Unknown →

In a world first, a groundbreaking 3D-printed device has helped three toddlers suffering from a life-threatening condition lead a normal life.

Kaiba, Garrett and Ian in the US had a terminal form of tracheobronchomalacia -- a severe disease which causes the windpipe to collapse periodically and prevents normal breathing.

There was no cure and life-expectancies were grim. The custom-designed airway splints from University of Michigan's CS Mott Children's Hospital have kept their airways open, restored their breathing and saved their lives.

"These cases broke new ground for us because we were able to use 3D printing to design a device that successfully restored patients' breathing through a procedure that had never been done before," explained senior author Glenn Green, associate professor of paediatric otolaryngology.

Kaiba was just a newborn when he turned blue because his little lungs were not getting the oxygen they needed.

Garrett spent the first year of his life in hospital beds tethered to a ventilator, being fed through his veins because his body was too sick to absorb food.

Baby Ian's heart stopped before he was even six-months-old.

Using 3D printing, Green and his colleague Scott Hollister were able to create and implant customised tracheal splints for each patient.

The device was created directly from CT scans of their tracheas, integrating an image-based computer model with laser-based 3D printing to produce the splint.

The splint was sewn around their airways to expand the trachea and bronchus and give it a skeleton to aid proper growth.

The splint is designed to be reabsorbed by the body over time.

Researchers closely followed their cases to see how well the airway splints implanted in all three patients worked and the results are promising.

"Today, our first patient Kaiba is an active, healthy three-year-old in preschool with a bright future. The device worked better than we could have ever imagined," Green informed.

Now an energetic two-and-a-half-year-old with a contagious laugh, Garrett is able to breathe on his own and spend his days ventilator-free.

Ian, now 17-months-old, is known for his huge grins, enthusiastic high fives and love for playing with his big brother, Owen.

None of the devices, which were implanted in then three-month-old Kaiba, five-month-old Ian and 16-month-old Garrett have caused any complications.

The findings also show that the patients were able to come off of ventilators and no longer needed paralytics, narcotics and sedation.

Researchers noted improvements in multiple organ systems.

"This treatment continues to prove to be a promising option for children facing this life-threatening condition that has no cure, the authors concluded.

The results were published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Does Apple Ever Regret Making The iPad Mini?

Does Apple Ever Regret Making The iPad Mini?

By Unknown →

Samsung fought until the bitter end to avoid paying Apple, but the company now says it will finally hand over the more than $548 million it owes for infringing the patents and designs of its biggest smartphone rival.

In papers filed in federal court in San Jose, California on Thursday, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd said it will make the payment by Dec 14 if Apple Inc sends an invoice on Friday.

Asked if it had done so, Apple declined to comment on Friday.

The payment comes after a US appeals court last May reduced a $930 million judgment against Samsung by $382 million, stemming from a 2012 verdict for infringing Apple patents and copying the look of the iPhone.

Another trial over remaining damages relating to some of Samsung's infringing products in the case is set to go ahead next spring.

Even though the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, DC had authorised damages to Apple in May, Samsung again appealed the final figure to the same court, and was rebuffed twice more.

Now agreeing to pay, Samsung told the San Jose court that it expects to be reimbursed if it eventually succeeds in a forthcoming appeal to the US Supreme Court over its liability for copying the patented designs of the surface, bezel and user interface of the iPhone, which accounted for $399 million of the total award.

South Korea-based Samsung also said it reserved the right to be reimbursed in the future if a decision by the US Patent and Trademark Office invalidating one of the Apple patents in the case, related to touchscreen gestures, is upheld.

Apple intends to appeal that ruling and said in court documents it "disputes Samsung's asserted rights to reimbursement."

"We are disappointed that the court has agreed to proceed with Apple's grossly exaggerated damages claims regardless of whether the patents are valid," a Samsung spokeswoman said in a statement.

The Madness of Guns and the Digital Cure

The Madness of Guns and the Digital Cure

By Unknown → Thursday, December 12, 2013

There is a reason people still buy CDs more than they do digital albums. Actually there are several, but viruses that come along with music via peer-to-peer sites (P2P) and a concern over digital rights management (DRM) aren't the only culprits.

For the former, iTunes is the most likely candidate.

Although hardly life-threatening, iTunes is facing new competition from Amazon and a variety of social networking sites. While it has made great advancements with the iPod, iTunes' innovation has been slow. The service looks and operates much like it always has. The only new features are in video.

In 2008, look for Apple to make nice with its label partners by offering a bit more with each download, such as lyrics and more interactive album art.

iTunes is the only music service that has a built-in video download feature. The others offer only streaming video. It's also one of the few services that feature a tightly integrated device -- the iPod. Apple is in a great position to roll out new features across its online store and its devices at the same time.

Microsoft's Zune is another place to watch for this, for the same reasons. It also has the integrated service and device, as well as ownership of the technical building blocks needed (such as Windows Media Player). And since it's still lagging far behind Apple in the digital music game, Microsoft could easily tap digital extras as a battleground for new market share.

The problem is that the four major music companies rarely work together on anything. So another angle would be for each to go it alone. If digital music services can't or won't incorporate better metadata into their downloaded files, look for third-party applications to emerge that will do so after the fact.

Early examples of this are two games developed for the iPod -- "Musicka," created by the developers of the original music rhythm game "PaRappa the Rapper," and "Phase," created by "Rock Band" and original "Guitar Hero" developer Harmonix. Both are rhythm-based games that let users "play" along to the songs on their device by pressing buttons at the right time.

Some Of The Important Tips Help Relieve Digital Eye Strain

Some Of The Important Tips Help Relieve Digital Eye Strain

By Unknown →

When we talk about technology and crime, or technological crime, we probably refer to crimes using new technologies, that is information and communication technologies (ICTs).

It is very difficult to define, as new technologies continue to emerge and the examples become redundant. In some cities in some countries, burglary is a forgotten thing, thanks to burglar alarms.

Closed-circuit TV cameras solve a lot of problems but they create quite a few. Surveillance helps, serving as a powerful deterrent. But all these prying eyes of cameras installed in the name of security become a huge nuisance for some of us; citizens’ groups often raise their voice about invasion into our privacy.

At times, these surveillance cameras have caught images not authorised by the law. We have one recent example in Bangladesh. Grooming and other personal service provider, Persona, was allegedly, going beyond limits and suddenly found itself in the news headlines.

Carjacking once became very common even in countries where the car population outstripped the human population. There came the technology – alarms, tracking devices, keys with ability to read its owner’s fingerprints – to supplement all the other existing ways of finding or tracking down a stolen car.

For someone who is neither a techie, legal professional, nor a law enforcer but merely a newsgatherer and publisher, the perspective is different. In my struggle to put something together in this particular case, I consulted my colleagues and friends who take interest in such matters.

The first thing that came to mind in most cases was: The tragedy at Ramu.

My colleagues worked overnight to tell the story to the world – the Prime Minister was then out of the country. In New York, meeting world leaders, the Prime Minister ordered immediate response to support the victims and find out the culprits.

Pebble Smartwatch Shipping To 500 Kickstarter Backers, Starting Today

Pebble Smartwatch Shipping To 500 Kickstarter Backers, Starting Today

By Unknown →

Taiwan's Quanta Computer Inc will start mass production of Apple Inc's first smartwatch in July, a source familiar with the matter said, as the US tech giant tries to prove it can still innovate against rival Samsung Electronics Co Ltd.

The watch, which remains unnamed but which company followers have dubbed the iWatch, will be Apple's first foray into a niche product category that many remain sceptical about, especially as to whether it can drive profits amid cooling growth in tech gadgets.

The production will be a boost to Quanta, given that its work for Apple till now has focused on laptops and iPods, product lines that are in decline. Quanta's role though is likely to raise questions about what involvement Hon Hai Precision Industry Co, one of Apple's biggest suppliers, will play in production.

While the watch is widely expected, the start date of its mass production and the extent of Quanta's involvement were not known until now. Mass production will start in July and the commercial launch will come as early as October, according to the source and another person familiar with the matter.

Apple will introduce a smartwatch with a display that likely measures 2.5 inches diagonally and is slightly rectangular, one of the sources said. The source added that the watch face will protrude slightly from the band, creating an arched shape, and will feature a touch interface and wireless charging capabilities.

The source said Apple expects to ship 50 million units within the first year of the product's release, although these types of initial estimates can be subject to change. The watch is currently in trial production at Quanta, which will be the main manufacturer, accounting for at least 70 percent of final assembly, the source said.

Like many other smartwatches, Apple's watch will be able to perform some functions independently, but tasks like messaging and voice chat will require a paired smartphone, according to the source. The device will only be compatible with gadgets running Apple's iOS, like its flagship iPhone, one of the sources said.

Most mainstream smartwatches collect data about the user's heart rate and other health-related metrics, in addition to facilitating tasks like checking e-mail and making phone calls.

A third source said LG Display Co Ltd is the exclusive supplier of the screen for the gadget's initial batch of production. It also contains a sensor that monitors the user's pulse. Singapore-based imaging and sensor maker Heptagon is on the supplier list for the feature, two other sources said.

Apple declined to comment. Quanta, LG Display and Heptagon also declined to comment.