Samsung Electronics expects first quarter profits to drop by more than 30 percent, marking the sixth straight quarterly decline at the company, which is struggling to compete with Apple at the top of the smartphone market.Operating profit for the quarter, which included the key year-end sales period, will be around 5.9 trillion won (US$5.4 billion), a drop of just over 30 percent versus the last three months of 2013, while revenue is expected to be 47 trillion won, down 12 percent, the company said in its earnings guidance. It will report its full quarterly results at the end of the month.The profits outlook isn’t as bad as analysts had feared.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Samsung Electronics expects first quarter profits to drop by more than 30 percent, marking the sixth straight quarterly decline at the company, which is struggling to compete with Apple at the top of the smartphone market.Operating profit for the quarter will be around 5.9 trillion won (US$5.4 billion), a drop of just over 30 percent versus the first three months of 2014, while revenue is expected to be 47 trillion won, down 12 percent, the company said in its earnings guidance. It will report its full quarterly results at the end of the month.The profits outlook isn’t as bad as analysts had feared.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
With the Apple Launch now just about two weeks away -- and pre-orders slated to begin this Friday at 12:01 AM Pacific Time -- Apple CEO Tim Cook sent out an email thanking Apple employees for the hard work involved in bringing the Apple Watch to market and for the work retail employees will do once the product launches.In addition to the typical boilerplate that sometimes accompanies corporate emails, Cook relayed that Apple employees looking to purchase an Apple Watch will be able to do so at a 50% discount. The discount is applicable to the Sport and Watch models, which is to say that Apple is most definitely not offering any discounts on the Edition Apple Watches.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The mobile payments space is about to get more crowded: CurrentC, a platform backed by some of the country’s biggest retailers, will launch in the next few months and give Apple, Google and Samsung added competition.Few details are known about the service, but it is expected to merge payments and loyalty benefits and will give retailers additional insight into the spending habits of customers who are members. Less is known about the benefits it may offer consumers.A small -scale trial began last year and CurrentC is currently being tested in several undisclosed markets around the U.S. However, its use is restricted to employees of member retailers, which include Walmart, 7-Eleven, Dunkin Donuts, Sears, Best Buy, Exxon Mobil and Gap.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The most interesting people that Uber is now hiring aren’t drivers: they’re engineers whose innovations may ultimately put those drivers out of work.The mobile ride-hailing app has listed a slew of jobs at its new Advanced Technologies Center in Pittsburgh. The research center, created just two months ago in partnership with Carnegie Mellon University, is focused on developing self-driving car technology and other advanced vehicle safety and mapping systems. To staff up, Uber is looking for engineers in the areas of robotics, machine learning, communications, traffic simulation, vehicle testing, and software and hardware development.One Uber posting seeks mechanical engineers with knowledge of modern automotive electronics and diagnostics, who can handle “multiple design challenges.” It also wants software engineers to work in the areas of computer vision, vehicle controls and sensors.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Samsung has taken issue with a stress test that showed the Galaxy Edge S6’s frame bending and screen cracking under applied pressure, saying a smartphone wouldn’t experience such force in normal use.The Galaxy 6S Edge bent and its screen shattered after being exposed to 110 pounds of force, according to a test conducted by SquareTrade, which sells warranties for smartphones, tablets and other electronics. Even with a shattered screen, the phone still worked. SquareTrade posted a video of the test on Thursday.SquareTrade also tested the iPhone 6 Plus and the HTC One M9. The iPhone bent under 110 pounds of force, but the screen remained intact. The HTC device bent and became inoperable after it suffered 120 pounds of force.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
UCLA
Actual Apple logo? None of the above
Even Apple fanboys and fangirls might be sick of seeing the company's logo, but that doesn't mean they actually would remember exactly what it looks like when pressed.
In a new study published in the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, UCLA psychologists found that only 1 of 85 undergraduates could draw the logo correctly from memory. Fewer than half correctly ID'd the logo when shown it among a number of similar logos. Most of the participants used Apple products.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
With memories of the crowds and lack of sleep from Black Friday 2014 now distant memories for those of you who partook in the massive shopping day four months ago, you'll be glad to know you really did save yourself a bundle on certain electronics.
An analysis of the best deals on TVs, laptops/PCs, tablets, cameras and video game consoles shows that prices indeed have risen significantly for most items since them. The biggest price increases (both dollar-wise and percentage-wise) were seen for televisions, according to BestBlackFriday.com, one of numerous outfits that tracks deals.
+ LOOK BACK: 20-Plus Eye-Popping Black Friday Tech Deals +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Windows Phone is not setting the world on fire, which means that only about 3% of all mobile phone users even know about some of its cool features. Rather than keep those features to itself, Microsoft is making them available to other platforms.The company has announced that Office Lens, its photo scanning app that crops pictures and automatically drops them into OneNote or Onedrive, is available for free at Apple's App Store, and that the Office Lens Android Preview is available for testing.The idea behind Office Lens is comparable to the Scannable feature in Evernote. It lets you take a quick picture of a whiteboard, receipt, billboard, or anything else similar and quickly scan and save it to a storage service. The app will auto-crop receipts, whiteboards, and anything else where there is a white object against a dark background.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
U.S. researchers have developed a camera chip that could give smartphones the ability to take 3D scans of everyday objects, a sought-after feature in the 3D-printing world.Engineers at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) said their device is based on a cheap silicon chip less than 1 millimeter square and it can produce 3D scans with extremely fine resolution.The chips could be incorporated into phones and the data could be sent to 3D printers to duplicate scanned objects, eliminating the need to use large desktop devices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Struggling electronics maker Sharp said Monday it is grappling with how to reform its LCD panel business, but has yet to make any decisions.Kyodo News and other media reported that Sharp plans to spin off its business for small and mid-size LCD panels, used in smartphones and other mobile devices, by getting the state-backed Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ) to invest ¥100 billion (US$840 million) in a new subsidiary.INCJ would control a roughly 40 percent stake in the LCD subsidiary, according to the reports. Sharp, however, denied that any plans have been made regarding its own business.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple on Friday afternoon updated its Apple Watch page with more precise details regarding Apple Watch pre-orders. According to Apple's website, pre-orders for Apple's highly anticipated wearable will begin at 12:01 AM Pacific Time on Friday, April 10. Of course, this doesn't bode well for prospective buyers on the East Coast who will have to wait up until 3:01 AM in order to get their orders in.The latest reports from the rumor mill suggests that the Apple Watch will not be available to walk-in shoppers. Which is to say, if you want to get your hands (or wrist, as it were) on an Apple Watch, you absolutely must pre-order the device or make a reservation to check one out in-store. Presumably, walk-in sales will eventually be possible once supply is properly calibrated to match demand.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. widened its lead in mobile patents last year and IBM took the top spot in new patents granted in that space, according to a report this week that analyzed data from both the U.S. and Europe.While the number of mobile patents granted by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) jumped by 17 percent between 2013 and 2014, the total fell by 4 percent at the European Patent Office (EPO), according to Chetan Sharma Consulting. The U.S. continued to gain on Europe as the place where mobile inventions are devised, a trend driven by software development in Silicon Valley and Americans’ heavy use of mobile data, the report said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The first version of Apple’s tablet that redefined tablets was released in stores and delivered to homes on April 3, 2010.We’ve collected a bunch of pictures taken that day and you can see them here.While sales growth for the iPad has slowed recently, the device was an immediate hit when it arrived and has proven to be among Apple’s most successful products.From an Apple press release two days after the first release:
Apple today announced that it sold over 300,000 iPads in the US as of midnight Saturday, April 3. These sales included deliveries of pre-ordered iPads to customers, deliveries to channel partners and sales at Apple Retail Stores. Apple also announced that iPad users downloaded over one million apps from Apple’s App Store and over 250,000 ebooks from its iBookstore during the first day.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Uber poaches Facebook’s Joe Sullivan for security chiefIn an indication that the ride-hailing app company is aware that it had better get security right, Uber Technologies has hired away Facebook’s head of security, Joe Sullivan, to be its first CSO. Sullivan has been fairly high profile as Facebook’s CSO for the last five years, and besides time spent at PayPal and eBay, he has a background prosecuting cyber crime, re/code reports. Sullivan has his work cut out for him, with Uber facing challenges ranging from data privacy to its riders’ physical security.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Smartphone makers are targeting the enterprise market like never before, unleashing a slew of third-party productivity and management apps for both end users and IT shops.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Streaming movies from mobile devices onto TVs isn’t as easy as it seems. Samsung hopes to make that easier with its new line of 4K Smart TVs, which have the brand-new Tizen operating system.Samsung has started shipping some of its new curved and flat-panel Smart TVs, and announced prices for other models that will ship in the coming months. The TVs, which start $949.99, come in ultra-high definition [3840 by 2160] resolutions.The user interface in the new Smart TVs will look different from TVs released in previous years. Samsung’s entire Smart TV line-up in 2015 is based on Tizen, which brings TVs closer to mobile devices and Internet-based streaming content, the company said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Snapchat’s service featuring disappearing messages is known for its popularity among teens. Now it’s becoming popular with law enforcement.Snapchat, for the first time, has disclosed the number of requests for user information it has received from governments in the U.S. and in other countries. These requests may come in the form of subpoenas, court orders, search warrants or other legal processes, seeking a variety of user information like usernames, email addresses and phone numbers.Authorities may also seek the content of messages. They have a tight window, though—Snapchat says it deletes people’s messages from its servers after all recipients have viewed them, or 30 days after an unopened message is sent. Governments can also seek logs containing the metadata of messages, which Snapchat retains.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
You can improve facial recognition security on Samsung Galaxy phones by morphing multiple photos of yourself to unlock the device, researchers at the University of York's FaceVar Lab say.
This improves upon storing a single target image, according to the team led by David Robertson, of the Department of Psychology's FaceVar lab. Their paper, "Face averages enhance user recognition for smartphone security," has been published in the journal PLOS ONE.
MORE: 6 things Galaxy 6 does that iPhone 6 can't | Biometric security is on the riseTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Apple Watch is unquestionably Apple's biggest gamble in years. Not only does the device represent a new product for Apple, it represents an entirely new product category altogether. With the device slated to launch in just about three weeks, all eyes will be watching closely to see if Apple has truly delivered yet another revolutionary product.Ahead of the highly anticipated Apple Watch launch, Wired today posted an exhaustive recap of the Apple Watch development process, which began in earnest shortly after Steve Jobs' passing.
Apple decided to make a watch and only then set out to discover what it might be good for (besides, you know, displaying the time). "There was a sense that technology was going to move onto the body," says Alan Dye, who runs Apple's human interface group. "We felt like the natural place, the place that had historical relevance and significance, was the wrist."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here