EMI's digital music fortunes rise, while its CD market share falls
For major UK-based record label EMI, digital music revenues rose 38% for a recent six-month period over the same six months the year before. But despite job cuts, lowered royalty payments to musicians, and other big cost savings measures, the gains on the digital side didn't offset sliding CD sales and large interest on a $2.7 billion bank loan.
EMI's share of global CD sales dropped to 9.8% from a prior level of 10.6%. Still, in results reported Friday, EMI did better on the whole during the six-month stint ended September 30, 2008 than for the earlier six-month period. The music company reported a loss of only $221.3 million, in contrast to a loss of $462.5 million before, and operating profits of $8.6 million this time around, in contrast to a loss of $285 million previously. EMI cut 1,500 jobs after a recent acquisition by privaty equity firm Terra Firma.
Rumored Apple tablet PC patent app has some history behind it
An article in this morning's Electronic Pulp shows what turns up to be a patent application filed early last month for a kind of laptop computer assembly where the logo is etched on panes of translucent plastic, such that it's invisible when turned off but illuminated eerily below when turned on. The publication talks about it as a possible application for a tablet PC or MID computer design, and speculates that it could represent a future tablet PC design.
The presence of the Apple logo, the writer went on, suggests that the company's design is "near complete." Well, unfortunately, he's quite right.
Shazam Android music app now available throughout Europe, too
Following a rollout last year in the US and UK markets, the highly rated, Android-based Shazam mobile music application is now available throughout Europe. Countries added to Shazam's availability list today include Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and the Czech Republic.
Could Shazam give Apple's iTunes and Microsoft's Zune some real rivalry whenever more Android devices come to market? Shazam's Android-accessible database contains more than 8 million tracks, including pre-release tunes and music from various eras and parts of the world. Shazam was the third most popular app when the Android Marketplace launched last fall, and it now holds a rating of "4.5 stars out of 5 stars" among more than 6,000 Android Marketplace reviewers, according to Shazam CEO Andrew Fisher.
Metamorphosis complete: Skype 4.0 for Windows is released
Download Skype for Windows 4.0.0.206 from Fileforum now.
Today, the "gold version" of Skype 4.0 for Windows is available. The latest version of the popular voice chat client has been in development since 2006, and is the team's "most distinctive new release in Skype's five year history."
Sony's new 'mofiria' aims for more accurate biometric ID
Sony today unveiled a new finger vein authentication technology called "mofiria." In comparison to other biometric authentication techniques, vein authentication is more accurate and harder to forge, Sony contended in a statement, explaining that finger veins are different in each person and each finger, and that veins don't change over the years.
The new "mofiria" technology uses a CMOS sensor to "diagonally capture scattered light inside the finger veins, making a plane layout possible." After the vein pattern is extracted from the captured image of the finger vein, data from the pattern is compressed, enabling storage of the biometric identifier on a mobile device or gateway security system, for example. Sony is looking to commercialize the new biometric technology within the 2009 fiscal year.
Wireless devs plan more apps for Windows than iPhone or Android
Whether or not they're being overly optimistic, 94% of corporate developers expect wireless application development to either stay the same or rise over the year ahead, despite the economy. Forty percent more of the developers plan to focus on Windows Mobile than on Apple's iPhone, and 46% more will focus on the .NET Compact Framework than on Google's Android, say the newly released results of an Evans Data Survey.
More specifically, a greater percentage -- 47.6% -- of those surveyed think wireless enterprise development will actually increase in 2009 as opposed to the 46.4% who believe the development activities will stay the same. Twenty-five percent of respondents cited the amount of revenues to be gained as the number one consideration in choosing a platform, whereas "identifying marketing opportunities" was chosen by 21%. Only 15% selected "platform openness" as their response to that question.
Version 3.0.6 of Firefox goes live, formal release is pending
Download Mozilla Firefox 3.0.6 for Windows from Fileforum now.
This morning, our Fileforum editor dutifully noticed that the Mozilla organization has placed the final candidate for the sixth update build to Firefox 3.0 on its FTP servers. As is Mozilla's procedure, this happens prior to the official "release" of the build to general users; and indeed, according to the development team's checklist, contributors are just now being notified of the availability of this build for final testing. Users of earlier editions are not yet seeing notices that the new edition is available, and exactly what issues have been addressed have not yet been listed.
IBM raises the goalpost: 20 petaflops in three years
Typically, the reason a manufacturer helps a government agency build a supercomputer is to establish bragging rights. But this time, IBM plans to help the DOE put its latest creation to work with the nation's infrastructure.
It's been a long two seasons for Lawrence Livermore Labs, whose one-time heavyweight champion supercomputer BlueGene/L found itself stripped of its title belt, last time not only by Los Alamos Labs' up-and-coming IBM/AMD hybrid Roadrunner, but also by a Cray -- a name that until last year was synonymous in many circles with "dinosaur."
Dell thin clients feature SUSE Linux
Dell's new OptiPlex Thin Client devices will be pre-loaded with Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Thin Client. This version of the SUSE Enterprise Linux desktop is optimized for use on the smallest thin client footprints, offering images from 128MB in size.
Linux is the preferred operating system for resource-constrained devices, and IDC in June forecasted that it will reach 30.5% OS market share on thin clients by 2011, totaling around 1.8 million Linux-based units.
Financial firm sued for re-packaging software company's service
Massachusetts software company NewRiver Inc. has sued financial research firm Morningstar Inc. for allegedly using NewRiver's proprietary technology to amass a database of US Securities and Exchange Commission Prospectuses.
Morningstar is accused of "screen scraping" NewRiver's Prospectus Express, a subscription service that catalogs compliance documents for mutual funds, variable annuity and variable life products. The suit claims Morningstar accessed the service some 130,000 times between May 1 and December 3.
Google execs face jail time in Italy over a user's video
Four Google execs face trial today in Milan, Italy, on criminal charges of defamation and privacy around a cellphone video, in a case that raises questions around the applicability of country-specific laws to user-submitted content.
In the video, a 17-year-old boy with Down syndrome gets taunted by a group of high school students in Turin, who then proceed to hit him with a box of tissues. Although the executives weren't directly involved in handling the three-minute clip posted to Google Video, all four face possible jail time.
DTV delay bill may come to House floor tomorrow
The US House Rules Committee is scheduled to vote late this afternoon on whether to bring the DTV Delay Bill back to the floor of the House for full consideration. Should that measure be passed today, the bill may yet bypass a markup session in the House Commerce Committee, and could be voted upon by the full House as soon as tomorrow.
The new deal for Windows 7 testers
In what appears to be a deadly serious effort to expedite the rollout of its next operating systems, Microsoft has opened some of its developer support tools to a broader audience of partners.
One of the major shortcomings of Windows Vista that Microsoft has quietly, though plainly, acknowledged in recent months concerned the company's relative inability to engage partners in the development process. With a respectably long development cycle, there were too many third parties that complained that they couldn't get their drivers to work right, well after the operating system had already launched.
SIA: Semiconductor sales down
The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) reported yesterday that 2008 global semiconductor sales were down 2.8% from the previous year, representing a $1.2 billion decrease in overall revenue.
SIA's president George Scalise said in a statement that the recession has weakened the demand for all of the major drivers of semiconductor sales, such as Automotive products, PCs, cell phones, and corporate IT products.
Panasonic announces availability of 2009 plasma line
Recent shipping numbers from DisplaySearch showed a 12% year-over-year decline in the demand for plasma panels, yet manufacturer Panasonic bucked the trend and was the only company to see an increase in market share. In light of this, the company has announced that it will be launching new plasma screens that are 75% thinner and 50% as energy consumptive.
Japan will be the proving ground for these new displays in April, followed by a launch in North American markets this summer. Like the displays Panasonic showed off at its CES keynote in January, these one-inch thick displays make use of the NEO PDP technology for energy efficiency. The company today discussed a 50-inch model that is expected to cost $6,685 and consume about 260 kWh of electricity. The average plasma screen consumes 339 kilowatt hours, while the average LCD consumes about 215 kWh.
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