Sony exec is visibly devastated by earnings news
In a special press conference this morning in Tokyo to update its financial condition, Sony CFO Nobuyuki Oneda literally looked ill. Associated Press cameras show Oneda physically struggling to present the news that final reports will likely show its net profit plunging as much as 95% annually in the quarter just ended.
"From the second half of September last year, there has been a sudden deterioration in the economy, and with the effects of foreign exchange it has had severe consequences on our business," the AP quotes Oneda as saying. A statement released to reporters at the same time read, "An operating loss was recorded due to factors such as the appreciation of the yen, deterioration of results at equity affiliates, slowdown of the global economy and intensified price competition."
AT&T and Comcast are surprise participants in RIAA anti-piracy plan
Ironically enough, ISPs Comcast and AT&T are reportedly supporting the RIAA's new three-strikes plan, a quietly emerging measure to thwart music pirating among US residents by disconnecting pirates from their ISPs.
Like music industry groups in Britain, France, and elsewhere, the US-based RIAA is now starting to abandon its previous policy of suing suspected pirates in favor of severing these users from the Internet.
Nintendo shrinks its outlook for the remainder of the year
Video game giant Nintendo has adjusted its outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, and forecasts a 33% lower profit than previously expected.
Nintendo's financial reports today showed the great impact of large changes in exchange rates. As the Japanese yen sharply climbed in value, sales in the European and American markets dropped in value. This is evidence that even if sales are high, their mitigating effect on profits is substantially lessened by global currency exchange.
U.S. News Weekly: Now how much would you pay?
This week, the publishers of U.S. News and World Report announced it's launching a publishing experiment that's been tried before: a weekly edition of its now-biweekly print news service in PDF format, for subscribers willing to pay about $20 per year.
Already, the concept has been given a lot of guff elsewhere on the Web. The prevailing word thus far appears to be that no one wants to pay for news any more, and why should they? Information, after all, "wants to be free."
Adobe claims 100 million AIR installs...Where's Silverlight?
Yesterday at a conference in Japan, Adobe announced it has received an independent assessment of the worldwide installed base for its Web platforms. A Millward Brown survey estimates that Flash has been installed on 99% of the world's Internet-enabled PCs, leading Adobe to estimate that Flash Player 10 by itself will break the 80% penetration mark by the end of Q2 2009.
Some 100 million PCs are believed to have successfully installed Adobe's AIR runtime platform -- and by "successfully," the company means, it's running and active and without trouble. That's based on the company's own statistics about downloads.
Intel backs first public alphas of Moblin Linux
Download the VMware image of Moblin Alpha 1 from Fileforum now.
Embedded Linux, with its smaller footprint and tighter code, is finding its way into smaller platforms where even a stripped down Windows XP couldn't possibly fit. Intel is fully aware of this, which is perhaps one reason why it's funding the development of an innovative new Linux distribution called Moblin. It uses the GNOME Mobile platform and features OpenGL support, and it's attracting the attention of companies such as netbook leader Acer.
IBM eyes cloud pacts in more places and industries
New open source partnerships between IBM and universities in Japan, South Africa, East Africa, and Qatar will be followed by more pacts in other geographic and around more application areas of cloud computing.
"A lot of the focus on the global stage is on making sure that as many geographic regions and industries as possible get exposed to cloud computing," said Dennis Quan, IBM's director of autonomic computing, in an interview with Betanews. "We also want to be able to train the next generation in development skills for cloud computing."
The economy and your next mobile phone
On Wednesday, Qualcomm -- like every other company that can afford two sheets of paper for a quarterly earnings report -- said that though economic times are bad, the company is well-positioned to be even stronger when things look up.
But in an era of complicated supply chains and tricky R&D cycles, what does that even mean right now?
Q2 "one of the most challenging ever" for WD
Swift action and a solid business model, said Western Digital executives on their earnings call Wednesday, were the only things that kept last quarter from being even worse than it might have been in the face of prevailing conditions.
On their Q1 call back in October, WD execs dialed back their guidance for the next quarter to anticipate 5% growth. It was the right idea -- historical norms for the are in the 7-10% range -- but it wasn't enough. WD in fact showed a 14% decline in hard-drive revenue from Q1 to Q2. Revenue for the quarter was $1.8 billion, down 17% year-over-year. Net income totaled $14 million, or 6 cents/share. Non-GAAP net income was $123 million, or 55 cents/share; that reflects charges related to the restructuring the company announced on December 17.
Watching the stimulus at work
It's not through Congress yet, but if and when the new stimulus package is ratified, it'll be one of the first items to get the new transparency treatment. The White House has reserved and posted a preliminary message on
Settlement reached at last in VA data breach
Nearly three years after data on 26 million veterans went missing in the wake of a Maryland house burglary, the Department of Veterans Affairs and a group of suing vets have reached an agreement on the class-action suit filed by the latter. It's now up to a judge to ratify the settlement.
Under the terms of the agreement, the VA will set aside $20 million for paying the expenses of anyone directly affected by the breach, including credit-monitoring expenses and mental-health costs for those who found themselves in extreme emotional distress in the wake of the breach, which has resulted in no known abuse of the data. Payouts will range from $75 up to $1500.
Google releases tools for throttle-spotting
Google evangelist and Net patriarch Vint Cerf this week unveiled three tools that ordinary Net users can use to see whether their ISPs are choking up on their bandwidth. The research and evaluation tools add more fuel to the reinvigorated Net-neutrality debate.
The M-Lab (Measurement Lab) suite, co-developed by Google, the New America Foundation's Open Technology Institute, the PlanetLab Consortium, and assorted academic researchers, will comprise five user tools; three are ready now.
AOL to let go of 700, even amid its recovery
Despite impressive traffic growth as high as 27% annually on its associated Web sites including new personal finance news service WalletPop, AOL is also faced with cutting back resources to survive the present economic situation.
This afternoon, a memo first obtained by The Wall Street Journal's Kara Swisher cites AOL CEO Randy Falco as telling his employees that even those who will be remaining with the company shouldn't expect much special this year.
Opera Mini 4.2 for Android leaves beta
Released to the Android market in beta last November, Opera Mini today received the definitive update to "final version."
This version allows uploading and downloading of files through the browser, and allows pages to be saved for offline viewing. YouTube videos and the like (not all Flash 9+ video sites are supported) are redirected through the system's video player, double tapping the screen now activates zoom, trackball speed issues have been addressed, and text size can now be changed to "extra large" for easier navigation.
Arr-ptui! TechCrunch head splits after spit
A lot of tech journalists will tell you that unpleasant reader interactions -- everything from incoherent hate mail to death threats -- are an occasional part of the job. But Michael Arrington, leader of TechCrunch, has always modeled himself as a remarkable specimen of tech journalist, and so he's taking an entire month off after getting spit on at a conference yesterday.
In a post to his site, Arrington describes the interaction with the unknown man. "The last thing I wanted was another product pitch as I hurried to the car that would drive me to Davos for the next event. So when I saw this person approach me out of the corner of my eye, I turned away slightly and avoided eye contact. Sometimes that works. But in this case all it did was make me vulnerable to the last thing I expected."
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