Displaying items by tag: Gadgets

Microsoft is an interesting company. Over the years they have built more than a few very solid products (including operating systems), but because of a lack of real leadership and marketing ability many of these products have remained in the shadows. One of these has been the Zune music service Zune Pass. This service was put into competition with Apple’s iTunes at the height of Apple’s power and consumer influence. Microsoft updated the service when they launched the ill-fated Zune HD that allowed for unlimited downloads and streaming with a simple monthly fee and still failed to get the service to take off.

The battle between Samsung and LG is not subsiding. After Samsung just before the IFA presented their curved UHD OLED TVs from 55 to 65 inches, which were said to be the first UHD OLED TVs with curved screen, after the official opening of the IFA 2013 fair in Berlin, the situation looks a little different. Specifically, Samsung now can only say that they were first to present such TVs, because LG today unveiled their own UHD OLED TVs that also come with curved screen, and even more interestingly, LG TVs are bigger, and come with a diagonal of 77 inches.

Hynix Fabs 1 and 2 in Wuxi, China were engulfed in flames today after a chemical fire broke out. The fire was large and in many of the pictures circling the internet the buildings appeared to be totally immolated. When the news of the fire broke it was estimated that as much as 30% of world memory production were destroyed. This led to much speculation about memory shipments and prices as well as how long the consumer electronics industry will be affected.

It was bound to happen (and we predicted it last year), but Microsoft has gone ahead and bought Nokia’s devices and services division. The move, while not unexpected, is an interesting one for Microsoft. Although Microsoft does manufacture some of their own devices they have mostly stayed out of production until now. With the move to buy up Nokia’s production facilities including the Lumia line. This puts Microsoft in the driver’s seat for the largest manufacturer of Windows Phone devices. Will Microsoft be able to get around their apparent curse when it comes to making (and marketing) mobile devices with this move?

IDC has reduced its forecast for tablet sales for this year due to a lack of new devices that could boost sales growth. According to a new IDC's predictions this year tablet sales will reach 227.4 million units, which is slightly less than previously projected 229.3 million. The main reason for lower sales is the lack of attractive new devices, especially new models of the iPad, which sales have decreased in the second quarter.

Samsung has reportedly once again postponed the release of their first mobile phone based on Tizen, operating system based on Linux and developed on the principles of open source.

Samsung Electronics announced the Samsung GalaxyTab 3 Kids, a tablet designed specifically for children with educational tools and security features that are required by parents, stands in a statement made today by the company.

After the spectacular performances at CES and later at MWC which secured them place among the best-selling brands of mobile devices, Sony is planning to apply the same recipe at the upcoming IFA in Berlin. So for the next week they scheduled a huge premiere, immediately before the start of the Berlin Fair, at which they will present next flagship smartphones, code-named Xperia Honami, real name (probably) Xperia Z1.

Although the campaign failed to collect $32 million that was supposed to finance the production of Ubuntu Edge phones, mobile phone based on Ubuntu operating system should still be launched next year by Canonical.

BlackBerry company is in financial difficulties. A lot of hope was laid in their new operating system BlackBerry 10, but the expected success was never really achieved. In May, the developers at the conference noted that there is more than 120,000 applications in the BlackBerry World for BlackBerry's youngest operating system on the market, but this potentially positive information turned out to be pretty bad because it was revealed that one third of these applications came from the same developer.