Microsoft is laying off 2,850 more workers
Microsoft is cutting an additional 2,850 jobs on top of 1,850 announced in May 2016, meaning it has laid off over 10 percent of its workforce in the last two years. Most are ex-Nokia employees from its mobile hardware division, it said in its annual SEC filing. That means Microsoft has almost nothing left of its $7.2 billion Nokia acquisition, originally intended to make it a smartphone hardware player. The software giant has already notified 900 of the employees and will complete the remaining layoffs by mid-2017.
Microsoft’s mobile phone plans are a big question mark, as sales are in a free fall. The only ray of hope for Windows Phone fans (if there are any left) is that Microsoft hinted last year that it needs to make a mobile device as good as the Surface line. A “Surface Phone,” however, is still nothing more than a rumor and if it does come along, would likely be aimed at Microsoft’s core business market and not consumers. With layoffs now totaling 12,100 in two years, however, Microsoft seems to want nothing to do with building smartphones.
Via: Gizmodo
Source: SEC filing
Steam’s latest weekend sale slashes VR game prices
Steam tossed some VR experiences into last month’s summer sale, but this time, it’s throwing a party exclusively for virtual reality enthusiasts. The gaming platform has just announced a VR weekend sale, where it’s selling 175 titles for up to 80 percent off. Sure, the selection isn’t as extensive, but don’t forget that we’ve only just begun exploring the world of virtual reality. The games and experiences in the list will work with the the Oculus Rift and the HTC Vive, which, if you’ll recall, was a collaboration between the Taiwanese company and Steam’s creator Valve.
You’ll find a diverse offering when you browse the event page, from first person horror games to space simulators. Steam bundled some of the best its library can offer as a single package, though, so you can grab them all in one go. The VR Weekend Sale is already live, so you can head over to the platform and see what’s available until Monday, August 1st, 10AM Pacific/1PM Eastern.
Source: Steam
Nest Update Lets Users Control Smart Thermostat From Their Apple Watch
Hinted at by the company earlier in the month, Nest recently debuted a minor, but notable, update for its iOS app, introducing a few user interface tweaks and ways to share live videos from the company’s indoor and outdoor cameras. For those users with a Nest Thermostat and an Apple Watch, the 5.6.0 update should be of particular interest, since it brings with it the ability to let you adjust the temperature of your home, right from your wrist, without needing to open the iOS app (via The Verge).
Additionally, there’s a new “Spaces” grouping feature that provides an organized way to place Nest products by which room of the house they’re in, and lets users view all of their live camera feeds at once, if on Wi-Fi. Additional viewers can be added into these live streams now, as well, thanks to a new web-based site, video.nest.com (which doesn’t appear to be up-and-running at the time of writing), where a password can be shared to a trusted third party who might need to check in on the cameras.
Image via The Verge
Nest detailed the full list of updates in the App Store:
We have several new features for you.
- Spaces groups your Nest products by room and lets you see all your cameras at once. And if you’re connected to Wi-Fi, shows you all of their live views.
– Share a password protected live view of your camera. Now grandma can see what the kids are up to at video.nest.com.
– 1080p support for Dropcam Pro.
– Automatic video quality adjustment helps make sure you get a continuous, clear picture.
– We’ve also added support for Apple Watch. You can now control your Nest Thermostat from your wrist.
Nest has faced a few public-facing appearance issues in the past, centered around the lengthy gaps between product releases, and some software issues with the Nest Protect line of smoke detectors that ultimately led to a product-wide recall. In June, Nest co-founder Tony Fadell announced that he was leaving the company to “create and disrupt other industries,” while speculation from workers inside the company suggested many Nest employees “complained publicly about Fadell’s management, while claiming the business had missed sales targets, botched upgrades and delayed future products.”
The Nest iOS app can be downloaded from the App Store for free. [Direct Link]
Related Roundups: Apple Watch, watchOS 2, watchOS 3
Tag: Nest
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Sony’s mobile division (sorta) makes a profit
Sony’s most recent financial report is out and, if you squint, things almost look good for its moribund mobile division. Sony Mobile posted a profit of $4 million, which the company attributed to the fact that it’s fired enough people to get its costs to break even. If you want to put a positive spin on things, it looks like a greatly-slimmed down phone business might generate just enough money to keep it going. Given that Sony’s had to cover Mobile’s losses with PlayStation’s gains for the last few years, some executives may be reaching for the champagne.
But this is Sony, so there’s no silver lining without some pretty dark clouds covering the horizon in the form of Japan’s currency. The Yen has been getting stronger of late, which means that Sony’s exports are more expensive, and less competitive. That’s important because Sony needs to sell its products to the world — something it expects to get harder in the near future. As for Mobile, the company expects sales of Xperia (and its successor) devices to fall once again, because fewer people are buying smartphones — and when they are, they’re going for cheaper Chinese brands.
Overall, the picture for the company isn’t looking particularly rosy, with falls in performance noted across almost all of its divisions. The only bright spot was PlayStation, which saw profits increase thanks to more people buying PlayStation 4 games. But a drop in image sensor sales, TVs and the fallout from April’s Kumamoto Earthquake mean that profits are down pretty much across the board. So, it’s one step forward, three back for Sony which, at this point, most people would call business as usual.
Via: TechCrunch
Source: Sony (.PDF)
Sony records $205 million profit in Q2 2016, mobile unit finally in the black
Sony has posted its financial results for the quarter ending in June, announcing a modest $205 million (¥21.2 billion) operating profit. That’s down from the $780 million (¥84.2 billion) recorded during the same period last year. One of the company’s image sensor factories was affected by an earthquake earlier this year, leading to an overall revenue decline of 11% to $15.6 billion (¥1.61 trillion).
Sony’s mobile unit saw a 33% decrease in sales, with the division netting a revenue of $1.8 billion (¥185 billion). However, Sony’s decision to focus on the high-end segment has paid off, as the mobile business turned in a modest profit of $4 million (¥400 million). During the same period last year, the mobile unit recorded a $188 million loss.
The company’s image sensor division recorded a revenue of $1.18 billion (¥122 billion). Sales declined by 25%, leading to a massive hit in profits to the tune of 57.7% to $73 million (¥7.5 billion). The game and network services unit — which includes the PlayStation and digital game sales — saw profits soar by 126% to $426 million (¥44 billion) over revenues of $3.2 billion (¥330 billion).
In the home entertainment segment, Sony was able to offset a 6.8% decrease in sales by focusing on high-end TVs and reducing running costs, which led to a profit hike of 85.3% to $197 million (¥20.2 billion).
PixelPhone app for Android makes light work of phoning people
The default phone and contact apps on Android are good, but they only get you so far. They don’t allow a huge amount of customisation for example, nor do they look to support international business travellers in the way that you might need.
PixelPhone is an Android app that aims to replace your default Phone and Contact on Android offering you a number of features to speed up and improve using your phone on a daily basis.
The app features:
– Easy-to-use launch and go and allows you to quicking search and fast dial by QWERTY & T9 dailer.
– Fully customised interface that lets you change the font size, photo size, theme colors and SIM card icon to suit your style and needs.
– Various themes and plug-ins that can be downloaded for free so help you make the app suit your style.
– Dual mobile phone SIM-card that allows up to three SIM cards including auto selection of mobile phone SIM-card based on rules (mobile phone mask and contacts.
– Quick dial Support that allows you to swipe for call or message.
– Blacklist feature to help you block unwanted callsand report harassing calls.
Looking to expand on what the default offering delivers already, the new app, which is now free, allows things like easy grouping of contacts so you can create groups for different types of contacts, as well as, assigning that group custom ringtones or be able to send them all an image or message at the same time.
It means talking to your family or co-workers at the same time becomes much, much easier.
Pocket-lint
But it’s not just about speeding up talking to others. The app allows you to fully customise the apps interface, from changing the font size to the compactness of the dial pad, as well as, letting you enjoy the variety of themes available to change the look and feel of the app.
For international travelers, there is a support for a multilingual dialer that gives audio and vibration feedback, and dual mobile phone SIM-card support that allows up to three SIM cards. The app automatically selects the right mobile phone SIM-card based on rules you’ve set (mobile phone mask and contacts for example).
Users can create a blacklist to block unwanted calls and the app even goes as far as letting you report harassing calls so you don’t get constantly bombarded with unwanted interruptions.
The most exciting features are:
– Contacts and group management support for group message; photo and ringtone modification, organisation.
– Customized gestures to give you even more control, like swipe left-right to call/message/SIM1/SIM2.
– Customized multilingual dialer with vibration/audio feedback.
– Merged call history by date, contacts and call.
– Concise dial pad.
– Adjustable dial pad size.
– Group of frequent contacts and quick dial.
– Customized frequent operations of contact.
– Number missed call.
– diacritics-insensitive search.
In the future, Russian developers Felink, say they will add a call recording feature and the ability to see not only who is calling, but where they are calling from.
You can get the PixelPhone app from the Google Play store here
NASA’s new satellite will look for Earth-sized planets nearby
The Kepler mission scopes out stars and galaxies thousands of light-years away to find exoplanets. NASA’s upcoming planet hunter, however, will keep an eye on solar systems closer to home. The Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite or TESS will find planets by observing stars and looking out for shadows cast by transiting planets. It will be programmed to compute for a planet’s size and the time it takes to orbit its star, because those are the information astronomers need to determine if it’s habitable. Since Earth- and even super-Earth-sized planets are tiny, though, TESS will observe small bright dwarf stars only hundreds of light-years away.
The satellite is slated to blast off to space in 2017 or 2018 and is expected to observe 200,000 stars within its two-year lifespan. It has the power to detect other celestial bodies and cosmic phenomena, though, so NASA will also use it to observe supernovae, binary stars and even supermassive black holes.
Source: NASA
Watch SpaceX test fire one of the Falcon 9 rockets it relanded
SpaceX is getting ready to launch one of the rockets it relanded to prove they’re truly reusable. In fact, it just finished test firing one of them at its Texas development facility. The first-stage booster burned for a total of 2 minutes and 30 seconds, the full duration for a single stage flight, on Thursday night. According to NASA Spaceflight, the booster looked like it was in great shape after the test upon initial evaluation, which bodes well for the company’s plans.
If you’re wondering which Falcon 9 was test fired, it was the one that ferried the JCSAT communications satellite to orbit back in May. SpaceX didn’t use the first rocket it ever relanded (on solid ground), because Elon Musk sees is as a museum piece. The company didn’t use the first rocket that successfully touched down on a barge either, because it’s too valuable: that’s the one the company wants to send back to space.
Source: SpaceX (YouTube)
Total Chromecast sales have now exceeded 30 million units
Google revealed as part of its latest quarterly financial conference call that the company has now sold over 30 million units of its Chromecast media casting devices.
The new milestone was announced by Google CEO Sundar Pichai during the Alphabet conference call with financial analysts (via Recode). In May, the company revealed at Google I/O that it had sold 25 million Chromecasts, which means 5 million more were sold just in the last two months.
The Google Store is currently running a sale on both the regular Chromecast and Chromecast Audio; both are priced at just $30 each until July 31, a discount of $5 from its regular $35 price tag.
See at Google Store
Check out our review of Chromecast 2015 and Chromecast Audio
Kickstarter created over 300,000 jobs, study says
Kickstarter has created 29,600 full-time and 283,000 part-time jobs, as well as 8,800 companies thus far, according to a study by Professor Ethan Mollick from the University of Pennsylvania. Mollick, who’s been keeping a close eye on Kickstarter for years, surveyed 61,654 successful projects from 2009 to 2015 to look at how the crowdfunding website has been benefiting creators. His study says projects tend to get $2.46 in revenue outside of the website for every dollar pledged, though the amount tends to be higher in food and product design. In all, he estimates that Kickstarter generated a whopping $5.3 billion for the creators and their communities.
Besides listing out a bunch of estimates, Mollick also noted that 37 percent of his survey’s responders said their projects helped them advance their careers. A total of 21 percent said they started earning more after running a successful campaign. Some filmmakers, musicians, authors and video game creators reported securing distribution and publishing deals, as well, thanks to their projects. All these numbers sound impressive, but it’s worth noting that Kickstarter helped with data gathering. That said, the company swears it had no influence over the professor’s analyses.
Besides conjuring up these estimates, Mollick pointed out that the website made it possible for big ventures such as the Oculus Rift and the Pebble smartwatch to take off. Oculus ended up being part of Facebook after the social network snapped it up for $2 billion, while Pebble ignited people’s interest in smartwatches. However, folks with great ideas may want to keep in mind that Kickstarter still isn’t a magic formula for success. According to the stats the website published, it served as host to more (196,240) unsuccessfully funded than successfully funded projects. Among the 109,662 campaigns that met their goal, around 1 in 10 failed to deliver on their promises and to ship out backers’ rewards.
Source: Kickstarter, Ethan Mollick (PDF)
