The original rocket engines — “one and a half million pounds of thrust, 32 million horsepower, and burning 6,000 pounds of rocket grade kerosene and liquid oxygen every second” — that powered that historic launch fell to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean and have not been seen in the four decades since. But that won’t be the case for long. Today on his blog, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos announced that he has located the rockets, and he plans to bring them to the surface.
RIM reported its financial results today and it doesn’t look good. Here are some highlights:
Revenue of $4.2 billion, down 19% from the third quarter and down 25% from $5.6 billion in the same quarter of fiscal 2011
BlackBerry smartphone shipments of 11.1 million in Q4, down 21% from Q3
RIM to discontinue providing specific quantitative guidance
Shipped over 500,000 BlackBerry PlayBook tablets
Jim Balsillie, former Co-CEO of the Company, has resigned as a Director on the Company’s Board
David Yach will be retiring from his role as CTO, Software after 13 years with the Company
After 4 years with the company and following an open dialogue on the future of global operations, Jim Rowan, COO, Global Operations, has decided to pursue other interests.
Not one piece of good news. Except Balsillie is out, I guess.
Foxconn, which manufactures more than 40 percent of the world’s electronics for such companies as Apple, Dell, Amazon and others, has pledged to sharply curtail the number of working hours within its Chinese factories and significantly increase wages, a move that could improve working conditions across China.The shift comes after a far-ranging inspection by the Fair Labor Association, a monitoring group, found widespread problems.Apple, in a statement, said the company fully supports the monitoring group’s recommendations. “We think empowering workers and helping them understand their rights is essential. Our team has been working for years to educate workers, improve conditions and make Apple’s supply chain a model for the industry, which is why we asked the F.L.A. to conduct these audits.”
Selected from a pool of six finalists among more than 30,000 entries from 100 countries, design student Rodolfo Kusulas of Monterrey, Mexico and freelance designer Lee Dunford of Sydney took top honors in the Heineken Limited Edition Design Contest, and their winning design will be featured on the brand’s 140th anniversary bottle.
Android generated less than $550m in revenues for Google between 2008 and the end of 2011, if figures provided by the search giant as part of a settlement offer with Oracle ahead of an expected patent and copyright infringement trial are an accurate guide.
Overall, Android continues to lead the smartphone market in the U.S., with 48 percent of smartphone owners saying they owned an Android OS device. Nearly a third (32.1%) of smartphone users have an Apple iPhone, and Blackberry owners represented another 11.6 percent of the smartphone market. Among recent acquirers who got their smartphone within the last three months, 48 percent of those surveyed in February said they chose an Android and 43 percent bought an iPhone.
MailTags 3 is an enhancement for Apple’s Mail client in OS X 10.7 to add powerful tagging and search capabilities. MailTags 3 seamlessly integrates into Mail.app to make the attachment, search, and collation of tags, such as keywords and notes, a powerful part of email management.
Apple’s newest iPad hit the market three weeks ago and already their have been a number of controversies surrounding the device. As expected, all of the issues fizzled out because there was really nothing there in the first place.
Samsung Electronics has shipped 5 million units of its “smart notepad”, the Galaxy Note, surpassing most expectations, according to analysts.
How can shipping 5 million units possible surpass anyone’s expectations? That is not the number of Galaxy Notes sold, that’s just the number that Samsung managed to get out of its factory.
Samsung could ship 100 million Galaxy Notes and have them sit in a warehouse somewhere — that doesn’t mean they sold 100 million. I’m never impressed with shipped numbers because they don’t mean anything.
Update: A number of sites are updating their stories noting that Samsung told them its 5 million sales, not shipments.
It was recorded before this became news (about a week ago actually), so it’s kinda weird it came up in this chat! Loren talks about how he came up with it and about the patent itself, but also talks about much more interesting things regarding being an indie dev, supporting your apps, paid upgrades and dispenses some sage wisdom on those topics.
Loren is the guy that came up with the concept. Worth a listen.
Apple Inc’s Tim Cook, on his first trip to China as the chief executive officer, has visited an iPhone production plant run by the Foxconn Technology Group, which is being accused of improper labor practices.
I’m delighted to see that the Photoshop CS6 beta has been downloaded more than half a million times in less than a week! The response I’ve seen so far has been overwhelmingly positive.
Jim Dalrymple is back with Dan Benjamin to talk about journalist responsibility in the wake of Warmgate, international 4G and things Apple didn’t think of, patents and trademarks and how much care Apple gives them when naming products, guitars, domains, and a major announcement.Sponsored by Studio Neat and AppsFire
After talking to VCs and tech moguls, the TechCrunch teamed huddled up and picked these 10 companies as the best. They’re disrupting commerce, evolving how we communicate, and making our phones even more powerful.Here’s a cheat sheet to the startups we think are going to remodel big industries, change the world, or at least make a ton of money.
Some of these you’ll have no interest in but some of them might just pique your interest further.
Most of the tweets you read on Twitter are forgettable, at best. Some of them are pure gold and worth memorializing in some fashion. But how? A favorite? A retweet? Emailing them to a friend?How about printing them out on toilet paper and wiping your butt with them? Amazing idea right?
Very nice eBook written by my friend Jeff Carlson:
Apple’s popular iPad tablet is an incredibly useful tool for photographers on the go. Instead of hauling a laptop on the road or to a photo shoot, you can tuck the lightweight iPad in your camera bag and take advantage of its large screen, third-party apps, and online access to effectively complete and share your work.
I’m excited to tell you that I have accepted an invitation to speak at the Úll Conference in Dublin, Ireland next month.
Úll is a conference for iOS / OSX / mobile web developers and designers. The three day event will include workshops, keynotes, talks and in-depth presentations on all the aspects of building, designing and marketing your apps.
I’ll be joining a nice line-up of speakers including Michael Lopp, Michael Simmons, Horace Dediu and Matt Gemmell, among others.
Since Apple’s first iPad came on the scene in 2010, people have wondered if tablets could stand in for computers. Few would argue they’re not up to casual tasks like Web browsing and emailing, but what about the more demanding ones? What about, say, photo editing? Until recently, that was firmly out of the question. The graphics and processing power of even the top tablets couldn’t hack it. But now, with the new iPad, I’m not so sure.
Quite easily one of the best articles I’ve seen on the topic.
Úll is a conference for iOS / OSX / mobile web developers and designers. The three day event will include workshops, keynotes, talks and in-depth presentations on all the aspects of building, designing and marketing your apps.
The conference takes place April 27–29, 2012 and there are still tickets available — I’m looking at making the trip myself. They also have a great list of speakers that includes Michael Lopp, Horace Dediu, Matt Gemmell, and others.
The conference organizers have kindly offered The Loop readers a €50 discount. You can claim the discount here.
Redesigning a website can be the seven-layer taco dip of hell. You’ve searched for inspiration on dozens of websites, captured screenshots, jotted down notes, consulted friends and colleagues, maybe even interviewed users. But despite your due diligence, your vision for the new website remains unclear.
