Samsung issues weaker than expected profit forecast

 

Samsung Electronics, the world's biggest mobile phone and TV maker, has forecast weaker-than-expected profits for the April to June quarter.

It has estimated an operating profit of 9.5 trillion won ($8.3bn; £5.5bn) for the quarter. Most analysts had expected a figure closer to 10.1tn won.
The success of its smartphones has been key to Samsung's recent growth.
However there have been concerns that its growth rate may be slowing despite the launch of new models.
Samsung shares fell 3.8% after the profit guidance. Its shares have dropped more than 15% since early June, after a various brokerages downgraded their outlook for the firm.
"The slowdown in its handset business appears to be worse than expected and the disappointing result simply reinforces the market view that Samsung's smartphone growth momentum is slowing," said Lee Sei-chul, an analyst at Seoul-based Meritz Securities.
'Diversification key'

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One of the biggest risks for Samsung Electronics going forward is that 70% of total operating profit comes from mobile business”

Jeff Kim Hyundai Securities

Samsung has enjoyed tremendous success in the smartphone market in recent years. The popularity of its Galaxy range of smartphone saw it replace Nokia as the world's biggest mobile phone maker last year.

According to research firm Strategy Analytics, Samsung accounts for almost 95% of the Android smartphone sector's profits.
But despite all that success, there have been concerns in recent weeks that the rate of growth that Samsung's smartphones have enjoyed in recent years may be slowing, a trend that may eventually hurt profits.
Earlier this month, South Korea's Woori Investment & Securities cut its earnings forecast for the technology giant. That was followed by similar moves from JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Merrill Lynch and others.
The concerns have been triggered in part by the launch of new products from rival manufacturers as well as relatively low-cost smartphones by Chinese firms.
Analysts said that for Samsung to be able to maintain its high growth rate the firm needed to come up with new and innovative products and also reduce its reliance on the mobile phone business to drive growth.
"One of the biggest risks for Samsung Electronics going forward is that 70% of total operating profit comes from mobile business," said Jeff Kim of Hyundai Securities.
"Diversification is key. Wearable devices are the next stage in a saturated industry that needs constant innovation to survive.
"We'll see flexible smartphones in the fourth quarter from Samsung and LG Electronics, and iWatch and Galaxy Watch are expected to be one of the first waves."
However, some analysts were sceptical about whether wearable devices would bolster earnings.
"It's more likely to complement its earnings at best," said Byun Han-joon, an analyst at KB Investment & Securities.
Jung Sang-jin, a fund manager at Dongbu Asset Management, added: "The problem is no one is sure whether these products can really wow investors and consumers."

 

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Human gestures perplex Asimo, Honda museum robot guide

 

Honda's popular robot Asimo faced problems with gesture recognition on its first day as a museum guide at the Miraikan science museum in Tokyo.

The machine struggled to differentiate between museum-goers raising their hands to ask a question and raising their hands to take photos, Associated Press reported.
It is "working" as a tour guide at the museum for the next four weeks as a trial.
Asimo cannot respond to voice commands.
The robot is instead designed to answer 100 questions selected via touchscreen from a written panel.
But during a demonstration it froze and asked: "Who wants to ask Asimo a question?" repeatedly when people pointed their cameras at it.
"Right now, it can recognize a child waving to it, but it's not able to comprehend the meaning of the waving," said Honda robotics technology specialist Satoshi Shigemi.
'Not able to comprehend' Asimo has been in development since 1996.
Speaking to the BBC last year, Prof Chris Melhuish, director of the British Robotics Laboratory at Bristol University, said that interaction with humans was the next big step for robotics.
"The key thing, and it's what we're working on at the moment, is safe human-robot interaction," he said.
"That's not just making the robot compliant, it's making it have advanced social intelligence. If a robot is handing you something hot or sharp, for example, it needs to know whether it has your attention."
Honda's head of robotics, Satoshi Shigemi, told the AP news agency: "Right now, it can recognise a child waving to it, but it's not able to comprehend the meaning of the waving."

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Despicable Me 2': The Reviews Are In! Critics say the sequel is not as strong, but still very entertaining.

In case those ubiquitous billboards featuring funny-faced yellow pills hadn't tipped you off, "Despicable Me 2" is coming to theaters this week, reuniting Gru with his wacky Minions for a whole new set of adventures. In this follow-up to the 2009 blockbuster, Gru (Steve Carell) trades in his supervillain costume in exchange for the life of a super-dad, only to find domestic bliss — and single-parenthood — challenged by the arrival of Lucy Wilde (Kristen Wiig), a government operative hoping to enlist him to hunt down another former baddie who's disappeared.

Whether or not Gru becomes a bona fide hero, the film certainly promises some hilarious hijinks. But do they live up to the ones in the original "Despicable Me?" MTV News took a look at some of the reviews that popped up as the film nears its July 3 release date and compiled some critics' thoughts about the film.

Despicable Me 2

How Worthy — Or Necessary — Is This Follow-Up To 'Despicable Me?'
"This new picture feels like... a hastily thought-up opportunity to put our characters through some kind of adventure. Any kind of adventure. Whereas the original had Steve Carell's evil genius and his cache of spazzed-out weapons trying to hijack the moon, this film sends him to the mall." — Jordan Hoffman, Screencrush

Still, What Can Audiences Look Forward To In the Sequel?
"After reluctantly admitting that he made a second-rate baddie at best, Steve Carell's overcompensating character gets a chance to prove himself a first-class hero, providing ample opportunity for comic support from his Minions. While not quite as charming or unique as the original, 'Despicable Me 2' comes awfully close, extending co-directors Chris Renaud and Pierre Coffin's delightfully silly sensibility to a bit larger universe." — Peter Debruge, Variety

How Are Steve Carell And Kristen Wiig As A Comedic Couple?
"Steve Carell's Slavic inflections as Gru do the trick, as before. Wiig's clever hesitations and comic timing help save the day." — Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune

Pharrell's 'Despicable Me 2' Soundtrack Makes Him 'The Luckiest Guy'

Will Grown-Ups And Kids Be Enertained?
"Little kids won't be too bored, but adults who found themselves charmed by the first "Despicable Me" may or may not be along for the ride this time. Universal has already announced a third sequel, 'Minions' (which, sadly, isn't solely centered on those walking ids), and here's hoping Gru can be a little despicable-r next time." — Alonso Duralde, The Wrap

How Funny Are Those Minions?
"The minions also routinely score on the comedy front, though let's be clear, they are basically glorified little yellow stooges. Their humor is completely based upon miscommunication and physical comedy. Again, not a bad thing, but a worry as the series goes forward, because physical comedy tends to wear thin if continually repeated." — Laremy Legel,Film.com

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Samsung buys set top box maker Boxee

Samsung is buying Boxee - an Israeli firm that makes media streaming devices.

The South Korean electronics giant said it had "acquired key talent and assets" from the company.

"This will help us continue to improve the overall user experience across our connected devices," it added.

Boxee's latest product lets subscribers record TV shows onto its servers and then stream them to TVs, computers and smart devices "from the cloud".

It had previously raised $26.5m (£17.3m) in funds from a range of US and Israeli investors.

Samsung is the world's best-selling maker of smart TVs - screens which which offer access to apps, video-on-demand and other internet content without the need for a separate set-top box.

According to Informa Telecoms and Media, 54 million smart TVs were sold worldwide in the last year, and it expects that number to grow to 221 million in 2017.

The consultancy suggested the takeover might prove a good match because, despite its apparent success, Samsung was still struggling to convince consumers to use its services rather than those of others.

"When people are going into stores they may end up with a smart TV by default but at the moment they have little desire to use their internet functions even if they have a fast enough connection," said Paul Jackson, principal analyst at Informa.

"But within the TV industry there is a lot of optimism that consumers will want to use these kind services in the future.

"Boxee has been playing with its own TV user interface and has a good reputation for making a link between its hardware and a back-end service.

"But it's still early days for cloud TV services and it's been difficult for Boxee to make money. It makes more sense for it to be part of a wider offering rather than selling itself as a single function device."

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Computer mouse inventor Doug Engelbart dies at 88

Dr Engelbart's first ever moThe inventor of the computer mouse, Doug Engelbart, has died aged 88.

Engelbart developed the tool in the 1960s as a wooden shell covering two metal wheels, patenting it long before the mouse's widespread use.

He also worked on early incarnations of email, word processing and video teleconferences at a California research institute.

The state's Computer History Museum was notified of his death by his daughter, Christina, in an email.

Her father had been in poor health and died peacefully on Tuesday night in his sleep, she said.

Doug Engelbart was born on 30 January 1925 in Portland, Oregon, to a radio repairman father and a housewife mother.

'Mother of all demos'

He studied electrical engineering at Oregon State University and served as a radar technician during World War II.

How the computer mouse got its name

He then worked at Nasa's predecessor, Naca, as an electrical engineer, but soon left to pursue a doctorate at University of California, Berkeley.

His interest in how computers could be used to aid human cognition eventually led him to Stanford Research Institute (SRI) and then his own laboratory, the Augmentation Research Center.

His laboratory helped develop ARPANet, the government research network that led to the internet.

Engelbart's ideas were way ahead of their time in an era when computers took up entire rooms and data was fed into the hulking machines on punch cards.

At a now legendary presentation that became known as the "mother of all demos" in San Francisco in 1968, he made the first public demonstration of the mouse.

At the same event, he held the first video teleconference and explained his theory of text-based links, which would form the architecture of the internet.

He did not make much money from the mouse because its patent ran out in 1987, before the device became widely used.

SRI licensed the technology in 1983 for $40,000 (£26,000) to Apple.

At least one billion computer mouses have been sold.

Engelbart had considered other designs for his most famous invention, including a device that could be fixed underneath a table and operated by the knee.

He was said to have been driven by the belief that computers could be used to augment human intellect.

Engelbart was awarded the $500,000 Lemelson-MIT prize in 1997 and the National Medal of Technology for "creating the foundations of personal computing" in 2000.

Since 2005, he had been a fellow at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.

He is survived by his second wife, Karen O'Leary Engelbart, and four children.use demo

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Yahoo's pre-fireworks news: We're buying Xobni

With purchase of email startup, Yahoo might be looking to take over your mobile phone from every possible angle, including where you store your contacts.

Yahoo can't seem to go one week without adding another startup to the portfolio.

Just before everyone takes off for Independence Day, the rejuvenated technology giant is making moves to acquire Xobni, a self-described "smart address book."

With products for Microsoft Outlook and Gmail, Xobni (or "inbox" spelled backwards) developed a platform that essentially aggregated everyone you have possibly contacted (whether it's via email, text message, phone call, etc.) and tried to unify and organize that data to provide more comprehensive contact files. Those files were also populated with updates from Facebook and Twitter.

Xobni also offered teams and enterprise subscription options for automatically managing emails, contacts, and folders with little to no IT help required.

The Xobni team confirmed the merger in a blog post on Wednesday, positing that Yahoo understands the startup's vision and benefits beyond just the "inbox or smartphone."

Xobni, which is based in San Francisco, will be moving its operations down to the Valley at Yahoo's headquarters in Sunnyvale.

While some current users (including existing business subscribers) will not be affected initially (or even until one year from now), a number of changes are going into effect immediately.

Xobni has an entire FAQ page for current and perhaps prospective customers ahead of today, explaining which products and features will continue to be available after today.

The most notable difference is that Xobni is no longer accepting new purchases of premium products. Furthermore, Smartr Contacts for Android and Xobni for BlackBerry are no longer available to download, signalling that these services are likely going to be folded into something else Yahoo is cooking up.

Financial details of the deal have not been disclosed, but AllThingsD reports that Yahoo is paying approximately $30 million to $40 million more for Xobni.

Rachel King is a staff writer for ZDNet based in San Francisco.

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Egypt's Morsi had Twitter, the generals had the tanks

As the Egyptian leader was ousted by the military, he and his allies live-tweeted their side of the events. Now the world can read these tweets, because of Twitter's new translation tool.

By now it's almost cliche to note Twitter's involvement in breaking geopolitical news. The service has become so widely used globally, that it's almost expected to be part of any big story.

Even so, it was fascinating to watch Mohamed Morsi's use of the medium as he struggled to retain his presidency -- even after the Egyptian military officially declared him to be unemployed.

In the days leading up to his fall on Wednesday, Morsi and his comrades sent out a series of tweets, some defiant, some pleading, and all negating the legality of the president's takedown by Egypt's military.

This is Morsi's final tweet posted on Tuesday:

The official Egyptian presidency page was even more active in the lead-up to Morsi's ouster. Earlier today, it tweeted a quote from Morsi saying, "For the sake of #Egypt and for historical accuracy, let's call what is happening by its real name: Military coup." And then later it tweeted, "Pres. Morsy urges civilians and military members to uphold the law & the Constitution not to accept that coup which turns #Egypt backwards."

Typically, many of these tweets would be understandable only to those who read Arabic. However, Twitter began testing a Bing-powered English translation tool on Morsi's and other prominent Egyptian's accounts, so that users worldwide could understand what they were tweeting during these historic moments.

"As part of our experiment with Tweet text translation, we've enabled translation for some of the most-followed accounts in Egypt," a Twitter spokesperson told CNET, "so people around the world can better understand and keep up with what's happening there."

Included among the notables is Morsi, of course, along with prominent opposition leaderMohamed ElBaradei and Arab Spring activist Wael Ghonim. Twitter has also created a list of people to follow who are actively tweeting what's currently happening on the ground in Egypt.

Even though the novelty of Twitter live-broadcasting news seems to have worn off a bit, it appears that new features like the translation tool can help keep the world's breaking events fascinating on the social network.

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The House of Nines AW13 Clothing Collection

The House of Nines AW13 Collection

The House of Nines creators Ross Paul Keenan and Shamrez Marawat challenge the perception of British menswear with a truly beautiful collection for AW13.
The new range is classic and sleek in aesthetic, featuring sharply engineered silhouettes and muted tones. Almost architectural in feel, the prominent use of black ensures this contemporary approach to design retains a sense of timelessness.
The brand is renowned for their high quality construction, utilising traditional tailoring methods to craft and engineer each collection. For AW13, finely woven canvas and lightweight wool have been sourced direct from Italy to give the pieces their fine form and structure, whilst premium untreated soft lambs skin, calf leather and cashmere add to the sense of luxury.
Usability is at the forefront of each design, with detailing such as signature side seams inserted for comfort, fit and easier access to pockets.
Highlights of the latest offering include the effortlessly stylish range of white shirts. A must have in any man’s wardrobe, they are made from fine Italian cotton, with mother of pearl buttons sourced from Australia. Lines are kept clean and sharp, whilst military references help to create the ultimate staple piece for the modern gent.
Knitwear is also strong – in particular the ‘Serpico Jumper’, which incorporates the brand’s signature ‘suit of armour’ serpent motif along with leather shoulder patches and neck collar fasteners.

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Bolivian president's plane redirected over Snowden suspicions

Bolivia claims that its president was "abducted" and that his plane's rerouting violates terms set by the Vienna Convention.

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The plane carrying Bolivian President Evo Morales was redirected to Austria after a number of European countries refused to allow airspace use due to concerns that NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden was on board.
According to Bolivian officials and the Associated Press, the plane was due to take Morales back to Bolivia after a convention in Moscow to discuss gas-exporting countries. However, after suspicions arose that Snowden was on board, the plane was forced to redirect to Vienna where the Bolivian president spent the night.
In response, the Bolivian President's Ministry released a statement denouncing the move and claiming that Evo Morales was "abducted." During a press conference in the Presidential Palace in La Paz, Bolivia, Vice President Garcia Linera commented (approximate translation):

We don't know who invented this lie. We want to tell the world that President Evo Morales, our president, President of the Bolivians, [has been] abducted in Europe and we want to tell the people of the world that President Evo Morales has been hijacked by imperialism.

The Bolivian President's Ministry said that by diverting the plane, the Vienna Convention was broken after France, Portugal, Italy, and Spain refused to authorize the use of their airspace and airports.
The Vienna Convention (PDF) stipulates that country leaders should not be hindered while traveling, and as several European governments prohibited the use of airspace over the Snowden suspicions, Morales believes this has broken the treaty.
Austrian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Schallenberg told the AP that Snowden was not on board. Linera believes that the United States government was behind Europe's refusal to allow the plane's use of airspace, saying:

We know that this trip obstruction of President Evo has been instructed by the U.S. government, the U.S. government is afraid that a peasant, a native fear, fear of an honest man who defends the sovereignty of our homeland.

In addition, Venezuela Foreign Minister Elias Jaua believes that by changing the flight's route without checking fuel levels, Morales' life was placed in danger.
 Snowden is wanted by the U.S. government after leaking documents to the media over the National Security Agency's surveillance practices. The U.S. government has revoked his passport, and Snowden is believed to be within the Moscow airport's transit lounge while applying for asylum to over a dozen countries. A number of countries, including Norway and Spain, have said that asylum applications must be made on the country's soil.
The 30 year-old withdrew an asylum bid to stay in Russia after President Vladmir Putin added a condition to asylum -- that Snowden must stop "his work aimed at harming our American partners." However, Russia does not have an extradition treaty with the United States, and Putin does not plan to hand over the whistleblower.
In a statement posted to WikiLeaks, Snowden said:

On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic "wheeling and dealing" over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions. This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.

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Microsoft eyes 2014 launch for Xbox One in Japan

The company is releasing the Xbox One in the U.S. and 20 other countries in 2013, but Japan has been listed as "tier 2."

 

 

Microsoft's Xbox One console will hit Japanese store shelves in 2014, the company's Japan President has confirmed.
Speaking in an interview with gaming site 4 Gamer, Microsoft Japan President Yasuyuki Higuchi said that the Japanese market is considered "tier 2" by Microsoft, and thus, will not receive the Xbox One until next year. He didn't say exactly when the console will be available in Japan.

Although Japan is a key market for console makers, it's proven to be a major hole in Microsoft's business. Japanese customers have not warmed to the Xbox the way consumers in North America and Europe have. And although Microsoft wants to make a push for the Japanese market with the Xbox One, it appears to not be as important this time around.
The Xbox One is launching in the U.S. and 20 other countries later this year.
(Via GamesIndustry.biz)

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