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- Disney, Q-pot Choco, Honey Bee: Japan Gets 3 Extra-Cute Android Phones
- Dirty Money
- Steam Takes First Steps Into Mobile With iOS And Android Apps
- BookPlace DB50: Toshiba Introduces Android-Based Color E-Book Reader
- Nintendo Reports US$630 Million Net Loss Between April And December 2011, Announces Wii U For 2012
- Intel To Spend $120M On Patents, Video Codec Software From RealNetworks
| Disney, Q-pot Choco, Honey Bee: Japan Gets 3 Extra-Cute Android Phones Posted: 27 Jan 2012 04:16 AM PST  Android adoption is growing rapidly in Japan, with local handset manufacturers doing everything they can in order to meet the demands of customers in all segments of the population. One particularly attractive target group seems to be women, given how many Japanese companies say they design Android phones specifically for female users. Here are three recent examples. First, Sharp has designed a weird “chocolate bar”-type handset that Japan’s biggest mobile carrier NTT Docomo plans to roll out on Valentine’s Day. The so-called “Q-pot.Phone SH-04D” [JP] comes with Android 2.3, a 3.7-inch LCD with 540×960 resolution, NFC e-wallet function, Wi-Fi, and an 8MP CMOS camera. Here are some accessories owners can get: Second, Japanese carrier SoftBank rolled out Kyocera’s HONEY BEE 101K [JP] today, another handset designed with female customers in mind. This model features Android 2.3, a 3.5-inch LCD with 800×480 resolution, a 5.1MP CMOS camera, a MP5225 dual-core CPU with 1.2GHz, 2GB ROM, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth 2.1+EDR. Third, Disney Mobile has come up with the DM012SH, a Android 2.3 handset (made by Sharp). It comes with a 4-inch LCD with 960×540 resolution, an 8MP CMOS camera, NFC e-wallet function, infrared, digital TV tuner, Bluetooth 3.0, Wi-Fi, and a microSDHC slot. Disney Mobile, a Japanese MVNO, is planning to offer the DM012SH (pre-installed with a special Disney UI, Disney apps, wallpapers, etc.) next month. Every buyer will get one the cases below for free:
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| Posted: 26 Jan 2012 01:45 PM PST  The New York Times has published a long article on Foxconn which, while it doesn’t provide much in the way of new information, does act as a sobering reminder of just how companies like Apple can make so very much money. When our own John Biggs visited Foxconn, he focused on the company itself, its scale, its intentions. When I wrote about Apple’s suppliers failing to meet environmental standards, it was more about the laxity of regulators within China. Today’s NYT piece depicts Apple as prime mover and potential catalyst of change — but its actions and information from insiders suggest that it is simply unwilling. There is a certain genius to negotiating down the price of every screw and wire, and never paying a yuan more than is absolutely necessary. As in design and build quality, other companies aspire to Apple’s accomplishment in this area. Something the article only fleetingly acknowledges is that Foxconn is used by most of the major electronics brands in the world. Samsung, Microsoft, Amazon, and the rest all contract with Foxconn to manufacture, assemble, or finish their products. The threatened mass suicide the other week was, in fact, at an Xbox production facility. The author suggests that HP and Nike “push” their suppliers, presumably in a good way, but Apple does not. The comparison is made without much in the way of evidence. But it doesn’t appear that Apple is being unfairly targeted: people from within Apple confirm the company’s attitude towards suppliers, and acknowledge that they rarely back up their threats with action. This is for the reason that has been making the rounds over the last week: the suppliers they have are the best in the world, and they are barely able to keep up with Apple’s demands. There’s a sort of power inversion going on there. Here is Foxconn, which celebrates whenever a client like Apple comes by to make a big order. And here is Apple, which dictates the terms and is, to some extent, the money in the relationship. But which one of these two could fare better if the other backed out? Foxconn would have to spend a few billion reconfiguring its factories to pump out Galaxy Tabs and Kindle Fires. Apple, which has come to rely on Foxconn’s guarantee of millions of products being manufactured at will, and to specs that may change by the hour, would be adrift. So it has never been a surprise to me when I hear that Apple, and others, only do so much to change the situation in factories and factory towns in China. The simple fact of it is they’re not the ones at the reins. Foxconn and China have our all-important tech companies by the scruff of the neck, and bear the big bad audits by Apple (more likely by people representing people representing Apple) like they’d bear a kitten swiping at their face. It’s a high stakes game, and Foxconn and its like hold all the cards. Well, not all the cards. As I wrote once, the reason Apple does the things it does is to please us, the consumers. We demand a new iPhone every year that must be better and cheaper. We insist that a thousand dollars is too much for a state of the art computer. We want bigger TVs and external hard drives and slim cameras. And we, almost without exception, fail to care when our demand for more iPads drives Apple to double its orders, driving Foxconn to push more overtime, driving poorly-maintained ventilation systems to their maximum, driving a spark to ignite an aluminum-dust explosion. It’s not our problem, it’s Apple’s or it’s Foxconn’s or it’s China’s. Very reassuring. One dreamer quoted in the NYT article says: “If they committed to building a conflict-free iPhone, it would transform technology.” Yes, and at the same time, it would transform Apple into a bankrupt company. A conflict free iPhone would cost far, far more and would in all likelihood not be as well-built. Apple knows this. The system we and they have in place works, unfortunately, at least for everyone but the workers coated in N-hexane. And at a twelve to a hundred thousand dollars a pop, they aren’t worth rocking the boat for, especially when you’ve got record profits coming in. Just don’t forget that we’re in that boat too. Unlike many other companies whose profits come largely from ads, enterprise products, or components, the vast majority of what Apple makes comes straight out of a consumer’s pockets, more or less willingly. More than any other mega-corporation you and I deal with on a daily basis, we are fully in control of our contributions to this company. We’re part of this. Some would say the biggest part.
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| Steam Takes First Steps Into Mobile With iOS And Android Apps Posted: 26 Jan 2012 12:43 PM PST  As a gamer with admittedly poor impulse control, the newly-released Steam app for iOS and Android has me very worried. On the one hand, it seems like an ideal way to to keep tabs on the popular gaming service on the go. On the other though, I could easily see myself going overboard on buying games I don’t need when I should be pretending to be a productive member of society. The Steam app sports a set of features that should be familiar to many a PC gamer, including gaming news feeds and the ability to browse the extensive catalog. It’s also very geared toward communication, as it allows you to keep in touch with your fellow Steam buddies by poking through their profiles or kicking off a mobile chat session. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I have no Steam friends, so the biggest threat that the new Steam app poses to people like me is that it provides up-to-date information about games on sale, which means that my loved ones will soon notice that I’m spending more time checking to see if Cave Story+ is on sale than, y’know, interacting with them. Yes, I know I have a problem. My only consolation is that the app is usable by people who have been invited to the beta, so I’ll be safe from the allure of buying cheap games from the park for at least a little while longer. If you’re lucky enough to be among the select few with beta access, the app is already live in the Android and iOS app stores. Download away, but please don’t tell me what I’m missing out on.
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| BookPlace DB50: Toshiba Introduces Android-Based Color E-Book Reader Posted: 26 Jan 2012 07:22 AM PST  Following Fujitsu, another Japanese electronics maker is ready to sell color e-book readers: Toshiba announced [JP] the so-called BookPlace DB50 today, a 7-Inch device that comes with direct access to big T’s BookPlace store (which currently offers around 43,000 different Japanese e-books and magazines). Toshiba says they plan to expand the range of available titles to 100,000 by March this year, the largest in its home market. The store has been available in America since 2010. The device runs on special versions of Linux (Toshiba hasn’t revealed details yet) and Android 2.3.4 (heavily modified). It has the following specs:
Toshiba is planning to sell the Bookplace DB50 on the Japanese market on February 10. The price will be US$284 (every buyer will get a US$64 coupon for use in the company’s e-book store).
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| Nintendo Reports US$630 Million Net Loss Between April And December 2011, Announces Wii U For 2012 Posted: 26 Jan 2012 06:08 AM PST  3DS sales have picked up lately, but Nintendo‘s financial numbers are still weak. Big N today released [PDF] another set of disappointing results for the first nine months of its fiscal year (April to December 2011). The company lost a whopping US$630 million, compared with a profit of US$635 million in the same time frame last fiscal. Sales were down 31.2% year-on-year to US$7.2 billion. Nintendo says there are three main reasons for this performance: weak Wii sales, the unprecedented price cut for the 3DS in spring last year, and losses on its foreign currency holdings coming from the very strong yen. But today, Nintendo president Satoru Iwata was able to announce good news, too: Iwata said this company is ready to phase out the Wii and to start selling the follow-up console, the Wii U, in Japan, America, Europe and Australia by the “year-end season” 2012.
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| Intel To Spend $120M On Patents, Video Codec Software From RealNetworks Posted: 26 Jan 2012 05:07 AM PST  Intel is to buy “a significant number” of patents (approximately 190 patents and 170 patent applications) and video codec software from RealNetworks for a purchase price of $120 million. Under the terms of the deal, RealNetworks says it retains certain rights to continue to use the patents in current and future products. Says RealNetworks president and CEO Thomas Nielsen:
In addition to the sale of the patents and software, RealNetworks and Intel agreed to collaborate on future support and development of the video codec software and ‘related products’.
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 1/27/2012 05:21:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 1/27/2012 05:21:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 1/27/2012 05:21:00 AM
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Posted By e Readers Tips to e Readers Reviews at 1/27/2012 05:21:00 AM
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