Sony's yearly report is in: Here's the plan department by department!

   Sony's annual report which shows us the state of affairs within the company has been released today! In recent years things haven't been too great, but for once there's a few little hints here and there that things might be starting to turn around!

   The good news for Sony was that the company is profitable again! This was mainly down to the film and financial services departments of the company as well as lots of asset sales! Sony still seem to be struggling with consumer electronics, but we'll go into that in a bit more detail now!

The Sony Xperia Z!

   In the smartphone and tablet department things have been going well and the company is looking to build on their solid position with, 'accelerate the speed with which it develops and rapidly delivers compelling products to customers,' so essentially Sony want to cut down their development time to get products to market sooner, which is a solid thing to do given that the flagships for this year are rocking Qualcomm's older Snapdragon S4 Pro processors instead of the new Snapdragon 600's which everyone else is deploying!

   The story is somewhat similar when it comes to computers, but the real focus will be on a new realignment which will see the company prioritizing profitability over increasing sales, which makes sense because Sony's laptops tend to target the higher end at the moment any way!

   Imaging has always been a particular strength of Sony and the company seem to know it. There are plans in place to 'reinforce the professional camera line-up centring on 4K-compatible cameras, as well as cameras for cinematography.' The Japanese company are also looking at new revenue streams with things such as security, sports and medicine being the starting point for this. On a more mundane level consumers can expect compact cameras with 'enhance image quality... reduced size and weight, and higher-powered zoom,' all of which sounds pretty good to us!

   Gaming is an interesting topic at the moment too, especially with yesterday's reveal of the Xbox One, the ball is firmly back in Sony's court to see what they do with the PS4! There's not too much detail in this report, but the guys do say that it will arrive in time for the holidays this year and the aim is to offer 'a quality gaming experience only possible through a dedicated gaming system, and will also enable smartphone and tablet users to share in the enjoyment of PS4, even without owning one themselves.'

The battle will be over the next generation of consoles as Sony focus
on gaming and Microsoft go after living room domination!

   The PS Vita will tie in quite closely with the PS4 and owners of both will be rewarded with exclusive content and there will be some interesting price reductions on the Vita, as well as some
more compelling games coming in the near future, especially focused around software downloads instead of physical game sales! The PS3 will be supported for a few more years, but there's not really much doing there now as the focus is shifting to the PS4!
 
   And finally, when it comes to the TV business, things aren't looking great, but the company is pledging to continue to work on their 'Full HD TV models, while also expanding its 4K LCD TV line-up'. There will be a renewed focus on emerging markets because that's where the growth is at the moment with the hope that cost saving can bring this department back into profitability over the next few years!

   If you're interested in checking the report out in more details then head over to Sony's website here and let us know what you think about Sony's future in the comments below!
Via Engadget.

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People now spend more on smartphone gaming then dedicated portable consoles!

Image Credit: Mashable.

   The guys over at AllThingsD have been able to get their hands on a report before it was published which indicates that for the first quarter of this year mobile gaming had more money spent on it than the dedicated handheld console, which consists of devices like the Nintendo DS and PS Vita,  market did.

    To be fair this comparison in Q1 is a little deceiving. The sales on portable handhelds like the PS Vita are very cyclical and they tend to focus very heavily on the Christmas period, whereas mobile gaming has a consistent stream of high quality games coming to the market throughout the year so it's not just a one off, as you can see in the bar charts below.

   The thing is that with mobile games getting ever better and your mobile phone and tablet becoming ever more powerful, people find it hard to justify the extra outlay on devices which offer comparable experiences. Lets face it, if we could play Angry Birds on our phone and only have it ad-supported, instead of dropping $30 on it for a console game, we think we'd probably opt for the free version. This price gap definitely has some sort of impact because people are more inclined to spend little amounts more often on mobile games then make more substantial purchases on dedicated games.

   The interesting thing to see now will be what direction this market goes in the future. Will everything be on your phone or do mobile games  consoles still have a place? Let us know your thoughts in the comment below!
Via AllThingsD.

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In Other News: 05/02/2013.

• Nvidia have shown off the prowess of their new Project Shield by offering a video demo of the handheld console playing Boarderlands 2! Naturally the game is being played via the PC, but nonetheless this is a good demonstration of what Project Shield and the Tegra 4 processor will bring to the party! Check out the video below for the full demo!
  Via PocketLint.

• Google's Nexus 10 is now available to consumers in Japan! If you're interested you can head to the Play Store and order one for ¥36,800 (around $400) if you're after the 16GB model, or ¥44,800 (around $480) if you wanted the 32GB option!
  Via AndroidCentral.

• Virgin Media has confirmed that it is currently in takeover talks with US cable company Liberty Global! If there is an agreement reached here then Liberty Global's chairman, John Malone, will restart a head-to-head rivalry with Rupert Murdoch.
  
  Virgin confirmed that, "it is in discussions with Liberty Global, a leading international cable company, concerning a possible transaction. Any such transaction would be subject to regulatory and other conditions."
  
  At the moment nothing is confirmed, but this is certainly an interesting takeover proposition and we'll have to wait and see what plays out over the next few days!
  Via Guardian.

• Amazon has announced that from May this year they will launch their own virtual currency called Amazon Coins. These coins will allow Kindle Fire users to purchase virtual items such as apps and games, as well as being options for buying in-game add-ons. Naturally this is another money making scheme from Amazon, but it seems like it could potentially be useful, especially for given children allowances for games and things like that!
  Amazon Via AndroidCommunity.

• Sony has launched the PlayStation Home Arcade for the PlayStation Vita today! This essentially brings you all your favourite arcade games right on your handheld console! The games which will be offered can be found here! There's a couple of free games, but most are $1.49 which in itself isn't too expensive! To install the PlayStation Home Arcade you need to download the app from the PS Vita's PlayStation Store. It's not there at the moment, but it should be soon!
  Via Engadget.

• MoviePass have officially launched their Android app! If you've never heard of MoviePass well they are essentially an American subscription service that offers unlimited theatre movies for $30 per month if you subscribe for a year and they promise other “advance screenings, special events and exclusive offers.” The only catch is that you have to be invited to MoviePass and you can reserve your place in the line here!
  Via AndroidPolice.

• The iOS6 jailbreak was officially released to the public yesterday and since then evasi0n.com has had almost three million unique visitors,and more than 17.3 million hits in total and that's just between January 30th and February 3rd, so the figures for the last two days are probably as huge too! The jailbreak has proved hugely popular, it's installed on over 1.7million devices and as Jay Freeman, the creator of Cydia, said his app saw a peak of 14,000 hits per second, yes per second! Wow!
  Via Slashgear.

• Samsung have announced the Galaxy Fame and Galaxy Young! Both of these devices are aimed at the younger generation and teenagers, who tend to break there phones and so these cheaper options will give them the best mix of low price and all the apps they require! If you're interested in either of these devices then you can check out the press release here!

And finally, Blackberry have thanked developers by sending out over 12,000 red Blackberry Z10's to thank devs for their 'leap of faith' in supporting BB10! The device below certainly looks bold! Anyone else wishing they did these as retail units?

Source and Image Credit: mobileindustryreview

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16/09/2012

Texas Instruments is cutting back on mobile chip productions.

   Most of you will probably have heard of TI's OMAP smartphone processors. They may even be powering your smartphone or tablet at this very moment. Unfortunately, the company has announced that they will be scaling back their mobile chip productions.

   The news comes as the market has become increasingly competitive, with NVIDIA, Samsung, Qualcomm and many others offering alternative chips. The company has said they plan to focus on embedded systems instead. 

   This news comes after the recent announcement of Motorola that they will be using Intel’s Medfield processor for the RAZR i. Motorola was and still is one of TI's biggest customers, but for the moment TI says it will continue to support its existing clients, Reuters reports.

In other news:

• It's come to light today that Apple's new Lightning connector is in fact different on each side but, as Slashgear said it must have 'must be using some sort of process to dynamically identify which pin order the cord is currently using – depending on which side is up and which is down, that is.' What this will mean for you is that it is a lot harder for 3rd parties to make connectors, so you might be paying Apple prices for your accessories for a while!

• It's been widely reported today that Google's Eric Schmidt will meet with Samsung execs in South Korea this week, just before the launch of the Nexus 7 in the country. Samsung's mobile chief confirmed the meeting today but refused to comment on the agenda. Most people are expecting it to be an attempt to boost Google's involvement in Android litigation.

• LittleBigPlanet is now available for your PS Vita!

• Google has launched a little sale to mark the 25 billionth download from the Play store. The sale items will cost you either $.25 for those of you in the US or 25p if you live in the UK.   Included in the sale are games such as Angry Birds Space Premium, Granny Smith, Draw Something, NFL Kicker 13, OfficeSuite Pro 13 and a couple more!

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17/08/2012

Amazon recruits 5,000 UK corner shops for new delivery option!

   For once it's not mobile phone or tablet news that gets the big story here on TTF. This time it's Amazon and a rather big announcement for our UK readers. Most of us here in the UK shop on Amazon for cheap books if your a student, birthday and christmas presents if you're a parent or maybe you shop there because you need something to splash the cash on.

   Either way you probably get the item delivered to your house, but then you're not always in are you and the lovely postman puts this little red slip through your post box saying you weren't in (shocker) and that you have to go to your local depot at obscure times to collect your parcel. 

   Well, Amazon has heard the problem and has enlisted the help of local shops for a new scheme called CollectPlus. At the moment the scheme is in the trial phase, but it's widely expected to pass with flying colours. Essentially at the check out you will pick CollectPlus, choose your shop to deliver to and a couple of days later you can pop in on your lunch break and get your parcel. Perfect!

   Obviously this scheme has those people who work 9-5 firmly in mind because everyone knows the hassle of trying to collect undelivered parcels when you work! This will let you collect them at lunch or, if your shop is open late into the evening, the chance to pick it up after work!!!

   And if it turns out you don't like your item simply take it back to the shop and CollectPlus will return it! It's such a great idea it's hard to believe no ones thought of it before! This is definitely something useful for UK residents and hopefully we'll see it very soon!

Lenovo announces the LePhone K860 with a well ticket spec sheet!

   The image above is a picture of the upcoming Lenovo phone K860 "Music Phone" LePhone. On the surface this thing is looking like a not so little beast!

   On board there's a quad-core 1.4GHz Exynos 4412 chip, Mali-400MP GPU, 5-inch (1,280 x 720) display, 1GB of RAM and all of this inside a 9.6mm-thick chassis which makes this one pretty little device. On top of these there's an 8-megapixel snapper with support for 100 frames continuous shooting and 1080p video recording, in addition to the 2-megapixel camera around the front.

   Just in case you were worried all of those would kill your battery you need not because Lenovo will supply you with a 2,250 mAh cell to help keep you going. This will all be running on Android 4.0.4 too!

   Unfortunately we don't currently have any word on price or availability, but in the meantime Samsung might have something coming to take your mind off of this one!

In other news:

• The guys over at XDA have once again done what HTC deemed impossible, by creating a version of ICS (Android 4.0.4 to be precise) for the Desire HD. This is a ROM built off the official ROM for the Incredible S. Head over to XDA if you need some Sense 3.6 in your life!

• Acer has managed to push themselves into the positions as the world's third biggest computer manufacturer! And with such an honour comes a very small little profit; $14.5million to be exact. Not much but a lot better than most!

• If you're as hyped about Black Ops 2 as we are here at TTF then you'll be needing some BO2 customised Turtle Beaches for all your sound whoring. If that's the case and you feel an upgrade is required then head over to Engadget to get the round up on the incoming releases!

• And just in case we needed any more confirmation that Windows RT tablets would be a cheaper option, Lenovo's , David Schmoock, Senior VP of Lenovo's North American division, said to Bloomberg that full-on Windows 8 tablets would set you back between $600 and $700, whereas ARM-based Windows RT slates would sell for $200 to $300 less. "RT will play in consumer and retail at very aggressive price points," he said.

• Twitter has begun locking down their API by giving unofficial Twitter apps 100,000 unique user tokens and for any app that exceeds that will require special permission from Twitter themselves. Twitter obviously wants to push you to use their official app the same way you use Facebook's own app. This one might not be for the best though.

• Sony has explicitly denied that there will be any price cuts on their PS Vita console inside 2012, sorry guys no cheap christmas presents here!

• Google Play giftcards are on the way! If you're a US reader your local Target or other similar store might have a box of them ready to go! Look out for more news as it happens!

• Sony have started pushing Android 4.0 to Xperia P owners, if you've got an Xperia U or another NXT series device hold tight there's more of that sandwich coming soon.

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05/07/2012

Presenting the Motorola Atrix HD for AT&T.

   The rather handsome device above has just popped out of Motorola today. But, we must say it's a looker and the specs are pretty darn good too.

   There's a 4.5-inch 1280 x 720 HD Colorboost display, LTE, and a 1.5GHz dual-core processor. Which is powers Ice Cream Sandwich,  8 and 1.3-megapixel front cameras and Motorola’s own SMARTACTIONS software on top of Android 4.0.

   The goodness doesn't stop here though;  there’s 8GB of user-storage and a microSD card slot, along with a 1,780 mAh battery. The device itself crams all of this into a shell that's 69.9 x 133.5 x 8.4 mm and weighs 140g, and is clad in a soft-touch plastic. The two-tone colour-scheme can be chosen over a titanium-esque finish depending on your preference.

   You also get mobile hotspot functionality – for up to five tethered devices – together with microUSB, HDMI, Bluetooth 4.0, GPS/aGPS, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and the usual bevy of sensors such as an accelerometer, proximity and ambient light. It’s splash-resistant and uses Kevlar for increased ruggedness, along with a Gorilla Glass front.

    Motorola is keen to target the Atrix HD at business users; they've been pushing the Webtop app and it's ability to push your goods through a HDMI output and Bluetooth peripherals, somehting which they hope will make this a computer replacement, although hopefully this implementation will be better than past attempts from Moto. We don't know when it'll officially go on sale or for how much but our detective skills have pushed us to the conclusion that this is destined for AT&T when it eventually gets around to launching.

   One thing to keep an eye on is that the little guy seems to have a relatively stock implementation of Android so maybe, just maybe, Google is starting to assert some authority.

In other news:

• The domain ipad3.com has been handed over to Apple after they complained about someone else owning it.
• The new game Assassins Creed 3: Liberation will use live actors!
• If you've tried the Windows 8 preview then you can upgrade to the real thing for $40!
• The Google Nexus 7, when it hits the UK will lack access to tv shows, magazines and Google music, so perhaps that might take the gloss off of the device for you, but probably not!
• The PS Vita will be getting a whole host of PSOne games this summer as Sony continue to push their slick little gaming station.
• Lenovo have reportedly met with Microsoft to discuss the possibility of customising Windows Phone for use on future devices. This could work out well for both companies because Lenovo have access to their huge home market of China.
• The Nokia N9 received PR1.3 today, which brought over 1000 bug fixes, optimisations and updates.

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02/07/2012

Samsung and Google set to strike back at Apple?

   Having been slapped with a bunch of patent lawsuits from Apple, it seems Samsung and Google have got together to mastermind a fight back against Apple's recent complaints.

   

   Exactly what pair have planned it s a bit of an enigma because Samsung have refused to detail it publicly. “It’s too early to comment on our game plan in the legal battle; but we will do our best to get more royalties from Apple, which has benefited from our technology,” a supposed Samsung insider has said today. “The fight is becoming more dramatic and the possibility of a truce in the form of a cross-licensing deal, seems to be becoming likely.”

   Samsung has a demanded 2.4-percent royalty rate for iPhone and iPad units using technology it has patented, but Apple argues is against the FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) nature of the licensing terms. This sort of litigation from Samsung has seen the European Commission investigate them for antitrust behaviour.

   Google has already attempted to lend it's support to HTC, in a previous case of patent case against Apple. Google even went so far as to sell HTC a set of patents it went on to use in a counter-strike against the i-aggressors. The Galaxy Nexus case is much more of a pressing issue to Android; it's Google’s device and it's designed to guide Google's OEM's.

   Samsung is currently waiting to hear whether the preliminary injunction will be upheld. The company argued that Apple had not sufficiently demonstrated that the infringed patent in question causes substantial damage to iPhone sales, and we sincerely hope the judge will change her mind. This set of anti-competitive litigation from Apple is not good for anyone and especially not consumers.

Boot2Gecko becomes Firefox OS and gets official launch partners!

From Coolsmartphone.com.

   Boot2Gecko has been one of Mozilla’s top priorities lately as they rush to get their HTML5 based OS off the ground and into the turbulent mobile world as soon as possible.

   So far Mozilla has done a good job getting companies on board, they’ve already got; Deutsche Telekom, Etisalat, Smart, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefonica and Telenor as partners. ZTE and Alcatel One Touch will be creating devices  which we can expect to hit shelves at the start of 2013.

   Interestingly, it seems as though Qualcomm is set to maintain their mobile dominance, as they have been selected as the chip of choice, but we don’t know whether Firefox OS will run on newer S4 chips or something older or perhaps it’ll use a currently unannounced chipset. Either way we are told to expect great performance!

   The Firefox OS will be completely open-source and if you’re chomping at the bit to get one of these intriguing new devices it looks like it’ll help to be based in Brazil, because that’ll be the first place with availability, but they will spread out around the world soon after!

   We’ll have to wait to see whether this new OS will be able to compete with iOS and Android or whether it’ll go the same way as WebOS! But, what do you think? Are you excited about the possibilities of HTML5 based apps or do you think this is another niche project for geeks? Let us know in the comments below!

In other news:

• HTC's Incredible S just got bumped to ICS!
• Apple has been ordered to pay Proview $60million for the iPad trademark in Chine!
• VLC Beta for Android has landed in the Play Store
• Treyarch have announced they have no idea who's developing Call of Duty Black Ops for the PS Vita!
• LittleBigPlanet's Karting has entered Beta and you can sign up now!

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Sony at E3

   Today Sony announced that they will be rebranding their ‘PlayStation Suite’ as ‘PlayStation Mobile’.

   This announcements should bring more PlayStation titles to a wider variety of devices, instead of it being limited to just the ‘PlayStation Certified’ handsets, a concept which never really took off.

   SCE (Sony Computer Entertainment) made the huge announcement that HTC will be their first ‘third party’ hardware partner, which will mean some PlayStation titles will be heading to HTC devices in the near future!

Playstation Plus

 

   Today Sony’s gaming sect have revealed a new bunch of bonuses for subscribers to the Playstation 'plus' service; you're getting 12 game downloads for free. This progression adds even more value to the lovely collection of bonuses you already get for your PlayStation 3. This service was first revealed back at E3 2010 and has literally only just launched.

   PlayStation Plus premium usually gives you access to discounted games, access to pre-release betas and game trials. This service directly competes with Microsoft’s Xbox Live service, and right now there's some serious competition after yesterdays announcements from Microsoft. Sony PlayStation President, Jack Tretton, also said  that on top of the 12 free games revealed today, the company will be give you more free games each month.

   This months free games include Infamous 2, LittleBigPlanet 2, and Saints Row 2. We’ll have to wait and see what else comes out this month!

The PS Vita.

   Sony has had a huge push of the PlayStation Vita at E3 this year. There were announcements for major  games such as Assassin’s Creed and Call of Duty and PS One titles will be hitting soon.

   Among the important PS Vita news was that Hulu Plus will be heading to the Vita, along with Sony favourite video service Crackle. There are more than 1,500 games available on the PSN, and  there's over 200+ coming soon!

Wonderbooks.

   Sony have revealed their first title for a device called the Wonderbook. It's essentially an accessory that twins with the PlayStation 3 and the PlayStation Move. It's basically a blank book which works with the PlayStation Move controller and allows you to view yourself in the camera on your screen. Essentially the PlayStation makes a television reflection of you within the book, this is a very clever example of augmented reality and should be a hit with the kids!

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