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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Sony reveal their latest PS4 teaser to steal some of the Xbox's hype!

   Microsoft's Xbox event is tomorrow and we all know that there's a lot of excitement about that new console and that's obviously something which Sony wanted to get their hand into because they've released a new teaser for their upcoming PS4.

   The full video you can see down below and it doesn't really give too much away at all. If you pause it every now and then you can catch glimpses of what the finished console will look like. There's not too many details at the moment, but depending on how much Microsoft say tomorrow Sony might give us some more meat soon!

Via Twitter.

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In Other News: 08/03/2013.

• Blackberry's Thorsten Heins has said that his company won't target the emerging markets with '50, 60 dollar phones,' because that's 'not Blackberry'. This is a interesting remark, we would have expect Blackberry to target every possible customer they could find, but apparently they can still afford to be picky!
  Via Bloomberg.

• HTC are reportedly having trouble making those Ultrapixel cameras for their HTC One's. There are supposedly huge problems creating the voice coil motor (VCM) and compact camera module (CCM), both of which have yields of  between 20 and 30%! Unfortunately that will mean that there will be a limited availability for quite a while and that means HTC are literally being kicked while they're down!
  Via AndroidAuthority.

• Samsung's Galaxy S4 is rumoured to have an amoled material called “green PHOLED” in its screen which produces a new green-yellow colour and it supposedly makes the panels 25% more efficient than standard amoled panels. SamMobile also believe that there will be 'floating touch' capabilities which will let you use your finger as a cursor to hover over icons and give you sneak peeks into galleries and things like that!
  Via SamMobile.

• Dishonoured's chief designer, Christophe Carrier, has said that the 8GB of RAM which is helping drive the PS4 is 'a joy' and 'something [they, the developers,] have been waiting for'! Do we reckon Nintendo and Microsoft took the hint?
  Eurogamer Via Bit-Tech.

• The Nexus brand continues to expand its reach and today the Nexus 7 has landed in South Korea! The Nexus 7 may be getting refreshed soon, but this means that the next version will definitely come to the country!
  Via AndroidCentral.

• WhatsApp have confirmed that their app will be landing on BB10 devices next week!
  Via Crackberry.

• EA has told their affiliates to cease promotion of SimCity until further notice! This is likely down to the unexpected demand which caused server crashes and download failures amongst many other problems!
  Via Slashgear. 

• Google may see their Maps solution banned in Germany after the Judge said he is 'inclined' to  ban the service because of Microsoft's patent which allows for a "computer system for identifying local resources and method therefor".
  Via T3.

• The rumour mill for the next iPhone is cranking up already and one key feature will supposedly be wireless charging!
  Digitimes Via T3.

• Motorola have announced that they are cutting another ten percent of their workforce! That means that another 1200 jobs will be going because Motorola still believes their costs are too high.
  Via WSJ.

• Pandora's President, CEO and Chairman, Joe Kennedy has announced that he will resign from his leadership post after the company announced another quarterly loss.
  Via TheVerge.

• As Pandora lost their CEO so have AVG! J R Smith has confirmed he will step down from his post, which he's held since 2007, when AVG find a successor.
  Via Reuters.

And finally, have you ever wondered how little you can pick up a smartphone with a full 1080p screen? Well if you're lucky enough to live in China you can get a Neo N003 complete with its 5-inch screen and quad-core processor for a mere 899 Yuan or $144 (£95), which is absolutely bonkers!

Via PhoneArena.

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In Other News: 01/03/2013.

• SamMobiles believes that there will again be six different versions of the next Galaxy S device, the S4. There will supposedly be both black and white versions of the 16, 32 and 64GB Galaxy S4's and they believe all of these will also have MicroSD card slots too. According to SamMobile's insider the Korean giants might opt for Qualcomm processors this time instead of Sammy's own brand Exynos processors, but nothing is confirmed on either front. We'll have full details for you on the 14th of this month!
  Via SamMobiles.

• Sony's European CEO, Jim Ryan, has told the PlayStation Blog that the company has grander plans for Playstation Plus. Ryan said: "We’re not yet in a position to disclose our plans for the future of PlayStation Plus, but there will definitely be a prominent role to play for it in the PlayStation 4 landscape." We're not sure what this will entail but it'll be interesting to see where Sony take it from here!
  Via TheVerge.

• Acer are supposedly working on a quad-core phablet to address their current lack of a flagship device. The Acer Liquid S as it is set to be called, will have a screen bigger than 4.7", it'll have to be bigger than that to earn its phablet name tag though! For more details click here!
  Via GSMArena.

• Blackberry have announced that all of their BB10 devices will include front-facing cameras from here one out! Check out the tweet below for more!

You asked for it & we listened: all #BlackBerry10 phones will feature the front-facing camera. Selfies just got way easier.
— BlackBerry (@BlackBerry) March 1, 2013

• An update to Android 4.1.2 is currently rolling out to owners of Sony's Xperia TL on AT&T in the United States. It seems like you need to use Sony's PC companion to get the update at the moment, but we expect an OTA update to arrive at some point soon!
  XDA Via GSMArena.

• Some of you out there might have heard of DreamWorks new movie 'The Croods' well it turns out that Rovio will be making a game of the film for mobile devices! You can check out the video teaser below or Rovio's website for more details!
  Via Twitter.

• Another day another child has spent an absolute fortune through in app purchases. Today a child in England managed to wrack up a bill of £1,710.43 in ten minutes by purchasing add ons in game on the free Zombies vs Ninja app! Naturally Apple refunded the family and hopefully some of this exposure will make people more mindful!
  Via CNet.

• O2 UK have launched a new service for O2 pay monthly customers called 'TU Go'. Basically this is a version of Airdroid that only lets you send text messages from your computer. It's somewhat akin to what Nokia's old OviSuite would do to your Symbian phone and everyone used to love that!
  Via CNet.

    And finally, what better way to welcome in the weekend than with a cheeky new advert from UK phone company Three. Embedded below is a video of a moon walking pony called Socks. We don't understand it either, but it's quite amusing! Have a good weekend guys!

Via Twitter.

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In Other News: 19/02/2013.

• Google are rumoured to be opening a number of retail stores ready for this year's holiday season. There has reportedly been a fair bit of internal debate as to whether Motorola should become the retail arm of Google or whether Google should go open up their own retail stores. The latter would seem to be the better choice, because Google can then offer everything from Android devices, right through to Google TVs, Chromebooks and potentially Google Glass at some point in the future!
  WSJ Via PhoneArena.

• According to The Verge's sources and Eldar Murtazin the Samsung Galaxy S4 is set to be announced on the 14th of March!
  Via TheVerge.

• With Sony's PS4 event scheduled for tomorrow there's been some mumblings that the new device will make use of Sony's recent purchaese of Gaikai for backward compatibility with PS3 games. Gaikai may also make it possible for PS3 titles to be playable on devices such as the PS Vita and Playstation certified smartphones and tablets!
  Via Slashgear.

• Despite the hype surrounding the launch of EE's and the UK's first 4G network, the company had a rather disappointing Q4 2012. Only 201,000 people signed up to the network between October and December! This might have something to do with the still hugely expensive cost of EE's plans compared to every other network in the country! For example Three UK have said they'll update current customers to 4G without any extra charges, whereas EE charge a hefty premium for their 4G data. It seems like people are still voting with their wallet and opting not to upgrade just yet!
  Via Engadget.

• HTC have had a little trouble in Germany with a new 3G patent infringement trial revealing that IPCom made an application for some of HTC's smartphone shipments to be seized by customs in Frankfurt airport. At the moment it is unclear whether these handsets have been embargoed or whether they're free for sale. HTC on their part have announced that there is no shortage of HTC devices in Germany and they don't foresee any problems!
  Via ITProportal.

• Apple have release iOS 6.1.2, but we don't currently know if this is compatible with the jailbreaks or whether this patches the exploits! But, it does fix the issues with Exchange syncing!
  Via TheGadgetBook.

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04/07/2012

RIM in for more pain after carriers make some demands!

   The same week RIM announced their planned saviour, BB10, was delayed and they posted another loss, the company has also heard rumblings from carriers that they're not overly content either. 

   Bloomberg has claimed that carriers like AT&T and Verizon have requested that RIM reduces the cost of subscriptions to Blackberry services such as BBM. Understandable the Canadian co. is reluctant to do this because this sort of service accounts for more than a third of RIM's income.

   RIM has essentially refused to comment on the debate officially, instead saying; “RIM intends to continue generating a revenue stream from the services we offer”. That's all their spokesperson, Nick Manning, would say and unsurprisingly both AT&T and Verizon declined to comment.

There's still something 'smart' for the QWERTY lovers coming from Samsung!

   While Blackberry devices may be struggling to gain some market share right now thankfully not every company on the planet is avoiding qwerty devices with a barge pole.

   Now this definitely isn't going to be rivaling your best friends new Galaxy S3 on the spec front, but if you must have a hardware keyboard this is going to be an appealing little device. The screen is a 3" QVGA touchscreen, 2-megapixel camera and a poultry 4GB of internal storage. Although, thankfully there's also a microSD slot and a solid 1,200 mAh battery. The WiFi b/g/n and Bluetooth 3.0 should be great to keep you connected.

   There's two interesting features here that have caught our attention; the first is that this phone runs a Touchwizzed version of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, so it's relatively up to date on the software front. But there's also said to be an LTE version of the phone coming, which is a surprising addition given that we expect this phone to be squarely aimed at the low to mid-end range. Unfortunately we don't know what sort of processor will be powering the show and we don't have any details on price points, but as soon as we hear we'll be sure to let you know!

One of HP's unreleased WebOS beauties!

   We've all been witnesses to the untimely demise of the beautiful WebOS operating system. But, before the axe came down on the smooth little system it seems HP had plans for a full touch device! 

   The image above was sourced by WebOS Nation and it appears to show a 3.6" device with an uncanny resemblance to the Pre's and Veer's of this world. It was supposedly codenamed WindsorNot and it's just a shame this device never made it to market, we do have a soft spot for WebOS over hear at TTF!

In other news:

• The stock of Apple's iMac's has dropped and we know what that means! refresh inbound!
• Thankfully the UK courts have seen sense and have thrown out Apple's case against HTC over slide to unlock patents. It looks like the US is taking a much harder line on 'essential' technologies to the rest of the world.
• Samsung has signed a deal with Qualcomm to produce 28nm chips for the company.
• The YouView set top box will be coming to the UK in the next couple of months!
• Google's Galaxy Nexus has been temporarily banned after their collaboration with Samsung in the courts failed to convince Judge Koh to change her mind. But, alas Google has promised the device will be available again in no time!
• It's come to light today that Sony have been working on the PS4 since 2012 and apparently the work continues!
• Bloomberg have today claimed knowledge of iPad Mini production!
• Is the next Xbox set to follow the Windows 8 naming scheme? Or is it set to be called Xbox infinity? Either way Microsoft has bought up the website Xbox8.com.

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