Apple posts record financial results thanks to iPhone, Mac, App Store
In a recently issued press release, technology giant Apple bragged a fiscal 2015 third quarter pull of $49.6 billion in revenue and $10.7 billion profit, measuring in at $1.85 per diluted share.
Compared to this time last year when Apple was pulling in $37.4 billion in revenue and a net profit of $7.7 billion, CEO Tim Cook is obviously happy with the results. With the hike explained as gaining assistance thanks to "iPhone revenue [being] up 59 percent" when compared to last year, the "strong sales of Mac, [and] all-time record revenue from services, driven by the App Store, and a great start for Apple Watch" all played a part, said Cook.
Set with eyes on the future, Cook further commented that customers should expect iOS 9, OS X EL Capitan and watchOS2 this coming fall.
Continue reading: Apple posts record financial results thanks to iPhone, Mac, App Store (full post)
New 007 film 'Spectre' drops full trailer
Sony Pictures have fed the marketing beast once again, dropping a full trailer for 'Spectre', the much anticipated follow-up to the highest grossing Bond picture of all time; 'Skyfall'.
Starring Daniel Craig reprising his role as secret agent James Bond for the fourth time, 'Spectre' also stars 'Guardians of the Galaxy's David Bautista, Christoph Waltz as mysterious bad guy Oberhauser and Italian siren Monica Belucci as femme fatale Lucia Sciarra.
The 'Spectre' world premiere on October 26th will kick off the film's worldwide release schedule, which hits Australia a little later on November 12th.
Continue reading: New 007 film 'Spectre' drops full trailer (full post)
Qualcomm layoffs could happen soon, strategic split is also possible
If the latest report from The Wall Street Journal turns out to be true, Qualcomm could be the next big tech giant to look at a strategic split. The company is reportedly in the process of a sweeping review that would look at the possibilities of breaking up into pieces.
In the recent months, Jana partners LLC has been asking Qualcomm to cut costs, repurchase shares at a faster rate, add new members to its board of directors, and explore a break up, after it was revealed it had a $2 billion stake in Qualcomm. The strategic split would see Qualcomm cutting up and separating its chip production business from its patent-licensing arm.
Qualcomm is expected to report its fiscal Q3 results on Wednesday, and according to The Information, the company will lay off around 10% of its global workforce, resulting in 3000 jobs being cut.
Continue reading: Qualcomm layoffs could happen soon, strategic split is also possible (full post)
Disney/Pixar release new 'Good Dinosaur' trailer
It was only last month that Disney/Pixar gave audiences the first look at their upcoming feature 'The Good Dinosaur', but following the release of 'Inside Out', the studio is keen to pump fans up for the second release for 2015.
The mix of bright cartoon-style characters with photo-realistic background seems an interesting visual look, but the film's premise; an alternate reality where an asteroid didn't wipe out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, and humans and dinosaurs evolved together could make for a very interesting narrative.
'The Good Dinosaur' hits 2D and 3D screens worldwide from November 25th 2015.
Continue reading: Disney/Pixar release new 'Good Dinosaur' trailer (full post)
'Minecraft' film moving ahead at Warner Bros
Warner Bros. have been working on a feature film adaptation for some time now and with the multi-platform hit going from strength to strength, the studio has decided to move forward on the film with a new director.
According to SlashFilm, the studio and Mojang have settled on 'It's always sunny in Philadelphia' director Rob McElhenney to take the project forward.
With the project still in the early stages of formulation, fans shouldn't expect the film until 2017 at the earliest. 'Real Steel' and 'Night at the Museum' director Shawn Levy was previously attached to the project, but parties decided to part ways at the end of 2015.
Continue reading: 'Minecraft' film moving ahead at Warner Bros (full post)
NVIDIA working on two HBM2-based cards, is one the GeForce GTX 1080?
It was only earlier last month that NVIDIA had reportedly taped out the GP100 process on TSMC's 16nm process, but now we're hearing that we should expect two GPUs from this, both featuring HBM2.
The first GPU will use 8-Hi stacks, while the other will have 4-Hi stacks, both featuring the Pascal architecture, 16nm process, a 4096-bit memory bus and HBM2. The 4-Hi variation of the GPU will be clocked at 1GHz, which will end up as a consumer-orientated GeForce GPU of some sort (the GeForce GTX 1080 if NVIDIA continues along its naming path) while the second variation has four HBM2 stacks at 1GHz, each with 8-Hi.
For those not in the know, the x-Hi (x representing 4 or 8) denotes the number of stacked DRAM dies, so we'll see the GP100 GPU with 8-Hi HBM2 stacks aimed at the professional market (think Quadro, Tesla), while the 4-Hi HBM2 will be the next-gen consumer GeForce card, expected in 2016.
Continue reading: NVIDIA working on two HBM2-based cards, is one the GeForce GTX 1080? (full post)
Windows 10 will include a built-in screen recording feature
In a move that will have most people asking "why haven't we had it sooner", Windows 10 might have a built-in screen recording feature. The latest pre-release build has some new tips throughout the OS, teasing that when you press the Windows Key + G together, it will open up a brand spankin' new recording option.
TechAU reports that when pressing WinKey + G, it "brings up a toolbar that allows you to take an image (you already had the snipping tool for the that), as well as the ability to record video. The intention, or promoted functionality for this is to capture Windows games in much the same way you can command Cortana by saying 'Xbox record that'".
The recorded videos find themselves in Videos/Capture, but the screen recording feature seems to be locked to the Xbox app, which is weird. An OS-wide recording application would be awesome, I don't see why it has to be associated with Xbox, or gaming in general. Especially considering the wide use of screen recorders for YouTubers. But, this is exciting news for Windows 10, a built-in screen recorder would be a great new feature for Microsoft's soon-to-be here operating system.
Continue reading: Windows 10 will include a built-in screen recording feature (full post)
PayPal debuts on NASDAQ for the second time, now valued at $50 billion
PayPal has just made its second debut on the NASDAQ this morning, with trading opening up at $41.46, reaching the heights of $42.55, before floating down to $41.03. PayPal Holdings Inc. now has a market value of just above $50 billion.
The company was founded back in 1998 under the name Confinity, with the company developing security software for early personal digital assistants (PDAs). The businesses didn't reach the success that its founders hoped, but it did inspire them to create the company that would eventually be used by tens of millions across the world; PayPal.
Confinity eventually merged with Elon Musk's X.com, where it was soon named PayPal. The company went public in 2002 under the ticker PYPL, opening at $13 per share. But with considerable tie-ins with eBay, it made sense that eBay would acquire PayPal later that year for a swift $1.5 billion. PayPal quickly turned into the electronic money transfer platform it is today, but it was activist investor Carl Icahn that urged that eBay split PayPal into a separately traded company.
Continue reading: PayPal debuts on NASDAQ for the second time, now valued at $50 billion (full post)
Intel's Core i7-6700K overclocked to an insane 5.2GHz on air cooling
The release of Intel's new Skylake-based processors is right around the corner, alongside the release of the new Z170 range of motherboards. But news has broken that the upcoming flagship Core i7-6700K has been overclocked to a huge 5.2GHz... on air cooling.
The achievement happened with an early BIOS, with the CPU hitting 5198.75MHz - an overclock of 1200MHz above its 4GHz stock clock. Better yet, just 1.35V was required to reach this, which is a damn good achievement considering you need more voltage, and watercooling to get anywhere near that on a current Core i7-4790K.
While it was sitting at 1.35V and 5.2GHz, we don't know what temperatures the overclocked Core i7-6700K was sitting at under load. We should expect many more details to arrive on the Core i7-6700K as we get closer to its launch next month.
Continue reading: Intel's Core i7-6700K overclocked to an insane 5.2GHz on air cooling (full post)
Toshiba CEO quits after $1.2 billion in false profits is discovered
Toshiba is in some serious trouble right now, with its CEO and President, Hisao Tanaka, leaving the company after the Japanese electronics giant is attempting to recover from its $1.2 billion in profits being discovered as being false.
Tanaka and two other executives have announced their resignations, with the three taking responsibility for the scandal. An independent investigation found that management had lied about operating profits over a six-year period so that Toshiba could meet its internal targets, all of which started in 2008, the year the GFC hit.
Masashi Muromachi, Toshiba's current Chairman, will reportedly fill the CEO role for the time being, where he'll also appoint a new management team. Toshiba has now lost a total of eight high-level executives in this scandal, with the company estimating a $442 million write down, but this estimate was very wrong, with it now ballooning out to almost triple that number.
Continue reading: Toshiba CEO quits after $1.2 billion in false profits is discovered (full post)