Business, Financial & Legal - Page 296
All the latest Business, Financial & Legal news as it relates to tech, gaming, and science - Page 296.
Q3 report on the graphics card market: Shipments are up 18.4%, Intel has 60% of the market
Jon Peddie Research (JPR) have released their third quarte report for the graphics market. The news brings announcement that there was a 16.7-percent sequential increase in shipments, raising them to 138.5 million. That is above the 10-year average of 13.9-percent, but in line with seasonal expectations as vendors stock up for the holiday season.
Intel saw a 28.5-percent growth in shipments on-quarter and 36.5-percent on-year, which is made up nearly entirely of embedded graphics chips inside their latest-generation desktop and mobile processors. Intel have maintained a huge lead on their competition, gobbling up 60.4-percent of the GPU market share, up 10.1-percent from Q2 2011 and up 9.5-percent when compared to Q3, 2010.
AMD have seen a steady 9.9-percent increase in shipments, this is thanks to their Fusion APU, but they lost market share. Market share for AMD is down to 23-percent, down 5.9-percent on-quarter, and flat year-over-year. Shipments of AMD's desktop and notebook Fusion chips have increased 58.4-percent from last quarter. Now for some big numbers, almost 92 million PCs shipped worldwide this quarter alone, up 8.8-percent sequentially. There were roughly 1.6 GPUs per computer in 2011, up from 1.16 GPUs per system ten years ago.
Photos from the flooded Western Digital factory in Thailand
The shocking flooding in Thailand has not only affected families and citizens of Thailand, but some giant IT companies have factories there such as Western Digital. We've all heard, seen or read about the recent hard disk drive pricing hikes the world over, with prices ballooning to sometimes over 50-percent (or more) and stock levels should be getting quite thin over the following weeks toward the holiday season.
Thanks to Bright Side of News, we have some pictures that show the epic flooding that has hit Thailand. The waters near the WD factory were between 1 and 1.4m deep (4-5 feet) and were an average of about 1m (4 feet) through most of the factory and its surroundings. As you can see in the above shot, the water isn't just in some parts, it's everywhere.
Western Digital is also not the only company that is directly affected by the floods, with HDD production hitting all major players with expected 28-percent of quarter-on-quarter drop in HDD production. Other companies affected are not even in the HDD industry, the digital camera industry was also hit with companies such as Canon, Nikon and Sony all being affected, so expect digital camera prices to jump.
Continue reading: Photos from the flooded Western Digital factory in Thailand (full post)
Phil McKinney, CTO of HP's PC Unit, quits
First, HP were killing off their PC unit, then they said they were keeping it, now the group's chief technology officer announced that he is leaving in a statement on his personal blog. December 31st will be his last day and his statement is below in its entirety.
Continue reading: Phil McKinney, CTO of HP's PC Unit, quits (full post)
Facebook set to build massive server farm 62 miles south of the Arctic Circle
Facebook sometimes gets the cold shoulder when it comes to privacy and their mobile apps, but todays news is a little different. Facebook are set to build a massive server farm 62 miles south of the Arctic Circle in Luleå, northern Sweden. The facility will include three 300,000 square feet server halls and it will be the first time that Facebook has built a data center outside of the US.
This is becoming a trend for American companies, with Microsoft looking to build a server farm in Siberia, but the deal never gelled together. Google on the other hand is currently building a similar data center in Hamima in southern Finland. Facebook chose Luleå because of its cold climate, with server farms requiring massive amounts of cold air to keep the operating temperatures down. The average temperate in the area is around 2C (35.6F) and the temperature has not been above 30C (86F) for more than 24 hours since 1961.
The plan Facebook have is to pump in cool air from outside to aid in temperature management. Despite this, the server farm will still require a fair amount of power, with the number hovering at around 120 MW. This will primarily be supplied by the Lule River which produces twice as much hydroelectric power as the Hoover Dam.
Sony acquires Ericsson's share of Sony Ericsson
Sony have just announced that Sony Ericsson will become a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony and Sony is said to integrate Sony Ericsson into their broad platform of network-connected consumer electronics devices. The transaction also provides Sony with a broad IP cross-licensing agreement and ownership of five essential patent families. Payment wise, Ericsson will receive EUR $1.05 billion as a cash payment.
The transaction gives Sony a new opportunity for their products, where tehy will rapidly integrate smartphones into its broad array of network-connected consumer electronics devices, including tablets, televisions and PCs - for the benefit of customers and the growth of its business.
Sir Howard Stringer, Sony's Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President says:
Continue reading: Sony acquires Ericsson's share of Sony Ericsson (full post)
Apple by the numbers, has $81.5 billion in cash, 60,000 employees
Apple today filed its Form 10-K with the SEC that discloses information to stockholders and the commission. It also allows sites like TweakTown to perve at some of the wallet-busting numbers included. Apple currently have $81,570,000,000 in cash, marketable securities and cash equivalents. What this means is Apple raked in $37.5 billion in cash profits in fiscal 2011. This is all in a time where they "missed" industry estimates.
That is after Apple spent $2.4 billion on research and development in 2011, up from $1.8 billion for last year and $1.3 billion in 2009. Apple also forked out $4.3 billion for equipment, most likely for factory investments and the North Carolina-based data center. Apple also had purchases of $3.2 billion in 'intangible assets", which is most likely the $2.6 billion share of the Nortel patent purchase that it went in on with other companies, including Microsoft.
Apple only spent $244 million on acquisitions, which would include it's voice-based app Siri, which it acquired in Q1 2010. Other Apple numbers also state that they own or lease 13.2 million square feet of building space, primarily in the U.S. Apple Retail Stores across the world account for 3 million square feet of that number. The data centers Apple run are also included. Also included is the 2.6 million square feet that is located in Cupertino, California which isset to be demolished for Apple's new 'spaceship' campus. Apple also owns a total of 584 acres of land in various locations.
Continue reading: Apple by the numbers, has $81.5 billion in cash, 60,000 employees (full post)
PC gaming hardware market is said to remain strong well into 2014
Jon Peddie Research says that the PC gaming hardware market will continue to grow at a rate of 11-percent from now until at least 2014. These figures are based on the fact that over 250 million game-capable PCs will ship in 2011 alone, compared to only 230 million PS3, Wii and Xbox 360 consoles (combined) have shipped since 2005.
The PC gaming market will generate $19 billion in sales in 2011, with estimates that half a billion people regularly play PC games. New markets such as social networking and mobile gaming on tablets and smartphones are continuing the threaten the PC's gaming reputation, a phenomenon that senior gaming analyst Ted Pollack noted in his research.
Continue reading: PC gaming hardware market is said to remain strong well into 2014 (full post)
Anonymous to destroy Fox News on November 5
For those of you in the know, you'd know that Mainstream Media is a mostly controlled medium. If they were to tell the real news, then most politicians, presidents, members of Congress and more, would all be thrown in jail. But, instead, the money from powerful people is used to gain control and influence within the power of politics. The same goes for news. This is where Anonymous steps in with something they're calling "Operation Fox Hunt".
Anonymous promise an all-out attack on the Fox News website as retaliation for the network's unjust attack on protesters with the Occupy Wall Street movement. In the YouTube clip, the digitized voice says:
Continue reading: Anonymous to destroy Fox News on November 5 (full post)
Steve Jobs wanted a "thermonuclear war" with Google
Walter Isaacson's authorized biography of Steve Jobs is set to hit next week, and within, we find out more details of how Steve Jobs was absolutely furious about Android "ripping off" the iPhone. Of course, multiple smartphone makers and OS builders have "copied" the iPhone, but its not to say that Apple did it first.
Apple bought something to the market that had been attempted before, but just did it better. Google were hot on the heels and have innovated multiple times within their Android OS, where Apple's iOS has not really grown outside of its initial iPhone launch. Yes it has been upgraded with more features, etc, but an actual change in the way it works, no. It still features the same tile-based icon layout, and has only seen "Notifications" in the last iOS 5 upgrade - something from Android.
But Steve Jobs hated, hated, hated Android. With a passion. To the point where he wanted a "thermonuclear war" with the company because they "ripped the iPhone off". Isaacson has written that Jobs was livid in January 2010 when HTC introduced an Android phone that boasted many of the popular features found on the iPhone. Apple sued, and Jobs told Isaacson in an expletive-filled rant that Google's actions amounted to "grand theft".
Continue reading: Steve Jobs wanted a "thermonuclear war" with Google (full post)
RumorTT: Is Google looking at purchasing Yahoo?
According to the Wall Street Journal, Google Inc. has talked to at least two private-equity firms about potentially helping them finance a deal to buy Yahoo Inc.'s core business. This would be a very strategic move for Google, which would push them right against Microsoft in its bid for the company. The move is of course still in "early-stage discussions" with no formal bid put together. The Journal has a few words as to why the move could be a huge win for Google:
Then we have Microsoft's joint bid for Yahoo, but the same anti-trust concerts that stopped an "advertising partnership" between Google and Yahoo in 2008 could stymie the search company's efforts.
Continue reading: RumorTT: Is Google looking at purchasing Yahoo? (full post)