Archive for June 14th, 2010

Will Nokia deliver poor results next week?

Nokia may warn of weaker-than-expected Q2 profits, according to analysts at the Macquarie Group. In a research note Macquarie analysts said Nokia’s warning could come within the next week. The note said Nokia is being hit by ‘stale’ products, a weak Euro and falling sales in Europe.

‘With no visibility on the N8, continued heavy competition in handsets and softening demand, we would remain on the sidelines even at these levels,’ the note said. Nokia declined to comment. The handset manufacturer is set to report its earnings on 22 July. Nokia’s shareprice has fallen by a third in the past year, despite being the top handset manufacturer in global terms. The fall is driven by fears over rising competition, little in the way of new smartphones and currency trends.

As the shares continued their downward pattern speculator George Soros picked up $16.9m (£11.61m) worth of Nokia shares to open a position via his Soros Fund management vehicle.

Vodafone’s iPhone 4 tariffs

Engadget have upped these charts of the tarrifs you can expect for the iPhone 4 on Vodafone. This network is of particular interest as they are usually the most expensive however that, debatably, provide the better service. It’s nice to see the 18 month option creep in here. However these tarrifs might not be set in stone as they were removed as quickly as they went up. Note the data cap on wi-fi hotspots, does that interfere with video calling? Check after the break for the rest:

Possible industrial action if O2 fails to raise 2% pay offer

O2 is on the ‘slippery slope’ to a damaging dispute, unless it improves on its 2% pay offer, the Communication Workers Union warned today.

The union is predicting that O2 workers will reject the company’s offer in a consultative ballot which closes on 29 June. It claims O2 staff are angry at the offer, particularly in the light of a recent 4.3% pay settlement at Manx Telecom, which is also owned by Telefonica. Assistant secretary Ian Cuthbert said: ‘O2 keep on saying to us that they believe that employees will accept the offer, however unacceptable the CWU thinks it is.

‘We’re confident that’s not the case. We believe our members are genuinely angry and disappointed that the better relations achieved with O2 following last year’s pay round has been needlessly squandered. He added: ‘If a tiny company like Manx Telecom can rewards its employees with that kind of offer, then so can O2. My message to O2 is very clear at this critical moment: listen to your staff or there’s trouble ahead.’

The union warned that, should O2 fail to adequately respond, ‘it will be placing itself on a slippery slope to a completely unnecessary and potentially damaging dispute.’
Cuthbert said: ‘The CWU negotiating team unanimously believes that offer is shabby – equating to less than half the benchmark inflation rate which was 4.4 per cent in March, with RPI even higher now.

‘We simply don’t believe that employees should have to take a pay cut if the company they are working for is highly successful.’
In a statement O2 said it welcomed the consultative ballot and was disappointed the CWU was not supporting its 2% offer. It defended its offer calling it ‘one of the best on the market’ adding: ‘ It is also in line with the offer accepted by the CWU with the Royal Mail and Virgin Media. We have consistently made pay increases and performance-related bonuses to all our staff throughout the recession, in stark contrast to most other companies in our sector and across UK industry.’

The Samsung Galaxy “Tape”

Vietnamese site by the name of Tinh Te, is claiming to have information on a few specs on a new Samsing tablet. Rumoured specs include Android 2.2, Froyo! 1.2GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor, 16GB of on-board storage and a microSD slot that can handle up to 32GB. A 4,000mAh battery tops this off.

From the leaked picture, there appears to be a front facing camera. This tablet should come with the GPU from the Galaxy S and the DLNA capabilities. There was no mention of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi but I fully expect them to be included.

[Source]

Samsung Galaxy Apollo i5801 Black on Orange

Recently announcing their push of inexpensive Android devices, Orange has announced another phone in the seemingly endless Galaxy line from Samsung. Coming to market with  a 3-megapixel camera, 3.2-inch touch screen, and an unconfirmed version of Android, this little device will probably find it’s way into quite a few hands.

Sony Ericsson Walkman Android phone

Here is a phone named Sony Ericsson W150i, and its codename is TeaCake. Reportedly, the handset currently runs Android 1.5 – it would be a stupid move for Sony Ericsson to release it like this, so we should hope it will have Android 2.1 at launch. The unconfirmed features of Sony Ericsson W150i include a 2.6 inch QVGA display, 5MP camera, and changeable covers.

[Source]

GoodReader for iPad Turns the Page…Literally

The newest version of GoodReader for iPad, which has been among the top sellers among all iPad apps since it was first released, now delivers horizontal page turning for PDF files to give it a truer book reading experience. The new version also will now rotate PDF files, display two-page spreads, and crop margins for PDF files so they don’t take up any available reading space on the iPad.

GoodReader has become such a huge success because of how it handles very large PDF and TXT files, navigating manuals, large books, magazines, and renderings of 100 mb and more with great speed compared to other document viewers. Providing the option of horizontal PDF page turning has been one of the most popular requests among GoodReader fans, allowing them to now enjoy reading a book or magazine by turning the pages in the same right-to-left manner they are used to doing with real books.