Hasta La Gadget!

eBay posted its financial results for quarter 3 2012 today, and it looks the company had a good quarter across the board. Total revenue for the quarter came in at $3.4 billion, which is a 15% increase year-over-year. Despite that significant climb, Forbes points out that revenue was slightly below the $3.41 billion analysts were expecting, but still, missing the mark by $10 million when revenue was in the billions isn’t too bad.

Adjusted net income landed at $718 million, equaling out to 55 cents per share – actually slightly better than the 54 cents per share analysts projected. That’s also a 14% increase year-over-year, which is something for eBay to smile about. Non-adjusted net income was at $597 million or 45 cents per share, which indicates a 22% increase over the same period last year.

PayPal isn’t looking too bad coming out of quarter 3 either, posting a 14% gain year-over-year gain in its number of active accounts, which was at 117.4 million as of September 30. eBay managed to pull in a cool $1.367 billion in revenue from PayPal in its third quarter, so we’re going to go ahead and assume that the company is happy with that 23% revenue jump year-over-year. Looking forward, the company has some pretty big expectations for both quarter 4 and the year overall.

Specifically speaking, eBay expects to take in a bit more in quarter 4, projecting net revenues between $3.85 billion and $4 billion, which would put adjusted earnings per share at 66 cents to 69 cents. eBay is expecting increased revenues for quarter 4 because of the holiday shopping season, so hitting that mark certainly isn’t out of the question. For all of 2012, eBay is expecting to pull in $13.95 billion to $14.1 billion and an adjusted earnings per share of $2.32 – $2.35. That definitely isn’t bad, and you can bet we’ll be watching to see if the company can meet its own expectations.

eBay Q3 2012 earnings show solid year-over-year gains is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This guy is Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, a 21-year-old Bangladeshi student who traveled to the United States with the intention of carrying out a major terrorist attack. He wanted to blow up this building, 33 Liberty Street, the home of the Federal Reserve Bank located in the heart of the New York City’s Financial District. More »

Not content with simply being masters of the clock, the Swiss have apparently decided to take over another crucial aspect of our day: caffeine. The Delizio Uno, a minimalist capsule coffee maker, boasts clean lines and vibrant colors enough to brighten any morning. More »

A couple of days ago, The New York Times published a piece called “The BlackBerry as Black Sheep,” which contained interviews with BlackBerry owners who are ashamed of their phone. In a nutsell, the general idea of the article is that, as the rest of the world moves onto Android and iOS, those who are left using BlackBerry open themselves up to mockery and ridicule because of their preference for a perceived “outdated” handset. RIM CEO Thorsten Heins has taken issue with that little report, taking the Times to task in a letter that was sent to the newspaper and published today.

In his letter to the editor, Heins says that the Black Sheep article “lacks balance,” touting the fact that BlackBerry has more than 80 million users around the world and stating that his carrier partners tell him there are plenty of people who take pride in being a BlackBerry owner. “While any report of dissatisfaction among our users is a cause for concern that I take very seriously, the comments supporting BlackBerry both online and in calls we’ve received from our customers in response to your article are encouraging to me,” Heins wrote.

Heins continued by reiterating that RIM is on track to deliver BlackBerry 10 in quarter 1 of 2013, and said that the company has received great feedback from developers and carriers on the incoming OS. That isn’t the first time we’ve heard that, but at this point in time, there’s still a lot left to discover about BlackBerry 10. “We appreciate the customers who have remained loyal to the BlackBerry platform and look forward to winning back many who have left,” Heins said at the end of the letter.

RIM is indeed pinning a lot of hope on BlackBerry 10. The company has been struggling quite a bit in recent years, losing a lot of market share with the rise of Android and iOS. RIM made an impressive showing at the BlackBerry Jam last month, showing off some cool new features in the OS. However, it remains to be seen if BlackBerry 10 can bring RIM back from the brink. What do you think of Heins’ response?

RIM CEO Thorsten Heins sticks up for BlackBerry in letter to NY Times is written by Eric Abent & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

A survey measuring people’s internet use used to be a fairly simple thing. If you dialed up and logged onto CompuServe or AOL, you were “online” until you disconnected. Even in more recent years, you were “online” for as long as you were looking at a web browser or a chat window. But things have gotten more complicated as we’ve grown more mobile and connected than ever, and that’s now resulted in the first ever decline of people “using the internet” in Forrester’s annual survey since it began asking the question in 1997. As AllThingsD reports, this year’s survey found that people spent an average of 19.6 hours per week using the internet, compared to 21.9 hours in 2011. According to Forrester’s Gina Sverdlov, however, that’s not due to a shift back towards TV or other activities, but to a changing notion of what “being online” means to individuals. As she puts it, “given the various types of connected devices that US consumers own, many people are connected and logged on (automatically) at all times,” and that “the internet has become such a normal part of their lives that consumers don’t register that they are using the internet when they’re on Facebook, for example.” The full report isn’t available to the public, but you can find a few more details from it at the links below.

Filed under: Internet

Forrester survey finds first ever decline in people ‘using the internet,’ but a changing notion of ‘being online’ originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 17 Oct 2012 18:22:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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