Hasta La Gadget!

Apple just confirmed in its Q3 2012 earnings report that Mountain Lion is coming tomorrow. The hotly anticipated 10.8 version of OS X brings with it a host of new features, as we’ve expounded upon in the past. The upgrade will be just $19.99 (unless you’ve recently bought a new Mac — in which case it’ll be free) and will be available via download on the Mac App Store in 24 hours or less. Better start finding some disk space.

Filed under: Software

Apple to release OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion tomorrow originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 24 Jul 2012 16:37:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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After a week or so of increasingly contentious negotiations Viacom and DirecTV have come to some sort of agreement, returning the missing channels to satellite TV subscribers as of… now. Naturally, each side is sticking to its guns, and even with a long term deal inked they still disagree on the number of channels involved.

So who won? The exact financial numbers have not been revealed, but you can check out the dueling press releases after the break. The contested Epix package is an option (but not a requirement) for DirecTV, while the satellite broadcaster is happily adding access to Viacom content on mobiles, PCs and “other media devices” as a part of its DirecTV Everywhere service. Thanks to support from other pay TV providers, DirecTV is taking the more aggressive position, but we’ll wait for the inevitable “people in a position to know” to chime in with some dollars and cents figures before calling a victor.

Update: As expected, Bloomberg reports “people with direct knowledge” claim the new agreement is another seven year contract priced at more than $600 million per year, about 20 percent more than what Viacom was getting before. At least one analyst called it a win for both sides — we’ll see how subscribers fared if (when) there’s a rate hike any time soon.

Continue reading DirecTV and Viacom deal brings MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and the rest back on the air

Filed under: Home Entertainment

DirecTV and Viacom deal brings MTV, Comedy Central, Nickelodeon and the rest back on the air originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 20 Jul 2012 06:12:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The past three months haven’t been the best for Finland’s former world number one. It hasn’t been helped by the three biggest credit agencies lowering the company’s bond rating to “junk,” and the Lumia 900’s violently slashed price. Unfortunately the latest results reveal continuing gloom: the manufacturer made an operating loss of $1.01 billion dollars for the quarter. The company managed to make €7.5 billion in sales ($9.2 billion, down .5 billion since the last quarter), shifting four million Lumia handsets in the process. In fact, the only cause for optimism is that sales of the Lumia range have roughly doubled each quarter.

The number of handsets pushed out the door increased (thanks to the Asha range of budget phones) with the company selling 73 million phones. That said, the company has clearly failed to crack America, selling a paltry 600,000 handsets in the States. The cash pile has also continued to dwindle, with the piggybank currently standing at €4.1 billion ($5.1 billion), down from $6.3 billion in Q1, despite getting a further $250 million in kickbacks from Microsoft. Unsurprisingly, the prediction for the third quarter of the year was similarly dour, summed up rather euphemistically as “difficult.”

Filed under: Cellphones

Nokia’s Q2 2012 financials: 4 million Lumias sold, $1.01 billion dollar loss originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 19 Jul 2012 06:01:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Intel is back to its old games in Q2 of 2012, raking in $13.5 billion during the second three month financial period of the year, up from $12.9 billion in the first quarter and a solid five percent year over year. Of that impressive pile of cash, Chipzilla was able to pocket $2.8 billion in net income, up $100,000 from Q1 and three percent from the same time period last year. That equates to a healthy $0.57 per share in earnings, which should make investors happy. PC Client Group enjoyed slow but steady growth, seeing its revenues grow by three percent, but the big story is the Data Center division wich saw revenues climb 14 percent to $2.8 billion, sequentially.

It’s not all wine and roses however, the processor giant also lowered its expectations for Q3 after falling slightly short of its goal this quarter. Growth is expected to continue, but at a much slower rate thanks to the “challenging macroeconomic environment.” Of course, an estimated $14.3 billion in Q3 would match its previous earnings record and is hardly anything to sniff at.

During today’s earnings call Paul Otellini took time to brag about well the current generation of products was performing. Production had ramped up quicker than previous lines, and was selling better than earlier lines of CPUs. And, though he gave no specifics, he said the company tracking at least 20 Windows 8 tablets powered by Intel’s hardware.

Continue reading Intel reports Q2 earnings: rakes in $13.5 billion, pockets $2.8 billion

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Intel reports Q2 earnings: rakes in $13.5 billion, pockets $2.8 billion originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 Jul 2012 16:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Digg, once one of the shining stars of the social media world, is now a sad shell of of its former self. The once mighty news-sharing service founded by Kevin Rose, has just been snatched up by a small New York City firm called Betaworks for a paltry $500,000, according to the Wall Street Journal. The site still draws roughly seven million visitors a month, but that’s a far cry from the more than 30 million is was pulling in during its 2008 heyday. And the pocket change paid for the property pales in comparison to the over $45 million it raised from investors over its lifetime. The sale follows the departure of its most high profile exec, the aforementioned Rose, who is now in charge of Google Ventures. Betaworks plans to revitalize the brand involve folding it into News.me, another social news service, which launched in April of last year. The deal only includes the property itself and the brand — none of Digg’s remaining employees will be making the move to Betaworks. Of course, there were very few left once the Washington Post subsidiary Social Code hired 15 engineers from the floundering service, which accounted for more than half of its workforce.

Update: As it turns out, that “$500,000” figure may not tell the whole story. TechCrunch and AllThingsD are both reporting that there’s a lot more to consider besides the cash outlay.

Filed under: Internet

WSJ: Sinking social news site Digg bought by NYC firm Betaworks (updated) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 Jul 2012 16:53:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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