Hasta La Gadget!

Logitech’s PR machine is on the loose this morning, trying to dampen expectations before the company announces its quarterly financial results later in the day. The key message is that we shouldn’t expect any great shakes from the video conferencing side of the business. In fact, there’ll be a $211 million charge against earnings, which is big enough to wipe out the previous quarter’s income four times over, and which stems entirely from this source of pain:

“The enterprise video conferencing industry has experienced a slowdown in recent quarters and consequently, through this period, the video conferencing unit has not sustained the growth Logitech originally anticipated.”

That’s a blanket statement, describing a whole section of the industry and not just pinning the blame on LifeSize, the video conferencing company that Logitech picked up in 2009 for $405 million. It so happens that Polycom and Cisco have also reported ongoing slides in video conferencing sales, so Logitech’s explanation is entirely justified — not that it makes the LifeSize acquisition look any smarter.

Filed under: Peripherals, Internet

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Source: Reuters

Apple has stricken 500px’s apps from the App Store because it facilitates nude image searches. The move is reported to have taken place early this morning in spite of the fact that the app defaults to a search mode that excludes nude images, requiring the user to make specific changes in order to find them. 500px has adjusted the app to try to please Apple as a result.

500px has rolled out a new update for the app to address the issue, which is awaiting Apple approval. The company’s COO Evgeny Tchebotarev stressed to TechCrunch that although nude images are allowed, pornographic photos are not. In addition to the iOS 500px app, the company’s ISO500 app was also pulled for the same reason.

As many have noted, 500px’s apps aren’t the only ones that facilitate locating nude images, so one must wonder what kind of precedence this sets for other apps. Will Apple be scrubbing from the App Store every app that allows its users to pull up photographs of people in various states of undress? If so, the likes of Tumblr and Flickr, to name a few, should be nervous.

Apple, however, had some harsher things to say about the app, claiming that pornographic images were, indeed, available. “The app was removed from the App Store for featuring pornographic images and material, a clear violation of our guidelines. We also received customer complaints about possible child pornography. We’ve asked the developer to put safeguards in place to prevent pornographic images and material in their app.”

[via TechCrunch]

Apple pulls 500px apps due to nude photo search and pornography allegations is written by Brittany Hillen & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

This week after Google’s quarterly earnings statement for their financial Q4 2012, the company’s Senior Vice President and CFO Patrick Pichette made it clear that their still relatively new ownership of Motorola includes no less than 12 months of product pipeline put in place before they got there. This means that while Google may very well be working to push Motorola in new directions in the future, it’ll be a while before they’ve worked through the products Motorola already had prepared before they arrived. At the moment, Google has completed 120 days of ownership (or so) of Motorola – so there’s quite a bit left to go.

The investor call took place (and may still be taking place depending on when you’re reading the post you’re in now) at http://www.youtube.com/googleir, that being Google using one of its other major products, YouTube, to make the full set of announcements public. The Question and Answer portion of the day included the CEO of the company Larry Page, CFO Patrick Pichette, and Senior Vice President and Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora. The Motorola point was spoken on by Pichette.

“Just a bit of color on Motorola – We’re not in the business of losing money with Motorola. We’re 120 days into this journey – and we’ve inherited 12 to 18 months of product pipeline. With product restructuring, it does take time for new product to show up. … Be ready for a lot of fluctuation in our P and L [Profit and Loss Statements] over the next quarter.” – Pichette

We’ve heard more than one affirmation from Google on how they’ll be working with Motorola through the future, the last time being when Larry Page did an interview in which he discussed the fragile future the companies have with one another. This new bit if information reminds us that while Motorola is its own entity, Google does now own it, and they’re not going to let Motorola run itself entirely without Google’s direct influence. What that means figuratively almost matters more than what it’ll mean literally, in this case, with Motorola’s relatively solid past with hardware being what Google wants to keep through the future.

You’ll see Google influencing the way Motorola phones present Android within the year, one way or another. We’ve already seen several Motorola device delivered in 2012 with a display-only front, these only having been delivered after Google’s purchase was made public. When Google get the opportunity to take Motorola smartphones and tablets in a direction that’s entirely Android friendly insofar as they act as the perfect pure-Android device, that’s when the magic happens. Cross your fingers for the 12 month end of the 12 to 18-month pipeline mentioned by Pichette – Nexus on the way!

Google CFO: “12 to 18 months of product pipeline” with Motorola is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo spoke up after the group’s financial report this week with sales numbers for the iPhone that, if the group’s percentages hold true, tip off Apple having their most successful sales for the iPhone ever. These numbers add up starting with Verizon’s note that they sold 6.2 million iPhones this past quarter. If you take what we know about Verizon’s quarter before the one we’re seeing now, you’ll see they sold 3.1 million iPhones, that including only the first 10 days of sales for the iPhone 5 along with the other models Verizon carried at the time – from there you’ll begin to see the massive jump.

The following comparison you’ll have to take with a bit of salt water because it’s certainly not perfect, but it can be used as a general guide for what we’re about to see from Apple. If you take Apple’s previous sales quarter announcement (which again, doesn’t line up perfectly with Verizon’s month-to-month quarter), you’ll find that Apple sold a total of 26.9 million iPhones. That includes 9 days of iPhone 5 sales while, again, Verizon’s includes 10 days of sales (so the quarters are pretty close, anyway.)

The amount of iPhones sold by Verizon compared to Apple’s total altogether shows that Verizon was responsible for 11.52% of all iPhone sales. If this number holds true through the quarter that’s being reported by Verizon today, Apple is about to report a quarter where they’ve sold one entirely massive amount of iPhones. Keeping in mind this number is entirely based on the percentage of iPhones Verizon sold compared to Apple’s total in the past, Apple may well be announcing a financial quarter in which they’ve sold 56 million iPhones total.

That’s a massive amount of iPhones, needless to say, and it’s well above projections no matter where you’re looking for early guesses. According to the SF Chronicle and analyst Brian White, this projection isn’t just a guess – they’ve got the Wall Street analysis showing 48 million units sold, too. Take that with some salt, of course, but stick around this week to see what Apple’s numbers are this week and come back to see how accurate these numbers were. It could be big, massive, gigantic!

Apple iPhone Q1 sales tipped as largest ever – by far is written by Chris Burns & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

Verizon has just released its financial report for Q4 last year. The nation’s largest carrier says that it saw an 8.5 percent increase per year in service revenues and 8.4 percent per year increase in retail service revenues. Verizon also gained 2.2 million retail net additions including a whopping 2.1 million new postpaid subscribers in Q4 alone, bringing a total number of 98.2 million retail connection and 92.5 million retail postpaid connections. (more…)

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