Hasta La Gadget!

BlackBerry announced its fiscal Q3 2014 results today, and the numbers aren’t pretty. The company revealed a whopping $4.4 billion GAAP-adjusted loss for the quarter, which includes a write-down on current inventory of around $1.6 billion. It “recognized revenue” on only 1.9 million BlackBerry handsets, compared to 3.7 million in the same period a year ago, but it also claims that it sold around 4.3 million BlackBerrys through to end customers it says, of which 3.2 million were BlackBerry 7 handsets. Whichever way you look at that, it’s not good.

BlackBerry stressed the growth of Enterprise Services, Messaging, and QNX Embedded OS in auto and cloud as high points, and noted a change in corporate structure in which those are given more equal weight against its Devices unit. And as for the Devices unit, BlackBerry announced a partnership with Foxconn that will span five years and kick off with a smartphone unit designed specifically for “Indonesia and other fast-growing markets in early 2014.”

This partnership could offload the majority of BlackBerry’s hardware inventory management duties to Foxconn, and Mexico is named as another early target for devices coming out of the arrangement. Essentially, it sounds much more like BlackBerry is making Foxconn a licensee with more or less full control over its smartphone division, while it continues to work on services and software in-house. It could be a good way to offload the risk and responsibility of handset production while still selling to its remaining market strongholds.

Earnings for this quarter were dismal, and missed already bleak analyst expectations. The company is in yet another transition phase as it looks to its new CEO John Chen to help it recover from the lasting damage done by the BlackBerry 10 launch and the very poor sales of Z10 and Q10 handsets. No one expected them to do well this time around, but a $4.4 billion loss is over four times what it suffered even last quarter, so it’s clear that changes at the faltering company have just begun.

[Illustration: Bryce Durbin]

Foxconn, perhaps best known as Apple’s manufacturing partner of iPhones, iPads, and Macs, is making a push into wearables with a new investment fund for innovative startups in the segment, it’s reported, with business said to kick off in early 2014. The financing scheme will begin selecting potential candidates in the first quarter of the […]

The iPhone 5s was launched to intense demand back in September. Apple quickly sold out of its initial launch inventory and then shipping times slipped down to a couple of weeks. Almost a couple of months after launch, shipping times have now started to improve, estimates range between 3-5 business days on Apple’s online store. Recent checks of 60 Apple Retail Stores in the U.S. revealed that 90 percent of the stores now have iPhone 5s in stock, plus Apple has now also started selling the SIM-free unlocked variant through its stores. Much of this is due to the fact that Apple has ordered Foxconn to boost production, the Wall Street Journal reports that 300,000 workers at Foxconn are now producing half a million (500,000) iPhone 5s units every single day.

The report cites a Foxconn executive who reveals that the manufacturer is now running 100 individual production lines around the clock. Foxconn is now at its maximum output capacity of 500,000 units per day. Nearly 600 workers man the individual production lines as opposed to 500 per line for iPhone 5c and iPhone 5 as assembly procedure for those smartphones is less complicated. Even though there’s consistent demand, Foxconn is reportedly reluctant to expand its output capacity as there have been rumors that Apple might tap other manufacturers like Pegatron and Wistron to build iPhones next year. As of now, Foxconn generates 40 percent of its revenue from Apple.

Foxconn Tasks 300,000 Workers With Production Of Half A Million iPhone 5s Daily original content from Ubergizmo.

If you’re the type of consumer that worries about where their products come from and whether it is made under ethical conditions, such as no mistreatment of their workers, you might be interested to learn that manufacturer Foxconn will soon be opening up shop in the US. The company has revealed that they are looking to invest $40 million in a new factory in Pennsylvania, with $30 million going towards the factory itself, while the remaining $10 million will go towards R&D efforts at the Pittsburgh Carnegie Mellon University.

Foxconn manufactures for a lot of big companies, such as Apple and Sony, just to name a few. We’re not sure if Apple’s products will be transferred to Foxconn’s new factory in the US, but it seems that Foxconn is hopping aboard the bandwagon where a lot of companies are starting to shift their manufacturing efforts back to the US. We have seen how Apple will be bringing advanced sapphire manufacturing to the US, and will also see the new Mac Pro assembled in the US, as opposed to countries such as China or Brazil. Motorola has also shifted their efforts back to the US with the Moto X.

Foxconn has been under fire many times for alleged mistreatment of their workers, but hopefully with the shift to the US, where labor laws are stricter, they will be able to prove that they are able to operate under “normal” conditions as well.

Foxconn To Invest $40 Million In A Factory In Pennsylvania original content from Ubergizmo.

Foxconn has had a pretty bad rep when it comes to how they treat their workers, and last we heard they got into a spot of trouble when it was discovered that they had been hiring underage workers. Well it turns out that what goes around comes back around, as a new forum thread over at IGN has been opened for the Xi’an Technological University North Institute, where an alleged student made claims that due to Foxconn and their university forcing them to work at the factory, they decided to sabotage some of Foxconn’s products in the process, with the Sony PlayStation 4 being one of them.

According to the student’s post, “Since Foxconn are not treating us well, we will not treat the PS4 console well. The PS4 console we assemble can be turned on at best.” However another post surfaced claiming that the students were barely 1/10^th of the workers at Foxconn, so they can hardly be blamed for any of the PS4’s faults. Since none of this can actually be verified, take with a grain of salt for now, but if anything it certainly seems to lineup with the various reports of the PS4’s “blue light of death” that have been making their rounds on the internet. What do you guys think? Is this a coincidence, or is someone merely trying to capitalize on the reports by creating this rumor?

Mistreated Foxconn Interns Claim To Have Sabotaged The Sony PS4 [Rumor] original content from Ubergizmo.