Hasta La Gadget!

HP kicked off this morning’s Q2 earnings call citing a leaked company memo that recently popped up at Bloomberg. That memo, which had the outfit’s CEO, Leo Apotheker warning of “another tough quarter,” resulted in a five percent drop in HP shares in after-hours trading Monday, according to the Wall Street Journal, and prompted the release of the outfit’s Q2 earning a day ahead of schedule — an earnings call was originally slated for Wednesday. According to the report, the company managed to pull in $31.6 billion in revenue and $2.3 billion in earnings, compared to $30.8 billion in revenue and $2.2 billion in earnings the same time last year.

So what brought about the pot-stirring internal memo? Well, it seems HP’s struggled to keep up with the competition when it comes to consumer computer sales. Despite an increase in revenue in every other segment of the company’s business, HP’s Personal Systems Group (which covers enterprise and consumer sales) saw revenue decline five percent year-over-year, with the portion covering consumer computers down 23 percent. That might seem like a big dip, and it is, but Apotheker says the company is “excited by the tablet opportunities,” continuing on to say that the impending release of the company’s TouchPad “will be an exciting product release for HP.” For now, we’ll just have to sit back and see if the webOS slate has the stuff to pull HP out of the consumer computer lurch. Full PR after the break.

Continue reading HP releases 2011 Q2 earnings early, following leak of foreboding internal memo

HP releases 2011 Q2 earnings early, following leak of foreboding internal memo originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 17 May 2011 17:18:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We found the BlackBerry PlayBook to be a pretty solid piece of hardware, but it seems there was a problem batch — an inside source tells us that nearly 1,000 faulty tablets were shipped to Staples, and now they’re being recalled. We’re hoping that Staples (and any other affected retailers) will reach out to customers and inform them of the problem right away, but just in case that doesn’t happen, we’ve compiled a searchable spreadsheet of all 935 alleged serial numbers for you to check against your own. Find it right after the break.

Update: RIM tells Crackberry that the faulty batch of the 16GB tablets was indeed limited to the approximately 1,000 units described here, and that they had a faulty build of the OS “that may result in the devices being unable to properly load software upon initial set-up.” Furthermore, the company says that only a few went out to customers and that most are still in distribution, so with any luck you’ll never have to deal with this problem to begin with.

Continue reading RIM recalls 900 faulty BlackBerry PlayBooks, here are the serial numbers (update)

RIM recalls 900 faulty BlackBerry PlayBooks, here are the serial numbers (update) originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 14 May 2011 21:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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That Android 3.1 update that Google announced during I/O is slowly rolling out to 3G Xoom owners as we speak. How’d we know such a thing? Why, it just landed on our in-house Xoom, of course! Most of the changes to Honeycomb are happening under the hood — better HTML5 support, faster performance, and USB host functionality for connecting peripherals like game controllers and mice — but there are some improvements that will be a lot more obvious to the user. Perhaps our favorite is the addition of resizable widgets. For the moment only the email and Gmail inbox, calendar and bookmarks widgets can be stretched or shrunk, but we’re sure others will follow. We’re particularly appreciative of the expandable calendar widget, which always felt a tad cramped. The task switcher also received a much requested upgrade and now lets you scroll through your last 18 launched apps, instead of just the five most recent. Lastly, the Android Market now offers movie rentals, alongside books and apps, which range in price from $1.99 to $4.99 for 24 hours of playback. There isn’t a ton of revolutionary stuff going on here, but it’s certainly a welcome and worthwhile update. Check out the video after the break to see Android 3.1 in action.

Continue reading Android 3.1 on the Motorola Xoom: hands-on (video)

Android 3.1 on the Motorola Xoom: hands-on (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 13 May 2011 19:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Remember that Ava telepresence bot that we were gaga over at CES? Well Google has decided to lend iRobot a hand in getting the tablet-topped automaton rolling with some Android apps. The two companies have teamed up to create Ava specific programs that can be run from an Android slate perched on the extending neck of this silicon-brained companion. Apparently any ‘ol tablet will do, so you’ll still be able to play Angry Birds, but where’s the fun in that? The exciting stuff will be apps that can communicate with the robot and pass it directions, meaning we need to figure out what our new, mechanical best friends should do for us. We’ve already got plenty of options for killing and beer serving — how about one that folds our laundry? Oh, wait. Well, we’ll think of something. While we ponder you check out Ava’s cameo at Google I/O and the PR after the break.

Continue reading Google and iRobot team up to put Android apps on Ava telepresence bot

Google and iRobot team up to put Android apps on Ava telepresence bot originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 12 May 2011 03:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NEC’s VersaPro VK15V/TM-C looks like a tablet, runs like a netbook originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 11 May 2011 17:36:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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