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Analyst firm Kantar has released their U.S. smartphone market figures for the quarter ended June 30th.

For the third straight quarter, Android took the top spot, at 51.5 percent, ahead of Apple at 42.5 percent.

Windows Phone saw the biggest growth, moving up to 4 percent from 2.9 percent year-over-year and BlackBerry disappeared, dropping from 4.0 to 1.1 percent.

Year-over-year, Android slightly dipped, while Apple saw strong growth.

It will be interesting to see the next few quarters, as Apple prepares its iPhone 5S and allegedly, a cheaper plastic version of the iPhone 5.

According to multiple sources, the Samsung Galaxy S II may no longer be receiving Android 4.2.2, or subsequent updates.

Owners of the two-year-old device were ecstatic earlier this year when the device was listed as getting Jelly Bean and beyond, but that may no longer be the case.

One source says that "due to adjustment problems in the TouchWiz interface," all plans for Android upgrades have been scrapped.

Galaxy Note owners may be getting the same disappointing news as the original phablet has the same hardware and software as the S II.

BGR has posted the alleged specs for the upcoming Amazon Kindle Fire HD 2 series.

Starting with the entry-level 7-inch Kindle Fire HD, the tablet will feature 1,920 x 1,200 resolution, be powered by a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 SoC (including four Krait 400 CPUs and Adreno 330 graphics) that has been clocked at 1.8GHz-2.0GHz.

Additionally, the device will have 2GB RAM, a 2MP front-side camera, 16,32 or 64GB internal storage and Wi-Fi and LTE connectivity. The device will run on Android 4.2.2 with Amazon's Kindle overlay.

Moving up, the 8.9-inch Kindle Fire HD will have 2,560 x 1,600 resolution and all the same specs under the hood as its smaller cousin with the exception of an 8MP camera on the back. The current 8.9-inch model weighs 20 ounces, but that will supposedly be down significantly for the next-gen model.

Asus boss Jonney Shih has noted today that the company will be moving away from the failing Windows RT operating system.

Bluntly, the chairman says "the result was not very promising," when asked about RT-based device sales.

Windows RT runs a version of Windows 8 built for ARM processors, but the devices cannot use legacy Windows apps like Windows 8 Pro can, leaving options limited.

Moving forward, Shih says the company will focus on Windows Pro devices, along with their Intel processors. Shih noted what is very clear now; people still love to use classic Windows apps.

The company is not giving up on Windows, although Shih says he believes the 10-inch form factor is preferable to smaller 7 and 8-inch models.

Microsoft, via their annual 10-K disclosure, has confirmed their Surface line revenue.

From launch until June 30th, the company has made $853 million in sales of the Surface and Surface RT.

The company did not disclose the amount of units sold, nor did it provide the average sale price so it is unclear how many of each type of model were sold.

While it was not made official, other sources claim the company has sold somewhere in the range of 1.7 million units.

To put that figure in comparison, the company just took a $900 million writedown for excess Surface RT inventory, as the company dropped the price of the tablet $150 across the board.

Additionally, Microsoft says marketing expenses for the entire Windows division rose to $1 billion for the fiscal year.

HTC provided a bleak Q3 forecast this morning, stating that it believes revenue could fall as much as 30 percent from the Q2.

The drop would be much worse than was anticipated, and stymies any kind of turnaround the company may have anticipated.

HTC warned that it expects revenue this quarter to drop to T$60 billion ($1.9 billion USD), way below the analyst consensus of T$75.65 billion ($2.41 billion).

The company did say, at least, that it expects a little rebound in the fourth quarter.

At the current time, the company, which remains slightly profitable, seems to be on the verge of collapse. Executives have been leaving in droves, the company's smartphone market share is down to 2.5 percent (from a peak of over 10 in 2011) and the company's stock is down 44 percent this year, seeing levels not seen since 2005.

Canonical is just about to flatline in their campaign to get the Ubuntu Edge smartphone built for launch in 2014.

The company hoped to raise $32 million, far and away the most a crowdfunded campaign would have ever raised, and so far they have raised $7.4 million, breaking Indiegogo records. That being said, the current daily sales are not where they should be if the company hopes to get to $32 million in the next 22 days.

Check the sales charts here, from this morning (via NPU):




Original Story:

Earlier this week we reported that Canonical had launched their Ubuntu Edge smartphone via the crowdfunding site Indiegogo.

The first 5000 pledgers were able to get the device for an intro price of $600, unlocked, along with a shoutout on Canonical's founders page. After that, you had to purchase the phone for $830, but the Linux company seems to have a roadblock at that price and have opened up new pledge tiers.

Showing a strong belief that consumers still care about optical media, Sony and Panasonic have begun jointly developing a next-generation optical disc that can store, at minimum, 300GB.

The companies hope to have the disc available by 2015.

Both companies agree the discs will be marketed, at least initially, to professional industries that move large amounts of data, including high-definition film.

There could also be some consumer interest, if the price is right, being able to backup your entire life to one disc rather than the cloud or multiple flashdrives.

Last year, Sony introduced its optical disc archive system, housing "twelve optical discs within a compact cartridge as a single, high-capacity storage solution. Each disc within the cartridge holds 25GB capacity, offering a total range of storage capacities from 300GB to 1.5TB." The new discs could theoretically offer more than 300GB into the future, as well.

According to multiple reports, the new iOS 7 beta 4 operating system has references to biometrics in its code, suggesting the upcoming iPhone could include the long-rumored fingerprint scanner.

In the code, there is a new folder called "BiometricKitUI."

Here is an example of the text:

bplist00'
_"enroll.tutor.image.label.left.hand_fingerprint.image_#enroll.tutor.image.label.right.hand_fingerprint.status_

hPhoto of a person holding an iPhone with their left hand while touching the Home button with their thumb_;

A fingerprint that changes colour during the setup process._

iPhoto of a person holding an iPhone with their right hand while touching the Home button with their thumb_Recognition is

With little attention, Android boss Sundar Pichai has confirmed that Samsung is building the second-generation Nexus 10 tablet.

Samsung built the first-generation device, which was released in November of last year.

It is unclear what will be updated in the tablet. Last year's model had the extremely high-end 2560x1600 resolution, which will likely not be topped.

Under the hood, however, there is room to work. The first device featured a 32nm dual-core Samsung A15, which had some heating issues. The new device will certainly have a quad-core processor, but from whom is the question. Among the competition are Samsung's own Exynos 5420 (which is actually an octo-core), the Snapdragon 800 or even the Tegra 4.

Google will need to come with something impressive for the next Nexus 10, as the tablet was never too popular with consumers.

According to a new report, UK, U.S., Canadian, New Zealand and Australian spy agencies have all banned using Lenovo PCs due to remote access vulnerabilities that were found during security testing.

The internal ban has allegedly been in place since the mid-2000s "after intensive laboratory testing of its equipment allegedly documented "back-door" hardware and "firmware" vulnerabilities in Lenovo chips."

Lenovo has never gotten the required security certifications needed by most of the agencies, either.

Many of the exploits found could lead to backdoor/remote access by attackers.

There is, of course, the suspicion of China's ties to the world's biggest computer maker. China's Academy of Sciences is the majority shareholder of Legend Holdings, which in turn is Lenovo's largest shareholder.

Two white hat hackers, Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek, will publish a 100-page white paper on attacking the critical systems of two major cars at next week's Defcon convention.

Miller and Valasek were given a grant by the U.S. government to research and uncover software vulnerabilities in the Ford Escape and Toyota Prius.

The pair will also release the software they built for hacking the cars at the convention.

Through their research (via Reuters), the pair were able to find ways to "force a Toyota Prius to brake suddenly at 80 miles an hour, jerk its steering wheel, or accelerate the engine." They can also "disable the brakes of a Ford Escape traveling at very slow speeds, so that the car keeps moving no matter how hard the driver presses the pedal." In the wrong hands, both exploits can certainly be fatal, although the white hats will not be releasing any information on how to do these attacks remotely, meaning you will have to be in the vehicle and connected directly to the car's system for the attack.

Siemens CEO Peter Loescher will leave the company four years before his contract is over, following another poor pre-earnings report.

The company's board will select an acting President and CEO on July 31st.

One of the most valuable companies in all of Germany, the engineering group has had its share of struggles in recent years. Loescher started in 2007, a hire from outside of the company, to help Siemens out of a massive bribery scandal that had rocked their reputation in the industry and around the globe, and hurt their balance sheet.

Since starting, Loescher has quickly lost credibility, as well, as major projects have been hit by delay after delay and revenue and profits have fallen.

After setting a plan to increase revenue by 30 percent over three years, the CEO had to backtrack and instead set a new plan to cut down on expenses and increase profit margins; meaning over 10,000 jobs could be at stake. Earlier this week, the exec scrapped that plan, as well, showing how lost he appears to be when judging market demand for the company's products.

While Nokia has so far shied away from large screen devices, they have been rumored to be working on a "phablet" for some time now.

Now, thanks to ICT, we have the first alleged picture of the upcoming device (at least in part).

ICT has been very strong in their track record for leaks in the past, but definitely take this story with a grain of salt until Nokia confirms it.

In the photo we see the front case for the upcoming 6-inch device, which includes a very thin bezel and the standard Nokia branding and the standard Windows button.

Nokia is said to already be mass producing the device, and hopefully it will launch alongside this winter's Windows Phone update that allows for 1080p displays.

Despite struggles to get new, relevant devices to the public, BlackBerry has laid off 250 employees from its "New Product Testing" division, one of their research and development (R&D) groups.

The company laid off over 5000 employees last year in an effort to streamline operations and turn a profit, and those cuts are ongoing, confirmed CEO Thorsten Heins.

Last year, during the larger cuts, BlackBerry informed employees that if they were part of BlackBerry 10 services or projects they were likely safe. That does not appear to be the case anymore.

BlackBerry has only two more devices expected for this year, the mid-range A10 and Q5, which through leaked specs and pictures do not appear to be any more impressive than their flagship Z10 and Q10.

Reads BlackBerry's statement about the cuts (via Crunch):

I can confirm on the record, that BlackBerry on Tuesday informed 250 employees of their termination in Waterloo. These employees were part of the New Product Testing Facility, a department that supports BlackBerry's manufacturing and R&D efforts.