Latest news

Google has confirmed it will be officially launching Android 3.0 Honeycomb at a press event on February 2nd.

The company also unveiled the new logo for the operating system (pictured).

Android 3.0 is optimized for tablets and will first be seen on the Motorola Xoom, which should be available at the end of February.

The SDK for Honeycomb was released earlier in the week, which PCM says includes a UI framework for creating great apps for larger screen devices; high-performance 2D and 3D graphics; support for multicore processor architectures; rich multimedia; new types of connectivity; and enhancements for enterprise.

At least 5 Honeycomb tablets have already been promised for the Q1, although none have been priced yet.

The UN has stated this week that worldwide Internet users have ballooned to 2 billion, while mobile phone subscriptions have hit 5 billion.

Says the head of the UN's International Telecommunications Union (via AFP):

At the beginning of the year 2000 there were only 500 million mobile subscriptions globally and 250 million Internet users.

By the beginning of this year 2011 those numbers have mushroomed to over five billion mobile users and two billion subscribers to the Internet.

The Internet usage figure jumped from 1.86 billion at the end of 2009 to 2.08 billion at the end of 2010. Cell phone subscriptions increased from 4.66 billion in 2009 to 5.28 billion. Mobile broadband connections exploded to 940 million, while home broadband connections jumped to 555 million.

Internet usage rates have seen the strongest increases (by percentage) in Arab nations, as well as Russia and China.

Global population now exceeds 6.8 billion.

Skullcandy, the company behind headphones backed by rappers, other musicians and athletes, has filed for an IPO today, en route to going public.

Despite remaining under-the-radar, the company disclosed that it made $7.65 million in the 9 months ended September 30th, on $96 million in revenue.

Reads the filing:

Skullcandy is a leading audio brand that reflects the collision of the music, fashion and action sports lifestyles. Our brand symbolizes youth and rebellion and embodies our motto, ’Every revolution needs a soundtrack.'

The company also sells apparel like shirts, jackets and hats.

Skullcandy will trade under the ticker SKUL.

Nintendo has reported their earnings for the 9-month period ended December 2010, and net profit fell a whopping 74 percent, to ¥49.56 billion ($600 million USD) from ¥192.60 billion ($2.34 billion) in the same period in 2009.

The gaming company attributed the drop to a wildly stronger yen and a lack of compelling software titles for its DS and Wii consoles.

Overall revenue fell 32 percent to ¥807.99 billion ($9.8 billion) from ¥1.182 trillion ($14.4 billion).

Because Nintendo makes about 80 percent of its sales outside of Japan, most of its cash assets are held in foreign currency, like pounds, USD and euros. As the yen continues to gain strength, the value of those currencies decreases, forcing Nintendo to book appraisal losses.

Those losses remain as "paper losses" until the company converts back to yen, but they still hurt the books on a "net" basis.

According to the National Association of Theater Owners, the average movie ticket price in the U.S. jumped to $7.89 in 2010, with the cost crossing $8 for the first time ever in October.

For the Q4, the average cost stood at $8.01.

The first quarter saw the average at $7.95, which then dropped to $7.88 in the second and $7.71 in the third.

In 2009, the average ticket price was $7.50, so the growth represented a 5.2 percent increase, overall.

For the last five years, ticket prices have increased at an average 4.5 percent.

When Samsung launched their Galaxy Tab tablet in November, the company made it clear its first goal was 1 million sales before Christmas.

In early December, the company hit its milestone.

This week, Samsung has said they have topped 2 million sales, shipping over 800,000 in Europe, 550,000 in North America and 330,000 in Asia.

For comparison's sake, the market leader Apple iPad hit 1 million sales 30 days as well, but sales have recently topped 14 million since April.

Samsung's tablet runs on Android 2.2, has a 1GHz processor, a 7-inch multi-touch screen and dual cameras.

The tab is available in 94 countries.

IDC has reported this week that the global mobile phone market grew 17.9 percent in the Q4 2010, thanks mainly to increasing smartphone sales.

401.4 million units were sold in the quarter, compared to 340.5 million in the same period in 2009. For the year, sales were up 18.5 percent, jumping to 1.39 billion units. The figure was the largest growth rate since 2006's 22.6 percent jump.

"The mobile phone market has the wind behind its sails," added Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC's Worldwide Mobile Phone Tracker. "Mobile phone users are eager to swap out older devices for ones that handle data as well as voice, which is driving growth and replacement cycles."

IDC concluded that smartphone sales will drive the growth through the end of 2014, with expected 43.7 percent year-over-year growth in 2011.

Nokia retained the top spot in mobile phone shipments, followed by Samsung, LG, ZTE and Apple. ZTE sells low-cost feature phones and cheap Android smartphones in China.

Every year, starting usually in November and lasting into February, DVDs of movies that are up for award considerations are sent out to Academy, Golden Globe, SAG and other awards voters.

Without fail, a number of these discs are duplicated and find their way to warez and torrent sites, which label them as DVD Screeners.

It appears the studios are finally trying to take a big stand against the sharing of screeners, with some, like Fox Searchlight, turning to streaming instead of sending out physical copies.

This month, the studio gave free downloads of 'Black Swan' to 100,000 SAG voters via the Apple iTunes store. Each download expires 24 hours after the user starts viewing it.

So far, the ploy has not worked as pirates have ripped the streams and begun labeling them as Web Screeners. At least three such films, (127 Hours, The Fighter and King's Speech) are available as "Web Screeners" in full 720p HD.

Netflix has posted a list of the fastest American ISPs today, giving some of the most accurate data for sustained transfers, ever.

Most speed testing sites rely on quick (30 seconds or less) bursts of speed, which can be inaccurate.

Says Ken Florance, director of content delivery at Netflix:

We find ourselves in the unique position of having insight into the performance of hundreds of millions of long duration, high-definition video streams delivered over the Internet.

As we use a number of CDNs, and our clients can adapt to changing network conditions by selecting the network path that's currently giving them the best throughput, Netflix streaming performance ends up being an interesting way to measure sustained throughput available from a given ISP over time, and therefore the quality of Netflix streaming that ISP is providing to our subscribers. Obviously, this can vary by network technology (e.g. DSL, Cable), region, etc., but it's a great high-level view of Netflix performance across a large number of individual streaming sessions.

Netflix has posted the top 16 ISPs in the nation, and says the chart will be updated monthly.

Despite continued growth and popularity, Hulu is allegedly in serious talks to become an online cable operator, completely re-branding itself.

The new company would broadcast live and on-demand content over the Web to paying customers.

Moving from its current free, ad-based business, and its Hulu Plus subscription plan, the new service would instead charge customers for bundles of channels like ABC, Fox, NBC, FoodNetwork, Disney, FX and more.

Hulu responded by saying "we do not comment on rumors and speculation, which is what this is."

The company brought in around $260 million in revenue for 2010, up from $108 million in 2009.

Hulu is jointly owned by NBCU, Fox and Disney.

Intel has announced that it will launch its first Meego tablets in June, running on the tablet-optimized MeeGo 1.2.

More models should hit in the Q3, especially since Intel's App Up center should be ready by then.

Developers are already submitting applications for the upcoming market, thanks to Intel's tablet preview program.

Intel will not only launch MeeGo devices during the period, as they have planned Windows 7 and Honeycomb devices, as well, each running on Atom.

Regal Entertainment, the largest movie theater company in the U.S. has announced today that it has amended its current contract with RealD over 3D screens.

In 2008, the companies signed a deal for Regal to install 1500 3D screens, and the new deal effectively doubles the original, with Regal now agreeing to install 3000 of the screens.

Says Regal CEO Amy Miles (via THR):

We continue to see high demand from moviegoers for RealD's premium 3D viewing experience and to meet that demand Regal expects to 3D-enable approximately 40% of its screens as part of its ongoing nationwide digital rollout.

Doubling our agreement for RealD 3D-enabled screens will allow us to play multiple 3D films at the same time and assure moviegoers the option of seeing films in a premium 3D format.

RealD 3D is currently available on 9300 screens.

Microsoft revealed their quarterly earnings today, seeing revenue grow 5 percent to $19.9 billion.

The figure that really stood out, however, came from Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division, which saw a huge 55 percent revenue growth, mainly thanks to strong Windows Phone 7 and Kinect motion control sales.

Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division consists of the Xbox 360, Zune, Kinect and Windows Phone 7.

The division had $3.7 billion in revenue this quarter, up from $2.4 billion year-over-year.

Xbox Live memberships grew 31 percent, Xbox 360 sales were up 21 percent, and the company sold 8 million Kinects in just 60 days.

Adds Microsoft CFO Peter Klein (via Tech):

We are enthusiastic about the consumer response to our holiday lineup of products, including the launch of Kinect. The 8 million units of Kinect sensors sold in just 60 days far exceeded our expectations. The pace of business spending, combined with strong consumer demand, led to another quarter of operating margin expansion and solid earnings per share growth.

Yesterday we reported that HTC was ready to unveil two Facebook-branded smartphones next month.

Today, the social networking giant has denied the rumor, saying there is no planned smartphone tie-ins coming.

Says head of business development at Facebook, Dan Rose (via Reuters):

This is really just another example of a manufacturer who has taken our public APIs (application programming interfaces) and integrated them into their device in an interesting way.

The rumours around there being something more to this HTC device are overblown.

When asked whether the devices would be "Facebook-branded," Rose flat out replied, "No."

The company says 250 million of its 500 million users actively access the site via mobile devices.

After years of rumor and speculation, Sony has finally unveiled the PSP2, for now dubbed the 'New Generation Portable (NGP).'

For controls, the handheld adds dual micro-analog sticks, giving gamers a feature they begged for on the original PSP.

The device has a massive 5-inch multi-touch OLED screen with 960×544 resolution, a multi-touch panel on the back and will run on a quad-core ARM cortex processor.

Sony has added tilt-sensitive SIXAXIS controls, standard and front-side cameras, GPS, an electric compass, Wi-Fi and 3G support.

The handheld will have a new UI dubbed "Live Area," which is used to launch games, the online app/game store, view trophies, view news and send IMs to friends with NGPs.

Using the new feature "Near," gamers, when connected to the Internet, will be shown a list of the most popular games in the area, and what other NGP gamers are playing at that time, explains Siliconera.