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Sony Ericsson posts $299 million Q2 2009 loss, PlayStation-integrated phone (probably Aino) coming Q4

by Ross Miller posted Jul 16th 2009 @ 1:09PM

The good news, if you want to call it that, is that Sony Ericsson's most recent quarter loss is not as bad as its epic $382 million tab prior, and at this point there's no talk of further en masse job cuts. That said, this new report isn't exactly sunshine, and the Q2 results show a 213 million Euro ($299 million) net loss. Product shipments were around 13.8 million, down 43 percent compared with last year. Some blame is attributed to the focus on mid-tier feature phones in lieu of a greater smartphone push -- SE says it's working to correct that direction, but its higher end devices won't hit until fourth quarter. One interesting note is that one of those late-year handhelds is said to "integrate with PlayStation," but before you get excited over the oft-rumored PSP phone, we'd venture to say it's more likely that description's referencing the Remote Play-supporting Aino. From what we can tell, there's no indication of what's in the cards to improve Q3, so we won''t exactly be surprised if the story repeats itself three months from now.

Palm says licensing webOS "not a religious issue"

by Nilay Patel posted Jun 26th 2009 @ 12:25PM

http://www.engadget.com/media/2009/06/webos-clie-1.jpg

Palm had its quarterly results conference call yesterday and although CEO Jon Rubinstein and CFO Doug Jeffries kept a pretty tight lid on the future product talk, they did say that licensing webOS to third parties isn't "a religious issue for us." That's pretty vague, sure, but we can't help but immediately think back to the golden age of Palm OS, when licensees like Sony put out amazing devices like the Clie PEG-NZ90 that we've lovingly mocked up with a webOS screenshot above -- we're sure Palm's upcoming handsets will be interesting in their own right, but we'd love to see a manufacturer like HTC riff on webOS the way it's tweaking Android. Of course, Jeffries also said Palm has "no plans at this time to even talk about" licensing, so this is all just a pipe dream for now, but let's not ruin the moment, okay? Hit the read link for the full call transcript.

[Via GearLog]

Investigators demonstrate Nokia 1100's criminal potential

by Ross Miller posted May 22nd 2009 @ 2:22AM

In case you weren't already convinced of a certain model of Nokia 1100's hackability by the exponential surge in its aftermarket value, fraud investigation firm Ultrascan has successfully recreated a virtual bank heist by reprogramming one of the devices to receive another phone number's text messages. Using this trick, shady characters in fancy suits can get your mobile transaction authentication number -- provided you live in a country like Germany or Holland that use mTANs -- and use it to get into your bank account and transfer funds. They'd also need your account name and password, mind you, but obtaining that data isn't nearly as complex when there's plenty of people clicking on the wrong emails and signing into fake website with all those deets and the associated digits. It all sounds a bit like the stuff of crime novels, doesn't it? And before you go running to eBay with that 1100 you stashed away in a drawer years ago, please note that it only works if the candybar was produced at a very specific plant in Bochum, Germany.

Motorola's profit forecast goes from bad to worse

by Chris Ziegler posted Jul 12th 2007 @ 3:06AM

Maybe the Sidekick Slide is Moto's savior -- then again, maybe it's not -- but either way, the company seems to need a huge hit (or three) in the wings to turn its luck around. In the wake of two hefty rounds of job cuts, Motorola has now announced that it'll lose money in the second quarter and no longer expects its mobile devices unit to turn a profit at all this year, thanks largely to underperforming sales in Europe and Asia. In other news, Garriques' shoes have now been filled by a man going by the name of Stu Reed, apparently some "supply chain executive" who has been tapped to ~~play the next fall guy~~ get this sinking ship back on track. We've said it before and we'll say it again: where's the US version of the Z8, Moto?