Apple Slashes iPhone 5 Part Orders Due to Weak Demand

The Wall Street Journal reports that Apple has slashed component orders for the iPhone 5 this quarter, responding to weaker-than-expected demand.

Apple's orders for iPhone 5 screens for the January-March quarter, for example, have dropped to roughly half of what the company had previously planned to order, two of the people said. 

The Cupertino, Calif., company has also cut orders for components other than screens, according to one of the people. 

Apple notified the suppliers of the order cut last month, the people said.

There have been reports that Apple is looking to launch its next-generation iPhone in the middle of this year as part of a broader effort to shorten its product update cycles. Apple is reportedly also toying with other changes such as a cheaper version of the iPhone in order to help the company slow the momentum of Android and its leading manufacturers Samsung.

It is not unusual for demand, and thus Apple's component orders, to wane in the lead-up to hardware updates, but the iPhone 5 is just four months old, and the slashing of production at this stage of the device's lifecycle is sure to cause concern for the company, its investors, and others closely watching Apple's performance.

[Source: MacRumors]

Facebook’s Ridiculous Test Charges $100 To Message Outside of Network

Would you pay to guarantee that your Facebook messages end up in recipients’ inboxes, even if they’re not connected to you? The company seems to think so, having launched a new — and utterly ridiculous — test program.

Sure, plenty of people and businesses would be interested in guaranteed delivery to recipients outside of their networks. And many would even be willing to spend a little dough to ensure messages don’t end up in the “Other” folder, that wasteland of junk mail and Facebook group notifications. But here’s where the ridiculous part comes in: Some users have noticed pop-ups asking for a whopping $100 for the feature.

Just, wow. For that much money, you could just hire a bike courier to deliver your note in person, no?

While that price may seem indiscriminately excessive, it’s actually by design. When the program began last month, along with handy filters like that new Other folder, the test fee was just a mere $1. Now it’s $100. Clearly, the company is playing around with price points to gauge how much people are willing to pay. And who knows? Maybe some folks would consider a C-note to be a bargain to reach the likes of Mark Zuckerberg.

[Source: TechnoBuffalo]

BlackBerry 10 sees 15,000 app submissions in less than two days

RIM will be facing an uphill battle when it does eventually launch BlackBerry 10, but the company is making sure it’ll have a healthy selection of apps from the get-go by incentivizing developers. RIM recently hosted two Port-a-Thon events to encourage developers to submit their games and general apps for BlackBerry 10, offering $100 for any app approved to the store. Naturally, the promise of cash seems to have worked: 15,000 apps were submitted over the course of 37.5 hours.

Money wasn’t the only incentive, though, as BlackBerry hardware was also on offer. The first developers submitting between two and five approved apps were promised a free PlayBook, while those writing more than five approved apps were entered into a random draw to receive a BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device. It’s doubtful that every app will be approved for the store, but RIM needs as many submissions as possible if the company hopes for a successful launch.

[Source: TheVerge]

BlackBerry 10 promises six phones, 90 per cent of major apps

Half a dozen BlackBerry 10 phones are coming this year, with 70,000 apps at your fingertips including nine out of ten of the big names.

Speaking to FierceWireless, the marketing boss of BlackBerry builder Research in Motion confirmed we'd see at least six BlackBerry 10 devices, at a range of prices.

RIM also said that BlackBerry 10 will have 70,000 apps, including 90 per cent of the top 600 apps on rival platforms.

BlackBerry 10 is the much-anticipated next generation of software for the clicky-keyed phones popular with business types and messaging teenagers alike. There's a lot riding on the new lineup of phones and software as RIM's market share is in serious trouble, after coming under pressure from the iPhone and Android in recent years.

One of Android's strengths is that you can buy Android-powered smart phones at almost any price. By selling low-cost phones as well as premium models BlackBerry can appeal to the BlackBerry Messenger-loving teen market as well as the business-loving serious types.

RIM better hurry up though -- Samsung is aiming to swoop into businesses, investing in security and reliability to replace BlackBerry as your next work phone. 

The first two BlackBerry phones will be unveiled with the new software at the end of this month. One will sport a traditional BlackBerry keyboard, while the other will have a full touchscreen. There won't be any deals to make them exclusive to one particular network.

[Source: CNET]

Tegra 4 Likely to Power Next-Gen Surface RT Tablets

NVIDIA’s quad-core Tegra 3 processor powers the current generation Microsoft Surface RT, so it seems like a natural fit for Microsoft to sign NVIDIA on again for the next-generation Surface. Digitimes expects NVIDIA to become a go-to player in the Surface RT market, and believes that the firm’s next-generation Tegra 4 chip will indeed be tapped to power the second-generation Surface RT.

“Since Nvidia has a long history of cooperation with Microsoft in terms of graphics and GPGPU computing technologies, while demand for GPU computing has started to weigh heavier, these advantages are all expected to help Nvidia become competitive in the Windows RT market,” Digitimes Research analyst Eric Lin said.

Lin believes NVIDIA may also struggle to build and ecosystem for the NVIDIA Project Shield gaming device, however, which is a bit bizarre since it will run PC games and Android games. In other words, a media ecosystem is already well established.

[Source: TechnoBuffalo]

Groupon Payments comes to Android, starts catching up to Square

Use Groupon Payments for your business? You just got a little more choice -- the popular deal broker just updated its Android app to support credit card transactions. The update brings the fledgling payment service a little closer to Square, which has been available on Android since 2010. If the iOS rates hold, swiping plastic through Groupon Merchants will set retailers back a mere $0.15 per transaction, plus 1.8 percent of the charge for Visa, MasterCard and Discover, or three percent for American Express. The update also boasts improved analytics, giving retailers the ability to check transaction history, daily sales reports and peek at revenue trends.

[Source: Engadget]

1 million Raspberry Pi computers have been sold

Raspberry Pi -- the little computer that's bringing back engineering in a big way -- has sold about a million units. The numbers aren't concrete, but estimates peg the total at about the million figure. Which is quite some achievement.

And to celebrate, the folks who make the mini computer have put together the infographic you can see above.

"The folks at 14/Premier Farnell announced today that they alone have now made and sold more than half a million Raspberry Pis," it says on the Raspberry Pi blog. "They're only one of two official distributors; we don't have completely up-to-date figures from RS Components yet, but Farnell's news suggests that we're well on the way to having sold our millionth Raspberry Pi."

To put that in tech terms, the half a million Pis made by 14/Premier Farnell would weigh the same as 169,173 Nokia 3310s (remember those?), or 200,893 iPhone 5s. All of them stacked end to end would be taller than 11 Empire State Buildings, and higher than Felix Baumgartner's world record skydive of 128,000 feet. Laid end to end, they'd be the same length as 5,070 double decker buses. And at a cost of $17.5 million (£10.8 million), customers could've bought 4,375,000 chocolate bars. But then a Raspberry Pi is far better for you.

The Raspberry Pi was one of the best tech stories of last year, and a real triumph of British engineering. Our very own Katie Collins voted it her product of the year, as it helps today's school kids get tinkering with tech. The Pi even has its own app store, so you can easily snaffle games and software. The app store has a 'tip jar' too, so you can donate some funds even if your chosen app is free, which is a great idea.

[Source: CNET]

Samsung unveils the Galaxy S2 Plus, minor spec bump over the original

Samsung has today introduced another new Android smartphone to add to its portfolio, and you'd be right in thinking it looks an awful lot like the Galaxy S2. That's because it does, and this new device is the Galaxy S2 Plus. The most notable improvement is the software. 

Running Android 4.1.2 Jelly Bean with Samsung's latest Touchwiz Nature UX, the rest of the specs are either a minor bump from the Galaxy S2 or pretty much the same. The Plus houses a 4.3 inch WVGA Super-AMOLED Plus display, a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of RAM, and 8MP and 2MP rear and front facing cameras respectively. On board storage is just 8GB, but is expandable by microSD card which Samsung says is supported upto 64GB.

Otherwise, that's about all she wrote. Looking through the specs there appears to be an NFC version and a non NFC version, and the camera has a pretty nice sounding zero lag shutter speed. No word as yet on price or availability, and you'll find the full press release after the break.

[Source: AndroidCentral]

Jessops closes for good, 1,370 jobs lost

Sad news: Jessops is to close its doors, leaving 1,370 employees out of a job. Just one day after Jessops went into administration, administrators PriceWaterhouseCoopers announced that all 187 stores would close.

Shops will begin shutting today. 1,370 jobs will go in stores, with more job losses to follow at the company's head office in Leicester. PWC blames a lack of support from suppliers, without which the chain cannot continue to trade, for the death of the 77-year-old company.

The Jessops website is still showing cameras and other products, complete with prices, but you can't buy them. You also can't return goods bought from Jessops. If you do have a problem with a camera or other kit bought from Jessops, try contacting the manufacturer; Nikon told me today that you can return faulty kit for free.

Nikon says it's working on completing outstanding repairs to kit being fixed under Jessops Photo+ extended warranty, and will contact affected customers directly.

The Jessops photo service is still available.

Jessops is the first high-street casualty of 2013, following a raft of closures last year. The biggest gadget shop to go under is Comet, which crashed to Earth leaving a £50m unpaid redundancy bill to be footed by the taxpayer.

Meanwhile, HMV has launched a major sale to raise fast cash as it too struggles to meet debt obligations. It seems unlikely that Jessops will hold a sale.

[Souce: CNET]

Apple Blocks Java 7 Plug-in on OS X to Address Widespread Security Threat

As noted by ZDNet, a major security vulnerability in Java 7 has been discovered, with the vulnerability currently being exploited in the wild by malicious parties. In response to threat, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has recommended that users disable the Java 7 browser plug-in entirely until a patch is made available by Oracle.

Hackers have discovered a weakness in Java 7 security that could allow the installation of malicious software and malware on machines that could increase the chance of identity theft, or the unauthorized participation in a botnet that could bring down networks or be used to carry out denial-of-service attacks against Web sites. 

"We are currently unaware of a practical solution to this problem," said the DHS' Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) in a post on its Web site on Thursday evening. "This vulnerability is being attacked in the wild, and is reported to be incorporated into exploit kits. Exploit code for this vulnerability is also publicly available."

Apple has, however, apparently already moved quickly to address the issue, disabling the Java 7 plug-in on Macs where it is already installed. Apple has achieved this by updating its "Xprotect.plist" blacklist to require a minimum of an as-yet unreleased 1.7.0_10-b19 version of Java 7. With the current publicly-available version of Java 7 being 1.7.0_10-b18, all systems running Java 7 are failing to pass the check initiated through the anti-malware system built into OS X.

[Source: MacRumors]

HMV extends massive sale to raise cash, stay afloat

His Master's Voice is singing a sad, sad song -- the dog-tricking disc-flogger is selling off a huge amount of stock on the cheap, reportedly to raise quick money for creditors. Extending its 'big sale' for at least another month means a whole basement of bargains, but is the retailer in real trouble? Go to HMV.com today and you'll see it plastered with 'big sale' banners, which have been up since Boxing Day. Retailers all cut prices on stuff they didn't flog before Christmas, but the sales usually end come the first week of the new year.

HMV this week announced another flog-off -- a Blue Cross Sale -- that starts this Saturday, seamlessly continuing its new year sale for another month with 25 per cent promised off "a wide range of titles and products" Apparently it's "not [its] standard January sale, but trying [a] new tack to generate cash to meet bank covenants", according to ITV News' Laura Kuenssberg. "Not good," she adds sagely.

"We thought we'd freshen our promotional mix up a bit and try something a bit different that will hopefully stand out from all the other sale offers on the high street right now," an HMV spokesman told me.

[Source: CNET - Click here to read the full story]

Chrome Beta channel now available for Android

Good news everyone! The Chrome Beta channel for Android kicks off today with version 25.0.1364.8. Like the Beta channel for the computer, it's a preview of features and fixes that has already passed the development channel and is running through the final testing before it makes its way into the final version. That means it's a great way to try out things that may be broken, but still allow the software to work as a whole. Today's release comes with the following bugs:

• Performance is sluggish, noticeably on Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S
• Frequent freeze on devices with specific versions of Qualcomm GPU driver
• Text autosizing may break formatting on some sites
• 164632 - Editing bookmark feature is broken
• 165244 - Text position handler jumps or disappears when moving
• 163439 - Clicking on links in yahoo.com not navigating on Nexus 7
• 166233 - Unable to submit comments on Facebook posts in desktop version of Facebook
• 165244 - Text handler jumps or disappears when moving
• 167351 - Youtube video controls are lost after returning from fullscreen video mode
• 162486 - iframe scrolling broken

Scary, but you get used to it if you run the Beta channel on the desktop. On the plus side, Chrome 25 brings huge improvements in HTML5 support and JavaScript performance, so it's worth it to many.

To get on the Beta track, you'll need to directly click this link, as it's not publicised or available via search in Google Play. It installs along side your current version of Chrome for Android, so you always have a fail-safe. Grab it, and have fun!

[Source: AndroidCentral]

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