Sony has announced it is moving its PlayStation business from Japan to a new company in the United States that will handle the operations of all hardware and network services. The new Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) LLC will be headquartered in California and is a bold move for the gaming unit of the Japanese conglomerate.
Uber is testing a children's toy to calm down obnoxious and hostile drunk passengers to keep them busy during their ride and prevent them from attacking the designated driver. The Bop It toy was launched in the 1990s as a treatment for hyperactive children that makes a beat and then provides commands to do actions (bop it, pull it, and twist it) that must be completed before time runs out. The ride sharing service's kids toy would join its passenger rating system in addressing the big problem.
Apple's CEO Tim Cook announced during the quarterly conference call for fiscal Q1 of 2016 that year-over-year sales of iPhone units will drop during the second quarter. That would happen for the first time since the company's first smartphone was launched in 2007. This follows Apple selling a record-breaking 61 million iPhones during Q2 of last year, which is impressive after the holiday season.
Like in 2015, LG has confirmed that it will issue two Android flagship smartphones this 2016. The first, rumored as the LG G5, is expected to see the light day this coming February via the 2016 MWC and the second, likely the follow up to the phablet LG V10, should come later in the year.
Apple CEO Tim Cook reported this week that the company ended December 2015 with blockbuster earnings, describing the period as the iPhone maker’s “biggest quarter ever.” The rock-solid performance was further highlighted by the activation of more than one billion devices that rolled out from Apple’s production lines, Cook said.
Samsung’s Galaxy S7 release date is yet to happen but rumors on what the 2017 Android flagships would be have begun circulating thanks to the leaked details on Qualcomm’s next-generation mobile chip that likely will be called Snapdragon 830. SD 830 will render smartphones and tablets with mammoth capabilities once the beastly processor comes out, reports said.
It might be that the upcoming iPhones this 2015 are grabbing most of the attention but for Apple the stream of cash will come from an unlikely source – the MacBook, which an analyst said is a rock-solid revenue generator for the Cupertino-based tech giant. New MacBook Airs and MacBook Pros are touching down within the first half of 2016, added the analyst.
Apple's CEO met with Pope Francis in the Vatican on January 22, Friday one week after the head of the Roman Catholic Church met with former Google CEO and current Alphabet Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt. The brief meeting between Tim Cook and the pontiff was included on the latter's daily schedule and could have been related to the battle between the makers of Android and iOS devices.
Tinder agreed to add a sexually transmitted disease (STD) testing locator to its dating app, to end a battle with a non-profit sexual health advocacy group. The company settled its squabble with the AIDS Healthcare Foundation on January 21, Thursday by adding links to STD testing sites.
Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche has stated in an interview he is surprised by the progress tech companies including Google and Apple have made in developing electric vehicles (EVs) and self-driving cars. The traditional automotive company that was once owned by Jaguar and Ford now includes auto brands such as Mercedes-Benz that have become world-famous for their auto technology.
