By Dylan Ramsey
Pad mini...
The iPad mini is here.
BBINT TECHY TALK | BUZZ About The Latest & Greatest In Technology.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Best Buy forced to Close 50 Stores
MINNEAPOLIS - Best Buy plans to close 50 big box stores and open 100 small mobile locations in the U.S. in fiscal 2013 and cut $800 million in costs by fiscal 2015.
The news came Thursday as the biggest U.S. specialty electronics retailer posted a fiscal fourth quarter loss, partly due to restructuring charges.
Despite the loss, Best Buy's adjusted results for the quarter topped Wall Street's expectations. But the company's full year revenue guidance fell slightly short of analysts' expectations, sending its stock down 6%.
Best Buy, which has 1,450 locations nationwide and 2,900 globally, is focusing on closing some of its hulking stores to concentrate on smaller Best Buy Mobile outlets because of two emerging trends. Sales of TVs, digital cameras and videogame consoles have weakened, while sales of tablet computers, smartphones and e-readers have increased. And with the rise of competition from Internet rivals like Amazon.com, shoppers aren't flocking to big-box stores like they used to.A list of the stores to be closed was not immediately available. Best Buy said Thursday: "We will announce details about specific store locations and timing for closings once they are finalized."
Best Buy is trying to avoid the fate of its former rival Circuit City, which went out of business in 2009. Other retailers with large stores are also shrinking their footprint. Sears Holdings, for example, said earlier this month it would close 100 to 120 stores to become nimbler.
Best Buy lost $1.7 billion, or $4.89 per share, for the period ended March 3. That compares with a profit of $651 million, or $1.62 per share, a year ago.
The Minneapolis company said its quarterly results included $2.6 billion in charges. They were mostly related to its purchase of Carphone Warehouse Group's interest in the Best Buy Mobile profit-sharing agreement and related costs, as well as an impairment charge tied to writing off Best Buy Europe goodwill and restructuring charges.
Taking these items out, adjusted earnings were $2.47 per share, above the $2.15 per share that analysts surveyed by FactSet forecast.
Revenue rose 3% to $16.08 billion, but missed Wall Street's $17.18 billion estimate.
Best Buy's stock (BBY) was off more than 9% by noon.
Revenue at stores open at least a year -- an indicator of a retailer's health -- slipped 2.4%. But it was a smaller drop than a year earlier, when the company reported a 4.7% decline.
For the full year, Best Buy lost $1.23 billion, or $3.36 per share, compared with a profit of $1.28 billion, or $3.08 per share, the prior year. Adjusted earnings were $3.64 per share, which tops the previous year's $3.43 per share.
Annual revenue rose 2% to $50.71 billion. Revenue at stores open at least a year fell 1.7%. In the prior-year period, the figure dropped 1.8%.
Going forward, Best Buy said it expects to reduce about $250 million of costs in fiscal 2013. The company foresees fiscal 2013 earnings of $2.85 to $3.25 per share and adjusted earnings of $3.50 to $3.80 per share. Analysts expect earnings of $3.67 per share.
It expects fiscal 2013 revenue of $50 billion to $51 billion, with revenue in stores open at least one year falling 2% to 4%. That fell slightly short of analyst predictions of $51.6 billion.
"The firm is taking incremental steps to address its strategic challenges," wrote Goldman Sachs analyst Matthew Fassler. "That said, the soft close to the quarter, and subdued sales guidance, suggest that competitive pressure may be drifting into market share as well as margin, with Apple stores and Amazon.com the two most likely culprits."
The stock had been up 14% since the beginning of the year.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
UMichigan Professor Uses iPads to Remake the Chalkboard
Apple's big education announcement may be January 19th in New York City, but that doesn't mean Apple is the only company innovating in the educational space. University of Michigan professor Perry Samson has developed an iPad app called LectureTools that Samson hopes can turn laptops and iPads from a way to distract bored students into an interactive learning tool that keeps them engaged. (more..)
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Controversial Saudi billionaire invests $300 million in Twitter
The Saudi royal family member who suggested that US policy in the Middle East contributed to 911 and who donated $10 million for New York City disaster relief (rejected by Mayor Rudy Giuliani) now owns part of Twitter.
Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal's Kingdom Holding Co. invested $300 million in Twitter.
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2011-12-19/prince-alwaleed-kingdom-invest-300-million-in-twitter.html
Thursday, October 27, 2011
THE DEATH OF THE PC
The days of paying for costly software upgrades are numbered. The PC will soon be obsolete, and BusinessWeek reports 70% of Americans are already using the technology that will replace it. Merrill Luynch calls it " a $160 billion opportunity." Computing giants including IBM, YAHOO and Amazon are racing to be the first to cash in on the PC-killing revolution.
Yet a small group of little-known companies have a huge head start. Get the full details on the companies, and the technology that is about to destroy the PC BBINTmagazine.com this November.
BBINT Magazine
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Wednesday, October 5, 2011
Sad Day in Tech: Steve Jobs Dies at the age of 56
By Eric Hargrove aka. Mr. Beige
Read more: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-20116336-37/apple-co-founder-chairman-steve-jobs-dies/#ixzz1ZxHfPgVq
Steve Jobs introducing the iPhone 4 last year.
(Credit: James Martin/CNET)
Today ends on a truly sad note. Apple Co-Founder and Chairman Steve Jobs has died.
He was 56.
He was 56.
A New Flavor of iPhone in a Brand New Dish
By Eric Hargrove aka. Mr. Beige
Image provided by Apple Inc.
Hello, BBINT Tech Gadget readers! In the event that you have been disconnected from the Internet or any available news or media sources over the last couple of days, Apple has announced it's newest gadget offering. Yes, you guessed it, it's the iPhone 4S. Many of you may have heard rumors brewing over the past year or so about specs, model numbers, and yes, possible carriers. Well, yesterday, we all received confirmation of what we have all been expecting for quite some time. Introducing a newer faster stronger iPhone, (insert the bionic man intro theme music) the iPhone 4S.
Many of us were wondering if Apple would jump up a generation and make this the iPhone 5 or if they would repeat the release strategy that they had with the 3G and the 3GS, but don't let the fact that there is still a 4 in the model number fool you. Apple has crammed a ton of stuff into this new iPhone release and to top it off they have now opened up the doors to Sprint customers (the noise that you may hear right now is my EVO 4G getting a little bit anxious)
The iPhone 4S has comes with a bit of an octane boost. It features a dual core A5 chip which will significantly improve performance and graphics rendering. The A5 chip, for those that don't know, is the same processor that is used in the iPad 2. It is said to be 2X as fast as the previous chips used in the iPhone 4. "What does all of this mean?", you ask. Apps will run faster, graphics will render 7X faster and page loads on mobile Safari will be twice as fast, so all of you who wanted more speed...Apple has been listening.
Apple has also brought out the new iOS 5 which adds over 200 new features including Notification Center, iMessage and a new digital assistant program called Siri, which at first glance looks like a major game changer. Apple has also implemented a collection of free cloud based services called iCloud. one of the great things about iCloud is that automatically and wirelessly allows you to store your content in iCloud and push it to all your devices. Once again, Apple is bringing the same type of innovation which has kept it ahead of the pack and made it the envy of other mobile manufacturers.
I'm sure that the little fiasco with the antenna issue that affected the previous release has been on the minds of a few of you. Apple is now introducing a dual-antenna design with the iPhone 4sthat makes it the first phone to intelligently switch between two antennas to send and receive. iPhone 4S now supports twice the download speed with HSDPA of up to 14.4 Mbps and iPhone 4S is a world phone, so both CDMA and GSM customers can now roam internationally on GSM networks. Those of us previously anchored to state-side use because of CDMA technology can now start to rejoice.
Last but not least, comes the iPhone's new camera. the iPhone 4S includes an all new camera with the most advanced optics of any phone currently on the market. The 8 megapixel sensor has 60 percent more pixels so you can take amazing high quality photos with more detail than ever. iPhone 4S includes a new custom lens, a larger f/2.4 aperture and an advanced hybrid IR filter that produce sharper, brighter and more accurate images. The Apple-designed image signal processor in the A5 dual-core chip is built for performance, and coupled with the features built into iOS 5, makes the camera one of the fastest on any phone. With iPhone 4S, the Camera app launches much faster and the shot to shot capability is twice as fast, so you'll never miss another shot.
New features in the Camera and Photos apps give you instant access to the camera right from the lock screen, and you can also use the volume-up button to quickly snap a photo. Optional grid lines help line up your shot and a simple tap locks focus and exposure on one subject; and the new Photos app lets you crop, rotate, enhance and remove red-eye, and organize your photos into albums right on your device to share them on the go.
Oh wait... and there's more. The new iPhone 4S can also now record video in full 1080p HD resolution and with the new video image stabilization feature, you can take videos that don't make you sea sick or have your footage unintentionally looking like a sequel to the Blair Witch Project. Other iPhone 4S video camera improvements include increased sensitivity, sharpness and low light performance.
All in all, I'm excited to get my hands on this new piece of tech, partially because of the amazing new feature set and partially because I'm a die hard Sprint customer who is happy that I am finally able to attend the iPhone party!
Check out the iPhone 4S promo video here!!!
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