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Samsung Set To Cut LCD Investment

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Samsung a leader in LCD TV production is set cut its invest in LCD TV due to lower profibility than it forcast.

Samsung Electronics, the world’s second-largest maker of liquid crystal displays, may curtail its LCD investment in the face of lower profitability and intensifying competition, the UK-based Financial Times has reported. ‘LCD is a very difficult business and it requires a large amount of investment…If LCDs become just a commodity, we will be prepared to make adjustments in this business,’ Yun Jong-Yong, chief executive of Samsung Electronics, was quoted as saying in an interview with the newspaper.

‘Compared with last year, we will not do as well. Profit may decrease by 10-20 pct. That has a lot to do with the market situation, including increased material and oil prices, and the exchange rate,’ Yun said.  The newspaper reported that Samsung and local rival LG Philips, the world’s largest maker of LCDs, have been battered since flat-screen prices began falling more than a year ago. Both have continued to spend billions of dollars on increasing their production capacity in the expectation that demand will pick up as the televisions and monitors become more affordable.

Google Jumping Telegraph + Herald Sun Paywall To Deliver Content For Free

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Readers who from today have to pay to access to content on News Ltd.’s Daily Telegraph and Herald Sun web site are now using Google search to circumvent the subscription block twitter feeds reveal.

Several Twitter feeds reveal that readers are being urged to ‘click on the blocked Daily Telegraph or Sun Herald story, highlight the headline and then place it into a Google search’.

This allows readers to access the content without having to pay readers claim.

Currently News Ltd is offering a tiered subscription model ranging from $4 a week to $10 a week.

Last week News Ltd moved to capture data by requesting visitors to their log into access Daily Telegraph content for free. This week after capturing thousands of reader’s personal details, the Daily Telegraph is asking visitors who gave up their email address and name to pay for access to content.

The new digital subscriber strategy which is called News will be extended to AdelaideNow and The Courier Mail in June.

News Limited CEO Kim Williams said “Our new digital subscription service for the Herald Sun and The Daily Telegraph marks an important landmark for News Limited as we continue paving the way for commercially sustainable models for quality journalism and digital innovation in Australia,”.

The Company said that they will offer integrated content from Fox Sports as well as enhanced online local coverage.

“For the first time, we will see an integration of high-quality Fox Sports broadcast reporting, analysis and commentary across News’ online network giving our masthead subscribers access to fine content as part of the news+ product,” he said.

“We will continually enhance the value of our digital subscription product and over time we will also integrate our online lifestyle and business content offerings within the mastheads” he added.

A test by SmartHouse reveals that most of the locked stories can be accessed by doing a Google search of the headline inside the story.

In an effort to try and circumvent the Google search engine News Ltd is placing a headline on the master story and a second headline inside the clicked story.

Readers responded online by writing the following comments:

Integration with Fox Sports hey.. so why would I pay to view their articles via the daily telegraph site when I can just jump over to fox sports and get it for free?

I have been searching for the “quality journalism” in the Herald Sun and Daily Telegraph for many years now. When I find it then I will subscribe to online editions. In the meantime a free hard copy courtesy of the local cafe which can be read in the time it takes to have a coffee will do me.

Why do they think people will pay for stale news? Both News Ltd and Fairfax re-cycle stuff from around the web, often 2/3 days later and seem to think we won’t notice.

If they were engaging in legitimate investigations they may have support but expecting subscribers to stump up for cold potatoes is arrogance.

EXCLUSIVE: Mass Sackings At Acer OZ After Company Stops Manufacturing

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Acer Australia who are reeling from a 38% slump in sales and over $5M in losses have started mass sacking staff after a decision was made to stop local production of PC’s. The Company is also tipped to be withdrawing from the commercial and enterprise markets.

According to sources several staff were told yesterday that they were terminated and had to leave the Acer Australia premises “immediately”, the mass sackings are all part of a plan to concentrate on retail sales of PC’s.

Senior executives have said that senior management are engaging in a “blame game”.

One senior manager said “Discontentment and in-fighting is rife between the directors and at all levels of senior management, with each division pointing its finger at the other for the current state of affairs”. 

Acer Australia will cease production of PC’s for schools, corporations and governments next week with future products fully imported.

The future of Charles Chung the long time CEO of Acer Australia is now being questioned with several executives blaming management aligned with Chung for the problems Acer Australia is facing.

In the past several senior managers including former general manager Nigel Gore and former business development manager Robin Tang have left the Company after falling out of favour with the current management team.

A current serving executive said that the new round of cuts “will significantly impact Acers about to continue in the commercial desktop and notebook markets. They claim that the decision to retrench staff and stop local production is all part of Charles Chung’s directive to shift Acer Computer Australia to a retail only operation. 

They claim that Acer is beginning a gradual withdrawal of PCS from the commercial and enterprise markets.

“The intent is to wind down all field service operations and move to a return to base warranty model across the board” the executive said.

Global shipments of personal computers slumped 10.9 per cent in the second quarter, the longest decline in the industry’s history, as the market continues to be devastated by the popularity of tablets, research firm Gartner said recently.

Acer Australia who has suffered more than most saw their sales slide 38% last year with insiders claiming that the sales slide has continued into 2013 resulting in the decision to restructure the market.

Last year the Company set up two kiosks right opposite their retail partners, a visit to these kiosks by SmartHouse staff revealed that the Company was offering incentives to buy direct from the Companies own online store.

A visit to the Harvey Norman web site reveals that Acer is one of the few PC vendors whose products are not listed among the brands that Harvey Norman sell. Acer management claim that they have not been “dumped” as a supplier to the mass retailer.

Acer management have not returned our calls or offered any statement to the media on the Companies future direction.

Another Big Artist Gives Apple Music Two Finger Salute

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Another leading artist has refused to deal with Apple and their new Apple Music streaming service

Taylor Swift has said that she will not stream her latest album on Apple’s new Music app.

The Shake it OFF star previously hit the headlines for refusing to give her album to Spotify, claiming services did not pay enough.

Now, her record company has confirmed it will not appear on Apple’s service when it launches on June 30th for a three month free trial.

Swift management however did confirm that her back catalogue will.


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Last week Apple was accused of promoting artists for Apple Music that they have don’t have the rights to.

Artists such as Alabama Shakes and FKA Twigs are threatening legal action while Apple appears to be giving artists the two finger salute. The artists claim that they don’t want to give away three months of free content.

An AppleInsider report points out high-profile independent artists like Alabama Shakes and FKA Twigs are all over the promotional literature, despite their labels publicly and categorically refusing to agree to Apple’s current terms.

Both artists are currently signed to labels under the Beggars Music umbrella; the former is signed to Rough Trade records in the UK, while the latter is an XL Recordings artist.

Beggars’ various labels – which are home to the likes of Adele, Jack White, Radiohead, Queens of the Stone Age and Vampire Weekend – issued a statement overnight stating ‘obstacles’ would need to be removed before any accord could be struck.

The main point of contention appears to be the three-month free trial Apple is offering to users, during which it will not pay a single penny on royalties to the rights holders involved.

‘Taylor Swift’s 1989, which has not been released to any streaming services, will not be available at launch on Apple Music, either, representatives for both Swift’s label Big Machine Records and Apple confirmed over the weekend.

Swift removed her entire back catalogue from music streaming service Spotify as she was promoting new album 1989, which sold 1.287 copies in its first week, just shy of Britney Spears’ record for the biggest-ever album weekly sales by a female artist (1.319million).

‘If I had streamed the new album, it’s impossible to try to speculate what would have happened,’ Taylor told Yahoo of leaving Spotify.

‘Music is changing so quickly, and the landscape of the music industry itself is changing so quickly, that everything new, like Spotify, all feels to me a bit like a grand experiment.

‘And I’m not willing to contribute my life’s work to an experiment that I don’t feel fairly compensates the writers, producers, artists, and creators of this music.’

Earlier this month Apple unveiled its long awaited music streaming service will launch on June 30th with a three month free trial period.

Called Apple Music, it will cost $9.99 per month, or $14.99 for a family membership with up to six users (although it has not confirmed Australia pricing, it is expected to be more expensive in Australia than in the UK and USA.

Now Gerry Harvey Wants A Crack At Buying The Good Guys

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Harvey Norman boss Gerry Harvey, has thrown a wobbly into the battle for control of The Good Guys, claiming that if he gets the green light from the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission he will join the bidding to buy the mass retailer.

The only problem is that the combining of the Harvey Norman and The Good Guys appliance business would give Harvey Norman over 75% share of the brand appliance business in Australia, a situation that most analysts claim would not be acceptable to the ACCC.

Late today Gerry Harvey tried to claim that if JB Hi Fi was allowed to have a crack at acquiring The Good Guys so should he.

He said that at this stage he was assuming that it would be “impossible” for Harvey Norman to buy The Good Guys, “but if there is an argument they (JB Hi-Fi) could buy it, then equally there is as good an argument that we could buy it,” Mr Harvey said.

“I would seriously look at it if I could get clearance from the ACCC.” He told Fairfax Media.

Mr Harvey said a combined Good Guys-JB Hi-Fi operation would have a larger combined market share than Harvey Norman in certain retail categories, trading through a network of about 300 stores.

Harvey Norman has a network of about 194 franchised stores in Australia and Mr Harvey said he would likely retain the Good Guys brand if he could acquire it.

The problem for Gerry Harvey is that the issue is not about how many stores one has but the size of the stores that are up for sale.

It’s also about dominance in the appliance market and being able to manipulate the buying price a process that Harvey Norman likes to control.

Mr Harvey said he would be prepared to pay up to about $900 million for The Good Guys, which is believed to be the price tag on the chain and would likely re-franchise it – a move that could be attractive to The Good Guys founders and part-owners, the Muir family.

One analysts that ChannelNews spoke to said that what Gerry Harvey is trying to do is “jack up “the value of the business a process that could hurt JB Hi Fi.

“He knows that a combined JB Hi Fi Harvey Norman deal would have an impact on his business”.

Fairfax Media claimed that 56 Good Guys retailers, operating under joint venture agreements, are battling to secure a more generous package for handing back the keys to the operation’s corporate headquarters.

The Good Guys chairman Andrew Muir announced plans to buy out the joint-venture partners last October but the group would not comment on the progress of this process on Thursday, except to say it was “on track” to meet its mid year deadline to move to a “fully-corporatised business model”.

By the close of the market at 2.00pm today JB Hi-Fi’s share price had surged close to 5 per cent then fell back to 3% at the close of the market.

Growth through acquisition is the only pathway for JB Hi-Fi, according to one retailer, who said greater exposure to the whitegoods market would safeguard the operation from the digitisation of sectors like music, movies and technology.
“This is a sign of JB Hi-Fi’s maturity that is has to get growth through acquisition,” an analyst said.

“I think this is a good move, but it will come down to execution because any acquisition is always full of risk.”

AV And IT Sales Fall 6.3 Per Cent CPI Rises 0.6 Per Cent

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The Consumer Price Index has risen 0.6 per cent in the June quarter 2010, compared with a rise of 0.9 per cent in the March quarter 2010. Among the biggest drops was AV and IT sales which fell 6.3 per cent.

The all groups CPI rose 3.1 per cent through the year to June quarter 2010, compared with a rise of 2.9 per cent through the year to March quarter 2010. The most significant offsetting price falls were in domestic holiday travel and accommodation (-6.0 per cent), fruit (-4.8 per cent), audio, visual and computing equipment (-6.3 per cent), vegetables (-3.0 per cent) and overseas holiday travel and accommodation (-1.9 per cent).
It has been tipped that a rise in the CPI  for the June quarter could have pushed interest rates up 0.25 percentage points to 4.75 per cent . The Reseve Bank is holding its August meeting next week.
The credit reporting agency Veda Advantage says consumers are still very wary about debt and that mortgage demand, for example, has plunged 20 per cent year on year and that is the steepest dive in six years.
It says that is because the Federal Government’s stimulus and the first home owner grants have faded away.
At the same time demand for credit cards and personal loans are also flat as a result consumers are holding back on the purchase of big ticket consumer electronics goods and services.

Toshiba Launch Hot New Magnesium Business Notebook

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It looks hot, so hot that the all new Toshiba Satellite R630 has a brand air flow cooling system as well as, a brand new look that sets a new standard for slim stylish business notebooks.

Designed from the ground up by Toshiba, who has been making notebooks for 25 years the new Satellite R630 with its 13.1 inch screen an nine hours battery life, is just one of three new notebooks set to be launched by Toshiba on Tuesday.

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The other two models are the Toshiba AC100 and Libretto W100, two products which go against the design curve being worked to by other manufacturers like Dell, HP and Lenovo.
 Inside the ultra slim chassis casing of the Satellite R630 is Intel’s new Core “I” processors including the choice of either the i3, i5 or i7 processors. This makes the new Toshiba offering one of the most powerful of all notebooks available today.
Key to the new design is the Toshiba patented Airflow Cooling Technology which stops the notebook from overheating due to the high speed of the Intel processors is such a slim casing.
Toshiba claims that users should feel no notable heat at all when using the 30mm slim device.
The chassis for the R630 is made from magnesium alloy which in drop tests from 70cm failed to break.  


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Another key feature is the 1366 x 768 display screen which delivers a very bright screen without affecting the nine hour battery life.  
It also has 3x USB2.0, 1x eSATA / USB combo port and a multi-card reader, VGA and HDMI ports.

Tens Of Thousands Of Australian Adulterers Face Being Exposed After Hack

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Tens of Thousands of Australian adulterers are waking up today to discover that the confidential details they gave to infidelity website AshleyMadison.com have been hacked.

Overnight it was revealed that digital extortionists are holding the sexual profiles of potentially 37 million adulterer’s hostage including tens of thousands of Australians. 

On the front page of their Australian site they say ‘As seen on A Current Affair, Sydney Morning, Herald, Kerrie-Anne, Herald Sun, and The Australian.
Ashley Madison is the world’s leading married dating service for discreet encounters

According to Company sources the UK based website has over one million registered subscribers in Australia. 30% of those are believed to be females. 

With a slogan like “Life Is Short. Have an Affair” and 37 million users, observers are claiming that it was only time before the web site was hacked.

The culprits are calling themselves “the Impact Team” and say that if Avid Life Media, which owns Ashley Madison, doesn’t take the site down, they’ll leak all of the data they collected on the service’s servers.

The Impact Team hackers assert that Ashley Madison’s “Full Delete” feature, which claims to remove all identifying data from company servers for $19, doesn’t actually work. 

Krebs reports that the Impact Team wrote in a manifesto, “Full Delete netted ALM $1.7mm in revenue in 2014. It’s also a complete lie. 

Users almost always pay with credit card; their purchase details are not removed as promised, and include real name and address, which is of course the most important information the users want removed.”

Not that the hackers are exactly on the side of Ashley Madison’s users. “Too bad for those men, they’re cheating dirtbags and deserve no such discretion,” the group wrote. 

In a statement, Avid Life Media said:

We apologize for this unprovoked and criminal intrusion into our customers’ information. … We have always had the confidentiality of our customers’ information foremost in our minds, and have had stringent security measures in place … At this time, we have been able to secure our sites, and close the unauthorized access points.

They added, we are working with law enforcement agencies, which are investigating this criminal act. Any and all parties responsible for this act of cyber-terrorism will be held responsible. 

Bloomberg said ‘In this case, millions of people who were stepping out on their spouses-and hoping and praying today that the hackers don’t dump their philandering secrets online-are discovering a serious breakdown in their operational security: They used personal credit cards to pay for the service.

Most people don’t think about it when they swipe a credit card or give the number to an online retailer, but the transaction actually reveals quite a bit about you.

 First and foremost: your name. In the AshleyMadison hack, those responsible are threatening to expose data that include payment information linked to painfully sensitive details from users’ profiles. 

Those profiles contain the findings of an extensive survey given to new AshleyMadison users asking them to outline their reasons for being on the site and their most secret sexual fantasies.

AshleyMadison boasts on its homepage that it is has more than 37.6 million anonymous members. It also touts that it is the leading dating service for “discreet” sexual encounters for married people. 

Yet while it offers methods for paying fees anonymously, many people apparently didn’t use them. And despite the site’s assurances about privacy and discretion-including about how charges will show up on customers’ bills-it’s of little use if the data are linked on the backend in a way that hackers or malicious insiders can steal and leverage.

After Dropping $4.4 Billion, Microsoft Is Having Another At Trying To Sell Windows 10 smartphones.

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After dropping $4.4 Billion, trying to prop up their struggling smartphone business by buying Nokia, an already dying phone brand, Microsoft is set to have another crack at trying to get traction in the mobile market with two new Windows 10 smartphones.

This is despite the fact that consumers have overwhelmingly rejected a Windows OS based devise in favour of Android and Apple iOS devices.

Currently Microsoft has less than 5% share of the smartphone market. 

The new models that Microsoft is set to launch in Australia include the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950XL these models will ship with Windows 10 natively, they are tipped to be launch at the same time as Microsoft open their new store in Australia. 

At Mobile World Congress in Barcelona Microsoft officials told ChannelNews that new Lumia models running Windows 10 would be ready for the Australian market by around “October”. 

Juniper Research analyst Sam Smith said late last week that the new 950 device will probably run a 64-bit Snapdragon 808 processor, with the 950XL running  the more powerful 64-bit Snapdragon 810 processor. 
“We expect a short-term uptake of Windows Phones, based on the new features that Windows 10 offers,” Smith told the US edition of Computerworld via an email. 

“However, any increase in Windows phones overall will be slow, as it will take time for the app ecosystem to accelerate for developers to incorporate another OS on top of the Android/iOS duopoly.”

Without that ecosystem, he added, “consumer adoption will be reluctant.” In other words, universal apps will “hasten any migration of consumers from iOS and Android,” he said. “But if the main body of Windows Phone are simply iOS/Android ports, there is little software-based incentive to switch. If universal apps for Windows on mobile have unique capabilities, then they will have stronger appeal.”

The new devices will not support the new Continuum feature of Windows 10 which several analysts claim is “plain dumb”. 

Continuum delivers the ability to plug a device into a keyboard and use it as you would a desktop.

Not providing Continuum support in the Lumia 950 “would be a monumental misstep for the new OS, to have a flagship device unable to run one of the OS’s headline features,” Smith added.

Chinese technology website IT Home, uses the codename “Talkman” for the 950 and “Cityman” for the 950 XL.

The 950 according to manufacturing sources in Asia will have a 5.2-in. display, 3GB of memory, 32GB of internal storage with a microSD slot for storage expansion, a 3,000mAh removable battery and support for LTE wireless.

The 950XL will have many of the same features as the 950, but with a larger 5.7-in display and 3,300mAh removable battery.
 
There are also rumours that Microsoft will release a high-end smartphone with a front-facing LED flash.

Overall, smartphone makers shipped 338 million smartphones globally to retailers in the second quarter, an increase of 16%. Apple continued its record-breaking streak with 47.5 million iPhone sales in the quarter. 

Other Chinese smartphone makers generally saw shipments rise, with Huawei seeing 50% growth and Xiaomi increasing 33%. LG, based in South Korea, however, saw a 3% decline Computerworld reported recently. 

LG Refuses To Say Which “Advanced Component” In Their Urbane Smartwatch Has Failed.

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LG’s Urbane 2nd Edition smartwatch recall is shrouded in mystery with LG Electronics claiming that the problem relates to “image quality” but they refuse to elaborate on the precise issue.

The South Korean tech giant has revealed that the issue which appears to have gone undetected during what LG claims was “months of testing” was only discovered after the product went on sale.

Last week, LTE pulled the world’s first LTE-capable Android Wear smartwatch from store shelves, citing hardware issues.

However, the company has now released a statement, which reads as follows:

“For competitive and supplier relations reasons, we are not in a position to communication the specifics of the issue that led to this decision.”


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It continues: “However, what we can share is that the hardware issue was related to a new advanced component that we had incorporated in the device that had never been used in an LG wearable device before.”
LG refuses to explain what the “advanced component” is or what it does. 

LG added: “During aggressive testing over thousands of hours under severe conditions, it was revealed that this component failed to meet LG’s quality standards and could potentially impact our image quality over the life of the device.”

“It is, simply, an issue that might affect the user experience of the LG Watch urbane 2nd Edition over the long term,” LG’s statement said.