Saturday, 25 January 2014
Thursday, 23 January 2014
nokia share market
Nokia suffered a 22% fall in sales at its core NSN division in the final three months of last year.
With Nokia's mobile handset business due to be bought by Microsoft, the NSN network equipment arm will remain the Finnish company's primary division.
NSN's sales fell to 3.1bn euros (£2.5bn; $4.2bn) from 3.98bn. Nokia shares dropped more than 4%.
For the group as a whole, including the mobile arm, Nokia reported net profits of 41m euros for 2013.
In 2012 it made a loss of 1.48bn euros.
Annual net sales for the group were 12.7bn euros, down 17% year-on-year.
The NSN unit made a net profit of 15m euros, compared with a net loss of 1.4bn euros in 2012.
Nokia has been selling off unprofitable businesses and cutting costs in an attempt to stem losses in its mobile phone business, which has lost out to rival smartphone makers such as Apple and Samsung.
The handset and services division saw net sales of 2.6bn euros in the fourth quarter of last year, down 29% from the same quarter the year before.
Nokia is receiving 5.4bn euros from Microsoft for its devices and services business. While shareholders have agreed the deal, regulators have yet to give it the go-ahead.
Stephen Elop, the former president and chief executive of Nokia Corporation, stepped down and resigned from the company's board under the terms of the deal, receiving a controversial 18.8m euro pay-out.
He is due to move over to Microsoft when the sale is completed and is tipped by some as a likely replacement for Microsoft's outgoing chief executive Steve Ballmer.
Mr Ballmer is expected to leave the company in 2014.
Sunday, 12 January 2014
Thursday, 9 January 2014
Power Week-in-Review: Mega Flow Battery, EV Forecast & Mag Res Charger for Qi Phones
Researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have developed a metal-free flow battery that is claimed could significantly reduce the cost of power storage for renewable energy sources compared with traditional batteries. The grid-scalemega flow battery is based on the electrochemistry of organic molecules called quinones that are widely abundant in nature and inexpensive to maintain. The battery's energy storage capability is limited only by the size of its chemical storage tanks, which can be independently sized from the battery's electrochemical conversion system. (See photo below.) (For details, see the paper in Nature: "A metal-free organic–inorganic aqueous flow battery.")
A report from research firm Navigant Research forecasts that there will be more than 35 million electric vehicles on the roads worldwide by 2022. According to the report, "Electric Vehicle Market Forecasts," while EVs continue to command a premium purchase price, the operational cost savings over their lifetime make them cost competitive with traditional internal combustion vehicles.
In product news, ConvenientPower has introduced what it claims is the industry's first magnetic resonance wireless charging technology to charge Qi mobile phones at distances up to 18 mm. The company's WoW Z device is compatible with the voltage range of Qi chargers and has a charging efficiency of 65% at 18 mm.
Micrel has launched an 85-V half-bridge MOSFET driver featuring adaptive-dead-time and shoot-through protection. The MIC4605operates from 5.5 to 16 V and is suited for demanding battery operated motor applications.
New 650-V "green mode" ac buck switches from Fairchild Semiconductor are aimed at home appliance, industrial, and smart-meter applications. The FSL306 and FSL336 offer burst-mode operation with a 250-µA operating current and power scalability from 0.5 to 3 W (FSL306).
Toshiba Electronics has enhanced its TB6865FG wireless power transmitter and TC7763WBG receiver chipset. The chipset now supports 5-W power transfer and is compatible with Qi version 1.1.
XP Power has introduced a 130-W model to its ECS series of ac/dc power supplies. The "green" single-output ECS130 is packaged in a 2 x 4 x 1.25-in. open-frame format and can be either convection or forced-air cooled.
Finally, a new high-capacity 12-V industrial battery from Yuasa Batteries has been added to the company's SWL family of valve regulated lead-acid (VRLA) batteries. The SWL4250 is suited for UPS and other high-discharge-rate applications.
nokia balck update
Nokia has finally started rolling out the Lumia Black update for its Windows Phone 8 line-up. The company notes that the new Lumia Black update brings a host of new features, improvements in imaging, new apps and app updates to the current Windows Phone 8 devices.
The Nokia Lumia Black update will be rolling out to devices via over-the-air (OTA) and include Nokia Lumia 520, Nokia Lumia 525, Nokia Lumia 620, Nokia Lumia 625, Nokia Lumia 720, Nokia Lumia 820, Nokia Lumia 920, Nokia Lumia 925, and Nokia Lumia 1020, according Nokia's official Conversations blog.
Further, the software page of Nokia claims that the update is currently available in Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, Middle East and North America, with other regions to follow soon. The Nokia Lumia 1020 and Nokia Lumia 925 will be the first Lumia devices to receive the update, while other models will be receiving the update in the coming weeks.
The latest Lumia Black update introduces new features like App Folder, which allows users to group similar apps into a folder (a tile) on the Start screen; an updated Nokia Glance screen 2.0 will allow users to keep notifications for phone, messages, email, outlook, and calendar alongside any apps such as Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp; Nokia Refocus which comes with Lytro-like features that automatically changes the focal point on an image, once it has been processed on the Lumia device, and Nokia Beamer, which allows sharing images, documents, and presentations to any HTML5-enabled display. The blog post notes that both Nokia Beamer and Nokia Refocus features are coming to all the Lumia device with 1GB of RAM or upwards.
Also included in the Lumia Black update is the Nokia Storyteller app, which debuted on the company's flagship phablet, the Lumia 1520 and also on the company's first tablet, the Lumia 2520 launched in 2013. The Nokia's new Storyteller feature organizes clicked images into stories with chronological order using HERE location details.
In addition, the update also includes the Nokia Camera app which combines two popular apps, the Nokia Pro Cam and Nokia Smart Cam into one app. The new Nokia Camera app brings new editing and sharing features to the Windows Phone 8 Lumia devices. The Nokia Camera app includes new camera algorithms and comes with a new feature dubbed colour pop. It also sports a smart mode which can shoot a number of images in a moment and allows removing unnecessary objects form the images.
Commenting on the announcement, Samuli Hanninen, vice president of software program management for Nokia's Smart Devices business said, "Nokia Lumia Black updates the imaging experiences on your Lumia and makes using the Windows Phone even more fluid. New App Folders and the ability to close apps in multitasker are my personal favourites. I also encourage everyone to try out the Nokia Refocus app that introduces a whole new dimension to photography," says Samuli Hanninen, vice president of software program management for Nokia's Smart Devices business.
At Nokia World, the Finnish giant announced that the company was working on a firmware update dubbed Lumia Black which would be built on Microsoft's third Windows Phone update and that it would bring the above newly revealed software features to its existing Window Phone 8 smartphones. The Lumia 1520 and Lumia 1320 are currently the only devices to feature the new firmware.
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