Money, Money: Motorola's Mobile Division Drops Nearly a Billion Bucks Compared with Last Year

from Gizmodo by Matt Buchanan

Even if you aren't an accountant (I'm not) you can tell right off the bat things aren't so sunny when you only see the word "sales" leading the press release bullet points, and not the words "net income" or "profit." Such is the case with Motorola, continuing their downward spiral. The release highlights tout $8.8 billion in sales and "financial improvements in the mobile devices business." Ruh-roh. The mobile section choked down an operating loss of $138 million—a nearly billion dollar drop from the year-ago Q3's operating earnings of $843 million—on sales of $4.5 billion, down 36 percent from last year.

They estimate their global handset marketshare to be 13 percent, jibing with an earlier report , which marks a drop from 22 percent marketshare a year earlier. We've said it before, and it's worth repeating, a real flagship would help the languishing brand power and maybe edge it back toward claiming its old number 2 spot from Samsung. Or, you know, you could maintain your image of pumping out RAZR knockoffs and bleeding money like you've got the deadly Motaba virus. [Motorola]

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Banner-Blindness

Web users tend to ignore everything that looks like advertisement and, what is interesting, they're pretty good at it. Although advertisement is noticed, it is almost always ignored. Since users have constructed web related schemata for different tasks on the Web, when searching for specific information on a website, they focus only on the parts of the page where they would assume the relevant information could be, i.e. small text and hyperlinks. Large colourful or animated banners and other graphics are in this case ignored.

Source: Banner Blindness: Old and New Findings

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Fraud-B-Gone: ATM Card Comes With Its Own Keypad

from Gizmodo by Wilson Rothman

For people whose paranoia leads them to believe that there are boogeymen actually living inside ATMs, this invention from Innovative Card Technologies and eMue Technologies lets them input their PIN—and presumably encrypt it—before they approach the machine. Cool as it is, I have a problem: I only remember my PINs from muscle memory, so this would need a standard telephone numberpad to work for me. How many problems can you spot with this admittedly slim piece of high technology? [Gizmag via OhGizmo]

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NEC touts "world's fastest vector supercomputer"

from Engadget by Donald Melanson

NEC looks to have earned itself some new bragging rights in the supercomputer club with its new SX-9 model, which it claims is the "world's fastest vector supercomputer" on the market today. Helping it earn that distinction is a peak processing performance of 839 teraflops, and a peak vector performance of more than 100 gigaflops per single core (apparently a first for any supercomputer). That, NEC hopes, should make the SX-9 ideal for a wide range of uses, including weather forecasting, aerospace, the environment and fluid dynamics. No word on what it'll cost, but those looking to check out all that teraflopping for themselves should head to the Supercomputing 2007 expo in Reno, Nevada next month, where the SX-9 will make its public debut.

[Via Physorg]

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Rollup Screen: Samsung Demos World's First Bendable OLED Screen

from Gizmodo by Charlie White

Samsung is cranking out the ideas with OLED displays lately, and now adds the world's first bendable OLED screen to its stable of coolness. This 4.3-inch screen's rocking 480x272 pixels, and Samsung claims it's capable of a contrast ratio of 1000:1. Demonstrated at the FPD International 2007 Forum going on now in Yokohama, Japan, this prototype is in the early experimental stage thus far, but if Samsung can build one they can build a million of them. There's no word on how soon the company will be able to do that at a reasonable price, though. Anyway, we can't wait for the day when we can carry around cylindrical objects that open up to huge screens, using up very little energy while entertaining us everywhere. [New Launches]

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