Pandora gains point to healthy Internet IPO future (AP) : Technet

Pandora gains point to healthy Internet IPO future (AP)
Just Show Me: How to take HDR photos on your iPhone (Yahoo! News)
Website made out of chocolate takes delicious design to a new level (Yahoo! News)
3 Important Legal Considerations for Bloggers (Mashable)
US lawmaker Weiner quits, citing 'mistakes' (AFP)
Congressman Weiner quits in lewd photo scandal (Reuters)
Apple back to school promo hands out $100 app store credits (Digital Trends)
Music Unlimited tops Android Apps of the Week (Appolicious)
Connecticut wants Facebook meeting over privacy (Reuters)
BlackBerry maker slashes forecast, shares tumble (Reuters)
iFashion in vogue, but where will it lead? (Appolicious)
Senate bill would add protections for mobile users’ location data (Appolicious)
JVC's new Kaboom boom boxes sport guitar input (Digital Trends)
Phone rivalry drives down RIM earnings (AP)
Exclusive: China software bug makes infrastructure vulnerable (Reuters)
Oracle seeks billions in suit (Investor's Business Daily)

Pandora gains point to healthy Internet IPO future (AP)

Posted: 15 Jun 2011 04:00 PM PDT

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE, AP Technology Writer Michael Liedtke, Ap Technology Writer – Wed Jun 15, 7:00 pm ET

SAN FRANCISCO – Internet radio station Pandora Media's IPO struck the right chord with investors Wednesday despite the static in the overall stock market.

Pandora's shares surged by as much 63 percent in their market debut before pulling back later in the session. The stock closed at $17.42, still a decent gain amid the market's broader decline. It marked a 9 percent increase from Pandora's initial public offering price of $16 and a nearly six-fold increase from what Pandora's own board thought the stock was worth just six months ago.

The performance shows the recent market slump hasn't dampened the enthusiasm investors have for new stock offerings from rapidly growing Internet services.

The excitement began to build after shares of professional networking site LinkedIn Corp. more than doubled on their first day of trading last month. Now it looks like the fervor could escalate into an outright mania as even bigger Internet companies such as online coupon seller Groupon Inc., Web game maker Zynga and the biggest star of all, Facebook, go public during the next year or so.

"Everyone seems to be getting gold-rush fever," said analyst Phil Leigh of Inside Digital Media. "People are starting to believe they can find gold in every stream or around every hill, but that's not the reality."

Pandora CEO Joseph Kennedy said he won't allow his 360-employee company to get caught up in the hysteria. "I am not jumping up and down right now," Kennedy said in a Wednesday interview. "I just see this as another step toward building a great company."

Kennedy, 51, owns 4.2 million Pandora shares, a stake now worth about $74 million.

The warm Wall Street reception for Pandora pegged the company's market value at $2.8 billion. That's already more than the $2 billion market value of AOL Inc., an Internet pioneer hailed as a next great media powerhouse at the height of the dot-com boom 11 years ago.

Around the same time, Pandora was just starting out as a music recommendation company then known as Savage Beast Technologies.

Pandora adopted its current name in 2005 when it morphed into a new type of radio station that streams music over the Internet. What makes Pandora different from broadcast radio is that it can employ computer formulas to learn each of its individual listeners' tastes in order to create personalized song lists.

The concept has been a hit with music lovers, helping Pandora build an audience of 94 million registered users who mostly listen to the service on home and office computer and mobile phones. The company, based in Oakland, Calif., is now striking deals to supplant traditional radio stations in cars, just as satellite service Sirius XM Radio Inc. already has done.

Unlike the subscription-driven Sirius, Pandora gets about 85 percent of its revenue from advertising. The rest of its revenue comes from subscribers who pay $36 annually to hear higher-quality sound without commercial interruptions.

Pandora's biggest problem so far has been that its revenue is not growing fast enough to cover the royalties that it pays to play music. Those rates go up as Pandora attracts more listeners.

Pandora has suffered an uninterrupted string of losses totaling $92 million in its short lifetime, including a $6.8 million loss during the first three months of its current fiscal year before accounting for dividends on preferred stock.

"Unless they can continue to increase their subscribers or offer new material, obviously their losses will continue to grow," predicted Scott Sweet, managing partner of IPOboutique.com.

But Pandora's revenue is rising rapidly, more than doubling in its fiscal first quarter to $51 million. If it can maintain that growth pace, Pandora's revenue for the fiscal year ending next January would be about $325 million.

That means Pandora's market value stands at 8.5 times its projected revenue. By comparison, Sirius' market value of $7.7 billion is about 2.5 times its anticipated revenue for this year.

Pandora also is facing potential competitive threats from some of technology's most powerful companies. Apple Inc., Google Inc., and Amazon.com Inc. all are offering to store people's personal music collections on remote computers so the songs can be played on any device with an Internet connection. It wouldn't be a surprise if any of those three companies expanded their music offerings to include a music recommendation service similar to Pandora's, said analyst Martin Pyykkonen of Wedge Partners.

"There isn't a big barrier to entry in this market," Pyykkonen said.

Similar worries dogged Netflix Inc.'s video subscription service when the company went public in 2002. Many analysts thought Netflix would eventually be crushed by video rental store chain Blockbuster Inc. or another larger company such as Amazon.com or Wal-Mart Stores Inc., which once ran a competing DVD-by-mail service.

Blockbuster went bankrupt, Wal-Mart retreated from DVD-by-mail services and Amazon still hasn't come up with a way to counter Netflix. Anyone who bought $10,000 worth of Netflix's stock at its IPO price and held on to it would have a paper gain of about $330,000 so far.

The skepticism about Pandora's prospects may be one reason the company's shares didn't soar as high as LinkedIn's did. LinkedIn stock more than doubled from its IPO price in its first day of trading on May 19 to close at $94.25. The shares have since fallen more than 20 percent, closing Wednesday at $74.62. That's still well above the $45 IPO price.

There's another possible reason Pandora's shares didn't rise as much: the company's investment bankers were more aggressive about raising the IPO price. Two weeks ago, the IPO price had been set at $7 to $9 per share before strong demand drove it up. After expenses, Pandora expects to get $85.5 million from selling 6 million shares in the IPO. Company insiders told a combined 8.7 million shares to cash out $139 million for themselves.

The current value of Pandora's stock looks even more impressive, given the company's board appraised the shares value at $3.14 in early December last year, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Pandora's IPO also came in a rockier stock market than LinkedIn's did.

A rash of ugly reports on the economy has helped push stock indexes down for six straight weeks, its worst stretch since 2008. Since LinkedIn completed its IPO, the tech-driven Nasdaq composite index has fallen more than 6 percent.

Internet IPOs, though, could still look attractive to investors desperately looking for bright spots amid the gloom.

"Companies like Pandora are growing despite the slow-growing economy," said Kathleen Smith, a principal at Renaissance Capital, an IPO investment adviser. "That's why investors have turned to them."

___

AP Technology Writer Barbara Ortutay and AP Business Writer Matthew Craft in New York contributed to this report.

Just Show Me: How to take HDR photos on your iPhone (Yahoo! News)

Posted: 16 Jun 2011 07:41 PM PDT

By Barb Dybwad, Tecca barb Dybwad, Tecca – 2 hrs 2 mins ago

Welcome to Just Show Me on Tecca TV, where we give you tips and tricks for getting the most out of the gadgets in your life. In today's episode we'll fire up your iPhone and show you how to take HDR photos.

HDR photos are a neat feature on the iPhone that lets you, in some cases, get great photos out of combining three photos which are quickly, and automatically, taken together. While that might sound complicated, it's actually a very easy thing to do, and the results can be amazing! For more information on digital photography, check out Tecca's Digital Photography 101 series.

As usual, if you have any requests for something you'd like Just Show Me to cover, we want to know about them! Please be sure to let us know what you want to know in the comments.

Do You Have Liability Concerns?

While running an in-home childcare center or launching a catering business seem like naturally risky professions, it's hard to imagine that sitting behind a computer can put you at any real risk of a lawsuit. Still, there are some serious liability issues for bloggers. What if you unintentionally plagiarize someone's work? Or maybe you end up writing about a mobile phone prototype left at a bar? What if you can't pay your vendors? What happens if you're fined by the FTC or named in a class-action lawsuit for positively reviewing a defective product?

Most bloggers are probably aware that back in December 2009, the FTC revised their guidelines to bring social media and Internet advertisers into the mix. At the heart of this revision was a concern that it was becoming increasingly difficult to recognize an "advertisement" in social media. In 2010 the ruling reverberated throughout the marketing world and the blogosphere. Controversy surrounded Twitter, high profile celebrities, and improperly disclosed sponsor relationships. As a result, every blogger needs to be aware of the guidelines and take some simple steps to minimize their liability.

Step 1: Disclosure, Disclosure, Disclosure!

Bloggers need to disclose any "material relationship" with an advertiser or brand. This relationship can encompass anything from receiving cash, free tickets, or a free product in exchange for a product review or blog post.

For example, Joe is a video game expert who blogs about his gaming experiences. A manufacturer sends him a free game and asks him to write about it. Accepting this free game creates a material relationship that must be disclosed, or else Joe can face substantial fines. Beyond these legal considerations, disclosure is good practice that maintains a level a trust between the blogger and his or her audience.

Step 2: Talk About What Consumers Can "Generally Expect"

It's no longer acceptable for an advertiser (or blog review) to make outrageous claims (I made $50,000 last month from home; I lost 50 pounds in 2 months; I look 25 years younger overnight) only to put a "results not typical" disclaimer in fine print. Advertisers and bloggers are bound to disclose results that "consumers can generally expect." Failure to comply can result in substantial fines, actions by the State Attorney General, consumer protection lawsuits, or consumer-driven class-action suits. In most cases the company itself will be the defendant, but a participating blogger could be named in such a lawsuit.

Step 3: Incorporate or Form an LLC

Most self-employed business owners start thinking about incorporation in order to reduce their tax burden (if you're paying self-employment taxes, you know what I mean). However, the main benefit of incorporating your blog or forming an LLC is the separation of your personal and business finances, thus minimizing your personal liability.

The LLC and Corporation (either S Corp or C Corp) protects a business owner's personal assets from any liability of the company. So if your blog happens to be sued or fined, your personal assets, such as property or a savings account, are shielded from any judgment. On the other hand, if you're sued as a sole proprietor, you'll be sued personally. This means that your personal assets are at risk.

The other important factor to know is that creditor judgments can actually last up to 22 years. If you're sued today, your personal assets will still be vulnerable throughout that time period. Keep in mind that, while you might just be starting out without few significant personal assets today, you should be protecting the assets you'll earn tomorrow.

I'm not a fan of scare tactics, but I am a fan of education. Most likely, you'll never run into any sort of problems with your blog. However, just in case, it's best to shield your personal assets through an LLC or Corp, to use some common sense when choosing your advertising/marketing partners, and always to err on the side of transparency.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Filin Ilia

This story originally published on Mashable here.

US lawmaker Weiner quits, citing 'mistakes' (AFP)

Posted: 16 Jun 2011 07:53 PM PDT

– 1 hr 50 mins ago

NEW YORK (AFP) – US Representative Anthony Weiner quit Congress, apologizing for the scandal over his lewd online exchanges with women that led to a political uproar.

Before a crush of news cameras in New York, the 46-year-old congressman who was until recently seen as a leading candidate for mayor of New York city sounded a note of remorse "for the personal mistakes I have made and the embarrassment I have caused."

"I hoped to be able to continue the work that the citizens of my district elected me to do, to fight for the middle class and those struggling to make it," he said.

"Unfortunately, the distraction that I have created has made that impossible, so today I'm announcing my resignation from Congress."

The announcement was greeted with relief on Capitol Hill, where the lawmaker had faced a flurry of calls from within his own Democratic Party to resign after lying about online communications with women in which he sent several lewd photos, including one of his own crotch.

"It's difficult to watch the self-destruction of a friend, and to witness the breaking of hearts over what can only be categorized as reprehensible behavior and bad judgment," House Democratic Caucus chairman John Larson said in a pointed message released shortly after Weiner quit.

"I hope that he will get the help he needs and that together they will work their way through this," Larson said.

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, who had said Weiner "exercised poor judgment in his actions, said: "Today, he made the right judgment in resigning."

Steve Israel, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said his friend was focused on getting his family life in order in the aftermath of the extraordinarily embarrassing scandal that played out with near-constant tabloid and cable news coverage.

"I can tell you absolutely firsthand that the only kind of recovery that Anthony Weiner is concerned about, based on the conversations that I've had with him, is not a political recovery, it's personal -- personal recovery with his wife and baby they are expecting," Israel told CNN.

He would have a tough political road ahead of him, and the point was hammered home during Weiner's four-minute announcement when a heckler yelled "Bye bye pervert."

Democrats had become increasingly worried that the scandal could hurt the party's image, just one year before pivotal congressional and presidential elections.

President Barack Obama, speaking to ABC television in an interview to air Friday, said he wished Weiner and his wife well.

"Obviously, it's been a tough incident for him, but I'm confident that they'll refocus and he'll refocus, and they'll end up being able to bounce back," Obama said.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said the apparent outcome of the scandal was lamentable but perhaps inevitable.

"You cannot let it go on and on because it's a diversion away from the important things that this country has to deal with," Bloomberg said.

After lying about his X-rated Internet liaisons for days, insisting that hackers had infiltrated his Twitter account, Weiner called a nationally televised press conference earlier this month and made a tearful admission.

The Democratic leadership in Congress urged him to quit, but Weiner, who is married to Huma Abedin, a top aide to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, had appeared determined to stay, announcing at the weekend that he was undergoing "therapy."

His chances for survival diminished however after Obama essentially urged him to quit.

"I can tell you that if that was me, I would resign," Obama told NBC's "Today" show on Tuesday.

The decision ends a prolonged saga that began Memorial Day weekend when Weiner inadvertently posted a lewd photo to his Twitter feed that was intended to be shared privately.

Later, Weiner held a stunning press conference at which he admitted to inappropriate online communications for years with at least six women online.

A special election in the district will now have to be called by New York's Democratic Governor Andrew Cuomo within 30 to 40 days.

Congressman Weiner quits in lewd photo scandal (Reuters)

Posted: 16 Jun 2011 07:45 PM PDT

By Mark Egan Mark Egan – 1 hr 57 mins ago

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Representative Anthony Weiner, ensnared in a humiliating flap for sending lewd photos of himself to women online, resigned on Thursday, ending a weeks-long scandal that made his fellow Democrats cringe.

"I had hoped to be able to continue the work that the citizens of my district had elected me to do -- to fight for the middle class and those struggling to make it," Weiner told reporters in Brooklyn at the seniors' center where he first announced plans to run for New York City Council 20 years ago.

"Unfortunately, the distraction that I have created has made that impossible, so today I am announcing my resignation from Congress," he said, looking composed in contrast to 10 days ago when he tearfully admitted to online dalliances.

Once seen as a rising star among Democrats and widely expected to run for New York mayor, Weiner made his announcement alone, his wife absent, at a raucous event where he was heckled repeatedly.

Weiner, 46, represented parts of New York City in the House of Representatives since his first election in 1998. He had established himself as a leading liberal voice in the House and easily won a seventh two-year term last November.

Under pressure from President Barack Obama and both major political parties, Weiner previously insisted he would seek treatment and take a short leave of absence from the House.

"Obviously, it's been a tough incident for him," Obama said in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America" to air on Friday. "But I'm confident that they'll refocus and he'll refocus, and they'll end up being able to bounce back," he added in an excerpt released on Thursday night.

On Tuesday, Obama told NBC News: "He's embarrassed his wife and his family. ... If it was me, I would resign."

Democrats feared that Weiner had become a political liability to their efforts to win back the House from Republicans in next year's elections. Weiner also had been seen as a strong contender for New York mayor in 2013.

Elizabeth Viggiano, a 62-year-old senior at the center, said: "It's heartbreaking. He got caught with his pants down."

Other locals such as Robert Kolowaski, 56, had mixed feelings, calling his actions victimless. "He was very feisty," he said. "He stood up for the people."

Weiner is the third member of Congress to step down this year in sex scandals. Republican John Ensign of Nevada quit the Senate after an extramarital affair with a former campaign aide. Republican Chris Lee of New York quit the House after sending a shirtless photo of himself to a woman he met online.

FALL FROM GRACE

Weiner's resignation marked a remarkable fall from grace for a politician who in 1992 became New York's youngest-ever City Council member, at age 27.

Weiner was known for his forceful debating and acerbic wit. He had powerful friends, too. Weiner married Huma Abedin, 35, an aide to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a ceremony last July officiated by former President Bill Clinton.

His mentor was New York's powerful senator, Chuck Schumer, for whom he had worked after graduating from college.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi said: "Congressman Weiner exercised poor judgment in his actions and poor judgment in his reaction to the revelations. Today, he made the right judgment in resigning."

A senior Democratic congressional aide said the final straw for Pelosi was on June 8, when additional photos of Weiner emerged.

The aide added that during a call last Friday, Weiner urged Pelosi to reconsider her call for him to resign, citing polls showing his constituents wanted him to stay. "Consider those rose petals to let you go graciously," Pelosi told him, according to the aide.

After talking with his wife, who returned from an overseas work trip with Hillary Clinton on Tuesday, Weiner called Democratic leaders on Wednesday to tell them he would resign, congressional aides said.

At his news conference, he apologized to his wife and thanked her for standing by him.

Democrats are expected to retain Weiner's House seat, which will be filled in a special election.

Ironically, for someone who had successfully used social media such as Twitter and Facebook to boost his political brand, Weiner's fall was prompted when he accidentally posted publicly via Twitter a close-up of his bulging underpants.

Weiner denied for more than a week that he sent a photo of himself in boxer briefs to a woman in Seattle on May 28, claiming his Twitter account had been hacked. But on June 6, he admitted he had lied and had inappropriate exchanges with six women, some after he was married.

Since then, more lewd pictures of Weiner have surfaced, making him daily fodder for tabloids and late-night comedians.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg called Weiner's fall "a lost opportunity" that was "tragic."

(Writing by Mark Egan; Reporting by Michelle Nichols, Richard Cowan, Thomas Ferraro, JoAnne Allen, Daniel Trotta and Paula Rogo; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Apple back to school promo hands out $100 app store credits (Digital Trends)

Posted: 16 Jun 2011 07:27 PM PDT

Jeff Hughes Jeff Hughes – 2 hrs 16 mins ago

Apple has announced that it is switching up its back to school promotion this year. Instead of getting a free iPod Touch, this time students will be offered a $100 gift card to buy apps with.

The $100 app store credit comes with purchase of a Mac with Apple education pricing during the period of time between the months of June and September 2011. The qualifying Mac can be bought at an Apple retail or online store, as well as your campus' store. The credit can then be spent on the Mac App Store, the iOS App Store, iTunes or the iBookstore.

It may seem as if the company is cutting back with its $100 Back to School Card when you compare this to the monetary value of past promotions. Last year they offered an 8GB iPod Touch with a value of $199.

We've pointed out that Microsoft is also doing a back to school promotion this year which you've probably seen commercials for already. It seems like a better deal; any student who purchases a Windows 7 computer worth over $699 gets a 4GB Xbox 360, worth $199. You could arguably find a Windows PC with similar specs for $100 cheaper than the low-level Macbook, even with the Apple back to school pricing. Couple those savings with the $200 value of the Xbox—double the Apple gift card—and the numbers make it seem more logical to go with a PC.

Even with those savings in mind and high sales (popularity) still for the Xbox 360, Apples' new promotion is probably a smart move. According to VentureBeat, apps are better for APple than its old iPod deal since "the company will recuperate at least 30 percent of any purchase made using the credit." Plus, the variety of software available in the app store seems more practical than a gaming system. We'll see how it all plays out at the end of the promotion when September rolls around.

Music Unlimited tops Android Apps of the Week (Appolicious)

Posted: 16 Jun 2011 02:30 PM PDT

Connecticut wants Facebook meeting over privacy (Reuters)

Posted: 16 Jun 2011 08:49 PM PDT

By Alexei Oreskovic Alexei Oreskovic – 54 mins ago

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Connecticut's Attorney General is concerned over Facebook's use of facial recognition technology to identify users and has requested a meeting with Facebook officials to discuss ways to alleviate those concerns.

Attorney General George Jepsen said in a letter to Facebook earlier this week that the world's No. 1 Internet social network appeared to have overlooked consumer privacy by analyzing the faces in photographs posted on the website and cataloging the recognition.

"Consumers must be made aware that the digital images of their faces are being coupled by Facebook technology to the personal information in their Facebook profiles," Jepsen wrote in the letter released by his office on Thursday.

"The potential uses of facial recognition on this scale remain unclear but concerning," the letter said.

The letter follows Facebook's broad deployment of its "Tag Suggestions" technology, which scans users' uploaded photos, comparing faces in the photos with previously uploaded photos to see if it can match people to the photos.

If a match is found, Facebook alerts the person uploading the photos and invites them to "tag," or identify, the person in the photo.

"We have been in contact with Attorney General Jepsen's office and are eager to provide clarification about tag suggestions and answer any questions he may have," a spokesman for Facebook told Reuters.

INVESTIGATION REQUESTED

Facebook, which announced in December that it planned to introduce the service in the United States, said last week that the feature was available in "most countries."

The lack of notification about the wider roll-out of the technology and Facebook's automatically enabling the technology in users' settings have raised concerns among some privacy advocates who say it should be up to users to allow it.

Last week, a group of privacy advocate organizations filed a complaint with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission requesting an investigation.

Facebook, which has more than 500 million users, has said that automated photo-tagging suggestions are only made when new photos are added, that only friends are suggested and that users can disable the feature in their privacy settings.

Jepsen said in his letter that "fairly simple changes" could be enough to address privacy concerns, such as requiring users to "opt in" for facial recognition and improved notification when users' photos are analyzed and identified.

(Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

BlackBerry maker slashes forecast, shares tumble (Reuters)

Posted: 16 Jun 2011 04:09 PM PDT

By Alastair Sharp Alastair Sharp – Thu Jun 16, 7:09 pm ET

TORONTO (Reuters) – Research In Motion's quarterly profit dropped and revenue missed its own limp forecast, forcing the BlackBerry maker to slash its outlook and sending its shares down 15 percent on Thursday.

Facing intense pressure from Apple and Google in the smartphone market, RIM also warned that its latest models would not hit U.S. stores until well into the valuable back-to-school shopping season. The delay will likely add to the disappointment felt by investors after RIM's botched launch of its PlayBook tablet computer this spring.

"The company is going into the abyss of a transition, and even if they get a new model, it's a new model on the old platform," said BGC Partners analyst Colin Gillis, one of many who has criticized RIM's product development pipeline.

RIM has promised smartphones next year running on its new QNX platform, now featured in the PlayBook, but only after it releases a series of devices with an upgraded version of the current operating system. But even those upgrades to its Bold business workhorse, new Torch and Storm models won't go on sale until late August, RIM said on Thursday.

That delay pushed RIM to forecast shipments of between 11 million and 12.5 million smartphones in the current quarter, sharply lower than the more than 14 million eyed by analysts.

RIM shipped 13.2 million BlackBerrys in the three months to May 28, missing its own estimate.

It shipped 500,000 PlayBook tablets in the six weeks after its April launch, exceeding the average analyst forecast of 366,000. Even so, the number represents a small fraction of Apple's iPad sales.

RIM, once a byword for corporate mobile communications, has lost allure as Apple's iPhone and later Google's Android operating system changed the rules of the game.

JOB CUTS

Up against that competition, analysts had thought it was only a matter of time before RIM abandoned a $7.50 a share earnings outlook for the year to late March 2012. On Thursday, it did just that, recalibrating expectations to between $5.25 and $6 a share.

In a tacit acknowledgment that it needs to do more to play catch-up, the company said it plans to cut jobs and focus its resources on accelerating its product pipeline. The company did not disclose the number of job cuts, but indicated that it intends to begin this reorganization immediately.

"RIM is in this situation because its phones aren't competitive and they're not competitive because they've fallen behind on development and product cycle," said Charter Equity analyst Edward Snyder. "Now they need to accelerate the models to market, but at the same time they are cutting staff."

To help boost its sagging share price, RIM intends to buy back up to 5 percent of its outstanding shares and said the board did not expect that the spending would have a negative impact its growth plan. Its full year forecast for earnings per share did not calculate any impact of the share buyback.

BY THE NUMBERS

RIM expects earnings in the current quarter of between 75 cents and $1.05, sharply lower than the already pessimistic average view of $1.40. It sees revenue of between $4.2 billion and $4.8 billion.

The Waterloo, Ontario-based company's net profit dropped to $695 million, or $1.33 a share, on revenue of $4.9 billion. Analysts had expected profit of $1.32 a share on revenue of $5.1 billion.

A year ago RIM earned $1.38 a share on revenue of $4.24 billion.

The company said its gross margins, among the highest in the smartphone industry, will likely slip around 5 percentage points to some 39 percent in the current quarter.

Shares of RIM -- which reported its results after the close -- fell to nearly a five-year low during the regular session after the company said a senior executive had taken medical leave.

RIM shares fell more than 15 percent further to $29.84 in trade after the closing bell in the United States.

(Additional reporting by Euan Rocha, Allison Martell and Trish Nixon in Toronto and Sinead Carew in New York)

(Corrects RIM's full year earnings forecast to $5.25-$6 a share, from $4.25-$6 a share)

iFashion in vogue, but where will it lead? (Appolicious)

Posted: 16 Jun 2011 03:00 PM PDT

Senate bill would add protections for mobile users’ location data (Appolicious)

Posted: 16 Jun 2011 11:20 AM PDT

JVC's new Kaboom boom boxes sport guitar input (Digital Trends)

Posted: 16 Jun 2011 11:51 AM PDT

Geoff Duncan Geoff Duncan – Thu Jun 16, 2:51 pm ET

Audio gear maker JVC has updated its Kaboom line of boomboxes to better protect user's iPods—and let them jam along to their favorite tunes, if they like. The RV-NB70 Kaboom sports 40 watts of power, standard boombox features like an FM tuner and CD player, along with an iPod dock and support for USB mass storage—and still rocks the Kaboom's totally tubular design.

JVC rolled out its homage to its old-school Kaboom boombox back at CES in 2010, and the new feature adds to its capabilities with a new sealing door on the iPod dock that keeps the iPod safe from dust and moisture. As before, the Kabooms feature a CD player, FM tuner, support for MP3/WMA playback from USB mass storage devices, and new bass enhancement circuitry makes sure audiences can feel music as well as hear it. The unit sports 40 watts of power, and—new for 2011—a guitar/mic input with a separate level control that enables users to sing/MC/rap along with their favorite tunes, or plus in an instrument or play along. That might not be the best idea in the world for entertaining friends—face it, you don't sound as good in real life as you do in the shower—but could be a lot of fun for students learning how to play along with their favorite tunes.

The Kaboom still features 3 and 3/16th-inch drivers and 5 1/8-inch woofers, along with a shoulder strap for portability. It weighs 15 pounds and it'll even run on batteries—10 D cells—as well as DC power. JVC also includes a remote control.

The JVC RV-NB70 Kaboom is available now for $299.95.

Phone rivalry drives down RIM earnings (AP)

Posted: 16 Jun 2011 07:05 PM PDT

By ROB GILLIES, Associated Press Rob Gillies, Associated Press – 2 hrs 37 mins ago

TORONTO – BlackBerry maker Research In Motion Ltd.'s quarterly results on Thursday provided fresh evidence of the company's struggles to come up with a device to compete with the iPhone and smartphones running Google's Android operating system.

The Waterloo, Ontario, company reported a nearly 10 percent drop in its fiscal first-quarter net income.

RIM also said it has been hurt by product delays, announced layoffs and warned that its profit for the current quarter and full fiscal year would come in well below Wall Street's expectations.

It was the second time this year the company has pared back its profit outlook. Its stock fell more than 14 percent in extended trading.

"The existing portfolio of BlackBerry products has been in market for close to a year, and delivering new products has proven more challenging than anticipated," RIM Co-CEO Jim Balsillie said on a conference call with analysts.

The announcements are the latest signs of trouble for RIM. The company dominated the corporate smartphone market and has sought to expand its appeal to consumers, but has recently had trouble with consumers because the phones aren't perceived to be as sexy as its chief competitors.

BlackBerrys are known for their security and reliability as email devices, but they haven't kept pace with Apple Inc.'s iPhones or phones based on Google Inc.'s Android software when it comes to running third-party applications.

Balsillie also acknowledged that the April launch of the company's tablet computer could have gone better. RIM got poor reviews on the Playbook and about 1,000 of the devices had to be recalled because of defective software. The company said it shipped about 500,000 of the tablets in its fiscal first quarter.

"The PlayBook launch did not go as smoothly as we had planned," he said.

Co-CEO Mike Lazaridis made a rare appearance on the conference call as the two defended the business and their role as co-CEOs. RIM has an unusual leadership structure, where two executives, Balsillie and Lazaridis, serve as both co-CEOs and co-chairmen. Dissident shareholders are calling for RIM to separate the roles of CEO and chairman.

Some industry analysts believe RIM is following the same trajectory as Finish handset maker Nokia, which last month warned that its second-quarter sales and margins are expected to be much lower than anticipated because of the competition on devices in both the high- and low-end market.

"We have a strong business," Lazaridis said. "We have made major platform upgrades, and we are almost through this transition."

Lazaridis said RIM was already far along in developing its next-generation BlackBerrys when it realized that U.S. customers wanted higher performance, requiring the company to upgrade the chips used. That posed an engineering challenge and delayed products, he said.

For the three months that ended May 28, RIM earned $695 million, or $1.33 per share. That's down from $769 million, or $1.38 per share, a year ago.

Revenue for the fiscal first quarter rose 16 percent to $4.9 billion from $4.2 billion.

Analysts polled by FactSet expected earnings of $1.32 per share on revenue of $5.1 billion.

Aurion Capital Management analyst Greg Taylor said the results indicate that RIM doesn't appear to have any new smartphones coming out soon.

"Everyone wants to have the newest and greatest device, and they don't have anything to sell right now," Taylor said. "Their guidance shows they're basically not expecting new smartphones this quarter."

For the current quarter, RIM forecast earnings of 75 cents to $1.05 per share, excluding items. Analysts are looking for far higher earnings of $1.36 per share. The company expects revenue of $4.2 billion to $4.8 billion, below analysts' average expectation of nearly $5.3 billion

RIM lowered its full-year earnings outlook sharply. It now expects earnings of $5.25 to $6 per share for fiscal 2012. In April, it had forecast $7.50 per share.

"That guidance was just awful," said Peter Misek, an analyst at Jefferies & Co. in New York. "I'm just surprised at the pace at which this is unraveling right now."

Misek said RIM carriers aren't supporting as before, consumers aren't buying their products as much as before and corporations are looking at alternatives. He said expects further delays in new BlackBerry's and said Apple and Google are "eating their lunch in a multiple of ways."

"As a Canadian, they are national heroes, and watching national heroes lose is not fun. It's kind of like watching the Vancouver Canucks lose. It's not fun," said Misek, referring to Vancouver's loss to Boston in hockey's Stanley Cup Finals.

RIM said earlier Thursday that Don Morrison, its chief operating officer, is going on medical leave.

It also said it is cutting an unspecified number of jobs to reduce costs. Balsillie said the job cuts are "an incredibly difficult decision" but said they do not constitute a restructuring of the company.

"We have grown so much over the past years and we've done 14 or 15 acquisitions over the last bit. This is just a streamlining," Balsillie said. "In no way shape or form would I call this a restructuring."

Lazaridis said company executives understand that recent times have been difficult for shareholders and employees, but said he's confident things will turn around.

Before the earnings RIM's stock was already off 50 percent from its 52-week high. In April, the company slashed earnings and sales forecasts as it faces increased competition. In extended trading after the results came out, RIM's stock fell $5.07, or 14.4 percent, to $30.26. In the regular session, the stock rose 16 cents to close at $35.33 before the earnings were issued.

Exclusive: China software bug makes infrastructure vulnerable (Reuters)

Posted: 16 Jun 2011 07:28 PM PDT

By Jim Finkle Jim Finkle – 2 hrs 15 mins ago

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Software widely used in China to help run weapons systems, utilities and chemical plants has bugs that hackers could exploit to damage public infrastructure, according to the Department of Homeland Security.

The department issued an advisory on Thursday warning of vulnerabilities in software applications from Beijing-based Sunway ForceControl Technology Co that hackers could exploit to launch attacks on critical infrastructure.

Sunway's products, widely used in China, are also deployed to a lesser extent in other countries including the United States, DHS's Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team said in its advisory.

"These are vulnerabilities that hackers could leverage to cause destruction," said Dillon Beresford, a researcher with private security firm NSS Labs, who discovered the bugs.

The DHS advisory comes amid a wave of high-profile cyberattacks on institutions ranging from the International Monetary Fund to Citigroup Inc and Sony Corp. The attacks focused primarily on stealing data; only in a few instances has critical infrastructure been attacked.

Last year the Stuxnet computer worm surfaced, targeting industrial control systems manufactured by Siemens. Security experts widely believe that the worm was built as part of a state-backed attack on Iran's nuclear program.

Iran said the worm was used to attack computers at its Bushehr nuclear reactor. There has been widespread speculation that Stuxnet actually damaged the plant, something Iran denies.

FIXING BUGS

Beresford has worked with Sunway, Chinese authorities and the DHS to fix the bugs he found. Sunway has developed software patches to plug the holes, but it could take customers months to install those patches, Beresford said.

That gives hackers a window of time in which to exploit those vulnerabilities.

"Customers need to be notified and given proper time to patch," said Beresford, who also discovered security bugs in industrial control management systems from Siemens. The German company addressed those vulnerabilities in an advisory it released last week.

Representatives for Sunway could not immediately be reached for comment.

The Sunway software flaws highlight growing concerns about the safety of supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) computer systems that are used to monitor and control processes in a wide variety of facilities, including nuclear power plants, chemical factories, water distribution networks and pharmaceutical plants.

SCADA systems -- designed before Internet use became widespread -- were not built to withstand Web-based attacks.

Security systems to deal with Web threats have been bolted on rather than incorporated into SCADA systems, leaving holes that hackers can penetrate.

Beresford said that there are other vulnerabilities in SCADA systems that have yet to be documented by security experts and plugged by the manufacturers.

"The point of my putting this information out and getting it into the public domain is so that we can pressure the vendors to actually patch the vulnerabilities instead of sitting on them because these systems are inherently flawed by design," he said.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle; Editing by Tiffany Wu, Phil Berlowitz)

Oracle seeks billions in suit (Investor's Business Daily)

Posted: 16 Jun 2011 03:54 PM PDT

– Thu Jun 16, 6:54 pm ET

The business software and server company disclosed that it's seeking "billions of dollars" in damages from a patent infringement lawsuit it filed last year vs. Google (NASDAQ:GOOG - News). Oracle (NASDAQ:ORCL - News) has claimed the Android operating system infringes on Java patents acquired with its buy of Sun Microsystems. Oracle on Thu. accused Google of trying to hide the amount of money being sought in damages. Oracle fell 1%. Google slipped 0.5%.

Technet

Thursday, June 16, 2011