Posted on 30 January 2009 by
It’s only been a year since Kyocera snapped up Sanyo’s cellphone business in a bid to expand its mobile empire, but it looks like the company is already being forced to reorganize its handset businesses into something leaner and, it hopes, meaner. The biggest shake-up comes in the company’s U.S. offices, which will now be focused exclusively sales, support, and business development, leaving all the handset design to be done at its Kyocera Wireless and Sanyo Telecom units in Japan, which themselves will be further consolidated in an effort to “enhance the efficiency and competitiveness of the combined global handset business,” according to company President Rodney Lanthorne. All of that will result in the loss of some 360 jobs, most of which will come from Kyocera’s operations in San Diego and Chatsworth, California, as well as its subsidiary in Bangalore, India.
[Via Phone Scoop]
Filed under: Cellphones
Kyocera consolidates handset businesses, cuts 360 jobs in the process originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Jan 2009 18:34:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Original post by Donald Melanson
Posted on 30 January 2009 by
Filed under: NTT DoCoMo, Misc
Given just how poorly most every other carrier company has been doing, we can’t imagine the suits at NTT DoCoMo frowning about this. The Japanese wireless carrier has just outed its earnings for the nine months ending December 2008, and while the tail end was expectedly less-than-awesome, the nine month snapshot wasn’t too shabby. Net income slipped 30 percent in October to December to $1.01 billion compared to $1.45 billion in the same window a year earlier, but a 16 percent increase in net profit (from $4.2 billion to $4.8 billion) was realized in the April to December ’08 time frame. Moving forward, the company noted that its ongoing strategy was to “cut back on handset subsides and put the savings toward reducing tariffs had helping the company to retain customers” — a mantra that was shared a few months earlier. For those hungry for more data points, give that read link a poke.
NTT DoCoMo sees 16% uptick in nine-month operating profit originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Fri, 30 Jan 2009 17:11:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Original post by Darren Murph
Posted on 30 January 2009 by
We’ve seen plenty of high-efficiency
lightbulbs rolling around, but this new one — if it ever sees the light of day (groan) — has impressive potential. Cambridge University’s team of researchers are apparently quite close to bringing to production an LED bulb that can last up to 100,000 hours (about 60 years), and which — unlike some other eco-friendly lighting — contains no mercury. In the UK, where
sale of some incandescents has been phased out, the team estimates they could reduce carbon emissions by about 40 million tons. The team has also significantly cheapened production by growing the LEDs on silicon wafers rather than the sapphire ones normally used, thereby bring the cost to… wait for it: $2.85. So when can we expect to see these badboys on the market? “Soon.”
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Household
Research team “near production” of a cheap lightbulb, lasts up to 60 years originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:42:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Original post by Laura June
Posted on 30 January 2009 by
Filed under: Handsets, Palm, Sprint, Windows Mobile, EV-DO, CDMA
Yeah, we’ve seen human hands grace the Sprint-branded Palm Treo Pro before, but we’ve never seen shots like this. Somehow, someway, the lucky souls over at WMExperts managed to grab hold of Palm’s latest entry into Sprint stores, and rather than just gloating about it privately, they chose to host up a nice gallery of unboxing shots for all to enjoy. And really, they’re super enjoyable. Head to the read link for more.
Sprint’s Treo Pro gets glorious unboxing originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Fri, 30 Jan 2009 15:46:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Original post by Darren Murph
Posted on 30 January 2009 by
Filed under: WiMAX
Sure, Clearwire is still busily rolling out its mobile WiMAX network across the US, but the fledgling wireless standard isn’t having the best time of it lately — Nokia just discontinued the N810 WiMAX Edition, which was easily the highest-profile WiMAX product on the market, and now Nortel is closing down its entire mobile WiMAX division. Considering Nortel’s struggle to stay afloat in our super-awesome economy, the move isn’t too shocking — but at least Nortel partner Alvarion is working to pick up the pieces, so hopefully the impact on the broader WiMAX market won’t be too huge.
Nortel quits the mobile WiMAX game originally appeared on Engadget Mobile on Fri, 30 Jan 2009 14:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Original post by Nilay Patel
Posted on 30 January 2009 by
We had a chance to get our grubby mitts on Verizon’s new VOIP / home phone — the Hub — and we thought we’d give you a little preview of what’s in store if you’re planning on busting out the credit card. The device, which we’ve seen floating around in various forms since January of 2007, is a combo of a cradled wireless handset and 7-inch, resistive touchscreen display. It’s an interesting play for a sector of the market that’s all but forgotten (and maybe for good reason). If you want to hear some thoughts on the device, follow the bread crumbs beyond the break.
Continue reading Verizon Hub hands-on and impressions
Filed under: Cellphones, Household
Verizon Hub hands-on and impressions originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Jan 2009 13:03:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Original post by Joshua Topolsky
Posted on 30 January 2009 by
In an interview with FierceWireless, T-Mobile USA’s senior VP of engineering and operations (and newly-minted chairman of 3G Americas’ board) Neville Ray has slipped a couple juicy morsels in the process of talking up his carrier’s ongoing 3G rollout. Besides mentioning that T-Mobile wants to double its 3G footprint in 2009, Ray says that “we will be launching more G series phones and other products… in the coming weeks and months.” If we had to guess, this probably (hopefully) has something to do with that HTC Sapphire we’ve seen floating around lately. What’s more, you’ll see T-Mobile start to ramp up peripheral support this year — gotta monetize that multi-billion-dollar network somehow — with a modem launch. All told, these guys still have a long way to catch up in the 3G race with Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint — but if you want bleeding-edge Android stuff, looks like they’ll continue to be your best bet for a while.
[Via TmoNews]
Filed under: Cellphones, Handhelds
T-Mobile dude promises more ‘G series’ phones this year originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Jan 2009 12:31:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Original post by Chris Ziegler
Posted on 30 January 2009 by
You’ve had a nice run, 2G, but the time has come to start looking beyond to bigger, better and (most importantly) faster things. With LTE just over the horizon, NTT DoCoMo is proactively announcing the phase out of its mova and DoPa 2G services. The 2G mova services encompass car phone and Pre-Call prepaid — which got their roots in March of 1993 — while the 2G DoPa packet communication service sprouted up four years after that. Both of these longtime favorites will be disconnected at the close of 2012, with the company noting that “associated services and related billing plans will also be terminated at the same time.” Anyone still relying on this stuff will be contacted sometime over the next three years to ensure that they aren’t shocked and surprised when December 2012 arrives, and they’ll be encouraged to make the not-at-all-painful shift to FOMA 3G services. It’s better in the fast lane, we promise.
Filed under: Cellphones
NTT DoCoMo announces farewell to mova and DoPa 2G services originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 30 Jan 2009 11:58:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Original post by Darren Murph
