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Elsword hacks and slashes into open beta
Ever wanted to star in your own comic book? Well now you can get a feel for what it would be like to hop through lovingly inked panels by jumping into the colorful world of Elsword. The manga-flavored MMO enters open beta today, offering a unique Otaku experience for those who aren't afraid of a little over-the-top action. Elsword is a side-scrolling MMO that eschews subtle combat for frantic button-mashing. As you level up, your character will not only grow in abilities, but actually have their look and voice change as well. The game offers solo adventures, co-op dungeon runs, and PvP battles. Elsword's open beta will continue through May 4th. You can get in on the action by signing up on the official website, and don't forget to check out the first look at Elsword we did earlier this month! %Gallery-120229%
Ebook sales in the US double year-on-year, paper books suffer double-digit losses
We doubt the world will ever get to a stage where it'll completely ditch ye olde paper books, but the US consumer market seems to clearly have its heart set on the electronic kind right now. Net ebook sales in January were this week reported to have accumulated $69.9 million in revenue for their publishers, which amounts to a 116 percent jump from last year's total for the month. During the same period, adult hardcovers were down 11.3 percent to $49.1 million and paperbacks faced a similar reduction in demand and fell to $83.6 million, a precipitous drop of 19.7 percent year-on-year. Educational and children's books weren't spared from this cull of the physical tome, either -- skip past the break to see the full statistical breakdown.
Foxconn owner reports revenue up thanks to iPad 2, other devices
Hon Hai Precision, the parent company of Foxconn, recorded an impressive revenue increase in its latest earnings report thanks to the iPad 2, the original iPad and the Kinect. According to the Taiwan Economic News, the manufacturing company reported revenue of NT$152.878 billion (about US$5.2 billion) in February 2011, up 25.81 percent year over year. This increase in revenue may offset some concerns over the slowed growth of the company. The iPad 2 has been immensely successful since its debut last week. Long lines characterized the launch, and Apple sold an estimated half million devices in the first weekend of sales. The iPad 2 is difficult to find in retail stores here in the US, and its online ship date is pushed out 4-5 weeks. [Via Boy Genius Report]
Visualized: Android activations mapped geographically, chronologically, breathtakingly (video)
Do you ever wish for an easier way to show your uninitiated friends what you mean when you say Android is growing? Well, here's the video for you: a Google-produced map of the world that throbs with Android activations over time, highlighted by some truly eye-opening flourishes in the immediate aftermath of marquee handset launches. The Google guys have even given us handy countdown timers -- "Droid launch in 3, 2, 1..." -- and broken things down by continent for easier viewing. Only thing missing is a soundtrack, so just have your Tron: Legacy OST loaded up and ready before jumping past the break. [Thanks, Leo Z.]
DirecTV announces positive Q4 results; no word on new HD channels, DirecTiVo or 24/7 ESPN 3D
While its cable competition deals with fears of cord cutting and losing customers DirecTV's Q4 results reveal it's continuing to add subscribers, growing by 289,000 in the US alone and even more in Latin America. Of course, good news for investors doesn't necessarily mean anything for customers, as news on any new HD channels and the much-anticipated DirecTiVo were notable in their absence. However, our friends at ZatzNotFunny points out both a tweet by the official DirecTV account suggesting the DVR could be delayed (again & again & again) to the second half of the year, and a forum post on DBSTalk that pictures what might be the final hardware and suggests it could end up shipping with the classic TiVo interface. One more interesting note? DirecTV hasn't picked up the 24/7 feed of ESPN 3D, opting to keep it live events only for now for unknown reasons, according to Explore 3DTV.
Apple maintains lead in mobile app store revenues, but its share is shrinking fast
Growth. You don't have to be Gordon Gekko to recognize that exponential growth in revenues is the mark of both a buoyant industry and, on an individual level, a healthy participant within it. Kudos must, therefore, be handed out to all the top four app stores globally, as each one expended its total revenues by over 130 percent between 2009 and 2010. Interestingly, Apple's growth looks to be slowing down as the App Store begins to reach a saturation point on smartphones, while Nokia's Ovi Store and Google's Android Market blossomed during 2010 by multiples of 7.2 and 8.6 times their 2009 size. Apple's share at the top has shrunken as a consequence, a trend that looks likely to continue when Windows Phone 7's Marketplace and the Ovi Store are melded into one through this year and beyond.
Samsung Tabulates 2 million slates, 80 million phones sold in Q4 2010, breaks revenue records
Score one for Samsung in its eternal struggle against South Korean nemesis LG. Whereas the Life's Good crew were licking their Q4 2010 wounds yesterday, Samsung's had the pleasure of announcing that the final quarter of last year helped it bust through all its previous fiscal records: total revenue ($139b), net income ($14b), and operating profit ($15.5b) all reached all-time highs. The fourth quarter's contribution was $2.7b in operating profit, 80.7 million mobile devices sold, 12.72 million flat panel TVs shipped, and two million Galaxy Tabs distributed to Android lovers yearning for some Froyo. That last number's pretty important as it shows the Tab's sales have almost doubled over the last month of the quarter -- it reached one million sales in early December -- indicating that there is indeed a hunger for slate-based computing. Oh, and if you're wondering what Samsung's planning for the future, there's a reminder that a device with a Super AMOLED Plus screen and a dual-core processor is coming to replace the Galaxy S in the first half of 2011. Good to know. [Thanks, Tascien]
Wizard101 has a banner year amidst chat issues
Wizard101 isn't at the top of everyone's list for free-to-play games, but that seems to be an odd oversight. Sure, the game isn't going to appeal to everyone with its highly stylized and kid-friendly atmosphere, but 2010 has apparently turned out to be a high-water mark for the title. According to an official release from KingsIsle Entertainment, the site's visitors were high enough to rank it at number eight out of the top 250 sites gaining in visitors over December, and the US registrations alone soared to over 15 million players (not counting European registrations). And let's not forget that the game was voted as the best family game of the decade by our readers. The success isn't without the occasional misstep, however, with the game's recent 18+ chat troubles as a prime example. Several players mature enough to take part in unfiltered chat found themselves locked out of the chat by an unannounced change to the way chat systems work, one that filtered out players who had stopped paying a monthly subscription. A full rundown of the situation has been posted by company representatives, with the announcement that accounts verified as being eligible for chat will be allowed to chat once again. Wizard101 players who've moved to a free-to-play account should be happy -- as should anyone cheering for the game's success moving into 2011.
Windows Phone 7's Marketplace grows faster than Android did at launch, doesn't mean much
An analyst note released by research firm IDC yesterday points out that in the nearly two months since Windows Phone 7's retail release, the Windows Marketplace has swelled to 4,000 applications -- a number that the Android Market took five months to reach. That's impressive, no doubt, and the analyst behind the numbers notes that he "would not be surprised if Microsoft had the third largest app portfolio in the industry by the middle of next year." Now granted, hitting number three would take very little effort on Microsoft's part -- they'd just have to beat webOS, BlackBerry OS, and Symbian, none of which have sparked iOS- or Android-like levels of developer interest. So beyond that, what does the growth mean? Read on! [Thanks, Stephen]
Andy Rubin: over 300,000 Android phones activated daily
Cast your mind back to the ancient time that was this August and you'll recall Eric Schmidt telling you, with no lack of pride, that 200,000 Android phones were being sold each and every day. Skip past Steve Jobs' snide remarks about what's included in that tally, and fast-forward to today, where Andy Rubin is blowing minds with the latest, very nicely rounded, total: 300,000 daily activations. Yes, in spite of being the most fragmented thing this side of our 10-year old hard drives, the Android OS just keeps growing at an exponential rate. So Steve, any comment on today's data? Were they counting it wrong? [Thanks, Dell]
Analyst: The Mac isn't done growing yet
Granted, I probably could have told you this news without hiring a think tank, but now we know for sure; there is still plenty of room for Apple to continue to grow. With Apple's market cap now larger than Walmart's and market research firm IDC reporting that growth continued to expand in 2009, this latest report from The Toffler Associates says that Apple is poised to grab 10% more of the computer market than they already have, which currently stands at around 10% in the U.S. and 5% worldwide. With a projected one billion more computer sales over the next 4 years or so, Macs could see their market share grow quite nicely, thank you very much. The study determines that companies will "increasingly follow the Apple/iPhone model of creating value, not by creating products, but by hosting the marketplace and charging to connect consumers to producers," so the growth of apps, streaming video, and cloud computing should continue to expand to more and more users around the world. Onward and upward!
iShred jumps up the charts thanks to viral video
Last Saturday, we posted this video of the band Atomic Tom singing with their iPhones on the B train over the East River. Since then, the video has gone viral, nabbing more than a million views on YouTube. But the band isn't the only group benefiting from the attention -- we heard from the developers of iShred, the guitar app seen in the video, and apparently just being seen in the video has had a huge effect for them as well. The app has jumped from #84 to #4 on the App Store music app charts, and has reached the #65 app overall. That's quite amazing, and it shows that people are getting recommendations for their apps from all over the place, from sites like ours to just spotting apps used in other contexts. What's most surprising isn't just the US App Store growth, but the fact that iShred has seen a big jump up overseas as well -- iShred is in the top ten in over 20 countries in the world. In Japan, we're told, it's the #3 app out of all of them. That's surprising -- when the video went viral, it must have become popular internationally. Of course, it probably doesn't hurt that the iShred folks have put the app on sale for just US$0.99 (and honestly, this post will probably give them another nice jump in the listings). But it is interesting to see the effects of such a subtle app mention when it goes out and reaches the right people.
Nielsen: growth of digital music sales flat in 2010
It's a bit early for the big music companies to start panicking, but it looks like the heyday of double-digit growth in digital music sales may now be behind us. That's according to market research firm Nielsen, at least, which found that sales in the US fell flat in 2010 after a 13 percent increase from 2008 to 2009, and a whopping 28 percent jump from 2007 to 2008. Nielsen is quick to point out, however, that it thinks this is a "plateau," and that it "doesn't mean that this digital consumption is going to drop significantly." It also still seems to be a different story outside of the US, with Nielsen reporting that digital music sales were up 7 percent in Britain, 13 percent in Germany and 19 percent in France.
Gartner and IDC agree: the Android invasion's accelerating around the world
Last quarter we reported on some pretty stellar growth numbers for Android in the global smartphone marketplace. Back then, Google's OS had a 9.6 percent slice of the pie, but today that's ballooned to a robust 17.2 percent, meaning that in terms of end-user sales over the last three months, Android has nearly matched RIM's BlackBerry sales. That's quite the feat when you consider that a year ago the latter was shifting ten times more units than the former. This extraordinary growth rate has narrowed down Symbian's lead at the top, in spite of Nokia's favorite OS actually shipping on more phones this year, while the big loser of the quarter has to be Windows Mobile, which contracted both in terms of market share and actual shipments. Overall, smartphone sales were up by 50 percent year-on-year, according to both Gartner and IDC, while Gartner adds that mobile devices as a whole grew at a tamer 13.3 percent pace. In terms of phone manufacturers' global share, Nokia and Samsung have held on to their top positions, LG, Sony Ericsson and Motorola have experienced some uncomfortable shrinkage, and HTC, RIM and Apple have capitalized to expand their portions. Looking over to IDC's smartphone share data shows, again, that all smartphone makers are growing remarkably well, but it does highlight HTC (129 percent) and Samsung (173 percent) as really improving their presence in the sector. The reason? Android, Android, Android.
Video games industry in great health, unlike the rest of the US economy
Interested in dosing up your video game knowledge with a shot of macroeconomic data? Of course you are. The US Entertainment Software Association has delivered its 2010 health report for entertaining software and things are looking rosy. While the US economy was enjoying a steady 2.8 percent annual growth between 2005 and 2008, video game revenues were expanding by 16.7 percent a year. Factoring in the economically arid 2009 chops total US economic growth in half down to 1.4 percent, but gaming again shows its resiliency by taking a smaller dip down to 10.6 percent. That'll be welcome news to the more than 120,000 people whose employment depends on this burgeoning industry, as will the fact that the average annual compensation in the sector is just under $90,000. Good work, if you can get it.
Panasonic to spend $9.4b on buying out Sanyo and PEW shares, posts robust quarterly profits
Clearly dissatisfied with what it sees in the mirror, Panasonic has today announced its decision to bulk up. A new share issue expected to raise ¥500 billion ($5.7 billion) will be enacted soon as part of raising the cash to complete the buyout of Sanyo Electric and Panasonic Electric Works. Don't ask us why a company named Panasonic has to buy another company with Panasonic in its name, but them's the facts. The total outlay is expected to come in at around $9.4 billion and is justified by Panasonic as fundamental to its future strategy of expanding into environmentally friendly tech and developing a three-pronged operating paradigm by 2012. The Osaka-based company is also reporting a ¥43.7b ($498 million) profit for the last quarter -- a major upswing from a ¥53b loss in the same period last year -- though that's information the market seems to have ignored. Panasonic shares have plunged down 7.7% in the immediate aftermath of the acquisitions being announced, while Sanyo's have shot up. Click past the break for the novella-sized press release explaining the details of the deal.
EU sets aside €6.4b for research and innovation grants
For all its foibles, the European Union does fancy itself as quite the progressive supranational body and you need look no further than its gigantic €50.5 billion (to be spent between 2007 and 2013) R&D stimulus program for evidence. Over the next 14 months, the Euro bureau will distribute €6.4 billion to universities, SMEs (small and medium enterprises) and other research organizations that seek to pursue its stated goals. Those include tackling the problems of climate change, the Union's greying population, food and energy source security and sustainability, as well as more generic health and quality of life challenges. The primary goal is stated as "translating research into new technologies, products and services" -- in other words, less vaporware -- though we imagine the biggest justifier for this sizable injection de dinero will be the 165,000 new jobs that it's expected to create. Full PR after the break.
ComScore: Android grows US smartphone market share as all others decline
Slip on your fine silk smoking jacket and light up a victory cigar US Android fans, the latest comScore numbers are out for the three-month period ending in May 2010. The most notable trend spotted was a 4 point (up from 9.0% to 13.0%) quarterly increase in Google's Android market share as all other smartphone OS subscribers declined. ComScore also saw Motorola's slide continue, slipping behind LG now for a third place US finish as Samsung continued to bolster its dominant position. Expect the numbers to be jostled a bit next quarter when Apple's iPhone 4 numbers are factored in. Just don't expect to see the Android numbers suffer, especially with the Samsung Galaxy S launching on all the major US carriers before the quarter is done. [Thanks, Jeremy]
Acer expects to overtake HP as world's biggest laptop vendor by year's end (updated)
Ah, the inexorable rise of a once-small Taiwanese company. Acer chairman JT Wang has told investors in a conference call this week that his company is on track to overtake HP in worldwide laptop shipments before the year is through. That assertion is backed up by Gartner's data, cited in the Wall Street Journal, which indicates that Acer shipped 9.49 million mobile computers in the first quarter of 2010, just ahead of HP's 9.47 million. Positive vibes are also being felt on the desktop front, where Acer aims to shift 10 million units this year, while a decent $15 million is being invested into "developing a smartphone platform based on Google Inc.'s Android." We'll be curious to see whether this thrifty strategy pays off against HP's ebullient $1.2 billion acquisition of Palm, but one thing's for sure: PC vendors are hungry for some of that sweet smartphone pie. Update: Gartner has corrected Acer's worldwide shipments number down to 9.12 million, placing it a close second behind HP for Q1.
Apple market share climbs to 6.8% in Europe
Hardmac is reporting that Apple's market share in Europe has risen to 6.8%. That's not quite as high as the around 10% share for computers in the US, but it is a full two percentage points higher than it was last year. Windows still dominates in the EU, with 92% of all computers running some variation of it. Most of the growth in Europe has come from OS X Intel computers, but the iPhone and the iPod touch have contributed about half a percentage point as well (not to mention that interest in the iPhone almost certainly drove some Mac purchases, even if we can't see that directly in the data). It'll be interesting to see what happens with the iPad release this weekend; while Microsoft's Windows clearly has a solid grasp on the market, you have to think that the iPad will probably put a dent in some of their sales, especially netbooks and even some notebooks. In another year from now, Europe may be on pace to match up with the US share soon.
