Samsung Galaxy S III Reaches 30 Million Phones Sold

Samsung has announced that sales for its flagship Galaxy S III smartphone has reached 30 million.

The Android-powered smartphone, which only launched back in May, reached the milestone figure last week, according to an announcement made on Samsung Poland's Twitter account.

Less than two months ago, the device's sales exceeded 20 million units worldwide. Samsung stressed that it expected that figure to reach 30 million before 2013 arrived, so the firm still has two months left to sell a few more million during the holiday season.

The Galaxy S III, which has become one of the best-selling Android devices of all time, considerably contributed to Samsung's record profits of $7.4 billion this year.

The Samsung Galaxy Note II, meanwhile, has shipped over 3 million units worldwide after just a month on sale.

Windows 7 increases Lead over XP in previous month

Windows 7 continues to dominate market with month-over-month growth.

More consumers have adopted to Microsoft's Windows 7 as its market share once again overtakes XP's.

According to web tracker Net Applications, Windows 7 featured a market share of 44.7 percent in October, representing an increase from September's 44 percent. As for Windows XP, the operating system's share decreased from 41.2 percent to 40.7 percent last month.

Although the 11-year-old XP still boasts a considerable share of the OS market, Windows 7 is slowly starting to take over as the dominant operating system, with the latter having finally taken the top spot in August. A year ago, XP's share stood at 48 percent, with Windows 7 having a market share below 35 percent.

The just-released Windows 8, meanwhile, hasn't made a major impact on the market yet. Net Applications said its pre-launch versions delivered a share of 0.41 percent last month, which was 0.3 percent in September. That said, it should be noted that W8's market share was based before its official launch; three days after its release, the new OS sold over 4 million copies.

Ultimately, Windows dominated the OS market with a share of more than 91 percent. Apple's Mac OS holds a 7.1 percent share, while Linux trails behind with just over 1 percent

Samsung posts record $7.4B profit on strong Galaxy sales

South Korea's Samsung Electronics reported on Friday (local time) a record quarterly profit of $7.4 billion, crediting strong sales of its Galaxy line of smartphones and tablets with making up for weak chip demand.
The electronics giant said its third-quarter operating profit increased 91 percent to $7.39 billion, in line with guidance offered earlier this month. Revenue for the quarter ended September 30 was 52.18 trillion won ($47.5 billion), a 26 percent increase over the same period last year.

The company's Mobile Communications division accounted for half that figure, logging 26.25 trillion won ($23.9 billion) in revenue. Samsung singled out the Galaxy S3 as a key component in raising profit margins. The company said sales of LTE-enabled devices increased in the third quarter but that competition hurt profit margins.

Samsung doesn't disclose its smartphone sales figures, but analysts believe the company sold about 60 million smartphones during the quarter. By comparison, Apple, which hours earlier reported profits of $8.2 billion on revenue of $36 billion, sold 26.9 million iPhones during the same period.

Its display panel business swung back to profitability with an operating profit of 1.09 trillion won ($1 billion), a 19 percent increase over the same period last year. However, profit from Samsung's chip division fell 28 percent to 1.15 trillion won on weak demand for dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips.
The company trumpeted another record quarter despite facing tough economic conditions.
"The business environment remained difficult with global economic uncertainties persisting amid the fiscal concerns in the U.S. and Europe," Robert Yi, Samsung's chief of Investor Relations, said in a statement. "However, we continued to break our quarterly profit records."

After 1.2 billion hours of user testing, Windows 8 is good to go

Windows 8, seeing, touching, clicking and swiping is really believing," said CEO Steve Ballmer. Now Windows users will have a chance to decide for themselves whether Windows 8 is a hit or miss.

After several years of development, now it's your turn to vote for or against Windows 8 with your wallet. Windows 8 goes on sale around the world at 12:01 a.m. local time, with an upgrade price as low as $39.95.
"This is the best release of Windows ever," Microsoft Windows chief Steven Sinofsky said at the Windows 8 launch event in New York today. He noted that Windows 8 has been heavily road-tested, with 1.24 billion hours of pre-release testing across 190 countries.

Previous versions of Windows have been touted as the best ever, but Windows 8 is a much bigger bet for Microsoft.  Over a billion people use Windows, but Windows 8 will require some retraining for users to get the hang of the new interface with its touch capabilities.
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer took the stage to pronounce: "Windows 8 shatters perceptions of what a PC is." He was referring to Microsoft's Surface tablet/PC hybrid and the touch interface that is at the center of the Windows 8 user experience. Reviewers have given Microsoft kudos for technology innovation in the Surface but cite slow performance and a lack of applications for the device.

Windows 8 is not just aimed at preserving Microsoft's dominance in the business world -- it's also poised to begin its battle to keep Windows relevant and profitable in the new era of mobile computing dominated by Apple and Google.
Sinofsky touted the new Windows Store, claiming that it has more apps than any competing app store at its opening. That may be accurate, but for now Microsoft has less than 10,000 apps and both Google and Apple have more than 700,000 apps for their respective platforms.  "Developers are working fast and furiously to stock the shelves of the new Windows Store," Ballmer said.

Sony May be Preparing Its Own Cloud Service for Xperia

A "MyXperia" trademark filed by Sony has suggested the firm is preparing a new cloud service for its Xperia smartphones. The European Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market registered the trademark, which is intended to enable the "upload, storage, retrieval, download, transmission and delivery of digital content and media."

Trademark 011197332 states that the aforementioned functions apply to "mobile phones, smartphones, digital or electronic tablets, PDAs and/or portable and handheld digital electronic devices."

The trademark is also hinted at by MyXperia.com, lending further credence to a Sony-developed cloud-based service. Visiting the domain will forward users to MyXperia.Sony.com, with the sub-domain asking for credentials.

Sony is late in terms of offering mobile cloud storage services. Apple has iCloud, while search giant Google offers its Google Drive service. Both the former and the latter offers up to 5GB of free storage, with users being able to expand storage space for a fee.

iOS 6 Adoption Reaches 61 Percent (Apple News)

One month after the release of iOS 6, more than 60 percent of iOS users in the U.S. and Canada have update to the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system.

Advertising and analytics company Chitika confirmed today that a total of 61 percent of iOS devices are now running iOS 6. The latest update became available more than a month ago on September 19, which was two days before the iPhone 5 launched.

This number derives from what Chitika said is "a sample of hundreds of millions of mobile ad impressions" stemming from its advertising network during the last month.

"We expect small gains for the OS in the coming weeks, with the possibility of iOS 6 usage touching 70 percent once adoption peaks," Chitika said. "The upcoming release of the iPad mini will likely accelerate this process."

iOS 6.0.1, meanwhile, is reportedly scheduled for a release in due course, with the update said to fix several bugs.

Xperia Phones to Receive Android 4.1 Jelly Bean in 2013

Sony has announced that the latest version of Google's mobile operating system will arrive on 2012 models of Xperia smartphones. Jelly Bean will be available for several Xperia handsets sometime during "mid-Q1 2013," which represents a February release.

The Xperia T, Xperia TX, and Xperia V will be upgraded to Android 4.1, as will various other 2012-model Xperia phones such as the global versions of Xperia S, Xperia acro S, Xperia ion, Xperia P, Xperia go, and Xperia J. None of the Xperia phones released during 2011 will receive the update.

Sony failed to provide a specific release date in terms of when the devices will be updated, but promised to unveil more information "in due course."

"We were glad to provide the Android 4.0.4 upgrade for our 2011 Xperia portfolio across most markets and the majority of models but, after thorough evaluation, we have concluded they will not be upgraded beyond Ice Cream Sandwich," Sony said. "Beyond Ice Cream Sandwich we would not able to guarantee owners of these smartphones the user experience you expect and we demand."