HP CEO Meg Whitman discussed 2Q12 earnings on CNBC. Video.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesùs.

HP CEO Meg Whitman discussed 2Q12 earnings on CNBC. Video.

HP CEO Meg Whitman reviews 2Q12 earnings and company restructuring with CNBC’s David Faber.

Watch the full thirteen minute video below or on CNBC.com:

Samsung Galaxy Note ad: James Franco is preggers

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesùs.

Samsung Galaxy Note ad: James Franco is preggers .

A photograph of a pregnant James Franco appears at SWAG Magazine HQ and the Fact Checkers Unit are sent to investigate.

What they discover is stranger than they could ever have anticipated as FCU find themselves with the fate of the world in their hands... maybe. At least they have
their trusty GALAXY Note Premium Suite to help them in their quest.

Fact Checkers Unit is a hit online comedy about two overzealous magazine Fact Checkers who would stop at nothing to check the most absurd of celebrity facts.

Canada: Samsung Galaxy Tab 2(10.1) available for pre-order. To launch on June 22

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesùs.

Canada: Samsung Galaxy Tab 2(10.1) available for pre-order. To launch on June 22

Customers can pre-order the tablet for only $350 CAD, though this is the Wi-Fi only model with 16GB of storage. According to Future Shop the Wi-Fi Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1) is expected to hit shelves on June 22.

Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 (10.1) is powered by Google's latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich platform integrated with TouchWiz UX user interface.

On the inside, the slate packs a dual core processor clocked at 1 GHz, a PowerVR SGX540 GPU, as well as 1GB of RAM. There's also a 3-megapixel rear photo snapper and a VGA front-facing camera for video calls.

China: Sony and HTC to use AUO amoled panels.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesùs.

China: Sony and HTC to use AUO amoled panels.

AU Optronics (AUO) reportedly will begin shipping 4.3-inch AMOLED panels to Sony and HTC in June. HTC will use the panels for the production of its HTC One S smartphone. AUO declined to comment on individual clients but stated that the company is ready for mass production of AMOLED panels.

However, Samsung Mobile Display (SMD) will continue to serve as the primary supplier of AMOLED panels for Sony and HTC, since SMD is ahead of AUO in terms of technology, yield rates and quality for the production of AMOLED panels.

The yield rates of AMOLED panels at AUO's 3.5G lines reportedly stand only at 20% on average currently. 

AUO has set aside a capex budget of NT$40 billion (US$1.35 billion) for 2012, mainly for the development of AMOLED panels and other advanced technologies.

AUO's 3.5G line's current capacity for AMOLED panels is equivalent to 7,000-8,000 glass substrates, and the company plans to ramp capacity to 15,000 substrates by the end of 2012.

Rumors: Apple`s Smart TV December, iPhone 5 October.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesùs.

Rumors: Apple`s Smart TV December, iPhone 5 October.

Analyst Gene Munster told investors this week that he expects the rumored Apple television line to retail between $1,500 and $2,000. The screen size will be somewhere from 42 to 55 inches, he said, adding that the product might be unveiled this December.

“We believe Apple's product road map for the remainder for the year will include meaningful updates to core product lines including the iPhone and Mac,” he continued.

As far as the iPhone 5 is concerned, Munster said he is betting on October as the launch date. Like many fellow analysts, Munster sees the unveiling of the iPhone 5 as the biggest consumer product launch for 2012.

China launches telecommunication satellite.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesùs.

China launches telecommunication satellite.

China successfully sent a telecommunication satellite, "ChinaSat 2A," into orbit on Saturday evening, using a Long March-3B carrier rocket launched from the southwestern Xichang Satellite Launch Center.

The rocket blasted off at 11:56 pm Beijing time.

The satellite, developed by China Academy of Space Technology, will be used to meet the demands for China's radio and TV broadcasting and broadband multimedia transmissions, according to China Satellite Communications Co Ltd.

Saturday's launch marked the 163th mission of the Long March carrier rocket series developed by China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology under China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation.

A Long March-3B carrier rocket carrying the telecommunication satellite "ChinaSat 2A" blasts off from Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Xichang city, Southwest China's Sichuan province, May 26, 2012. [Photo/Xinhua]

Puerto Rico: Motorola RAZR MAXX Arrives.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesùs.

Puerto Rico: Motorola RAZR MAXX Arrives.

Motorola RAZR MAXX has just landed in Puerto Rico. The smartphone is now available for purchase through Claro for as low as 100 USD (75 EUR) with a voice and Mobile Internet plan of $64.98 USD (50 EUR).

Motorola RAZR just got a bit thicker thanks to the high-capacity 3300 mAh Li-Ion battery, which should provide users with up to 25 days of standby time or up to 17.6 hours of talk time.

Claro and Motorola Mobility have also confirmed the RAZR MAXX will be shipped with Android 2.3 Gingerbread operating system, but it's scheduled for an Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade later this year.

Even with the bigger battery, Motorola RAZR MAXX is still thin enough at just 8.99mm. It’s made strong with KEVLAR fiber on the back and CorningGorilla Glass coating on the front.

The smartphone has a vibrant 4.3-inch qHD Super AMOLED Advanced capacitive touchscreen display with 540 x 960 pixels resolution and 16 million colors.

On the inside, the RAZR MAXX packs a 1.2 GHz dual core processor, which is complemented by 1GB of RAM. There's also 16GB of internal memory, which can be further expanded up to 32GB via microSD.

Software-wise, the RAZR MAXX comes pre-loaded with the Motorola MotoCast app, which allows users to stream or download content from a PC directly to the smartphone.

With Smart Actions, tasks based on triggers like time of day, location, battery levels and more are now automated. 

“Since we re-imagined the iconic RAZR brand, the Motorola RAZR has wowed consumers across the globe by combining the pinnacle of design with mind-blowing power. RAZR MAXX builds on those same principles, delivering an incredible battery life that is perfect for Swedish consumers who want to push their smartphone to the limits and banish the low battery beep to history,” said Camilo Sánchez, product manager, Motorola Mobility.

China: April 2012: Top 5 vendors of 3G smartphones.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesùs.

China: April 2012: Top 5 vendors of 3G smartphones.

China Economic Net cited China-based Sino Market Research:

 In the China market, Samsung Electronics recorded the largest market share of 22.75% for 3G smartphones in April 2012, followed by four China-based vendors -- Coolpad with 11.17%, Huawei with 10.92%, Lenovo with 10.21% and ZTE with 9.28%

Other international vendors' market shares were 8.52% for Apple, 4.14% for Motorola Mobility, 3.95% for Nokia and 2.82% for HTC, the report indicated.

The increased market occupation by China-based vendors was mainly due to selling of their entry- to mid-level 3G smartphone models through contract-bundled sales by China Mobile, China Telecom and China Unicom, the report said.

Robots: Open Source Robotics Foundation announced.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesùs.

Robots: Open Source Robotics Foundation announced.

Announced via the Willow Garage website, the Open Source Robotics Foundation, Inc. (OSRF) is an independent non-profit organization founded by members of the global robotics community. Its mission is to support the development, distribution, and adoption of open source software for use in robotics research, education, and product development. 

OSRF's board of directors includes Professor Wolfram Burgard of the University of Freiburg, Ryan Gariepy, CTO of Clearpath Robotics, Brian Gerkey, Director of Open Source Development at Willow Garage, Helen Greiner, a co-founder of iRobot and currently CEO of CyPhyWorks, and Sam Park, Executive Vice President of Yujin Robot. Initially sponsored projects include the Robot Operating System (ROS), and Gazebo, a 3D multi-robot simulator with dynamics. Gazebo has been chosen by DARPA as the simulation platform for its recently announced robotics challenge for (humanoid) disaster robots.

Samsung to build a $3.4 billions new chip plant.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesùs.

Samsung to build a $3.4 billions new chip plant.

Samsung Electronics plans to invest some 4 trillion won (about $3.4 billion) to build a new chip plant in Hawseong, Gyeonggi Province, in South Korea,where its key chip lines are located, Samsung officials said, Friday. 

The new line, the 17th, will start commercial operation within the first half of 2014. 

Samsung, however, is highly likely to skip the groundbreaking ceremony for the plant, the officials said. 

The latest factory-building plan is a part of this year’s 15 trillion won investment plan in chips by Samsung, the officials said.

The new line will only produce profitable non-memory and foundry chips, according to the officials.

Samsung is also planning to switch some of its existing memory chip-producing lines into non-memory chips, though the company declined to confirm. 

It has already been providing high non-memory chips to Apple and the company is receiving more calls from Qualcomm, Texas Instruments and Nvidia for customized chips on a contract basis. 

“Non-memory chips is Samsung’s next cash-cow. By producing such profitable chips for the latest line, the company will boost its capability to handle non-memory chip-related businesses,” said a Samsung executive contacted by The Korea Times. 

The head of Samsung’s system LSI business Woo Nam-seong recently said the company is fully operating its non-memory lines and didn’t rule out the possibility of building a new one. 

Chipmakers are rapidly moving up the value chain by bundling together various chips such as APs, baseband chips, mobile DRAM and NAND flash chips together in a package.

The Samsung officials said the chip-making giant will produce a maximum of 1 million 12-inch-wide wafers annually, from that line. Samsung plans to apply finer 28-nanometer and 32-nanometer processing technologies for the new line.

“From 2014, Samsung’s annual production capacity for non-memory chips will rise to five million,” said the executive. The Samsung official, however, declined to be named.

Samsung currently runs two non-memory chip lines in Giheung, Korea and Austin, Texas, the United States. “Samsung had earlier planned to produce memory chips from the new line, however, we’ve changed the plan to respond with the industry’s new trend,” said the unnamed Samsung executive.

The Samsung investment plan comes after its key rival — Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) — in foundry chips, recently said it will invest more than $11.9 billion for customized chips.

Samsung aims to become the world’s biggest manufacturer of custom chips after surpassing TSMC in the next few years. “It’s a very profitable market with a high profit margin. The demand for smartphones and tablets will steadily rise, giving a clue for Samsung to massively invest in non-memories,” said Jin Sung-hye, an analyst at Hyundai Securities.

Samsung is the planet’s fourth-biggest foundry chip company including $1 billion worth of wafers for Apple last year, said a market research firm Gartner.         

                       

Space: Dragon's Hatches Opened By International Space Station Crew. Opens new era.

WorldWide Tech & Science. Francisco De Jesùs.

Space: Dragon's Hatches Opened By International Space Station Crew. Opens new era.

The hatch between the newly arrived SpaceX Dragon spacecraft and the Harmony module of the International Space Station was opened by NASA Astronaut Don Pettit at 5:53 am EDT as the station flew 253 miles above Auckland, New Zealand. The hatch opening begins four days of operations to upload more than 1,000 pounds of cargo from the first commercial spacecraft to visit the space station and reload it with experiments and cargo for a return trip to Earth. It is scheduled for splashdown several hundred miles west of California on May 31.

Wearing protective masks and goggles, as is customary for the opening of a hatch to any newly arrived vehicle at the station, Pettit entered the Dragon with Station Commander Oleg Kononenko. The goggles and masks will be removed once the station atmosphere has had a chance to mix air with the air inside the Dragon itself.

The SpaceX rocket, short for Space Exploration Technologies, delivered the Dragon capsule containing provisions for six crewmembers on the ISS. This is the first time a private enterprise has launched a rocket to deliver cargo.  It  marked the beginning of a space enterprise.

“Flight controllers applauded when the Dragon reached orbit nine minutes into the flight,” wrote the Associated Press.