Thursday, January 26, 2012

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Nintendo Reports US$630 Million Net Loss Between April And December 2011, Announces Wii U For 2012 Top
link__s_crying_by_kaynil3DS sales have picked up lately, but Nintendo's financial numbers are still weak. Big N today released [PDF] another set of disappointing results for the first nine months of its fiscal year (April to December 2011). The company lost a whopping US$630 million, compared with a profit of US$635 million in the same time frame last fiscal. Sales were down 31.2% year-on-year to US$7.2 billion.
 
Google, Look Out Behind You! Top
Rhino chargingGoogle has been fighting the threat of Facebook for some time. It is now fighting for its life on two fronts! Facebook and now Apple loom large as it attempts to chart the future. Google missed the streets numbers for its Q1 earnings last week and has seen its stock decline from $670.25 to yesterday's close of $569.49. Apple, by comparison, has just beaten, no annihilated, the Street's predictions and its stock has gone from a low of $363 to yesterday's close of $446.66 in the same period. Google's reliance on search revenues derived from web searches in a browser, its former strength, is now not sufficient to guarantee growth.
 
Drchrono Raises $2.8M From Yuri Milner And Others To Help Bring Medical Records To The iPad Top
drchrono-pictureDrchrono, a startup that simplifies the professional lives of doctors by bringing electronic health records and much more to the iPad, has raised $2.8 million in funding led by Yuri Milner, with Google's Matt Cutts and other investors participating. The startup had previously raised $1.3 million in seed funding from Milner, General Catalyst, Charles River Ventures, 500 Startups, Gmail creator and FriendFeed cofounder Paul Buchheit, Cutts, and the Start Fund. Y Combinator-backed drchrono streamlines the professional lives of doctors and medical professionals by bringing electronic health records and much more to the iPad. The free iPad app allows doctors to schedule patient appointments, dictate notes via audio, take pictures, write prescriptions and send them to pharmacies, enable reminders, take clinical notes, access lab results, and input electronic health records.
 
Airbnb: 5 Million Nights Booked, Opening 6 New International Offices In Q1 2012 Top
airbnb_blueAirbnb is growing like a weed. The young company is today releasing a ton of statistics about its business to showcase its growth, accompanied (of course) by a fancy infographic.
 
Intel To Spend $120M On Patents, Video Codec Software From RealNetworks Top
realIntel is to buy "a significant number" of patents (approximately 190 patents and 170 patent applications) and video codec software from RealNetworks for a purchase price of $120 million. Under the terms of the deal, RealNetworks says it retains certain rights to continue to use the patents in current and future products.
 
Nokia Sold "Well Over" 1 Million Lumia Phones To Date, Posts €1 Billion Q4 Loss Top
lumiaNokia earnings are out, and the contrast with Apple's blow-out quarter results is astonishing. The Finnish phone maker, still the largest in the world by volume, reported a Q4 net loss of 1.07 billion euro, down from a 745 million euro profit in the fourth quarter of 2010. The company's smartphone sales decline paints an even bleaker picture: Nokia sold 19.6 million units in Q4 2011, down a whopping 31 percent compared to the same quarter a year ago (even though it's up 17 percent from Q3 2011 thanks to somewhat decent Lumia sales). Nokia says it sold "well over" 1 million Lumia devices to date (not just in Q4) and that it plans to bring the Lumia series to additional markets - including China and Latin America - in the first half of 2012.
 
AT&T Set Sales Records For Both iPhone And Android Devices In Q4 2011 Top
attAT&T this morning released its earnings for the fourth quarter of 2011. Consolidated revenues clocked in at $32.5 billion, up 3.6 percent compared to the year-earlier quarter. They recorded a huge net loss for Q4 2011: $6.7 billion, or $1.12 per diluted share. Zooming in on smartphone sales, it's worth noting that AT&T delivered its best-ever quarter to date, hands down.
 
Android Reaches 39% Tablet OS Market Share (Standing On Amazon's Shoulders) Top
adroidApple's iPad reigns supreme from whatever angle you choose to look at the tablet market (profits, apps, quality, market share, mindshare, you name it), but research firm Strategy Analytics this morning said Android did manage to capture a record 39 percent tablet OS market share in the fourth quarter of 2011. Apple maintains the lead with 58 percent market share in Q4 2011 (down from 68 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010). Peter King, a research director at Strategy Analytics, says global tablet shipments (the research firm explains that these refer to refer to 'sell-in' and not over-the-counter sales) reached an all-time high of 26.8 million units in Q4 2011, surging 150 percent from 10.7 million in Q4 2010.
 
955 Dreams Raises $3.25 Million Seed Round, Launches "Band Of The Day" On iPad Top
calendar955 Dreams, the startup behind Apple's iPhone App of the Year Runner Up "Band of the Day," is today releasing the new tablet-optimized version of the app for the iPad. In addition, the company announced it has closed on a $3.25 million round of seed funding. Investors participating in the round included 500 Startups, m8 Capital, Kapor Capital, Felicis Ventures and CrunchFund (Disclosure: TechCrunch Founder Michael Arrington is an investor in CrunchFund). As a part of the funding, Dave McClure of 500 Startups will join the company's board, filling the first seat held by an outside investor.
 
Exclusive: Paulo Coelho At Davos — On SOPA, Piracy And Life As An Artist Top
PAULO_COELHOPaulo Coelho, the world famous author of The Pilgrimage, The Alchemist and many other works which have in many ways become an inspiration for entrepreneurs, gave an exclusive and rare interview to TechCrunch at the World Economic Forum in Davos last night, the recording of which is published below. Coelho and I had previously been moderators at a dinner curated by Loic Le Meur on the future of social status and the interview took place in a taxi to another venue. (My write-up from the dinner will come later, suffice it to say that it was most entertaining and enlightening). Coelho last gave an interview to Mike Arrington in 2008 where he said "MySpace Is my wife... Facebook Is my mistress". Coelho has oft-repeated his view that artists and artistic works do no suffer when they are copied, quite the opposite. Their distribution becomes greater and the artist comes off better as a result. Coelho has even taken to pirating his own books on The Pirate Bay. What is interesting about our interview is his continuing vehement repudiation of the traditional book publishing industry's response to the new platform of the Internet.
 
Curated Design Shopping Club MONOQI Launches, Raises Funding (Invites) Top
monoExclusive - Yes, even more Berlin startups with news to share. MONOQI is today launching an exclusive online shopping platform where select designers can present their wares and buyers can purchase them at reasonable prices. More at TechCrunch Europe.
 
Daily Crunch: Cassette Top
1531Here are some recent posts on TechCrunch Gadgets: Kickstarter: Cassette, A Documentary About, You Guessed It, Cassettes A Foothold For HealthTech: Ultra-Cheap Pacemakers Show Your Love With These New iPad/Kindle Fire Cases From DODOcase Video: Dunder Mifflin's Office Remade As A Counter Strike Source Map
 
Kaiser Permanente Takes Millions Of Medical Records Mobile With New Android App Top
kaiser-EMR1Founded in 1945, California-based Kaiser Permanente is one of the largest not-for-profit managed care consortiums and health plan providers in the country, with 9 million members, nearly 170K employees, 15K physicians, 35 medical centers, and 430+ medical offices under its fold. Yesterday, the health care organization announced the release of a free Android app and mobile-optimized website through which its millions of members can access their own medical information on the go.
 
Can Kids Love Chores? 500 Startups Alum HighScore House Says Yes Top
highscorehouseIf you're a parent, it can be a challenge to convince kids to do their chores. (Or so I'm told.) It's even harder to make them genuinely excited. But a startup called HighScore House says it has found a way. The company is part of the latest class of companies incubated by 500 Startups, and it made its pitch to investors this afternoon as part of 500 Startups Demo Day. Co-founder Kyle Seaman says the company has been operating on an invite-only basis, but it's starting to open up to a wider audiences, and it's already getting excited messages from parents whose children are actually asking to do more chores.
 
The Day Apple Left The Tech World's Collective Mouth Agape Top
Screen Shot 2012-01-25 at 7.07.09 PM$46.33 billion in revenue. It's a number the biggest and best tech companies in the world can only dream to hit in a year. Apple hit it in one quarter. $13.06 billion in profit. It's a number no tech company would ever aspire to in one quarter because it's ridiculous. The only companies that have ever thought about such numbers are oil companies. And even then, only 3 of them have actually hit it. Ever. Until yesterday. I've already tried to give some context to the stunning Q1 2012 results that Apple posted. But the truth is that they're still unbelievable. Perhaps the next step should be to figure out how they could post such numbers.
 
Virtual Currency Rewards: Plink Pays You Facebook Credits To Eat Out Top
PlinkBuy a hamburger and get rewarded with Facebook Credits to spend on a virtual cow. That's the mouth-watering promise of startup Plink, which is launching a virtual currency loyalty rewards system for restaurants. You register a credit card with Plink, and then when you make purchases at Taco Bell, 7-Eleven, Dunkin Donuts, or one of Plink's other clients you'll get Facebook Credits automatically deposited into your account. As demand for Facebook Credits to spend on social games and media increases, expect more virtual currency incentive companies like Plink to pop up.
 
Facebook Stumbles — Is Anonymous Responsible? (Oops: No.) Top
anonymousIs Facebook the next target for activist hacker group Anonymous? Depends on who you ask. The group went on the warpath last week following the takedown of file-sharing site Megaupload, with attacks that targeted the Department of Justice website, the MPAA, the RIAA, and others. Then, a few days ago, the group seemed to post a video on YouTube, claiming that Facebook would be next, with an attack on Jan. 28.
 
Reed Hastings: "We Expect DVD Subscribers To Decline Every Quarter … Forever" Top
Reed-Hastings-2After some fairly sizable blunders last summer, Netflix suffered for the remainder of 2011, losing money and subscribers. Perhaps surprising many, Netflix bounced back today in its fourth quarter earnings -- in spite of the fact that it will continue experiencing losses throughout 2012 thanks to the costs of rolling out its service internationally.
 
A Foothold For HealthTech: Ultra-Cheap Pacemakers Top
Medtronic-InSync3I read with great interest Vinod Khosla's column two weeks ago that discussed the role of tech in healthcare. But as much as tech has to offer the healthcare institution, its effects are perhaps more reliably trackable in the actual medical devices field. A functioning "Dr. Algorithm" would be great - but a "tricorder" device, like that being chased by this X-Prize? That would be something else. Until these pie-in-the-sky projects come to fruition, though, more modest advances, but which nonetheless save lives, will be made. Medtronic, a major med-tech company, is hoping that the next big thing will actually be small and cheap: a pacemaker for developing countries.
 
Zynga's Stock Rating Gets A Boost, And So Does Its Traffic Top
Screen Shot 2012-01-25 at 4.27.49 PMWall Street has had trouble knowing what to make of Zynga, considering it's the first Facebook-oriented virtual goods business to be publicly traded. The stock has been seesawing below its $10 initial share price since the company went public in the middle of December. Main concerns have been its heavy reliance on Facebook for traffic, and on a small number of paying users for most of its revenue, as well as its relatively flat traffic. But now, it's getting some more positive signs. First, five banks who underwrote its IPO provided their initial coverage today. They haven't been able to say anything up until this point due to the company's now-lifted quiet period. But two less conflicted analysts are also positive. And, traffic is going up.
 

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