Nokia has some good news
On Thursday, Nokia delivered unexpected good news: a profit. Sales of its new smartphone line, the Lumia, powered by Microsoft’s Windows Phone operating system, soared more than 50 percent in the fourth quarter of last year, according to preliminary financial information. In what was seen as a make-or-break quarter, Mr. Elop said Nokia would break even or turn a 2 percent profit rather than report a loss as large as 10 percent, as analysts expected. Nokia will report its earnings on Jan. 24. [Source] Nokia Shares Soars as Mobile-Phone Profit Beats Estimates [Source] Nokia launched Lumia 920, 820 and 620 in India yesterday. [Source]
Ex-CIA analyst finds mysterious Chinese complex on Google Earth
Late last month, former CIA analyst Allen Thomson was clicking through a space news website when he noticed a story about a new orbital tracking site being built near the small city of Kashgar in southwestern China. Curious, he went to Google Earth to find it. He poked around for a while, with no luck. Then he came across something kind of weird. [Read more]
Apple exec dismisses cheaper iPhone as a market share grab – report
Apple Inc will not resort to a cheaper iPhone to expand its market share, marketing chief Phil Schiller told a Chinese newspaper in an interview when asked about speculation the company is developing a less expensive version of its popular smartphone. Schiller pointed out that though Apple commanded just 20 percent of the smartphone market, it had 75 percent of the profit, according to an interview he gave the Shanghai Evening News. [Source]
China Will Soon Become Apple’s Most Important Market says Tim Cook
Tim Cook would like to get Apple on a faster boat to China. On his current visit to the country, it looks like the Apple CEO has focused on smoothing the rollout and distribution of Apple products there. In an interview with Chinese news site Sina (link via Google Translate), Cook said that he believes China will become Apple’s most biggest market soon. [Source]
Former Google Wallet team to launch Index, their new startups
Almost a year ago, an exodus on the Google Wallet team sent former members running away to companies like Square and other stealth projects. We wrote about one such stealth startup called Tappmo, co-created by the founding engineer and product lead on Google Wallet. The company is inching closer to launch, and they’ve renamed themselves Index. [Source]
