Nintendo sees profit next year, but shares tumble
Nintendo President Satoru Iwata dismissed the idea that the age of the dedicated handheld games device was over and said he aimed to return the company to substantial profit in 2012/13, after it warned of its first ever operating loss this year. Shares in Kyoto-based Nintendo Co Ltd tumbled nearly 8 percent to an 8-year low after it slashed its full-year guidance for the third time in 6 months, and analysts said the potential market for its products was shrinking rapidly.
Reuters

Twitter can censor by country
Twitter Inc. says it can now make content selectively available to users based on geography, and plans to use that ability to enter countries with "different ideas" about freedom of expression as a human right—reflecting the difficult ethical questions facing Internet companies. The announcement, published on the official blog of the microblog operator, said Twitter is now able to withhold content from users in a specific country while keeping it available to the rest of the world.
The Wall Street Journal

Android takes chunk of tablet market, but Apple's iPad still dominates
Android tablets took 39% of the world tablet market in the fourth quarter of 2011, according to new research from Strategy Analytics – though as many as half of those were not running Google-approved versions of the operating system, it said. Apple dominated the rest of the market on its own, taking 58% of the market during the period as it sold 15m iPads, more than double the number of the same period in 2011.
The Guardian

HTC to scale back output to focus on few core handsets
Having spent recent years bombarding the smartphone market with a flurry of new handsets Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer HTC has revealed that during 2012 it will put more emphasis on the quality and not quantity of handsets released. Having seen the company’s flagship device of the past year, the HTC Sensation, largely drowned out by the Apple iPhone 4S and bitter Android rival the Samsung Galaxy S II, HTC's UK head, Phil Robertson, has suggested that the Desire and Wildfire manufacturer needs to "get back to what made us great."
T3

Nokia loses €1bn in Q4 2011
Nokia has suffered a large loss in its latest financial results, with the company’s operating profit dropping by €950 million in the fourth quarter of 2011. That’s a complete reversal of the situation in 2010, when the firm posted a profit of almost €900 million. Revenue dropped 21% year-on-year, from €12.6 billion to €10 billion. However, Nokia was keen to point to net cash and other liquid assets of €5.6 billion, and also a “solid” fourth quarter performance in mobile phones, driven by the launch of its new Windows Phone handsets led by the Lumia 800.
TechWatch

Government warns Liverpool and Newcastle over fibre
Three areas in England may lose their chance to get public funding for super-fast broadband, the government has warned. In a statement on Thursday, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) said it had "little confidence" that three groups of local authorities would meet the end-of-February deadline for submitting their draft local broadband plans. Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt warned in December that those missing the deadline would lose their guarantee for getting fibre funding.
ZDNet

Angry Birds flies to Facebook on Valentine’s Day
Yes, we do know that Angry Birds developer Rovio have been rumoured to talk with NVIDIA, and what else but a graphical improvement is in store for the hugely popular game? Well, this Valentine’s Day will be extra special for those who love all things Angry Birds, as it has been announced that the Angry Birds franchise will finally arrive on Facebook, instantly giving more than 800 million people who do not own compatible smartphones access to the game.
Ubergizmo

The PC market starts to grow again
While the tech media appears to be banging on about how tablets and smartphones are killing the PC, it seems that the actual figures do not bear this out. NPD Group has released some figures which indicate that the grey box is still doing pretty well and if tablets and smartphones did not exist then PC makers would be none the wiser. Last year, the number of PCs sold, which includes both laptops and desktops, increased by 20 percent, while revenues jumped 14 percent. Shipments for the period also increased by 20 percent.
Techeye

Security fears lead O2 to exceed tweet limit
O2 exceeded the daily amount of tweets allowed by Twitter earlier this week trying to quell unrest over security flaws on its network. The revelation was made yesterday at Marketing Week’s 1-2-1 Digital Strategy Summit in London by James Paterson, PR and social media campaigns manager at O2. During the event he said O2 amassed the same amount of Twitter mentions in a day as it usually does in an entire week as thousands of customers stormed the official account with queries.


newmediaage

Microsoft Windows Intune gains in popularity
Microsoft Windows Intune, which helps manage and secure the desktops of their highly mobile workforces through the cloud without any on-premises investment, has been adopted by Global nonprofit 'Save the Children', professional services company 'goetzpartners' and e-discovery firm 'eLitigation Solutions' to help them solve some of their daunting IT challenges. IT staffers at Save the Children, goetzpartners and e-Litigation Solutions rely on Windows Intune to help ensure the security and reliability of all desktops within their respective organisations.
CBR