Thurrott Daily: August 18

Tech tidbits from around the web.

8/18/2016 5:38:45 PM

Bing goes to the Olympics

The Bing blog has an interesting post about what people are searching for during the Olympics.

The Most Asked Summer Games Questions to Date

1. Who has the most gold medals in the Olympics?
2. Who’s on the refugee Olympic team?
3. How many medals did the US win in the 2012 summer Olympics?
4. When did Berlin host the Olympics?
5. Where is the next Olympics?

And so on.

Big sale on PCs at the Microsoft Store

Neowin reports on a big PC sale at the Microsoft Store.

Microsoft is offering up to $650 off a selection of Windows 10 PCs in a three-day sale on its US store. Big savings are available not just on high-end machines, but even on some more affordable devices.

These discounts will only be available until August 20.

So just three days. Find out more at the Microsoft Store online.

New Nokia smartphones confirmed

They’re baaaaaaaack. No, not really. But Android Authority says that new Nokia smartphones are now confirmed.

Nokia executive Mike Wang, president of the joint management team in China, has confirmed that 3 or perhaps 4 new Nokia-branded Android devices are set to be unveil in the fourth quarter of 2016. These devices will be split between new smartphone and tablet launches.

While the company expects to make an announcement or two before the end of 2016, the actual launch could be pushed back into early 2017, depending on testing and development. HMD, the Finnish company made up of ex-Nokia and ex-Microsoft employees that snagged the licensing rights to the brand earlier this year, will be the ones designing these new Nokia handsets, which will then be manufactured by Foxconn.

So this will be fun to write about, at least. But if we’re being honest, this will go absolutely nowhere.

Lenovo profit driven by real estate sale

So they should have no problem repeating this success for the next few quarters, I guess. The Wall Street Journal explains.

Lenovo posted fiscal first-quarter earnings Thursday that beat analysts’ estimates, but only because of the sale of a property in Beijing. Its sales of PCs and mobile devices continued to decline.

Lenovo reported operating profit, a metric that investors use to gauge a company’s performance, of US$245 million for the quarter ended June 30, more than doubling from US$96 million a year earlier. Executives, speaking on a conference call, attributed 49% of the latest sum, or US$120 million, to the property sale.

“At my first glance at the numbers, I thought it was great,” said Arthur Hsieh, a tech-sector analyst at UBS. “But the more I dive into the details, the more I think it is really not that great.”

LOL. Ah well.

AT&T raises prices for some, lowers prices for others

T-Mobile isn’t the only wireless carrier in the U.S. rejiggering its plans. Now AT&T is too. Which reminds me. I need to get rid of AT&T. Anyway, The WSJ reports:

AT&T on Wednesday introduced a new slate of wireless plans that raised prices for its most frugal customers, while lowering costs for its biggest data users.

The company’s new mobile share advantage plan also will eliminate overage fees, opting instead to slow wireless speeds for customers who have topped their monthly data allowances. That move follows the model used by discounters T-Mobile and Sprint, which have dropped overage charges.

Under the changes, AT&T’s lowest-tier data plans now will cost $10 more a month but offer more data. For instance, its cheapest plan will cost customers $30 a month with one gigabyte of data, compared with $20 a month for 300 megabytes of data previously.

That contrasts with its bigger data plans for which prices have come down substantially. A 30-gigabyte plan now costs $135 a month, down from $225. And its new plan prices are now more comparable to Verizon’s revised rates.

This is why Project Fi matters.