Olympus has announced a new camera product known as the PEN E-P5. The E-P5 is a Micro Four Third mirror-less camera has a 16-megapixel TruePic VI Live MOS sensor, 5-axis image stabilization, a fast AF system, and shutter speeds of up to 1/8000.
Hitachi, Ltd. (TYO:6501) is forecasting an 18.5% jump in operating profit for the fiscal year, which is in line with expectations. Hitachi is benefiting from a weaker yen and is projecting that there will be an economic recovery at home and abroad. Hitachi has a $31 billion market cap and over 300,000 employees worldwide.
Bebo used to be one of the largest social networks back in 2008. AOL acquired Bebo in March 2008 for $850 million in cash. AOL sold Bebo to Criterion Capital and several other investors in June 2010. Some of the minority shareholders in Bebo include co-founder Michael Birch, SV Angel, and Hecker Consultancy. Bebo has filed a voluntary petition for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in the Central District of California, according to the Chapter 11 Cases blog.
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Panasonic Corporation (TYO:6752) is forecasting that their operating profit will rise 55% in the year to March 31st. The company is stepping back from their TV operations and consumer gadgets. The company will be focused primarily on machinery, components, and electronic equipment, according to Reuters.
A couple of days ago, Nokia confirmed a new device called the Lumia 928 was coming soon. The details have been officially announced today. The Lumia 928 is coming to Verizon Wireless on May 16th. The Lumia 928 will come packed with a 1.5GHz dual core processor, 4.5-inch display (1280 x 768 resolution), and 8.7-megapixel camera with a Xenon flash.
Chinese e-commerce company, Alibaba Group, is going to buy a 28% stake in a digital mapping company called AutoNavi Holdings Ltd (NASDAQ:AMAP) for $294 million, according to Chinese news portal Sina. Alibaba will become the largest shareholder in AutoNavi. Alibaba also recently bought an 18% stake in Sina Corp’s microblogging service Weibo, which has similar functionalities as Twitter.
According to Microsoft Windows CFO Tami Reller, the company will support the most popular apps in the Apple App Store within their own app store. However, Microsoft believes that the actual Apple iTunes software is not coming anytime soon. There are now over 60,000 apps in the Windows Store with about 250 million downloads.
Google is updating the Google Wallet service at the I/O developer conference next year. However, Google will not be launching a physical card as rumored. Details about a physical Google Wallet card was leaked in a recent memo that included Osama Bedier’s departure from the company. The Google Wallet card supposedly has a black face with a rainbow-colored “W” of the Google Wallet logo. The card also has a standard magnetic stripe and the usual amount of numbers on a credit card embossed on it, according to AllThingsD.
