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Home Retail Group Result 06/05/2015

Home Retail Group, owner of UK retailer Argos, reported a 1% increase in like for like sales last year to £5.7 billion ($8.7 billion), while Argos’ sales were 0.6% higher, accounting for £4.1 billion ($6.2 billion) of the total. The group’s net profit for the year reached £71.6 million ($109.1 million), compared with £54 million … Read more

Replaceable Battery Extends Panasonic Life

Panasonic’s Toughbook CF-MX4 is a convertible PC, with a robust design for business users. The Toughbook has been tested in 0.75m drop tests and 100kg force vibration tests. It will last for 13 hours on its battery, which is removable and hot-swappable. There’s a magnesium alloy chassis and the notebook is 21mm thick and the … Read more

Navy Ditches Crucible in Bulletproof ‘Glass’ Production

The press used in place of a crucible to produce Spinel.US Navy researchers have developed a bulletproof glass – or, more accurately, a ‘transparent material’ – called Spinel. It is actually a synthetic powdered mineral: magnesium aluminate. Spinel can be moulded into ‘virtually any’ shape and does not block unfrared light, unlike traditional bulletproof glass. … Read more

Tattoos? Apple Doesn’t Want to Know

As well as the tight supply chain issues, the rumours of failing components and the online-only orders, the Apple Watch has hit another snag: it won’t work if you have a tattoo. At least, if it’s on your wrist. Reddit user Guinnefan55 reported “The [W]atch would lock up every time the screen went dark and … Read more

Gartner: PC Prices Rise and Spending to Fall

PC prices will have to climb this year, to offset the effects of currency devaluation, says Gartner. In particular end-user prices in the Eurozone and Japan, where local currencies have fallen up to 20%, are expected to increase as much as 10% in 2015. End-user spending in constant dollars (the dollar equivalent of local currencies, … Read more

Radiant-Opto, Coretronic See Sales Drop YoY

Taiwan’s major backlight unit (BLU) manufacturers reported year on year declines in sales in April, with Radiant falling 9.6% to NT$3.2 billion ($104.3 million) and Coretronic dropping 19.6% to NT$5.5 billion ($179.6 million). For the first quarter of the year, Radiant recorded turnover of NT$9.4 billion ($307 million), while Coretronic posted turnover of NT$15 billion … Read more

HDMI Upgrades Will Depend on Manufacturer

In an interview with HD Guru, Jeff Park – senior technical specifications manager for HDMI LLC – said that updating to v2.0a of the standard (HDR Formats Come to HDMI) would depend on the manufacturer. How a given HDMI device is upgraded to v2.0a is “solely dependent on the manufacturer and their system design. The … Read more