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Hewlett-Packard on Wednesday reported its fiscal first-quarter earnings, which fell short of Wall Street’s expectations. Analysts expected the computer giant to pull in $30.75 billion and $0.87 per share, and while HP’s first-quarter earnings of $0.92 per share beat the Street’s consensus, revenue dipped 7% to $30 billion and missed estimates. “In the first quarter, we delivered on our Q1 outlook and remained focused on the fundamentals to drive long-term sustainable returns,” said HP president and CEO Meg Whitman. “We are taking the necessary steps to improve execution, increase effectiveness and capitalize on emerging opportunities to reassert HP’s technology leadership.” HP anticipates its second-quarter EPS to fall between $0.88 and $0.91, below Wall Street’s consensus of $0.95 per share. Read on for HP’s press release.

Foxconn workers claim the manufacturer transferred underage employees to other departments or did not schedule them to work overtime in an effort to avoid discovery during the Fair Labor Association’s investigation of its facilities, reports AppleInsider. Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior (SACOM) project officer Debby Sze Wan Chan was told by two Foxconn employees that the manufacturer “prepared for the inspection” by hiding the child laborers. “All underage workers, between 16-17 years old, were not assigned any overtime work and some of them were even sent to other departments,” Chan reportedly said. Another Foxconn worker said she had recently been allowed three breaks a day during the audit, an increase from one. Apple CEO Tim Cook has said that the company “cares about every worker in our supply chain,” however many workers don’t feel the care that the CEO talks about. “Most of the time, the workers are aware of the presence of Apple’s representatives inside the factories,” said Chan. “It is not the problem that Apple doesn’t know the real problems at their suppliers. They know, but it is only because they do not care.”

Major Chinese carrier China Telecom announced this week that it will begin selling Apple’s iPhone 4S on March 9th. The popular smartphone will start at free on contract for China Telecom subscribers, and it will be available for purchase online and through authorized retailers. ”iPhone 4S has been an incredible hit with customers around the world,” an Apple spokesperson told The Loop. “We’re thrilled to be launching iPhone 4S with China Telecom and can’t wait to get it into the hands of even more customers in China.” Apple’s entrance into the Chinese market began with the iPhone’s launch on China Unicom, but this new China Telecom deal is seen as potentially having a huge impact on Apple’s position in the region. China Telecom currently has more than 130 million subscribers on its network, making it even bigger than Verizon Wireless, the largest wireless carrier in the United States.

Apple on Monday updated the company’s environmental website with data from the past year, revealing new details surrounding its iCloud and Siri data center located in Maiden, North Carolina. Apple’s facility was awarded LEED Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, making it the only data center of its size to have received the certification. “We know of no other data center of comparable size that has achieved this level of LEED certification,” Apple stated. “Our goal is to run the Maiden facility with high percentage renewable energy mix.” Apple plans to power the facility with the largest non-utility fuel cell installation and largest user-owned solar farm in the United States. Due to the increasing popularity of its products, the Cupertino-based company has seen its greenhouse gas emissions increase by 56% from 14.8 million metric tons in 2010 to 23.1 million metric tons in 2011. Apple points out that greenhouse gas emissions per dollar of revenue have decreased by 15.4% since 2008, however.

ABC recently became the latest news organization to be given a look inside consumer electronics manufacturing giant Foxconn’s facilities in Shenzhen and Chengdu, China, and the Nightline special that resulted from the trip will air on Tuesday. In the meantime, ABC News has posted a 90-second teaser video containing footage from reporter Bill Weir’s trip to China. Apple, of course, is the only Foxconn partner mentioned in the preview so we can expect the forthcoming report to focus on the Cupertino-based company’s wares, but the teaser promises a never-before-seen look at Foxconn’s facilities so it could be an eye-opening segment. Foxconn and its premier partner Apple have once again taken center stage in a human rights debate that recently saw protesters deliver a petition to Apple’s Grand Central Terminal store demanding the technology giant play a more active role in improving working conditions in the Chinese factories that assemble its hardware. ABC’s teaser video follows after the break.

Samsung on Monday announced that it will spin off its LCD display panel manufacturing business. Tentatively named Samsung Display Co., Ltd., the new company will be a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung Electronics and it will launch with approximately $6.6 billion in initial capital when it officially breaks off from Samsung-proper on April 1st, 2012. ”This split LCD business is the speed of your business can be secured to the diverse needs of Customers.Therefore were able to respond quickly,” said Donggun Park, EVP of Samsung’s LCD business, in a statement. “Business competitiveness to our customers advanced products and a step I will try to provide technology and services.”

Apple posted the most profitable quarter ever among technology companies to close out 2011 and according to a number of industry analysts, the Cupertino-based company is on track for another huge quarter to kick off the new year. Oppenheimer analyst Ittai Kidron on Friday raised his price target on shares of Apple stock to $570 from his earlier target of $510, maintaining his Outperform rating. Though Apple managed to ship a record number of iPhones and iPad tablets in its first fiscal quarter — more than 37 million iPhones and 15.4 million iPads —the analyst believes the market is anything but saturated. During Apple’s second fiscal quarter, Kidron sees the company selling 31 million iPhones and 11 million iPads into channels, which would ensure yet another huge quarter for the world’s most valuable company. “The iPhone 4S is consistently the most sought after phone at all three carriers in the U.S. based on our store checks,” Kidron wrote in a note to investors, according to Barron’s. ”International demand also looks good with ample room to expand, particularly in China.” Apple recently lost smartphone share in China for the second straight quarter according to Gartner.

The Fair Labor Association has uncovered a number of issues that need to be addressed at a Foxconn’s Shenzhen factory, reports Bloomberg. “We’re finding tons of issues,” FLA chief executive officer Auret van Heerden said after a multi-day inspection of the plant. “I believe we’re going to see some very significant announcements in the near future.” On Wednesday, however, the FLA’s preliminary assessment stated that the company’s plants had conditions that were better than most. “The facilities are first-class; the physical conditions are way, way above average of the norm,” van Heerden previously said. “I was very surprised when I walked onto the floor at Foxconn, how tranquil it is compared with a garment factory. So the problems are not the intensity and burnout and pressure-cooker environment you have in a garment factory. It’s more a function of monotony, of boredom, of alienation perhaps.” The FLA plans to release more information regarding its inspection in the coming weeks.

Sony on Thursday announced the transaction to acquire Ericsson’s 50% stake in Sony Ericsson has been completed. Sony and Ericsson announced the deal last October, which was worth €1.05 billion in cash and made Sony Ericsson a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sony. The company will be renamed to Sony Mobile Communications and will “further integrate the mobile phone business as a vital element of its electronics business, with the aim of accelerating convergence between Sony’s lineup of network enabled consumer electronics products, including smart phones, tablets, TVs and PCs.” Read on for Sony’s press release.

Amazon’s Kindle Fire exploded onto the scene last November, quickly becoming one of the hottest gadget gifts for the holidays and maintaining its position atop Amazon’s best-sellers list for several months. According to a new report issued by market research firm IHS iSuppli, the Kindle Fire managed to secure 14% of the tablet market last quarter despite only being available for just over six weeks. ISuppli estimates that the retail giant shipped approximately 3.9 million Kindle Fire tablets in the fourth quarter of 2011, making it the No.2 tablet vendor in the world behind Apple, which saw its market share slide to 57% from 64% in the third quarter. Samsung shipped 2.1 million Galaxy tablets for 8% of the global market, Barnes & Noble shipped 1.9 million Nook tablets and Asus rounded out the top-5 with 612,000 tablets shipped. IHS iSuppli’s full press release follows below.

It looks like one of our favorite tablets finally managed to put a dent in Apple’s market share. Apple posted the second most profitable quarter in U.S. history late last year, and it managed to move a record-setting 15.4 million iPads between October and December. While the rest of the world was buying up iPads at an incredible rate, however, a number of consumers in Canada were turning their attention to the home-grown BlackBerry PlayBook tablet instead, Globe and Mail reports. Market research firm Solutions Research Group conducted a survey of 1,000 Canadian consumers and determined that the PlayBook’s market share grew to 15% in the fourth quarter last year, up from just 5%. During the same period, Apple’s share of the Canadian tablet market fell from 86% to 68%. The deep discounts on RIM’s PlayBook tablet ahead of the holidays are credited for the market share boost, but the findings further illustrate market demand for a quality tablet that is affordable. RIM will have competition if it hopes to aim for lower price points in the future, however — Amazon’s Kindle Fire is a big hit at $199 and Apple is expected to shave at least $100 from the price of its iPad 2 when the next-generation iPad 3 launches next month.

LTE startup LightSquared is about to be dealt the final blow in a longstanding battle that has seen its dream of becoming “America’s dumbest pipe“ shattered. Controlled by hedge fund manager Philip Falcone, LightSquared had plans to deploy a nationwide 4G LTE network in the United States that would be licensed to wholesalers and utilized by carrier partners such as Sprint. LightSquared’s network was found to cause interference with spectrum used by various GPS navigation and tracking solutions, and though frequency bleeding caused by GPS network inefficiencies are to blame according to LightSquared, the Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday said it would not allow LightSquared’s network to launch. “NTIA, the federal agency that coordinates spectrum uses for the military and other federal government entities, has now concluded that there is no practical way to mitigate potential interference at this time,” FCC spokesman Tammy Sun wrote in a letter on Wednesday. “Consequently, the Commission will not lift the prohibition on LightSquared.” The FCC did acknowledge that the GPS industry must address the interference its networks are causing in order to free up neighboring spectrum for use by consumer broadband networks.

Government deployment of BlackBerry smartphones in the United States has been big business for struggling Canadian handset maker Research In Motion, but the tide seems to be turning toward Android and iOS. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said earlier this month that it would be ditching BlackBerry smartphones in favor of Apple’s iPhone, and now the General Services Administration has added the iPhone and Android devices to its list of approved devices. The GSA, an independent 12,635-person agency that procures supplies and products for other federal agencies, spends upwards of $70 billion each year with contracted vendors. In addition to BlackBerry phones, Android devices and iPhones have now been approved for purchase by GSA staff in order to support “applications that can help them work more efficiently with customers like the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security,” a spokesperson told Bloomberg Businessweek. It is not clear when the policy change went into effect.