Sony on Thursday reported a net loss of $3.2 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011 to close its fourth straight year in the red. The electronics and entertainment giant struggled throughout the year, reporting an annual loss of $5.7 billion, the worst in the company’s 66-year history. Sony’s factories and supply chains were plagued by last year’s earthquake and tsunami in Japan as well as massive flooding in Thailand. The company’s annual sales plunged nearly 10% to $81 billion, with s...

Following a rough holiday quarter for the nation’s No.4 carrier, T-Mobile on Thursday reported results for the first quarter of 2012. Adjusted OIBDA was up 7.2% from the first quarter last year to $1.27 billion and average revenue per user grew to $58 from $56 in the year-ago quarter. The carrier still saw significant contract subscriber losses, however, with 510,000 T-Mobile-brand contract customers having left the carrier last quarter. Net subscriber additions swung from a loss of 526,000 customers in...

More than 100 international technology companies have interest in becoming residents of a floating city located in international waters outside of Silicon Valley. The project, called Blueseed, was co-founded by Max Marty and Dario Mutabdzija and lead by venture capitalist and PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. The company is looking to either convert a cruise ship or remodel a barge in into a pirate island that would provide living accommodations, working space and entertainment facilities for approximately 1,00...

Microsoft has hired 14 Yahoo researchers for its brand new New York research lab, AllThingsD reported. The hires come after Yahoo made significant layoffs last month to its research and development unit. According to Jennifer Chayes, who manages Microsoft Research in New England and New York, the researchers were’t hired as a package deal. “I don’t feel like we hired a group; I feel like we hired 15 amazing individuals, some of which became available because there were some problems at Yahoo,...

Facebook on Monday filed an updated version of its S-1 that included the company’s first-quarter results. The social networking giant saw $1.06 billion in revenue, up from $731 million in the same quarter last year but down from $1.131 billion in the fourth quarter of 2011. Facebook saw net income of $205 million, down from $233 million in the same quarter last year and down $302 million sequentially. The website now has 532 million daily active users, up from 372 million last year and 483 million in De...

As previously reported, Nokia on Monday held a groundbreaking ceremony that kicked-off development of the company’s first manufacturing facility in Vietnam. The new plant is located in Vietnam-Singapore Industrial Park in Bac Ninh province and is beng developed on 42 acres of land. Nokia plans to open the factory in early 2013 and create as many as 10,000 new jobs while producing 45 million handsets by the end of 2014. “Thanks to the valued support from the Vietnamese government, our manufacturing...

Before Megaupload was shut down by the United States government, the company was preparing to go public and enter the U.S. stock market with a multi-billion dollar initial public offering, TorrentFreak reported on Tuesday. Megaupload was reportedly having discussions with top auditors and several of the world’s largest investments banks, however these plans ended abruptly in January. The company’s founder Kim Dotcom, along with six others, were arrested and charged with racketeering, copyright infring...

Over the last few months, Nokia has closed scaled back several of its Western factories and shed over 3,000 employees in a recent effort to cut costs. The Finnish handset maker will shift its manufacturing business to Asia and is planning to build a plant in Vietnam, a move that is expected to cost some $300 million according to Vietnamese news organization BaoMoi. “Shifting device assembly to Asia is targeted at improving our time to market. By working more closely with our suppliers, we believe tha...

Netflix in 2006 held an open competition to find the collaborative filtering algorithm that would best predict whether or not a user would like a particular film or TV show based on previous ratings. The grand prize of $1 million was awarded to a team called “BellKor’s Pragmatic Chaos” in 2009. The team’s algorithm was found to be 10% more effect than Netflix’s own recommendation service, however the company never implemented the team’s solution into its own service. “...

A number of Google shareholders are asking for the Internet giant to follow in Apple’s footsteps and return part of its $44.6 billion in cash to investors, Bloomberg reported on Thursday. Google has more cash as a percentage of market value than five of its largest competitors, including Apple. The iPhone maker recently reinstated a dividend and unveiled plans for a $10 billion stock buyout last month. Google is currently the only U.S. technology company with a market value of more than $125 billion tha...

AT&T was unable to reach a settlement with the Communications Workers of America by the April 7th deadline to extend Four Core Wireline contracts. More than 40,000 employees will continue to work under the terms of the expired contract, however, as negotiations between the two parties continue. “The ongoing negotiation reflects the spirit of the longstanding relationship between the company and the union,” AT&T said. The carrier is looking to reduce worker benefits to cut costs in its wire...

Sony will reportedly cut 10,000 jobs, or roughly 6% of its global workforce, in an effort to bring the electronics giant back to profit, Nikkei reported on Monday. The majority of the layoffs will apparently come from consolidating the company’s chemicals and small and mid-size LCD operations, and are expected to be made over the next two years.  The report claims Sony’s new CEO Kazuo Hirai will announce his restructuring plan on April 12th, and the company may also ask seven executive direct...

AOL and Microsoft on Monday announced an agreement in which the software giant will purchase 800 patents from AOL in a $1.056 billion cash deal. Microsoft will also license more than 300 additional patents from AOL as part of the agreement. “The agreement with Microsoft represents the culmination of a robust auction process for our patent portfolio,” said Tim Armstrong, AOL’s chairman and CEO. “We continue to hold a valuable patent portfolio as highlighted by the license we entered into wi...

Research in Motion has lost a number of senior-level executives in recent days amid a broad review of the company’s strategic options, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. Alistair Mitchell, RIM’s vice president of the BlackBerry Messenger instant-messaging platform, is among several executives who have left the company according to the report. A company spokeswoman confirmed to the Journal that Mitchell is “no longer with RIM.” The spokeswoman also confirmed that Alan Brenner, a...