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Tech News Today for July 28, 2016

Tech News for July 28, 2016

Samsung has had a tough couple of years, but that seems to be changing with the company's second quarter earnings. The company increased revenue by five percent year over year, with operating profit up 18 percent for that time. And during a time when mobile division profits for many major OEMs are slowing or stalling entirely, more than half of Samsung’s revenue and profit were generated from its own mobile efforts thanks to its flagship lineup of Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge devices. It has also shown strong sales of its chips and displays to supplement the slowing smartphone market. Read more at theverge.com.

IDC released a report that shows smartphone shipments have continued to stay rather dormant when it comes to shipments, indicating that we have reached peak smartphone sales. Samsung is dominating the pack currently. IDC shows Samsung has shipped more smartphones than any other OEM it tracks, outshipping the second and third place OEMs Apple and Huawei combined! Again, much of this success can be attributed to the success of the S7 lineup. Read more at venturebeat.com.

Alphabet's stock is up after beating expectations in their quarterly earnings today. Revenue was up 21 percent from the same quarter last year, with a continued swelling of users and ad dollars, especially on mobile. Google says that half of its searches come from mobile. Still, Google's "other revenues" didn't disappoint either, with a bump of 33 percent for Google Play and hardware. Read more at businessinsider.com.

Amazon's third straight quarter recorded record profits. Earnings per share at $1.78 when only $1.11 was expected, that’s $30.4 billion dollars on expectations of $29.55 billion. Net income for the period sits at $857 million, that’s up from only $92 million this time last year. Amazon attributes some of it’s success to early successed in its Indian business. Read more at wsj.com.

Today Bloomberg reports that Apple is moving away from an autonomous car and toward software for autonomous cars. This might be a good move to leave the creation of the rest of the car to the experts and Bloomberg's sources point to a possible future deal between an existing car maker and Apple. Earlier this week we told you Bob Mansfield would be heading up the project and today we learned Apple has hired a former Blackberry exec to work on Mansfield's team. Read more at bloomberg.com.

Speaking of Apple, we’ve heard time and time again about Apple’s plans to get into the TV game with some sort of streaming service. At one point, the service was looking at a Fall 2015 launch with around 25 channels including ABC, CBS, and Fox, for its devices including Apple TV. That is, of course, if Apple could strike the deals needed to make it happen. The Wall Street Journal today reveals that sources close to those discussions say the deals never happened, primarily because Apple did what Apple does best: Drew a hard line in the sand and didn’t back down. Eddy Cue supposedly made strong demands that would run counter to how Cable and Hollywood have traditionally done business, and out of that, media companies critical to the product refused to play ball. Read more at wsj.com.

Just a note that the free Windows 10 upgrade ends tomorrow. So get it! Or not. Or wait to a few days until you have to pay for it, if you like paying for stuff. Read more at theverge.com.

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