Intel's Profit Disappoints As PC Sales Slip

Intel Corp has reported a fall in sales and profit as consumers turn away from PCs - most of which use the company's chips - to smartphones and tablets.

The world's largest chip maker said revenue in the fourth quarter was $13.5bn (£8.4bn), compared with $13.9bn (£8.7bn) a year earlier, and net income was down over 26% to $2.47bn (£1.5bn).

It also announced plans to boost its spending to $13bn (£8.14bn) this year - more than expected.

Some $2bn (£1.25bn) of this investment will go towards research into future manufacturing technology, it added.

Intel’s shares fell over 5% in after-hour trading on Thursday after the release of the results.

The company’s chief executive, Paul Otellini, insisted it had performed well given the broader economic conditions.

"The fourth quarter played out largely as expected as we continued to execute through a challenging environment," he said.

He assured analysts that in the long-run, the company's investment plans would lower costs.

Intel, known for manufacturing chips used in Microsoft computers, has struggled to adapt its technology for smartphones and tablets, which are growing in popularity with consumers.

Sales of PCs are slipping - just this week research company Gartner found that global PC shipments were down 4.9% in the fourth quarter compared to a year earlier.

And Microsoft's new Windows 8 operating system, launched in October, failed to boost sales in the way that Intel and PC manufacturers had hoped.

As such, Intel is pushing to get its chips into more mobile technology, and Mr Otellini said its new "Atom" processors - used in ten tablet models - have the same or better battery life as the competition.

He also did not rule out manufacturing semiconductors for rival companies, as long as it did not give them an advantage over Intel.

Google CEO: Facebook Doing 'Really Bad Job'

Google's chief executive Larry Page has said rival Facebook is doing "a really bad job on their products", as his company announced the development of massive new UK headquarters in London.

Mr Page gave a wide-ranging interview to Wired magazine, which was conducted before Facebook launched its new Graph Search tool.

Asked whether competition from Facebook had motivated Google's social products, he said: "It’s not the way I think about it. We had real issues with how our users shared information, how they expressed their identity, and so on."

"And yeah, they're a company that's strong in that space. But they're also doing a really bad job on their products."

Mr Page said he was happy with the progress made by Google+.

"For us to succeed, is it necessary for some other company to fail? No. We're actually doing something different. I think it's outrageous to say that there's only space for one company in these areas."

Mark Zuckerberg unveiled Facebook's new search tool this week

Meanwhile, Google has bought a huge plot of land in King's Cross for a new UK office complex that could be worth £1bn when completed.

The US tech giant plans to build a 1 million square-foot office and has purchased a 2.4 acre plot at the Kings Cross Central development, the property developers behind the project said.

Construction on the site is expected to start late this year and be completed in 2016, when Google would leave its current offices in Victoria and Holborn districts.

The new building will range in height from 7 to 11 storeys.

The price of the purchase was not disclosed.

The Reuters news agency quoted sources as saying Google was investing £650m to buy and develop the site and that, once finished, the office building would be worth up to £1bn.

"This is a big investment by Google, we're committing further to the UK," Google's Vice President for Northern and Central Europe, Matt Brittin, said in a statement.

"It's good news for Google, for London and for the UK."

In the past two years Google has bought premises in Paris and Dublin.

China Internet Users Increase By 51 Million

The number of people using the internet in China rose by 10% last year despite the introduction of tighter content rules by Communist leaders.

The increased popularity of mobile web surfing is thought to be behind the surge which brings the current number of web users in China to 564 million, a rise of 51 million.

According to the China Internet Network Information Centre, the number of Chinese web users who logged onto the internet from mobile phones, tablet computers and other wireless devices rose by 18.1% to 420 million in 2012.

In China, which is known for its strict censorship laws, the state encourages use of the internet for business or education, but blocks access to content believed to encourage disloyalty to the ruling party.

Access to overseas websites, such as Facebook and Twitter, is also blocked through what has become known as the “Great Firewall of China”.

Only last month, the Communist Party enforced a law requiring all internet users to disclose their identity while online.

And in April, China's most popular microblog site Weibo was shut down for three days while operators deleted posts believed to have violated censorship rules.

Despite such attempts to control how the public use the internet, the web appears to be a hit with the Chinese.

Weibo, China's equivalent to Twitter, has more than 300 million users and the use of virtual private networks (VPNs) to bypass blocks on overseas websites remains popular in the country.

Teen Computer Gamer Drives Into Record Book

A teen computer gamer who turned his virtual world into a reality by becoming a racing driver wins a place in the record books.

A Cardiff teenager who trained himself to become an international racing driver by playing a computer game in his bedroom has entered the record books.

Jann Mardenborough had always wanted to be a racing driver and was told by the owner of his local kart circuit that he was a natural at the age of 11.

But when the circuit closed down, he could no longer afford to pursue his dream on the track so instead started taking part in virtual races on the videogame Gran Turismo.

His years of playing the game paid off when in the middle of 2011, Jann, whose father Steve was a professional footballer, beat 90,000 other gamers to win the European round of GT Academy.

Jann Mardenborough played his way to the top on Gran Turismo 5

The competition was set up by Sony and Nissan to find the fastest player on Gran Turismo 5 and see if it was possible to transform them into a real racing car driver.

It was, and after six months of driver and fitness training at Silverstone, Jann went on to finish third in class at last year's Dubai 24 Hour race.

He described his achievement, at the age of just 19, as the "weekend of my life".

With his victory, he also cemented his name in the Guinness World Records Gamers Edition 2013 as the Youngest Gran Turismo Academy Winner Turned Pro Racing Driver.

His talents also won him a place driving for Nissan in the Blancpain endurance Series.

Jacob Gaby has taken the record of the highest score on FIFAAnother British entry featured in the Guinness World Records Gamers Edition 2013 is 15-year-old Jacob Gaby from Bushey, Hertfordshire.

He has taken the title as the Highest Score on FIFA after scoring 189 goals in one game – nearly five goals a minute.

He was playing as Barcelona against Fulham.Jacob, who spends seven hours a week playing FIFA, said: "It's incredible to have the record but I can't let it go to my head – I've got my school exams coming up."

The record for the Largest Collection of Videogame Memorabilia went to Brett Martin, 31, from Colorado in the US, who has amassed more than 8,000 items.Mark Slevinsky, 30, a computer engineer from Alberta, Canada, took the record for the Smallest Arcade Machine for his device which is smaller than an iPhone.

Moon: Russia Plans Unmanned Mission In 2015

A rocket booster would deliver a half-ton space exploration vehicle with equipment to look for water and take soil samples.

Russia has said it plans to send an unmanned spacecraft to the moon in 2015 from a new launch pad in the far east of the country.

The rocket booster would deliver a half-ton space exploration vehicle with scientific equipment that would search for water and take soil samples.

The head of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, Vladimir Popovkin, said the moon-bound spacecraft would be launched from its new Vostochny cosmodrome.

President Vladimir Putin has vowed to invest $1bn (£620m) in building the launch pad in the Amur Region not far from the Chinese border.

The last Soviet unmanned landing on the moon was in August 1976, when the Proton Booster collected soil and took it back to earth, as part of the Luna-24 mission.

Last July, China said it intended to land an exploratory craft on the moon for the first time in 2013, with the eventual aim of putting a man on the lunar surface.

That feat has so far only been achieved by the United States, most recently in 1972 - although Beijing did not give a time frame for when it plans to get a man on the moon.

China has spent about 39 billion yuan (£3.9bn) on its manned space programme since it began 20 years ago.

Graphene Race Could Still Be Won By UK

Countries like China appear to be leading the way in developing the "super-material" graphene, but the UK remains a contender.Two UK-based academics won a Nobel Prize for their work with graphene, but most patents regarding the "super-material" are now being awarded overseas, a study has revealed.

Graphene is a kind of two-dimensional carbon which is one of the thinnest, lightest, strongest and most conductive materials known to man.

Scientists aim to use graphene, which was discovered in 2004, to manufacture items such as flexible display screens, electric circuits and solar cells.

The Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov from Manchester University in 2010 for their "ground-breaking experiments".

And last December, Chancellor George Osborne announced more than £21m in investment funding to develop practical uses for graphene.

But research by technology strategy firm CambridgeIP showed countries such as China, South Korea and the United States could be stealing the lead from the UK.

Andre Geim won the Nobel prize in 2010

The firm, which analysed the worldwide patents surrounding the material, said: "In 2010 one of the striking features of the graphene patent landscape was what was not present.

"Manchester University, home of Nobel Prize-winners Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov, had only one published graphene patent application.

"In 2011 and 2012 Manchester University have increased the rate at which they are applying for graphene patents. The university now has 16 published patents and patent applications, with more pending."

Companies such as South Korea's Samsung and US firm SanDisk, which makes data storage devices, are teaming up with research institutions and filing numerous patents.

The report reveals there were 7,351 graphene patents and applications worldwide by the end of 2012.

Chinese institutions and corporations top the list with 2,200, while the US is second with 1,754 patents. The UK, meanwhile, has 54.

Report author Quentin Tannock admitted Britain risked being left behind, but said it was not too late to turn things around.

He told Sky News: "The race for value from graphene is far from over. Graphene is a very complex technology space.

"The graphene race is more of a marathon than a sprint. And in my view the winners of the race for value from graphene will be the smart rather than the swift.

"UK inventors have a well-deserved reputation for being highly innovative, and there is much room in the graphene patent landscape for the UK to develop world leadership around key aspects of graphene technologies.

"However, UK-based innovators and UK policymakers must understand how very intense international competition around graphene is and how the UK, and UK innovators, must compete to win."

Facebook Tipped To Boost Search Functions

Journalists have been called to Facebook's California HQ for a special announcement, with a new search feature being most likely.
Facebook is holding a mystery "press event", triggering a guessing game about what it could unveil - with suggestions ranging from a smartphone to a search engine.
The company has not said what it plans to announce at the media briefing at its headquarters in Menlo Park in California.

Last week, it merely invited bloggers and journalists to "come see what we're building".
"There's a lot of speculation. Nothing to me seems to be that certain," said Jefferies & Co analyst Brian Pitz.
"If I were to bet, I'd think it was something that was ad-platform related. I'm not convinced on the phone."


Mr Pitz pointed out that Facebook officials, including CEO Mark Zuckerberg, had previously said making a smartphone would be the "wrong strategy".
Since the company's current search functions are limited, users would most likely welcome a better way to search Facebook.
Its shares are up roughly 17% since the start of the year, and some analysts believe the recent gains may have more to do with the company's upcoming fourth-quarter financial results, which are due out on January 30.Yesterday, Facebook's stock opened above $32 (£19.90) for the first time since July as anticipation about its upcoming products and financial results underscored Wall Street's renewed confidence in the social network.

*The stock is up because they have driven a dramatic increase in the ad load of their mobile app which is giving investors hope that they exceeded expectations," said BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield.

Facebook, the world's number one social network with one billion users, became the first US company to debut on the stock market with a value of more than $100bn (£62bn).
Its value subsequently plunged by more than 50% amid mounting concerns about slowing revenue growth and the challenges of making money as users shift from personal computers to mobile devices.
Facebook surprised Wall Street in the third quarter by announcing that mobile ads accounted for 14% of its total ad revenue.
Some analysts expect the company to report further growth in its mobile ad business for the fourth quarter.
Mr Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook while studying at Harvard, has said mobile is the "most misunderstood aspect" of Facebook.

But he has repeatedly poured cold water on rumours that Facebook would build its own smartphone to compete against Apple's iPhone and others based on Google's Android operating system.

However, at a conference in September, he said he believed search could be a ripe area of growth for his company.