Skeptical analysts are still predicting a price cut for the PlayStation 3 this year, even though Sony may be about to reveal encouraging profit forecasts, according to reports from Japan today. Japan's Nikkei newspaper today claimed that Sony is expecting to improve operating profits to $3.35 billion this financial year – the paper did not identify the source of its information.
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Farmers' homemade helicopter poised for take off
Updated April 25: Vietnamese farmers who built their own helicopter may take to the air within a week, local press reports say. Officials inspected the craft on Wednesday, and are considering approving a limited flight test.
If official approval comes, it will be the end of a 5 year battle for Tran Quoc Hai and Le Van Danh, who have faced arrest and heavy financial losses in their quest to soar aloft in the boxy red chopper they built in Hai's tractor workshop.
Profit drives flood of Chinese malware
New malware attacks are emerging from China almost daily, as malicious hackers discover increasingly sophisticated methods of generating profit from viruses and trojans, security professionals say.
Based on past cyclic behavior, researchers at US-based FaceTime Communications believe attacks will rise to a peak during the next two months, before falling off slightly during the summer. The company did not offer an explanation for the origin of these cycles, although other researchers have linked the quieter periods to university and high school vacation times.
Free Email is Worth Only $0.0025 per Month
How much income do Microsoft, Yahoo and Google earn from your free email account? Only about one quarter of a cent per month, according to new data from China, the world's largest online market.
The 470 million free email accounts registered by Chinese netizens generated $3.64 million in advertising revenue for service providers like Yahoo and Hotmail during the last three months of 2006, according to data from the Beijing office of research firm Analysys International. This indicates that the average income from a single account was only $0.0025 per month
Ebay still can't catch up in China
Chinese consumers spent more than $1bn buying products from each other in online auctions during last year's Christmas season, according to a recent survey.
The world's leading online consumer auctions firm, eBay, maintained its number 2 position in the market. Ebay handled 29 percent of auctions, leaving it a distant second to local rival Taobao, which brokered more than twice as many. Taobao is a subsidiary of China's leading business-to-business auctions firm, Alibaba.
