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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer recently admitted that the company may have made too many Surface RT tablets, and the software maker also took a $900 write-down this month when it dropped the selling price of the tablet from $499 to $349.
Now an SEC filing shows that the $900 million figure is actually more than Microsoft has generated in revenue from Surface sales.
Here’s a roundup of tech news from around the web.
- Microsoft made about $850 million from Surface tablet sales from Oct to June
Does this mean the Surface tablet line has no future? Not necessarily. The company can probably afford to lose some money in order to provide a product that showcases what it’s software is capable of. But I suspect Microsoft will manufacture its next-gen Surface tabelts in smaller initial quantities. Â [TechCrunch] - Canonical adds a $50 pledge level for the Ubuntu Edge – get a t-shirt for your support
Canonical has already raised more than $7 million from folks interested in helping the company build and sell a smartphone that boots Android, Ubuntu, and function as a desktop. But the campaign is way behind scheduled at this point, and Canonical has introduced a new pledge level and reward for folks who don’t have hundreds of dollars to spare. [Indiegogo] - Commercial Break app for iOS will tell you when TV commercials are about to end
Tired of wandering over to the kitchen, bathroom, or foosball table during a commercial break, only to get back to the TV after the show has resumed? There’s an app for that… but it only works on some channels. [Engadget] - Samsung Hennessy is an upcoming clamshell phone with Android
Remember when flip-phones that you could fold up and close were all the rage? Samsung’s bringing the clamshell design into the Androi dage with a new model featuring two 3.3 inch, 480 x 320 pixel displays, a quad-core CPU, and a dial-pad. [SamMobile] - Google releases official AdSense app for Android
Seriously. The didn’t have one until now. [Android Police] - Microsoft SkyDrive will be getting a new name soon (trademark infringement)
Apparently it’s too close to BSkyB’s name or something. Microsoft has a while to come up with a new name. The Verge] - How to factory reset a Chromecast
Use the Android app or press and hold the only button on the Chromecast for about 25 seconds. [Droid Life] - Video: Koush’s Phone to Chromecast app streams videos, photos, etc from your phone
The developer of ClockworkMod Recovery, Tether, and other Android apps has built a tool that lets you stream content from the Android gallery app to a Chromecast over a local network. Unfortunately the SDK rules prohibit him from distributing it for now. [+Koushik Dutta]
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