The iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, which went on sale in September, have been helping boost Apple's financial results. James Martin/CNET

Just how jolly was Apple's holiday quarter? If the latest Wall Street estimates are accurate, the answer is "very."

When it comes to the consumer electronics giant's financials, all eyes will be on the iPhone. The Cupertino, Calif., company generates more than half its revenue from its smartphone business, and the fiscal first quarter, which ends in December, is typically Apple's biggest quarter of the year because of holiday sales and the recent introduction of the latest iPhones.
This year's first quarter marked Apple's first full period of 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch 6 Plus sales, which could result in higher revenue and profits than ever before. (The last record quarter for sales was 2014's fiscal first quarter with revenue of $57.6 billion.) Apple said it sold more units at launch than any previous iPhone model, and it's likely demand didn't slow down in the following months.
Apple is believed to have sold 66.5 million iPhones in the period, according to an analyst poll by Fortune. That's nearly a third more devices than the record 51 million sold in the year-earlier quarter.
"Indications are that the new large iPhones produced a better-than-expected quarter, offsetting any weakness in iPads," noted Janney Capital Markets analyst Bill Choi.
The company will release its most recent financial results Tuesday. Apple didn't respond to a request for comment ahead of the report.
CEO Tim Cook will also likely give information about whether Apple is now making enough iPhones to meet the demand for the devices. In October, he said iPhone 6 and 6 Plus demand was "far outstripping supply," and it could stay that way through the end of the calendar year. Some analysts believe Apple still isn't making enough iPhones.
"Our checks indicate that demand-supply for iPhone 6 and 6 Plus is tighter than the last two generations, which bodes well for better-than-expected [fiscal first-quarter] results and [fiscal second-quarter] guidance," noted Oppenheimer analyst Andrew Uerkwitz.
Overall, analysts expect the company to report revenue of $67.5 billion, net income of $15.3 billion and per-share earnings of $2.59, according to a poll by Thomson Reuters. Apple in October had projected first-quarter revenue of $63.5 billion to $66.5 billion, which topped expectations at the time.

The iPad question

While Apple's smartphone sales have been soaring, iPad sales have been floundering. Large-screen smartphones, including the iPhone 6 Plus, are eating away at the need for a tablet, and consumers have held on to their iPads longer than their smartphones. Apple has been facing questions for months over whether the iPad's declining shipments are a temporary hiccup or a troubling trend.
This quarter's results could be telling. The iPad tends to have strong sales in the December quarter as consumers scoop them up for holiday gifts. Apple posted its biggest period ever in fiscal 2013's holiday quarter, with sales of 26 million iPads. However, iPad demand has fallen every quarter since then, and first quarter 2013 was one of only three quarters out of the past eight that iPad unit sales and revenue rose year over year. In Apple's fiscal fourth quarter, which ended September 27, iPad unit sales dropped 13 percent to 12.3 million units.
The company introduced its newest tablets -- the iPad Air 2 and the iPad Mini 3 -- in October, but analysts say the incremental changes likely aren't enough to attract buyers in droves. They predict Apple sold 21.5 million iPads in the fiscal first quarter, according to a poll by Fortune, down 17 percent from the year-ago period.
"Demand for newer iPad models appears weak," noted UBS analyst Steven Milunovich. He said about 20 percent of iPads sold in the December quarter likely were the older iPad with Retina, not the new iPad Air 2.
Apple, for its part, has called the iPad's weakness "a speed bump."

Apple Watch time?

What people are really hoping to hear from Apple's earnings call, though, is what's happening with Apple Watch. The company hasn't yet revealed when it will start selling its first smartwatch aside from saying "early 2015." And Apple hasn't shared more details about the wearable, such as pricing for its higher-end models, since announcing the device in September.
Apple Watch is the first major new product category for the company since the "magical" iPad in 2010. It's also the first new push by the company under Cook's tenure. Cook had promised for over a year that Apple in 2014 would introduce "amazing" new products and enter "exciting new product categories" beyond its wildly successful smartphones, tablets and computers. The Apple Watch, along with the new Apple Pay mobile payments service, fulfill that vow.
Cook likely won't provide much -- if any -- information about Apple Watch during the earnings call. Apple tends to save product information for flashy press events, not financial reports. Still, that hasn't stopped analysts from making their projections for Apple Watch sales. Morgan Stanley analyst Katy Huberty expects Apple to sell about 30 million smartwatches this calendar year.
"iPhone users are twice as likely to purchase wearables compared to other smartphone users, and they overwhelmingly pick Apple's Watch, suggesting a strong 'halo effect,'" she noted.
We are also likely to hear about how emerging markets have been performing and whether Mac sales have remained strong. Apple also could talk about plans to return even more cash to shareholder  
Apple Watch keeps up with the times

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Colliding black holes could warp space-time itself

NASA has observed galaxies merging before, as in the case of the "Antennae Galaxies." But it's never seen the conclusion of the process -- the collision of two supermassive black holes.NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)-ESA/Hubble Collaboration

A team of prominent researchers has discovered what appears to be the start of two massive black holes at the centers of their own galaxies beginning to collide.

Such an event should come as no surprise, considering that there are up to 200 billion galaxies in the universe (according to Space.com), so two of them are bound to bump into each other from time to time. In fact, astronomers have already observed the merging of galaxies (as seen in the image above), but they've never before witnessed the end-stage process of galaxy commingling, which results when the two central black holes smash into each other, releasing some pretty violent cosmic fireworks that could warp space-time itself.

An artist's rendering of what two black holes inside a quasar might look like.Santiago Lombeyda/Caltech Center for Data-Driven Discovery

The researchers, including scientists from Caltech and NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, have theorized that an unusual light signal they're seeing from quasar PG 1302-102 -- essentially a black hole emitting light from the superheated particles swirling around its gravitational drain -- is being caused by the cosmic dance between two black holes in the system, each located less than the length of our solar system apart. The theory was published this week in the journalNature.

While other cosmic phenomena could explain the light signature, the scientists became confident that their theory is the most likely after analyzing the quasar's light spectrum.

"When you look at the emission lines in a spectrum from an object, what you're really seeing is information about speed -- whether something is moving toward you or away from you and how fast. It's the Doppler effect," Eilat Glikman, study co-author and assistant professor of physics at Middlebury College in Vermont said in a statement.

"With quasars, you typically have one emission line, and that line is a symmetric curve. But with this quasar, it was necessary to add a second emission line with a slightly different speed than the first one in order to fit the data. That suggests something else, such as a second black hole, is perturbing this system."If the theory is correct, study co-author S. George Djorgovski of the California Institute of Technologytold The New York Times that when the two black holes collide, they could release the energy equivalent to 100 million supernova explosions, which would rip apart the galaxy in which they're floating. The collision would also release gravitational waves, ripples in the fabric of space-time predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity, Djorgovski told the Times.

Unfortunately, astronomers hoping to witness such an event are out of luck, as the predicted union won't take place for about another million years -- a long time in human standards, but not cosmic ones. Of course, the universe itself already knows whether the theory is correct because the light we're seeing from this system, located in the Virgo constellation, comes from 3.5 billion light years away -- meaning everything we're witnessing already took place billions of years ago. But until we come up with our own way to warp the space-time continuum, I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Source: cnet

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SpaceX's "reusable" rocket crashes into its floating landing pad in the Atlantic Ocean

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket lifts off early Saturday from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. An attempt to land the rocket on a platform in the Atlantic Ocean was unsuccessful.NASA

SpaceX almost made history on Saturday. Almost.

As part of its NASA-contracted mission to resupply the International Space Station, the private space-exploration company was attempting to launch the "world's first reusable rocket" and then land it on a landing pad floating in the Atlantic Ocean.

The launch, which was scrapped earlier this week because of a problem with a rocket part, went off without a hitch at 4:47 a.m. local time at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida, according to NASA.

SpaceX's 14-story Falcon 9 rocket also successfully sent a Dragon cargo capsule on its way to the space station. But when the first stage of the Falcon 9 returned to Earth, it crashed into its 300-by-100-foot floating landing pad.

"Close, but no cigar this time," SpaceX CEO Elon Musk tweeted Saturday morning. "Bodes well for the future tho."

SpaceX is one of a handful of private companies pursuing spaceflight, a realm once solely controlled by government space agencies. But the task isn't easy. In August, a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket explodedduring a test flight. And in October, space-tourism company Virgin Galactic saw one of its space planescrash during a test flight, a mishap that killed one of the plane's two pilots.

Before Saturday's launch, SpaceX had put the odds of a successful landing at 50 percent "at best" and likened hitting the bull's eye to "trying to balance a rubber broomstick on your hand in the middle of a wind storm."

SpaceX has already started assessing what went wrong, and Musk tweeted an initial finding: "Grid fins worked extremely well from hypersonic velocity to subsonic, but ran out of hydraulic fluid right before landing." The grid fins are an upgrade for the rocket and are designed to move independently to help with landing, according to SpaceX.

Here are two of the four grid fins on SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. An issue with them may have contributed to the crash landing.SpaceX

Saturday's launch was part of SpaceX's fifth resupply mission to the International Space Station. The cargo on the Dragon capsule included two tons of gear, supplies, experiments and food, NASA said. The Dragon is scheduled to reach the space station on Monday.

SpaceX has seven more supply missions to go as part of a $1.6 billion contract with NASA.

In two test flights last year, SpaceX proved that Falcon 9 rockets can slow themselves down and use landing gear. In both those tests, though, the rocket tipped into the ocean after touching down.

According to SpaceX, reusable rockets are the key to reducing the cost of space missions and travel. "The majority of the launch cost comes from building the rocket, which flies only once," according to the company's website.

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Artificial intelligence experts sign open letter to protect mankind from machines

"Charlie" is an ape-like robotic system that walks on four limbs, demonstrated here in March 2014 in Hanover, Germany. The robot could conceivably be used in the kind of rough terrain found on the moon, or it could be a stepping stone toward humanity's destruction.Getty Images

We're certainly decades away from the technological prowess to develop our very own sociopathic supercomputer that will enslave mankind, but artificial intelligence experts are already preparing for the worst when, not if, the singularity happens.

AI experts around the globe are signing an open letter, put forth Sunday by the Future of Life Institute, that pledges to safely and carefully coordinate and communicate about the progress of the field to ensure it does not grow beyond humanity's control. The signees already include co-founders of Deep Mind, the British AI company purchased by Google in January 2014, MIT professors and experts at some of technology's biggest corporations, including from within IBM's Watson supercomputer team and Microsoft Research.

"Success in the quest for artificial intelligence has the potential to bring unprecedented benefits to humanity, and it is therefore worthwhile to research how to maximize these benefits while avoiding potential pitfalls," the letter's summary reads. Attached to the letter is a research document outlining where the pitfalls lie and what needs to be established to continue safely pursuing AI.

Thee most immediately concerns for the Future of Life Institute are areas like machine ethics and self-driving cars -- will our vehicles be able to maximize risk without killing their drivers in the process? -- and autonomous weapons systems, among other problematic applications of AI. But the long-term plan is to stop treating fictional dystopias as pure fantasy and to begin readily addressing the possibility that intelligence greater than our own could one day begin acting against its programming.

The Future of Life Institute is a volunteer-only research organization whose primary goal is mitigating the potential risks of human-level man-made intelligence that may then advance exponentially. In other words, it's the early forms of the Resistance in the "Terminator" films, trying to stave off Skynet before it inevitably destroys us. It was founded by scores of decorated mathematicians and computer science experts around the world, chiefly Jaan Tallinn, a co-founder of Skype, and MIT professor Max Tegmark.

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who sits on the institute's Scientific Advisory Board, has been vocal in the last couple of years about AI development, calling it "summoning the demon" in an MIT talk in October 2014 and actively investing in the space, which he said may be more dangerous than nuclear weapons, to keep an eye on it.

"I'm increasingly inclined to think there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don't do something very foolish," Musk said at the time. Famed physicist Stephen Hawking, too, is wary of AI. He used last year's Johnny Depp film "Transcendence," which centered on conceptualizing what a post-human intelligence looks like, to talk about the dangers of AI.

"One can imagine such technology outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders, and developing weapons we cannot even understand," Hawking co-wrote in an article for the Independent in May 2014, alongside Future of Life Institute members Tegmark, Stuart Russell and Frank Wilczek.

"Whereas the short-term impact of AI depends on who controls it," they added, "the long-term impact depends on whether it can be controlled at all."

Source :cnet

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