Month: July 2016

Wamser’s arrest is the first of its kind in the state.

The incident occurred on the evening of June 28, when the Trailhead Fire broke out. A drone was spotted above the fire, so authorities temporarily grounded firefighting aircraft for about 30 minutes.

(credit: Julien GONG Min)

Microsoft posted revenue of $20.6 billion in the fourth quarter of its 2016 financial year, a decline of 7 percent year on year. Operating income was $3.1 billion, compared to a $2.1 billion loss in the same quarter last year. Net income was also $3.1 billion, as compared to a $3.2 billion loss, and earnings per share were $0.39.

The full 2016 financial year figures were revenue of $85 billion, down 9 percent year on 2015, operating income of $20.2 billion, up 11 percent, net income of $16.8 billion, up 38 percent, and earnings per share of $2.79, up 42 percent. Those 2015 losses were substantially a result of the $7.6 billion write-down of Nokia's assets. 2016 also included a further, final Nokia-related write-down but this one was a mere $950 million.

The company offers non-GAAP financials wherein all Windows 10 revenue is booked at the point of sale, rather than allocated piecemeal over two to four years (with the exact timeframe depending on the customer type). The revenue deferrals are due to the "Windows as a Service" model wherein support and development commitments for the operating system are an ongoing task that continues after the sale of the software license. The non-GAAP results also change how the company accounts for impairment, integration, and restructuring charges. Under this alternative reporting regimen, revenue for the quarter was was up 2 percent to $22.6 billion, operating income was down 3 percent to $6.2 billion, and net income was up 8 percent to $5.5 billion.

The US love affair with big vehicles hasn't gone away. (credit: RL GNZLZ @ Flickr)

Way back in 2012, the US government released a relatively ambitious plan to increase US passenger fleet average fuel efficiency to 54.5mpg. Back then, we looked at some of the new technologies that automakers were adopting in order to meet this goal, plenty of which can now be found in our cars. But despite lots of hard work by the boffins in automotive research centers in the US and elsewhere, the 54.5mpg Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency (CAFE) goal is dead in the water.

Americans, it seems, are just too in love with their light trucks and SUVs to make it happen. That's according to a new report from the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the California Air Resources Board. The three agencies have published a Draft Technical Assessment Report, "Midterm Evaluation of Light-duty Vehicle GHG Emissions Standards for Model Years 2022-2025" (PDF), that lays out the case for why we could meet the 2012 plan—which would have doubled fleet fuel economy, halved greenhouse gas emissions, and saved 12 billion barrels of oil and prevented 6 billion tonnes of CO2 from entering the atmosphere between now and 2025—but won't.

The report—which stretches out to over 1200 pages—spends plenty of time discussing cool technological advances, including improvements to gasoline internal combustion engines, better transmissions, mild (48v) and high-voltage hybrids, battery electric vehicles, fuel cell EVs, and more, but the bad news gets going in Chapter 12. The report projects that 46.3mpg is where we'll be when it comes to CAFE in 2025, a drop of 15 percent compared to where we'd hoped to be.