Author: Eva Glass

Eva Glass first rose to prominence in The INQUIRER. She continues to work behind the scenes to dig out the best stories.

BBC to stream to Roku devices

Posted on February 10, 2015 by - News

tvA Freedom of Information Act (FOI) request made by TechEye has revealed that the BBC is to offer live streaming on Roku devices.
Roku gizmos are tiny devices that use your internet connection to stream content to your TV.
Currrently, in the UK, there are few live news services available for the Roku, apart from Sky News. The BBC supports iPlayer for the Roku, but without live channel feeds.
But, the BBC said in its response to our request that it will make BBC channels available in the next few months.
The response said: “Whilst we have made live streaming available for our mobile and PC users, we have not prioritised this for TV audiences.  This is because most TV audiences have the ability to playback live via the tuner.
“However, I am pleased to say that the BBC is currently working on being able to provide the service to allow live streaming of the iPlayer for the Roku device.”

DRAM market shows unseasonal growth

Posted on February 10, 2015 by - News

nand-chipsSales of DRAM rose by 8.2 percent in the fourth quarter, bucking the usual pattern in the memory market.
DRAM Exchange, which tracks the memory market said manufacturers of devices migrated fast to 20 and 25 nanometre production, and the additional output meant quarterly revenues worldwide amounted to $13 billion.
The firm said that Samsung has shown the most profit from making DRAM, with typical operating margins of 47 percent.
SK Hynix also makes healthy margins of 42  percent, while American DRAM maker Micron managed to turn in margins of 29.5 percent.
Although Micron is still manufacturing using 30 nanometre technology, it raised production of DRAM for servers, which is the most lucrative application.
Samsung started volume production on 20 nanometre in the fourth quarter and the yield rate and output of chips made at 25 nanometre has increased.
Micron has begun sampling on the 20 nanometre process but plans to migrate so fast that there will be 80,000 wafer starts a month by the end of this year.

 

Biometric spending on the up

Posted on February 10, 2015 by - News

fingerprintRevenues for biometric identification to access computer systems will be worth as much as $13.8 million this year.
So said market intelligence company ABI Research.
Spending on biometric technology is because both consumer and enterprise segments are rapidly catching up with spending by governments.
A growing perception of terrorist threats in both Europe and the USA are also accelerating sales of biometric identification gear.
Fingerprint identification remains the dominant type of system and is more acceptable to people than other methods, although it is not the most accurate type of system.
Demand from enterprises and the use of smartphone and wearable technology is also increasing the trend.
3M Cogent, MorphoTrak and NEC are the leaders in the field but Apple and Samsung are also prominent as companies that will support these kind of technologies.

 

Dell intros support for PCs and tablets

Posted on February 10, 2015 by - News

Dell logoDell said it has extended its ProSupport Plus service for both PCs and for tablets.
The company claimed it’s the first to offer proactive and predictive support for these devices.
It also claimed that with this package in place, people will spend up to 84 percent less time on technical support calls.
The company claimed that IT departments spend around 80 percent of their time on routine operations and support.
The service will be available to both Dell customers and to its channel partners – and includes cover for a number of situations.
Those include coverage for drops, spill and electrical surges;  hard drive retention after replacement and workflow management for support cases, as well as self service case management and parts dispatch.

 

IBM steps up educational push

Posted on February 9, 2015 by - News

ibm-officeMassive services giant International Business Machines (IBM) said it has now enrolled over 300 colleges and universities around the world in its Power Systems Academic Initiative (PSAI).
IBM said that the push is to help students learn skills related to big data, cloud computing, mobile and social networking.
That, said IBM, is important in today’s job market.
The initiative, which started in October 2012. has grown by 152 percent over the last two years, IBM claimed.
Schools and universities hooked up to IBM include New York University’s polytechnic school of engineering, Virginia Tech, the UK University of Greenwich, the University of Ulster, and Glasgow Caledonian University.
Of course, IBM’s move is not all altruism – it is pinning its future on cloud computing, big data, analytics and security.
Several of the academic bodies offer courses related to IBM specific operations, and the company said it recruit from universities and business schools.

Qualcomm faces billion dollar fine

Posted on February 9, 2015 by - News

qualcomm-snapdragonUS tech giant Qualcomm may face a fine of as much as $1 billion after antitrust regulators decide on its future.
And it may also face sanctions that make it cut its royalties by a third.
Reuters reports that talks between Qualcomm and the authorities in China are close to reaching a conclusion.
The article quotes Xu Dunlin, head of China’s antitrust agency, as saying his authority will soon release details of the settlement.
The ruling will have a significant effect on Qualcomm because nearly fifty percent of its worldwide revenues from from the country.
Further, much of its profits come from royalties through its licensing division.
Reuters says that it’s not just Qualcomm that faces a problem from the Chinese agency.  It is also investigating Microsoft and Samsung to see if they infringe its antitrust rules.
It’s estimated that Qualcomm generates over $25.5 billion in revenues from the Chinese mainland.

 

Samsung edged out by Chinese vendors

Posted on February 9, 2015 by - News

Samsung HQ Silicon Valley - MM picA report said Samsung faces increased competition from mainland China.
And that will affect Apple’s bottom line too, according to a survey by Taiwanese market research company Trendforce.
It published figures that showed that in 2014 home grown companies Huawei, Xiaomi and others managed to ship 453 million units – nearly 40 percent of total smartphone shipments worldwide.
Samsung is being squeezed by Apple as well as Chinese smartphone brands but Apple itself is showing signs of losing the brand loyalty it largely depends on.
The company predicts that during 2015 the Chinese branded smartphones will account for shipments of 531 million units. That will be a growth, year on year, of 17.2 percent.
But the Chinese brands showed a growth last year of 54.8 percent.
One of the reasons for the smaller growth is because Chinese telcos have been cutting subsidies, making handsets more expensive.
But that is also likely to affect Samsung and Apple too.
When Samsung released its financial results recently, it reported smaller profits on its smartphone devices in the face of increased competition from Apple and others.

 

British tech firms buoyant about the future

Posted on February 9, 2015 by - News

ukflagA survey commissioned by Barclays’ Bank has revealed that UK IT firms are confident about profits during 2015.
The research indicates that, as an average, the businesses surveyed expect to grow by 11 percent this year.
That figure exceeds the UK GDP forecast for 2015 of 2.6 percent.
And the optimistic IT companies are predicting that 2016 will be even better, with growth for some anticipated to be as much as 20 percent year on year.
Sean Duffy, MD in charge of Barclays’ technology, media and telecoms unit said that the growth predictions reveal the optimism of the UK tech sector.
“The fact that many firms are expecting further growth in 2016 shows that this trend isn’t transient and the UK is a real launch pad for tech businesses,” he said.
Half of the businesses surveyed think that the government gives them enough support to grow. But the biggest challenges for respondents are increased costs and managing cashflow.

Notebook sales plummeted in January

Posted on February 9, 2015 by - News

notebooksMajor and minor vendors saw precipitous falls in shipments of notebooks  in January.
That’s according to Digitimes Research, which said HP saw its shipments fall by 45 percent and Lenovo fall by 30 percent compared to the previous month.
It wasn’t just the big names that suffered – the original design manufacturers – including giant Compal – saw its shipments fall too.
However, Compal supplies machines to both HP and Lenovo, the market research firm said.
Microsoft has been forced by incursions from Chromebooks to slash its licensing rate – but these machines are not immune to a more general decline in notebooks.
The news may be bad for HP and Lenovo but could be good news for people looking for notebook bargains – most of the machines sitting in warehouses are aimed at home use.
It’s still not entirely clear how Microsoft will approach the thorny matter of Windows 10 when that’s launched in the third or fourth quarter of this year.  It also hasn’t disclosed how many different varieties of Windows 10 it will offer at launch.
There is some sentiment that people are holding off buying notebooks until they have a clearer picture of what is going to emerge from Redmond.

 

Panda blamed for healthcare hack

Posted on February 6, 2015 by - News

Screen Shot 2015-02-06 at 15.29.14A report said that investigators into a hack at US healthcare firm Anthem are blaming the Chinese government for the breach.
Bloomberg, which said it has spoken to three people on conditions of anonymity, claim the hacks are to provide the Chinese government with data on government workers and others.
Hackers managed to grab as many as 80 million details of Anthem’s customers.
The wire is blaming an espionage unit dubbed “Deep Panda” for orchestrating the attack.
China consistently denies that it hacks into organisations or into other countries’ computer systems.   It’s widely believed, however that many countries, including China, have cyber warriors testing others’ systems.
“Deep Panda”, if it exists, is alleged to have made hacking attacks on contractors and other health care companies over the last few months, Bloomberg alleges.
The investigation into the Anthem attack is being led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Anthem has not yet explained the vulnerability in its IT systems which allowed its data to be hacked.

 

Tablet makers rethink their plans

Posted on February 6, 2015 by - News

cheap-tabletsDisappointing shipment numbers for tablets last year are forcing vendors to contemplate their marketing navels and come up with new ideas.
According to Digitimes, one way vendors want to turn the market round is to persuade their suppliers to slash the cost of their components so they can cut prices on production.
And Apple, the wire reports, had disappointing sales of the iPad Air 2 and iPad mini 3, which were launched last autumn.
Sales of HTC products and Xiaomi products haven’t been that brilliant either.
Apple is rumoured to be introducing a 12-inch iPad that it hopes will cause waves of excitement.
The problem is that once you have a tablet, there isn’t much desire to get a new one that’s shinier unless you’ve more money than sense.
Apple appears to believe it can launch all sorts of new applications for the 12-inch iPad when it appears.

Google toys with Glass again

Posted on February 6, 2015 by - News

glassesAfter an ignominious end to the much hyped Google Glasses, it appears the company hasn’t abandoned the whole effort.
According to a feature in the New York Times, a jewellery designer and a former Apple product executive are working at Google to redesign the thing from scratch.
Ivy Ross apparently runs Google’s “smart eyewear division” while Tony Fadell who created Nest are going back to the Glass drawing board.
Fadell told the NY Times that early Glass experiments had “broken ground” and he and Ivy are learning the dismal lessons of the past by redesigning the things from scratch and not releasing product until it is ready.
Diane von Furstenberg wore a red pair of Google Glasses at a fashion show in 2012, while models on the catwalk wore different coloured ones.
She told the NY Times that Google Glass was the first time people talked about wearable technology.
Actually, as a matter of fact, it’s not.  In the early 90s Dutch firm Philips talked about putting a computer in a tie while later that decade the CEO of IBM told an audience at the Comdex trade show that we’d soon be wearing shoes with computers inside them.

 

GCHQ rapped over US links

Posted on February 6, 2015 by - News

GCHQ buildingThe agency that is watching you watching me has been criticised for hiding how it shared data with the USA.
The Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT) said that before it changed its rules last December, GCHQ breached human rights law, as embodied in the European Convention of Human Rights.
Last December, GCHQ said that it usually needed a warrant to share information with the US security services.
But before it made this disclosure, the IPT said that the soliciting, storing and transmission by UK authorities of private communications of people here and obtained by the US authorities contravened either articles eight or 10 of the European Convention.
Article 8 relates to privacy while article 10 refers to the right of freedom of expression.
The Home Office said in a statement that the UK government is committed to transparency.

 

It’s the internet of everything

Posted on February 5, 2015 by - News

Internet of ThingsSome call it the internet of things (IoT), some call it the internet of everything (IoE) and some even call it the internet of fangs (IoF).
These terms are not, as yet, perfectly defined and there is a complete lack of standards defined, just like in the “cloud” space.  But there’s one thing for sure, and that is it’s going to be worth a lot of money so as many vendors as possible are getting on board the gravy train.
Future Market Insights (FMI) prefers the IoE and said that the market will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 16.4 percent between 2014 and 2020.
It will be the Asia Pacific market which will kick off the growth, synched to the arrival of big data. That’s because there will be investment in so called “smart cities” and smart grids, financed by the Indian, Chinese and Japanese governments.
FMI divides the market into business to business (B2B) and IoE vertical markets.
The verticals include manufacturing and public sector, but the health care sector will grow by 20.6 percent CAGR during the period, followed by utilities.
The major players in the market are Cisco, Samsung, IBM, Apple and Accenture – these vendors had over 50 percent market share in 2013.

 

Samsung hangs on to LCD TV lead

Posted on February 5, 2015 by - News

LCDscreenGiant South Korean chaebol Samsung had 22.8 percent of the LCD TV market last year, outstripping the second Korean player, LG Electronics.
A report from Trendforce said Sony came third in place with a market share of only 6.8 percent, compared to LG Electronics’ 14.9 percent.
In all, 215 million LCD TVs shipped in 2014, more than the market expected.  Factors that helped the 5.4 percent growth included the US economic recovery and strong promotion of larger size TVs.
But the top three vendors need to keep their eyes on the ball.  Trend force said that Chinese brands occupied positions from the fourth to the seventh.
They are making progress globally because the home Chinese market is saturated and they are pricing their brands aggressively.
Well known brands such as Philips and Toshiba have vanished out of the top ten vendor list.

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