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.

HTC shows signs of recovery

Posted on November 5, 2014 by - News

Nexus 9Cooperation between mobile firm HTC and Google is giving the Taiwanese firm a boost.

According to the Taipei Times, orders for the Nexus 9 tablet have exceeded expectations and that means HTC has ramped up its production facilities.

HTC mobile phones are considered to be some of the most stylish smartphones on the market, but a lack of marketing budget has seen the firm struggling to compete with the majors in the market.

HTC doesn’t really play in the tablet market on its own and the report suggests it is taking a cautious view on revenues in the sector  before it launches products it no doubt has, waiting on the sidelines.

Earlier this week HTC released figures for October 2014 showing unaudited revenues of NT$15.8 billion.  Companies listed on the Taiwanese bourse report monthly rather than quarterly figures.

Tablet demand slows to standstill

Posted on November 5, 2014 by - News

Raphael painting: Moses receiving the tablets, Wikimedia CommonsA report said that during the third quarter of 2014, shipments of tablets worldwide amounted to 63.4 million unit only one percent up from the same quarter last year.

And the impetus for Apple iPads flatlined during the third quarter, largely affected by delays in shipments, according to Digitimes Research.

White box tablets only amounted to 26.2 million during the third quarter and that’s even after Intel subsidies in an attempt to boost market share.

Samsung is the second biggest supplier but the research suggests it will take a cautious approach to shipments during 2015.

The other biggest vendors for tablets are Asustek, Lenovo, Acer, Amazon and Dell.

Most analysts say that the tablet market is close to saturation in Western Europe and in North America – and there are few compelling reasons for people to upgrade from their existing models.

Intel’s Skylake is an escargot

Posted on November 5, 2014 by - News

Cooked_snailsWord on the street is that Skylake processors may be delayed.

Intel has been promising that Skylight will be in developers paws early 2015 ahead of shipping “by the second half of the year.”

Digitime’s Joanne Chen claims that Skylake will be held back so as not to dent sales of Broadwell-based notebooks.

The report claims that Intel has set the RTM schedule for the Skylake to the 37-47th weeks of 2015 which is the end of August to the end of October.

The later schedule, Chen claims, would damage the release of Windows 10 notebook sales, because Skylake-based models will not be able to reach retail until late September.

“Windows 10-based notebooks are already facing many negative factors that could impact their shipments in 2015: most enterprises are expected to finish their PC replacement by the end of 2014 after Microsoft terminated support for Windows XP; Microsoft will offer free upgrade to Windows 10 for existing Windows 8/8.1 notebooks; and Windows 10 lacks attractive features,” Chen wrote.

While it is possible that Intel has allowed itself room in September for a later ship date without exposing itself to accusations of breaking its promises, the matter of Windows10 is important. The Skylake delay is expected to worsen Windows 10-based notebooks prospects, and may in turn weaken the notebook market’s performance in the second half of 2015.

Virgin Media kits out 150 Tube stations with wi-fi

Posted on November 4, 2014 by - News

londonundergroundSince the London Olympics, Virgin Media has been adding wi-fi to stations on the London Underground.

And today it said it has now kiitted out its 160th station.  It said that over 2.5 million gadgets are now registered on its network with over 3TB (terabytes) of data downloaded every day.

It said the most used service are at the Waterloo & City Line at Waterloo station, Kings Cross and Oxford Circus.

The service lets you access Transport for London travel information and news and some other stuff at no charge for subscribers to Virgin Media broadband, EE, Vodafone, O2 and Three customers.

Virgin claims that represents around 95 percent of people in London.

If you’re one of the five percent, you can get a daily pass for £2, a weekly pass for £5 and a two monthly pass for £15.

Dance helps girls win at computing

Posted on November 4, 2014 by - News

Image courtesy of Clemson UniversityWomen are under represented in the computer industry and now scientists at Clemson University have devised a way for girls to engage with IT.

The scientists are offering something called Virtual Environment Interactions aimed at blending dancing and programming for fifth and sixth grade girls in the USA.

Alison Leonard, a professor of education at Clemson, said the research: “will help young learners bootstrap their intuitive knowledge in order to programme a three dimensional character to perform movements.”

The method uses educational 3D software called Alice, and Leonard believes that executing software code or consecutive movements exist in both programming and choreography. “Likewise, loops or repeating a set of steps also occur in both contexts,” she said.

Students use the Alice software to create virtual characters to perform, based on their own dance movements.

Google cuts out the server middlemen

Posted on November 4, 2014 by - News

HP-MicroServerA report said that Taiwanese original design manufacturer (ODM) Quanta will supply search engine giant Google with its servers in 2015.

Google has long abandoned the habit of using “brand name” servers from the likes of Dell, HP or IBM/Lenovo.

The news, reported in Digitimes, confirms a recent survey saying that the ODMs, which often build machines that are then subsequently branded, are taking market share from the brand names.

It’s not just Google that is following this path.  Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft also buy their servers direct.  Quanta has benefited more from these changes in buying patterns because it has been quicker to realise the money involved than rivals such as Taiwanese company Inventec.

Until comparatively recently, Quanta’s entire business was building notebook machines, subsequently branded by others.  But the bottom has somewhat fallen out of the notebook business with the rise of tablets and smartphones.

GCHQ head hits out at IT companies

Posted on November 4, 2014 by - News

GCHQ buildingThe newly appointed head of spy outfit GCHQ has said computer companies like Facebook and Twitter are not doing enough to help security services catch criminals and terrorists.

Robert Hannigan went a little further than that and accused technology outfits of being “command and control networks for terrorists and criminals”.

The Islamic State, for example, used the web as a channel to promote itself, frighten people and radicalise new recruits.

Hannigan said: “But increasingly their services not only host the material of violent extremism or child exploitation, but are the routes for the facilitation of crime and terrorism.”

He also criticised the security of communications saying that encryption methods which were once the domain of nation states are now commonplace.  For example, Apple and Google include encryption in their mobile operating systems as a way of protecting people’s security and privacy.

He wants the tech companies to provide more support.

Internet of things spurs semiconductor growth

Posted on November 4, 2014 by - News

Internet of ThingsA research paper from Gartner said that devices used for processing, sensing and communications will grow by 36.2 percent next year, speeding ahead of the overall semi market that will grow by 5.7 percent.

Processors will be the largest slice of the revenue cake, worth $7.58 billion in 2015.

Alfonso Velosa, a research analyst at Gartner, said: “The demand for billions of things will ripple throughout the entire value chain, from software and services to semiconductor devices.  These things will drive huge demand for individual chips.”  He said the growth would cover industries including consumer, industrial, medical, automotive and others.

He said LED lighting will grow in volume and that will lower costs and allow new services to be provided through connecting, networking and sensing the environment.

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He predicts smart glasses and smartwatches will also see .

Gartner forecasts nearly 30 percent growth up to 2020 for semiconductor revenues related to the internet of things.  “The truth is that inexpensive devices are one of the biggest enablers of the internet of things.”

Smart light bulbs strike a light

Posted on November 3, 2014 by - News

lightsonLight bulbs using LED technology that know where they are and can be programmed are still in an early stage of development.

But that is about to change, said ABI Research – suggesting that while shipments were less than 2.5 million units in 2013, by 2020 the installed base is likely to be over 400 million.

LEDs using 802.15.4 protocols – that’s wi-fi – are likely to be the winners representing a three quarter share of the market.  ZigBee Light Link will be the preferred way of connection.

Prices of LED bulbs are continuing to fall and the market is likely to be saturated pretty quickly because of their typically longer life.

There is quite a gaggle of players in the market already including Philips, GE, Osram, Belin, Insteaon, LG and Samsung.

Malik Saadi, director at ABI Research said that smart lighting will be fuelled by customer lifestyle patterns including automation and high energy efficiency.

Philips already sells light bulbs and lighting strips that can be programmed to turn on or off as people arrive at or leave their houses, and can be switched off and on remotely using the internet.

Public IT cloud service spending to soar

Posted on November 3, 2014 by - News

Clouds in Oxford: pic Mike MageeBy 2018, spending on public IT cloud services is set to be worth $127 billion.

That’s according to research from IDC, which indicates a five year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.8 percent – six times the rate for the IT market overall.

The spending is a result of the conjunction of IT vendors offering more services and buyers wanting to buy more kit.

IDC thinks much of the growth is likely to be industry platforms with their own communities.

The news is good for developers, as their numbers will triple and create as many as a 10 time increase of new cloud offerings.

And the offerings will be strategic rather than tactical.

IDC expects a great deal of consolidation in the cloud services industry as a result of increased competition.

Software as a service (SaaS) will dominate public IT cloud services spending – accounting for as much as 70 percent of expenditure this year.  That’s because customer demand is chiefly at the application level, followed by infrastructure as a service (IaaS).

Digital marketing budgets set to grow

Posted on November 3, 2014 by - News

shut-up-and-take-my-moneyIt looks like firms will spend more on digital marketing than ever before.

That’s according to research company Gartner that said digital marketing budgets will rise by eight percent in 2015.

Gartner surveyed 315 firms in the UK, Canada and the USA from all types of sectors including high tech, manufacturing, media, retail, financial services and hospitality.

It found that digital marketing was a quarter of these firms’ marketing budgets in 2014 and of the 51 percent of companies planning to increase digital marketing in 2015, the average increase will be 17 percent.

Laura McLellan, a VP at Gartner, said that the line between traditional and digital marketing continues to blur.

Sixty eight percent of respondents indicated they had separate digital marketing budgets and digital advertising takes the top spot. But programmatic media is continuing to grow, as well as automated bidding for ads.

Datacentre automation market worth billions

Posted on October 31, 2014 by - News

server-racksA report by Markets and Markets estimated that by 2019 the datacentre automation market will be worth $7.53 billion.

The report said that demand for fast data access and storage continues to rise and that’s creating more and more datacentres.  Datacentre automation is sometimes known as Software Defined Data Centres (SDDCs).  Automation helps management deal with scalability, flexibility, manageability and reduced costs.

The market research company said it segments the datacentre automation market by hardware such as network automation, server automation and storage automation.  It also values the secor by service including consulting services, installation and support.

The demand for data is forcing businesses to either build new datacentres or upgrade existing sites.

And the cost of datacentre infrastructure continues to increase at the same time as IT budgets continues to decrease.

Majr vendors in the industry include HP, Oracle, Dell, Brocade, Cisco, IBM, CA and BMC Software.

Hungary backs off internet tax

Posted on October 31, 2014 by - News

Viktor Orban, Hungary's PM, when he was quite a slip of a youthThe prime minister of Hungary said today that his government will shelve plans to introduce an internet tax.

That follows a week of protests against the proposed move, which would have had the Hungarian government charging a fee on every gigabyte of data downloaded.

The initial plan was to have charged 150 forints (40 pence) per gigabyte but PM Viktor Orban was forced to back off from that plan.

Instead the government was going to introduce a tax rate of 700 forints a month for individuals while companies were going to be charged 5,000 forints a month.

The protestors weren’t just furious at the tax but were worried the move was undemocratic.

Orban’s party holds a two thirds majority in the Hungarian parliament

IBM signs deal with Chinese cloud giant

Posted on October 31, 2014 by - News

Executives from Tencent and IBMA major Chinese IT player – Tencent Cloud – has signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate with IBM to bring Software as a Service (SaaS) for various industries.

Both firms will concentrate on emerging small and medium enterprises in healthcare and other fields.

Tencent Holdings is one of the major providers of internet services in mainland China, and its Cloud division sells to enterprises and developers a number of offerings.

Taosang Tong, a senior executive VP of IBM said: “Tencent has a stable and reliable cloud computing platform, while IBM has abundant industry expertise aimed at the enterprise.”

Nancy Thomas, a managing partner at IBM China said the two companies will bring scale and cost benefits of cloud computing to Chinese enterprises.  “The industry dimension makes this especially appealing for businesses,” she said.

Financial considerations were not disclosed.

Twitter is no fun for the many

Posted on October 31, 2014 by - News

tweetA group of researchers based at the Technical University of Madrid (UPM) has analysed Twitter and come up with ways to increase your influence.

People with few followers attempt to boost their popularity by increasing the number of tweets they send but this is costly and inefficient.

The researchers analysed thousands of conversations and discovered how to measure relates effort to influence by people using Twitter.

The structure of Twitter is the key to influence. Twitter is a heteregeneous network wherer there are a large number of people with few folllowers and a very few with up to 40 to 50 million followers.

Rosa M. Benito, a researcher at UPM, said: “Ordinary users can gain the same number of retweets as popular users by increasing their activity abruptly.”

The diagram shows a visualisation of the spreading of messages on Twitter (retweets network in green) on the followers network (grey). The nodes represent users and their size is proportional to the number of followers that they have. Red indicates users who have written original tweets and yellow indicates users who have retweeted them.