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.

Intel impedes Windows 10

Posted on October 31, 2014 by - News, Products

Intel-logoA report said that sales of notebooks using Microsoft Windows 10 are likely to be hit because Intel will be tardy releasing an appropriate chip.

Digitimes Research said that the Intel Skylake microprocessor is supposed to be ready at the beginning of the third quarter in 2015 but will probably not hit the streets until the end of next year or even 2016.

The news will plunge Microsoft into the depths of despondency.  It is already taking a hit because uptake of the notoriously shabby Windows 8.x isn’t going to plan.

Windows 10 is supposed to be the summum bonum – that is to say it will work properly because there won’t be a Windows 9.

Digitimes Research estimates that Intel’s delays won’t make the acceptance of Windows 10 any easier and it appears the alliance between Microsoft and Intel is crumbling.

Intel could not be contacted for comment at press time.

The report is here.

UK government to offer free wi-fi

Posted on October 30, 2014 by - News

Ed VaizeyThe government has a plan to offer free wi-fi in over 1,000 public buildings across the UK in a bid to make everything a little more accessible.

According to the Telegraph, we’ll soon have free wi-fi offered in libraries, museums, and other buildings as part of the government’s plans to turn our cities into “super connected cities”.

Oxford, London, Edinburgh, Leeds and Birmingham are just some of the places where the free wi-fi will be installed, said the report.

The Telegraph says that some free wi-fi hotspots have already gone live but the majority will offer service by March next year.

Ed Vaizey, who is the UK government’s digital economy minister, said it’s all part of a long term economic plan, to give access to businesses, visitors and the general public.

He claimed that the free hotspots will make UK cities more attractive to visitors.

Other places in the world have similar schemes but accessing the wi-fi is not necessarily a piece of cake because of high demands on services.

Tablet market continues to grow

Posted on October 30, 2014 by - News

iPad-miniWhile some say that the phenomenal growth of tablet sales is starting to wane, a report today claims that the situation is quite different.

IDC said that the worldwide tablet market grew by 11.5 percent in the third quarter of 2014 – shipments totalled 53.8 million units.

The market research company said that sales were boosted by the “back to school” season and also an increased appetite for tablets in the US – one of the biggest markets.

Apple is still the leader in tablets, but is continuing to see a decline in its sales.  It shipped 12.3 million units in the third quarter, while Samsung shipped 9.9 million units and despite being second has an 18.3 percent market share. Asus displaced Lenovo from number three.

Next was Asus, followed by Lenovo and in number five position is RCA, which got to its worldwide position by shipping 2.6 million tablets in the USA.

Parallel worlds really do exist

Posted on October 30, 2014 by - News

saturnIt seems that the dreams of sci-fi writers have a basis in science because academics have come up with a new theory based on the existence of parallel universes.

The scientists, at Griffith University, claim that they’ve taken interacting parallel worlds out of the realm of science fiction and into that of hard science.

The team of academics says that parallel universes interact with nearby worlds influencing each other by a subtle force of repulsion.

This theory, the team avers, explains the anomalistic and strange phenomena in quantum mechanics.

Professor Howard Wiseman says: “The universe we experience is just one of a gigantic number of worlds. Some are almost identical to ours while most are very different.”

He added: “All of these worlds are equally real, exist continuously through time, and possess precisely defined properties.”

The theory predicts something new that isn’t Newtonian nor confirms to quantum theory.  He believes that it will be possible to test for the existence of such worlds.

Semiconductor firms have Moore’s Law hope

Posted on October 30, 2014 by - News

minionsOne of the problems with semiconductor firms like Intel continually shrinking the size of chips is that soon they’ll be up against the limits of the lithographic methods used to make microprocessors.

But scientists at UC San Diego may have an answer which will let Intel engineers sleep easy in their bunny suits at night.

Nanoengineers at the university claim to have invented a new type of lithography in which – they say – nanoscale robots swim over the surface of light sensitive materials to create the surface patterns that conventional lithography produced.

The scientists said that not only does it solve some of the lithography problems of the future, but it also is a simple and more affordable way of doing the trick.

Electron beam writing is very expensive and complex.

How does it work?  The nanorobots are chemically powered, self propelled and magnetically controlled.  Jinxing Li, a student at UC San Diego said: “All we need is these self propelled nanobots and UV (ultraviolet) light. They work together like minion, moving and writing and are easily controlled by a simple magnet.”

Google ready to take driving seat

Posted on October 30, 2014 by - News

jalopyThe next battle between Apple and Google is set to take place in your car as you’re speeding down the motorway.

While Apple had the first to market software that synchronises iPhones to vehicle entertainment systems with Carplay, it seems that it faces tough competition from Google with Android Auto.

Apple initially had the backing of car companies like BMW, Citron, Ferrari, Jaguar, Mercedes, Peugeot and Toyota, according to ABI Research some of these players have unaccountably delayed implementing Carplay.

Meanwhile, the same report says that Android Auto will now be supported by Bentley, Infiniti, Maserati, Renault, SEAT, Skoda and Volkswagen.

According to Filomena Berardi, a senior analyst at ABI, it appears some car manufacturers like Android because it’s a more open operating system.

She thinks that most car manufacturers will now support both. Well, you wouldn’t want to turn down buying a Maserati because it only supports, iPhone, would you?

Dow Jones steps into Apple secrecy row

Posted on October 29, 2014 by - News

scalesAn agreement between Apple and its supplier GT Advanced (GTA) to seal documents relating to the latter company filed for bankruptcy earlier this month has been challenged by a third party,

GTA supplied sapphire substrates to Apple, an important ingredient of screens for smartphones but filed for protection under US regulation Chapter 11 earlier this month.

Dow Jones asked a US court to deny a request made by both Apple and GTA to keep some documents relating to their relationship under seal.  It said such a move offended principles of the US constitution.

Apple had threatened GTA with a law suit for over $1 billion alleging damages.

In cases of banruptcy in the USA there are only a few conditions which would allow documents to be made unavailable to the public and Dow Jones claims no documents in this case qualified under those rules.

Russians hacked into White House nets – report

Posted on October 29, 2014 by - News

thewhitehouseThe Washington Post claimed that hackers, backed by the Russian government, have penetrated some White House computer nets.

Unnamed  sources insisting on anonymity told the Post that the hacks were into “unclassified” networks and that there’s no evidence that classified computers had been compromised.

A White Office official said that admins noted the activities straight away meaning there was some disruption to web services.

The National Security Agency (NSA), the FBI and the Secret Service have been invoked to assist with inquiries into the hackers.

The Russian government has not, so far, commented on the alleged intrusion. But it’s thought that hackers have targeted computers at NATO, official Ukraine sites, and companies supplying the US defence with kit.

The White House said that people try to hack US computers on a regular basis but the country has a military wing called US Cyber Command which can defend – or attack – intruders.

Scientists to predict solar magnetic storms

Posted on October 29, 2014 by - News

stormsThe danger of solar winds disrupting mobile phone service, damaging satellites and causing power grids to black out is all too real.

But teams of researchers in the USA are working on creating models that will precisely predict when geomagnetic storms are likely to threaten global communications.

At a forthcoming meeting of the American Physical Society’s Division of Plasma Physics a number of scientists from different teams will present their findings.

A team at Princeton Plasma Physics Lab will show how magnetic reconnection accelerates solar wind particles of a high energy frenzy and how that affects with the magnetic field that surrounds our planet.

A breakthrough from the US Department of Energy’s plasma physics lab appear to have discovered how massive eruptions of solar plasma turns magnetic energy into explosive particle energy, disrupting communications.

The scientists have measured experimentally the amount of magnetic energy turning into particle energy which can equal the power equivalent of millions of tons of TNT.

* The illustrations clockwise from upper left are: computer simulation of the solar wind in contact with the Earth’s magnetosphere, magnetosphere simulation experiment at Columbia University, computer visualisation of turbulent plasma currents in Swarthmore plasma wind tunnel (experiment at bottom right), magnetic surfaces overlaid on merging plasma with reconnection, and spectrogram showing interaction of magnetic waves in the UCLA Large Plasma Device.

Internet of things means $100 billion spend

Posted on October 29, 2014 by - News

Nuclear power plant - Wikimedia CommonsGovernments around the world are waking up to the security implications as the internet of things is set to pervade the world and will spend an immense amount of money to improve cyber security.

The internet of things is a catch all term for a time when just about anything you care to imagine has semiconductors inside, able to communicate with just about everything else.

ABI Research said that it estimates that cybersecurity spending will hit $109 billion by the end of this decade, with governments in North America and Europe spending and spending again on security for network, for systems and for data.

The governments, said ABI, will concentrate on security for the financial, energy and defence sectors as they are the ones most targeted.

The energy sector is under particular threat, with attacks on industrial control systems.

However, there are sectors which are particularly vulnerable, including utility companies, said Michela Menting, practice director at ABI Research.

She said: “IT spending will dominate cyber security investment for critical infrastructure protection to the detriment of securing operational technologies in industrial settings.”

Cloud wreathed in mist, myths

Posted on October 29, 2014 by - News

clouds3While cloud computing is touted by every vendor and his dog as the panacea for all IT ills, the whole subject is still befogged by myths and mystery.

That’s what market research company Gartner thinks, anyway.  In a recent report it said cloud computing is “uniquely susceptible to the perils of myths due to the nature, confusion and hype surrounding it”.

No one really knows what it is, said David M. Smith, a VP at Gartner.  “In the cloud means where the magic happens, where the implementation details are supposed to be hidden. So it should be no surprise that such an environment is rife with myths and misunderstanding.”

The first myth in the mystery is that not all cloud service pricing is coming down.  Companies can’t assume that the cloud always saves money.  The second assumption made is that the cloud is the be-all and end-all of IT, and using cloud services isn’t necessarily the answer to cutting costs.

Many companies don’t even have a cloud strategy and are just obeying the diktats of their CEO – who probably doesn’t have a clue about what cloud is anyone.  And cloud computing is not one thing – instead cloud services are broad and need to be analysed for their relevance.

People tend to think of cloud computing as less secure than having your data on servers in your premises.  But there’s evidence that security breaches are more likely to happen here than in trusted cloud services.

Data centre outsourcing, data centre modernisation and data centre strategies are not synonymous with the cloud.

Still confused? It’s hardly surprising, is it?

Microsoft adds more to Azure

Posted on October 28, 2014 by - News

MSlogoSoftware giant Microsoft said today it has added a number of additions to its Azure offerings.

At a conference in Barcelona, Jason Zander, VP of Azure, said that it will release Azure “Operational Insights” which combines HD Insight and MS System Centre to gather and analyse machine data across clouds.

Azure Batch gives access to thousands of cores to analyse complex problems while Azure Automation, as its name suggests, allows batch operations on both Azure and third party environments.

Microsoft said it has also made improvements to security with support for multiple network interface cards (NICs), Network Security Groups for creating security boundaries and giving better control over traffic flow, and a service, at no charge, called Anti-Malware for virtual machines.

The company also said it has improved its Enterprise Mobility Suite and Office 365, allowing administrators to manage Office mobile apps, conditional access features, and secure mobile app viewing.  These improvements will arrive in the next few months, Zander said.

AMD faces Nvidia threat

Posted on October 28, 2014 by - News

AMD, SunnyvaleNvidia is ahead of AMD on the graphics front and it won’t be until next year that the Sunnyvale firm catches up.

That’s according to financial analyst Sean Chandler, who works for Seeking Alpha.

He said in a note to his clients that the Nvidia “Maxwell” architecture has put AMD under heavy pressure in the consumer graphics arena.  And that’s worry investors and taking its toll on the AMD share price.

Chandler said that while AMD’s restructuring are widely seen as positive, the firm “still needs to release competitive technologies to remain relevant”.

Nvidia Maxwell, he said, means “monumental advancements” in both efficiency and performance.

Nvidia’s 60watt 750Ti is comparable to AMD’s 150 watt R7 260X, he said.  And Maxwell also outforms AMD in performance efficiency per die size.

He added that the rumour mill suggests AMD may respond with 20 nanometre chips now chip foundry TSMC has got the shrink down pat.

He suggests to investors: “AMD is almost certainly not out of the game, but be cautious and don’t pour all of your eggs into one basket.”

Outlook gloomy for notebook PCs

Posted on October 28, 2014 by - News

notebooksThere’s darkness at the end of the tunnel for vendors of notebooks, it appears.

Digitimes Research said that while notebook sales in 2014 fell by 2.1 percent in 2014, next year isn’t going to be too brilliant either.

It expects a further decline of 1.7 percent worlldwide in 2015, with shipments amounting to 168 million units.

The research outfit said that Microsoft Windows 10 is unlikely to bump up demand and efforts made by Microsoft to stimulate demand by reducing licensing fees aren’t going to turn things round.

It predicts declines in shipments of notebooks all the way through to 2018.

But every cloud has a silver lining because at least it will mean the price of notebooks will fall in 2015, partly due to Microsoft’s cunning plan to make machines with 11.6-inch notebooks sell for under 2015.

Chromebooks are expected to make additional depradations on the traditional Wintel notebook.

Met Office spends £100 million on computer

Posted on October 28, 2014 by - News

metcrayStung by criticism that its weather forecasts aren’t quite as accurate as they could be, the UK Met Office has decided the answer to the whingers is to buy a supercomputer that cost it £97 million.

How will the Cray supercomputer help?  The Met Office helpfully explains that it’s 13 times more powerful than the current system and has 120,000 times more memory than a top end smartphone.

That means it can deliver incorrect forecasts 13 times faster than it does now.

Of course, it’s all in the software or as the Met Office explains “sophisticated forecasts are anticipated to deliver £2 billion of socio economic benefits to the UK”.

Politician Danny Alexander, who is chief secretary to the Treasury,  said: “We are a country fascinated by the weather.”

The supercomputer is based at the Exeter Science Park and the Met Office says it weighs the equivalent of 11 double decker buses.

But we’ll have to wait nearly a year before the 16,000 trillion calculations a second supercomputer grinds into action.  The first phase will be operational in September 2015 and it won’t reach full capacity until 2017.