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.

Nobel Prize given to LED men

Posted on October 9, 2014 by - News

wallwashThe Noble Prize for physics has been awarded to the three inventors of LEDs (light emitting diodes)..

The invention of the LED  was awarded to Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura and has led to a market worth billions of dollars.

IHS, a market research company, said the invention of the technology in the early 1990s was worth $17.7 billion in 2013, leading to 250,000 jobs. And that’s not counting all the LED markets including lighting, signage, and consumer electronics.

IHS research manager for LEDs and lighting at IHS, William Rhodes, said the invention changed all the rules.

The market before LEDs mostly used indicator lights in toys, industrial and car applications, said Rhodes. This year over 90 percent of all displays were backlit by LEDs while LEDs will represent a third of all lightbulb sales in 2014.

Microsoft may dump Surface tabs

Posted on October 9, 2014 by - News, Products

Microsoft Surface ProA report suggested that Microsoft may decide to give up the ghost on its Surface Pro 3 tablet.

According to Digitimes, sales for the product have been weak and Microsoft is disappointed with its performance.  That’s according to unnamed sources from the supply chain.

Microsoft has also failed to set up an adequate distribution chain and at the same time high prices for the products have put many people off.

Digitimes estimates that Microsoft has lost around $1.7 billion on the first two generations of its tablet.

Microsoft has another problem too. Competitors have introduced smartphones with large screens and that has affected peoples’ buying choices.

Microsoft hasn’t had much luck with hardware, with one notable exception.

That’s the Microsoft mouse.

Philips shows off 3D printed luminaries

Posted on October 9, 2014 by - News, Products

lightsonDutch firm Royal Philips has shown off what it says are the world’s first 3D printed “smart” luminaries.

The luminaries are part of its “Hue” range, and Philips said that a finger swipe on smartphone or tablet allows you to create any number of personal light effects from a palette of 16 million hues, shades of white and programmable scenes.

Philips lets you create table and pendant luminaries to order at www.meethue.com while you can also order them from London store Selfridges.

Philips also showed off a bright white LED bulb which you can control from your tablet or smartphone. The Hue “lux” retrofits into existing A19 luminaries.

ConvoLightBecause your gizmo controls them you can turn your lights on and off from anywhere in the world you can get connected.  Applications include linking the app to alert you to stormy weather, link to stock tickers, link to sportsfeed, or to your Facebook page.

Philips also showed off Convo Lights, which can notify deaf people when there are other audible signals they might miss.

HTC back on track

Posted on October 9, 2014 by - News

damsel-in-distress-4HTC has said that it is back on track and will not have to go to the markets to ask to lend a tenner until next Friday.

Taiwanese smartphone maker’s chief financial officer Chialin Chang told Reuters that the outfit had a  lack of debt, $1.7 billion in cash and the ability to fund itself.

Chang said in an interview that HTC can self-fund itself very sufficiently.

The company last week reported better-than-forecast third-quarter profit, but mainly thanks to cost cuts rather than improved sales.

Chang said the company now had a strong portfolio of phones at prices that will attract buyers in both developed markets and emerging ones.

“I think with a more robust portfolio we’re going to be able to show that we can grow again,” he said. “Hopefully people will feel in the next earnings call with the guidance, we can get the momentum back.”

Chang said that his company was working on other “smart devices” which means it is probably coming up with a watch like everyone else in the industry.

Meanwhile the outfit has created a “Re” camera, which can be controlled remotely from an Android or Apple phone, represents one effort to branch out beyond phones. Given that the cylinder-shaped device is waterproof and is highly portable, it could be seen as a potential competitor to GoPro Inc (GPRO.O) cameras.

Chang said that was the wrong comparison since GoPro cameras are specifically aimed at “extreme” sports while the Re, which will sell for $199 in the United States, is aimed at everyday use.

Gartner reads IT tarot cards

Posted on October 8, 2014 by - News

Tarot cards - Wikimedia CommonsMarket research company Gartner said it has identified the top IT trends for 2015.

Organisations, said Gartner, cannot afford to ignore these trends when they’re doing their strategic planning.  And while that doesn’t mean companies have to invest in all the trends, companies should certainly be aware of them.

Some of these trends we’ve already got a clue about – the first is “computing everywhere” – that is to say taking into accounts needs of mobile users and connected screens.

And then we come to the internet of things which really means the digitisation of everything – be it your tie, your suit, your boots or your lightbulbs.

Gartner also thinks that 3D printers are about to take off, with shipments growing by nearly 98 percent next year.  New industrial, biomedical and personal applications will show 3D printing is viable and cost effective.

Analytics is important because all of this digitisation means that there will be masses of data and it should be used to aid businesses.

And, again, all of this digitisation means that machines will get smarter with the invention of clever algorithms that let systems understand what and where they are.

Cloud computing, said Gartner, will converge with mobile computing giving rise to coordinated apps delivered to any device.

The last three in Gartner’s list are software defined apps, web scale IT and risk based security.

McAfee dabbles in democracy

Posted on October 8, 2014 by - News

McAfee HQ in Satan ClaraSecurity company McAfee, which is a subsidiary of the Intel Corporation, has given us its thoughts about how we could vote online or e-vote in the future.

Online voting isn’t particularly new – Baltic country Estonia held national elections using an e-voting system.  Other countries including India, France, Brazil and Australia have introduced electronic voting machines.

Yet Michael DeCare, president of McAfee said that wasn’t quite enough.  He said: “A greater emphasis on security could empower a new era in digital democracy.  People need to have trust and confidence in the process. Pilot programmes could be the route to earning public trust on a small scale.”

He claims obstacles to online and e-voting are largely hard to overcome and has little public acceptance.

People, he said, are worried about hacking and “lost votes cannot be regained”.

He doesn’t seem to have an answer to this question of public trust. But as people are wary following the thousands of security breaches that take place every year, it’s down to vendors like McAfee not to pose such questions but to provide the answers.

Berners-Lee speaks up for people

Posted on October 8, 2014 by - News

Sir Tim Berners-LeeThe inventor of the world wide web said today that data should belong to each of us.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee was speaking at a keynote speech at IPExpo Europe in London.

He hit out at the notion that data belongs to corporations like Facebook and Google who collect it and then use it to make money out of everyone.

He said that using big data for advertising purposes gave him a queasy sensation and rather than big data we should be interested in rich data.

He told the conference that big companies are, essentially, spying on us all and this is a real threat.

Collecting your own data from different gizmos you use and different transactions you make gives you a perspective on yourself that is much more valuable than feeding that data to large corporations.

Berners-Lee described what would become known as the world wide web 25 years ago.

We’re all running out of juice!

Posted on October 8, 2014 by - News

alkaline batteryAs we’re soon going to be swamped by even more smartphones, tablets, wearable devices and notebooks there’s an urgent need for better battery technologies real soon now.

That’s according to ABI Research which said that by 2019 there will be eight billion devices on the planet – a billion more than there are people right now.

If you’ve got a smartphone, you probably realise that the smarter they get the more electricity they take and that trend is going nowhere but upwards over the next few years.

ABI Research points out that the holy grail doesn’t lie with lithium and graphite batteries, nor with micro USB chargers.  But it claims that silicon anode batteries from the likes of Leyden Energy and Amprius, as well as germanium based devices may hold out hope for the charging nightmare we even now face, in 2014.

“The opportunity is enormous,” said Nick Spencer, a senior director at ABI Research. “The average advanced market home has over 10 untethered devices with rechargeable batteries today.” Spencer reckons that if wearables take off, along with electric cars and the internet of things, the demand will be even greater.

But, thinks TechEye, we’ve been promised better battery technology for years and thus far no-one has picked up that particular baton. So let’s see how it all pans out.

Google to gobble up smartphone market

Posted on October 8, 2014 by - News, Products

smartphones-genericWant an Android smartphone for around 100 bucks?  Go to India, because that’s where the action is.

Market analysts at IDC said Google has introduced what it describes as the “first wave” of Android One devices in India in collaboration with local gizmo makers Spice, Karbonn and Micromax.

Google – now it’s a hardware company – has produced a reference design that makes it nice and easy to create devices using Mediatek MT6582 system on a chip (SoC) devices.

And Google isn’t letting it end there because it’s already teamed up major mobile firms Airtel and Reliance and pulled in Amazon too to give added value to the reference designs.

According to IDC, it won’t end there, because after capturing the Indian smartphone market it will also launch similar products in Indonesia and then Brazil.

IDC thinks Google is set to sell heaps of phones and “redefine”  cheap smartphones with “good enough” specs.

OK – Samsung and Apple can battle it out at the high end and while there are plenty of Indian folk who can afford to lash out on these, there are an awful lot more folks who, quite simply, can’t.

Google hasn’t got a presence in the Chinese market, said IDC, but can make gazillions out of other major markets.

Infected ATMs discovered

Posted on October 7, 2014 by - News

pesetaMalware illegally installed in automatic teller machines (ATMs) is costing millions of dollars with INTERPOL involved in a fight to stem the thefts.

Kaspersky Labs said the Tyupkin malware works when crooks have physical access to the ATMs and use a bootable CD to install it.  The infected ATM runs on an infinite loop waiting for a command and runs only on specific times on Sunday and Monday nights.  Then the crooks strike, taking cash from infected machines without needing to use credit cards.

Kaspersky said the malware – Backdoor.MSIL.Tyupkin – has been detected on ATMs in Europe, Latin America and Asia.

The anti-virus company said that banks need to look at the physical security of ATMs and invest in good quality security systems.

They also need to replace master keys and locks on the top of ATMs and get rid of the default settings.  An alarm should also be installed because Kaspersky discovered the gangsters only infected ATMs with no security alarm.  The default BIOS passwords should be changed and the ATMs need to have up to date antivirus software installed.

Computers help to fight AIDS

Posted on October 7, 2014 by - News

HIVScientists at the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) say they have developed a method that uses the power of computers to find new compounds to fight the AIDS virus.

The problem is that drugs that have managed to kill HIV are becoming ineffective because the virus is becoming resistant to them.

The researchers say they have a method to speed up development work in the search for new compounds to fight HIV.  They claim that can increase speed by an order of several hundred percent.

The new mthods use quantum mechanics and molecular mechanics using significantly more powerful computers to hunt for the “needle in the haystack”.

Vasanthanathan Poongavanam and Jacob Kongsted at SDU screened half a million compounds and narrowed down 25 for further investigation.  Of those, 14 inhibit the HIV virus’s ability to reproduce.

* The image illustrates HIV virus – purple balls – entering a host cell.  Once they’ve entered they deliver viral RNA – the purple capsule.  The container carries enzymes needed for viral self replication and the compounds discovered are used to inhibit the enzymes.

Spam drowns business mail

Posted on October 7, 2014 by - News

Penny Blacks - Wikimedia CommonsA survey showed that 69 percent of organisations polled report that day to day business operations are severely disrupted by spam related incidents.

GFI Software commissioned the independent report that surveyed 200 IT decision makers.

Thirty six percent of the respondents said they have been affected up to three times in a year, meaning expense if PCs and servers need to be cleaned or re-installed after malware has been opened and executed by people.

Some respondents – 15 percent – said tthey had major spam related IT failures over 10 times in the last year.

The most common types of spam is phishing – 49 percent of respondents said it was the most prevalent type of spam.

Banking spam from real companies is the second biggest problem at 44 percent.

Third was dating site spam. 34 percent of respondents said it was their main worry.

And 56 percent surveyed said they’d notice a rise in spam levels over the past year.

Sergio Galindo, general manager at GFI software said crooks are using spam more and more to throw malware into the workplace for malicious reasons, to hold companies to ransom or to steal information that can be used for fraud.

HP notebook sales decline

Posted on October 7, 2014 by - News

notebooksJust a day after HP decided to split itself in half, a report suggests that it is the only of the top five brands to see a decline in notebook shipments in September.

Data published by Digitimes Research said that, over all, the top five vendors showed growth of 19 percent last month. Asustek managed to grow its shipments by 70 percent compared to the same month in 2013 and Lenovo managed 40 percent growth.

There are some sea changes in the market in any case, said the research arm.   Samsung and Toshiba have decided to retreat from some segments of the market. Samsung, for example, has given up the ghost on Chromebook sales in Europe.

Toshiba has exited several markets including South Krea, China and Russia.

The report said that adoption of Windows 8 has been pretty patchy, but Windows 10, due to arrrive in the second half of next year, might well give Microsoft a boost on the upgrade front. People can move from Windows 8 to Windows 10 without paying any more and that’s a tacit admission that it thinks it was a flop too.

IBM wants to dam big data deluge

Posted on October 7, 2014 by - News

IBM logoBig Blue says it has created a new model for enterprise data storage intended to work across a large number of IT solutions.

Jamie Thomas, general manager of storage at IBM, said that it’s time the “traditional” storage model must change. That’s because data is churned out to 2.5 billion gigabytes every day.

Enterprises need to make real time decisions based on this data.  Storage and data centres are the foundation for the model using analytical tools.

She said IBM has introduced something called the Elastic Storage Server, a software storage appliance that works in conjunction with IBM Power 8 servers.

She said that software defined storage is changing the entire industry and IBM can now sell products to customers that want to manage, organise, and use data as a competitive tool.

IBM will offers its Software Defined Storage products through Elastic Storage, SAN Volume Controller and the Virtual Storage Centre.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV 2015 comes to pass

Posted on October 7, 2014 by - News, Products

microsoft-in-chinaSoftware supremo Microsoft said it has made available a product which it claims will help small to medium sized businesses (SMBs)  grow their revenues.

Microsoft Dynamics NAV is business management software and is now optimised for mobile and for cloud, the company claimed.

Features include tablet and touch features that let SMBs access data from any place or  on devices that include apps from Apple, Google and Microsoft app stores.

There’s a simplified way of designing invoices that syncs with Microsoft Word. Microsoft says that allows people to create their own customised invoice templates.

It also has new capabilities for electronic payments and account reconciliation.