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.

HP does u-turn on OpenVMS

Posted on August 1, 2014 by - News

utrunThe maker of expensive printer ink, HP, has changed its mind on OpenVMS.

For a while now HP has been pushing its users off the system, but now it says that it has licensed OpenVMS to a new firm that plans to develop ports to the latest Itanium chips. It is also promising eventual support for x86 processors.

This is a u-turn from last year when HP declared OpenVMS as following the path of the Dodo. It said it would not validate the operating system to its latest hardware or produce new versions of it.

The new move involves licensing the OpenVMS source code to a new entity, VMS Software. Of course HP is not saying that action a reversal, or that it changes the previously announced roadmap for the OS.

The move will allow OpenVMS customers want is to stay on the OS.

VSI is funded by the investors of Nemonix Engineering, a longtime support and maintenance firm of OpenVMS systems.

It wants to validate the operating system on Intel’s Itanium eight-core Poulson chips by early 2015.  It also wants to support for HP hardware running the upcoming “Kittson” chip. It will also develop an x86 port, although it isn’t specifying a timeframe.

OpenVMS has a strong customer bas and is used in nuclear power plants, in process control systems in all industries. It is good at disaster recovery, security and clustering.

An OpenVMS user group based in France recently went public with its complaints, calling HP’s decision a mistake.

Nokia buys a bit of Panasonic

Posted on August 1, 2014 by - News

panasonicThe bit of Nokia, which is not busy merging with Microsoft, has just written a cheque for a slice of Panasonic’s electronics business.

The former rubber boot maker, which sold off its phone unit said it will buy Panasonic’s mobile phone wireless base station system business for operators as well as related wireless equipment system business.

No one is saying how much Nokia paid for it but the company expects to have completed the transaction by early 2015.

Nokia made 5.5 billion euros when it sold its phone division to Microsoft three months ago. Meanwhile Nokia has been buying up other businesses such as the Chicago-based SAC Wireless.

Japan is one of the new Nokia’s most important mobile network market areas and it controls a quarter of the Japanese market. This acquisition will bring that up to about one third.

Rauhala suggests that while this is not a “giant deal”, it is probably worth tens of millions of euros.

Panasonic is short of cash at the moment and needs the readies.

 

 

Samsung sulks as profits slump

Posted on July 31, 2014 by - News

sulkingSamsung reported its worst quarterly profit in two years and moaned about uncertain earnings prospects for its key handset business.

The fact it gave such a doomed profits prophecy and kept its interim dividend unchanged from last year, put the shares of the outfit on track for their worst fall in nearly eight months.

Samsung expects July-September handset shipments to pick up by 10 percent from the previous quarter and said it planned to release a new premium smartphone employing a new design and material.

The outfit is suffering from its low end being squeezed from Chinese rivals like Xiaomi and has promised price cuts.

Those plans were pretty much want everyone thought it would do Samsung remained downbeat about its third-quarter prospects, with its mobile division expecting a decline in average sales price in the current quarter from the April-June period.

Senior Vice President Kim Hyun-joon said that considering intensifying competition of price and specifications as well as the release of new competing models, it is difficult to expect earnings to improve from the second quarter.

For April-June, Samsung said operating profit fell 24.6 percent annually to $7.03 billion, matching its guidance. It was the third straight quarter of profit decline and its weakest result since the second quarter of 2012.

Profit for the mobile division fell to about $4.42 billion from $6.28 billion a year ago.

Samsung’s mobile division executives returned a quarter of their first-half bonuses and have downgraded to economy seats for shorter flights.

Researcher IDC warned that Samsung’s second-quarter global smartphone market share slipped to 25.2 percent from 32.3 percent a year ago.

Samsung’s guidance on its memory business was bullish, tipping its 2014 shipment growth for both DRAM and NAND memory chips to outpace the broader market.

Apache flaw scalps Android

Posted on July 30, 2014 by - News

apacheA four year-old hole in a critical part of Google’s Android OS could leave mobile devices that use it susceptible to attack.

Researchers at the firm Bluebox Security said that Android verifies mobile applications using the Apache Harmony module. This module has a flaw in it.

The vulnerability affects devices running Android versions 2.1 to 4.4.

According to Bluebox, Apache Harmony affects Android’s verification of digital signatures that are used to vouch for the identity of mobile applications.

Application signatures are the basis of the Android application trust model and link different applications with a reputable certificate authority.

Mobile application signatures on Android are secured using a Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) with certificate authorities.

But the package installer component of older versions of Android do not attempt to determine the authenticity of certificate chains that are used to vouch for new digital identity certificates.

This means that a hacker can build a certificate and claim it has been issued by another identity, and the Android cryptographic code will not check.

If a hacker faked an Adobe Systems certificate vulnerable versions of Android will treat the application as if it was actually signed by Adobe.

It would give it access to local resources, like the special webview plugin privilege, that can be used to sidestep security controls and virtual ‘sandbox’ environments.

Apache Harmony was abandoned in 2011 and was supposed to offer an open source alternative to Oracle’s Java technology. Google turned to Harmony as an alternative means of supporting Java after failing to strike a deal with Oracle to license Java.

Google continued to use Android libraries that were based on Harmony code even after the project was abandoned.

Google said that it is working with Bluebox to fix the vulnerability and has quickly issued a patch that was distributed to Android partners.

 

Consoles doomed says Doom man

Posted on July 30, 2014 by - News

doomJohn Romero, best known for his on Wolfenstein 3D, Doom and Quake says that consoles are being killed off by PCs and mobile consoles.

Speaking to GamesIndustry.biz   at the Strong National Museum of Play in Rochester, New York, Romero said that free-to-play is shaking up the industry.

He said that with a PC you have free-to-play and Steam games for five bucks,” said Romero. “The PC is decimating console, just through price. Free-to-play has killed a hundred top studios.

Romero’s games involve providing the first episode free and if play more, then you pay up.

He said that everyone was getting better at free-to-play design, and it is going to lose its stigma at some point. People will settle into the mindset that there is a fair way of doing it, and the other way is the “dirty way.”

Romero said that with this model there were some technological advantages of PC over consoles.

“With PCs if you want a faster system you can just plug in some new video cards, put faster memory in it, and you’ll always have the best machine that blows away PS4 or Xbox One,” he said.

Romero also thinks that VR headsets are unlikely to make a significant impact on the gaming world.

He said that before using Oculus, he had heard many vets in the industry saying this is not like anything they had seen before.

While he thought that it was amazing, Romero could not see a good future for VR right now.

“It encloses you and keeps you in one spot – even the Kinect and Move are devices I wouldn’t play because they just tire you out,” Romero said.

“VR is going away from the way games are being developed and pushed as they go back into multiplayer and social stuff. VR is kind of a step back, it’s a fad.”

Apple and Samsung lose out

Posted on July 30, 2014 by - News

1920s-telephone-advertApple and Samsung’s European bottom lines are being kicked by a surge of interest in local smartphones.

A report from Netbiscuits suggests that customers are becoming increasingly frustrated at the mobile market monoculture and Apple and Samsung are experiencing their first major challenge from disruptive European vendors.

Head of global research at Netbiscuits Duncan Clark said that his report marks a dramatic shift in mobile market share which are mirrored in Asia were emerging local vendors in Asia have been doing well.

French company Wiko and bq in Spain have muscled a “Top 50 devices” spot in their own countries for the first time ever.

Coupled with increased fragmentation in Asian markets as cheaper brands enter the market, it seems that smaller, companies are gaining popularity around the world and disrupting dominant players.

It is still early days yet, but it does show that the Golden Age where Apple and Samsung rule the smartphone world is coming to a close.

 

 

 

 

Intel builds custom chips for Oracle

Posted on July 29, 2014 by - News

oracleIntel’s new business building custom chips for punters who build their own servers appears to have been gaining some momentum.

Last year, Intel started offering custom chip designs to Facebook and eBay and now it has managed to get Oracle signed up.

The difference with the Oracle deal is that Chipzilla is making custom processors to sell to customers.

According to DatacenterDynamics  Oracle wanted a processor whose performance profiles could be changed on demand based on workload.

Intel built Oracle’s E7-8890 v2 on the Xeon E7-8895 v2 processor but gave it the ability to put its cores into ultra-low power states and then bring them back up as needed.

The 8890 v2 model is the top of the Xeon line, the only one with RAS capabilities and other high-end functions found in the Itanium and other RISC processors.

The 8890 has 15 cores running at 2.8 GHz and 37.5 MB of cache per core for high performance analytics or in-memory databases.

With the 8895, Intel allowed the processor to act like an 8890, 8891 or 8893 while in operation and without having to shut down and restart.

The technology was already there. Intel already does something similar with its consumer Core processors called Turbo Boost. If a dual core, 3.0GHz processor is running a single-threaded app, it will shut down one core and run the other at 3.4Ghz, for example.

The 8895 is used in Oracle’s Exadata Database Machine X4-8,an 8-processor rack system with up to 12 TB of system memory 672 terabytes of disk, 44 terabytes of high-performance PCI Flash, 240 database CPU cores, and 168 CPU cores in storage to accelerate data-intensive SQL.

There are limits to the deal. Intel will not be open to chip suggestions from Oracle’s hardware competitors like HP and Dell. The Oracle deal was oriented around its database and other business application software.

Samsung delays Tizen

Posted on July 29, 2014 by - News

tizen-(1)Samsung’s plans to get its Tizen phone into the shops have been delayed, with the initial planned third quarter launch in Russia abandoned.

The Korean electronics maker had been hoping that Tizen would cut its dependency on Android.

The phone was supposed to be tried out in Russia sometime in the third quarter, but Samsung said it needed more time to enhance the “Tizen ecosystem.”

This comes as no real surprise as there had been rumblings at a recent Tizen developer’ conference two weeks ago, but this was put down to a dodgy fish supper.

Samsung did not say exactly what was wrong with Tizen but it would appear to be concerns about the availability of apps and related services that are needed to make the product sell.

Network operators NTT DoCoMo and France’s Orange pulled out of promotional campaigns launching the Tizen phone because of a lack of Apps.

Samsung has already launched Tizen smartwatches and cameras, but wants to get it into smartphones so that it has greater control over its phones operating system. Its license agreement with Google restricts its freedom to make more than cosmetic changes to the Android system.

 

Don’t fear the Big Blue Apple Alliance

Posted on July 28, 2014 by - News

blue-appleThe glorious alliance between soft fruit Apple and Big Blue has not put the fear of Jehovah into other potential fruity alliances.

According to Reuters  top executives at Dell and BlackBerry scoffed at the deal with their best scoffing sticks.

The pair have been trying to re-invent themselves, and some of the tame Apple press claims that the glorious Apple-IBM alliance will stuff up their efforts.

John Swainson, who heads Dell’s global software business, said that the Apple-IBM made a good press release but there was nothing in it which was worth taking seriously.

Swainson, who spent over two decades in senior roles at IBM, point out that IBM reps will be unable to flog Apple gear to their client base. He said that they were rubbish at selling that sort of thing when it had an IBM logo on it, so they are going to be just as pants at trying to sell stuff with an Apple on it.

While it is true that Apple products are better marketed, Swainson said they lack the depth of security features that many large business clients like banks need.

BlackBerry Chief Executive John Chen told the Financial Times that the alliance was like when “two elephants start dancing”,

Dell and BlackBerry have declined to discuss whether they would consider teaming up, but some analysts, bankers and others have argued in the past that a partnership between the two underdogs potentially made sense.

Dell has a huge sales team, vast network of business clients and is focused on growing its security and device management capabilities which is everything that BlackBerry needs.

Intel kicks AMD in its low end

Posted on July 25, 2014 by - News

kung-fuAMD’s results have revealed a weakness in the outfit’s bread and butter lower end chips which is being exploited by Intel.

Intel’s  Atom Bay Trail is taking notebook share from AMD and  consumer-notebooks do not appear to be making up the missing cash.  It seems that Intel has been doing a much better job of convincing OEMs to Atom Bay Trail than AMD. This means that as demand for laptops has stabilised, Chipzilla is in a stronger position.

Barrons  said that its recent conversations with notebook ODMs indicate that AMD is ceding material share to Intel’s Atom Bay Trail platform in the sub-$399 computing market.

Intel’s cunning plan, which was to focus on the low-end x86 computing segment after giving up on the netbook in 2012, is paying off.  It still has a long way to go before it has the sort of control of that market that it has with overall PC processor sales. It has been estimated that Intel has half of the low end market in comparison to 80 per cent overall in PC processors.

One of Chipzilla’s sales points is that Atom Bay Trail 4-watt processors have outperformed AMD’s 26-watt processors in performance benchmarks.

If that is correct, then the only thing that is holding AMD together is that its APU business division. It has increased 20 percent or more over the past six months thanks to the recently launched Kaveri and Beema APUs. This will make  AMD’s desktop APU sales increasingly dependent on expansion from Application Service Providers which some analysts have written off as unlikely.

It might be simply another example where Intel has nobbled a key rival while its back was turned.

 

Qualcomm is a monopoly – report

Posted on July 24, 2014 by - News

monoplyMobile chipmaker Qualcomm has been accused of running a monopoly by China’s antitrust watchdog.

The state-run Securities Times newspaper reported on Thursday that Qualcomm’s chief executive Steven Mollenkopf  held talks in China to see what could be done about the problem.

Watchdog, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), snarled that the US chipmaker was suspected of overcharging and abusing its market position In wireless communication standards, allegations which could see it hit with record fines of more than $1 billion.

However the NDRC, did not say whether the regulator had determined that Qualcomm had abused its monopoly, just that it had confirmed it had one.

Qualcomm was charging lower royalties for patents to undercut competitors who have similar technology and maintain market share. The report also said that Qualcomm, as the only provider of chips for high-end phones, can dictate those licensing fees.

The Securities Times report said the NDRC was probing Qualcomm’s local sales data and that Qualcomm President Derek Aberle has been communicating with the NDRC over issues relating to the anti-monopoly investigation.

Under China’s anti-monopoly law, the NDRC can impose fines of between one and 10 percent of a company’s revenues for the previous year. Qualcomm earned $12.3 billion in China for its fiscal year ended September 29, or nearly half of its global sales.

LG is back from the dead

Posted on July 24, 2014 by - News

return-of-draculaThe troubled smartphone maker LG is apparently back from the dead and reporting a a record quarter for mobile phone sales.

LG said that it sold 14.5 million handsets over the last quarter, its highest total ever and 20 percent more than last year. More than a third of those were LTE models.

Most of the success was due to the well-reviewed top-of-the-line G3 handset, along with strong sales of its mid-range L products.

LG’s mobile division earned $3.5 billion and put an end to a hat trick of three straight quarters of losses. Home entertainment also performed well, climbing 3 percent on the strength of higher-margin UltraHD 4K sets. All that resulted in an operating profit of $599 million.

Analysts think that LG is taking advantage of a slump in the fortunes of Apple and Samsung to claw its way back into favour. For a while there it did look like LG was about to go the way of Blackberry as a mobile phone company whose days were limited.

While the company is not generating the sorts of numbers that Samsung and Apple can, its sales figures are going up and not down.

Lasers promise quantum breakthough

Posted on July 23, 2014 by - News

laserDartmouth scientists and their colleagues have emerged from their smoke filled labs with a laser that uses a single artificial atom to generate and emit particles of light.

The laser may play a key role in the development of quantum computers.

According to the journal Physical Review B, which we get for the spot the neutron competition, the new laser is the first to rely exclusively on superconducting electron pairs.

Alex Rimberg, a professor of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth said that the fact the laser only uses only superconducting pairs means that that electrical energy can travel without any resistance or loss of energy.

The artificial atom is made of nanoscale pieces of superconductor which you can make part of an electrical circuit on a chip, something you can’t do with a real atom. It means that there is now a much clearer path toward interesting applications in quantum computing.

Light from the laser is produced by applying electricity to the artificial atom. This causes electrons to hop across the atom and, in the process, produce photons that are trapped between two superconducting mirrors.

With the new laser, electrical energy is converted to light that has the ability to transmit information to and from a quantum computer.

“With a quantum computer, you have to get the information from point A to point B,” he says. “A computer that does a calculation but has no way of getting the information anywhere else isn’t particularly useful. Our laser might offer an easy way of producing the kinds of weird quantum states of light that could be used to carry quantum information around.”

ICCAN suspends Domain Registry of America

Posted on July 21, 2014 by - News

sputnikICCAN has stepped in and banned the Domain Registry of America from flogging Domain names at least until October.

Domain Registry of America is run by Brandon Gray, sometimes under the handle of NameJuice.

What Domain Registry of America have been doing for the last decade is send out “renewal” notices using snail mail to people who are not their customers. They get the expiration dates correct so it looks legitimate. They also use important-looking stationary with lots of American flags and official language implying that you are already a customer.

A lot of people are suckered into thinking that the company’s name implies that they are somehow the official gatekeeper of domain names in the land of the free.

Inexperienced website owners fill out the paperwork, send in their credit card numbers, and transfer their domain name to Domain Registry of America and have to paying a higher fee for the domain name.

While these sorts of antics are legal in the US, the blogsphere is full of people complaining about the company. While many will welcome the ban, others will be wondering why it took ICANN so long. Others are alarmed that the ban is not permanent.

Gray got finally caught out under a couple of clauses in the 2013 registrar contract with ICANN by subjecting Registered Name Holders to false advertising, deceptive practices, or deceptive notices.

Intel goes Pentium, Core i3 nuts

Posted on July 21, 2014 by - News

Intel-logoChipzilla has released eight new Pentium and Core i3 desktop microprocessors.

The Pentium G3250, G3460, Core i3-4160 and i3-4370 are being geared for PC’s. Intel also released Pentium G3250T, G3450T, Core i3-4160T and i3-4360T which are low-power models.

According to Tom’s Hardware all processors are 100MHz faster than their predecessors, which is a barely noticeable three to four percent improvement in clock speed.

The prices are pretty much the same for previously released Pentiums and Core i3s, particularly after Intel cut the price of existing Core i3-4360 SKU by 7 per cent, from $149 to $138, and the price of the Pentium G3450 was slashed by 13 per cent from $86 to $75.

The new Pentiums products are produced on 22nm manufacturing process, and they come with two CPU cores, running at 2.8 GHz – 3.5 GHz.

The Pentiums have 3 MB of L3 cache, integrated HD graphics, and provide the basics like VT-x Virtualization and SSE4. The Pentium G3250 and G3460 have 53 Watt TDP, and the G3250T and G3450T are rated at 35 Watt. The official prices of Pentiums range from $64 to $85.

It seems priced to complete with the AMD A6-6400K and A8-5500 APUs.

Core i3 microprocessors have support for Hyper-threading feature which means they can run twice as many threads at once. The i3s are generally clocked higher than the Pentiums, and they have GPU upgraded to HD 4400 on the i3-41xx series, and to HD 4600 on the i3-43xx series.

Low power Core i3-4160T and i3-4360T run at 3.1 GHz and 3.2 GHz, and have 35 Watt TDP. The standard power Core i3-4160 and i3-4370 operate at 3.6 GHz and 3.8 GHz but fit into 54 Watt thermal envelope.

All Core i3 models have the GPU clocked at 1.15 GHz, and they support DDR3-1600 memory. Core i3-4160 and i3-4160T have the official price of $117. The Core i3-4360T and i3-4370 are more expensive, and they are priced at $138 and $149.