Author: Nick Farrell

German tech industry dragged into the 21st century

Posted on March 31, 2015 by - News

Hartmann_Maschinenhalle_1868_(01)Germany, whose industry has been relying on things to run the same way as they did before those World Wars, has suddenly woken up in the digital age and is a little worried about it.

According to Reuters big German companies have started teaming up with start-ups to shake up their conservative business culture and keep pace with a world increasingly dominated by nimble tech giants.

Most of the German blue-chips run along 19th century lines with only the youngest — SAP, founded less than 43 years ago.

In other Western countries the top 30 companies on the Nasdaq were set up in the 1980s or later and the fourth-biggest firm, Facebook, was established about a decade ago.

German government officials and company executives fear they could fall far behind if they cannot swiftly identify and adopt innovations in web and smartphone technology that have driven the success of Google, Apple and Amazon.

Metro, Bayer, Evonik, Merck KGaA and Deutsche Telekom are now investing in start-ups – seeking to gain digital expertise, as well as to embrace newcomers whose innovations could represent threats to their own businesses.

They have a long way to go, Investment in German start-ups more than doubled to $1.74 billion last year, this was less than the amount raised by Uber. US-based start-ups drew $49.39 billion.

Fewer than half of Germany’s top 500 companies have a comprehensive digital strategy, according to a study by Accenture.Only 11 percent use social media and only six percent cloud computing, the European Commission’s Digital Economy Index published at the end of February showed.

Healthcare firms Bayer, Merck and Boehringer Ingelheim, Deutsche Telekom and chemicals group Evonik, meanwhile, have all set up multi-million euro in-house venture funds. Deutsche Telekom has pledged to invest $542 million in Germany’s start-up scene over the next five years.

The German government has announced plans to try to promote startups. They include a pre-market web platform to connect young companies with investors.

However most say that there needs to be more venture capital investment in Germany and the scene needs to be more attractive in terms of taxation.

The other problem is that the Germans do not like investing in something which might go tits up.

 

Amazon sets up service side

Posted on March 31, 2015 by - News

2580297818_3c864043e6Online book seller Amazon is creating a service side to its business based on the very sound idea that customers might want to buy flat-pack furniture, but have not got a clue how to assemble it.

Peter Faricy, vice president for Amazon Marketplace said that there were more than 85 million Amazon customers who have shopped for products this past year that often require a service afterwards.

Amazon’s answer is a new section in the US, Home Services, where customers can shop for professional help. It’s launching with 700 different services, from the ordinary to the esoteric, everything from installing a garbage disposal to renting you a goat herd.

So far it is all being tested, but it could be rolled out to the EU, where it will solve one of the biggest problems that people have – finding a service person who is not a cowboy, now that all the Polish people have gone home.

Faricy said it is tough to quickly find someone who is qualified. It has only accepted an average of three out of every 100 service professionals in each metro area. It makes sure each business is licensed, insured, and passes a five-point background check, with a further six-point background check for each technician.

Amazon said that it takes 60 seconds to buy a service, regardless of whether that is deck repair, house cleaning, or hedge trimming and you will how much it’s going to cost you, up front, no surprises.”

AMD relies on partners for R&D gap

Posted on March 31, 2015 by - News

mind the gapChipmaker AMD is relying more on its partners to come up with the latest R&D ideas, just like it did in the 1990s.

Decrypted tech claims that over the past few years AMD has been slowly cutting back on the money it puts towards R&D.

Instead it has tried to narrow the focus of the money they spend on new technology where it thinks it will get the most return.   So in the last quarter AMD spent less than $238 Million on R&D and his been building R&D partnerships to overcome budget challenges.

AMD started rebuilding its R&D partnerships in late 2010 and this allowed it to cut back on the amount they need to bring to the table to create new technologies. This is a repeat of what it did in the 1990s when the outfit used Samsung, IBM, Motorola, and Texas Instruments helping them to change the way they built CPUs.

This was how it could build the Athlon CPU with only a small R&D budget and engineering team.

This time AMD is betting big on HBM and also on integrating ARM processors inside their APU/CPUs and apparently it is letting its R&D partners do a lot of the heavy lifting money-wise while they provide many of the engineering minds.

If it pays off, AMD gets its technology on the cheap.  However in the worst case it could hack off some big names in the in the industry like Hynix, Samsung, Toshiba etc. and walk away with new technology to sell to others.

The plan is high risk as it could leave AMD with nothing it can sell, while its partners have some natty tech that AMD helped them build.

 

 

Chinese CEO calls Apple Nazis

Posted on March 30, 2015 by - News

donald-duck-funny-german-germany-hitler-nazi-Favim.com-91188Chinese CEO and billionaire Jia Yueting, has created a storm by comparing Apple to the Nazi Party.

For those who are not in the know, Jia Yueting is the chairman of Leshi Television, one of the China’s most popular online video sites. Jia’s private Leshi Holding (Beijing) invests in film and TV show production.

In a weibo post, Yueting compares the attributes of the Android and iOS ecosystems as “Crowdsourced, freedom vs arrogance, tyranny”, painting Apple as the villain.

He goes on to say, “Under the arrogant regime of iOS domination that developers around the world love yet hate, we are always carefully asking, ‘is this kind of innovation okay?'”

It might be that he is wanting a reasonable debate between closed and open source, he does not seem to want to make many friends by starting the debate by invoking Godwin.

The Tame Apple Press of course is spitting blood about the comments claiming that it must be some promotional move by LeTV to enter the smartphone industry. After all the only reason people need to criticise something as perfect as Apple is for click bait or marketing,

LeTV has already announced it will be creating an electric and autonomous vehicle as well, so to the Tame Apple Press that means that Yueting wants to be Apple.

“It is rather ironic that LeTV would use the Nazi Party as a symbolism of closed source systems, when modern day China is perhaps a more usable source, with Mainland China banned from seeing anything outside the “Great Firewall” and US companies regularly attacked by Chinese regulators,” hissed David Curry on Betanews .

He then attacks Xiaomi for copying Apple’s store layouts and TV designs, perhaps forgetting that Xiaomi is not LeTV.

Former HP boss “90 percent sure” of presidential bid

Posted on March 30, 2015 by - News

carlyfiorinaFormer HP boss the winsome (and lose some) Carly Fiorina said the chances she would run for the US presidency in 2016 were “higher than 90 percent” and that she would announce her plans in late April to early May.

Fiorina said she could not yet announce the bid because she was working to establish her team and put together what she described as “the right support” and financial resources.

Fiorina was seen as a divisive figure at HP. Her wielding of the corporate axe made staff scared of losing their jobs. It is also not clear if HP ever did that well from her massive buy out of Compaq which left HP as the world’s largest hardware maker just in time for the economic rut which gutted PC sales.

In 2005, Fiorina was forced to resign as chief executive officer and chair of HP following “differences with the board of directors about how to execute HP’s strategy.”She has frequently been ranked as one of the worst tech CEOs of all time, although we would suspect that at least one of those who followed her into the HP chair were a lot more apocalyptic [surely Apothelkayptic. Ed].

Potential Republican presidential candidates including former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz became the first major figure from either political party to formally announce his 2016 presidential bid.

Among Democrats, Hillary Clinton is expected to be the front-runner for the nomination, although she has yet to formally announce her plans.

 

Salesforce guns for SAP’s European crown

Posted on March 30, 2015 by - News

Salesforce logoSalesforce.com wants to overtake SAP in terms of sales on the German company’s home market in the coming years.

The outfit which has been making a killing on the cloud wants to get into SAP’s form of expensive esoteric business software line.

Salesforce’s Europe chief Joachim Schreiner told the German magazine Wirtschafts Woche that Salesforce wanted to become the biggest software company in Germany by sales.

He did not set a date for his conquest of Germany, but instead made it clear that Salesforce needed Lebensraum in the Fatherland.

Salesforce was growing at a rate of more than 30 percent per year in Europe, adding Germany was one of its strongest markets on the continent.

SAP last year generated sales of $19.2 billion, of which close to 2.6 billion were in Germany. Salesforce had revenues of $5.4 billion, of which close to $1 billion were in Europe. It does not break out figures for the German market.

 

Interoute taps private equity for expansion

Posted on March 30, 2015 by - News

Pic Mike MageeBritain’s Interoute, a high-capacity data network and corporate cloud services provider, is knocking on the doors of private equity investors to fund acquisitions across Europe and the United States.

Aleph Capital Partners, a UK investment firm headed by former Goldman Sachs European private equity investment chief Hugues Lepic, and Crestview Partners, a U.S. private equity firm founded by ex-Goldman colleagues, have agreed to buy a 30 percent stake in London-based Interoute.

Aleph is allowed to make investments that range from 100 million to 400 million euro so it could be anywhere in that price range. The deal is expected to close in April, it said.

The deal is Aleph’s first since it was set up two years ago, is a share purchase deal to buy out shareholder Emirates International Telecommunications (EIT), part of a conglomerate owned by the ruler of Dubai, which has been looking to pare debt.

Privately held Interoute is majority-owned by Switzerland’s Sandoz Family Foundation.
Interoute wants the cash to build out its network of datacentres and cloud computing services linking around 124 cities across Europe, as it seeks to more than double revenue to 1 billion euros in five years.

Interoute Chief Executive Gareth Williams told Reuters that the change in the shareholder structure means that “instead of being considered potential prey, we can now turn to being one of the predators”.

The pan-European network operator hopes to stick its foot in the door where there are highly fragmented markets. Currently s quarter of European data traffic flow over its networks and datacentres in 24 countries. It also has datacentres in key Asian and US locations.

The London-based company said it had 425 million in revenue in 2014, up two percent from the year earlier. Core earnings rose slightly to 93 million euros, while free cash flow grew to $25 million, reversing a shortfall of 20 million euros in 2013.

Sixty percent of revenue comes from providing computing, voice and video communications services over its networks to corporate customers such as the European football association and Coca-Cola.
The other 40 percent comes from its older business wholesaling raw network capacity to interconnect European telecom network operators and Internet services such as Google and Facebook.

Startups target for hacks

Posted on March 30, 2015 by - News

wargames-hackerHacking attacks are becoming a rite of passage for startups.

Slack, the communications start-up and witch, the hugely popular video streaming service both said that they had been hacked within days of each other.

But they are the latest in a long line of start-ups to get hacked. Apparently the moment a start-up starts to get momentum with users they are being hit by hackers.

Most of the time the hackers are hackers looking to steal, and monetize, the vast personal information they store on users, like email addresses and passwords. The idea is that the start-ups don’t have the security that bigger outfits have.

Slack and Twitch have the user base and the cash to beef up their security. Once Slack had surpassed 200 million messages a month, it attracted $180 million in venture funding. Once Twitch surpassed 55 million users, Amazon scooped it up for nearly $1 billion.

Both companies said they had put measures in place to keep hackers from easily exploiting their users’ information.

At Slack, the company said hackers were able to access a database containing usernames, email addresses, phone numbers, Skype IDs and passwords. The company noted that those passwords were encrypted using a process known as hashing and salting, which makes it much harder, though not impossible, for hackers to crack them. Last month, Slack had half a million daily users.

Twitch also said it encrypted passwords, but warned that hackers might have been able to capture passwords in the clear as users were logging on.

RSA conference bans booth babes

Posted on March 27, 2015 by - News

Theatre_Cinderella_RAF60F5The RSA Conference next month will be missing “booth babes”.

According to a post by security expert Bill Brenner on the LiquidMatrix blog:

“All Expo staff are expected to dress in business and/or business casual attire. Exhibitors should ensure that the attire of all staff they use at their booth (whether the exhibitor’s direct employees or their contractors) be considered appropriate in a professional environment. Attire of an overly revealing or suggestive nature is not permitted.

Examples of such attire may include but are not restricted to:

  • Tops displaying excessive cleavage;
  • Tank tops, halter tops, camisole tops or tube tops;
  • Miniskirts or minidresses;
  • Shorts;
  • Lycra (or other Second-Skin) bodysuits;
  • Objectionable or offensive costumes.

The rules apply to all booth staff, regardless of gender, and will be strictly enforced. If someone attractive shows up in anything remotely skimpy they will be asked to change their attire or leave the premises immediately if organisers feel their appearance might be offensive to other exhibitors or attendees.”

Linda Gray, event manager, RSA Conferences said that the change in the language in the exhibitor contracts was the best way to ensure all exhibitors were made aware of these new guidelines.

“We thought this was an important step towards making all security professionals feel comfortable and equally respected during the show.” They have yet to receive any complaints, Gray said.

 

Red tape stalls German driverless cars

Posted on March 27, 2015 by - News

3ecde1af5cbac6ae39dea6274262646bGerman car makers have been tied up with red-tape over driver-less car technology.

German auto-manufacturers have moaned that domestic laws limit their efforts to test the appropriate software for self-driving vehicles on public roads and this means that that US competitors, such as Google, are ahead when it comes to developing software designed to react effectively when placed in real-life traffic scenarios.

In December, Google unveiled a fully-functioning prototype of its Self-Driving Car which it plans to start testing in California this year.

Martin Winterkorn, Volkswagen CEO said: “We are currently testing at our research facilities, some of them in the United States. The question is: do we only test these cars on public roads in the United States or can we also do it in Germany. Not enough has been done.”

Audi, BMW and Mercedes-Benz have all revealed prototype driverless vehicles which can be tested on German roads – however currently they are not legally allowed to test the cars with a distracted driver, i.e. emailing or texting in a moving car on public roads.

Tim Cook will give away his fortune

Posted on March 27, 2015 by - News

Apple's Tim CookThe head of the Apple Cargo Cult, Tim Cook has said that he will do something that Steve Jobs never did – give away his fortune.

Fortune magazine cited the head of the world’s largest technology corporation as saying he planned to donate his estimated $785 million fortune to charity – after paying for his 10-year-old nephew’s college education.

“You want to be the pebble in the pond that creates the ripples for change,” Cook told the magazine.

Fortune estimated Cook’s net worth, based on his holdings of Apple stock, at about $120 million. He also holds restricted stock worth $665 million if it were to be fully vested.

He will join billionaire financier Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison and Mark Zuckerberg who have all pledged to give at least half of their wealth to charity.

While Cook has not made nearly as much as Gates, the Apple CEO told Fortune he hopes to make a difference.

Recently Cook has become more outspoken on issues ranging from the environment to civil rights. Cook, who recently revealed he was gay, spoke out against discrimination of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual communities during his induction into the Alabama Academy of Honour last year.

He told Fortune he has started donating money to unspecified causes quietly and is trying to develop a more “systematic approach” to philanthropy that goes beyond writing checks.

When Jobs was asked to participate in the scheme he said no.

While Forbes  claimed that Steve Jobs did not have to give a cent to charity because he filled the world with lots of nice looking gadgets made in factories were people were dying to get out, his motives for not giving money to charity was generally questioned.

The New York Times said Jobs did not have to give away any of his fortune because millionarres only did that to buff their image and Jobs was perfect .  He also was charitable in that he paid his staff a wage to work for him.

It is nice to see that Apple has finally got someone at the top who sees helping other people as being important.

Facebook “robbed” British data centre design

Posted on March 27, 2015 by - News

hqdefaultA British company is claiming that the social notworking site stole its design for a datacentre.

Facebook is being sued by BladeRoom Group (BRG) which that claims the social network stole its technique for building data centres and, perhaps worse, is encouraging others to do the same through the Open Compute Project.

BladeRoom came up with an idea to construct data centres in a modular fashion from pre-fabricated parts. It’s intended to be a faster, more energy-efficient method.

However Facebook used the idea to build part of a data centre in Lulea, Sweden, that opened last year.

“Facebook’s misdeeds might never have come to light had it decided that simply stealing BRG’s intellectual property was enough,” the company said in its lawsuit, filed last Monday at the federal district court in California.

“Instead, Facebook went further when it decided to encourage and induce others to use BRG’s intellectual property though an initiative created by Facebook called the ‘Open Compute Project’.”

BRG is suing Facebook for theft of trade secrets and breach of contract, among other things, and asks for a jury trial. It’s seeking unspecified financial damages and an injunction to stop anyone using its technique.

The British outfit said Facebook should have to pay for “all profits, cost savings, and reputational enhancement” it gained from its alleged use of BRG’s designs. The suit was jointly filed by BRG and Bripco, both based in Cheltenham, England.

 

Paypal fined for aiding arm sellers

Posted on March 27, 2015 by - News

Cover1-600x400PayPal has reached a $7.7 million settlement with the US Treasury for ignoring US sanctions and allowing money transfers to accounts linked to Iran, Cuba, terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

According to DCIno, The Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) detailed a damning string of instances in which the company accepted and processed 486 transactions totalling approximately $43,934 over a five-year period.

“PayPal’s management demonstrated reckless disregard for US economic sanctions requirements in deciding to operate a payment system without implementing appropriate controls,” the Treasury Department said in a statement.

PayPal allowed a bloke called Kursad Zafer Cire, who was named by the US State Department in 2009 as an associate of Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist who provided nuclear know-how to Iran, Libya and North Korea.

Cire’s name was added to the Treasury Department’s list of “specially designated nationals” who have been specifically named as being under sanctions by the US for their involvement in terrorism, programmes involving weapons of mass destruction, drug cartels or other major illicit activities.

Between October 2009 and April 2013, PayPal processed 136 transactions totaling $7,091 to or from an account registered in his name.

First, PayPal failed to identify the account as being related to a specially designated national, but later in 2009 the account was flagged five times. Each time PayPal risk operations agents dismissed the alerts without requesting additional information to clarify whether the account did indeed belong to someone under sanctions.

In 2013, PayPal requested additional information from its customer, and received a copy of his passport. The name, birth date and place of birth exactly matched the person listed on the specially designated nationals list, but PayPal again approved the transfer.

It wasn’t until it was flagged for the seventh time, on April 3, 2013, that the account was blocked and reported to the Treasury Department.

PayPal allowed transactions to proceed although they contained specific references to countries under sanction, such as “Iran,” “Cuba,” “Tehran,” “Khartoum” or “Sudan.”

PayPal brought new management into its compliance division in 2011 to strengthen its controls, which also counted as a mitigating factor.

The company said that over the last two years it has built a new payment scanning system that allows for “real-time scanning of potentially sanctioned payments before they are processed.”

 

Motorola could not kill patent troll with fire

Posted on March 26, 2015 by - News

trollMotorola has been told by a US jury that it used an idea in a patent troll’s portfolio without permission.

Intellectual Ventures’ claimed that it invented multimedia text messaging, something that Motorola said it came up with.

The jury, which deliberated for about a day and a half, cleared Motorola on a second patent related to wireless bandwidth, which it said was invalid. Damages are to be determined later.

It was the second time the two companies faced off in court. The first round, in February 2014, ended in a mistrial after jurors could not agree on a verdict.

Another trial between the two, involving a single Intellectual Ventures patent related to detachable computer devices, is scheduled to begin Thursday.

Lenovo bought the Motorola handset division from Google in October.

Intellectual Ventures is one of the largest intellectual property owners in the world, with more than 70,000 patents and patent applications to its name. It only recently began suing companies in addition to its longtime strategy of licensing its wide array of patents.

It sued Motorola in 2011, alleging that several of Motorola’s mobile devices infringed its patents.

Intellectual Ventures insists that unlike some of the firms denounced as “patent trolls” it does not file frivolous lawsuits. Apparently the definition of a troll is now that the cases have to be frivolous, we thought that they had to be made by people who did not invent anything and were filed purely to make a company wealthy.

In February, Intellectual Ventures won a $17 million patent verdict against security software maker Symantec strengthening its track record in court.

Red Hat does better than expected

Posted on March 26, 2015 by - News

red-hatRed Hat has surprised the cocaine nose jobs of Wall Street by being able to stick to its profit forcast, despite the US dollar shooting through the roof.

Red Hat predicted it would make a profit for the first quarter that matched analysts’ estimates despite warning on a strong dollar hurting its revenue.

Red Hat shares were up five percent in after-market trading after the company’s profit beat the average analyst estimate for the eighth straight quarter.

The company also said a $500 million share buyback program will replace an existing $300 million programme.

Red Hat gets nearly half its revenue from international operations and expected to suffer from the US dollar’s strong gains. HP, Microsoft and IBM had estimated a significant impact from the dollar’s gains.

The company, whose customers include Adobe and Verizon, forecast an adjusted profit of $469 million-$474 million for the first quarter.

Red Hat also forecast a revenue of $1.99-$2.02 billion for the full year. Analysts were expecting  revenues of $2.02 billion.

The company’s billings revenue was $688 million in the fourth quarter. Analysts had expected $646.2 million.