Intel in talks to buy Altera

Intel Q4_14_ResultsLike something out of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s book, “The Black Swan, the Wall Street Journal reported that Intel  was in talks to buy Altera Corp. Taleb also predicts that the so called experts will then tell us why it makes perfectly good sense for Intel to acquire Altera – all after the fact of course.

To get an idea what’s involved on the money side; Intel’s market capitalisation is around $140 Billion with Altera at about $10.4 billion.

What premium Intel would have to pay is, of course, one of the finer points of the ongoing discussion. As a basis of estimate analysts are using Intel’s last acquisition of McAfee at $7.7 Billion as a benchmark indicating the acquisition could be in excess of $14 Billion making it the company’s largest acquisition to date if consummated.

Intel stock, which had risen 18% in the past year, rose 6.4% to $32 following the report of the potential acquisition. Altera stock, down 2.5% in the past 12 months, jumped 28% Friday to $44.41.

So, as a sort of red herring for acceptance of the deal, the market reacted positively – considered good feedback for the talks to continue.

Techeye Take – Why Altera?

Altera is one of the anointed companies qualified to run their programmable FPGAs on Intel’s 14 nm Fabs. The two companies have been working closely together in a number of areas and in some cases with involved third parties. Altera FPGAs, for the most part, are not involved in the consumer electronics segment but are directed almost wholly at the high end of the server and HPC markets.

We believe Intel has become deeply involved (nay dependent) on Altera’s Programmable FPGAs in their next generation data center architecture and began suffering pangs of paranoia over the company becoming too exposed to outside influences deciding that complete control over Altera was their only option (taken from Andy Grove’s guidebook; “Only the Paranoid Survive’). [Altera used to belong to AMD, Ed.]

 

Google loses over privacy settings

330ogleThe UK Court of Appeal has turned down an attempt by Google to overthrow a previous verdict that allowed people to sue it over privacy settings.

The case, according to the BBC, centres around allegations that Google got round security settings on the Apple Safari browser and threw advertising cookies on people’s websites to advertise stuff.

Google said it wasn’t pleased with the court’s decision. It had attempted to get the courts to prevent peole suing it because it claims people didn’t suffer financially.

But the judges said that the allegations raise serious problems which do merit a trial.

They continued: “The case relates to the anxiety and distress this intrusion upon autonomy has caused. They concern what is alleged to have been the secret and blanket tracking and coalition of information.”

Google’s motto is it does no evil. It claims it hasn’t done anything wrong.

But the US Federal Trade Commission has already fined Google $40 million, while 38 US states also fined the search giant.

BlackBerry makes a profit

Samsung Browses BlackberryIt seems that BlackBerry has turned the corner as it reported a quarterly profit today – results that sent its share price up by over five percent.

Revenues however fell to $550 million for its quarter, down from $793 million in the same period last year. Net profit was £28 million, compared to a loss in the same quarter last year of $148 million.

So what’s BlackBerry doing right? It seems that CEO John Chen is keeping a close eye on expenses but its revenue from software rose 20 percent in the quarter, accounting for $67 million in revenues.

Despite its formerly impregnable position as the handheld of choice for the corporate market, sales of its more up to date models don’t appear to be particularly good.

BlackBerry is attempting to change its model from hardware and services to software.

Wall Street analysts hailed the profit figure but fretted about the revenue, which the company had estimated would be $786 million.

PC sales continue to decline

A not so mobile X86 PCMore tales of poor sales of PCs have emerged.

This time it’s Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) which are showing a decline, according to IDC.

Sales fell in 2014 by a rather whopping 14 percent, representing 18.55 million units – it’s the second year in a row that this region has declined.

Even notebook PC sales fell, by 14.5 percent year on year.

IDC said that sales were inhibited by currency fluctuations and poor economics, but even given that, there’s a fairly constant underlying trend worldwide.

Russia accounted for 42.6 percent of total PC shipments in the region last year, and IDC said the plummeting sales sales were accounted for by the poor economy.

However, the picture in places is not so dim. Some countries showed a rise in sales on the back of PC upgrades from Windows XP.

In particular, Poland, the Czech Republic and Romania all showed double digit growth in 2014.

 

RSA conference bans booth babes

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

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

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

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

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.”

 

Philips turns out the lights

lightbulbsDutch giant Philips had already said it would split its existing business into two companies – automotive lighting and LED and its healthcare business.

But now it looks like it’s exiting its core business – lighting – completely.

The lighting company will be spun off and will be floated on the stock exchange, probably in 2016.  Its lighting business generates revenues of around $2 billion and has 37,000 staff.

Philips originally started in the late 19th century in its core business – making electric lamps.  It diversified greatly during the 20th century at one time even operating its own aircraft business. It also was for a while a player in the audio-visual business and in PCs.

A few years back it spun off its semiconductor business which is now trading as NXP and which is expected to merge with Freescale soon.

Lumileds, the name of the automotive and LED lighting business, will eventually be completely sold off, according to a report in Electronics Weekly.

 

Amazon offers unlimited cloud storage

Clouds in Oxford: pic Mike MageeOnline giant Amazon said it is to offer unlimited cloud storage, offering two plans for people who want to upload vast collections of media that they have.

The first is called the Unlimited Photos Plan – it comes with a free three month trial, then a subscription of $12 a year – this lets you store as many photographs as you like on the Amazon Cloud and includes 5GB of extra storage for videos, documents or other files.

The second is called the Unlimited Everything Plan – this also comes with a three month trial at no charge then a subscription of $60 a year.  As the name implies, it lets you store all of your stuff in Cloud Drive.

Existing members with a Prime subscription already can use unlimited photo storage but can add a subscription to the Unlimited plan to store everything else too.

Amazon is now a considerable player in the IT business – although many people can buy CDs, books and the like – it also offers services for enterprise players too, particularly in the cloud.

 

EU to shake up e-commerce market

euroflagzEuropean Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager is set to start a year long quest to break down barriers to e-commerce trading across borders.

According to a report on Reuters, she believes barriers are preventing the growth of sales online.  She also appy ears to believe that some companies are using the existing situation to block trade between the 28 European Union countries.

The European Union said that one in two people bought stuff online during 2014, but only 15 percent of people bought kit from another EU country.

She will send a set of questionnaires to the 28 members of the EU and she will also send the billet doux to a number of companies that she believes might be actively blocking trade by using border barriers.

She expects to have a report ready by the middle of next year and believes that it’s important to have a single digital market in the European Union.

Apparently, investigators from the Commission raided European companies that sell electronic gizmos online that Vestager believes may be engaging in anti-competitive behaviour.

 

Biometrics come into their own

fingerprintBiometric systems, particularly in relation to smartphones, look like they’re going to boom during this year.

ABI Research, a market analysis company, said that worldwide revenues for such systems will deliver $3.1 billion this year.

The systems will be targeted not only at home users but at authentication systems for the enterprise market, according to ABI.

Algorithms linked to cloud computing are set to give better user authentication, with applications for mobile payments, bring your own device (BYOD) systems.

The research said that the leaders in the biometric pack are Apple and Samsung but there are other players who are introducing voice and face recognition into the equation.

We reported elsewhere today that Apple is rumoured to be brining out three more iPhones this year that incorporate fingerprint recognition.

Dimitrios Pavlakis, digital security research analyst at ABI, said: “Biometry is moving rapidly into the security ecosystem and its adoption by CE devices will jumpstart this phenomenon.”

 

Apple iPhone deluge continues

novità-apple-2013It appears that Apple is set to release three more iPhones in the second half of this year.

Informed sources have leaked details of the models to Taiwanese wire Digitimes.

It reports that the phones will be the iPhone 6S, the iPhone 6S Plus and a four inch device currently codenamed the iPhone 6C.

Each of the phones will use Corning Gorilla Glass come with LTPS panels and while the 6S series will use Apple’s A9 chips, the 6C will use A8 microprocessors.  They’ll all be kitted out with NFC as well as fingerprint scanners.

Digitimes also reports that Taiwanese firms Wistron, Foxconn and Pegatron will manufacture the handsets.

Meanwhile the same wire reports that chip foundry TSMC will fabricate the chips for the 6S and 6C.

Motorola could not kill patent troll with fire

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.