Security appliance market continues to blossom

Posted on December 15, 2014 by - News

Cisco FirewallUnit shipments of security appliances grew 10 percent in the third quarter over this year, accounting for revenues of close to $2.4 billion.

And this is the 20th consecutive quarter of positive growth, according to analysts at  the International Data Corporation (IDC).

IDC said shipments were up in the quarter, compared to the same quarter in 2013 by 7.3 percent, amounting to 520,752 units.

The market is growing mostly by cyber security products intended to perform a number of different security problem in one box.

Cisco is the leader of the security pack, with 15.9 percent of the market, followed by Check Point, Palo Alto Networks, Fortinet and McAfee.

Unified threat management (UTM) is the dominant leader of the pack in both revenue and sales volumes, said IDC.

Asian servers threaten US hegemony

Posted on December 15, 2014 by - News

lenovo-logoA report said that increased production by major Chinese vendors will topple US players from their grip on the server market.

Digitimes said that Lenovo, Huawei and Inspur are likely to ship a total of two million units in 2015, knocking Dell off the number two slot.

Earlier this year, Lenovo bought IBM’s X86 business and that means the company is likely to ship a million server boxes in 2015.

Meanwhile HP, the market intelligence firm said, will show a decline in server shipments of 10 percent this year.

By the end of next year, the combined shipments worldwide from Chinese vendors is likely to amount to nearly 20 percent.

Meanwhile, the multinationals are threatened by ODMs (original design manufacturers) like Quanta, which are squeezing the Dells and HPs of this world by selling units direct at a knockdown price.

Team builds high rise semiconductor

Posted on December 15, 2014 by - News

The image depicts today's single-story electronic circuit cards, where logic and memory chips exist as separate structures, connected by wires. Like city streets, those wires can get jammed with digital traffic going back and forth between logic and memory. On the right, Stanford engineers envision building layers of logic and memory to create skyscraper chips. Data would move up and down on nanoscale "elevators" to avoid traffic jams.Researchers from Stanford said they have successfully demonstrated the ability to build semiconductors that combine logic and memory chips in a “high rise” configuration.

The engineers said they have created a new technology to produce transistors, a new type of memory that is ideal for multiple levels and a different way of building the high rise structures.

Subhasish Mitra, a Stanford professor, claimed the design and fabrication techniques are scalable.  “With further  development this architecture could lead to computing performance that is much, much grater than anything available today,” h said.

Heat generated by silicon chips has been a problem for decades and leakage drains batteries.  The team uses carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and solved the big problem of putting enough of these into a small area to make a useful chip.

The engineers grow CNTs on round quartz wafer and created a metal film allowing them to lift a heap of CNTs off the quartz base and put it into a silicon wafer.

The new type of memory uses titanium nitride, hafnium oxide and platinum to create metal-oxide-metal “sandwich” and use electrical switches to make conductive/resistive zeroes and ones. The researches dub this resistive random access memory (RRAM). It can be made at much lower temperatures than silicon memory.

Apple engineer admits blocking rivals

Posted on December 15, 2014 by - News

two-applesA former iTunes engineer told a federal antitrust case he was involved in a project “intended to block 100 per cent of non-iTunes clients” and “keep out third-party players” that competed with Apple’s iPod.

Plaintiffs subpoenaed the engineer, Rod Schultz, to show that Apple tried to suppress rivals to iTunes and iPods. They argue that Apple’s anticompetitive actions drove up the prices for iPods from 2006 to 2009. They want $350 million in damages, which could be tripled under antitrust laws.

Schultz said he was an unwilling witness and did not want to talking about his work on iTunes from 2006-2007, part of which was code-named “Candy”.

However, in 2012 Schultz wrote an academic paper citing “a secret war” Apple fought with iTunes hackers. In the paper, he wrote, “Apple was locking the majority of music downloads to its devices.” Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers did not admit the paper as evidence in the case.

Outside the courtroom, Schultz said the early work of his former team reflected the digital-music market’s need for copyright protections of songs. Later, though, he said it created “market dominance” for the iPod.

Schultz was the final witness in the case after a 10-year legal battle. The testimony has offered a view into how digital music evolved in the mid-2000s as Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and other Apple executives were shaping technology and a new marketplace.

Apple argues, and Schultz agreed, that it released many improvements to iTunes, and not isolated changes to stifle competition. Apple says the security measures that Schultz worked on were designed to protect its systems and users’ which would have been compromised by other players and file formats.

Judge Rogers said she plans to send the case to the jury early next week.

 

Sony gets grumpy at newspapers

Posted on December 15, 2014 by - News

GodSilenceThe movie and music maker Sony has decided that the best way to stop people talking about the hack of its networks is to ask news organisations to stop reporting it.

Sony told some news organisations to stop publishing information contained in documents stolen by hackers who attacked the movie studio’s computer network last month.

The New York Times, The Hollywood Reporter and Variety published stories reporting that they had each received a letter from David Boies, a lawyer for Sony, demanding that the outlets stop reporting information contained in the documents and immediately destroy them.

The studio “does not consent to your possession, review, copying,  dissemination, publication, uploading, downloading or making any use” of the information, Boies wrote in the letter.

New York Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy told Reuters that : “Any decisions about whether or how to use any of the information will take into account both the significance of the news and the questions of how the information emerged and who has access to it.”

The unidentified hackers have released troves of documents that include employee salaries and financial information, marketing plans and contracts with business partners. Newspapers have obtained some mileage from an exchange in which Co-Chairman Amy Pascal joked about President Barack Obama’s race.

Pascal is meeting civil rights leader Reverend Al Sharpton, whose spokeswoman says he is weighing whether to call for her resignation.

Seagate builds cut-price 8TB hard drive

Posted on December 15, 2014 by - News

phpgheqmoSeagate has just announced its ‘Archive HDD’ series which offers densities of 5TB, 6TB, and 8TB for a cut price. Not only is 8TB grabbing the headlines, it costs $260.

Seagate is bringing out shingled magnetic recording, which it thinks will be the next new thing.  Having had shingles we don’t think it is something we would like our hard-drive to suffer from, but at those densities and prices we are included to let the thing suffer.

SMR aligns drive tracks in a singled pattern. With this design, Seagate is able to cram much more storage into the same physical area. Seagate isn’t the first out the door with an 8TB model, however, as HGST released one earlier this year. In lieu of a design like SMR, HGST decided to go the helium route, allowing it to pack more platters into a drive.

SMR is a little more elegant, and a bit cheaper.

Like most other high-density drives, Seagate’s Archive HDD series spins at about 5400 RPM which is a little on the slow side. It means it is good for regular storage, not data like games or applications.

Still you might need a couple of these drives — 8TB is a lot of data to lose at once and you are going to need a lot of redundancy if you buy one.

 

Spanish press backtracks on Google News

Posted on December 15, 2014 by - News

web-abc-madrid_sevillaAfter Google stopped printing news snippets on its News page from Spanish newspapers, the websites of those esteemed organs died.

Now it seems that the Spanish newspapers are asking the government to step in to force Google back.

Google shut its Google News service in Spain after the country bought in a new copyright law which would have forced Google to pay for the use of news snippets.

The Spanish Newspaper Publishers’ Association (AEDE) issued a statement last night saying that Google News was “not just the closure of another service given its dominant market position”, recognising that Google’s decision: “will undoubtedly have a negative impact on citizens and Spanish businesses.

“Given the dominant position of Google (which in Spain controls almost all of the searches in the market and is an authentic gateway to the Internet), AEDE requires the intervention of Spanish and community authorities, and competition authorities, to effectively protect the rights of citizens and companies”.

In other words, Google has the newspaper industry by the short and curlies and if the Spanish government does not do something quick, there will not be an industry to moan about the search engine’s control.

The only workable option is to take the route followed in Germany: to give Google a special deal that allows it to carry on as before, but without having to pay — which would gut the new copyright law completely.

It would also mean that Google would not only be allowed to do what it likes, but continue to have total control of the world’s media. It seems the Spanish Newspapers have found out the hard way that Google already uses its algorithm to decide what is news and which magazines have a right to exist

 

Windows 7 update malware spotted by AMD

Posted on December 15, 2014 by - News

Huntsman spider, Wikimedia CommonsSoftware giant Microsoft appears to have despatched an update which behaves like malware to its Windows 7 customers.

Microsoft has confirmed that a recent update, with the catchy title KB 3004394, is causing a range of serious problems and recommends removing it.

It was first flagged by AMD’s Robert Hallock who noticed that the update blocks the installation or update of graphics drivers such as AMD’s new Catalyst Omega. Nvidia users are also reporting difficulty installing GeForce drivers.

Hallock recommended manually uninstalling the update, advice now echoed officially by Microsoft.

However, the update does not just kill off graphics drivers. Microsoft’s Answer Forum has dark mutterings that USB 3.0 drivers are broken and User Account Control prompts have gone haywire. Microsoft has acknowledged that it even prevents the installation of future Windows Updates.

The Windows Defender service has been disabled by the update.

This is the third time in three years Microsoft has issued software and firmware updates to their Xbox platform which have “bricked” the consoles. In August 2014 and April 2013 PC updates caused widespread Blue Screens of Death.

New VAT rules to cripple UK digital sales

Posted on December 12, 2014 by - News

hmrcRegulations to be introduced on the 1st of January 2015 mean that small UK businesses supplying digital services to EU countries will face an administrative nightmare.

If a UK company supplies digital services of any kind to the EU, it will be forced to either register for VAT in each EU country it trades with or use HMRC’s VAT mini one stop shop.

Digital services include broadcasting, telecomms, or services including video on demand, applications, eb00ks, gaming, AV software and online auctions.

HMRC administers payments to every one of the EU’s tax authorities.

VAT rates in Europe vary widely and HMRC also warns that the list of digital services it provides is far from exhaustive.

One company creating web pages for EU customers described the changes as ludicrous.  He told TechEye that rather than signing up to either the HMRC service or registering for VAT in the countries he trades with, he has told his European customers he simply isn’t going to supply them anymore.

Facebook thinks about dislike button

Posted on December 12, 2014 by - News

Mark Zuckerberg - WikimedaPeople have asked for a dislike button on Facebook for quite some time, but now it looks as if founder Mark Zuckerberg has given the thumbs up to the idea.

The BBC reports that Zuckerberg, speaking in a conference at California, said the thumbs down feature was the most requested feature that Facebook gets.

If Facebook implements it, that means that when somebody is going through a tough patch they won’t have to “like” iit, like they currently do.

But Zuckerberg has some concerns and doesn’t want people to use it to diss people’s posts, the BBC said.

Zuckerberg wants Facebook users to be able to express a wider range of emotions.

One of the obstacles is that Facebooks revenue model is based on advertising. Large brand names mostly have Facebook pages and the last think Zuckerberg would want to see is tens of thousands of people disliking soda or candy.

Europe continues its anti-Google campaign

Posted on December 12, 2014 by - News

euroflagzThe European Commissioner in charge of antitrust matters is to meet up with the companies that complained about Google’s behaviour in Europe.

According to a report in Reuters, the new commissioner, Margrethe Vestager, wants to gather more information on the case.

To that end she is to meet companies with a beef – those include Microsoft, Hotmaps, Expedia, TripAdvisor and a gaggle of publishers.  They all believe that Google is abusing its dominance in the European sphere.

Late last month the European Parliament voted to break up Google – that vote however lacks teeth.

Vestager has teeth and has the ability to impose swingeing fines on Google if it’s shown it has antitrust tendencies.

Meanwhile, Reuters also reports that a German company is suing Google and Youtube for allegedly infrong a patent for video compression it own.

Margins rise on desktop monitors

Posted on December 12, 2014 by - News

LCDscreenAverage selling prices (ASPs) of desktop monitors rose by 10 percent in the third quarter of 2014.

Displaysearch, which tracks such things and has now been taken over by HIS, said worldwide shipments in the quarter fell by over three percent and accounted for 34 million units.

Manufacturers will try and reverse that trend by offering bigger sizes and better features.  Those features will include better performance, higher quality displays and better resolutions.

PC display sizes have steadily increases with market share for 20-inch and greater units rising from 60 percent in the third quarter of 2013 to 64 percent in the third quarter of this year.

And monitors with full high definition (FHD) and better resolutions grew from 48 percent in Q3 last year to 56 percent this last third quarter.

Other features that have shown an increase include wide viewing angle technology.

Displaysearch said that the average selling price of monitors was $171 in Q3 2014, compared to $155 in Q3 2013.

Another report from Taiwanese analysts earlier this week predicted prices will decline in 2015 as manufacturing volumes increase.

5G still some way away

Posted on December 12, 2014 by - News

handsetFollowing up on its report earlier this week on 5G standardisation, market intelligence company ABI Research has firmed up what it believes will be the subscriber base.

It predicts it will take between five and 10 years for 5G to get to 100 million subscribers – that’s two years longer than 4G subscriber.

Take up of 4G has been fast because of the availability of 4G devices and more powerful smartphones.

By 2025, ABI estimates that the top countries to take up the 5G baton will be the US, China, Japan, South Korea and the UK.

There’s some technicalities to take care of – 5G will use high grequency spectra and your device will link to numerous cells for good connectivity.

ABI said a 5G network will consist of a network of small cells and practical for both industrial and urban environments.

Sony co-chair says sorry for Obama emails

Posted on December 12, 2014 by - News

Obama BarackThe Sony hack is causing more collateral damage than just a few movies leaked onto the internet.

Amongst a batch of emails made public by the hackers were several racially tinged emails about President Obama’s imagined movie tastes.

The comments were made by film producer Scott Rudin in private email banter with Amy Pascal, Sony’s co-chairwoman.

Pascal was on her way to a breakfast for Obama that was organised by Jeffrey Katzenberg, chief executive of DreamWorks Animation.

“What should I ask the president at this stupid Jeffrey breakfast?” Ms. Pascal asked Rudin in an opening query. She then speculated that she might ask if Mr. Obama liked “Django Unchained,” about a former slave. Rudin countered with a suggestion about “12 Years a Slave,” while Ms. Pascal suggested other films involving African-Americans.

Rudin wrote: “Ride-along. I bet he likes Kevin Hart.” The email referred to a broad comedy, from Universal Pictures, that starred Hart and Ice Cube.

Rudin, who has been a producer of films like “Captain Phillips” and “The Social Network” for Sony, wrote a long apology on Deadline.com that “private emails between friends and colleagues written in haste and without much thought or sensitivity, even when the content of them is meant to be in jest, can result in offence where none was intended.”

“To anybody I’ve offended, I’m profoundly and deeply sorry, and I regret and apologise for any injury they might have caused… I made a series of remarks that were meant only to be funny, but in the cold light of day, they are in fact thoughtless and insensitive — and not funny at all.”

Pascal added: “The content of my emails to Scott were insensitive and inappropriate but are not an accurate reflection of who I am. Although this was a private communication that was stolen, I accept full responsibility for what I wrote and apologise to everyone who was offended.”

Another Sony executive, Clint Culpepper, used harsh language in suggesting that the studio rebuff a salary demand from Hart, who has starred in several films for the company’s Screen Gems unit, including a coming movie, “The Wedding Ringe”.

“I’m not saying he’s a whore, but he’s a whore,” Mr. Culpepper wrote.

Hart is a little upset. He wrote on his Instagram account. “I will never allow myself to be taken advantage of… I refuse to be broken.”

All these things are the sort of stuff which most corporate networks have, they just prefer they were not made public, which is exactly why the Sony hack was so embarrassing.

Sony expects to face further unauthorised disclosures in the days ahead.

 

FT names Apple boss “Man of the Year”

Posted on December 12, 2014 by - News

Apple's Tim CookThe Financial Times has named the spiritual and temporal leader of the fruity cargo cult Apple as its man of the year.

Tim Cook, the FT claimed, was doing wonders for Apple and making it a less heartless company. Jobs’ Mob is actually starting to do all the things that people said it did.

During a recent shareholders meeting when one audience member tried to push Apple’s chief executive on the profitability of Apple’s various environmental initiatives, such as its solar-powered datacentre, Cook growled.

“We do things for other reasons than a profit motive, we do things because they are right and just,” Mr Cook growled. Whether in human rights, renewable energy or accessibility for people with special needs, “I don’t think about the bloody ROI,” Cook said. “Just to be very straightforward with you, if that’s a hard line for you… then you should get out of the stock.”

Fortunately, for Cook it has not backfired. The share price has increased by around 50 percent since that shareholder meeting, at one point taking its market capitalisation above $700 billion.

Financial success and dazzling new technology alone might have been enough to earn Apple’s steely chief executive the FT’s vote as the 2014 Person of the Year, enthused the FT, but Cook’s “brave exposition of his values” also sets him apart.

“If hearing that the CEO of Apple is gay can help someone struggling to come to terms with who he or she is, or bring comfort to anyone who feels alone, or inspire people to insist on their equality, then it’s worth the trade-off with my own privacy,” he wrote in Businessweek in October.

In fact, the only criticism that people seem to have of Cook is that he is not Steve Jobs and lacks any sense of showmanship. He is not as closely involved in new product development as his predecessor, which is probably why the new iPhone bends rather easily.