Tag: newstrack

Nokia’s N1 Android tablet is made by Foxconn

Posted on November 19, 2014 by - News

_79097039_6168ac6a-287c-499b-a17d-b6c10d1479d5While the Tame Apple Press rants that Nokia’s N1 Android tablet copies the iPad, it seems they are missing the real story – the N1 was entirely made by Foxconn.

Nokia has collaborated with Foxconn to bring its first Nokia-branded, Android-powered device. The outfit is planning to start working on smartphones as soon as the restrictions posed by the Microsoft deal expire in 2015.

What is weird is that it is a Nokia device which has been made by an outfit which is supposed to have sold its Devices and Services business to Microsoft in a desperate move to get out of that business. Instead, the N1 is made by Chinese contract manufacturing company Foxconn.

Nokia is nowhere in the picture. Foxconn will be handling the sales, distribution and customer care for the device. Nokia is licensing the brand, the industrial design, Z Launcher software layer and IP on a running royalty basis to Foxconn.

N1 is a bog standard tablet. The device is powered by Android 5.0, aka Lollipop. N1 showcases a 7.9-inch 2048×1536 resolution screen with a full anodized aluminium body. Tt is using the industry standard Type-C USB reversible connector, but otherwise it is a standard high-performance tablet.

It runs Intel’s 64-bit Atom Processor Z3580 at 2.3 GHz and will have 2GB of RAM and 32GB of storage. The device has an 8-megapixel main camera and a 5-megapixel front camera.

But it is also unlikely to be seen in the US. Nokia is targeting China with N1, where it will be available for an estimated $249 in the first quarter of 2015 — around the Chinese New Year.

 

Uber wants to dig up dirt on journalists

Posted on November 19, 2014 by - News

muckrakers_placque_8_x_5Online taxi outfit Uber has decided that the best way to win the hearts and minds of people is to research into the lives of journalists who write nasty stories about them.

Uber is having problems with countries banning its service and it blames journalists writing nasty stories about them.

Now  a senior executive at Uber suggested to Buzzfeed  the company should consider hiring a team of opposition researchers to dig up dirt on its critics in the media.

Emil Michael is specifically keen to spread details of the personal life of a female journalist who has criticised the company.

Michael said he made the comments in a conversation he believed was off the record. In a statement through Uber Monday evening, he said he regretted them and that they didn’t reflect his or the company’s views.

Uber’s relationship with the media and the image of its management team, is not the best.  They have  been cast as insensitive and hyper-aggressive.

Michael, who has been at Uber for more than a year as its senior vice president of business, told of his plans at a dinner party attended by an influential New York crowd including actor Ed Norton and publisher Arianna Huffington. The dinner was hosted by Ian Osborne, a former adviser to British Prime Minister David Cameron and consultant to the company.

At the dinner, Uber CEO and founder Travis Kalanick made the case that he has been miscast as an ideologue and as insensitive to driver and rider complaints, while in fact he has been  building a transformative company.

Michael said talked about spending “a million dollars” to hire four top opposition researchers and four journalists to help Uber fight back against the press.  Apparently they would look into “your personal lives, your families,” and give the media a taste of its own medicine.

Michael was particularly focused on Sarah Lacy, the editor of the Silicon Valley website PandoDaily, who recently accused Uber of “sexism and misogyny.” She wrote that she was deleting her Uber app after BuzzFeed News reported that Uber appeared to be working with a French escort service. “I don’t know how many more signals we need that the company simply doesn’t respect us or prioritize our safety,” she wrote.

Michael was furious and said that women are far more likely to get assaulted by taxi drivers than Uber drivers. He said that he thought Lacy should be held “personally responsible” for any woman who followed her lead in deleting Uber and was then sexually assaulted.

Uber’s dirt-diggers, Michael said, could expose Lacy. They could, in particular, prove a particular and very specific claim about her personal life.

Michael at no point suggested that Uber has actually hired opposition researchers, or that it plans to. He cast it as something that would make sense, that the company would be justified in doing.

 

Microsoft’s cloud blue screens

Posted on November 19, 2014 by - News

Pic Mike MageeMicrosoft ‘s Azure cloud-computing service, suffered a kick in the credibility on Tuesday after it suffered serious outages. Microsoft’s MSN web portal was taken offline.

According to Microsoft’s Azure status page, the problems started around 5pm Pacific time and have still not been fully solved. “We are experiencing a connectivity issue across multiple Azure Services,” the page said.

“Microsoft is investigating an issue affecting access to some Microsoft services,” said a Microsoft spokesperson. “We are working to restore full access to these services as quickly as possible.”

Azure outages are a serious problem for Microsoft as the company tries to sell its cloud-computing service as a cost-effective and reliable alternative to Amazon’s AWS.

The outage was a major problem for those punters relying on Azure to host websites – such as Microsoft.

Microsoft suffered its last major Azure outage in August.  Amazon also has outages which does not bode well for those who look to the cloud for total reliability.

 

IBM claims email breakthrough

Posted on November 18, 2014 by - News

ibm-officeEnterprise email will never be the same again, IBM said, as it introduced a system it calls Verse.

The company said Verse is better for enterprises because it integrates the ways employees communicate every day – through email, meetings, calendars, file sharing, instant messaging, social networking and video chats.

It claims a single collaboration environment Verse includes so-called “faceted search” – a way of letting people pinpoint and recover information they want to know through the different kinds of content.

The software also comes with built in analytics, that learns how people prioritise items and their preferences to give a contextual view of a project and people collaborating on it.

This is different from other email services that simply search inboxes.

IBM will, in the future, embed its Watson feature into their overall environment. Watson is an analytic service that will give a reply to questions with answers ranked according to their importance.

Notebook shipments on the rise again

Posted on November 18, 2014 by - News

notebooksA survey has suggested that tablet sales are declining in the face of increased notebook sales.

DisplaySearch, bought by HIS recently, said in the third quarter of this year, notebooks rose by 10 percent compared to 2013 to account for 49.4 million units shipped. The figures contradict other estimates which suggest that sales are weak or flattish.

But tablet PCs, in the same quarter, fell by eight percent.

DisplaySearch said the slump in demand for tablet PCs helped the growth of notebook sales.

In particular, growth of notebooks was helped by low priced Windows based notebooks PCs and by Chromebooks.

The leaders worldwide for notebooks are Lenovo (20%), HP (19%), Dell (12%), Acer (10%) and Apple (9%).

These five companies between them hold 69 percent of total notebooks shipped worldwide.  Apple sales of the iPad declined in the third quarter by 13 percent.

Get ready to wear a smart shirt

Posted on November 18, 2014 by - News

fobwatchA survey from Gartner said that less wearable electronic devices for fitness will ship in 2015 because of confusion in the marketplace.

While 70 million wearables will ship in 2014, that figure will fall to 68 million next year.

That is because the entry of smartwatches into the marketplace will have overlap in functionality.

But the figure is set to rise again in 2016 because lower cost machines will be available along with a variety of different designs.

The push to get people to use fitness wearables is being funded by a number of industry giants including Qualcomm, Apple, Google, Samsung, Microsoft, Nike and Intel.

Gartner sys the five main form factors are smart wristbands, sports watches, other fitness monitors, heart rate monitor chest straps and so called smart clothes.

This last category has the biggest potential for growth, according to Gartner and so-called “smart shirts” are no becoming available.  The research firm didn’t say whether the next step will be “smart pants”.

While smartwatches will come in many different price range, those costing $150 or over are likely to include accelerometers and gyroscopes but unlike health wristbands will have to tell the time and have the capacity to send and receive texts.

Sennheiser intros DECT headset

Posted on November 18, 2014 by - News

Sennheiser D10Headphone and speaker company Sennheiser said it has introduced a headset designed for business and office environments.

The D10 comes in three flavours, for deskphones, USB for professionals and another USB device for companies that use Microsoft Lync.

Sennheiser describes the D10 as an entry level DECT headset as part of its push into the office environment.

It includes a noise cancelling micro[hone, wideband sound, and technology it calls ActiveGard that prevents acoustic shocks.

It uses DECT connectivity to avoid interference from wi-fi devices.

The machine is supplied with a base station with a built in ringer with a choice of tones and adjustable volumes.  One base station can support up to four headsets and there’s a wireless range of up to 180 metres.

Sweden to give games sexism rating

Posted on November 18, 2014 by - News

558_L-narikoThe macho gaming world is about to be turned on its head by moves in Sweden to rate games on the basis of the way they treat women.

A video game trade group, inspired by the Bechdel Test, will study games’ portrayals of women and give each game a rating.

It is being seen as a precursor to a government-backed programme considering creating specials label for video games based on whether or not the games’ portrayals of women are sexist.

Inspired by the Bechdel Test, Vinnova is paying the Swedish video-game trade organisation Dataspelsbranchen approximately $36,672 to study the industry’s female characters.

“I do not know of any other project in the world asking this question, and of course, we want Sweden to be a beacon in this area,” said project manager Anton Albiin, who notes that it has not been determined whether all Swedish games would be graded on their treatment of women or whether only games with positive portrayals would receive special labels.

Only 16 percent of people working in Sweden’s growing, $935 million gaming industry are women, according to Dataspelsbranchen.

“Of course games can be about fantasy, but they can be so much more than this,” Albiin said. “They can also be a form of cultural expression — reflecting society or the society we are hoping for. Games can help us to create more diverse workplaces and can even change the way we think about thing.”

Moves to rate women as equals in games have been contested by male gamers who have aggressively been shouting down those wanting to reform the industry.

Verizon paid its CEO more than it did the taxman

Posted on November 18, 2014 by - News

taxman sheet musicIf you want to know how silly the tax avoidance of US companies has become, you only need to look at Verizon.

It paid its CEO Lowell C. McAdam more than it paid the in U.S. federal income taxes.

According to a study compiled by the Institute for Policy Studies and the Center for Effective Government, which has been denied by Verizon, it was one of seven companies paid their CEO more than they paid in tax,  including Boeing, Ford, Chevron, Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase & Co and General Motors Co.

The study said the seven companies, which in 2013 reported more than $74 billion in combined U.S. pre-tax profits, came out ahead on their taxes, gaining $1.9 billion more than they owed.

At the same time, the CEOs at each of the seven companies last year was paid an average of $17.3 million.

The Institute for Policy Studies and the Centre for Effective Government, the study’s co-authors, said its findings reflected “deep flaws in our corporate tax system.”

Verizon insisted that it paid $422 million in income taxes in 2013. “We do not provide a breakdown between federal vs. state in that total; however, I am confirming for you that the federal portion of that number is well more than Verizon’s CEO’s compensation,” a spokesman said in an email.

Boeing said its 2013 global tax bill was $1.6 billion, though all but $5 million was deferred due to development and production investments. A spokesman said current tax expense and cash taxes were likely to rise as 787-jet deliveries ramp up.

Both automakers Ford and General Motors said their current U.S. tax bills are reduced by tax loss carry forwards stemming from severe losses suffered a few years ago.

Energy group Chevron said its 2013 current U.S. federal income tax expense of $15 million “was much lower than normal” due to several factors. Echoing other companies, Chevron stressed it pays taxes worldwide.

Either way it appears that there is something wrong with the US tax system, which seems to focus on taxing the poor and middle class while the rich and corporates avoid paying.

Enterprises scramble over Windows Server 2003 shutdown

Posted on November 18, 2014 by - News

ucs_Cray1_installCorporations, which are still having trouble getting rid of their Windows XP machines, are facing an even bigger challenge  — the shutting down of Windows Server 2003.

The server software is about to be chopped and many companies still use it – after all it has provided more than a decade of loyal service.

From 14 July 2015, Windows Server 2003 users with a standard support package will not receive updates or patches. Microsoft is offering continued support for those who want to pay extra, but that defeats the purpose of not upgrading.

The software itself is more than a decade old it has become a multi-layered mess of patches and updates to keep pace with changes in business and technology. It also contains code which is so old that most people have forgotten about it.

It also belongs to a time when the network was the main deal, and the Internet was just something you sent email on, and looked at really terrible webpages. Most security problems were internal.

Yet for some reason Windows Server 2003 is still there and companies do not appear to be rushing to get rid of it.

Microsoft estimates there are more than 10 million live systems relying on Windows Server 2003, with almost one-third of those being in Europe.

The main problem is that most companies depend on software which might not work with the new operating systems.

Either way all this is a good sales opportunity for businesses wanting to offer upgrade services.

 

Intel scrambles PC and mobile processor divisions

Posted on November 18, 2014 by - News

ScrambledEggIntel has decided to merge its PC and mobile processor divisions under one roof, claiming that the line between tablets and laptops has blurred.

Starting from next year, Intel will form a  division called the Client Computing Group, which will include the teams that develop its Core processors for desktops and laptops, as well as those that develop its Atom chips for smartphones and tablets.

According to an internal email from CEO Brian Krzanich, the changes are supposed to improve lines of communication between product teams and help Intel better reach manufacturers that use its products.

Krzanich said that the market was evolving and Intel must change faster to stay ahead.

He claimed that the days when Intel served the PC market with its Core processors and the smartphone and tablet markets with its low-power Atom chips, were gone. The emergence of hybrid computers, which can switch between a laptop and a tablet, has done much to blur the boundary, he reckons

Intel’s Core M processors, for instance, are used in traditional laptops but also in hybrid computers and tablets. The current structure of the company no longer matches where the market is headed, he said.

Kirk Skaugen, who leads what is called the PC Client Group, will run the Client Computing Group when it’s formed.

The Mobile and Communications Groupwill be broken up. The teams that develop mobile processors will join the new client group, while the remainder, which builds modems, will be part of a new wireless R&D group.

Herman Eul, who leads the mobile group today, will oversee the move to the new structure until at least the end of the first quarter, with a new role for him to be announced after that.

The Mobile and Communications Group reported an operating loss of more than US$1 billion in the third quarter, in part because it has been making payments to tablet makers to encourage them to use its chips. Because of those and other efforts, Intel has said it aims to get its processors into 40 million new tablets this year.

Decade old laser tech dusted off

Posted on November 18, 2014 by - News, Products

laser1In a bid to save cash on expensive fibre optic lines, 10-year-old laser networking technology is being re-introduced.

The technology that uses parallel radio and laser links to move data through the air at high speeds, in wireless hops of up to 10 kilometres at a time. It is being trailed by three of the largest US Internet carriers and is being rolled out by one telecommunications provider in Mexico, and another in Nigeria.

AOptix, the company behind the technology, claims the system is cheaper and more practical alternative to laying new fibre optic cables because it does not require trenches to install fibre in urban areas.

However, it does face significant bureaucratic and physical challenges and because of its bandwidth is being seen as particularly attractive to wireless carriers.

According to MIT Review, the technology takes the form of a box with an infrared laser and a directional millimetre wave radio beside it. The two technologies form a wireless link with an identical box up to 10 kilometers away. A series of such connections can be daisy-chained together to make a link of any length.

It fixes the two problems associated with laser and radio. Laser beams are blocked by fog, while millimetre wave radio signals are absorbed by rain. Routing data over both simultaneously provides redundancy that allows an AOptix link to guarantee a rate of two gigabits per second with only five minutes or less downtime in a year, whatever the weather.

While fibre connection might be 10 or more times faster than that, due to the limitations of the radio frequency link. However, AOptix says the convenience of its technology makes up for that, and it could be increased to four gigabits or more in the future.

The radio and laser equipment inside an AOptix device move automatically to compensate for the swaying of a cell tower caused by wind.

Google gets its hardware knickers in a twist

Posted on November 17, 2014 by - News

Nexus 9A report by financial analysts at Seeking Alpha suggests that Google has come adrift with its smartphone hardware strategy.

Seeking Alpha claims the Nexus programme does not now include the kind of devices most people would rush out to buy.

And even devices like the joint Google-HTC One GPe – which the analysts describe as the “Rolls Royce” of five inch Android smartphones is in a spot of bother. Because it’s sold out.

The Nexus 5 is last year’s model with an ancient Qualcomm 800 CPU and less memory.

The Nexus 6 is sold out but anyway it’s too big because few want a six inch screen.  The Motorola G isn’t sold out but it’s last generation.

Seeking Alpha Analyst Anton Wahlman says that everything Google is selling on its site is sold out, suggesting the behemoth is losing its way on the hardware front. You can read more of what he has to say about the debacle, here.

Facebook takes on Linkedin

Posted on November 17, 2014 by - News

Mark Zuckerberg - WikimedaSocial networking site Facebook is apparently readying a rival to Linkedin – a site that some people occasionally use for work to share resumes and the like.

The Financial Times originally broke the news and claims that Facebook, which has already lost popularity with younger people, will let people tie up with their professional contacts and chat to their colleagues.

It’s not only Linkedin that Facebook may compete against – the report suggested that Microsoft’s Yammer and Google are in Facebook’s sights too.

But Facebook faces increasing criticism that material posted by people worldwide form the basis of a marketing initiative that breaches personal privacy and can cause unexpected consequences.

In view of this, business professionals may feel it’s a bit much to trust their resumes/CVs into the hands of a company that’s already facing criticism because of privacy concerns.

Facebook made no comment at press time but is continually looking at ways to stretch its global database reach.  Wouldn’t it make more sense to just buy Linkedin, which is a publicly listed company?

Scientists teach computer legerdemain

Posted on November 17, 2014 by - News

levitationArtificial intelligence reached its zenith today after researchers at Queen Mary University of London taught a computer to create magic tricks.

The computer’s even been clever enough to create a card trick called Phoney which is available in the Google Play Store.

According to the scientists, they wrote a computer program to show how magic jigsaw puzzles and mind reading card trick works, along with a database showing how humans understand magic tricks.

But, the researchers point out, the magic trick created by the computer doesn’t use prestidigitation but rather uses mathematic techniques, which are, apparently, a core part of many conjurors’ stage acts.

Howard Williams, who co-created the project, said that AI can use psychological and mathematical principles to “create lots of different versions and keep audiences guessing”.  Its stage presence might need a little tweaking.

Professor Peter McOwan, a member of the team, said: “Using AI to create magic tricks is a great way to demonstrate the possibilities of computer intelligence and it also forms a part of our research into the psychology of being a spectator.”

At press time we searched the Google Play Store for Phoney but only found Phoney Girlfriend from Baller Industries.  We suspect this isn’t the app QMUL means…