Tag: newstrack

Qualcomm has China crisis

Posted on November 6, 2014 by - News

china-syndrome-one-sheet1Qualcomm is facing a little trouble in Big China as it is starting to look like its antitrust investigation is going pear shaped. Meanwhile problems collecting royalties could harm its business in China next year.

To make matters worse it is facing similar investigations in the United States and Europe.

Qualcomm should be making a large profit in China. The country is expanding high-speed 4G network is driving demand for smartphones with leading-edge technology.

But it looks like Qualcomm could face a fine of more than $1 billion in China as a result of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) investigation, and the company could be forced to make concessions that would hurt its highly profitable business of charging royalties on phones that use its patents.

Qualcomm admitted that it faces a new probe by the European Commission about rebates and other financial incentives in the sale of its chips. Another preliminary investigation by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission concerns a potential breach of licensing terms.

Qualcomm President Derek Aberle said that his company was co-operating with the Chinese to come up with potential ways to resolve the problem.

Qualcomm has also been struggling to collect licensing revenue from some device makers in China, including local manufacturers the US chipmaker has done little or no business with in the past.

But the fear is that concessions on royalties that Qualcomm is forced to make in China could spread to manufacturers in other countries.

Qualcomm said it was difficult to predict the outcome of the U.S. and European investigations.

The European probe is separate from a four-year-old complaint to the European Commission from a subsidiary of Nvidia over alleged patent-related incentives and exclusionary pricing by Qualcomm.

Qualcomm forecast revenue for fiscal 2015 of between $26.8 billion and $28.8 billion. Analysts on average expected $28.91 billion.

The chipmaker reported revenue of $6.69 billion for its fiscal fourth quarter, ended Sept. 28, up 3 percent from the year-ago period. Analysts on average had expected $7.016 billion.

Qualcomm posted fourth-quarter net income of $1.89 billion, up 26 percent from a year ago.

Apple gear plagued with malware

Posted on November 6, 2014 by - News

giant bugPalo Alto Networks has discovered a new family of malware that can infect Apple desktop and mobile operating systems.

For a while now, Jobs’ Mob has made much of the fact it is “super secure” even while its gear is turned over in seconds at hacker conferences.  But now the hardware is becoming more popular it is clear that hackers are starting to write code that can disable anything that Apple comes up with.

The “WireLurker” malware can install third-party applications on regular, non-jailbroken iOS devices and hop from infected Macs onto iPhones through USB connector-cables.

Ryan Olson, intelligence director for the company’s Unit 42 division said that had seen indications that the attackers were Chinese. The malware originated from a Chinese third-party apps store and appeared to have mostly affected users within the country.

The malware spread through infected apps uploaded to the apps store that were in turn downloaded onto Mac computers. This is bad news for Apple which always claims that its store is closely vetted in comparison to the Google operation.

According to the company, more than 400 such infected apps had been downloaded over 350,000 times so far.

So far, there is no evidence that the attackers had made off with anything more sensitive than messaging IDs and contacts from users’ address books. But then again what sort of information would an Apple user have?  There cannot be many Chinese spooks who want a Coldplay or U2 collection. As far as companies are concerned,

Apple was told about the bug two weeks ago and has not done anything.  Once WireLurker gets on an iPhone, it can go on to infect existing apps on the device, somewhat akin to how a traditional virus infects computer software programs. Olson said it was the first time he had seen it in action. “It’s the first time we’ve seen anyone doing it in the wild,” he added.

Microsoft, Dropbox team up

Posted on November 5, 2014 by - News

Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEODropbox and Microsoft have signed a deal to integrate their services including Microsoft Office on phones, on tablets and on the internet.

Dropbox currently hosts over 35 billion Office files and 1.2 billion people use Office.

The deal means that you will be able to access Dropbox from Office applications, edit Office files directly from Dropbox and synchronise them across different kinds of devices.  You will also be able to share new or edited files from Office apps using the Dropbox sharing features.

Microsoft said it will include the features in its next updates to Apple iOS and Google Android operating systems.  These are due in a couple of weeks.

Web integration won’t be available until the first half of next year and Dropbox will make its applications available for Windows Phone and Windows tablet devices.

Dropbox for Business customers need an Office 365 subscription to use the features.

Satya Nadella, the CEO of Microsoft, said both companies will provide their shared customers with tools to create, share and collaborate across most nearly all devices.

IBM claims first for intelligent cloud security

Posted on November 5, 2014 by - News

clouds3Big Blue claimed it is the first company to build an intelligent security profile that protects data, applications and people in the cloud.

The offerings it announced use what IBM described as advanced analytics to react to threats across enterprise, public, private and mobile clouds  – so called hybrid clouds.

IBM said that while the cloud is being rapidly adopted worldwide, attackers are more sophisticated and more able to hide their activities.  Indeed, IBM claims that three quarters of security breaches take days, weeks or months to be discovered.

Its managed security services platform is intended to protect IBM customers as well as customers of firms like Amazon Web Services and Salesforce.

It said that its intelligent threat protection monitors the cloud environment, analysing billions of security events and including correlation and external data feeds.

IBM estimates that nearly half of large enterprises will use hybrid clouds by the end of 2017 and claims that it is the largest hybrid cloud vendor.

Governments want more from Facebook

Posted on November 5, 2014 by - News

Facebook's Mark ZuckerbergSocial networking company Facebook said in a statement that requests by different governments round the world sharply rose during the first half of this year.

Governments requested 34,946 requests while Facebook said limits on some content to comply with local legislation increased by 19 percent during the same period.

Facebook said in a statement that it looks at every government request it gets and it “pushes back hard” if it finds deficiencies in the requests or if the requests are too broad.

It said that over the last year it has challenged bulk search warrants in New York that demanded it hand over data from the accounts of close to 400 people.

“We’ve argued that these overly broad warrants violate the privacy rights of the people on Facebook and ignore constituional safeguards against unreasonable searches and seizures,” the satement continued.

It is appealing these warrants.

Facebook also said it works with the IT industry and partners to “push governments for additional transparency and to reform surveillance practices necessary to rebuild people’s trust in the internet.”

All government data requests should be narrowly tailored, proportionate, and subject to judicial oversight.

HTC shows signs of recovery

Posted on November 5, 2014 by - News

Nexus 9Cooperation between mobile firm HTC and Google is giving the Taiwanese firm a boost.

According to the Taipei Times, orders for the Nexus 9 tablet have exceeded expectations and that means HTC has ramped up its production facilities.

HTC mobile phones are considered to be some of the most stylish smartphones on the market, but a lack of marketing budget has seen the firm struggling to compete with the majors in the market.

HTC doesn’t really play in the tablet market on its own and the report suggests it is taking a cautious view on revenues in the sector  before it launches products it no doubt has, waiting on the sidelines.

Earlier this week HTC released figures for October 2014 showing unaudited revenues of NT$15.8 billion.  Companies listed on the Taiwanese bourse report monthly rather than quarterly figures.

Tablet demand slows to standstill

Posted on November 5, 2014 by - News

Raphael painting: Moses receiving the tablets, Wikimedia CommonsA report said that during the third quarter of 2014, shipments of tablets worldwide amounted to 63.4 million unit only one percent up from the same quarter last year.

And the impetus for Apple iPads flatlined during the third quarter, largely affected by delays in shipments, according to Digitimes Research.

White box tablets only amounted to 26.2 million during the third quarter and that’s even after Intel subsidies in an attempt to boost market share.

Samsung is the second biggest supplier but the research suggests it will take a cautious approach to shipments during 2015.

The other biggest vendors for tablets are Asustek, Lenovo, Acer, Amazon and Dell.

Most analysts say that the tablet market is close to saturation in Western Europe and in North America – and there are few compelling reasons for people to upgrade from their existing models.

Apple security adopts hauhau method

Posted on November 5, 2014 by - News

i_257It seems that the Apple Cargo cult is taking the same approach to security that the Maori Hauhau did during the New Zealand wars.

Like Apple, the Hauhau was a strange cult built by a bullied people but under a charismatic leader. The Hauhau also believed, despite evidence, that they could bounce bullets off their chests.

Apple has the same view about security. Apple’s security technologies for Mac OS X cannot for the life of itself see the iWorm, a piece of malware discovered in late September that infected thousands of computers.

Apple released an update for its XProtect antivirus engine to detect iWorm, but the update only detects when iWorm’s installer is launched.

Patrick Wardle, director of research with Synack, a computer security company based in Redwood City, California said that computers already infected with iWorm before the update would still be compromised.

Wardle said unless the user has another antivirus product installed that has a correct signature, those infections aren’t going to go away.

Wardle said Apple is likely aware of the Gatekeeper’s weaknesses, as it appears the way it works was a conscious design decision.

In other words, you cannot rely on Apple to secure your machine, probably because the belief that Apple’s do not get viruses is hardwired into the reality distortion field. Still you get what you pay for.

 

Dell counter attacks against rivals

Posted on November 5, 2014 by - News

Conan 1While Michael Dell was fighting to take his tin box outfit private, his rivals used the uncertainty to steal his customers – now he is counter-attacking.  

Dell opened the Dell World conference and wasted no time denouncing the “turmoil” his rivals in the industry are going through.

“They’re splitting away businesses, spinning off pieces of their businesses, and one has to ask the question: who is this for? Does this actually help the customers? Does it help them create the next great innovative products?”

It is deeply ironic for Dell. At the time HP Meg Whitman was calling Hewlett-Packard a “paragon of stability” compared to his company and IBM smugly told his customers that he was doomed.

Now Dell can point out that Whitman is breaking the the company in two. And IBM is selling its x86 server business to Lenovo and fighting to keep its profits above water.

Because the company is private, Dell does not have to worry about those quarterly targets and can plan.  He even had a dig at Carl Icahn who made him pay millions more to take his company private.

“Dell can focus on a future that’s “beyond the next quarter, the next year or the next shareholder activist,” he said.

Dell’s PC shipments grew almost 20 percent in the U.S. last quarter, Michael Dell said, faster than those of HP and Apple.

Today Dell is expected to announce a new “converged infrastructure” system called the PowerEdge FX, he said, which combines servers, network and storage in a new design that offers “the most density in the world.”

Intel’s Skylake is an escargot

Posted on November 5, 2014 by - News

Cooked_snailsWord on the street is that Skylake processors may be delayed.

Intel has been promising that Skylight will be in developers paws early 2015 ahead of shipping “by the second half of the year.”

Digitime’s Joanne Chen claims that Skylake will be held back so as not to dent sales of Broadwell-based notebooks.

The report claims that Intel has set the RTM schedule for the Skylake to the 37-47th weeks of 2015 which is the end of August to the end of October.

The later schedule, Chen claims, would damage the release of Windows 10 notebook sales, because Skylake-based models will not be able to reach retail until late September.

“Windows 10-based notebooks are already facing many negative factors that could impact their shipments in 2015: most enterprises are expected to finish their PC replacement by the end of 2014 after Microsoft terminated support for Windows XP; Microsoft will offer free upgrade to Windows 10 for existing Windows 8/8.1 notebooks; and Windows 10 lacks attractive features,” Chen wrote.

While it is possible that Intel has allowed itself room in September for a later ship date without exposing itself to accusations of breaking its promises, the matter of Windows10 is important. The Skylake delay is expected to worsen Windows 10-based notebooks prospects, and may in turn weaken the notebook market’s performance in the second half of 2015.

Tsar Putin bans iPhone and iPad

Posted on November 5, 2014 by - News

Movie-Ivan-the-Terrible-by-Sergei-EisensteinApple will be banned from selling its iPhone and Apple iPad in Russia, from January as the Russian Orthodox Tsar Putin orders a crackdown on the cargo cult.

Initially appeared that Apple was being banned from Russia because it has a gay CEO and Putin is homophobic in such a way which caused a business group to dismantle a memorial to Steve Jobs in St. Petersburg. It turns out that the reason is a little more sensible.

The iCloud that has Russian authorities concerned because data saved in it is not stored locally and is wide open to any US spook who wants to have a look at it. It could also contain pictures of homosexual romps in the Kremlin which could be distributed on 4Chan for a laugh.

The law was not created to harm Apple specifically, as it applies to all online services including social networks which have their servers in the US. However, it will probably harm Apple more.

Apple could put up a server farm in the country, but that that would mean that the data could be sniffed by the Russian spooks, and Jobs’ Mob only gives its data to the Americans.

What will get sticky is when Russia enforces the ban at the retail level. Those in Russia who currently own an iPhone or iPad that supports iCloud, might have to put up with relentless searches from the authorities.

It is not a big problem for Apple. Unlike China where there are people prepared to sell a kidney to own one of its phones, Russians are a little more pragmatic about handing over two months’ salary for a gadget which will be out of date in a year. An iPad and iPhone ban will only extend to the Russian mafia who are the only ones who can afford them.

 

Government to force better mobile coverage

Posted on November 5, 2014 by - News

TortureRackThe British government launched a consultation on new legislation to force mobile operators to improve coverage around the country.

Sajid Javid, the government’s culture secretary, said the  consultation will complement the work industry is doing and allow the Government to hear from the wider telecoms sector, businesses and the public,”

Traditionally governments hope that private enterprise will undertake such work voluntarily.  They drop some broad hints, coupled with threats of legislation and private enterprises rushes to it.  But for some reason the concept of rural coverage has not been a starter for the big telcos, so now the government has to make its threats clearer.

One possible option to eliminate poor coverage, which affects about one fifth of the UK, may include a national roaming plan, where subscribers will be able to switch between operators offering the strongest signal, the government said.

The government said it is keen to have comprehensive mobile coverage across the country to boost productivity and help provide jobs and economic security.

While this makes sense, it is the sort of thing that gives telecoms companies nightmares.

EE, the country’s largest mobile operator, said in a separate statement it does not want to implement national roaming as that would deteriorate network reliability and may also lead to price rises.

Vodafone agrees saying implementation “would be technically far more complex, slow to implement and would cause serious problems with network resilience”.

However the consultation include infrastructure sharing, allowing mobile networks to put transmitters on each other’s masts, and obliging the networks to cover a certain percentage of the UK.

What might happen is a group of telecoms will finally give in and agree to provide the sort of coverage the government wants.

Dance helps girls win at computing

Posted on November 4, 2014 by - News

Image courtesy of Clemson UniversityWomen are under represented in the computer industry and now scientists at Clemson University have devised a way for girls to engage with IT.

The scientists are offering something called Virtual Environment Interactions aimed at blending dancing and programming for fifth and sixth grade girls in the USA.

Alison Leonard, a professor of education at Clemson, said the research: “will help young learners bootstrap their intuitive knowledge in order to programme a three dimensional character to perform movements.”

The method uses educational 3D software called Alice, and Leonard believes that executing software code or consecutive movements exist in both programming and choreography. “Likewise, loops or repeating a set of steps also occur in both contexts,” she said.

Students use the Alice software to create virtual characters to perform, based on their own dance movements.

Google cuts out the server middlemen

Posted on November 4, 2014 by - News

HP-MicroServerA report said that Taiwanese original design manufacturer (ODM) Quanta will supply search engine giant Google with its servers in 2015.

Google has long abandoned the habit of using “brand name” servers from the likes of Dell, HP or IBM/Lenovo.

The news, reported in Digitimes, confirms a recent survey saying that the ODMs, which often build machines that are then subsequently branded, are taking market share from the brand names.

It’s not just Google that is following this path.  Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft also buy their servers direct.  Quanta has benefited more from these changes in buying patterns because it has been quicker to realise the money involved than rivals such as Taiwanese company Inventec.

Until comparatively recently, Quanta’s entire business was building notebook machines, subsequently branded by others.  But the bottom has somewhat fallen out of the notebook business with the rise of tablets and smartphones.

GCHQ head hits out at IT companies

Posted on November 4, 2014 by - News

GCHQ buildingThe newly appointed head of spy outfit GCHQ has said computer companies like Facebook and Twitter are not doing enough to help security services catch criminals and terrorists.

Robert Hannigan went a little further than that and accused technology outfits of being “command and control networks for terrorists and criminals”.

The Islamic State, for example, used the web as a channel to promote itself, frighten people and radicalise new recruits.

Hannigan said: “But increasingly their services not only host the material of violent extremism or child exploitation, but are the routes for the facilitation of crime and terrorism.”

He also criticised the security of communications saying that encryption methods which were once the domain of nation states are now commonplace.  For example, Apple and Google include encryption in their mobile operating systems as a way of protecting people’s security and privacy.

He wants the tech companies to provide more support.