Tag: newstrack

TSMC will make iPad processors

Posted on October 15, 2014 by - News

blue-appleGiant semiconductor manufacturer TSMC will churn out the microprocessors for Apple’s next iPad.

That’s the word on the Taiwanese street. Digitimes reports that TSMC is already making Apple A8 CPUs for iPhone 6 smartphones.

Apple is expected to announce the next generation of its iPad in the New Year – amidst consistent reports that sales of tablets are flagging.

The CPUs will be built on a 20 nanometre process and, the report added, is codenamed the A8X.

Shrinking the die to 20 nanometres accounted for 10 percent of its revenues in Q3 2014.

TSMC turned over $6.87 billion in its third financial quarter of this year.

No more pot of gold at end of Irish rainbow

Posted on October 15, 2014 by - News

irelandThe days of Apple and Google screwing over European and American tax authorities by having an Irish base is likely to become a thing of the past.

Ireland’s Ministry of Finance announced that Ireland will phase out its controversial tax scheme known as the “Double Irish,” which lets companies, especially tech companies, drastically reduce their overseas tax burden.

Irish Finance Minister Michael Noonan said in a statement accompanying the government’s new 2015 budget that he was abolishing the ability of companies to use the ‘Double Irish’ by changing our residency rules to require all companies registered in Ireland to also be tax resident.

This change will take effect from the 1st of January 2015 for new companies. For existing companies, there will be provision for a transition period until the end of 2020.

So, in other words, Apple and Google will be able to save money for at least six years.

Firms that take advantage of this arrangement include Apple, Amazon, Adobe, Microsoft, and Google. It is unlikely that they will move their EU operations away from Ireland as the corporation tax rate in that country is extremely low.

Google declared $60 billion worth of revenue in the United States in 2013. Google’s effective tax rate in the United States has fallen dramatically from 21 percent to 15.7 percent in recent years as the company has broadened its use of overseas tax benefits.

It is starting to look like the Irish government was getting a little jittery about an EU investigation into the scheme. Over the last year, various European countries, including the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and France, have been reviewing their laws that enable this type of corporate behaviour.

Noonan is going against  U2’s Bono, the Irish icon, who claimed that the fact that Apple’s cheating of the tax payer in the US and EU somehow assisted Irish poor. To be fair Bono owes Apple a favour – Jobs’ Mob forced Apple fans to listen to U2’s latest album by hard wiring it into the latest iPhone 6, until it had enough complaints to issue a fix for the problem.

“Odd couple” HP and EMC refuse to merge

Posted on October 15, 2014 by - News

Tony_Randall_Jack_Klugman_Odd_Couple_1972The maker of expensive printer ink,  HP has ended merger talks with EMC after months of useless negotiations.

Reuters reported that its deep throats in HP said hopes to merge two of the tech industry’s largest enterprise-oriented firms had been dashed.

Pressure is building on EMC to do some spinning off  in an attempt to unlock shareholder value, become more agile, and capitalise on faster-growing businesses.

Executives from the two companies were still trying to hammer out a deal as recently as last week, but talks bogged down on price.  We guess EMC really could not believe that printer ink had the same value as gold.

HP suspended its stock buyback program ahead of its November 25 earnings because the company said it is in possession of material non-public information. Chief Financial Officer Cathie Lesjak noted on a conference call that the non-public information pertains to a possible acquisition.

It is not clear what the two were thinking of merging.  A straight-up merger of the two companies would have created one of the industry’s largest providers of data storage, and created a computing giant with deep penetration in the business of providing computing hardware and services to corporations.  However last week HP announced its plan to split off  into HP Enterprises, a tech infrastructure, software and services business, and HP which will play in the PC and printer markets.

Elliot Management, which owns 2.2 percent of EMC, has been vocal about wanting EMC to merge or spin off some of its assets, such as software subsidiary VMWare. EMC has said that it wants its company to stay together.

 

Workers reject Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe

Posted on October 15, 2014 by - News

courtroom_1_lgEmployees suing Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe over running a hiring cartel have asked an appeals court not to approve a $324.5 million settlement in the case.

Plaintiff workers accused Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe in a 2011 lawsuit of conspiring to avoid poaching each other’s employees. The companies agreed to a $324.5 million settlement earlier this year.

US District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California rejected the proposed class action settlement, saying the amount was too low. The companies appealed last month, saying she committed “clear legal errors”.

The workers said that although they believed the $324.5 million deal originally warranted approval, the judge had the proper authority to reject it and they would “defer to Koh’s sound judgment about how best to oversee this litigation”.

Tech employees alleged that the conspiracy limited their job mobility and, as a result, kept a lid on salaries. The case was interesting because it appeared to be another conspiracy organised by Steve Jobs.  Jobs also conspired with book publishers to keep the price of eBooks artificially high.

Plaintiffs based their allegations of conspiracy largely on emails circulated among Apple’s late co-founder Steve Jobs and former Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt.

Koh repeatedly referred to a related deal last year involving Disney and Intuit. Apple and Google workers got proportionally less in the latest agreement compared with the one involving Disney, Koh said.

To match the earlier settlement, the latest deal “would need to total at least $380 million,” Koh said.

Intel makes profit

Posted on October 15, 2014 by - News

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERASemiconductor firm Intel gave a current-quarter revenue forecast well above what the cocaine nose jobs of Wall Street had predicted.

Intel posted third quarter net profits of $3.32 billion compared with $2.95 billion in the same financial quarter last year.

Third quarter revenue was $14.6 billion, up eight percent from same quarter last year, and the company said it expects fourth quarter revenues of $14.7 billion, plus or minus $500 million.

Wall Street expected third quarter revenues of $14.44 billion and fourth quarter revenues of $14.48 billion.

The company said its supply chain was in good shape ahead of the holiday season and demand for PCs had recovered as enterprises finally started replacing their aged PCs.

Intel said in a statement on Tuesday that demand for its chips was in good shape.

“The worldwide PC supply chain appears to be healthy, with inventory levels appropriate in anticipation of the fourth quarter retail cycles,” Intel said.

The recovering PC industry has helped push Intel’s shares 24 percent higher in 2014, making it the top performer in the Dow Jones industrial average.

The results are an apparent poke in the eye to comments from Microchip that weak demand in China  would soon become visible across the chip industry.

Intel said its gross margins would slip to 64 percent in the current quarter from 65 percent in the third quarter.

Intel said its mobile and communications group had an operating loss of $1.04 billion on revenue of $1 million, reflecting subsidies Intel has been paying to persuade tablet makers to use its chips.

Shares of Intel were up 2.05 percent in extended trade after closing up 2.13 percent at $32.14 on Nasdaq.

Albanian drone sparks riot

Posted on October 15, 2014 by - News

albaniaA drone, probably released by the brother of the Albanian Prime Minister, managed to spark another Balkan war, yesterday.

A football draw between Albania and Serbia, played at the FK Partizan stadium in Belgrade was always going to be a little tense. However it was made a lot worse by the presence of a drone.

The drone apparently belonged to Olsi Rama, the brother of Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama, who released it from the VIP box where he was sitting. It was not clear how he smuggled the drone into the country, but apparently if you are the brother of the Prime Minister airport security is a little lighter.

The drone  had a “Greater Albania” flag attached and it shows territory within Albania, Serbia, Montenegro, Macedonia, northern Greece and the autonomous region of Kosovo, which the Serbian government still claims. The flag depicts the word “indigenous,” as well as portraits of Ismail Qemali and Isa Boletinim, two Albanian nationalist leaders.

The Serbians were a little miffed about this slight to their greatness and right to rule anywhere in the Balkans with a Serbian population. They started charting the popular poem “kill, slit their throats, exterminate the Albanians” which indicates the genocides carried out by their forces were probably just accidental and human shields were just a terrible mistake.

Its team burnt a NATO flag which is the sort thing you pack to bring  to a football match if you are a football team, right after your boots and the oranges.

Then a riot broke out completely out of the blue.

Albania’s coach Giovanni de Biazzi of Italy has told Albanian media that four of his players were injured in the scuffle. He said that Serbian security staff decided it someone else’s job to protect players and waded into the Albanians themselves.

Serbian state media is reporting police have arrested Rama on suspicion that he masterminded the whole thing.

However, Albanian Interior Minister Saimir Tahiri has denied reports about Rama’s arrest, describing made up . Rama had left the stadium for the airport. He did not say if he was carrying a rather large drone shaped package with him.

It was the first time that the Albanian national soccer team had travelled to Belgrade since 1967 to play Serbia in a European Championship qualifying match.  One has to wonder what they were thinking about.

Tablets pushed out by smartphones

Posted on October 15, 2014 by - News

cheetahAs smartphone screen sizes get bigger, tablet market share is shrinking.

That’s according to Gartner, which said that tablet sale growth is falling and in 2014 will represent less than 10 percent of all gizmos in 2014.

Hardware buyers are hanging onto their tablets and while sales will amount to 229 million units this year – up 11 percent from 2013, the overall trend is down.  For example, in 2013 tablet sales grew by 55 percent.

Gartner beliees that shipments of PCs, tablets, ultramobiles and mobile phones will hit 2.4 billion units this year.  Ranjit Atwal, a research director at Gartner, said the relationship between PCs, ultramobiles and mobile phones is getting ever more complex.

He thinks some people won’t replace a tablet with a tablet but are taking an interest in hybrid or two in one devices.

Gizmos using the Android operating system will hit one billon this year, he said.

Windows for mobile devices in mature markets is growing, but growth is snail like, rather than cheetah like, according to Gartner.

Tesla car is a big computer

Posted on October 15, 2014 by - News

Tesla Model SThe people at market research company IHS are known for taking apart PCs, iPhones and iPads to find out what the bill of materials (BOM) is.

Now IHS has gone that little bit further and taken a Tesla Model S apart.  We guess a Tesla Model S would make a reasonable meal for Monsieur Mangetout but it doesn’t appear he was called in to have a snack.

IHS suggests that the Model S is more of a computer than a car.  Andrew Rassweiler, director for materials at IHS, said: “It’s like looking at the components from the latest mobile device from an Apple iPad or Samsung Galaxy. When it comes to the user facing segment of the Model S’s electronics, the company has radically departed from business as usual in the automotive market.”

He said the cost structure of the electronics, the use of large displays, mobile microchips suggess the Model S is more like a smartphone than a traditional car.

Components include a 17-inch display, an Nvidia Tegra 3 1.4GHz quad core microprocessor and a OM twice the cost of the highest end “infotainment” unit.

Rassweiller said that the display is 10 inches larger than most car head units, with a resolution of 1,920 by 1,200.

IHS said it hasn’t finished taking the car apart yet, so perhaps Monsieur Mangtout – who once ate a plane – has a treat in store.

Battery will warn you before it explodes

Posted on October 14, 2014 by - News

Picture, Stanford UniversityScientists at Stanford University claim to have developed a so-called “smart” lithium ion battery that warns people before it overheats and bursts into an inferno.

The scientists claim that the early warning system uses a very thin copper sensor deposited on top of a conventional battery separator.

The use of such a device is clear, following a recent accident where a person’s smartphone burst into flames while she was using it.

Yi Cui, associate professor of materials science at Stanford, said: “Our goal is to create an early warning system that saves lives and property.  The system can detect problems that occur during the normal operation of a battery, but it does not apply to batteries damaged in a collion or other incident.”

Last year Boeing grounded its 787 Dreamliner fleet after batteries caught fire.  Then there was the famous incident in 2006 when a Dell notebook caught fire in Japan.

But while the odds of batteries catching fire are one in a million, said Cui, hundreds of millions of computers and smartphones are sold every year.

The smart separator will alert people when it’s time to change their batteries, just in case.

Google plays Amazon red herring

Posted on October 14, 2014 by - Moving People, News

red herringAs Google continues to be investigated by the European Union, chairman Eric Schmidt has decided to deflect criticism by saying that Amazon is its biggest search rival.

In a speech in Berlin, Schmidt – who has repeatedly denied that Google is a monopolistic player – he also took time to diss rivals Bing and Yahoo, saying they don’t matter at all.

According to the BBC, Schmidt said that people didn’t see Amazon as a search engine but most people go there when they want to buy something, rather than Google.

How Schmidt thinks this kind of argument will have any weight with the European Union is hard to fathom.

He said: “Amazon is answering users’ questions and searches, just as we are.”

Google isn’t the be and end of it all, added Schmidt. In a note of paranoia he suggested that somewhere will be new technology that will topple it from its premier position.

Salesforce strikes with lightning

Posted on October 14, 2014 by - News

Salesforce logoMajor CRM company Salesforce said it has introduced a version of Salesforce1 called Lightning, intended to help customers build mobile apps.

According to the company, developers and users can create purpose built apps for screens of every type of shape and size, including tablets, laptops, smartphones and wearables.

Lightning has a new interface and Salesforce claims is optimised for any device.

Salesforce dubs this tehnique as Platform as a Service (PaaS).  People can use pre-built components such as feed, list chart, search navigation or build their own Lightning Components.

The Lightning Process Builder lets people create enterprise workflows and visually automate complex operations including follow up emails, vendor porcurement and order fulfilment.

Lightning Framewrk and Schema Builder are now generally available, while Lightning Components is in beta test and likely to appear in February 2015, along with other elements of the product.

Boffins unveil sort of cloak of invisibility

Posted on October 14, 2014 by - News

invisibleScientists at Penn State university believe they have made considerable process in developing what they describe as a sort of cloak of invisibility. It’s not that, of course.

Postdoctoral fellow Zhi Hao said: “Previous attempts at cloaking using a single metasurface layer were restricted to very small sized objects. Also the act of cloaking would prevent an enclosed antenna or sensor from communicating with the otuside world.

So a group of scientists in the electrical engineering faculty at Penn say it’s developed a thin metamaterial coating that lets objects to function normally even though they don’t seem what they are.

The so called “illusing coatings” use a thin flexible substrate with copper patterns. When a device is probed by a radio frequency (RF) source, the scattered signature seems to be a dielectric material like silicon.

How does it work? The researchers take the object and surround it with either air or foam and then apply the ultrathin layer of dielectric with copper patterns designed for wavelengths they wish to cloak.

The practical benefits of the research could improve the way RF ID tags work or redistribute energy make things more rather than less visible.

Samsung commercialises 60GHz Wi-Fi

Posted on October 14, 2014 by - News

samsung-hqSamsung is developing 60GHz Wi-Fi technology that it says can manage  data transmission speeds of up to 4.6Gbps, or 575MB per second.

This is a five-fold increase from 866Mbps, or 108MB per second which is the maximum speed possible with existing consumer electronics devices.

If it does what it says on the tin, it would take a 1GB movie  less than three seconds to transfer between devices, while uncompressed high definition videos can easily be streamed from mobile devices to TVs in real-time without any delay.

Kim Chang Yong, Head of DMC R&D Center of Samsung Electronics said that Samsung has successfully overcome the barriers to the commercialization of 60GHz millimeter-wave band Wi-Fi technology, and will commercialise the technology.

“New and innovative changes await Samsung’s next-generation devices, while new possibilities have been opened up for the future development of Wi-Fi technology, ” Kim said.

Samsung’s 802.11ad standard 60GHz Wi-Fi technology maintains maximum speed by eliminating co-channel interference, regardless of the number of devices using the same network.

In other words, it closes the gap between theoretical and actual speeds, and exhibits actual speed that is more than 10 times faster than that of 2.4GHz and 5GHz Wi-Fi technologies.

Commercially adopting 60GHz Wi-Fi technology has been difficult because it uses millimeter waves that travel by line-of-sight which have weak penetration properties.

Using millimeter-wave circuit design, high performance modem technologies and by developing wide-coverage beam-forming antenna, Samsung was able to successfully achieve the highest quality, commercially viable 60GHz Wi-Fi technology, Kim said.

Samsung also improved the overall signal quality by developing a micro beam-forming control technology that optimises the communications module in less than 1/3,000 seconds, if the environment changes. The company also developed the world’s first method that allows multiple devices to connect simultaneously to a network.

60GHz is an unlicensed band spectrum across the world, and commercialisation is expected as early as next year. Samsung plans to apply this new technology to a wide range of products, including audio visual and medical devices, as well as telecommunications equipment. The technology will also be useful for the Samsung Smart Home and other  Internet of Things projects.

Apple destroyed Santa’s home

Posted on October 14, 2014 by - News

screen480x480The fruity cargo cult Apple should be declared public enemy number one in Finland for the damage it caused to the nation’s economy.

The country’s Prime Minister Alexander Stubb said that Apple’s products have affected its mobile device and paper industries to such a level that it caused an economic downturn. It has  also caused the Nordic country to endure a sovereign debt rating downgrade.

Stubb said that Finland had two industrial problems and two champions which went down — Nokia in the ICT sector, and the other has to do with the forest and paper industry.”

“One could say that the iPhone killed Nokia and the iPad killed the Finnish paper industry, but we’ll make a comeback.”

Of course it is not Apple’s fault – there were shedloads of other technology companies which cleaned Nokia’s clock and the paper industry had been suffering for a while.

Statistics from the Finnish Forest Research Institute found that the forest and paper industry has contracted over the last few years, with the institute’s most recent report for 2013 warning of a “poor situation” for paper production, as well as a forecast that exports would continue to shrink in 2014.

The rise of electronic devices cannot be directly blamed for the paper industry’s issues in the country, the rise of online publications at the expense of newspapers could be seen as a contributing factor. Stubb hopes that instead of flogging trees to newspapers, they might make a nice form of bio energy. Perhaps the Finns should follow Sweden and move into flat pack furniture as a better use for its trees.

 

Sandworm team uses Microsoft bug

Posted on October 14, 2014 by - News

dune-sandwormFor the last five years, Russian hackers have conducted a single operation to spy on computers used by NATO, the European Union, Ukraine and companies in the energy and telecommunications sectors.

Cyber intelligence firm iSight said it did not know what data had been found by the hackers, though it suspected they were seeking information on the Ukraine crisis, as well as diplomatic, energy and telecom issues.

According to iSight, which dubbed the operation “Sandworm Team” because it found references to the “Dune” in the software code used by the hackers, the operation used a variety of ways to attack the targets over the years.

Things have become worse since August since the Sandworm Team  found a hole of their in most versions of Windows to exploit.

ISight said it told Microsoft about the bug and held off on disclosing the problem so the software maker had time to fix it.

A spokesVole said the company plans to roll out an automatic update to affected versions of Windows today.

iSight said they believed the hackers are Russian because of language clues in the software code and because of their choice of targets.

Hulquist said the hackers were supported by a nation state because they were engaging in espionage, not cybercrime.

For example, in December 2013, NATO was targeted with a malicious document on European diplomacy. Several regional governments in the Ukraine and an academic working on Russian issues in the United States were sent tainted emails that claimed to contain a list of pro-Russian extremist activities.

Hulquist said its researchers had uncovered evidence that some Ukrainian government computers were infected, but they were unable to confirm specific victims among those systems that had been targeted.

The iSight research is the latest in a series of private sector security reports that link Moscow to some of the most sophisticated cyber espionage uncovered to date.