Tag: newstrack

Chip price war unlikely

Posted on October 14, 2014 by - News

Normans_BayeuxSamsung does not expect a price war to break out in the semiconductor industry next year even though it is ramping up capacity.

CEO Kwon Oh-hyun said that he will have to “wait and see how things will go next year, but there definitely will not be any game of chicken”,

Memory chip makers have reported strong profits this year thanks to better-than-expected demand for PCs and servers.  Most analysts believe industry conditions will remain favourable in 2015.

But Samsung’s plan to invest $14.67 billion in a new South Korea chip plant stoked concerns about the industry’s profit outlook. Some investors worry that the firm could ramp up supply and undercut prices to squeeze Hynix and Micron’s bottom line.

Cooler heads have pointed out that Samsung’s plant will not begin production  until 2017. They say margins in the memory business are important to Samsung, given the mobile division’s falling smartphone profits.

 

 

Governments and businesses harvest voices

Posted on October 14, 2014 by - News

Harvest_time_in_Romania,_1920Businesses and governments around the world increasingly are harvesting voiceprints for future biometric based security systems.

Mike Goldgof, an executive at Madrid-based AGNITiO said companies like his have helped enter more than 65 million voiceprints into corporate and government databases.

The system is starting to be used. Barclays recently experimented with voice printing as an identification for its wealthiest clients. It was so successful that Barclays is rolling it out to the rest of its 12 million retail-banking customers.

Iain Hanlon, a Barclays executive, said that voice biometrics will be the de facto standard in the next two or three years.

It works based on the idea that a timbre of each person’s voice is unique. Typical speaker recognition software compares those characteristics with data held on a server. If two voiceprints are similar enough, the system declares them a match.

So far, the largest implementation identified by the AP is in Turkey, where mobile phone company Turkcell has taken the voice biometric data of some 10 million customers using technology provided by market leader Nuance Communications.

US coppers use the technology to monitor inmates and track offenders who have been paroled.

In New Zealand, the Internal Revenue Department collected its 1 millionth voiceprint, leading the revenue minister to boast that his country had “the highest level of voice biometric enrollments per capita in the world.”

In South Africa, roughly 7 million voiceprints have been collected by the country’s Social Security Agency, in part to verify that those claiming pensions are still alive.

UK high on Google purge lists

Posted on October 13, 2014 by - News

OgleThe European Court of Justice told Google that it had to remove information under its so-called “right to be forgotten” law and now it has emerged that one in 10 requests came from the UK.

According to the BBC, Google has taken down nearly 500,000 links from its search engine since May.  And, of those, 63,616 were UK requests.

Google doesn’t have to take down sites on requests, but people have a right to appeal if it decides not to.

Out of the 498,737 URLs it looked at, based on 146,357 requests, France accounted for the most requests, followed by Germany and then the UK.  Of the requests it received, Google removed 41.8 percent, and left 58.2 percent of them online.

Google said it gt a request from a defrocked vicar to remove two links covering an investigation of sexual abuse accusations.  It didn’t remove the pages.

Facebook accounted for most requests to remove references, followed by profileengine.com

IT vendors expect cash bonanza from India

Posted on October 13, 2014 by - News

Narendra Modi, India's PM - picture Wikimedia CommonsNext year the Indian government is likely to spend a staggering $7.2 billion on information technology, promising rich pickings for vendors that can surf the wave.

According to market research firm Gartner, that figure will be a five percent increase over this year and the $7.2 billion cake includes plums that cover hardware, software, IT services and telecomms.

Anurag Gupta, a research director on the subcontinent for Gartner, reckons IT services will be worth $1.8 billion in 2015, and the business process outsourcing segment will grow by 22 percent during this year.

Government spending on software is likely to be worth $910 million in 2015 – much of that being on vertical software.

Gupta said the new government’s aims are only able to be achieved by using technology and digital government, in particular broadband penetration, cloud initiatives, and public private partnership.

Intel suffers from industry nervousness

Posted on October 13, 2014 by - News

Intel-logoChip giant Intel puts out its quarterly results tomorrow but its shares dropped last Friday after Microchip issued a revenue warning.

Microchip said it was ready for another industry correction and, according to financial analysts at Seekingalpha.com, “the entire semiconductor space was reeling on Friday”.  That applied particularly to behemoths like Intel.

But other things may help Intel’s share price, according to the financial analysts.  There were reports that Apple will delay its 12.9-inch iPad to 2015 and that will give Intel a window of opportunity to steal market share on its chips, if the reports are true.

Intel will report its third quarter earnings tomorrow afternoon, US time.

Analyst Bill Maurer at Seeking Alpha said the fact that Intel planned to buy back a cool $4 billion worth of shares will have an impact on its bottom line – a positive one, that is.

As a result of Microchip’s revenue warning on Friday, Intel (ticker: INTC) lost over five percent on the stock exchange.  Intel still makes huge gross margins and had predicted when it released its second quarter earnings that gross margins would be 66 percent, and revenues $14.4 billion or so.

Microsoft solves wearable keyboard problems

Posted on October 13, 2014 by - News

Typewriter_adler1_keyboardWhile Apple has been attracting all the press for its iWatch vapourware, it appears that Microsoft has solved some of the serious design problems for wearable computers.

One of the biggest problems for wearables is an interface which people with normal sized fingers can use.

Microsoft might have come up with the most logical solution for typing on small size displays running Google’s Android Wear platform.

Volish boffins have built an analogue keyboard prototype for Android Wear that eliminates the need to tap at tiny letters and has you write them out.

The method involves using the entire screen which is important if you are using a 1.6-inch smartwatch with a software keyboard that has 10 keys across.

A spokesVole said that using the whole screen allows each letter to be entered rather comfortably, even on small devices. Some handwriting systems can be used without even looking at the screen. Finally, handwriting interfaces require very little design changes to run on round displays.

Microsoft is making the software public to receive feedback from users.

It’s free and should work with any Android Wear app that uses text input, though it needs to be side loaded using Android Debut Bridge.

You can see it in action here http://msrvideo.vo.msecnd.net/rmcvideos/230860/230860.mp4

GT Technology set for messy divorce from Apple

Posted on October 13, 2014 by - News

600full-kramer-vs.-kramer-posterIt seems that the maker of Sapphire glass is about to go through a messy divorce with its partner Apple and already the name calling has begun.

GT Advanced Technologies said it will cut 890 jobs, close an Arizona plant expected to make scratch-resistant screens for Apple and has threatened to pursue legal claims against the iPhone maker while revamping under bankruptcy.

The outfit said that if GT winds down these Apple based operations it will be able to stop its mounting losses and re-focus its resources on the operation of its core business of selling sapphire furnaces and other products.

GT Advanced said it was burning through $1 million a day at the operations it intended to close.

The company said that it has many claims against Apple arising out of its business relationship with Jobs’ Mob.

The company said it could not pursue the unspecified claims at the outset of its bankruptcy, but that the claims would allow GT Advanced to terminate several Apple agreements that it said were burdensome and of no value.

Apple said that it was committed to preserving jobs in Arizona and was consulting with state and local officials on its next steps.

Apple still needs GT to make the glass for its iWatch.

The company has provided only scant details of the cause of its bankruptcy and turnaround plans.  But it appears to have relied a little too much on Apple.

The outfit reached an agreement with Apple last year to transform itself from a supplier of sapphire furnaces to a manufacturer of sapphire for Apple. The iPad maker provided $578 million in funding for the Arizona plant, and GT Advanced agreed to repay the money over five years, starting in 2015.

However in September when Apple indicated its iPhone 6 would use rival Gorilla Glass instead of sapphire material.

GT Advanced asked the bankruptcy court to end 13 contracts with Apple, including a confidentiality agreement that has forced the bankruptcy to be conducted with unusual secrecy.

At the moment GT Advanced would be liable for $50 million for each violation of the confidentiality agreement.

Bono sells Robin Hood image to defend Apple

Posted on October 13, 2014 by - News, Opinions

bono-cash-facebookSuddenly it is hard to use the words “credibility” and “Bono” in the same sentence.

The U2 popular beat combo  artist  has done his best to champion all the right causes over the years. He has been a significant leader in the fight against poverty, and has helped to create the ONE Campaign, DATA, (RED) and EDUN, a clothing company which is striving to stimulate trade with poverty stricken countries. He has been nominated for the Nobel Peace prize three times for his efforts to help the poor.

This is why the U2 frontman stepping in to defend Apple’s method of screwing up the tax system of Europe is particularly hypocritical and nasty.

Bono is currently in a business partnership with Jobs’ Mob so having him stand up this weekend and defend Apple’s right to save a bob or two by shafting the health and welfare policies of the EU damaged any lefty street cred that the former 80s rocker might have had.

The U2 frontman believes large companies that avoid paying billions in taxes bring prosperity, rather than harm the economic growth of the country. Unfortunately, Bono, they do not.

Apple has paid an average tax rate of 2.5 percent over the past five years, despite turning over a profit of around $109 billion. This is a fraction of Ireland’s standard tax rate of 12.5 percent.

While Ireland was busy making its deals with big technology companies like Apple to act as a tax haven, the country was going through its biggest debt crisis ever. Apple might have provided jobs in Ireland, but its impact on the Irish economy has been minimal.

Bono said that Ireland was a tiny little country, which did not have scale, and our version of scale is to be innovative and to be clever, and tax competitiveness has brought our country the only prosperity we’ve known.

“We don’t have natural resources; we have to be able to attract people.”

Because of its generous tax allowances, he added, Ireland has reaped the benefits of “more hospitals and firemen and teachers because of the tax policies.”

Now this is a bit of rubbish from the bloke who was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2003 for his campaign to alleviate world debt. Tax avoidance schemes rarely help the economies of any nation and take away cash from countries that need the cash.

Ireland might not have attracted the likes of Jobs’ Mob, or Google, or other tax avoiders, but it would have had a fair taxation system. The other countries in the EU which Apple was avoiding paying tax would be able to afford betters health care standards, teachers and firemen.

 

 

Apple, Samsung want your dabs

Posted on October 13, 2014 by - News

fingerprintFingerprint sensing technology has been with us for some time. But it seems that smartphone and tablet giants Samsung and Apple want to promote it a little bit more.

Research outfit IHS said the fingerprint sensor market will grow to be worth $1.7 billion by 2020.

The number of handsets and tablets using fingerprint sensors will total 1.4 billion units – four times the number of the 317 million units that will ship by the end of this year.

While Apple has been at the forefront of fingerprint sensing to date, other vendors are going to pick up the baton, said IHS. Samsung hasn’t yet got to the starting gate but is expectedto do so as soon as it finds a smaller rectangular sensor.

But while fingerprint sensors will have their vogue, swipe sensors will continue to exist, particularly in lower end smartphones.

One important element that will push adoption of fingerprint sensors are financial companies – companies like Mastercard, Visa and Paypal think they will be ideal for mobile payments.

Fingerprint sensing was first pioneered by Japanese banks but saw the sunset when there were several incidents of gangsters chopping off the fingers of victims to access accounts at ATMs.

Plastic promises hope for batteries

Posted on October 10, 2014 by - News

plasticsA University of Stanford team is outlining the future of batteries and solar cells – and it’s plastic that will lead the way.

The university said that there’s an emerging class of electrically conductive plastics called radical polymers that promise low cost solar cells, flexible and lightweight batteries and antistatic coatings for electronics and for aircraft.

Essentially, according to professor Bryan Boudouris, a polymer called PTMA is 10 times more electrically conductive than convential semiconductor based polymers.

Plus, he explained, it’s as easy to manufacture as Plexigas with the difference that it has electronic properties.

Nevertheless, although these polymers are used in new types of batteries, it will be necessary to increase the conductivity by 100s or 1,000s of times.

The polymers are created by replacing a specific hydrogen atom with an oxygen atom.

The research is funded by the US National Science Foundation, the US air force, and DARPA – the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Internet of things: it’s trouble

Posted on October 10, 2014 by - News

Internet of ThingsThe much touted internet of things will bring a world where just about everything has microcircuitry from lightbulbs to coffee machines.

But, according to a report from ABI Research, there are enormous security and other risks associated with its implementation.

Those include safety, consumer privacy and data protection, the firm said.

Further, this type of network has risks in all of its core layers and when manufacturers create devices they are cost conscious and may not implement the safeguards that are the ideal.

“Manufacturers are still trying to find their feet and justify investment in secure design, development, and product lifecycle,” according to Michela Menting, a director at ABI Research.

Nevertheless she cites some companies that are taking the lead in making the internet of things safe rather than sorry.

Those include Arrayent, Hewlett Packard, Microchp, NXP Semi, Sonatype and Wind River.

Datacentres get cold corridors

Posted on October 10, 2014 by - News

corridorDutch company Minkels said it has started selling the free standing Cold Corridor.

What’s a Cold Corridor?  Minkels said that unlike the normal for the datacentre market, it lets you create isolated corridors without datacentre racks.

The reason for this it is modular and allows the optimisation of air flow, fire safety, and access security.

Minkels said that these days storage is often delivered as complete rack systems in different sizes.  But using its Cold Corridor lets datacentre managers fit other styles and sizes of racks later, meaning that it gives greater flexibility for future needs.

Minkels claims that using this product is much simpler and more cost efficient than customised projects. It’s a way of upgrading existing datacentres.

Minkels, a subsidiary of Legrand is a supplier of modular datacentre products and boasts large corporations as its clients.

Apple sued by sapphire firm

Posted on October 10, 2014 by - News

blue-appleStyle company Apple has had a writ from Taiwanese firm Tera Xtal, claiming it has infringed its patents.

According to the Taipei Times, Apple used patented technology to put sapphire substrates into cameras used in iPhones. Apple, of course, doesn’t manufacture these things but uses a supply chain to make them.

A company representative told the newspaper that it had taken action against Apple because of its large sales volume, but that this won’t be the end of the matter.

She said that it’s entirely possible that lawyers may be put on other manufacturers’ cases, including giant Korean companies Samsung and LG.

Tera Xtal wants to extract $9.88 million in damages if it’s proved that Apple has in fact breached its patents.

The company is also contemplating taking legal action against firms in other jurisdictions.

Notebook players change their focus

Posted on October 10, 2014 by - News

server-racksA few weeks back we reported that the lucrative datacentre market could well be the target for new vendors to enter the fray.

Now there’s some hard evidence for that. Taiwanese firm Quanta Computer, which previously played in the original design manufacturer (ODM) game, and made notebooks for the major brands, has branched out into the server market.

Digitimes reports that Quanta has completely re-invented itself and is positioning itself to sell into the European datacentre market.

It is offering servers and services to European datacentres and has hired a sales team specifically for the territory.

It faces stiff competition from the likes of HP and Dell. But the advantage it has is that it has its own manufacturing and further has played the very slim margin game when it made notebooks for multinational brands like HP and Dell.

The move is likely to be good value for the datacentre buyers because there’s no doubt such moves will prompt something of a price war in the sector.

Assassins bemoan poor console chip performance

Posted on October 10, 2014 by - News

assassins-creedAssassin’s Creed Unity senior producer Vincent Pontbriand has waded into AMD’s console performance saying that his new game’s 900p frame rate and 30 fps target on consoles is a result of weak CPU performance.

He said that while the GPUs on the machines are really powerful and the graphics look good, the game was technically CPU-bound and the CPU has to process the AI, the number of NPCs we have on screen. All these systems running in parallel.

Speaking to Hot Hardware, Pontbriand  said game designers were quickly bottlenecked and it was a bit frustrating.

“We thought that this was going to be a tenfold improvement over everything AI-wise, and we realised it was going to be pretty hard. It’s not the number of polygons that affect the framerate. We could be running at 100fps if it was just graphics, but because of AI, we’re still limited to 30 frames per second,” he said.

The comments are being seen as damning AMD’s APU. The Jaguar CPU inside both the Sony PS4 and Xbox One has a relatively low clock speed and, while both consoles may offer eight threads on paper, but it appears that games can’t access them.

Pontbriand said that one thread is reserved for the OS and several more cores will be used for processing the 3D pipeline. Between the two, Ubisoft may have only had 4-5 cores for AI and other calculations. This means that the performance is about the same as the last generation of Xbox 360 and PS3 CPUs.  In fact these were clocked much faster than the 1.6 / 1.73GHz frequencies of their replacements.

To be fair it is hardly AMD’s fault. Microsoft or Sony could’ve specced out a variant of the core clocked at 2-2.4GHz and boosted total CPU throughput, but they didn’t. The programmable nature of the GCN architecture inside the Xbone and PS4 is meant to compensate for the relatively lightweight core, but AI calculations may simply be beyond this.  GPU calculations tend to be high latency, and AI typically requires fast response times.