Tag: techeye

Samsung promises a smartphone refresh

Posted on October 30, 2014 by - News

1920s-telephone-advertSamsung has promised to revamp its smartphone line-up to tackle what has been its worst third-quarter results since 2011.

The outfit said that it needed to take on competitors in the rapidly growing mid-to-low range segment, after third-quarter earnings set it on course for its worst year since 2011.

Samsung’s  market share fell like a free-fall team of parachuting elephants which had to forgotten to pack a key ingredient of their act. Samsung was behind Apple in the premium market and was eclipsed by Lenovo and Xiaomi at the bottom end.

Executives said the South Korean giant would overhaul its lower-tier line-up to boost price competitiveness and use higher-quality components to set its devices apart.

Samsung Senior Vice President Kim Hyun-joon said during a conference call with analysts that the mid-to-low end market is growing rapidly, and Samsung planned to respond actively in order to capitalise on that growth.

Samsung said its third quarter operating profit fell by $3.9 billion, matching its guidance issued earlier this month.

While the company expects profits to pick up in the fourth quarter on strong demand for televisions and memory chips, analysts still expect Samsung to record its worst annual operating profit in three years.

Profit for the mobile division fell 73.9 percent which was its worst performance since the second quarter of 2011.

Part of the problem was that Samsung spent most of the quarter without launching a new flagship device, and continued to struggle in the mid-to-low tier markets against cheaper and value-packed offerings like Xiaomi’s Redmi 1S.

Robert Yi, Samsung’s head of investor relations, said the firm would launch new mid-tier models in the fourth quarter, although he did not say what features they would have.

Samsung expects average selling prices for handsets will rise in the fourth quarter due to an increase in premium smartphone sales, namely of the Galaxy Note 4, and as demand picks up in the holiday shopping season.

 

Microsoft beats Apple to releasing a watch

Posted on October 30, 2014 by - News

Swiss Watches the BrandSoftware giant Microsoft has beaten Apple to releasing a new watch.

Dubbed the “Microsoft Band,” which sounds a little like the volunteer brass band which plays at company events, the watch will allow users to monitor their fitness and exercise regime,

According to a Volish bog, the wrist-worn device has sensors that monitor pulse rate, measure calorie burn and track sleep quality.

It seems that Microsoft only wants to release the gear in the United States presumably because that is where the fittest people in the world can be found, who are always on their way to a gym. It will cost $199.

Jobs’ Mob showed off its smart watch on September 9, but it will not be in the shops until next year. It will be priced at $349

Microsoft also launched a health app called “Microsoft Health” that includes a cloud service for users to store and combine health and fitness data.

The Microsoft Health app will collect data from the fitness band and will work on iPhones and Android smartphones, as well as its own Windows Phone.

 

US companies take down Chinese hacker group

Posted on October 30, 2014 by - News

1220aAn alliance of US tech companies including Novetta and Microsoft hasbeen targeting the Hikit malware and have worked out a way to disrupt the Chinese cyber espionage gang Axiom’s antics.

Dubbed Operation SMN, the coalition of security companies has apparently given the hackers a Chinese burn after it detected and cleaned up malicious code on 43,000 computers worldwide infected by Axiom.

The effort was led by Novetta and included Bit9, Cisco, FireEye, F-Secure, iSIGHT Partners, Microsoft, Tenable, ThreatConnect Intelligence Research Team (TCIRT), ThreatTrack Security, Volexity, and was united as part of Microsoft’s Coordinated Malware Eradication (CME) campaign against Hikit.

Hikit is custom malware often used by Axiom to burrow into organisations and nick data. It works quietly and evades detection, sometimes for years.

Axiom used a variety of tools to access and re-infect environments including Derusbi, Deputy Dog, Hydraq, and others. Ludwig says, they expanded the group and its scope “so that we absolutely did the best possible job of clean-up and removal” and rolled it all into a Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool (MSRT) released Oct. 14.

Novetta thinks that while the MSRT was comprehensive, it may be only a temporary setback for Axiom, which will just work out another way of doing the same thing.

Novetta says it has “moderate to high confidence” that Axiom is a well-resourced and well-disciplined subgroup of the state-backed “Chinese Intelligence Apparatus.”

Axiom has been found in organisations that are of strategic economic interest, that influence environmental and energy policy and that develop integrated circuits, telecommunications equipment and infrastructure.

The target organisations are often related in some way, and once Hikit has burrowed its way into a computing environment, it can create a “mini-network,” communicating laterally with other Hikit installations within the organisation or related outside groups. What makes it difficult to track is that it uses proxies and never communicates with the command-and-control server directly. Hikit talks to companies in such a way that the traffic does not look dodgy.

 

Boffins will have a personal cloud

Posted on October 30, 2014 by - News

tornadoResearchers will soon have their own clouds, thanks to the efforts of a non-Profit organisation Internet2.

Internet2 has worked out a way to let scientists create and connect to virtual spaces, within which they will be able to conduct research across disciplines and to experiment on the nature of the web.

Robert Ricci, a research assistant professor at the University of Utah’s School of Computing said that this will allow computer-science researchers to look at new ways of potentially designing networks that could influence how the internet itself works.

Internet2 connects more than 250 American colleges and universities, as well as corporations, research groups, and government agencies. The group also facilitates research by connecting campuses and transmitting large amounts of data at a faster speed than commercial networks offer.

New software developed by the group divides the Internet2 network into private sectors with two projects, CloudLab and Chameleon, provide frameworks for the creation of clouds connected by Internet2.

Ricci said that this will enable computer scientists to do is come up with better network-management systems to support scientists who have these large data transfers.

Boffins will benefit from the project, but so should computational scientists and researchers in other fields.

This will be a big hand in situations where digital and physical worlds intersect, such as in the collaboration between researchers.

The programme is funded by a $10-million grant from the National Science Foundation, and will be free to researchers whose proposals are approved.

It means that Universities with a large hardware budget will not be the only ones who benefit from this sort of technology.

Dow Jones steps into Apple secrecy row

Posted on October 29, 2014 by - News

scalesAn agreement between Apple and its supplier GT Advanced (GTA) to seal documents relating to the latter company filed for bankruptcy earlier this month has been challenged by a third party,

GTA supplied sapphire substrates to Apple, an important ingredient of screens for smartphones but filed for protection under US regulation Chapter 11 earlier this month.

Dow Jones asked a US court to deny a request made by both Apple and GTA to keep some documents relating to their relationship under seal.  It said such a move offended principles of the US constitution.

Apple had threatened GTA with a law suit for over $1 billion alleging damages.

In cases of banruptcy in the USA there are only a few conditions which would allow documents to be made unavailable to the public and Dow Jones claims no documents in this case qualified under those rules.

Russians hacked into White House nets – report

Posted on October 29, 2014 by - News

thewhitehouseThe Washington Post claimed that hackers, backed by the Russian government, have penetrated some White House computer nets.

Unnamed  sources insisting on anonymity told the Post that the hacks were into “unclassified” networks and that there’s no evidence that classified computers had been compromised.

A White Office official said that admins noted the activities straight away meaning there was some disruption to web services.

The National Security Agency (NSA), the FBI and the Secret Service have been invoked to assist with inquiries into the hackers.

The Russian government has not, so far, commented on the alleged intrusion. But it’s thought that hackers have targeted computers at NATO, official Ukraine sites, and companies supplying the US defence with kit.

The White House said that people try to hack US computers on a regular basis but the country has a military wing called US Cyber Command which can defend – or attack – intruders.

Scientists to predict solar magnetic storms

Posted on October 29, 2014 by - News

stormsThe danger of solar winds disrupting mobile phone service, damaging satellites and causing power grids to black out is all too real.

But teams of researchers in the USA are working on creating models that will precisely predict when geomagnetic storms are likely to threaten global communications.

At a forthcoming meeting of the American Physical Society’s Division of Plasma Physics a number of scientists from different teams will present their findings.

A team at Princeton Plasma Physics Lab will show how magnetic reconnection accelerates solar wind particles of a high energy frenzy and how that affects with the magnetic field that surrounds our planet.

A breakthrough from the US Department of Energy’s plasma physics lab appear to have discovered how massive eruptions of solar plasma turns magnetic energy into explosive particle energy, disrupting communications.

The scientists have measured experimentally the amount of magnetic energy turning into particle energy which can equal the power equivalent of millions of tons of TNT.

* The illustrations clockwise from upper left are: computer simulation of the solar wind in contact with the Earth’s magnetosphere, magnetosphere simulation experiment at Columbia University, computer visualisation of turbulent plasma currents in Swarthmore plasma wind tunnel (experiment at bottom right), magnetic surfaces overlaid on merging plasma with reconnection, and spectrogram showing interaction of magnetic waves in the UCLA Large Plasma Device.

Internet of things means $100 billion spend

Posted on October 29, 2014 by - News

Nuclear power plant - Wikimedia CommonsGovernments around the world are waking up to the security implications as the internet of things is set to pervade the world and will spend an immense amount of money to improve cyber security.

The internet of things is a catch all term for a time when just about anything you care to imagine has semiconductors inside, able to communicate with just about everything else.

ABI Research said that it estimates that cybersecurity spending will hit $109 billion by the end of this decade, with governments in North America and Europe spending and spending again on security for network, for systems and for data.

The governments, said ABI, will concentrate on security for the financial, energy and defence sectors as they are the ones most targeted.

The energy sector is under particular threat, with attacks on industrial control systems.

However, there are sectors which are particularly vulnerable, including utility companies, said Michela Menting, practice director at ABI Research.

She said: “IT spending will dominate cyber security investment for critical infrastructure protection to the detriment of securing operational technologies in industrial settings.”

British spooks can spy without a warrant

Posted on October 29, 2014 by - News

james_bond_movie_poster_006British spooks have been using the systems set up by the US National Security Agency to spy on everyone without a warrant.

The agreement between the NSA and GCHQ means that the internet and phone data of Americans is in the hands of the Brits without legal oversight.

The data, once obtained, can be kept for up to two years. GCHQ was forced to reveal that it can request and receive vast quantities of raw, unanalysed data collected from foreign governments it partners with during legal proceedings in a closed court hearing in a case brought by various international human-rights organisations, including Privacy International, Liberty UK, and Amnesty International.

It is well known that the NSA and GCHQ share intelligence data with one another, as part of a long-standing surveillance partnership, but this is the first time the British government has disclosed that it does not require a warrant to access data collected and maintained by its American chums. This flies in the face of statements made by an oversight committee of the British Parliament in July of last year.

At the time, Parliament was told that “in each case where GCHQ sought information from the US, a warrant for interception, signed by a minister, was already in place.”  Clearly GCHQ forgot to mention mass data which it mines for data.

MPAA only wants to save pirates from malware

Posted on October 29, 2014 by - News

0099413191_LIt turns out that when the MPAA sues you for $100,000 for every file you share it is just because it is trying to save you from malware.

Lobbying outfit Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) said it is concerned that intellectual property pirates are being exposed to malware and other dangers.

It told US trade officials that the websites that traffic in infringing movies, television shows, and other copyrighted content do not harm only the rights holder. Malicious software or malware, which puts Internet users at risk of identity theft, fraud, ebola and Justin Bieber (we made the last two up).

The group added that “such risks jeopardise legitimate e-commerce and consumers” and that the “MPAA continues to work with global partners against criminal organizations and activities in an effort to protect consumers not only from the dangers of illicit audiovisual goods and services, but other potential threats, such as malware.”

So in other words the MPAA’s efforts to crush P2P piracy sites were not out of a fear that file-sharing will mean that the profits from such great films as Sex Tape and the The Legend of Hercules will be reduced. It is doing it to protect the poor pirates from evil malware makers.

Chris Dodd, the MPAA’s chairman, said in a statement that “Robust protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights both domestically and abroad are vital to ensuring the sustained growth of America’s creative industries.”

LG is back in the phone race

Posted on October 29, 2014 by - News

logo lgSouth Korea’s LG, which was getting a good kicking from its rivals, is now back in the black and is making a killing.

LG said its July-September operating profit more than doubled from a year earlier as earnings from its mobile business surged to a five-year high.

Profits for its TV business grew 5.2 percent from a year earlier, while smartphone shipments broke all sorts of records.

“LG’s earnings reflected strong performance from its mobile business,” the company said in a statement.

LG reported an operating profit of $440.21 million which was much better than what had been predicted by the cocaine nose jobs of Wall Street.

LG’s mobile division turned a $0.1 billion operating profit, its highest since the third quarter of 2009 and compared with loss a year ago, thanks in part to strong shipments for the flagship G3 smartphone. It is likely that LG likely shipped a little over 3 million G3s during the period. LG said it shipped 16.8 million smartphones during the third quarter.

The pickup contrasts with domestic rival Samsung, which is expected to report its weakest quarterly operating profit in more than three years later this week.

LG’s TV division did well thanks to sales of high-end products like ultra high-definition TVs.

 

Microsoft moves to bury Windows 7 at Halloween

Posted on October 29, 2014 by - News

Digging-Own-Grave-300x336-267x300Software monster Microsoft plans to stop selling Windows 7 licences to OEMs after Halloween as its first moves to kill off the operating system in favour of the god awful Windows 8.1.

It is pretty much a formality. There are few Windows 7 machines in the shops right now – Microsoft has done a good job of making sure there is not a repeat of the Windows XP fiasco that left millions of machines running the ancient operating system.

Business and enterprise customers can order PCs “downgraded” to Windows 7 Professional. Microsoft has not set an end date for when it will cut off Windows 7 Professional to OEMs, but it will likely be a while.

Microsoft usually pulls OEM supply of an OS a year after it removes it from retail. Microsoft cut off the retail supply of Windows 7 in October of last year, although some retailers still have some remaining stock left.

Windows 8 is slowly working its way into the American public,as a Windows XP replacement. Windows 7, both 32-bit and 64-bit, account for 59 per cent of Steam’s user base. Windows 8 and 8.1 account for 28 percent while XP has dwindled to four percent.

However Windows 7 appears to have a core base of users who are happy and hanging on to the OS for dear life. Windows 8 appears to be picking up XP users who do not know any better and think it is OK.

It is possible that many Windows 7 users are waiting to see if Windows 10 is any better before they upgrade. If that happens, it is going to be a dismal Christmas for PC retailers.

Hungarians revolt against silly internet tax

Posted on October 29, 2014 by - News

Hungarian Revolution-AHungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban thought he was onto a money-spinner by taxing ISPs for each GB of data they shifted.

In a classic case of why politicians, who can barely understand how to programme their smartphones to tell if the call is from their mistress or their wives, should stay out of technology.

The Hungarian government thought they could make millions by taxing ISPs but when someone got a calculator and worked out that the tax would collect 120 per cent of ISP profits, kill off the internet in Hungary and relegate the country to an international backwater which time forgot, Hungarian politicians pressed on. After all, politicians in one of Europe’s most corrupt countries do not get rich by obeying the will of the people.

Now, it seems that things are coming unstuck. More than 100,000 Hungarians rallied on Tuesday night to protest at a planned tax on data traffic. It was by far the largest protest since his center-right government took power in 2010.  It was re-elected by a landslide this year but there is growing concern that it is becoming increasingly authoritarian.

Orban’s government has imposed special taxes on the banking, retail, energy and telecommunications sectors to keep the budget deficit in check. However it has been screwing up profits in some parts of the economy and international investors are taking their cash elsewhere.

The internet data levy idea was first floated in the 2015 tax code submitted to the Central European country’s parliament last week.

The crowd, which was organized by a Facebook-based social network and appeared to draw mostly well-heeled professionals, marched through central Budapest demanding the repeal of the planned tax and the ouster of Orban.

Many protesters held up makeshift signs that read “ERROR!” and “How many times do you want to skin us?”

Zsolt Varady, an internet entrepreneur and founder of a now-defunct Hungarian social network iwiw.hu said that people were willing to pay for the internet because they knew, saw and felt that their lives were becoming better. “The Internet tax threatens the further growth of the Internet as well as freedom of information,” he said.

The government had planned to tax internet data transfers at a rate of 62 cents per gigabyte. After analysts calculated this would total more than the sector’s annual revenue and an initial protest drew thousands on Sunday, Fidesz submitted a bill that capped the tax at $2.89 forints per month for individuals and $200 forints for companies.

That did not make things much better. Protesters said there was a perceived mismanagement of the economy and a recent dispute with the United States over alleged corruption of Hungarian public officials.

The European Commission has criticised the proposed tax which it said just took cash without achieving a wider economic or social interest.

Cloud wreathed in mist, myths

Posted on October 29, 2014 by - News

clouds3While cloud computing is touted by every vendor and his dog as the panacea for all IT ills, the whole subject is still befogged by myths and mystery.

That’s what market research company Gartner thinks, anyway.  In a recent report it said cloud computing is “uniquely susceptible to the perils of myths due to the nature, confusion and hype surrounding it”.

No one really knows what it is, said David M. Smith, a VP at Gartner.  “In the cloud means where the magic happens, where the implementation details are supposed to be hidden. So it should be no surprise that such an environment is rife with myths and misunderstanding.”

The first myth in the mystery is that not all cloud service pricing is coming down.  Companies can’t assume that the cloud always saves money.  The second assumption made is that the cloud is the be-all and end-all of IT, and using cloud services isn’t necessarily the answer to cutting costs.

Many companies don’t even have a cloud strategy and are just obeying the diktats of their CEO – who probably doesn’t have a clue about what cloud is anyone.  And cloud computing is not one thing – instead cloud services are broad and need to be analysed for their relevance.

People tend to think of cloud computing as less secure than having your data on servers in your premises.  But there’s evidence that security breaches are more likely to happen here than in trusted cloud services.

Data centre outsourcing, data centre modernisation and data centre strategies are not synonymous with the cloud.

Still confused? It’s hardly surprising, is it?

Microsoft adds more to Azure

Posted on October 28, 2014 by - News

MSlogoSoftware giant Microsoft said today it has added a number of additions to its Azure offerings.

At a conference in Barcelona, Jason Zander, VP of Azure, said that it will release Azure “Operational Insights” which combines HD Insight and MS System Centre to gather and analyse machine data across clouds.

Azure Batch gives access to thousands of cores to analyse complex problems while Azure Automation, as its name suggests, allows batch operations on both Azure and third party environments.

Microsoft said it has also made improvements to security with support for multiple network interface cards (NICs), Network Security Groups for creating security boundaries and giving better control over traffic flow, and a service, at no charge, called Anti-Malware for virtual machines.

The company also said it has improved its Enterprise Mobility Suite and Office 365, allowing administrators to manage Office mobile apps, conditional access features, and secure mobile app viewing.  These improvements will arrive in the next few months, Zander said.