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Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

• May 16, 2012
• 16:29

  Mobile sales drop for the first time in two years

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  According to the latest figures from Gartner, retail sales of mobile phones have dropped for the first time in almost two years.

  Sales for the first quarter of 2012 totalled 419.1 million units, down two percent year-on-year.

  Now the analysts think they will have to adjust their forecasts for the whole of 2012 down by around 20 million units.

  Smartphones are doing well, it is just that no one seems to want to buy a phone to send SMS messages or call people any more.

  At the moment the best place to try to sell a mobile is China and this period is normally strong for sales because of the Chinese New Year.

  Gartner's figures make Samsung the top handset vendor, selling 86.6 million devices and overtaking Nokia which was at 83.2 million.

  Smartphone sales up 44.7 percent year-on-year, with Android-based phones accounted for 56.1 percent of all smartphone sales during the quarter.

  But the percentage of smartphones to ordinary phones is still small. Samsung was the number one seller of smartphones but it only sold 38 million worldwide which compared to 419.1 million mobile units in total.

  Nokia's sales slid 22.7 percent year-on-year. But 44 percent of Samsung's sales were higher earning smartphones, while the devices accounted for just 16 percent of Nokia's sales. 

  
• 16:24

  Brian Krzanich likely to be Intel Otellini replacement

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Intel Chief Executive Officer Paul Otellini appears to have received a mess of pottage from Chief Operating Officer Brian Krzanich and given him his blessing as his heir.

  Otellini said Chipzilla will continue a tradition of filling the top position from within its own ranks.

  Talking to Bloomberg  from the company's headquarters in Santa Clara, California, Otellini talked about his possible successors.

  Otellini, 61, as well as his two predecessors, Craig Barrett and Andy Grove, was chief operating officer before taking on the CEO role at Intel.

  Otellini said his job is to groom a number of candidates for the board to choose from. It would seem that he has been picking fleas from the coat of Krzanich although he did not mention him by name.

  He said that it made a lot of sense for most companies, particularly given the track record in the Valley lately, to hire leaders within the company. 

  
• 16:06

  Samsung slumps as Apple props up Elpida

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  After failing to do any serious harm to its old chum Samsung in the court room, Apple has done more damage by walking away and propping up Elpida.

  Shares in Samsung slumped more than six percent costing the company $10 billion on the back of news that Apple had placed huge orders with Elpida.

  The source of the news was DigiTimes, but it appears to have been believed, perhaps because no one believed that Apple would stay with Samsung after its court battles..

  The orders were for mobile DRAM and were with Elpida's 12-inch plant in Hiroshima, Japan. Basically the move will provide half the facility's total chip production.

  Hynix shares also dropped by nine percent. Samsung is the world's biggest DRAM maker and its shares fell.

  Choi Do-yeon, an analyst at LIG Investment & Securities, told Reuters that it was more about Apple not wanting Samsung and Hynix to dominate the chip market, so it wants to keep the bankrupt Elpida running.

  Micron is in talks to acquire Elpida's business as the Japanese firm, so a merged Micron-Elpida could put the fear of god into the South Korean memory chip makers. 

  
• 12:57

  "Inadequate" ICO hit by Anonymous

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  A group working under the banner of Anonymous has succeeded in bringing down the ICO's website with a suspected DDoS attack.
  
  The privacy watchdog's site was down for all of yesterday after a group identifying with the  collective dealt its blow.
  
  According to a Tumblr page, the team - calling itself Anon A Team - targeted the privacy watchdog because they believed it lacked independence and had repeatedly failed "to protect the public’s privacy from hacking or data protection breaches."
  
  It also claimed that the law protecting privacy was "inadequate and with disproportionate measures in relation to political protests but none for the civil service or media," as well as a systematic bias in the way the press reports public interest stories - as a consequence of its failure to give sufficient weight to certain stories.
  
  "There is zero commitment by all our regulators to protect UK citizens from data protection breaches," it continued.
  
  The group described the Leveson inquiry as a "farce".
  
  The sentiments were echoed in an interview at TechWeek Europe, where someone claiming to be affiliated with Anonymous said the watchdog was not "equipped, nor have the motivation to ensure that we are protected".
  
  The attack was met with mixed feelings by the security industry with many refusing to comment.

  However, one security professional did speak with TechEye under anonymity. "Hackers are far cleverer than heads of states, government bodies and companies," the source said. "No matter how much security is in place, if Anonymous wants to take you down, it will.
  
  "Do I agree with this attack? They do have a point about privacy," the source said.
  
  The ICO itself refused to speak beyond issuing a generic statement:
  
  “Access to the ICO website has been disrupted over the past few days. We believe this is due to a distributed denial of service attack. The website itself has not been damaged, but people have been unable to access it. We provide a public facing website which contains no sensitive information.
  
   “We regret this disruption to our service; however we are pleased that our website is now available.”

  
• 10:35

  ASA barks at TalkTalk

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  TalkTalk has been investigated by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) after a customer complained about how the company advertised its broadband speeds.
  
  The customer approached the watchdog after viewing a speed checking service on TalkTalk's site. After he entered his postcode, he was told:  "Your estimated speed 3.8 Meg  Your estimated speed range is between 2.1 and 5.3meg ...".
  
  He challenged whether the ad was misleading, because he was a TalkTalk customer and had been informed that the maximum speed available to him was less than 2.1 Mbit/s.
  
  TalkTalk claimed that it was compliant with the Ofcom Voluntary Code of Practice on broadband speeds, which stated that internet service providers must "provide a facility (line checker) on their website so that consumers can find out, in a clear and easily accessible manner, what their estimated access line speed is". 

  It added that given the material differences between the network measured access line speed and the throughput speeds consumers were likely to receive, the Code of Practice also required that ISPs explain that the actual throughput speed received would be influenced by a number of factors.  
  
  TalkTalk said it provided people with a link on its site that explained how it estimated speed. It also claimed that the speed checker results were based on the methodology set out in the Code of Practice, which was based on the standard distribution of access line speeds shown across their network but limited to between the 20th and 80th percentiles.  
  
  It said it had ensured it gave consumers a clear picture with its speed checker, which "was qualified, with the prominent statement that the speed was an estimated one as well as the text "Your estimated speed range is ...", for that reason."
  
  However, it did admit that  it could implement changes to improve the consumer experience in relation to the speed checker.
  
  The ASA said TalkTalk didn't go far enough to explain these speeds and differences - and that the ad was misleading.
  
  It ruled that the ad must not appear again in its current form and also told TalkTalk it must ensure its speed checker results were more clearly qualified in the future.  
  
  It also told the company to ensure it was in a position to provide evidence to substantiate the impression that was likely to be taken from its future advertising.
  
  

  
• 10:21

  Apple's Siri fixed to lie about 'best phone ever'

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  While Apple is unreasonably slow in issuing security patches which imprison its users into botnets, it has been jolly quick at saving itself from an embarrassing fault in Siri.

  Last week it was discovered that if you asked Siri what the best phone ever is, it would tell you that it was the Nokia Lumia 900.

  Siri was taking information from Wolfram Alpha, which had determined that the Lumia 900 was the best smartphone by looking at customer reviews.

  Now, it is nothing but the truth and the sort of thing that Apple users need to be continuously reminded of. But it was a bit of an own goal for the cargo cult which has made a name for itself by peddling sizzle and not steak.

  Apple rushed to fix "the problem" and if you ask Siri what the best phone is in the world it will confirm your previous programming that you have not wasted money on your iPhone.

  Asking Siri what the best smartphone is results in such answers as: "You're holding it" and "Wait... there are other phones?"

  It seems that Apple has decided that rather than present information about technology in a fair and balanced way, it is simply going to use it to fling advertising at you. It is to be expected, but still.

  As you might expect, Nokia was furious. A spokesperson said that Apple claimed Siri was an intelligent system that's there to help. If Apple does not like the answer they override the software. 

  
• 10:05

  'G20 geek' found not guilty

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  The insecurity expert who was arrested for  allegedly plotting to bomb the 2010 summit of world leaders in downtown Toronto has walked free from court after two years behind bars.

  Byron Sonne, the so-called "G20 geek", lost his marriage when his wife Kristen Peterson ended the couple's eight-year marriage while Sonne was in jail.

  Sonne is a hacker who was a big name in the cyber security industry. He was arrested on June 22, 2010, as the first high-profile detention of the chaotic G20 weekend.

  According to the Star, he was charged with mischief, weapons possession and intimidating justice officials. But by the time the case reached trial, most of the charges were dropped.

  It turned out that the weapon was a potato cannon and the other charges were chucked out.

  Sonne was left with four counts of possessing explosive materials and one count of "counseling the commission of mischief."

  According to the prosecution, Sonne had all the necessary ingredients to build a homemade bomb and was encouraging people, through social media, to disrupt the G20.

  He had not assembled any explosive devices and police found neither bomb-making plans nor a detonator.

  The prosecution claimed that since he had all the ingredients to build a bomb and was criticising the G20 through his Twitter and Flickr accounts he must have been planning to kill people.

  Sonne admitted to having materials that could be made into an explosive, but said he hadn't combined them and hadn't intended to.

  Justice Nancy Spies said that the Crown could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Sonne was guilty of any offence.

  Out of all those arrested during the G20, Sonne was the least likely to be a terrorist.

  The potentially explosive chemicals he possessed had household uses and others were part of his model rocketry hobby.

  Sonne said he had published photos of the $9.4 million security fence, surveillance cameras and pictures of police officers.

  Some of his headlines would not have endeared him to the police. They included disparaging headlines such as "bacon on wheels" and "stationary bacon".

  But that is not a reason to arrest someone for being a terrorist - and opposing bail for two years.

  Sonne said that his job was testing the vulnerabilities in online security systems and he could see flaws in the G20's security.

  Other evidence suggested that Sonne was intentionally provoking police to test the limits of civil liberties. 

  
• 9:45

  Canada shelves C-30 cyber snooping law

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  The Canadian internet surveillance legislation, Bill C-30, is as dead in the water as a freshly clubbed harp seal.

  The bill, which was sponsored by Public Safety Minister Vic Toews, aimed to force ISPs to hand over any data that police wanted.

  It was famous for Toews telling the world and its dog that if they did not back it, they supported child pornographers.

  Federal and provincial privacy commissioners strongly objected to the bill as an unjustified violation of privacy rights.

  It appears that it was Toews' child pornographers comment which killed the bill as it showed the law to be just pretty nasty and silly.

  According to the Globe and Mail, the government backed down, declaring the bill needed further study, and nothing happened.

  House Leader Peter Van Loan decided to send C-30 to the public safety committee first, where it is supposed to be extensively revised, before returning to the House for a second and third reading.

  But before it can do that, it has to be debated for at least five hours and that requires it to be booked in for a day's shouting. So far it has not turned up on the booking list.

  The Conservatives could send C-30 to the public safety committee in the autumn. But it would take months to rewrite the bill, and then weeks to get it through the second and third reading, which is unlikely to happen. 

  
• 9:33

  HTC suffers another blow

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Smartphone maker HTC is seeing two of its phones blocked by US Customs.

  The Taiwanese company has not been doing very well lately and needs to turn around sales in what used to be its largest market.

  Sadly, it looks like Apple is using its narrow victory against HTC in a patent lawsuit in December to keep the company out of the market.

  HTC said in a statement that the US availability of the HTC One X and HTC EVO 4G LTE has been delayed due to a US Customs review of shipments that is required after an International Trade Commission exclusion order.

  The ruling said that HTC phones with the disputed technology would be banned from entering the US from 19 April. What is frustrating for HTC is that the new phones have a work around which does not require Apple's blessing. However, the shipments still require inspection and this has delayed everything.

  Some shipments of the One X model had reached the US before the ban date, enabling the model's launch, but further shipments are being delayed.

  The EVO 4G LTE, which was supposed to be launched on Friday, will also be delayed.

  HTC said it believes it is "in compliance with the ruling and HTC is working closely with customs to secure approval".

  Still, it is all pretty bad news for HTC which needs to see things improve fast.

  Some analysts are warning that HTC's problems could get worse. It was expected that general exclusion order from the patent infringement referred only to old HTC models, but there are some indications that all models could be at risk. 

  
• 9:26

  American paranoia moves online

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  The Land of the Free has found a new fear which is fast replacing terrorism and its number one bugbear.

  The US is good at collective fear. It was founded by those who feared Catholics, whipped up by a fear of witches, then a fear of paying tea tax. Later on there was a fear of communists, then terrorists.

  Now a security study by Unisys said that more Americans want the presidential candidates to focus on protecting the government and the electrical grid against hackers than fighting terrorist groups.

  The good thing about a fear of hackers is that you do not have to suffer from extreme security arrangements at airports.

  The Unisys study said that more than 74 percent wanted better protection of government computer systems against hackers and criminals.

  Over 73 percent thought it was better to protect the US electric power grid, water utilities and transportation systems against computer or terrorist attacks.

  The survey, based off a random phone survey of 1,000 households in America, asked: "How important is it for a candidate to emphasise the following issues in the upcoming 2012 presidential election?" - along with a set of questions about how worried Americans were about other security threats, such as identity theft and online fraud.

  Unisys did not mention how may Americans wanted to see US presidents deal with witchcraft and Catholics, so we guess the Land of the Free has evolved a bit. 

  
• May 15, 2012
• 13:14

  Web censorship hurts legit sites

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  The Open Rights Group (ORG) and the LSE Media Policy Project have published a report that lists legitimate sites that have been blocked using censorship technology.

  The report's author, Open Rights Group member Peter Bradwell, warned that internet censorship on mobile networks has lead to overblocking and could cause some sites major problems if similar measures are forced upon fixed-line broadband ISP subscribers.

  Bradwell's report highlights 10 examples of incorrectly blocked sites between 1st January and 31st March 2012.

  He said that mobile networks in the UK are more likely to suffer from mistaken blocking than deliberate abuse.

  He said that blocking extends beyond adult sexual content because it is difficult to define what is appropriate.

  There are two different types of over-blocking. Sites are being misclassified and filtered. Then there are disputed classifications, where deciding what material should be considered 'blockable' requires a further - subjective - judgement.

  Some networks think that forums should always be blocked, because of concerns that young people will interact with people they don't know. But this cuts off education forums and peer support sites.

  The report lists a top ten of inappropriate blocks in the UK

  1. Tor (www.torproject.org).

  2. La Quadrature du Net (www.laquadrature.net/en). The website of this French 'digital rights' advocacy group was reported blocked on Orange's 'Safeguard' system on 2nd February.

  3. Shelfappeal.com features items that can be placed on a shelf.

  4. Septicisle.info which is a personal blog featuring political opinion pieces. It does not contain any adult content.

  5. The Vault Bar (www.thevaultbar.co.uk) in London.

  6. St Margarets Community Website (www.stmgrts.org.uk), is a community information site 'created by a group of local residents of St Margarets, Middlesex.'

  7. eHow.com is an advice and educational site. It provides tutorials on a wide range of everyday issues, from 'navigating after-school care' to 'small space garden tips'.

  8. Biased-BBC (www.biased-bbc.blogspot.co.uk) is a site that challenges the BBC's impartiality. It was catogorised as a hate site.

  9. Yomaraugusto.com is the home page of a graphic designer, offering a portfolio of his art and design work.

  10. Equisitetweets.com allows users to create one-page threads to save or share from conversations on Twitter.

  Clearly threatening stuff, then.

  The report said that UK network operators fail to provide a clear path for appealing unfair blocks. This is a nightmare if you are a legitimate business - such as clothes and underwear retailers Bravissimo and Figleaves who were blocked.

  The report calls for the government to "reject 'default on' network filtering" in its new consultation and instead suggests that they should "work to give parents simpler choices and better, device-based tools".
  

  
• 13:04

  Indian IT infrastructure market set for steady growth

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  The Indian IT infrastructure market will rise by 10.3 percent this year.
  
  According to Gartner, the industry made up of servers, storage and networking equipment, will reach $2.05 billion in 2012, and rise further by 2016 where it's predicted to reach $3.01 billion.
  
  According to the analyst house, the reason behind the growth is down to an increasing role technology is playing in the enterprise - and IT’s closer alignment with business.
  
  Gartner believes that soon, a time will come when IT strategy merges in with business strategy.
  
  Gartner predicts that revenue growth will be primarily driven by ongoing data centre  modernisation, as well as new data centre build outs.
  
  It identified that servers were the largest segment of this market, forecasting revenue in this market to reach $754.5 million in 2012, and grow to $967.2 million in 2016.
  
  Gartner signalled a positive outlook for the external controller-based storage disk market, which was reported as the fastest growing segment within the IT infrastructure market, and was  expected to grow from $439.4 million in end-user spending to $842 million in 2016.
  
  The enterprise network equipment market, which includes enterprise LAN and WAN equipment, is also expected to grow from $861 million in 2012 to $1.2 billion in 2016.
  
  A significant driver is the cloud, which, despite being in its infancy in India, will contribute greatly in commodity type, scalable technologies, such as scale out systems and extreme low energy servers, Gartner said.
  
  

  
• 12:57

  Xfactor web abuse leads to troll law lobbying

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Legal PR firm Byfield Consultancy is supporting a high profile web abuse case as part of a campaign to bring in new laws against internet trolls.

  Byfield told PR Week it wants to see stronger police powers against online abuse and is working with solicitors Bains Cohen to handle a pro-bono brief on behalf of Nicola Brookes.

  Brookes suffered from abuse after leaving a supportive comment on the Facebook site of The X Factor contestant Frankie Cocozza which seemed to get a little out of hand.

  A day  after her post, she received 100 abusive comments. Apparently 'trolls' had set up a fake profile using her name, image and personal email and were calling her Cocozza’s drug dealer, a prostitute, and a paedophile.

  There were also indecent comments levelled at her daughter and she was forced to seek legal help to get the page removed. The case is going to the High Court in a bid to force Facebook to release the IP addresses of the trolls.

  Byfield said that police powers to combat trolls need to be tightened after Brookes was told by the police they were unlikely to be able to arrest anyone.

  The agency has launched a media campaign based on research into internet abuse showing more than half of people have received some form of abusive communication.

  The company said that it will be the first private prosecution against internet trolls and Byfield wants it to be a test case to effect a change in future prosecutions.

  MD of Byfield, Gus Sellitto, who is managing the campaign, said that urgent action needs to be taken to address a very serious and increasing problem of internet trolls.

  There needs to be a change in how internet trolling is investigated and how victims of this kind of abuse are treated by the authorities. They will have a lot of work on their hands.

  He called for a dedicated police unit to deal with internet trolls, as exist for other forms of serious abuse.

  
  
  

  
• 10:02

  US court uses "protection of the US" defence

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  While US technology companies are trying to force their patent system on the rest of the world, it seems that when it comes to losing on their home turf they really don't like it up 'em.

  According to Courthouse News, German company Qimonda, which is in the middle of bankruptcy proceedings, attempted to revoke its patent licences with Samsung, IBM, Intel, Micron Technology and others.

  Qimonda is desperate to sell its patent portfolio but cannot while they are being used. If this were a US company there would probably be much muttering, a few court actions and then money would change hands.

  However, the US technology companies have managed to get a court order which claims that Qimonda cannot change its mind because it would "negatively impact the US economy".

  So, in other words, patent law can be suspended if the technology companies can prove that the US economy would be harmed if a patent holder enforced their rights.

  Qimonda designs and manufactures semiconductor products and holds "one of the largest semiconductor IP portfolios in the world" with over 10,000 patents, of which at least 4,000 are US Patents.

  This is where it gets interesting. In Germany, a debtor is permitted revoke a licensee's right to use one of its patents, but this rule does not apply to the United States where a company can continue using the patent for the duration of the licensing agreement.

  In 2009, the bankruptcy court applied German law to the matter of Qimonda's US patents, but the licensees appealed saying, effectively, sod German law - this will harm glorious US companies.

  The court said that the application of German law would nevertheless slow the pace of innovation, to the detriment of the US economy.

  But US District Judge Thomas Ellis III granted Qimonda's request for certification of an appeal. The technology companies were horrified and objected. However, the Judge said that the case raised a question of law that was a matter of public importance.

  He said it was important that there needed to be a little more clarity over important issues of cross-border insolvency. This would be resolved from the resolution of any appeal.

  The US Congress directly enacted legislation in 1988 denying a debtor the ability to revoke patent licences.

  But this flies against Chapter 15 bankruptcy proceedings which say that the law should be governed in accordance with the bankruptcy laws of the nation in which the main case is pending. In this case it is Germany. 

  
• 9:59

  Apple gets another chance to troll Samsung

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  The US appeals court has given Apple another crack at slapping an immediate injunction against Samsung.

  After Apple CEO Steve Jobs became convinced that Samsung stole his idea for a tablet, he decided to destroy the competition in a patent troll campaign. However, Apple did not have much luck with this after a local judge refused to give it an immediate injuction to ban the sale of Samsung's product.

  According to Reuters, the District court said that Apple failed to show that it was likely to succeed on the merits of the case.

  Apple has appealed and now the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit said the judge in a district court in California had that wrong.

  It decided that Apple could press its bid for an immediate injunction to block the sale of some tablets made by Samsung Electronics based on allegations of infringement of one patent.

  The patent in question has to do with the design of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet. While the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California decided that the design patent should not have been given and could be challenged as "obvious", the appeals court disagreed.

  It was not all good for Apple though. The appeals court also ruled that the lower court was right to deny Apple requested preliminary injunctions which would have stopped the sale of Samsung smartphones and tablets based on three other patents.

  These include two patents that have to do with smartphone design and a third related to scrolling. 

  
• 9:56

  AMD's Trinity goes head to head with Intel's Ultrabooks

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  AMD has finally lifted the lid on its Trinity APUs, aiming to push into Intel’s Ultrabook market with its own “mainstream” devices.

  The new Trinity processor moves on from the Bulldozer to Piledriver architecture, and will see AMD double the performance per watt of its previous generation Llano chips.

  Crucially this means that the firm will now have 17 watt parts which can support a new generation of ultra light laptops, claiming up to 12 hours of battery life.   The first of these will be the recently announced HP device which will be AMD’s first response to Intel’s much hyped Ultrabook.

  “We want to make sure that Trinity is taking the thin and light, making them mainstream and really opening it up to the masses,” AMD’s head of desktop and software marketing Sasa Marinkovic said at a recent launch.

  AMD will be releasing the A-10 4655M and A-6 4455M processors aimed at its ultrathin range, clocked at 2.8GHz/2.0GHz and 2.6Ghz/2.1Ghz respectively.  

  The quad core second generation APUs will also be available for traditional notebook form factors, with A6, A8 and A10 versions, with Acer, Toshiba, Lenovo and Samsung amongst those preparing to release devices.

  Desktop processors will be also start shipping, though at a later date, with AMD also focusing on all-in-one form factors.

  As usual AMD was keen to make noise about the superior graphics compared to rival Intel.
  “When you are looking at the gaming experience, we were already running three times faster than Intel Sandy Bridge last year,” Marinkovic said.

  “The fact that Ivy Bridge is fifty percent is faster, its still not playable.   Look at the 1080p gaming - you are going to be seeing a difference,” he said. 

  However, central to AMD’s fightback against Intel is that graphics and the GPU are no longer only of interest to gamers.

  The GPU is increasingly important for a variety of tasks which are performed by mainstream users, with browser rendering for example performed by the GPU.

  “What people are doing is more multimedia, sharing photos, watching YouTube, playing games.  CPUs were built to run Excel faster, Word faster, PowerPoint faster,” Marinkovic said.  “That era of productivity is finished.”  

  With this in mind, AMD has included features which aim to make video functions as easy as possible for mainstream users, alongside elements aimed at gamers such as Eyefinity availability without the need for a discrete graphics chip.  

  This includes ‘Steady Video’ which automatically steadies film clips for those filming on smartphones, for example, or Quick Stream which prioritises video when downloading.

  
• 9:41

  Lightsquared files for bankruptcy

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  After its plan to deliver high-speed wireless to as many as 260 million people were stuffed up by regulators, Lightsquared has filed for bankruptcy.

  LightSquared has assets of $4.48 billion and debt of $2.29 billion so it might still survive in one form or another.

  Creditors have requested that the company's backer, Philip Falcone, step aside although it looks like he and the current management team will remain with the company.

  Some reports suggest that the bankruptcy is all a cunning plan to give LightSquared sufficient breathing room to continue working through the regulatory process.

  Chief Financial Officer Marc Montagner said it could take two years before that process is complete.

  Harbinger Capital Partners, Falcone's hedge fund, had invested $3 billion in LightSquared and owned about 74 percent of it.

  Falcone said in a statement that bankruptcy was necessary to protect LightSquared against creditors who were looking for a quick buck. He claimed that the company will still press ahead.

  Falcone's plan for LightSquared depended on winning FCC approval to convert airwaves originally designated for satellite service to spectrum for land-based radio towers.

  But the FCC removed its approval after government tests found that the signals would interfere with global-positioning systems.

  Falcone new plan is to get the government to swap his spectrum for that controlled by the US Defence Department. 

  
• 9:37

  Facebook jacks up IPO target

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Social networking site Facebook thinks that it can make piles more money out of its IPO.

  Facebook has raised the price range on its initial public offering to $34 to $38 a share. This is on the back of strong demand for the shares which are already oversubscribed.

  When the deal goes through, it means that Facebook will be worth more than $100 billion.

  The company originally aimed for $28 to $35 a share but it is starting to look like the shares are hopelessly oversubscribed by those who think the company will be worth a bomb.

  It will be Silicon Valley's largest ever IPO that eclipses Google in 2004 debut.

  According to Reuters, Facebook plans to close the books on its IPO today, two days ahead of schedule. The company will price its shares on Thursday and start trading on Friday.

  However, then Wall Street will mutter about how Facebook hasn't yet figured out a way to make money from an increasing number of users who access the social network on mobile devices such as smartphones.

  There are some fears that the social not-working site is a bubble waiting to burst. 

  
• 9:34

  Sony and Panasonic to team up on OLED

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Sony and Panasonic are wining and dining each other's executives with the aim of developing the technology to mass produce next-generation OLED televisions.

  The pair want to compete with South Korean rivals in the technology which will kill off current LCD TVs.

  According to Reuters, the cunning plan will take on a similar alliance between Samsung and LG to sell 55-inch OLED televisions, which can be as slim as 4 millimetres, consume less power and offer sharper images.

  Sony and Panasonic have to share organic light emitting diode (OLED) technologies to take on Samsung and LG.

  Kyoko Ishii, senior coordinator of global corporate PR for Panasonic, is refusing to confirm any deal. He said that Panasonic will continue its development and verification of OLED based on the result of research the company has been doing at its laboratories.

  It has not even thought when it would try to commercialise the technology yet, Ishii claimed.

  Sony, which created the the world's first OLED TV in 2007, halted production of the $2,000 screens three years later because of the global downturn.

  Currently Sony makes OLED screens costing as much as $26,000 for high-end customers. Needless to say it is not saying anything about the rumours either.

  It has been predicted that shipments of OLED TVs may grow to 2.1 million sets in 2015 from just 34,000 this year, according to research firm IHS. 

  
• 9:27

  LulzSec member denies hacking Stratfor

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  A former LulzSec member has denied that he hacked into the servers of global intelligence company Stratfor and stole credit card data and personal details of 860,000 of its clients.

  Unlike many of the LulzSec cases, Jeremy Hammond does not appear to have tried to do a deal with the Feds in return for a lower sentence.

  Instead Hammond is actually pleading not guilty, which in the US is a bit like using the do or die card in the board game Escape from Colditz.

  According to Associated Press, Hammond has been locked up since March after the FBI named him as a lieutenant of LulzSec ringleader Hector Xavier "Sabu" Monsegur. Hammond did not ask for bail this time either.

  The Untouchables claim that Hammond stole data for about 60,000 credit cards from Stratfor servers, as well as e-mail and other information for about 860,000 of the service's clients. He was also charged with hacking servers belonging to the Arizona Department of Public Safety and stealing police details.

  There are also charges of conspiracy to commit computer hacking and related offences associated with the attacks.

  Hammond was identified by statements he made in online chats. In one, he allegedly revealed that a friend had been arrested during protests last August in St. Louis. In another, he said he had been arrested in New York City during the Republican National Convention in 2004. At one time he mentioned doing porridge in federal prison. FBI investigators used the details to narrow this list of suspects.

  It is not clear what Hammond's defence will be at the moment but given that the police and the fairly powerful defence contractors at Statfor are miffed over the hack, he probably didn't get much clemency. 

  
• May 14, 2012
• 16:15

  Daisy Group invests in bomb proof data centre

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  A 12 tonne bomb proof door to keep the Daisy Group's data safe has been described as "a little bit extreme" by a security expert.
  
  The comments come as the company today announced a 12 tonne bomb proof door for its Manchester data centre, as part of a £1 million investment programme in the subterranean facility, situated within a former Bank of England bullion vault.
  
  It said this investment had been used to improve its infrastructure, increase network capacity and launch its CloudSelect, computing-on-demand offering.
  
  In addition to being 25 feet below ground, the data centre’s security features also include two metre thick granite walls and a 60 centimetre bomb blast corridor surrounding the data storage area. It is continuously monitored by 70 CCTV cameras and access is granted only to authorised personnel.
  
  The Telegraph predicted MP Phillip Hammond would today tell a conference that money needs to be spent on defences that “cannot be seen on the parade ground.”
  
  He was expected by the paper to detail how electronic networks can create vulnerabilities and suggest that an enemy state could use an “E-bomb”, which, the Telegraph said, would release a destructive electromagnetic pulse and paralyse the UKs infrastructure.
  
  The Daisy Group has this covered, claiming that its data centre has an uninterrupted power supply and three standby diesel generators, which would be triggered in the event of a power failure.
  
  It also uses six air conditioning units to ensure the temperature is kept at an optimum level. In addition the data centre is tier III, ISO 27001 accredited and monitored 24/7 by Daisy’s engineers.
  
  One security professional, speaking under anonymity, told TechEye: "I think a bomb proof door is a little bit extreme. I can't see this being a huge threat."
  
  "Yes, hackers target systems like this, but a bomb proof vault as I like to call it is just showing off and asking for trouble," the source said. "If you boast about something like this, human nature dictates it makes you more of a target.
  
  "Yes Daisy is saying that it is to prevent a data wipe in case of power failure but I think it's a way to garner more money off their clients.

  "Attacks like this happen very rarely and when they do they are targeted at multinationals not at companies like this," the source said.

  
• 15:29

  Lenovo unleashes new servers, workstations

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Lenovo has announced a line of servers in its ThinkServer family aimed at enabling customers to deploy cloud and virtualisation services.

  Built for managing complex workloads, the release of its RD530 and RD 630 rack servers will provide a reduction in power of 160 percent compared to previous server offerings.

  Available direct from Lenovo or through its business partners from mid June, the RD 530 and RD 630 will cost $2,399 and $2,699 respectively.

  The two-socket rack servers will be come with Intel Xeon processors, holding up to eight cores per processor.   This means achieving up to 30 percent greater CPU performance that current Lenovo server platforms.

  Both of the servers are sold with up to 320 GB of RAM, in 20 DIMM slots, advanced RAID controller options and memory capacity for up to 16 hard drives.

  Lenovo has also announced an entry level workstation for SMBs and professionals operating on more of a budget.  With this in mind, prices will kick off at around $629.

  The Lenovo ThinkStation E31 comes as either a mini-tower or small form factor, and will ship with Intel Xeon or Ivy Bridge i7 chips, alongside enhanced memory and graphics capabilities.  Graphics will be delivered either via Intel HD Graphics P4000 or Nvidia Quadro cards.

  The tower model will feature up to 9TB of storage, or 6TB for the SFF.   A wide gamut of software will be shipped with the servers, including Windows 7 Professional as well as software aimed directly at creative and financial customers.

  Speaking to ChannelBiz UK, Lenovo said that the Think brand of products is vital in its push to dominate more of the PC market in Europe, with the firm intent on raising awareness of its premium brand across a wider audience.

  
• 15:14

  Adobe gives in and patches CS5 for free

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Adobe, which had been heading for the title of most evil company for 2012, has changed its mind about requiring customers to pay to get recent security patches for its Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash Professional products.

  The company had been up for the award because of the way it was charging an arm and a leg for its products in countries which did not follow the Americans into their silly revolution. Australia is particularly furious.

  But it was a dead cert for the title when it started demanding cash from CS5 customers to fix security cock ups in its software.

  The patches were intended to patch vulnerabilities in Creative Suite 5 and earlier versions of the products could let a remote intruder execute malicious code and take control of computers running the software.

  Adobe's answer to the problem was that punters would have to pay to upgrade to the Creative Suite 6 versions to get the fixes. This is despite the fact that CS5.1 would have cost most clients an arm and a leg.

  As one user complained to Techeye: "It is bad enough that they charge us huge amounts for software which is more or less the same as it has been for years, but insisting that we pay more because they cocked it up and let hackers in, is a bit on the nose."

  Apparently Adobe is now saying that said that it is the process of resolving the vulnerabilities in Adobe Illustrator CS5.x, Adobe Photoshop CS5.x (12.x) and Adobe Flash Professional CS5.x, and will update the respective security bulletins once the patches are available. 

  
• 15:10

  Kodak had nuke weapons capability

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Buried among the paperwork of Kodak's bankruptcy assets was the somewhat strange information that the company had its own nuclear reactor and was capable of making weapons grade uranium.

  While the photocopying company was going down the loo, it turns out it could have made a fortune flogging enriched uranium to a rogue state or two.

  Fortunately for humanity the idea did not appear to have entered the Kodak accountants' heads.

  Six years ago, according to Gizmodo, they had a nuclear reactor in a basement in Rochester loaded with 3.5 pounds of enriched uranium.

  The thing was no one seemed to know why Kodak felt it needed to be a nuclear power, nor how they got permission to own it and install it in a basement in the middle of a densely populated city.  Certainly it would have made anyone think twice about taking its Kodachrome away. 

  Its existence was only known about when the details were leaked by an ex-employee. It appears that only a few engineers and Federal employees really knew about the project.

  According to Miles Pomper, from the Centre for Nonproliferation Studies in Washington, it was an odd situation because private companies just don't have this material.

  Kodak was not planning to get anyone to ask. It was using the reactor to check materials for impurities as well as neutron radiography testing.

  It was a Californium Neutron Flux multiplier (CFX) which they picked up in 1974 and pre-loaded with three and a half pounds of enriched uranium plates placed around a californium-252 core. It is ironic really because there was enough californium to lay waste to Califoria if Kodak had been so minded.

  The reactor was installed in a closely guarded, two-foot-thick concrete-walled underground bunker in the company's headquarters.

  No employees were ever in contact with the reactor - well, no one who was has told anyone.

  After 2006 Kodak started to wonder if, after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, it might be a good idea to dismantle it.

  Rumours that it sold it to a wild eyed scientist who was trying to stick it onto the back of his Delorean can be safely discounted. Still it makes you wonder how many other technology companies are sitting on a nuke or two. 

  
• 12:35

  Infineon CEO resigns due to ill-health

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Infineon’s CEO Peter Bauer has announced his resignation due to ongoing health problems.

  Bauer has been suffering from bone disease osteoporosis for several years and has suffered numerous fractures to his vertebrae.  

  His situation has worsened, according to an announcement by the German chip maker, and he has taken the decision to resign.

  In a statement from Bauer, he said that the decision to resign was “very difficult”, but he felt that he could no longer give his role at the helm of the organisation the due attention.  

  Bauer had been the CEO of Infineon since 2008, having started at the company way back in 1985.

  The Supervisory Board at Infineon will now appoint a successor in Dr Reinhard Ploss, who is currently employed as Infineon’s chief technical officer and chief operations officer.  

  Ploss, who has been with Infineon for 25 years, will take over the role of CEO from Bauer on 1 October 2012.

  Last week, Infineon announced second quarter revenues ahead of forecast, and up four percent on the previous quarter to reach €986 million ($1.26 billion).

  
• 12:21

  Intel begins researching 5nm

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Intel boss Paul Otellini has said the company had begun its work on 7nm and 5mm process technologies.

  According to">[http:] Xbit Labs, which got its paws on one of his slides, Otellini said that 10nm will be around in 2015 with work being done on 5nm around the same time

  Intel is currently equipping Oregon, Arizona and Ireland's fabs to make chips using 14nm fabrication processes. He did not say where the more futuristic technology would be made.

  He said that Intel is working on a glorious ten year research plan and he was convinced that the company is on target to make its 7nm and 5nm process technologies by 2015.

  Orellini said it's all proof that Chipzilla's invention is continuing and the company will carry on delivering value to its investors and partners.  Of course if it didn't, no doubt that they would be very upset, but when you are talking about future technologies it pays not to say too much but surround it with a lot of puff.

  
• 11:38

  Pirate Pay hopes to kill Pirate Bay

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  A Russian based outfit "Pirate Pay" claims to have come up with some software which can kill off the distribution of copyrighted works on BitTorrent.

  Its first test project, which was carried out with Walt Disney Studios and Sony Pictures, successfully stopped tens of thousands of downloads.

  According to TorrentFreak, the software attacks BitTorrent swarms, making it impossible for people to share files. Apparently the company was building a traffic management system for ISPs when they worked out that it could stop BitTorrent traffic if needed.

  Pirate Pay CEO Andrei Klimenko said that the prototype could prevent files from being downloaded and it started to receive cash from the likes of Microsoft to develop it.

  In December last year Walt Disney Studios and Sony Pictures hired Pirate Pay to protect the film "Vysotsky. Thanks to God, I'm alive," with moderate success.

  We have not heard of it either, probably because no one talked about it.The software appears to be flooding clients with fake information, masquerading as peers. Pirate Pay sent specific traffic to confuse these clients about the real IP-addresses of other clients and to make them disconnect from each other. It claimed to have stopped 44,845 transfers with the technology.

  It is not clear how many downloads slipped through. Pirate Pay charges between $12,000 and $50,000 depending on the the project. 

  
• 10:20

  Scientists turn a virus into electricity

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Scientists at the US Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have come up with a way to generate power using harmless everyday viruses.
  
  The researchers have been working with a virus called M13 bacteriophage to convert mechanical energy into electricity, which they say one day could power gadgets such as smartphones from everyday movements such as walking.
  
  They have been testing their work through a specially developed generator that produces enough current to operate a small liquid-crystal display.
  
  It works by tapping a finger on a postage stamp-sized electrode coated with specially engineered viruses. The viruses convert the force of the tap into an electric charge.
  
  Seung-Wuk Lee, a faculty scientist in Berkeley Lab’s Physical Biosciences Division and a UC Berkeley associate professor of bioengineering, said in statement: “More research is needed, but our work is a promising first step toward the development of personal power generators, actuators for use in nano-devices, and other devices based on viral electronics”. 
  
  The M13 bacteriophage has a length of 880 nanometers and a diameter of 6.6 nanometers. According to the scientists it is coated with approximately 2,700 charged proteins that enable them to use the virus as a piezoelectric nanofiber.
  
  The piezoelectric effect, found in 1880, has since been identified in crystals, ceramics, bone, proteins, and DNA. It’s also already been put to use in electric cigarette lighters and scanning probe microscopes.
  
  However, it's not been a huge success with the materials used to make piezoelectric devices claimed as being toxic and very difficult to work with.
  
  Lee and his team found that the M13 bacteriophage only attacks bacteria and is benign to people.
  
  Being a virus, it replicates itself by the millions within hours, meaning that there would always be a steady supply. To ascertain whether the M13 virus was piezoelectric, Lee and his team applied an electrical field to a film of M13 viruses and watched what happened using a special microscope. Once they found a positive result they increased the virus’s piezoelectric strength through genetic engineering to add four negatively charged amino acid residues to one end of the helical proteins that coat the virus.
  
  They then stacked 20 films composing of single layers of the virus on top of each other to achieve the maximum effect.
  
  Finally, to test the multi-layered film, they sandwiched it between two gold-plated electrodes, which were connected by wires to a liquid-crystal display, and then tapped on it.
  
  When this pressure was applied to the generator, it produced up to six nanoamperes of current and 400 millivolts of potential, which the scientists said was enough current to flash the number “1” on the display, and about a quarter the voltage of a triple A battery.
  
  Scientists are now working on ways to improve this research and hope it could eventually be used.

  Watch the video below to see how the idea works.

  
• 9:43

  Researchers run the internet on xylophones

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  A University of California graduate researcher has transmitted internet packets by playing them on xylophones.

  It is not practical for every day use, but there is proof that the idea works.

  Stuart Geiger, a graduate student the Berkeley's School of Information told the Association for Computing Machinery's Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, which was held in Austin, Texas, that his experiment gave him an appreciation for how the internet was designed.

  He told IDG you could really take anything and put it anywhere.

  Geiger's network protocol, IP over Xylophone Players (IpoXP), provided a fully compliant IP connection between two computers. It used a pair of Arduino microcontrollers, some sensors, a pair of xylophones and two people to play them.

  The Arduino was connected to a series of LEDs. Each LED corresponds to a hexadecimal character, as well as a key on a xylophone.

  When the LED lights up, the human participant strikes the corresponding key on the xylophone. The Piezo sensors are attached to each xylophone, so that they are able to sense when a note is played on the other xylophone.

  When the Arduino for the receiving computer senses the note, it converts it back into hexadecimal code. And when the second computer sends a return packet, the order of operations is reversed.

  Transmission is fairly slow. Characters are issued one every second, giving the network a throughput of one baud. It took 15 minutes to play a single packet. That is assuming the player did not hit a duff note. 

  
• 8:42

  An IT worker revolted after he was fired

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  A member of the IT Crowd at a Missoula company crashed his former employer’s computer system just days after being laid off.

  According to the Missoulian newspaper  Vladimir Ivanovich Shved worked as an IT administrator at Edulog which provides software for school bus routing and scheduling in Missoula.

  He was laid off in October and prosecutors claim that several computers crashed nearly simultaneously and when employees tried to restore the systems, they found the backup servers had been erased.

  Court records say the company called Shved and offered him an hourly rate to help resolve the problem, but refused his demand of a three- to five-year contract at $100 to $150 an hour.

  Edulog started to suspect that maybe Shved had a hand in trashing the network and started its own investigation.

  Ironically his cunning plan might have worked if he had not asked for such a daft condition for a return to work.

  He told the judge he was sorry about what happened and it was the biggest mistake in his life.

  Larson seemed to believe him and sentenced Shved to three years on a felony charge of unlawful use of a computer but deferred it. A deferred sentence means Shved's record will be clean if he stays out of trouble during that time.

  
• 8:40

  AMD supports Windows Compact 7

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  AMD has announced that its AMD Embedded G-Series will support Windows Embedded Compact 7 real time OS.

  The plan is that it will allow AMD to get its G-Series APUs pushing feature rich applications on small, specialised devices.
  
  The target is medical, retail and industrial automation industries.

  The move means that board, module and system OEMs can come up with embedded ideas that need high performance and integrated graphics processing on a low profile, which do not need to keep their cool or use too much electricity.

  By offering seamless support for Windows Embedded Compact 7 it allows AMD Embedded G-Series customers who do not like seams to support themselves take full advantage of the many benefits of the two combined technologies, AMD said.

  It means that they would have a mix of AMD Radeon graphics and the "Bobcat" x86 core, AMD Embedded G-Series APUs and Windows.

  Steven Bridgeland, product manager for Windows Embedded at Microsoft said that Bobcat will help push the Windows Embedded Compact platform into intelligent systems.

  It means, for example, that Silverlight for Windows Embedded and multi-touch support optimised for intuitive, natural input capabilities and gesture based interactions.

  Boards and modules supporting AMD Embedded G-Series APUs and Windows Embedded Compact 7 include the MSM-eO/-N PC/104-Plus SBC from Kontron, the CAPA111 3.5" SBC from Axiomtek and others. 

  
• May 11, 2012
• 17:24

  Games get age-12 certification as part of government clampdown

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  The government has announced a toughening up on video games laws, with retailers potentially facing prison sentences for selling to children.

  A revamped classification system has been announced which will see all games regulated by the Europe-wide PEGI scheme.

  This will mean that the British Board of Film Classification will no longer have input on age rating classifications, with the video game specific PEGI making the decisions.  The certification will be enforced by the Video Standards Council (VSC) in the UK.

  The main change will be that a new ‘12’ rating will be put in place, and if retailers don't abide by the rules then they could face being thrown behind bars.  

  Retailers will have until July to train up staff to deal with new changes, or face serious jail time as well as potentially unlimited fines for supplying games without an age rating.

  According to Culture minister Ed Vaizey the new system will “benefit both parents and industry by creating a stronger, simpler age-rating system”.

  “It will give parents greater confidence that their children can only get suitable games while we are creating a simpler system for industry having their games age-rated,” he said in a statement.

  The move by the government to more rigidly enforce gaming classification comes as video game content is under increased attack from politicians.

  Conservative MP Keith Vaz continued his campaign to increase censorship in video games by appealing directly to PEGI to do more to restrict content.  

  Vaz has spearheaded calls to clampdown on violent content, tabling a number of early day motions in parliament to tighten regulation, with a particular vendetta against the Call of Duty series.

  
• 12:33

  AMD Trinity delay rumour rubbished

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  AMD's shares have been taking a caning after investors started to get miffed at the chipmaker's timetable for the release of Trinity.

  According to Barrons it should have been a good day for AMD after the maker of expensive printer ink, HP, announced new notebook computers that are supposed to use the Trinity APUs.

  But there were fears that AMD was starting to delay Trinity.

  Raymond James's chip analyst Hans Mosesmann said the shareholders were being daft and cited the HP laptop announcement as proof that things were cooking in the Trinity front.

  The laptops are supposed to be out 20 June and so it is unlikely that there will be a Trinity delay, he said.

  He had also phoned up AMD and reconfirmed Trinity's release date.

  Mosesmann expected to see additional Trinity based products in early June at Computex, too. He thinks that AMD will outperform all expectations this year, 

  
• 12:31

  Sony, Panasonic's TV businesses in crisis

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  With Sony and Panasonic reporting record losses it appears their hopes of remaining large players in the TV business are fast disappearing.

  Sony posted an eye-watering $5.7billion loss up to the end of March yesterday, while Panasonic notched up a thirty year loss record with a $9.7 billion net loss.  Both have shown poor results in TV sales, helping to drive them further into the red.

  For Panasonic, which announced its losses today, it is expecting flat screen sales to fall further this year, down to 15.5 million from 17.5 million over the last 12 months.

  Both are looking at major staff restructuring and, in Panasonic’s case, of its supply chain as its sells off some of its plasma screen production capacity.

  While financial troubles in the TV market are hardly new, Meko analyst Bob Raikes believes that the writing is on the wall for the Japanese firms - which are no longer looking like major players in the market.

  “They really have to make decisions if they are going to stay in it at all frankly,” Raikes told TechEye. "They just cannot afford to chase market sure any more. The game’s up.”

  The TV market has always been a tough one and extremely competitive to boot. That includes the all conquering Samsung, the most successful TV company ever in terms of market share, Raikes said.   

  Despite its huge dominance in the market, even Samsung has struggled to make any real dough from it endeavours. 

  “Presumably people go into the TV business for the prestige of being the big consumer item in the middle of the home, because it is very difficult to make a case for going into the market for profit,” Raikes said.  “It is a long term problem.”

  The outlook for Samsung is not so bleak, steaming ahead with OLED production, and leading just about everywhere else.

  But with both Sony and Panasonic reporting massive losses the days of them leading in the industry are fast disappearing, and alongside Sharp, they must re-prioritise in order to claw back into the black.

  According to Raikes they have been hit by a “triple whammy” of problems which have hampered sales. First of all, Sony is not producing flat panel displays, and Panasonic is producing the right type. Nearly all of the cost comes from the flat panel, and if a firm is not producing their own then they are going to struggle to make money.

  Sony “missed the boat” by exiting the flat panel production too early. While Sony was able to charge a premium for its Trinitrons in the past, Raikes points out it can longer differentiate with its screens, and is instead handing cash over to the likes of Samsung to build them.

  Panasonic might produce its own panels, but it has bet on the wrong horse after banking on plasma screens.  Panasonic does have its own supply chain in plasma screens, but it is now producing much more than anyone wants to buy.   

  “You have to make bets when you are picking technologies, and they picked the wrong one,” Raikes said.

  The second major problem is the strong yen, which has wreaked havoc with Japanese business for some time now.  For Panasonic, basing its production in Japan means costs are very high.

  Competitors have had more appealing balance sheets from buying in from Taiwan, for example, and leveraging cheap components and labour.  

  “Too much of their costs are in yen," Raikes said. "It is a problem for Japan inc, just look at the problems for most of the Japanese consumer electronics companies.  Companies like Hitachi  which is doing well on a profitable basis are almost out of consumer electronics because it is just too hard with the yen as it is.”

  The domestic Japanese market has collapsed in recent years, thanks to a variety of factors.

  “You had a real super-boom in the Japanese TV market in 2010, and into the first quarter of 2011,” Raikes said.

  This was due to both the analogue switch off and government subsidies. An abrupt stop came with the end of the subsidies, while the need for replacements vanished when the analogue signal was turned off.   With the tsunami hitting Japan that year, the situation was made even worse.

  “All of that combined just absolutely decimated the TV market in Japan,” Raikes said.

  
• 11:41

  Yahoo supremo was never asked for CV - claim

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  It turns out that when the Yahoo board hired Chief Executive Scott Thompson they never asked him to supply a CV.

  Thompson has been accused of padding his CV by claiming he had a computer science degree, which he doesn't.

  According to Reuters' deepthroats, Thompson's official biography was not based on any information that he supplied to the company.

  Thompson sent an email to Yahoo employees earlier this week apologising for the controversy, and saying he hoped a Yahoo board review of the matter would be concluded promptly.

  Apparently the problem was caused because Thompson's official biography at Paypal which also listed the inaccurate education details.

  Yahoo appears to have cut and pasted that information when it employed him.

  That information may not have come from Thompson either. High-level executives don't usually directly provide their resume to potential employers and that is compiled by researchers for employment companies.

  Activist hedge fund Third Point, which is Yahoo's largest outside shareholder, is waging a bitter proxy battle to install four directors on Yahoo's board. It wants Thompson to be fired and for Yahoo to let one of its director candidates oversee the search for a new CEO. 

  
• 11:39

  Tony Blair is a hopeless Luddite – official

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  As we recall, Alistair Campbell once had a pop at Tony Blair for his seeming inability to look at a computer screen without completely glazing over.
  
  And now that’s been confirmed by his friend, Rebekah Brooks, giving evidence at the Leveson inquiry into press ethics.
  
  Brooks admitted becoming friendly with Mr Blair after she became editor of The Sun - but they didn’t exchange any emails or texts with him as he didn’t have either a phone or a computer.
  
  Ah, we wondered. When he was prime minister of the UK, the Number 10 website invited us all to email him.  We did – but he never replied – what a surprise.

  
• 11:38

  Facebook considers charging to highlight posts

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Social networking site Facebook is considering charging users who want their more important posts highlighted.

  According to Stuff.co.nz the system is being tested with users being charged $2 to "highlight" important posts so they are more visible.

  A man in Whangarei, New Zealand said he was given the option of paying to highlight status updates and picture posts with a yellow background when he logged on to his Facebook page. He thought it was a scam and contacted the press.

  When members of the Whangarei press contacted Facebook its spokeswoman Mia Garlick confirmed it was a new "feature" it was testing.

  Facebook was trialling the feature at a range of different prices including offering it "free", she said. This means that during the trial members may be asked different amounts, or nothing, to use it.

  It is the first time that Facebook has attempted to make money from postings by regular users and comes as it is gearing up for a public listing.

  It is not clear if the plan will be tested anywhere else. 

  
• 10:57

  4Chan vandalises Tea Party website, reveals private donors

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Ultra-right-wing lunatic circle-jerk The Tea Party has had its PAC website hacked by what looks like a legion of users from the notorious 4Chan image board.

  Infamous for the chaotic /b/ forum, which spawns much of the internet's memes, a well-known adage around the web is '4Chan is leaking'. This time it looks like it leaked all over the Tea Party's independencehallteapartypac.com. At time of publication, the website flashed a vertical row of animated gifs of an animal appearing to rub its genitals, before redirecting to a Facebook user called "Dillon Tilly".

  Reddit user kevipapo1 noticed that a full list of private donors had also been leaked and copied it to Pastebin.

  Since the hack, the page also claimed the attack was from 9Gag.com - a widely mocked meme website whose members hold a vendetta against 4Chan and are constantly locked in a losing fight against it. Later it was changed to claim the attack was from Reddit.com, which itself has become a popular target for the right wing media, so many of its members are eagerly awaiting the Fox News reports. 

  The full 4Chan thread can be read here but it should be considered fully not safe for work, or life, and we have no responsibility for the eye or mind bleach you may need after clicking through. 

  Graham Cluley at Sophos pointed out that this seems to instead be a website set up for a regional division of the Tea Party.

  Speaking to TechEye, he said that the website is still compromised and presumably under the control of hackers. "As such," Cluley said, "someone with malicious intentions could plant malware on the site which could attempt to infect visiting internet users. The website has probably had more traffic in the last several hours than its entire existence, so let's hope that graffiti is as bad as it gets rather than something more sinister."

  "We aren't able to confirm the claim that the website was only protected with a password of "p9ssw0rd" but that obviously is a very poor choice if you want to secure your site," Cluley said.

  "Whatever size of website you run, you should be choosing a password or passphrase that is hard to guess, unique and unlikely to be in the dictionaries of common passwords that hackers frequently use. In addition, you should make sure that your website is coded securely to avoid vulnerabilities that hackers could exploit and kept up-to-date with security patches," he said. 

  
• 10:18

  MP3Tunes throws in the towel

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Big Content has opened the champers this morning after managing to force MP3tunes Inc to file for bankruptcy.

  The company had a prolonged run-in with music publishing giant EMI Group over copyright disputes - which bled the company dry.

  MP3tunes was a cloud music service that let users store music in online "lockers." The idea is used by Amazon.com, Apple and Google which have similar cloud services but more cash for lawyers, as it turned out MP3Tunes made a few mistakes that the bigger companies did not.

  According to Reuters, EMI sued MP3tunes and its chief executive, Michael Robertson as part of a piracy campaign. The case was interesting because last year, a federal judge in Manhattan said MP3tunes and Robertson did not violate the federal Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in permitting downloads, except as to songs specifically identified as having been pirated.

  The judge said that users, rather than MP3tunes, were responsible for infringements. But he did say the company was liable for "contributory" copyright infringement for songs where notices of alleged infringement were provided. Robertson was liable for having personally transferred songs from unauthorised websites, the judge ruled.

  The copyright case is still pending before the Southern District of New York court, but it is more or less all over, bar the shouting.

  MP3tunes had filed for bankruptcy under Chapter 7 code. The company had listed out assets of about $7,800 and liabilities of $2.1 million which makes anyone getting any cash out of the company unlikely.

  
• 10:05

  US Navy to deploy aquatic mine-sniffing robots

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  The US Navy has created a deepwater robot that it will use to dive and search out underwater mines.
  
  Measuring 5.8 meters and weighing 1,700 pounds, the Knifefish underwater robot is powered by lithium-ion batteries and moulded like a torpedo.

  It is claimed that it will be able to roam the seas for roughly 16 hours at a time and sweep for mines by sending out low-frequency sound signals.
  
  If they bounce off a man-made object, the robot will create an image of this, which is sent back to experts on board a nautical submarine.  
  
  According to Bloomberg, around 50 countries have a total of 250,000 underwater mines that could be dropped in oceans around the world. The Navy believes that if these were to be deployed then they could potentially blow up ships as well as disrupt oil pipes, telephone and internet lines.
  
  Traditionally it has sent down ships and divers to search and defuse these dangers - as well as using trained dolphins equipped with sensors and cameras. However, the robot should be able to sniff these out more safely and quickly. The snag is once a drone finds a suspicious object it must send out divers to investigate further.
  
  The US Navy will spend $170 million over the next five years to design eight of the robots, with the first one taking its dive in 2016.

  These will be created by General Dynamics and Bluefin Robotics, and it is estimated that the Navy will have purchased 52 of these by 2034.
  
  
  
  
  
   

  
• 9:41

  Iran accidentally censors Supreme Leader

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  One of the problems with extreme censorship is that things go wrong.

  Now it turns out that the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's own words have now become a victim to Iran's massive online censorship infrastructure.

  According to Radio Free Europe,  Khamenei issued a fatwa confirming that anti-filtering tools and software were illegal in Iran.

  The decree came after a question by Mehr News, which is a semi-official news agency, that had asked for clarification on the ruling due to the fact that, as journalists, employees sometimes need to access blocked websites and other non-authorised information.

  Khamenei said that the use of antifiltering software is subject to the laws and regulations of the Islamic republic, and it is not permissible to violate the law.

  But his use of the word "antifiltering" apparently triggered Iran's own filtering system. As a result his words were inaccessible to most Iranians.

  This made Tabnak point out that the filtering of a religious order is so ugly for the executive branch that it can bring into question the whole philosophy of filtering. 

  
• May 09, 2012
• 16:09

  Memory makers facing mixed results

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Beancounters working for Paragon have been looking at the fine print in corporate results and come to the conclusion that things are not going that well.

  The report said that memory chip makers with a strong presence in the NAND flash market were doing fine, but others were suffering.

  Slowing PC demand has hurt earnings for companies more focused on DRAM. DRAM is widely used in traditional PCs, while NAND is used in popular high-end portable devices such as smartphones and tablet PCs.

  It looks like rapidly growing demand for smartphones, tablets, and Ultrabooks are expected to boost NAND revenues for years to come.

  Smartphones are expected to play a major role in the growing demand for NAND.

  Paragon predicts that shipments of smartphones are projected to total 626 million units in 2012, and by 2016 NAND flash content in smartphones is expected to double.

  The report claims that it is Micron which is doing the best. The company could potentially double its global market share with the purchase of failed Japanese chip maker Elpida Memory.

  Micron has offered more than $2.5 billion to buy Elpida, and has offered to keep Elpida's two main factories open and would guarantee jobs for the companies employees, the Paragon report said. 

  
• 15:14

  US government warns over gas pipeline cyberattacks

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Gas pipelines have been targeted by cyber attacks according to the US Department of Homeland Security, raising fresh fears over the  safety of infrastructure.

  The Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT) arm of DoHS has highlighted an "active series of cyber intrusions", with spear-phishing attacks targeting natural gas pipeline sector companies.

  Analysis of the malware connected to the cybers attacks discovered has apparently identified the attacks as a part of a single campaign.  It is thought that the campaign has been ongoing since December 2011.

  Spear-phishing attacks have targeted a variety personnel within organisations, but the number of individuals targeted has been "tightly focused" apparently.

  Cyber criminals conducted attacks by constructing email as that appeared to have been sent from a trusted member of the organisation in which they worked.

  ICS-CERT has now released an alert to highlight the danger posed by cyber attacks on infrastructure, though the the amount of information being made publicly available is being limited.

  ICS-CERT says that is now "working aggressively" with organisations that have been affected in order to fend off threats and to prevent re-infection. No indication has been given as to the source of motive of the attacks.

  Attacks on critical infrastructure have been a gorowing concern, particularly in the wake of the Stuxnet worm which threatened nuclear power stations in Iran.

  According to Tenable Network Security many power companies are open to attacks such as spear phishing.

  “The truth of the matter is, some power companies have very low levels of security infrastructure in place, leaving them highly susceptible to spear-phishing attacks,” said Ron Gula, CEO, Tenable Network Security in a statement today.

  “Conversely however, other companies in the space have complex security solutions which can resist very determined attackers.”

  According to Gula the seriousness in some cases can be overstated, and it is not just critical infrastructure which is on the receiving end of attacks, though attacks such as Stuxnet are inevitably going to cause concern.

  “It’s worth noting there may be a slight case of overreaction and scaremongering around reports like this from the Department of Homeland Security.” 

  “Recently in the US, an incident initially labelled ‘a cyber attack on critical infrastructure from Russia’ was identified months later as an authorised action taken by an individual while on holiday in the country.” 

  “Correlating incidents taken against critical infrastructure companies - such as viruses, spear phishing and hacker attacks - and calling them “sophisticated cyberattacks” can be a dangerous ploy, as these networks usually have the same level of incidents and abuse as any other industry.” 

  
• 14:31

  Windows 8 privacy fears over stated

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  In something that would have been unthinkable a while ago, a insecurity expert has waded in to support Microsoft over a security "flaw" in Windows 8.

  The problem is that Windows 8 connects its users with networks including Facebook, Flickr, Twitter, LinkedIn, Hotmail, Gmail, and Exchange.

  InfoWorld claimed that the process leaves a lingering cache of automatically collected contacts which are stored unencrypted on a Windows 8 client.

  It means that anyone who can sign on to your PC with an administrator account and can see all of your contacts and all of their data names, email addresses, pictures, telephone numbers, and addresses.  A few years ago that would have sparked another "patchy windows" story with lots of security experts calling on Vole to sort itself out.

  But Michael Cherry, lead analyst, operating systems at the analysis firm Directions on Microsoft, says he has no reason to doubt Thomson's findings but said it is hardly a security meltdown. Windows 8 is in beta and this is the sort of thing Microsoft will fix.

  However he said that while Vole might take some steps to remedy any problems, in the area of privacy, most of the problem is that people already share information among the services.

  He said that operating systems cache data all the time and if they had to rebuild all the time, things would run much slower.

  Mark Baldwin, principal researcher and consultant at InfosecStuff, told PC Advisor that the risk is any same with Windows 7. The only difference is that Windows 8 is more tightly integrated with social media, it makes sense to cache that data to improve performance.

  He said that you need admin rights over the machine to do any damage and if the attacker has that you are toast anyway.

   

  
• 14:29

  Devon releases new thin client

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Devon has released a new IT TC6 thin client which is based on AMD's Dual Core G-T56N 1.6 GHz Processor with AMD Radeon HD 6320 Graphics.

  In a statement the company said that its TC6 will be fully manageable by Devon IT's Echo thin client management software.

  Joe Makoid, president of Devon IT praised AMD's G-T56N which he said gives the thin client computing industry high-performance application capabilities that rival the user experiences delivered by PCs.

  One of the problems with thin clients is that user's tend to notice a difference and some can't handle enhancements in virtual desktop technologies.

  Makoid said that the IT TC6 features a dual-core AMD G-series processor with integrated discrete-class AMD Radeon graphics.

  He said that 1.65 GHz provides customers with more than enough power for the most rigorous remote business graphics needs.

  The TC6 is fanless to help companies reduce noise in office environments and eliminate moving parts to increase the life-span of their end point devices, he said.

  Buddy Broeker, Director, Embedded Solutions, at AMD said there was widespread interest in the AMD Embedded G-Series platform in thin clients.

  Part of the reason was that Accelerated Processing Unit combines a low-power CPU and a discrete-level GPU into a single integrated unit, which delivers an exceptional multimedia experience for low-power and small-form factor thin clients. 

  
• 11:45

  Aussie politician threatens to get Facebook likers fired

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  An Aussie politician has worked out a new way of censoring satire.

  Ironically, Andrew Nikolic is the Liberal candidate for Tasmania.  His cunning censorshop plan is to threaten to contact the employers of Facebook users who "liked" a satirical article posted about him online and get them fired.

  It all started when the New Examiner wrote a satirical scenario in which Nikolic is caught out claiming to have been "heroically killed in action during services in Afghanistan". It then goes on to state that he claims to have suffered "a slow, painful death by torture at the hands of Tamil militants in 2002".

  Apparently Nikolic informed the New Examiner if the offending article was not taken down he would write to the employers of all the individuals who had "liked" the story.

  He wrote in a Facebook comment that he hoped the employers and influencers of the satirical group will be amused by the formal letters of complaint he will send them.

  The New Examiner refused to back down and retract the article. He then allegedly removed the comment.

  Fairfax Media wrote to Nikolic and asked him what he thought he was playing at - and he denied making the comment at all.

  Nikolic said that he, his family and families with loved ones serving overseas found the article offensive and tried to claim that he was alerted to the post on the same day that three of "our soldiers" were wounded in Afghanistan - two seriously and non-satirically. He said this heightened his sensitivity to the content.

  But he denied ever having threatened to contact the employers of those who liked and reposted the story. This has been somewhat contradicted by screenshots of the comments which are being circulated online.

  When he was shown screenshots where he did just that Nikolic said he had no personal copy of this comment thread and therefore could not confirm whether it is a complete or totally accurate representation.

  Nikolic, who served as an officer in the Australian Army, claimed people involved in the post subsequently contacted him to apologise for their involvement. This was why he removed his response from his Facebook page, he said. Of course, you have to take his word for it.  It had nothing to do with the Liberal Party press office getting on the blower to tell him to stop appearing like a tosser before elections.  

  He now seems to have a bit of a problem with social media. There is a Facebook page dedicated for the users who have been blocked by him and they print their own t-shirts. 

  
• 11:29

  HP adds consumer and business Ultrabooks to its range

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  HP has launched its Ultrabook and Sleekbook products.

  New additions to the HP collection include the HP Envy SpectreXT, which comes in 14-inch and 15.6-inch options, and is aimed at the consumer entertainment market, and there is also the business focused HP EliteBook Folio 9470m.  
  
  They join HP's existing HP Folio and HP ENVY Spectre products.
  
  The new HP Envy SpectreXT has features including the company's  Beats Audio, a technology which the company developed with Beats by Dr. Dre. It also has the CoolSense technology, which is claimed to automatically adjust performance and internal fan settings for a cooler PC. There's also the HP Imagepad for multifinger touch and gesture navigation, and an HD webcam.
  
  The measurements run at 14.5 mm thin and a weight of 3.07 pounds. There's also 128GB of solid state storage and up to eight hours of battery life.
  
  The device is also includes Intel Smart Connect Technology, which automatically updates email while the notebook is in sleep mode.
  
  The new HP EliteBook Folio 9470m measures 14 inches diagonally, weigh 3.6 pounds, and is 19-mm-thin. HP boasts that it "offers a full array of key ports and connectivity options for business users", including optional built-in 4G wireless WAN, full-sized Ethernet, VGA, DisplayPort and USB 3.0 connections.
  
  It is also said to offer all-day battery life as well as the option for a secondary battery.
  
  For those concerned about security there's HP Bios Protection as well as an integrated Smart Card reader, fingerprint reader and an embedded TPM security chip.
  
  Power and data wise the EliteBook Folio has an optional solid state drive,  the Windows 7 Professional operating system and a third-generation Intel Core vPro processor.
  
  

  
• 10:48

  AMD's Papermaster considers patent trolling

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  AMD has been thinking about turning to patent trollage as a good way to make a bit of spare cash.

  CTO Mark Papermaster has been thinking about new ways to make money and has noticed that every big tech outfit seems to be in court to collect money on patents.

  Talking to the Jefferies global technology and telecom conference in New York, Papermaster said that AMD has got a rich tradition of innovation.

  The only thing it has not done enough of is "leveraging" and he was having a look at the leveraging tools in the legal department to jack up a few writs.

  According to ZDNet, he talked about how he could "architect bringing those IP's pieces together". This is all to do with something called a methodology standpoint which sounds to us like a classical jazz dance step.

  Papermaster wants to "marry that strategy" with what's going on in the industry and get out the levers.

  This means leveraging the CPU, that GPU all of the IP, the multimedia, the high-speed memory accesses, and the other IP AMD has been developing over the years.

  After all that leveraging, you are going to need a nice refreshing drink. Somehow all this leveraging is going to be focused on segments. With a bit of tailored differentiation so that people look nice. At least that is what we think he meant.

  The short of it is that AMD has 40 years worth of patents in CPUs and graphics so we guess you can expect a call from one of his leveraging tools to be visiting you with a writ any day now. 

  
• 10:46

  AMD's Hondo not around until Windows 8

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  While AMD is going to release its 32nm Trinity APUs in notebooks later this month, it is not planning to release the tablet friendly Hondo chips until Windows 8 comes out.

  According to Digitimes, Hondo flavours of Trinity will not be around until the fourth quarter.  This is when Windows 8 will hit the shops and the war between Intel, with its Ivy Bridge and AMD with Trinity will really take off.

  AMD is set to delay the version of the A-Series Trinity APUs for desktops until August. This is because it wants prices to come under those of Intel's Ivy Bridge processors and to result in a string of surprise tablet Christmas specials.

  The company's ultra low power (ULP) 40nm Hondo APUs are being targeted at the new tablet and 'ultrathin' - also known as ultrabooks - market.  While it will be a traditional slugging match between Intel and AMD, the real rival for both is ARM which has control over the mobile market at the moment.

  Digitimes added that AMD will release its low-power Brazos 2.0 APUs including the 18W E2-1800 and E1-1200 in June and new FX series processors including the FX-8350, FX-6300 and FX-4320 in the third quarter. 

  
• 10:33

  Why Mark Zuckerberg needs a makeover

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Every CEO has their own "unique" sense of style.
  
  The late Steve Jobs never went anywhere without his always buttoned, never belted trusted jeans and turtleneck, while ol' Steve Ballmer prides himself on his polo necks, which he lovingly alternates in colour and style.
  
  However, there's a new kid on the fashion block, looking to take the tech style crown from right under these CEO's feet - and that's the young Mr Zuckerberg.
  
  It wouldn't be hard for the Facebook CEO to rise to the top of the Facebook fashion brat pack.
  
  He hasn't got the paunch of Mr Ballmer, or Paul S Otellini's eyewear. He could carry off that sleek tailored Prada suit and show off those eyes - perhaps with a tinge of eyeliner - since it's the fashion now.
  
  But Zuckerberg has his own line of style in mind. And that's - wait for it - pyjamas.
  
  The CEO turned up at a meeting with prospective investor Sequoia Capital wearing the nightwear. Not only is this the most unprofessional you can get but also a terrible faux pas.

  In fact it's a cardinal fashion sin with this attire even being banned in Tescos - Mark, that really says something.
  
  Now, experts are claiming that the Facebook chief needs to fix up, and look sharp if he wants to impress the fat cats.

  Michael Pachter, an analyst for Wedbush Securities, told Bloomberg TV that the hoodie and casual attire did not show investors that Zuckerberg was serious about business.
  
  Perhaps dressing like a college kid makes Zuckerberg feel young, or perhaps he's going for the more down and out look, not looking out of place in Zooland's Derelicte - perhaps if he looks the part people may bung him a pound or two.
  
  It seems to have worked as the CEO is worth billions. Now, where did we put those old sweatshirts and trackies?
  
  
  

  
• 10:23

  RIM pins hopes on new marketing person

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  RIM has named and shamed the person it expects to convince the world that its Blackberry 10 smartphones will save the company from the scrap-heap.

  Frank Boulben has a lot of experience in representing failing companies. He was in charge of marketing and sales for US telecom start-up LightSquared.

  For those who came in late, LightSquared was a start-up which tried to develop a wholesale 4G LTE wireless broadband communications network integrated with satellite coverage.

  Sadly the technology caused interference and the FCC moved to bar LightSquared's planned national broadband network.

  As of April, 2012, LightSquared was in negotiations with creditors to avoid bankruptcy and Boulben has shown up at RIM.

  RIM's own marketing has been the pits, and while the company might still have a few things going for it, no one can actually say what they are. Its share price has gone so far south that it is thinking of moving in with some emperor penguins near Scott Base. Over a year ago it was worth 75 percent more.

  The company desperately needs the BlackBerry 10 device to be a hit and Boulben is expected to create a more cohesive identity for the line. He will probably also push BlackBerry's existing strengths, such as air-tight security and email capabilities.

  Boulben has a background in consumer companies. Before his LightSquared nightmare he worked for Orange and Vodafone.

  RIM has been without a marketing chief since March of last year, when Keith Pardy left the company just before the PlayBook fiasco.

  Boulben was not the only wireless industry vet who is bravely going where no career has gone before. Kristian Tear, who has previously worked at Sony and Ericsson, is going to be RIM's new chief operating officer.

  He started work with Ericsson began in 1988 as a director in sales and marketing, and went on to work in various upper management roles with the company.

  Between 1999 and 2005, Tear served as President and CEO of Ericsson in South East Asia, Germany, Switzerland and Austria and Central America. He most recently served as executive vice president of sales and marketing at Sony Mobile Communications AB, a subsidiary of Sony.

  His new RIM-job will mean that he oversees all operational functions for handhelds and services, including research and development, products, global sales, manufacturing and the supply chain. He said that RIM was an important player in the mobile industry and he wants to help attract a brand new generation of BlackBerry users to the company.  Good luck with that.

  
• May 07, 2012
• 17:41

  India accuses Google of antitrust advertising monopoly

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  India is allegedly furious with how Google is handling its advertising business, and is preparing to launch an antitrust probe concerning alleged anticompetitive practices from the enormous company.

  The probe will specifically look at AdWords, although according to the Wall Street Journal, the Competition Commission of India could also peer into other Google offerings at the discretion of the authorities. Google has said that so far it is not aware of an antitrust investigation. 

  Google has come up against the wall over anticompetitive practices related to advertising, and search, before - a recent case in the USA saw Google defending itself against allegations that it favoured its own products over the competition, and ranked them higher to gain a competitive advantage.

  According to the WSJ, Google leads the charge for online advertising in India, and may have over a 50 percent share of the entire digital advertising market, including on mobiles.

  The WSJ's sources suggest that, although the Competition Commission has received complaints about Google, the investigation will not be based on any individual complaint. Google will be able to appeal, and take the decision to the supreme court if necessary. 

  
• 15:33

  Micron to buy Elpida

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Micron has won the right to negotiate exclusively to buy Elpida after offering $2.5 billion for the bankrupt Japanese chipmaker.

  Elpida has been searching for an investor to sponsor its restructuring after filing for bankruptcy protection in February with $5.6 billion in debt.

  Micron also offered to keep Elpida's two main factories in Japan open and to guarantee jobs for the company's current employees.

  It outbid Hynix, which dropped out of the race on Friday.

  According to Reuters, Micron's offer was accepted by Elpida's trustees and management.

  A final restructuring plan will still require the approval of a local court and Elpida's creditors who might not have been happy at a low bid for the company.

  The Japanese government will be happy to see the back of the failed company. It had propped up Elpida with public funds to save what was billed as the country's last hope for the DRAM market.

  Elpida ranks third in the DRAM market, but analysts think that in the long term Elpida DRAM chips will do well as mobile device demand increases. 

  
• 15:31

  Sprint CEO takes a paycut

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Sprint's CEO Daniel Hesse has agreed to take a paycut this year as punishment for wasting company cash on a deal with Apple.

  According to Reuters, Hesse thought he was onto a winner by subsidising Apple's iPhones, but it turned out that the deal only cheered the bottom line of Cupertino.

  In a letter to his HR department he said that the action was voluntary and his actions would set his 2012 incentive compensation target opportunities back to 2010 levels.

  While it is nice to see a CEO put their hand in their pockets after making a mistake, he has to admit that paying $15 billion to sell Apple's iPhones has not gone well with investors.

  To get the deal Sprint pays Apple a subsidy that is 40 percent higher, or $200 more per device, than what it pays for other phones.

  Investors noted that the high subsidies on the device had pushed up costs at the Number 3 US operator. While it added more subscribers, it also meant it had to stump up for infrastructure changes. 

  
• 11:19

  Fortune-telling con artists used Google, Facebook

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Two fortune tellers convinced their clients that they knew everything about them by doing searches on them through Google and Facebook - and then pretending to see the information in a crystal ball.

  According to the Austrian Times, two of Romania's top witches, Vanessa, 26, and Melissa, 32, made a fortune providing spells to protect clients from the devil. They seemed to have the magical ability to know everything about their clients thanks to the power of their crystal ball and the fact that dead people seemed to be in breach of any privacy policy.

  However, what the pair did was use surveillance equipment to gather data on their customers, which they would then pretend had been transmitted to them from the spirit world. 

  After spying on their customers and doing lots of Google and Facebook searches they would plug in their crystal ball and tell the punter what they had been doing for the last 24 hours.

  Victims paid large sums to speak to dead relatives and gain protection from evil forces, thinking that the Roma women were genuine mystics.

  One was persuaded to take thousands of pounds and go to a nearby lake for a midnight ritual. She had been told that she had to release herself from the burden of her money and throw it all in the lake.

  When she hesitated, a demon emerged from the water and she flung all the cash into the lake and fled.

  Romanian police discovered that the demon was a friend of the women who had put on diving gear and a mask to terrify the unsuspecting victim to parting with the cash.

  What caused the scheme's downfall was when they were charged with fraud, they bribed a local prosecutor to get the charges dropped.

  However, the police had been looking at their own Tarot cards and predicted this would happen, as the prosecutor was under suspicion for dropping a few too many cases lately.

  Rather than summoning a demon to watch him, the cops had taken a leaf from the Roma's book and just bugged his office. All three were arrested.

  As Inspector Knacker of the Romanian Yard pointed out, if the women had been any good they would have known that the office was bugged and not tried to bribe the prosecutor.

  As well as fraud, the pair are also facing charges under the National Security Act for using illegal surveillance equipment. 

  
• 10:56

  Intel Ultrabook adverts mystify the world

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  One of Intel's latest Ultrabook adverts is stirring up a stink on YouTube, where its enlightened users are debating whether the short film - which appears to parody films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers - is racist.

  Of course, the most talented YouTube commentators will be able to either find racism or make racism in any video at all. 

  The advert features two Asian women, in traditional dress, backflipping around a palace as they fight over a power socket to charge their laptops. The woman in blue gets there at last before shooting the stink eye to a modern woman with an Ultrabook, who claims she still has hours left in her device. The viewer sees the machine for just four seconds in the 1:02 video. 

  Take a look here:
  
  

  Meanwhile, some Twitter users have noticed Intel's Ultrabook adverts appearing on UK television. This one's set in the old West and makes less sense:

  Twitter users @thorn_w said: "TV advert: ULtrabook, inspired by Intel*" *Apple", while @stroughtonsmith pointed out that Intel's not advertising any particular product device, but just a category of machines. 

  The top comment on the YouTube link, from user yobnhoJ71, reads: "That tells me a whole lot about the product". This advert, titled "Desperado", shows the Ultrabook at some point for roughly 14 seconds - but it is often the back case or the corner of the screen poking its way into the frame. 

  Many vendors have realised that the Apple advert model of showing the product in action, close-up, with attention to detail, is the way to showcase a device. Intel could have a hard time of it, because it wants to make "Ultrabook" a pervasive name for ultra-thin laptops, but at the same time, it can't be seen to favour any of its heavily subsidised manufacturing partners.

  
• 10:33

  Lenovo invests in Chinese mobile plant

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Lenovo is to invest $793 million to build an integrated mobile devices facility in China.

  The base will be built in Wuhan in central Hubei province, and will carry out research and development, production and sales of mobile devices.

  According to Reuters the plant will begin operations in October 2013.

  Lenovo has been attempting to jam its foot in the door of the mobile market which is already crowded with the likes of Apple, , Huawei, Samsung and ZTE.

  Lenovo said sales from the industrial base will increase five fold within the next five years.

  In the third quarter ended December, Lenovo shipped 400,000 tablets globally and 6.5 million handsets, including smartphones.

  In China the company is the number two tablet brand behind Apple.

  The company is seeing some movement on the mobile front. Its sales of mobile internet and other digital consumer devices rose 159 percent year on year to $565 million in the quarter, largely from mobile handset sales in China. 

  
• 10:06

  Apple makes another security blunder

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Apple's faith based security has taken another hit over the weekend after one of its genius programmers left a debug flag in the most recent version of the Mac OS X operating system.

  If you apply OS X Lion update 10.7.3, the process turns on a system-wide debug log file that contains the login passwords of every user who has logged in since the update was applied. The passwords are stored in clear text which makes them jolly handy for future hackings.

  It causes a problem for anyone who used FileVault encryption on their Mac prior to Lion, upgraded to Lion, but kept the folders encrypted using the legacy version of FileVault.

  The flaw was spotted by security expert David Emery, who posted his findings to the Cryptome mailing list. Apple has not bothered to correct the problem in subsequent updates and appears to be adopting its traditional method of dealing with security problems. For those that came in late this involves sticking its fingers in its ears and going la la la, while encouraging its botnet trapped fanboys to scream loudly that they are more secure than Windows users.

  Emery said that the problem is worse than it seems. The log in question can also be read by booting the machine into firewire disk mode and reading it by opening the drive as a disk or by booting the new-with-LION recovery partition and using the available superuser shell to mount the main file system partition and read the file.

  It means that anyone can break into encrypted partitions on machines even if they did not have any idea of any login passwords, making that whole encryption thing redundant.

  If businesses were dumb enough to place their faith in the FileVault feature they could have just handed over all their business information to hackers. Fortunately few companies, outside the creative industry, have based their networks on Apple's security systems.

  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

  
  
  

  
• 10:02

  Google in hot water over Safari cookies

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Google might have to pay the FTC $10 million for breaching privacy on Apple's Safari web browser.

  The fine would be the first by the FTC for a violation of internet privacy and is apparently based on an allegation that Google deceived consumers when it planted cookies on Safari, bypassing Apple software's privacy settings.

  According to Bloomberg, what appears to have got the FTC's goat is that by bypassing Safari's built-in privacy protections, Google could lob targeted advertising at users of Safari.

  Google claimed that it "didn't anticipate this would happen" and that it was removing the files since discovering the slip.

  However, it was not dealt with until it was spotted by Stanford researcher Jonathan Mayer which makes many suspect it was a cunning plan all along.

  It is not certain if European regulators will also want to wade into Google. They are already probing Google more broadly on its privacy policy and sent a detailed questionnaire to the company in March. It is fairly likely that EU regulators will also add this to the list of things it wants to hit Google with. After all, with the EU debt crisis - and the Euro slumping - it needs new sources of income and a billion dollar anti-trust fine will run the EU administration for at least 20 minutes. 

  
• 9:24

  Diamonds offer key to storage forever

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Engineers working at John Hopkins University are using diamonds to change the properties of an alloy used in phase-change memory.

  The move could lead to the development of higher capacity storage systems that retain data more quickly and last longer than current media. It also means that your computer might start getting a taste for the finer things in life.

  According to the online edition of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the changes to phase-change memory could be a lot cheaper thanks to an inexpensive alloy that's composed of germanium, arsenic and tellurium.

  The study's lead author, Ming Xu, said the phase-change memory is more stable than the material used in current flash drives. It works 100 times faster and is rewritable millions of times.

  He thinks that within about five years, it could also be used to replace hard drives in computers and give them more memory.

  The researchers used diamond-tipped tools to apply pressure to the GST. This enabled them to change the properties of the alloy from an amorphous to a crystalline state and thus reduce the electrical resistivity by about four times.

  By slowing down the change from an amorphous state to a crystalline state, the scientists produced many varying states allowing more data to be stored on the alloy.

  While GST has been used for some time, the precise mechanics of its ability to switch from one state to another have befuddled scientists.

  Xu used the pressure from diamond tools to cause the change to occur more slowly so they could watch it happening and figure out how to improve it all.

  Using X-ray diffraction, along with a computer simulation, they could record the changes in "slow motion." As a result they found they could tune the electrical resistivity of the material during the time between its change from amorphous to crystalline form, the paper said.. 

  
• 9:19

  There's something dodgy about the Indian cheap tablet project

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Something extremely dodgy appears to have stuffed up the Indian government's Aakash tablet project.

  After announcing the tablet, the tech companies DataWind and Quad Electronic pressed on making them, but students with the test tablets wanted a longer battery life and a faster processor, among other things.

  The government called a meeting between all parties involved and it was agreed that DataWind would supply an upgraded tablet. It would have a longer-lasting 3200 milliamps hour battery, more sophisticated operations and a faster-acting 700 megahertz ARM Cortex A8 processor.

  DataWind was given up to March 31st to deliver the tablets, based on testing criteria sent by I.I.T. Rajasthan.

  When the spec arrived from I.I.T. Rajasthan it included things that were just too bizarre to be serious.

  The new tablet would have to be able to withstand four inches of rain, enduring shock tests when "mounted in a vehicle," and when subject to "sudden acceleration, braking, or turning while transporting the units."

  These were the same tests which were required for military-grade laptops and cost thousands of dollars. In fact they appeared to have been cut and pasted from the spec of Hewlett Packard's rugged notebook launched in 2004.

  Datawind felt it was almost as if I.I.T. Rajasthan no longer wanted Datawind involved in the project and sent them a comedy spec to see them off.

  This suspicion was confrimed when DataWind's subcontractor Quad Electronic, without DataWind's knowledge, signed an agreement with I.I.T. Rajasthan to manufacture a rival low-cost tablet.

  The situation was so cloak and dagger that when DataWind executives saw a senior Quad Electronic executive on the daily flight to Jodphur, he tried to hide his face with a newspaper.

  Quad Electronic confirmed in last month that it had signed a memorandum of understanding with I.I.T. Rajasthan, but insisted that his company was making "smart television boxes" and communication devices.

  However suddenly the college asked for the project to be transferred from them to I.I.T. Bombay, according to the New York Times.

  Aakash is now being led by Deepak Phatak, said the manufacturer and I.I.T. Rajasthan had "some intractable problems," which prompted I.I.T. Rajasthan to request the ministry that the project be taken away from them.

  I.I.T. Bombay now wants to draw up a new contract and start from scratch.

  DataWind is furious and has severed all ties with Quad Electronic, and is working with a new subcontractor. It is unclear whether DataWind will be producing the Indian government's tablet going forward, despite winning the tender.

  It does not know how much money it has wasted trying to deal with the project but appears to have been out manoeuvred by someone. The net result will be that Indian students will not get their government supported tablets. 

  
• May 04, 2012
• 16:53

  AMD nicks former Dell CMO Colette LaForce

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  AMD has announced a new senior vice president to take over as chief marketing officer, picking Colette LaForce after Nigel Dessau's departure.

  Colette La Force will be in charge of marketing, strategy branding, and communications for the company which is about to try to launch a comeback against rival Intel with its upcoming Trinity chip.

  Part of her job will be to accelerate the “revitalisation of the AMD brand”, according to CEO Rory Read.  This is no small task.

  Presumably one of her first tasks will be to help push the new Trinity-based Ultrathings that AMD is prepping in response Intel’s own flock of Ultraportables.

  LaForce, 39, has spent almost a decade in marketing and comms, with roles in a number of tech and venture capital roles such as Accenture.

  LaForce will replace former CMO Nigel Dessau who was fired  last December.

  
• 16:51

  Ye Booke of Nok Nok Nokia on Heaven's Door

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

   

  And it came to pass that Nokia's new King Risto Siilasmaa did call forth his shareholders and subjects to explain unto them his new turnaround strategy. For he had heard on the grape vine that his shareholders were wrath for the price of Nokia shares had gone unto the depths of the deepest sea, yea even deeper than Leviathan could swim if he were wearing an aqualung patented by Jacques Cousteau. The shareholders did complain that they had lost patience with Nokia's efforts to catch up in the smartphone. Hath we not been conquered by the dedicated followers of Apple, and the minions of Google hath conquered us also. Is it not written that the only reason we hath not been conquered by RIM is because they can't get the conkers? But King Siilasmaa did call on his followers to hold fast to the faith of their new alliance with King Ballmer. “Hath he not given us the miracle of the Lumia, which is a shiny toy which neither looks unto the iPhone, nor unto the Android,” said King Siilasmaa. “Yeah,” said the shareholders, “So it is a product that no one wants.” King Siilasmaa said unto them that he was confident that Nokia had the right team, right strategy and the right products on the market to get it through this period of tribulation. But the shareholders thought that he had a bunch of right Charlies, trying to flog the wrong products with a cunning plan which worketh not. “Hath we seen more organisation running around the farmyard with its head cut off? Is there not more intelligent things lying on their back at the bottom of ponds?” King Siilasmaa admitted that sales of Nokia's new smartphone range were slower than Abraham taking his son up the mountain to sacrifice to YHWH, and meanwhile Symbian sales had dried up faster than dew on the beach of the Dead Sea. His grand viziar Stephen Elop said that it was harder than he expected to break through but this was the territory of the virgin and perhaps he should have expected more resistance. While Nokia had been conquered by Samsung Electronics he feared not, for if the share price fell low enough, his chum King Ballmer would buy the company and all would be well again. Yea, and the Fetch and Standard & Poor's cut Nokia's credit rating to "sewer in the last toilet in hell", given its bleak outlook.

  

  
• 15:51

  Web censorship culture entrenches itself in Britain's parliament

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Britain's Prime Minister, David Cameron, scraped an election win on the back of promises like the 'big society'. Margaret Thatcher famously claimed that there was no society, just individuals. This particular piece of post-Maggie Tory spin was supposed to unite people into taking responsibility for their own actions and communities. It has been anything but. A cursory glance, let alone an in-depth analysis of the UK's proposed policies about internet governence suggests that this parliament distrusts the individual actions of people more than any before it.

  Anyone who flagged this week's blocking of file-sharing website The Pirate Bay as setting an unsettling precedent will not feel encouraged by the latest calls to further put the boot in over personal freedoms. 

  The latest from the government is that it will consult on new measures to protect children from internet pornography, according to the BBC. Rather than encouraging any form of autonomy, a Conservative backbenchers is firmly basing her pleas on a "Helen Lovejoy" approach to politics - baying for further censorship from ISPs because, really, we must think of the children. 

  Conservative MP Claire Perry said internet service providers have been "dragging their feet" on the problem of pornography, and even that they have been "complicit" in exposing children to adult material. The way the issue of censorship is framed is particularly emotive, and designed to stir the heart rather than engage in the logic of the brain: who doesn't want to protect our children? Let's not sugarcoat this, though. It is proposed state censorship.

  Labour's shadow culture secretary Harriet Harman agreed: "Keeping children safe online is a real problem and a concern for millions of parents," she said. "We need to work closely with the industry to develop blocking technology which is easy to use and effective so that parents have the control they need to protect their children". Censorship, then, is on the agenda of both of the mainstream parties. 
  
  Director of privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch, Nick Pickles, told the BBC that the consultation, at least, was a positive step in the right direction. Speaking with cautious optimism, Pickles suggested that it's a healthy sign debate is on the table rather than immediate reactionary policy. But consultations are what the government makes of them. Labour, before it suffered a defeat in the general elections, ignored much of the criticisms against it and rushed through the largely maligned Digital Economy Act.

  Censorship does not work. Think of it in terms of prohibition. Heavy-handed enforcement that punishes large swathes of the population - nice try, RIAA, circa Napster - did little to stem piracy. All even the most technologically un-savvy need to do to get around censorship is spend one or two minutes on Google, and another ten minutes reading. When there's a will, there's a way, could not be truer. At most censorship is an inconvenience. Virgin Media became the first service provider to block access to The Pirate Bay. Accessing it regardless could not be much easier. 

  Pickles, speaking with TechEye, agreed that "web-blocking is a crude tool" which "does not prevent determined users accessing content." 

  "The broader consequences risk damaging legitimate businesses and undermining cyber security while further perpetuating the myth that this is an easy technological solution to a complex problem," Pickles said.

  "Ultimately," Pickles said, "the risk is that ISPs will be expected to monitor everything their customers do online to ensure they are not doing something they should not be." Indeed, it is "almost inevitable certain groups will call for this" when internet censorship is exposed as ineffective and easily avoided. 

  "As the calls for greater surveillance of our online activity intensify, the long term risk is that the state will take on the function of deciding what we are allowed to see online," he said.

  The last point is especially troubling. Just where does censorship draw the line - and who is drawing that line? It certainly does not appear to be a democratic process.

  Some would argue that the internet is the biggest society we're ever going to get. Users can communicate, transfer information or data at increasingly fast speeds. The society is global and, as web access is considered a 'right', the participants will ultimately be almost everyone. There is no chance reactionary back-benchers can compete with that: they have think-tanks and tabloid campaigns. Citizens of the web have among their ranks the world's greatest thinkers, often collaborating enthusiastically and without a profit motive. As a result, crowdsourced intelligence will always be one, if not several, steps ahead of censor-happy bureaucracies. There is already a very, very, big society. It is the world. And it is mobilised, online. 

  
• 15:07

  Infosys accused of US visa fraud

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Infosys has been dealt another blow after an employee has detailed methods used to circumvent US visa laws, and how the firm systematically discriminated against American staff.

  Following the accusations made by Infosys whistleblower Jay Palmer that the Indian firm has been smuggling in workers to the US, another former employee has highlighted ways employees enter the country.

  Speaking to ITBusinessEdge, an anonymous former manager from India at Infosys said that the firm had briefed Indian employees of how to get past immigration officials on a B-1 visa.

  A B-1 visa allows an individual to travel to the US for sales meetings and so forth, but prohibits actually working.

  According to the former Infosys worker, the firm would have “briefing sessions” telling them how to “lie to officials” once they arrive at US customs.

  They would be given tips such as not packing Java programming textbooks, for example, in order to hoodwink immmigration officials. With the amount of money promised there was never a shortage of Indian workers who were willing to circumnavigate US immigration laws.

  Apparently the Indian company ”doesn’t care” about flouting rules in the US, despite its large presence there.

  The same former employee also made claims of systematic discrimination of American recruits.

  It is alleged that while Infosys would conduct recruitment drives of college students in the US, new recruits were lied to with the promise of job possibilities.

  In actual fact middle management executives at the company had ignored demands by top staff to implement a more culturally diverse recruitment policy and were ignoring potential new recruits.

  Despite hiring bright sparks from some of the top unis in the US, the “utilization rate for these people was extremely low”, ITBusinessEdge heard.

  The reason that US recruits were not used was that they were unwilling to work the long hours of Indian workers.  

  While US workers would want to have evenings free after a days work, it was considered that the Indian cultural work ethic would mean that employees would be willing to spend evenings reporting back to head offices in India.

  Consequently, the former Infosys man claimed that he would have to lie to potential new recruits that they had a future at the firm - when the reality was that they would likely join the legions of others who left after just a few months.

  
• 14:06

  TSMC shows off a 28nm ARM

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  TSMC has started rolling out a 28-nanometer ARM chip which can run at 3.1GHz.

  As CNET has pointed out, this is pretty fast for a mobile chip and while Intel's higher-end mobile parts are rated close to 3GHz they suck up more juice and are more expensive.

  The TSMC chip is a dual-core A9 managed to do its speed feat under under typical conditions. In other words, in a machine and not sitting in a bucket of liquid nitrogen.

  TSMC said that its 28-nanometer HPM process was developed for tablet and mobile consumer products. It claims that it's twice as fast as an equivalent chip built on an older 40nm process.

  Using scalable design conditions, ARM A9 at TSMC 28HPM delivers performance speed ranging from 1.5GHz to 2.0GHz and to 3.1GHz, the company said.

  Cliff Hou, TSMC Vice President, Research & Development said that the work demonstrates how ARM and TSMC can satisfy high performance market demands.

  There is no indication where the chip will end up, or if TSMC has any clients for it.

   

   

  
• 14:02

  IP addresses are not enough to spot pirates

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  A New York Judge has decided that just because Big Content has a "pirate's" IP address it is not enough to charge them with anything.

  So far Big Content has favoured mass lawsuits as one of its weapons of choice against file-sharing and to do that it uses IP addresses to identify infringers.

  New York Judge Gary Brown has decided, however, these cases tend to operate with the pinpoint accuracy of a North Korean ICBM.

  He has ruled that IP addresses are insufficient evidence to identify pirates.

  Brown has decided that the person who has the misfortune of having their name attached to the IP address in question isn't necessarily the one who was doing the pirating.

  In some cases the RIAA's own IPs have been caught infringing - with Big Content claiming that someone else was using their Ips.

  According to Torrent Freak, Judge Gary Brown makes it clear legally why IP addresses are not sufficient evidence to prosecute pirates.

  He said that in the past a single, wired access point was registered to a single person and could only be used by one person at any given time.

  Now wireless routers stuff up the logic that an IP address could be a person. Since 61 percent of US homes now have wireless access it is possible that a single IP address usually supports multiple computer devices which could be operated by different individuals.

  Neighbours or passersby could access the internet using the IP address assigned to a particular subscriber and download a plaintiff's film.

  It sounds obvious but so far it has avoided being presented as a serious argument in any court case.

  But the ruling will mean that Big Content will have to come up with a lot more proof of who the pirate is, rather than an IP address. 

  
• 10:18

  John McAfee arrested in Belize

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  John McAfee, who founded McAfee Antivirus, is in trouble with a country which he has given millions of dollars to help out.

  McAfee lives in Belize and has even given the country's Coastguard a patrol ship.

  Now he says that he has become a target of the Gang Suppression Unit after failing to bribe a local political boss of the district where he lived.

  McAfee says the GSU came busting into his research facility in Orange Walk, killed his dog, took his passport, handcuffed him and arrested him on a bogus weapons charge.

  The GSU took sledge hammers to every door, when they were not locked, confiscated his passport, all of the weapons used for security on the compound, handcuffed him and held for 14 hours.

  McAfee was arrested on a bogus charge of having an illegal firearm. He said that one of the GSU officers took all of his firearm licenses and put them in his vest. When he took them out to check the firearms, one was missing.

  There were copies which meant that the police could not hold him, but it took the intervention of the American embassy to get released. They confiscated his passport and claimed they didn't have it.

  McAfee is particularly cross because he has given 2 million dollars in gifts to the police departments in Orange Walk, San Pedro, Belize City, to the village of Carmelita, and the City of Orange Walk. McAfee has also started programs to feed children and helped mothers whose husbands have simply disappeared.

  But he said that he didn't invest in politics or any political party.

  The politician who expected money was miffed that McAfee gave a million dollars to the police department and he got nothing. Immediately after that, his aids allegedly began a campaign of calling to the local radio stations on Saturday morning talk shows saying that the while man at the toll bridge with the security guards had to go because he had to be doing something illegal.

  McAfee had the last laugh. The politician did not get reelected, but judging by local press reports  the GSU still felt obliged to do his bidding. 

  
• 10:12

  Nokia turns patent troll

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Troubled former-rubber boot maker Nokia has decided to follow the business plan of others which are not making enough cash and turn into a patent troll.

  Oddly its first target is one of its former chums, smartphone maker HTC.

  According to Reuters, Nokia filed several lawsuits in Germany covering 45 hardware and software patents, ranging from power management to data encryption technologies against HTC, RIM and tablet-maker ViewSonic.

  It has filed complaints in the US against HTC and ViewSonic, including a complaint to the U.S. International Trade Commission.

  Last month Nokia warned that it was going to try and squeeze more cash from its patent portfolio.

  However, the HTC suit is particularly nasty as the two companies fought for ages together against German patent firm IPCom.

  HTC said it had been a licensee of Nokia on wireless essential patents since 2003 and it was waiting to receive a complaint.

  The move follows a ruling in Germany which ruled that Microsoft had infringed Motorola Mobility's patents and would have to remove its Xbox 360 gaming consoles and Windows 7 operating system software from the German market.

  Pretty soon it will be impossible to run computers in Germany as that nation has become the Texas of European patent law and seems to think that everything is stolen from someone.

  Nokia is to be feared as a patent troll as it has one of the widest patent portfolios in the industry, along with Ericsson and Qualcomm.

  The patents are for technology like synchronising information, including calendars, between the smartphone and mainframe computers, extending battery life and allowing mobile phones to be compatible with different systems. 

  
• 10:10

  RIM decides to hire marketing manager

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Slow motion train wreck RIM has decided that after all its plunging sales it really needs a marketing boss to look after its next generation Blackberry.

  RIM Chief Executive Thorsten Heins admitted RIM "spoke with more than one voice" when it marketed its BlackBerry 7 smartphones and its PlayBook tablet. We guess hearing too many voices including the one which says "die, die, die" would be one reason why RIM is doing badly.

  While the Canadian company is hoping to God that its BlackBerry 10 platform will reverse its fortunes but it still has all the problems that it always had.

  According to Reuters, Heins told a very subdued BlackBerry World conference in Orlando, Florida that it was fairly obvious that there needed to be one marketing person to control such an important project.

  RIM stock has fallen almost six percent this week after the company gave investors a glimpse of its next-generation smartphones and the tools they would need to create apps for the gadgets.

  Some have suggested that while the Blackberry 10 is not bad it is not exactly going to set the world on fire.

  Heins was doing his best in front of cynical hacks, tredding a fine line between admitting the company had made a few mistakes, hinting that he has a cunning plan without telling anyone what it was.

  Unfortunately this lack of details is not winning over the media or developers who RIM needs to get on board to provide some killer apps to justify buying them.

  RIM has around 15,000 apps for its PlayBook tablet and 70,000 apps for its smartphones or the tablet, compared with 200,000 iPad apps, and half a million for the iPhone. The company has become something of a joke, but Heins is probably not laughing.

  RIM has been without a marketing chief since Keith Pardy saw the writing on the wall and left the company last March. This was just before RIM launched the PlayBook, which tanked worse than New Zealand's Bob Semple - which was supposed to turn back Japanese invaders but was made using local materials and were converted back to being tractors before they did anyone an injury.

  RIM also needs a new chief operating officer and a chief technology officer, and a future. 

  
• 10:02

  Oracle dealt blow in Android case

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Oracle's plan to squeeze cash out of Google for using its patents might have run aground after a judge ruled that Android loses the search outfit money.

  According to Computerworld,  US District Judge William Alsup put a spanner in the works by ruling that Android resulted in a net loss for the company in every quarter of 2010, despite generating roughly $97.7 million in revenue for the first quarter of that year.

  The fact that Google loses money on Android would seriously damage any level of damages owed.

  A jury is deliberating on Oracle's allegation that Google violated its copyright to parts of the Java.

  A juror sent out a note asking what would happen if they can't reach a unanimous verdict. Alsup sent the jury home for the day.

  If the jury does become deadlocked, Alsup said that they might move on to hear evidence in the patent phase of the case, and another jury would have to resolve the copyright questions on a retrial.

  Meanwhile Alsup quizzed attorneys for both companies about some of the Android financial information submitted in the case.

  Alsup had sealed an internal 2011 Google document but read aloud certain portions of it in court.

  While he did not disclose the specific loss figures for Android, he said it lost money in each quarter of 2010 which added up to a big loss for the whole year.

  Oracle insists that Google should not be able to deduct certain Android expenses for the purposes of copyright damages in the case. 

  
• 9:59

  Hynix gives up on Elpida plans

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Shareholders have breathed a sigh of relief after Hynix dropped its bid for bankrupt Japanese company Elpida Memory.

  Shares soared to a two-week high on the back of the news that Hynix had walked away from the auction of the company.

  Micron and Hynix were among a handful of investors who showed any interest in Elpida. The troubled company filed for bankruptcy protection in late February with $5.6 billion in debts.

  According to Business Week, Hynix Chairman Chey Tae-won told reporters after a board meeting that his company had decided to pull out of the bidding as the deal would not "strategically benefit" the company.

  Currently it looks like TPG Capital and China's Hony Capital will place a joint bid for Elpida in the final round of an auction.

  A group of Elpida bondholders said last month they may thwart the auction if trustees sell the company at a price which they think is too low.

  Elpida makes DRAM and is behind Samsung Electronics and Hynix.

  The company's failure was the largest for a Japanese manufacturer ever since World War Two stuffed a few up. 

  
• 9:57

  Ballmer signs noise reduction deal

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  After years of quietly making his point in Redmond, the shy and retiring CEO Steve "there's a kind of hush" Ballmer is getting serious about noise reduction.

  He has signed an agreement with audio technology licensor Dolby Labs for the use of its products in the Windows 8 operating system. It might mean that finally Ballmer will remove the hiss when he enters a room.

  It looks like Vole will include Dolby Digital Plus 5.1-channel decoding and two-channel encoding in Windows 8 and original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) will pay a base royalty rate to Dolby for using its products.

  Sadly for Dolby it will not change its bottom line until next year as Windows 8 is not expected to ship until Dolby's fiscal 2013.

  Dolby Digital is an audio encoder and decoder designed to deliver 5.1 channels of audio to DVDs, blu-ray discs, cable, broadcast, satellite TV programming, PCs and video games.

  It looks like every copy of Windows 8 will include the function to play Dolby encoding but OEMs will have to pay for the optical disk playback functionality.

  Dolby will only get one royalty payment per device containing these technologies.

  Reuters said that it has been a good year for Dolby with revenue for the quarter rising to four percent to $260.3 million. 

  
• 9:55

  Yahoo CEO in hot water over tech qualifications

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson, former president of PayPal, is facing allegations that he lied about his tech credentials to make himself appear more qualified for the job.

  Hedge fund manager Daniel Loeb is furious that Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson, former president of PayPal, doesn't have a bachelor's degree in computer science from Stonehill College near Boston as he claimed. Apparently Thompson has a degree in accounting.

  He dashed off a letter to Yahoo's board of directors claiming that Thompson must have told porkies to get the job.

  After all, turning around PayPal is not going to get you a job - while a BSc in computer science is just about everything a board wants in a CEO.

  Yahoo confirmed Loeb's findings, but the company attributed the misinformation to an "inadvertent error".

  Thompson received a bachelor of science degree in business administration with a major in accounting from Stonehill college. the spokesperson said in a statement to Reuters. There was an inadvertent error that stated Thompson also holds a degree in computer science, the spokesperson added.

  Loeb wants to shake up Yahoo's board so he can help come up with a strategy to boost the company's long-slumping stock price. The board has to listen to him a little bit because he controls a 5.8 percent stake in Yahoo through a company called Third Point. 

  
• 9:52

  Microsoft uses Linux for Skype supernodes

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Microsoft has overhauled its Skype voice-over-IP service by replacing peer-to-peer client machines with thousands of Linux boxes.

  The boxes have been hardened against the most common types of hack attacks.

  According to an insecurity expert at Immunity Security, Kostya Kortchinsky, the roll out, which was carried out in secret, happened two months ago.

  It a departure from the design that has powered Skype for the past decade.

  Skype has consisted of "supernodes" made up of regular users who had sufficient bandwidth, processing power, and other system requirements.

  These supernodes then transferred data with other supernodes in a peer-to-peer fashion.

  Kortchinsky's analysis shows that Skype is now being powered by a little more than 10,000 supernodes which are hosted by the company and regular users are not promoted to supernode status.

  Each of the boxes run Linux using grsecurity which is a collection of patches and configurations designed to make servers more resistant to attacks.

  Supernodes used to only handle 800 end users, but Kortchinsky said, the newer ones host about 4,100 users and have a theoretical limit of as many as 100,000 users. Kortchinsky discovered the Linux supernodes are using a Skype probing technique.

  It does mean that Microsoft has moved away from user-supplied supernodes and there is a questions about the suitability of peer-to-peer technology to run services that small and large businesses rely on for sensitive calls and messages.

  Mark Gillett, CVP, Skype Product Engineering & Operations told Ars Technica that Microsoft had developed supernodes which can be located on dedicated servers within secure datacentres. Skype's peer-to-peer architecture is the same - it is just the supernodes are now in-house and not running on Windows. 

  
• May 03, 2012
• 16:04

  Blind man sees again with bionic eye

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Efforts to implant a ‘bionic eye’ using microchip technology have been a success, with a surgical team fitting an electronic retina into a patient in Oxford.

  Chris James has had sight partially restored after surgeons were able to fit a tiny chip with 1,500 electronic light detecting diodes just below his retina.  

  The implant works by sending electronic signals from the chip to the optic nerves, which were stimulated by small electrodes to create a “pixellated image”.  

  James was able to detect light immediately after the electronic retinas were switched on.

  James had suffered from retinitis pigmentosa, a condition which sees light-detecting cells in the retina deteriorate over time.  The disease affects around one in every 3,000 people in Europe.

  James had began to lose his sight in 1990, eventually becoming almost totally blind.

  Now with the device, which looks like a hearing aid placed behind the patient’s ear, James is, incredibly, able to make out objects such as a plate on a table because of the chip implant.

  The trial was replicated a few weeks later on a second patient, with similar results.

  The implants, developed by German firm Retina Implant, have been going through trials for some time now, and have had some success.  

  Further operations are now planned on other patients, and while the technology is still clearly in its early stages, it looks promising for enabling more widespread use.

  
• 12:19

  Web sting catches another German minister

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  The German government is being picked apart by an anonymous website which has been finding evidence that top ministers plagiarised their papers.

  German Education and Research Minister Annette Schavan is the latest to be outed by the Schavanplag site, which claims that she plagiarised parts of her PhD dissertation which was published in 1980.

  The site says Schavan copied phrasing from improperly cited sources. Her dissertation was entitled: "Person and conscience—Studies on conditions, need and requirements of today's consciences" and was a best seller at the University of Düsseldorf.

  Schavan showed up at a press conference to talk about her ministry's proposal for a new law that will give German science organisations more freedom over their budgets.

  Instead she found the German media less interested in budgets and instead were more excited about giving her a Chinese burn about the blog.

  She said that it all happened a long time and at some point you have to just let things go.  

  Her exact quote was that the dissertation was written 32 years ago, and that she "will be happy to give my account to those who are looking into the work"  but it is difficult to deal with anonymous allegations.

  Schavan's case is the latest in a string of similar accusations against German politicians. Just over a year ago, Defense Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg resigned after a blogger turned up evidence of extensive plagiarism in his dissertation.

  The University of Bayreuth evoked zu Guttenberg's Ph.D. Title. Since then six other German politicians have had their Ph.D.s revoked because of similar offences. 

  
• 12:02

  Ken Livingstone could contract IBM for London 'smart city'

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  IBM could be set to benefit from a Ken Livingston pledge to turn London into a ‘smart city’.

  TechEye understands that Red Ken is supportive of IBM’s Smarter Cities initiative which is aiming to improve urban infrastructure through ICT.

  Smarter Cities involve use of machine to machine communications to provide masses of data that can be used to more efficiently monitor and manage urban environments.   

  Smart cities involve using microchips to give much greater levels of insight into public life and amenities. Smart metering is one example which is already getting the go ahead in the UK, but putting chips in parking bays could mean generating information to direct traffic flow, for example.

  All of this information needs to be collected and analysed, and doing so is already big business. IBM has been pushing its initiatives in cities across the globe, and TechEye believes IBM will be bidding for contracts in London if Livingstone is to be re-elected today.

  TechEye spoke to Livingstone’s office, and though it was not possible to provide any details on which firms might be involved, a spokesperson outlined his pledge to use smart technologies to improve the city.

  "The most efficient cities of tomorrow will be those that embrace information innovation today,” Ken’s office said. 

  “For example, Ken's plan to use sensors in parking bays will both reduce the time drivers waste looking for somewhere to park and cut congestion. 

  “Adapting magnetic induction charging will enable London to leap-frog the competition and move straight to electric buses - cutting pollution and saving money in the health service as well as lives." 

  TechEye was told that Ken “agrees with the business mantra ‘you can only manage what you can measure’.” 

  “We will establish an 'information architecture' for London, so that Londoners can save money, for example through smart meters in the home," the spokesperson said, "and decisions ranging from when streetlights need replacing to managing natural capital can all be made with optimum efficiency.” 

  “We will enable entrepreneurial IT firms to thrive, making appropriate data available to the market."

  
• 11:09

  Apple furious with Dropbox

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Apple is blocking apps that take advantage of the new Dropbox SDK which allows users to buy extra online storage without Apple taking a cut.

  Dropbox has been popular with iOS developers because it allows users to share files created within their apps to other devices.

  The online storage outfit's latest SDK, however, has caused Cupertino to throw its toys out of the pram because users who don't have the Dropbox app installed on their iPhone/iPad are instead pushed to Dropbox's website via the Safari browser.

  This allows them to lick a link to the desktop version of the service, which allows them to buy extra Dropbox storage without Apple taking its usual 30 percent fee.

  Apple claims that that any apps based on the new SDK are contravening its rules on in-app purchases. Developers pointed out that Apple was doing its best to kill off any commerce which did not take place within its walled garden of delights.

  The Dropbox forum includes comments like: "Apple should reject all web browser apps because they can take you to a page that lets you purchase stuff."

  ZDnet claims that Dropbox is in negotiation with Apple over the ban. Good luck with that, Apple has shown a marked lack of interest in co-operating with those who offer a rival service. 

  
• 10:39

  Sony demonstrates its enormous enthusiasm for Ultrabooks

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  It looks like Sony is not really that interested in promoting Intel's Ultrabooks.

  Its latest Vaio Z series laptop is a 13-inch device that's just 0.66 inches thick and weighs only 2.57 pounds which many would think would make a rather nice Ultrabook. The only difference is that it is a proper PC.

  So you would expect Sony's first ultrabook would be something pretty anorexic.

  But Wired is reporting that Sony's first true, Intel-approved Ultrabooks, the Vaio T, are thicker and much heavier than the company's existing super-thin Z series notebook.

  The new T13 weighs 3.5 pounds which is nearly a full pound heavier than the Vaio Z series notebook.

  The T13 Ultrabook is 0.7 inches which is a little bit thicker than the 0.66-inch Z series notebook.

  While the T Series specs are about the same as other Ultrabooks they are shipping with the slightly outdated Sandy Bridge platform.

  So Sony's first Ultrabook is thicker and heavier than its laptop and is shipping with an out-of-date processor. If you are starting to wonder if Sony's heart is in this Ultrabook thing you might not be the only one.

  Still, the way Sony has been going lately, the fact that it does not appear committed to Ultrabooks are probably an indication that that the spec will do really well. 

  
• 9:48

  Oracle refuses to bury the hatchet with HP

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Oracle has ruled out a settlement with the maker of expensive printer ink, HP, over the Itanium microprocessor.

  According to Reuters, Oracle attorney Dan Wall said a settlement of the lawsuit "isn't going to happen." HP wants $4 billion in lost profit damages over Oracle pulled support for Itanium, while Oracle argues that HP's claims are meritless.

  Oracle decided to discontinue support for Itanium last year, claiming Intel said that the chip was nearing the end of its life and that Intel was shifting its focus to x86.

  However, HP believed that it had agreed that support for Itanium would continue. HP sued Oracle last year, calling Oracle's decision "anti-customer."

  But Oracle said that HP's claims "cannot support" its damages estimate. It has counter-sued HP for false advertising.

  Both sides had a crack at convincing Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge James Kleinberg to hand them a win before trial. Kleinberg said no and compared the case to a divorce.

  He told the two sides that they had to give serious consideration to a settlement. He said the case was "extremely challenging" and he did not know how it would turn out. 

  
• 9:29

  Pakistan's high court declares censoring the net is illegal

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  While the UK tends to look down its nose at Pakistan on the small matter of human rights,  it seems that it has something to learn from the country after all.

  When its government decided to emulate David Cameron's moves to censor the web, a petition by civil rights groups resulted in a court ruling saying that such censorship is unconstitutional.

  Just like Australia and the UK, Pakistan's government was building a list of those sites it did not like with the view that they would be blocked.

  Pakistan's attempts could have blocked 50 million sites that the government wasn't a fan of.

  According to Reporters Without Borders , the high court's ruling, if respected, would make it impossible for the government to introduce any nationwide website filtering system.

  Sadly, it looks like the Pakistani government will press ahead with the scheme by coming up with a constitutional fudge based on the country's anti-blasphemy law and national security provisions.

  The UK has not got an anti-blasphemy law, but then again, it does not have a constitution either. 

  
• 9:23

  Mozilla wades into CISPA

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  The Mozilla Foundation has become the first IT company to slam the US Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA).

  The IT industry has been strangely quiet about the act even if there has been a lot of anger about the bill on the internet.

  Now Mozilla's Privacy and Public Policy has issued a statement which slams the bill completely.

  A statement from Mozilla said that CISPA has a broad and alarming reach that goes far beyond internet security. The proposed law not only infringes on privacy, it also includes vague definitions of cybersecurity, and grants immunities to companies and government that are far too broad.

  The Foundation hopes that the Senate takes the time to fully and openly consider its points before moving forward with the daft law.

  CISPA was supposed to allow the sharing of cybersecurity threat information between the private sector and the government.

  In actual fact it allows firms to share users' private data with spooks.

  You know that the law is trouble because the House of Representatives added a few late amendments to make it look like it was protecting children from paedophiles in a desperate bid to get support.

  CISPA's official supporters include Facebook, Microsoft, IBM, Intel, Oracle and Symantec.

  Forbes has reported that Microsoft appears to be getting cold feet about the bill because of privacy concerns.

  Google is the only major Web firm that has yet to take a stance on CISPA.

  Mozilla is the first to break ranks with the others in the IT industry. 

  
• 9:18

  EU court rules you can't copyright software in Europe

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  The European Court has decided that it is impossible to copyright a computer language or computer functionality.

  According to an announcement from the EU Court of Justice, a Directive on the legal protection of computer programs extends copyright protection to the expression in any form of an intellectual creation of the author of a computer program. However, any ideas and principles including those under the bonnet are not protected by copyright.

  So in other words you can only protect the ideas and principles of your code but not the actual program itself.

  The Advocate General said that if the functionality of a computer program could be protected by copyright would amount to making it possible to monopolise ideas, to the detriment of technological progress and industrial development.

  The court said there could be no copyright infringement where a person did not have access to the source code of the computer program but merely studied, observed and tested that program in order to reproduce its functionality.

  Groklaw pointed out that it will be a kick in the nadgers for Oracle which is currently trying to spread copyright further than it has traditionally gone. Oracle wants copyright to cover the structure, sequence and organisation of APIs. It means that Oracle would not be able to get Google in the EU in the same sort of trial it is getting in the US.

  The world and its dog is waiting for the jury verdict in the copyright phase of Oracle v. Google now.

  The case the Europeans ruled on was WPL versus SAS. WPL created a re-implementation of the SAS language, using the original documentation of SAS and a freebie version for personal and educational use. SAS claimed WPL infringed on copyright and now has lost. 

  
• May 02, 2012
• 16:48

  Super-fast short range wireless gets boost with 60GHz chip

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Belgian research lab Imec has been developing a 60GHz radio transceiver chip that could soon allow vast amounts of data to be sent between mobile devices such as tablets or smartphones.

  The prototype chip could help push adoption of the wireless signal spectrum in consumer products in the future.  While much radio spectrum operates at much lower frequencies - the upcoming UK 4G auction will be selling at around the 2.6 GHz range - 60GHz spectrum will offer vastly increased speeds.

  Data rates of 7Gbps are attainable over short distances, and Imec, working alongside Panasonic, reckon they can do so with very low power consumption.  This could mean that information could be sent from device to device at incredibly high speeds.

  Imec says that one of the areas which has been blocking uptake so far has been the amount of power required for using spectrum in mobile devices. The research lab says that its CMOS-based transceiver is aimed at requiring less energy for use with the IEEE802.11ad standard.

  The 40 nanometre low power integrated circuit chip is being pushed towards mass production, so that should help with costs too.

  A while ago, Ofcom said it would allow the 60GHz range to be available for commercial high speed data transmission, specifying the area between 57 and 64GHz.

  
• 13:17

  Intel forms lab with Huawei

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Intel and China's Huawei Technologies are building a joint lab to speed up the development of Time Division Duplex Long Term Evolution (TDD-LTE).

  The two companies have a cunning plan to speed up the implementation of TDD-LTE technology in China.

  Under the deal, Intel will connect directly to Huawei's infrastructure to carry out end-to-end testing of its mobile platforms.

  A spokesperson for Huawei, Deng Taihua, said that the company wanted to roll the technology out worldwide. It might have a few problems doing this, as the company is considered by some in the US as an untrustworthy arm of the Chinese government. However, the mood might change if the company is backed by Chipzilla.

  Vice President of Intel Architecture Group W.K. Tan said that Intel is committed to working with partners in China to build a healthy TDD-LTE ecosystem within China and beyond.

  In other words, if Chipzilla plays this right it could end up making a lot of money pushing cheaper LTE gear in the lucrative Chinese market. If both companies succeed, then they could end up leading the move to next generation networks worldwide. 

  
• 12:55

  Mozilla runs weird gear at its data centre

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Mozilla is playing with all sorts of weird gear at its data centre.

  Apparently it is running two SeaMicro SM10000 servers which do not get an airing anywhere else. The server is a fat box about the size of an air conditioner which is stuffed with 64 Xeon processors.

  Wired reports Mozilla has the new low powered SM10000′s in its Santa Clara data centre, which went online in February.

  The big idea is to move lighter web-serving loads to low-power systems, and to free up the bigger hard drive capacity, memory, and CPU power on the organisation's blade server so that they can run databases.

  Matthew Zeier, Mozilla's director of IT operations has flipped the normal use of servers on its head by sticking web traffic onto the SeaMicro which would normally be called a database server. 

  Zeier wanted to consolidate his three Bay Area operations into one. It was costing so much in power he thought it might be time to move from retail to a wholesale data centre.

  He asked around to find out how he could do it and got some of his open source friends to lend a hand and come up with some novel ideas.

  The data centre uses about a half-megawatt of power, but by the year's end, as Mozilla adds more and more servers, its power consumption will double, he says.

  But Zeier admits his data centre is pretty weird. For a start there are the SeaMicro servers and then there is a rack of 500 Mac Mini computers, consumer systems that you almost never see in a data centre. These are used as part of Mozilla's browser test-bed. 

  
• 12:46

  UK rushing into 4G, claim

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  The UK is being rushed into adopting 4G before it is ready according to Askar Sheibani, CEO of IT and telecoms repair company, Comtek.

  Sheibani said that while Ofcom defends the roll-out procedure of the 4G spectrum in the UK he thinks that it will create a monopoly in the UK marketplace.

  He added that there was no rush and said that claims from Everything Everywhere that 4G will boost GDP by £75 billion are hugely exaggerated.

  While 4G will encourage more consumerism, it will do nothing to help UK businesses to a great extent, he said.

  Sheibani said that Everything Everywhere is only pushing for faster 4G roll-out because it can use its spare spectrum to get ahead of its competitors.

  He is worried that if Ofcom bows to these demands, other network providers will be forced to rush the migration from 3G to 4G long before they are ready.

  With the economy in the gutter, it is hardly the time for the massive investments in infrastructure that will be required. Sheibani thinks that if 4G launches early, 3G infrastructure will not be maintained or developed and it will be consumers that ultimately lose out.

  "If the deployment for 4G infrastructure is not completed in an orderly fashion, service levels will undoubtedly slump and end users will not get the connectivity that they have come to expect. The UK could do without this, particularly with the Olympics on the horizon," he said.

  Already MVNO Mundio is seeking a court injunction to stop Everything Everywhere from decommissioning old mast sites, claiming this could lower service on its Vectone MVNO.

  Sheibani said this is one of many warning signs that the move to 4G will be problematic if steps are not taken to maintain existing services. 

  
• 10:50

  Cyber criminals take $10,000 a day from Apple users

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  The cyber criminals who hit on the wizard wheeze of targeting the faith based security system of Apple into a botnet are coining in $10,000 a day, according to anti-virus experts at Symantec.

  The money is created by picking Google's pocket by hijacking advertising "clicks".

  Symantec said a component of the widespread Flashback virus targets Google search queries made using Chrome, Safari, or Firefox browsers and directs people to pages dictated by the hackers.

  Clicking online ads are re-routed to websites of different merchants or publishers, with hackers getting paid the eight cents or so that would have been paid to Google for the referral.

  Symantec said that based on the hundreds of thousands of Macintosh computers believed to be infected with the Flashback virus, the amount of money raked in by hackers could climb to about $10,000 each day.

  Apple has patched the weakness exploited by the virus and claims that it is trying to disrupt the command network being used by hackers behind the infections. So far though its efforts have been to close down the site of a security company which found the virus in the first place.

  Computer security specialists think that there are more than 600,000 Macs with the virus. The numbers of Macs which have the virus does not seem to be dropping. Part of the problem is that Apple can't convince their users that they might be hacked, after telling them for years that using Apple machines protected them from all viruses. 

  
• 10:48

  Over half of US smartphone subscribers use Android

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Beancounters working for market researchers Comscore have worked out that Android has continued to grow its smartphone marketshare, accounting for 51 percent of smartphone subscribers in the USA.

  Apple is on 30 percent of all smartphones, according to data from the Comscore MobiLens service. Research in Motion ranked third, with 12.3 percent share, followed by Microsoft with 3.9 percent and Symbian at 1.4 percent.

  The Comscore report is based on a survey of more than 30,000 US mobile subscribers.

  Samsung was the top handset manufacturer overall, with 26.0 percent market share, which is an increase of 0.7 percentage points. LG was next with a 19.3 percent share. Apple continued to gain share in the OEM market, ranking third with 14 percent of mobile subscribers which was up 1.6 percentage points. Motorola had 12.8 percent and HTC with six percent.

  The survey estimates that more than 106 million people in the United States owned a smartphone during the three months ending in March. This is a nine percent increase from December.

  The Comscore report said that while Apple and Android may be dominating the market, another study found their customer bases use the phones differently.

  iPhones tend to connect to the internet via Wi-Fi more than Android phones. While 71 percent of all iPhones used both mobile and Wi-Fi networks to connect to the Internet, only 32 percent of unique Android mobile phones used both types of connections.

  Apparently the figures are the same in the UK where 87 percent of iPhones used both mobile and WiFi networks for web access, compared with 57 percent of Android phones.

  
• 10:40

  UK gov plans 'tech city' investment outside of M25

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Now that the PR buzz has settled since last year's shouting about the so-called East London Tech City, ministers are pawing at further further funds for investing in new areas going into 2013.

  Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) Minister Mark Prisk was questioned on how much cash had been earmarked for investments in other cities.

  Budgets from the Technology Strategy Board (TSB) and UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) have so far funded the East London Tech City - which the government has pushed as a shining light of entrepreneurship.  

  The project has acctracted some big names such as Cisco and Google, the latter of which has built an ‘innovation hub’ office near Shoreditch.

  Prisk said that the UKTI has been allocated £26 million for “specific inward investment events and programmes in the UK”.   He said the Tech City's share of the programme was £1.7 million, 6.5 percent of the total budget.   

  The Tech City Launchpad initiative, which provides grants for Tech City startups, is run by the Technology Strategy Board.

  According to Prisk, the Launchpad has committed grant funding of “£1,732,806 for digital projects seeking matched investment”. 

  The total of grants accepted so far amounts to £200,000, he said,  though the firms which have been allocated them need to find the same amount of funding in order to get their hands on the money.

  Further expansion of the project into other areas outside of London will be on the way in the future.  The TSB will be “investigating additional technology areas and cities for other possible Launchpad activities in 2012-13”, Prisk said.

  
• 10:07

  AMD Trinity slides leaked

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Early presentation slides of AMD's Trinity have been leaked to the great unwashed  which tells us of the improvements over the previous generation.

  Trinity APU processors are important now that Intel has managed to come up with an iGPU of its own.

  Looking at the slides, the changes seem to include lower TDPs with improved performance. Notebook processors need 17W, 25W and 35W TDP to run. Desktop wise, Trinity still maintains the 65W and 100W mark. The next generation of APUs come with two Piledriver modules built on top of the Bulldozer architecture.

  AMD has added new instructions and refined its architecture but units that perform integers as well as floating point calculations have been left the same.

  The scheduler, dividers and cache optimised to the nines which means that there should be better performance at the same clock speeds as the FX series.

  AMD estimated a performance increase of 26 percent in desktops and 29 percent in notebooks between Llano and the A series. Clock speeds will be between 2 to 2.8 GHz.

  This means that AMD will be putting its 17W variants put up against Intel's Ultrabook chips that are clocked at a minimum of 2 GHz.

  The slides show that the new iGPUs are built on the HD 6900 series GPU architecture. There are six VLIW4 clusters which adds up to 384 Radeon cores. Tessellation along with their UVD engine has improved video playback means lower power consumption.

  There is EyeFinity support for up to three monitors although you won't be able to game on all three screens.

  The graphics core is clocked between 424 to 800 MHz depending on the model.

  The top model for notebooks will be the A10-4600M which willl have a 496 MHz graphics core with a turbo of 685 MHz along with 384 Radeon cores. 

  
• 9:58

  Intel buys wireless patents from Aware

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Intel has decided that it is falling behind in the race to collect as many wireless patents as possible.

  The patents are becoming increasingly important in the game of patent trolling which is blighting the IT industry.

  Intel is apparently worried that someone might have a go at one of its trusted assets in the future and has bought shedloads of patents from Aware which is a Massachusetts-based DSL signal processing specialist.

  The patents cover fields such as WiFi, LTE and wireless home networking.

  According to Macworld the deal is more or less done and is just waiting regulatory approval.

  Aware has 74 full-time employees and with Intel's business it managed to triple its annual cashflow.

  Intel seems to be buying up patents like crazy over the last few days. It recently said it had bought out supercomputer maker Cray's interconnect department for £86 million. That move included not only IP but 74 Cray employees moving to Chipzilla.

  It seems that either Intel is planning a patent war of its own, or its oracles have predicted a big one coming.

  The method of engagement for a patent war is basically like a card game. The two sides hold all their patents. One side puts down one patent and the other side matches it. The winner is the one with the most cards in their hands at the end. They then sue claiming losses on the patents they have left.

  It is all very silly and not really based on innovation. After all, a big company like Google and Intel can afford to buy a lot of patents without actually inventing anything. 

  
• 9:51

  Intel's Tizen gets source code release

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Intel's hope for a mobile operating system has had its source code release.

  Tizen is an open source mobile OS based on Linux and backed up by the Linux foundation. Tizen is supposed to work on Atom N2800 and N2600 processors and can probably play nice with ARM chips too.

  Intel has backed Tizen because it combined the MeeGo and LiMo communities and their best technologies under one unified environment. It also has strong support for the HTML 5 and WAC wholesale application community.

  The Tizen 1.0 Larkspur had its source code released along with some new complimentary components.

  According to the Tizen Technical Steering Group (TTSG) the source code, with its new updates should make life easier for developers.

  Writing from its bog, the TTSG said that it was improving and adding to the SDK and source code. There are a few additional components that will be added soon including a few bug fixes and additional features.

  This release provides something called Simulator which is a browser-based tool that supports the Tizen APIs and allows web applications to run and be debugged. There are some IDE enhancements include more flexibility around templates and debugging tools, an emulator to test Windows and OpenGL acceleration for Linux.

  In addition, the TTSG has improved its community infrastructure by adding a bug tracker and wiki. There are also a number of back-end changes, designed to improve stability and scalability of the infrastructure. 

  
• 9:47

  C# ported to Android

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  After its court case with Oracle, Google might want to come up with a cheaper way of building native apps on Android.

  Now Xamarin has worked out a way of porting C# to Android.

  According to the company blog, the C# version is a higher performance, low-battery consuming alternative to Java.

  Based around a Mono platform the system is an open source implementation of the .NET framework.

  It allows developers to write their code using C# while running on top of the Java-powered operating system, and then share the code with iOS and Windows Phone.

  The advantage for Google is that Microsoft submitted C# and the .NET VM for standardisation to ECMA and saw those standards graduated all the way to ISO strong patent commitments. The .NET framework is also covered by Microsoft's legally binding community promise, so Google would not have to get an expensive licence.

  Apparently the porting was hatched out after a day of Kayaking.

  The team decided to translate Android's source code to C#.

  They thought that if they could create an Android phone completely free of Java, it could also be free of the limitations of the Dalvik VM.

  The blog said that the group set up a project called XobotOS and now has most of Android's layouts and controls entirely in C#.

  They used a tool called Sharpen which is a Java-to-C# translation tool the team adapted.

  If Google wants to get Oracle's hooks out of Android it could do a lot worse. It might even reduce its patent dependence on Microsoft too. 

  
• 9:38

  Ultrabook doing better than Dell expected

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Tin box shifter Dell has been a little surprised by the new ultra-thin laptop computer which is apparently doing much better than the company expected.

  Sales of the XPS 13 Ultrabook, which hit store shelves on 28 February, are now more than double the company's internal forecast.

  According to Reuters, the demand is coming from both consumers and big corporations.

  Dell product marketing director Alison Gardner said the XPS 13 has exceeded all Dell's expectations.

  The news will be of interest to Intel which thought that the price of the XPS 13, which starts at $999, was too high.

  More than half the sales were to big business, but then again half of Dell's profits come from enterprises.

  She did not give out any numbers, but said that she was seeing a lot of sales momentum for the super-thin category of laptops.

  Intel is providing support by kicking off its biggest marketing push since 2003 and has been running a "A New Era in Computing" campaign since April.

  Prices on Ultrabooks is expected to drop soon and the format will get a kick when improved Ivy Bridge chips find their way into the machines - and Windows 8 launches this year. 

  
• May 01, 2012
• 18:19

  Manchester Uni to throw Alan Turing a centenary shindig

   » ‎ Tech Eye - Latest technology headlines

  Centenary celebrations have been planned for the man widely acclaimed as the father of modern computing, Alan Turing.

  The University of Manchester will host an event featuring key speeches from Google senior vice president Dr Vint Cerf, Head of the IBM Watson project Dr David Ferruci, as well as others such as chessmaster Garry Gasparov and Turing award winners.

  Turing’s life and legacy will be discussed along with the future of computer science at the event which will run from 22nd to 25th June.

  The work of Alan Turing has been in the headlines recently as, at last, there is a move to promote computer sciences in the British curriculum.  

  In a speech, education minister Michael Gove heralded the “foundation stones” that Turing laid in the development of computing. Google’s Eric Schmidt, who criticised the absence of computer science education in the UK, will also speak at a centenary celebration in Princeton University on 10th May.

  While Turing is held in high regard at home and abroad, domestic authorities recently refused to overturn convictions for homosexuality against the computer scientist - who was part of the legendary Bletchley Park code-breaking team.

  Despite a recent petition to have his conviction pardoned, it was sadly ruled that this was not allowed as homosexuality was offence in the fifties when Turing was convicted.   Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown offered an apology for his treatment at the time.

  The event at Manchester University, where Turing worked with Max Newman and created the first computer with memory stored programs, will celebrate his life and work with three days of lectures and panel discussions.

  More details of the lectures can be found here.

  
• 15:01

  Apple and Samsung briefs get even sillier

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  Legal eagles swooping on the legal spat between Apple and Samsung are making their money with a range of silly court motions which reveals how childish the whole thing is getting.

  M'Learned friend for Cupertino apparently threw his iToy's out of the pram when he noticed that the juror's video monitor happened to be made by Samsung.

  He insisted that the tiny logo be obscured. We guess he was concerned that Apple's evidence would be somehow tainted by being seen alongside a Samsung logo. After all it can show to jurors that Samsung actually contributes technology to the US government, and at a subconscious level, it creates the impression of the court being Samsung territory.

  But according to Florian Mueller, who has popped his pop corn and is watching the trial, said there are more cases of even dafter orchestrated legal manoeuvring in the dark.

  Apple wants the court to exclude any "argument or evidence regarding statements attributed to Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson" in his biography.

  Obviously the Apple legal team does not want the jury to know that the whole case was started because Steve Jobs believed he invented the smartphone and was determined to waste all his company's profits on frivolous lawsuits to bring down Android for daring to copy his glorious self.

  Apple has also demanded the court remove any references to the fact that its products are made in sweat shops in China. It is hoping that Samsung will not be allowed to point to the fact that Apple doesn't manufacture in the United States.

  Samsung has also requested a few daft things be removed from the record.

  It wants to block references to blogs which clearly come from Apple fanboys and articles by non-expert newspaper reporters.

  Of course that still would allow Apple to showcase some of its finest press releases written by the likes of the New York Times.

  M'Learned friend for Samsung has asked the court not to listen to the opinions and testimony of Henry Urbach, who is Apple's expert on the alleged cultural significance of Apple.

  Urbach has a fairly daft theory that Apple should be allowed to do what it likes because its products have reached the status of religious items.

  Samsung points out that Urbach's report is full of his own subjective opinion that Apple products are desirable, beautiful, even stunning.

  Samsung points out that this sort of thing is nuts "has an unusual style" and Samsung insists it is not helpful to the jury.

  We have to agree with this one. Why on earth should a jury listen to this rubbish.

  "An object that is a fetish is not something that is merely used, but it is something that holds a kind of auratic power. It holds the authority to compel because it stands in for something else. It promises to secure or deliver, a god is a good example of that, a god that promises good fortune or immortality or fertility."

  If you stuff an iPhone in your pants, you will be lucky, immortal, and fertile.  

  Another one on Samsung's list of poo is Sanjay Sood, Apple's expert on consumer decision making. He is know for saying things like Apple is "known for design" and has "design in its DNA".

  Samsung said this sort of stuff is about as useful Sood's assessment of the importance of design in smartphone product choice based on irrelevant studies conducted about reactions to such basic products as lamps, staplers, tape dispensers, and alarm clocks.

  The court has yet to rule on any of these items, but we guess it will be an amusing day out. 

  
• 14:13

  Facebook encourages user generosity with their kidneys

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  Not content with just harvesting data, Mark Zuckerberg's enormous information mining operation is now looking into harvesting organs.

  Well, not exactly. Facebook is going to enable an option for people to register as an organ donor through the social network. It is entirely optional as far as we can make out, and we haven't been alerted to anything in the T&C's about signing away access to your kidneys.

  According to the NHS' Blood and Transplant wing, roughly 10,000 people in the UK are waiting for a new organ. Although having an organ donor card does mean your ex vitals are legally up for grabs, if the family is too distraught at the idea then hospitals don't proceed. But the NHS thinks that if people make it completely clear that they want their organs donated, families are much more likely to consent.  

  It told the BBC that just half of registered organ donors ended up telling their families that they wanted to donate their organs after they died - and that the new registration process is an "exciting new way" to bring in donations. 

  The NHS Blood and Transplant group's director, Sally Johnson, told the BBC that Facebook is an excellent way to get people talking about turning their bodies into carveries after they croak. Johnson said that the group desperately needs more people to sign up - and the Facebook campaign should make that "as quick and easy as possible". 

  Facebook is hoping to launch similar schemes in a long list of other regions - but for now it also has plans in the US, Australia, and Netherlands. 

  
• 13:12

  IBM unveils mobile plans

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  The suits at IBM want to show that they are still with it and can still strut their funky stuff with the younger generation who are apparently interested in all of this mobile malarkey.

  Being IBM, of course, it has formed a committee with suits with job titles that are longer than War and Peace to create a business process with a few flow charts.

  According to the company, Biggish Blue wants to create a foundation to help clients secure and manage devices, and develop and integrate mobile applications.

  In other words, while most companies are trying to make mobile sound cool, IBM has made it as exciting as Blackpool on a rainy Sunday afternoon. The cunning plan turns out to be middleware, integration and something which will never make an Apple advert.

  IBM's Mobile Foundation, which sounds like a voluntary group to take the elderly out shopping, is a collection of software and services designed to help clients capitalise on mobile computing.

  This includes the application development integration tools from Worklight which it bought at the beginning of the year.

  Also included is the mobile device management system, Endpoint Manager for Mobile Devices, that was built on technology from BigFix, a company it bought two years ago.

  IBM thinks this will sort out all those companies who have rather hip executives who actually want to bring their own devices to work and place them on the network.

  Integrating mobile applications with existing IT infrastructure is done through IBM Websphere Cast Iron. IBM bought the cloud-based integration provider Cast Iron, also in 2010.

  Biggish Blue predicts that the mobile computing market is currently worth $22 billion, and will grow to reach $36 billion by 2015. And there must be some truly dull products out there for companies to make it less interesting.