a2z Information: 2013-03-17

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Dell India Clocks 114,360 Volunteer Hours in FY13, More than Double from FY12

-- In FY13, close to 75 percent of Dell India team members were engaged in volunteering efforts

-- Globally, Dell substantially surpasses community service goal, volunteers more than 700,000 hours in FY13. Dell team members exceed goal of 500,000 hours, increase volunteer hours by almost 70 percent over year prior

-- More than half of Dell global team members participate in community service projects

If you’ve been waiting for a smartwatch ever since Apple released the super-cute iPod that fit perfectly on a wristwatch strap, you may be in luck – Google is reportedly making one running Android. But then there’ve been reports of Apple making a smartwatch too. And LG is making one as well, and Samsung, and who knows which other companies – smartwatches from every angle, I tell you! But today’s report about Google comes from the Financial Times where they’ve got an inside contact, so it’s best we listen.
If you see what the Financial Times notes, they’ve got a “person briefed on the project” who says that though larger projects like Glass are being created in the Google X laboratories, this supposed Google smartwatch is being developed for by the Google Android unit. What we must assume here is that, if the watch were real, it’d be created by one of Google’s hardware partners – perhaps Motorola? Meanwhile the Google developers on-staff creating Android would be taming a version of Android tailored specifically for an ultra-tiny display.

LG has announced that it is set to launch the LG Laser TV. We first talked about the product back in January during CES when it was originally announced. The 100-inch Class Laser TV isn’t your typical television, it’s actually a short throw projector and large projection screen combination.

The 100-inch screen combined with the ultra short throw laser projector creates a 100-inch full HD resolution picture. The system also supports LG’s Smart TV platform allowing access to streaming content on the big screen and more. LG has now announced the TV will be available in April.

The US government is expanding a cybersecurity programme that scans internet traffic headed into and out of defense contractors to include far more of the country's private, civilian-run infrastructure.

As a result, more private sector employees than ever before, including those at big banks, utilities and key transportation companies, will have their emails and web surfing scanned as a precaution against cyberattacks.

Toshiba Corporation (TOKYO:6502) today announced that it has developed an innovative, low power operating system (OS) for many-core processors, targeting application in embedded systems, including automotive products and digital consumer products. An evaluation of the OS on the company's own many-core processor recorded a 24.6% power reduction against the standard OS when running a super resolution program that scaled 1920x1080 pixel images to 3840x2160 resolutions. Details of the new OS were presented at 'Design, Automation & Test in Europe (DATE 2013)' in Grenoble, France on March 20.

Sabeer Bhatia, founder of one of the first free e-mail services Hotmail, is focusing most on Jaxtr, a mobile operator for international roaming customers, out of a clutch of about five investments he has made. At 10 million customers the mobile company would generate $100 million operating profit every year, he said in an interaction with ET.

The years 2013-15 should be blockbuster for him as most of his investments are likely to mature in this period, he said. His investments include Arzoo, a ticketing and travel booking system in the works for the past eight years, four-year-old real estate portal AMP Tech, a presentation app Deck and a hotel management software.

If there’s one technological breakthrough China’s government thinks it needs right this second, it’s their own operating system. Or more control over the internet – but that’s (perhaps) besides the point. Today the big news is the Chinese government signing a deal with Canonical, the creators of the OS Ubuntu, to create their own home-grown operating system to “wean its IT sector off Western software in favor of more home-grown alternatives.”

This morning HTC has sent out a blast on the soon-approaching availability of the HTC One in several countries around the world. For the United States and across Europe, the HTC One is now set for “before the end of April.” That means most of the major carriers will be releasing the HTC One at that same time, we must expect, here in the United States.

Meanwhile we’re still not sure on the release of the Verizon version of the HTC One, especially since we’ve heard several conflicting reports of its existence. Across the rest of Europe as well as across North America and the Asia-Pacific area we have indeed heard from HTC that the HTC One will be available before the end of April. In the UK, Germany, and Taiwan, the HTC One will be arriving next week – that’s quick!

Almost half of the investments on Big Data is going to business functions like sales, marketing and new product development, while spending on IT, finance and Human Relations is much less, according to a TCS study.

As per Tata Consultancy Services' (TCS) Emerging Big Returns from Big Data global trend report, the toughest challenge for businesses using Big Data initiatives is getting different business units to share information across organisational silos.

Official launch of the Moxtra service in India, supported by opening of India offices for customer support and App development.

Moxtra, a provider of productivity and collaboration solutions for personal and business, today announced the official availability of the Moxtra service as well as the opening of its APAC headquarters in Bangalore, India. From its Bangalore offices, Moxtra will provide technical and customer support and start App development.

Apparently Mark Zuckerberg isn't liked just among his 17 million followers on Facebook. Of nearly 200,000 CEOs reviewed in the past year on job site Glassdoor.com, Facebook's chief executive had the highest employee approval rating on the latest rankings of 50 CEOs, at 99.3%.

Not coincidentally, Facebook also ranked as the best place to work on Glassdoor. Rounding off the five highest-rated chief executives: Software company SAP's Bill McDermott and Jim Hagemann Snabe (98.6%), McKinsey's Dominic Barton (97%), Ernst & Young's Jim Turley (96%), and John Schlifske of Northwestern Mutual (96%).

First it was Pebble to bring smartwatches to the mainstream, and from the looks of it, several big companies are looking to make a dent in the same market, including Apple, Samsung, Google, and now LG. It’s rumored that LG will be joining the three other companies to compete in making a next-generation smartwatch.

According to The Korea Times, not only is LG currently working on a smartwatch, but they’re also developing another wearable piece of technology, which is said to be something similar to Google Glass. This rumored smartwatch from LG would be able to sync to your smartphone and provide notifications and the like to the smartwatch.

He loves cricket and Rajnikant, not necessarily in that order, wants to own an IPL team and is not spooked by the way his company's stock price has performed after a much-hyped initial public offering two years ago.

But then again Groupon COO Kal Raman is hardly a template CXO. He joined the company nine months ago and is seen by many as the front-runner for the position of CEO vacated by Groupon's founder, Andrew Mason. Understandable , since Raman is convinced some of the criticism that his company has triggered is "reality distortion".

The fate of the much touted low-cost computing device Aakash looks uncertain with the government conceding that there has been a "failure" in its production.

Concerned over the tardy progress, the HRD ministry has written to IIT Bombay (the executing body) to ensure the vendor (Datawind) meets the terms and conditions and the supply order by March 31 in letter and spirit, failing which action could be initiated against it.

Apple lately seems to be at the receiving end of CEOs from rival companies. The latest 'attack' on the tech giant comes from Nokia CEO Stephen Elop.

During an interview on Finnish television, Elop was asked questions about Nokia's rumoured device Lumia 928. The interviewer told him that he owns an iPhone 5, to which the former Nokia CEO responded, "How embarrassing!"

HP develops glasses free 3D for mobile devices

Researchers at Hewlett-Packard have developed a way to put glasses-free 3D video on mobile devices with a viewing angle so wide that viewers can see an object more fully just by tilting the screen.

Glasses-free 3D is not unique. Nintendo's 3DS handheld allows video game play in 3D without glasses, but it requires players to look straight into the screen with their noses centered.

Spice, which has been in overdrive mode over the past few months, recently came out with its Stellar Pad. This gadget has a 10.1-inch screen, good looks and a decent spec sheet, making it worth its price of Rs 12,999. At least on paper. We reviewed this tablet to see if it is the best device in its range. Here's what we found.

Hardware and design:

The Spice Stellar Pad comes with an IPS screen that supports 1280x800p resolution and approximately 170ppi pixel density. It is powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, coupled with 1GB RAM, and comes with 16GB internal storage and microSD expansion up to 64GB. Connectivity features of the tablet include Wi-Fi, 3G (via dongle), microSD and miniHDMI. At the back of the device is a 3MP camera, while a VGA snapper is used in the front.

The ME Tablet brand today launched its operations in Turkey. The initial foray into the market comes with the launch of its highly acclaimed mobility products here. Following a highly-successful global launch in Dubai and with a growing market share in many countries and regions like the Middle East for its Tablets, its popular 9.7 inch, Dual Core G1 ME TAB now comes to the Turkish audience.

The ME G1 TAB was launched today at a gala unveiling by the celebrated and much-loved actor Ezgi Mola at the Les Ottomans Hotel, Istanbul.

Leveraging a decade of expertise in Media and Device workflows, Ittiam is investing in Cloud capabilities to enhance Online Video experience

Ittiam Systems, a leader in video technologies and multimedia systems, today announced its foray into Cloud Media processing, in connecting the content creator and the consumer via the ubiquitous Internet.

With content becoming the primary focus of emerging workflows, Ittiam is pleased to announce a focused investment to address that market. The company’s new division, Ittiam Media Labs, will develop and deliver end-to-end workflows that enable Media Enterprises to leverage the power of the Cloud on top of the video processing expertise that Ittiam is renowned for, over the years.

IT-ITeS industry body Nasscom announced the launch of 10,000 start-ups programme aimed at incubating, funding and supporting technology start-ups in India over the next ten years.

The programme is partnered by Indian Angel Network and supported by Google, Microsoft and Verisign, Nasscom said in a release.

Yahoo has bought Silicon Valley start-up Jybe so it can bring back five of its former engineers to help the internet company build better mobile applications.

The deal marks Yahoo's fourth acquisition of a small start-up during the past five months. In each instance, Yahoo been more interested in obtaining the startups' brainpower than the services that they provided.

As with its other recent acquisitions, Yahoo didn't disclose the purchase price.

ZTE Corporation (“ZTE”) (H share stock code: 0763.HK / A share stock code: 000063.SZ), a publicly-listed global provider of telecommunications equipment, network solutions and mobile devices, was ranked first in international patent applications by World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in 2012, the second consecutive year the company achieved top position in the annual gauge of the world’s most prolific innovators.

In today's challenging global economic scenario, IT service management has become one of the most important factors for the growth of a company as it has direct impact on its operating cost, business agility and transformation journey.

Nowadays, a holistic IT ecosystem consists of a huge range of end-user services, multi-vendor mix of enterprise infrastructure components, diverse critical applications and human IT resources. While all these services have become indispensible for a company's smooth day-to-day operations, there's no denying the fact that over the years, IT environment, barring a few small organizations, has become extremely complex.

Indian spinners might be ruling the roost against the listless Australia in the ongoing Test series but it is Sachin Tendulkar who is the most talked about cricketer on social networking sites these days.

The analysis on social sentiment of cricket fans and alike conducted during the first three matches shows that Tendulkar consistently leads the overall conversation in this period, an IBM study stated.

Fifty per cent of the public sentiment revolved around his batting performance followed by his past records, his stature and retirement plans, among others.

Google has launched a new app that would allow users to sync their notes and to-do lists across their computer, phone and tablet using Google account.

Google's Katharine Kuan detailed the firm's blog that with the help of 'Google Keep' people can quickly jot ideas down when they think of them and even include checklists and photos to keep track of what's important for them.

Kapil Sibal, minister of communications and IT, said that internet was a necessity in India and an important medium that gave a chance to people to be heard.

"The internet is necessary for India... it gives a chance for the voiceless to be heard," said Sibal at Google Big Tent event in Delhi. "Internet is the most important and transformative forum."

Sibal's comments come at a time when Indian government is facing a criticism over its perceived attempts to censor the web and social media. Last year, the government reportedly asked Twitter to block certain accounts and told Google to remove some YouTube videos.

Google chairman Eric Schmidt has warned that India is lagging badly behind in harnessing the power of the internet because of its failure to invest in high-speed telecom networks.

"It is well behind in the web services model that the rest of the world is adopting," Schmidt told the CNBC-TV18 television channel late on Wednesday during a trip to India.

"It is crucial for India to invest and enable fast fibre internet connectivity within the country, between the country and the other countries," he added.

The number of H-1B visas issued by the US could double under a proposed Senate immigration plan which would also remove the cap on the green card, a move likely to benefit Indian-American technology professionals but not the Indian companies.

The Senate immigration plan would dramatically increase the number of high-skilled foreign workers allowed into the country and give permanent legal status to an unlimited number of students who earn graduate degrees from US universities in science, technology, engineering or math, Washington Post reported quoting people familiar with the negotiations.

A hacking attack on the servers of South Korean broadcasters and banks originated from an IP address based in China, officials in Seoul said, raising suspicions the intrusion came from North Korea.

An unnamed official from South Korea's presidential office was quoted by the Yonhap news agency as saying the discovery of the IP address indicated Pyongyang was responsible for the attack.

Larsen and Toubro L and T Deploys RFID Enabled Vehicle Tracking System at Hazira to Ensure Heightened Security

With a view to provide enhanced security to L & T – Hazira premises, an RFID based Vehicle Tracking Solution was implemented by Mumbai based Essen RFID. The RFID solution shall ensure real-time tracking for the purposes of security, parking & access control. Essen RFID’s Vehicle Tracking System has also been implemented successfully at Hiranandani Residential Complex at Powai & for Renuka Sugars at Gulbarga. The automated system implementation has helped in manpower optimization besides realizing time & cost savings for the organization.

Some of the key challenges being observed at L & T were:

GlobalCollect, the world¡¯s premier payment service provider, announced the further expansion of its Asia Pacific operations with the opening of their Shanghai office. The new GlobalCollect office is located in the prestigious Shanghai International Finance Center (IFC) the heart of Pudong¡¯s Lujiazui financial trade zone. In addition, the company also announced its plans to expand to the Chinese capital, Beijing, as well as into Japan and Australia. These offices are in addition to the regional headquarters opened by GlobalCollect in Singapore in 2008.

Shanghai International Finance Center (IFC) (Photo: Business Wire)

The expansion into the People¡¯s Republic of China is in support of GlobalCollect¡¯s commitment to customer advocacy and its mission to deliver outstanding customer service.

¡°Business in China is driven by Guanxi ¡±¹ØÏµ¡±, the cultural concept of connections and networks. Opening offices in Shanghai and Beijing enables GlobalCollect to get closer to our customers and foster stronger relationships than supporting them from afar.¡± said Mark Patrick, GlobalCollect¡¯s general manager for the Asia Pacific region. ¡°Chinese companies will benefit from our ability to quickly take them global with our proven payment platform and specific expertise in the travel, retail and gaming markets, among others.¡± Other than PayPal and GlobalCollect, no other major global payment service provider has established a physical operation within China.

MAXON, the developer of CINEMA 4D, a leading 3D animation software for film, broadcast and motion graphics professionals, has announced it has entered into a strategic alliance with Adobe Systems Incorporated to further collaborate on technology that provides creatives in the motion graphics and visual effects industry with new levels of digital media content creation. As part of the alliance, both companies are expected to collaborate and engineer a pipeline between Adobe® After Effects® software and CINEMA 4D to give users a seamless 2D/3D foundation.

“CINEMA 4D is a leading 3D solution, and the one After Effects users have come to know and love because of its ease-of-use, speed, stability and especiallytight integration with the 2D compositing application,” said Harald Egel, co-founder and CEO, MAXON Computer GmbH. “We look forward to continued collaboration between our programming and marketing teams to ensure that the interoperability of our software products makes a positive impact on artists seeking to easily and fully integrate 3D into their production pipelines.”

Actian Corp. (“Actian”), a leader in next generation big data management and creator of the analytic database Vectorwise and Action Apps, today announced the availability of its Vectorwise 3.0 analytic database with advanced Hadoop integration. This upgraded version opens up the majority of unstructured data for screamingly fast analysis and massive information production in Business Intelligence tools and other applications.

Expands Product Engineering Services capabilities

Happiest Minds Technologies, a next generation IT Solutions & Services company, announced expansion of its Product Engineering Services offerings by adding Engineering R&D Services capabilities and forming a new division. The division will cater to the needs of Technology Companies from Hardware, Embedded, Software and Solutions.

The folks at Samsung have begun to deliver their full 2013 lineup of beastly television technology complete with prices, starting with the monstrous S9 UHD. The Samsung S9 UHD TV going by code-name UN85S9 will be available in pre-order form from Samsung by the end of March for a cool $39,999 USD. This machine works with an 85-inch 4k-resolution screen and we’ve had our own up close and personal look at it earlier this year at CES 2013 – have a peek!

The S9 you’re seeing in the video here is one of two eye-destroying UHD televisions revealed by Samsung this year at CES, the other being an absurd 110-incher. This S9 model is a bit closer to a realistic release – if you’ve got $40k, that is – and you’ve got 3-way 2.2 channel, 120 watt sound blasting forth as well. With the ability to up-scale HD or Full-HD to UHD-level picture quality, you’ll have trouble turning this machine down if presented with it in a shiny birthday wrapping.

Samsung has confirmed that it is working on a smart watch of its own to take on tech giant Apple's iWatch.

The news comes after months of rumours that the South Korean firm has been working on a wrist-worn rival to supposedly-upcoming iWatch. VP Lee Young Hee told Bloomberg that the firm had been preparing the watch product 'for so long'.

The Thuraya SatSleeve (Photo: Business Wire)

Thuraya Telecommunications Company, a leading Mobile Satellite Services (MSS) operator, announced today the launch of the Thuraya SatSleeve, a versatile and user-friendly device that brings satellite connectivity to the Apple® iPhone®.

A significant breakthrough in the mobile satellite industry, Thuraya SatSleeve is the world’s first product to offer easy and affordable access to mobile satellite communications — delivered over Thuraya’s extensive satellite network. Only slightly larger than the iPhone itself, the compact adaptor provides users with the ability to turn their iPhone into a satellite phone that allows them to have reliable connectivity beyond the coverage of traditional terrestrial networks.

Samer Halawi, Chief Executive Officer of Thuraya, said: “The launch of Thuraya SatSleeve represents a major milestone and a game-changing innovation in the satellite industry. This is the first consumer friendly mobile satellite phone ever launched, which dramatically increases the reach to satellite telephony for enterprise, government, and everyday consumers alike. It provides iPhone® users with a versatile and highly affordable means of conducting phone calls and sending SMS via satellite from the world’s most remote locations.'

The British government has rejected BlackBerry's new BB10 software as not secure enough for essential work.

The previous BlackBerry version, 7.1, was cleared by the country's Communications-Electronics Security Group (CESG) in December 2012 for classifications up to "Restricted", two levels below "Secret".

Samsung Galaxy S4, which was launched last week, has been named as the fastest smartphone yet.

Primate Labs, makers of GeekBench, compared the Galaxy S4 result from Android Authority to other smartphones. The new Samsung flagship smartphone topped the charts with a score of 3163, thanks to the its quad-core Qualcomm processor.

Vodafone India is switching off the air-conditioning and improving ventilation at its telecom towers to cut energy consumption costs and carbon emission. The change, which is a work in progress, saves nearly a quarter of the energy consumed at each site, but comes with some capital expenditure to increase ventilation at these locations, a company spokesman said in an email.

These are not specially designed base stations but have been in use for years. The discovery that they can run without air-conditioning is new. "These stations were set up with aircons because at that time it was the way all telecom equipment was set up by everyone," said a company executive, who did not want to be named.

Taxiforsure.com, a leading aggregator of car rentals and taxis, today announced the launch of its services in Delhi and NCR, after having established the brand successfully in Bangalore. The company works with various operators in both the organized and unorganized space, bringing them to a common technology and operational platform, with a goal to become the single point of contact for taxis in cities. It offers various services including point-to-point rides, airport and railway transfers, local hire packages & rentals for outstation travel.

eBay CEO John Donahoe s salary up 81 percent in 2012

eBay chief executive John Donahoe received a total payout of about $29.7 million in 2012, according to a filing, an increase of about 81 percent over the previous year.

Donahoe's base salary was $970,353, according to a proxy filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.

His stock awards accounted for about $23.7 million and options awards total were about $2 million.

If you want to be wise about the gadgets you buy post-smartphone, keep the following items in mind.

Jambox Bluetooth speakers

The Jambox is a brick-shaped wireless audio speaker. It can play sound from any device with a wireless Bluetooth connection, including smartphones and most laptops and tablets. It is small, lightweight and has decent audio quality.

Want to listen to radio while showering? Put the speaker on the side table in the bathroom. Along with the Jambox there are plenty of similarly priced bluetooth speakers to buy from companies like Logitech, Soundfreaq and Jensen.

Five engineers who helped create the internet were awarded a $1.5 million prize which British organisers hope will come to be seen as equivalent to a Nobel prize for engineering.

Robert Kahn, Vinton Cerf and Marc Andreessen of the United States will share the first ever £1 million (1.2 million euro) Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering with Louis Pouzin of France and Tim Berners-Lee of Britain.

"The emergence of the Internet and the web involved many teams of people all over the world," said Alec Broers, chair of the judging panel.

Terming the cyberattacks originating from China as simply "inexcusable", a top American Senator has said this posed a major threat to the US-China bilateral relationship.

"As far as our relationship with China is concerned, the major threat to that relation or cyberattacks which come from China, they are serious. They are huge.

They are involved at the moment with going after commercial information, and commercial technologies," Senator Carl Levin, Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, told a Washington audience.

Intel's media group has been on a hiring spree as it prepares to launch an internet television service later this year, underscoring the chip maker's seriousness about the new business.

Intel Media is now looking to add 60 people to its staff of over 300, said spokesman Jon Carvill. He said the group could number 400 within the next six months or so, compared to less than 100 a year ago.

In a major divergence from its core business of manufacturing chips for PCs, Intel plans to sell consumers a television set-top box that offers live programming as well as on-demand content in small bundles.

A city-based information security firm is launching a nationwide hunt for India's most secure coder, an event which will see participation from students, professionals, corporates and institutions.

EC-Council, a provider of certifications and training in the information security domain, today said the event, 'Code Uncode', will begin from tomorrow.

According to a company release, the online competition will feature students, professionals and corporates, and it will select a winner who will be adjudged India's most secure programmer.

A top American Senator has introduced a legislation that he claims is aimed at eliminating fraud and abuse of the H-1B visa programme, but provisions of which would make it tougher for Indian-Americans to get this popular work visa.

Among other things, the H-1B and L-1 Visa Reform Act of 2013 ensures that an H-1B application filed by an employer that employs 50 or more US workers will not be accepted unless the employer attests that less than 50 per cent of the employer's workforce are H-1B and L visa holders.

"I'm a compulsive laundry room thief," says one Facebook confession. "I'm the reason the 'Public Urination is Illegal' signs were put up at Coyote Village," says another.

"I sold books for the semester to go to South Padre for spring break... Gotta pay for the booze somehow," reveals yet another poster.

By turns rueful and raunchy, these anonymous admissions pop up on 'campus confession' pages unofficially linked to scores of high schools and universities.

Free wireless internet services are expected to commence in the commercial heart of India's technology capital starting next month. Mahatma Gandhi Road and Brigade Road, two of the best-known shopping destinations, will have free Wi-Fi access as part of a plan to make Bangalore the first city to have such a service available at public spots.

The idea is the brainchild of a government-appointed panel headed by Mohandas Pai, a former director at Infosys. The pilot service will be available for at least six months, after which the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) panel will evaluate the network and announce possible expansion plans.

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