Intel wants to be your new cable provider
Intel this year plans to sell a set-top box and Internet-based streaming media service that will bundle TV channels for subscribers, but its plans will likely face hurdles from the 800-pound gorillas of the streaming media market.
In February, Erik Huggers, general manager of Intel Media, said at the All Things Digital media conference that the company is working on an "Internet television platform." The service will include on-demand programming, live television broadcasts and "catch-up TV," or program rebroadcasts.
Huggers compared Intel's as-yet-unnamed service to the BBC's iPlayer, which makes programs available up to seven days after the original broadcast on any mobile device. Read more...
Google Glass could get a look at the enterprise
While the curious are looking to get their hands on a pair of Google's Glass, companies also may be looking to weave the computerized eyeglasses into their businesses.
"We see wearables as the logical next step at work," said Kelly Merrell, director of Android development for Mercury Intermedia in Brentwood, Tenn. "It's important for someone working offsite to have information about the location they're going to and to be able to get information about the task they're going to perform."
Merrell talked to Computerworld about Glass and its potential enterprise uses at the Google I/O conference in May, where hundreds of people were trying out the wearable computers for the first time.
Glass is a major project for Google, which has put prototypes of the device in the hands of several thousand developers and early adopters. Read more...
Apple’s crucial overscroll bounce patent claim is valid, U.S. patent office says
The USPTO has confirmed four claims of Apple's overscroll bounce patent, including claim 19 of the patent, according to a document filed with a Californian court on Thursday. That claim played a crucial part in Apple's $1.05 billion dollar lawsuit against Samsung,.
Apple's "list scrolling and document translation, scaling, and rotation on a touchscreen display" patent describes a way to scroll past a document's border. When a user reaches the edge and stops scrolling, the screen bounces back to the nearest display area.
The most important claim in the patent is claim 19. During the Apple/Samsung billion dollar patent trial the jury found that 21 accused products infringed claim 19, and the jury awarded damages as to 18 of these products. The Galaxy S II, Galaxy Tab, Galaxy Tab 10.1 (WiFi), the Droid Charge and the Nexus S 4G were among the infringing devices. Read more...
Oracle to ship 40 security fixes for Java SE
Oracle is set to release a patch set for Java SE that targets 40 security vulnerabilities.
Thirty-seven of the weaknesses can be exploited over a network without requiring an attacker to have a username or password, Oracle said.
Affected products covered in the patch batch, which is set for release Tuesday, include Java SE as well as a number of version of JDK (Java Development Kit), JRE (Java Runtime Environment) and the JavaFX rich-client development platform, according to Oracle's announcement. Read more...
IBM in new round of layoffs
IBM has cut more than 1,600 employees and more layoffs are possible, according to an employee organization.
The news come from Alliance@IBM, which has been a reliable source of news about job actions at the company. IBM typically doesn't disclose its job reduction actions.
When contacted Wednesday night, an IBM spokesman said the company would not comment on the report. What the company has typically said in the past when job cuts were disclosed is that the action represents a "rebalancing" of its workforce. Read more...
Best Buy near you
Microsoft has plans to set up Windows Stores inside 500 Best Buys around the United States and 100 in Canada. The stores will be heavily Microsoft-branded sections within Best Buy. Customers will be able to fondle all manner of Redmond-borne products under the watchful eyes of Microsoft-trained sales associates.
Earlier this year rival Samsung teamed up with Best Buy to open 1,400 Samsung Experience Shops, which feature the company's smartphones, tablets, laptops, and other products. Apple too has long had a partnership with Best Buy for dedicated shops within many of the electronics retailer's stores. However, the Windows Stores will be larger and more prominent.
"The Windows Store offers a large-scale, hands-on customer experience that will show customers how Windows and Microsoft devices and services can make it easier for them to work and play," said Tami Reller, chief marketing officer and chief financial officer of the Windows Division at Microsoft.
There are risks, of course. Among them, PC makers may not take kindly to the fact these miniature Windows Stores will include a section dedicated to promoting the Microsoft Surface. Microsoft's relationships with some of its hardware partners have chilled over the past couple of year, stemming from the company's decision to build its own Windows 8 tablet and the blame it's placed on PC makers for disappointing Windows 8 sales.
The greatest threat is the potential for a plague of fanboy turf wars at Best Buys that offer a Windows Store, a Samsung Experience Shop, and a dedicated Apple section. If TV commercials have taught us anything, it's that users will even disrupt a wedding over other peoples' choice of mobile platform. Best Buy may have to pad its security budget to keep the peace. Some rivals may forgo fisticuffs in the printer section for spontaneous, brand-centric epic rap battles.
(Source: infoworld.com)
Microsoft launches new Embedded OS to harness the data of devices
"It's now essential for businesses to tap into the vast potential of data if they want to compete," says Kevin Dallas, general manager for Windows Embedded at Microsoft.
"With Windows Embedded powering industry devices, that data is made readily available to drive real, actionable operational intelligence for industries. Windows Embedded Compact 2013 is a powerful, flexible platform for extending that capability to some of the smallest industry devices," Dallas says.
Windows Embedded CE is a modular, real-time OS with a specialized kernel that can run in less than 1 MB of memory. It first hit the market in 1996 as a solution for powering very small computers and embedded devices-for instance industrial devices and consumer electronics devices such as set-top boxes and game consoles. Read more...
Apple to kick off in-store iPhone trade-in deals to spur sales
Apple will launch its own iPhone trade-in program this month, exchanging older iPhones for in-store credit, according to Bloomberg and other sources.
Companies already active in "re-commerce" -- the buying of used consumer electronics like smartphones and tablets, primarily in developed countries, then refurbishing them for resale in less affluent markets -- took Apple's entry in stride, at least on the surface.
"The biggest challenge to re-commerce is consumer awareness," said Israel Ganot, chief executive of Gazelle, a Cambridge, Mass. firm that buys used smartphones and tablets. "Apple's entry would be a huge validation of re-commerce. They're going to change consumer behavior and make it much more mainstream to sell your old iPhone." Read more...
IT departments won’t exist in five years
Consumerization of IT and self-service trends will lead to a restructuring of the today's IT shop, leaving behind a hybrid model consisting of tech consultants and integrators.
"The business itself will be the IT department. [Technologists] will simply be the enabler," said Brandon Porco, chief technologist & solutions architect at Northrop Grumman.
Porco was part of a four-person panel of technologists who answered audience questions during a town hall-style meeting at the CITE Conference and Expo here this week.
Among concerns raised is whether IT is losing control as consumer technology becomes part and parcel of everyone's work in the enterprise, and the data center is left behind. Read more...
Intel claims Haswell will offer 50% more battery life in laptops
Intel's upcoming family of Core processors, code-named Haswell, will offer 50% more battery life in laptops than did their "Ivy Bridge" predecessors, Intel said on Thursday.
Haswell chips were designed with laptops and tablets in mind, and the main focus was on lowering power consumption, said Rani Borkar, corporate vice president and general manager of the Intel Architecture Group, in a media briefing.
The longer battery life won't come with a cost to performance, according to Borkar. And in idle or standby mode the chips will do even better, extending battery life by up to 20 times, she said.
The improvements are vital for Intel and its PC-making partners. PC sales are in one of their worst slumps ever, with users snapping up tablets and smartphones instead for mobile computing. Any improvements Intel can offer will help keep the PC market alive. Read more...
Apple: No tax gimmick left behind
Tim Cook did Steve Jobs proud at this week's Congressional hearings into Apple's tax avoidance practices. During his testimony the CEO pulled a mind trick or two out of his iPocket, rivaling even the late Apple visionary in his ability to weave reality distortion fields.
The Senate report released prior to Cook's testimony detailed Apple's "complex web" of offshore entities set up to avoid paying taxes. Yet in his testimony before a Senate subcommittee, Apple's CEO defended the company, saying Apple uses "no tax gimmicks."
Puhleeze -- long before the world was swooning over iPhones and iPads, Apple pioneered the accounting sleight of hand known as "double Irish with a Dutch sandwich." A New York Times in-depth report this week traced the ways Apple, starting in the 1980s, has acted to avoid paying taxes by routing profits through Irish subsidiaries and the Netherlands, then to the Caribbean. Read more...
Google Glass breaks into business
While Google Glass is currently being viewed as a consumer technology, IT shops and mobile workers are likely already champing at the bit to be able to use a hands-free technology to do their jobs.
"The same way that tablets followed smartphones into the enterprise on the backs of employees bearing the cost, Google Glass will also flow the same way," said Chris Hazelton, research director for Mobile & Wireless at 451 Research. "This will also drive acceptance. So, you may see tools that will directly manage Google Glass."
Because Google Glass runs on the Android OS, mobile device management (MDM) vendors who already can manage Android smartphones and tablets see an opportunity to place a device client and apps store on the glasses that will allow IT departments to push tools to employees when they come to Google Glass. Read more...
Internet advertising giant (Google) ‘mulls’ map app Waze gobble
Ad giant Google is also considering snapping up mapping software firm Waze, which could spark a bidding war with Facebook over the business.
Sources whispered to Bloomberg that Google was interested in the navigation firm - which is, of course, seeking a price tag of more than $1bn. What kind of tech company are you these days if you don't ask other tech companies to fork out at least $1bn for you?
Google told The Register that it doesn't comment on rumours or speculation.
Earlier this month, other sources claimed that Facebook was also interested in snaffling Waze and was unfazed by the billion-dollar price tag. Since Facebook was outed as an interested party, Google and other tech firms have approached the firm about a possible deal. Read more...
Biz bods: Tile-tastic Windows 8? NOOO. We lust after ‘mature’ Win 7
Windows 8 won't become an enterprise IT standard as customers dump Microsoft's legacy PC operating system XP. Instead, corporate IT departments will stick to what they know and install Windows 7.
That’s according to technology analyst Forrester, which reckoned Windows 7 is fast becoming the de-facto PC operating system for big businesses shifting users off Windows XP. Redmond plans to pull the plug on support for XP less than a year from now, on 8 April 2014.
Just over six months after Microsoft launched its new operating system, Windows 8 isn’t even showing up on company-issued PCs, while 48 per cent of PCs are running Windows 7, according to the Forrester report, IT will skip Windows 8 as the Enterprise Standard. Read more...
Google’s new weapon in the Android upgrade battle
We may not be exploring a new version of Android this week, but don't think for a minute that we left Google's I/O developers' conference empty-handed.
While Google didn't give us the headline-making full platform release we were expecting, it gave us something that's arguably more valuable in the long run: a revamped approach to the way the company handles the Android software experience.
In a nutshell, Google's picking up the pace on its move to unbundle core elements of the operating system -- pulling the pieces out of the OS and offering them as standalone applications any user can install. Read more...