October 2011
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Archive for October, 2011

Google TV Tries Again, Adds Android App Suppport

J. TECH - Oct - 31st

Google TV's new software is ready and will soon be available for Logitech and Sony hardware.
By Thomas Claburn October 28, 2011

Google is ready to release a software update for its partners' Google TV hardware. The update focuses on interface simplification, improved content discovery, YouTube integration, and Android app support.

Mario Queiroz, VP of product management, and Vincent Dureau, director of engineering, said in a blog post that Google expects to deliver the software update to Sony Internet TVs next week and Logitech Revue devices shortly after that. The new customizable home screen is easier to understand and organize than its previous incarnation. Google has added an Android app called "TV & Movies" to help people find something to watch when they don't know what to search for–the ability to run Android apps on Google TV hardware is the product's most significant feature. YouTube is now more tightly tied to Google TV, such that virtually any content topic keyword can be turned into its own channel. Google's pitch for the "new Google TV" no longer hints at a revolution. It used to be Google TV aimed to "open up the living room." But "open" in Hollywood means opening the company wallet. Hence the Web content blockade initiated late last year by ABC, CBS, Fox, NBC, and Viacom to keep their online shows from being viewed through Google TV's Web browser: The studios feared that Google TV would convert the TV audience to a Web audience, reducing their advertising and content deals with cable and broadcast channels.

J. TECH - Oct - 31st

by Larry Dignan October 29, 2011 REPOST HERE OCT. 31, 2011

China is stepping up its semiconductor manufacturing efforts and using domestic chips for its latest supercomputer. It's going to be interesting to see how fast China can close in on U.S. supercomputer processor makers Intel, AMD, and Nvidia. The New York Times reported that a supercomputer called Sunway BlueLight MPP, was installed in September at the National Supercomputer Center in Jinan, China. The details emerged at a technical meeting. The real catch is that China used 8,700 ShenWei SW1600 chips. Those semiconductors are homegrown and indicate that China is aiming to be a major chip player. The New York Times story was mostly sourced to Jack Dongarra, a computer scientist at the University of Tennessee, but Chinese sites reported on the technical meeting. Dongarra helps manage the list of Top 500 supercomputers. China's previous supercomputers used Intel and Nvidia chips. Meanwhile, ZDNet UK highlighted the blog of Hung-Sheng Tsao, founder of HopBit GridComputing, who posted the slides detailing the Sunway BlueLight MPP, which come from IT168.com. The Wall Street Journal noted that the China domestic supercomputing effort is very credible and signals an effort to cut the country's reliance on western companies. It's unclear whether China's chips are completely original blueprints or based on a previous design. One issue for the Sunway chips is power consumption. The Sunway supercomputer apparently doesn't need that much power relative to rivals.

Happy Halloween !!

J. TECH - Oct - 31st

TRICK OR TREAT TO ALL – MAY YOU HAVE A FRIGHTFUL DAY AND A SWEET TOOTH

(¯`·._ HAPPY HALLOWEEN!! _.·´¯)

J. TECH - Oct - 28th

Apple drops to third by revenue after South Korean company announces strong growth in phone handsets division
By Charles Arthur October 28, 2011

Samsung zoomed past Apple to take the smartphone crown in the third quarter, and become the biggest mobile phone maker by revenue, after it announced strong growth in its handset division as part of its quarterly results.

The company also said it expects strong sales of its smartphones in the coming quarter, with new models backed by Google due to debut in the UK and elsewhere during November. The company was pipped though by Nokia, which remains the world's largest seller of mobile handsets by volume. Apple meanwhile has dropped from being the biggest smartphone maker and mobile phone company by revenue in the second quarter to rank behind Nokia and Samsung in revenue. Although Samsung declined to give figures for its smartphone or feature phone sales, Jae Lee, a Daiwa Securities technology analyst, estimated that in the third quarter it sold 28m smartphones – well above Apple's figure of 17m for the period. In the second quarter, Apple was reckoned to have just outdistanced Samsung with 20m iPhones sold, but saw a rapid slowdown in the third quarter as would-be buyers awaited a new model, while Samsung piled on the pressure. The two companies are locked in a series of legal battles around the world over alleged patent and "trade dress" infringements relating to the iPhone, Samsung's phones and the iPad and Samsung's Galaxy range of tablets. Samsung did not give any indications about tablet shipment figures for the quarter in its earnings release. The company said its telecommunications business hit a record in quarterly sales of 14.9 trillion won (£8.37bn), a 37% increase from last year, with growth mainly due to strong Galaxy smartphone sales. Operating profit hit 2.52tn won, a new record for the divison.

J. TECH - Oct - 28th

By Jillian Ward, Nick Turner October 28, 2011

Advanced Micro Devices Inc. rose after the second-largest maker of chips for personal computers forecast sales that may top some analysts' estimates, citing laptop demand in emerging markets.

Revenue in the current period will increase as much as 5 percent from the third quarter, Sunnyvale, California-based AMD said in a statement yesterday. That indicates sales as high as $1.77 billion. Analysts on average had projected $1.71 billion, according to Bloomberg data. AMD's new Fusion product line, which combines the functions of processors and graphics chips, helped the company gain laptop market share, particularly in developing countries such as China and India, Chief Executive Officer Rory Read said on a conference call. That helped alleviate the impact of a shortfall in chip supply caused by production glitches at Globalfoundries Inc., an AMD spinoff that makes most of the company's chips. “We took share” in laptop PCs, Read said yesterday. In manufacturing, “we are already seeing steady improvements. But we are not out of the woods yet.”

J. TECH - Oct - 28th

By AMIR EFRATI Oct. 28, 2011

Google Inc.'s YouTube is expected to announce as early as next week that it has signed a slew of partnerships with media companies and well-known personalities to produce original content for the popular video website, said people familiar with the matter. Among the expected partners are major media companies such as IAC/InterActiveCorp.'s Electus, News Corp.'s ShineReveille unit, RTL Group's FremantleMedia Ltd., as well as skateboarding legend Tony Hawk and "CSI" creator Anthony Zuiker, other people familiar with the matter have said. (News Corp. owns The Wall Street Journal.) Several other partners for YouTube's new initiative, which is trying to upend the way entertainment is created, already create popular content on the video site, people familiar with the matter said. Those include Machinima Inc., which creates content for young men. A YouTube spokesman said the site is "always talking to content creators and curators of all kinds about building audiences on YouTube," but declined further comment. YouTube is trying to become a next-generation cable provider overseeing dozens of free online "channels" with professional-grade shows, people familiar with the matter have said. Google is putting up more than $100 million in cash advances to get some of the content produced, these people said. The company will recoup the funds from advertising revenue it sells against the content, later splitting ad revenue with the partners, these people added. YouTube will be reorganized to become "channel-centric," encouraging visitors to subscribe to content channels that have hours of entertainment on demand, these people said. Some partners will be in charge of producing multiple channels that fit into one of 20 or so categories such as food, comedy and news, these people said. YouTube executives are asking partners, who will retain ownership rights over the content, to produce unique shows that don't just mimic those on TV, they said.

J. TECH - Oct - 27th

But not from Apple
By Rik Myslewski, October 27 2011

Ever since the iPhone 4S and iOS 5 were released earlier this month, early adopters have flooded the web with complaints about reduced battery life and overheating handsets.
But now a few solutions have emerged from multiple sources – but not from Apple, unfortunately. "So… is this going to be considered 'Battery-gate' or 'Suck-gate'?" asked one commenter to Chris Breen's Macworld article, "Troubleshooting a battery-sucking iPhone 4S". Breen recounts a tale of woe and intrigue in which his brand new iPhone 4S quickly lost battery life and became unnaturally hot. With the help of the 99¢ System Activity Monitor from Recession Apps, he was able to discover that the processes dataaccessd and CrashReport were spiking processor usage. "The iPhone appeared to be in a crashing loop – where dataaccessd attempted to do something, blew up, tried again, blew up, and on and on," Breen writes. "And this was killing the battery." It should be noted, however, that this crash-loop problem isn't limited to the iPhone 4S and iOS 5 – it had been reported on Apple's support discussion boards as occurring on an iPhone 4 running iOS 4.2.1, as well. But Breen's problem seemed to be related to iCloud syncing – which, of course, wasn't available in iOS 4.2.1. And so he, like others, suspected a corrupted contact, which would repeatedly seek info from the cloud, fail, and so on. As one commenter wrote: "I work on iPhones and I have heard of this a lot. … Every single time I've had this happen, I deleted all the contacts on said phones and then the problem was solved, so I'm guessing it's an iCloud contact issue." "Guessing" is the operative term here. The Reg has contacted Apple for clarification, comments, or help, but has not heard back from them.

J. TECH - Oct - 27th

By QUENTIN HARDY October 27, 2011

Meg Whitman is moving as fast as she can to figure out a strategy for Hewlett-Packard. For starters, she wants to keep selling personal computers.On Thursday, Ms. Whitman, H.P.’s chief executive, announced that the company would retain its PC division. The division, called the personal systems group, was responsible for almost one third, or $40 billion, of H.P.’s $126 billion in revenue in its last fiscal year. “First and foremost, H.P. is a hardware company,” she said in an interview. “We want to build out our software, but I don’t think we are done yet on hardware. There is a lot of opportunity.” The company’s former chief executive, Léo Apotheker, announced in August that the company was considering selling or spinning off the unit. He was forced out of the company a month later and succeeded by Ms. Whitman, the former chief executive of eBay. Ms. Whitman said there were concerns that an independent PC division would lose brand value and face higher overhead costs like real estate and operations. H.P., in turn, would lose the contribution the unit makes in delivering low-price components, like semiconductors, to other parts of the company. Besides personal computers, H.P. has sizable businesses in computer servers and data storage devices, printers and printer supplies, and related services. H.P.’s personal systems group is one of the world’s biggest buyers of semiconductors, which gives H.P. negotiating power for the chips it uses in other parts of the company, like computer servers and data storage devices, or printers. The unit’s products often figure in the sale of services like call centers, another big business for H.P. While H.P.’s PC division has revenue large enough to make it one of America’s 70 largest companies on its own, it is in a competitive business with narrow profit margins. This fit poorly into the strategy of focusing on higher-margin software and services developed by Mr. Apotheker.

J. TECH - Oct - 27th

by Lex Friedman, Macworld.com Oct. 26, 2011

Software security company ESET reports that hackers have successfully ported older Linux-targeting malware to Mac OS X. OSX/Tsnunami.A is a new variant of Linux/Tsunami, a malicious piece of software that commandeers your computer and uses its network connection to attack other websites. Like its Linux-based predecessors, Tsunami works by communicating via Internet Relay Chat, or IRC. The malware listens to a hardcoded list of IRC channels on specific servers, and responds to specific commands entered by others in those chatrooms. When triggered, infected computers can be instructed to attack individual websites, by sending large numbers of simultaneous requests. This is known as a Distributed Denial of Service attack (or a live Apple event); the huge number of simultaneous requests to a single website can cause it to crash or go offline. Even worse, ESET says that Tsunami can force your computer to download additional malware or other software. The company also says that its antivirus software, ESET Cybersecurity for Mac, can detect and remove the malware. Sophos says that the malware is distributed via a Trojan horse—malicious software that masquerades as something more innocent. Stay safe by ensuring that you only install software from trusted sources.

J. TECH - Oct - 27th

By KEVIN J. O’BRIEN October 26, 2011

Nokia, the Finnish cellphone maker, introduced two smartphones on Wednesday, the first fruits of its alliance with Microsoft, in a bid to curb its declining market share. Nokia’s chief executive,

Stephen A. Elop, presented the Lumia 800, a 420 euro ($584) touch-screen device, and the Lumia 710, a 270 euro handset at a company product introduction. Both devices are being sold in six European countries and will be sold later this year in parts of Asia. Other smartphones are planned for the United States, but not until early next year. Analysts said the Nokia smartphones, the result of an eight-month collaboration with Microsoft, could also help Microsoft extend its dominant computer software business into the cellphone and mobile device market. The software has received positive reviews, but few handset makers are using it. The new lineup aims to revive Nokia’s tarnished reputation as an innovative force in mobile phones, an industry it pioneered and dominated until Apple and Google, helped by more user-friendly software, wrested control of the smartphone business four years ago. “Nokia really needed this to happen today, and this is a new start for the company,” said Pete Cunningham, an analyst based in London with the research firm Canalys. “This helps stop the bleeding and will help Nokia get back in the game.”

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Archive for October, 2011