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Amazon Has Its Own ARM SoC
Online book seller Amazon is selling its own brand of ARM-based computer chips.
In a move which is a side step from its normal expansion into its own brand of groceries and clothing, Amazon is flogging its own chips which are being made by Annapurna Labs.
Annapurna is an Israeli subsidiary that Amazon acquired a year ago and the chips are called Alpine. They are ARM-based processors are designed to drive home gateways, Wi-Fi routers, and Network Attached Storage (NAS) devices.
They’re meant for things like data centers and cheap smart home devices rather than smartphones and tablet which makes the concept of Amazon selling them seem rather odd. After all if you are a datacenter you usually go to a supplier and buy shedloads of expensive gear. You don’t normally pop into Amazon and do a quick search, even if you are a Prime Member.
Intel currently has the data center sewn up and ARM chip use is still thin on the ground however Amazon has done well in the cloud so peddling chips as part of a product package makes a bit of sense.
It won’t initially be targeting the kind of high-end servers which are powering the Internet of Stuff which is supposed to be the next big thing. Asus, Netgear, and Synology are already producing devices that use Amazon’s Alpine .
Courtesy-Fud
Smartphone Buyer Fatigue Hampering Growth
January 12, 2016 by admin
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Apple and Samsung dominate global smartphone markets with several new flagship handsets unveiled each year.
But after years of fantastic growth in smartphone sales, the pace of growth is slowing overall, including for the two smartphone giants. Market research firm IDC recently said that 2016 will be the first year that overall smartphone growth will slow to below 10%.
There is even talk among analysts that the latest models don’t have enough compelling new features to lure customers to a competitor’s device. Others say smartphone buyer’s fatigue has set in.
Buyer’s fatigue is a concern in the U.S. and other developed countries where the smartphone market is viewed as a “replacement” market because the market is already saturated: Nearly everyone already owns a smartphone. A focus on emerging countries by Apple and Samsung still requires them to find low-cost alternatives to compete with the likes of Huawei and others.
“Consumers are fatigued about new phone features that they can’t easily relate to any improvement in their personal use cases,” said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst at Moore Insights & Strategy. “Samsung has been one of the worst offenders of this in the last few years. If consumers can’t relate, then they need to be educated.”
Most recently, reports that Samsung would add a pressure-sensitive displayand high-speed charging port to its Galaxy S7 phone drew a few yawns. That’s because Apple added the pressure-sensitive display to the iPhone 6S last summer, and a new USB Type-C fast charging port is already available in LG and Huawei smartphones.
While it is to Samsung’s advantage to keep up with Apple and others rivals, analysts disagree over whether these latest improvements will provoke an iPhone user to switch to a Galaxy.
Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/mobile-category/smartphone-buyer-fatigue-seen-hampering-growth.html
Sprint Confirms Jobs To Be Cut
November 17, 2015 by admin
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Sprint Chairman and SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son has confirmed that job cuts at Sprint will be “in the thousands” as part of a restructuring plan.
His comments came as SoftBank, which owns more than 70% of Sprint, reported its quarterly earnings.
“Sprint is now in the position to increase the pace of user acquisition while cutting costs,” Son said, according to Bloomberg and other news sources. “We will also cut staff. The cuts will be in the thousands.”
Son’s comments are not out of line with things Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure has been telling Sprint workers for months.
On Tuesday, Sprint’s stock price sagged downward after an earnings report included a statement saying that the carrier plans to cut $2 billion or more in operating expenses for its 2016 fiscal year, which begins in April.
Son also said the $2 billion is a “minimum target” and should be the amount slashed annually, according to a report by The Wall Street Journal. The company now has more than $25 billion in annual costs.
Sprint has been investing in attracting new customers — an effort that has been costly but effective. On Tuesday, Sprint reported it gained 237,000 postpaid phone customers in its second fiscal quarter, which ended Sept. 30. It was the first time the company had showed gains on that measure in two years. It also reported its lowest customer cancellation rate in company history.
In November 2014, Sprint had said it would cut 2,000 jobs as part of $1.5 billion in cost reductions. That announcement came after Sprint had cut 5,000 jobs from January through September 2014. The company had 31,000 workers at the start of its current fiscal year on April 1.
Source- http://www.thegurureview.net/mobile-category/sprint-confirms-thousands-of-jobs-to-be-cut.html
Oracle’s M7 Processor Has Security On Silicon
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Oracle started shipping systems based on its latest Sparc M7 processor, which the firm said will go a long way to solving the world’s online security problems by building protection into the silicon.
The Sparc M7 chip was originally unveiled at last year’s Openworld show in San Francisco, and was touted at the time as a Heartbleed-prevention tool.
A year on, and Oracle announced the Oracle SuperCluster M7, along with Sparc T7 and M7 servers, at the show. The servers are all based on the 32-core, 256-thread M7 microprocessor, which offers Security in Silicon for better intrusion protection and encryption, and SQL in Silicon for improved database efficiency.
Along with built-in security, the SuperCluster M7 packs compute, networking and storage hardware with virtualisation, operating system and management software into one giant cloud infrastructure box.
Oracle CTO Larry Ellison was on hand at Openworld on Tuesday to explain why the notion of building security into the silicon is so important.
“We are not winning a lot of these cyber battles. We haven’t lost the war but we’re losing a lot of the battles. We have to rethink how we deliver technology especially as we deliver vast amounts of data to the cloud,” he told delegates.
Ellison said that Oracle’s approach to this cyber war is to take security as low down in the stack as possible.
“Database security is better than application security. You should always push security as low in the stack as possible. At the bottom of the stack is silicon. If all of your data in the database is encrypted, that’s better than having an application code that encrypts your data. If it’s in the database, every application that uses that database inherits that security,” he explained.
“Silicon security is better than OS security. Then every operating system that runs on that silicon inherits that security. And the last time I checked, even the best hackers have not figured out a way to download changes to your microprocessor. You can’t alter the silicon, that’s really tricky.”
Ellison’s big idea is to take software security features out of operating systems, VMs and even databases in some cases – because software can be changed – and instead push them into the silicon, which can’t be. He is also urging for security to be switched on as default, without an option to turn it back off again.
“The security features should always be on. We provide encryption in our databases but it can be switched off. That is a bad idea. There should be no way to turn off encryption. The idea of being able to turn on and off security features makes no sense,” he said.
Ellison referred back to a debate that took place at Oracle when it first came up with its backup system – should the firm have only encrypted backups. “We did a customer survey and customers said no, we don’t want to pay the performance penalty in some cases,” he recalled. “In that case customer choice is a bad idea. Maybe someone will forget to turn on encryption when it should have been turned on and you lose 10 million credit cards.”
The Sparc M7 is basically Oracle’s answer to this dire security situation. Ellison said that while the M7 has lots of software features built into the silicon, the most “charismatic” of these is Silicon Secured Memory, which is “deceptively simple” in how it works.
“Every time a computer program asks for memory, say you ask for 8MB of memory, we compute a key and assign this large number to that 8MB of memory,” he explained. “We take those bits and we lock that memory. We also assign that same number to the program. Every time the program accesses memory, we check that number to make sure it’s the memory you allocated earlier. That compare is done by the hardware.”
If a program tries to access memory belonging to another program, the hardware detects a mismatch and raises a signal, flagging up a possible breach or bug.
“We put always-on memory intrusion detection into the silicon. We’re always looking for Heartbleed and Venom-like violations. You cannot turn it off,” the CTO warned.
“We’ve also speeded up encryption and decompression, which is kind of related to encryption. It runs at memory speed there’s zero cost in doing that. We turn it on, you can’t turn it off, it’s on all the time. It’s all built into the M7.”
Ellison claimed that running M7-based systems will stop threats like Heartbleed and Venom in their tracks.
“The way Venom worked, the floppy disc driver concealed this code. It’s the worst kind of situation, you’re writing into memory you’re not supposed to. You’re writing computer instructions into the memory and you’ve just taken over the whole computer,” he explained. “You can steal and change data. M7 – the second we tried to write that code into memory that didn’t belong to that program, where the keys didn’t match, that would have been detected real-time and that access would have been foiled.
All well and good, except for the fact that nearly every current computer system doesn’t run off the M7 processor. Ellison claimed that even if only three or four percent of servers in the cloud an organisation is using have this feature, they will be protected as they’ll get the early warning to then deal with the issue across non-M7 systems.
“You don’t have to replace every micro processor, you just have to replace a few so you get the information real-time,” he added.
“You’ll see us making more chips based on security, to secure our cloud and to sell to people who want to secure their clouds or who want to have secure computers in their datacentre. Pushing security down into silicon is a very effective way to do that and get ahead of bad guys.”
SuperCluster M7 and Sparc M7 servers are available now. Pricing has not been disclosed but based on normal Oracle hardware costs, expect to dig deep to afford one.
Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/oracles-new-m7-processor-has-security-on-silicon.html
Sony To Acquire Toshiba’s Sensor Business
November 4, 2015 by admin
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Toshiba Corp is offload its image sensor business to Sony Corp for around 20 billion yen ($164.68 million) as part of a restructuring plan laid out earlier this year, sources with knowledge of the deal said on Saturday.
Toshiba, whose businesses range from laptops to nuclear power, is undergoing a restructuring after revelations this year that it overstated earnings by $1.3 billion going back to fiscal 2008/09.
Image sensors, which are used in digital cameras and smartphones, are part of Toshiba’s system LSI semiconductor business. Toshiba plans to sell its image sensor manufacturing plant in Oita, southern Japan, and pull out of the sensor business altogether, said the sources, who declined to be identified.
The sale is likely to be finalized soon, the sources said.
Toshiba is considering several options for its system LSI semiconductor business and its discrete semiconductor business and that debate is ongoing, a Toshiba official said when contacted.
An official from Sony declined to comment.
Masashi Muromachi, who became Toshiba’s CEO following the accounting scandal, has promised to restructure lower-margin businesses.
The deal for the image sensor business would be the beginning of the restructuring, Nikkei reported earlier on Saturday.
Sony is already a dominant player in the image sensor market, with its products used in phones made by China’s Xiaomi and India’s Micromax Informatix Ltd.
Courtesy-http://www.thegurureview.net/consumer-category/sony-to-acquire-toshibas-sensor-business.html
Is Canon Betting Its Future On IoT?
Canon has announced that it is joining the raft of technology companies attempting to take on the Internet of Things (IoT) through what it is calling the ‘Imaging of Things’.
Speaking at the firm’s EXPO 2015 event in Paris on Tuesday, Canon CEO Fujio Mitarai talked up the firm’s global vision for the future as the IoT becomes more pervasive.
“Canon is showing how the world of imaging is expanding rapidly in the age of the IoT,” said Mitarai.
“In the future nearly everything will be connected through smart devices. These rely on built-in cameras or sensors and the data they generate. As a result, Canon predicts that the IoT will largely depend on the ‘Imaging of Things’.”
To take on this future, Mitarai plans to overhaul Canon’s business structure to build a network of smaller Canon companies and thus create an “ecosystem of innovation”.
The CEO said that these companies have been designed to “harness innovation and creative talents from across the regions”, and will include more investment in what Canon does but on a more local level in different regions across the world, as opposed to all of the innovation being created in Tokyo, as it is at the moment.
This will allow “regional independence and international collaboration [to be] put into practice”, Mitarai said.
In this new “network of companies”, Mitarai explained that each regional headquarters will manage local R&D and manufacturing, as well as service and support customised to its market.
In Europe, the smaller Canon companies will focus on printing and network video surveillance, and the firm has already brought in specialists in these business areas such as Océ, Axis and Milestone Systems.
Mitarai said that, along with its global reputation for cameras, this will make Canon the largest printing and network video surveillance company in the world.
On a B2B level, the move is also about helping other firms build new competitive advantages and improve services for their own customers.
“We are changing our own operation model and go to market structure to build more expertise in these areas and connect with our customers,” said Jeppe Frandsen, head of the Production Printing Group at Canon Europe.
“Our customers are changing so we are now looking at a way customers are changing to what their customers want – new ways to do business together.”
Canon’s EXPO 2015 event was also an opportunity for the company to show off many of the latest projects from its R&D centre in Tokyo for the first time in Europe.
These tie in with the firm’s new focus as it launches smaller companies in more regional areas, and include a range of innovative practices such as responding to society’s monitoring needs, 3D printing as part of a partnership with 3D Systems in Europe, and graphic arts via investment in digital print technologies.
Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/technology-2/is-canon-betting-its-future-on-iot.html
Is Acer Open To A Takeover?
Acer Inc founder Stan Shih said he would welcome a takeover of the struggling Taiwanese computer manufacturer after a drastic decline in its stock price, while warning any potential buyer would have to pay a heavy amount.
“Welcome,” Shih told reporters in response to a question about whether Acer would be open to a takeover. He added however that any buyer would get an “empty shell” and would pay dearly.
“U.S. and European management teams usually are concerned about money, their CEOs only work for money. But Taiwanese are more concerned about a sense of mission and emotional factors,” he said.
His remarks were first reported by Taiwanese media on Thursday and were confirmed by a company spokesman.
Acer has reported steep on-year sales falls in recent months, including a 33 percent drop in July.
It suffered a T$2.89 billion ($90 million) loss in the first six months of 2015, versus a slight profit in the same period last year. It booked losses for all of 2011, 2012 and 2013 amid cratering PC sales.
Its stock price has fallen by nearly half since early April.
Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/acer-warms-to-takeover-possibility.html
Has The iPhone Peaked in The U.S.?
August 21, 2015 by admin
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Apple’s vice like grip in the US smartphone market is falling off as sales of the overpriced gadgets slump.
Research outfit Kantar Worldpanel ComTech said the 2.3 per cent drop in US sales had been covered by rises in China, Japan and Australia.
But the fact that Apple’s home ground is the US and that it has become increasingly dependent on its iPhone, this statistic does not bode well, particularly as the company depends on continual growth to maintain its share price the whole lot is starting become unstuck.
For the second quarter of 2015, iPhone sales grew by 2.1 percent from the same quarter last year across Europe’s five biggest markets, namely the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. Growth was strongest in the UK at 5.5 percent and weakest in Italy at only 0.1 percent. Beyond Europe, iPhone sales surged by 9.1 per cent in Australia, 7.3 percent in China and 2.7 percent in Japan.
It is worthwhile pointing that the European growth outside the UK, Australia and China is more indicative of a flat market rather than actual growth.
A possible reason for the fall in the US is better competition from Android where Apple’s Android rivals provided a tougher fight.
Carolina Milanesi, chief of research at Kantar Worldpanel ComTech, said in a press release. “In the U.S., as we forecasted last month, Android’s growth continued in the quarter ending June 30, with both Samsung and LG increasing their share sequentially. Forty-three percent of all Android buyers mentioned a ‘good deal on the price of the phone’ as the main purchase driver for their new device.”
“Android in the U.S. is undergoing its strongest consolidation yet, with Samsung and LG now accounting for 78 percent of all Android sales,” Milanesi added. “LG is the real success story of the quarter. Not only did it double its share of the US smartphone market once again, but it was also able, for the first time, to acquire more first-time smartphone buyers than Samsung.”
Screen size was the main driver for Android buyers across Europe, according to Dominic Sunnebo, business unit director at Kantar. Samsung and LG both sell big-screen “phablet” phones. Samsung’s Galaxy Note 4 sports a 5.7-inch screen, while LG’s G4 packs in a 5.5-inch screen.
Though the iPhone 6 Plus also uses a 5.5-inch display, iOS buyers are driven by a wider range of factors, Sunnebo said, including “phone reliability and durability, as well as the quality of the materials.”
Of course if you are member of Tame Apple Press you will forget to report the news and say the opposite and claim that the iPhone’s wonderful sales are a problem.
HTC To Go High-End
August 18, 2015 by admin
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Taiwanese smartphone maker HTC Corp said it will eliminate some jobs and discontinue models as part of its strategy to focus on high-end devices to better compete with the likes of AppleInc and Samsung Electronics.
“The cuts will be across the board,” Chief Financial Officer Chialin Chang told reporters after HTC reported a second-quarter loss and forecast another for the third-quarter. “They will be significant.”
Chang said the cost reductions would extend to the first quarter of next year, but declined to give further details.
A pioneer in early smartphones, HTC has been dismissed by industry watchers as confused, unoriginal and uncompetitive.
The company has been losing market share over the past few years, hit by intense competition at the high-end of the market from the likes of Apple and Samsung Electronics while budget Chinese rivals have also eclipsed its low-cost offerings.
HTC shares have fallen 51 percent so far this year. The stock closed 1.69 percent lower before the results were announced.
Chang said HTC was banking on selling high-end models in emerging smartphone markets such as India, where he said the company has a 20 percent market share of phones priced between $250-$400.
Analysts, however, are less optimistic, saying HTC is likely to continue to struggle for the next four quarters at least.
“We believe HTC will keep losing share in the smartphone market and will keep losing money,” analyst Calvin Huang with Taiwan’s SinoPac Securities wrote in a recent research note.
Oracle’s New Processor Goes For The Cheap
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Oracle is looking to expand the market for its Sparc-based servers with a new, low-cost processor which it curiously called Sonoma.
The company isn’t saying yet when the chip will be in the shops but the spec shows that could become a new rival for Intel’s Xeon chips and make Oracle’s servers more competitive.
Sonoma is named after a place where they make cheap terrible Californian wine and Oracle aims the chip at Sparc-based servers at “significantly lower price points” than now.
This means that companies can use them for smaller, less critical applications.
Oracle has not done much with its Sparc line-up for a couple of years, and Sonoma was one of a few new chips planned. The database maker will update its Sparc T5, used in its mid-range systems and the high-end Sparc M7. The technology is expected to filter to the Sonoma lower tier servers.
The Sparc M7 will have technologies for encryption acceleration and memory protection built into the chip. It will include coprocessors to speed up database performance.
According to IDG Sonoma will take those same technologies and bring them down to low-cost points. This means that people can use them in cloud computing and for smaller applications.
He didn’t talk about prices or say how much cheaper the new Sparc systems will be, and it could potentially be years before Sonoma comes to market.