Will ARM’s Mbed OS Help The IoT?

ARM has announced a software tool to make Internet of Things (IoT) deployment faster and easier and thus speed up the creation of IoT devices.

Called the Mbed IoT Device Platform, the software is primarily an operating system (OS) built around open standards that claims to “bring Internet protocols, security and standards-based manageability into one integrated tool” in order to save money and energy in making IoT devices.

The Mbed IoT Device Platform is made up chiefly of the Mbed OS, a free operating system for Cortex-M processor based devices that “consolidates the building blocks of the IoT in one integrated set of software components” and contains security, communication and device management features to enable the development of lower power IoT devices.

The OS will be available to Mbed partners in the fourth quarter for early development, with the first production devices due in 2015 to allow companies to focus on innovation, reducing development costs and time to market.

It will also support standards such as Bluetooth Smart, 2G, 3G, LTE and CDMA cellular technologies, Thread, WiFi, and 802.15.4/6LoWPAN along with TLS/DTLS, CoAP, HTTP, MQTT and Lightweight M2M, ARM said.

The Mbed OS will also feature the Mbed Device Server, a licensable software product that provides the required server-side technologies to connect and manage devices in a more secure way. It also provides a bridge between the protocols designed for use on IoT devices and the APIs that are used by web developers.

“This simplifies the integration of IoT devices that provide ‘little data’ into cloud frameworks that deploy big data analytics on the aggregated information,” said ARM. “Built around open standards, the product scales to handle the connections and management of millions of devices.”

Mbed Device Server is available now, with an aim to improve efficiency, security and manageability for devices using a “standards-based and IoT approach”, ARM said.

The software also comes with its own community, Mbed.org, which is the focus point for a more than 70,000 developers around the platform. The website provides a database of hardware development kits, a repository for reusable software components, reference applications, documentation and web-based development tools. It is already up and running, ARM said.

“Deploying IoT-enabled products and services requires a diverse set of technologies and skills to be coordinated across an organization,” said ARM CEO Simon Segars. “ARM Mbed will make this easier by offering the necessary building blocks to enable our expanding set of ecosystem partners to focus on the problems they need to solve to differentiate their products, instead of common infrastructure technologies. This will accelerate the growth and adoption of the IoT in all sectors of the global economy.”

ARM is launching Mbed with a number of partners, including Atmel, CSR, Ericsson, Farnell, Freescale, IBM, KDDI, Marvell, Megachips, Multitech, Nordic Semiconductor, NXP, Renesas, Seecontrol, Semtech, Silicon Labs, Stream Technologies, ST, Telenor Connexion, Telefonica, Thundersoft, u-blox, wot.io and Zebra.

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FBI Worried About Encryption

The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation expressed some concerns about moves by Apple and Google to include encryption on smartphones, the agency’s director has stated.

Quick law enforcement access to the contents of smartphones could save lives in some kidnapping and terrorism cases, FBI Director James Comey said in a briefing with some reporters. Comey said he’s concerned that smartphone companies are marketing “something expressly to allow people to place themselves beyond the law,” according to news reports.

An FBI spokesman confirmed the general direction of Comey’s remarks. The FBI has contacted Apple and Google about their encryption plans, Comey told a group of reporters who regularly cover his agency.

Just last week, Google announced it would be turning on data encryption by default in the next version of Android. Apple, with the release of iOS 8 earlier this month, allowed iPhone and iPad users to encrypt most personal data with a password.

Comey’s remarks, prompted by a reporter’s question, came just days after Ronald Hosko, president of the Law Enforcement Legal Defense Fund and former assistant director of the FBI Criminal Investigative Division, decried mobile phone encryption in a column in the Washington Post.

Smartphone companies shouldn’t give criminals “one more tool,” he wrote. “Apple’s and Android’s new protections will protect many thousands of criminals who seek to do us great harm, physically or financially. They will protect those who desperately need to be stopped from lawful, authorized, and entirely necessary safety and security efforts. And they will make it impossible for police to access crucial information, even with a warrant.”

Representatives of Apple and Google didn’t immediately respond to requests for comments on Comey’s concerns.

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Hackers Infiltrate Jimmy Johns

Sandwich restaurant chain Jimmy John’s said there was a potential data breach involving customers’ credit and debit card information at 216 of its stores and franchised locations on July 30.

An intruder stole log-in credentials from the company’s vendor and used the credentials to remotely access the point-of-sale systems at some corporate and franchised locations between June 16 and Sept. 5, the company said.

The chain is the latest victim in a series of security breaches among retailers such as Target Corp, Michaels Stores Inc and Neiman Marcus.

Home Depot Inc  said last week some 56 million payment cards were likely compromised in a cyberattack at its stores, suggesting the hacking attack at the home improvement chain was larger than the breach at Target Corp.

More than 12 of the affected Jimmy John’s stores are in Chicago area, according to a list disclosed by the company.

The breach has been contained and customers can use their cards at its stores, the privately held company said.

Jimmy John’s said it has hired forensic experts to assist with its investigation.

“Cards impacted by this event appear to be those swiped at the stores, and did not include those cards entered manually or online,” Jimmy John’s said.

The Champaign, Illinois-based company said stolen information may include the card number and in some cases the cardholder’s name, verification code, and/or the card’s expiration date.

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Will Mark Hurd Call The Shots At Oracle?

Analysts have started to wonder which of the two heads that Larry Ellison left in charge of Oracle will be calling the shots — Safra Catz or Mark Hurd.

Wall Street thinks that dealmaker and finance guru Safra Catz will be in charge even though she, and not Hurd who would be the real boss. Of course Ellison will remain around for a while, so it is a little moot, neither Catz or Hurd got to the top by crossing Ellison. But Ellison could actually go, particularly if his mysterious exit was because he was sick and this has made some analysts wonder who will be in charge.

Of 12 analysts who replied to an anonymous poll, five said Catz would likely run Oracle, while only one voted for Hurd, 57. Four said both would continue to run the company, one said neither, and one plumped for dark-horse internal candidate Thomas Kurian.

Catz has more status because the 52-year old former Wall Street banker orchestrated Oracle’s multibillion dollar acquisitions and has been Ellison’s de facto deputy for the last few years. Hurd, who only joined Oracle in 2010 after leaving HP under the cloud of a business ethics breach, has a larger public presence but is still seen as a newcomer.

Only one analyst said Hurd was the more likely to lead the company, chiefly because he is the one with experience of being the CEO of a large technology company. In fact some of the Oracle board does not trust him because of the experience that HP had with him.

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Will HP Dump Snapfish?

Hewlett-Packard Co is taking a look at putting its web-based photo sharing service Snapfish on the block, and has held discussions with multiple private equity and industry buyers, a person with knowledge of the situation said.

Snapfish, which HP bought for more than $300 million in 2005 and currently sits within its printing and personal systems group, is considered non-core for the company, the person said, asking not to be named because the matter is not public.

A spokesman for HP declined to comment.

Last year, HP replaced the printing and personal business’ long-time head Todd Bradley with former Lenovo executive Dion Weisler. Bradley has since left the technology company, to join Tibco Software Inc as its president.

Some of the parties that have been eyeing Snapfish have also expressed interest in buying another online photo-sharing services provider, Shutterfly Inc, the person said.

Shutterfly hired Frank Quattrone’s Qatalyst Partners over the summer to find a buyer, and is expected wrap up its process in the next several weeks, people familiar with the matter have said previously.

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Ericsson Acquires Fabrix Systems

The distinctions between TV and mobile services continues to merge and in many cases that occurs in the cloud.

That’s the logic behind Ericsson’s planned $95 million acquisition of Fabrix Systems, which sells a cloud-based platform for delivering DVR (digital video recorder), video on demand and other services.

The acquisition is intended to help service providers deliver what Ericsson calls TV Anywhere, for viewing on multiple devices with high-quality and relevant content for each user. Cable operators, telecommunications carriers and other service providers are seeing rapid growth in video streaming and want to reach consumers on multiple screens. That content increasingly is hosted in cloud data centers and delivered via Internet Protocol networks.

Fabrix, which has 103 employees in the U.S. and Israel, sells an integrated platform for media storage, processing and delivery. Ericsson said the acquisition will make new services possible on Ericsson MediaFirst and Mediaroom as well as other TV platforms.

Stockholm-based Ericsson expects the deal to close in the fourth quarter. Fabrix Systems will become part of Ericsson’s Business Unit Support Solutions.

Other players usually associated with data networks are also moving into the once-specialized realm of TV. At last year’s CES, Cisco Systems introduced Videoscape Unity, a system for providing unified video services across multiple screens, and at this year’s show it unveiled Videoscape Cloud, an OpenStack-based video delivery platform that can be run on service providers’ cloud infrastructure instead of on specialized hardware.

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Intel Debuts A Slew Of Core M Chips

Intel’s new Core M chips — which bring PC-like performance to slim design tablets — will initially be in many Windows 8.1 tablets, but no Android devices are yet on the radar.

The chips will be in five to seven detachable tablets and hybrids by year end, and the number of devices could balloon to 20 next year, said Andy Cummins, mobile platform marketing manager at Intel.

Core M chips, announced at the IFA trade show in Berlin on Friday, are the first based on the new Broadwell architecture. The processors will pave the way for a new class of thin, large-screen tablets with long battery life, and also crank up performance to run full PC applications, Intel executives said in interviews.

“It’s about getting PC-type performance in this small design,” Cummins said. “[Core M] is much more optimized for thin, fanless systems.”

Tablets with Core M could be priced as low as US$699, but the initial batch of detachable tablets introduced at IFA are priced much higher. Lenovo’s 11.6-inch ThinkPad Helix 2 starts at $999, Dell’s 13.3-inch Latitude 13 7000 starts at $1,199, and Hewlett-Packard’s 13.3-inch Envy X2 starts at $1,049.99. The products are expected to ship in September or October.

Core M was also shown in paper-thin prototype tablets running Windows and Android at the Computex trade show in June. PC makers have not expressed interest in building Android tablets with Core M, but the OS can be adapted for the chips, Cummins said.

The dual-core chips draw as little as 4.5 watts, making it the lowest-power Core processor ever made by Intel. The clock speeds start at 800MHz when running in tablet mode, and scales up to 2.6GHz when running PC applications.

The power and performance characteristics make Core M relevant primarily for tablets. The chips are not designed for use in full-fledged PCs, Cummins said.

“If you are interested in the highest-performing parts, Core M probably isn’t the exact right choice. But if you are interested in that mix of tablet form factor, detachable/superthin form factor, this is where the Core M comes into play,” Cummins said.

For full-fledged laptops, users could opt for the upcoming fifth-generation Core processor, also based on Broadwell, Cummins said. Those chips are faster and will draw 15 watts of power or more, and be in laptops and desktops early next year.

New features in Core M curbed power consumption, and Intel is claiming performance gains compared to chips based on the older Haswell architecture. Tablets could offer around two more hours of battery life with Core M.

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Toshiba Develops Mobile Sensor

Toshiba has created a new image sensor for mobile phones and tablets that promises better image resolution for run-of-the-mill smartphones when it goes into mass production.

The T4KA7 is a 1/2.4-inch, 20-megapixel backside illuminated sensor with a 1.12 micrometer pixel size, which provides for a smaller sensor size overall.

The sensor allows for a lower module height of under 6 millimeters compared to the current 20-megapixel, 1.2-micrometer sensors, the company said.

“T4KA7 is the first 1.12-micrometer, 20-megapixel sensor on the market with a high frame rate of 22 fps at full resolution,” a Toshiba spokeswoman wrote in an email.

The frame rate is 1.8 times the speed of Toshiba’s previous 20-megapixel sensor, the T4K46.

When zooming digitally, the sensor provides crisper images compared to 13- and 16-megapixel sensors, which are resolutions widely adopted in recent smartphones, she added.

Announced earlier this year, Samsung’s camera-phone hybrid Galaxy K zoomhas a 20.7-megapixel image sensor that is supposed to perform well when taking photos in low-light settings.

Without a specific measurement for comparison, it’s hard to say whether the T4KA7 would do any better in low-light shooting situations than other sensors, the Toshiba spokeswoman said.

“We think we are providing top-class sensors in terms of pixel performance,” she added.

Toshiba is producing samples of its new sensors now, with mass production of up to half a million units per month to begin in November.

Higher-end smartphones already featuring 20-megapixel cameras include the Sony Xperia Z1, the Nokia Lumia 930 and 1520.

Announced last month, the Nokia Lumia 1020 sports a camera designed for photographers — it has a sensor with 41-megapixel resolution.

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Is The EU Going After Qualcomm

Qualcomm faces an antitrust investigation in Europe, even as it seeks to end a probe of its alleged monopoly practices in China.

Reuters reported that Qualcomm is looking for an amicable resolution of an investigation conducted by China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) over suspicions that it holds a monopoly in the Chinese telecoms market.

The investigation involves allegations that Qualcomm’s China subsidiary has been overcharging and exploiting its position in the wireless communications sector.

The antitrust probe of Qualcomm has been ongoing since last November, when the firm revealed that it was under investigation by the NDRC, though at the time it said the NDRC had not revealed the substance of the investigation.

In February, the NDRC declared it had received complaints against Qualcomm from the China Communications Industry Association, regarding its market position and patent fees it charged Chinese mobile phone manufacturers.

While the NDRC has ruled that Qualcomm does hold a monopoly in China, it has yet to decide whether the company has abused its position in the market.

Under China’s 2008 anti-monopoly laws, Qualcomm could face high fines, potentially topping $1bn.

In a statement to Reuters, Qualcomm said that it is seeking an amicable conclusion to the investigation. “Qualcomm executives discussed with NDRC officials several topics in an effort to reach a comprehensive resolution. We are continuing to cooperate with NDRC and cannot comment further,” the firm said.

Given that the NDRC is targeting at least another 30 foreign firms with antitrust investigations, including Microsoft and Volkswagen, critics have suggested that the monopoly law is being used to unfairly target overseas firms so that China can protect its native businesses.

Even if the China case is settled Qualcomm is now facing the prospect of a monopoly probe in Europe. Reuters has also reported the company could face a European Commission antitrust investigation following a complaint made four years ago by British software defined modem company Icera, a subsidiary of Nvidia.

Icera alleged that Qualcomm had engaged in anti-competitive behaviour by discouraging customers from doing businesses with Icera through patent related incentives and exclusionary pricing of chipsets.

While it was thought that the allegations had dropped from the European Commission’s agenda, the issue has resurfaced. It could even be fast-tracked following a similar monopoly case and subsequent fine made against Intel, which cost the company €1.1bn.

As yet, no official investigation has been opened by the European Comission. Qualcomm was contacted for a statement on both antitrust investigations, but the company has not yet responded.

Patents and their subsequent enforcement tend to play a major part in the technology industry as companies vie for market shares or state their supremacy. Qualcomm is no different, with the company having snapped up 2,400 patents from HP, including one for the now-defunct Palm technology, earlier this year.

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UPS Breached

Credit and debit card information belonging to customers made purchases at 51 UPS Store Inc. locations in 24 states this year may have been illegally accessed as the result of an intrusion into the company’s networks.

In a statement on Wednesday, UPS said it was recently notified by law enforcement officials about a “broad-based malware intrusion” of its systems.

A subsequent investigation by an IT security firm showed that attackers had installed previously unknown malware on systems in more than four-dozen stores to gain access to cardholder data. The affected stores represent about 1% of the 4,470 UPS Store locations around the country.

The intrusion may have exposed data on transactions conducted at the stores between Jan. 20 and Aug. 11, 2014. “For most locations, the period of exposure to this malware began after March 26, 2014,” UPS said in a statement.

In addition to payment card information, the hackers also appear to have gained access to customer names, as well as postal and email addresses.

Each of the affected locations is individually owned and runs private networks that are not connected to other stores, UPS added. The company provided alist of affected locations.

The breach is the third significant one to be disclosed in the past week. Last Thursday, grocery store chain Supervalu announced it had suffered a malicious intrusion that exposed account data belonging to customers who had shopped at about 180 of the company’s stores in about a dozen states. The breach also affected customers from several other major grocery store chains for which Supervalu provides IT services.

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