Tag Archive for Google

RB | March 6, 2012
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Top Ten Wireless Predictions for 2012 from Juniper Research

Crystal ballUK-based Juniper Research published a year-end list of predictions for the mobile and wireless industry for 2012. A copy of the report can be downloaded from Juniper Research, with registration here. Are they on-target of off-the-wall?

RecessionRecession Likely to Hit Smart Device Sales – Juniper Research says the continued recession will hurt smartphone and tablet sales. They believe tablet sales will be hurt more than “must-have” smartphones.

They say cash-strapped consumers may opt for the lower-priced tablets and could benefit players such as Amazon (AMZN) Kindle Fire or ARCHOS (JXR) ARNOVA branded devices rather than an Apple (AAPL) iPad. eReaders are most likely to be the hardest hit according to the report.

Eee Pad Transformer Prime2012 – The Year of the Quad-Core Processor - ASUS (2357) was the first to release Quad-Core Processor on the Eee Pad Transformer Prime with the newly launched NVidia (NVDA) Tegra 3 chip in November 2011. Qualcomm (QCOM) has also added a quad-core chip to their Snapdragon line.The firm expects more to come.

Quad-core processors offer improved performance and increased battery life. The performance boost comes from being able to multi-task more efficiently making sure that music keeps playing smoothly while the user is playing games or taking pictures. The power savings come from being able to keep those cores at a relatively low clock speed.

Quad-core processors will allow developers to add more realistic effects, getting ever closer to the elusive console-quality experience. The Tegra 3 even allows for controller support and mirroring to a 3D TV. Javascript and Flash will also run faster allowing web developers to create more graphics and script heavy apps and pages.

ballmer windows 8 tabletWindows 8 OS to Fuel Nokia Revival & Disrupt Tablet Market  Microsoft’s (MSFT) next OS will be compatible with both Intel and ARM architectures.  Windows 8 will run on both PC and mobile devices. The research firm believes Windows 8 will create a huge ecosystem of devices from smartphones, to tablets, notebooks and desktops for app developers to target. Juniper Research expects Microsoft to gain market share in the tablet space, as it replaces the non-tablet-optimised Windows 7. And, with Nokia (NOK) transitioning its existing (smartphone) and new products (likely to include a tablet) to Microsoft’s platform, the Finnish giant will be fighting back after spending several years losing market share to Google (GOOG) Android and Apple iOS devices.

Mobile virus2012 to see High Profile Malware Attacks on Mobile Devices – While there have been many malware attacks targeted at mobile devices, these attacks have been relatively small-scale. Given the increasing prevalence of consumer smartphones and tablets, and the opportunity they present to cybercriminals, this state of affairs is unlikely to continue. Juniper Research anticipates that 2012 will see several high-profile, international attacks on various mobile OSs, so that consumers at large are made aware of the pressing need to protect their smart devices by installing security software.

Bring Your Own DeviceCloud Mobility to Drive Collaborative Communications – The BYOD trend driven by the consumerization of enterprise IT will increase according the research firm. Specifically Juniper Research believes that 2012 will see a substantial increase in the number of enterprises moving to develop and deploy mobile-centric, social business strategies.

Other predictions from Juniper Research include:

London 2012 to Boost Mobile Advertising and M-Gambling, and Kickstart NFC

Mobile Coupons to Drive mCommerce Market Despite Economic Stagnation

MEMs Accelerometers and Gyroscopes to Transform Sensor Market for Mobile Devices

Social Gaming to Become a Major Mobile Play with Introduction of Synchronous Gaming

Online, Mobile and Physical Will Begin to Fuse into One Retail Market

 rb-

I’ll come back to these predictions at the end of the year and see which predictions were on target or off in space somewhere.

 

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RB | March 1, 2012
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It’s Offical: GOOG Better Than Us

Money bagsBusinessInsdier’s Matt Rosoff reports that Google (GOOG) Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt says that people in Silicon Valley don’t talk about the concerns of the 99% because a lot of them are immune to those concerns.

Eric Schmidt

Where are the little people?

CEO Schmidt told Brad Stone at BusinessWeek, “Occupy Wall Street isn’t really something that comes up in daily discussion, because their issues are not our daily reality.”

He also said “We live in a bubble, and I don’t mean a tech bubble or a valuation bubble. I mean a bubble as in our own little world….”

rb-

Maybe GOOG should think about how statements like this look to the 99%.

Do you think Google is concerned about what the public thinks?

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RB | February 7, 2012
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Data Centers To Go Wireless

WiFi radio waves MIT’s Technology Review reports researchers from IBM (IBM), Intel (INTC) and the University of California, Santa Barbara have come up with a way to improve data transmission in data centers. Heather Zheng, associate professor of computer science at UCSB who led the research says wireless is the answer to the in-rack cabling mess usually found in data centers. In their paper (PDF), the researchers say that transmitting data wirelessly within a data center would be simpler than rewiring data for tech titans like Google (GOOG), Facebook or Twitter.

The previous challenge for multi gigabit wireless in the data center was it required a line-of-sight connection to be useful. Achieving the required data center speed could not happen in the maze of metal racks, HVAC ducts and electrical conduits that make up most data centers.

TR reports that the researchers solution is to bounce 60-gigahertz Wi-Fi signals off the ceiling, which could boost data transmission speeds by 30 percent. Stacey Higginbotham at GigaOm points out that this could result in data transfers up of to 500 Gigabits per second. She says current Ethernet cables in data centers are generally 1, 10 or maybe 40 gigabits per second.

Ms. Zheng and colleagues used 60-gigahertz Wi-Fi, which has a bandwidth in the gigabits-per-second range and was developed for high-definition wireless communications according to TR. However, it has its limitations, says Ms. Zheng. To maximize the bandwidth and reduce interference between signals, it needs to be use 3D beamforming to focus the beams in a direct line of sight between endpoints. “Any obstacle larger than 2.5 millimeters can block the signal,” she says in the TR article.

Data center ceiling WiFi

Technology Review

One way to prevent the antennas from blocking each other would be to allow them to communicate only with their immediate neighbors, creating a type of mesh network. But that would further complicate efforts to route the data to the proper destinations, Professor Zheng told TR. Bouncing the beams off the ceiling directly to their targets not only ensures direct point-to-point communication between antennas but also reduces the chances that any two beams will cross and cause interference. “That’s very important when you have a high density of signals,” she says.

Flat metal plates placed on the ceiling offer near perfect reflection. “You also need an absorber material on the rack to make sure the signal doesn’t bounce back up,” says Ms. Zheng.

According to Technology Review the UCSB team worked with Lei Yang from Intel Labs in Oregon and Weile Zhang at Jiao Tong University in Xi’an, China, to simulate a 160-rack data center to see how the system might work. “Our simulation shows that wireless can add 0.5 terabytes per second,” she says.

IBM is also looking into using  wireless technology in data centers, Scott Reynolds, a researcher at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY, who has been developing 60-gigahertz systems told TR. “These data centers are just choked with cables,” he says. “And so every time you want to reconfigure one it’s very labor intensive and expensive.” But one problem with turning to wireless transmission, he adds, is that “you need to have hundreds of these wireless data links operating in a data center to be useful.” Since 60-gigahertz Wi-Fi has only four data channels, it’s important to configure the beams so they don’t interfere with each other.

Mark Thiele, the EVP of data center technology at Switch Communications‘ SuperNAP data center, told GigaOm that the research is worth following as low-latency networking inside the data center can be a bottleneck today for applications that range from financial trading to trying to move gigantic data sets around.

TR reports Ms. Zheng and her colleagues are now working on building a prototype data center to put their solution into practice.

rb-

Having just done a small data center cleanup, the idea is appealing. We pulled out 2 generations of cabling, IBM Type 1 and a bunch of Cat 3 multi-pair out from under the deck.

Ms. Higginbotham says the choice of 60 GHz for the data center a smart move. Intel is pushing 60GHz for consumer use, under the WiGig brand (I wrote about WiGig in 2010 here). This means the chips would be cheap. Some of the possible security issues raised by running Wi-Fi in data center are tempered by using the 60Ghz range. She says if you are worried about someone standing outside the data center trying to eavesdrop on the data you are transmitting the 60Ghz, signals deteriorate rapidly.

Of course, change is hard and data center guys are going to have to learn wireless and top of rack switches would have to get radio cards installed. The Wi-Fi reflective panels would have to be installed on the ceiling of the data center and the servers would need signal-absorbing surface so the Wi-Fi signals don’t continually bounce around the data center.

Just in case you are confused about WiGig, Wi-Fi and IEEE, EETimes says, “WiGig forged a deal with the Wi-Fi Alliance so its 60 GHz approach can be certified as a future generation of Wi-Fi. The group has aligned its technical approach with the existing IEEE 802.11ad standards effort on 60 GHz.”

Now if only they could do wireless electricity……..

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RB | February 2, 2012
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Never Check Email First Thing In The Morning

Business - Updated 03-18-12 - Science writer David Bradley on his blog ScienceText also recommends, “Avoid social networking and email first thing.” I know it works for me, I walk around and talk to staff before I get tangled up in the work everybody else wants me to do.

–

Sid Savara a widely regarded personal development trainer published 7 Reasons You Should Never Check Email First Thing In The Morning at his site sidsavara.com.

#1 – Ignorance Is Bliss..fully Productive – When it comes to email, ignorance is bliss. That’s why if you’ve got something important you want to make progress on, the author offers these four words for success:

Don’t check your email.

EmailsAs soon as you get in, work on something important for 30-45 minutes, and only then check email. If you can stand it, wait even longer. The article suggests that as long as you’re ignorant of everything else that’s going on outside, you can concentrate on what you want to work on.

Any new information you get can cause you to get distracted.

#2 – It’s Not Your Todo List – Mr. Savara you know what is most important for you to work on the first thing in the morning you should go ahead and do it!

By checking email, you risk doing what someone else wants you to do. Or more bluntly, when you check your inbox, the emails you get are a todo list someone else makes for you.

Who is in charge of your time – you, or the person emailing you?

Changed priorities#3 – It’s An Excuse To Lack Direction – The author says that checking email is a low priority activity and that you may be checking email first thing in the morning because your todo list has gotten off track somewhere. He argues that when you don’t have a clear list of priorities, checking email becomes an urgent activity that you do at the expense of your important ones.

#4 – Reaction vs “Proaction” - When you check your email, you end up with more work to do – and because we’re in “check email” mode, we start replying to them at the expense of the task we were just working on. Rather than actively setting an agenda, email forces you to react to items as they come in – regardless of their true priority.

Mr. Savara says he prefer taking proactive actions. Work on the things that are important to you, regardless of whether they’re urgent or simply at the top of your inbox. Stop wasteful actions, and focus on productive actions instead.

Social networking sites#5 – Searching For Excuses Blindly checking email (or Twitter, or Facebook, or any number iTime wasters) is usually just searching for an excuse to not do the work that must be done according to the author.

Don’t fall into that trap. Don’t give yourself an out by checking your email for an excuse to fail. He urges, Don’t check your email  – acknowledge the task you need to get done, and do it.

Cross that bridge – it’s not going away.

#6 – There’s No Set Time Limit – Meetings get a bad rap for being a waste of time – but at least you usually know how long a meeting will last. But do you know how long you’re going to spend on email once you open your inbox, odds are you don’t know – or you’ll underestimate it.

The problem is, checking email only takes a minute but you can get sucked into follow-up activities that result from opening your email, and there’s no way of knowing how much time these will take.

You have a set time limit for how many productive hours you have in a day don’t let email suck you in and cause you to devote more time to it than you can afford.

#7 – It Builds Expectation – A lot of people says, “But I have to check my email! People expect a response from me in the morning!” The author believes that there are some requests that need immediate responses, but they’re much less frequent than you might think.

He argues that people expect a response from you in the morning because you’ve always responded first thing in the morning and you’ve built that expectation. The more often you check email, the more often people will expect you to check it. Just stop checking it first thing in the morning, and people won’t expect it anymore.

Mr Savara recommends the following email rules:

  • Only check if there is something specific you are looking for. Most important – don’t go fishing around. Check it with a specific plan, a specific email you’re looking for from a specific person.
  • Separate low value emails via filters (“rules” in outlook) or separate email addresses so you don’t even see them in your inbox when you check
  • Set a time limit. Commit to checking for 5 minutes, just to look for that one piece of information – and have your exit strategy ready. Before you open your inbox, decide what you’ll do if 1) the email is there 2) the email isn’t there 3) the email is incomplete. Don’t be reactionary – proactively decide what action you will take based on the outcomes you expect.
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RB | January 19, 2012
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Don’t Fear the iPad

Network security Dark Reading reports that as workers bring their consumer devices to the workplace and expect to use them, many IT teams have raised concerns over the impact of mobile devices on a business’ security.

Tablet computersThe first reaction to the trend of consumerization of IT has typically been to ban smartphones and tablets. Slowly, companies are opening up Bring Your Own Technology (BYOT) programs and attempting to better manage the devices. Yet Josh Corman, director of security intelligence for Akamai (AKAM) told DarkReading firms should speed things up at least in the case of iPads.

He says firms that switch employees from general-purpose computers to more limited devices, such as the Apple (AAPL) iPad, could reap significant security benefits. “When new IT comes out, it is not ipso facto secure, consumer devices typically lag,” Mr. Corman told DarkReading. “But in this particular case, the adoption is of something that is inherently more defensible and inherently less complex.”

Apple ComputersMr. Corman looks at the more tightly controlled software ecosystem for iPads and sees fewer avenues for attackers to compromise corporate networks. The devices are simpler than general-purpose computer workstations, and that’s a benefit for security, he told DarkReading. “We know that complexity is the enemy of security, but we accept very high levels of complexity in our compute environments,” Mr. Corman says.

The article reports that the reasoning parallels that used by Microsoft (MSFT) when the company embarked on its mission to harden its Windows operating system. A measure of its progress was the reduction of the operating system’s attack surface area, a measure of the ease of which attackers could get access to and exploit critical functions. By reducing the ability for attackers to inject code into the system, Microsoft reduced the attack surface area and increased security. Similarly, simpler software systems, such as the iPad, used as part of a comprehensive attempt to reduce complexity in a company’s computational environment could have a similar effect.

Android logoAs long as the tablets can satisfy worker requirements, then a company could garner security benefits, agrees Frank Andrus, CTO for Bradford Networks, a network security provider. Not all tablets are created equal the more open Android platform might not offer as many security benefits as Apple’s more controlled product, “They can more easily be taken advantage of by an attacker,” he told DarkReading.

The mobile devices, however, pose a greater hazard to sensitive company data, he says. Because employees carry smartphones and tablets to places they would not bring a laptop, companies do run a greater risk of exposing data on lost and stolen devices, he says.

Weak linkIn addition, unless a company completely converts its employees to tablets for work, they will just be adding another attack surface to its IT systems, not subtracting a more complex system, Tim Matthews, a director of data-loss prevention products for Symantec told DarkReading. “The problem is that you don’t necessarily reduce the attack surface because you are not replacing your laptop yet,” he says.

To protect against the loss or theft of devices, and the resulting data leakage, companies should employee mobile device management (MDM), Mr. Matthews says. MDM software can also limit the applications installed on an employee-owned device and enforce role-based security on devices that attempt to connect to a corporate network.

In the end, allowing employees to use locked-down tablets, such as the iPad, can increase security, but only if the company pays attention to how employees are using the devices, he says.

Steve Ballmer

Where's my tablet?

“These guys are working on the plane or working at home, adding to a company’s productivity, but they are doing so in an unprotected way,” Matthews says. “And that’s a problem.”

rb-

Mobile devices bring a different set of threats, but more employees on hard-to-hack tablets means better security.

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