3M has announced a new high-density version of its Embedded Capacitance Material (ECM), an innovation it says will have wide application in miniaturized computing.

Embedded Capacitance Material (or ECM) is constructed from a thin layer of epoxy filled with ceramic and layered on both sides with copper foil. It can be embedded directly onto printed circuit boards (PCBs), reducing the number of surface mount capacitors needed, leaving more room on the boards and reducing noise that causes electromagnetic interference.

The company says it has increased the capacitance in its ECM to between 20 to 40 nF from 10 nF in previous versions. This means computer and electronic component manufacturers will be able to “include more functionality in a device of the same size, or within practical limits, shrink the device some more,” says Alexander Barr, senior product develop specialist at 3M.

The new ECM would theoretically be able to reduce the hardware required for something like a mobile device by several orders of magnitude, adds Joel Pfeiffer, a technical support engineering specialist at the manufacturer. “It works that way, mostly. If you for some reason had a need for, say, 100 nF of embedded capacitance previously, that would have taken 10 square inches and now you could do that with much less.”

According to a 2010 study by AVX Corp., a U.S.-headquartered global manufacturer and supplier of electronic components, up to 70 per cent of the PCBs on today’s electronic devices are covered with passive components (which consume energy that could be used to power the device). ECM is designed to replace these, thus making PCBs more functional per square inch.

However, Prof. Todd Hubing, who works in the electrical and computer department at South Carolina’s Clemson University, says while ECM could be the future of computers and electronics, its cost remains too high to see widespread adoption in those industries.

“If it cost the same as just adding surface mount capacitors I think everybody, well not everybody, but most electronics would be using embedded capacitance materials because they really do reduce the noise,” he says. “Electrically, they’re just a better option than these lumped components. But the problem has always been the cost of putting this material in versus the cost of just adding some more surface mount components.”

ECM suffers from a chicken-and-egg problem with manufacturers, he says. “There’s nothing inherently expensive about it. I think the reason the costs are so high is because the volumes are so low. It’s one of those things, I think, that if everybody started using it, it would be cheap, and if it were cheap everybody would start using it.”

So far, 3M [NYSE: MMM] has not released the new ECM to the market, but has supplied it to several OEMs in the qualification process.

Hubing says ECM is just one emerging technology with the potential to make computers smaller and more powerful. In September of last year, IBM and 3M announced a partnership to develop special adhesives that would stack semiconductors into towers of as many as 100 chips, creating a new kind of microprocessor. These stacks could be used in everything from servers to smartphones.

“Certainly we’re doing a lot more stuff on-chip right now,” says Hubing. “The stacked silicon inside chips is catching on [and] will eventually be widely used, I think. And that’s allowed us to put a lot more computing power or a lot more function inside a single chip.”

Source:http://www.itworldcanada.com/news/3m-creates-high-density-material-for-pcbs/144839

Acer said that it had initiated legal action against former CEO and President Gianfranco Lanci. The company claims that Lanci has breached the non-compete clause in his contract when he left the company in March 2011. Acer has initiated legal action in Italian courts, the company said.

Lanci stepped down from his position at Acer last year over disagreements around product strategy. After joining the company in 1997, he helped Acer expand its global presence, presiding over the acquisitions of both Packard Bell and Gateway. Thanks to his leadership, Acer at one point became the second biggest PC company in the world.

But as consumers began to shift to smartphones and tablets, the split between Lanci and Acer investors began to grow: Lanci wanted to push the company to become more mobile-focused and more global. Acer also needed to focus on software and hardware integration by expanding from 300 to 400 engineers to 1,000. This meant hiring talent that currently wasn’t present in Taiwan.

But investors feared that this move would lead to a “de-Taiwanization” of the company. Lanci argued that it’s just globalization. “If we want to be in the top three (PC makers) in the next three to five years, we need to be a global company and we need to leverage resources wherever they are,” he said in an interview at the time.

The bickering between Lanci and the investors continued. Meanwhile, Acer was late in delivering on its smartphone and tablet vision. It misjudged the weakness in demand for products in Europe and the United States, thus leading to two consecutive quarters of missing earnings guidance. It also brought a $150M write down for excess (unsold) inventory in Europe.

Yet had Acer followed his vision, Lanci said the $20 billion business would have quickly grown to a $30 billion business, bringing in over a third of its sales from smartphones and tablets by 2015. “People after a few years will decide who was wrong,” he said.

Seven months after leaving Acer, Lanci signed on with Lenovo as a consultant focusing on assisting the computer firm to build itself as a consumer brand. Shortly thereafter, he was appointed the head of Lenovo’s Europe, Middle East and Africa businesses last month.

“Gianfranco brings years of expertise and insights to Lenovo that will help us strengthen our growing global consumer business,” Lenovo CEO Yuanqing Yang said of Lanci’s new role last year. But apparently Lanci wasn’t allowed to share that expertise and insight with Lenovo, as Acer states that there is a 12-month non-compete period in Lanci’s agreement.

“We believe Mr. Lanci has clearly breached the terms of the non-compete agreement he entered into willingly,” the company states. “We believe we have a very robust case.”

Source:http://www.tomshardware.com/news/Acer-non-compete-Gianfranco-Lanci-Lenovo-Lawsuit,14647.html

Mac OS X currently runs on Intel-based x86 systems. However, it seems as if Apple has seriously considered the possibility of porting the popular operating system to ARM chipsets.



Indeed, according to a Delfte University of Technology paper spotted by iMore, Apple’s Platform Technologies Group kicked off a project in 2010 to port the OS X Darwin kernel to ARMv5 architecture – the same family of chipsets that currently powers iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad.

“The goal of this project is to get Darwin into a workable state on the MV88F6281 processor so that other teams can continue their work on this platform,” reads the paper.

“The project has three major milestones: Getting the buildsystem into shape so that it can build the kernel and kexts; building and booting the kernel into single user mode; booting the system into multi-user mode.”

As iMore’s Jack Perry points out, the project was only made public several months ago – and it remains unclear if the initiative is still ongoing. However, the author of the paper is now a full-time employee at Apple, where he works as a CoreOS engineer.

“[Remember], Mac OS X once ran on Power PC chips, yet Apple had it secretly running on Intel chips at the same time. It only makes sense for a company as forward thinking as Apple to have ARM-compatible builds of OS X in the development labs,” Perry explained.

“So while neither an OS X tablet nor an ARM MacBook Air seem likely, it’s interesting to see further evidence of Apple keeping the Mac platform nimble.”



Nevertheless, it should be noted that a number of recent reports indicate Apple has seriously considered moving from x86 chips to RISC-based ARM architecture for its laptop lineup. In May 2011, SemiAccurate’s Charlie Demerjian claimed Cupertino had already reached its decision, making the switch a “done deal.”

“Apple is moving the laptop line, and presumably desktops too, to ARM based chips as soon as possible. With A15/Eagle allowing more than 32-bit memory access, things look up, but it seems silly to do so before the full 64 bit cores come in the following generation,” said Demerjian.

“It is a done deal, Intel is out, and Apple chips are in. The only question left is if they will use their own core, a Samsung core, or the generic ARM black box. My bet is on generic for the first round, with a custom uncore, and moving to progressively more proprietary features with each successive generation.”



However, Silicon Valley chip expert David Kanter believes Apple won’t switch its laptops to ARM anytime soon. Yet, Kanter does acknowledge eventually unifying three major platforms (computers, tablets and phones) would make it far easier for developers to target Apple platforms.

“In some ways, this might be the most sensible, since expanding the iOS installed base would help Apple create a more attractive market for developers compared to Android and could facilitate tying the iPhone to other Mac products. [Remember], Apple has few attachments to x86 and would not hesitate to shift to a better alternative,” Kanter wrote in a RealWorldTech analysis.

“[Yet], there are no ARM designs [to] meet Apple’s needs for performance and efficiency in the next two or three years. Even if there was, it is hard to see how such a design would be substantially better than AMD’s offerings. Over 5-10 years though, many of the technical and business hurdles may change. The ARM ecosystem is moving forward at a rapid pace, and Apple is watching carefully.”

Kanter also opined that Cupertino may be planning to design a hybrid x86-ARM system at some point in the near future.

“There are a number of ways putting ARM near a computer could be quite interesting and valuable… For example, Apple could include an ARM core in future notebooks for ‘instant-on’ web browsing while the computer is booting – something done in certain Dell and HP models. A [further] extension of that idea would be an update to OS X with an iOS emulator and maybe a co-processor for future hardware.

Source:http://www.tgdaily.com/hardware-features/61300-apple-eyes-arm-for-mac-os-x

There are a few common things we all deal with in our daily lives, no matter where we live. Take the weather, for example.

For many of us, one of the first things we think of after waking up in the morning is: what is the weather like today? Sure, you can go and dig up the forecast using your smart phone, the TV, orr computer. Or, you could use a really cool device such as the one Robb Godshaw recently created called the Cryoscope.

The Cryoscope boasts hardware that is likely familiar to computer enthusiasts. At the top of the cube is a peltier element that sits on a heatsink. The device is also equipped with a cooling fan, as well as an RGB LED on the bottom. The outside of Cryoscope is an aluminum cube that sits over the works and conducts the heat and cold to its surface for the user to feel. The Cryoscop is controlled by an Arduino device that communicates with a web app for retrieving the weather forecast in your area.

All of those individual parts work together to make the Cryoscope’s aluminum cube the same temperature as the outdoors. Meaning, instead of looking at a thermometer that says 60°, you simply walk up and place your hand on the aluminum cube and feel the temperature. In addition, the LED on the bottom of the assembly also shows you – using color codes – if it’s warm or cold outside.

I think this would be awesome for parents with little kids who want to know what the temperature like outside, but don’t want to venture outdoors in case it’s too cold. I know the first thing my daughter asks me every day is what the weather will be like today. All she really wants to know is if she needs to wear a jacket, pants, or shorts. With one of these sitting in the kitchen, she could walk up and put her hand on it and know what she needed to wear for the day.

Source:http://www.tgdaily.com/hardware-brief/61270-cryoscope-tells-you-the-temperature-with-a-touch

Nothing makes one feel really stupid more than changing computer systems — both hardware and software. We were trained last week, and all seemed crystal clear at that time. But, throw in a weekend — which was just enough time to forget many things — and things don’t look so clear today. Plus, we changed from Macs to PCs, so my fingers, the keyboard and my shortcuts aren’t exactly meshing. Here’s a hope and a prayer that this column actually publishes on Page 5A today as planned.

Birthday balloons and confetti to Dustin Branaman, Allen Mallet and Alice Kordisch, today; Bill Zink and Chance Gregory, Wednesday; Heather Robinson, Bonnie Fisher, Sue Nelson and Mickey DeWitt, Thursday; Garby Branaman and Tatum Branaman, Friday; Dale Wolverton and Wes Pierson, Saturday; and Ron Branaman, Veta Fritts and Linda Baggett, Sunday.

Anniversary hearts and roses to Richard and Meg Hanna, Steve and Karin Bluemlein, Jerry and Linda Dobbs, Allen and Carolyn Wright and Wayne and Linda Preston, Feb. 14.

Try this recipe:.

English Muffin Loaves

English Muffin Loaves
2 packages active dry yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
2 cups milk
½ cup water
5 1/2 to 6 cups flour
Cornmeal

In a large bowl, combine 3 cups of the flour with yeast, sugar, salt and soda. Heat milk and water to very warm — 120-130 F. Add warmed liquids to flour mixture, mixing well. Stir in remaining flour to make a stiff dough. Spoon into two 9-by-5-inch loaf pans that have been greased and dusted with cornmeal. Sprinkle with additional cornmeal.

Cover pans and let rise in a warm place for approximately 35-45 minutes. Bake at 400 F for 20 minutes, or until loaves are lightly browned. Remove from oven and turn out of pans on cooling rack.

Source:http://www.baxterbulletin.com/article/20120207/COMMUNITIES/302070024

Below are the three companies in the Computer Hardware industry with the highest free cash flow per share. FCF/share is a valuable metric signaling a company’s ability to facilitate growth in the business.Apple ranks highest with a FCF per share of $36.00. Following is Hewlett-Packard with a FCF per share of $3.87. Diebold ranks third highest with a FCF per share of $3.26.

Dell follows with a FCF per share of $1.81, and Stratasys rounds out the top five with a FCF per share of $0.69.

SmarTrend recommended that subscribers consider buying shares of Stratasys on October 11th, 2011 as our technology indicated a new Uptrend was in progress when shares hit $23.74. Since that recommendation, shares of Stratasys have risen 70.9%. We continue to monitor Stratasys for any potential shift so investors can protect gains and will alert SmarTrend subscribers immediately.

Source:http://www.equities.com/news/top-financial-story?val=173085156&cat=fin

So much of our lives and livelihoods are tied to computers, so keeping them safe and secure should be a major priority. You’re not just protecting data but a considerable investment of time and money.

There are a number of things you can do to protect your computer from physical theft. To prevent someone from walking off with your equipment, it needs to be anchored to an immovable object, such as a desk, the floor or a wall. Both desktop and notebook computers can be tethered to secure objects using high-grade steel cables and locks. Many notebooks come equipped with what’s called a Kensington security slot, to which you attach a no-cut cable with either a keyed or combination lock. This will deter thieves from walking off with an unattended notebook, though it won’t prevent them from stealing the hard drive or damaging the unit.

Desktop PCs have more options to protect them against physical theft. Computer towers can be equipped with latches and secured with a small padlock to prevent opening the case. Many companies — Kensington, Belkin and KSL Security, to name a few — make lock-and-cable security mechanisms as well as heavy-duty security pads that bolt computers to desks.

The above security methods will help deter theft, but they won’t always prevent it. When thieves want something bad enough, and are given enough time, they usually can get it. There are, however, security measures that can help in case of theft. The most obvious is to inscribe some kind of identification onto the computer case then take a picture of the mark so you can prove ownership. The picture also will help with insurance claims if it can’t be recovered. Many universities offer notebook engraving as a free service to students.

Computer hardware always can be replaced, but your personal or business data often cannot. Making routine backups of your data will ensure, even in the worst case scenario, your data remain intact. Remote data backups are the best, though as the recent Megaupload fiasco has proved, backing up to so-called cloud servers isn’t always secure. Servers get hacked and shut down all the time.

Perhaps a better method is to back up to a removable device, which can be stored off-site but locally accessed. For example, use at least two external hard drives, swapped out with each weekly backup, always keeping one stored in a secure place, such as your bank’s safety deposit box, a personal safe or some other trusted off-site location. This method keeps you in total control instead of at the mercy of some distant cloud.

Other safeguards against data theft include the use of password-protected data encryption, so even if your computer or its backups are stolen, the thieves won’t be able to access your data. Chances are, however, that whoever steals your computer hardware isn’t after your personal or business data; they merely want whatever cash they can get from its sale.

Most often, the biggest threat against your data isn’t theft but rather naturally occurring contaminants. In the dryness of winter, the same static electricity that shocks your finger can instantly destroy sensitive electronics. Always discharge static or wear a grounding strap before touching your computer’s internal components. As spring approaches, so does the season for thunderstorms and lightning strikes. A simple $25 surge protector can be enough to save your data and equipment from instant death.

It’s also important to keep the internal components of your computer free of dust, which can choke electronics, creating a thermal blanket that retains heat and burns out components. At least every six months, unplug everything and take the case outside for a cleaning. Use a can of compressed air and a small, soft-bristled brush to loosen and blow out as much dust as possible.

Source:http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2012/feb/07/hardware-data-need-protection/

The folks behind the Raspberry Pi $25 computer say that they could start taking orders by the end of February. This isn’t the first release date we’ve seen — the computers were supposed to be ready to go in December, but that didn’t happen. But not it looks like the first batch of 10,000 should finish production by February 20th.

The Raspberry Pi is a tiny computer motherboard with a Broadcom BCM2835 low-power ARM-based processor. It’s designed to be able to run Linux-based software and it’s targeted at hobbyists, educational institutions, or anyone who really likes the idea of a $25 computer.

If you want internet connectivity, you’ll need to buy a slightly pricier $35 version.

While the system is designed primarily as a low power, low cost PC, it can handle 1080p HD video playback and even some 3D gaming. There’s also a project underway to port the popular media center application XBMC to run on the Raspberry Pi hardware.

Broadcom has also released a datasheet (PDF link) for the BCM2835 chip which may make it easier for independent developers to work with the Raspberry Pi — but the chip still uses closed source drivers, so the datasheet will only get you so far.

Source:http://liliputing.com/2012/02/raspberry-pi-25-computer-could-go-on-sale-this-month.html

The new form factor has been addressed with security as a top priority, along with USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt ports, according to Intel.

Intel has also worked to improve the user experience, making it more seamless by increasing the performance of the solid state drive and calling for the use of more hybrid SSD/hard disk drives.

This will deliver more storage capacity, at the same time giving users a faster over all experience. Intel has built a layer of protection into the hardware that will be needed as the devices go mainstream in the coming years.

Asus has married the world of design and top-end performance on its Zenbook. The Zenbook UX31E has an excellent look with a stunning 13-inch LED backlit display with a pixel resolution of 1600×900. It is powered by an Intel Core i7 processor, boasts 128GB and 256GB SSD hard disk and runs on Windows 7 operating system.

Acer unveiled its Aspire S5 model, supporting the faster data transfer speeds with Thunderbolt, two USB 2.0 ports, a USB port 3.0, HDMI, audio and mic ports, webcam, integrated gigabit LAN and Bluetooth v3.0. Powered by Intel’s Ivy Bridge Processor, it offers 8GB of RAM, runs on Windows 7 operating system and features a 13-inch LED backlit display.

There’s no pricing at the moment, but Acer expects to begin shipping the Aspire S5 in the second quarter of this year.

HP’s Envy Spectre sports a 14-inch Radiance LED backlit display, Intel i5 processor, Intel HD 3000 graphic cards, 4GB of RAM and 128GB of SSD and runs on the Windows 7 OS. The device comes pre-installed with full versions of Adobe Photoshop Elements and Adobe Premiere Elements.

Samsung announced the latest update to its Series 9 laptop at the show, making the stylish machine thinner and promising a whole new batch of hardware. The new Series 9 is less than half an inch thick. High-end aluminium covers the frame, which still manages to expose a few connectivity ports on the side in the name of utility.

The ASUS Zenbook features an ultra slim 13-inch design, SonicMaster audio technology and all-in-one multimedia functions.

The Z330 is the most compact product in LG’s newest Super Ultrabook Series. In terms of performance, LG’s proprietary Super Speed Boot technology enables rapid booting _ roughly three times faster than other 13-inch notebooks in the market. Powered by an Intel Core i7 processor, the Z330 requires less than 10 seconds to complete booting, while it requires a mere 2 seconds to recover from stand-by mode.

The Z330 is equipped with the latest SATA3 Solid State Drive (SSD), which is more than 11 times faster than an ordinary hard drive. The device is light, weighing a mere 1.21kg.

Lenovo is expanding its Ultrabook portfolio with the IdeaPad U310 and U410. Powered by the Intel Core Processor family, these thin and light laptops include Ultrabook versions with 64GB SSD drives for caching data, and versions with up to 500GB HDD storage. Both versions feature ultra-responsive performance with fast boot times and quick resume from sleep. The PCs also features other smart elements including automatically updating the mailbox, instant messaging and social media messages even in sleep mode, with up to 8 hours battery life.

Dell introduced its new XPS 13 Ultrabook _ a 13.3-inch high definition model running on Intel’s second-generation Core i5 or i7 processors. Intel HD 3000 graphics and Intel Rapid Start technology are highlights of the new device, while Intel Smart Connect technology is also included, allowing the XPS 13 to “wake up” periodically to update calendars and email. Battery life is slightly under 9 hours. Dell took strides to ensure the new XPS 13 would appeal to both consumer and corporate markets.

Sony’s Ultrabook concept was protected in a glass case without disclosing any specs.

Sony so far has not launched an Ultrabook. At this year’s Consumer Electronics Show, Sony showcased a concept device but did not disclose any specifications. The concept, however, should feature one of Intel’s Ultrabook guidelines: ultra-low voltage (ULV) Sandy Bridge, or the upcoming Ivy Bridge, processors as well as SSD or hybrid storage.

Both Toshiba and Asus agreed that the Ultrabook segment has acceptably responded to a group of users who require the light and thin form factor with performance.

Last year Toshiba Thailand introduced the Portege Z830 at 39,000 baht. Takon Niyomthai, country manager for IT of Toshiba Thailand, noted that the market feedback has been very promising. Toshiba plans to launch its second model in the segment under its consumer Satellite brand, with a lower price and more mainstream features. The new Satellite will be some 10,000 baht lower than the Portege.

AsusTek Computer managing director Pornthep Watchara-Amnouy noted that the performance of the Ultrabook is not inferior to MacBook Air, in fact some are even better. “Price is not a concern if the device fulfills ones’ needs,” he said, pointing out that there will be more variety of Ultrabook models on the market during the second quarter, while the average price will be around 30,000 baht.

At present, Ultrabooks accounts for less than 1% of the PC market in Thailand and most of the models introduced so far have been high-end and expensive. Starting from the second quarter of this year, many brands are going to launch new series giving consumers a wider variety of choices at competitive prices.

Source:http://www.bangkokpost.com/tech/computer/278625/ultrabooks-refresh-laptop-category

Leading IT experts agree that the single best tool to have in your disaster-recovery arsenal is Superman’s cellphone number. Armed with this simple tool, you’re covered against pretty much anything.

Superman will just make a few hundred loops around the planet at hyper-Newtonian speeds. The Earth will reverse its rotation just long enough to cause time to flow in reverse, and then you’re free to make sure that The Terrible Thing That Happened will never have happened to begin with.

All in all, it’s even better than the Genius Bar at the Apple Store.

Sadly, this Superman feature was terminated during DC Comics’ “New 52” reboot event in September. So we all need to go back to the complicated and boring process known as “planning ahead.”

I mention this because I’m about to recommend a tool that will help you to recover lost or stolen electronics. It’s called “Prey” and it’s truly what spyware would be like in the Bizarro World.

(Second Superman reference in as many paragraphs. I lean back in my chair, level a critical eye at what I’ve written so far, and ponder a third. “Well, not in a row,” I conclude. “But I sense an opportunity for a third, later in the piece.”)

Conventional spyware is a piece of code that invisibly tracks a user’s movements and habits without his or her knowledge, and silently reports what it learns back to an evil enterprise (which we can define as anything from “A Russian crime syndicate” to “Facebook”). Prey is a special kind of “white hat” spyware that lies dormant and never tracks a device’s legitimate user. But when your hardware is stolen, you can remotely activate Prey and it’ll begin to invisibly and regularly report the hardware’s location, and the thief’s activity, back to you. Prey isn’t designed to make your life miserable; it’s designed to help you get your gear back.

Oh, and incidentally: the definition of the word “thief” also includes “someone who finds a lost device and thinks ‘Ooo, cool . . . free iPad!’ instead of arranging for its return.” Who the hell does that? Every time I hear about this, it irks me more and more.

It seems insane to voluntarily install tracking software on your computer. And installing Prey does require a measure of faith. Rest assured that when Prey is in its dormant mode, it does only one thing: from time to time, it spends a few microseconds checking in with a central server to find to see if its owner has reported it as “missing.” If not, Prey goes back to sleep.

The magic happens only after you realize that your computer has disappeared. You leap to a web browser, access Prey’s web-based control panel, mark the device as missing, and tell Prey what kind of information you’d like to receive. Soon enough, the Prey code on the machine will go into “full ungodly fury of vengeance and justice” mode, and lots of interesting information will begin to appear in the control panel. You’ll see location information (based on GPS and WiFi/network data), screen captures of what the thief is doing, and even photos of the eggsucking weasel themself, via your device’s chat cam.

I installed Prey on my MacBook and then reported it as “missing” via my iPad. Then I kept right on working. The first report showed up about twenty minutes later. It included a photo of me (do I really scowl like that when I’m writing?), a screen grab of the file I was working on, and my location, determined via my network address and marked on a Google Map. It was so accurate that if my laptop really had been stolen, I could have told my band of vicious armed mercenaries — many of whom have diplomatic passports and are far beyond the reach of any mortal law — to begin their search at the Boston Public Library and to head specifically to Bates Hall.

Prey is silent and devious when it’s in Ungodly Fury mode. After reporting my MacBook missing, I didn’t honestly know for sure that the software was working until the first report arrived. The MacBook has a green LED that illuminates whenever the camera is active, but it illuminated so briefly that I didn’t even notice that it was taking my picture. The only “tell” of any kind was the briefest stutter during the instant Prey was taking a screen capture. Even then, I only noticed it because I was typing at full speed, and I knew better than to attribute it to some other system process or hiccup.

Prey does leave footprints behind, but it’s fairly well-hidden and a thief would need to be specifically looking for Prey before he’d discover it. Assuming, of course, you did the smart thing and deleted the Prey download package after installing the software.

So long as your device is switched on and it can find any kind of connection to the Internet-proper, it’ll start sending reports. The thief doesn’t even need to willingly open a connection; Prey can independently detect the presence of an open WiFi hotspot and silently exploit it.

What do you do next? It’s up to you. Prey is a flexible tool. Your first instinct will probably be to strike out on the path of vengeance. The longer you allow the thief to use your laptop, the more evidence he’s going to unwittingly send you. Ultimately, you’ll have enough to unequivocally prove where your property is and who has it. You can have Prey quietly block access to your browser cookies, system-stored passwords, and Outlook data, to minimize the privacy breach. Or you can go for broke and have Prey blast an alert sound and display a message to the user.

If you value the privacy of your data over the recovery of your device, Prey can simply render the device inoperable until it receives your remote password. This will, of course, encourage the thief to stop using your device and thus it’ll probably halt the flow of usable information.

Alas, Prey can’t remote-wipe your hard drive, which is the ultimate defense against theft of your personal documents and information. If that’s a concern, there are plenty of utilities that can automatically keep all of the data on your hard drive encrypted.

And what happens after what happens next?

We’ve reached the end of the range of solutions that can be provided by technology. You’re now forced to rely on the actions of improbable and imperfect flesh. The Internet is loaded with stories about what happens when the owner of a stolen laptop or device gets in touch with local law enforcement and provides them with a boatload of evidence furnished by Prey or another “track my missing hardware” utility. Responses range from “We wish we could solve all stolen-property cases as quickly and easily as we closed this one” to “Contrary to all logic, there’s absolutely nothing we can do for you.”

Mark Waid — writer of the “Superman: Birthright” limited series and an obvious finalist in any legitimate Greatest Comic Book Writer Of All Time competition ever held — left his iPad behind on an airplane in Los Angeles. He activated Apple’s “Find My iPad” feature and tracked it to a hotel in Indianapolis. The Indy police couldn’t do anything about it unless the LAPD filed a report, and the LAPD claimed they were too busy. “Final score: Crooks 1, Waid -$916.75” he Tweeted, closing out a daylong drama.

Nothing can absolutely ensure that you’ll get your property back. But it’s damned-certain that your chances are far better with Prey installed. Prey has only one operational weakness: you need to actually install the software while the device is still in your physical possession.

I now refer you back to my opening comments. If Superman was unwilling to turn back time to allow Waid — who also wrote the seminal Elseworlds future-Superman crossover “Kingdom Come” — to go back to that plane and retrieve his iPad he’s certainly not going to do it so you can install Prey on your MacBook before your car was broken into.

Why Prey, and not any of the other “recover my stolen laptop” services? Because it’s free. You can visit preyproject.com right now, install it, and then forget it exists without spending a penny. “Pro” Prey plans (which start at $5 a month) add additional services. Instead of tracking just a three device and retaining only 10 reports (old ones vanish as new ones are collected), Pro accounts can track multiple devices, retain 100 reports, and can collect them as frequently as every 2 minutes. That’s great if you see that the perp is actually at your machine, and you want to catch information from his Facebook, Twitter, or email windows that will confirm his identity.

Also, Prey is available for just about every device you own. Editions are available for Windows, Mac OS, Linux, iOS, and Android, though the iOS edition is still awaiting approval from Apple before it can appear in the iTunes Store.

Is Prey safe? I’ve been hammering at this question for months and I’m convinced Prey is about as safe as this kind of tool can be, given that (from a paranoid, stark perspective, at least) the software is designed to secretly do things and to evade detection.

Unlike commercial alternatives, Prey is open software. The source code can be downloaded and examined by people much, much more savvy and cynical than you or I. It does use external code modules that aren’t part of Prey’s core library, but the modules themselves are used by just about everyone, so their behavior and limitations are well understood by the security community. If Prey itself was designed to prey upon its users, that would have been discovered long before now; from that perspective, it’s safe.

Which isn’t to say that Prey isn’t without controversy. Because it’s been scrutinized so closely, potential weaknesses in Prey’s methodology have been identified. Its primary problems are that Prey runs on your computer as a root system process; it does its business via shell scripts; and it seems to communicate with its servers in a manner that could be intercepted by a man-in-the-middle attack. All of the security experts I consulted agree that Prey could go about its work in a far more secure fashion. The concern isn’t that Prey could do something to harm your system or your privacy, but that a third party could exploit these weaknesses to attack your system.

Nearly all of the experts I spoke with agree that the potential rewards that Prey presents far outweigh its risks. An attack on your computer that targets Prey’s weaknesses would require custom code that’s never been spotted in the wild, running on a machine with proximity to your system (that is, a machine on a nearby network that’s looking for Prey-equipped computers). Greg Martin is one of the experts I spoke with. Last summer, he used Prey to successfully recover his MacBook Pro and he continues to recommend it.

The objections to Prey are nicely outlined here and here.

My own conclusion is that if you have reasonable fears about your devices being lost or stolen, not using Prey is riskier than using it. I’m convinced that the added security risks are minimal, and that potential rewards of installing it are monumental.

What if you don’t install Prey, and your hardware is stolen? Can you do anything to locate it?

You might have a chance to locate your property if you’ve installed Dropbox. Dropbox’s servers log the IP addresses that your computers use to access the service. You can view that address by logging in at Dropbox.com, clicking on the link for your account settings, and then clicking the “My Computers” tab. An IP address is usually enough to get at least a rough fix on the computer’s location. It’s nothing like the comprehensive set of data mined by Prey, but it’s better than nothing.

I’m not insisting that you rush out and install Prey this instant. I’m not even insisting that you install it all all. But if you’re now convinced that Prey is a good idea, don’t wait. Do it now, before you forget. You can install Prey in less than ten minutes.

I’m telling you to do this because whether you install Prey or not, you’ll never think of this software ever again. Until your computer gets stolen. Then, you’ll either think “Thank God, I actually have a shot of getting my laptop back” or “I’m such an idiot! Why didn’t I install Prey right away, like Andy told me to?”

I promise you that under no circumstances would I ever point and laugh and mock you for ignoring my advice. But you’ll be imagining that I am. And unlike the real me, Imaginary Andy also has access to your memories of all of your past mistakes and will use all of this information to devastating effect. Is that what you want to happen?

Source:http://www.suntimes.com/technology/ihnatko/10467526-452/prey-takes-over-your-devices-to-keep-thieves-under-surveillance.html

There are some common misconceptions with respect to whether or not it is better to have a custom built computer instead of one manufactured by a major manufacturer. There are some things you should consider when faced with this decision. Some reasons your computer guy may have told you you would be better off with a custom built computer:

True or False: “I (your computer guy) can build a computer cheaper than you can buy one from a major manufacturer!

Really? How many custom built computers does your computer guy build a year? 10? 100? 1000? Is your computer guy suggesting that they have some secret “In” with computer component manufacturers that they can secure these parts at great cost savings? Does it make sense that a computer guy building a few hundred (if that) computers a year can get a better deal on parts than a company like HP or Dell? If that’s true, why are there not more stores just specializing in custom built computers? A good business person needs to make a profit with their business. In order to do so they have to charge more than they pay for the products they sell. To make a reasonable profit they either have to sell a large volume of computers making a few bucks each, or a small number of computers making many more bucks each.

True or False: “It’s better to have a custom built computer because I (your computer guy) know every part that is installed in the machine is the best on the market.”

Be wary of someone suggesting some parts are better than others in the same breath they suggest they can build something cheaper than a major manufacturer can produce. Does it make sense that a guy building computers in Midcoast Maine can get a better deal on high quality parts than a company like Dell or HP? Probably not. Furthermore, if you were in charge of operations at a major manufacturer and you knew you were going to offer a three year warranty on parts for a computer, would you buy low quality parts to install in that machine? Again, probably not. It’s going to cost the company more money to carry through the warranty on those parts. They know this so they make sure all the parts installed in their machines meet their standards. Yes the company is in business to make money, but like most businesses, they probably believe in doing so by providing a great product with great service instead of ripping everyone off every chance they get. And keep in mind… some of these large companies have shareholders to answer to as well. Selling a bad product isn’t going to instill great confidence in the masses.

True or False: “Your computer guy is a genius because he can build a computer from a bunch of parts?”

It doesn’t take a genius to follow directions. With the amount of information available on the Internet, and a bit of patience, anyone with the ability to read and follow directions could build a computer. It may not be the fastest, or the best computer in the world, but a computer nonetheless. Computer hardware is built based on certain standards. That’s part of the reason there are so many manufacturers and it is such a wide spread industry. Everything is standardized to meet certain specs, thereby working with everything else. They are just like automobiles and with enough money, the right tools and enough patience, one could even build an automobile from parts.

Generally, for an estimated 95% of the computer using population a computer built by a major manufacturer is going to be a better value for your money. That doesn’t mean your computer guy is ripping you off, it just means he can’t produce enough volume to lower the cost of the machine to compete with a major manufacturer on an apples to apples basis. Not only can you get a computer from a major manufacturer for a reasonable price, but you typically can get an extended warranty on the hardware for a little extra as well. Does your computer guy offer you an extended warranty?

And don’t think you can’t get what you specifically want with a major manufacturer. Some companies produce thousands of computers all with the same specs and software installed and ship them to department stores and other outlets to be sold to the masses. Others have developed the ability to build a computer specifically for your needs, providing you with options on hardware and software configurations, and still provide it to you at a reasonable price.

When is a good time to get a custom built computer? When you have a special situation, Marine Navigation computers, for instance. Typically these are built using specialized hardware to withstand the environment they will be subjected to. Computers that interact with specific machinery may also require special equipment. If your business has proprietary software that requires certain hardware and that hardware can’t be bought from a major manufacturer. Computer gaming can sometimes benefit from a custom built machine, although usually you can get a comparable machine for a comparable price from a major manufacturer.

Source:http://waldo.villagesoup.com/business/brief/business-services/true-or-false-you-should-buy-a-custom-built-computer-instead-of-one-from-a-major-manufacturer/483223

Smartphones outsold computers for the first time in 2011 according to data from marker research firm Canalys.

Full year shipments for smartphones totalled 487.7 million units, higher than the total number of PCs which is 414.6 million units.

Total smartphone shipments rose 63 percent in 2011, up from 299.7 million shipped in 2012. The PC market only grew by 15 percent, despite an increase of 274 percent in the tablet PC subcategory.

The PC category included desktops, netbooks, notebooks and tablet PC devices.

Fourth quarter shipments were part of the driving force behind the impressive smartphone sales, with smartphone vendors shipping 158.5 million units. This was up 57 percent from 2010.

Canalys expect the smartphone market growth to slow in 2012 as manufacturers start to focus on profitability.

Source:http://mybroadband.co.za/news/quick-news/42839-smartphones-overtook-pc-shipments-in-2011.html

Open source hardware is increasingly making the news, as Ford partners with Bug Labs to “advance in-car connectivity innovation”, thousands of US Radio Shack stores start stocking Arduino, and Facebook releases the plans for energy-efficient data centre technology via Open Compute. But could it change the world? Andrew Back takes a look at five projects which just might.

RepRap
Imagine a machine that could manufacture the components of your next gadget, and all you had to do is download 3D computer models and it would make them by joining materials together. This manufacturing process is known as rapid prototyping (RP) and has been around since the late 1980s, but up until recently machines that use it have been costly, with prices starting in the tens of thousands of pounds.

In 2004, Bath University’s Adrian Bowyer wrote an essay entitled Wealth without Money in which he proposed an RP machine that would “self-copy, but not self-assemble”, going on to state that the design must be provided with it so that it can be copied and improved upon. These details were a master stroke and meant that one machine would be able to print out parts to make another, or new parts based on an improved design and that would be used in its own upgrade.

Bowyer had intended simply to put an idea out there but fortunately colleagues persuaded him to run a project to develop the machine. By early 2007 the first replicating rapid prototyper, RepRap for short, was born. With parts printed using a commercial RP machine, it was only a matter of months before a second RepRap had been assembled from parts printed using the first. Only four years later the size of the RepRap population was estimated at around 4,000 machines, not including derivatives such as the 3,500 or so that had been produced by MakerBot Industries alone.

The total cost for the materials required to build a RepRap is quoted as being an incredible €350, but in practice this is dependant upon you being able to find someone to provide you with a set of the printed parts at cost. Even if you have no option but to pay a premium for these, the RepRap still meets its goal of being highly affordable, and as the number of machines in existence grows the market price for a set of printed parts should come down.

It must be pointed out that the current generation RepRap is only capable of printing plastics, but most of the non-printed components used in its build are commonly available items such as steel threaded rod, bearings and stepper motors. Control electronics are also required, but these are reasonably simple and various options are available. And although it’s very early days, work is under way to develop support for printing circuit boards and even electronic components.

RepRap’s open source design laid the foundations for a vibrant community developing modifications, enhancements and derivative machines. Such as a version that makes use of laser cut parts and that can be used as a “bootstrap system” in the absence of access to an existing 3D printer. Sites such as Thingiverse host a mind-boggling selection of user-contributed 3D designs for everything from anime figures and sculpture, to the body for a quadracopter and a case for an Arduino.

Arduino
Now that you’ve printed out the mechanical components of that gadget, you’ll need some electronics to bring it to life, and what better way than with an open source computer designed for prototyping and embedding in larger projects. Arduino takes the form of a compact circuit board providing easily programmed hardware that enables control of all manner of inputs and outputs, such as sensors and actuators and buttons and displays, and is low cost and extremely versatile.

On paper the Arduino hardware is nothing special and an entry-level board comprises little more than a reference design for an 8-bit processor. There is no shortage of “development boards” of a similar nature, so how did something AVR-based gain so much ground over boards built around long-established hobbyist favourites such as PIC and BASIC Stamp?

The key to Arduino’s success lies not in the choice of processor but in its price point, and the fact that it is very easy to use and highly-extensible. At around £20 for a basic board it’s not the end of the world if by accident you apply too high a voltage to an input or short circuit an output. Upon installing the IDE you can be up and running in no time, and receiving almost instant gratification as you compile example code and have the Arduino perform simple actions such as blink an LED or read an input. The modular nature of the system and its open source design has led to the creation of a rich marketplace for add-ons and compatible designs, with an incredibly enthusiastic community of developers contributing tutorials and video blogs, and example code and circuits for every imaginable application.

An Arduino can be connected directly, or with minimal support components, to a wide variety of devices. These include light sensors, buttons, dials, LEDs, LCD displays and buzzers. For applications with more complex requirements it can be extended via Arduino “shields” – add-on modules that are provided with power and access to the Arduino’s inputs, outputs and peripheral bus. These are based on a simple, stackable format that is easy to design for, and shields are available that add everything from Ethernet or a GPRS modem, to a Geiger counter.

You don’t have to use the Arduino IDE to develop applications – a combination such as Eclipse and avr-gcc can be used instead. However, the official IDE provides a turnkey solution and one that is far less daunting for those that are new to software development. The language used is Wiring-based and is essentially a simplified version of C++ with bundled libraries that provide a selection of easy to use functions for things such as maths, communications and I/O. Drop-in libraries accompany many shields to provide generic capabilities such as networking, and add new functions which bring ease of use to the additional hardware.

Opencores
Some engineers are not drawing the line at circuit boards and are extending open source all the way down to the level of chip design. Modelling digital integrated circuits using hardware description languages (HDL), members of the Opencores community are designing everything from RISC microprocessors and Gigabit Ethernet controllers, to multimedia and cryptographic hardware. The resulting intellectual property cores – so-called due to the copyright in the design’s source code – are then made available under a licence such as the LGPL or BSD, and are often modular in nature and so can be combined to create a system-on-a-chip.

Fragment of the OpenRISC 1200 Processor Verilog (HDL) Source Code
You may wonder why anyone would do this when the start-up costs associated with having your own chip manufactured are so high, but designs are mostly implemented using off-the-shelf reconfigurable devices called field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs). These contain logic blocks that can be configured to provide something as simple as an AND gate, or as complex as the combinational logic used in an ALU, along with reconfigurable interconnects that are used to wire the blocks together. Configuration of the device takes place on power up when it loads a binary file that has been generated from the HDL design, and this is stored in a small amount of flash memory; this can be replaced with ease, thereby making it trivial to test and upgrade designs.

The price/performance of a general purpose computer built using FPGAs wouldn’t be great when compared with commodity gear, but the technology excels in many niche and specialist applications, such as in areas of computing that make use of dedicated hardware to bring high performance to tasks such as signal processing, encryption and networking. Since you can program many hardware paths in an FPGA they are well suited to jobs that can be broken down and processed in parallel, and some of the more powerful devices pack millions of logic blocks and have a transistor count well into the billions, with a blisteringly fast serial bandwidth that is measured in terabits/second. The fact they are easily reconfigured means that they’re also well suited to prototyping designs before a custom application-specific chip is manufactured, and they make an ideal platform for use in learning digital integrated circuit design.

OpenRISC is heralded as being the flagship project of the OpenCores community and is developing a “family of 32- and 64-bit processors with optional floating-point and vector processing support”. While much end use of these processors will be via FPGA, the project has seen them employed by Samsung in custom chips manufactured for digital televisions, and has raised over $20,000 towards the cost of having its own system-on-a-chip manufactured. It plans to make this device available to the community at low cost, with the aim of providing an alternative to “semiconductor giants who only provide cost efficient prices to large multinational companies”. The world’s first ever community designed ASIC, this could be used in anything from a prototyping platform similar to Arduino, to a TV set top box or a tablet computer.

Global Village Construction Set
What would it take to build a sustainable civilisation with modern comforts from the ground up? This is a question that a network of farmers, engineers and supporters going by the name of Open Source Ecology (OSE) hope to answer with the Global Village Construction Set (GVCS) – a collection of open source designs for 50 industrial machines that are low cost, simple to construct, modular and user-serviceable.

The GVCS is organised into categories of Habitat, Agriculture, Industry, Energy, Materials and Transportation, with designs ranging in complexity from something as simple as a nickel-iron battery to an industrial robot. Likened to “life-size lego”, these are woven into “product ecologies” which illustrate how the 50 tools will work together. For example, the Power Cube can be used as the energy source for the Car or Tractor, and the CNC Circuit Mill can produce circuit boards for any machines which have electronics.

Development of the GVCS is informed by a list of core values that stipulate things such as how machines must be user friendly, have industrial efficiency, use proven techniques and be capable of being recycled. There are 49 values in all and these form part of even more comprehensive specifications covering everything from materials sourcing and systems design, to economics and business models. As you might expect, OSEs provide a position on patents (deemed unnecessary) and licensing as part of these specifications, along with guidance on how to go about documenting designs in a way that makes them easily reproducible.

OSE has set itself the ambitious target of releasing all 50 designs by the end of 2012 and within an extremely modest budget of $2.4 million. At the time of writing, advance orders were being accepted for four machines: the Soil Pulverizer, Compressed Earth Block Press, Power Cube and Tractor. The Bulldozer, CNC Torch Table and five others are currently in the prototyping stage, and the remainder are either in or awaiting the start of development. The web site suggests that additional subject matter expertise is currently required in areas such as mechanical engineering, power electronics, machine design, metallurgy and precision engineering.

OSE’s stated core message is “Creating tools for building modern off-grid resilient communities that can be reproduced by anyone at low cost”, and the GVCS could equally be put to use by developing nations or by those in the developed world who aspire to live “off-grid” and independent of large-scale manufacture.

Perhaps one of the most exciting GVCS concepts is the idea of product ecologies where there is a clear symbiotic relationship between tools. This is something that is also evident in projects such as RepRap, where one machine can print the parts for another, and an Arduino can be used for the RepRap control electronics which can in turn print an enclosure for an Arduino. But the GVCS takes this to the next level by encompassing a great many more technical disciplines and by putting an ecology of machines at the very heart of its design.

OpenPCR
Humankind has long sought to truly understand the building blocks of life and to be able to manipulate them for its own purposes, and genetics is an area of intense research and development with potentially huge rewards for those who make significant advances.

The polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is a key technique employed in genetics whereby small pieces of DNA are amplified by several orders of magnitude. This is fundamental to processes such as DNA cloning and sequencing, the analysis of genes for hereditary and infectious diseases, and to identify genetic fingerprints. The reaction requires a piece of specialist laboratory apparatus which can accurately control and cycle the temperature of DNA samples, and these are typically expensive, costing thousands of pounds. But this changed with the arrival of OpenPCR, a personal PCR machine that is available as a kit for $599 and with a design that has been made available under the GPL v3 licence.

Assembling the kit is quoted as taking around five hours, small hex wrenches are included and the only additional tools required are screwdrivers and pliers. The machine’s enclosure is made from laser cut wood and snaps together, with brackets, nuts, bolts and various other simple fittings being provided. Temperature control is achieved via a ceramic Peltier device and large heatsink of the sort found in a desktop computer. A PC power supply provides the DC current for a fan, the Peltier and control electronics. Like all good open source projects OpenPCR stands on the shoulders of giants, and makes use of an Arduino for control and to provide a USB interface. This in turn plugs into a custom Arduino shield which provides connections for the power supply, Peltier, temperature sensors and an LCD display. The shield and a “PCR block” with sample wells being the only components which could be considered to be specialist.

The completed OpenPCR machine can hold up to 16 sample tubes and the temperature of these can be cycled from 10°C to100°C, with a ramp rate of 1°C/second and an accuracy of 0.5°C. Since control is via an attached PC complex, “thermocycler protocols” can be programmed, with a virtually unlimited memory for storing the configuration of temperature steps and their cycling.

The OpenPCR blog suggests that the machine could be used to expose fraud at a sushi restaurant, diagnose diseases such as HIV and H1N1, or to explore your own genome. But this is only the beginning as far as possible applications are concerned, and as they succinctly put it, “DNA is now DIY”. Now that such equipment is becoming affordable it should come as no surprise that intrepid amateurs are getting in on the action, and the motivations of these “bio-hackers” are varied, ranging from doing it for fun and as a hobby, to starting a business in the hope of making a highly profitable breakthrough.

Conclusion
Arduino is without a doubt the poster child of the open source hardware movement and its versatility, low cost and increasingly widespread availability will help to drive the movement mainstream in a manner similar to the way Linux did with open source software. Its ecosystem of derivative, compatible and extending technologies demonstrate how the open source principle of standing on the shoulders of giants can be mapped onto hardware development. This is further exemplified by projects such as RepRap and OpenPCR which in turn make use of Arduino for their control electronics.

As RepRap makes low cost desktop manufacturing a reality and inches towards being able to self-replicate, it hints at a future that would not be out of place in a science fiction novel – where designs are developed online, shared in an instant and produced locally at the push of a button, and with machines that are able to replicate and upgrade themselves.

The Global Village Construction Set offers promise to those who, for whatever reason, desire to live off-grid and be technologically self-sufficient, and has potential for use by developing nations and in disaster relief. With its novel industrial ecology for things such as materials production, manufacture and machine relationships, it opens up exciting possibilities for unprecedented scaling and efficiency in hardware: technology is optimised for reuse, and recycling is taken to the point where closed-loop manufacturing becomes a possibility and there is minimal waste and environmental impact.

OpenCores and OpenPCR have demonstrated that even areas of technology such as chip design and genetics, which many might consider to be the reserve of large organisations with deep pockets, are not off-limits to resourceful communities of interest and are within the grasp of those with very modest budgets.

Finally, it is important to note that these projects are real, they exist and most of them have been around for some years. This is not about the future – it’s about what’s happening right now, bubbling away just under the surface, and with the potential to change our relationship with technology, our lives or even the world.

Source:http://www.h-online.com/open/features/Five-open-source-hardware-projects-that-could-change-the-world-1428043.html

The Government Procurement Service has advertised for suppliers to join a wide-ranging £4bn ICT framework.

The framework will be open to public sector organisations for two years, according to a notice in the Official Journal of the European Union, and covers the following lots:

• Desktop client devices: which will include desktop computers, keyboards, mice and computer memory. The GPS says it expects three suppliers to be awarded agreements.

• Laptops equipment: including notebook devices, port replicators/docking stations, and associated equipment, for which four suppliers will be signed up.

• Tablet/slate devices: five suppliers will be awarded contracts.

• Monitor device equipment: to include wall brackets for monitors; desk stands for monitors and speakers, and three contractors are expected to be signed up.

• Thin client devices: contract awarded to three companies.

• Servers: to include tower, rack and blade servers, server chassis/standard racks, power supply units, server hard disks, hard disk arrays and server memory. Three suppliers will be signed up.

• Storage devices: delivered by three suppliers.

• Network switch devices: delivered by three suppliers.

• Desktop printers: to include printer memory, paper trays and power cables and delivered by five suppliers.

• ICT peripherals: awarded to three suppliers.

• Non-standard products related to desktop hardware, services and solutions, which will be awarded to five suppliers.

• Non-standard infrastructure hardware, services and solutions, for which eight companies are sought.

The framework will be open to include central government departments and their arm’s length bodies and agencies, non-departmental public bodies, NHS organisations and local councils.

Source:http://www.guardian.co.uk/government-computing-network/2012/feb/06/gps-four-billion-ict-framework?newsfeed=true

Windows-based Skype users have reason to be enthused with the unveiling of version 5.8. New features include full HD video calls, Facebook audio and video calling, push to talk functionality, and group screen sharing.

Assuming you have a capable webcam such as the Logitech C920 (so suggests the blog announcement), users can now make video calls in HD. Though still in beta, the Facebook calling feature should appeal to a wide range of users; it enables you to make audio or video calls to your Facebook friends, even if they aren’t Skype users. The new push to talk feature is designed for (nay, requested by) gamers who want to be able to use a hotkey to switch the mic on and off while Skyping.

The group screen share, available only with Skype Premium, is function primarily aimed at business users who need to be able to show multiple parties a documents, slide presentation, Excel sheet, and so on. Of course, it’s also a nice feature for family and friends to share photos and the like.

Below is the complete list of new features, and below that is a list of all the issues version 5.8 should fix.

Source:http://hothardware.com/News/Skype-Rolls-Out-New-Features-With-Version-58-for-Windows/

There are applications that benefit from the tablet form factor, but they may also include so much data entry that a keyboard is mandatory. So why not combine the two in some sort of flexible, multi-purpose design? That’s the thought behind convertible notebooks. They look like regular laptop computers, but thanks to a special display hinge, the screen part can be rotated so that the device can be used as a tablet. This concept has been around for quite some time, but usually only with relatively small screens (10.4 or 12.1 inches). The Samwell Group has been offering one with a larger 13.3-inch screen for several years, and the product has now undergone a major tech update, one large enough to warrant a new name. So those familiar with the RUGGEDBOOK SR858, welcome the new RUGGEDBOOK 970.

Before I go into the various tech upgrades in the new unit, here’s what this platform is and represents. It is a full-size notebook with a 13.5 x 10 inch footprint and a large 13.3-inch display. That’s a larger display than either Panasonic or Getac offer in their convertible notebooks. The machine is no lightweight at about nine pounds and it’s over two inches thick, but that’s par for the course for this class of rugged machines. The display uses the “wide” 16:10 aspect ratio format that has been a standard in consumer laptops for several years, and is gradually also becoming the new standard in rugged notebooks. 1280 x 800 pixel WXGA resolution provides enough screen real estate for complex work, and the display is sunlight readable. A resistive touch screen comes standard with the machine, but there is no conventional Tablet PC electromagnetic digitizer.

First and foremost, you get a lot more punch. The SR858 was powered by a 1.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo U7500 processor, a chip that provides good benchmark performance and has a very low thermal design power of just 10 watts. But it’s also a processor design that dates back to 2006 where slow clock speeds and low voltage designs were needed to enable fanless construction and decent battery life. Since then, hardware and software power management have come a long way, and it’s now possible to use much faster chips with no penalty on battery life or heat generation. What this means is that Samwell could switch to a processor with almost twice the clock speed (and almost three times in Turbo mode) without having to add a fan and without any loss of battery life.

So under the hood of the new 970 is no longer a lowly one gigahertz processor, but a much more powerful and sophisticated 2.0 GHz Intel Core i7-620LM. We have not benchmarked the 970 yet, but we’ve tested other machines with this chip, and overall performance should be twice to triple that of the SR858. Yet, Samwell still claims the same battery life of “5+ hours in normal use.” How is that possible? In part because the new Core processors, combined with Windows 7’s much better power management, result in much more economical operation. We measured a minimum power draw of 12.8 watts in the old SR858, but benchmarked the i7-620LM chip in similar packages at only around 9 watts. So since Samwell also increased battery capacity from 86 to 93 watt-hours, we wouldn’t be surprised if the 5+ hour estimate were on the conservative side.

That said, there is one change in the new 970 that will use extra battery, and that’s the new superbright 1,000 nits sunlight-readable display. 1,000 nits compares to only about 200 nits in a consumer notebook. The SR858 was already quite readable outdoors, and the significantly brighter display of the 970 will be much more so (and will also match the rugged competition), but having it on full bright all the time would be a battery drain.

Compared to the new processor, other changes are comparatively smaller. The machine now uses the Intel QM57 chipset and employs the Core-i7’s integrated graphics. Maximum RAM is up from 4 to 8GB, and it’s of the faster DDR3 1066 variety. Storage is still via a shock-mounted 2.5-inch 250GB hard disk. A media bay accommodates a SuperMulti DVD-ROM drive.

The 87-key keyboard is full-scale, waterproof, backlit, and special keys for screen rotation, the virtual keyboard, wireless, brigtness, and the LED keyboard light.

The computer offers good connectivity with three USB 2.0 ports (we’d like to see USB 3.0), video (HDMI would be nice) and audio, gigabit RJ45 LAN, an RJ11 modem jack, as well as a legacy RS232 serial port and a docking connector. The PC Card slot has been replaced with an Express card 34/54 slot, and there are SD Card, SIM and Smart Card slot. On the wireless side, there is Bluetooth Class II, Version 2.1 with Enhanced Data Rate, 802.11a/g/n WiFi, and also optional GPS and wireless wide area network functionality in various flavors.

The 970 is a very rugged platform with a sturdy magnesium alloy housing and ample protection both inside the unit (via shock mounting) and outside (via rubber bumpers and impact and scratch-resistant materials and surface treament. Samwell successfully tested the 970 per MIL-STD-810G for drops, temperature, thermal shock, vibration, humidity and altitude, and also claims IP65 level sealing, where the “6″ means the device is totally dustproof, and the “5″ that it can handle low-pressure water jets from all directions.

Security is always an issue, and Samwell addressed that by including a TPM 1.2 module, several levels of password protection, a finger print reader, and, for physical protection, a Kensington standard lock slot. An optional vehicle mounting case and VESA arm allow for deployment in various settings.

While there are a few other ruggedized notebook convertibles, as of this date still none offer the RUGGEDBOOK 970’s combination of a large, wide-format display, fanless design, and full-size keyboard. And the switch to an Intel Core i7 platform greatly boosts performance compared to the predecessor SR858 model.

Source:http://www.ruggedpcreview.com/3_notebooks_ruggedbook_970.html

Google first helped us to find stuff and then communicate with its Gmail services. Amazon sold us stuff, first books and then pretty much everything. Facebook let us find out whether our friends were or . Apple sold pretty devices for listening to songs and watching films. Each of these companies was happy doing its own thing and left the others alone.

Now those divisions are breaking down. The big tech firms are on a cybercollision course. Thanks to new hardware, notably tablet computers and smartphones, new software and apps and a world blanketed by wi-fi and 3G (and soon 4G), we work, rest and play online more and more.

We read newspapers on our tablets, listen to music on our iPods or MP3 players, book a restaurant table or a cinema ticket on our smartphones, store our photographs on Flickr and look at our personal and professional email, documents and calendars online.

As the market for digital stuff expands, doing only one thing, however well, is no longer so attractive for tech firms because it’s no longer so lucrative.

What Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Apple’s Tim Cook and Google’s Larry Page want to do is to become the sole caterer to all our burgeoning digital needs.

The more services they can offer, the more users they can attract, the more services they can sell us and the more advertising revenue they can generate. The battle to become chief executive of the web is on.

Zuckerberg’s initial public offering is a key part of his attempt to run the web. Facebook may have more than 800 million users but it is small. Last year it had revenues, largely from selling advertisements, of $US3.7 billion ($3.4bn), as against Google’s $US38bn in 2010. To expand, Zuckerberg needs cash and plenty of it.

In May, after the IPO, he will have a war chest of $US5bn. That will enable him to join his rivals in the fab four as each spends big to try to digitise and revolutionise every corner of our lives, taking a slice out of each transaction that results.

How will they do this? Being successful in Silicon Valley means being good at keeping secrets, but here are some of the products that insiders say each firm has hidden up its hoodie sleeves.

Facebook will offer better social networking and communication. It has copied some of the most lauded features of Google’s new social networking service Google+. It promises a broader, more social email-style system that Facebookers insist will replace what they call “old-fashioned” Gmail.

Facebook is flirting with the idea of taking on Google’s core business with its own search service. Not one based on results in cyberspace, however well sifted by algorithms, but on the data provided by you, me and our friends.

A Facebook phone, with photos and status updates uploaded to a Facebook page with a single click, is on the way.

Facebook is joining movie website Netflix, music streaming service Spotify and games maker Zynga to bring us Facebook TV, Facebook movies, Facebook music and Facebook games based on our own preferences and our friends’ recommendations.

There are even Facebook credits, a virtual currency bought with real money that Facebookers use to play computer games. The goal is to make us live wholly inside Facebook’s walled garden, a place Zuckerberg insists with boyish enthusiasm “is going to be really, really good”.

Sadly for Zuckerberg, he has competition from the neighbours and they have an even bigger stash of cash. Apple, which has $US98bn to spend, almost as much ready cash as the US government, has the most popular smartphone model on the market, the iPhone, and the most popular tablet computer, the iPad.

Cook, who took over Apple after Steve Jobs resigned from the chief executive job not long before his death last year, is determined to make them even better. He has, for example, integrated Twitter throughout Apple’s line-up, enabling us to tweet from any app, a feature clearly aimed at dulling Facebook’s mobile growth.

Cook is also working on iPad, iPod and iTunes services that he believes will trump Facebook’s music, movies, TV and games offerings. He wants to sell us e-books through the iBooks part of iTunes, to lure us away from Amazon. Apple’s new iCloud service enables us to write and store our documents, spreadsheets, email, contacts and calendar on Apple’s servers and access them on any device we want, even ones we do not own, in a direct challenge to Google’s online computing services.

Cook is also readying a web-enabled Apple TV. The idea is that we will buy programs and films using iTunes. Television is the most important mass medium yet to be breached by the digital world.

Just down the road from Facebook, Google’s whizzo brains have stopped lounging on beanbags and crunching granola bars while lecturing the world on the virtues of not being evil and started knuckling down to the gritty business of grinding Zuckerberg’s and Cook’s noses into the techno-dirt.

Google has its own version of the iPhone. It’s not a single phone but any handset that runs its Android software. Android phones comfortably outsell iPhones, accounting for almost half of all smartphones sold worldwide. Google has launched a web-based Google TV service, offering programs streamed via the web. It is using Google+ to make its search results more social, to combat Zuckerberg’s social search ambitions. It has launched Google Music, to offer songs, and it owns YouTube, where we can now watch or rent TV programs and films.

In development in Mountain View, Google’s headquarters, is Google Wallet, an online payment program that will enable us to buy stuff by waving our phone at a shop’s paypad.

Google already makes mobile phones in partnership with HTC and Samsung, and recently it spent $US12.5bn snapping up Motorola’s consumer division. It is readying its first own-label, Motorola-built mobile phones and tablet computers to tackle Apple head-on and is even flirting with becoming a telephone service provider.

“We’re still at the very, very early stages of what technology can do,” Page says.

“Our ultimate ambition is to transform the overall Google experience, making it beautifully simple, almost auto-magical.”

And what of Amazon, that other West Coast behemoth that nearly doubled in size between 2008 and 2010 and hit almost $US50bn in annual revenues last year? It has new hardware, the Kindle Fire, which helpfully comes loaded with the account details of Amazon users, making it easier than ever to buy stuff. The Fire also boasts social networking that connects Amazon users with others who share tastes in books and films, a direct challenge to Facebook.

Amazon offers a new app shop, a new online payment system, TV and movie streaming and cloud computing for individuals and businesses.

As they jostle for position, each of the tech titans is as busy talking down the opposition as it is talking itself up.

Apple has vowed to “destroy” Google’s Android mobile phone and tablet computer operating system, which senior executives dismiss as “theft” of Apple technology. Apple is suing manufacturers of Android devices all over the world for patent infringement.

Google’s response? “Failing to succeed in the smartphone market, they are resorting to legal measures.”

Facebook hired the PR firm Burson-Marsteller to plant negative stories about Google. When it got caught, it said sorry.

This is what happens when an entire industry reboots itself. The great tech war of 2012 marks the start of the third age of computing. In the beginning, firms battled to sell us hardware. It was IBM vs Apple vs whatever beige box we liked the look of. Then hardware became a commodity and firms competed to sell us better software — Microsoft Windows v Apple OS v Google’s online services.

Now, in the mobile internet age, firms are battling to create the best online platform, offering a vast, seamlessly connected suite of anytime, anywhere services that we use all day, every day and that become as much a part of our lives as the air we breathe. Creating the dominant platform matters so much because it will give the winning firm the lion’s share of the world’s eyeballs. More eyeballs means more direct sales of hardware, software and services, and advertising. But eyeballs offer something even more valuable, something tech firms prize more than anything else: data.

Every time you or I log on to Google, Facebook, Amazon or iTunes, we leave digital fingerprints. With our search queries, our “likes”, the songs we listen to, the TV programs we watch, the books we buy and our tweets, we reveal who we are. Thanks to our computer’s IP address and location-based technology in mobile phones, we also disclose where we are.

This accurate, real-life, real-time information is an invaluable treasury. It enables Google and Facebook to offer advertisers the chance to reach their target market and even to advertise to them at particular times of the day and in places where they are most likely to respond. Facebook, whose data is even more valuable because we tell it more about ourselves and it knows who our friends are, is desperate to start using it to ramp up its ad sales to Google-like proportions.

Analysts think the digital advertising sector could be worth $US200bn by 2020.

There’s a problem here, of course. Apart from Apple’s natty hardware and all the big players’ software and apps, critics say the fab four create little or nothing. What they do is make all the money in the world by exploiting other people’s stuff.

Most of the content we find when we do a Google search is created by others, but Google sells ads against the search. The content creators do not receive a share of the ad revenue.

Google points out that its search engine sends users to the content creators’ websites, where each can try to make money itself.

Amazon sells books at prices lower than publishers and booksellers say is fair. Facebook does not create the data it uses to sell advertising. We agree to hand the data over when we sign up and we do not get to opt out.

Apple pays record labels for the music it sells through iTunes but keeps a big chunk of sales revenue for itself: iTunes now in effect runs the music industry.

With an eye to the bottom line, the fab four bitterly resist any attempt to stop them exploiting one another’s content. Each spends billions on lobbying politicians to drive home their case that any regulation of the internet would impinge on free speech and free trade. Who could object to freedom, right?

Well, more and more of us. Newspapers, including this one, have set up paywalls to ensure readers pay for high-quality journalism rather than simply getting it free. Hollywood studios, which are battling piracy, are backing the (now shelved) Stop Online Piracy Act in America, which aims to make internet service providers do more to respect copyright. Facebook is facing a backlash from users over its decision to publish all their posts in a timeline that creates a permanent online diary of its users’ lives for all to see.

In her new book, I Know Who You Are and I Saw What You Did: Social Networks and the Death of Privacy, Lori Andrews, an American law professor, calls for a new constitution governing how web firms can exploit our data and the content generated by traditional businesses.

How do the hi-tech firms respond to critics? They don’t care much, and since they are making more money than god, who can blame them? For now, regulators show little interest in clipping tech firms’ wings. Most consumers seem pretty happy, too.

Polls — and sales — show that our desire for a connected future vastly outweighs any concerns we may have that we will become slaves to the machine.

Ultimately, it is you and I who will decide the victor of the great tech war of 2012. Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple have gone from being the dreams of the young and the obsessions of the stubborn to a place in the dictionary because almost everyone reading this article uses them. Whichever we keep logging on to will keep growing. Whichever we lose interest in won’t.

Source:http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/features/race-to-win-cyber-world/story-e6frg6z6-1226263165917

On Thursday Google revealed a new security feature for the Android Market store that’s designed to protect Android users from malware. But does the service go far enough?

The new service, called ‘Bouncer,’ is designed to quietly and automatically scan the entire Android Market (and all new apps uploaded) for malware.

Hiroshi Lockheimer, VP of engineering for Android, explains how it works:

The service performs a set of analyses on new applications, applications already in Android Market, and developer accounts. Here’s how it works: once an application is uploaded, the service immediately starts analyzing it for known malware, spyware and trojans. It also looks for behaviors that indicate an application might be misbehaving, and compares it against previously analyzed apps to detect possible red flags. We actually run every application on Google’s cloud infrastructure and simulate how it will run on an Android device to look for hidden, malicious behavior. We also analyze new developer accounts to help prevent malicious and repeat-offending developers from coming back.

Lockheimer also revealed hat this service has already been operational ‘for a while now’ and that between the first and second halves of 2011 Google saw a 40% decrease in the number of potentially-malicious downloads from Android Market.

But is this enough? BitDefender’s chief threat researcher Catalin Cosoi doesn’t think so, and believes that malware writers will find a way to circumvent the screening mechanism:

Also, based on our experience with malware analysis, malware writers will seek a way around security. For instance, in the PC malware world, we use virtual machines to analyse behavior of different samples we discover. Obviously, in time, malware writers added different routines to detect if the virus runs in a real computer or in a virtual environment, and they modified their software to act legit when running in a control environment. We might see the same phenomenon here, as Bouncer is a service that will emulate all apps uploaded on the Android Market. Not to mention that the Android API offers the possibility to detect if the app runs in an emulator or directly on the devices. So there is a high chance that we’ll see apps behaving correctly when used on a simulator and turning malicious when used on the mobile device.

Another more immediate problem with ‘Bouncer’ is that the service doesn’t scan for what’s known as ‘greyware,’ a category that includes hings such as spyware, adware, and aggressive ad platforms. This stuff isn’t technically malware, but it’s also not desirable to have it installed on your handset either (it’s annoying and can suck bandwidth).

I see ‘Bouncer’ as a small step in the right direction. Google could (and in my opinion, should) do more to protect Android users from the ever increasing number of threats that they face.

Source:http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/googles-android-market-bouncer-does-it-offer-enough-protection/17981

Interested in some Windows Phone 8 Apollo information on a Thursday afternoon? A pair of reports from Pocketnow and Paul Thurrott of WinSuperSite claim to have some details on Windows Phone 8, the former of which has allegedly gotten hold of a video starring Microsoft’s own Windows Phone manager Joe Belfiore that’s intended for partners at Nokia. So what kinds of goodies can we expect from the next major version of Windows Phone? There’s quite a bit of information to digest, so let’s break it down.

Hardware-wise, we’re told that Microsoft’s theme for Windows Phone 8 will be “scale and choice.” The updated OS will reportedly bring with it several more hardware options than are currently available with Windows Phone, including support for multi-core processors, new form factors, and a total of four different screen resolution options. Also coming to Windows Phone 8 is support for removable microSD cards and NFC radios that’ll bring contactless payments.

On the software side of things, Microsoft is expecting there to be 100,000 apps available in the Windows Phone Marketplace by the time WP8 launches. Pocketnow believes that a Skype client will be able to integrate into the OS, but Thurrott claims that the app will be separate. Also, the camera app in Windows Phone 8 will reportedly be able to be skinned by OEMs or overlayed with third-party viewfinders.

Another major feature that’s allegedly covered in the leaked video is a tool dubbed DataSmart, which will allow users to track and reduce their cellular data usage, which will be done by prioritizing Wi-Fi connections along with server-side compression built in to Internet Explorer 10. Lastly, Windows Phone 8 will unsurprisingly feature a high-level of integration with Windows 8 on PCs. That includes an easy way for developers to port apps from Windows 8 to Windows Phone 8, a new companion syncing app that’ll replace the desktop Zune software, and SkyDrive support that’ll allow users to share their data across devices.

Overall it sounds like Microsoft’s got quite a bit planned for Windows Phone 8, but that shouldn’t come as much of a surprise considering that we’ve heard that the update’s been described as a “very different game” compared to Windows Phone 7.5 Mango. With the impending arrival of devices like the Nokia Lumia 900 and HTC Titan II as well as this massive Windows Phone 8 leak, it definitely seems like it’s a good time to be a fan of Microsoft’s mobile platform. Here’s to hoping that we get more details on Windows Phone 8 soon. What do you all make of this leaked info? Do you folks that have avoided Windows Phone so far think that you could be convinced to check Windows Phone 8 out if these details hold true?

Source:http://www.phonedog.com/2012/02/02/windows-phone-8-apollo-details-leak-including-new-hardware-options-and-nfc-support/

Software Redeveloper Microsoft will relax the hardware specifications for its upcoming Windows Phone 8 (WP8) operating system (OS), as revealed by details that have been leaked.

A video of Joe Belfiore, Microsoft’s Windows Phone manager has revealed that the upcoming Microsoft mobile OS will finally ditch the Windows CE kernel and use a cut down version of the Windows NT kernel that will be shipped in the Windows 8 PC OS.

According to Pocketnow, Belfiore said the operating system will support four display resolutions, near-field communications chips and even allow for microSD removable storage.

Long time Microsoft blogger Paul Thurott confirmed Pocketnow’s Windows NT kernel claims, adding that existing Windows Phone applications will be able to run on WP8.

One of the most surprising aspects of the leak is the news that Microsoft might do away with using its Zune client to synchronise Windows Phone devices with desktops and laptops. It will essentially go back to an updated version of Activesync, the application used for years by the buggy and woeful Windows Mobile OS.

Microsoft’s WP8 operating system is expected to make its debut later this year. It will be interesting to see how much customisation, if any, Nokia will manage to do with the WP8 OS to make it stand out from other equally anonymous handsets.

Source:http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/2143865/microsoft-relax-hardware-specifications-windows-phone