Apple may launch iPhone Mini in 2014: Strategy Analytics

SEOUL: Samsung Electronics is expected to widen its lead over Apple in global smartphone sales this year with 35 percent growth, helped by a broad product lineup, market researcher Strategy Analytics told Reuters on Friday.

Apple, returning the offensive, could roll out a smaller, cheaper 'iPhone Mini' next year to grab market share by targeting demand from users of lower-end smartphones, Strategy Analytics said.

"We expect Samsung to slightly extend its lead over Apple this year because of its larger multi-tier product portfolio," Neil Mawston, executive director at Strategy Analytics, said in an e-mail interview with Reuters.

Global smartphone shipments will jump 27 percent to 875 million shipments this year, slowing from last year's torrid 41 percent pace as growth eased in many key markets such as North America, China, the developed economies of Asia, and Western Europe, Mawston said.

South Korea's Samsung Electronics is forecast to sell 290 million smartphones this year, up from a projected 215 million in 2012, the research firm said. Apple's smartphone sales are projected to reach 180 million this year, up 33 percent from last year, slightly trailing Samsung's 35 percent increase.

This will give Samsung a 33 percent share of the 2013 smartphone market, up from last year's estimated 31 percent, while Apple will hold 21 percent, versus last year's 20 percent.
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Apple, the world's most valuable technology company, and Samsung Electronics, the most valuable in Asia, have battled fiercely in the global mobile device market, which they dominate, although Samsung is also a supplier to Apple.

Samsung may launch the Galaxy S IV, a new version of its flagship smartphone, in April, and the Galaxy Note III phablet and a series of other new smartphones over the course of this year, media reports and analysts have said recently.

"Samsung plays in more segments and this should enable it to capture more volume than Apple (assuming Apple does not launch an 'iPhone Mini' this year)," Mawston said.

Brian J White, a researcher at Topeka Capital Markets, on Wednesday raised the possibility that Apple may launch a smaller and lower-priced iPhone - the iPhone Mini - to further penetrate markets such as China and India.

White said in a report that he believed Apple will launch the next iPhone, the iPhone 5S, in May or June, and offer more options in screen sizes. This would eventually open up the possibility for the iPhone Mini, he said.

But Mawston said the iPhone Mini was not expected to hit the market until after this year.

"We think Apple will have to launch an 'iPhone Mini' at some point over the next three years to address the hundreds of millions of prepaid users worldwide that cannot afford the current iPhone," he said.

"The iPhone 5 is growing fast and profitably right now, so there is little incentive for Apple to launch an 'iPhone Mini' this year."

"We expect the iPhone Mini to be more likely next year, in 2014 when... Apple will be forced to discover fresh growth streams," he said.

Samsung Electronics, once a laggard in the smartphone market, has quickly surpassed Apple as the world's largest smartphone maker.

Strong smartphone sales have helped to lift both the company's shares, which hit a record high of 1.584 million won ($1,500) on Thursday, and its earnings, with a record profit expected for a fifth quarter in a row in the latest October-to-December period. The results are expected to be announced early next week.

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Intel Unveils Chips for Smartphones

Intel, the world’s largest chip-maker, has announced its plans for powering smartphones with its chips and a platform specifically tailored for emerging markets.
The announcement came with the unveiling of an Atom processor targeting low-end smartphones and power-sipping Core series chips for tablets and laptops at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas today.
With this move Intel will take on Qualcomm, currently that largest market-share holder for smartphone chips. Intel aims to sell 500 million units by 2015.
Intel also outlined plans to introduce a quad- core version of its tablet chip lineup, code-named Bay Trail, which will be available in devices for the end-of-year.
Intel said that it will target emerging markets, an area which has huge potential with customers who are still to buy their first smartphone. Intel said that Acer will be one of the first customers for its smartphone devices.
“The best of Intel is coming to a mobile device near you,” said an Intel executive during his notes.
Intel has recently struggled to retain its share as businesses and individuals are shifting to smartphones and tablets.

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Apple: App Store downloads touch 20 billion in 2012

Almost 20 billion applications have been downloaded from the Apple App Store in 2012, the iPhone maker has said.

 

LONDON: Almost 20 billion applications have been downloaded from the Apple App Store in 2012, the iPhone maker has said.

The tech giant said that over 40 billion apps have been downloaded since the App Store opened in July 2008.

That means around half of all Apple's app downloads were made last year, illustrating the speed at which the ecosystem continues to grow, the Telegraph reports.

Apple also said that December was record-breaking, with two billion downloads - around a tenth of the year's downloads, being made that month.

According to the paper, Apple's download figures exclude app updates and re-downloads.

The California-based firm added that the App Store now has over 500 million active accounts.

That doesn't mean the company has 500 million credit cards on its files, however, because it is possible to create an App Store account using an iTunes gift card, the paper said.

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Samsung launches 3D camera lens

Cameras that can record in 3D are usually pretty complicated, sporting two lenses instead of one.

 

LAS VEGAS: Cameras that can record in 3D are usually pretty complicated, sporting two lenses instead of one, to mimic human binocular vision. Samsung says it has a more elegant solution: a single lens that can go from 2D to 3D mode with the flip of a switch.

Samsung Electronics is showing off the new lens at the International CES show in Las Vegas, where gadget makers showcase their latest smartphones, tablet computers and other consumer-electronic devices.

About the product
The lens is an optional accessory for Samsung's new NX300 camera, the latest in the company's NX line of compact cameras with interchangeable lenses. Think of the line as a scaled-down equivalent of the digital single-lens reflex camera, or DSLR, which are more versatile and more expensive than point-and-shoot cameras.

The camera will record video, including 3D video, on its 20-megapixel sensor. Any 3D TV can play back the 3D movies.

How the lens works A switch on the lens flips an extra shutter into the path of the light through the lens. The shutter has two sides, allowing the single lens to act as if it were two, offset from each other by a short distance.

When you snap a shot in 3D, the camera looks quickly through one side of the front lens and records an image. It then switches quickly to the other side to record another exposure of the same subject from a slightly different angle.

Limitations The lens is no bigger than a regular one, which limits the 3D effect. Normally, the two lenses that form a 3D camera's "eyes" are a few inches apart. In this case, the "eyes" are less than an inch apart, so it doesn't create a strong 3D effect with subjects that are farther away than about 6 feet.

It's not a zoom lens. The focal length is fixed at 45 millimeters, making it a short telephoto lens suitable for portraits. The maximum aperture in 2D mode is 1.8, which means the lens can create strong background blur and make the subject stand out from the background. The blur effect is weaker in 3D mode, but the 3D effect in itself makes the subject jump out.

Availability
The NX300 camera will go on sale in March for $750 and will include a standard zoom lens. The 3D lens will be sold separately for $500 and will be available at the same time.

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Sony gains edge in 4K TV race with ultra-HD movies

Sony has become the only electronics maker to offer ultra-HD TVs - and a way to get movies to the new super-clear screens.

 

LAS VEGAS: Sony is finally pressing its advantage as a conglomerate that owns both high-tech gadgets and the content that plays on them by being the only electronics maker to offer ultra-HD TVs - and a way to get movies to the new super-clear screens.

Ultra-high definition TVs, which quadruple the number of pixels of current high definition technology, have been the talk of the International CES gadget show so far. But only Sony has offered a content solution to go with them.

With the 84-inch (213-centimeter) ultra-HD set it launched in November, Sony threw in a tablet and computer server that has 10 movies preloaded on the device - for $25,000. The movies came from the library of Sony Pictures or its subsidiary Columbia Pictures, like 'The Amazing Spider-Man' and 'The Karate Kid'.

On Monday, Sony unveiled 55-inch (140-centimeter) and 65-inch (165.-centimeter) ultra-HD sets that will sell this spring for an undisclosed price believed to be below $10,000. The Japanese electronics maker said it would launch a download service this summer in the US so buyers of the smaller sets would have access to movies in the clearer format.

For now, it will offer the same 10 movies from its library for download.

After unveiling the service, Sony CEO Kazuo Hirai told reporters that the ultra-HD movies could be made available to other makers like Samsung or LG later. The company is eyeing coordination with other movie studios, but not immediately.

"That's a key differentiator from a Sony perspective that really speaks to the advantage of what we have in terms of both the electronics business and the content business," he said. "For the time being, that's something we bring exclusively to our customers."

Sony is betting big on ultra-HD, and is a leading supplier of high-end cameras that shoot in the format, which renders moving images at a resolution of 3,840 pixels wide and 2,160 pixels tall. That is twice the length and width of high definition, resulting in four times as many pixels, or more than 8 million.

The company also makes projectors that show movies in so-called 4K, and Hirai said that anyone who has been to the movies lately has probably experienced it first hand without realising it.

Getting these higher resolution files to home televisions is no small matter. A Blu-ray disc format has not been created yet and broadcasters are years away from offering TV signals at the higher resolution.

Sony representatives said that buyers of its 55-inch (140-centimeter) and 65-inch (165-centimeter) TVs may be asked to buy an ultra-HD server separately, although a final decision hadn't been made. It is also unclear how much downloadable movies will cost.

The company said it would offer Blu-ray discs that are mastered in 4K but compressed to fit on a current Blu-ray disc. The TV's embedded technology presents the compressed movie at close to 4K resolution, but not quite as good as when they are played from the 4K media player.

But with all new technologies, there were glitches.

Hirai had an embarrassing moment on Monday when he introduced the world's first ultra-HD TV using organic light-emitting diodes (OLED), only to see the screen go blank as the computer running it had an error.

"This revolutionary TV combines the world's largest OLED display with dazzling 4K resolution, including this beautiful... interface screen," he said, then turned to see a blank screen as chuckles rippled through the crowd.

Later, Hirai looked back at the 56-inch (142-centimeter) display only to see the error continue.

"Excellent," he said.

A Sony staffer rolled the TV further away and Hirai carried on his presentation. He later appeared to be good-natured with journalists.

Hirai said the ultra-HD OLED set is a prototype and didn't announce price or availability.
In the Sony booth after the presentation, other ultra-HD OLED screens played without a problem.

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Samsung OLED TVs to play two shows simultaneously

Samsung on Monday unveiled a new television that lets two people watch two different shows at the same time.

 LAS VEGAS: South Korean electronics giant Samsung on Monday unveiled a new television that lets two people watch two different shows at the same time.
The F9500 television is the first in the world to offer this feature, dubbed "multi-view," the company said in Las Vegas, attributing the advance to the use of the latest generation of screen technology called "organic light-emitting diode" or OLED.

The feature allows two people "to watch completely different full-HD content simultaneously on the same screen with corresponding audio and controls," the company said on the eve of the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show, the world's biggest for the electronics trade.

Joe Stinziano, a senior Samsung official in the US, emphasized at a press conference that "it's only possible in OLED due to the very fast speed" at which images can move across the screen with the technology.

So that they see just the show they want, the two viewers must wear special 3D glasses, which come with personal speakers built in to deliver the audio, in stereo, directly to them.

OLED TVs don't require separate backlights and thus are thinner, consume about 20 percent less power and offer a sharper picture than conventional flat-panel sets.

Samsung's South Korean rival, LG, has so far been the only company to launch a line of OLED television for commercial sale.

LG's OLED model, 55 inches wide but just 0.16 inches (four mm) thick, was opened for pre-orders last week, with the whopping price tag of 11 million won ($10,357). It will start shipping in late March.

Samsung hasn't indicated the price or release date of its television, which will also be 55 inches.

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CES: Samsung's new TV 'kills' remote

Samsung on Monday unveiled a new television that lets two people watch two different shows at the same time.

 

LAS VEGAS: New TVs from Samsung will recognise an expanded range of gestures so people can swipe through on-screen menus in a way that revolutionises the old remote control.

Samsung Electronics, the Korean electronics maker that is successfully challenging Apple in smartphones, touts the new user interface as faster and more intuitive than before.

Samsung said Monday that the new interface will be a feature of upcoming smart TVs. In addition, certain high-end Samsung smart TVs sold since last year can be upgraded with an add-on kit - complete with the required quad-core processor - that will be sold separately for a few hundred dollars.

At the International CES gadget show, Samsung also introduced an 85-inch (2.1-meter) "ultrahigh definition" set, in line with rivals that are all rolling out screens with four times the pixels as the current HD. The higher resolution will let TV screens get larger and people to sit closer without a decline in picture quality, though initially the price tag will limit those sets to technology's early adopters.

The new lineup of smart TVs respond to more natural speech and motion, similar to the way the Kinect controller on an Xbox 360 game console allows users to swipe through menus by gesturing in the air. The camera is mounted on top of the screen and can be folded back for people concerned about privacy.

Earlier on Monday, LG Electronics unveiled a new Magic Remote, which acts like a wand that is sensitive to motion and is used to navigate on-screen menus. LG said the new model responds better to natural speech and can be controlled with a single finger. It also lets you change the channels by writing numbers in the air.

Samsung's new handheld remote control comes with a touch-sensitive clickable track pad, which is another way to navigate through viewing options.

Because it is integrated with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, the new interface accepts text input. You have a range of options for typing - through a synced smartphone, a Bluetooth-enabled wireless keyboard accessory, using hand gestures for an on-screen keyboard, or using its voice-to-type software.

Search functions also span web video apps and live TV, meaning that searches of a show will inform viewers if and when an episode is available on live TV, or if it's available through an app such as Netflix.

Nintendo's Wii U game console does something similar by showing search results from live TV and web video apps. But by being integrated with the TV, Samsung's universal search function doesn't require the user to change the TV's source input.

And since you can also play some games on its new smart TVs, the new sets from Samsung are acting more and more like mobile computing devices with an extra-large screen.

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Huawei unveils Ascend Mate with 6.1-inch screen to rival Samsung Galaxy Note II

Huawei boosted smartphone display size and resolution on Monday with two new devices aimed at challenging much bigger rivals, including Samsung and Apple.

 

NEW YORK: Huawei Technologies boosted smartphone display size and resolution on Monday with two new devices aimed at challenging much bigger rivals, including Samsung Electronics and Apple.

The Chinese phone maker, which is pushing to expand its brand beyond its home country, unveiled the Ascend D2 and Ascend Mate devices on the eve of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

It said the Ascend D2 would have a high-definition screen with 443 pixels per inch compared with the most advanced Samsung and Apple phones, with resolutions closer to the 300 pixels per inch range.

The Ascend Mate device has a 6.1-inch display, which will make it the biggest-screen smartphone in the world, according to Huawei. Samsung's biggest smartphone to date, the Galaxy Note II has a 5.5-inch display.

Huawei's head of consumer electronics, Richard Yu, said the company is hoping its latest smartphones will offer an alternative for people who have to carry around their tablet computer, laptop, smartphone and camera all at once.

"Our idea is whether we can have one thing for all that," Yu said.

The company plans to start selling the Ascend D2 in China in January and in Japan and other countries later on.

The Ascend Mate will sell in China in February and in the rest of the world in the following months.
Huawei also expects the phones to go on sale in Europe and said it is in talks with US operators about selling them here. It did not announce prices for the devices. Huawei also expects the phones to go on sale in Europe and said it is in talks with US operators about selling them here. It did not announce prices for the devices.

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Mom's iPhone code of conduct for son goes viral

Mom's iPhone code of conduct for son goes viral

 

NEW YORK: Janell Burley Hofmann honoured her 13-year-old son's "maturity and growth" at Christmas with his first iPhone, but it came with strings attached.

Eighteen strings, to be exact, in a written code of conduct that placed the mommy blogger at the centre of the debate over how parents should handle technology in the hands of their teens, especially younger ones just entering the frenetic world of social networks and smartphones.

Thousands of people, including those bemoaning too much helicopter parenting, commented and shared the funny, heartfelt agreement posted at the holiday by the Cape Cod, Mass, mom of five. The interest crashed her website and led her to appear with her eldest, Gregory, on morning TV.

Hofmann's first order of business: "1. It is my phone. I bought it. I pay for it. I am loaning it to you. Aren't I the greatest?"

She included caveats that some parenting and tech addiction experts consider crucial in easing new entrants onto Facebook, Instagram and shiny new mobile devices:

You must share passwords with a parent, answer their calls, hand over said device early on school nights and a little later on weekends. You must avoid hurtful texts and porn and pay for a replacement if your phone "falls into the toilet, smashes on the ground, or vanishes into thin air." Of the latter Hofmann advises her teen, "Mow a lawn, stash some birthday money. It will happen, you should be prepared."

Hofmann said in an interview that she decided on the contract as she pondered the power of the technology she and her husband were about to plop into their son's world. She was looking for a way to be present in his phone use without being a "creeper," his word for stalky, spying parents.

She wasn't surprised that her list, which Greg agreed to, resonates with other parents. It also resonates with psychologist David Greenfield, a technology addiction specialist in West Hartford, Conn.

"We have ritualized the gift of the smartphone," he said, yet many parents don't have the know-how, stomach, time or interest in actively guiding kids when they first jump into digital life. For some parents, he said, it's only when things go horribly wrong that attention is paid.

He knows of parents who have gone so far as to jam all Internet and cell phone signals at home when they couldn't get their kids to power down. Police in Rocklin, Calif., said two girls, ages 15 and 16, used a prescription sleeping medication recently to spike the milkshakes of one's parents so they could log onto the Internet after 10 pm.

Greenfield recommends contracts like Hofmann's, if parents follow through. Others creep using apps and monitoring software. He thinks that's fine, too.

There's little data broken down by age on the number of Internet users whose lives are negatively impacted by smartphones, tablets, laptops and other technology, Greenfield said. In the general population, studies range from 1 per cent to 10 per cent of users whose digital habits interfere with their lives. Greenfield estimates the reality is somewhere between 2 and 6 per cent.

Hofmann was looking for a way to open the conversation with her son. Many other parents are, obviously, concerned as well about what their teens are doing online, but also what is being done to them.

In a recent report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 81 percent of parents with online teens said they are concerned about how much information advertisers can learn about their kids' behaviour and 72 per cent said they're concerned about how their children interact online with people they don't know.

Nearly 70 per cent said they're concerned about how their children manage their reputations online and 57 per cent of kids ages 12 and 13 said they're very concerned about it.

The report said parents are being more proactive, not just relying on parental-control tools such as browser filters. An increasing number are joining their kids on social media, but older parents may be approaching their kids' lives there with the wrong emotional filters.

"We see it as a separation from social behavior. They see it AS social behavior," Greenfield said. "I'm not sure we're going to be able to bridge that difference generationally."

More tech abuse education needs to be done in this country before teens are actively engaged, he said. In parts of Europe and Asia, for instance, kids learn how to handle their digital lives as formal training in third or fourth grade.

"Here they think of it like it's part of their body, and they treat it that way," Greenfield said.

Hofmann's contract is her own attempt at education. "Don't take a zillion pictures and videos. There is no need to document everything. Live your experiences. They will be stored in your memory for eternity."

And she gets downright inspirational toward the bottom: "Leave your phone home sometimes and feel safe and secure in that decision. It is not alive or an extension of you. Learn to live without it. Be bigger and more powerful than FOMO - fear of missing out."

Hofmann also urges her boy to, "Keep your eyes up. See the world happening around you. Stare out a window. Listen to the birds. Take a walk. Talk to a stranger. Wonder without googling."

And her final word: "You will mess up. I will take away your phone. We will sit down and talk about it. We will start over again. You & I, we are always learning. I am on your team. We are in this together."

Aisha Sultan in St. Louis studied parenting in the digital age as a Knight Wallace Fellow at the University of Michigan. As parents, she said, "We've sort of hit a tipping point. The conversation has shifted from wow, isn't all this technology cool to wow, how do we control it? We can't eliminate it completely."

But parental frustration is mounting, Sultan said. She cited last year's case of a father who shot up his daughter's laptop over a profanity-infused Facebook rant against her parents. He recorded the act and earned more than 23 million YouTube views for his trouble.

Before the conversation with our kids begins, Greenfield said, parents have to deal with their own digital obsessions.

"Parents have to have limits, too," he said. "We have to be brutally honest with ourselves on our own use and abuse."

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Nokia India factory raided over Rs 3K cr 'tax evasion'

Income Tax officials are raiding the premises of Finnish handset maker Nokia here in Chennai. A team of 20 officials reached the Nokia plant in Sriperumbudur and the Nokia offices in Chennai an hour ago. 

 

CHENNAI: Income Tax officials are raiding the premises of Finnish handset maker Nokia here in Chennai. A team of 20 officials reached the Nokia plant in Sriperumbudur and the Nokia offices in Chennai an hour ago.

"Yes, raids are on. I will call back," said the Nokia spokesperson in Chennai.

Authorities said they suspect tax evasion to the tune of Rs 3,000 crore by Nokia. "They haven't paid tax in India," an IT official told ET on condition of anonymity. The raids are expected to go on till evening.

Two employees whom ET spoke to also confirmed the news. "We know whether production would come to a stop today or not. We will know in an hour," said one of the employees on condition of anonymity.

Nokia is a global leader in mobile communications whose products have become an integral part of the lives of people around the world. The company, which started life as a paper manufacturer, used to be the number one phonemaker in the world till it started facing intense competition from rivals like Apple and Samsung.

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Nokia Lumia 920, Lumia 820 in India on Jan 11?

BANGALORE, INDIA: This can be an official announcement. Nokia care in a live chat has announced that its latest models Nokia Lumia 920 and Lumia 820 will be released in India on January 11. wmpoweruser.com has posted a screenshot of the Nokia Care chat.
Earlier, Nokia was expected to launch the Lumia 920 and 820 in the first week of January. Though the prices have not been made public, the Lumia 920 is expected to be on higher range of over Rs 40,000 while the Lumia 820 is expected to be priced at around Rs 20,000.
Nokia Lumia 920 with a 11.43 cm display has Nokia PureView 8.7 MP camera while Lumia 820 has 10.92 display and features an 8 MP camera. Both models have the SnapdragonTM S4 processor.

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Internet spews out 830 million tonnes of CO2

Projections suggest that the ICT sector's share is expected to double by 2020

Internet, video and other cloud services, which comprise information communications and technology (ICT) industry, spews out more than 830 million tonnes of carbon dioxide annually, researchers found.
Carbon dioxide is also the main greenhouse gas; and the emissions from the information and communications industry alone accounts for about two percent of global CO2 emissions, the same proportion as the emissions from the aviation industry.
Projections suggest that the ICT sector's share is expected to double by 2020, according to researchers from the Centre for Energy-Efficient Telecommunications (CEET) and Bell Labs.
Researchers note that controlling those emissions requires more accurate but still feasible models, which take into account the data traffic, energy use and CO2 production in networks and other elements of the ICT industry, the journal Environmental Science & Technology reports.
Existing assessment models are inaccurate, so they set out to develop new approaches that better account for variations in equipment and other factors in the ICT industry, according to a CEET and Bell Labs statement.
Amid growing concern over the surprisingly large amount of greenhouse gas produced by the Internet and other telecom activities, researchers are reporting new models of emissions and energy consumption that could help reduce their carbon footprint.
The researchers suggest, based on their models, that more efficient power usage of facilities, more efficient use of energy-efficient equipment and renewable energy sources are three keys to reducing ICT emissions of CO2.
CEET is a partnership between Alcatel-Lucent, the University of Melbourne and the Victorian State Government.

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Samsung Galaxy S IV pic leaked

As per rumors Samsung Galaxy IV may come with a unbreakable glass and S-pen stylus

SamMobile has posted an image that the blog half-heartedly claims is a leaked press shot of the Samsung Galaxy S IV.
The blog says it has "received a huge tip from our insider at Samsung" who has sent them this image of "the next generation of the Galaxy S series, the Galaxy S IV".
The blog goes on to state that it isn't 100 per cent convinced about the image, but notes that the image of the device, which looks similar to the Galaxy S III and the Galaxy Premier does not look like a fake.
The blog, however, doesn't mention anyting about specification or release date.
As per rumors, Samsung Galaxy IV may come with a unbreakable glass and S-pen stylus, as seen in the Galaxy Note series.

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myOpenSourceStore.com Gets 35 percent Traffic Increase

myOpenSourceStore.com has announced that the portal is experiencing an unprecedented increase in traffic and more than 35% of footfalls are repeat visitors looking for recommended top rated Open Source Software products for download. Also, there is an increased traffic inflow from developing countries like: Indonesia, Turkey, Brazil, Philippines and Romania.

“This confirms the requirement for Open Source Software and its gaining popularity in countries focusing on development. The portals engaging, well structured, simple and concise navigation abilities offer user’s greater accessibility and ensures a collaborative shopping experience. myOpenSourceStore not only offers the best selection of Open Source Software but also an on-demand expert team offering support, customization and hands on assistance,” said Devasia Kurian, Managing Director, myOpenSourceStore.com. We are already seeing a substantial increase in conversion and quite confident that the success will continuously grow in the weeks to come, he added.

The major products / categories receiving maximum traffic and searches include:

•         Open Source educational tools. e.g – Moodle

•         Open Source eCommerce platform, like– Magento.

•         Open Source content management system, like – Wordpress and Joomla

•         Open Source ERP Project setup for Open ERP.

•         Other products including Open Source Linux operating system, especially Ubuntu, ViciDial and more.

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Long beta for Australia eVote

Tags

Innovation required.

Electronic voting isn't likely to replace voting at the ballot box anytime soon, according to identity and security experts, despite progress in NSW and Victoria and renewed interest in Queensland.
A discussion paper [pdf] on electoral reform released last week by the Queensland Government asked whether electronically assisted voting (conducted online or by phone) should be introduced for all voters in the state.
While Queensland Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie said the government must review rules and processes governing the electoral system to ensure they are “right for modern times”, experts say there is a lot standing in the way of electronic voting.
“It’s easy to see the appeal and convenience of online voting, without being aware that the capacity for votes to be manipulated is much higher than with older or more clunky methods,” said Vanessa Teague, electronic voting researcher and honorary fellow in the department of computing and information systems at University of Melbourne.
“It’s very difficult to construct valid mechanisms for proving that each person’s vote has been handled in the way they intended,” Teague said.
Internet voting is already available to citizens of Switzerland and Estonia. However Teague cited recent Estonian elections where the party that came second disputed the result. "There was no opportunity for observers to verify that the central count had been properly conducted,” Teague said.
This is one of the many challenges to electronic voting currently being considered by the Victorian Government, which is one year into a project that aims to deliver a new electronic voting system at the ballot box, replacing the one that was used in 2006 and 2010.
Once delivered the system will be the first end-to-end verifiable e-voting system in the world, said Craig Burton, manager of electronic voting at the Victorian Electoral Commission.
“Verifiable voting adds a layer on top of (traditional security) which provides mathematically strong proof that the system got your vote as you cast it and - once captured - it was passed through and decrypted as you cast it,” Burton said.
The VEC is considering internet voting, Burton said, but so far the Victorian Electoral Act doesn’t allow for it. New South Wales passed legislation to allow for electronic voting in 2010.
“We haven’t yet worked out what we would consider to be safe parameters to do it here. It must come with some form of independent verification,” Burton said.
He added that for online voting to be robust enough for use in public elections, a number of new innovations would be required.
“The current voting system has had 150 years of debugging and it’s pretty good…Internet voting introduces risks that just don’t exist in paper voting.”
Burton said two major issues included making online voting coercion resistant, and ensuring the voter’s PC performed in a way expected, given it is an untrusted device.
The Queensland Government’s discussion paper raises a number of “key issues” with electronic voting for all voters, including difficulties with providing voters with a unique identifier due to there being no national citizens identification system in Australia; the risk of interception of voting information or passwords in bulk mail outs; internet stability and security; and cost.
Teague said even if Australians held a smartcard to help prove their identity, it would only go part of the way to solving electronic voting challenges.
“If you had a real smartcard for each citizen then you could have confidence the vote had originated on a computer that had that ID card stuck in its slot,” Teague said.
“But, for example, you still don’t know whether somebody else in that household has interfered with the persons’ process of voting. You also don’t know whether malware or a malfunction on the machine caused the vote to be recorded in a way different than intended... and you don’t know whether all votes are correctly recoded, tallied and counted at the receiving end.”
Identity management expert Stephen Wilson said while it was possible to produce a technologically robust proof of voting, it was more difficult to prove there had been no tampering with votes once cast.
In the future, he said, it was feasible that mobile phones may be used for voting.
“We’ve got an almost ubiquitous public key vessel in everyone’s pockets now.
“In another three or four years, when were politically ready, there’s an option to leverage smartphones.”
Teague said for governments to make progress with electronic voting it was a matter looking at each different group of voters and considering which voting method offered the best trade-off of inclusiveness versus risk for each group.
“It’s highly likely the solution for visually impaired voters is going to include a completely different set of trade-offs versus the trade-offs for people living overseas,” she said.
Burton said electronic voting was an active area for research, with electoral commissions paying close attention to the literature.
“Everybody wants it. It’s been estimated a third of voters would jump straight onto it.”
However, he said online voting wouldn’t happen in Victoria in the next two years, and if it missed the next election cycle it would be at least six years away.
A spokesperson for the Australian Electoral Commission said there would be no electronic voting at the next federal election, however voters who are blind or have low vision would be able to cast a secret vote by telephone to an operator in the AEC call centre.

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Avanade sued over failed ERP project

Terminated project cost three times the  original estimate.

US-based point of sales ISV Scansource is taking Avanade to court over a failed enterprise resource planning project that ended up costing three times as much as the original estimate.
In a strongly-worded statement, ScanSource says the Microsoft and Accenture joint venture misrepresented its skills and provided a "revolving door of consultants" that knew little or nothing about implementing Microsoft Dynamics AX or managing large ERP projects.
"The result was an incomplete and defectively designed system that suffered from numerous flaws and required extensive remedial work," the statement read.
"Avanade’s incompetence was reflected in, among other things, the staggering 500,000 lines of software code it wrote in an attempt to have the Microsoft Dynamics AX platform meet ScanSource’s business requirements."
ScanSource claimed this amounted to 'bait-and-switch sales tactics', as the company has had to de-scope functionality for the project and even write some applications itself to fill the gap.
ScanSource says the project was originally estimated by Avanade to cost US$17 million (A$17.25 million) and take eleven months to implement.
However, Avanade has charged ScanSource US$37 million (A$35.4million) throughout the implementation period, and wanted a further US$29 million (A$27.7 million) in additional fees for a total of US$66 million (A$63 million) to conclude the project.
The company will seek to recover the money it has spent with Avanade.
According to ScanSource, both Microsoft and Accenture have concluded that the implementation - now terminated - was mismanaged. Both have made suggestions to help get it back on track, including preparing an integrated project plan.
Avanade, founded in 2000 by Microsoft and Accenture, employs some 17,000 staff worldwide, and has not provided comment on the dispute.

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Telstra sends comms-on-wheels to Tas bushfires

A mobile exchange on wheels.

500 homes still without landlines.

A truck intended to demonstrate the capabilities of the National Broadband Network has been repurposed as a communications hub in bushfire-affected Tasmania.
According to Telstra representatives, around 500 landlines are still down, along with a similar number of internet services. Mobile phone coverage has also been affected, but not to the same degree, the carrier said.
Telstra's NBN demonstration trailer has been deployed at the Sorrell Evacuation Centre, providing a place for affected residents to access phone, internet and portable-device recharging points.
Telstra noted some that due to congestion in Sorrell, it has prioritised voice over mobile data services.
Telstra has also shipped a mobile exchange on wheels to the island state on an overnight ferry service. The EoW is intended to provide supplementary communications services in the event of exchange damage. The mobile exchange is a trailer-sized unit connected to ADSL2+ and capable of providing 450 landline and 330 ADSL 2+ services to affected residents.
Telstra representatives also said the company has a mobile Satellite Cell on Wheels (SatCOW) on standby to provide mobile phone services in bushfire-affected areas.
Services in Dunalley, Nubeena and Koonya have been reinstated using high capacity generators at exchanges impacted by the fires, the telco said.
The focus for the next few days is to deploy further generators to remote sites and repair fire-damaged cabling.

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Lava to provide Xolo repair service at doorstep

Lava has entered into an agreement with FedEx to provide door-to-door delivery and repairing service for its Xolo smartphones customers

NEW DELHI: Mobile phone company Lava International has entered into an agreement with logistic firm FedEx to provide door-to-door delivery and repairing service for its Xolo smartphones customers.

"We are working on the experience side of Xolo customers. Besides product quality, we will provide services to customer at their doorstep in 50 major cities.

"They will not have to go to service centre for getting their phone repaired. This is first of its kind service by any handset company is providing in India," Lava co-founder and director Vishal Sehgal told PTI.

He said the company is in process of expanding its portfolio of Xolo smartphones, the first phone built on Intel Processor, to eight new models in the price range of Rs 10,000-25,000.

The company claims it sells around 25,000 units every month of the smartphone, which was launched in April 2012.

The company has earmarked investment of around Rs 12 crore to upgrade after-sales service during first half of 2013, he added.

"We have recently entered in to agreement with FedEx to provide reverse and forward logistic to Xolo customers. This kind of value added services is to boost trust among our customers. We are in talks with two leading ITes companies of the country to provide technical support over phone as around 80 to 85 per cent problem can be resolved over," Sehgal said.

Xolo's Business head Sunil Raina said the company is going to expand its core engineering centres from one to four this month and aims to have such facilities in all states by 2013-end.

"Our new core engineering centres will be operational by January 15. In second half of this year, we will look at setting at least one such centres in every state. This will increase the pace of our service," Raina said.

He said the company is also working to set up collection centres which will accept handsets of customers who do not reside in the 50 cities where Xolo smartphones will be sold. These centres are likely to be the retail outlets from where one buys phones.

"The collection centre will be operational in next two months," Raina said.

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Infosys BPO's CEO selection: Thakkar leads the race

Infosys BPO will soon have a new boss at the helm.

BANGALORE: Infosys BPO will soon have a new boss at the helm. The company's CEO Swami Swaminathan is retiring and Gautam Thakkar, VP and head of enterprise services in Infosys BPO, is said to be the frontrunner to replace Swaminathan.

Sanjay Jalona, vice president and head of manufacturing in Infosys, is also among those shortlisted by the company's selection committee. An announcement is expected together with the announcement of Infosys's financial results for the third quarter on January 11.

Swaminathan took over as the CEO and managing director of Infosys BPO in January 2010. He has over 30 years of experience in multiple roles including general management, finance and accounting. Prior to this, Swaminathan was senior VP and head of global delivery and horizontal practices.

The BPO division employed 22,918 people at the end of September 2012. It had Rs 1,769 crore in revenue in 2011-12, a 20.2% growth over the previous year. The company's net profit grew 53.6% to Rs 321 crore in the same year. The BPO division accounts for about 5% of Infosys's total revenue of $7 billion.

Thakkar, one of the founding employees of Infosys BPO, is responsible for finance & accounting, sales & fulfillment, human resource outsourcing, sourcing and procurement, legal process outsourcing and customer services which include over 15,000 professionals contributing to more than 70% of Infosys BPO's revenue. Thakkar is part of the Infosys BPO executive council and he also manages deal advisory relationship in the company.

He joined the company in 2000. Prior to joining Infosys, Thakkar worked with Accenture in their strategic services practice and advised clients on business transformation, organizational and profit improvement strategies.

Sanjay Jalona, vice president and head of manufacturing in Infosys, heads the company's US operations for the hi-tech and manufacturing industry. Jalona has over 20 years of experience in the industry across diverse functions and roles with Indian and international IT organizations. Under his leadership, Infosys is said to have signed some of the largest company-wide engagements.

In the last few months, Infosys BPO has seen a number of senior level exits. Some exits are attributed to changes following the assignment of a more direct responsibility for the BPO business to the company's board member and former CFO V Balakrishnan.

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Google-FTC deal may affect other patent disputes

Under the deal, which ended an antitrust investigation by the FTC and disappointed many critics, Google will make only minor changes to its search business.

NEW YORK: While the focus of last week's agreement between the Federal Trade Commission and Google was search, the deal's restrictions on how Google uses its patents could have a broader impact on the technology industry.

Under the deal, which ended an antitrust investigation by the FTC and disappointed many critics, Google will make only minor changes to its search business.

But Google is also now limited in when it can seek injunctions against products from rival companies that use certain of its patents.

Throughout recent smartphone wars and other major patent litigation, holders of so-called standard essential patents have been accused of using them to bully competitors into paying high licensing rates or as leverage in patent disputes.

The FTC's deal with Google clarifies the uncertainty over how standard essential patents can be used, said Colleen Chien, a professor specializing in patent law at Santa Clara University School of Law in California.

The deal set out a process by which technology makers can avoid injunctions and patent holders know they are going to get compensated, Chien said. "The FTC has deflated the power of the injunction and also the incentives to not pay that have existed."

In its case against Google, the FTC claimed that Google and its subsidiary Motorola Mobility had breached commitments to standard-setting bodies to license its patents on terms that are fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory. As part of the deal, Google agreed to drop claims for injunctive relief against competitors in certain patent disputes around the world. It also agreed to submit to the jurisdiction of a court or arbitrator when disputes over payment rates arise.

Throughout the FTC's investigation, Google was represented by Susan Creighton of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati and John Harkrider of Axinn, Veltrop & Harkrider. The FTC retained Beth Wilkinson of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.

'Template'
The FTC said Thursday that the threat of injunction by a holder of an essential patent hurts competition. The agreement with Google could be used as a "template" for other patent disputes, it said.

Unlike a court decision, the FTC's agreement with Google is not binding on other companies. But it could give leverage to defendants in disputes with essential patent holders that could be used in court.

"We know in today's world, defendants are getting more aggressive," said Matthew Woods, an antitrust and patent attorney at Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi. "Defendants will seize on this and tell courts that injunctions are something the court should not even countenance."

But the agreement with Google may not be all good news for patent users, according to Jay Jurata, an antitrust partner at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe, who said that it could have unintended consequences.

The elaborate agreement allows Google to seek injunctions against companies that are unwilling to pay for a license on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. But the question of when a company is considered an unwilling licensee is one that the FTC may have unwittingly allowed holders of essential patents to manipulate, said Jurata.

"They provided a road map for other standard essential patent holders to engage in opportunistic behavior to paint otherwise willing licensees as unwilling licensees," he said.

Miller of Robins Kaplan also cautioned that the FTC's deal with Google may be unique because of the company's giant size and dominance, which can attract the attention of regulators.

"There are a lot litigants who aren't going to see this agreement as restraining them, because they don't have the same portfolio as Google," Miller said.

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