E-reader sales expected to hit wall in 2014

 By Matt Hamblen | May 31, 2010

E-readers like the Kindle and Nook are surging in popularity but will hit a wall in 2014 when sales drop off due to competition from a wide range of consumer electronic devices, including the iPad, according to Informa Telecoms & Media of London.

 

Sales of e-reader device are expected to soar to 12.2 million in 2010, up from nearly 5 million in 2009, Informa said Thursday. Growth in sales will continue to a high of 14 million e-readers in 2013, but will drop off by 7% the following year to 13 million, Informa said.

 

"Overall, Informa is skeptical about the sales growth for mobile broadband e-readers," Informa analyst Gavin Byrne said.

 

While today's e-readers, with mostly black-and-white e-ink displays, offer a good reading experience, are highly portable with solid battery life, they face stiff competition. They are "under threat from the availability of electronic book content on multifunctional devices such as mobile phones, tablet computers, netbooks and other portable consumer electronic devices, " Byrne added.

 

With the iPad available in the U.K this week, it will be "perhaps the highest-profile competition for dedicated e-readers," Byrne said.

 

As the e-reader market matures, Byrne predicts the devices will evolve into two groups, one group at a lower price with few features and no wireless connectivity, and the other at a higher price with advanced features.

 

The low-cost e-readers of the future could be used with a PC or USB dongle to access content, he said. They could include future iterations of the low-cost Kobo e-reader, which is available for $149.

 

At the higher end, more future e-reader devices could be transformed into tablets like the iPad, making them more like smartbooks than e-readers. Byrne said an early step in this direction is the way Barnes & Noble recently shipped a Nook version 1.3 update wirelessly to users that adds games and a beta of a basic Web browser.

 

The Nook's software upgrade was described in a Nook blog . The upgrade includes a feature that allows users to read selected books inside a Barnes & Noble store for up to an hour a day at no cost. Other improvements include a faster page turn speed and enhanced touchscreen navigation on the color panels at the bottom of the device.

 

Computerworld (US)

Hands-on with Android 2.2 Froyo and Adobe Flash Player 10.1

By Matthew Miller | May 23, 2010, 5:19pm PDT

Summary: Google announced the Android 2.2 Froyo update last week and just a few days later it started rolling out for Nexus One device. Adobe's latest Flash Player 10.1 works on 2.2 and as you can see in my video it performs quite well.

I mentioned that Google surprised us all and started rolling out the Android 2.2 Froyo (frozen yogurt) update out this weekend and then there was some talk that this was only for some press review units. Anyway, it was only a matter of time before the awesome enthusiastic Android developers figured out how to get a hold of the update file and make it available for anyone willing to perform a manual update on their Nexus One. Since I have been switching ROMS it was a very easy process to get the update on my Nexus One. I posted a few screenshots in this image gallery and shot the video below of Android 2.2 in use. I also went and loaded up the new Adobe Flash Player 10.1 and have to say I am quite impressed with both of these updates.

	Image Gallery: Check out screenshots of Google Android 2.2 on the Google Nexus One.

Where do I get it and what can I expect?

I take no responsibility and cannot recommend you perform this update on your own, but honestly it is coming eventually and I doubt there is too much to worry about if you follow the processes exactly. I recommend reading Paul’s post on MoDaCo for specific instructions on installing the update. I actually downloaded the update while riding as a passenger in my car and used Astro File Manager to change the name and extension and perform the update.

http://www.youtube.com/v/oGerOQ37Hgs&hl=en_US&fs=1&

After you update you can expect the following improvements:

• General speed increases
• Improved Exchange support (primarily for Calendar)
• USB and WiFi tethering/mobile hotspot
• Faster web browser with support for the camera, orientation switching, and geolocation
• Support for Adobe Flash and Air
• Improved Android Marketplace
• Improved Search button function with support to search the Marketplace too
• Automatic and one-button update of apps from Marketplace (AMEN!)
• Support for SD card app installation (app must support first)

There are some other improvements in the new update that I haven’t seen specifically listed and I found the following that are quite important to me:

• Ability to go to previous or next email in Gmail app using new bottom arrows
• New three button center Home screen layout (Phone, Apps, Browser)
• Preinstalled Twitter and Google Goggles
• Quick Gmail account switcher in top right corner of Gmail
• New task switcher supporting more running apps when you press and hold the Home button

Experiences with Android 2.2 (Froyo)

I was running the HTC Desire ROM with HTC Sense on it before making the jump back to a Google Experience with Froyo and thanks to TouchDown providing a much better Exchange experience than anything else on Android I think I will be pleased with this plain Google OS. My device flies and I have yet to see a Force Close error appear on my Nexus One. I am pleased to have full Bluetooth back and am really enjoying some of those small improvements that turn into major user experience improvements, primarily the email previous/next arrows, WiFi Hotspot capability, and one-button application updates. I look forward to further developer support of applications stored on the SD card so I won’t run into low memory errors in the future.

Experiences with Adobe Flash

There is quite a bit of debate going on over Adobe Flash and HTML5, but end users just want a solution that works are most could care less which standard(s) are used. I loaded up the public beta of the Adobe Flash Player 10.1 software as soon as my Nexus One was upgraded to Android 2.2 and honestly had pretty low expectations for the player. The Nexus One was released back in January and even though it has hardware that is still at the high end I wasn’t sure it would run Flash satisfactorily. The first site I visited was PopCap Games since I know there have several Flash games and figured there was no way they were going to work. Plants vs Zombies started up, but then stalled out while Zuma, Bejeweled, xx, and others played just fine (as showed in my video). I then went to the NBC site and watched Parks and Rec, which played well for several minutes before the voice got out of sync with the video. A site that has not worked on ANY mobile device before that has my wife hooked on the games is Webkinz so to test the limits I tried visiting this site from the Google Nexus One. I was able to load it and login and amazingly the site actually works. I was able to play some games, but on some the controls are not able to be manipulated with the Nexus One touchscreen. I am just blown away that this pop-up screen Flash heavy site even works as well as it does on a mobile phone.

I performed a Google search and found a link to the Top 10 best Flash websites of 2010 so I could try them out on the Nexus One. A couple worked fine, but most struggled or were not optimized for the mobile device. Engadget posted a video comparison of Flash on the Nexus One and Flash Lite on the HTC Desire and as you can see Flash is looking good on the Nexus One and Froyo.

Flash doesn’t concern me too much personally since I just avoid sites with Flash on my mobile phone. However, finding that PopCap Games plays well is a bonus and I will probably be using Flash now more than I would have if it wasn’t supported.

Virtualization Smackdown 2: Oracle VM VirtualBox 3.2 vs. VMware Workstation 7.1

By Jason Perlow | May 21, 2010, 11:28am PDT

Summary: Two titans battle for desktop virtualization supremacy. Who will reign supreme?

Two titans battle for desktop virtualization supremacy. Who will reign supreme?

Welcome, True Believers.

Two years ago, we visited the subject of free desktop virtualization hypervisors. At the time, the two preferred free solutions were Sun’s xVM VirtualBox and and VMware Server 2.0.

Things have changed quite a bit in the last two years. For starters, Sun no longer exists as an independent company — it’s now owned by Oracle.

VMware, a division of EMC Corporation, decided to make some strategic changes along the lines of its free virtualization solutions by offering its enterprise-level hypervisor, ESX Server, in a free version, ESXi. This complicates things somewhat for the desktop virtualization user seeking a free solution, as ESX 3i requires a dedicated system.

While the company continues to maintain VMware Server 2.0, its free hosted virtualization product, it has concentrated its desktop virtualization development efforts on VMWare Workstation, a $189.00 desktop virtualization software package.

Version 7.1 of VMware Workstation was released very recently, on May 25, 2010.
VMware Workstation is also complemented by VMware Player, a stand-alone executable that allows you to “Play” operating systems created with the VMware Workstation product. Therefore, you can download the evaluation version of VMware Workstation 7.1 and after the evaluation period expires, you can continue to use your virtual machines on the “Player”.

[EDIT: It has been pointed out to me by VMware's Public Relations firm, Outcast, that the latest version of Player, version 3.1, uses the same virtualization engine as Workstation 7.1 and now has the ability to create Virtual Machines. However, we did not test Player as part of this review.]

Oracle, having recently completed its acquisition of Sun, has continued to develop and introduce significant improvements in VirtualBox. Version 3.20, the first version to bear the Oracle logo, was also released this week.

With the latest releases of the two major desktop virtualization apps released at around the same time, which one reigns supreme? We thoroughly tested both on our Linux system and observed them for performance and usability. Here’s how they fared against each other.

What we tested on

For the purposes of testing the two software packages, we used a dual quad-core 2.7Ghz AMD Opteron workstation with 16GB of RAM, a GeForce 9800 1GB DDR3 graphics card (using the latest production level nVidia proprietary drivers) and a 500GB SATA-2 hard disk. Our OS environment was Ubuntu LTS 10.04, 64-bit edition. Internet connectivity was an Optimum Ultra 100Mb cable modem link.

For the purposes of our tests and for limiting the scope of the review of both VirtualBox 3.20 and VMware Workstation 7.1, I decided to concentrate on Windows XP and Windows 7 64-bit and 32-bit performance and usability under 64-bit Linux, otherwise there are far too many permutations to consider for host and guest operating systems.

For 32-bit VMs, we used 2 vCPUs and 4GB of RAM. For 64-bit VMs, we used 4 vCPUs and 4GB of RAM. For all benchmarks, we ran at 1024×768 resolution unless the benchmark software forced it down to a lower resolution.

This desire to test Windows virtualization on Linux exclusively was motivated by my recent switch to Linux as my primary operating environment, so be aware that performance of other host and guest OSes under your specific system may vary considerably.

Note that the requirements of both of VMware Workstation and VirtualBox are well below that of the test system. You can comfortably run each software package on a dual-core 32-bit processor with as little as 2GB of system memory. However, it is recommended that you have at least a 4GB system and a 64-bit CPU if you are going to be virtualizing desktop operating systems with full GUIs.

VMWare Workstation 7.1

VMware Workstation 7.1 is the most mature desktop/workstation virtualization product on the market — in fact, it is the first product that VMware ever introduced, back in 1999, so it has undergone 10 years of intense product development.

I actually wrote the very first review of the product, way back in October 1999, long before the company ever expanded into server virtualization with ESX Server and vSphere 4 and became the enterprise virtualization powerhouse that it is today.

VMware Workstation 7.1 supports both Linux and Windows host operating systems, and costs $189.00. A similar product for Mac, VMware Fusion, also is sold by the company.

VMware Workstation 7.1 supports many 32-Bit and 64-bit guest OSes, and provides full synthetic paravirtualized driver support for both Windows and Linux.
Being the mature product that VMware Workstation 7.1 is, its list of features is extremely comprehensive, and not exclusive to the list below:

* Full Paravirtualized “VMware Tools” for Windows and Linux and partial synthetic driver support for Solaris and FreeBSD. These are synthetic device drivers which help improve video, mouse, I/O and networking performance while virtualized.

* Shared folder support. This allows for easy data exchange between the host OS (the OS running VMware Workstation) and the guest operating system. Shared folders from the host OS appear as a mapped network drive in Windows guest OSes.

* Virtual USB controllers. VMware implements a virtual USB 2.0/USB 1.1 controller and allows you to connect arbitrary USB devices to your virtual machines without having to install device specific drivers on the host.

* Sound driver support. VMware can emulate an Intel AC’97 or SoundBlaster 16.

* Hardware virtualization support with VT-X and AMD-V (supported 64-Bit CPU required)

* Support for up to 4 vCPU’s per VM with 32GB of memory each.


* Accelerated 2D graphics and comprehensive 3D graphics support for select guest OSes. VMware can allocate up to 256MB of virtualized video RAM and has full support for Windows Direct3D, OpenGL 2.13D and DirectX9.0c with Shader Model 3 support.

* Seamless Desktop Mode Windowed apps from the guest OS can be displayed on the host OS without displaying the entire guest desktop. i.e, Microsoft Word can run on Linux without showing the entire Windows UI.

* Support for Encrypted Virtual Machines.
So how did VMware Workstation 7.1 perform? Exceptionally well. In virtually all of our tests, it matched or exceeded the performance of Oracle VM VirtualBox. Windows XP and Windows 7 32-bit and 64-bit performance was extremely snappy, and close enough to native that when we were running it in full screen mode, we couldn’t perceive the difference between “On the metal” and virtualized on our test system.


Benchmark Score for Novabench using VMWare Workstation 7.1 on 32-bit Windows XP Guest (above)


Benchmark Score for Novabench using VMware Workstation 7.1 on 32-bit Windows 7 Guest (above)


Benchmark Score for Novabench using VMware Workstation 7.1 on 64-bit Windows 7 Guest (above)

On Novabench, which is a 32-bit Windows benchmark, we saw some particularly interesting results with VMware 7.1. For starters, we noticed that when using 32-bit OSes, applications were only able to see 3GB out of the 4GB of total system RAM installed. This didn’t matter whether we set the RAM to 3584 (3.5GB, the actual limit for 32-bit Windows XP) or 4096MB.

Apparently, in 32-bit Windows 7, this has something to do with Memory-Mapped (MMIO), but we didn’t see this behavior occur in VirtualBox. In VirtualBox, if we allocated 3584MB in Windows XP, we saw the full 3584MB.


Windows Experience Index Results for 32-Bit Windows 7 on VMware Workstation 7.1

Windows Experience Index Results for 64-Bit Windows 7 on VMware Workstation 7.1

3DMark03 Running under VMware 7.1 using Direct3D and DirectX9 (1024×768)



3DMark03 Results for VMware Workstation 7.1 under Windows 7 32-Bit

Overall, the 64-Bit version of Windows 7 performed about the same as the 32-bit version on VMware Workstation 7.1 when it came to pure computational, 2D/3D graphics and I/O-based benchmarks.

However Windows 7 64-Bit was clearly the better OS in terms of overall efficiency when being virtualized on VMWare when being compared with Windows XP and the 32-bit version of Windows 7, especially when considering the MMIO RAM bottleneck. If you want to allocate 4GB or more of RAM to a Windows 7 VM, you definitely want to use the 64-bit version.

Oracle VM VirtualBox 3.20

Oracle VM VirtualBox, formerly Sun xVM VirtualBox, is an Open Source project based upon the work of Innotek GmbH, a German software firm that was purchased by Sun Microsystems in 2007. It supports a wide array of host 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems, including Linux, Mac OS X, FreeBSD and of course, Windows.

VirtualBox also supports a wide array of 32-bit and 64-bit guest OSes, many of which have full paravirtualized synthetic device drivers supported.

I admit to being a bit partial and biased when it comes to VirtualBox, as I have been using it as my primary desktop virtualization environment since 2007. I’ve used it many times on ZDNet for doing OS demonstrations, such as with my past video reviews of Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04 and OpenSUSE 11.2. I also use the product on a daily basis to run my legacy Windows XP environment for work.

There’s an awful lot to like about the product, the first of which is that it is Free — as in the strictest
GNU/FSF sense, because it’s licensed under GPL. Oracle actually distributes two versions of VirtualBox, the first of which is VirtualBox Open Source Edition (OSE) and the other, the commercial version, which is also free of cost. The difference between the two versions is that OSE lacks the built in RDP server for remote desktop sessions as well as USB support.

Unless you are the strictest of Free Software/GNU adherents, I strongly suggest you download the commercially licensed version, which is the default version available on the VirtualBox site.
On paper, Oracle VM VirtualBox supports the following features, including the following:

* Full Paravirtualized “Guest Additions” for Windows, Linux and Solaris guests. These are synthetic device drivers which help improve video, mouse, I/O and networking performance while virtualized.

* Shared folder support. This allows for easy data exchange between the host OS (the OS running VirtualBox) and the guest operating system. Shared folders from the host OS appear as a mapped network drive in Windows guest OSes.

* Virtual USB controllers. VirtualBox implements a virtual USB 2.0/USB 1.1 controller and allows you to connect arbitrary USB devices to your virtual machines without having to install device specific drivers on the host.

* Broad virtual network driver support. VirtualBox can emulate several common legacy Ethernet cards (AMD PCNet series) and several series of Intel Pro/1000 chipsets for maximum OS compatibility.

* Remote Desktop Protocol. Unlike any other virtualization software, VirtualBox fully supports the standard Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). A virtual machine can act as an RDP server, allowing you to “run” the virtual machine remotely on some thin client that merely displays the RDP data.

* USB over RDP. With this unique feature, a virtual machine that acts as an RDP server can still access arbitrary USB devices that are connected on the RDP client. This way, a powerful server machine can virtualize a lot of thin clients that merely need to display RDP data and have USB devices plugged in.

* Sound driver support. VirtualBox can emulate an Intel AC’97 or SoundBlaster 16.

* Hardware virtualization support with VT-X and AMD-V (supported 64-Bit CPU required) including nested paging and PAE/NX bit support.

* Support for up to 16 vCPU’s per VM with 16GB of RAM each, and 32 virtual cores per host OS.

* Accelerated 2D graphics and “experimental” 3D graphics support for select guest OSes. VirtualBox can allocate up to 128MB of virtualized video RAM if desired.

* Seamless Desktop Mode Windowed apps from the guest OS can be displayed on the host OS without displaying the entire guest desktop. i.e, Microsoft Word can run on Linux without showing the entire Windows UI.

* Support for competing Virtual Disk formats from VMware and Microsoft.

* VM “Teleportation” (Aka Live Migration) between VirtualBox hosts.

* Experimental EFI Support, which permits installation of Mac OS X on standard PC hardware running VirtualBox, unmodified.

So with all of these features, how does the free Oracle VM VirtualBox stack up against its competition, VMware Workstation 7.1 and VMWare Fusion for Mac?

From the perspective of basic Windows performance,  VirtualBox is definitely more than “Good Enough” to serve as the basis for providing 2D Windows application compatibility under Linux, such as for Microsoft Office and effectively any standard 2D business productivity application, which accounts for about 80 percent or more than what your average business computing user is going to use Windows for.


Benchmark Score for Novabench using VirtualBox on 32-bit Windows XP Guest (above)


Benchmark Score for Novabench using VirtualBox on 64-bit Windows 7 (above)

However, where VirtualBox fails miserably is in virtualized 3D application performance on Windows.
For starters, VirtualBox currently only supports 3D on 32-bit Windows OSes. That means that in the case of 64-bit Windows Vista and Windows 7, the Aero Glass effects won’t work. It also only supports  basic Direct3D functionality with DirectX8 and DirectX9 and shouldn’t be expected to be used for serious gaming.


Windows Experience Index Results for 64-Bit Windows 7 on Oracle VM VirtualBox 3.2.

We also tried to perform a 32-bit Windows Experience Index (WEI) test on VirtualBox using the supported experimental Direct3D driver, but at the time of this writing, VirtualBox 3.2 was released with a bug that prevented Windows 7 32-bit from being installed on my test system. We hope to update this with new results in the near future.

To do 3D tests on VirtualBox in virtualized Windows XP we installed the free version of Futuremark’s 3DMark03, which tests against DirectX8 and DirectX9 compatible graphics cards.
[NOTE: In the initial draft of this article we were unable to get 3D acceleration to work in VirtualBox on Windows XP, but we discovered that the 3D driver does not get enabled unless you install the Guest Additions in Windows XP "Safe Mode". Apparently, this is also true for the 32-bit version of Windows 7.]


“Mother Nature” demo in 3DMark03 under VirtualBox 3.20 (800×600)


3DMark03 benchmark results with VirtualBox 3.20 on 32-bit XP guest.

Note that while we had a few issues with getting 3D graphics working on Windows with VirtualBox, we had no problems whatsoever with 3D virtualized Linux OSes, as we’ve demonstrated in the past. This issue appears to be specific to virtualized Windows OSes at this time. However, as we said earlier, testing virtualized Linux 3D performance was not within the scope of this particular review for time constraint.

The Verdict

Both VMware Workstation 7.1 and Oracle VM VirtualBox 3.2 are excellent desktop virtualization products — in terms of general Windows application usage, both perform extremely well and are comparable from a purely computational, I/O and networking performance perspective.

Where they differ is in the area of 3D graphics support for Windows guests. Clearly, in this area, VMware Workstation 7.1 is the superior product, as its virtual 3D synthetic driver is able to support up to DirectX9 levels of compatibility, which make even running demanding 3D Windows games and 3D applications in a virtualized environment possible. Based on our 3DMark results, the 3D support in VMware yields almost twice the 3D performance of a comparable VirtualBox system.

Oracle VM VirtualBox satisfies the basic requirements of 3DBench03 in Windows XP with its experimental support, but be sure to install the drivers in “Safe Mode” or as we found out, they won’t work.
Arguably, due to a bug during product launch, we had some issues installing Windows 7 32-Bit on VirtualBox 3.20, and we hope to get this rectified shortly so we can see if Windows 7 3D graphics works properly as promised on that software.

In VMware, we were successfully able to run 32-bit DirectX9 benchmarks with 3DBench03 and were even able to run the newer 3DBench06 in “Demo” mode. 3DBench Vantage, which supports the newer DirectX10 and DirectX11 video cards was unable to run, but mainstream games and apps which support these cards are currently few and far between.

If you’re going to use Windows XP and Windows 7 mainstream productivity apps, Oracle VM VirtualBox 3.20 would seem to be a wise choice, as you can’t beat the price and regular 2D application performance is excellent.

However, if you have a need for more demanding 2D and 3D games, visualization applications as well as a need to use those apps in the 64-Bit versions of the Windows OS, you’re probably going to want to use VMware and shell out the $189.00 for it, or at the very least, download the eval and then continue to use the “Player” app after your Windows VM is created.

Have you done some VMWare Workstation 7.1 vs. VirtualBox tests of your own? Talk Back and Let Me Know.

Smart startups: Why doesn't my PC know me?

By Tom Foremski | May 24, 2010, 1:13am PDT

Summary: Smart startups work on interesting problems such as Genieo - why doesn't my computer know me? I spend more time there than anywhere...

I recently met with Sol Tzvi, the co-founder of Genieo, a fascinating startup based in Israel.

Genieo is a client based news reader, yes, you read that right, it’s not in the cloud(!) It seeks to understand what you read, what your social circle finds interesting, and also brings you content that you might not know about. It does this all without any user input at all, it is beyond one-click, it doesn’t require any user work at all. It is completely transparent.

Genieo runs in your web browser and is shows up as your start page, showing news and other information related to your interests. Future plans include an API that the user controls, that can interface with cloud based shopping services such as Amazon, etc. It only runs on Windows, there might be a Mac based version in the future.

Here are some notes from my conversation with Ms Tzvi:

- My background is ex-Microsoft, leading Microsoft’s strategy on security and privacy. I’ve written three books on the subject. The most recent book also dealt with philosophy of security and the fear that motivates people.

- The idea for Genieo came in 2008. I came home late one night and opened up my laptop and realized that my PC didn’t know me at all. I shouldn’t have to tell it what interests me.

- Genieo is a client app, it does not run in the cloud because that improves privacy. We think of the PC as your ‘personal cloud’ because you have more computing resources in your PC than in web services.

- Users don’t need to know anything about RSS or feeds. Genieo looks at what you do and picks the right RSS feeds from the publications. For example, it won’t pick the sports feeds if you do not read sports stories.

- Genieo disables itself whenever there is a financial service or payment, also if there is any adult content, or any other type of personal content, it’s not interested in that.

- We put a lot of effort to understand intention as well as attention, most of the things we develop are around the user’s attention and long/short term interest.

- Genieo is a very small program, it works in the background, between keystrokes. It won’t affect the performance of your PC.

- As soon as you install Genieo it goes to work and it gets better as you use it, it learns from you.

- We also have an iPhone app that is synced with your PC, which prevents ay duplication on your desktop.

- Privacy is very important we make sure that no information is sent outside of your PC.

- We find that our users spend typically spend 2 hours a day in Genieo, that’s far more than they spend on Facebook or anywhere else.

- Microsoft is working on a similar application for Windows 8 but we’re 18 months ahead of them.

- - -

Here is recent video of Robert Scoble interviewing Ms Tzvi in Israel:

http://www.youtube.com/v/c9yoEQ9X7iQ&hl=en_US&fs=1&rel=0
 

Sol Tzvi’s blog: The world scenes of our mind

Sol Tzvi on Twitter

Enterprise software development: Do we have an age problem?

By Larry Dignan | May 24, 2010, 3:00am PDT

Summary: Business technology may be in need of a youth movement as software developers flock to consumer applications. Where will corporations find the next generation of enterprise software talent?

Business technology may be in need of a youth movement as software developers flock to consumer applications. Where will corporations find the next generation of enterprise software talent?
That question has come up a lot in recent days. The age factor in enterprise technology has become a common theme. To wit:

• On the Enterprise Irregular email list, one member, who was recruiting developers for a startup, concluded that “the enterprise applications game is for the 30 and over crowd and is completely irrelevant to people under this age.” He contrasted the talent environment today relative to 2000 when companies like PeopleSoft, i2 and Ariba were recruiting young bucks. Simply put, all the recruitment in enterprise technology revolves around people already in the corporate IT game. Where’s the next generation?
• At SAP Sapphire, you couldn’t help but wonder about the same point raised above. There weren’t a lot of 20-somethings pondering SAP, sustainability and in-memory databases.
• Rimini Street CEO Seth Ravin noted that his recruiting focused on the older IT engineers. That move makes sense since Rimini Street specializes in supporting legacy applications. Ravin noted that he had a few 60-year-old folks running around the company. Ravin said he had little interest in building a farm team because experience provides more return on his engineering dollar.

The big question: Could Ravin build a farm team if he wanted to? The following thoughts are meant to spur an open thread and start a discussion. Are these fears about aging enterprise technology talent warranted?
A few initial thoughts:

• It’s unclear whether there’s an age issue in enterprise technology. On the surface, an older demographic just makes sense. You simply become more business focused as you age. However, it could be disconcerting if no next generation emerges despite the market possibilities and big corporate challenges ahead.
• Meanwhile, it’s also possible that the young enterprise technology talent is going to next-gen business technology companies like Google, Salesforce.com and VMware.
• And what’s the effect of outsourcing? It’s possible that the next-generation enterprise technology talent isn’t in the U.S. Perhaps, the next generation of business technology talent is in India working on low-level services, but setting up to take over higher value projects. Have engineers been commoditized to the point where there’s no interest from the younger set? In other words, an aging business technology workforce may be a side effect of hollowing out the talent pool due to outsourcing.

Is Apple able to keep up with Android?

By Garett Rogers | May 23, 2010, 10:19pm PDT

Summary: I am convinced that Apple will need to do something really big during WWDC this year to make sure they don’t lose their mobile mojo. Since the iPhone 4 hardware has already leaked, and they have already announced new features for their new mobile operating system, they better have something else up their sleeve [...]

I am convinced that Apple will need to do something really big during WWDC this year to make sure they don’t lose their mobile mojo. Since the iPhone 4 hardware has already leaked, and they have already announced new features for their new mobile operating system, they better have something else up their sleeve for developers attending this year’s event.

Google scored some serious points this year — announcing Flash 10.1 on the new Android 2.2 operating system, and other cool features like the ability to turn your phone into a wireless hotspot. Apple stuck with their guns by saying that Adobe sucks, and that they don’t care people want Flash.

I am a big fan of the user experience of iPhone — but to be honest, Froyo is absolutely amazing, and is the first iteration of Android that has made me get excited about the future of the operating system.

For the last two years, Google has been doing massive giveaways to developers that went to their Google I/O developer conference. This year, they even gave away two phones — the Nexus One or Motorola Droid (depending on the country you live in), and the Sprint EVO 4G. In my mind, a giveaway like this is the only thing WWDC attendees this year might have to look forward to.

With the content of Jobs’ keynote speech under the usual wraps, it’s difficult to know what Steve may be up to when he responded to an email yesterday:

“I hope you have some good WWDC announcements to blow [Google] out of the water”. — Bryan Webster
“You won’t be disappointed”. — Steve Jobs

If Apple doesn’t do something interesting, I fear that Google is going to continue on their growth curve, and dominate the mobile space. That said, I’m excited to see what Steve has to say on June 7th — I’m sure everyone is.

Android 手機全美單季市佔超車？蘋果：『我們都看全球的！』

由 Casper Kao 於 18 days 之前發表

文 章分類: 智慧型手機

沒幾天前 NPD 的調查結果，那個啥 Android 手機全美單季（10Q1）市佔超越 iPhone 這回事，聽在蘋果的耳裡，果然是不太舒服；今天他們家接受 AllThingsD 的 John Paczkowski 訪問時，是這樣說的：

這項調查結果可以說是相當的狹隘，僅以 150,000 的美國消費者上網填寫問卷為參考，那 iPhone 跟 iPod touch 全世界加起來有超過 8500 萬的使用者，這數據難道就這樣被忽略了嗎？另外根據 IDC 的數據，現在 iPhone 在智慧型手機這塊的全球市佔大約是 16.1%，遠遠超過了 Android 的市佔率；上一季 iPhone 銷售成長甚至是來到了 131%，加上不久後即將推出 iPhone OS 4.0，老實 說，短期間我們並沒有看到啥來自競爭對手的壓力。

而 Paczkowski 在文中對於蘋果回應的評論，一方面認為 iPhone 確實在全球市佔上，還是有一定的領先，但也覺得蘋果把 iPod touch 拉下來算，有點偷雞就是，畢竟這項調查的重點，是『全美』智慧型手機的市佔，也非行動裝置作業系統相關的數據。（真要比，Android OS 有微 波爐，iPhone OS 有嗎？）

另外這份調查，也只不過是在反應 10Q1 美國智慧型手機的市佔，蘋果拿全球市佔來壓，不過是想要換換話題，顯然是公關的『政治用語』罷了；然而事實擺在眼前，Android 第一季全美市佔超過了 iPhone，是否能夠反應出消費者開始用行動表示他們對於 iPhone 的不滿了呢？或許這點更值得蘋果來關心吧！

'I've just graduated!': 5 crucial pre-employment tips

By Zack Whittaker | May 24, 2010, 4:18am PDT

Summary: For those leaving university after their final year exams, five key important things to take into account when preparing and applying for jobs.

Hundreds of thousands of students have finished their final year exams and are preparing to enter the employment market for the first time. With this in mind, and with a global economy which is steadily recovering after the financial crisis, this year has potential to open up employment opportunities.
The UK has a strong university network, with each institution having a dedicated students’ union. Many students leaving education are lucky enough to land themselves a ’sabbatical’ position running their union - an external organisation there to represent their former students, and an excellent bridging gap between education and employment.
But for everyone else bar these select few, things may not be so easy. There are a few things to take into strong account when applying for jobs - wherever you are in the world; most of these will be reversal propositions from things done whilst still at school.

1. Clean up your online life

Depending on the job you go for, it’s advised that you go through your online ‘life’ and remove what you can of what you have, especially those drunken photos on Facebook. Sure, you won’t be able to “delete” the photo but the sooner the better, as Google’s cache gets updated every week or so.
Potential employers use Facebook, Twitter and all kinds of online social networking sites to search by name and to see what they can find without asking you directly. Go through each thing and make sure it isn’t going to shoot you in the foot at a later stage.
Even considering making sure some of your ‘friends’ get the cut. If a few of them are affiliated with you, and they have a not so lovely past or frankly they have political values which are practically fascist and you’re joining the police force - these will have to go.

2. Register for job search websites and LinkedIn

There are dozens of those job sites out there which can help you get your CV/resume out there. If you don’t have a CV/resume to start with, MyFuture has a great resume builder and everything from headings to content.
Never aim too low, but always try for those realistic entry jobs. Experience is everything, so if you want to work in broadcasting or journalism, start off low level and work your way up. Sites like CareerBuilder have entry level job categories which are great for graduates; and also FlipDog which may seem simple on the face of it really works well - and who can forget Monster.com which has every tool under the sun to get you on your way.
LinkedIn is a bit like Facebook except - firstly you don’t need to worry about data breaches - and allows you to connect with people who you know already and build up your professional network of people. Think of it like a professional Facebook come rolodex.
GlassDoor.com allows you to join and look within the depths of the companies you want to work for - find the honest, anonymous reviews - as well as salary details of those at your hope-to-be position. It’s a brilliant looking glass for how the employees feel, like and dislike. Students can get their free no-hassle access using their .edu email address.

3. Make connections!

You cannot underestimate people power. There will be people you know at university who will end up shooting through the corporate ceiling like you never believed. I know someone who - hand on heart - I know will be a future Prime Minister. You cannot afford to cut ties with anyone, because you never know when a career changing move will come your way.
Connections are invaluable. It’s how I got my job here, and with this job comes more and more connections with all kinds of big shots. Move within your subject circles, email a few people influential in your field and enquire about things you’ve always wanted to ask. You’d be surprised where it would get you.
I hate to say it, but it’s not what you know but who you know. And, it doesn’t matter what degree classification you get; what does matter is how dedicated and motivated you are and how you show it.

4. Get a professional looking email address

Many of those still at university use their in-house email account as a correspondence point between potential employers and themselves. This is not a bad practice, as it shows you are indeed at university and automatically of a level of education.
But for those who are soon to become alumni may lose that address. It’s advised that you scrap any of your old personal accounts which might have a non-professional look, and get a Gmail account which has your name and only your name - maybe a variant of it if your account is already taken.
Having a professional looking email address is important, and in my experience, gmail.com addresses do look better to the eye. A hotmail.com does look a bit early-2000’s so if you are to go with Hotmail, get a live.co.## address, with your country’s locale as the latter part.

5. Get written recommendations

If you have worked in a formal capacity with anyone at university within your subject or degree, then ask them for a written recommendation or a reference. Don’t feel awkward; they would have been asked dozens of times over their career.
For example, I am lucky enough to have been lectured by Michael Kölling at the University of Kent, now a professor in his subject and a world leader in Java development. Had I gone into a Java development job, a recommendation or reference from him would have almost certainly landed me the job.
If you are an employer, what wise employment words would you have to a recent graduate?

Survey: IT vacancies among the hardest to fill in Hong Kong

By Computerworld Hong Kong staff | May 28, 2010

Recruitment agency Manpower Hong Kong said Thursday that IT vacancies are among the top 10 hardest to fill in Hong Kong.

 

The company recently released the results of its fifth Manpower Talent Shortage Survey that indicates that 44 percent of employers in Hong Kong reporting difficulty filling key positions within their organizations.

 

Hong Kong’s top three most difficult jobs to fill are sales representatives, engineer, and management / executive according to the survey of 434 employers in Hong Kong, Manpower noted.

 

Talent shortages in the Asia Pacific region are ten percent higher than the global average (31 percent), with 41 percent of the region’s employers having difficulty filling positions due to the lack of suitable talent available in their markets, said Manpower, adding that this represents a nine percentage point increase in comparison to the 2009 survey.

 

Globally, employers having the most difficulty finding the right people to fill jobs are those in Japan (76 percent), Brazil (64 percent), Argentina (53 percent), Singapore (53 percent), Poland (51 percent), Australia (45 percent), Hong Kong (44 percent), Mexico (43 percent), Peru (42 percent), Taiwan (41 percent), China (40 percent), and Panama (38 percent), according to survey results.

 

“We are seeing a ‘jobless’ recovery in many parts of the world, yet where there are jobs available employers are having difficulty filling positions," Lancy Chui, Managing Director of Manpower Hong Kong, Macau and Vietnam. "The issue is not about the number of potential candidates, but rather a talent mismatch, as there are not enough sufficiently skilled people in the right places at the right times."

 

Compounding the issue is the fact employers are seeking ever more specific skill sets and are less willing to engage in anticipatory hiring, said Chui, adding that this all adds up to a very challenging and frustrating time for employers and job seekers alike.

Face...OFF

By Stefan Hammond | May 17, 201

"Europe's privacy watchdogs have issued a rebuke to Facebook, telling the social networking site that changes it made to the site's privacy settings late last year were 'unacceptable'."

— OUT-LAW.COM, part of international law firm Pinsent Masons

 

"Less than a week after Facebook unveiled its new features, four US senators asked the Federal Trade Commission to set privacy rules for online social networks. The four senators also sent a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg detailing their concerns with Facebook's expansion of publicly available data, the company's third-party data storage policies, and privacy concerns surrounding the Instant Personalization service."

— Ian Paul, PC World

 

"Well, Zuckerburg [sic], you should consider that anyone with half a brain who joined your site a couple years back now regrets it. Maybe you're going in the wrong direction, pal."

— Anonymous blog-commenter

 

One of my favorite military terms is "exfiltration," or "exfil" for short. To exfiltrate is "to escape furtively from an area under enemy control."

 

However, my planned escape from Facebook is anything but furtive. In fact, I urge other Facebook-members to consider doing the same: remove yourself and your profile from this service, whose privacy-policies seems to change more often than a teenager's musical tastes.

 

Over the last year, various tech media (including Computerworld Hong Kong) have covered the problems caused by people misusing Facebook with evil and even criminal intent. There are sites covering everything from vacuous conversations to parents commenting directly to their children...after the kids described their drunken escapades in detail. Because if you're linked to someone and they're linked to your parents, although you may not realize it, they can view those images and words.

 

The thing about Facebook-entries is that they're not deleted—the company seems to feel they are entitled to every single image and word you slap up there. All I can say is: I'm glad there was no Facebook when I was a teenager.

 

As Hong Kong Netizens, we have freedom of choice. As an informed Netizen, you already know (or should know) that any photo or text you post on the Internet can, and possibly will, go anywhere and everywhere. With freedom comes responsibility, and you are responsible for understanding that what you put online may end up in the possession of...whoever. Once it's online, it's out of your hands.

 

But Europe's privacy watchdogs and US lawmakers don't seem to think that Facebook—personified by its CEO Mark Zuckerberg—has the same attitude towards freedom and responsibility. It's up to you, but should you decide to cancel your Facebook account, be aware that it's not a straightforward process. With recalcitrant vendors, you can always call the bank and request that their charges to your credit card not be honored, or even cancel the card if essential. With Facebook, there's no monetary transactions, so you have to get more granular on 'em—assuming you want to exfiltrate successfully.

 

This is the method that has been forwarded to me, and I pass it on to you untested (I guess I'll find out if it works in two weeks or so...):

 

"http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=delete_account

 

Click "Submit" and follow the instructions.

 

Your account will be deactivated for two weeks, and if you DO NOT LOG IN during that period, your account is permanently deleted. I REPEAT: don't panic if your profile isn't deleted right away! You must NOT try to log in to your account for at least two weeks, as it will cancel the deletion request.

 

This method is official and should be complete, i.e. no need to delete individual photos, comments, messages or items from your profile or anywhere else on Facebook! If you have any concerns whether your stuff is actually deleted (as opposed to being kept somewhere in the deep dungeons of Facebook's HQ) your best bet is to ask them using email: info@facebook.com."

 

Of course, you can always stay on Facebook—it's your life, it's your choice. But, choose wisely.

Apple, HP, Dell team to investigate Foxconn suicides

By Nick Spence | May 28, 2010

Apple, HP and Dell will team up to launch an investigation into working practices at manufacturer Hon Hai Group, better known as Foxconn Technology, following another suicide at the Shenzhen plant, which manufactures the iPhone.

 

The world's largest electronics contract manufacturer builds gadgets for a number of big name brands including Apple, HP, Dell, Nokia and Sony. Apple will head up the Foxconn investigation, supported by HP and Dell.

 

A Foxconn employee fell to his death on Tuesday morning, the eleventh such incident this year, nine of which sadly proved fatal. While Terry Gou, chairman of Foxconn's Taiwanese parent company Hon Hai Precision, has denied the company was at fault, labour activists in nearby Hong Kong have called for a boycott of the next generation of Apple's iPhone, which could be unveiled as early as next month at the annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference.

 

Apple issued a statement on Wednesday following press coverage of the latest Shenzhen plant suicide, the first direct public acknowledgment of the suicides from the iPhone manufacture the Wall Street Journal notes. "We are saddened and upset by the recent suicides at Foxconn. Apple is deeply committed to ensuring that conditions throughout our supply chain are safe and workers are treated with respect and dignity," Apple said.

 

"We are in direct contact with Foxconn senior management and we believe they are taking this matter very seriously," Apple added. Foxconn employs more than 800,000 workers in China, more than half of which work at the giant Shenzhen plant.

 

Macworld UK

Amazing: Sony's paper-thin 'rollable' flexible OLED display

By Andrew Nusca | May 26, 2010, 8:48am PDT

Summary: A prototype Sony OLED display is flexible enough to roll around a No. 2 pencil. Don't believe it? Watch this video.

A prototype Sony organic light emitting diode, or OLED, display is flexible enough to roll around a No. 2 pencil.

The next generation of display technologies promises crisp, bright, colorful images that don’t require a backlight — but they’re incredibly expensive and rigid in form factor.
Until now. Sony demonstrated in Japan on Wednesday an ultra-thin 4.1-inch OLED that can roll as tightly as a radius of 4 millimeters and still operate normally — a world’s first, according to the company.
How thin is ultrathin? Approximately 80μm thick, with a resolution of 432 by 240 pixels at 121 pixels per inch.
The roll-up OLED display touts a contrast ratio of 1,000:1 and manages a brightness level of 100 cd/m2.
Here’s a look at the amazing display in a video:
This post originally appeared on SmartPlanet’s Smart Takes blog.

AdMob: iPhone OS devices lead Android OS products in US with ratio of 2 to 1

By Rachel King | May 26, 2010, 6:37am PDT

Summary: AdMob recently took on the task of examining the growth and highest concentrations of devices based on the iPhone OS versus that of Android-based gadgets. While Android OS devices have some high concentration levels across North America, Asia and Western Europe, the iPhone has it beat with a larger distribution worldwide.

AdMob recently took on the task of examining the growth and highest concentrations of devices based on the iPhone OS versus that of Android-based gadgets. While Android OS devices have some high concentration levels across three continents, the iPhone has it beat with a larger distribution worldwide.
According to the findings in AdMob’s April 2010 Mobile Metrics Report, there were 8.7 million Android OS devices and 18.3 million iPhone OS devices (iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch) in the US last month. The April release of the iPad in the US surely gave Apple a boost there, and that factors down to a 2 to 1 ratio of iPhone OS to Android devices.
Worldwide, AdMob found that there were 11.6 million Android OS devices versus 40.8 million iPhone OS devices, producing a 3.5 to 1 ratio.
As for where each OS seems to be more prominent, the greatest concentration of Android OS devices were in North America (75%), Asia (12%) and Western Europe (11%). Numbers for the iPhone OS devices reveal that distribution is spread wider across the world, although the biggest concentration is also in North America with 44% in the US and 5% in Canada.
The popularity of iPhone OS devices is developing fastest in Asia at staggering growth rate of 474%. But there are more Android-powered gadgets in China than iPhones, leading the way with a trio of HTC mobile phones (the Hero, Magic and Dream).
While it may seem from all of this that iPhone OS-based gadgets are outselling Android OS devices, the growth of Android products is pretty impressive. Yet the stats could become further lopsided if the iPhone really does become available with Verizon in the US and if/when the next-gen iPhone is released. However, even though ventures like the Nexus One didn’t go well, Android’s numbers and the success of handsets like the HTC Droid Incredible should serve as warnings to Apple not to get too relaxed. It isn’t completely unlikely that Android could outstrip Apple’s sales within two years.
[Graph via AdMob]

為使新一代NB更輕、更薄、更快
Intel Core處理器拓展至多款超便攜NB

文: Goofy Ko / 新聞中心

http://www.hkepc.com/4984

2010-05-26

為進一步提升行動電腦的效能與便攜性， Intel 日前發佈將為旗下 Intel Core processor 伸延至全新超便攜行動電腦，透過採用 32 nm 制程技術的 Intel Core i7 、 Core i5 、 Core i3 處理器，使行動電腦體積更為細小輕薄，而且亦兼備強勁效能。

隨著不少用家對行動電腦便攜性要求增加， Intel 全新的超便攜行動電腦透過採用 32 nm 制程技術處理器能令機身進一步減少，使機身尺寸縮减了 32% 以上，其中多款品牌的產品厚度不到 1 英吋，重量僅爲 2 至 5 lbs ，性能亦提升了至少 32% ，而且同時，耗電量亦降低了 15% 以上，進而延長電池的續航力。

其中透過採用 Intel Turbo Boost Technology 的處理器可自動提升性能，處理器會依據工作負載調整工作頻率，而且 Intel Hyper Threading Technology 能夠在同時處理多項任務時提供更迅速的回應並減少延遲的情況，加上專爲超低電壓行動電腦設計的流動型 Intel 5 Series Chipset ，可支援更多影片和音效選擇。

據 Intel 副總裁兼英特爾電腦客戶端事業部總經理 Mooly Eden 表示，由於用家希望行動電腦能同時具備時尚外型和卓越性能，全新 2010 Intel Core Ultra-Low Voltage processor 將能夠在超薄的機身中同時做到以上兩點，加上憑著在 32nm high-k 金屬栅極技術上的領先優勢，並結合其在架構和設計方面取得的突破，令行腦電腦能更薄、更輕、更快，且擁有持久電池壽命的筆記簿型電腦成爲可能。

據 了解，從 6 月份起，全球多家行動電腦大廠如 Acer 、 Asus 、 Lenovo 和 MSI 等，將會陸續推出超過 40 款相關産品。

Linux trading system to save London Stock Exchange money

By Leo King | May 26, 2010

The London Stock Exchange has said its new open source-based trading system will save it at least £10 million annually, as well as driving new business.

 

Millennium Exchange, a Linux and Sun Solaris Unix-based platform, which uses Oracle databases, is being rolled out across all of the LSE's electronic trading systems, replacing the slower TradElect platform, which is Microsoft .Net based. TradElect had suffered a series of high-profile outages and will be replaced by Millennium Exchange in stages from September.

 

The LSE took on board the new system when it acquired Sri Lankan technology firm MillenniumIT eight months ago for £18 million. As the group today said annual operating profits had fallen 18 percent to £280.3 million, which it attributed to a challenging economy and increased competition, it booked £25.3 million depreciation costs on TradElect.

 

LSE chief executive Xavier Rolet today said "further savings" from the system would be "forthcoming" over time, as time-to-market for new products is slashed, functionality extended, and development and ownership costs cut.

 

"As well as providing the Group with a new, high performance, scalable trading platform for our cash equities markets, MillenniumIT brings us our own in-house software development capability with dedicated R&D [research and development] resource," he said.

 

The LSE was driving to increase its scope of activities, with MillenniumIT "integral" to this, Rolet said. "As well as providing cost effective trading platforms, MillenniumIT will be used to deliver market surveillance, ticker plant, desktop services, smart order routing and post trade technology."

 

The group's acquisition last year of a majority stake in Turquoise, an anonymous or 'dark-pool' trading venue, was also highlighted by Rolet as a crucial step. "As the majority shareholder, we will ensure that the pan-European platform is neutral, efficiently run, open to the broadest pool of clients and develops services on an international scale," he said.

 

Turquoise will also move to the Millennnium Exchange systems, and away from the Cinnober Tradexpress platform, which is Java-based. It will migrate in August or September, with a "big bang" approach, as services across the Integrated and Dark Midpoint order books commence trading on the same day. Testing is currently taking place.

 

Computerworld UK

Intel CEO says Larrabee graphics chips aren't dead yet

By Sean Portnoy | May 15, 2010, 6:59am PDT

Summary: For all of its success, one thing Intel could never master was the standalone graphics card, eventually ceding the market to Nvidia and ATI/AMD. That was supposed to change with the company’s Larrabee project, which was designed to produce 3D graphics chips that could compete with the GeForces and Radeons of the world. Somewhere along the [...]

For all of its success, one thing Intel could never master was the standalone graphics card, eventually ceding the market to Nvidia and ATI/AMD. That was supposed to change with the company’s Larrabee project, which was designed to produce 3D graphics chips that could compete with the GeForces and Radeons of the world.

Somewhere along the way last year, however, Intel realized that it wasn’t near ready to start producing Larrabee hardware, and scaled back expectations, saying that the project would now serve as a software-based development platform instead.

But CEO Paul Otellini recently suggested that the concept of Larrabee-based hardware isn’t dead after all, and said the confusion came from some people in Intel disclosing details about the project earlier than they should have. He told investors that Larrabee was taken off the firm’s roadmap essentially to give it more breathing room over the next few years.

It seems clear that Intel has backed off on its previous hints that Larrabee could eventually compete with Nvidia and ATI consumer products in terms of gaming performance, and Otellini emphasized Larrabee’s potential for general-purpose computing tasks. This jibes with ATI and Nvidia’s efforts to promote the GPGPU technique of its latest boards using the Stream and CUDA platforms, respectively.

There’s always the chance a far-off Larrabee chip could wind up in a future videogame console (it was rumored to be in a next-generation Nintendo console and the eventual PlayStation 4), but it looks like the competition between ATI and Nvidia for PC graphics supremacy will remain a two-horse race for the short term.

Selling IT to your organization: get creative, think like a marketer

By Joe McKendrick | May 18, 2010, 2:08pm PDT
Summary: Perhaps CIOs should take a page from marketing and look to logos and branding to sell new IT initiatives.

It’s well understood that no one really pays attention to what IT is up to until there’s a system outage or other glitch.

It’s also often a challenge to promote new initiatives on a business level. This has been one of the issues to SOA adoption, as it’s often difficult to sell new approaches to business end-users, and even to draw in more involvement.

Perhaps CIOs have to start thinking more like marketers, and less like IT managers, when to comes to selling new innovations to the rest of the organization. That’s the view of Mary Brandel, writing in ComputerWorld, who even goes so far to suggest that new initiatives be branded, even with their own logos, to make the sale. (Pictured here: a snazzy IT department logo from the Monterey Institute for International Studies.)
Consider these examples she cites:

• One IT group took its business’s corporate logo and expanded on it to depict a scene of two pieces of land joined by a bridge, with the slogan “Your Bridge to Success.”
• Johnson &  Johnson’s CIO branded the company’s IT department, including creating a logo, as part of an IT centralization effort.
• Procter & Gamble changed it’s IT department’s name to “IDS: Information, Decisions and Solutions.”
• The Oregon Department of Transportation is rolling out an interactive portal that “will trumpet IT’s success in meeting service levels and provide a conduit for two-way user communication,” and also carry a logo with a slogan — possibly something along the lines of “We deliver information” or “Data done right.”
• An IT department that wanted to emphasize how easy it was to work with “created a logo and a slogan and had them emblazoned on company-colored polo shirts; an oval over the pocket featured the new slogan: ‘Tech IT Easy.’”

However, it’s important to think carefully about IT’s mission and solicit input from the rest of the business before commencing a campaign. “Branding is not about logos — it’s about how others perceive your behavior when they come into contact with you,” Patty Azzarello, founder of Azzarello Group, is quoted as saying. “IT needs to sit down, brainstorm on the impression it wants the business to have of the organization, and determine what it must do to convey the right image and make sure users get the right impression.”

There’s even swag possibilities. Brandel suggests that IT departments distribute branded “promotional items” as part of a campaign, such as business cards, flyers, USB sticks, and mouse pads. “But make sure none of your swag appears too costly, she warns, because that could give users the impression that you’re overspending.”

Google TV: Its success will come from search - and partnerships

By Sam Diaz | May 20, 2010, 1:38pm PDT
Summary: Google TV is powerful because it harnesses the power of partnerships and search technology to take it beyond what Yahoo or Apple has attempted.

If Google TV is such a game changer - and I absolutely think that it is - then why is Apple TV still a “hobby?” The short answer to that question is that Apple TV is a product while Google TV is a platform.

Google TV is the name of the technology, but when it comes time to bring the experience to your living room, that technology will be the foundation for a product that has a different brand name on it - perhaps Sony or Logitech or DishNetwork.

Also: Google I/O: Introducing Android Froyo and Google TV

During a press conference at Google I/O today, the company - flanked by CEOs of their Google TV partner companies - noted that the TV ecosystem is ready for a new way to surf. The traditional on-screen guide offered by the cable and satellite guys is outdated. The content we’re watching - whether on TV or the Web - is vast and scattered. And, in a DVR age, the time schedule really doesn’t matter either.

Google, through the use of search, is allowing users to jump right in to a viewing experience that should have a relatively low learning curve. A search box is pretty easy to understand and Google is harnessing the power of the results to give users what they want. If you want to watch an episode of South Park, for example, you type in the show’s name and get a lineup that includes actual TV airings of that show - whether it’s on Comedy Central now or a CW affiliate later tonight - as well as the places where you can find it on the web, likely on ComedyCentral.com.

In some ways, it’s unfair to compare Google TV to Apple TV because they do very different things. Apple TV is more an an extension of iTunes, bringing that content - music, photos, purchased videos (but not rented ones) from iTunes on the Mac/PC to the living room screen. Aside from YouTube, it wasn’t bringing any Web content into the device. And it certainly wasn’t bringing third-party apps into the Apple TV experience.

I’ve argued in the past that Apple’s exclusive agreement with AT&T on the iPhone allowed others - Google, Palm, RIM and others - to innovate and develop competitive products. The same could be said about TV. Apple continues to sit on Apple TV and snub it, slowing its advancement and downplaying it as a hobby.

TV, with its 4 billion or so viewers, is hardly a hobby. Between content and advertising, viewer loyalty and even the celebrity element, TV is a big business that’s bursting at the seams, eager for a “new way” to watch.

Yahoo is already ahead of the curve with its Yahoo Connected TV but it’s not quite an apples-to-apples experience with what Google is offering. Yahoo is using widgets to bring in Web content - but things like Yahoo News headlines and Flickr images - into the TV experience.  I like what Yahoo is trying to do but you have to recognize the significance of allowing users to search for Web-based video content and bring it directly into the TV viewing experience.
As for the partnerships, both Google and Yahoo are on the right track by building the technology that powers something that their partners - as well as developers - can harness and expand on. Google has already proven, through Android, that that model can work.

If Apple is at all serious about being a player in Web-enabled television content, it’s got its work cut out for it.

Google TV is slated to become available in Fall 2010. Pricing details have not yet been released.

See more Google I/O coverage:

• High fives for HTML5 at Google I/O
• Google I/O Day 1: Cheers and Jeers
• Google I/O: Wave’s biggest challenge is the learning curve
• Google I/O: The effects of luring the Enterprise into the cloud
• Google I/O: App Engine, VMWare partnership further boosts enterprise offering
• Google I/O: Show kicks off with push for HTML5, browser computing
• Google I/O: mSpot streams personal music collections from the cloud

Walking could recharge your smartphone or MP3 player

By Agam Shah | May 24, 2010

Researchers at Georgia Institute of Technology are harvesting energy through activities like walking or running that could power or recharge smartphones and portable music players in the future.

 

Consumer electronics are quickly getting smaller, but the batteries cannot keep up, said Zhong Lin Wang, professor and director of the Center for Nanostructure Characterization at Georgia Institute of Technology. Smaller devices tend to consume less power, and the lab is trying to come up with ways in which motions like tapping, bending or walking could generate energy to keep the devices running.

 

The researchers have developed tiny nanowires made of zinc oxide that are capable of generating an electric field through force or motion. Zinc oxide has piezoelectric potential, which provides the ability for nanowires to convert mechanical energy into electric energy.

 

In lab tests, the researchers generated around 1.2 volts of energy just by tapping a substrate with 700 lines of nanowires. The electrodes connecting the rows of nanowires generated the electrical output.

 

"Any physical action that bends the substrate creates energy," Wang said. The electricity output also depends on the number of nanowires and the strength of the materials, said Wang, who is involved in the research.

 

More motion or mechanical pressure can generate additional energy, Wang said. For example, walking at a normal pace could generate 10 times more energy than tapping.

 

The researchers haven't performed actual field tests yet, but a future goal is to integrate the technology in music players and smartphones, Wang said. Within two to three years, the researchers hope to create substrates that are small and stable enough to implement to run low-power devices such as Bluetooth transmitters. In five years, the technology may be able to run and recharge mobile phones and portable music players as people walk or run.

 

The researchers have formed a company called Piezodyne to commercialize the technology.

 

Piezoelectric charges are already being used in devices like electromechanical sensors, energy converters and actuators, Wang said. The most popular piezoelectric material is PZT (lead, zirconia and titania), but it is not as ideal for consumer electronics, Wang said. Zinc oxide has qualities that adapt it better to consumer electronics, which could allow the creation of devices that fully operate through motion without the need for batteries, Wang said.

 

Many research efforts are also under way to harvest energy from other free energy resources. For example, Intel is working on tiny sensors that can capture energy from sources such as sunlight and body heat, which could power personal electronic devices such as cell phones for indefinite periods without recharging. Some devices such as watches are already available that are being powered by body heat.

 

IDG News Service (New York Bureau)

Google I/O: App Engine, VMWare partnership further boosts enterprise offering

By Sam Diaz | May 19, 2010, 10:01am PDT
Summary: As Google kicks off its I/O developer conference, the company makes two announcements that pushes forward the company's offerings for the enterprise.

When you think about all of the market segments that Google has its hand in - mobile, operating systems, browsers, and, of course, search and advertising - the push into the enterprise has to be one of those that gets a consistent amount of attention from the executive offices.

The company regularly makes efforts to chip away at the barriers that large enterprises might be facing in deciding whether or not to “Go Google.” Just in the past few months, Google has added a free cloud backup service, launched a major update to Google Docs intended to bridge the gap between Docs and Microsoft Office and rolled out Google Apps Marketplace, a place for companies to “discover, buy and install” third-party business apps.
Today, during the opening keynote at Google I/O, the company ups the stakes again with two announcements. The first is the introduction of Google App Engine for Business, an offering targeted at business customers to allow them to build their own custom apps for Google’s cloud infrastructure. The second is a partnership with VMWare that allows enterprise customers to build cloud apps and then, through cloud portablity, choose where their apps will run.

The VMWare partnership is especially interesting because it leverages what it means to be open. The partnership is meant to give businesses increased flexibility while also freeing the apps. From a post on the company’s enterprise blog:

…we’re working with VMware, an industry leader in virtualization,  to make it easy and fast to build apps and deploy them to either Google App Engine for Business, a VMware environment (your vSphere infrastructure, your choice of vCloud partners, or VMforce), or other infrastructure such as Amazon EC2. VMware’s SpringSource Tool Suite and Spring Roo now provide an integrated development experience with Google Web Toolkit and Speed Tracer, enabling enterprise Java developers to quickly build rich web applications, including new data presentation widgets that run on all devices, from phones to tablets to desktops.  By enabling portability between on-premise and multiple cloud environments, we’re giving our customers more choice in how and where they run their apps, and making it easier for enterprises to embrace cloud technology.

The other part of the announcement is also a push forward because it allows developers the freedom to build custom apps and determine where those apps will run. Increasingly, as businesses look to spread their wings and try new things in the data center, the IT department and the cloud, that sort of flexibility - to build and buy and sell and move - is something that is sure to catch the attention of companies and developers and maybe make them think twice about the Google option.

More Coverage from Google I/O:

• Google I/O: Show kicks off with push for HTML5, browser computing
• Google I/O: The relaunch of Wave - no invitation necessary
• Live: Google I/O 2010
• Google Wave is back!

10+ mistakes Linux newbies make

By Larry Dignan | May 14, 2010, 2:30am PDT

This is a guest post by TechRepublic’s Jack Wallen. For more posts like this see TechRepublic’s 10 Things blog.


New desktop users can make plenty of mistakes (as can anyone). But knowing which mistakes to avoid, from the start, helps prevent a LOT of frustration. I’ve handled the topic of mistakes new Linux admins make, but never those of desktop users. Here are some of the most common Linux desktop mistakes I see new users make.
Note: This article is also available as a PDF download.

1: Assuming they are using Windows

Although this might seem way too obvious, it’s not. The average user has no idea there are even different operating systems to be had. In fact, most average users couldn’t discern Windows XP from Vista from 7 (unless they are certain Windows 7 was “their idea”). Because of this, new users might believe that everything works (or doesn’t work, as the case may be) as it does in Windows. Make your end users aware that they are using a different operating system — and that it works differently.

2: Trying to make exe files work

Unless you have done your homework and installed WINE, double-clicking those .exe files simply won’t do anything. And when that happens, your end users are going to be upset. I have seen many an end user download an app made for Windows assuming that it will work for Linux. Make it clear to users that Linux, like Windows, will only run applications made for that operating system. This, of course, is tossed out the window when WINE is involved. But new users won’t be using WINE anyway.

3: Choosing the wrong distribution

One of the biggest problems for users is choosing the wrong distribution. Imagine being a new user and selecting Gentoo or Slackware or Fedora! Yes those are all good distributions, but any of them would send a new user running away in fear. If you are in the initial stages of helping a new user out, do yourselves both a favor and choose the distribution carefully. Consider the user’s ability, needs, and hardware before you make that selection. Don’t just jump on board Ubuntu because everyone says you should. A lot of distributions out there are made specifically for new users. Give them all a close examination before making the choice.

4: Not finding software

Because so many new Linux users are migrating from Windows, they think software can be had from the same channels. Most of the time, this is not the case. The new user needs to become familiar with their package management tools right away - especially tools like Synaptic, Packagekit, and Ubuntu Software Center. Each of those tools is a mecca of software where users can most likely find all the applications they need.

5: Sending OpenOffice documents to Microsoft Office users in the default format

I see this so often. New Linux users are proud of the strides they have made but dumbfounded (and sometimes turned back to Windows) because the people they share files with can’t read their formats. Remember, Microsoft products are not good at getting along with other operating systems and other applications. Make sure your new users are saving in file formats that are readable by the Microsoft equivalents.

6: Avoiding the command line

I can’t, for the life of me, figure out why people completely avoid the command line as if it is the most complex tool there is. I know people who can work absolute magic with Photoshop but can’t seem to type a simple rm command at the command line. Why this is I will never know. New users shouldn’t shy away from the command line. Knowing the command line isn’t essential anymore, but it will make them more capable users.

7: Giving up too quickly

Here’s another issue I see all too often. After a few hours (or a couple of days) working with Linux, new users will give up for one reason or another. I understand giving up when they realize something simply doesn’t work (such as when they MUST use a proprietary application or file format). But seeing Linux not work under average demands is rare these days. If you see new Linux users getting frustrated, try to give them a little extra guidance. Sometimes getting over that initial hump is the biggest challenge they will face.

8: Thinking the Windows directory hierarchy translates to Linux

There is no C:\ in Linux. Nor do you use the “\” character. Nor should you use spaces in filenames. These are common mistakes new users make. Trying to map out Windows to Linux, directory for directory, is impossible. You can get as far as C:\ = / and maybe Default User = ~/, but beyond that you’re out of luck. Make sure new users understand that everything starts at / and their most important directory is their home directory (aka ~/ aka /home/USERNAME/).

9: Skipping updates

I have been burned with Windows updates many times. Need I bother mentioning the update from Explorer 7 to Explorer 8? Very rarely has a Linux update fubar’d a system of mine. In fact, I can’t remember the last time it has. So I am always up to date on my systems… and with good reason. Those updates bring new security patches and features to software and should be applied. Having an installation with a security hole is not what your users need, especially on a machine that houses important information.

10: Logging in as root

I really shouldn’t have to say this. But just in case, be sure to tell your users DON’T LOG IN AS ROOT! But… just in case they must… DON’T LOG IN AS ROOT! Instead, have them open up a terminal window and either “su” to root or use “sudo”. And just in case you didn’t hear me the first time, DON’T LOG IN AS ROOT!

11: Losing windows to the pager

The pager is one of the handiest features of the Linux desktops. But over and over, I’ve seen that new users don’t quite understand what the pager is for and what it does. Because of this, they will “lose” their windows from the desktop. Where did it go? It was there a moment ago! I guess it crashed. No. More than likely, they moved it to another desktop. Another desktop? You see where this is going? Help the new user understand what the pager is and how useful it can be.

12: Ignoring security because it’s Linux

A big part of me still wants to boast and say, “In the 12 years I have used Linux, I have never once had a virus or worm or been hacked.” Although that is true, it doesn’t mean I should ignore security. I have witnessed the effects of a rootkit on a Linux machine. They aren’t pretty and data will be lost. Tell your users that they can’t ignore security just because they’re using Linux. Security is crucial, regardless of the OS.