Wednesday, February 6, 2013

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Microsoft not planning any new RT devices this spring

Posted: 06 Feb 2013 03:32 AM PST

It's no secret that Microsoft's Surface RT tablet is not doing very well and now it appears that Redmond will not introduce any new Windows RT gear this spring. It will focus on the Windows 8 based Surface Pro instead.

Rumours of new Windows RT products emerged a couple of months ago, pointing to a smaller Surface tablet and some sort of Xbox branded gaming tablet. However, the rumours were apparently unfounded.

Speaking in an interview with Bloomberg, Tami Reller, CFO of Microsoft's Window unit, said there are no plans to refresh the company's Windows RT lineup this spring. She said Microsoft is still focused on getting the five RT products announced in October into stores in large numbers.

However, Microsoft's problem apparently has more to do with getting the tablets out of the door, rather than securing more shipments. As many as 1.25 million Surface RT tablets have been shipped so far, but analysts put the actual sales figures much lower, in the 680,000 to 750,000 range. 

In the short term, Microsoft will focus on Windows 8 tablets instead, including its own Surface Pro. Reller said more Windows 8-based tablets will probably be sold, compared to those running Windows RT, which doesn't bode well for the RT platform, which was supposed to end up significantly cheaper than Windows 8 and generate more volume.

"We will scale over time, but right now we're focused on making sure the designs that have been built do have commercial availability and commercial success, and we'll stay focused on that for the short-term," said Reller.

Also, many more OEMs are expected to embrace Windows 8 tablets over their lower end Windows RT siblings and demand for RT gear seems very low indeed. Samsung has already opted not to sell its Windows RT tablet in the US, but at least they chose to build one, which isn't the case with many partners.

Even chipmakers don't seem sold on Windows RT. Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs recently raised concerns about Windows RT gear. He said Qualcomm was not surprised by the muted demand for new Windows OS and it is taking a cautious approach.

Reller did not wish to provide any Surface RT sales numbers but it is becoming increasingly obvious that the tablet, and the entire Windows RT platform for that matter, aren't gaining much traction. 

Intel regimen imposes pay freeze

Posted: 06 Feb 2013 02:42 AM PST

Intel is allegedly imposing a pay freeze on staff - and vacancies it has been posting have been left unfilled.

The company, which is trying to rearrange itself into a mobile player while leveraging Ultrabooks into a popular consumer device, has recently seen profits tank and revenues taking a significant drop. Intel hopes to claw the cash back, and according to sister site ChannelEye's sources, there may be a pay freeze on to get it through the tough times.

"There's been talk of pay freezes, while vacancies that have been left open for months have yet to be filled," the sources said - adding that some departments are struggling as a result.

"There's also been more pressure on both sales and marketing departments to perform better, which, without the right support and staff count has been hard, but that's obviously the demons that we have to deal with rather than for the top level staff," ChannelEye heard. “There’s however only so much we can do to promote the Ultrabook, and feed exciting, engaging info to resellers and consumers when we haven’t got all the tools to do it”. 

When reached for a comment, a spokesperson for Intel said the company does not comment on rumours or speculation.  It was hardly worth contacting Intel but we're journalists and attempt to be even handed.

Bacteria found to protect itself by producing gold

Posted: 06 Feb 2013 02:28 AM PST

Turning dirt into gold has been the stuff of myth and legend for ages. The cautionary tale of king Midas is a testament to mankind's love of gold and alchemists have been trying to turn all sorts of metals into gold for centuries. Eventually US credit rating agencies managed to work out a foolproof way of turning rubbish into gold by slapping AAA ratings on toxic mortgage-based securities, but we digress.

Researchers have now uncovered the real deal. Delftia acidovorans lives in sticky biofilms that form on top of gold deposits, but exposure to dissolved gold ions can kill it. To protect itself the bacterium has evolved a chemichal that detoxifies gold ions and turns them into harmless gold nanoparticles. The nanoparticles harmlessly accumulate outside the bacterial cells.

The discovery is not purely academic, as it could be used on an industrial scale. Nathan Magarvey of McMaster University in Ontario led the team that discovered the bacteria's unique trick.

"This could have potential for gold extraction," Magarvey told the New Scientist.  "You could use the bug, or the molecules they secrete."

Magarvey believes the bacteria could be used to dissolve gold out of water, or to design sensors that would identify gold rich streams and rivers. The chemical used by the bug is a protein dubbed delftibactin A. It transforms gold ions into particles of gold 25 to 50 nanometers across and the particles accumulate wherever the bacteria grow.

However, the gold nanoparticles are not as easy to detect as bigger chunks of metal and they do not reflect light the same way. 

Honeywell is a cyber-terror disaster in waiting

Posted: 06 Feb 2013 02:21 AM PST

Honeywell's Niagara control system, which controls buildings' electricity, heating and other systems is vulnerable to internet attacks.

Despite warnings from US officials, it is possible to close down buildings completely using an internet attack.

The Niagara control system from Honeywell International's Tridium division are configured to connect to the web by default. It does not need to do this, but it does it anyway.

Insecurity experts from CyLance Billy Rios and Terry McCorkle told a security conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico that they uncovered vulnerabilities last year.

This prompted the Department of Homeland Security to warn customers to change their settings and resulted in Honeywell releasing a software update that the two researchers previously said had successfully addressed the problems.

But there are apparently more flaws in Tridium's technology that continue to make customers vulnerable to attack.

They showed the conference how they could take control of a Niagara system using a new piece of software they had written.

While they refused to say how they did it, they said that attackers could accomplish the same ends by taking advantage of weak encryption and passwords stored internally on the Tridium control devices.

In some cases, once the hackers had wrecked the company's physical environment they could use the hack as a gateway to getting into the building's main office computers.

A Honeywell spokesperson said the company is working to address the problems as quickly as possible and will alert customers of the risks. 

Amazon introduces virtual currency

Posted: 06 Feb 2013 02:03 AM PST

Amazon is bringing in virtual currency that can be used for purchases on the Kindle Fire tablet.

Apparently the idea is to encourage more developers to create programs for the device.

From May, US customers can use Amazon Coins to buy applications and virtual merchandise sold within games.

The company will "print" "tens of millions of dollars" worth of the currency, which will be accepted in the Amazon app store.

It is seen as a cunning plan to get users to play with Fire apps and encourage more developers to write apps for it. Amazon's market share of the tablet market has slipped to 12 percent from 16 percent.

Under the virtual money, plan developers will continue to get the 70 percent revenue share from purchases made with the coins. After the coin giveaway ends, customers will be able to buy the tokens using Amazon accounts, the company announced.

"Amazon Coins is an easy way for Kindle Fire customers to spend money in the Amazon Appstore, offering app and game developers another substantial opportunity to drive traffic, downloads and increase monetisation," the company said in a statement.

Amazon has already released tools that let developers add more features to games for its tablet, including tracking high scores and monitoring awards won during play.

The online bookseller has a long way to go before it catches up with Apple and Android. Amazon currently has more than 68,000 apps in its store, compared with 4,000 when the store debuted in March 2011, the company said. Google and Apple have about 700,000 apps apiece in their stores. 

User revolt over Java bloatware

Posted: 06 Feb 2013 01:57 AM PST

Oracle is facing a user revolt of its peddling of bloatware while it is trying to fix important security errors on its software.

For a while now Oracle has tried to make a bob or two out of its security updates by asking users to install either a McAfee virus scanner or an Ask.com toolbar.

Users have to be watching their machines carefully when Java updates or they will end up having to spend ten minutes removing the software from their machines.

It is the sort of antics you expect from a poor software company and not a big name like Oracle and is made worse by the fact that lately Ellison's outfit has been putting out a lot of updates because of huge security flaws in the product.

Now there is a petition, organised by Dr Saeid Nourian, calling for Oracle to stop the practice. He said that Oracle decided to sacrifice the integrity of Java by bundling Ask toolbar with Java in order to make few pennies per download in profit.

"It is demeaning for a respected corporation such as Oracle to resort to such techniques only to make a small profit. Ask Toolbar hijacks user's default search engine and forwards them to Ask search engine which resorts to various misleading advertisement techniques in order to confuse the unsuspecting users into clicking on their paid ads," Nourian wrote.

He added that it was unfair that you had to specifically opt out of downloading the bloatware. He wants users and Java programmers to demand that Oracle removes Ask from the Java installer and not bundle any other third party software with Java in the future.

You can sign the petition here. So far, 6,000 people have done so, but Nourian wants 250,000. 

UMC underperforms while the press follows suit

Posted: 06 Feb 2013 01:55 AM PST

The release of UMCs results have to go on record as highlighting the laziness of the tech and financial press.

UMC said that it made 19 percent less than expected in the fourth-quarter and it duly issued an annual report. For some reason it issued it using a secure PDF which meant that if anyone wanted to use it, they would have to type it in, rather than use the traditional cut and paste.

Reuters did not bother and just linked to the document and all those who followed wrote two sentence stories and did the same thing. So far only Fox News has managed to write more than four paragraphs.

It used to be said that the best way to bury bad news was to issue it on a day when the world's press was dealing with a natural disaster, but now it appears that it is better to issue it on a secure PDF.

The Taiwan-based contract chip manufacturer said its net profit for the three months ended December 31 was $39.7 million which is an improvement on a year earlier but well below what the cocaine nose jobs of Wall Street had predicted. Revenue fell by 8.5 percent and gross profit was $150 million.

UMC's new CEO, Po-Wen Yen, said that there was a weaker-than-expected demand for medium-performance chips and the Taiwanese currency was too strong for its own good.

UMC is still ramping up its 28-nanometer capacity and mostly producing with less advanced technology for feature phones or less sophisticated smartphones.

The CEO admitted that its 28-nanometer plans were taking longer than expected, but the company is determined to push through.

Yen said that his priority is to ramp up R&D for advanced processes and this year will see continued capital development in China.

There was a slump in demand because customers were uncertain about the future, and the fact that UMC was sitting on piled of wafers in its warehouses. When demand recovers, the company expects to see a strong growth in the mobile sector, Yen added. 

HP wades into Dell's Dell buyout

Posted: 06 Feb 2013 01:39 AM PST

In a classic case of pot calling the kettle black, the maker of expensive printer ink, HP has waded into Michael Dell for buying his own company back from shareholders.

Dell decided to take itself off the public market in $24 billion plus deal involving private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, and Michael Dell himself.

HP quickly issued a statement which said that Dell has a very tough road ahead. It insisted that Dell faces an extended period of uncertainty and transition that will not be good for its customers.

HP also derided Dell for its "significant debt load" and claimed that the company's "ability to invest in new products and services will be extremely limited".

It sanctimoniously said that leveraged buyouts tend to leave "existing customers and innovation at the curb".

Given that HP is also facing an extended period of uncertainty and transition, this is probably a glass house that the outfit should not be tossing bricks in.

HP shares have plummeted 66 percent over the past three years. The brief reign of Leo Apotheker was cut short in a suicidal charge into the ranks of business software and the mangled company was hurriedly buried under a carpark while a new ruler was found. While Apotheker was on the throne, HP cut its financial outlook three times, quit the webOS business and tried to get out of the PC business entirely.

Meg Whitman has so far not been able to turn the company around. In fact, in November, she wrote down $8.8 billion of the value of Autonomy.

HP faces the same problems that Dell does. During an economic slump, few people want to buy PCs. Neither company managed to hedge its bets by making any impact on the mobile market.

The company said it "plans to take full advantage" of the opportunity to capture Dell customers "eager to explore alternatives".

Good luck with that. It is unlikely that customers will see the difference between tweedledum and tweedledee. 
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