Wednesday, May 22, 2013

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Labour MP asks Treasury about missing laptops, Blackberrys

Posted: 22 May 2013 06:57 AM PDT

Gareth Thomas, Labour MP for Harrow West, has asked questions about lost or stolen computers, mobiles, Blackberrys and other IT equipment to the Treasury and other government departments.

Thomas asked the Secretary of State for International Development just how many pieces of kit went missing or stolen from 2010 to now. In total 42 laptops went missing, 18 phones, nine Blackberrys, a 15 inch monitor and nine memory sticks, Conservative Minister of State for International Development, Alan Duncan, admitted.

Thomas put the same question to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Sajid Javid, Conservative MP for Bromsgrove, replied that since 2010, 28 Laptops have been stolen or gone missing, with just 11 of those having been recovered.

38 Blackberrys disappeared from the Treasury with just four of those recovered, while 74 other pieces of IT equipment were reported stolen or lost, with just three of that unnamed equipment having been recovered to date.

Javid assured Thomas that despite the missing equipment, all laptops were encrypted and "not accessible without a security token and more than one password," and that the BlackBerrys were password protected too.

"No tokens or passwords were left with these items, and so there was no data loss," Javid said. "Steps were taken as soon as the theft of these electronic items were reported, to ensure that they provided no means of access to any of the Department's IT systems".

The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was also asked, however, Conservative MP Michael Penning advised Thomas to approach the independent Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission and the Parades Commission for Norther Ireland directly.

Scientists develop printable graphene ink

Posted: 22 May 2013 06:23 AM PDT

A team of researchers at Northwestern Engineering has come up with a new way of producing graphene, which could eventually lead to printable graphene ink.

One of the methods used to produce graphene involves exfoliating graphite through oxidation or the use of various solvents. However, the techniques tend to interfere with the conductive properties of graphene, greatly diminishing its potential. 

The Northwestern graphene team took up the challenge and eventually came up with a conductivity preserving production method that works at room temperature, which should help keep production costs down. In addition, they used cheap and readily available solvents such as ethanol and ethyl cellulose. The latter can even be used as a food additive, which means it is pretty clean and safe, reports Clean Technica. 

In the end they managed to produce a powder of high concentration graphene flakes and they can transform their product into a printable ink, simply by adding another solvent.

Printable graphene circuits could drastically reduce production costs, as they could use existing printers rather than develop proprietary manufacturing techniques. This means graphene-based circuits and solar cells could become very cheap, very fast. 

US power grid companies leave networks vulnerable

Posted: 22 May 2013 04:30 AM PDT

It seems that the US government’s belief in the efficiency of its private sector to run its power infrastructure is proving completely bogus.

According to a Congressional report, it would be more secure for US infrastructure for congress to put a cat in charge of the network than leave things as they are.

The report said that inefficiencies in how security standards are set and “haphazard” implementation of protections leaves the US power grid at high risk of damage due to cyberattacks.

According to Tech Politik The report, was released ahead of a House hearing on cybersecurity by Congressmen Edward Markey and Henry Waxman.

It  found that the power grid faces daily cyber-attacks. One power company claimed  it fights off 10,000 attempted intrusions each month.

Waxman said that the utility responses are sobering, and reveal  serious gaps in the security of the US electric grid.

Congress clearly needs to push electric utilities to beef up security to protect from attacks from rogue states and terrorist groups.

The US power grid security is managed through a set of required standards set by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation.  These were agreed to by members, combined with a set of voluntary actions power companies can take.

The problem here is whether or not you trust private companies to adhere to a set of voluntary security standards when there is little financial advantage for them to do so.

The report found that most of the power companies complied with the mandatory standards but only a tiny percentage were complying with the voluntary measures.

The report said that this lax security would fall over if attacks on the power grid were carried out by knowledgeable attackers with little risk of detection or interdiction.

It would be possible to cut the power to huge areas of the US and take months to fix. 

While this type of attack would require physical damage to transformers, the information currently being compromised will give these attackers knowledge of where exactly to attack, the report said.

US will not need drones to spy on people

Posted: 22 May 2013 02:31 AM PDT

The belief that the US government will be using drones to spy on its citizens might not have any basis, as its security forces move towards satellite spying instead.

In September, the US government will fire into orbit a two-stage rocket from a Virginia launchpad. According to official reports, the mission is scientific one, designed to improve America's ability to send small satellites into space quickly and cheaply.

However, according to Wired, the launch will help the elite forces of US Special Operations Command hunt down people considered to be dangerous to the United States and its interests.

For a while now the US has clandestinely tagged people they want to bump off and used satellites to relay information from those beacons. But since a lot of people that special forces want to hit hide in areas where the satellite coverage is thin, and there aren't enough mobile towers to provide an alternative, they need something better.

According to Wired, eight miniature communications satellites, each about the size of a water jug, have been installed on top of the Minotaur rocket that's getting ready to launch from Wallops Island, Virginia. They'll sit more than 300 miles above the earth and provide a new way for the beacons to call back to their masters.

Some of the beacons use infrared flashes to signal their location and they are used to hit with drone strikes. Others are implanted into commercial electronics.

All jolly clever stuff, but it could also easily be turned into effective and quiet monitoring devices of US citizens without too much imagination. 

America faces high tech workforce shortage

Posted: 22 May 2013 02:29 AM PDT

Talk of immigration reform in the US has been halted by partisan bickering for years, and it might be about to start taking its toll on the economy, coupled with less than stellar high school education.

New York state faces a shortfall of thousands of skilled techies to sustain the growth of its tech sector and GlobalFoundries (GloFo) is starting to sound the alarm. America’s Edge held an event in Albany on Tuesday and announced that New York faces a shortage of 350,000 mid-level skilled workers by 2018. 

The organisation called for education reform that would enable the US workforce to compete in a truly global marketplace. It wants to see more science, technology, engineering and math introduced at high-school and middle-school levels. America’s Edge believes that seven out of ten jobs created in New York between 2008 and 2018 will require formal education beyond high school, reports The Business Review. 

The challenge for tech companies is to partner with schools and hook kids on math and science while they’re young. Since tech is now cool rather than geeky, they should have no shortage of willing candidates, but on the other hand it remains unclear whether the schools themselves can deliver what is truly necessary.

AMD falls behind Qualcomm and Samsung

Posted: 22 May 2013 02:28 AM PDT

AMD has fallen behind rivals Qualcomm and Samsung on IC Insights' list of microprocessor vendors.

According to EE TImes, while AMD has been trying to boost its mobile processing range it seems that Qualcomm and Samsung have used the interest in smartphones and tablets to their advantage.

Unfettered by the slump in the PC market and with products in place to take advantage of the interest in tablets and smartphones, Qualcomm and Samsung have managed to push AMD off the second and third rankings to fourth.

AMD had been solidly in second place behind Intel since the 1990s. This change to mobile processors does not appear to have damaged Intel much.

Chipzilla had $36.9 billion in sales and continued to hold a commanding 65.3 percent share of the $56.5 billion microprocessor market, followed by Qualcomm's 9.4 percent and Samsung's 8.2 percent. AMD's market share fell to 6.4 percent.

In IC Insights' list of the 10 microprocessor vendors for 2012, only Intel and AMD offer x86-based chips that run in such systems as PCs and mainstream servers. The other chip makers—including Nvidia and Texas Instruments—make mobile processors based on the ARM architecture.

Qualcomm, with $5.3 billion in sales, is the top vendor of ARM-based chips. Samsung makes chips for its own tablets and smartphones, but 83 percent of its $4.6 billion in sales were from its work in making SoCs for Apple.

AMD's fall has been as quick as it has been dramatic. In 2010 it had a market share of 9.6 percent but has been falling ever since.

The company is looking to APUs like Richland for notebooks and tablets, Temash for Windows 8-based tablets and hybrid devices and Kabinin for low-cost PCs, convertibles and hybrids as a way of pulling its nadgers out of the fire. 

Intel's new broom orders sweeping restructure

Posted: 22 May 2013 02:26 AM PDT

Chipzilla's new chief executive, Brian Krzanich, has surprised analysts by ordering a sweeping company reorganisation.

It had been thought that Krzanich would keep the status quo at Intel and possibly issue a few more fashion bags to show his individuality from previous CEOs.

But it seems that within hours of moving into his new office he created a unit aimed at growing its market share in mobile technology.

The shakeup places most of the main product groups of the world's top chipmaker directly under the CEO's supervision.

Intel's sprawling global manufacturing operation have been given to new president Renee James to play with.

According to Reuters, the reorganisation was outlined in an internal memo sent to employees.

In it ,Krzanich said that he was committed to making quick, informed decisions and wanted to be bolder, faster, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. We made the last one up.

"Our business faces significant challenges, and we simply must continue to execute while finalizing our future strategy," he wrote.

Krzanich said that under his leadership, the top chipmaker will be more responsive to customers in an intensified focus on the fast-growing smartphone and tablet market where it lags.

The PC client group, mobile communications and data centre unit, which previously reported to Intel Architecture group chief Dadi Perlmutter, now reports directly to Krzanich.

It is not clear what Perlmutter gets to do once he has handed these parts of the Intel empire over to its new Imperator. Apparently they still have to talk about that.

Mike Bell will head up Intel's newly formed "new devices" group, which will focus on emerging product trends.

"The new devices organization is responsible for rapidly turning brilliant technical and business model innovations into products that shape and lead markets," Krzanich said in the email, according to the source.

Hermann Eul, who shared responsibility for Intel's mobile communications group with Bell will now take over that business completely.

The restructuring flies in the face of what Intel executives have previously said about mobile chips.

For a long time they have been telling us that the company should not focus too much on catching up in smartphones and tablets at the expense of missing out on future trends in mobile.

While Krzanich's creation of the "new devices" group signals he is also looking beyond today's mobile toys, the overall restructuring does indicate a sudden focus on mobile. 

New Chrome browser is out

Posted: 22 May 2013 02:24 AM PDT

Google has released a new version of its Chrome browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Armed with the catchy title of "version 27" the browser is apparently five percent faster at loading pages than earlier versions. Anyone who can spot a five percent speed increase without monitoring tools is probably imagining it, but it does show the level of programming skill that Google is throwing behind its new browser.

Firefox, on the other hand is getting slower than an asthmatic turtle on its way to a turtle soup convention while towing a VW beetle.

You can update to the latest release now using the browser's built-in silent updater, or download it directly from google.com/chrome.

The speed boost is down to improvements to behind-the-scenes resource scheduling, Google tells us. Starting with this release, the scheduler more aggressively uses an idle connection and demotes the priority of preloaded resources so that they don't interfere with critical assets. The last thing anyone wants is their critical assets interfered with.

The browser comes with something called the Sync FileSystem API, which is a new offline storage application programming interface for Chrome packaged apps which automatically synchronises stored data across clients via Google Drive.

The files are stored in private sandboxes and can be manipulated with the HTML5 File API and FileSystem API.

There are also a few other enhancements in this release including improved ranking of predictions, improved spell correction, and improvements for Omnibox predictions.

There are also the usual bug fixes, a new version of V8, and more than 14 security holes fixed -- 11 rated High, two marked Medium, and one considered Low.

You can download the thing here. 

HTC faces executive exodus

Posted: 22 May 2013 02:22 AM PDT

It is no secret that HTC is trying to reinvent itself and transform its somewhat geeky brand image. It's off to a good start, as its flagship HTC One handset is getting very positive reviews and giving Samsung’s Galaxy S4 a run for its money, but all is not going well.

HTC’s vice president of global communications, Jason Gordon, has left the company. He announced his departure on Twitter, but did not explain how it came about. While it is true that HTC could have done a much better job at getting its message across and marketing its 2012 smartphone line-up, it was in an unfair fight. Samsung poured tons of cash into Galaxy marketing, outspending Apple, let alone HTC, so it would probably be unfair to fault Gordon for the failure.

In addition to Gordon, HTC’s chief product officer Kouji Kodera is also out the door, along with several other execs, reports The Verge. Product strategy manager Eric Lin is also gone. He even tweeted that his colleagues who are still at HTC would be better off if they quit. 

“Leave now. It’s tough to do, but you’ll be so much happier, I swear,” Lin wrote. 

It is still unclear what brought about the latest exodus. Are the departures part of a wider restructuring effort, or is HTC simply pushing a few people out, and pinning the blame for its terrible performance in recent quarters on a handful of executives? Things are looking up for HTC, for the first time in more than a year, yet it is shedding execs like there is no tomorrow. 

PC will be saved by power saving Haswell says Intel

Posted: 21 May 2013 08:15 AM PDT

The PC will be saved from its much predicted doom by the glorious power-saving ability of the Haswell chip, at least according to the prophecy of Intel's chief technology officer Justin Rattner.

He said that all that is needed for the PC industry to be swept out of its doldrums is for the Haswell Messiah to arrive to herald a glorious new golden age for the PC. Well words to that effect at least.

Speaking with Siliconrepublic.com at the Open Innovation 2.0 conference in Dublin, Rattner has predicted that the arrival of the next generation of PC devices that will run energy frugal processors like Intel's forthcoming Haswell chip will lead to a rebound in demand for PC devices, like ultrabooks and hybrids.

He said that the new PCs will be so versatile that consumers' faith in PCs will be restored, at least in terms of performance versus standalone iOS and Android tablets.

Rattner said that modern tablet computing served to disrupt PC sales, resulting in reports from Gartner and GfK sounding the death knell for PCs and celebrating the triumph of mobile devices.

While he did acknowledge the rise of mobile devices, Rattner believes the PC market will return to growth as more powerful but lighter and more energy-efficient models based on Intel's Haswell chip architecture later this year.

He said that the PC itself is far from dead although lots of people have declared it dead so many times.

People will be saying that they can get an Ultrabook with a keyboard which can be broken off to form a high-performance tablet, then what is the point of a stand-alone tablet, Ratner wondered. 
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