TechEye |  |
- Apple asks the Supremes to say it is good
- BBC micro delayed
- China tells tech companies to swear allegiance
- Adobe profits slower than expected
- US Defence builds huge vulnerability checker
- How Apple stuffed up the iPhone6S
- Apple’s first Andriod App is terrible
- Why Intel killed Skylake-C
- AMD confirms closed source Linux Vulkan
| Apple asks the Supremes to say it is good Posted: 18 Sep 2015 02:06 AM PDT
In 2013, U.S. District Judge Dennis Cote found Apple guilt of being "conscious[ly] committed to … engage in [the] illegal behavior" of fixing ebook prices. That decision was reaffirmed in a 2-1 federal appeals court ruling earlier this summer. Second Circuit Court Judge Debra Ann Livingston, writing for the majority, held that "the district court correctly decided that Apple orchestrated a conspiracy among the publishers to raise ebook prices." Fellow members of the cartel have all admitted their crimes and paid up. The only member of the cartel which is convinced of its innocence is Apple. That is despite a confession by its former CEO Steve Jobs that a cartel was exactly what he had in mind to take Amazon down a peg or two. Now Jobs Mob is convinced that the US's Highest Court will conform to the mighty powers of its reality distortion field and let it go free. In its filing to the Supreme Court Apple argues that a decision against it would have grave implications for the creative economy. "Dynamic, disruptive entry into new or stagnant markets — the lifeblood of American economic growth — often requires the very type of" behavior that Apple engaged in, the company argues. It is a novel defense. Basically it is admitting that it is evil but it is the American way to play monopoly and force people to pay more. Should the Supreme Court decline to hear the case, Apple's expected to pay $450 million — most of it to customers of its iBooks store — to resolve antitrust liabilities with the Justice Department and other plaintiffs. But for Apple it has the problem that it believes that it has done no wrong and it is really good for people. That sort of reality distortion field issue means that it will probably do the same thing again. |
| Posted: 18 Sep 2015 02:04 AM PDT
The Micro:bit was announced in March as a “get kids coding” initiative. Delivery was anticipated to occur in September, so that every 11 or 12 year-old in the UK could be given the computer. Yesterday, the Beeb admitted that things are off the rails and that delivery can be expected “after Christmas”. Apparently the problem is the gear's power supply. “We’re expecting to start sending them out to teachers before Christmas and to children early in the new year,” said a BBC spokesman “As a result of our rigorous testing process, we’ve decided to make some minor revisions to the device – getting it right for children and teachers before we manufacture one million units is our priority.” The Micro:bit is a revival of the BBC’s efforts in the 1980s when it created the BBC Micro and promoted it, and the idea of programming, through radio and television programmes. It worked too and is considered a starter for many kids of that generation. The thought is that if the power supply does not zap them, kids will be encouraged to save the UK economy by coding. BBC director general Tony Hall hopes the Micro Bit will “equip a new generation with the digital skills they need to find jobs and help grow the UK economy”. |
| China tells tech companies to swear allegiance Posted: 18 Sep 2015 02:01 AM PDT
Beijing has written to some US firms earlier this summer asking them to promise they would not harm China’s national security and would store Chinese user data within the country. It is not certain who China sent the note to. The letter also asked the companies that their products be “secure and controllable” which means they need to build back doors that would allow Chinese spooks to enter at will. The Cyberspace Administration of China denied that the government had sent the pledge documents to US firms, but said a document had been sent by a government body overseeing information security certification. “As we understand, the so-called pledge documents were sent by the China Information Security Certification Center to foreign firms and were letters soliciting suggestions,” the cyberspace body said in emailed comments to Reuters, adding this was done according to Chinese law and international practice. |
| Adobe profits slower than expected Posted: 18 Sep 2015 02:00 AM PDT
Adobe has been switching to web-based subscriptions from traditional licensed software to help attract more predictable recurring revenue and that move seems to be paying off Recurring revenue had reached 73 percent of total revenue, Chief Financial Officer Mark Garrett said in a statement. The company said it added 684,000 Creative Cloud net subscriptions in the quarter ended August 28, compared with the 640,000 net additions that analysts had expected, according to research firm FactSet Street Account. Creative Cloud, which includes Photoshop, Illustrator and Indexing, is the biggest of the company’s cloud businesses. The other two are Marketing Cloud and Document Cloud. Adobe said it had 5.3 million Creative Cloud subscriptions at the end of the third quarter. Adobe raised its full-year annualized recurring revenue forecast for the digital media to $2.95 billion from $2.93 billion. The company forecast revenue of $1.28 billion-$1.33 billion for the fourth quarter ending November. Wall Street expected revenue of $1.36 billion. Adobe’s net income rose to $174.5 million in the third quarter, from $44.7 million a year earlier. Revenue rose 21 percent to $1.22 billion which was better than what analysts expected. |
| US Defence builds huge vulnerability checker Posted: 18 Sep 2015 01:59 AM PDT
The deputy commander of US Cyber Command Air Force Lieutenant General Kevin McLaughlin said a framework should be out within months, with a goal of turning the system into an automated “scorecard” in coming years. The effort grew out of a critical report about cyber threats released earlier this year by the Pentagon’s chief weapons tester. Michael Gilmore, the Pentagon’s director of testing and evaluation, warned that nearly every major US weapons system was vulnerable to cyber-attacks. What will be slow is that initial data entry would be done by hand, but the goal is to create a fully automated system that would help defence officials instantaneously detect and respond to cyber-attacks. McLaughlin said nearly half of 133 planned cyber response teams had been established with about 6,200 people, and all of them would achieve an initial operational capability by the end of 2016. The new scorecard would look at the greatest threats, including weapons systems fielded years ago before the cyber threat was fully understood. “There's probably not enough money in the world to fix all those things, but the question is what's most important, where should we put our resources as we eat the elephant one bite at a time,” he said. McLaughlin said the scorecard was initially intended to look at weapons and networks, but the Pentagon was now looking at a broader and more sophisticated approach that also accounted for how data was moved among agencies within the military. |
| How Apple stuffed up the iPhone6S Posted: 18 Sep 2015 01:56 AM PDT
The entry-level edition of the phone comes with just 16GB of storage which contains pretty much all you would need for songs, movies, photos, and apps if you had bought the phone a couple of years ago. Storage prices have been falling dramatically over the last couple of years so the cost to Apple of having storage that is more meaningful is minimal. Yet the iPhone 6S comes with features which need shedloads of storage. Obviously, Apple thinks you will reject the entry-level phone and buy something a little more expensive, but that defeats the purpose of having an entry-level phone. First time buyers in Apple's Walled Garden of Delights are going to have a terrible experience, dump it and never come back. Apple should be thinking long term with an entry phone and not sell something that does not really work or show it up. Leaving the entry-level unit at 16GB of storage rather than 32GB drives higher profit margins in two ways. It reduces the cost of manufacturing the $649 phone, which increases profit margins on sales of the lowest-end model. It pushes many people who might be happy with a 32GB phone to shell out $749 for the 64GB model. A 64GB flash storage chip is more expensive than a 16GB flash chip, but it’s not anywhere near $100 more expensive, so pushing people up the chain increases not just revenue but profit margins. But it is a moot point if Apple needs more cash and this sort of approach which seems them milking users for no good purpose is going to make it less popular than Microsoft. What is weird is that the extra costs of giving the user something worthwhile are minimal. Apple might be the market leader in smartphones, but there is no guarantee that it will remain so. The smartphone market is shrinking and areas like China which were supposed to keep it alive are contracting. This means that Apple is going to end up competing on spec with much cheaper android phones. Killing the 16GB phone and replacing it with a 32GB model at the low end would help create satisfied customers, positive press coverage, and goodwill. It would hold a reputation for true commitment to excellence, and a demonstrated focus on the long term. These were the reasons people claimed they bought Apple products. Now it is getting harder to see it doing more than squeezing cash out of customers for no real reason. |
| Apple’s first Andriod App is terrible Posted: 18 Sep 2015 01:52 AM PDT
Yesterday, Jobs' Mob released an app, which was supposed to encourage android users to migrate to its operating system and then junk their android phones as "worthless." The app was release to a great fanfare by the Tame Apple Press who predicted that the app was all Android fans needed to junk their cheaper and more functional smartphones for something that was more expensive and did less. However those who did up load it were less than impressed with Apple's android coding skills. Those who downloaded it have flooded the app with one-star reviews. However, it seems the Apple community has responded and has started sending five star reviews into the Android system. They have managed to claw up the average to 1.8 stars. However since more than 79 per cent of users were happy to share their miserable experience, the five stars are in a minority. There is no doubt that some of the one star reviews are penned by those who hate Apple, just like the five star reviews are written by those who have never owned an Android. But a big chunk of the one stars are written by those who have installed the app and found that it had poor functionality. Apparently Apple refused to follow the Android design patterns which made it hard to work. |
| Posted: 18 Sep 2015 01:51 AM PDT
According to ITWorld the early tests on the Skylake-C showed that it was going to be a killer chip, but instead it was bumped off. There will be a broad range of Skylakes for handhelds, tablets, laptops and desktops, many of which are already announced, but there will not be a Skylake-C. The reason appears to be that wafer yields from Skylake-C were lower and this meant a combination of increased cost and lower yield. Intel has had enough headaches with 14nm as it is, and there is the upcoming Kaby Lake processor, which we do not know much about. Chipzilla said that it was responding to market demands. |
| AMD confirms closed source Linux Vulkan Posted: 18 Sep 2015 01:47 AM PDT
Those who want their Linux to be totally open saucy will be completely disappointed. In fact, there is a lot about the project, which is closed source. AMD said that OpenCL support will initially be closed and then opened later. They already have some basic OpenCL open-source support via the Clover Gallium3D driver; this is referring to OpenCL 2.1+ support with SPIR-V alongside Vulkan or the OpenCL Catalyst code. Vulkan driver communicating with libdrm that interfaces with the AMDGPU kernel driver. AMD slides do not mention whether they intend to support Vulkan with the current Radeon DRM driver for HD 7000 through Rx 300 (non-Tonga/Carrizo/Fiji) GPUs. Instead, they only talk about the AMDGPU kernel driver just for the very newest AMD GPUs like the R9 Fury and Carrizo APUs. However, AMD said that this is all transitory and Vulkan will eventually become completely open sauce. In fact, AMD has promised to focus more on open-source than closed-source in the future. Basic support for AMD's closed-source (Catalyst) OpenGL and OpenCL support riding atop the rest of the AMDGPU driver stack is complete. Their initial Vulkan driver is using DRI3. |
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