TechEye

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• Samsung takes aim at Silicon Valley
• BlackBerry turns in loss
• Intel gets into smart cities
• Google’s Android faces antitrust probe
• Tablets continue their decline

Samsung takes aim at Silicon Valley Posted: 25 Sep 2015 10:37 AM PDT Giant Korean combine Samsung opened a new semiconductor centre in Silicon Valley today now it considers rivals such as Intel to be in its sights. Samsung is a vertical company with many strings to its bow. In the past it has even tried making jets although that turned out to be a project too far. It has dabbled in the automotive sector too, and is believed to be considering a re-entry into that market. In South Korea, Samsung also manufactures leading edge storage products, displays, and makes many of the components that are included in the smartphones it, and its rivals, sell. It has the advantage over companies like Intel – forced to diversify in recent years and think about stuff like the internet of things – while plucky British CPU manufacturer ARM continues to be the market leader in microprocessors. The design centre it opened, according to a statement from its USA arm, is a million square foot R&D centre. While many focus on smartphone sales, and contrast its sales to Apple's iPhone sales, they would do well to reflect on the fact that Samsung's fabrication plants in South Korea continue to dish its rivals on the memory front. Intel used to be a memory company, but analysts see its strategic relationship with the last USA DRAM manufacturer Micron as faltering, particularly as Chinese consortia want to snap it up. It would be a foolish analyst or journalist who predicted the game is over for Samsung, TechEye believes.

BlackBerry turns in loss Posted: 25 Sep 2015 07:15 AM PDT Canadian company BlackBerry said it made a loss for its financial second quarter. It reported a quarterly loss of $66 million with revenues falling to $490 million in the quarter. Analysts had expected that BlackBerry would turn over $610.6 million in the quarter. Earlier this month, BlackBerry bought Good Technology in a bid to increase its market share in services. The firm still remains committed to releasing smartphones and will release a phone later this year using the Android OS called Priv. BlackBerry's plan to turn its fortunes round depends on whether it can make more money from the services business.

Intel gets into smart cities Posted: 25 Sep 2015 06:43 AM PDT Chip maker Intel appears to be pursuing its plans to be an internet of things player and has teamed up with an energy company and a mesh technology company to create the Mumbai "smart city" network. As part of the deal, Reliance will connect smart metres, street lights and distribution equpment in Mumbai, connected together by Connode's IPv6 wireless mesh products. Reliance claims this is the first roll out in India of smart metres that conform to the Indian government's machine to machine roadmap. Intel will provide so called smart city gateways which can handle both IPv6 mesh networks and other internet of things protocols. Jonathan Ballon, Intel VP of the internet of things, siad that smart city networks is one area his company is focusing on. He said that the Mumbai development is one of the most interesting smart city markets in the world. Connode is a Swedish company and claims it's the leading supplier of wireless comm products for the internet of things. It supplies mesh technology to the UK smart metre programme.

Google’s Android faces antitrust probe Posted: 25 Sep 2015 06:28 AM PDT Google, which is already under investigation in the European Union for alleged anticompetitive practices, now faces a probe related to the Android operating system. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is actively investigating the company to see whether the Android operating system is being used to stifle competition, according to a report on Bloomberg. Apparently, the FTC wants to know whether Google is bullying Android smartphone manufacturers into showing certain apps on their phones and how they were arranged. Apparently the FTC and the US Justice Government flipped a coin to decide which of the two bodies should conduct the investigation. The FTC cleared Google in a previous investigation it made into Google two years ago. The FTC has already started to talk to technology partners of Google in a bid to discover whether the search company is being a bit of a bully. The EU is already investigating whether Google is using Android to stifle competition.

Tablets continue their decline Posted: 25 Sep 2015 06:17 AM PDT The installed base of tablets is to fall next year for the first time, according to a report from ABI Research. ABI said that by the end of this year the global installed base for tablets will reach 373 million units. Of those 50 percent will use the Android operating system and 42 percent will use Apple's iOS operating system. Of the tablets installed, 48 percent are owned by people in the USA> ABI thinks there are many reasons for the change in tablet sales. People are looking to the awkwardly named "phablet" market – a compromise between tablets and essentially smartphones with bigger screens. ABI also thinks that people will replace their tablets with 2-in-1 ultraportable PCs and some people will just not bother to replace their tablets at all.

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