TechEye |  |
- South Korea and EU hammer out 5G deal
- Microsoft gets into the prediction game
- Hackers take a pizza de action
- SanDisk to buy Fusion-io
- Apple finally settles on book cartel case
| South Korea and EU hammer out 5G deal Posted: 17 Jun 2014 04:34 AM PDT South Korea and the European Union will work together to develop 5G wireless network technologies and to will come up with a global consensus on standards. The two sides have apparently agreed on the need for a harmonised radio spectrum policy for ensuring global interoperability of 5G networks, as well as global technical standards, They will also collaborate with the Third Generation Partnership Project, a group of telecommunications standards organisations, and with the International Telecommunication Union, which sets global policies for spectrum use. By forming a joint research and development group, the EU and South Korea plan to cooperate on developing ICT services for the cloud and the Internet of Things, among other areas. The move is to make sure that there is a globally agreed definition and standard for 5G networks in the future. Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission for the Digital Agenda, was in Seoul on Monday to sign the agreement. Kroes said that the move would speed up and make sure that the EU wins the global race to create 5G. Earlier this year, she set 2020 as the goal to roll out 5G networks across Europe. Under the new agreement, the EU and South Korea aim to launch jointly funded research projects in 2016 or 2017. South Korea wants core 5G wireless technologies ready in time for the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympics, and introduce the world's first 5G network services by 2020. This puts Samsung into the spotlight. It has successfully tested technologies it considers key to 5G last year. South Korea's major carriers SK Telecom, KT and LG Uplus are racing to become the first 5G network provider.        |
| Microsoft gets into the prediction game Posted: 17 Jun 2014 03:32 AM PDT Microsoft will soon offer a service aimed at making machine-learning technology more widely usable which will mean that it can stick its foot in the door of predictive technology. Apparently the prediction game has gone beyond slicing open a ram while facing the Alban hills but for computer programming to do it, the developers need skills in machine learning. Eron Kelly, Microsoft corporate vice president and director SQL Server marketing, said Microsoft Azure Machine Learning will be launched in beta in July. "The line of business owners and the marketing teams really want to use data to get ahead, but data volumes are getting so large that it is difficult for businesses to sift through it all," Kelly said. Machine learning is a form of artificial intelligence, and it uses algorithms so that computers recognise behaviour in large and streaming data sets. It can be superior to traditional forms of business intelligence in that it offers a way to predict future events and behaviour based on past actions. The technology has caught on for business uses such as credit card fraud detection. Microsoft uses the technology to refine its Cortana personal phone assistant, as well as to plan how much hardware it will need to continue to build its Azure hosted computer services. Microsoft's goal is to simplify the process of using machine learning, so it can be easily used by a wider set of developers, business analysts and data scientists. The service is aimed at "combining the power of machine learning with the simplicity of the cloud," Kelly said. Vole wants to provide it as a service which will mean companies will not have to buy expensive hardware to give the project a try. The company has also worked to simplify the process of deploying machine-learning algorithms and associated tools. The service will also have a software development kit for integrators and third-party software developers who wish to build their own services and applications from Azure ML. Azure ML has been in private beta for the past year with select customers. With the help of Microsoft systems builder Max 451, one large retail firm has used the service to predict what individual customers will likely buy next.     |
| Hackers take a pizza de action Posted: 17 Jun 2014 03:31 AM PDT Hackers have stolen data on more than 600,000 Dominos Pizza customers in Belgium and France and threatened to publish the data unless the company pays a cash ransom. At risk are customer names, delivery addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and passwords which were taken from a server used in an online ordering system that the company is in the process of replacing. Dominos spokesman Chris Brandon said at this point it was not clear if the stolen passwords had been encrypted. Using Twitter the hackers said that they would publish the customer data on the Internet unless the company pays $40,800. Dominos said that it was unaware of ransom demands, but that the company would not be making any such payment. Domino's Vice President of Communications Tim McIntyre said the hacking was "isolated" to independent franchise markets of Belgium and France, where the company's online ordering system did not collect credit card orders, so no financial data had been taken. Andy Heather, VP EMEA at Voltage Security said that holding companies to ransom was becoming a tool of choice by hackers who saw the value of personal data. "The theft of financial information has a limited lifespan, because the victim changes the account details etc. But the personal information that can be obtained has a much broader use and can be used to commit a much wider range of fraud and identity theft, and cannot be changed," he said. Heather said that the Dominos breach highlights a need for companies to place tighter controls on how their customers' sensitive information is stored and protected. "If Dominos had employed format-preserving encryption to protect the data itself, the attackers would have ended up with unusable encrypted data instead of the current outcome where an untold amount of their customers' personal information is now in the hands of cyber criminals," he said.     |
| Posted: 17 Jun 2014 03:30 AM PDT SanDisk has announced that it will buy Fusion-io for about $1.1 billion to bolster its flash storage drives operations. Fusion-io has not done well since its initial public offering in 2011, but SanDisk wants its technology for its own lineup of storage products rather than its business sense. SanDisk is using Fusion-io NAND memory chips to build and sell its own solid-state drives. The flash drives are more profitable than SanDisk's traditional business of selling memory chips for smartphones and cameras. SanDisk was starting to position itself as an enterprise storage company and Fusion-io helps that happen quickly. SanDisk Chief Executive Officer Sanjay Mehrotra said Fusion-io does not buy chips from SanDisk but it will after the deal is complete. He added that vertical integration is really key to winning in the enterprise storage market. Which is fair enough we always found it difficult to do much when we were horizontal. Flash drives are also being adopted by data centres, a market where SanDisk competes with rivals such as Western Digital. SanDisk's offer of $11.25 per share is 21 percent of Fusion-io's shareprice but is 40 percent less than Fusion-io's IPO price of $19 in 2011. Fusion-io's customers include Apple and employs Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak as chief scientist. It is SanDisk's fifth acquisition in enterprise storage, the most recent being its $307 million purchase of SMART Storage Systems last July. Fusion-io helped pioneer high-end solid-state storage technology but struggled to find customers beyond a few large companies running big data centres.     |
| Apple finally settles on book cartel case Posted: 17 Jun 2014 03:29 AM PDT The fruity maker of the rounded rectangle has reached a somewhat strange settlement with US states and other complainants in an e-book price-fixing class action lawsuit. The move will mean that Apple will avoid a trial in which it faced more than $800 million in claims. However the cargo cult still does not appear to have admitted that it is guilty of running a cartel to increase the price of books. It has made the agreement as a backup if it fails to win its appeal. US District Judge in Manhattan Denise Cote found that Apple took part in a price-fixing conspiracy to fight online retailer Amazon.com Inc's dominance in the e-book market. Apple is appealing that decision and the new settlement is contingent on the outcome of that appeal. Steve Berman of Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, the plaintiffs' lead lawyer, told the judge that any payment to be made by Apple under the settlement agreement will be contingent on the outcome of that appeal. So in other words if it wins its appeal it will not have to pay anything. The judge has ordered the parties to submit a filing to seek approval of their settlement within 30 days. The US Department of Justice sued Apple and five publishers in April 2012, accusing them of working together illegally to increase e-book prices. Apple has refused to admit that it has done anything wrong and got antsy if anyone said it did. Some of it might be due to the fact that the whole thing was dreamed up by Steve Jobs who in Apple lore is truly perfect and loves users. The complainants are seeking up to $840 million in damages for e-book customers. The exact amount of damages was to be decided at a trial scheduled for July 14. Apple's co-conspirators, Hachette Book Group, HarperCollins Publishers, Penguin Group (USA), Macmillan and Simon & Schuster, previously agreed to pay more than $166 million to settle related antitrust charges.     |
| You are subscribed to email updates from TechEye - Latest technology headlines To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
| Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610 | |
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.