TechEye |  |
- Evil Jane Austin recruited by hackers
- Twitter shares fall
- You can’t hold a candle to this recharger
- Citrix surrenders to the House of Elliot
- Intel-Micron announce 3D XPoint SCM technology
- Microsoft jumps on internet of things bandwagon
- Semiconductor vendors seeing vehicle sales boom
- Workstation sales fall
- Internet of things generates rash of software vendors
| Evil Jane Austin recruited by hackers Posted: 29 Jul 2015 02:04 AM PDT
Hackers are nicking text from the 19th century classic novel writer Jane Austin to spread malicious software. According to Cisco, literary passages are becoming a new way to hide malicious code that allow hackers unlawful entry into computers and networks. We are not sure why, reading Jane Austin is not something one does willingly. But clearly Cisco thinks that adding passages of classic text to an exploit kit landing page is a more effective confusion technique than the traditional approach of using random text. We do not know much about him as to all that. But he is a pleasant, good humoured fellow, and has got the nicest little black bitch of a pointer I ever saw, someone once said. “The use of text from more contemporary works such as magazines and blogs is another effective strategy. Antivirus and other security solutions are more likely to categorise the webpage as legitimate after ‘reading’ such text.” Cisco researchers said facing references to Austen characters normally from Sense and Sensibly on a webpage “may be perplexing but not a cause for immediate concern.”" Jason Brvenik, a Cisco engineer, said it remains a mystery about who is behind the literary hacking or why that novel was chosen over others. “It is a seemingly random selection but it always from that book,” he told AFP. Hackers can deliver various malicious “payloads” through these tools, according to Cisco, including “ransomware,” a growing technique that locks a user’s files unless a ransom is paid.        |
| Posted: 29 Jul 2015 01:38 AM PDT
Jack Dorsey, who stepped in as interim chief executive on July 1, said that the figures were unacceptable and he was unhappy with them. He would have said more but it would have gone over the number of characters he was allowed to use. Twitter has 304 million core users in the second quarter, up from 302 million in the prior quarter. But Twitter’s struggles to increase its audience worries investors. The company has to keep growing to interest them. The data on users overshadowed the company’s second-quarter earnings and revenue, which exceeded expectations, and its bullish projections for future revenue. Chief Financial Officer Anthony Noto said that he did not expect to see continued growth in monthly active users until Twitter reaches the mass market. Twitter shares lost more than 11 percent. All this seems a bit unfair. Total revenue rose 61 percent to $502.4 million. Excluding the impact of a strong dollar, revenue rose 68 percent. Advertising revenue rose 63 percent to $452 million. Excluding the impact of the dollar, advertising revenue was up 71 percent. Twitter estimated full-year revenue of $2.20 billion-$2.27 billion, up from its previous forecast of $2.17 billion-$2.27 billion. Chief Executive Dick Costolo abruptly announced in June that he was stepping down, which given the figures is starting to make a bit of sense. Two other executives have also gone. Todd Jackson, a product manager, will move to Dropbox, and Christian Oestlien, vice president of product management, will join YouTube.     |
| You can’t hold a candle to this recharger Posted: 29 Jul 2015 01:36 AM PDT
Andrew Burns of California startup Stower to develop the candle charger using therm-oelectrics, which have been around since the early 1800s. Burns' method basically involves lightomg a candle, fill a device with water, and you have a charger. “So the way thermo-electric generators work is you have a hot plate and a cold plate and you smash these generators together and it’s that temperature difference, it creates a diffusion of energy from the hot side to the cold side.” That diffusion throw out between two to three watts, about the same amount of power derived from a USB port – perfect for charging smartphones and tablets. In an emergency situation and a small amount of energy can go a long way, says Burns. The company has developed a similar device to charge phones over a campfire which is handy if you are out and about in nature or your house is on fire. The company is working on developing a charger for stove tops in Guatemala as part of a push to expand their business and provide sustainable micro-energy solutions in emerging markets. Stower has raised nearly $27,000 on Kickstarter for the candle charger with 30 days left in the campaign.     |
| Citrix surrenders to the House of Elliot Posted: 29 Jul 2015 01:35 AM PDT
Not only is it letting the House of Elliott's Jesse Cohn onto its board, Chief Executive Mark Templeton has decided it is a good time to retire. Elliott owns about 7.5 percent of Citrix’s stock and has been vocal about the company selling family silver slashing costs, buying back shares so shareholders can make tubs of money. Cohn will replace Asiff Hirji who would step down, effective immediately. The company also agreed to search for another independent board member, mutually agreeable to Citrix and Elliott, who will replace a current board member when appointed. Citrix said its board has formed an operations committee, which will work closely with management to focus on improving the company’s margins, profitability and capital structure. Templeton will continue to serve as president and CEO until a successor was appointed. Citrix’s shares have been underperforming for the last six years. For the second quarter of fiscal year 2015, Citrix achieved revenue of $797 million, compared to $782 million in the second quarter of fiscal year 2014, representing two percent revenue growth. Templeton has been carrying out a huge restructuring but it did not do that much. We guess asset stripping was seen as a better option.     |
| Intel-Micron announce 3D XPoint SCM technology Posted: 28 Jul 2015 10:52 AM PDT
Rob Crooke, Senior VP & GM of the Non-Volatile Memory (NVM) Solutions Group, Intel Corporation and Mark Durcan, CEO Micron Technology took the stage to present the jointly developed 3D XPoint memory technology. The 300 mm wafer shown in the presentation was produced at Micron's Lehi, Utah fab. The new devices are debuting as 128Gb, 2 Layer, Byte Addressable devices that use "bulk material property change" process – availability is limited to what's "in (joint) production facility today" though 2016 was stated by Durcan. The 3D XPoint technology is 1,000 times faster than Flash, 1,000 times the duration of Flash and 10 times the density of DRAM. The new technology has been widely circulating as "Persistent Memory" and "Storage Class Memory" until now and has been widely speculated upon. One interesting quote, "no other competitors have the technology" indicates that Intel-Micron has scooped their competition in the cloud access storage marketplace.
Cross Point Array Structure Stackable Selector Fast Switching Cell Fast Switching Cell Byte Addressable Data TechEye Take This announcement was evidently rushed in order to beat the pre Flash Memory Summit press announcements next week – and they "blew the socks off the competition" according to one analyst source. Over 100 engineers have been involved in these well camouflaged developments which indicate the companies have spent in the billions of dollars on this program. Oh, and 3D Xpoint use Micron's planar process indicating that the technology is near term to production. There is no mention made of TSV stacking but from all indications this technology will enter the market as stacked devices. From what we can ascertain this technology is in "rollout" – we expect production volumes ramping much sooner than might usually be expected. The "bulk material property change" provides no indication about process details. Connecting the memory elements with their bit-lines remains unclear – whether it's a diode switching element or an Ovonic Switch remains to be revealed. In fact all the good questions remain unanswered – more fodder for later.     |
| Microsoft jumps on internet of things bandwagon Posted: 28 Jul 2015 07:33 AM PDT
That's according to Richard Edwards, principle research analyst at Ovum. He said that vendors of desktops, notebooks and tablet computers hope Windows 10 will bring back people who have endured "the Windows 8 debacle". But Microsoft, said Edwards – while it is hoping Windows 10 will do well too – doesn't care about the mobile operating systems market. Instead, he said: "It's about gaining a strong foothold in the next multibillion dollar market, the internet of things". Microsoft wants to provide an OS and services for "things" that aren't PCs, tablets or smartphones. Satya Nadella, the Microsoft CEO, is "cloud savvy" and has developed three flavours of Windows 10. One is aimed at IoT for devices using X86 or ARM chips, 256MB of memory, 2GB storage and with universal apps and drivers; one for mobile devices using ARM chips; and one for industry devices. He said: "Microsoft continues to remind partners and device builders that Windows IoT is free for small devices and is urging manufacturers to consider the Windows operating systems as they build their new, intelligent, connected devices." Apparently it wants companies making micro kiosks, industrial machines, robots and medical devices to adopt Windows 10. And then Microsoft has Azure IoT services. "Microsoft clearly understands that many paths will open up along the IoT value chain, so it is building a range of components that partners can combine, enhance and extend as the market evolves," he said.     |
| Semiconductor vendors seeing vehicle sales boom Posted: 28 Jul 2015 06:38 AM PDT
While sales of cars in China aren't as buoyant as they were, better performing semiconductors will be needed now and in the future, according to US research company IHS. Revenues from semiconductors in the motor business amounted to $5.6 billion in 2014 and will grow by nearly 11 percent this year. Alex Liu, a semiconductors analyst for IHS, said: "There is increasing auto industry focus on power efficiency and green energy, as well as the pursuit of greater safety and a better overall driving experience. For that reason, more and higher performance semiconductors will be required in automotive applications, like direct injection systems in power engines, advanced driver assistance systems and safety applications." The leader in 2014 was Freescale, with 15.5 percent of the market, followed by ST Microelectronics (14%) and NXP Semiconductors (12%). Home grown vendors are strong in the so-called "infotainment" sector, said IHS. Nevertheless the Chinese government is determined to rely less and less on overseas vendors and is plunging billions into developing its own semiconductor industry.     |
| Posted: 28 Jul 2015 06:29 AM PDT
And market research company IDC said the fall will be as much as 5.2 percent for the whole year. The reason appears to be twofold, according to Mohamed Hefny, a senior analyst for IDC system and infrastructure. He said: "The decline in euro value is increasing the risk sentiments, putting weight on the channel business, especially when it comes to US based vendors. Very large businesses are also under corporate debt pressure, opting for extension of maintenance and support instead of refreshing with new boxes." But there appears to be light at the end of the workstation tunnel. Hefny said sales will rebound in 2016 by as much as 10.7 percent, partly due to the launch of machines using Intel's Skylake chips and the introduction of Windows 10. He said vendors are planning water cooled systems for desktop workstations, and strengthening their channel plans with better support and incentives.     |
| Internet of things generates rash of software vendors Posted: 28 Jul 2015 06:20 AM PDT
But, according to Laurie Wurster, a research director at Gartner, failure to put a LEM system in place will mean a 20 percent drop in revenues. Wurster said that vendors of "things" aren't thinking out of the box and haven't yet realised the revenue opportunities of licensing software. She said: "By monetising the software on their devices, these vendors will be able to increase and drive recurring revenue streams, creating billions of dollars of addition value. With an estimated 25 plus billion 'things' in the marketplace, if manufacturers are able to collect an average of $5 from each of these installed units, that translates to additional revenue estimated at $130 billion." She said that software controlled configuration gives vendors more flexibility to develop niches for different countries without needing to make separate product stock keeping units. But Gartner thinks the overwhelming majority of device manufacturers don't have commercial LEM systems.     |
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