Mikael Ricknäs, Author at NetworkingNexus.net

Mikael Ricknäs

Author Archives: Mikael Ricknäs

Ericsson’s next-gen LTE targets faster mobile networks and IoT

Ericsson is working on LTE with faster upload speeds, as well as using unlicensed spectrum to speed up downloads and customizing the technology for Internet of Things applications.The Swedish telecom equipment vendor is showing off some of the developments at the CTIA Super Mobility conference next week in Las Vegas.5G will likely be one of the hottest topics at CTIA, but LTE still has lots mileage left -- after all, the first two letters stand for Long Term. And it’s a lot easier to upgrade an existing network than roll out a new one.One of the more contentious upgrades is using unlicensed spectrum for LTE. Detractors fear it will affect Wi-Fi performance, which uses the same frequencies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 820 processor gets technology to secure Android phones

Qualcomm is promising to improve security and privacy on high-end smartphones with Snapdragon Smart Protect, which uses on-device machine learning to help detect zero-day malware.The popularity of smartphones has started to catch the imagination of hackers, resulting in the need for better protection. Qualcomm’s latest contribution is Snapdragon Smart Protect, which the company announced on Monday.Smart Protect looks at what’s going on in the smartphone and warns about what it thinks are abnormal behaviors to protect users. At its most basic, that could be an application that takes a photo even though the display is off or an application sending an SMS without any user interaction. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Most allegations against Julian Assange are dropped, but rape investigation remains

The Swedish Prosecution Authority has dropped the investigation of WikiLeaks front-man Julian Assange for sexual molestation and two unlawful coercion allegations, but it still has a rape allegation to investigate.The charges were dropped because the statute of limitations will run out on in the next week, Marianne Ny, director of public prosecution said in a statement. Assange can be prosecuted for the rape allegation until August 2020.[ ALSO ON CSO: Was LulzSec bust part of a play against Julian Assange? ]To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Symantec finally sells Veritas for $8 billion to investment group

Symantec is selling its information management business, known as Veritas, to an investor group led by The Carlyle Group for US$8 billion as it looks to increase its focus on security.The sale is something Symantec has been working on for the better part of a year. The group buying Veritas also includes GIC, Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, and other expected co-investors, Symantec said on Tuesday. Upon closing of the transaction, Symantec expects to receive about $6.3 billion in net cash.The plan is to return some of the proceeds to shareholders while also giving development of security products and services a cash injection. Like most areas of IT, security is going though a major change thanks to the growing popularity of cloud services.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Qualcomm bets on superfast broadband over copper with latest acquisition

Qualcomm has entered into an agreement to acquire Ikanos Communications in order to speed up its efforts to build home gateways with integrated support for G.fast, which promises to offer hundreds of megabit per second over copper.If all goes according to plan, Ikanos will become part of the company’s Qualcomm Atheros subsidiary. Qualcomm seems keen on getting Ikanos, because it’s paying US$2.75 per share, compared to the $1.75 Ikanos’ shares were worth at the close of the market on Wednesday.Qualcomm’s plan is to combine its own Wi-Fi, powerline, small cell, and ethernet chipsets with Ikanos wired modem technology to create a more complete offering for home gateway products, it said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

EFF-led group wants to give do-not-track some bite

For years now, checking the “do-not-track” option on your browser has been little more than wishful thinking on the part of users who care about privacy online. But now a group led by the Electronic Frontier Foundation is looking to make that a more meaningful action.The EFF and others have published a standard policy it hopes advertisers, analytics companies and publishers will adopt in order to respect the wishes of users who don’t want to be tracked online. Getting the support needed to make a real difference will be an uphill battle, they acknowledge.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

EFF-led group wants to give do-not-track some bite

Five smartphones to look forward to

If you’re planning to buy a new smartphone this year, but haven’t bought one yet it might be better to wait a bit longer: Apple, Samsung Electronics and OnePlus are all expected to launch new models in the next couple of months.Here are some of the models you should see during the second half of the year:OnePlus 2While most of the products on this list (and their specs) are just rumors, Chinese smartphone maker OnePlus has been busy detailing its 2 model, which will be launched on July 27.So far, OnePlus has revealed the phone will have a fingerprint sensor and be powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 810. The company is using an upgraded version of the processor, v2.1, that isn’t susceptible to the overheating issues that the first version reportedly suffered from, it said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Five smartphones to look forward to

Gartner lowers its IT spending forecast, but says activity remains high

Worldwide IT spending is expected to decline by 5.5 percent this year, with enterprises benefitting from lower prices on communications and IT services but also having to pay higher hardware prices in some parts of the world.Market research company Gartner revised its spending forecast downward on Tuesday: In April, it said IT spending in 2015 would decline 1.3 percent compared to last year.But numbers can sometimes be deceptive; IT activity is stronger than the spending indicates, according to John-David Lovelock, research vice president at Gartner. Price declines in segments like communications and IT services, and the move to cloud-based services, mask an increase in activity, he said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5G networks look to new frequencies to deliver gigabit speeds

If operators are to build 5G mobile networks with download speeds at 10Gbps and above, they are going to need a lot more spectrum—but getting it won’t be easy.The amount of spectrum allocated to 5G will determine how fast networks based on the technology will eventually become. Until recently, only frequencies below 6GHz have been considered for mobile networks, mostly because they are good for covering large areas. But there’s now a growing need to unlock new spectrum bands in the 6GHz to 100GHz range too, attendees at the LTE and 5G World Summit conferences in Amsterdam heard this week.The use of spectrum in these bands is immensely important for 5G networks to be able to offer multiple gigabits per second, Robert DiFazio, chief engineer at wireless R&D company InterDigital Communications, said. By raising communication speeds, they are also expected to help lower latency in mobile networks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Fingerprint sensors on their way to more smartphones

Fingerprint authentication will become a lot more common on smartphones of all prices as sensors get cheaper—and Google’s integration of the technology in the next version of Android will make it much easier for app developers and service providers to make use of them.Today, fingerprint sensors are mainly available on high-end models from Apple and Samsung Electronics. But that is about to change, according to sensor manufacturers Synaptics and Fingerprint Cards.Fingerprint Cards has seen a growing interest in its technology from smartphone manufacturers in recent months, as well as a strong increase in orders. As a result, the company has raised its revenue estimate for the year from about 1.5 billion Swedish kronor (US$185 million) to 2.2 billion Swedish kronor.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

VMware’s Identity Manager offers authentication for Web, native apps

VMware is hoping to convince CIOs to centralize single sign-on access to all kinds of apps with Identity Manager, which can run in the cloud or on-site and also offers application provisioning and a self-service catalog.For better or worse, the switch to cloud-based services on a larger scale and the introduction of bring-your-own devices is forcing enterprises to rethink most aspects of how IT is run. Part of that change is how users are authenticated and given access to applications.The transformation from a client-server, perimeter-based infrastructure to a cloud-based model requires taking on systems outside of the firewall, according to VMware. To help tackle this, the company has launched Identity Manager. Enterprises can choose between an on-site version of the software or a cloud-based service hosted on vCloud Air. The initial launch uses U.S. data centers, but hosting in European and Asia Pacific regions will be offered from the third quarter.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Want an easily repaired smartphone? Fairphone 2 might be for you

Fairphone, the Dutch company that aims to sell socially responsible smartphones, is working on a second model that be repaired with little hassle and won’t easily break. The company is also sticking with its goal of using conflict-free or fair trade minerals.One of the company’s key aims with the Fairphone 2 was to extend the longevity of the product.Making it easy to repair is part of that. For example, it will be possible to replace the display on the Fairphone 2 in less than a minute, the company promises. After removing the case and battery, the two clips that lock the display in place are slid towards each other, and then the entire unit can be taken out, CTO Olivier Hebert said in a blog post on Tuesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

GSM switch off good news for phone users, not for connected devices

Carriers around the world are converging on 2017 as the year to turn off their GSM networks, with three operators in Singapore announcing Monday their plans to reuse their GSM spectrum for other services.The end of GSM will free up more bandwidth for faster 3G and 4G network technologies—but will also force users of older connected devices that depend on GSM networks to upgrade or replace them.On Monday Singaporean operators M1, Singtel and StarHub became the latest operators to set a timetable for turning off their GSM networks. They will do so on April 1, 2017, following in the footsteps of Telstra in Australia, which plans to do so by the end of 2016, and AT&T in the U.S, which will flip the switch on Jan. 1, 2017.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Amazon boosts cloud offerings with souped-up virtual servers

Amazon Web Services has launched new, more powerful general-purpose and data-warehouse virtual servers as it works to stay ahead of the competition by offering users a wider array of cloud-service options.Amazon has had a busy week, expanding its portfolio on Tuesday and Thursday with new virtual servers, or "instances," for its public cloud.The M4 family is Amazon's latest generation of EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) general purpose instances. There are five sizes to choose among, each with up to 40 virtual CPUs and 172GB of system memory, Amazon said on Thursday.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: How to build a private cloud The top size costs users from US$2.52 per hour when they pay on an on-demand basis. The smallest size costs $0.126 per hour and has 2 virtual CPUs and 8.6GB of system memory.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

LTE subscriptions to surpass 1 billion this year

The number of LTE subscriptions will pass 1 billion before the end of the year, prompting operators to invest in technologies such as small cells to keep up.There will be nearly 1.37 billion 4G LTE subscribers around the world by year-end, up from nearly 650 million in 2014, according to market research company ABI Research. LTE’s growing popularity is helped by a number of things: mobile operators including the technology in more of their plans, cheaper LTE smartphones and aggressive network expansions in countries like China.LTE is being rapidly embraced in North America, Japan and South Korea where it’ll be included in a majority of subscriptions this year, according to telecommunications equipment maker Ericsson, which last week published a report on its expectations for future mobile growth.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Chip vendors work to make Bluetooth perfect fit for IoT

Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) has become a key building block for the Internet of Things, and chip makers are working to make it an even better fit by using the technology to further reduce power consumption of devices and helping developers implement it.Applications have been a key ingredient in making smartphones a huge success. Vendors are hoping to repeat that recipe for IoT, with semiconductor companies such as ST Microelectronics coming up with tools to make BLE, a set of specifications for reduced-power wireless networking, easier for developers to use.ST has launched an offering for voice over BLE, which includes the necessary software, components and development tools to integrate voice control in wearables and home-automation systems. Voice control can aid battery life by minimizing touchscreen usage, while improving ease-of-use, according to ST.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Five things Apple is doing to please developers

Apple had lots to offer developers at this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference keynote. Headline improvements included a new version of the soon to be open sourced Swift programming language and upgraded frameworks for creating more advanced Watch apps.Developers have played a key part in making Apple the hugely successful company it is today, and with the announcements made in San Francisco on Monday the company hoped to lay the groundwork for developers to be more effective and build better apps. The company’s developer programs were merged into a single one, called the Apple Developer program, but that was just the start:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Life gets tougher for alternative mobile OSes Tizen, Firefox and Ubuntu

The future doesn’t look very bright right now for alternative mobile operating systems Firefox OS, Tizen and Ubuntu.It’s always been difficult to attract developers to these platforms, and now smartphones powered by the OSes are also falling behind affordable Android devices on hardware specs. So not only must their users put up with a smaller selection of apps, but also with less powerful devices.Struggling to compete with Apple in the high-end of the smartphone market, the Android camp has increasingly turned its attention to mid-range and low-end products. While this has been good for consumers looking for more affordable products, it has turned up the competitive heat on Firefox OS, Tizen and Ubuntu.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

1 2 3 … 6 Next »