Mikael Ricknäs
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Mikael Ricknäs
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Xperia Z4 launch reflects Sony’s timidity in smartphones
Sony’s decision to launch its new high-end smartphone, the Xperia Z4, only in Japan, shows its hesitancy about this market and puts into question its commitment to it.Monday’s introduction of the Xperia Z4 stands in stark contrast to the arrival of competing products like the HTC One M9 or the Galaxy S6 and S6 edge from Samsung Electronics, which were launched with much fanfare at Mobile World Congress. And when LG premiers the G4 on April 28, it will do so at events around the world.But considering the very challenging position Sony’s smartphone business has found itself in, the low-key unveiling doesn’t come as a shock.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Spec showdown: Samsung Galaxy S6 vs. Huawei P8
The Samsung Galaxy S6 is now the benchmark for high-end smartphones running Android, but there are lots of challengers, including the new P8 from Huawei Technologies.The two smartphone vendors have had many of the same goals when building their respective smartphones, including improving the looks and the cameras. But there are still differences that will likely sway you one way or the other. Here’s a spec comparison between the phones:DesignA more premium design has been a common theme for this year’s launches of high-end smartphones. In this regard, both Huawei and Samsung have succeeded. The P8 has a metal unibody design and the Galaxy S6 combines a metal frame with a glass back. They are both good-looking devices, but neither design is very original. The P8 looks a little bland because Huawei doesn’t put its logo on the front.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Microsoft to integrate Skype, Office with Cyanogen’s version of Android
Microsoft’s mobile apps will be integrated into a future version of Cyanogen’s Android-based operating system, as CEO Satya Nadella steps up efforts to make the company’s software more popular on Google’s platform.Cyanogen and Microsoft announced a partnership on Thursday that will result in Bing search, Skype, OneDrive, OneNote, Outlook, and Microsoft Office becoming part of the Cyanogen OS, which uses a heavily modified version of the Android interface.Exactly what this will look like remains to be seen, but Microsoft said it will create “native integrations” with Cyanogen’s operating system. That hints at integration that goes beyond pre-installed apps and well-placed icons.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Huawei’s P8 and P8max get all-metal designs, improved camera
Huawei Technologies is betting its all-metal P8 and the P8max will help the company make further inroads into the high end of the smartphone market.Following in the footsteps of the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge from Samsung Electronics and the HTC One M9 is no easy feat, but Huawei is hoping it has developed a product that can compete with those devices.The P8 has a 5.2-inch, 1080-by-1920-pixel screen and is powered by a HiSilicon Kirin 64-bit processor with eight cores running at 1.5GHz or 2GHz. It has 16GB or 64GB of integrated storage and 3GB of RAM. The integrated storage can be expanded using a microSD card.Huawei has also worked to make the P8 look more premium. The device has an all-aluminum unibody that’s just 6.4 millimeters thick.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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VMware helps CIOs tunnel their way to more secure mobile apps
VMware is combining iOS and Android encryption features with its own network virtualization platform to offer more secure access to enterprise applications and resources.Today, organizations typically provide mobile users access through a secure VPN gateway connection into the data center where applications and data reside.But while this perimeter-based approach secures the communication, it doesn’t protect against attacks that hack remote employees and use their secure connections. Once inside, hackers can move between workloads in the data center with few controls to block propagation, according to VMware.VMware contends it can solve this problem in a way that’s easier to manage than VLANs through what the company calls network micro-segmentation in the data center. That means that at the network level users can only access their own resources from a smartphone or tablet, limiting what they as well an enterprising hacker can do.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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VMware helps CIOs tunnel their way to more secure mobile apps
VMware is combining iOS and Android encryption features with its own network virtualization platform to offer more secure access to enterprise applications and resources.Today, organizations typically provide mobile users access through a secure VPN gateway connection into the data center where applications and data reside.But while this perimeter-based approach secures the communication, it doesn’t protect against attacks that hack remote employees and use their secure connections. Once inside, hackers can move between workloads in the data center with few controls to block propagation, according to VMware.VMware contends it can solve this problem in a way that’s easier to manage than VLANs through what the company calls network micro-segmentation in the data center. That means that at the network level users can only access their own resources from a smartphone or tablet, limiting what they as well an enterprising hacker can do.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Nokia wants to buy Alcatel-Lucent, seeking growth and integration of fixed and mobile
Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent are in advanced merger talks, the companies confirmed Tuesday following media speculation that a deal was in the works.The talks could still fall apart, but a deal is on the table that would see Nokia acquire Alcatel-Lucent in a stock swap, the companies said.A merger would give the combined entity a broader product portfolio and greater scale, but would bring its own challenges.It makes sense for Nokia, a mobile broadband specialist, to merge with Alcatel-Lucent, which has a strong position in fixed networks, according to Mark Newman, chief research officer of Ovum’s telecoms research business.As mobile and fixed networks become increasingly integrated, not having the latter is becoming a disadvantage for Nokia, Newman said. The growing worldwide popularity of smartphones has increased the focus on mobile networks, but fixed broadband networks are still needed to deliver high-resolution video content and to provide backhaul for Wi-Fi networks in homes. The integration of Alcatel-Lucent’s fixed offering with the best parts of the two companies’ respective mobile offerings could in that regard be a boon for end-users, he said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Nokia wants to buy Alcatel-Lucent, seeking growth and integration of fixed and mobile
Nokia and Alcatel-Lucent are in advanced merger talks, the companies confirmed Tuesday following media speculation that a deal was in the works.The talks could still fall apart, but a deal is on the table that would see Nokia acquire Alcatel-Lucent in a stock swap, the companies said.A merger would give the combined entity a broader product portfolio and greater scale, but would bring its own challenges.It makes sense for Nokia, a mobile broadband specialist, to merge with Alcatel-Lucent, which has a strong position in fixed networks, according to Mark Newman, chief research officer of Ovum’s telecoms research business.As mobile and fixed networks become increasingly integrated, not having the latter is becoming a disadvantage for Nokia, Newman said. The growing worldwide popularity of smartphones has increased the focus on mobile networks, but fixed broadband networks are still needed to deliver high-resolution video content and to provide backhaul for Wi-Fi networks in homes. The integration of Alcatel-Lucent’s fixed offering with the best parts of the two companies’ respective mobile offerings could in that regard be a boon for end-users, he said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Up against laws of physics, Bell Labs pushes network performance
By using more spectrum and developing new ways to send multiple channels of data at the same time, researchers at Bell Labs are working to increase bandwidths over fiber, copper and the air.Alcatel-Lucent’s Bell Labs celebrated its Nobel Laureates and gave a sneak peek at some of the projects that are part of its vision for networks in 2020 at an event on Wednesday.Because most network technologies have hit or are very close to the limit of what can be transferred over one channel, increasing speeds is getting more complicated. But Bell Labs President Marcus Weldon is convinced there is still room for major improvements.Part of Bell Labs’ plan for 5G is a pint-sized base station, or small cell, that can generate its own power by using solar energy or energy harvesting. The power consumption of current equipment has to come down for this to work, according to Weldon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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LG wants your help to hype its G4 smartphone
LG Electronics is recruiting an army of social media users to test and talk up the company’s new G4 smartphone ahead of its official launch on April 28.By offering 4,000 people a G4 for 30 days, the company hopes to create some buzz around its new device as flagship devices from its rivals Samsung Electronics and HTC go on sale.The Consumer Experience Campaign kicks off in South Korea on Wednesday, and will then expand to Turkey, Indonesia, Singapore, U.S., China, India, Brazil, Canada, U.K., France, Germany, Mexico, Japan and Hong Kong, LG said.Exactly how the company will choose the testers is unclear, but interested users are encouraged to check local LG webpages and social media sites in the coming days for more details on how to participate. The chosen will be given a G4 for up to 30 days, it said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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AWS targets interrupted sessions with virtual desktops upgrade
Amazon Web Services has made its WorkSpaces virtual desktops less annoying to use with a feature that resumes the previous session after it detects an interruption.Today, if users close a laptop lid or lose the network connection, their session will be interrupted and they may be disconnected and have to log back in. But thanks to the auto session resume feature, that’ll be a thing of the past.It might seem like a small upgrade. But if Amazon wants the use of its WorkSpaces to take off on a larger scale, it’s small things like that it has to get right. The default time for resuming a session is 20 minutes, but it can be extended to a maximum of four hours or disabled by the administrator.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Infinit speeds up video, photo sharing via smartphones
French company Infinit has released Android and iOS applications for free file-sharing that promise improved transmission speeds over cloud-based services.High-resolution smartphone cameras that can shoot 4K videos means that such a service is needed on mobile devices, Infinit said in a blog post on Tuesday. There are already apps for Mac OS and Windows.All the apps are free and there is no limit on file sizes or types that can be transferred. There are two ways to share files. Recipients who have the one of the apps installed get a notification they have to accept. It’s also possible to share content with users who don’t have the apps; they get a link to download it from via email.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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LG may introduce leather-covered flagship smartphone at April 28 event
LG Electronics is expected to introduce its next high-end smartphone on April 28, and has hinted that the back of the device will be covered in leather.In the light of the growing focus on looks at the recent Mobile World Congress, it wouldn’t be surprising if LG uses better materials for the successor to the G3, which is expected to be called the G4. The invite for April 28 that the company sent out on Tuesday just said “save the date” and “see the Great”, but the text is written over a leather back with stitching on one side.LG wouldn’t be the first to offer leather or faux leather as an alternative. Real leather is an option on Motorola Mobility’s Moto Maker customization service, and Samsung Electronics uses faux leather on the back of the Galaxy Note 4.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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BlackBerry shocks with Q4 profit but CEO Chen can’t stop sales slide
BlackBerry surprised Wall Street by getting its bottom line back into the black in the fourth quarter, but sales shrunk significantly again, putting in question CEO John Chen’s assertion that the company’s turnaround is on track.BlackBerry is trying to become less dependent on hardware, counting instead on software such as the BES12 enterprise mobile management platform, which can be used to manage not only the company’s devices but also iOS, Android and Windows Phone smartphones.During the quarter, which ended Feb. 28, software revenue grew 24 percent on a sequential basis and 20 percent year-on-year to US$67 million, the company said Friday morning before the U.S. financial markets opened.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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BlackBerry shocks with Q4 profit but CEO Chen can’t stop sales slide
BlackBerry surprised Wall Street by getting its bottom line back into the black in the fourth quarter, but sales shrunk significantly again, putting in question CEO John Chen’s assertion that the company’s turnaround is on track.BlackBerry is trying to become less dependent on hardware, counting instead on software such as the BES12 enterprise mobile management platform, which can be used to manage not only the company’s devices but also iOS, Android and Windows Phone smartphones.During the quarter, which ended Feb. 28, software revenue grew 24 percent on a sequential basis and 20 percent year-on-year to US$67 million, the company said Friday morning before the U.S. financial markets opened.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Microsoft wants to make Powerpoint more Web-friendly, buys LiveLoop
Microsoft has acquired LiveLoop and its technology for sharing PowerPoint presentations online more easily.The software giant didn’t reveal any financial details, but confirmed the deal via email saying the team from LiveLoop will help build great collaboration across Office applications, as part of the company’s strategy to reinvent productivity.Beyond that, MIcrosoft isn’t revealing what it plans to do with LiveLoop. The acquisition, however, fits well with its plan to make its applications and services available on as many devices as possible irrespective of the OS.LiveLoop’s technology converts PowerPoint files into URLs that can be viewed from computers and smartphones without installing any software, according to the company’s website.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Cheap mobile subscriptions the bait as Euro operators become more aggressive
Consumers seem to be coming out on top as a growing number of European telecom and cable operators offer discounted mobile subscriptions as a bonus for choosing other services.Bundles with broadband, telephony and TV across fixed and mobile networks are becoming increasingly important for operators across the continent. The latest example is British operator BT, which on Wednesday announced its return to the consumer mobile market.The expressed goal is to offer the best-value, 4G SIM-only mobile deals as a reward for its broadband customers. The cheapest plan costs £5 (US$7.40) per month and includes 500MB of data, unlimited texts and 200 voice minutes. BT’s broadband subscribers can also choose a plan with 2GB of data, unlimited texts and 500 voice minutes for £12 per month, the operator said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Cheap mobile subscriptions the bait as Euro operators become more aggressive
Consumers seem to be coming out on top as a growing number of European telecom and cable operators offer discounted mobile subscriptions as a bonus for choosing other services.Bundles with broadband, telephony and TV across fixed and mobile networks are becoming increasingly important for operators across the continent. The latest example is British operator BT, which on Wednesday announced its return to the consumer mobile market.The expressed goal is to offer the best-value, 4G SIM-only mobile deals as a reward for its broadband customers. The cheapest plan costs £5 (US$7.40) per month and includes 500MB of data, unlimited texts and 200 voice minutes. BT’s broadband subscribers can also choose a plan with 2GB of data, unlimited texts and 500 voice minutes for £12 per month, the operator said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Apple database acquisition could help improve performance of its services
Apple has reportedly acquired database company FoundationDB, a move that would allow the company to improve the underpinnings of its existing services and also lay the groundwork for an Internet of Things (IoT) expansion.Asked to confirm the deal, first reported by TechCrunch, Apple responded by saying that it from time to time buys smaller companies but doesn’t discuss its plans. On its part, FoundationDB said that it will no longer offer downloads of its database, and that “we have made the decision to evolve our company mission.”Apple could use FoundationDB’s technology to improve the performance of its own infrastructure. The reported acquisition comes just a couple of months after FoundationDB announced a major upgrade of its flagship NoSQL database. The database was redesigned to handle millions of random writes per second and make it a better fit for IoT systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
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Despite its design, One M9 unlikely to be HTC’s knight in shining armor
The One M9 may be a knockout, but it’s not likely to save HTC. The device looks similar to its predecessor at a time when competitors have multiplied and stepped up their game, making it even harder for the struggling company to make a mark in the high-end segment.Design has, since the launch of the first One model, been HTC’s biggest strength. The One M9, however, doesn’t have the same wow factor as its predecessors since the design is no longer as groundbreaking.“To most consumers the One M9 will look almost identical to the One M8, which preceded it, and that’s a big challenge for HTC,” said Ben Wood, chief of research at CCS Insight.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here