Can a Chinese PC vendor learn to be cool?On Thursday, Lenovo, a maker of business laptops, tried to answer that question. It brought out dance club music, a Chinese movie actress, and a retired NBA player at a company event that hailed Lenovo’s new logo.“Users need cooler, more innovative devices,” said its CEO Yang Yuanqing, while speaking at the Beijing event. “The devices need to be more capable, fashionable, and they need to have personality.”At a time when tech companies are all targeting young consumers, Lenovo is hoping it can hang around with the cool kids. The vendor is more focused on consumers than ever, in its bid to rise to the heights of Apple and Samsung, and lead in the tech market.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple has taken a big step into augmented reality by acquiring Metaio, a German company whose technology has been used by Macy’s, BMW and furniture retailer Ikea.Augmented reality systems add information to a user’s view of the world to help them do things like work, shop or drive. Whereas virtual reality makes it look like you’re in a different place, AR allows you to be more informed about your actual surroundings.BMW has demonstrated glasses that display navigation data and other travel information, and link up with cameras on the outside of a car, to let a driver see “through” the vehicle for tasks like parking. A startup called Augment offers software for iOS and Android that lets users visualize 3D renderings within the space in front of them, for jobs like designing store displays.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Global PC shipments will decline for the fourth consecutive year as people continue re-directing money towards smartphones and tablets.Worldwide PC shipments will decrease by 6.2 percent in 2015, even though the end of Microsoft’s support for Windows XP spurred demand for PCs and nearly stabilized shipments, according to IDC. PC vendors, anticipating the arrival of Windows 10, have reduced their inventory levels.Windows 10 will be a “significant contributor” to PC shipments, but won’t lead to a sales burst. Although enterprises will purchase PCs running Windows 10, consumers won’t be as keen on buying a new PC because Microsoft will provide them with a free upgrade to the new OS, as long as they’re running legal versions of Windows 7 or 8.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Can online gamers perform the sometimes tedious software verification work typically done by professional coding experts?Researchers at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) think so and were so impressed with their first crowdsourced flaw-detecting games, they announced an new round of five games this week designed for improved playability as well as increased software verification effectiveness.+More on Network World: Hot stuff: The coolest drones+DARPA began the program known as Crowd Sourced Formal Verification (CSFV) in December 2013 and opened the Verigames web portal (http://www.verigames.com/home), which offered five free online formal verification games.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Following its IBM x86 server business acquisition, Lenovo plans on attacking the enterprise hardware arena with low-cost products to undercut the competition.“We can give a better cost solution to enterprise companies,” said Lenovo Executive Vice President Gerry Smith in a press briefing in Beijing Thursday.The Chinese vendor is preparing to offer a wide range of products, targeting markets including supercomputing and hyperscale servers for data centers. “We’re going to play in every segment,” Smith said.Lenovo last year bought IBM’s x86 server business as a way to drive company growth. The deal helped make the Chinese vendor the world’s fourth largest server vendor in this year’s first quarter, with a 7.5 percent share, according to research firm IDC. A year ago, Lenovo had only a 1.1 percent share.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
GamesAs we head toward summer 2015, it’s time to check in and see how the mobile gaming industry has fared for Apple iOS platforms, the iPhone and iPad. Here’s a look at top rated games issued so far this year, based on App Store user reviews and professional reviewers on Metacritic. We hope you’ll discover a few hidden gems in here.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
9 movies that get IT (almost) rightIf you push a real spy for a few minutes, they'll admit their life is nothing like the movies. Car chases are rare, beautiful opponents are few, and the itinerary is anything but exotic. It's mainly sitting at a desk, clicking and typing. But as Alfred Hitchcock once said, "The cinema is not a slice of life but a piece of cake."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Avago Technologies has agreed to buy Broadcom in a deal that will create a networking chip giant with a wide variety of products, including components for the burgeoning IoT sector.It has offered US$37 billion for Broadcom, including $17 billion in cash and equity valued at approximately $20 billion, it said on Thursday. The combined company will offer products for wired and wireless networks.MORE M&A: 2015 enterprise network/IT acquisition trackerBoth companies’ chips are found in wireline and wireless networks. Avago also makes chips for optical networks, while Broadcom’s are used in connected home and car equipment and the Internet of Things. It recently announced support for Apple’s HomeKit platform, and chipsets for 802.11ac networks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Server vendors recorded the strongest shipment growth in over four years for the first quarter, mainly driven by continued investments in the hyperscale server infrastructures that power public and private clouds.It was a great start to the year, with the largest shipment growth since the third quarter of 2010, when the market was recovering from the economic downturn. First-quarter server shipments grew by 13 percent year on year to 2.7 million units, while revenue grew by almost 18 percent to US$13.4 billion, Gartner said on Thursday.This growth was driven by particularly strong demand from the so-called hyperscale area in the U.S. Hyperscale is a term used to describe distributed systems that use thousands of servers to power cloud and big data infrastructures, according to Gartner. Growth came from all form factors, including rack-optimized, blade, density-optimized, and tower servers, according to IDC, which reported similar server numbers on Thursday. Consolidation and virtualization in the enterprise boosted server vendors’ revenue, IDC said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
One of the quirkier and more popular sections on Reddit is called r/MildlyInteresting, which features stuff that is … go ahead and guess. Posted there last night was the above photo, which I found to be … go ahead and guess.It turns out that using old floppy disks as drink coasters is not a new idea. You can find plenty – both authentic and reproductions – online.However, one Redditor had a reasonable quibble with the one in the picture:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Sony’s push to get enterprise users to store data on optical discs has received added momentum with its acquisition of a Facebook-linked startup focused on optical storage.Led by former Facebook executive Frank Frankovsky, Optical Archive in California will develop new optical disc library systems for corporate clients’ “cold storage,” which hold data that aren’t accessed often but are preserved for a long time. Examples of such data are photos on social media sites and regulatory or legal documents.The move marks the entry of Sony, which developed the Blu-ray disc over a decade ago, into data center storage, a market it has shied away from partly due to the limited capacity of its optical discs amid the explosion of cloud-based storage.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Lenovo will be one of the first to offer a Windows 10 tablet, with a new ThinkPad device that’s slated to arrive in August.The next generation ThinkPad 10 will be loaded with Microsoft’s upcoming OS, and is aimed at business users. It will have a starting price at $499.The ThinkPad 10 is available with a choice of quad-core Intel Atom processors, the X5 Z8500 or the X7 Z8700, which are part of Intel’s “Cherry Trail” line of processors.Other options include either 2GB or 4GB of RAM, and 64GB or 128GB of internal storage. Apart from the faster processors and a new USB 3.0 port, the ThinkPad 10 is otherwise similar to the previous generation. It still contains a micro-SD card slot, and there is optional support for a fingerprint reader and smart card reader. The 10.1-inch screen has a resolution of 1920 pixels by 1200, and battery life is up to 10 hours.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Avago Technologies is in advanced talks to acquire Broadcom in a potential deal that could mark the latest consolidation in the global semiconductor industry, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.The terms being discussed aren’t clear and the deal could still fall through, according to the report, which did not name its sources.Broadcom makes chips for a wide range of communications products, including wired and wireless networks, connected home and car equipment and the Internet of Things. Avago’s silicon goes into industrial and enterprise storage gear as well as wireline and wireless networks. Avago, founded in 1961, is based in San Jose, California, and Singapore. Broadcom is in Irvine, California, and started in 1991.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
AOL, back on the marketImage by REUTERS/Brendan McDermidAn unexpected merger between AOL and a storied incumbent? You'd be forgiven for thinking you'd gone back to the turn of the century, but no, that happened earlier this month. Whatever the reasons behind the AOL-Verizon merger -- for all the talk of AOL's content offerings, its advertising platform may be the big prize -- at a mere $4.4 billion dollars the deal is a pale shadow of the $164 billion blockbuster AOL-Time Warner merger that marked the height of dot-com hubris.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
U.S. and Chinese researchers have developed semiconductor chips that are nearly entirely made out of wood-derived material.Aside from being biodegradable, the chips could be produced for only a fraction of the cost of conventional semiconductors, according to the group of 17 researchers, mostly from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with others from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.The researchers used a cellulose material for the substrate of the chip, which is the part that supports the active semiconductor layer. Taken from cellulose, a naturally abundant substance used to make paper, cellulose nanofibril (CNF) is a flexible, transparent and sturdy material with suitable electrical properties.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
U.S. and Chinese researchers have developed semiconductor chips that are nearly entirely made out of wood-derived material.Aside from being biodegradable, the chips could be produced for only a fraction of the cost of conventional semiconductors, according to the group of 17 researchers, mostly from the University of Wisconsin-Madison with others from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.The researchers used a cellulose material for the substrate of the chip, which is the part that supports the active semiconductor layer. Taken from cellulose, a naturally abundant substance used to make paper, cellulose nanofibril (CNF) is a flexible, transparent and sturdy material with suitable electrical properties.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
When a startup’s $10 million in funding is followed two months later by a further $41 million, it’s safe to say they’re tapping into a trend. In the case of Rubrik, that trend is enterprise data management.Promising an all-in-one approach to enterprise backup and recovery, Rubrik announced its Converged Data Management platform in late March along with its initial funding. Introduced at the time via an early-access program, Rubrik’s technology aims to “eliminate backup software” by fusing enterprise data management with Web-scale IT.On Tuesday, Rubrik announced the $41 million Series B portion of its funding along with the general availability of its r300 Series hybrid cloud appliance. The Rubrik r300, a 2U unit containing up to four x86 nodes, comes pre-configured with the Rubrik Converged Data Management software.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
HP this week signed a definitive agreement to acquire ConteXtream, a provider of OpenDaylight-based SDNs for service providers.Terms of the deal were not disclosed.ConteXtream develops an SDN controller for Network Functions Virtualization (NFV), software-based services that replace hardware-dependent Layer 4-7 functions, like load balancing and firewalls. ConteXtream’s products enable carriers to use existing standard server hardware to virtualize functions and services for subscribers, and to chain services across servers and subscribers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Geeky platesThe geeky license plates continue to pop up as those who are not afraid to proclaim their nerdiness on their car. Here are the latest and greatest. Send any entries you might have to [email protected]: The world's geekiest license plates To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
EMC is purchasing the privately held Virtustream software provider for approximately $1.2 billion to expand its portfolio of cloud management tools.Storage systems provider EMC will use Virtustream technology to aid customers moving to cloud-based services as an alternative to running data centers in-house. Virtustream's software can be used to manage complex enterprise applications, such as SAP's S/4HANA, so they can be run effectively on hosted infrastructure services.MORE M&A: 2015 Enterprise networking & IT M&A tracker
Based in Bethesda, Maryland, Virtustream will be the basis of a new business unit at EMC. Rodney Rogers, the CEO of Virtustream, will lead the new business cloud services unit and report to EMC CEO Joe Tucci.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here