Showing 81-90 of 150 results
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Myforecasts and how they fared in the end
Life, James Hein, Published on 25/12/2013
» It's that time of year again where we look back and review what the past 12 months brought us _ and check how well I did with my predictions from this time last year. While I forecast that the Galaxy S4 would do well against the iPhone, I didn't expect Apple to fall as far as it did this past year, compared to other firms, in terms of overall market position and sales. The 5S was indeed a catch-up for Apple and had no wow factors at all, causing some users to move away from the Apple line. The 5C was a sales failure and the iPad mini didn't do very well at all against the less expensive equivalents. As expected, Apple is still actively involved in litigation and trying to secure as many ridiculous patents for itself as possible instead of focusing on true innovation.
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A sexy new way to pay
Life, James Hein, Published on 05/02/2014
» Forget PayPal, what you really need is at least as The Register in the UK quaintly puts it "pay by bonk". Using the system, you knock your smartphone against another smartphone or device in a store to transfer funds from one account to another. A new payment system is also being planned at Apple, who wants to lead the near field communications (NFC) race. It will no doubt heavily feature the iTunes store (i.e. you pay money into your iTunes account and then use that to purchase items in the real world). This could essentially work like an iTunes-based debit card. Remember, however, that these NFC payment systems are also subject to those of a more unsavoury nature passing close to you and grabbing some cash for themselves. It is early days yet, but I expect that this will turn into a real issue. As for me, I bought myself a woven stainless steel wallet that acts as a Faraday cage. You could also just wrap it in tin foil, I suppose.
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Don't bank on security of websites
Life, James Hein, Published on 22/01/2014
» In more hacking news this week, the names, home and email addresses, phone numbers and other personal information of around 70 million Target shoppers were grabbed in yet another a database raid that included 40 million credit card details. One of the reasons I use PayPal is because I only have to give my credit card details to one provider. I try to minimise who gets access to my credit card and banking details and PayPal is one way to do that.
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IT industry lays off staff, more to come
Life, James Hein, Published on 29/01/2014
» I am reading more and more articles about different IT organisations dropping staff. The latest is Intel, which estimates it will drop 5,400 workers in 2014 after last year, when they were hiring new staff. Acer is another company that will be scaling down this year, as well. I expect to see more bad news like this in the coming year.
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Predictions for 2014
Life, James Hein, Published on 01/01/2014
» Happy New Year! Like the start of last year I am not sure how the coming one will go in terms of IT and technological development. The current downward economic trends in places such as China will have an effect on manufacturing, so perhaps the focus will be on the low and middle sections of the marketplace.
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Will IT firms tighten their belts in 2014?
Life, James Hein, Published on 08/01/2014
» It is just after New Year and things are quiet in the IT world as people reflect on the past and try to work out what is coming in the future. One of the stories that caught my eye was that Hewlett-Packard is planning to make 34,000 positions redundant by the middle of the year. The problem is that HP is not selling its products _ at least not in the volumes required to keep the positions active. They blame this on a contraction of the PC market, poor enterprise demand as companies tighten their belts, competitive pricing pressures and poor currency exchange rates. I suspect that HP will not be the only company to tighten its belt in 2014.
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Goodies galore unveiled at Nevada show
Life, James Hein, Published on 15/01/2014
» As I write this, CES _ the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas _ is under way with its displays of awesome gadgets. Nvidia announced a 192-core mobile processor that comes in 32-bit ARM format, or a 64-bit version. Yes, you read that correctly: 192-core. There's lots more from all the usual suspects, but so far the release of the Galaxy S5 hasn't been announced. That's expected next month.
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USA? It's the United Spam of America
Life, James Hein, Published on 30/10/2013
» Hands up if you know which country is the biggest spammer in the world? No, not China; they're fifth. The winner of this year's inglorious gold medal goes to the US which generates over 14% of the world's spam emails, nearly triple that of Belarus, which lies in second place. Besides advertising dodgy products, many carry malicious attachments designed to make your computer _ and sometimes personal life _ miserable. If you were wondering when the first spam was sent, this is attributed to Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel, who were lawyers that back in 1994 sent immigration service offers to all the Usenet groups at the time. The biggest problem in the US is the large number of unprotected computers that get used as spambot hosts.
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Drones target US shoppers
Life, James Hein, Published on 11/12/2013
» Duck, because that buzzing sound you hear might be the new delivery drones from Amazon. OK, here in Thailand they are unlikely to ever be seen, but in the US Amazon has plans to deliver packages up to 2.4kg within a 10km range of their distribution centres. Dubbed "Prime Air", this is still in the concept stage with all kinds of hurdles to pass before implementation. First off they need a reliable, cost-effective delivery drone. Another group is doing a similar thing in Haiti but in this case they are delivering medicine. This trial has had problems with mechanical failures due to humidity, dust and temperature. The next hurdle is the requirement for navigation ground stations, licenses to fly drones in a metro area, power line avoidance systems and crazy bird attacks. Yes, I did make that last one up. Given the current restrictions in all likelihood any realised solution will be deployed in a non-US country first.
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When tech clouds the real issue
Life, James Hein, Published on 18/12/2013
» Sometimes using a computer is just an excuse not to look at the underlying problem. China has decided to use their Tianhe-1A supercomputer, the one that headed the top 500 in 2010 for a while, to work out why the country has so much smog. If you are keeping track of such things, the current top of the list in terms of most powerful computer is the Chinese Tianhe-2.
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