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Giada MI-N2600D launches Mini ITX motherboard

By Fei Lumbania on May 21, 2012

By Computerworld Philippines Staff
May 21, 2012

The new MI-N2600D Mini ITX motherboard from Giada is purpose-built for industrial, monitoring and control applications.

A wealth of connectivity options make this motherboard a perfect choice for all applications that require a reliable, hardworking PC to control machinery and other equipment and receive sensor data, including: IPC, the factory floor, scientific, monitoring, control, and embedded computing.

Built around Intel’s dual-core Atom N2600 CPU, NM10 Express chipset and the Cedar Trail technology platform, this tiny, fanless motherboard boasts strong performance, low power usage, and an almost unlimited range of connectivity options, including support for legacy devices. It also provides all the industry-standard features of a desktop PC. Up to 4GB of memory can be installed, and onboard integrated graphics and audio support are included.

There are 6 standard serial COM ports, 1 on the back panel, plus 5 internal COM headers on board. There’s a Line Printer (LPT) port on the back panel. Two Realtek RTL8111E Gigabit LAN connectors are also on the back panel for connection to high speed networks. There’s an 18-bit LVDS connector header on the board for direct LCD panel control or other compatible industrial applications. Traditional PS/2 connectors are on the back panel for legacy mouse or keyboard support.

There are eight fast USB 2.0/1.1 connectors, 4 on board and 4 on the back panel. These can be used to connect a huge range of compatible equipment and other devices such as keyboards, mice, printers, and cameras. USB can also be used to supplement the internal SATA storage with removable storage for backup, data recording, and mass data transfer.

The totally fanless board design means there are no moving parts on the motherboard to fail – perfect for tough environments with severe vibration, or dust and other atmospheric pollutants. The compact 17cm square Mini ITX format is the ideal heart of a PC that’s tiny enough to hide away in almost any available space with minimal maintenance after installation.

This motherboard has a wealth of internal expansion options, despite its tiny dimensions. There are two Mini PCIe slots and 1 standard PCI slot. One Mini PCIe slot can support a WiFi and/or Bluetooth card, while the other allows users to add a mSATA drive.

For data storage, there are also sockets to connect up to 2 SATA II storage devices, such as hard disk drives, SSDs, and CD/DVD/BD optical drives, with transfer rates up to 3.0 Gb/s. There’s a SO-DIMM memory slot for up to 4GB of speedy 1066MHz DDR3 DRAM.

While it is purpose-built for industrial roles, this motherboard can also handle standard desktop PC applications when required – like server, internet, email, and office. The MI-N2600D has graphics support integrated on board, with VGA video output. The 18-bit LVDS interface is also available for direct LCD panel control. The board also supports sound recording and output with its high definition audio codec.

This tough but tiny powerhouse is perfect for industrial control, monitoring and automation applications and offers full compatibility with all key industry standards. The MI-N2600D can easily take care of almost any task you throw at it, while keeping operating costs very low. Shenzhen JieHe is very happy to begin offering this new industrial mini-PC to the global market. The company welcomes inquiries from new and existing customers around the world.

Find out more about the new Giada MI-N2600D at
http://www.giadatech.com/index.php?app=product&act=show&id=98

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ViewSonic Pro6200 –720p High Definition Projector For Home Entertainment

By Fei Lumbania on May 21, 2012

By Computerworld Philippines Staff
May 21, 2012

ViewSonic Corp., a global provider of computing, consumer electronics and communications solutions, has introduced Pro6200 720p home entertainment projector with big screen enjoyment at an affordable price. The 720p 1280 x 720 native resolution supports 1080p Full HD entertainment experiences with substantially precise visual entertainment for home entertainment. With a lamp lasting for 6,000 long lifespan, the environmental Pro6200 saves total cost of ownership and extends the projector’s lifespan. Extensive input options, including HDMI, S-video, composite, component interface, and a 5W stereo speaker are all included to provide genuine and dynamic audio-visual performance. Auto keystone correction automatically adjusts skewed images. With easy configuration and simple alignment, the Pro6200 helps you build an incredible home theater.

Product Features includes: HD 720p native resolution and support for 1080p content; auto keystone correction for easy set up; interface flexibility for multiple displays with high definition projection; 3D ready support for true-to-life visual experience; ECO Mode with 6,000 hours lamp life; and integrated 5W speaker.

ViewSonic Corporation, headquartered in Walnut, California, is a leading global provider of computing, consumer electronics, and communications solutions. Founded in 1987, ViewSonic’s mission is to be the preferred global brand of visual solutions as we continue to focus on display-centric product offerings including LED monitors, tablets, projectors, digital signage displays, smartphones, and cloud computing solutions. ViewSonic continues to pioneer in visual technology innovation to build a connected and ever-reaching digital future. For further information, visit ap.viewsonic.com.

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Inside Apple’s secret plan to kill the cash register

By Fei Lumbania on May 21, 2012

By Mike Elgan
Computerworld (US)
May 21, 2012

FRAMINGHAM - If you’ve ever been to a store, you know the drill: Browse the merchandise, pick something, carry it to the checkout counter, maybe wait in line, pay, then walk out with your purchases and a receipt.

Whether it’s a clothing store, a grocery store or a coffee shop, you’re likely to find a big counter with a cash register on it, and a person operating that cash register on the other side. You go to them; they don’t come to you. Why?

An American saloon owner named James Ritty invented the cash register in 1879. Since then, all cash registers have shared the characteristics of bigness, heaviness and bulkiness — and have required the old walk-up-to-the-counter behavior in order to buy things.

One notable exception is your local Apple Store. There are no cash registers. If you want to buy something, you flag down some kid wearing a brightly colored T-shirt and hand over your credit card. The kid scans the item’s bar code with a specially outfitted iPhone or iPad, swipes your credit card and emails you the receipt. The transaction can happen anywhere in the store.

Apple, apparently, thinks the whole process for buying things in retail stores is dumb. The big counter you have to walk up to? The giant machine for registering the transaction? The paper receipt? Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.

And it has a point. Cash registers are obsolete and unnecessary.

So why would Apple’s hotly anticipated iWallet system require a cash register?

It won’t, if one analyst has it right. More on that below.

The new world of contactless payments

When people talk about the future of digital wallets — electronic smartphone-based replacements for credit cards, debit cards and cash — you’re likely to hear the initials NFC in the same breath. NFC, for “near-field communication,” is a set of technologies that makes it possible to pay for purchases using smartphones, among other things.

The idea is that all smartphones will contain special NFC chips that enable you to use your phone as a credit card. To make a transaction, you pass your phone over or near a special gadget that’s hooked up to a cash register as an equivalent to swiping a credit card.

Many Android devices and other phones already have NFC chips. A few retail stores use NFC equipment. (As I write this, I’m sitting in a shop that’s part of the Peet’s Coffee & Tea chain. There’s an NFC device near the register at the checkout counter, and there’s a little sign specifying Google Wallet-based payments.)

Everybody’s been waiting for the other 900-lb. handset gorilla — Apple — to ship iPhones with NFC chips in them to kick-start the contactless-payment revolution.

How Apple will kill the cash register

The point-of-sale industry (made up of companies that make and sell cash registers and the software and networked systems that support them) is in crisis. Apple’s iPad is growing as an alternative to big, heavy cash registers and their hard-to-learn systems and interfaces.

Small retail businesses are opening their doors without ever buying a cash register. Instead, they’re using iPads that use Square technology, or something similar, to handle the main functions of cash registers — at a fraction of the cost.

Yet iPad-based point-of-sale systems don’t involve digital wallets. The payment medium is still an old-and-busted credit card.

Apple’s iWallet digital wallet will eliminate the need for both the cash register and the credit card. Why? Because it will use Bluetooth, rather than NFC, according to Pablo Saez Gil, a retail industry analyst with ResearchFarm.

Apple’s solution is already deployed

I told you back in March what I thought the new iPad’s best feature was: Bluetooth 4.0.

Apple, which is notorious for being slow to market with brand-new technologies, was conspicuously early when it came to Bluetooth 4.0. At the time they shipped, the iPhone 4S and the iPad were the only major phone and tablet models to support Bluetooth 4.0.

Why so aggressive with Bluetooth 4.0, Apple?

Gil’s answer: Bluetooth 4.0 is Apple’s answer to the digital wallet and an alternative to NFC.

For starters, Bluetooth can go into ultra-low-energy mode, passively making connections and transferring the information necessary to conduct a financial transaction. And it can make those connections at much greater distances than NFC can — up to 160 feet — eliminating the need for a customer to go to a checkout counter to use an NFC reader.

Everyone has been waiting for Apple to announce the beginnings of a digital wallet system, followed by years of development, rollout and evolutionary acceptance.

But the Bluetooth 4.0 theory means that Apple could announce iWallet software — an app, backed by a new service from Apple — and the program would come into being overnight.

No doubt payment would happen through iTunes accounts as detailed in Apple’s iWallet patent, and Apple would receive a micropayment with every transaction.

Apple has built Bluetooth 4.0 into every computer, tablet and phone it has shipped since the middle of 2011, representing millions of users. The world does not have to wait for a gradual NFC rollout. The underlying wireless technology has already been deployed at scale.

Note that Apple has not announced a Bluetooth 4.0 digital wallet system. But after considering Gil’s analysis, I believe that the introduction of such a system would explain why Apple rolled out Bluetooth 4.0 so aggressively. It would also be in line with Apple’s obvious contempt for cash registers, and it would greatly enhance Apple’s effort to take over retail point-of-sale systems with the iPad.

Bluetooth 4.0 would enable retail stores to roll out instant iWallet point-of-sale systems that use iPads or Apple desktops or laptops. These systems would eliminate the need for iPhone owners to go to a checkout counter or use a credit card.

Stores using cash registers and Google Wallet could also cheaply and easily offer Bluetooth 4.0 iWallet solutions as well. That would give iPhone users the retail equivalent of the airlines’ “business class” status; unlike users of credit cards or Google Wallet, they wouldn’t have to wait in line or even go anywhere near a checkout counter to pay for their purchases.

In restaurants, credit card transactions would continue to require servers to make two trips between the table and the cash register — one to carry the card to the register for approval, and the other to punch in the tip and file the signed credit card slip.

For its part, Google Wallet would require just one trip — for the waiter to bring an NFC device to the table.

But Apple iWallet users wouldn’t need the server at all: They’d just pay on the phone and go.

If Bluetooth 4.0 makes it possible for Apple to simplify restaurant and retail payments to that extent, users would have an incentive to switch to iPhones, restaurateurs and store owners would be inclined to switch to iPads, and financial services companies, including credit card companies, would be willing to play ball with Apple.

It would also give Google an incentive to embrace Bluetooth 4.0 payments as well.

Apple would be crazy not do to it.

If a Bluetooth 4.0-based Apple iWallet is a success, it could be the beginning of the end for the venerable cash register.

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Kodak says Apple attempting to buy patents ‘on the cheap’

By Fei Lumbania on May 21, 2012

By Karen Haslam
Macworld U.K.
May 21, 2012

LONDON - Kodak has accused Apple of trying to knock down the value of its patents so that it can buy them for less than their worth. Kodak claims its patents are worth $2.6 billion.

The company has filed court papers claiming: “Apple’s decision to press its ownership claims now … should be seen for what it is, namely, a ploy calculated to prevent the debtors from using the [bankruptcy] sale process to obtain a fair price for Kodak’s digital capture portfolio (or to enable Apple to buy it on the cheap and extinguish its infringement exposure),” reports Total Telecom.
The camera company accuses Apple of being the biggest infringer of its digital camera patents. Apple claims that the patents are its own.

Apple contends that back in the early 1990s, when the two companies worked together “to explore how the two companies could work together on various projects including commercialization of Apple’s digital cameras”, it revealed a number of confidential digital camera technologies to Kodak.

Kodak, which has filed for bankruptcy, is hoping to sell the patents to pay its creditors.

Back in March, a US bankruptcy judge stopped Apple from pursuing claims of patent infringement against Kodak, saying that allowing the action to continue would be ‘inappropriate’.
Judge Allan Gropper, who is overseeing Kodak’s application for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, said that Apple couldn’t continue its case against Kodak or file a new patent infringement lawsuit relating to digital cameras and printers.

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Monitor Facebook Status Updates While You Use Chrome

By Fei Lumbania on May 21, 2012

By Rick Broida
PC World (US)
May 21, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO - Are you a Facebook junkie? If so, you probably find yourself hopping back and forth between a Facebook tab and whatever else you happen to be doing in your browser. That’s not terribly productive.

If you’re a Google Chrome user, you can keep Facebook front and center with MyStatusBar. This extension adds a Facebook status bar to the bottom of your browser, where it stays visible in every tab you have open. That way you can keep up with the latest messages, friend requests, and notifications, all without clicking away from your current page.
Here’s how to get set up with MyStatusBar:

1. Head to the extension’s page in the Chrome Store, then click Add to Chrome.
2. Wait until you see a new tab, then click the Login to Facebook button at the bottom.

3. That’ll open a pop-up window, where you’ll click Log in with Facebook.

4. Now you’ll see a permissions list. You’ll probably want to allow them all to get the maximum benefit from MyStatusBar, but you can certainly disable any you’re uncomfortable with. (Needless to say, using an extension like this requires access to your account.)

5. On my system, I had to click the X in the bottom-right corner of that window, the one just above the blue MyStatusBar bar, to make the Allow button visible. Without clicking that button, you can’t finish the setup.

And that’s it! Now just open a new tab and you’ll see your Facebook status bar at the bottom. Neat!

It works much like the standard status bar, but adds a Search field and a handy “Share this page” button (useful for sharing any page that doesn’t have its own Facebook button). My only complaint is that when you click, say, the message or notification icon, it opens a new Facebook tab rather than a pop-up showing the actual content.

That said, you can scroll through status updates by clicking the up/down arrows, which is definitely nice. As something a Facebook junkie myself, I’m liking this add-on a lot.

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Apple, Samsung CEOs to Negotiate Patent Dispute

By Fei Lumbania on May 21, 2012

By John P. Mello Jr.
PC World (US)
May 21, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO - Two technology titans who have been grappling in courts around the world will be meeting face to face Monday to see if they can settle their differences and concentrate on what they do best: creating great consumer electronics products.

Apple CEO Tim Cook and Samsung Major Domo Gee-Sung Choi are scheduled to meet in San Francisco to engage in two days of discussions about claims and counterclaims made in lawsuits filed in the United States in which each company maintains its intellectual property has been infringed by the other.

The meeting between the two CEOs isn’t a voluntary one. It was ordered by the federal judge, Lucy Koh, presiding over lawsuits filed by Apple against Samsung alleging infringement of patents for both the iPad and iPhone.

Although the negotiation sessions next week, which will be refereed by Magistrate Judge Joseph C. Spero, involve U.S. cases, they could have ramifications for the 47 lawsuits between the two companies in nine other countries.
Similar negotiations were ordered in another high profile, high tech trial — Google vs. Oracle –but both sides failed to settle anything and the case had to go to trial anyway. However, that may not be the case in the Apple-Samsung negotiations.
First of all, efforts have been made before by Apple to settle its differences with the Korean company. Those efforts came to light in an Australian court in 2011 when an Apple patent attorney testified that former CEO Steve Jobs contacted Samsung in July 2010 in an attempt to settle the company’s intellectual property differences.
What’s more, the relationship between Apple and Samsung is very different from the one between Google and Oracle.

“Samsung is one of Apple’s biggest suppliers and it’s almost necessary for the delivery of iPhones,” explains Adam L.K. Philipp, an attorney with Aeon Law in Seattle. “So the companies are highly motivated to come to a mutually bearable resolution to this.”
In addition, although the negotiation sessions next week are court ordered, Philipp believes both sides wanted them. Having the court order the sit-down between the CEOs was a “face saving measure,” for the companies, he contended.

“They wanted to sit down and have negotiations and so they agreed to have the judge order them to sit down and have negotiations, he asserted.

He predicted, “They’re going to come up with some type of settlement and some business understanding that’s going to allow both of them to go forward without appearing to have lost.”

“If I were to go out on a limb,” he continued, “I would predict that there’s going to be some burying of the hatchet and then an announcement of some great new partnership initiatives.”

If that doesn’t happen, though, the companies will see each other in July in trial court.

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Apple forces new name for London Apple Expo, Microsoft signs up

By Fei Lumbania on May 21, 2012

By Karen Haslam
Macworld U.K.
May 21, 2012

LONDON - Apple has sent legal correspondence to the organiser of a London based Apple Expo warning them that use of the name Apple is a trademark infringement.

However, this hasn’t stopped Microsoft booking a stand at the newly renamed Appule Expo that will take place in London this October. This will be the first Mac show to run in London since 2008. The Mac Expo show was last run London in 2007, then renamed Creative Pro Expo in 2008 before ceasing. The Apple Expo show last ran in Paris in 2008.
The Appule Pro User Live Expo will take place at The Barbican in London on 11 and 12 October 2012. According to the website it is “strictly for professional Apple Computer users only”. However, the iPad, iPhone and iPod are not forgotten: “Design, print, publishing, audio, video, photo, web. PLUS business applications & specialist products. PLUS iPhone, iPad, iPod for business - all under one roof for two days,” states the website.

Tickets will go on sale in June. Subscribers to Macworld can apply for free admission to Appule.

The show can’t be called Apple Expo because Apple has sent legal correspondence to organiser Indigo Media, warning of potential trademark infringement, according to reports.
Microsoft is said to be planning to showcase its Office for Mac products at the Appule show, which may suggest that a Mountain Lion enhanced update to the Office suite is in the pipeline before October. Microsoft is also said to be working on Office tools for iPad and iPhone, which it may be planning to demo at the UK show.

There is zero chance of Apple attending the Appule show. The company claims that it gains more access to consumers via its Apple Stores than it ever did via trade shows.

Mac Expo was last held at Olympia in 2007, the year that Apple pulled out from exhibiting at the show. In 2008, Apple said it would not participate in the Paris Expo. Then Apple announced that 2009 would be its last year at the largest Mac gathering, the San Francisco based Macworld Conference & Expo.

The company issued a press release at the time, claiming: “Apple is reaching more people in more ways than ever before, so like many companies, trade shows have become a very minor part of how Apple reaches its customers. The increasing popularity of Apple’s Retail Stores, which more than 3.5 million people visit every week, and the Apple.com website enable Apple to directly reach more than a hundred million customers around the world in innovative new ways.”

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Facebook vs. Google: Who Will Win?

By Fei Lumbania on May 21, 2012

By Christina DesMarais
PC World (US)
May 21, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO - Facebook is now officially a public company, scads of new millionaires are on a Silicon Valley spending spree, and media outlets near and far have yet to pipe down about the IPO, likely one of the most anticipated in history.
But is the long-term viability and success of Facebook a slam dunk? You’d think so, considering 900 million people on the planet use the social network now valued at nearly $105 billion.

Not everybody thinks so.

The Telegraph’s Michael Deacon says he was once addicted to Facebook but now thinks its users hardly have anything to say on it compared with Twitter, which he calls “magnetic” because it “incessantly breaks and circulates news.” He even goes as far to say Facebook in a few years will “be as sad and lonely a ghost town as MySpace.”
I wouldn’t go quite that far, but he makes some valid points. Many people have grown tired of Facebook and do prefer alternate social networks, such as Google+.
Google certainly is serious about social and it’s no secret that Facebook wants more of Google’s advertising, but who will come out on top?
Social Networking Rivalry

Yes, Facebook has a huge head start in social compared to Google, but Google+ users tend to be fiercely loyal because, honestly, it’s a great — albeit very different — product .
Unlike Facebook, Google+ is where you’re more likely to engage with strangers — many of whom reach out from countries around the world.

Just this morning I had a Google+ chat with a blogger from India who, even though he uses both Facebook and Google+, was only able to reach me through the latter where in seconds we were having a conversation about the merits of both social networks. Such contact wouldn’t have happened on Facebook because my Facebook friends are all in the U.S. and most of them know me personally, which means I keep my chat disabled because I don’t want people I haven’t seen in 20 years messaging me every time I check my stream.

Eric Norstrom, a molecular and cellular neurobiologist, is another person with whom I’ve connected through Google+.
Here’s how he aptly puts it:

“G+ is not FB, Twitter, or anything else. It’s G+. It’s great for content aggregation and collaboration in addition to the services provided by the other major social apps. It’s not people bleating on a street corner. It’s more like, you walk down a street and don’t see anyone, but then you go into a building and you find that there’s a party going on. Not only that, it’s a good party with interesting people talking about things you care about and leaving out things you don’t. Less noise, more signal.”

He’s right about Google+ being a more lively place to hang out. You’re not likely to see inane posts — most contain photos, videos or links to other interesting content. This morning someone in one of my circles shared a post by Google Maps touting a NASA map that shows where the May 20 eclipse can be seen. (See also “Google+ vs. Facebook: See How They Compare.”
Google’s Many Products are an Advantage

While there certainly were some privacy concerns when Google said it would share user data across its products, it can’t be denied that the company has created a slick and seamless experience for users.
On my Android phone I use Places, Maps and Navigation, YouTube, Voice, Talk, Calendar, Drive, Goggles, and Play Music, and many of these apps sync to the cloud for integration to the desktop.

In essence, Google has a very large window into what I’m doing, where I’m going, what I’m watching, and who I’m talking to. And this window stays open for much of every day I’m online or using my phone.

While Facebook also garners data from me when I’m on its network, I’m not there very often, relatively speaking.

Battle Over Advertising

Facebook has many fans, is growing on a billion users, and now has a big pile of money with which to continue to innovate. For instance, the company recently said that at some point it could launch an advertising network to display ads outside of its platform. That would be huge and put the company in a much better place to compete with Google.
CNET’s Rafe Needlemanwrote a great piece summing up the many ways Facebook and Google’s trajectories cross, particularly when it comes to advertising. And as he points out, both companies have their strengths.
“The infusion of public IPO money will embolden Facebook to take on Google directly in areas where it’s clearly weaker — primarily advertising, but also search and mobile. Google will defend its turf while simultaneously attacking Facebook in social (and hopefully in identity services),” he writes.

That last part — identity services that let you sign into a Website or account using your Facebook credentials — is definitely something Facebook has a good hold on, and as Needleman points out, it’s something Google needs to get better at marketing.

But Google is kicking it with mobile. CEO Larry Page, in a letter to investors last month said the company is “seeing a hugely positive revenue impact from mobile advertising, which grew to a run rate of over $2.5 billion by the third quarter of 2011 — two and a half times more than at the same point in 2010.”
Can Facebook figure out how to get some of that pie? It had better — its users are now using the social network more from their mobile devices than from their desktops.

If it doesn’t, Michael Deacon’s dire prediction about Facebook might just come true.

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Globe launches Samsung Galaxy S III with fully-customizable unlimited data plans

By Fei Lumbania on May 18, 2012

By Computerworld Philippines Staff
May 18, 2012

Globe Telecom announced that it is launching Samsung’s newest flagship smartphone, the Samsung Galaxy S III, under its suite of fully-customizable postpaid plans bundled with unlimited mobile internet.

Globe subscribers can avail of the Samsung Galaxy S III under My Super Plan Unli Surf Combo, which comes with unlimited mobile browsing, bonus call and text services, and choice of unli boosters for the ultimate smartphone experience. With Globe My Super Plan Unli Surf Combo, the country’s only customizable unlimited data plan, Globe provides users with uninterrupted surfing, their gadget of choice, and freebies all in one subscription. This plan also helps maximize the features of the Samsung Galaxy S III.

Touted as the most human phone yet, the Samsung Galaxy S III boasts of highly-intelligent features that are easy to use but exceptionally powerful. With the Direct Call feature, users can simply hold up the phone onto their ears when texting and the device will automatically call the person for them. Globe My Super Plan subscribers can enjoy this feature with the different call freebies of their choice such as free call minutes, free international call minutes or unlimited calls to a Globe or TM number.

The Samsung Galaxy S III also comes with the Social Tag feature, which allows users to keep track of their loved ones easily. With its face recognition technology, family and friends are automatically tagged on the photos taken. The feature also enables users to view social networking statuses of the friends they tagged in the photos. Social Tag is best enjoyed with Globe SuperSurf, which gives unlimited mobile internet access for an entire month.

Multitasking also comes true to form with the device’s Pop-up Play feature, which enables users to play a movie and continuously run it floating on the screen while browsing the web or sending a text message or e-mail. Globe subscribers can watch videos all they want with Globe SuperSurf, while they can enjoy sending free text messages with a Globe My Super Plan freebie.

The Galaxy S III is powered by Samsung’s own 1.4GHz Samsung Exynos 4 Quad processor, 4.8-inch Super HD AMOLED screen, 1GB RAM, an 8-megapixel rear camera and comes packed with the Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android’s operating system. Using a micro-SIM form factor, the combination of internal storage and expandable SD card storage sets the S III with a maximum storage capacity of 128GB.

“As the first Philippine operator to bring Samsung Galaxy S I and S II to the Philippines, Globe is proud to be carrying the Samsung Galaxy S III once again, powered by our portfolio of personalized and fully-customizable data plans and backed by a stronger and more reliable HSPA+ network which we continue to aggressively expand nationwide,” said Peter Bithos, Globe Senior Advisor for Consumer Business. “

Bithos added, “What better way to fully enjoy the exciting features of this amazing phone than to pair it with a Globe postpaid plan that you can customize based on your needs. And with the Globe Guarantee, subscribers are assured they will never experience bill shock ever again because they will never pay more than P999 as long as they are registered to any of our data plans. On top of that, we guarantee 24/7 access to all our customer service channels and after-sales support for the devices.”

Pre-orders for the Samsung Galaxy S III will begin on May 23, 2012 via www.globe.com.ph/galaxys3. New subscribers can call the Globe Sales Hotline via toll-free number (02) 730-1010 or visit www.globe.com.ph/galaxys3 to place their orders. For Platinum subscribers, they can get in touch with their Relationship Managers for reservations.

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Dell’s New 12th Generation PowerEdge Servers Extend Performance and Efficiency Gains to Scale-out and Mainstream Customers

By Fei Lumbania on May 18, 2012

By Computerworld Philippines Staff
May 18, 2012

Dell has announced additions to the PowerEdge portfolio with new blade, rack and tower servers designed to deliver value and performance in demanding enterprise and mainstream environments. The new blade servers offer strong performance gains and improved efficiencies from the shared power, cooling and network infrastructure, and professional IT services. The new tower and rack servers are built to enhance customer IT infrastructures with enterprise-class capabilities and tailored chassis designs for small and midsize businesses.

Dell introduced industry-leading innovations in the PowerEdge 12th generation servers based on input gathered from more than 7,700 customer interactions in 17 countries across four continents. The company was the first-to-ship servers based on the Intel Xeon processor E5-2600 product family with the first wave of PowerEdge 12th generation servers in March 2012.

The new PowerEdge rack, tower and blade servers expand on Dell’s commitment to deliver end-to-end solutions optimized for maximum throughput from storage to switch to server to blade enclosure. With these new PowerEdge servers customers can experience energy efficiency, scalable storage, networking and security features at an unprecedented price for performance. The new PowerEdge rack, tower and blade servers include Intel Xeon processor E5-2400 and Intel Xeon processor E5-4600 product families.

The PowerEdge R820 is the world’s first 4-socket, 2U server with Intel Xeon E5 product family processors. Customers using 4 socket 4U servers can now save computing space by replacing one HP Proliant DL580 with two Dell PowerEdge R820 servers, for up to 24 more processing cores, 1TB more memory capacity and 3 times the internal storage density. In addition, the PowerEdge R820 offers an option for 4 front-accessible, hot-swappable Dell Express Flash PCIe SSDs.

The PowerEdge M420 is the world’s only quarter height 2-socket blade server, offering extreme computational density, performance and efficiency. The PowerEdge M1000e, the only chassis in the world with the thermal engineering to support individually serviceable, enterprise-class, quarter-height blade servers, holds up to 32 PowerEdge M420s. Customers can stretch their infrastructure budget farther by doubling the nodes per chassis with the greatest 2-socket density server on the planet in the PowerEdge M420 and the Dell Force10 MXL 10 blade switch. The PowerEdge M420 is designed to adhere to stringent government requirements while offering world class density with no compromise to datacenter availability and performance.

Dell offers robust anytime, anywhere systems management of platforms and infrastructure to simplify operations throughout the server lifecycle, with key innovations including:
· Dell also significantly improved cooling while increasing density in the PowerEdge M820, which is the first four socket blade server capable of Fresh Air configuration and allows customers to deploy highly dense solutions while significantly decreasing cooling costs.
· The PowerEdge 12th generation servers are the world’s only full generation of rack and tower servers to all offer Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller 7 (iDRAC7) with Lifecycle Controller 2.0 for deploying, updating, maintaining and monitoring their systems without a software management agent, regardless of operating system. In addition, industry-leading Chassis Management Controller (CMC) has been updated to support up to 288 independently serviceable blade nodes, all from a single console, using a single IP address.

Large and small businesses are continuously challenged to scale appropriately; balancing the risks of either significantly overpaying for equipment they do not use or being caught with underpowered equipment and losing business cycles. The new PowerEdge 12th generation servers can provide customers with increased application performance, availability and scalability, and key innovations including:

The PowerEdge M820 blade servers are loaded with extra memory to allow customers headroom to grow in the future.
With more processor cores, larger memory capacity and greater I/O bandwidth than previous generations, the R520, R420 and R320 rack servers, and the T420 and T320 tower servers, can provide higher performance to small and medium business users as well as departments and remote offices of large enterprises and organizations, enabling them to deliver real results faster.
Small and midsized businesses can deploy new levels of computational density via the PowerEdge M420 with 32 powerful nodes in just 10U of rack space without trading off redundancy by providing hot-swappable, fault tolerant HHDs as well as Failsafe Hypervisors.

Downtime and data loss determine business revenue and performance as companies are increasingly dependent on cloud-based applications, virtualized solutions, and high performance computing. Businesses must now deliver IT solutions that not only ensure redundancy and maximize uptime, but can scale to address increased demand while maintaining cost efficiency. Customers running PowerEdge 12th generation servers can now benefit from continual access to the applications that drive the business, with innovations including:
· The new PowerEdge M420, M520 and M820 blade servers offer performance and efficiency improvements, and leading features including hardware RAID and hot-swappable hard drives.
· The world’s first full product family portfolio to servers to offer enterprise-class RAS features for redundancy and fault-tolerance, memory mirroring, memory sparing, hot plug hard drives and redundant power supplies. This provides IT administrators with continuity and consistency across their entire server infrastructure from the datacenter to remote and mobile locations.
· The industry’s first server family portfolio to all offer Redundant Failsafe SD Hypervisors across the entire family, so customers can take advantage of server virtualization with built-in redundancy and fault tolerance.

For more information, visit www.dell.com.

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Dimension Data Philippines achieves large account reseller status from Microsoft Philippines

By Fei Lumbania on May 18, 2012

By Computerworld Philippines Staff
May 18, 2012

Dimension Data Philippines has achieved Large Account Reseller status from Microsoft and is the strategic Microsoft partner in the territory to offer the full services model of the software giant’s solutions. The status reinforced the company’s strong relationship with Microsoft and underlined its exceptional level of expertise in Microsoft solutions.

Large Account Resellers (LAR) are the only Microsoft partners who can place Microsoft volume license orders, such as Enterprise Agreement, Select, etc. to Microsoft directly. Dimension Data Philippines was awarded the LAR license to add value to enterprise clients using the ‘Full Services’ model. ‘Full services’ is a platform to execute the full range of services, such as professional services, managed services, training services and software services to clients.

“This is a fantastic achievement for Dimension Data Philippines and it is a great recognition and affirmation of our longstanding and successful relationship with Microsoft,” said Ernesto Batungbacal, President and Chief Executive Officer for Dimension Data Philippines. “We were awarded Microsoft Partner of the Year in 2011 and now, coupled with this LAR status, we are certainly well positioned to maximise the full value of our client’s software assets, offering them an unparalleled competitive edge.”

Mr. John Bessey, Managing Director, Microsoft Philippines, said that, “We welcome a new addition to Microsoft’s LAR program and look forward to a close partnership with Dimension Data. Their strong commitment and a high level of expertise in providing comprehensive enterprise solutions would be a great compliment to our partner ecosystem as we move forward. We see great opportunities working with Dimension Data in driving strong value propositions to address our Philippine enterprise clients’ needs.”

Effective April 2012, Dimension Data will provide its clients with the infrastructure and operational processes to ensure effective deployment, management, control and protection of the full suite of Microsoft’s products. Dimension Data’s expertise in implementing software and licenses for a variety of complex architectures has also helped facilitate smarter purchasing decisions based on actual user experience. This will enable clients to optimise the use of their software assets, avoid legal, security and human resource issues, improve forecast of IT resource requirements and reduce software, compliance and licensing costs.

Dimension Data Asia Pacific, a wholly owned subsidiary of Dimension Data Holdings plc, operates in over 60 offices across 13 Asia Pacific countries. Dimension Data helps clients plan, build, support, manage, improve and innovate their ICT infrastructures. It combines an expertise in networking, security, data centre solutions, Microsoft solutions and converged communications & contact centre technologies, with advanced skills in consulting, integration, training and managed services to design ICT solutions to accelerate the business ambitions of its clients. Dimension Data is a member of the NTT Group. www.dimensiondata.com

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Leading Analyst Firm Names EMC #1 in Network Attached/Unified Storage Revenue Market Share for 2011

By Fei Lumbania on May 18, 2012

By Computerworld Philippines Staff
May 18, 2012

EMC Corporation has announced it has captured the #1 revenue market share position in Gartner’s recent report: “Market Share: Network Attached Storage/Unified Storage Market, Worldwide, 2011*.” According to Gartner’s report, EMC revenue attributable to NAS/unified storage nearly doubled year-over-year to $2.8B, making it the fastest-growing NAS/unified storage vendor.

“We believe our diversified, best-in-class approach to information storage has helped catapult EMC to the top of the NAS/unified storage market,” said Pat Gelsinger, President and Chief Operating Officer, EMC Information Infrastructure Products. “EMC has a long and proven track record of effectively adding new technologies to its product portfolio and nurturing them to outperform the market. EMC’s industry-leading products from its Unified Storage, Isilon and Backup and Recovery divisions are stand-outs in this area. Our vision, customer centric focus and ability to execute are why we’re outstripping the competition in this growing and highly competitive market. Our solid product strategy and vision for transforming and accelerating our customers’ journey to the cloud is driving our leadership.”

Overall, Gartner reports worldwide vendor revenues for the NAS /unified storage market increased 32.5% in 2011 compared with 2010, reaching $6.8 billion. The estimated pure NAS market grew 21.5% to $4.5 billion. The report also cites block storage vendors adding NAS capabilities to their SAN storage arrays with a unified management interface as a key growth driver for this market.

Additionally, the report discusses the hard-disk drive (HDD) shortage due to flooding in Thailand in October 2011. The report points to the significant impact on the low-end NAS market, noting that EMC is the only top-tier storage system vendor in the market. Other vendors were adversely affected due to their disk drive sales volumes being too low to form a strategic relationship with HDD suppliers, and low-end drives being more severely impacted by the flood than midrange or high-end drives.

EMC Corporation is a global leader in enabling businesses and service providers to transform their operations and deliver IT as a service. Fundamental to this transformation is cloud computing. Through innovative products and services, EMC accelerates the journey to cloud computing, helping IT departments to store, manage, protect and analyze their most valuable asset — information — in a more agile, trusted and cost-efficient way. Additional information about EMC can be found at www.EMC.com.

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Ruckus Delivers Indoor Smart Wi-Fi Products

By Fei Lumbania on May 18, 2012

By Computerworld Philippines Staff
May 18, 2012

Ruckus Wireless announced the industry’s highest capacity three-stream (ZoneFlex 7982) and most affordable dual-stream (ZoneFlex 7321) 802.11n Smart Wi-Fi access points for carriers and enterprises requiring increased wireless performance, capacity, unparalleled ease of use and greater business value — particularly within high-density environments.

Available immediately, the Ruckus ZoneFlex 7982 and ZoneFlex 7321 enhance the high and low ends of the Wi-Fi market, making Ruckus the industry’s leading supplier of enterprise and carrier-class Wi-Fi with the richest collection of indoor and outdoor solutions in performance, design, and price point.

The new ZoneFlex 7982 and 7321 Smart Wi-Fi access points were developed for enterprises and telecom operators face similar pressures from myriad of new users armed with wireless-only mobile devices,accessing a richer mix of multimedia traffic. Meanwhile, mobile wireless usage is continuing to shift indoors. Within enterprise environments, the majority of Wi-Fi use is inside buildings during working hours. And for operators, network analysis has shown that the majority of mobile data usage, close to 80 percent, is indoor and nomadic, rather than truly mobile.

Delivering consistent performance and maintaining stable connections within such high-capacity environments - and to smart mobile devices that constantly change their location and orientation - have becomemajor concerns. The simple variation of a device’s orientation can account for up to a 5x performance degradation among Wi-Fi products unable to adapt to such changes.

Designed to solve these growing problems, the ZoneFlex 7982 and ZoneFlex 7321 integrate a unique collection of technologies not found in any other Wi-Fi system. These unique capabilities increase signal gain, mitigate RF interference and allow each ZoneFlex AP to adapt to the changing nature of Wi-Fi signals from each connected mobile device.

The Ruckus ZoneFlex 7982 is the only three-stream 802.11n access point to combine dynamic polarization diversity with adaptive antenna arrays and transmit beamforming technologies to give customers up to a 4x improvement in Wi-Fi performance, signal gain and reception.

The ZoneFlex 7321, the industry’s most affordable dual-stream 802.11n access point, is well suited for emerging markets and single AP deployments - not only where the demand for mobile Internet services is also rising but where tighter economic constraints on network investments dictate a balance toward lower cost over sheer performance.

Designed for high-capacity environments, the ZoneFlex 7982 is the only dual-band, three-stream 802.11n access point equipped with a patented, dual-polarized adaptive antenna array. This allows the simultaneous operation of adaptive antenna selection and transmit beamforming, to deliver up to 9dB of signal-to-interference and noise (SINR) improvement and up to 15dB of interference mitigation.

Ideal for high-traffic locations such as hotspots, airports, stadiums, schools, hotels and public venues, the ZoneFlex 7982, based on the latest generation Atheros three-stream high-performance chipset, is capable of supporting up to 500 concurrent clients, offering a 2x to 4x increase in performance and range, and a 4dB improvement in receive sensitivity over alternative access points.

In competitive three-stream testing by Ruckus, the ZoneFlex 7982 performed up to four times faster
than other three-stream products at all distances. The tests were conducted in a university environment, measuring aggregate TCP throughput in real-world, non-line of sight conditions across the 2.4 and 5GHz bands simultaneously to a three-stream Apple MacBook Pro located at 30, 60 and 120 feet.

To ensure enhanced mobile device performance, the ZoneFlex 7982 is the only three-stream 802.11n AP that dynamically sends and receives Wi-Fi signals at different angles (polarizations). When used with maximal ratio combining (MRC), a method where more receivers are used to gather signals from each channel and add them together to get the best result, the use of polarization diversity can yield an addition 4dB of effective receive sensitivity.

By combining MRC with polarization diversity, the ZoneFlex 7982 is able to capture the full signal of mobile devices even as they vary their orientation. This gives carriers and enterprises the unique benefit of stable connectivity at higher speeds delivered to mobile and moving devices at greater distances – particularly important for tablets and smartphones that tend to remain in constant motion.

Within an ultra lightweight (7oz./198gm.) and compact footprint (5”Lx 5”Wx1”H/ 13cm L x 13cm D x 2.8cm H) the ZoneFlex 7321 supports up to 256 concurrent users and brings a new level of price/performance to the value end of the Wi-Fi market. The industry’s most feature-rich and affordable entry-level 802.11n AP, the ZoneFlex 7321 is dual-band selectable, making it ideal for smaller, single AP deployments such as hotspots, SMBs and remote offices as well as in emerging economies requiring more affordable, robust solutions.

Unique in its class, the 7321 supports transmit beamforming and capacity-driven channel selection to deliver high performance and extended range with up to 4dB improvement in signal gain.

ChannelFly, supported on all Ruckus Smart Wi-Fi access points, is a capacity-driven channel selection technology that learns the channel capacity environment in real time to ensure the best channel selection and interference mitigation in areas with Wi-Fi congestion. With ChannelFly, maximum throughput is delivered to clients at all times throughinnovative network-wide channel plans that maximize spectrum re-use, and two-stream client performance is greatly improved.

Both ZoneFlex 7982 and 7321 support standard 802.3af power over Ethernet (PoE) and can be deployed as either standalone wirelessrouters or as part of a centrally managed Smart WLAN.

In addition, both products support a variety of advanced features including bandsteering, airtime fairness, and predictive, capacity-drive channel selection (ChannelFly). When used with ZoneDirector, the ZoneFlex 7982 and 7321 offer a wide range of value-added applications such as SmartMesh networking, client load-balancing, time-based broadcasting, dynamic per-user rate limiting, guest networking, hotspot authentication, wireless intrusion prevention and dynamic pre-shared keys.

For more information, visit RuckusWireless at http://www.ruckuswireless.com.

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Nokia: Apple altered Siri after it named Lumia 900 best smartphone

By Fei Lumbania on May 18, 2012

By Ashleigh Allsopp
Macworld U.K.
May 18, 2012

LONDON - Last week, it was reported that the Siri named Nokia’s Lumia 900 the best smartphone ever. Now, Siri appears to have changed its mind, causing Nokia to accuse Apple altering Siri’s programming.

On Friday, The Next Web reported that, when asked “What is the best smartphone ever”, the iPhone 4S’s assistant replied with the Nokia Lumia 900, after generating its answer based on results from Wolfram Alpha, a service that draws from users reviews across the web.

On Monday, it appeared that Siri had changed its mind, and began answering the question “What is the best smartphone ever” with “You’re kidding right,” “Waitthere are other phones?” and “The one you’re holding.”

CNET reported that Apple had not confirmed that it had changed Siri’s programming to control the answer, but Nokia now believes that Apple is controlling Siri’s responses.

“Apple position Siri as the intelligent system that’s there to help, but clearly if they don’t like the answer, they override the software,” Nokia spokeswoman Tracy Postill told the Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday.

CNET reports that Postill’s comment “may have been taken a bit too seriously,” according to another Nokia spokesperson.

CNET notes that when asked what the best tablet ever is, Siri replies: “The Apple iPad is the best. And that’s not just my opinion.”

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Netsuite SuiteCommerce to aid businesses in supporting ‘any’ customer device

By Fei Lumbania on May 18, 2012

By Leo King
Computerworld UK
May 18, 2012

LONDON - Netsuite has announced SuiteCommerce, a system designed to aid companies in selling to customers using any device.

Zach Nelson, Netsuite chief executive, told delegates at this week’s SuiteWorld conference in San Francisco that the system was a “commerce platform that allows you to support any touchpoint and business model, while providing integrated back office commerce, and a platform for rapid innovation”.

The system has been designed in response to concerns from companies that it was increasingly difficult for them to serve customers in-store, through all mobile platforms, and through different tablets and traditional online channels, while pulling in data from an array of core enterprise resource planning modules.

“Apple and Amazon have really set the benchmark here,” Nelson said. “For example, Apple serve all their channels through one core platform and can access all the data easily. Other companies are really trying to figure out how to do this.”

The SuiteCommerce system is designed for companies that sell to consumers as well as to business clients.

“If you’re a software vendor and you’re still trying to work out social and mobile as an apps company, you have serious problems,” said Nelson.

“We want to transform how your business operates. You are eliminating friction between accounts, support and sales systems and trying to operate seamlessly.”

“It’s a customer driven revolution in e-commerce. Even business to business clients want an e-commerce experience.”

Nelson predicted that ‘machine to machine’ commerce would also grow massively. In M2M, no humans are involved, and Nelson said the new system would serve this sector.

“We have customers that use surgical robots, for example, that automatically order more tools when they need them.

“The human as a CRM system will be a thing of the past. Your car will tell you on screen when your wipers or tyres are deteriorating, and order more for you.”

SuiteCommerce runs on Netsuite’s core CRM and ERP systems. Developed over 18 months, it offers a “truly integrated” experience, Nelson said. It allows businesses to build sites with a “responsive design”, adapting to the device being used by each consumer and to the data in their Netsuite ERP and CRM systems.

Early customers in the USA include the Girl Scouts and retailer Serena&Lily, and Netsuite is beginning a limited rollout of the product’s release to customers globally.

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