Xbox One Key To 'One Microsoft'

Microsoft's Xbox One isn't just about taking over the living room. It's a proving ground for CEO Steve Ballmer's "One Microsoft" vision.

Microsoft sold more than 1 million Xbox Ones within 24 hours of the console's Friday launch. Sony's PlayStation 4 sold at about the same rate when it debuted the week before.

The launch is auspicious, if not necessarily extraordinary. It's been seven years since Microsoft released the Xbox 360, after all; with so much pent-up demand, an early rush of sales was inevitable.

Here's what's more important than day-one sales: whether the Xbox One's performance remains strong enough to affirm the consumer-oriented aspects of retiring CEO Steve Ballmer's "One Microsoft" strategy. 

A recent Bloomberg article spoke to this question, claiming that former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop, widely perceived as a frontrunner for Ballmer's job, would consider jettisoning Xbox and Bing if he is selected to lead. The article cited unnamed sources close to Elop, but even if he is less trigger happy than implied, Microsoft's consumer efforts face scrutiny from others as well.

Influential hedge fund ValueAct, which owns around a 1 percent stake in Microsoft, opposes Microsoft's decision to manufacture devices, for example, according to a July report in Reuters. Wall Street commentators such as Nomura analyst Rick Sherlund routinely say Microsoft would be stronger if the Xbox were spun off. Reuters also reported in October that several major shareholders feel Microsoft chairman Bill Gates is blocking the radical changes the company must make-- further indication of the contentiousness that surrounds Microsoft's future tactics. 

Nonetheless, it's a foregone conclusion that Microsoft will continue to target at least some consumer markets; otherwise, it wouldn't have purchased Nokia's device business. But it's one thing for Microsoft to get serious about smartphones; they're the gateway to end users, and Microsoft's hand was somewhat forced because no one besides Nokia was wholeheartedly supporting Windows Phone 8 in the first place. It's something else for Microsoft to invest billions in Surface tablets, Bing and the Xbox -- the first two have lost more than they've earned, and the Xbox eats up resources that might be better spent on Windows, Office, Azure or other more profitable products.

To be sure, the $499 Xbox One brings a lot to the table, perhaps enough to justify its $100 premium over the PlayStation 4. Its headline features include a next-generation Kinect sensor that can not only identify individual users, but also track a gamer's heartbeat during fitness games. It supports not only cable television, but also a number of video services, including Netflix and Hulu; can connect to the Web via Internet Explorer; and even supports multi-tasking for, say, watching a basketball game on one side of the screen while viewing an app with your fantasy league statistics in the other.

There's more. The Xbox One also obeys voice commands, has the cross-platform games you'd expect, and will boast a library of interactive titles once Microsoft finishes building them. Depending on your taste, you might also care about its exclusive games, such as Forza Motorsport 5 and Dead Rising 3.

Early reviews indicate the Xbox One doesn't get everything right, but as a grab at living room domination, it's as good as anything in the market -- which is to say, good enough to be intriguing, but not good enough to be an iPhone-level disruptive force. Research firm Gartner projects the video game market will be worth $111 billion by 2015, a 19% increase over this year, so if the Xbox One expands on the Xbox 360's reach, the spoils could be substantial.

If Microsoft's plan plays out, those spoils will extend outside the pure video game market, however. The Xbox hooks into Microsoft's cloud services such as Skype and SkyDrive, and its interface looks more like Windows 8's Start screen than ever. Under "One Microsoft," this synergy is designed to turn Xbox sales into subscriptions for Microsoft's cloud services, or, better yet, higher adoption of Windows 8 devices. If it works, Ballmer's interest in consumers could be vindicated. But if the Xbox One can't appeal to more than a core gaming audience, incensed investors will start circling.

Microsoft director John Thompson, who leads the CEO selection committee, has repeatedly stated that the company's next CEO will use the blueprint Ballmer has already established. But you wouldn't expect him to say anything else; otherwise, he'd be dooming products like the Surface Pro 2 and the Xbox One before they'd even had a chance.

If the Xbox evolves into a dominant media hub, it will have to grow from a gamer base, but it's not yet clear if the majority of gamers will go with Microsoft or Sony.

Apple and Google already dominate gaming, and media consumption in general, on mobile devices. Both are also experimenting with ways to expand their grasp to televisions. Microsoft and Sony are essentially trying to infiltrate the living room from one end, if one other words, but even if Microsoft prevails, it might find a Siri-equipped iTV or some future iteration of Chromecast waiting for it on the other.

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Categories: Games , MIcrosoft , News

Google's Android platform under EU anti-trust watchdog scanner

NEW DELHI:  European anti-trust regulator is looking at whether Internet major Google's popular smartphone platform Android is violating fair competition norms. 

Google is already under investigation of European Commission for alleged anti-competitive behaviour in the search engine market. 

Regarding the Android issue, European Commission Vice President Joaquin Almunia said the case is at an early stage and a decision on launching a formal investigation is yet to be taken.

"We have not yet formalised the concerns. We are looking at the way the Android ecosystem deals with different elements that can be considered as anti-competitive rules," Almunia told PTI here.

Android is one of the widely used smartphone operating platforms.

Going by estimates from global research firm Gartner, Android accounted for more than 80 per cent share in the smartphone operating system market during the third quarter of 2013. 

The competition division of the European Commission -- the executive arm of European Union (EU) -- is looking into the case. EU is a grouping of around 28 countries. 

Meanwhile, consultation process is progressing with regard to the Commission's probe into allegations of Google indulging in anti-competitive ways in the Internet search engine market. 

"It is on-going and we are at the end of second round of consultations," Almunia told reporters. 

With respect to this case, the Commission is expected to take a final view in the coming months after taking into consideration the outcome of the consultation process, views and responses from stakeholders and Google, he added. 

"It is a very difficult investigation because this is the first time that from an anti-trust point of view we are dealing with search engine sector...," he said. 

India's Competition Commission is also probing alleged unfair practices by Google in the Internet search engine market. 

Following a complaint against Google, which dominates the Internet search space, the Competition Commission of India ( CCI) had started investigations in August last year

Categories: google , News

First look: Google Nexus 5

NEW YORK:  You don't get a lot of frills with Google's new Nexus 5 phone. There's no fingerprint reader, no waterproof covering, no sensor to detect eye movement or hand gestures. 

What you get is an Android phone that's very good at the basics -- for an excellent price. 

The phone costs $349 and is sold unlocked, without any contract requirements. By contrast, contract-free prices for many top phones exceed $600. For significantly less, the Nexus 5 does a lot of the same things well. 

The high-resolution screen on the Nexus is among the best, comparable to flagship phones from Samsung and HTC and sharper than the iPhone. The display measures nearly 5-inch diagonally -- on par with leading phones, yet not so big that it's hard to hold and make calls. The camera isn't superb, but takes decent shots. The Nexus also supports 4G LTE cellular networks. 

And because it's designed by Google, you are getting as close to a pure Android experience as you can get, without clutter or gimmicks that many phone makers add to distinguish their phones from rivals. You're also getting the latest: The Nexus is the first Android phone to offer version 4.4, known as Kit Kat. It could take weeks or months for other phones to get Kit Kat. 

I only wish the Nexus is compatible with Verizon, but its network uses different technology. The Nexus works with just about every other US carrier, as well as several in Europe. 

The Google Now voice assistant takes centre stage in the Nexus 5. The voice recognition technology seems better than before. I was surprised how well it picked up my commands in noisy environments. 

The Nexus borrows a hands-free feature found in the Moto X phone from Google's Motorola division. Simply say, "OK, Google," instead of pushing a button, to make a voice command or search request. But the Nexus doesn't let you use this feature to unlock the phone like the Moto X. 

Unlike the iPhone's Siri voice assistant, Google Now tries to anticipate what you need and offer that before you even have to ask. It delivers information based on past search requests, Gmail traffic and other ways you use Google services. The more you use it, the more it learns. On the Nexus, you can access all that by swiping from the left of the screen, rather than finding and tapping a search box or waiting for a notification. 

As for KitKat, the most useful improvement is its new phone dialer. What you'll probably notice first is the lack of a numeric keypad when you open it. Instead, you get boxes showing favorites, frequent contacts and recent or missed calls. It's an acknowledgement that few people know phone numbers anymore. We tend to make calls from contact lists. 

What if it's a business that's not in your contact list? Type it into the search box. The phone searches both your contact list and the web simultaneously. Start typing in "Dunkin' Donuts" or "toy store," and Google will find the ones that are closest to you. 

If you still need the numeric keypad, it's an extra tap to get it. 

A new Caller ID feature goes beyond what's available in standard directory assistance by drawing data from Google Places business profiles. I wasn't too impressed, though: Telemarketers came in with just the phone number, so I don't see that it's a business I ought to avoid. 

KitKat also combines text messaging and chats in one app, Hangouts. It's similar to what Apple does with Messages. The difference is that text and chat streams are treated as separate conversations, which can be disjointing to follow. With Apple devices, all that is managed in one stream for a more natural conversation flow. 

You should expect the Kit Kat features on other Android phones when they get the operating system in the coming weeks and months. 

Meanwhile, I like the clean layout on the Nexus. Icons are larger, and extra home screens aren't created unnecessarily by default. You create them as you need them by dragging an app to the right. 

The main camera's 8MP is comparable to the latest iPhones. The iPhone 5S has better auto focus, but the slightly blurry test shots taken with the Nexus still look better than what I often see on Facebook. 

The Nexus supports wireless charging, though the charger is sold separately. If you get it, you can ditch the microUSB cable and simply rest the Nexus on the charger. The Nexus also has a chip for near-field communications, which helps with mobile payments and file sharing. 

The phone itself is made by LG Electronics, based on Google's designs. The new features aren't revolutionary, yet Google succeeds in showcasing what Android can be. 

Although other high-end phones are available for $100 or $200 with two-year service agreements, many people are now shelling out the full retail price for phones, driven in part by frequent-upgrade programmes and contract-free service plans that wireless carriers are starting to offer. The price of the Nexus 5 makes it even more tempting to ditch phone contracts and the subsidies that typically lock you in.

Categories: google , News

NSA infected 50,000 computer networks worldwide with malware

The latest claims come from a digital presentation slide, which show a world map highlighting hard computer networks and ‘world-wide implants’ under the category. 

CNE (Computer Network Exploitation), NSA jargon for malware infections. 

According to Mashable, NSA’s elite hacker team conducted these sophisticated spy attacks on networks including the one against Belgian telecom company Belgacom that was carried out by NSA’s UK ally, the GCHQ. 

The report said that CNE includes enabling actions and intelligence collection via computer networks that exploit data gathered from target or enemy information systems or networks. 

The ‘implants’ act as digital ‘sleeper cells’ that can be activated with a single push of a button. The revelations by Snowden have severely impacted US ties with its allies apart from experiencing loss of trust from its own citizens

Categories: News , security

Apple Co-Developed Next Generation Hearing Aid Device Coming to Market in Q1 - 2014

This was the year that Apple put a lot of energy into developing technology to advance hearing aids in connection to the iPhone. Apple's first patent application surfaced at the US Patent Office in February and their most recent application came to light last month. Their work was obviously more aggressive than first thought. Today we've learned that Apple approached all hearing aid companies to introduce their ideas and technology and a next generation product from Denmark's GN Store Nord is now only months away from being the first to tap into technology that will work with Apple's iPhone .

According to a new Reuters report, "The world's fourth-largest maker has collaborated with Apple to develop a device packed with Bluetooth-like technology that installed in the ear allows users to stream voice and music from their iPhones without the need for an intermediary device. 

It had a head start on Bluetooth technology for hearing aids as one of the world's biggest wireless headset makers, but conventional Bluetooth devices tend to be notoriously profligate users of energy and require sizeable antennas. Overcoming those limitations gives LiNX users a cosmetic advantage by eliminating the need for a separate transmitter, typically worn round the neck. 

Morgan Stanley calls the LiNX, which will be officially launched in the first quarter next year, the "first attempt to turn a hearing aid into more of a lifestyle product." 

Apple went to all manufacturers and said it wanted to have a direct link from hearing aids to its phones using 2.4 GHz and, because GN was already on its second generation of such products, an instant pairing was made. Interestingly the 2.4 GHz frequency was picked last year by Apple for its iPhones. 

The report further stated that there were frequent visits between California and Copenhagen to build up the protocol and improve power-efficiency. The size of this market is huge with an estimated value of $15 billion.

Categories: apple , News

Moore's law and the programming language renaissance

Moore's Law states that every 18 months a CPU's transistors will shrink in size by a factor of two. This means every 18 months you can stuff twice as many transistors onto a CPU, making it twice as fast. This law has been in effect since the late 1950's, and as technology advances, not only have the CPU's been able to hold more transistors, but they have been getting smaller in size as well. Intel recently released plans for a 14 nanometer CPU this September. 14 nanometers is only about 60 times larger than a silicon atom, which means you can fit billions of them on a chip, over a million times more than you could in the 1950s.

Throughout the 20th century, Moore's Law was the software developer's best friend because, as a result of the increasing CPU speed, every 18 months software became twice as fast without any extra effort on the developer's part. However, in 2002, limitations in a CPU's circuitry demanded a new architecture if Moore's Law were to hold true. Out of these limitations the multicore processor was born. This essentially means that before 2002 you had one CPU in your computer and after 2002 you have multiple CPUs -- or cores -- in your computer. Each individual core has not gotten much faster since 2002, but the amount of them is doubling every 18 months, which means Moore's Law is still holding true.

In order for today's developers to benefit from the speed increases Moore's Law offers, they need to take advantage of multicore processors. But it's not that simple. For the past 50 years developers have written programs to run on a single CPU. Most of the tools, programming languages, college curriculums and research have followed suit. A program designed using all of that knowledge and experience will only run on a single core of a multicore CPU, and those cores aren't getting faster. Now developers have to rethink their programming approach and coordinate -- or parallelize -- programs across cores--no easy feat.

An apt metaphor for describing the difficulties of multicore programming is the game "telephone." For those of you who aren't familiar with this childhood game, the basic premise is that several children stand in a line and the first child whispers a word or phrase to the next, who whispers the same word or phrase to the next child, and so on. When the last child hears the word or phrase, he says it out loud so everyone can hear, and it is never the same as it was at the beginning of the chain. I remember once starting one of these infamous chains with the phrase "I think Jenny's cute" only to have it end with "Jenny smells like monkey poop"--clearly not the desired outcome. Multicore programming is like this but with millions of kids whispering millions of words, a million times a second.

Today's most popular programming languages (C, C++, C#, Objective-C, Java, Python, Ruby) are ill-equipped to stand up to the challenge of multicore programming. While developers can still use these languages for single CPU programming, they face the drawback of leaving the speed of the program stuck in 2002. And unfortunately, this is what is happening with much of the code being written today.

However, within select academic communities, programming languages have been developed that make multicore programming far less daunting. These languages are known as "functional programming languages" and while they don't completely solve the difficulties of multicore programming, they certainly make them less daunting. To go back to the earlier metaphor, playing "telephone" with a functional programming language is more like playing with adults instead of children. There is still room for "monkey poop" moments, but they are less likely if adults have the right intent.

My favorite of these functional programming languages is called Scala. Scala is a language that runs on the Java Virtual Machine, which is great because it means that all of the knowledge a Java programmer has built up over their lifetime is 100% applicable to the Scala programming done in the future. It's also flexible enough so that a Java developer can ease into the language. Scala describes itself as a "object-oriented-functional-hybrid language." Java programmers have been doing object-oriented programming since its inception, so they simply need to adapt to a few of the functional programming paradigms.

Scala has been dramatically gaining in popularity over the past decade. Companies like LinkedIn, Twitter, Intel, Foursquare, and the Huffington Post are using it in production. Large communities have sprouted up all over the world through sites like meetup.com (also using Scala). And it's becoming easier to learn since free courses on the language are being offered through coursera.org.

Now it's easy for me to sing the praises of Scala, as an avid user and the organizer of both the New York Scala Meetup and the Boulder Scala Meetup. So I think it's only fair that I note there are a few other languages out there making programming on multicore processors easier. Some popular ones are Clojure, F#, and Go. These languages all have their upsides and downsides, as any language does, but because of the difficulty Moore's Law has posed to developers, it's in their best interest to start learning one.

Categories: Engineering , Mathematics , News , Research

UW engineers invent programming language to build synthetic DNA

Similar to using Python or Java to write code for a computer, chemists soon could be able use a structured set of instructions to “program” how DNA molecules interact in a test tube or a cell.

A team led by the University of Washington [UW] has developed a programming language for chemistry that it hopes will streamline efforts to design a network that can guide the behavior of chemical-reaction mixtures in the same way that embedded electronic controllers guide cars, robots and other devices. In medicine, such networks could serve as “smart” drug deliverers or disease detectors at the cellular level.

Chemists and educators teach and use chemical reaction networks, a century-old language of equations that describes how mixtures of chemicals behave. The UW engineers take this language a step further and use it to write programs that direct the movement of tailor-made molecules. 

“We start from an abstract, mathematical description of a chemical system, and then use DNA to build the molecules that realize the desired dynamics,” said corresponding author Georg Seelig, a UW assistant professor of electrical engineering and of computer science and engineering. “The vision is that eventually, you can use this technology to build general-purpose tools.” 

Currently, when a biologist or chemist makes a certain type of molecular network, the engineering process is complex, cumbersome and hard to repurpose for building other systems. The UW engineers wanted to create a framework that gives scientists more flexibility. Seelig likens this new approach to programming languages that tell a computer what to do. 

“I think this is appealing because it allows you to solve more than one problem,” Seelig said. “If you want a computer to do something else, you just reprogram it. This project is very similar in that we can tell chemistry what to do.” 

An example chemical program. Yan Liang, L2XY2.com An example of a chemical program. Here, A, B and C are different chemical species. Humans and other organisms already have complex networks of nano-sized molecules that help to regulate cells and keep the body in check. Scientists now are finding ways to design synthetic systems that behave like biological ones with the hope that synthetic molecules could support the body’s natural functions. 

To that end, a system is needed to create synthetic DNA molecules that vary according to their specific functions. The new approach isn’t ready to be applied in the medical field, but future uses could include using this framework to make molecules that self-assemble within cells and serve as “smart” sensors. These could be embedded in a cell, then programmed to detect abnormalities and respond as needed, perhaps by delivering drugs directly to those cells.

Seelig and colleague Eric Klavins, a University of Washington associate professor of electrical engineering, recently received $2 million from the National Science Foundation as part of a national initiative to boost research in molecular programming. The new language will be used to support that larger initiative, Seelig said. 

Co-authors of the paper are Yuan-Jyue Chen, a UW doctoral student in electrical engineering; David Soloveichik of the University of California, San Francisco; Niranjan Srinivas at the California Institute of Technology; and Neil Dalchau, Andrew Phillips and Luca Cardelli of Microsoft Research. 

The research was funded by the National Science Foundation, the Burroughs Wellcome Fund and the National Centers for Systems Biology. 

An article from University of Washington website 
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Categories: coding , Engineering , News , Research

Travelling to China? | Leave your laptop at home

American Government officials and private business people travelling to china are taking more and more precautions against exploiting and digital espionage, according a report in newspaper.

While many other peoples leave their electronics behind, others have separate devices for travelling or follow elaborate routines for blanking out the hard drives before leaving and sanitizing them once again upon return.

Travelers have also learnt to take the batteries out of their phones to protect themselves from spyware that might clandestinely start recording their meetings and conversations.

China isn’t the only offender, but its growing importance in world politics and economics make it a huge danger. Laptop that make it back from china are often infected with infected with malware that spreads across a company’s network as soon as they connect to it upon return.

The Malware that sneaks into other computers, printers and other network appliances in order to avoid detection and allow remote attackers to gain access to corporate secrets.

Top government officials are said to be fully aware that every single laptop taken to China by officials in various government had returned without some sort of deliberate and persistent malware infection.

It’s also illegal to carry encrypted storage devices into china without prior government approval.

Categories: News , security

C++ language father of various applications and OS

Today we were surrounded by a multiple of electronic devices like computer, laptops, palmtops, mobile phones, tablets, PDA etc., any sort of hardware’s which needs programmable memory to operate, which needs to be programmed to instruct them what to do? Then one picture came in our mind that those devices which needs to be programmed, not just a program, a bundle and the bundle of programs. Those program must be written in some sort of programming languages.

The one programming languages was most common in these are C and C++. This is the language which was developed by Bjarne Stroutstrup started in 1979 at Bell Laboratories. At the very early stage of the program development it was developed as naming C. After a few modification and adding the concept Object Oriented theory was introduced and named as “C with Classes” because certain features like classes, inheritance was introduced in this language. In 1983, it was renamed as C++.

As, we know that electronics devices like computers, laptops, cell-phones, etc. are not just limited up to the extent of programmed used to instruct, but far more from that. As the development of Operating System like windows and Linux which was built in C and C++, opens the door of opportunity to create a multiple of software’s for different purposes to use in Operating System. C++ is implemented on a wide variety of hardware and operating system platforms, including system software, application software, device drivers, embedded software, High-performance server and Client applications, and also by means of entertainment such as Video Games, graphics in designing.

The language began as enhancements to C, first adding classes, and then virtual functions, operator overloading, multiple inheritance, templates and exception handling, among other features. Now if we see a media player was built in C and C++, if we talk about the servers it was also built on this language.

Even if you have to understand any other programming language then the bases of all programming language is C and C++. Like Java, Perl, python and many more are the programming languages which was built on C and C++. And even if it was not then for the basic understanding of any other languages the one have to first understand the programming in C and C++. This is why it is called the father all languages, from which we get the various applications and Operating System. 

Categories: C++ , codes , News

Learn and Teach Coding in Codeacademy

Codecademy is the easiest way to learn to code. It's interactive, fun, and you can do it with your friends. This is the place where you can learn coding. Here you can get many learning tutorials in all aspects of programming languages. Also here you can create courses on many topics your own, share your knowledge and build your reputation as an expert in your field.

So this is the website where you can learn as well as you can teach in any of your specialization in particular fields. Code-academy is an academy introduced by MIT and its organization. There is also a HackMIT an organization of MIT involving over 1000 students all around the world. Also with the coding here you can learn many aspects of technical engineering, designing and many more. Hope you will enjoy this website Click Here to go.  

Categories: codes , coding , News