Data Transfer Record: 186 Gbps

Researchers have set a new 2-way network data transfer rate record of 186 Gbps in order to help work through tons of information spewing out of the Large Hadron Collider. The researchers at Caltech, University of Michigan, and others have recently cooperated to push the limits of the amount of data that could be transferred in a wide area network. Today the computer experts acknowledge that very large quantities of data are able to be crammed down optical fibres and sent throughout the globe from continent to continent. The speeds in question are apparently equivalent to moving 2,000,000 Gb per day. Now they expect that new networks could be constructed in order to use the technology in the next few years, most likely within the range of 40 to 100 Gbps. The 2-way connection, both ways reaching 88 Gbps to make up for a combined 186 Gpbs, sent information from ten Dell servers from British Columbia and Seattle through an optical network. This broke the earlier record, set by the same team, which was 119 Gbps two years ago. Moreover, the researchers decided to show the globe spanning potential of the high speed information network, and that’s why data was also sent to some institutes located in Brazil and Korea. This network will be very helpful in work through the staggering amount of information derived from the Large Hadron Collider at the CERN facility, where the scientists are now trying to work through information that has indicated the presence of the Higgs boson. Thus far, over 100 petabytes of data has been processed. This is really an outstanding amount of information, which could be compared to a Blockbusters-beating 100,000,000 Blu-ray disks. Meanwhile, the researchers believe that it’s only the start, because experts of the Large Hadron Collider will smash even more particles together. At the moment, it is expected that the experts in laboratories all over the globe will be able to get their hands on information in order to solve mysteries of the universe rather than having to watch a download bar run as swiftly as an MP3 on a slow dial-up connection. Everything becomes easy our days, and petascale particle physics information can now be transferred to any corner of the world in merely a couple of hours.

Saudi Prince Invested In Twitter

Saudi News Corp-investor billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal has recently purchased a $300 million stake in a worldwide-known microblogging technology company Twitter. Actually, Twitter is known as a mystery to many investors, since, regardless of its impressive userbase, its commercial model is still far from a very efficient one. Nevertheless, the billionaire prince, himself worth around $19.6 billion, has recently invested $300 million into the service. Alwaleed, nephew of King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, made the investment via his Kingdom Holding Company, which is known for being in long talks with the online service. Kingdom Holding Company owns a 7% share of News Corporation, the second-highest after Rupert Murdoch. Kingdom Holding Company announced in a statement that it had been talking to the micro-blogging service for several months already and is combing the books for due diligence. The company also reaffirmed its ability to identify suitable opportunities to invest in promising, high-growth businesses having a global impact, according to Alwaleed’s statement. Despite the fact that Twitter is still working on a good way to really monetize the influence it wields, the Kingdom Holding Company believes there’s an opportunity there to leverage the nature of the media industry in common. Hal Stokes, social media director at Essence, explained in the interview that this move is an excellent pure business decision. He pointed out that as the world progressively becomes tech-driven, and media is progressively becoming social media, it is just a smart, progressive business deal to diversify his investments. Hal Stokes does not really believe that there will be any considerable impact on Twitter's everyday operations, because Internet users will vote with their feet. He calls it the beauty of social media, which Internet users finally decide. In case the industry offers them a great service which suits their needs, they will use it, stop doing this and they could be able to move elsewhere. Hal Stokes can't realize that any considerable impact will materialize. According to official data, DST Global's $400 million for a 5% stake of Twitter valued it at about $8 billion in August 2011. If you take into account these figures, Alwaleed's investment measures up to about 3.75%.

Aakash Tablet's Delivery Pushed To Next Year

DataWind, the Canadian company that is manufacturing Aakash, will start distribution of the much anticipated low cost Android tablet from next month for which online booking had started on December 15.

A spokesperson of Datawind said to The Mobile Indian, "People who have booked the Aakash tablet online will get its delivery in January.” The spokesperson, however, didn't cite any reason for the delay. Earlier the company had said that the Rs 2,500 Aakash tablet will be delivered within seven days of online booking.

Flip Flops

On earlier occasions also, Datawind have failed to honour their commitment as the tablet was supposed to be made available in retail stores by the end of November. Now it is expected to hit the stores only in February.

DataWind initially said that the Aakash tablet will be available to students only through colleges and schools. However, later it started online booking of Aakash for everyone including students. Besides,DataWind have given only 10,000 Aakash tablets to the government for distribution in schools and colleges of the initial 1 lakh proposed.

The Mobile Indian got more than 200 emails and 300 calls from users who complained that after booking the tablet online they didn't get any call or confirmatory email.

Even after The Mobile Indian's repeated request for clarification on the hardship faced by the consumers, Datwind didn't share any information instead it said: "An official statement will soon be released and we will keep you posted.”

We hope this time Akash Tablet is delivered to consumers on time.

About Aakash and UbiSlate

There are two versions of the tablet. The original Aakash tablet comes with much lower specifications and is priced at Rs 2,500. Its cousin — named as UbiSlate, is comparatively powerful and is priced at Rs 2,999.

UbiSlate will be powered by Android 2.3 and will have a resistive touchscreen, Cortex A8-700 MHz processor and graphics accelerator HD video processor, 256 MB of RAM and 2 GB of internal memory. Other specifications are - one standard USB port, 3.5 mm audio jack, a 7 inch display with 800 x 480 pixel resolution, resistive touchscreen, GPRS and WiFi support.

On the other hand, the 7 inch screen bearing Aakash tablet has Android 2.2 operating system, Arm11 — 366 Mhz processor, 2100 battery, WiFi and will have support for 3G modem. The price difference between the Aakash and UbiSlate is because the commercially available product will include a cellular modem, allowing it to deliver web access anywhere there is a cellular connectivity, and also to function as a mobile phone. Notably, Internet access on both the tablets across mobile networks will be priced at Rs 99 for 2GB.

Steve Jobs to Be Honoured With Grammy Award

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs will be posthumously honoured with a Grammy award for his contribution to music technology, The Recording Academy announced Wednesday.

Jobs, who died Oct 5 of pancreatic cancer, will receive a Trustees Award for helping create products 'that transformed the way we consume music, TV, movies and books', Xinhua quoted the academy as saying in a statement.

Apple Computer Inc. first received a Technical Grammy Award in 2002 for contributions of outstanding technical significance to the recording field, the academy said.

Along with Jobs, bandleader and composer Dave Bartholomew, recording engineer Rudy Van Gelder will also receive the award.

The academy also picked the Allman Brothers, Glen Campbell, Diana Ross and Brazilian pianist/singer/guitarist Antonio Carlos Jobim as recipients of Lifetime Achievement Awards. Jobim was known for composing 'The Girl from Ipanema', a worldwide hit in the mid-1960s which won a Grammy for Record of the Year in 1965.

Other artists, including trumpeter Wayne Jackson, saxophonist Andrew Love of the Memphis Horns, country legend George Jones, and the late Gil Scott-Heron were also named as recipients.

German sound-technology firm Celemony and the late audio engineer Roger Nichols, who worked with artists including Ross, Placido Domingo, James Taylor and Stevie Wonder, were recognized with Grammy Technical Awards.

'This year's honorees offer a variety of brilliance, contributions and lasting impressions on our culture,' said President/CEO of The Recording Academy Neil Portnow.

'It is an honor to recognize such a diverse group of individuals whose talents and achievements have had an indelible impact on our industry.'

New Nokia Smartphone Fails To Turn Tide

Nokia's long-awaited Windows phones may be too little, too late in the smartphone war dominated by Apple andGoogle, despite positive reviews by handset critics.

Its first Windows model, the Lumia 800, has won little interest from consumers, with only 2 percent of Europeans in the market for a smartphone saying they would pick it, according to a survey by Exane BNP Paribas.

Analysts said there was nothing particularly wrong with the sleek-looking handsets, other than a sofware glitch on some models affecting battery life, but consumers were just not biting.

Smartphones using Microsoft software have just a 2 percent market share, compared with Google Android at around 50 percent and Apple at 15-20 percent.

"There isn't much room left for a third ecosystem. The smartphone market is consolidating fast," said Bernstein analyst Pierre Ferragu who rates Nokia a "sell".

Nokia's shares have fallen over 20 percent since the October 26 launch of the new phone, with investors fearing Nokia would be unable to claw back the market share it has lost in the past several years to rivals like Apple.

Phones using Nokia's old Symbian software, which it decided to dump in favour of Microsoft, are still in circulation and outsell Windows phones 10 to 1.

But as Nokia keeps shifting to Windows, sales of Symbian have a lot of room to disappoint over coming quarters and some analysts are warning of lower dividends and weaker-than-expected earnings ahead.

Now even Microsoft has started to hedge its bets, making its software increasingly available for rivals to Windows Phone.

Smartphones are built on mobile computing platforms, and the most modern combine web browsers, navigation systems, cameras and portable music systems. A so-called "feature" phone -- a market Nokia still dominates -- has far fewer of these applications.

FIRST STEP?

Nokia officials defended the Lumia, and a spokesman said there was "positive momentum" while declining to give any data. One executive argued that Nokia had never counted on the first Lumia phones to lead to a quick turnaround but instead expected it to be the first step towards recovery.

In fact, there are just as many analysts recommending a "buy" on the shares as there are "sell" ratings.

Those who are keeping the faith believe the new assault on the smartphone market may be enough to give Nokia a place at the table.

Many of them say the range of concerns over the Finnish company are fully priced into the shares, while the company's strong cash position and some prized patent assets could attract a takeover approach.

"With current, and upcoming models, Nokia can win back market share in both -- in feature phones and in smartphones," said Swedbank analyst Jari Honko, who rates the shares a "buy". "Today's share price does not take into account any recovery in the Nokia market position."

Optimists also cite an improvement in Nokia's product portfolio, which looked out of date when Stephen Elop took over as the chief executive in September 2010.

And while some argue there is no room for a third alternative to Google and Apple, some developers and operators do see room for more competitors in this market.

The 2012 Windows 8 upgrade could also attract a wider audience by making the way smartphones, tablets and PCs work more similar.

For investors, the biggest positive surprise could be an acquisition offer. After Nokia signed a deal with Microsoft, rumours of full takeover by Microsoft or at least buyout of smartphone unit have made rounds on a weekly basis.

Last week the stock jumped 4 percent when Danske Bank suggested Microsoft could buy Nokia's smartphone unit.

But even if investors do not get a rich buyout - online gambling company Unibet is putting odds on Microsoft buying Nokia in 2012 at just 1 out of 15 - analysts say the company's relatively-solid finances should at least offer some security.

Nokia had 1.36 euros per share of cash at the end of the last quarter. It also has a strong patent portfolio - on its own worth more than a euro per share - and owns top digital mapping firm Navteq and half of No. 2 mobile network gear maker Nokia Siemens Networks

Publishers Go Greedy With Apple

Six of the top publishers have cooperated in order to fix a price for ebooks higher than that of a hard copy – this is regardless of the fact that the cost of making an ebook is less than the cost of a hardback. Wall Street Journal revealed that the price fixing was agreed on at the behest of Steve Jobs, who wanted to open an Amazon style ebook shop but didn’t want to involve discounting that made Amazon that successful. So, Jobs and six publishers have negotiated a new pricing model – they were undoubtedly happy since they felt that this move preserved the value of books and encouraged other businesses to enter the electronic book market. This deal promises guaranteed profits on best-selling titles for such retailers as Barnes & Noble that today accounts for 27% of the digital books market, along with Amazon. All this offers tremendous profits for the publishers, but not many benefits for consumers. This new pricing deal among publishers can prevent retailers from discounting electronic books without their permission, while there’s no similar agreement about printed books. Although the stores are still able to cut the price for printed books as much as they want to entice readers to purchase, they will now have to comply with the new, higher prices for e-books set by the copyright owners. It looks like the publishers decided that people will now pay more money for the benefits of electronic books like portability and convenience. However, this might become the biggest own goal in the history of publishing. Currently the readers are forced to choose between the goods that are more expensive, they have to get mailed to them (but can be kept on shelves), and the goods which are instant but much cheaper. So, if the publishers force readers to pay higher prices for electronic books, they would abandon the idea in droves. In addition, it’s unclear how copyright owners want to justify the margins in the scam. Currently, a typical book contract pays 3-10% of the final cost to the writer, while the distributor and retailer receive 50-60%, and the publisher gets the rest. While distribution of a printed book was quite expensive, since it required shipping and storage, an ebook costs a fraction of that. It may even be as low as 5% after the distributor takes a cost for delivering the product to the reader. However, the publishers didn’t increase the share of the authors who are still left with contracts. In other words, writers won’t see much money at all.

Gene Simmons Hacker Caught

The police have finally arrested Kevin George Poe, accusing him of being the one who launched 5-day DDoS attack on the official site of Gene Simmons. If you are old enough to remember the 1970s, Gene Simmons was a make-up addicted, popular beat combo musician and tongue twister for the well-known band Kiss. If you are a bit younger, Simmons is currently a reality television star who runs a show named "Gene Simmons' Family Jewels". That’s how it started. According to the information provided by the local media, Poe said "nevermore" to Gene Simmons after the musician hit out against illegal file-sharing. Gene Simmons complained about the failure of the entertainment industry to sue every college student able to download copyrighted content. A grand jury believes that there’s quite enough evidence to link Kevin George Poe to the Anonymous hacker group. With the help of the handle called "spydr101", Poe used the Low Orbit Ion Cannon (also known as LOIC) to launch DDoS attacks on the Kiss man's official site. However, he appeared to be not the best hacker across the globe – apparently, he didn’t manage to realize that the instrument he used would add his IP address into the packets he generated. However, one should be fair to Poe: it took the police too so long to arrest him because he did make some efforts to cover his tracks. Poe was arrested at the federal courthouse on charges of conspiracy and unauthorized impairment of a protected PC. He appeared a week ago in an American District Court in Hartford, Connecticut, and had been ordered to release immediately on a $10,000 bond. Now he has to appear in federal court in Los Angeles to face up to 15 years of jail time. The jokes are that if he was British or had Aspergers, he could have been looking at 60 years.

Facebook Will Sue Mark Zuckerberg

The most popular social networking service in the world, Facebook, has taken a decision to say that enough is enough and it is going to sue a guy having the same name as its founder Mark Zuckerberg. He appeared to be an Israeli entrepreneur who recently took the Facebook’s founder's name. Prior to attaining the spiritual heights of Zuckerbergness, the guy was just a simple Israeli named Rotem Guez. After having seen the seventh heaven (which is considered the true and invisible way of Zuckerberg), he was transformed by his revelation and deed polled himself to be an avatar of his holiness. However, Facebook service has refused to give him a profile bearing this new name and the guy disappeared and later has been sued. Later, Zuckerberg- Guez co-founded Like Store, a social marketing firm engaged into selling companies Likes for their brand pages. The law firm Perkins Coie, representing interests of Facebook, threatened to sue Rotem Guez, saying that the Like Store infringed the social network's Terms of Service. The threat told Rotem Guez to go forth and multiply and never come back to the promised land of social network ever again. Meanwhile, Rotem Guez officially announced plans to change his family's names as well, because they will be like Zuckerberg, face unto face. It seems that it took the company a week or something to get wind of that one and to threaten to launch a lawsuit against Zuckerberg's still existing Like Store. According to the local newspapers, nothing can stop Facebook from pursuing someone with last name being Zuckerberg, since it really makes them look very silly, and that’s what most likely should be the very idea of the entire affair.

Wikipedia Founder Will Fight SOPA

Jimmy Wales, a Wikipedia founder, has joined activist groups on the Internet in order to quash the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). He is currently threatening to kill the English language version of his encyclopedia in retaliation. Jimmy Wales announced through the service Wikipedia that it is really a huge deal to do something like that, and this would be unprecedented for English Wikipedia. However, it won't be the first time the encyclopedia protests against the government. Jimmy Wales himself has proudly declared that the same situation in Italy resulted in blanking the Italian language version, announcing that the Italian Parliament backed down immediately. Even considering this, the SOPA legislation is even more contentious. A lot of online companies and organizations are now up in arms at measures pushing for harsh and absurd legislation on appeasing the entertainment industry. Meanwhile, its biggest critics claim that it will stifle the free nature of the web itself. At the moment, a strike hasn't been declared, but Wikipedia founder referred to the threat in question as a “straw poll” instead of an outright promise. It seems that he is trying to arm himself with a groundswell of public opinion before a meeting at the Whitehouse. However, it’s unclear if Jimmy Wales would prevent access just within the United States or if the entire website will take the plunge. He only mentioned that a global strike of at least the English version of the encyclopedia would put the maximum pressure on the country’s government. Thus far, there have been a lot of calls from people opposing the suggested legislation to help urge the government to vote against it. For example, activist group called Demand Progress has called for online companies to join to fight the bill, with 70 organizations having signed up so far. The group also backed a bid by Senator Wyden to read out the names of all people against the legislation in Congress in order to emphasize the widespread anger at the suggested law. It has called on netizens to contact the government by visiting America Censorship. David Segal, Director at the activist group, stressed the effect online encyclopedia would have in opposing the legislation as strongly as Jimmy Wales wants it to. He is still concerned that Wikipedia would face an existential threat if the proposed bill becomes law – in other words, they would have a tremendous impact if they were to go black now.

Social Media Important to Business

The recent report confirmed that emerging markets are currently the biggest users of social media for leverage business. KPMG researchers have found out that such countries as China, India and Brazil are 30% more likely to use social media in their operations than developed countries. Nevertheless, businesses have started to take notice and realize that social media features plenty of applications outside of describing to your followers what you did last night and what do you feel right now. Less than 50% of the firms from the United Kingdom appear to use external social media for their business operations, such as contacting suppliers, clients and customers. Meanwhile, this figure is as high as 83% in China and 72% in the United States. Nevertheless, the UK respondents admitted that after they weighed up the advantages and drawbacks, they came to a conclusion that having an open policy and using social media effectively would ensure greater returns than the business risks it can imply. Moreover, this could help workers source data and boost the firm's public profile. Finally, it can increase job satisfaction and offer another opportunity to establish and maintain contacts. The survey conducted by KPMG claimed that social media networks are increasingly moving into the boardroom. This way, just banning social media in the workplace isn’t a good idea for the corporations, but rather a way to shoot themselves in the foot. 30% of employees at the companies where social media is banned simply jailbreak their own work devices in order to use social networks in secret. In this situation, encouraging and cultivating such networks use while understanding the advantages it can offer can be considered as a much better policy. KPMG European head of tech, Tudor Aw, explained that social media networks represent a cheap way for corporations to undercut the competition in developed markets. He pointed out that sometimes, inefficient and unreliable email networks can be forsaken in preference of the faster interactive social network channels. In other cases, a lack of alternatives might be driving companies to adopt social networks within the enterprise. This is something for the companies on the emerging markets to think about, isn’t it?