Xpertfeed

Samsung creates medical test bed to prove Internet of Things is worth the effort Summary:  Samsung's joint-venture efforts will help researchers develop preventative medical equipment through M2M tech that could soon make their way to smart watches and phones. Samsung has smartphones and smart watches, and will soon smart sensors for the medical research field. The partnership between Samsung and the University of California, San Francisco sets out with a single goal: to develop a test bed for medical sensors in efforts to validate the worth of emerging Machine-to-Machine (M2M) technologies, otherwise known as the Internet of Things. The South Korean giant's joint project with medical professionals will work to develop network-connected sensors for gadgets, signalling a divergence in the company's strategy by focusing on health and the wider medical world. Based at UCSF's Mission Bay campus in San Francisco, some of the world's leading researchers wil...

Microsoft Office on iPad: It's alive and coming sooner than most think Summary:  Microsoft's Office for iPad, codenamed Miramar, isn't dead. In fact, it just might beat Microsoft's own touch-first Office implementation for Windows to market. It must be a slow news day. I see a number of folks trying to  parse recent statements by Microsoft's Executive Vice President of Marketing Tami Reller  -- who described  Microsoft's approach to balancing its Windows and cross-platform plans as "thoughtful" -- as meaning Microsoft plans to drag its feet  on Office for iPad. Office for iPad -- which I've recently heard is codenamed "Miramar" -- isn't dead. In fact, it's likely to make it to market ahead of Microsoft's touch-first version of Office (codenamed "Gemini") according to a couple of my sources. Here's a quick recap on what I've heard from Microsoft officials, as well as my own contacts, about Offic...

Dell Wyse Cloud Connect -- another take on BYOD Summary:  Dell Wyse Cloud Connect is a cloud-access device on a USB stick. Road warriors need only use one of these devices combined with a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse to access cloud-based applications. Dell claims this is a first but not really. Dell  recently announced it is building a new class of cloud-access device. The post, Dell cooks up an Android PC on an HDMI stick by my colleague Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, reviews Dell's announcement. I'd like to explore the topic of an Android-based device in a USB-stick form factor a bit more. What Dell Announced Here's Dell's quick description of the device itself: Cloud Connect represents a new end-user device category that bridges thin clients and mobile devices as part of Dell Cloud Client-Computing’s end-to-end desktop virtualization solutions portfolio. The extremely compact, secure, cloud-managed device with a low total cost of ownership (TCO) su...

Microsoft discontinues its InfoPath electronic-forms product Summary:  Microsoft officials are confirming that InfoPath is at the end of the road and a new, still unreleased forms technology will be taking its place. As had been rumored for a while,  Microsoft is discontinuing its InfoPath electronic forms product . Company officials confirmed the news in a January 31 post to the Office Blogs site. From that post on the future of electronic forms technology: "In an effort to streamline our investments and deliver a more integrated Office forms user experience,  we’re retiring InfoPath and investing in new forms technology across SharePoint, Access, and Word . This means that InfoPath 2013 is the last release of the desktop client, and InfoPath Forms Services in SharePoint Server 2013 is the last release of InfoPath Forms Services. The InfoPath Forms Services technology within Office 365 will be maintained and it will function until further notice." Mi...

Intel to invest over $120M in India R&D center Summary:   The new building will help in "consolidating" the company’s workforce, work on high growth areas such as tablets and mobile phones, and emerging areas like Internet of Things. Intel will invest more than US$120 million in its India research and development facility, which will be a global center for chipset design, according to   Hindu Business Line .The new facility will help in "consolidating" the chip giant's workforce, estimated to be around 4,500, noted the report. The workforce is being shifted from "low priority" to "high priority" areas, said Kumud Srinivasan, president of Intel India. The center will also focus on high growth areas such as tablets, and mobile phones where rival ARM has been gaining traction against it in recent years.It will also be working on emerging areas like   Internet of Things, which will require   low-power chips   and where Intel has se...

Solar better than nuclear for India: Experts Summary:  In the race to fix the widening shortfall of power in India, many say that alternative sources like solar and even wind are becoming cheaper by the day, especially when measured up against the prime minister's pet project, nuclear plants. On the cusp of elections, the two-term serving Indian  Manmohan Singh recently laid the foundation stone  for the Global Centre for Nuclear Energy Partnership in the Indian state of Haryana. To meet its future power demand, declared Singh, India aims to produce more than 27,000 MW of nuclear power in the next 10 years. Singh, after all, counts the historic India-US Civil Nuclear Agreement signed in 2008 as one of the big accomplishments of his reign as prime minister, so it's not a huge surprise that he's still doing whatever he can in this area to keep the nuclear flame alive. But does India need nuclear energy? That has been a major debate that has roiled the cou...

The twist in the future of Indian tech recruitment  Summary:  Indian techie hires are beginning to get assessed on raw coding abilities rather than degrees and certificates, ushering a potential new dawn for tech hiring An  interesting interview  given by Vikalp Sahni, the CTO of online travel company Goibibo, to Indian website campushash (which connects interns with companies) indicates the way that the world of technology recruitment is going. Sahni was asked which way he leaned when appraising a candidate's resume. His response was that the "most preferred mode of judging someone's coding abilities for us has been Github/Launchpad/Bitbucket commits. It is a big plus if an intern has worked with open-source projects and has pushed tested code to the core project repo. A person's project/software gives a good picture of his/her knowledge and likings." Additionally, Sahni suggested that aspirant coders also attend hackathons, as it allows them to ...

2014 in preview: A look at upcoming tech trends Summary:  Contextual computing, the next phase of the post-PC era, 3D printing and the mainstreaming of wearable computing are a few of the 2014 themes we're watching. The year ahead should be an interesting one for business tech as multiple tectonic plates are shifting all at once and rejiggering industry leadership. Here’s a look at the key themes for 2014 from our editors around the world: Larry Dignan: Post PC fallout hits hard To me one of the biggest themes will be the fate of Windows 8.1. The time for excuses is over, the hardware has improved from the ecosystem and the Windows systems are priced well. The big question: Will people buy Windows machines en masse? If not, what does that mean for the future Microsoft franchises such as Office? We’ll know how this one turned out early in 2014 when tech giants start reporting their results. A few reasons why Windows worries are warranted: Chromebooks have sold...

India's nationwide mobile number portability rollout stalls Summary:  Country's full number portability service, which will allow mobile users to retain their number across different telecom circles, faces a delay as the Indian Department of Telecom has yet to accept recommendations for it . India's Department of Telecom (DoT) has yet to accept recommendations related to the implementation of the country's nationwide mobile number portability, which is originally scheduled to be effective from March.  Secretary of Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), Rajeev Agrawal said at a briefing Wednesday that it had not received a response from the telecom department, and noted that telcos would require six months after DoT approves the recommendations to deploy full mobile number portability (MNP). TRAI in September had directed mobile operators to roll out nationwide MNP within six months.  India had introduced the service in early-2010, b...

Three mobile tech advances that would be great in 2014 Summary:  Next year could be a great year in mobile tech if these advances become reality. It's time to put 2013 behind us and look forward to next year. Call these predictions, wishes, or guesses, but these three mobile tech advances would be nice to see in 2014. Tech advances in 2014 iPad bump Apple's been accused of just incrementally improving the iPad for a few years, even though the iPad Air's weight loss was impressive in 2013. What I'd like to see in 2014 is a major push forward, with a surprising big technology jump. One such jump that would be impressive is an improvement in battery technology. Imagine an iPad Air with double its already good battery life. This is feasible as Apple has a solid track record of putting decent battery life in the iPad, even while improving performance. An iPad Air with 20+ hours on a charge while keeping the size of the current tablet from Apple would b...