by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Buzz, Markets, Technology
San Francisco : After several tech giants, including Google and Facebook, supported Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) plan to roll back Obama-era net neutrality rules, Apple called on the US communications regulatory agency to keep “strong, enforceable open internet protections”.
“An open internet ensures that hundreds of millions of consumers get the experience they want, over the broadband connections they choose, to use the devices they love, which have become an integral part of their lives,” Cynthia Hogan, Apple’s Vice President of Public Policy, said in a letter to the agency.
The FCC, led by its Chairman Ajit Pai, voted in May to start the formal process of unwinding the 2015 rules. Those rules treat regulation of internet more like that of a public utility such as water or electricity and prohibit broadband providers such as Verizon and Comcast from creating a tiered system of access, the Guardian reported on Wednesday.
Under the current net neutrality rules, it is illegal for companies to offer a high-speed lane to corporations able to pay more or to effectively slow a rival service.
The FCC’s proposal asks whether the agency should eliminate the rule banning Internet service providers from creating fast lanes (or slow lanes) that could favour one service over another, which critics say could allow them to pick winners and losers online.
Pai has said the regulations stifle corporate innovation and investment and are not necessary to guaranteeing an “open internet”.
However, Apple argued that paid fast lines should not replace “content-neutral transmission of internet traffic,”.
The tech giant has also called for increased competition and transparency in the broadband market.
“We work hard to build great products, and what consumers do with those tools is up to them – not Apple, and not broadband providers. Apple therefore believes that the Federal Communications Commission should retain strong, enforceable open internet protections,” the letter said.
Apple said the current rules reflect open internet principles and that those principles “should form the foundation of any net neutrality framework going forward”.
“Simply put, the internet is too important to consumers and too essential to innovation to be left unprotected and uncertain,” the company said in the letter.
Cloud major Oracle had voiced support for Pai’s plan to roll back its net neutrality rules.
Oracle wrote a letter to the FCC and played up its “perspective as a Silicon Valley technology company”, hammering the debate over the rules as a “highly political hyperbolic battle”, that is “removed from technical, economic, and consumer reality”.
Other companies — like AT&T and Verizon — that support Pai’s plan have made an argument that the rules stifled investment in the telecommunications sector, specifically in broadband infrastructure.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Technology, World
San Francisco : Tech giant Apple on Saturday announced that its “App Development with Swift” curriculum will be offered in over 30 community colleges across the United States in 2017-2018 school year.
The course will enable the students with no programming experience to build their own fully-functional apps.
“We believe passionately that the opportunity should be extended to everyone and community colleges have a powerful reach into communities where education becomes the great equaliser,” said Apple CEO Tim Cook in a statement.
The company is aiming to prepare the students to build careers in software development and Information Technology.
Several community colleges like Austin Community College District, Northeast Mississippi Community College, Northwest Kansas Technical College and campuses in the Alabama Community College System have added the curriculum for the session.
“Apple is going to be a force multiplier in the community’s ongoing efforts to lift 10,000 people out of poverty and into good jobs over the next five years,” said Austin Mayor Steve Adler.
Apple’s app economy supports 1.5 million jobs in the US. In 2016, software developers in the US earned $5 billion through the App Store, a 40 per cent increase over 2015.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Markets, Technology
By Nishant Arora
New Delhi:(IANS) Gone are the days when laptops were marketed as fastest, smartest, biggest or best on the list. Being skinny is the new buzzword and the global computer and laptop giant — while re-jigging their notebook portfolios for the premium segment — have joined the race to shed weight and go thin in recent months.
So if you have deep pockets, opt for an Apple MacBook Pro, a HP Spectre or a Microsoft Surface Pro. All have gone thin to an extent that a “size zero” device looks a certainty soon.
Here we are.
Apple MacBook Pro 13 is 18 mm thick, weighs 1.58 kg (with 13.3 inch diagonal retina display) and can be purchased at nearly Rs.106,900 (base model) in India.
Touted as the world’s thinnest notebook, HP Spectre is 10.4 mm thick, weighs 1.1 kg with 13.3-inch edge-to-edge display and costs $1,249 (arriving in India this June and local price is yet to be announced).
Microsoft’s Surface Pro 4 (tablet-cum-laptop) weighs about 786 grams with 12.3-inch PixelSense touchscreen display and is 11.5 mm in thickness with type cover and 8.4 mm thin without type cover. The device starts from Rs.108,470 (base model).
This premium segment is buzzing with the word “thin” and according to experts, the new strategy may work wonders if prices also come down — in realistic terms — to attract new customers, especially in a developing country like India with a huge consumer base yearning for quality.
“No company like Microsoft will bring the price of its Rs.1.08 lakh Surface Pro 4 down to Rs.60,000. They may extend some offers like zero percent EMI and all, but no, they will not compromise with the quality at a time when they are selling high on the new ‘thin’ strategy,” Vishal Tripathi, research director at global market consultancy firm Gartner, told IANS.
“Even if the prices of some high-end laptops or convertibles come down, there is no surety that the product will disrupt the market as of now. This premium market is not all about money; its about the use case,” he added.
According to Gartner, in 2015, desktops and notebooks were expected to contribute 9.2 million units while 829,000 high-end ultra-mobile devices like Microsoft’s Windows 8 Intel x86 products and Apple’s MacBook Air were expected to be shipped.
Tripathi is wary of the fact that if anything comes down in the consumers’ price bracket, the quality is surely set for nosedive. “People will not buy these high-end devices at low cost if they see quality going down. They will scout for alternate devices which fulfill their requirements even at a high cost,” he told IANS.
The consumer market of PCs in India has not moved from 8-10 percent in terms of penetration since a long time. Enterprises in India are extending the life of the product at a time when everyone is looking for different revenue channels.
“There will not be an increase in sales until these high-end devices become affordable with quality intact. There has to be some realistic price adjustments. Currently, the prices are still northwards,” he emphasised.
According to him, there is no doubt that the overall PC market is going to go down as mobility has emerged.
“People are still not buying premium laptops and if you are looking at it from India’s prospective then, yes, the cost is playing a big role here,” he added.
While the “HP Spectre is the thinnest notebook in the world and unlike the majority of other super-thin PCs on the market, this laptop doesn’t compromise on power or features,” said Anneliese Olson, vice president of personal systems business, HP Asia Pacific and Japan, at a recent HP event in Macau. Rightly said as this is one thing that is going to create the difference in the long run.
As the giants go ballistic over the arrival of the “thinnest laptop or convertible age”, one thing is clear: If they compromise on quality while lowering the cost to capture a bigger pie of the market then that will come with a heavy price.
Soon, you can buy two dazzling ultra-portables — Apple’s 12-inch MacBook and Dell XPS 13 — in India.
The chorus for the “thinnest” machines will only grow in the days to come and before the “thin” paves the way for the “super or ultra-thin detachable” age where these machines may appear like a plain A4 sheet paper resting on your workstation, soak in the experience.
(Nishant Arora can be contacted at nishant.a@ians.in)
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Buzz
By Sourabh Kulesh
New Delhi : (IANS) The heat is finally on. Come April and the Indian smartphone market is set to witness a war between top smartphone players – across all price bands – never seen before.
It began with the Apple announcement of its smallest 4-inch iPhone SE this month. The pre-booking in India has already begun from Tuesday midnight for the two variants: The 64 GB version of the phone available at $499 and the 16 GB model that will cost $399 (US pricing).
Beetel Teletech Limited, a subsidiary of US-based Brightstar Corporation, will make available Rs.39,000 (retail price) iPhone SE in India beginning April 8.
The firm, however, declined to provide pre-booking figures for iPhone SE as of now.
On Thursday, the much-awaited Xiaomi’s flagship Mi 5 — with 5.15-inch full HD display powered by Qualcomm’s most powerful Snapdragon 820 processor — will hit the Indian market.
Rumoured to be priced below Rs.25,000 (in China, it costs 1,999 yuan or Rs.21,000), the device is available globally in three variants – 32GB, 64GB and 128GB on board memory. However, it is still not clear whether all three variants will be available for the Indian consumers or not.
The smartphone — launched at the Mobile World Congress 2016 in Barcelona, Spain — wears 16-megapixel primary camera with 4-megapixel secondary camera. It will run MIUI 7 based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow.
According to androidpit.com, the design of Mi 5 is almost similar to Galaxy S7.
The Xiaomi Mi 5 Pro — the premium version — comes with 128 GB of flash memory, 4 GB of RAM and a ceramic back. The base model has 32 GB of flash and 3 GB of RAM.
Same day, South Korean smartphone maker Samsung is set to launch Galaxy J3 especially for Indian bike riders. The device was unveiled earlier this year in the US at $179 so we can expect the price to be around Rs.11,000-Rs.13,000 in India.
According to Techtimes.com, Galaxy J3 has a 5-inch super AMOLED display with a 1.2 GHz quad-core processor.
The handset will feature a new “Bike Mode” which will allow bike riders to go on an uninterrupted ride every time it is turned on.
Once the phone is on “Bike Mode”, it will automatically send a text in reply to callers as a way of telling them that they can try to call again at a later time.
With “Bike Mode”, riders can simply concentrate on their riding and stop worrying about checking notifications on their phones or answering phone calls while they are in the middle of the road.
It has a 1.5 GB of RAM and 8-megapixel rear camera (5MP in the US version). The phone has 16 GB of internal storage which is expandable upto 128 GB through microSD card.
Earlier this month, Samsung launched its flagship smartphone Galaxy S7 and its curved-screen companion Galaxy S7 Edge at an irresistible price of Rs.48,900 and Rs.56,900, respectively.
The 5.1-inch Galaxy S7 and 5.5-inch Galaxy S7 Edge are constructed with 3D glass and metal and given ergonomic curves for a comfortable grip.
The smartphones come with innovations in design, imaging, software functionality and connectivity with a host of other services.
The company also gave away free Gear virtual reality (VR) to it customers who pre-ordered the devices between March 8 and 17.
In a bid to take the lion’s share in the mid-priced smartphone segment, Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi also launched Redmi Note 3 — the world’s first device equipped with Snapdragon 650 processor in India – this month.
The 5.5-inch device is available in two variants – 2GB RAM/16GB ROM for Rs.9,999 and 3GB RAM/32GB ROM for Rs.11,999.
(Sourabh Kulesh can be contacted at sourabh.k@ians.in)
by admin | May 25, 2021 | World
London : (IANS) As Apple battles the US government over encryption to unlock an iPhone used by an attacker in a mass shooting in San Bernadino last year, top US companies Google, Facebook and Snapchat are expanding encryption of user data in their services, media reported.
According to The Guardian, while Whatsapp is set to roll out encryption for its voice calls in addition to its existing privacy features, Google is investigating “extra uses” for encryption in secure email.
Social networking giant Facebook too is working on to better protect its Messenger service.
The popular messaging service Snapchat is also considering a more secure messaging system.
Apple, which is expected to appear in a federal court in California on March 22 to fight the order, has accused the US Department of Justice (DoJ) of trying to “smear” the company with “desperate” and “unsubstantiated” claims.
It followed the Justice Department’s latest court filing over its demand that Apple create software to unlock an iPhone used by an attacker in a mass shooting last year, BBC reported.
The department said that Apple’s stance was “corrosive” of institutions trying to protect “liberty and rights”.
It also claims Apple helped the Chinese government with iPhone security.
Apple’s general counsel Bruce Sewell said: “The tone of the brief reads like an indictment.”
He said: “Everybody should beware because it seems like disagreeing with the Department of Justice means you must be evil and anti-American, nothing could be further from the truth.”
Prosecutors claim Apple’s own data shows that China demanded information from Apple regarding more than 4,000 iPhones in the first half of 2015, and Apple produced data 74 percent of the time.
But Sewell said the new filing relies on thinly sourced reports to inaccurately suggest that Apple had colluded with the Chinese government to undermine iPhone buyers’ security.
The US government has been fighting Apple over access to information on the iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino killers, Rizwan Farook, in December. Apple says the demands violate the company’s rights.
The Department of Justice claimed in its court filing that Apple had attacked the FBI investigation as “shoddy”, and tried to portray itself as a “guardian of Americans’ privacy”.
This “rhetoric is not only false, but also corrosive of the very institutions that are best able to safeguard our liberty and our rights: The courts, the Fourth Amendment, longstanding precedent and venerable laws, and the democratically elected branches of government,” the DoJ said.
In February, the FBI obtained a court order to force Apple to write new software that would allow the government to break into the phone. The FBI wants the software to bypass auto-erase functions on the phone.
Apple has argued that the government is asking for a “back door” that could be exploited by the government and criminals.
