MediaTek Labs on Thursday (8 October) announced a MediaTek LinkIt One and Grove IoT Starter Kit Powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS). Suited for developers, the new Starter Kit includes the MediaTek LinkIt One, one of the world’s most connected platforms, and a range of Grove sensors from Seeed Studio to help customers bring their ideas to life in IoT.AWS provides a complete cloud services and cloud management portfolio that will give IoT developers using LinkIt ONE fast, flexible, secure and stable access to the cloud.“MediaTek Labs is committed to bringing IoT to the masses by providing a simplified solution to assist developers as they start on their first IoT projects,” said Marc Naddell, VP of MediaTek Labs. “The new IoT Starter Kit contains everything a developer needs to create powerful proofs-of-concept for IoT and Wearables and bring their ideas to fruition.”The MediaTek LinkIt ONE SDK (for Arduino) includes libraries that have been certified to run AWS IoT Services in order to create software for the LinkIt ONE board using the popular Arduino IDE, and connect it to one of the world’s biggest commercial cloud services. A range of Grove sensors easily plug into the LinkIt ONE, allowing developers to securely store and manage all the sensor data from their IoT devices in the cloud using AWS.The Grove sensors contained within this new IoT Starter Kit include a 3-Axis Digital Accelerometer (±16g), Loudness Sensor, Light Sensor, Moisture Sensor, Touch Sensor, Temperature Sensor as well as a Grove Base Shield, LED Bar and 1.12 inch OLED Display. AWS IoT Services enable secure, bi-directional communication between internet-connected things - sensors, actuators, devices, applications - and the cloud over MQTT and HTTP.(BW Online Bureau)
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Acer India has been selected to provide the South Indian state government of Tamil Nadu with over 230,000 notebooks to school students within the state. The initiative is the second largest of its kind in India and is designed to enable the Class 12 students of government and government-aided schools of Tamil Nadu to become productive and contributing members of society. Acer has already started the delivery of its notebooks in September. The deliveries will be made to over 650 schools spread over 7 districts in the state.Acer has participated in the three previous phases of the project. To date Acer has supplied more than 800,000 laptops to ELCOT (Electronics Corporation Of Tamil Nadu), a wholly owned agency by the government designated for procurement of computer hardware/software for government and organizations. Initiated in the year 2011, the program is currently in its fifth phase and will benefit more than 1 million students with Acer notebooks in total.ELCOT required a notebook with specifications of 14-inch display, webcam, Intel processor, 2GB RAM, 320 GB HDD, and Wi-Fi enabled with Windows Professional Edition OS, Microsoft Office and 1 year warranty. Acer India’s enterprise business team worked with ELCOT over a lengthy pre-sales cycle that involved extensive field trials and application testing to determine the suitability of the notebooks which met all of ELCOT’s requirements.Acer continues to be a preferred choice for educational initiatives worldwide; in August Acer announced its participation for the fifth year in Chile’s “I Select My PC” program offered to students from vulnerable socio-economic segments, designed to bridge the digital divide and provide students with new opportunities to significantly enhance their lives.(BW Online Bureau)
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Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System will offer standard positioning system for civilian use and encrypted services for military use. BW Online Bureau reports. The Indian Space Research Organisation said on Thursday (October 8, 2015) that all the seven satellites of Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) are expected to be in orbit in next five months. IRNSS is an autonomous regional satellite navigation system under complete control of the government. The IRNSS would provide two services, with the Standard Positioning Service open for civilian use, and the Restricted Service (an encrypted one) for authorised users (including the military). The requirement of such a navigation system arose because access to foreign government-controlled global navigation satellite systems is not guaranteed in hostile situations, as happened to the Indian military depending on American GPS during the Kargil War. IRNSS would have seven satellites, out of which four are already placed in orbit. ISRO is looking to make signals of IRNSS available not only to India and surrounding countries, but also to the entire globe, ISRO Chairman Kiran Kumar said in Bangalore. “We expect by March 2016 all the seven constellation of IRNSS to be in orbit," he said. IRNSS is ISRO's initiative to build an independent satellite navigation system to provide precise position, velocity and time to the users of Indian region. With the addition of fourth spacecraft IRNSS-1D in March 2015, the minimum satellite requirement is met and independent positioning is now possible for the first time using an Indian satellite-based navigation system. ashish.sinha@businessworld.in
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Intel on Thursday (8 October) announced that it will set up 100 Internet of Things (IoT) centers across Indian academia institutions.All the 100 Intel IoT Centres at academic institutions across India are being supported with Intel Galileo boards, which are specifically designed for makers, students, educators, and DIY electronics enthusiasts to build product prototypes. Intel® Galileo boards are equipped with the required platforms and technologies and are aimed at empowering students on latest IoT skills and encouraging them to bring their ideas to reality.Kumud Srinivasan, President, Intel India, said, “For over 15 years, Intel has been building an ecosystem in India which enables innovation, research and skill development. Intel’s India Academic Forum is a platform for fostering insights on technology trends and for triggering collaboration opportunities between academia, government and industry, thereby enabling impactful innovation and research.”Intel has been providing grants to about 20 top institutes, to help accelerate technology advancement among academia on the latest technology trends and developments. Selected colleges are being given sensor kits/ Intel Galileo boards. Intel has also been conducting regular workshops and providing curriculum content for these colleges.As part of the Intel India PhD Fellowship Program 2015, the five selected PhD students will be awarded a fellowship of up to Rs 6,00,000 per annum and up to a period of four years that includes student stipend, contingency research funds and travel expenses to attend conferences and research forums.The recipients of the Fellowship will work with their mentors at Intel to develop a deep understanding of the technological issues facing the industry and come up with breakthrough research in areas such as parallel computing, architecture, graphics, perceptual computing, sensing, power management, validation and communications.(BW Online Bureau)
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Government initiatives like Digital India, Smart Cities project, Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojna and UID have created valuable opportunities for the networking market, according to IDC.
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Microsoft might have been late for the party but it certainly made an impact. It announced a number of products at its global event today including the well needed and anticipated Lumia smartphones. There was a time when Nokia had scattered its Lumia smartphones into various price segments but ever since Microsoft took over, it substantially slowed down the process of pushing out the number of devices. This transition is rightly done, so as to focus more on the software experience. Windows as a mobile platform has never been very popular but it finally seems that Microsoft is ready to make it shine.The new Lumia smartphones will come in two flavours the Lumia 950XL and Lumia 950. The former, as the name suggests, is a large smartphone and it is like an amalgamation of the highly popular Lumia 1020 along with the Lumia 1520 only with a slightly smaller and much sharper display. It comes with a 5.7-inch AMOLED screen with a QHD resolution (2560x1440) which makes it the first ever Lumia smartphone with such a high resolution display.The phablet comes with a brand new 20MP (1/2.4") camera sensor along with a Carl Zeiss f/1.9 lens and PureView software technology. It can also shoot 4K videos, has OIS (optical image stabilization) for sharper pictures and a three tone RGB-LED flash. The front camera also sounds impressive coming with a 5MP resolution and an LED flash.Other promising features include wireless charging, something which makes life much easier. There is also a big 3,430mAH battery that should go easily for two days straight. The most impressive feature however, is the USB Type C connector which can make the Lumia 950XL into a full-fledged PC by handling three crucial tasks, data transfer, video out and of course charging. Yes, this pocket device can also be converted in a full Windows 10 PC along with the help of Microsoft’s Continuum feature and a display dock. The handset will be powered by a Snapdragon 810 octa-core chipset with 3GB of RAM and to keep away with the heating issues faced by this particular processor, a liquid cooling solution has been used which is also used in Microsoft's tablets. Pricing starts at $650 (Rs. 42,000) which doesn’t sound insane at all.The Lumia 950 is a more subtle handset with a 5.2-inch display, but has the same AMOLED display with a 2K resolution making slightly sharper than the XL. The 950 uses the same 20MP rear camera and a 5MP front minus the flash. The chipset used here is the Snapdragon 808 six-core processor along with 3GB of RAM which again sounds great for a Windows device. There is smaller 3,000mAh battery and just like the XL, the 950 can also be converted into a PC via the USB Type-C port and the display dock. The handset is said to start hitting stores in December with a price tag of $550 (Rs. 35,000).Microsoft also announced the Lumia 550 which will be catering to consumers who wish to experience Windows 10 Mobile on a more affordable platter. The handset has a very nominal price tag of just $139 (Rs. 9,000) will be arriving in December. The smartphone comes with rater low-end hardware including a 4.7-inch LCD display with a 720p resolution, a Snapdragon 210 quad-core 1.1GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage which will be expandable via microSD card. In the camera department there is a 5MP rear camera and a 2MP camera in the front all topped up with 4G LTE support.
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Mala BhargavaThere are no prizes for guessing what’s trending on social media right now. It’s Microsoft’s launch of a whole ecosystem of devices, spanning all sizes, from the small Microsoft Band to the giant Hololens with its “Mixed Reality” experience and everything in between.The global launch event, held in New York, was intended to be a showcase of the Windows 10 ecosystem of devices and software and though it may have started off in the familiar style of throwing statistics at the audience, went quickly on to a dramatic start with a demonstration of the Hololens. Interestingly, though one may have expected to see CEO Satya Nadella take the stage, it was Terry Myerson, executive vice president of the Microsoft’s Windows and Devices Group and later others were up to demo various products. Only towards the last eight minutes of the two-hour event did Satya Nadella appear on stage to wrap everything up with a reminder of Microsoft’s new vision and strategy.A Different MicrosoftThis energetic event changed pace to slow down somewhat as details of how the products would be used and what was unique about them began to be laid out for the audience. The event was live broadcast from Microsoft’s site with millions watching. The reception to the products launched was immediately obvious on Twitter as each product was welcomed with quite some enthusiasm. It was also quite obvious that this was a different Microsoft from that of the Balmer era. Previous events may have been energetic and lively enough, with the booming Steve Balmer, former CEO, bursting on to the stage with announcements, but today, the shift in thinking and direction was palpable.Project XRay and the HololensTerry Myerson kicked off with a demo of the Hololens, its impressive and exciting augmented reality product, showing how it could turn your living room into a gaming arena. Using the fame, XRAy, “mixed reality” was shown off with which virtual objects can interact with the real world and a user, wearing a holographic glove, can interact right back. Creatures from a game can pop out of surfaces and corners around and the whole experience can be as immersive as if it were real. Gaming is by no means the only use case for the Hololens and Microsoft has opened the technology up to developers now.Redesigned Microsoft BandA slim bracelet style fitness band, the Microsoft Band can work with other platforms and does the usual fitness measuring but also has a barometer sensor to figure out elevation. It can tell you exactly how your golf swing is going and can tell the difference between practice shots and real ones. The band has Cortana integration, which makes it extremely powerful as it joins the rest of the Microsoft ecosystem.Lumia 950 and 950 XL: Computers in your pocket Windows phones have receded into the background for the past year or so, being able to offer little competition to Apple’s iPhones and a whole universe of Android devices, many of which are at rock bottom prices. The Lumias are now back with the 950 and 950 XL, 5.2 and 5.7OLED displays and no major difference in specs from each other. The big difference from the older Lumias is that these are on Windows 10 and will fit into the ecosystem by syncing with other Windows 10 devices such as your laptop and will let the user take up where he left off from one place to the next. There’s a new 20-megapixel (Pureview) camera on these phones which, incidentally, are supposed to be liquid cooled.The Surface Pro 4 and Surface BookThe Surface hasn’t been in India right from the start and one doesn’t know whether this situation will change, but it was a product that had everyone the most excited, along with the Surface Book. The Surface Pro has impressive specs including a fingerprint sensor, high-res display, long battery life and special cooling technology. It includes a pen and eraser on the back which also triggers off Cortana and is thinner than the MacBook Air. The Surface Book is an entirely new device and it’s a laptop on which the screen can be pulled away to separate. It has 12-hour battery life. It’s claimed to be faster than the MacBook Pro.Satya Nadella closed the event by reminding the audience that mobility was not about the devices but about the people who were the real hub of mobility. And that devices weren’t about hardware but about the software that held everything together in an ecosystem. Microsoft is, for the first time in a long time, seeming not only to be aligned with the present but moving forward with a better vision of the future than others.
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Microsoft Corp unveiled on Tuesday (6 October) its first laptop, a line of Lumia smartphones, a new Surface Pro tablet and an updated version of its wearable fitness tracker, Microsoft Band, all running on Windows 10, its latest operating system. Windows 10, launched in July, is part of Microsoft's push to win a bigger share of the market for tablets and smartphones, now dominated by Apple Inc and South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. Microsoft said the laptop, the Surface Book, will start at $1,499 and is twice as fast as Apple's MacBook Pro. It will be available from Oct. 26, with preorders starting on Wednesday. The laptop has a 13.5-inch display with 267 pixels per inch and features a track pad made of glass. Microsoft, whose shares were up 0.9 percent at $47.06 in late morning trading, said there were now 110 million devices running Windows 10. The company unveiled three phones at an event in New York. The Lumia 950 and 950XL will have starting prices of $549 and $649 respectively when they go on sale in November, while the Lumia 550 will cost $139 when it becomes available in December. The Lumia 950 includes a 5.2-inch display and a hexacore processor, while the larger Lumia 950 XL has a 5.7-inch display with an octacore chip. The specs on the budget 550 had not been released as the event continued. The new Surface Pro 4 tablet - a larger but thinner and lighter version of the Surface Pro 3 - is priced at $899 and will be available from Oct. 26 with pre-orders starting on Wednesday. Launched nearly a year and a half after its predecessor, the Surface Pro 4 features a 12.3-inch screen with 267 pixels per inch. It runs on 6th-generation Intel Core processor and has 16GB of RAM and 1TBB storage. Surface Pro 4 is 50 percent faster than Apple's MacBook Air, Panos Panay, the corporate vice president for Surface Computing at Microsoft, said at the event. Microsoft also said its new tablet and smartphones will come with Windows Hello, an automatic biometric sign-in option introduced earlier this year. The feature allows users to scan their face, iris or fingerprints to verify their identity and give them access to Windows phones, laptops and personal computers. Microsoft also introduced a Surface Pen, which has year-long battery life, 1,024 pressure points and comes in five colors with inter-changeable pen tips. The 950 and 950XL handsets feature a 20-megapixel rear camera, have up to 32GB of storage, 4K video and use liquid cooling technology. Microsoft said storage on the phones could be extended to up to 2 terabytes using a memory card. The Microsoft Band 2, which allows users to monitor their fitness and exercise regime, will be priced at $249 when it becomes available on Oct. 30. Unlike its predecessor, Microsoft's entry product in the wearable technology market a year ago, the new Band has a curved display, which uses the Corning Gorilla glass 3, and has a barometer sensor to track elevation. (Reuters)
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