Microsoft opens door to Android, Apple phone apps

Microsoft Corp is making it easier for apps written for rival Google Inc's Android and Apple Inc's iOS systems to work on Windows phones, in a bid to attract users to its unpopular mobile devices, the company's operating systems chief said on Wednesday.

The move marks a radical shift in strategy for the world's biggest software company, which still dominates the personal computer market but has failed to get any real traction on tablets and phones, partly because of a lack of apps.Microsoft has found itself in a circular trap, as many developers will not build apps for Windows phones which have few users, and few people want the phones which have fewer apps than Android or Apple phones.Getting apps built for Android and iOS onto its phones and tablets could be a shortcut to breaking out of that trap."Microsoft is making a major play to win back developers," said Forrester analyst Michael Facemire. "They’ve opened up the once-impenetrable castle walls."

Speaking at Microsoft's developer conference in San Francisco on Wednesday, Executive Vice President Terry Myerson said developers will be able to use the vast majority of their Android code to turn their apps into Windows-compatible versions, which will work on Windows phones running a special subsystem.

The apps will technically be Windows apps and available only through Microsoft's online app store. The apps would automatically use Microsoft's services such as Bing maps, rather than Google's services, as an app would on an Android phone. That is a crucial distinction because Google gets revenue from ads on services rather than from the Android system itself.

Myerson also announced a surprise move to make it easier for iOS developers to make Windows apps, saying that Microsoft's developer software will be compatible with Objective C, the main programming language used by Apple.Google declined to comment. Apple did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Microsoft, which bought Nokia's handset business last year, has only 3 percent of the global smartphone market. By contrast, Android phones, led by Samsung (005930.KS), control 81 percent of the market and Apple 15 percent, according to Strategy Analytics.

Microsoft is scheduled to release its new Windows 10 operating system this summer, which for the first time will run across PCs, tablets and phones. It said on Wednesday it is aiming for one billion devices running Windows 10 in two to three years time.

Its new browser will arrive as Microsoft Edge, replacing the waning Internet Explorer, when Windows 10 is released, the company said.

Car-to-Car Communication: A simple wireless technology promises to make driving much safer.

Fig: Using Wifi Technology

         Hariharan Krishnan hardly looks like a street racer. With thin-rimmed glasses and a neat mustache, he reminds me of a math teacher. And yet on a sunny day last September, he was speeding, seemingly recklessly, around the parking lot at General Motors’ research center in Warren, Michigan, in a Cadillac DTS.

          I was in the passenger seat as Krishnan wheeled around a corner and hit the gas. A moment later a light flashed on the dashboard, there was a beeping sound, and our seats started buzzing furiously. Krishnan slammed on the brakes, and we lurched to a stop just as another car whizzed past from the left, its approach having been obscured by a large hedge. “You can see I was completely blinded,” he said calmly.

          The technology that warned of the impending collision will start appearing in cars in just a couple of years. Called car-to-car or vehicle-to-vehicle communication, it lets cars broadcast their position, speed, steering-wheel position, brake status, and other data to other vehicles within a few hundred meters. The other cars can use such information to build a detailed picture of what’s unfolding around them, revealing trouble that even the most careful and alert driver, or the best sensor system, would miss or fail to anticipate.

          Already many cars have instruments that use radar or ultrasound to detect obstacles or vehicles. But the range of these sensors is limited to a few car lengths, and they cannot see past the nearest obstruction.

          Car-to-car communication should also have a bigger impact than the advanced vehicle automation technologies that have been more widely heralded. Though self-driving cars could eventually improve safety, they remain imperfect and unproven, with sensors and software too easily bamboozled by poor weather, unexpected obstacles or circumstances, or complex city driving. Simply networking cars together wirelessly is likely to have a far bigger and more immediate effect on road safety.

          Creating a car-to-car network is still a complex challenge. The computers aboard each car process the various readings being broadcast by other vehicles 10 times every second, each time calculating the chance of an impending collision. Transmitters use a dedicated portion of wireless spectrum as well as a new wireless standard, 802.11p, to authenticate each message.

          Krishnan took me through several other car-to-car safety scenarios in the company’s parking lot. When he started slowly pulling into a parking spot occupied by another car, a simple alert sounded. When he attempted a risky overtaking maneuver, a warning light flashed and a voice announced: “Oncoming vehicle!”.

          More than five million crashes occur on U.S. roads alone every year, and more than 30,000 of those are fatal. The prospect of preventing many such accidents will provide significant impetus for networking technology.

          Just an hour’s drive west of Warren, the town of Ann Arbor, Michigan, has done much to show how valuable car-to-car communication could be. There, between 2012 and 2014, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the University of Michigan equipped nearly 3,000 cars with experimental transmitters. After studying communication records for those vehicles, NHTSA researchers concluded that the technology could prevent more than half a million accidents and more than a thousand fatalities in the United States every year. The technology stands to revolutionize the way we drive, says John Maddox, a program director at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute.

          Shortly after the Ann Arbor trial ended, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced that it would start drafting rules that could eventually mandate the use of car-to-car communication in new cars. The technology is also being tested in Europe and Japan.

          There will, of course, also be a few obstacles to navigate. GM has committed to using car-to-car communication in a 2017-model Cadillac. Those first Cadillacs will have few cars to talk to, and that will limit the value of the technology. It could still be more than a decade before vehicles that talk to each other are commonplace.

Linux makers release patch to thwart 'Ghost' cyberthreat

Red Hat Inc and other makers of the widely used Linux operating system for business computers updated their software to thwart a serious new cyberthreat they warned could allow hackers to gain remote control of their systems.

The previously undisclosed vulnerability, dubbed "Ghost," is deemed critical because attackers could exploit it to covertly gain complete control of a targeted Linux system, according to cybersecurity firm Qualys, which uncovered the bug.

To highlight the severity of the risk, researchers identified a way to craft malicious emails that could automatically compromise a vulnerable server without the email even being opened, said Amol Sarwate, director of engineering with Qualys. The firm has not released that code and has yet to develop other methods for attacking other types of Linux systems, including servers that run websites.

Sarwate knows of no cases in which hackers exploited the Ghost vulnerability to date, but suspects that motivated hackers could figure out how now that the bug has been disclosed."We were able to do it. We think somebody with good security knowledge would also be able to do it," he said.

The vulnerability is caused by a security flaw in the open-source Linux GNU C Library, which is used by Red Hat and other Linux software makers, according to Qualys. It is called GHOST because it can be triggered by what are known as gethostbyname functions.

Qualys uncovered the bug following discoveries last year of high-profile vulnerabilities, including Heartbleed and Shellshock, which were caused by security flaws in other kinds of widely used open-source software. "It won't be as widespread as those flaws, but it is widespread enough that IT operations at many companies are scrambling to patch," said Chris Wysopal, chief technology officer of security software firm Veracode.

Red Hat, the No. 1 provider of Linux software to businesses, recommends that customers update their systems "as soon as possible to mitigate any potential risk," said company spokeswoman Stephanie Wonderlick.

Xiaomi to set up research & development centre in India

Chinese handset maker Xiaomi will set up a research and development unit in Bangalore, its first such facility outside of its home country, as it looks to beef up presence in the booming Indian smartphone market. 

The company, which expects the centre to be operational in the next few months, will focus on localizing its products and features for the Indian market through the unit. 

"We have always stated that India is one of our most important markets. We are in process of signing the lease on a facility in Bangalore, which will be our R&D unit. This is the first one outside China," Xiaomi India head Manu Jain said. 

Work on the facility is expected to commence by the end of March and in the next few months, it will be operational

PM Narendra Modi gives Twitter direct access to government

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has permitted Twitter unprecedented access to his administration in a drive to put social media at the heart of government, the US internet company said.

Modi deployed an army of supporters over Twitter and Facebook during his successful election campaign. He has put both the microblogging site and Facebook at the centre of his government's media and research strategies since taking office a month ago and has asked ministers and lawmakers to follow suit.
The 63-year-old's focus on social media presents opportunities for the companies, which see India as one of their top growth markets and are sending senior executives to forge relationships with the government.

With 5 million followers, Modi is the fourth most followed world leader on Twitter. He has 18.8 million Facebook likes.

Twitter has been given direct access to ministers and their staff, advising them on social media usage, as well as organizing workshops to train ambassadors and other diplomats, said Raheel Khursheed, head of news, politics and government at Twitter India.

He said the level of interaction between the company and the new government was "unmatched" globally.

On Tuesday, President Pranab Mukherjee debuted on the site after three months of behind-the-scenes negotiations.

Facebook's Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg is currently in India, promoting the potential of Facebook as a tool for small businesses and economic expansion.

Sandberg has requested a meeting with Modi, a source at his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) said. She will meet India's minister for information and technology, Ravi Shankar Prasad, on Thursday, the source added.

Details were not available about Sandberg's discussion with government officials, but experts said India's low internet penetration and legal cases often filed against Facebook for content posted by its users were likely on her agenda.

Though India has the world's third-largest internet user base after the United States and China, just 13.7% of the population had access to the internet in 2013, according to consulting firm eMarketer. By 2018 more than a quarter of population is forecast to be on the Web.

Markets outside North America account for roughly 84% of Facebook's 1.28 billion monthly users but account for a fraction of revenue.

"In terms of revenues (India) is minimal. Mostly it is skewed towards US.But soon marketers will realise how Facebook can help increase engagement for their brands," said Neil Shah of Counterpoint Technology Market Research.

"We could see a shift in Facebook and Twitter's fortune in India."

Google overtakes Apple as world's top brand: Survey

US search engine Google has overtaken rival technology titan Apple as the world's top brand in terms of value, global market research agency Millward Brown said on Wednesday. 

Google's brand value shot up 40 per cent in a year to $158.84 billion (115 billion euros), Millward Brown said in its 2014 100 Top BrandZ report. 

"Google has been extremely innovative this year with Google Glass, investments in artificial intelligence and a range of partnerships," said Benoit Tranzer, the head of Millward Brown France. 

Google Glass is Internet-linked eyewear for which the firm has joined hands with Luxottica, a frame giant behind Ray-Ban and other high-end brands, to sell the new product in the United States. 

"All these activities send a very strong signal to consumers about the essence of Google," Tranzer said. 

Apple, which dominated the top position for three straight years, saw its brand value fall by 20 per cent to $147.88 billion. 

The top 10 of the 100 slots were dominated by US firms. IBM was in third place at $107.54 billion, a fall of 4 per cent, followed by Microsoft at $90.19 billion — a 29 per cent rise. 

Fast food chain McDonald's ranked next at $85.71 billion, followed by Coca Cola ($80.68 billion), it said. 

China led in the insurance sector with Ping An valued at $12.4 billion and China Life ($12 billion).

French luxury goods manufacturer Louis Vuitton ranked 30th overall but was the top luxury brand with a value of more than $25 billion. 

Brand value is calculated on the basis of the firms' financial performance and their standing among consumers

What Flipkart, Snapdeal are doing to attract more customers

With price being the most potent weapon in their arsenal, online retailers looking to snare more customers are cajoling sellers to offer steep discounts and reimbursing those who do so.

The country's largest online marketplaces like Amazon.in, Flipkart and Snapdeal are adopting several models to ensure that merchants on their portal offer discounted prices.

Their unbridled aggression is drawing the ire of smaller peers as well as traditional retailers who are struggling to keep pace.

"P&G gives a margin of 13% for a pack of Pampers diapers. But Amazon was selling it at a discount of 28%," said the founder of an online site that sells babycare products among other categories.

"How is that fair? We can never match that kind of discounts," said the person on condition of anonymity. Amazon declined to comment. As the fight for top honours in India's Rs 12,000-crore online retail industry acquires a razor-sharp intensity, portals are doing all they can to attract and retain customers.

Officially, most portals maintain that they only offer a technology platform where merchants sell to customers, and that they have little role to play in pricing. However, several merchants that ET spoke to said they are constantly badgered to drop prices.

Discontent in ecommerce sector over predatory pricing

"The first level of price control happens when the seller uploads his catalogue," said Sayak Sahu, founder of IE Ventures that runs design-led gift products and gadgets firm Smiledrive. He sells products on Amazon, Snapdeal, Flipkart and eBay and is urged by each to compare prices for similar products and offer the lowest price.

"We get regular calls from category managers of all sites. They tell us to give earth-shattering discounts," said Sahu, who sells only online and expects sales of Rs 5 crore this fiscal.

When marketplaces want to run across-thesite or category-wide discounts, the cost of discounting is borne fully by the merchant, split between merchant and portal or paid for completely by the e-tailer . Often, the online retail company takes the entire hit for discounts.

"I had listed a Wi-Fi adapter for Rs 399 on Snapdeal which they sold for Rs 299, but I got my price," said Devesh Tanna, chief executive of Mumbai-based VeeDee Enterprises, an electronics seller who earns Rs 1.5 crore a year from marketplaces.

Snapdeal declined to comment for this article. Such strategies , termed as predatory pricing, are creating ripples of discontent across the country's fastgrowing ecommerce industry, expected to grow to $56 billion in the next decade. Saurabh Malik, business head at Indiatimes Shopping, said that while the portal co-funds some of the discounts, most are funded by sellers.

"We are against the philosophy of selling products at loss," said Malik. Amazon too reimburses merchants. In an email sent to sellers at the end of 2013 when the marketplace introduced Amazon Marketing Promotion Program (AMPP), the company said, "Amazon will pay for the promotional activities carried by you only for those orders wherein the customer has purchased those items under promotion within the validity of the promotion period at the specified discount price." Flipkart, on the other hand, makes adjustments in commissions.

"In some promotional campaigns, we either reduce or waive our commissions to allow sellers to offer better prices to customers," said Ankit Nagori, vice-president (marketplace) at Flipkart. "However, we do not reimburse sellers as this is not in the spirit of a true marketplace."

Sumant Chopra, a manager at electronics merchant Delhimall, said that if Flipkart regularly charges a commission of 10-15 %, it charges only 1-2 % for a few weeks when it has a scheme and gives that benefit to the customer. This additional discounting falls under the marketing expenses of online sites, whose large fund raises are primarily meant for such initiatives. Flipkart raised $360 million (. 2,140 crore) in 2013 and Snapdeal raised about $183 million (over Rs 1,000 crore) in 2013 and 2014.

Experts said these kinds of discounts are legal. "It is a marketing expense aimed at gaining customers," said Arvind Singhal, chairman of retail advisory Technopak. "However, if it falls under predatory pricing then there could be a problem." Traditional traders and even smaller online sites argue that rampant discounting followed by online marketplaces is indeed leading to predatory pricing.

"The minimum operative price has to be maintained, this is important," said Anwar Shirpurwala, executive director at MAIT, the trade association for manufacturing and hardware companies in India. "Predatory pricing does affect traditional traders."

While MRP is the maximum retail price at which a product is sold, the minimum operative price is set by brands beyond which a retailer cannot reduce the price of a product. These discounts result in products being sold below MOP.

Microsoft launches Surface 3, tablet that can ‘replace laptop’

Microsoft on Tuesday launched Surface Pro 3 at an event in New York. The company said that the device, which succeeds Surface Pro 2, combines the best of a tablet and laptop in a single gadget.

"So many people carry both a laptop and a tablet but really want just one device that serves all purposes," said Panos Panay, corporate vice president, Microsoft Surface. "Surface Pro 3 is the tablet that can replace your laptop — packing all the performance of a fully powered laptop into a thin, light and beautifully designed device."

Powered by an Intel Core i processor, Surface Pro 3 will be available in several configurations. The basic model, which has a Core i5 4300 processor running at 1.6GHz and 64GB internal storage, will cost $799. Despite packing in a Core i processor, the tablet runs cool. Microsoft claims it is the slimmest (9.1mm) device with a Core i processor. 

"The product we're announcing today has been three years in the making. To get this thin, light, and powerful was a huge challenge - partly because the powerful processors that power Surface Pro 3 need to be cooled... we invented a new fan technology that is 30% more efficient than previous solutions. The new, thinner fan cools a series of fins placed around it instead of forcing the exhaust air out through a channel. Not having to create space for this channel allows Surface Pro 3 to be thinner without sacrificing performance," said Panay. 

Surface Pro 3 will be available in the US and Canada from June 20. The availability will be extended to 26 additional countries by end of August but India is not one of them. 

Microsoft has not yet launched a Surface tablet in India. It is likely that Surface Pro 3 may not come to Indian market any time soon. Amrish Goyal, the head of Windows division at Microsoft India, had earlier told TOI that the company believed the Surface tablets were too expensive for Indian market. He revealed that instead of Surface tablets, in India Microsoft was focusing on less expensive tablets created by Microsoft's hardware partners like Lenovo and Dell. 

Surface Pro 3 has a 12-inch screen with a resolution of 2160 x 1440 pixels. It features an adjustable kickstand, has a casing made of magnesium and weighs around 800 grams. It has two cameras - 5MP each - in the front and rear. The device uses Windows 8.1 Pro. 

The tablet will also be available with a Core i3 or a Core i7 processor. The device has 4GB RAM in standard configuration but consumers will have the option to go for 8GB RAM. Similarly, if consumers want, they would be able to opt for the model with 512GB internal storage. The fully upgraded model of Surface Pro 3 will cost around $1,949. 

Like earlier Surface tablets, the Surface Pro 3 will also be compatible with a few accessories. "New Surface accessories like the improved Surface Pro Type Cover will take Surface Pro 3 from tablet to laptop in a snap. The new premium Surface Pen with pressure sensitivity enables a more natural writing experience, while a full-size USB 3.0 port, microSD card reader and Mini DisplayPort allow for quick file transfers and easy connections to a range of peripherals," said Microsoft. The accessories will cost extra.

Google launches online education tool, Classroom

Google has added a new tool to its Apps for Education suite, called Classroom. This product will help "teachers create and organize assignments quickly, provide feedback efficiently, and communicate with their classes with ease," the company said in a blog post. 

Classroom will integrate apps like Docs, Drive and Gmail so that teachers are able to create and collect assignments paperlessly. It will also allow teachers to track which students have not completed their tasks and provide real-time feedback to them.

Google says that Classroom will be an ad-free product, just like other Apps for Education tools. 

Teachers interested in trying out this new product can request for an invite on the official Classroom website and depending on the number of requests it receives, Google will let a limited number of teachers try it out for a month. The wider rollout of this online solution will commence in September.

HP to invest over $1billion in open-source cloud computing

Hewlett-Packard Co plans to invest more than $1 billion over the next two years to develop and offer cloud-computing products and services. 

The company said it will make its OpenStack-based public cloud services available in 20 data centers over the next 18 months. 

OpenStack, a cloud computing project that HP co-founded, provides a free and open-source cloud computing platform for public and private cloud services. 

"Customer challenges today extend beyond cloud. They include how to manage, control and scale applications in a hybrid environment that spans multiple technology approaches," Martin Fink, executive vice president and chief technology officer, HP, said in a statement. 

HP last week inked a deal with Taiwanese contract manufacturer Foxconn Technology Group to make servers aimed at companies that provide cloud computing services. 

Cloud services have become increasingly popular among both cash-strapped tech startups and larger companies, which rely on computers owned and operated by the likes of Amazon and Google, instead of buying the equipment themselves. 

Amazon.com and Google recently slashed prices of most of their cloud computing services as other companies join the fray. 

Cisco Systems laid out plans in March to offer cloud computing services, pledging to spend $1 billion over the next two years, while Microsoft said it will increase its cloud storage offering for business users 40-fold.

You can finally print Office documents from your iPad

     

     Microsoft’s Office suite has been a big hit on the iPad so far but it was also missing a crucial feature when it was first released last month: The ability to print out your documents from your tablet. Don’t fret, however, because Microsoft announced on Tuesday that it’s issuing its first update on Office for iPad that will enable printing onWord, Excel and PowerPoint. Other features included in the update are SmartGuides, a PowerPoint feature designed to “help you align pictures, shapes, and textboxes as you move them around on a slide,” and AutoFit, a new Excel feature that “lets you adjust the width of multiple rows or the height of multiple columns at the same time. With just a few taps, you’ll be sure that your spreadsheet looks better and that no content is hidden.”

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Mobile phones bringing ‘reading revolution’ in poor countries

A new report has revealed that the spread of mobile technologies that have made books more accessible than ever before and thus bringing a “reading revolution.”

According to UNESCO, 62 percent of those surveyed said they enjoy reading more after they started reading on mobile devices, and one-third said they use their phones to read to their children (an additional third said they would do so if more child-friendly books were available), the Verge reported. 

Lead author Mark West said that the study has found that mobile devices can help people develop, sustain and enhance their literacy skills, which is important because literacy opens the door to life-changing opportunities and benefits.

According to the study, 60 percent of respondents cited a desire for more diverse reading options as the primary hurdle to reading on mobile devices, while only 18 percent cited cost.

The UN estimates that around 6 billion people have access to mobile phones today and broadband mobile connections have seen tremendous growth in developing countries.

Wipro planning biggest restructuring exercise

Wipro is planning a wide-ranging restructuring to help employees shore up expertise in state-of-the art skills, a move that underscores the need to adapt to the fast-changing role of information technology in enterprises. The Bangalore-based company's head of human resources Saurabh Govil described the effort as the biggest restructuring exercise since Wipro ventured into the information technology business in 1981. "Very few companies would have tried anything of this size and scale in the past," said Saurabh Govil, a senior vice president.

Chief executive TK Kurien said that in 12-18 months, when the revamp is completed, the organisational will look more like an hourglass than a pyramid. "People who sit in between and do broking are going to be affected. They are slowly going to go away," he said, delivering a stark warning to those among the nearly 1.5 lakh employees who are seen as under-performers. The restructuring and training will involve enhancing or acquiring proficiency in emerging technology areas such as data analytics and cloud computing. Govil said that equally important will be what he called the "behaviourial aspects" of working in an industry where customers are increasingly demanding that technology should serve clearly-defined business goals.

Govil said restructuring is a critical part of the "New Wipro" and will help the company gear up for the next wave of IT services that includes greater focus on technology automation. "The reskilling exercise has the potential to take the capabilities of our employees to the next level, which in turn will translate into enhanced quality outcomes, better customer satisfaction and more revenues."

For several years, Wipro has been struggling to cross the 3% quarterly revenue growth mark. Kurien, who took over in February 2011, has said that he aspires to make India's third-largest software exporter a growth leader in the industry. While software industry grouping Nasscom has predicted that exports will grow by 13-15% in the year to March 2015, Wipro's revenue expansion is expected to be much slower.

"In future, everything will depend on how much value you add to the company, not how many years you have spent at the company," Kurien, 54, said. Govil was of the view that low-end work is increasingly automated and employees are increasingly expected to be connecting with customers, which is why "behavioral sensitisation" is such an important part of the restructuring. "Employees are no longer the back-end engineers delivering outsourced services remotely," he said.

Some experts, however, question if Wipro's latest attempt would help the Bangalore-based company gain a competitive edge. "As Indian IT services firms move up the value chain, they are trying to retrain their employees so that they have the domain knowledge of this digital transformation, including Smac (social, mobility, analytics, cloud)," said Samiron Ghoshal, the head of IT advisory at Ernst & Young.

Hand written notes better than typing on laptops: Study

Taking notes by hand is better than writing them on a laptop for remembering conceptual information over the long term, a new study has found.

"Our new findings suggest that even when laptops are used as intended - and not for buying things on Amazon during class - they may still be harming academic performance," said Pam Mueller of Princeton University, lead author of the study.

Mueller and researcher Daniel Oppenheimer, who is now at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), conducted a series of studies to investigate whether their intuitions about laptop and longhand note-taking were true.

In the first study, 65 college students watched one of five TED Talks covering topics that were interesting but not common knowledge.

The students, who watched the talks in small groups, were either given laptops (disconnected from Internet) or notebooks, and were told to use whatever strategy they normally used to take notes.

The students then completed three distractor tasks, including a taxing working memory task. A full 30 minutes later, they had to answer factual-recall questions based on the lecture they had watched.

The results showed that while the two types of note-takers performed equally well on questions that involved recalling facts, laptop note-takers performed significantly worse on the conceptual questions.

The notes from laptop users contained more words and more verbatim overlap with the lecture, compared to the notes that were written by hand.

Overall, students who took more notes performed better, but so did those who had less verbatim overlap, suggesting that the benefit of having more content is cancelled out by "mindless transcription."

"It may be that longhand note takers engage in more processing than laptop note takers, thus selecting more important information to include in their notes, which enables them to study this content more efficiently," researchers said.

Surprisingly, the researchers saw similar results even when they explicitly instructed the students to avoid taking verbatim notes, suggesting that the urge to do so when typing is hard to overcome.

Researchers also found that longhand note takers still beat laptop note takers on recall one week later when participants were given a chance to review their notes before taking the recall test.

Once again, the amount of verbatim overlap was associated with worse performance on conceptual items.

Ubuntu 'Trusty Tahr' is a solid step forward, not a leap

Latest version of Canonical's desktop Linux addresses a major UI gripe and builds the base for overdue tablet edition of Ubuntu

Ubuntu, Canonical's edition of Linux aimed mainly at end-users and desktops, published its 14.04 release on Thursday. It's an incremental upgrade, polishing existing features rather than introducing revolutionary new ones, but it features at least one rethinking of an interface feature that's divided Ubuntu users for some time.

Code-named "Trusty Tahr," 14.04 is one of the LTS (long-term support) editions of Ubuntu, designed to be supported for five years by Canonical, though some spin-off editions carry only three years of support. It sports the 3.13 edition of the Linux kernel, itself outfitted with some major virtualization and hardware support functions.

Of the latter, the most noteworthy addition is support for 64-bit ARM and POWER systems. Both are useful for server environments, but the former ought to prove doubly in demand when Canonical helps roll out the first Ubuntu-powered tablets running 14.04.

One major and long-awaited bit of interface polish involves a fix to the Unity window manager, which annoyed the Ubuntu community the same way Windows 8's Metro inflamed Windows users. Unity forced application menus to sit at the top of the screen, in much the same manner as Mac OS X, rather than be attached to their attendant windows.

This had bad repercussions for high-pixel-density displays. The menus grew more removed from the applications themselves, so as of 14.04, app menus are placed back with their own windows. The change has to be made manually, but it isn't difficult.

Relocating the menus is one of a number of changes made to allow Ubuntu to play better with high-resolution displays on desktops, smartphone, and tablets. Canonical clearly wants Ubuntu present on more tablets, and while it has specific installation instructions for those who want toload Ubuntu the way they side-loaded custom Android ROMs, Canonical is betting on itspartnerships with hardware makers to deliver Ubuntu as a mobile OS.

Canonical's biggest impact isn't on desktops or mobile devices, though; as with many other varieties of Linux, it's been on the server side. Canonical has been pushing Ubuntu harder as acloud building block OS recently, since the desktop market remains stagnant and mobile is difficult for outsiders to crack -- thanks to the Apple and Google duopoly. It makes sense then for Canonical to attack on as many fronts as possible.

It's worth keeping an eye on future desktop versions of Ubuntu to see whether Canonical reworks the system to take better advantage of containerization technologies like Docker. The application-virtualization system is now a notable component of Ubuntu Server and might well find its way into the desktop edition. Red Hat is said to be attempting a similar move with future versions of Fedora, using the lessons learned from Docker on the server side to better determine how to package and distribute the desktop edition. It'll be interesting to see if Ubuntu cooks up a plan along those lines, too, and how unlike Red Hat's approach it might be.

Two cloud companies started by Indian entrepreneurs that are shining globally

With the emergence of the concept of cloud computing, India has been fast evolving as a hot bed of companies centered around the technology, kick-started by visionary Indian entrepreneurs who are driven by the grit to challenge big players in the space, such as Salesforce.com, Google and Microsoft. In the last 10 years, though many Indian entrepreneurs have stepped forward and established interesting cloud computing companies, only a few of them have actually evolved themselves dynamically and fast enough to reach a scale that is enviable to even the established cloud computing vendors. Two such Indian cloud computing companies that have become established players in their own space in the global market are Zoho and Freshdesk. When we spoke to the founders of these companies, we found that their brilliance in creating just the right product that was aimed at resolving specific business challenges within the SMB community, clubbed with their unique business strategies and sales model contributed significantly to their consistent success. InformationWeek takes a closer look at their success stories and the factors that catalyzed their rapid growth in the global market. Zoho: A firm that believes in the bottom-up approach Way back in 1996 when Indian technology entrepreneurship was almost unheard of, Sridhar Vembu an IIT Madras alumni armed with a PhD from Princeton University kick-started a tech company called AdventNet that offered Web Network Management System (WebNMS) to the telecom OEMs like Cisco, Nortel and Motorola. AdventNet’s business was going good, till the year 2000 when the dotcom burst happened and as a result most fibre optic companies that were WebNMS’ customers went out of business. Observing that the company’s client numbers were dwindling, Sridhar decided to diversify AdventNet and launched ManageEngine, a suite of products built for IT admins/teams. Journey from AdventNet to Zoho During 2005 Sridhar realized that many startups and SMBs were emerging in the Indian and the global market that were aiming at turning their focus completely on running their business and not their IT. Also, such companies didn’t have heavy capital that they could invest on internal IT. Sridhar figured that a bundle of essential business productivity and collaboration apps delivered on a subscription-based SaaS model could be the answer to the problems of emerging businesses. This model would call for a much lesser investment and would also lessen the burden of hosting, managing, maintaining and supporting apps, thus allowing them to focus on what they do best. So in 2005 Sridhar took the big leap and launched the company’s first SaaS offering, an online word processor. This was followed by other SaaS services that include CRM, mail, creator, projects, support, sites, campaigns, reports, etc. 

An interesting thing to note here is that the company entered the market way before Google launched its Google Apps for businesses, which included similar web-based productivity software for organizations. In 2009, the name of the company was changed from AdventNet to Zoho Corporation. “Today, Zoho Corp, headquartered in Pleasanton, CA, has three divisions, each focusing on different market segments. While Zoho.com is focused on online business productivity and collaboration apps; ManageEngine is focused on enterprise IT management ; and WebNMS is focused on the needs of OEMs,” says Sridhar. Though currently Zoho is targeting the SMBs in the global and the Indian market, the company aims at expanding into the large enterprises as well. Elaborating on this, Sridhar says, “At Zoho, we believe in the bottom-up approach. We serve small businesses first and eventually bubble up servicing larger companies. We like the SMB market better as there are more SMBs than larger companies in the world. While it has its own set of challenges — like reaching these SMBs is tough — the volume makes this interesting.” Acquiring 10 million customers It has been roughly 9 years since Zoho.com was kick-started and within this short time span the company has scaled up from zero customers to 10 million customers, with the company adding about 250,000 users every month. In addition, though the company is established by Indian entrepreneurs, the offerings are extremely popular across the globe with the company having maximum customer base in the U.S., Canada and U.K. Zoho has undoubtedly grown by leaps and bounds since its inception. “Today, Zoho has about 1,000 employees spread across in offices located in California, Austin, New Jersey, Singapore, Tokyo and Beijing, apart from Chennai. Our support and sales teams are based out of India and cater to customer’s needs, across the globe. We are expanding on sales and marketing along with strategic partnerships that will help us reach a wider audience

IBM Steps Up Investment In SoftLayer Cloud Partners

As IBM tries to accelerate its SoftLayer cloud services business to offset big hardware losses that have been plaguing the company, it’s turning to channel partners to help it step up its cloud game. As part of a cloud services push, IBM will unveil updates to its SoftLayer partner program that will boost margins on monthly recurring sales, dedicate more money to channel co-marketing funds, and expand in-person training opportunities for partners.   

Central to IBM's SoftLayer push are increases in the percentage discounts paid to partners for recurring monthly SoftLayer business. IBM said it will increase discounts from between 5 percent and 15 percent for deals worth as much as $15,000 in recurring revenue to a new range of 5 percent to 20 percent for deals ranging from $15,000 to $100,000 monthly. This is in addition to SoftLayer's existing referral program, which pays 10 percent the first year, 8 percent in year two, and 6 percent thereafter. 

Tom Blair, Senior Vice President, Global Sales, SoftLayer, said IBM is stepping up efforts to more effectively leverage its channel with the goal of boosting the number of channel-led accounts from 40 percent to 50 percent by the end of 2014. Blair said that since IBM purchased SoftLayer last year, about 120 IBM partners have joined the 1,400-strong SoftLayer partner program.

A new marketing initiative, meanwhile, will increase partner access to co-marketing funds, according to IBM. For every $1,000 of monthly cloud business a partner can commit to within a six-month window, IBM said it will match that amount in co-marketing funds. For example, if a partner commits to $3,000 of new monthly cloud business in the next six months, IBM will match up to $3,000 in co-marketing dollars spent by the partner.

Robert Verola, President, Vicom Computer Services, a $118 million IBM Premier partner based in Farmingdale, N.Y., said Vicom is just now beginning to move clients to the cloud. "What we want to see are compelling services priced properly for partners to make healthy recurring revenues," he said.  

"In two years from as much as 10 [percent] to 15 percent of our business will moved to the cloud. SoftLayer has been very aggressive about winning our business. But for now, we only make a move when it financially makes sense. Right now we are still just getting our feet wet," said Verola. 

As part of the update, IBM also said it has combined two existing SoftLayer partner programs—Hosted Reseller and Strategic Reseller—into one streamlined offering called the SoftLayer Services and Solution Provider program. In addition, it will expand the number of two-day hands-on SoftLayer training sessions by the end of second quarter to 21. IBM said nine of those road show training classes will be held in North America.

"We see huge opportunities in midmarket and large enterprise," said Ed Bottini, Global Cloud Computing Ecosystem Manager, IBM. "We are trying to ease cloud adoption for partners and let them tap into big opportunities to grow their business incrementally with cloud services."

In IBM’s first-quarter earnings released recently, the company said cloud revenue increased more than 50 percent vs. the previous quarter, and cloud offerings delivered as a service now represent $2.3 billion in annual revenue.

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