Business News Holding

Author: Antony Maina

Amazon Makes Its Enterprise Cloud Storage Service Zocalo Available For All

Amazon recently announced that they are making their secure document sharing and storage enterprise service Zocalo available to all.

This news was released on the same day when Dropbox, their cloud storage competitor, announced increased storage and lower prices for their pro customers.

Zocalo last month sprung into a limited preview with very belligerent price points. An end user receives 200 GB in cloud storage for $5 per month per user. The user can then take advantage of the service to upload new versions, store all sorts of files, comment within and on files, and much more, from any device including Macs, PCs, and other iOS and Android powered devices.

In the meantime, Zocalo is being managed by IT admins who are integrating the service with surviving corporate directories like the Active directory, allowing the users to first sign in with their surviving Active Directory authorizations.

In a recent blogpost, Amazon confirmed that the Zocalo service is now available to all their AWS customers including a free trial period of 30 days.

Even though Zocalo is designed for the enterprise crowd, most of whom are on-premise solutions and still paying for legacy, to some extent, it is a competitor of other consumer-first services including Dropbox, which is not is not aiming to stretch further into the expert business markets, where it is in tough competition with other cloud storage rivals, including Google Drive and Box.

Zocalo is not Amazon’s first cloud storage service: the company also offers consumer grade service like Amazon Cloud Drive, whose greatest advantage is its assimilation with Amazon’s Fire phone.

September 16, 2014
Meet Apple Pay, Apple’s new mobile payment system

Apple has plunged into the world of mobile payments with the introduction of Apple Pay. This new service is integrated in the iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus and Apple Watch. The payment service is designed to allow users to scan tickets, buy merchandise, and even engage in other payment actions by waving their mobile device at the reader.

With Apple Pay, you may no longer need to carry your credit or debit cards around as you can have all of them stored in your Passbook.

How it Works

With the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, you don’t even have to open an app to use the service, simply place your finger on Touch ID and hold your phone near the contactless reader. You do not have to look at the screen as a subtle beep and vibration tells you that the information was sent successfully.

For the Apple Watch, hold the face of your Apple watch near the contactless reader and double click the button that is just below the digital crown. You will know your information was sent successfully when you feel a gentle pulse and a beep. This feature will become active in early 2015.

How to Setup

Setting up is easy as all your debit and credit card info can be stored in your Passbook. To get started, you can add the debit or credit card from your iTunes a/c to Passbook by entering the security code of your card.

Use the iSight Camera to add new card information. You could even type it in manually if you wish. The first card you add becomes your default payment card, but you can always change this by going to Passbook settings and choosing another card to be your default.

Security

Every time you add a card to your Passbook, a unique Device Account Number is created and encrypted. This number is then stored safely in a secure element on your iPhone or Apple Watch. Apple does not store these numbers in their servers. When you are making a payment, the Device Account Number, together with a dynamic transaction-specific security code are used to process your payment. This therefore means that your actual debit or credit card numbers never get to be transmitted with payments or shared with merchants.

In case you lose your iPhone, you could always wipe it clean or put it in Lost Mode using Find My iPhone.

You will be able to use Apple Pay in over 220,000 stores that accept contactless payments.

September 11, 2014
Apple introduces Apple Watch

During the iPhone 6 launch yesterday, Apple announced the Apple Watch, which is its first incursion into the world of wearable tech. The Apple Watch is a smartwatch with a rectangular face, swappable bands, sapphire glass, inductive charging, rotating digital crown, and a heartbeat sensor.

You will have an opportunity to choose between 6 different straps, including a leather loop, a sport band, stainless steel strap and a classic leather buckle that is easy to adjust.

The watch will also be available in 2 different sizes and 3 different collections, including the Watch Edition, Watch, and Watch Sport.

Of course, the Apple Watch will only work in conjunction with an iPhone, so you will have to own a relatively new model starting with iPhone 5.

Revolutionary you think?

During the launch, Apple’s CEO Tim Cook said “We love to make new products that improve people’s lives. We love to make things that allow our users to make things that they could never have imagined.” He also added that the Apple Watch will redefine what people expect from its category.

How Different is it from the iPhone?

Cook stressed that they did not just take the iPhone and transformed it into a watch. Take the Pinch to Zoom for instance, this wouldn’t work on a watch and for that matter, Apple has a small dial on the side of the watch known as the digital crown. Pressing the dial takes you to the home screen which you can personalize.

They also introduced the digital touch that allows users to quickly share a sketch that is drawn on the watch’s face. Since the watch doesn’t have a keyboard, the digital touch allows you to still communicate relatively complex ideas using sketches.

It is also important not to forget the basic function of the watch – it’s a timepiece. The watch is able to keep unfailingly precise time of 50 milliseconds of the global standard time.

You can also receive and send texts from the watch. You will feel a gentle tap whenever you get a message and you can also send out quick replies. There are customizable animated emoji too.

The watch is also your intelligent fitness companion as it will provide you with a complete report of you day’s physical activity. This includes the number of steps taken, the frequency, and quality as well. Your Activity App will simply display your fitness level in 3 rings that show your progress and thus provide you with all the motivation you need to exercise more and keep fit.

The Apple Watch retail price will start at $349 and will be available early 2015.

September 10, 2014
IFA 2014: Samsung To Incorporate Netflix and Amazon 4K Ultra HD TV Apps

Samsung are partnering up with Netflix, Amazon, Maxdome, Chili, and Wuaki.tv with the intent of incorporating loads of 4K Ultra HD content to their smart TVs. The South Korean electronics giant is expected to launch Amazon’s Ultra HD service in October. Meanwhile, Netflix’s 4K app is going to be stretched to Europe later this year, making a debut with “House of Cards”, the political drama.

Samsung also reinforced its cooperation with major European content partners, including maxdome, Wuaki.tv, and CHILI “to secure more UHD content to work towards a more robust UHD ecosystem.”

According to the visual display’s executive vice president at Samsung’s electronics, Won Jin Lee, the UHD era has begun making it important to provide customers with more options as far as the UHD content goes. This will help in continuing the widespread adoption of UHD content. Won further added that Samsung offers its consumers with a wider range of UHD content for them to enjoy on their immersive Curved Ultra HD TVs.

This is definitely not Samsung’s first venture into the 4K UHD content market. Prior to World Cup, Samsung partnered up with Portugal Telecom and with RTP, the Portuguese broadcaster to show live warm-up matches employing the MEO content service on 4K TVs across the world.

The next big step for the excellent quality TV revolution is to come up with a secure UHD content distribution solution with the SCSA (Secure Content Storage Association). Samsung is working with SCSA’s founding partners including Warner Bros, 20th Century Fox, Western Digital, and ScanDisk and have sprung a 500GB external hard drive which is pre-loaded with 40 tiles having 4K picture quality that includes ‘life of Pi’ and ‘ Star Trek Into Darkness’.

September 4, 2014
WhatsApp Will Soon Include Free VoIP Calls

Jan Koum, the CEO of WhatsApp, declared in February a WhatsApp update that will offer free VoIP calls for the Blackberry, Android, Windows phone, and iOS. The Voice over IP is still to be seen occurring as an upgrade even though its launch was speculated for the second half of this year. If the VoIP feature is enabled, it will certainly put WhatsApp at per with some of the most renowned calling and messaging applications like Skype and Viber.

Nonetheless, WhatsApp have a greater advantage when compared to their rivals in the sense that the application is much simpler to master and it also utilizes less bandwidth – this consequently eliminates lags and delays during voice calls.

A few depicted screenshots of the anticipated update have leaked showing arrangements that the call will be initiated from chat. However, the calling is anticipated not to impede with instant messaging. Only after the user grants the application permission to make the call will the VoIP call be initiated successfully.

The leaks also suggest a call button, mute, speakerphone, and the VoIP calls can be made by 3G connections as well as Wi-Fi.

The cost of making the VoIP calls has not yet been disclosed but they are expected to be a little lower compared to other VoIP providers.

Source: tech2

September 3, 2014
Microsoft Ups Storage 5,000% to 1 TB for Each Office 365 User

Microsoft bumped up its cloud storage increasing it from 20 GB to 1 TB for every Office 365 user. It also increased its Microsoft OneDrive from 7 GB to 15 GB. According to Microsoft’s data, out of every four people, three have storage of less than 15 GB on their PC.

This storage boost has put Microsoft in the forefront when compared to Google and Dropbox, as far as free allocation goes. The Free Dropbox accounts get a sparing 2GB, even though it may be expanded through signing up friends. While Google may offer 15 GB free cloud storage, it includes Gmail, Drive and Photos.

In addition, Microsoft has also lowered the price of purchasing additional storage to$2 per month from the previous cost of $7.50 per month for 100 GB.

Office 365 storage

So if you are thinking of getting more than an extra 100 GB, you will be better of switching to an Office 365 account, as all Office 365 account holders get storage increase to 1TB.

A personal Office 365 subscription costs $6.99 per month and comes with 1 TB for every user while the Home Office 365 subscription costs up to $9.99 monthly and comes with approximately five 1TB OneDrive allocations.

An earlier announcement by Microsoft also revealed that OneDrive for Business clients as well as university students also get a boost to 1 TB.

All the changes are expected to be effected this month, according to Microsoft.

July 17, 2014
Google Drive for Work Takes on Dropbox with Unlimited Storage for $10 Monthly

For the first time ever, an unlimited storage has been offered by a cloud file storage service at entry level prices. Google has released the much anticipated Google Drive for Work which presents unlimited storage for as little as US$10 monthly. Since a Google Drive for Work account with less than five users is limited to 1TB storage as per user, it means that a business may spend up to $50.

The incorporation of Quickoffice into the newly launched Drive grants a user the ability to not only open a Microsoft document, but also make changes to it in its innate format is a major drawcard. These also applies to Power Point and Excel files both in Chrome browser and Android mobile devices on a laptop or desktop computer.

Google is making plans to extend this ability to iOS devices soon.

Two years after its introduction to the market, Google Drive has managed to get more than 190 million users globally.

Google Drive for Work has given more security settings and control to businesses which would like to know who shares files and how. The service gives businesses a chance to share up to 5TB in files for the public to download, comment, edit or simply view.

Google Drive’s compatibility with over and above 40 file formats allows for previewing of PDFs, Microsoft Office documents, videos, images and spreadsheets without the need for extra software.

Another notable alteration to the consumer Google Drive is the full support and stronger security. All files are encrypted when being transferred to the Drive’s cloud data center from the user’s computer and remain encrypted while in storage and even when transferred to any mobile device.

July 14, 2014
Samsung Launches 4 Affordable Android 4.4 KitKat Galaxy Smartphones

Samsung has recently launched four new reasonably priced smartphones: the Galaxy Core II, Galaxy Ace 4, Galaxy Star 2, and Galaxy Young 2. Although Samsung has not yet revealed the availability or pricing details of the smartphones, they are already hyped as ‘affordable’.

All the newly launched Samsung smartphones run out-of-the-box android 4.4 KitKat. Further, all these smartphones with the exception of the Galaxy Ace 4 are dual SIM devices. According to Samsung Tomorrow, the Galaxy Ace 4 has been launched in LTE and 3G variants which both come with a slightly diverse set of specifications.

The Galaxy Ace 4 (3G) weighs 123.8grams; packs 1500mAh batteries with 512MB RAM backed by a 1GHz dual-core processor and comes with dimensions of 121.4×62.9×10.8mm; while the Galaxy Ace 4 LTE comes in 121.4×62.9x11mm dimensions weighing 130.3 grams. It packs a 1GB RAM powered by 1.2GHz dual-core processor and 1800mAh batteries. The two variations however have a few common specifications including a VGA front and a 5-megapixel rear camera and a 4-inch WVGA TFT display.

The Samsung Galaxy Core II is powered by a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, with 768MB of RAM an in-built storage of 4GB with an expandable storage support of 64GB, 2000mAh batteries and a 4.5-inch WVGA TFT display. This smartphone also has connectivity options including 3G, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi b/g/n and a Micro-USB. Weighing 138 grams and 130.3x68x9.8mm in dimensions, the Galaxy Core II comes in colour variations of white and black.

The Samsung Galaxy Young 2 has an in-built 4GB storage which can expand further to 32GB via microSD card, backed by 512MB of RAM, a 1GHz single-core processor and packs a 1300mAh battery. It also has a fixed-focus 3-megapixel rear camera with connectivity options including GLONASS, 3G, A-GPS, Wi-Fi b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0 and Micro-USB. This smartphone comes in charcoal and white colour variants.

Finally, there is the Samsung Galaxy Star 2 which comes with a 512MBRAM, powered by a 1GHz SC6815A single-core Spreadtrum and a 3.5-inch HVGA display. With an in-built 4GB storage expandable up to 32GB with a microSD card, this smartphone also incorporates a Wi-Fi b/g/n; Bluetooth 4.0 as well as Micro-USB connectivity options and packs 1300mAh batteries.

July 10, 2014
Samsung shatters the price floor on 4K with $1,000 sets for 2014

Samsung has dropped Ultra HD bombs with the start of New York CE Week. Last week, they announced new additions to their UHD TV lineup which includes another curved series as an addition to their repertoire, another flat panel in the HU6950 series, the HU7250 series, not to mention a brand addition to its HU8550 series: an 85-inch behemothzz.

The new UHD TVs stable boosts the company’s already established line-up to six series creating the largest selection of UHD TVs in the market. The newest UHD technology including HDMI 2.0, the (H.265) HEVC codec for the fastest 4K streaming at approximately 60 frames per second, and Samsung’s One Connect Box (upgradable) have been incorporated in the new TVs.

The 85-inch HU8550

This new monster addition to the HU8550 series is actually the small version of the largest in the HU8550 series stretching to 110 inches. HU8550 TVs are considered top-ranked series and provide a number of features including UHD precision black for clear contrast, dimming and blazing color performance not to mention the company’s cutting-edge smart technology. This 85-inch is set to be released next month priced at $10,000 which is $5,000 less compared to the 84-inch LG monster.

HU7250 series

Samsung is advocating for curved displays as the greatest and cutting-edge tech on Ultra HD TV designs through its commercials. With its new models; the 65-inch and 55-inch priced at $3,300 and $2,200 consecutively, you can say that the HU7250 series is the friendliest priced concave 4K UHD TV and it arrives in August.

Some of this series’ highlighted features include UHD Dimming, UHD upscaling and a Quad Screen Multi-link that gives viewers the opportunity to divide the screen to four parts allowing you to watch diverse sources at once. According to Samsung, the curved design delivers a better true to life experience.

HU6950 series

This series provides the most affordable way to acquire Samsung’s 4K TV brand. The HU6950 series has three new remarkably affordable models including a 40-inch, 50-inch and 55-inch TVs costing $1,000, $1,500 and $2,000 respectively. This series also comes with a fine selection of features including Quad Screen Multi-link, quad-core processors and UHD Dimming. The HU6950 series is scheduled for release in June.

July 3, 2014
Skype 2.19 for Windows Phone now comes with Cortana integration

Microsoft has finally released a brand new version of Skype for both Windows phone 8 and 8.1. This latest release of Skype 2.19 is set to bring a fine selection of new features to the Windows Phone devices.

Skype 2.19 now complements the Cortana integration. This simply means that you can start Skype calls through Cortana, Microsoft’s voice triggered virtual assistant.

Below are some of the new features that come with this new Skype version:

Start Skype calls with Cortana

Currently existing on windows phone 8.1 in the US, Cortana, the new personal aide found on windows phone 8.1 helps to connect with your friends easier and faster. You are now able to start audio or video Skype calls by simply requesting Cortana; for instance “Skype, get John on the screen”.

Edit messages

Skype 2.19 comes with the ability to let you change the last message you sent. This is as a result of user feedback for the previous versions.

Improved notifications and fast application resume

The performance of the push notifications has been greatly improved. Now, you can be able to get back into your urgent conversations swiftly. Moreover, Skype 2.19 also includes fresh features and enhancements including the ability to see your notification in the action center together with enhanced notifications.

In addition, Microsoft has correspondingly added a supplementary language support in the newest VoIP software version. Previously, there were only a total of 19 supported languages. At present, the number has risen to a remarkable 51.

The new features will certainly help you Skype with ease and improve the effectiveness of your communication.

July 3, 2014