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  • Nokia new Android smartphone to cost $110


    Word is out on price of the the eagerly awaited Nokia low-cost smart phone whose alias is Normandy. The phone was scheduled to launch in late February but a retail website in Vietnam already seems to have its price listed on its website.

    Very little is known about the expected price of the ‘Normandy’ but Nokia was said to be planning a launch of the affordable smart phone in late February. Nokia have not yet shared the official price of the device but the according to rumored leaks, the price seems to be $110 as WMPoweruser puts it.

    WMPoweruser is said to have spotted the Nokia X A110’s price on a Vietnamese online retail website which had indicated $110 as the price of the Nokia Normandy which also has Nokia X as its other alias. The website also put a $160 price on its Nokia Lumia 525.

    There have been many speculations on the price of this long awaited Android device on the internet for several months now. The Nokia smart phone which shall be using the open source Android OS is said to be mainly targeted for developing markets.

    Rumor has it that Google Play app store will be one feature absent in the Nokia Android device and the alternative for the app store will be Nokia and Microsoft operated services like Mix radio and here maps. That is not to say that users will not have an app store. The app store on the phone will be Nokia’s, providing popular applications like facebook and twitter to the phone’s users.

    We will all be looking forward to February 24th, which is the anticipated phone launch date, to listen to Nokia’s press conference at the MWC trade show, Barcelona, Catalonia. Maybe the rumored price may not be far from the truth.

  • Tintri Zero Management Storage sets eye on Australia


    For the establishment of its Melbourne Headquarters that will be its technical APAC center, Tintri Zero Management Storage, a Californian based company, has decided to set up office in Australia as it acts on its intention to get into the Australian market. It has chosen Melbourne as the most strategic place to set up its office as it strengthens its operations in the Asia – Pacific (APAC) region.

    As the technical hub for the region, the office will run the channel management, marketing, sales and pre sales engineering sections of the company in the area.

    Peter Molloy, Tintri’s vice president stated that the strategic choice of Melbourne as the location for their local office was based on the city’s good history of hosting beginner IT business enterprises.

    He said that the good number of big organizations based in the city had a chance of gaining from disruptive technology that comes from strong innovation and adoption of new technologies which thrive in Melbourne city.According to him, transportation of product in the city will be easy and simple due to the effective and efficient freight and distribution system the city.

    The 30 high – value ICT jobs that Tintri will be creating by the move to set up office in the state of Victoria will go a play an appreciated part of growing and developing the industry in the state.

    The Victoria Coalition Government is in full support of the move and Gordon Rich-Phillips, the Minister for Technology commended Tintri’s move into the state of Victoria which has a diverse ICT environment, stating that Tintri’s storage platforms would be beneficial to the various big organizations in the state.

    Tintri has created a unique storage model known as the VM store which it claims maximizes storage for virtualized and cloud environments. This chief product is made with their innovative VM-Aware Storage architecture which is said to have the intelligence to maximize storage though understanding virtual machines.

    The company is said to have doubled its customer base worldwide having concluded the year 2013 with a 115% growth. Tintri intends to raise capital through an IPO in 2015 to increase their global investment.

  • C3 VoIP-150 Announced By Cambium Networks


    Cambium Networks, a worldwide broadband provider released the C3 VoIP-150 – a new analog telephone adaptor (ATA) that connects analogue telephones to digital VoIP telephone system.

    Any service provider that is currently using the PMP 450 and ePMP is able to integrate the new hardware seamlessly on their network. They are able to offer their subscribers new VoIP services as well as create new revenue streams. 

    Kevin Grace, co-founder and CTO of Nextlink Broadband indicated that the company, which is a long term client of the Cambium Network, is thrilled to offer their users high quality services through the C3 VoIP-150 technology. This is poised to improve the customer’s experience and allow clients to continue using their phones to offer the advanced services.

    Kevin also indicated that the company is pleased to invest in Cambium Networks since this will help them to reach more customers as well as grow the business organically. The C3 VoIP-150 is Cambium Network’s first ATA. The broadband solution’s specifications assure clients of superior end user experience that is field proven.

  • Samsung Curved 105-inch LED UHD TV

    This Samsung 105-incher has been named as the world’s first UHD TV. It is Samsung’s flagship curved panel that was launched during the CES 2014. Just like the LG 105UC9 that was also launched at the event, it also features a wide screen that is identical to the now-defunct Philips 21:9 TV.

    The new Samsung TV features 21:9 aspect ratios that can only be compared with films that have been shot with the Cinemascope format. The TV takes full advantage of the screen space that gets rid of the letterbox bars which are quite visible on the normal widescreen TVs. Users are also able to multitask thanks to the screen split function.

    The design of the new curved TV has incorporated both retro and modern elements. It features a thin bezel as well as a chrome hue low profile pedestal. It has a wooden, clutter free backing behind the TV. It is tilted outwards in order to optimize the low TV console’s viewing angle together with wall mounting brackets.

    The Tv also features a one connect media hub containing HDMI 2.0, MHL 3.0 and HEVC that foresees the integration of 4K broadcasts, 4K mobile devices as well as 4K blue ray disks. The TV also has an enhanced quod quo processor that promises instant power on as compared with other smart TVs. The set also has an updated remote with better video playback buttons and enhanced ergonomics.

  • Google sells Motorola Smartphone business to Lenovo


    Lenovo     has gotten an amazing opportunity while it continues to grow impressively in the PC industry.

    Google acquired Motorola Mobility for $12.4 billion in August 2011 and now it announced that Lenovo would be buying Motorola for $2.9 billion.

    Being the largest PC maker internationally, Lenovo are looking to expand into smart phones with the recent trend of increased phone use over computer use to access the internet.

    Lenovo wants to be a leader in the Smartphone industry internationally since it’s already leading in China and so this acquisition is strategically planned. It had been rumored that it was among the blackberry potential potential buyers when the company wanted to sell.

    The Motorola acquisition is the second big deal they have made this year after they bought part if IBM server business at $2.3 billion.

    The Arris Group bought part of Motorola from Google in 2013 at $2.35 billion, allowing Google to recover some of the money it spent acquiring the business. From the sales values that Google is selling Motorola, it could be an acknowledgement by the company that they over priced the value of Motorola during its acquisition.

    Google’s intention for buying Motorola was mainly to increase its patent portfolio and after the sale they have remained with over 20,000 patents which will ensure them legal security for its Android software. Lenovo’s deal secured them 2,000 patents together with the manufacturing part of Motorola.

    The Razr was one of the most popular Motorola phones launched in 2004 and Motorola was able to maintain its popularity until the iPhone was launched by Apple in 2007 which introduced the now popular touch – screen mobile devices.

    The Google’s sale of Motorola might take around 9 months so Motorola’s losses will not affect books for the first half of the year.

    On the other hand, Lenovo will have broadened its operations to now include smart phones, PCs and tablets which will secure clients who prefer to buy all the devices from a single company.

  • Cloud storage firm Dropbox selects Dublin city centre office

    Dropbox have decided to settle in over 5,0002 m spread over two floors at Hatch Street, Dublin.

    They first made public their intention to establish an international office at Dublin in 2012 and they are already making strides by recruiting more staff to increase their number from 15 to over 50 people to advance their business in Europe.

    According to Johann Butting, Dropbox country manager, Graduates and newly working people are being absorbed into the organization through the ‘DropBox Associate Programme’ which will train the associates both in Europe and San Francisco. He says that the training will help the new recruits understand and appreciate the organization’s ways of operation.

    He pointed out that Dropbox is interested in recruiting people able to analyze things, good communicators or those who just bring excitement into the business with the sales and operations skills most desired. Also, many of the new positions may require knowledge of a main European language.

    The small number of staff that Dropbox has enables it to highlight all of them on their website and the company country manager thinks it’s an important strategy in promotion of future employees.

    Since its inception in 2009, Dropbox has grown to almost 200 million users notwithstanding its small size. The fact that it is a new organization allows its staff to be more creative in their activities than they would otherwise be in an older organization.

    Mr. Butting claims that the significant number of clients that they have in Europe, which is growing fast, is their main reason for setting up office in Europe and not the assumed tax benefits that most international companies seek in Ireland.  According to him, Dropbox are interested in being close to their clients in Europe in order to make their services better.

  • Verizon’s IP VoIP Interconnection Game


    With the recent signing of IP VoIP interconnection terms by Verizon and four other new service provider, competitor have raised concerns about the non-disclosure agreement they are required to sign. This agreement gives the four service providers an opportunity to access Verizon’s IP Interconnection union which will provide a nationwide accord with other service providers that want to exchange VoIP traffic.

    Although the signing of this agreement brings out Verizon’s spirit of teamwork, many competitors are worried that as a result of the non-disclosure agreement, they will not be able to seek regulatory help in cases of unreasonable terms by the Telco. These non-disclosure agreements put the competitors at a disadvantage in instances where they are seeking interconnection.

    A similar incident occurred in Michigan between AT&T and Sprint. Later a decision that required carriers to wait for the FCC to negotiate interconnection terms was overruled by Michigan’s public Utility commission. In this case ,Sprint IP interconnections  for transmission of telephone calls was to be provided by AT&T, the same way AT&T provided for itself, its affiliates and third parties. Interestingly Verizon commented that the PUC’s decision would disrupt the progress made in the industry. In Massachusetts, the Department of Telecommunication and Cable is trying to find out if it has the authority to regulate the IP VoIP interconnection agreement between Comcast and Verizon.

    Recently a Joint Task Force has been established with the aim of finding a specification that will enable all North American service providers to establish IP communications, network to network interface arrangements that they can all support and implement. It is thus evident that large telecoms need to play fair with their competitor and that this argument is nowhere near complete.

  • 4K: Is Ultra HD the Next Big Step?


    The next advancement in the TV sector is already here and when compared to the standard HDTV, it makes it seem faint and overrated. The new technological format known as 4K was primarily designed for digital cinema projections due to its high resolutions. Compared to a 1080 HD TV, 4K offers up to four times the HD resolution. Due to this high resolution, 4K TVs are very expensive but the prices have already started rationalizing.

    According to CES 2014 show, 4K is the next big thing in the TV sector and that is why many manufacturers are trying to shift to this new product so as to attract the demand market. When used in digital cinema projections, 4K delivers up to 4096×2160 pixels of quality images. However when put in a TV, the resolution changes to 3840×2160 pixels which is 4 times more than the standard HD resolution. Since its resolution is more than that of the standard HD TV but less that 4K resolution, it is termed as the Ultra HD TV.

    With the 4K resolution and the Ultra HD resolutions being slightly different, the 4K cinema pictures will have to be scaled down or chopped off at the sides. This means that you will lose 6 percent of the image on both sides of the screen. In spite of the differences between 4K and Ultra HD, It has been noted that Ultra HD provides a certain leap from the standard TV in terms of image sharpness and detail. Switching to Ultra HD is the next step in the industry, profiting not only to the buyers but also the manufacturer.

  • Sirius: New Sony Smartphone


    Sony is coming up with a brilliant new phone named the “Sirius” or “D6503” which seems to be a better and clearer version when compared to the previous Xperia Z1. According to Xperia blog reports, the Sirius will come with android 4.4.2 KitKat and an advanced camera that will be capable of 4K video recording. The camera hardware and software will also have a “Timeshift Video” feature that has the ability to record high frame-rate videos and can also apply slow motion effects to the videos.

    The Sirius will be able to use a technology known as the “smart call handling” whereby a number of basic actions can be done without the need to touch the screen. To answer a call, one simply needs to bring the phone next to the ear and the call will be automatically answered. To reject a call, one has to simply shake the phone and the call will be rejected. Turning the device to face down will automatically set the phone to mute. This is a welcome step and many are waiting to see the practical application of these features.

    Smart backlight control, built in answering machine, new personalization options   and finally the double tap to wake the screen; these are some of the additional  fantastic features that the Sirius will have .

    The stereo speakers have also been improved. Unlike the rather unimpressive sound system in the Xperia Z1, the Sirius has speakers installed at the top and bottom of the front, with the aim of giving a better stereo experience.

  • Amazon Steps up the Pressure with More Storage Price Cuts

    In a move that has left many of their competitors stranded, Amazon has announced that it will reduce the prices for two of its most popular storage products. The announcement that was made by the public cloud leader through a blog post will take effect from February and will affect the S3 storing of files service and the Elastic Block Store that holds information from databases. These price drops might seem too little but is actually substantial.  The customers who store more than 5000 TB on S3 a month will receive a 22 percent decrease, which is a reduction in cost per gigabyte from 5.5 cents to 4.3 cents.

    Two new slices of physical servers that are able to handle computing workloads were also announced. These options are m3.large and m3.medium.They are good not only for legacy applications and databases, but they also have many other uses. The good thing about these instances is that they can be used on any applications not those that require heavy duty graphics or memory resources.

    This drop makes it the 40th price drop by the company. The lowering of prices and launching of new features is a strategy Amazon frequently uses. This is because many companies choose it, thus they are able to buy the products in bulk and later customize it to suit the customers’ needs. The reduction of price mostly helps to make the company more attractive to  the customers .Other companies like Rackspace, Microsoft and Google also try to play the price reduction card  but  Amazon always tops them by coming up with new things that pose a great challenge to the competition. With this latest reduction, Amazon has made things worse for the other companies.