Wednesday 12 October 2016

Colocation: Make the Future of IT a Reality

The movement to colocation-or colo-is accelerating and will have profound implications for enterprises and service providers. Colocation involves renting space in a third-party data center and can also include a mix of hardware, software, and services. The tactic is surging at a 16% compound annual growth rate through 2020, from $25.70 billion in 2015 to $54.13. By 2018, 65% of companies’ IT assets will be off-site in colocation, hosting, and cloud data centers, according to IDC, while 33% of IT “staff” will be employees of third-party service providers.

“Colocation continues to be the bedrock for much of Cloud 2.0,” says Katie Broderick, research director, 451 Research. “The global colocation market is the physical (facilities and networking) underpinning of both enterprises’ off-premises computing, as well as hosting and cloud service providers’ value-add services.”

A big reason for colocation’s success is the opportunity to shift from a pricey CapEx (capital expense) budget line item to a much less expensive OpEx (operating expense) model. However there are a number of other benefits—and implications—to consider before going colo.

Top considerations when deciding to go colo—and picking the right partner—include location, pricing, security, and offerings. Location is key, because the facility has to be easily accessible by your IT staff, close to a power source, and should be in a safe area—i.e. hurricane belts, flood plains, and earthquake zones should be avoided.

Pricing is important because colo users are typically looking to lower their costs and make them more manageable from a budgeting perspective, i.e. usage-based pricing and monthly fees. Other factors that come into play include real estate, power, redundancy, and risk mitigation costs.

Read More@ http://www.cio.com/article/3087609/cloud-computing/colocation-make-the-future-of-it-a-reality.html

Google Exec Confirms Plans to Bring Voice Assistant to Third-Party Home Audio Hardware

Google’s Assistant won’t be limited to Google-made devices for long: The company is having conversations with home audio equipment makers to add the voice-powered assistant to third-party hardware, confirmed Google’s consumer hardware VP of product management Mario Queiroz Tuesday.

Queiroz made the comments on the sidelines of Google’s fall hardware event in San Francisco, where the company officially introduced its new Google Home smart speaker. Google Home is a bit like Google’s version of Amazon’s Echo speaker; the device allows consumers to launch music playback, ask for news and weather reports, query their calendar or even add items to their shopping list, all with simple voice commands.

Thursday 6 October 2016

Apple says new wireless technology is better than Bluetooth

Now that Apple has pronounced the end of the headphone jack, the company is aiming to prove that it can do better than the existing wireless options.

At its much-hyped event in San Francisco on Wednesday, the iPhone maker introduced a cordless earbud that it claims is more power efficient than Bluetooth devices. AirPods, as they're called, have their own communications chip, Apple's Senior Vice President Phil Schiller said on stage.

"It makes no sense to tether ourselves with cables to our mobile devices," Schiller said. "Until someone takes on these challenges, that's what we'll do."

The iPhone 7 will be the first smartphone without a headphone jack, marking Apple's latest effort to strip hardware from devices. There are plenty of Bluetooth options on the market, including from Apple's Beats business, but the products have been criticized for their high price and spotty quality.

Apple’s AirPods do use Bluetooth and they don’t require an iPhone 7

When Apple introduced its AirPods on Wednesday, the company went on and on about the new Apple-made chip on the inside, but said little about the technology that delivers the sound to the wireless earbuds from the iPhone.



It turns out Apple isn’t using some Bluetooth-like wireless technology, as rumors suggested, but rather Bluetooth itself.

Apple, Google remain most valuable brands

New Delhi: Silicon Valley is home to the two most valuable brands in the world. For the fourth consecutive year, Apple and Google topped the annual Interbrand Best Global Brands Report, released Wednesday.

The report estimated the value of brand Apple at $178.1 billion, up 5% from last year. Value of brand Google was estimated at $133.2 billion, an increase of 11% from last year.

Beverages brand Coca-Cola stood third in the list at an estimated brand value of $73.1 billion, a 7% dip in brand value from last year. The top 10 brands in the list included Microsoft, Toyota, IBM, Samsung, Amazon, Mercedes-Benz and GE.

According to the list by the global brand consultancy, the world’s five top growing brands included Facebook, Amazon, LEGO, Nissan and Adobe. Brand Facebook witnessed the maximum increase in value at $32.5 billion, an increase of 48%, followed by Amazon.com (33%), LEGO (25%), Nissan (22%) and Adobe (21%), according to the report.

Google’s Self-Driving Cars Have More Driving Experience Than Any Human

Seven years ago, Google started a project to pursue a futuristic idea: Develop cars with software so advanced that it could take over all the driving for humans. Today, not only are Google’s fleet of self-driving cars navigating complex conditions in four U.S. cities, an entire industry has exploded with startups and automakers clamoring to develop the same technology.

“In 2009 we were just this crazy research project working on a science fiction idea,” Dmitri Dolgov, head of Google’s self-driving technology, told Fortune. “And look at where we are today. ”

Google self-driving cars have logged 2 million fully-autonomous miles on public roads, 90% of which were on city streets, the company announced Wednesday. Considering the hours spent on the road, Google’s cars now have the equivalent of 300 years of human driving experience.