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.

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.

NVIDIA Extends Their Datacenter Performance Lead In Neural Network Computing at #GTC16

At NVIDIA NVDA +0.62%’s GPU Technology Conference (GTC) 2016 in San Jose, California the company announced products based on their latest GPU architecture, code-named Pascal. This conference is traditionally attended by some of the leading researchers in GPU-accelerated compute technologies and over the past few years has become increasingly focused on Deep Neural Networks (DNN). DNNs are the latest key to artificial intelligence (AI) and cognitive computing. Incredible strides have been made over the last three years in AI thanks to Graphics Processing Units (GPUs). Companies like Google GOOGL -0.20%, Microsoft MSFT -0.17%, IBM IBM -0.07%, Toyota, Baidu and others are looking at deep neural networks to help solve many of their complex analytical and data-rich problems. NVIDIA is helping these companies  to harness the power of their GPUs to accelerate the deep learning these systems need to do. Thanks to NVIDIA’s early involvement in deep neural networks research and their latest GPU hardware, the company is in the driver’s seat right now when it comes to delivering silicon to accelerate deep neural networks.

Mobile wallet industry plans to cash in on big 2016

American consumers will have more choices in 2016 for how they make purchases with their smart phones as big banks and retailers vie for market share against tech giants Apple and Google.

Companies like JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Wal-Mart Stores are rolling out their own products just as mobile-payment apps are catching on. By 2019, eMarketer estimates, the total value of transactions made by tapping a phone on an in-store terminal will reach $210 billion, up from $8.7 billion in 2015. For banks and retailers, that presents an opportunity to take on Apple Pay and Google’s Android Pay – and maybe save on transaction fees to boot.

“Every one of the top 11 issuers of credit and debit cards by the end of next year will have their own version of Pay,” said Richard Crone, chief executive officer of Crone Consulting LLC. “Same for retailers. The big losers are going to be the ones with nothing.”

At stake is a fight over money and consumer data: Retailers loathe paying fees to accept credit cards in their stores and have long sought better data on what their customers buy, and when. Banks similarly dislike paying fees for Apple Pay transactions. Thus, financial institutions and retailers have incentive to push out their own mobile-payment services.

Here are some of the mobile wallets that will compete for consumers’ attention in 2016:


∎ JPMorgan Chase plans to introduce its own mobile wallet in mid-2016. Mobile-banking apps are already used by more than half of U.S. smart phone owners with bank accounts, according to the latest Federal Reserve survey. Chase plans to pre-load cards for 94 million customer accounts “so the customer doesn’t have to do anything but accept the terms and conditions,” Gordon Smith, CEO of consumer and community banking at JPMorgan Chase, said at the Money 20/20 conference in October.

∎ Wal-Mart will begin accepting payments through its mobile app in all U.S. stores in the first half of 2016. About 22 million Walmart shoppers already use the app, which compares prices and offers discounts on items and will now let customers store their credit- and debit-card information.

∎ Merchant Customer Exchange – a consortium founded in August 2012 by merchants including Wal-Mart and Target Corp. – is testing its CurrentC app with about 200 merchants in Columbus, Ohio. The service is not yet available nationwide.

Read More: http://www.concordmonitor.com/news/nation/world/20305545-95/mobile-wallet-industry-plans-to-cash-in-on-big-2016

Mobile payments ecosystem comes of age in India

Although being young with only a dozen mobile wallet players in the field, India's mobile payment ecosystem has witnessed steady growth and a rapid adoption of path-breaking innovations as people started realising the benefits of technology in online payments space in 2015 -- the most popular being the "mobile wallet".

Major economies across the world have been witnessing "cashless" transactions, with the industry, estimated to be around $300 billion in 2013, making inroads in many countries in the last five years. Companies such as Apple, Alipay, Google's Android Pay and Samsung Pay have already put their own solutions in place.

In India, there are around 12 mobile wallet players that include Paytm, MobiKwik, Oxigen, Citrus Pay, Freecharge, Zaakpay, ItzCash, Airtel Money, M-Pesa, and mRupee, and their combined customer base is said to be more than 125 million. Of this, Paytm alone has a lion's share of over 50 million.

According to a study by research and consultancy firm RNCOS, the current size of the mobile wallet market in India stands at about $53 million (350 crore Indian rupees) and is estimated to touch around $183 million (1,210 crore Indian rupees) by 2019. Cash transactions account for 38 percent, while recharge and bill payments account for 30 percent of the total market.

However, there are minor irritants such as failed transactions forcing the online shoppers to go through the tedious process of filling in details, and the lack of awareness among people. But leading payment gateway company PayUbiz has launched a new feature called Magic Retry, which enables the consumers to retry a failed transaction by simply picking up from the point where the last error message appeared.

Magic Retry is specifically designed for mobile online payment and is said to be first of its kind in the digital and electronic payments ecosystem in the country.

Head of Business at PayUbiz Rahul Kothari said that though most of the online shopping was taking place over mobile devices, online transactions through mobile phones were still susceptible to payment failure due to network signal loss or a random error. "With the launch of our new feature, the usual hassles which have been traditionally associated with mobile payments are things of past," he added.

Read More: http://www.zdnet.com/article/mobile-payments-ecosystem-comes-of-age-in-india/

5 Massive Trends Firing Up Technology Stocks In 2016

Technology stocks outperformed the stock market this year. Some massive trends should continue firing up the tech sector in 2016 and beyond.

The Technology Select Sector SPDR exchange-traded fund (XLK) and Vanguard Information Technology ETF (VGT) — the two largest tech ETFs — both returned about 3% in this year while the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) lost 0.7%, according to Morningstar. The biggest drivers in both ETFs were Microsoft (MSFT), +19% gain year to date; Facebook (FB), +33%; and Alphabet (GOOGL), +43%. Apple (AAPL), the biggest holding in both ETFs, shed 2%.

First Trust Dow Jones Internet ETF (FDN) rallied an eye-popping 21% this year. In addition to Facebook (FB) and Alphabet (GOOGL), it has to thank Amazon (AMZN) and Netflix (NFLX) for its outsized pop. The online retailer and video streaming service rocketed a mind-blowing 114% and 142%, respectively, in 2015.

iShares North American Tech-Software (IGV) surged 10% this year. Microsoft (MSFT), +19% year to date; Adobe (ADBE), + 26%; and Salesfore.com (CFM), +30%, led the charge.

Based on fourth-quarter estimates and actual results earlier this year, the technology sector’s sales growth was almost nonexistent at +0.1%, according to FactSet. But it was superior to the S&P 500 (SPY)’s, 3.4% dip. The tech sector is on track to grow earnings by 3.5% for 2015 while S&P 500 (SPY) earnings fall 0.5% .

Read More: http://www.forbes.com/sites/trangho/2015/12/20/5-massive-trends-firing-up-technology-stocks-in-2016/

Technology can keep people in touch

This is the fifth in a series about how technology affects child growth and skill development.

Q: What are some positive effects of technology on child growth and skill development?

A: The Washington Post released a survey of teens in 2012 stating they have incorporated social media sites and texting into their daily lives but still prefer face-to-face communication. They believe these social media technologies have enabled them to keep in touch with more friends, to get acquainted with other students at their schools and to connect with students with whom they share interests. One in five stated using social networking helps them feel more popular, confident and sympathetic toward others.

This national study of more than 1,000 youth between 13 and 17 years of age by the child advocacy group Common Sense Media generally contradicts the myth that using social media is harmful because of the risks of bullying by peers, isolation, online predators and the release of private/personal information. However, the report talked about “Facebook fatigue.” Forty-one percent of cellphone users said they are addicted, and 36 percent would like to return to a time before Facebook was invented.

Many teens expressed weariness from the constant pressure from texting and posting on social media. Teens have mixed feelings about digital communication and online technology. Research about the developmental and behavioral effects of technology on youth is scant.

Teens still favor texting in communicating online, with two-thirds stating they text everyday. Facebook is the preferred social site over Twitter, Google and MySpace. More teens think social networking helps their friendships than those who feel it does not — 50 percent vs. 4 percent. Half of all the teen respondents surveyed preferred real-life communication.

Our collective embrace of the Internet, social media sites and mobile-mediated devices is obvious in public places. Most individuals are connected on media to others, not talking to the person or persons with whom they are sitting. Dr. Keith Hampton, a communications professor at the University of Pennsylvania and principal author of the Pew Research study “Social Networking Sites and Our Lives,” articulated concerns about technology and social relationships.

Read More: http://www.hdnews.net/lifestyle/community/technology-can-keep-people-in-touch/article_8fa055a0-f093-5ef4-99b3-bbbca54fd48e.html

The rise of robots, virtual reality coming soon

Virtual reality and robots could soon become more commonplace in U.S. homes if recent predictions for 2016 play out.

Technology improvements, new gear rollouts and lower costs are expected to spark greater interest in virtual reality technology from Facebook's Oculus, Google as well as Sony, HTC and others, according to Juniper Research.

Two consumer devices are already available: A VR headset made by Oculus for Samsung Galaxy smartphones, and Google Cardboard, which works with any smartphone. Juniper expects those devices and competing gear to get even more popular over the next five years.
"The technology is now poised to transform the entertainment industry, including games and video, in the next few years, whilst offering the potential to quickly expand into other markets such as industrial and healthcare," according to a recent Juniper report.

"We might get to a point where there's enough ubiquity of virtual reality where you can really build a company in this market today," Box CEO Aaron Levie said in an interview with CNBC. Levie's firm sells enterprise software for content management and file sharing.

There are already more than 200 companies developing virtual reality technology including hardware and software, and they're worth a combined $13 billion, according to research from VB Profiles.

Read More: http://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/11/the-rise-of-robots-virtual-reality-coming-soon.html

How data center vendors and operators can maximize their facilities’ performance

Power usage effectiveness has been an important metric in the data center world for some time now. Companies running data center facilities typically strive for the lowest PUE they can achieve in order to reduce their operating costs and promote their green environmental credentials.

In an earlier article, my colleague Srikanth Murugan demonstrated how to cut through the marketing hype of competing claims about PUE performance. I would now like to take the subject a little further and focus on the economics of PUE and how data center vendors and operators can maximize their facilities’ performance.

Selecting the ideal location

Stable power grids, low energy prices and year-round access to “free cooling” drove a number of large Internet companies to build data centers in the Nordics where conventional wisdom dictated they could most easily achieve extremely low PUE values. Google in Finland and Facebook at The Node Pole in Sweden are two such examples. However, increasingly relaxed data center temperature and humidity ranges – as defined by ASHRAE – have now made low PUE deployments possible for a much wider range of geographical locations.

Cooling developments

A key area of technical development here are evaporative indirect free air cooling systems, now available from an increasing number of cooling technology suppliers. Using an evaporative cooler, dry outside air of 32 degrees can still be used to cool down air in the data center to 22 degrees, thus delivering meaningful savings from reduced electricity needed for powered cooling.

Even more exiting from an economic perspective is that for some locations this enables the use of outside air for cooling all year round, resulting in a lower maximum PUE and bringing significant capital expenditure savings.


Read More: http://www.rcrwireless.com/20151208/opinion/reality-check-the-economics-of-data-center-power-usage-effectiveness-tag10

5 mobile security flaws you should know

Windows Phone, Android, iOS — no operating system is completely bulletproof from security problems.

Mobile devices can be a scary thing to think about after major security vulnerability emerged in July in Android, called the Stagefright bug — which lets cyber criminals hack a smartphone simply by sending a text message.

A Stagefright 2.0, which allowed a hacker to gain control of a smartphone via an MP3 or MP4 video, sprang up in October before Samsung, Google, LG and other tech giants enforced monthly security smartphone security updates following the original bug, according to the Guardian.

Apple devices can also be susceptible to security problems.

A hacking team received $1 million from startup company Zerodium after the group discovered an unknown, or zero-day, vulnerability in iOS.

But such risks are not limited to just smartphones.

"I think they're in the spotlight right now because they can do so many things, and carry so much information and interfaces," said Jan Volzke, Vice President of Reputation Services at Whitepages, a contact information and identity verification company.

Here's a quick list of top mobile security flaws you should know:

Clicking on links or opening a suspicious email enables hackers to collect and access sensitive information, such as Social Security numbers and SMS messages.

They can even steal credit card numbers and online banking transactions directly and install spyware on a device to access personal data.

Experts at the Alcatel-Lucent's Motive Security Labs confirmed a rapid increase of mobile device infections, with a 25% spike in 2014, compared with 20% in 2013, according to the Motive Security Labs H2 2014 Malware Report.

Read More: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/5-mobile-security-flaws-article-1.2451562

3D Cameras Give Computers Brains, Much Bigger Brains

When the world shifted away from film-based cameras, digital cameras started to change how we interact with one another. Think selfies and social media, for starters. What if you could capture in 3D and view all angles of an object or person? That is partly what the Google GOOGL +0.00% Cardboard project allows in a virtual reality/augmented reality sort-of-way, with your smartphone. But you don’t need a special viewer with new 3D technology.

This video gives you an idea of what’s coming when you have a 3D camera — this particular scene above was done by Patrick Eleazar from Realidyne, using a GoPro Spherical cam setup (and some post-processing work). If you place your cursor in the video, you can move around in the scene — try it - drag left, right, up or down and you will see a near-360 degree view. Within his YouTube channel, there are several others to give you an idea of what’s possible in 3D.

3D cameras, to date, have not been widely adopted, but as I suggested in Is The 3D Camera Tipping Point Here? Apple, Intel, Google, Microsoft, Sony, we are about to see and experience more change. Partly, I believe we are going to see consumer adoption, thanks to devices like the Kinect, and now, Orbbec with its Astra Pro (which depends on being connected to a computer via USB) and Persee, a 3D camera-computer (which does not need a computer to operate).

Most of the 3D devices, gesture capture and motion tracking types, are receiving and processing only through a more powerful computing device – your laptop or the Xbox gaming console. Persee is different in that it has an onboard computer, charged to process what you are seeing and capturing, in real time. Arguably, this is a shift.

Read More: http://www.forbes.com/sites/tjmccue/2015/10/28/3-d-cameras-give-computers-brains-much-bigger-brains/

Apple, Google and Microsoft: weakening encryption lets the bad guys in

Apple, Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Twitter, Facebook and 56 other technology companies have joined together to reject calls for weakening encryption saying it would be “exploited by the bad guys”.

After Apple’s chief executive Tim Cook’s claims that “any backdoor is a backdoor for everyone”, the Information Technology Industry Council, which represents 62 of the largest technology companies worldwide, said: “Encryption is a security tool we rely on everyday to stop criminals from draining our bank accounts, to shield our cars and airplanes from being taken over by malicious hacks, and to otherwise preserve our security and safety.”

The debate over encryption, which has become the bedrock of the internet used by almost every transmission that needs to be secure and increasingly those that don’t, has erupted after the terrorist attacks on Paris.

The Information Technology Industry Council’s chief executive, Dean Garfield, said: “Weakening security with the aim of advancing security simply does not make sense.”


Tech industry groups urge US to avoid policies that would weaken encryption
 Read more
End-to-end encrypted communications mean that only the sender and receiver can view the contents of the message, which governments say has put intelligence services at a disadvantage.

Read More : http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/nov/23/apple-google-microsoft-weakening-encryption-back-doors