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BetaNews.Com (7 non lus)

Fujitsu and Microsoft announce IoT and M2M partnership

Publié: avril 12, 2015, 11:25pm CEST par Mark Wilson

Much of the focus of talk about the Internet of Things surrounds what the IoT can do for home users. A clever cooker is great, but move up the scale a little, however, and things start to get really interesting. Now teaming up with Miele, Microsoft today announces that it is also partnering with Fujitsu.

The two companies will work together to create IoT based devices to improve the manufacturing of other products. By harnessing the power of IoT and the M2M (machine to machine) platforms, Microsoft and Fujitsu aim to improve production efficiency and help drive down costs.

At Hannover Messe Fujitsu revealed how it has already used a Microsoft Azure database to pull in data from a variety of sources, while the IoT and M2M platforms are used to bring greater productivity and capabilities. As part of what has been dubbed Industry 4.0, Fujitsu and Microsoft's partnership is the perfect demonstration of how technology is being used to streamline systems involving both people and computers.

Fujitsu might not be a company you would most readily associate with agriculture, but it has used Microsoft technologies to help with the mass-production of low potassium lettuce suitable for patients with kidney problems. The system uses the cloud to monitor plants and feed back information to scientists and engineers, as well as computers.

Fujitsu's Hiroyuki Sakai said:

Leveraging the Fujitsu Eco-Management Dashboard solution alongside Microsoft Azure and the Fujitsu IoT/M2M platform, we are able to deliver real-time visualization of the engineering process for big data analytics to improve the entire production process and inform decision-making.

The video below shows how Fujitsu is already taking advantage of the IoT:

Photo credit: bogdanhoda / Shutterstock
PC market continues to shrink -- can Windows 10 change that?

Publié: avril 12, 2015, 10:56pm CEST par Manish Singh

2014 was an interesting year for PC vendors. It was the year when Microsoft’s Windows XP -- a 14-year old operating system with more than one-third of market share then -- went out of support. The Redmond-based company announced that it won’t be providing any further security patches to the veteran desktop operating system, leaving hundreds of millions of computers vulnerable. PC vendors saw an uprise in their computer shipment figures, as a large chunk of users, as well as companies, upgraded their computers to Windows 7 or higher.

But things have started to wither once again for PC OEMs. These companies are having a hard time selling their new computers to people. While the individual figures from Lenovo and HP still point upwards, Dell and Acer seem to be having a bad time, so bad that they are dragging the entire community a little backward. Up to five to seven percent decline has been observed in the shipment figure in last one year.

As per marketing firm IDC, as many as 68.5 million PCs were sold in Q1 2015, down from 73.3 million systems sold in the same quarter last year. Gartner's report further confirms the declining state of PC shipment and reports 71.7 million PCs sale in Q1 2015 compared to 75.6 million from the same time a year ago.

"Desk-based PC shipments declined rapidly, with business desk-based PCs being impacted the most. Mobile PCs are being driven by a separate underlying replacement cycle, which led mobile growth in the first quarter. PC replacements will be driven by thin and light notebooks with tablet functionality. Our early study suggests strong growth of hybrid notebooks, especially in mature markets, in 1Q15", says Gartner.

In the U.S., shipments fell from 14 million to 13 million in one year, as per stats provided by Gartner. "Despite the decline, PC shipment in the United States declined at a slower rate than all other regions in first quarter, outperforming worldwide trends for the eleventh consecutive quarter. The strength from key vendors, adoption of emerging products, improvements in the consumer market and in the broader economy are all positive signals", said Rajani Singh, Senior Research Analyst, Personal Computing.

Both the research firms are hoping to see shipment fiugures improve with the launch of Windows 10. Microsoft announced last month that its forthcoming operating system will release in summer this year. The initial reaction of Windows 10 from the Insider program participants have been pretty overwhelming. Will this operating system provide the anticipated boost to PC vendors? Only time will tell.

Image Credit: Pixsooz / Shutterstock
Microsoft and Miele team up to cook up an IoT revolution

Publié: avril 12, 2015, 9:11pm CEST par Mark Wilson

When people talk about the Internet of Things, there are often semi-joking references to fridges that know when you've run out of milk and ovens that know how to cook whatever you put in them. Forget the jokes; this is now a reality. We've already seen a generation of smart appliances, and Microsoft wants to be part of what happens next.

At Hannover Messe today, Miele -- of oven, vacuum cleaner and washing machine fame -- announces it is working on a new breed of appliances based on Microsoft Azure Internet of Things (IoT) services. What does this mean? Ultimately it means you'll be able to find a recipe online, have the ingredient list and preparation instructions sent to your mobile device, and your smart oven will be automatically configured with the correct settings.

At the industrial fair, Miele revealed that it had completed a proof-of-concept study of Microsoft's technologies and was ready to start building a new breed of smart appliances. Caglayan Arkan, Microsoft's Worldwide Manufacturing and Resources general manager said: "This is just one example of how the Internet of Things and cloud technology are moving from enterprise experiences to personal experiences. Miele is driving a truly innovative home solution that we are looking forward to experiencing in our own kitchens".

Dr. Eduard Sailer, Miele's executive director of Technical Affairs at Miele, said:

This assistance system incorporates temperature charts, times and the machine's special features, such as adding steam, to create the optimum roasting, cooking or baking results. This allows people to get the best results out of their cooking appliances.

Although at the moment there is a focus on food preparation, Microsoft points out that the same technologies could be used in other ways. Other possible uses include generating status report for machines or enabling remote diagnosis of problems.

Photo credit: Brian A Jackson / Shutterstock
Ubuntu-based Linux distro elementary OS 0.3 'Freya' available now

Publié: avril 12, 2015, 6:10pm CEST par Brian Fagioli
There is no such thing as the perfect Linux distribution. Try all you want, but your search will leave you fatigued and confused; perfection is impossible. With that said, you can definitely achieve happiness once you commit to a distro despite potential shortcomings. Ultimately, you must weigh the pros and cons and pick something that meets your needs.

For many people, Ubuntu is a smart choice, as it has many packages and a huge community for support. When I say Ubuntu, I also mean distros based on it, such as Mint and the distro du jour, elementary OS. If you are a fan of simplicity, elementary may be a great choice. The latest stable release, "Freya", is available for download now. It features a UI that I would call a Frankenstein-like marriage between GNOME and OS X's dock; it may appeal to Linux-newcomers and experts alike. Will you try it?

"Freya’s design is much more purpose driven and focused. We spent a lot of time taking advantage of new toolkit features like Header Bar, improved CSS support, and animations. There’s a much greater level of fluidity when you navigate or reveal a new part of the interface. Freya also shakes off some of the trends of the early 2010s like high gloss and embraces a more matte look while preserving and enhancing our use of light and shadow", says Daniel Foré, founder and lead designer of elementary.

Cassidy James Blaede, UX designer at elementary further explains, "with Luna, much of our work was building the first version of our desktop environment Pantheon. With Freya we were able to dial in on the details like super-subtly rounded corners on the display and the new animations for maximizing. Both are small yet make the whole experience more polished. We were also able to focus much more effort on the included apps, delivering new features for existing apps and new apps alike.”

Daniel Foré shares the following improvements, fixes and additions to the latest stable version of the OS.
- A more discoverable, redesigned, and app-focused multitasking view
- New interactive and dismissible notifications, plus a notifications settings pane including a system-wide "Do Not Disturb" mode
- A refined look and feel that includes a refreshed system-wide stylesheet, refreshed icons, space-saving Header Bars, a dark stylesheet for apps, rounded corners on menus and dialogs, improved animations, many new and refined "symbolic" icons, intelligent transparency for the panel, and more.
- Better emoji support & drop-in replacements for Microsoft Core fonts for the web
- A new firewall tool and "privacy mode"
- Much improved Applications menu including support for "quicklist" actions, drag-and-drop from search, and support for quick math calculations
- An updated software stack including Linux 3.16, Gtk 3.14, and Vala 0.26
- UEFI support
- A new captive portal assistant to make connecting to public WiFi easier
- Redesigned Displays, User Accounts, Applications, and Date & Time settings
- Unified login and lock screens
- Search in Files and Terminal
- Natural Copy & Paste, Smart tab labels, and a warning when pasting commands containing “sudo” in Terminal.
- A redesigned Photos
- New Calculator, Camera, and Videos apps
- Online calendar support (Google and CalDAV)
- Improved Samba support
This morning, I woke up, drank a cup of coffee and installed Freya. I put the ISO on a USB 3.0 flash drive using unetbootin. The installation was smooth, and was exactly as you would expect from an Ubuntu-based OS. Once up and running, I was impressed with the polish and beauty of the environment.

Unfortunately, beyond the pretty face, I did experience some annoying bugs. My Intel WiFi worked out of the box, but somehow broke after a post-install update. Without an Internet connection, I would have been dead in the water, but luckily I had a USB WiFi adapter handy that saved the day.

I then installed some software I use such as Firefox, Spotify, Hip Chat and Dropbox. Spotify worked flawlessly and I was playing music quickly. Dropbox, however, installed, but failed to run. Hip Chat ran great, but when I attempted to drag the icon to the dock, my mouse cursor went wacky, turning into the Hip Chat icon and refusing to click. I had to reboot.

Speaking of rebooting, every time I do, my speakers make a loud popping sound. I am a bit worried that elementary OS, over time, could damage the speakers this way.

Ultimately, it is a pretty OS, but there are definitely some show-stopping bugs. This is troubling, as this is supposed to be a "stable" release. Will you experience the same bugs that I did? Not necessarily. Different hardware will yield different results. For the mean time, however, I would recommend Ubuntu or Linux Mint as a better option for beginners.

If you want to test the operating system, you can download the ISO here. To put it on a flash drive, download unetbootin here. If you try it, tell me what you think in the comments below.
World's first torrent-based browser -- Project Maelstrom -- now available to download, promises big features

Publié: avril 12, 2015, 4:35pm CEST par Manish Singh

Over the last couple of months, we’ve seen a number of new Web browsers arrive on the desktop platform. We’ve seen Vivaldi -- a browser developed by ex-Opera folks, Maxthon -- a browser that challenges Chrome on speed and resource usage, and Microsoft’s Project Spartan which comes with a plethora of features. But there is one more browser that has many of us excited. It’s called Project Maelstrom -- and according to its developers -- it’s the world’s first torrent-based browser out there. This week Maelstrom hit the public beta, meaning anyone can now take it out for a test drive before the final version of it comes out in a couple of weeks. And so we did.

Project Maelstrom is different. You see it fetches content from peer-to-peer distributed torrents while other browsers ping traditional servers and request them for files. But how different is it? Will we have websites in the future available as torrent files? So here it goes.

Announced in December last year by BitTorrent Inc, Project Maelstrom wants to change the way we surf the Web. Much like how a torrent application fetches data from other peers' networks instead of a centralized server, BitTorrent Inc believes that it could be the future of how we surf the web as well, and also how we receive information from the websites we love to visit every day.

The idea is interesting and has a lot of potential going for it. Every time there is a live stream event, we pray to god that the streaming doesn't break in the middle. The reason is simple: networks don’t have enough resources to meet an overwhelming traffic directed toward them at once. Remember how the FCC.gov website broke down after John Oliver talked about "Net Neutrality" on the HBO show Last Week Tonight and requested people to express their opinion on Federal Commission's website? Yeah well, that might not have happened if the government-run institution’s website was available as a torrent file.

Also this way, the government or carrier won’t have a monopoly over what content should be accessible to people. If they take down some content or censor a website, we may still have torrents of it floating around that could be grabbed -- and thanks to other peers -- get back on the website.

Okay, but can you really trust a BitTorrent-made browser with your everyday browsing? That’s a fair question that many of you may have. The answer is you can trust ‘em. Maelstrom is a Chromium-based browser that functions like, well, Chrome! It even supports standard HTTP/HTTPs protocols so even if a website you like isn’t available as a torrent file (just yet), you can still browse it.

Maelstrom doesn’t officially support apps and extensions from the Chrome Web Store, however. Though, we were able to get a lot of them working. So there’s that.

There’s a small problem, though. There aren't enough websites out there that are available in a torrent form just yet. The company has released developer tools to let publishers quickly turn their websites into torrents, but as you would expect, it is likely to take some time. The company says that it has more than 10,000 developers and 3,500 publishers interested in the project.

But until then, we’re looking at a regular Chromium-based browser with no visible exclusive features to show. A beta version of Project Maelstrom is available to download for Windows computers. The company says a Mac OS X counterpart of Maelstrom is in the works.
Microsoft looks after the environment and your wallet with Xbox One energy saving

Publié: avril 12, 2015, 1:44pm CEST par Mark Wilson

Anyone setting up an Xbox One will be presented with the option of enabling the console's energy savings. At the moment, it is the Instant-on feature that is enabled by default, and few people delve into settings to change this later on.

By being upfront with the feature during the initial setup phases, Microsoft gives gamers the opportunity to reduce power consumption and lower electricity bills. As well as easing the impact console ownership has on wallets, it also helps to minimize its environment impact.

Although users are now given a direct and obvious choice between the two settings, it is Energy-saving that appears as the first option. Despite this, in a blog post introducing the new option, Microsoft is quick to point out that there are some comprises to make in switching to Energy-saving mode. As the name implies, Instant-on provides fast startup times, and these are forfeit.

Making the switch also means that updates are not automatically installed in the background, but you will still be notified when they are available for you to download and install -- much as with the Xbox 360. It also kills the "Xbox on" voice command.

Although the energy-saving feature is now being made more prominent than before, Microsoft is still keen to push the benefits of Instant-on:

Only with this setting can you make game or content purchases from SmartGlass or Xbox.com and have the content download automatically to your home console. When factoring the monthly system updates, new features in apps and games and automatic mobile purchase downloads, the Instant-on setting easily saves users countless hours of needlessly waiting.

But there are real savings to be made by becoming a little more energy conscious.

Microsoft explains that with Instant-On enabled, people will pay between $6.50 and $15.50 per year. Switch to Energy-saving mode and this drops to $0.26 to $0.62. The numbers involved may not be huge, but the real point here is taking tiny steps to reducing energy usage -- any financial gain is really just a bonus. Looked at individually the financial and environmental savings may not seem like much, but add up the number of consoles out there and the potential is great.

Photo credit: Bacho/ Shutterstock
The first four episodes of Game of Thrones Season 5 leak online

Publié: avril 12, 2015, 9:59am CEST par Wayne Williams

Season 5 of Game of Thrones begins tonight, and millions of fans will be tuned in in one way or another… but there’s a problem, and it’s a huge one.

Game of Thrones is the most pirated show in the world, and HBO has tried to counter that in the past year by making its programming accessible through additional means, which is a smart move. The only way to beat pirates is to offer an easier, and superior viewing experience. But how can HBO compete with leakers who are putting out episodes well in advance?

While HBO won’t be showing episode one until tonight, you can already download the first four episodes illegally via the internet. In a show that thrives on shocks and unexpected deaths, the fact that early episodes are already out there means there’s the potential for huge spoilers appearing to ruin the show for those who prefer to watch it legally on HBO.

Early episodes can, after all, have as many shocks as later ones. The Purple Wedding came in episode two of season four.

The four leaked episodes are believed to have originated from a screener sent to reviewers ahead of the show's launch. They are in 480p quality and there’s a blurred digital watermark visible in the bottom left hand corner. It’s a small disfigurement, and while the quality of the leaked episodes isn’t fantastic, they’re perfectly watchable.

HBO will be showing those four episodes in much higher quality so you'll probably want to wait and watch those, but you might need to stay off the web for the next month or so...