Some have Bluetooth capability, some USB connectivity, some have very expensive GPS and others nothing much more. Why have there not been more advances in in-car technology when it is all very easy to do right now?

Conspiracy theorists say “Yes we could make engines that get 100 miles to the gallon” but oil companies don’t want that. Apply that thinking to in car computing.

The motor industry is slow to adopt because it fears it would lose its control over the process and its profit.

“No it is too dangerous to have smartphone/tablet control” say the motorcar companies “What if it failed and crashed”. More FUD (fear, uncertainty and deception) – when was the last time your tablet failed (apart from being dropped)?

Developers have already shown that they can add significantly to the funcitonality of the on-board software (a car needs to have certain basic functions built in just in case you don’t have a tablet handy). All it would take is the car makers to add a docking port...

The appeal in docking your tablet is that it can right now act as a key, radio, audio and video streaming, Wi-Fi, internet hotspot, reversing camera, radar, lidar, vision and gesture control, GPS/Autopilot, voice control and even your dashboard – all for a few hundred dollars that the car companies currently charge several thousand dollars for.

On a different level the motorcar industry has effectively tried to kill off Google’s self-driving car or autonomous vehicle as it is called. It is not about Google failing – it is about car companies allowing the likes of Google and Microsoft et all onto its turf and a deep rooted fear that the industry would be profoundly transformed forever… Car companies like to cite the very outmoded 1968 Vienna Convention covering vehicle regulations and other issues such as certification and liability as “important factors which are currently barriers for autonomous driving on public roads."

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Sad really. It is OK if BMW spend zillions developing ConnectedDrive (debuted in 2005) and VW/Audi developing a self-drive car. Even BMW say that the technology is already possible to implement via tablets but the motor industry has yet to embrace putting in compatible sensors and controllers needed to interface with these devices.

It is all about moving from 12 volts to USB, from hardwired harnesses to fibre optics and IP and we suspect ‘Where is the profit in that?’ attitudes. Audi says “the technology can be in the market by the end of this decade” – it could be here much sooner and much cheaper but it is being drip fed at a very controlled pace – can’t make it look too easy now can we?

When we talk about the internet of everything it is OK as long as it does not extend to certain sacred cows. I suspect that Google, Apple and Microsoft et all need to use some spare cash, buy a motor car company (like Tesla) and seriously disrupt the status quo.

According to a press release announcing its formation, the Forum "provides a unique framework for industry stakeholders to collectively develop solutions that address technical challenges such as VLAN scaling, layer 2 performance and resilience across very large domains and consolidating storage network technologies onto ethernet."

{loadposition stuart}Founding members are Alcatel-Lucent, Avaya, Equinix, HP, Juniper Networks, PCCW Global, Spirent Communications, Tata Communications and Verizon, but many more organisations are expected to join, including providers of cloud services.

The new body is associated with the Metro Ethernet Forum. James Walker vice president of managed network services for Tata Communications has been appointed president.

Walker said: "This is in response to urgent requirements from customers … We are already seeing performance degradation today from customers who have difficulty distributing their resources around the world … I started talking to colleagues and peers in December and now we are launching it. It brings together many stakeholders from many different parts of the industry … It addresses two areas: ethernet and its behaviour in a large environment and how it interacts with the cloud orchestration layer that sits above that… They have a very tight interaction with each other."

To demonstrate this tight integration, Walker said: "Cloud orchestration platforms use multicast to discover resources, so if you had taken multicast out of ethernet on the WAN you would have broken cloud orchestration platforms. So it is very important to have the interaction between those two layers."

He added: "There are also requirements from a privacy and regulatory point of view. In some countries there are certain types of data that you cannot take offshore so controlling where storage sits and how it is accessed becomes very important."

He said the goal of the forum was to enable separate data centres connected over a wide area network to behave as if they were on the same local area network.

CONTINUED

---

"For customer with a data centre and Singapore and one in Hong Kong that wants to move a virtual machine from one to the other, that is a big exercise, but if they are on one LAN it behaves as one data centre. So we are talking about data centre virtualisation. That is extremely attractive to customers."

The new body is closely aligned with the Metro Ethernet Forum. Walker said: "We are sharing back office resources. They have an intellectual property structure and it allows us to get up to speed very quickly."

{loadposition stuart}MEF president Nan Chen said: “Solutions from the CloudEthernet Forum will increase demand for carrier ethernet services – aligning it closely with the MEF’s objectives and mission to accelerate the adoption of carrier-class ethernet globally."

The new body expects to have its first deliverables in about six months. These will be a set of best practices, "things you can do today with existing technologies," Walker said. He added: "If we have to generate new standards it will be a 12-18 month job. If we decide that the ethernet framework has to be redesigned and the IEEE has to go away and think about it, it will take longer."

He expects membership to grow quickly. "Over the next few weeks you will see further announcements. There are 30-40 companies that have expressed interest in the Forum. We want to bring in large-scale cloud and SaaS providers. We have had discussions with several of them and they have expressed an interest."

Simply put lets postulate that company A owns the patent to swipe sideways to unlock a smartphone or tablet home screen. Unless company B (or BB or MS) pay some usually totally arbitrary and extraordinary amount to company A it cannot use a side swipe.

US courts are sick of the bickering over whether one company copied another and have said that FRAND interpretations must be fully exhausted before court action.

And this is where it gets interesting.

Fair has been largely interpreted as licensing cannot be used for anti-competitive outcomes. If people want to side-swipe (i.e. it is a definitive essential standard) then it is unreasonable for the patent owner to attempt to stop its use by imposing unreasonable license fees or conditions on company B. Courts take a dim view of this.

Reasonable is also a legal minefield. It stops company A charging differing rates to other companies just because it can. It levels the playing field.

Non-discriminatory is a clever addition to the definition as it means that company A cannot preclude the use by another company because it does not like it or because it’s a competitor.

A recent ITC FRAND ruling was given over a dispute between RealTek v Agere over the formers use of 802.11 N WLAN. This acted as a precedent in another case between Samsung and Apple that will probably force Samsung to enter into FRAND negotiations instead of suing first.

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Opinion: - I am not a lawyer…

At last – common sense and the phrase “Why can’t they just be FRANDS?” is being used as an effective caution.

FRAND is having some interesting side effects – vitriol and spite are no longer excuses for court action providing at least one party is prepared to have FRANDLY talks. See Microsoft and Google agree on YouTube Client .

It has also been used in the Microsoft and Motorola dispute where Motorola came off decidedly second best. I quote from Foss Patents

If someone initially demands $4 billion a year (Moto0rola), still seeks hundreds of millions later in the game, and is awarded less than $2 million (i.e., less than a 20th of a percent of the initial demand), he obviously didn't win -- and he's also highly likely to lose the second trial over the breach-of-contract claim….

Posturing is all about ego and letting off steam. Google's CEO Larry Page postured very publicly at its IO conference about Microsoft. He may sincerely regret that when FRAND implications become more widely understood – competitors will have to play 'nicer' from here on in especially where it may deny them a level palying field.

Google announced on Friday that it will work with Microsoft to deliver a YouTube app that complies with its policies.Its a win-win for both parties - but screw the public who lose out on the 'superior' advertisement free app that started this particular battle.

 

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Google recently demand that Microsoft remove its YouTube app because it did not serve its advertisements, supported downloads, and played videos that creators specifically requested not be streamed to mobile devices. Microsoft countered that it had no problems showing ads or complying but were unable to because Google refused to provide access to the necessary API.

The statement jointly issued by Google and Microsoft reads:

"Microsoft and YouTube are working together to update the new YouTube for Windows Phone app to enable compliance with YouTube's API terms of service, including enabling ads, in the coming weeks. Microsoft will replace the existing YouTube app in Windows Phone Store with the previous version during this time."

It occurred to me why the new Xbox was so important for Microsoft. The Kinect2 controller is the next major advance for smart TVs. As first to market and if they play their cards right it may become the future standard for controlling these devices replacing all manner of remotes.

“Morning Dave” (because Kinect knows who you are) “Shall I put on some music or your usual TV Dave?”

“News is fine Hal”

“I see Frank has arrived – shall I lower the volume?”

“No open the pod bay doors”.

That is how Microsoft wants to control smart TV’s – by making it easy.

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Xbox One will only work with a new Kinect – motion control is vital to the games market and MS want more control over how it is implemented by using a special interface chip to improve response and features.

It will also double as a web camera that can track six (perhaps more) individual people in the same room! This has both gameplay implications but also the ability to customise content delivery to your “skeleton”. It is so precise that it can determine if your hand is open or closed – right down to giving it the finger. Some say it can even read lips.

MS will also tightly integrate Skype features into the experience so that is will eventually replace your landline (“What is that?” many Gen Y/Z ask).

For those who don’t know or care let’s just say that Xbox One is Microsoft’s way of ultimately linking PCs, Macs, tablets (of all persuasions), smart phones (ditto), smart TV’s and fridges et all to internet, video, music, pay TV, Xbox TV, and oh, and games.

And with Microsoft’s preference for subscription models I think we will see the first pay by the month Xbox Live subscription that includes a new Xbox and all you can eat gaming, music, ipTV and much more. They may have won the patent battle for the smart TV before it even started.

“Nite Hal”.

 

Look to the west-northwestern evening sky and you’ll see Jupiter, Mercury, and Venus gathering together in the evening sky.

The best time to see them, during this May 25 to May 28 time period, is about 30 to 45 minutes after the Sun sets in the western sky.

On May 26th, for instance, the three planets will be very close together, the closest you will see them during this event.

On May 27th, just one night later, Jupiter and Venus will be positioned side-by-side with respect to our viewpoint on Earth.

{loadposition william08}After that day, Jupiter will begin to move lower into the sky, until it disappears from view in early June.

Even though the three planets appear to be very close together, this is only a mirage -- something that only appears to be so due to our viewing position here on Earth.

According to the May 21, 2013 Space.com article 3 Planets Performing Rare Night Sky Show: How to See It, “While the three planets appear tightly grouped in our night sky, in reality they're very far away from each other.”

And, “During the last week of May, Mercury, Venus and Jupiter will be about 105 million miles (169 million kilometers), 150 million miles (241 million km) and 565 million miles (909 million km) away from Earth, respectively, Sky & Telescope officials said.”

The YouTube video “Jupiter, Venus, and Mercury Meet in Western Twilight May 25-28, 2013”, as shown above, states, “Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury, shine together in the western twilight about half an hour after sunset in late May, according to the editors of StarDate magazine.” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=daOTyBnUdzc)

The search giant plans to make these images available on Google Maps later this year, along with images from previous expeditions including to Everest.

This means the Galaagos Islands will now be 'Street Viewable', with users able to enjoy a tropical getaway without leaving their computer chairs.

For this particular expedition the company worked together with the Charles Darwin Foundation, the Galapagos National Parks Directorate and, for the underwater survey, the Catlin Seaview Survey.

Google said its team spent a total of 10 days in the Galapagos to capture imagery from 10 locations that were selected by its partners.

{loadposition dswan}Google Maps project lead Raleigh Seamster said the team “walked past giant tortoises and blue-footed boobies, navigated through steep trails and lava fields, and picked our way down the crater of an active volcano called Sierra Negra.”

Google most recently hiked around the Grand Canyon to take enough images for over 9,500 panoramas there and handed it over to a local hiker to get imagery of Canada’s Arctic territory.

The Galapagos expedition, Seamster noted in today’s announcement, marks the first time the team has captured imagery from both land and sea at the same time.

In its latest report on the supply chain market worldwide, Gartner’s lists its top 25 companies as it tries to raise awareness of the supply chain discipline and how it impacts business results.

"At the heart of the Supply Chain Top 25 is the notion of demand-driven leadership," said Debra Hofman, Managing Vice President at Gartner.

"We've been researching and writing about demand-driven practices since 2003, highlighting the journey companies are taking, from the old 'push' model of supply chain to one that integrates demand, supply and product into a value network that orchestrates a profitable response to ever-shifting changes in demand."

{loadposition peter}Hofman points to newcomers to the top five this year –  Intel and Unilever – along with Ford, Lenovo and Qualcomm joining the top 25 companies for the first time.

Hofman says that Apple continues to “outpace everyone else by a wide margin on all five measures used, and was again ranked number one by the peer voters, capturing 75 percent of the highest possible points a company can get across the voting pool.

While McDonald’s and Amazon swapped second and third rankings, Hofman says this was not reflected in the peer voters' opinion. “Amazon ranked a very close second behind Apple in the peer vote, almost completely closing the opinion gap from previous years and fast gaining on Apple's voting position.”

Hofman says that many companies are working on building out the foundational components of an end-to-end supply chain across disparate businesses, focusing on improving core supply chain functions, and creating more common processes and systems across them.

“More-advanced companies describe a wide range of initiatives that build on the foundation, including end-to-end supply chain segmentation, simplification, cost-to-serve analytics, multitier visibility and supply network optimization, Hofman said.

"What differentiates the top companies is where they are in the life cycle of these innovations," said Stan Aronow, research director at Gartner.

"The leaders have gone beyond the theory and are now deploying the capabilities that others are just starting to consider. In doing so, they are finding new and creative ways to use these capabilities, exploring synergies and opportunities they hadn't necessarily anticipated in advance.  

“Leaders are discovering that the combination of capabilities they are now implementing brings them to a new frontier of performance, and affords them an entirely new toolbox with which they can orchestrate the optimization of their business and leap ahead of the competition," Aronow concludes.

According to Hofman, against a backdrop of slow growth, many companies might have been expected to retrench and slip back to focusing their supply chains “solely and exclusively on delivering cost reductions and efficiency gains to corporate bottom lines.”

Instead, Hofman says, in 2013 leaders are embracing a new imperative for growth, “realising they have to get smarter about how they do it.”  

"At leading companies in diverse industries, the supply chain organisation is no longer narrowly focused on driving efficiencies and cost cutting; it sees itself, and is seen by its CEO, as a growth enabler.

"Part of 'getting smarter' about growth is partnership across the business. Leading high-tech and consumer product companies, for instance, are approaching new markets with cross-functional teams that include sales, marketing, operations and IT to holistically design a synchronised entry strategy, starting with the customer and designing the right product, pricing, margin targets, service levels, and supply chain network design and tradeoffs that will all work together to achieve the goal."

Aronow says that acquiring, developing and retaining supply chain talent continues to be a major focus area for companies, and that Gartner continues to publish extensive research in this area.

He says that companies are investing time and resources in expanded university relationships, rotational programs, enhanced career progression planning specific to supply chain, multichannel learning options, supply chain certification programs, supply chain leadership development, and others.  

"Leading supply chain organisations are going beyond specific talent initiatives to look at the fundamentals of motivation in their supply chain teams.

“For them it's about engaging hearts, not just minds. It's about igniting passion and excitement for the work, not just compliance.”

 

	Table 1:  The Gartner Supply Chain Top 25 for 2013
	Rank	Company	Peer Opinion (1) (172 voters) (25%)		Gartner Opinion (1) (33 voters) (25%)	3-year weighted ROA (2) (25%)		Inventory Turns (3) (15%)		3-year weighted Revenue Growth (4) (10%)		Composite Score (5)
	1	Apple	3203		470	22.3%		82.7		52.5%		9.51
	2	McDonald's	1197		353	15.8%		147.5		5.9%		5.87
	3	Amazon.com	3115		475	1.9%		9.3		33.6%		5.86
	4	Unilever	1469		522	10.5%		6.5		9.0%		5.04
	5	Intel	756		515	15.6%		4.2		11.4%		4.97
	6	P&G	1901		493	8.6%		5.8		3.6%		4.91
	7	Cisco Systems	1167		517	8.5%		11.2		7.8%		4.67
	8	Samsung Electronics	1264		298	11.6%		18.5		15.7%		4.35
	9	Coca Cola Company	1779		278	11.7%		5.5		14.0%		4.33
	10	Colgate-Palmolive	794		324	18.9%		5.2		3.6%		4.27
	11	Dell	1409		342	6.2%		30.7		-0.6%		4.05
	12	Inditex	745		221	18.0%		4.2		13.4%		3.85
	13	Wal-Mart Stores	1629		282	8.8%		8.1		4.9%		3.79
	14	Nike	955		236	14.1%		4.2		10.6%		3.62
	15	Starbucks	808		159	16.5%		4.8		11.5%		3.41
	16	PepsiCo	810		314	8.6%		7.8		10.5%		3.41
	17	H&M	399		41	28.2%		3.7		6.7%		3.22
	18	Caterpillar	714		247	5.8%		2.8		23.4%		2.91
	19	3M	999		105	13.3%		4.2		6.9%		2.87
	20	Lenovo Group	397		211	2.5%		22.2		29.8%		2.75
	21	Nestlé	679		112	13.3%		5.1		-0.6%		2.51
	22	Ford Motor	552		231	5.7%		15.1		3.1%		2.51
	23	Cummins	74		139	13.3%		5.3		13.5%		2.48
	24	Qualcomm	122		45	12.7%		8.5		25.9%		2.37
	25	Johnson & Johnson	730		144	9.6%		2.9		3.3%		2.35
	Notes
	1	Gartner Opinion and Peer Opinion based on each panel's forced-rank ordering against the definition of "DDVN Orchestrator"
	2	ROA:  ((2012 net income/2012 total assets)*50%) +  ((2011 net income/2011 total assets)*30%) +  ((2010 net income /2010 total assets)*20%)
	3	Inventory Turns:  2012 cost of goods sold /2012 quarterly average inventory
	4	Revenue Growth:  ((change in revenue 2012-2011) *50%) +  ((change in revenue 2011-2010) *30%) + ((change in revenue 2010-2009) *20%)
	5	Composite Score:  (Peer Opinion*25%) + (Gartner Research Opinion*25%) + (ROA*25%) + (Inventory Turns*15%) + (Revenue Growth*10%)
	2012 data used where available. Where unavailable, latest available full-year data used. All raw data normalized to a 10-point scale prior to composite calculation.  "Ranks" for tied composite scores are determined using next decimal point comparison. Source Gartner (May 2013)

I have covered the Intel Atom and ARM processors in iTwire articles about what is powering smartphones and tablets but it would not be complete without some reference to AMD.

And some small reference it will be because AMD offerings are very slim (but growing) in the tablet space and nonexistent in the smartphone space. This article does not address the more powerful multiple core processors used in desktops.

Current: AMD Z-60

Vizio has an 11.6” AMD Z-60 based tablet but it is not yet widely available. An obscure brand called LuvPad has a WN1100 in Japan and Fujitsu had a Q572 tablet - that’s about it.

The Z-60 APU (Accelerated Processor Unit - think of this as system on a chip or SOC) is an x86 (Windows), dual core, 1GHz, and supports 4GB of ram and 256GB of SD. It has an integrated Radeon HD 6250 276MHz GPU and draws 4.5W power so offers marginally better, say 6-10 hour, battery life than a comparable Intel Atom. All round it’s a good chip for Windows tablets.

Coming - AMD Elite Mobility APU

AMD also now offer an A4-1200, A4-1250 and A6-1450 (the latter two have significantly higher video specs, support 8GB ram and draw 8 watts so are more for notebooks) but we cannot find any examples of these in tablet use. I expect some great things however in the hybrid tablet space.

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INTEGRATED GPUS

The A series CPUs use Radeon HD 8180/8210/8250 GPUs and these have 225/300/400Mhz clock speeds so it will be hard to beat these in the tablet environment. Atom CloverTrail+ (and later Bay Trail) may come a little closer to meeting those GPU specs but I do love a Radeon (or NVidia GeForce) under the bonnet (in a tablet anyway).

Coming - AMD Mainstream APU and Elite Performance APU

Just a mention here of these as some may find their way into Hybrid notebook designs. These solutions are likely to use faster A4 and A6 models as well as new E1 and E2 dual core APUs. Performance wise these will still compete with the Atom range but may crossover to the Core range.  

The Elite performance A8 and A10 models are more for gaming notebooks and desktops.

AMD is also working on adding more mobile functionality to the x86 chip set. I cannot comment on these functions - are they useful or marketing hype? I will look further into this in the future 

Its called AMD Elite Experiences Software

• AMD Gesture Control — Control basic functions using hand gestures;
• AMD Face Login — Quickly log in to Windows and other browser-based sites;
• AMD Screen Mirror — Wirelessly share content with any supported TV or display. 
• AMD Radeon Graphics with DirectX® 11.1 support — Enjoy discrete-level performance for crisp & sharp photos, movies and games.
• AMD Dock Port — Use up to four external monitors and sync to other devices through a single connection.
• AMD AllDay Power — Stay unplugged with long battery life.
• AMD Start Now technology — Boot up or resume from hibernate in seconds.

Smartphones

AMD appear to be sitting out the smartphone war. A couple of years ago a former CEO Dirk Myer advocated that AMD stay out of the tablet/smartphone business – was he ever wrong and I think that its absence from this market and the decline in the x86 desktop and notebook market has hurt it. But his successors have stuck with X86 and refuse to compromise to produce a ‘Q&D’ (Quick and dirty) solution.

The future

“The PC industry got a lot wrong in 2012,” says John Taylor, an AMD vice president. “Where is the stuff that makes the hair on the back of your head stand up? None of it is happening in PCs.” John is referring to the steep decline in desktop and notebook sales in a market cannibalised by tablets and to a lesser extent smartphones. But the trend seems to be reversing.

AMD believes that the coming release of Windows 8.1 (the Blue project that continually improves Windows rather than wait years for new versions), the return of the traditional desktop and start button, a revised touch interface (still Metro based) as well as wider adoption of touchscreens for hybrids and lower price points will work for them.

Intel, which is updating both its flagship Core to more power efficient Haswell and Atom to Clover Trail+ and later Bay Trail is very bullish about hybrids designs that can be a tablet or clamshell. Intel is offering strong marketing incentives for companies that make Ultrabook hybrids.

AMD need to do something – they could sell ARM chips (they have a good manufacturing and design expertise) or they could persist with x86. Look at the table below and it shows its declining market share.

Earlier this year Engadget speculated that AMD were planning an ARM SOC with a power draw of under 3 watts. An ARM/Radeon combo would give them an advantage over all other comers except perhaps NVidia with its Tegra 4 series (and later). But that is speculation and AMD denied it.

AMD did announce that it would develop an ARM based processor for servers in 2014 – odd that they would start in this market but perhaps it is less crowded and many servers are more used for Internet and file serving so x86 is not an issue.

According to the Harvey Norman Australian electronics retailer Facebook page a pre-order for the new Microsoft Xbox One will set you back nothing to start with, but ultimately AU$888 once ready for delivery.  To be honest however, this is most likely a 'place-holder' value than the actual RRP of the console on launch day.

{loadposition mike08}We also know from the recent games announcements, specifically Battlefield 4 from Electronic Arts that the Xbox One will be in the market prior to October 31st.

So there you go, the new revamped Kinect that is integral to the new Xbox One game console can measure the photons bouncing off a gamers pale visage, in doing so it can tell just how much you are immersed in the TV program on screen.  Surely that is worth close to AU$900.

Maybe it should have been called the Xbox 8 at that price, it would be a great way to break into the Chinese market.