Practicamania

BlackBerry’s Bad Timing Buries Its Own Flicker Of Good News On BBM Android/iOS Downloads (10M In A Day)

2013-10-24T13:01:00.000+04:00

Timing is everything. Too early and your product will shrivel; too late and it will be overlooked no matter how shiny. Just ask BlackBerry — a company with spectacularly bad timing in recent memory. A string of hesitations and bad decisions made the BlackBerry maker too late to the mobile party again and again.

Clinging stubbornly to old QWERTY keyboard habits left its hardware out of touch — literally — when it came to competing with Android and iOS, and allowed RIM to delay the necessary refocusing of its mobile platform for too long. That next-gen platform arrived eventually in BlackBerry 10, but the BlackBerry faithful had already mostly departed for pastures new, leaving the company with a load of unsold BB10 handsets and a $965 million hole in its books.

That story is so much water under the bridge now, as the company appears to be on the point of break-up, shopping itself around to potential buyers. But its bad sense of timing persists. Old habits die hard.

The latest case in point is a small example, but a telling one nonetheless. BlackBerry finally started rolling out its BBM messaging client to iOS and Android yesterday — weeks later than originally planned, after a botched earlier attempt. And years late from a market point of view. If BBM had launched on Android and iOS back in 2010, how many users might it have now? And how many might mobile messaging giants like WhatsApp not have?

Yesterday was also the day Apple selected for its October iPad launch event. This date has been circulating as near-certified rumour since early October and had been officially confirmed since October 15. Yet despite that highly unfortunate marketing clash — a David and Goliath one when you’re going up against the hyperdrive of the Cupertino marketing machine — BlackBerry went ahead with its rescheduled BBM launch anyway. Why, BlackBerry, why?

Turns out there is still appetite for BlackBerry’s veteran messaging client — or at least people curious enough to take a look. But that story didn’t get a decent airing yesterday. The iPad Air stole its oxygen.

Into this attention vacuum, BlackBerry tweeted yesterday that BBM for iOS and Android had had 5 million downloads eight hours after launch. This was followed up by another official announcement saying BBM downloads had exceeded 10 million within 24 hours of its release. And that it had become the No. 1 free app in more than 75 countries, including the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Indonesia and “most of the Middle East.”

It’s just a shame that BlackBerry decided to bury this flicker of relatively good news under a tsunami of Apple-related PR. Once more unto the terrible timing breach.

Ten million downloads in a day isn’t bad. For BlackBerry it’s spectacular good news — the kind of news the company has been lacking for years. So squandering the impact of having something positive to say for once seems like a seriously wasted opportunity.

Of course 10 million downloads does not mean BBM is alive and kicking, even as the company that created it heads for the breakers yard. The key test will be how many of those downloads turn into sustained usage. For some context, mobile messaging giant WhatsApp has some 300 million monthly active users, for instance, while Chinese messaging app WeChat has circa 190 million MAUs.

Mobile messaging is now a very packed and fiercely competitive space, being attacked by giants like Facebook, as well as startups of all stripes. BBM’s 10 million downloads in a day is therefore a win, but a very small one. How many monthly active users would BBM have had on Android and iOS if it had launched three years ago?

It’s such timing-related questions that will haunt the company’s founders for years to come.

One more thing: BlackBerry is having to ration access to BBM — presumably so its servers don’t fall over again — meaning that people who have downloaded the app have to wait in a queue for an email notification before they can start using it.

Really, you can’t make this stuff up.

Source: techcrunch.com

IBM creates liquid-based transistors that can process data like the human brain

2013-04-09T09:01:00.003+04:00

For decades, the transistor has been the building block of electronic devices, from computers to smartphones. It has seen little change, but a team of researchers at IBM has given the transistor a major makeover, and it may enable the company to build computers that function more like the way the human brain works.

If it pans out, IBM could use the technology to build chips that are highly efficient and use much less electrical power. That could lead to a revolution in mobile devices, which today are bound by short battery lives and electrical inefficiency. The whole process is not unlike the charged electrical fluids sloshing around in our brains. If the brain can do it, an artificially crafted material might be able to do it too.

The new technology is based on materials called “correlated electron oxides,” which can be combined with an ionic liquid, or a mixture where half of the molecules carry a positive charge and half are negative. When you apply a tiny ionic voltage to the liquid, the charged particles move to opposite sides of the surface of the oxide material. The charge leaves the oxide and goes into the liquid, changing its conductive state from an insulator to a metal, or from something that does not conduct electricity to something that does.

And it maintains its electrical state until another charge is applied. That part of the research is new and is particularly encouraging. IBM believes it can create non-volatile memory, or chips that save data whether electricity is on or off. It can also make logic chips that would use less power than today’s silicon-based semiconductor chips, which are the brains of everything electronic.

Big Blue is disclosing the breakthrough in the journal Science today. Stuart Parkin, an IBM fellow and lead researcher on the project at IBM, said in an interview with VentureBeat that the small team of researchers had been working for a couple of years.

“We are using tiny currents of ions of atoms generated by these electrical signals to change the state of matter of this oxide material,” he said. “It is a means to build low-energy, highly efficient devices by turning on and off their conducting state. We turn this material into a metal and maintain it without any need to supply power.”

That latter part is remarkable, as silicon chips require constant voltages to function.

Chips that use electricity have been evolving for decades, with progress marked by Moore’s Law, named after Intel chairman emeritus Gordon Moore, who predicted in 1965 that the number of components on a chip would double every year or so. That prediction has been very accurate, but experts worry that progress will slow as semiconductor technology runs into fundamental limits. IBM is working on new solutions, including traditional semiconductor chips that process data like the human brain does.

Parkin said that by applying a charged ionic liquid electrolyte to a substance, the team has been able to create a stable insulating and conducting state of an oxide material. This discovery has opened a way for making oxide-based transistors and logic gates.

“This is an alternative to a slowdown in Moore’s Law,” Parkin said. “Our inspiration is the brain and how it operates. It is full of liquids and ionic currents. We could build more brain-like devices.”

The picture above shows a drawing of a nanofluidic circuit, which operates by passing the green ionic fluid through conduits fabricated on top of the orange planar oxide surface. When a voltage is applied to the liquid (the blue part), the yellow balls from the oxide surface in the liquid are metallized. When no voltage is applied, there is no ionic motion and the oxide surface is an insulator, which does not conduct electrons. Circuits can be dynamically formed on the surface of the oxide.

Source: Venture Beat, By: Dean Takahashi

Lessons from the Smart Cities Challenge

2013-03-25T10:05:00.000+04:00

In 2011, IBM announced the Smarter Cities Challenge, worth $5 million in consulting services, to 100 cities with big problems and big goals. IBM sent teams of three to six to each city for three weeks to address issues ranging from healthcare to pollution and traffic to energy poverty.

Both IBM and the selected cities learned several lessons from the engagements that all cities can employ. Key technology was developed and deployed during and immediately following the engagements that can be utilized in other locations in the future.

Although the 2012 engagements have just completed, and the 2013 recipients have just been announced, the results of 2011 have shown promise, and demonstrated the value of the challenge. As other leaders look to drive their cities into the future, they can use the lessons, the technology, and the results of the IBM Smarter Cities Challenge to guide their efforts.

Lessons Learned

1. View the city as one comprehensive organization

Mayors from the recipient cities compare their position to that of a CEO, guiding all departments of an entire corporation. IBM also underlines the importance of involving public and private organizations, universities, small businesses, and citizens in both the collaboration and execution of Smarter Cities projects.

2. Involve citizens from the onset

IBM made sure to involve citizens in the earliest stages of the planning process. Boulder, CO had begun Smart Grid deployments before IBM made the Smarter Cities announcement. Lack of consumer engagement created discord between consumer expectations and results. IBM ensured consumer involvement when working with Boulder, leading to more consumer education and a longer implementation timeframe.

______________________________
Although the 2013 Smarter Cities projects have not started, and results from the 2012 are premature, the 2011 recipients have begun to experience the successes from their participation.
___________________________

Geraldton, Australia was accepted as a Smarter Cities recipient in 2011. When the citizens were involved, it was determined that the mining town's residents desired sustainable growth. The area is lush with renewable resources, and a plan that incorporates wind, wave, solar, geothermal and biomass energy production was created to meet their needs. By involving citizens from the earliest stages, both cities were able to create strategic plans to meet the citizens' needs.

3. Utilize data analytics

As cities become smarter, the amount of data the city produces grows exponentially. Information is constantly being generated from traffic lights, sensors, meters, computers and more. Currently, the information is sent to different locations and organizations; however utilities have successfully utilized advanced analytics programs to add a level of intelligence and predictive value.

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada utilized the data generated by traffic and other sensors to reduce the number of traffic accidents. Edmonton utilized an incident management system, as well as traffic congestion and prediction tools to derive key insights and develop a plan of action.

Pittsburgh, PA also analyzed the abundant amount of data it received from all areas of the city to automate processes ranging from parking to bus scheduling and traffic lights.

Key technology deployments

In many of the Smarter Cities, technology was developed and deployed during and after the engagements. Geraldton, Australia worked with IBM to develop a virtual power plant that would control all distributed resources for the city. The virtual power plant incorporated small-scale generation facilities and energy storage technology to manage peak demand and reduce load. In addition, a smart energy hub was also deployed to utilize the city's natural proximity to renewable resources.

Milwaukee, WI also deployed key technology during its three-week engagement. Groundbreaking technology in aquaponics combined vegetable cultivation with fish raising. The tanks grow fish under the vegetables and roots of the plants in a symbiotic system. The resulting pilot project has enabled the food produced to be served in local restaurants.

IBM also deployed key technology in Chengdu, China as part of the Intelligent Chengdu Initiative. Chengdu is now utilizing cloud-computing resources in accord with its five-year plan. The five-year plan includes six core systems that are enabled by the cloud-based technology: energy, water, transportation, communications, business, and people. As part of the communication plan, the city has deployed a wireless network throughout the city to serve as a model city for the world.

Successes

Although the 2013 Smarter Cities projects have not started, and results from the 2012 are premature, the 2011 recipients have begun to experience the successes from their participation.

One city that has benefited from participation is Antofagasta, Chile. Upon application, the project focused solely on the water system of the city. However, this focus was expanded to include the city's energy grid, as well as healthcare, transportation and education. During the engagement, a sustainable water and energy plan was developed to guide future efforts. Since concluding the consulting engagement, construction has begun on to upgrade the city's commercial water infrastructure. The city has also installed irrigation equipment at parks and other public places, a direct result of IBM's recommendations.

St. Louis, MO also entered the challenge with big issues to address. Dubbed the most dangerous city in America, the city had the highest crime rate in the nation. The three-week engagement created a new public safety system that enhanced transparency and communication across different organizational lines. St. Louis also completed its transition to a self-governing police department from a department governed by a state board. Results of the unified system were immediate, with 2011 crime rates reaching a historic low.

Finally, Dubuque, IA has also enjoyed results from its participation. Dubuque has experienced an 11 percent reduction in energy usage and a 6.6 percent decrease in water consumption. In addition, water leaks are being detected at a much higher rate. Seventy-seven percent of residents reported increased understanding of water consumption and their water bill.

These are just a few examples of successes the Smarter Cities Challenge has brought to participating cities. One important factor in the Smarter Cities Challenge is that once the technology is deployed and tested, it can be applied in other instances. Each city thus acts as a pilot project for the new technologies and an example of implementation for other cities to follow.

Source: FierceSmartGrid, By: Megan Dean

Why oil-rich countries are investing in solar

2013-03-21T00:13:00.003+04:00

This week, the world’s largest concentrated solar plant went into operation. Shams 1 is a massive 100-megawatt power plant in Abu Dhabi with some impressive numbers. The $750 million project produces enough energy to power 20,000 homes and stretches across an area

of desert, west of the United Arab Emirates capital, the size of 285 football fields.

“With the demand for energy rising exponentially, the region is undergoing a major transformation in how it generates electricity,” said Sultan Al Jaber, CEO of Masdar, the state-owned company behind the power plant. “In fact, the Middle East is poised for major investments in renewable energy, and Shams 1 proves the economic and environmental advantage of deploying large-scale solar projects.”

The UAE isn’t the only oil-rich country making major investments in solar. Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest producer of oil, is investing $100 billion in solar in order to produce one-third of its energy from the resource by 2032.

But why are countries like the UAE and Saudi Arabia making massive investments in solar?

Here’s Todd Woody’s take at Quartz:

For OPEC states, renewable energy is a long-term strategy to preserve their most precious resource. The more solar electricity sun-soaked, oil-rich nations like the United Arab Emirates can produce to power their domestic economies, the more petroleum they conserve to export.

If you were hoping it was a green initiative, sorry. It’s simple, really. Oil is more profitable when you can sell it to energy-poor countries desperate for oil and slow to develop renewables instead of using it on your own energy needs.

UAE President Shaikh Khalifa said as much: “The domestic production of renewable energy extends the life of our country’s valuable hydrocarbon resources and supports the growth of a promising new industry.”

Source: SmartPlanet, By Tyler Falk

Living Lab: Urban Planning Goes Digital in Spanish 'Smart City'

2013-03-18T12:00:00.001+04:00

Cities around the world aim to become "smart cities," but in Santander,Spain, the goal has already become a reality. Thousands of sensors help alert residents to traffic jams, regulate the watering in city parks and dim the street lamps.

Cities all around the world have set the same goal for themselves. Amsterdam, Barcelona, Birmingham, Dubai, Helsinki, San Diego, Stockholm, Nanjing, Vienna, Yokohama -- they all share an aspiration to become "smart cities."

That sounds like an appealing aim, yet when urban planners try to explain more precisely how they plan to lead their cities into the digital future, their answers are less convincing, with each proposing a different plan. Despite the many symposiums that have been held on this subject, there is no consensus on how to pursue this ambition.

Essentially the only thing all parties can agree on is that "smart" cities will employ sensors, computers and smartphones, and they will implement new forms of city government, making administrative processes more transparent than ever before. The idea is that digital technology will help make urban living cleaner, more sustainable and more pleasant. And, of course, it should increase prosperity as well.

Amid this uncertainty, an old port city on Spain's Atlantic coast has surged to the forefront of those aspiring to be smart cities. Despite its cash-strapped finances, the city of Santander, birthplace of the major bank of the same name, is already quite smart.

Smart City Experiment

"This is the future," Mayor Iñigo de la Serna, 42, of the conservative Partido Popular, declares proudly. "This is the only way to change things," he said, adding that every major city would eventually have to do the same. "It's not an option, it's obligatory."

The ocean waters are rough here in the springtime. Grand hotels and a high-end casino line the beach, where surfers in neoprene wetsuits launch themselves into waves meters high. In Spain, Santander has had a reputation for glamour ever since King Alfonso XIII chose the city as his summer residence almost 100 years ago.

Lately, though, curious visitors have been dropping in for another reason. Some come on behalf of major corporations such as Google, Microsoft or IBM. Recently, a delegation came from Japan and another flew in from Wuxi, China, a city with a population of several million. All of these visitors see Santander as a living experimental laboratory, a town that -- with its population of about 180,000 -- is neither too large nor too small to function as a smart city experiment.

Luis Muñoz, 48, is an IT professor at the University of Cantabria. He received nearly ?9 million ($11.7 million) in research money, most of it from the EU, to develop a prototype smart city. Muñoz permanently installed 10,000 sensors around downtown Santander, throughout an area of 6 square kilometers (2.3 square miles). The sensors are hidden inside small gray boxes attached to street lamps, poles and building walls. Some are even buried beneath the asphalt of parking lots.

Sensors at Work

Day in and day out, these sensors measure more or less everything that can be measured: light, pressure, temperature, humidity, even the movements of cars and people.

Every couple of minutes, they transmit their data to Muñoz's laboratory at the university, the central location that collects data streams from throughout the city. Every single bus transmits its position, mileage and speed, as well as data from its environment, such as ozone or nitric oxide pollution levels. Taxis and police cars do the same. Even the people of Santander can choose to become human sensors themselves. All it takes is to download a special app for GPS-enabled cell phones.

A central computer compiles the data into one big picture that is constantly being updated. Santander is a digital city, and everything here gets recorded. The system knows exactly where the traffic jams are and where the air is bad. Noise and ozone maps show what parts of the city are exceeding EU limits. Things can get particularly interesting when a major street is blocked because of an accident. Muñoz can observe in real time how that event affects traffic in the rest of the city.

In the past, Mayor de la Serna sent out nightly patrols to check for street lamps that were out of order. Now, Muñoz's computer informs the city exactly where new light bulbs are needed. The lamps can even adjust their brightness as needed, dimming when there is no one on the street, and emitting less light during a full moon than on a rainy night.

In the Parque de las Llamas, too, sensors will soon help optimize the amount of watering done in the park, so that no water is wasted. And garbage collectors will eventually be able to avoid making unneeded trips, because sensors will inform them beforehand which garbage containers need emptying.

Accessing the Information

All of these things save some money, but they still don't make a city particularly smart. A truly smart city is one in which as many residents as possible can access this and other types of information effortlessly. Mayor de la Serna is particularly proud of his iPhone's new "Pulse of the City" app, which does just that, connecting Santanderinos to their city's data streams.

For example, someone waiting at a bus stop and wanting to know when the next bus will arrive needs only to start up the smartphone app and point the phone toward the bus stop. The phone immediately displays all bus lines that serve that stop, as well as their arrival times. Pointing the phone at the city's concert hall brings up the program of events over the next several days and weeks. A tourist holding a smartphone toward a downtown fountain learns when the fountain was built and by whom, while opening the app near a supermarket provides information on current special offers.

In the past, residents frustrated with potholes in Santander's streets called the city government or wrote a letter. Now it's enough just to open the "Pulse of the City" app and take a picture of the hole. One more click sends this digital damage report, complete with GPS data, straight to city hall.

From there, a computer forwards the information both to those who are responsible for the technical side of fixing the problem and to those who bear political responsibility for it -- a two-pronged approach that apparently increases the system's effectiveness. All of the data is made public, but the person who originally sent the complaint remains anonymous. City residents and local media can also use the app to follow how long it takes for the damage to be repaired. The city, of course, tries to act as quickly as possible.

Santanderinos have used the app to report more than 500 issues since "Pulse of the City" was launched about five months ago. "People's faith in this technology is growing," de la Serna says. In comparison, sending an email to a German city hall can seem like tossing a message in a bottle out to sea.

Making Data Public

Next, Mayor de la Serna wants to air the city's secrets. Many types of information that were previously confidential or difficult to access will now be made public, including statistical data on demographic changes and real estate prices. Then the mayor wants to create a digital equivalent of a village square. The app "Ideas for All" -- something like Facebook but specifically for city residents -- will connect the city with its inhabitants. "We want to create a new, cooperative relationship between the people and the city government," de la Serna explains.

The mayor hopes this flood of data will inspire programmers to create more apps to make Santander even smarter. So far, there has been no resistance to the project. None of Muñoz's sensors have fallen prey to vandals. Taxi drivers initially feared the city wanted to use these sensors to carry out constant surveillance of the city, but that concern, de la Serna says, has long since given way to pride at being part of such a futuristic project, especially during a difficult economic period.

That pioneering spirit is apparently already paying off. The Spanish multinational company Ferrovial -- owner of, among other assets, London's Heathrow Airport -- has decided to invest in Santander and will build a smart city research center there.

Source: abc News, By: By Marco Evers, SPIEGEL, Translated from the German by Ella Ornstein

IBM joins Montpellier smart city project

2013-03-13T23:06:00.001+04:00

IBM and the local authority of greater Montpellier, France, have agreed to create an urban living laboratory to design new urban services for residents and support local leaders' economic development goals. The smart city project, based on an intelligent dashboard from IBM, will involve the Universities of Montpellier 1 and 2, and the Idate research institute on the digital economy.

Its initial focus will be to create an open platform to improve information sharing within the district in areas such as transport, water management, emergency management and mobile commerce.

The technology will be hosted in IBM France's first public cloud data centre. A demonstration centre will be opened later this year, followed by an operations centre in the EcoCite urban development project by the end of 2015.

Source: telecompaper

12 business skills that will never, ever go out of style

2013-03-13T09:00:00.002+04:00

This is the digital age — throw everything we’ve ever known about succeeding in business out the window, right? Wait a second, not quite everything.

There are basic rules for business success that haven’t gone away with the digital age — in fact, they have only become more important. The skills listed below could have appeared in any career book of the 1990s, 1980s, or even 1930s — and continue to withstand the test of time:

Communication skills. Management is still tight with budgets, and needs to be sold on new project ideas. The ability to construct an argument and make your case forcefully and clearly to your boss, client or coworkers will move your ideas to fruition. Computer systems can provide all the information you need, but machines don’t know how to package it up to get decision-makers excited about lending their support to a project or idea.
Time management and organization. The ability to stay organized and prioritize tasks will go a long way to moving you and your team forward. An application may accomplish a task within a millisecond, but it doesn’t know its context or how it fits into the scheme of things. Just as important, to be able to make a decision and act on an opportunity now — without getting wrapped up by paralysis by analysis — will deliver results.
Goal setting. No business operation — no matter how automated and virtualized — will get anywhere without a vision of the end result. It is this vision that focuses and solidifies all activities teams are undertaking.
Delegating. No matter how talented and educated, one individual cannot do everything that needs to be done to keep an organization on track toward its goals. The ability to surround yourself with talented people who can augment your skills will get things done every time without fail.
Public speaking and presentation skills. The ability to communicate your ideas to audiences will raise your profile to new levels. Web-based conferencing services make it easy, but face-to-face encounters will make lasting impressions.
Relationship building. Nothing helps lay the groundwork for advancement more than cultivating and maintaining good relationships. Social media and email may help make it easier to keep in touch, but the key is to keep those contacts going.
Involvement in professional groups/conferences: The best way to exchange ideas, learn new things and expand your network is to become involved in groups relevant to your craft. This can be through user groups for a particular software environment you work with, or professional associations. There are plenty of websites and forums that enable professionals to engage with one another online, but nothing seals a bond like face-to-face activities.
Passion and determination. Motivation has to come from within; the drive to excellence is entirely an internal affair. Totally out of reach of any IT system.
Civility, politeness, and respect. Nothing makes a business a great place to work more than mutual respect. This should be a golden rule for every tech startup, Fortune 500 and public organization that wants to make a positive difference in the world.
Entrepreneurial and innovation skills. Even in the techiest of places, it takes a sense of imagination to conceive new ways to create value. New ideas aren’t generated by machines, they come from the minds of the people using those machines.
Desire to learn. Nothing beats the value of education, whether it’s formal college degrees or completion of training skills in your profession. Even seeking out coworkers on the job for opinions and experiences means the growth of knowledge.
Flexibility and adaptability. Rigidity never worked in the 1990s or 1930s, and it certainly won’t work now. Be open to new ideas, environments, and responsibilities. Technology will constantly be changing, professionals need to change as well.

Source: SmartPlanet, By: Joe McKendrick

Why Smart Cities Need Smart Grids

2013-03-10T14:17:00.002+04:00

The correlation between smart cities and smart grids is strong. Around one-third of the smart city projects that Pike Research is currentlytracking in North America and Europe are primarily focused on smart grids or other energy innovations. Almost half of smart city strategies include energy-focused projects.

The huge investment being made in smart meters on both continents will provide cities with a platform for energy efficiency improvements, new customer services, and network optimization. Cities also provide important pilot environments for a range of smart grid innovations, including the integration of distributed renewable energy, support for EV charging, and the introduction of demand management programs. Both city planners and utilities need to take a holistic view of these diverse developments.

In Europe, there are several long-standing smart grid/ smart city projects including the InovCity project in Évora, Portugal and Malaga Smartcity in Spain. One of the United Kingdom’s most ambitious smart grid pilots, Low Carbon London, is a £30 million ($48 million) smart grid and energy efficiency project led by the local distribution operator, UK Power Networks. Although primarily a pilot for smart grid technologies, the project has embraced a wide range of both technology and community-focused energy management issues that are closely aligned with smart city requirements. Similar developments can be seen in The Netherlands, France, Germany and most recently Italy.

Boulder’s ill-fated SmartGridCity project cast a shadow over North American smart city projects, but other cities have picked up the baton. Smart City San Diego is building on a series of energy efficiency and smart grid initiatives promoted by local utility SDG&E, the San Diego Cleantech Cluster, and the city council. The Solar-to-EV Project at the San Diego Zoo, for example, has been given center stage in an iconic city landmark.

Going Citywide

Smart grid investments provide an intelligent energy infrastructure that links together different elements of city operations. Conversely, smart city initiatives can help build consumer awareness of energy efficiency initiatives. From the utilities’ perspective, tying smart meter programs into a broader smart city project enables a closer engagement with communities, individual consumers, and businesses.

The biggest challenge is to extend these pilots into citywide deployments. This is where the unified thinking shown in pilots can start to fall apart. Large-scale programs must be tied in to utilities’ deployment plans, which in turn are often determined by industry regulators and national government policies, making city concerns a secondary consideration. There is more chance of maximizing the benefits of countrywide smart meter deployments in Europe, for example, if they can be tied to local energy initiatives. Only by working together can city officials and utilities create fuller consumer engagement and ensure that there is adequate energy infrastructure for the needs of a smart city.

At Smart Utilities Scandinavia in April, I will chair a series of presentations and discussions on how Scandinavian cities and utilities are driving innovation in energy distribution and energy efficiency. The discussion will center how Scandinavian cities, leaders in many areas of smart city and smart grid development, are building on their investments, how they are addressing the challenges of integration, and what other cities and countries can learn from their experience.

Source: PikeResearch, By: Eric Woods

Smart city spending to reach $20 billion by 2020

2013-03-10T14:01:00.001+04:00

As more and more people flock to urban centers, the idea of smart cities has increasingly captured the mind share of civic leaders and planners around the world.

Consider that cities already are responsible for approximately 70 percent of global energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, according to some estimates, and you can see why city planners are scrambling for some semblance of control.

"City leaders face the continuous challenge of meeting rising citizen expectations within tight financial constraints," according to a smart cities report that Pike Research released in February. "In North America and Europe in particular, the tough economic climate is forcing local governments to become even more innovative in their use of technology to drive down operational costs and in the way services are procured and delivered."

The challenges are only expected to grow: In just 12 years' time, there will be more than 37 megacities globally that support populations of more than 10 million — 22 of them will be located in Asia, Pike predicts. And by 2050, the number of city dwellers is projected to reach 6.3 billion, compared with approximately 3.6 billion today.

Pike defines a smart city as one that has integrated "technology into a strategic approach to sustainability, citizen well-being and economic development." Five "industries" are integral to that vision: smart energy, smart water, smart transportation, smart buildings and smart government.

And while there has been progress — including plenty of spending on smart city technologies, as well as discussions about what the model smart city should look like — there is no one city today that embodies all of those systems or characteristics, said Eric Woods, the research director in charge of the report.
"Each city has to respond to its own unique environment and will be smart in its own way," he said. "You have to see smart as an aspirational concept."

Transportation drives most growth

That said, much of the early smart city spending currently centers on spurring multimodal transportation policies, partly because it's easier for city governments to control investments in these areas, Woods said.

"Transportation is close to the heart of the definition of the city structure," he said.

Pike estimates that spending on smart transportation solutions, such as intelligent traffic-management systems or infrastructure that links electric vehicle charging infrastructure with other transit options, will reach $5.5 billion annually by 2020. That would represent a compound annual growth rate of 19.5 percent between 2012 and 2020.

Source: GreenBiz.com, By: Heather Clancy

Brussels unveils ‘smart cities’ innovation scheme

2012-07-12T13:39:00.002+04:00

The European Commission has announced a new €365 million a year innovation partnership scheme aimed at boosting the development of ‘smart’ technologies in cities, EU officials told the press on Tuesday (10 July).

For 2013, €365 million in EU funds have been earmarked for the development of urban technology.

The European Innovation Partnership (EIP) will see private business and the EU executive pool research from energy, transport and ICT to develop a limited number of approved projects.

Examples of mooted projects included silent electric city buses that use digital technology, satellite technology aimed at improving traffic flow, a smartphone applications for reserving alternative fuel rental vehicles, and fast charging mechanisms for electric vehicles.

The EU communication on the scheme said improving the efficiency and sustainability of European cities was a vital commitment for 2020 targets since urban areas consume 70% of the EU’s energy, while about 1% of the entire region’s GDP goes towards congestion costs.

Research and innovation

EU Commission Vice President Siim Kallas, who is responsible for transport, called for urban research and innovation since “Europe’s cities suffer most from road accidents, congestion, poor air quality and noise” compared with rural areas.

Neelie Kroes, Commission vice president responsible for the Digital Agenda, also mentioned “tiny sensors that harvest energy from the environment and smarten up our clothes, our cars, streets and the wider world around”, adding that this was “no science fiction”.

Under the goals of the ‘smart cities’ partnership, Kroes said that at this moment in time, “most cities are probably ‘dumb’,” underlining the Commission’s drive to ease traffic, cut energy waste and reduce emissions.

“Smart cities are green cities”, she said, adding that advances needed to be made in reducing ICT’s environmental footprint, which she said some estimated as accounting for 8% to 10% of electricity consumption.

Calls for ‘smart city’ proposals dovetail with other Commission innovation drives, including a ‘future and emerging technologies’ programme that will provide €1 billion in funding over 10 years. Among the projects in the pipeline are domestic ‘slave’ robots and nano materials that record minute fluctuations in body behaviour.

'Not overnight'

Kroes said introducing new technologies to cities could take some time, due to “strong vested interests, and a resistance to breaking down barriers” in sectors like ICT, transport, energy, healthcare and waste management.

Companies were sometimes disinclined or could not afford to take big risks in overhauling their current systems, she said.

The Commission EIP communication also said that Europe had scarce resources for experimentation, and stressed it would be looking at the projects that were most cost-effective.

This, the statement said, would mean reusing and finding multiple uses for existing infrastructure, especially since current systems were likely to be surpassed or made redundant by newer technologies in the coming years.

Source: EuroActive

Microsoft’s Downfall: Inside the Executive E-mails and Cannibalistic Culture That Felled a Tech Giant

2012-07-12T11:23:00.001+04:00

Analyzing one of American corporate history’s greatest mysteries—the lost decade of Microsoft—two-time George Polk Award winner (and V.F.’s newest contributing editor) Kurt Eichenwald traces the “astonishingly foolish management decisions” at the company that “could serve as a business-school case study on the pitfalls of success.” Relying on dozens of interviews and internal corporate records—including e-mails between executives at the company’s highest ranks—Eichenwald offers an unprecedented view of life inside Microsoft during the reign of its current chief executive, Steve Ballmer, in the August issue. Today, a single Apple product—the iPhone—generates more revenue than all of Microsoft’s wares combined.

Eichenwald’s conversations reveal that a management system known as “stack ranking”—a program that forces every unit to declare a certain percentage of employees as top performers, good performers, average, and poor—effectively crippled Microsoft’s ability to innovate. “Every current and former Microsoft employee I interviewed—every one—cited stack ranking as the most destructive process inside of Microsoft, something that drove out untold numbers of employees,” Eichenwald writes. “If you were on a team of 10 people, you walked in the first day knowing that, no matter how good everyone was, 2 people were going to get a great review, 7 were going to get mediocre reviews, and 1 was going to get a terrible review,” says a former software developer. “It leads to employees focusing on competing with each other rather than competing with other companies.”

When Eichenwald asks Brian Cody, a former Microsoft engineer, whether a review of him was ever based on the quality of his work, Cody says, “It was always much less about how I could become a better engineer and much more about my need to improve my visibility among other managers.” Ed McCahill, who worked at Microsoft as a marketing manager for 16 years, says, “You look at the Windows Phone and you can’t help but wonder, How did Microsoft squander the lead they had with the Windows CE devices? They had a great lead, they were years ahead. And they completely blew it. And they completely blew it because of the bureaucracy.”

According to Eichenwald, Microsoft had a prototype e-reader ready to go in 1998, but when the technology group presented it to Bill Gates he promptly gave it a thumbs-down, saying it wasn’t right for Microsoft. “He didn’t like the user interface, because it didn’t look like Windows,” a programmer involved in the project recalls.

“The group working on the initiative was removed from a reporting line to Gates and folded into the major-product group dedicated to software for Office,” Eichenwald reports. “Immediately, the technology unit was reclassified from one charged with dreaming up and producing new ideas to one required to report profits and losses right away.” “Our entire plan had to be moved forward three to four years from 2003–04, and we had to ship a product in 1999,” says Steve Stone, a founder of the technology group. “We couldn’t be focused anymore on developing technology that was effective for consumers. Instead, all of a sudden we had to look at this and say, ‘How are we going to use this to make money?’”

A former official in Microsoft’s Office division tells Eichenwald that the death of the e-reader effort was not simply the consequence of a desire for immediate profits. The real problem for his colleagues was the touch screen: “Office is designed to inputting with a keyboard, not a stylus or a finger,” the official says. “There were all kinds of personal prejudices at work.” According to Microsoft executives, the company’s loyalty to Windows and Office repeatedly kept them from jumping on emerging technologies. “Windows was the god—everything had to work with Windows,” Stone tells Eichenwald. “Ideas about mobile computing with a user experience that was cleaner than with a P.C. were deemed unimportant by a few powerful people in that division, and they managed to kill the effort.”

When one of the young developers of MSN Messenger noticed college kids giving status updates on AOL’s AIM, he saw what Microsoft’s product lacked. “That was the beginning of the trend toward Facebook, people having somewhere to put their thoughts, a continuous stream of consciousness,” he tells Eichenwald. “The main purpose of AIM wasn’t to chat, but to give you the chance to log in at any time and check out what your friends were doing.” When he pointed out to his boss that Messenger lacked a short-message feature, the older man dismissed his concerns; he couldn’t see why young people would care about putting up a few words. “He didn’t get it,” the developer says. “And because he didn’t know or didn’t believe how young people were using messenger programs, we didn’t do anything.”

“I see Microsoft as technology’s answer to Sears,” said Kurt Massey, a former senior marketing manager. “In the 40s, 50s, and 60s, Sears had it nailed. It was top-notch, but now it’s just a barren wasteland. And that’s Microsoft. The company just isn’t cool anymore.”

“They used to point their finger at IBM and laugh,” said Bill Hill, a former Microsoft manager. “Now they’ve become the thing they despised.”

Source: VanityFair, By: Kurt Eichenwald

Twitter’s Pitch Deck for Big Advertisers

2012-07-12T09:36:00.000+04:00

Twitter’s ad business is looking less like an experiment and more like a real business, one that could generate $1 billion a year in the not-too-distant future.

If Twitter ads really take off, it will be because CEO Dick Costolo will have figured out how to sell lots of little ads to small marketers, in the same way Google did more than a decade ago. In the meantime, the company seems to be succeeding with the other end of the spectrum: Big marketers interested in experimenting with a brand-new format.

Last year, Twitter ad boss Adam Bain made a point of targeting big brands like Pepsi and American Express. And this year he’s seeing some of that work pay off, as some of them are committing to campaigns that will run for much of 2012.

Twitter won’t talk publicly about its ad-selling efforts. But you can get a glimpse of what they’re doing via a pitch deck the company recently used to woo a big publicly traded company. We’re not going to show you all of it here, primarily because some of the slides identified the would-be advertiser*. But you can still get a pretty good sense of it.

A few notes in advance:

Twitter is still doing lots of basic explaining about what it is and how it works: Yes, people still use Twitter to talk about their breakfast. But it’s important for Bain et al to explain that people use Twitter to pass along lots of other stuff, too: Rallying cries (like the #Jan25 hashtag during Egypt’s revolution of 2011), cool images (like Stefanie Gordon’s groggy space shuttle pix) or celebrity smackdowns (Drake v. T. Boone Pickens). Big idea: Your brand could be one of those things people share on Twitter, too!
Also important for Twitter to keep repeating: Unlike Facebook, we’re totally cool with mobile.
Those “Event pages” Twitter rolled out last month are going to be important for big advertisers. Obviously they are — that’s why Twitter spent money buying TV ads to promote them. But that slide highlighting them reinforces just how attractive they will be for brands – and what a nice compliment they’ll be to 140-character bleats — when Twitter gets around to selling them.
Spend enough and Twitter will offer you all kinds of goodies. Just like any other big ad company, Twitter offers white glove treatment for its most important customers, and it hints at some of this in the “Joint Business Plans” slide: Early looks at new ad products, help coming up with new campaigns, custom events, etc. The part where Twitter promises to provide all kinds of “analytics” might be particularly relevant for some of the third party companies that do the same stuff.
Spend enough and Twitter will let you spend less. That same slide mentions “key discounts,” detailed on an “investment grid.” I’m not reprinting that one, but am happy to tell you what’s in there: Twitter says it will knock 10 percent off the rate card for anyone who ponies up more than $6 million a year (An earlier version of this post incorrectly reported that number as $6,000). Again, standard issue for any big ad business. But always interesting to see spelled out.

One other item I’m not reprinting (again for the reason explained above): A slide where Twitter says it has plans to roll out “enhanced interest targeting” for its core Promoted Tweet product.

In English: Right now, Twitter only offers advertisers a handful of crude tools when they want to slice up their target audience, but it has promised in the past that those would get more refined. The company isn’t offering a timetable for the new tools (at least not in the slides I’ve seen), but it’s confident enough about them to start talking them up to would-be buyers.

Source: AllThingsD, By: Peter Kafka

Smart TVs to Get Antivirus Software

2012-06-10T16:09:00.001+04:00

Viruses and malware are no longer threats that are limited to computers, with more electronic devices, such as smartphones and tablets, going online. UK-based Ocean Blue Software and Sophos have just developed what could be the world's first antivirus program for smart TVs. This cloud-based solution can be rolled out as a part of Ocean Blue's security suite or directly integrated into the panel's own software system.

This is a timely introduction considering the growing popularity of smart TVs, which support downloadable apps and Web-surfing functions. Such antivirus software may also bolster users' confidence for e-commerce and other applications that require input of personal information through these Internet-ready panels.

Source: CNET Asia, By: Philip Wong

LinkedIn confirms some users' passwords hacked

2012-06-10T15:58:00.000+04:00

LinkedIn has confirmed that some of its users' passwords have been compromised and said it is continung to investigate claims that a member of a Russian online forum hacked the popular networking site and uploaded close to 6.5 million passwords to the internet.

In a blog post issued late Wednesday afternoon, LinkedIn said the passwords of users whose data had been compromised would no longer work, and they would be sent emails advising them how to change them. It would not say how many passwords had been leaked.

The passwords were allegedly uploaded encrypted and without usernames since the hacker's aim seems to have been to demonstrate that the LinkedIn site is not secure rather than to use the personal information of its users.

But according to The Verge technology news website, which broke the news, the encryption used is not foolproof, leaving open the possibility that the passwords could be accessed by someone else.

The Verge reported that some LinkedIn users have found hashed versions of their passwords on the uploaded list and recommended that all LinkedIn users change their passwords as a precaution.

The company itself included a reminder about best practices with regard to passwords in a blog post about its investigation of the possible password leak.

"One of the best ways to protect your privacy and security online is to craft a strong password, to change it frequently (at least once a quarter or every few months) and to not use the same password on multiple sites," LinkedIn product manager Vicente Silveira wrote.

"Use this as an opportunity to review all of your account settings on LinkedIn and on other sites, too."

LinkedIn is a popular site where professionals post profiles in order to network with others in their field, look for jobs or as a way of advertising themselves to potential employers. As of November 2011, it had 131 million users and more than one million groups.

2nd security headache this week

The latest news comes just as the company is addressing security concerns about its mobile app for iPhones and Android smartphones, which syncs information in your phone calendar with LinkedIn profiles to provide details about people you are meeting at events listed in your calendar.

Earlier this week, it was reported that the app was collecting all of the details entered into the phone's calendar functions, including passcodes, emails, meeting notes or private phone numbers for teleconferences that were never intended to be shared, and transmitting the information to the company's servers. Concerns were raised that this might violate users' privacy.

The company responded by saying the calendar sync function is an opt-in feature that users have to agree to and that the information is transmitted securely and never stored or shared. Nevertheless, it did alter the app and will now no longer send data from the meeting notes section of calendar events to its servers during the syncing process.

Source: CBC News

Smart cities market worth $1 trillion by 2016

2012-05-20T10:26:00.002+04:00

According to a new market research report, “Smart Cities Market (2011 - 2016) - Projects, Advanced Technologies, Adoptions and Transformations - Worldwide Market Report”, published by MarketsandMarkets, the total Smart cities market is expected to reach more than $1 trillion by 2016, at a CAGR of 14.2%.

Globally, there are some 700 cities, each with population exceeding 500,000 and are growing faster than the average growth rate of cities. This opens up the market for industry players to grow their business in new and emerging smart cities. The infrastructure investment for these cities is forecasted to be $30 trillion to $40 trillion, cumulatively, over the next 20 years.

With growing emphasis on reducing carbon emission and the fact that conventional cities form a major source of CO2 emission, planning a smart city becomes a viable option for governments and municipal authorities. Deploying technologies such as smart grids, smart metering for energy management; electric vehicle and traffic management with smart transportation and smart security are high growth areas within smart cities.

The overall smart cities market, valued at $526.3 billion in 2011, is forecasted to grow double fold to $1,023.4 billion by 2016, at a CAGR of 14.2% for the period 2011 to 2016. Among all application segments, we observe smart energy or energy management market to be the fastest growing market with an impressive CAGR of 28.7%, growing to $80.7 billion by 2016.

In addition to market sizes and forecasts, the report also provides a detailed analysis of the market trends and factors influencing market growth, offering in-depth geographic analyses of the smart cities market in North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific and ROW.

Along with the special coverage of 18 ongoing key smart cities project, the report also draws the competitive landscape of the smart cities market, providing an in-depth comparative analysis of the technological and marketing strategies that the key players are adopting in order to gain an edge over their competitors.

Source: PR Web, By: Rohan

RIM plans to open its first Middle East retail store in Dubai

2012-05-20T09:29:00.000+04:00

The BlackBerry phone maker moves forward with a big international push with plans to open retail shops in the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and possibly Africa.

With slumping sales in the West, Research In Motion has plans to go to the East. The BlackBerry maker is in the process of opening retail stores throughout the Middle East starting in Dubai, according to Bloomberg.

"We're getting the first one up and running and then we'll be looking at other cities across the Middle East -- Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar," Sandeep Saihgal, the managing director of RIM's Middle East business, told Bloomberg in an interview earlier this week.

The Dubai store in the United Arab Emirates will be the flagship shop and Bloomberg reports it will be in a 1,500-square-foot space. Additional stores partnering with a local company -- Axiom Telecom -- are also planned across the region.

The relationship between RIM and the UAE has a slightly rocky past. In 2010, during a drawn-out saga, the Middle Eastern government said it would block e-mail, instant messaging, and Web browsing on BlackBerry devices unless RIM came in line with UAE telecommunications regulations. Days before the ban was to be enforced, the two parties reached an agreement.

RIM is reportedly looking to venture into other international regions besides the Middle East, including Asia and Africa, according to Bloomberg. The company announced in February that it was planning to open 4,000 retail outlets in Indonesia and possibly more across Southeast Asia.

There is a much higher demand for BlackBerry phones in these regions than in the West, according to Bloomberg. Shipments of the device to the Middle East and Africa more than doubled in the fourth quarter of 2011, compared with a year prior.

Source: CNET News, By: Dara Kerr

3 things you never knew the Apple iPhone can do

2012-04-08T11:27:00.001+04:00

For all the talk of the Apple [AAPL] adventures in mobile and the consumer product focus of the iDevice/iTunes combo, it's dead easy to neglect some of the more world-changing implementations of mobile technology. In tandem with the nascent Machine-to-machine (M2M) industry and the drive to smart cities, smartphones are already changing the world.

iPhone in Agriculture

Look at that video above. It dates from 2009 and shows LoadOut Technologies' iPhone-based grain-loading controls in action. The iPhone here is controlling just how much grain is loaded onto those big trucks. Which is cool in a "look at me I've got a robot" kind of a way, but there's more.

In South Korea this year, melon farmers are installing monitoring systems in 1,000 geographically-dispersed greenhouses. These monitoring systems can be controlled remotely and allow farmers to control feed, watch growth, water plants and more. Greenhouses can be many miles away from a farmer's HQ, so these systems -- accessible via a smartphone or PC -- will deliver real productivity advantages. Or at least give early-rising agriculturalists the chance to take a nap.

A firm called Trimble produces a range of remotely-controlled devices which allow farmers centralized monitoring of seeding systems. These controls aren't just about casting your seed, they're also keeping an eye on growth and more. And because they can be controlled via a Web interface, an iPhone (or other device) suddenly becomes a tool for making the food you eat. I think that's pretty interesting, and hope you do, too.

These are all fascinating solutions as machine-to -machine technologies impact agriculture. These solutions are especially useful in developing economies, where mobile phone use extends to maybe 50 percent of the population (ITU) while fixed broadband and telephony reaches a fraction of that.

This is why 3G networks are springing up across these territories, as infrastructure managers recognize the potential for mobile broadband to deliver significant savings in terms of the cost of installation of fixed systems.

It's good for farmers, too, who, let's face it, are under constant pressure by the big supermarket brands to deliver crops at prices they can't afford to deliver them at. Perhaps, just perhaps, such productivity improvements will help some independent farmers resist the inevitable move toward completely centralized control of food production.

iPhone in Medicine

The iPhone's impact on healthcare's pretty widely-known. There's already over 12,000 health-related apps for Apple devices (Mobile Health News). And hospitals across the planet are installing intelligent patient monitoring systems, including 159 of 164 Houston Healthcare hospitals. Such systems offer real-time machine test read-outs to monitoring stations, allow patient access to multimedia, entertainment and up-to-the minute patient records.

It goes much further: In the UK, City University and The Stroke Association are testing iPad/Wii apps to allow stroke victims suffering aphasia (which affects 250,000 in the UK) to communicate with gestures.

There's a few other interesting nuggets I've come across while researching this little slice of "we're already in the Jetsons" prose:

-- 98 percent of US physicians already use mobile solutions (Spyglass).

-- 79 percent of doctors prefer the iPad (Aptilon).

The end result?

The installed base of M2M-connected healthcare devices will exceed 774 million by 2020. (Machina Research). And there's a pretty good chance, given the medical industry preference for the secure walled garden offered by Apple products, that iPhones (and iPads, obviously) will be part of this mix. One system I read about consists of a watch, worn by the patient, that on the press of a single help button will send emails, voice calls and SMS messages to an entire medical team, escalating the contacts reached to scale with the severity of the emergency. These solutions can boost response times to patient emergency and save lives.

And don't even get me started talking about the value of the 'Find My iPhone' feature to families trying to trace the movement of a straying Alzheimer's patient (assuming they're carrying the thing). According to Omnilink systems, 50 percent of Alzheimer's patients will die or become injured if they aren't found within 24-hours.

That's a pretty big ripple effect for the product, don't you think? The potential to help save lives. What else can it do?

iPhone at War

Death they say is life's twin. We all -- to a greater or a lesser extent -- allow our fear of our own mortality to inform our relationships with those around us, ourselves, and the external world.

We can't help ourselves. We're human. We want to be here and in most cases the omnipresence of the great taboo makes us feel a little anxious. And that's alright. We're built that way. But, sadly and in common with the existential truth at the heart of humanity, you can use an iPhone to save lives, and take them, too. I prefer the first use, others see value in the second.

It began small. Way back in May 2009 it was revealed the US Army was using the iPhone and iPod touch as communication/translation devices to help communicate with locals.

At that time the Marine Corps was working on a bunch of app-based iPhone solutions to enable soldiers to upload images of captives to a central database. These things are being used to guide bomb-disabling robots and to view remote video from drones.

Later that year, US defense giant, Raytheon, introduced a range of iPhone apps, such as One Force Tracker (OFT) software lets soldiers track whereabouts of allies and adversaries on maps in real time.

Warfare projects hit a wall of course because defense chiefs want to be able to use iPhones on secured private communication networks (specifically the DOD's Global Information Grid), rather than on those hackable and unreliable consumer networks, which are probably disabled during a warfare situation anyway.

Then last year the Defense Department -- via the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) -- began to authorize the use of Android and iPhone software militarywide, reports the Air Force Times.

Also last year, Boeing and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology commenced development of an iPhone app that may one day be used by the US military to fly unmanned aerial vehicles, InformationWeek reported.

And in future? It isn't so hard to imagine M2M technology being used to control and maneuver battlefield systems en masse, as the age of Robot Wars seems closer each day. (Don't believe me, just look at the video above concerning Tactical Nav, which uses GPS and the iPhone camera to chart coordinates and guide artillery fire.)

So there's three ways the iPhone is changing the way we live today: the food we eat; healing the sick; and making war. These impacts have taken just five years to evolve. This is only a beginning.

Got a story? Drop me a line via Twitter or in comments below and let me know. I'd like it if you chose to follow me on Twitter so I can let you know when these items are published here first on Computerworld.

Source: ComputerWorld, By: Jonny Evans

More RIM Shots: BlackBerry Apps & Mishaps Abroad

2012-04-05T10:34:00.000+04:00

When I read this story -- "RIM Scrambles to Launch Better LTE Devices" -- I started to think about how Research In Motion Ltd. (RIM) (Nasdaq: RIMM; Toronto: RIM) might save itself, especially now that its troubles are so obvious that financial analysts have all but buried it. (See RIP RIM: Will Foresight Be 20/20?)

Building a better LTE phone will help RIM. But it also stands a good chance of improving its standing outside North America if it applies the right strategy. "We should not forget that RIM is still very strong in some emerging markets -- South Africa, Indonesia, etc.," writes Stela Bokun, an analyst with Pyramid Research .

In Latin America, Bokun points out that RIM had a good year in 2010, but a bad year in 2011. The market is so volatile, she writes, "that one killer app can make … or kill a company."

RIM gained some 10 percentage points of market share in Latin America in 2010, largely on the strength of its BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) application. It couldn't sustain that momentum the following year, but Bokun's point is that the possibility does exist that RIM could catch some emerging markets with the right idea at the right time and tremendously improve its business in a very short space of time.

What if, for instance, RIM launched a lower-end, less expensive line of handsets for some Southeast Asian markets and BBM -- or something else -- caught on?

What is clear is that RIM won't win on price alone in those markets. Oppenheimer & Co. Inc. analyst Ittai Kidron recently mentioned, in a note to clients, that "there is increasing risk to RIM's international business in emerging markets as more Android vendors go down the price curve."

Chinese vendors are the most price competitive, Kidron notes, and Android phones in the US$100 to $150 price range offer an "attractive alternative to RIM's value priced Curve 8630, which has been a strong seller internationally for RIM."

So where do we leave this topic? Right back where we found it. "All in all, I don’t think it’s 'game over' for RIM, despite the fact that it doesn’t have too many lives left," Bokun writes.

Source: Light Reading, By: Phil Harvey

Alcatel-Lucent launches on unified communications software for iPad

2012-03-29T10:26:00.003+04:00

OpenTouch Conversation will enable users to switch between voice calls, IM and video conferencing without interruptions.

Alcatel-Lucent's OpenTouch Conversation software will allow enterprise users to switch among different ways of communicating -including instant messaging, voice calls and video conferencing - without interrupting their conversations. The software will first be available on Apple's iPad, the company said on Monday.

The concept of integrating different ways of communicating is far from new, and is often called unified communications in the enterprise market. But products need to become much simpler for the sector to take off on a grander scale, according to Craig Walker, director of product marketing at Alcatel-Lucent's enterprise group.

That ease-of-use is what Alcatel-Lucent hopes it will achieve with OpenTouch Conversation.

On the iPad screen, a user can see a graphical timeline of recent, current and future conversations, pictures of their current key contacts and a "stage" where their current conversations takes place, according to Alcatel-Lucent. Presence information on the availability of their contacts is also visible, it said.

By clicking on the screen, users will be able to switch from a chat session to a voice conversation or a video conference.

Users will eventually also be able to start a voice call on an office phone, move the conversation to a video conference on a PC or tablet and then conclude it on a mobile phone, according to Alcatel-Lucent.

Alcatel-Lucent intends to make the OpenTouch Conversation client app available on iPhones, Macs, Windows PCs as well as Android-based tablets and smartphones based on both Android and BlackBerry OS.

"We were hoping to use just HTML5, so the client would be immediately portable between different operating systems, but it isn't ready yet," said Walker.

The plan is now to make the iPad client - which will be compatible with the 2048-by-1536 pixel resolution on the new iPad - available in June, followed by clients for PCs, Macs later during the year.

A client compatible with Android-tablets and Android-based smartphones will arrive in the beginning of next year, according to Walker. The application for the iPhone will be available for download at the end of the year or in the beginning of 2013.

All the clients will have the same design, Walker said.

For the OpenTouch Conversation clients to work, an enterprise would also need an OpenTouch server, which, in turn, can be integrated with telephony switches from other vendors.

The company didn't announce any pricing, but enterprises will pay per user and communications technology. For example, a company may have a thousand employees, but only pay for 200 of them to be able to use video conferencing, Walker said.

Source: CIO, By: Mikael Ricknäs

Smart Cities Miss Important Benefits When Telecommunications Service Providers Lack a Key Role

2012-03-26T10:10:00.002+04:00

Smart Cities Miss Key Benefits When Telecommunications Service Providers Lack a Key RoleDoes it make sense that telecommunications service providers (SPs) are not playing a critical role in projects to create smart cities? The facts of the matter are that involvement still remains limited. This is true even though telecommunications itself plays a central role. As a result, telecom SPs compete with cable companies, utilities and other service providers in an effort to provide information and communications technology (ICT) and other services.

Reality is that this competition can create a disconnect in the delivery of valuable services, limiting the reach and capabilities of the resulting smart city.

A recent posting by Alcatel-Lucent "Getting Smart About Smart Cities About Smart Cities,” highlights the importance of leveraging key assets within telecommunications service provider infrastructures to partner with key players in the creation of smart cities using IMS solutions to leverage the migration to end-to-end IP networks. In doing so, these providers significantly change their role from facilitators to strategic partners with key industries and governments in the development of these projects. To gain a better understanding of the current environment and process to develop smart cities, the Alcatel-Lucent Market and Consumer Insight team conducted a three-part analysis of 52 smart cities in 2011. This process included examining smart cities from two angles:

- Key stakeholders and their contribution to concepts and realization

- The impact these stakeholders influenced development

The study revealed that the value propositions for most initiatives involving smart cities do not position Information and Communications Technology (ICT) as key to the value of smart city (and smart grid in general) projects. In addition, they found that the implementation of the necessary capabilities tends to be determined mostly by the motivations of those driving the project and hence not having telecom SPs at the table from the start can be problematic.

A vast ecosystem of key players is at the center of smart city projects, the players include those from multiple disciplines within government entities and representatives from small to large multinational business firms. Governments tend to start the projects for creating smart cities with vendor playing a somewhat background role. And, the study found that these scenarios can create their complications.

While relationships develop among stakeholders involved with smart cities projects, it is not clear how these relationships are created or maintained over the life of a project. This is a classic case of the famous Nelson Mandela quote, “Where one stands depends upon where one sat.” Each project is driven by a multitude of motivations and interests. These include such things as the need to invent or construct a new economic model, the need or wish to reduce energy consumption, or the need to improve the environment of city life.

For telecom and other SPs to find their role in the process and demonstrate the value they bring to the table, it’s critical that they understand how the development of smart cities impacts all other players. This means clear demonstration of the value of critical infrastructure elements as evolving 4G LTE (News - Alert) with integrated and/or predominant Wi-Fi access, along with how to leverage IMS. It also means a clear articulation of how using the vast array of mobile solutions for the key machine-to-machine (M2M) capabilities that are core to smart grids, and making the case as to how, what, when, where and why the planning, deployment and maintenance of such capabilities, are essential to project success. As the ALU posting observes, breaking through some of the ambiguous relationships, motivations and other elements can identify clear patterns for constructing the right strategy for involvement. And, as previously mentioned, telecom SPs must communicate that value of involvement with key stakeholders to ensure them not just a significant seat at the table from project start, but the centrality of their value-added from concept to project completion and beyond. In short, telecom SPs need to change the conversation so that they are involved early and often.

Source: Next Generation Communication, By: Susan J. Campbell

Getting Smart About Smart Cities

2012-03-26T09:12:00.002+04:00

Isn’t it amazing that today half of the world’s population lives in cities, and just a few decades from now, more than three out of four people will call a city “home”? At the beginning of last century, the number of mega-cities worldwide could be counted on the fingers of one hand. But within some decades, adding the toes of our feet will not be enough to count them.

This growing concentration of people in cities will lead to constraints, new needs and additional pressure on the cities’ various systems. That’s why Jane Anderson, Debbie Fisher and I, all members of the Market and Consumer Insight (MCI) team within Alcatel-Lucent, were asked to study smart cities — and consider related market opportunities.

Research phases

Our 2011 research included the following phases.

We first reviewed studies undertaken by key stakeholders in smart cities and looked at 18 smart city projects in order to better understand the players, the processes and the focus of vendors and service providers.

Next, students from the EDHEC Business School of Nice joined us for a deeper dive into seven smart city projects. “Persons of interest” in these projects helped us grasp the business models, funding, and engagement models that manage complex relationships among players.

Finally, we substantiated the smart city types and the initial motivations behind smart city projects by applying them to 52 projects. Students from the Presidio Graduate School of San Francisco (California, USA) joined us in this phase.

Key results

What did we learn from our research? We gained a better understanding of who takes the initiative to set up greenfield smart cities or to refurbish existing cities into smarter ones. We learned that smart cities are not possible without government involvement or government backing, and that, in general, telecom service providers are not yet taking a leading role in smart cities, despite having assets that could enable a more active and beneficial role. (However, a lot is changing in this respect since we undertook the studies.) And finally, we found that Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) play a major role in the development of smart cities projects, but ICT is seldom seen as a separate segment with its own designated budget. ICT is typically part of other functional areas, such as transportation, energy saving, or waste management.

A market for service providers?

Our research results are available on the Alcatel-Lucent website (see Getting Smart about Smart Cities). But how do these results help us in better understanding the market opportunities for service providers? We have segmented smart city projects in terms of types and motivations, so that telecom service providers can develop a focused strategy for each.

We concluded that there are four basic types of smart cities (which can be further segmented). IT box types are the best fit with service provider offerings. Dream box projects require cooperation or partnerships with companies in the industry that drives the project. Black box types are “inaccessible,” except when invited to join the ecosystem. And, Fragmented box projects need a case-by-case evaluation to better define the appropriate strategy.

Our research also revealed three defining initial motivations, which will play a role in further development: social motivations intend to improve the quality of life for citizens and businesses; economic motivations result in observable advocacy for economic growth and a new economic model; eco-sustainability motivations intend to hit targeted sustainability goals that will result in environmental benefits. Service providers must take these motivations into account when creating solution offerings and approaching key decision makers.

Going forward

MCI’s research on smart cities does not stop here. The next round of research will focus on bringing out the voices of the citizens who live — or will live — in smart cities. Debbie Fisher is leading a survey of citizens, government officials and NGOs in cities worldwide. Some of the primary research results were presented at the Digital London event (March 13 and 14). Initial results of the research in Chattanooga (USA) can be found in the blog “Smart Cities – Today’s Difference; Tomorrow’s Ideas.”

Source: Alcatel-Lucent, By: Louis Witters

IBM Helps Geraldton Become a Smarter City

2012-03-20T09:24:00.002+04:00

The Western Australia city of Geraldton will receive help from IBM to create a roadmap to improve technology thanks to a grant as part of IBM’s Smart Cities Challenge.

Up to six IBM senior executives from around the world will reside in the city for three weeks and speak to businesses and citizens to ascertain the issues the city is facing. It will then recommend initiatives for improvement.

Miranda Scarff, manager of corporate citizenship and affairs at IBM Australia, told Computerworld that Geraldton’s grant submission was a standout, with the city highlighting its desire to make the most of technology infrastructure investments in the region and the National Broadband Network. The city also wants to improve data sharing between agencies.

“We’re seeing a convergence of factors which set the stage for rapid advances in the efficiency and scope of citizen services,” said Ian Carpenter, City of Greater Geraldton mayor, in a statement.

“IBM’s Smarter Cities grant comes at a pivotal time in Geraldton’s development as we seek to improve the living quality of all our citizens.”

Scarff said the aim of the grant wasn’t to provide software, but instead to create a clear roadmap for improvement.

“So they provide the city with an official report and recommendations about how to improve the liveability of the city in terms of whatever it is that the council put forward as projects to focus on,” she said.

"So it’s really up to Geraldton to further identify what projects they’d like the IBM experts to come and address and then we would put forward recommendations for the council."

The $50 million IBM Smarter Cities Challenge is a three-year program and part of the company’s philanthropic initiatives. It will provide technology and services to 100 municipalities worldwide over the course of the program. A total of 33 cities across the world will receive the grant in 2012, with Townsville, Queensland, the first Australian city to receive the grant.

Three IBM experts from the United States and three from Australia spent three weeks in Townsville working with the city to help it leverage data technology to help it become a sustainable city. The council is currently implementing initiatives such as collaborative portals for the community and strategies for smarter building management.

“We’re finding with most of the grants that have been done to date that the idea is certainly to share the lessons learnt with other cities around the world,” Scarff said.

By the end of 2012, 65 cities will have received the IBM grant. Applications for the 2013 program will open later this year.

Source: ComputerWorld, By: Stephanie McDonald

Smart Cities and Telcos – the sleeping giants awake?

2012-03-11T11:50:00.000+04:00

If you go back a mere 6 months, the ecosystem of Smart City movers and shakers in discussions, conferences and exciting new service concepts was similar to that of today but with one exception; the Communications Service Providers (CSPs), specifically the Telecoms Operators were not there in the front line of the movement.

In the early phases of Alcatel-Lucent’s primary market research around Smart Cities we found that the driving seat was almost always occupied by government, real estate and other key industry sectors such as energy, transportation, power or financial services. Indeed there was plenty of discussion around transport solutions, energy solutions, public safety and other verticals and back then the network was regarded as just another of these verticals. The analogy was that you would build a city in the same way as you build a house, using all of the different trades for their particular part of the project. Of course all of the trades are essential to the function of the building, but to a certain extent you could regard them as separate functions whose only common denominator was that of the building itself. ICT, or “plumbing” in this analogy was just as important as windows and roofing for example, and as such it was another facet of the building orchestrated by the architect.

Around the same time we began to hear discussions labelling ICT in Smart Cities as a “key enabler”, signalling the beginning of an elevation in the role that must be played by the CSP, a role that is regarded as much more important today. A new analogy might be that the City is a living, breathing beast and the role of ICT is to build the central nervous system as described in my previous blog here. This recognises the role of the network as not just another service, but the foundation and also the central control function which allows all other services to be delivered, controlled and managed.

Of course any business needs more reason than this to invest in a new market. Part of the reason that CSPs have been a little slow to the game in Smart Cities is some uncertainty about the scale and content of the role they must play, in terms of the proportion of the M2M value chain they can address and the number of devices that will be “visible” to their networks. If you take a closer look at both of these factors, the reason for the shift in focus becomes clearer.

In a recently completed M2M device modelling project, Alcatel-Lucent’s Bell Labs Business Modelling team looked at the global number of M2M devices and their exposure to the Network (or Central Nervous System) of the city, and the proportion of the value chain that is realistically accessible. Previously there have been many estimates of the number of devices, and how it grows through to 2020 – some with a more convincing foundation than others. In the Bell Labs Business Modelling study we subscribe to the Machina Research concept of a “Revenue Generating Unit” or RGU, to further qualify the relevance of the connected device to the network. Broadly speaking the RGU is a logical entity as opposed to the actual device which is a physical entity, and is the unit for revenue as well as traffic generation and forecasting. This metric is more interesting and useful to the non-device vendors, such as Operators.

Surprisingly perhaps, this number is a substantial 75% of the total number of devices, and includes all devices visible to the network except PCs, TVs and handheld mobile devices, and also excludes RFID tags by definition. This is the true representation of the number of relevant devices in the network and the global number is coming out at around 9 billion by 2020. Furthermore, the model estimates that approximately 15-20% of the total revenue generated is accessible to the CSP. If you take these 2 findings together this puts the Total Addressable Market (TAM) for the CSP at a whopping $200b globally. Not all of this is realisable in the Smart City context of course, but never-the-less it explains the increasing willingness of the CSPs to focus on the Smart City scene. And let us not forget that CSP can mean more than the traditional Telcos; increasingly we are seeing incidences where vertical players are showing a willingness to become a wider Service Provider, for example utility companies offering Telco-style services or becoming “Utelcos” such as the example of EPB in Chattanooga Tennessee or EWZ in Zurich.

Far from being “just another vertical”, the Telecoms Operators stand alone as the only part of the M2M ecosystem that have both the capability, the enterprise relationships and the business case to cross the verticals in a Smart City environment. Governments of course have the motivation to do this but as yet, no clear business case or engagement models and no capability. It is no wonder that when you match the Operator’s assets to credible market opportunity research, you get exactly what we are witnessing now; a resurgence of interest in the Smart City opportunity by the Telcos, strongly exemplified by the discussions we have seen at Mobile World Congress this year.

Source: M2MNOW.BIZ, By: Rob Parkes

Cisco's Booming Business in Smart Cities

2012-02-29T14:30:00.002+04:00

Our world is increasingly an urban one--the United Nations projects that nearly 5 billion people will live in cities by the year 2030, due to both the expansion of mega-cities and the creation of new urban centers. Cisco wants to be the company that makes all those metropolises not just function, but flourish.

The company is peddling its knowledge and its services to city planners around the world, and last week it announced that it had picked up three important new customers. Developers in India, Ecuador, and Canada have asked Cisco to come up with master plans for fully wired communities. Presumably if the customers like the results they'll ask Cisco to put its plans into action.

It's important progress in a growing business sector: Cisco has estimated that smart cities offer a $13 billion market opportunity just in the next five years. "Last year we were explaining to communities and developers why smart communities were necessary, and why it’s important to build a 21st century city," Hardik Bhatt, director of Cisco's Smart+Connected Communities initiative, told me in an interview. "Now the discussion is moving into how to do it."

Cisco has a showcase in Songdo, a city we reported on last year that's rising in South Korea on land reclaimed from the Yellow Sea. The project is notable for both its bright green credentials--public transit, green space, and water conservation systems abound--and also for its sophisticated IT nervous system, courtesy of Cisco. Apartments throughout the city are being equipped with Cisco's TelePresence units for video conferencing, and the company is constructing a central control room that it says will allow government departments and utilities to leverage real-time information to improve city services, including public safety, traffic management, and energy conservation.

Even though Songdo isn't fully built-out yet, and it's still not clear if or when the most ambitious elements of the project will come to pass, Cisco is hoping to replicate that model around the world. "Songdo was the first customer deployment," says Marc Musgrove, a Cisco spokesman. "That model is migrating to places like Barcelona. We have a number of very interesting pilot projects there, like parking space management and how to route the buses more effectively. Barcelona is using the IT platform that we’re developing to give managers access to a pool of data."

Cisco's newly announced customers include the Delhi Mumbai Industrial Corridor Development Company, which is in charge of creating a vibrant urban landscape along the roughly 1400-kilometer train route that links Delhi and Mumbai. The developer expects to revamp some existing municipalities and build some new ones to reach a total of 24 cities; Cisco is now working on the IT master plan for the first two pilot cities, Dholera in the state of Gujarat and Shendra in Maharashtra.

Another new customer is the government of Guayaquil, the most populous city in Ecuador, which wants an IT plan that will allow it to upgrade health care, education, public safety, and e-government services. Finally, a developer in Toronto, Canada has asked Cisco for help with a new residential and commercial development in the north sector of the city.

Source: IEEE Spectrum, By: Eliza Strickland

Google plans home entertainment system

2012-02-26T16:05:00.003+04:00

Internet search giant reportedly planning move into consumer electronics with a new music streaming system controlled by Android smartphones

Google is planning a major push into home entertainment with a new music streaming system controlled by Android smartphones.

The internet giant will make its first move into consumer electronics later this year, unveiling a Google-branded product that can wirelessly play music on other devices in the home, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Google indicated a push into home entertainment at its I/O developer conference in May 2011, briefly showing off a music system dubbed Project Tungsten that could be controlled by Android-based handsets.

The company recently filed a request with the US Federal Communications Commission for permission to test what it called an entertainment device.

The ambitious plans would intensify its rivalry with Apple, whose Apple TV product allows users to play music and YouTube videos through television sets, and bring the internet company into competition with consumer electronics firms such as Sony and Panasonic.

Google's new system would play songs from its recently-launched music player on Google-designed speakers and other devices, reports the Wall Street Journal. The paper says that Google hopes to undercut the high-end home music retailer Sonos, which sells wireless systems.

The Google engineering director, Joe Britt, hinted at the company's home music plans at the company's I/O conference last year.

Britt showed off an "Android at home hub" at the San Francisco-based conference, featuring a Project Tungsten device running Androidsoftware.

"A Tungsten device runs the Android OS and the Android at Home software framework. It's always powered on and always connected to the cloud," Britt said.

"It has audio out [meaning it can play music] and these examples can connect to either speakers or my home stereo system."

Britt said the devices would operate its music storage system launched last year. "You can imagine that this device is playing music in your living room," Britt said, before demonstrating the device being operated by someone using an Android-powered tablet computer.

"You can enjoy your music synchronised throughout your house, all streaming Music Beta ... since the boxes are running Android, they just pull the music directly from the music library in the cloud."

Google also confirmed this week it had hired Simon Prakash, the senior director of product integrity at Apple, ramping up talk of a major move by the internet firm into home entertainment.

Google declined to comment.

Source: The Guardian, By: Josh Halliday