Author: entelechyasia

Entelechy Asia is passionate about technology -- from the home to the enterprise, and telecommunications. We deliver news, views and reviews from Asia from the perspectives of practitioners and followers.
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Consumer 3D printing not quite there yet

GartnerWhile 3D printing is a much talked about topic these days with several startups getting crowdfunding to deliver such solutions, Gartner beileves that the technology is five to 10 years away from mainstream adoption.

The research firm pointed out that consumer adoption will be outpaced by business and medical applications that have more compelling use cases in the short term.

“Consumer 3D printing is around five to 10 years away from mainstream adoption. Today, approximately 40 manufacturers sell the 3D printers most commonly used in businesses, and over 200 startups worldwide are developing and selling consumer-oriented 3D printers, priced from just a few hundred dollars. However, even this price is too high for mainstream consumers at this time, despite broad awareness of the technology and considerable media interest,” said Pete Basiliere, Research Vice President of Gartner.

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Intel, NVIDIA and Qualcomm charge into automotive head-unit processor market

Tesla

Intel, NVIDIA and Qualcomm are leaders in their respective markets but all of them have set their eyes on and foot into the automotive market. Building on their leading edge technologies, these consumer chipmakers have developed solutions that are competing against established automotive chipset suppliers such as Freescale, Renesas, TI, and STMicroelectronics.

The reason is clear as the automotive head-unit processor market is expected to grow from US$680 million in 2013 to US$1.95 billion in 2020, according to ABI Research.

“Automotive head-units are transitioning from proprietary architectures requiring long development cycles and Tier1-led integration efforts towards platform designs. Ford set the tone back in 2007 with its SYNC solution based on CPU hardware from Freescale and the Windows Embedded OS allowing quicker development time frames and independence from the previously dominant Tier 1 suppliers,”said Dominique Bonte, Vice President and Practice Director of ABI Research.

Continue reading Intel, NVIDIA and Qualcomm charge into automotive head-unit processor market
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NVIDIA unveils new Quadro lineup

NVIDIA QuadroNVIDIA has unveiled its next generation of NVIDIA Quadro GPUs — the K5200, K4200, K2200, K620, and K420.

The new lineup delivers an enterprise-grade visual computing platform with up to twice the application performance and data-handling capability of the previous generation.

“The next generation of Quadro GPUs not only dramatically increases graphics and compute performance to handle huge data sets. It extends the concept of visual computing from a graphics card in a workstation to a connected environment. The new Quadro lineup lets users interact with their designs or data locally on a workstation, remotely on a mobile device or in tandem with cloud-based services,” said Jeff Brown, Vice President of Professional Visualisation at NVIDIA.

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Global smartphone shipment soars past 300m units in Q2

DIDCemand for smartphones are on the rise with more 301.3 million units shipped worldwide in Q2, up 25.3 percent from the 240.5 million units shipped in the corresponding quarter last year, according to IDC.

The dominant smartphone operating systems (OS), Android and iOS, saw their combined market share swell to 96.4 percent for the quarter, leaving little space for competitors.

Android was the primary driver with its vendor partners shipping a total of 255.3 million Android-based smartphones in Q2, up 33.3 percent year over year. Meanwhile, iOS saw its market share decline despite posting 12.7 percent year-over-year shipment growth. While Android and iOS both realised gains from a year ago, the rest of the market recorded losses.

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Iray VCA renamed NVIDIA VCA to reflect expanded support

NVIDIA VCAAt GPU Technology Conference in March, NVIDIA introduced Iray VCA (Visual Computing Appliance). Today, NVIDIA has renamed the appliance as NVIDIA VCA to reflect its expanded industry support for GPU rendering across multiple applications.

NVIDIA VCA dramatically accelerates ray tracing, enabling users to interact with computer models of such high visual fidelity that it can eliminate the need for 3D physical prototypes. In addition to native support of NVIDIA Iray, Chaos Group is supporting V-Ray RT on VCA for Autodesk 3ds Max, with Autodesk Maya, McNeel Rhino, and Trimble SketchUp for later in the year. Dassault Systemes 3DXCITE Bunkspeed support is also scheduled for later this year.

The scalable, network-attached GPU rendering appliance comes with eight high-end NVIDIA GPUs and is designed to do just one thing — provide designers and artists with the fastest and easiest way to create photorealistic images of their creations. It’s claimed to be so fast that designers can interact with their models or scenes in real-time rather than waiting minutes or even hours for rendered images to come back. This means that designers can study the play of light and reflection from their designs and catch flaws like glare on the interior windshield of a digital car model or see how the lobby of a proposed office building will look at different times of day.

Continue reading Iray VCA renamed NVIDIA VCA to reflect expanded support
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Shenzhen hosts SIGGRAPH Asia for the first time in December

SIGGRAPH Asia 2014SIGGRAPH Asia 2014, Asia’s largest computer graphics (CG) event, will be held in Shenzhen, China, for the first time from December 3 to 6

More than 7,700 attendees from over 60 countries are expected at the conference and exhibition, which will feature a myriad of experts and exhibits in fields such as hardware and software, film and game production, as well as research and education.

The conference will include a Business Symposium, dealing with discussions related to the business, creative management, production and efficiency, as well as best practices of the computer graphics industry; Computer Animation Festival that showcases the most innovative and compelling of international animation and visual effects works; courses on contemporary topics in computer graphics and interactive techniques, and a showcase of emerging technologies which features hands-on demonstrations and installations focusing on virtual reality, augmented reality, robotics, wearable devices, 3D graphics, haptic devices and more .

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Chromebook sales to nearly triple by 2017

Acer Chromebook 13Acer has launched the Acer Chromebook 13, its first 13-inch Chromebook as well as the first Chromebook to use the NVIDIA Tegra K1 processor, which gives the new Chromebook a performance edge and longer battery life of up to 13 hours.

This rollout should help Acer concretise its position as the number in the Chromebook market, behind leader Samsung, which had 64.9 percent market share in 2013.

Gartner expects sales of Chromebooks to reach 5.2 million units this year, a 79 percent increase from 2013. By 2017, sales of Chromebooks are set to nearly triple to reach 14.4 million units.

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Tablet growth stagnates, notebook decline eases

CanalysWorldwide PC shipment hit 123.9 million units in Q2, representing year-on-year growth of 14 percent, according to Canalys. With no sequential growth, the positive effect that tablets have had on overall PC shipments is beginning to wear off.

Tablet shipment in Asia Pacific (including China) came in 8 percent below Q1 numbers, mainly due to a fall in shipment by Apple and Samsung.

Apple continued to lead the market with a 14 percent market share, though a 10 percent increase in Mac shipments could not make up for a decline in iPad sales, resulting in the company’s overall shipments declining by 5 percent.

Continue reading Tablet growth stagnates, notebook decline eases
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India security market on track for 8% growth this year

GartnerSecurity vendor revenue (hardware, software and services) in India will grow from US$882 million in 2013 to US$953 million this year, according to Gartner.

Security spending will continue to grow to reach $1.06 billion next year. Security services (including consulting, implementation, support, and managed security services) revenue accounted for more than 55 percent of this total revenue in 2013 and this trend will continue into the foreseeable future.

“Enterprises in India that traditionally did not focus on, or invest in, a lot of security technologies are now beginning to realize the implications that a weak security and risk posture can have on their business,” said Sid Deshpande, Principal Research Analyst ofGartner.

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Facebook detaches Messenger

Facebook DislikeMessaging on Facebook will become a little more inconvenient as Messenger will become a separate app from Facebook app. This means that messaging will no longer be possible with the Facebook app.

Here’s what Facebook just sent:

We wanted to let you know that messages are moving out of the Facebook app to our Messenger app, a free app that’s faster and more reliable for everyday messaging. Messenger also includes new ways to send photos and videos, voice calls, stickers, group conversations and more.

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Chinese smartphone vendors outpace market

IDCApple and Samsung, beware! Chinese smartphone vendors are hot on your heels. According to IDC, a wide range of Chinese OEMs more than outpaced the market in Q2, with Huawei nearly doubling its shipment from a year ago, followed by Lenovo.

Huawei’s growth is spurred by 4G LTE pick up, particularly in China, as all three national carriers subsidised 4G handsets to encourage consumers to upgrade from 3G. Outside of China, large volumes of its lower-cost Y series fueled growth across most regions. The company continues to focus on broadening its global reach and the Q2 results show that the momentum is undoubtedly there.

Lenovo had a record quarter in China despite tremendous pressure from local brands. During the quarter, Lenovo saw increased success from the A788T and the 3G A388T. While its Motorola acquisition is undergoing approval, Lenovo continued to gain traction in international markets. Though less than five percent of Lenovo’s shipments were registered outside of China in Q2 2013, this share nearly tripled this Q2, with emerging markets, particularly BRIC countries, picking up the largest volumes.

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HK retailers increasingly aware of video surveillance benefits

Axis CommunicationsHong Kong retailers believe that video surveillance has a direct impact on internal and external losses, according to a survey by Centre for Retail Research commissioned by Axis Communications

While about 96 percent of HK retailers agreed that CCTV has had a direct reduction on the level of internal and external losses they had incurred, only 58 percent are using surveillance solution to prevent theft.

Four in five respondents think they had reduced loss by a rate of 11 percent or more. Retailers also believe the use of CCTV in the premises can help increased safety and security for customers (77.8 percent) and staff (66.7 percent), similarly providing better evidence material (74.1 percent).

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Mobile data to overtake voice in Malaysia in 2017

IDCMobile data is expected to bring in more revenue than mobile voice in Malaysia in 2017, according to IDC.
Despite the penetration rate of Malaysian mobile users exceeding 140 percent and high prepaid-postpaid ratio, mobile operators have still been able to maintain their revenue growth. Total revenue has grown by 35 percent in the last three years, and IDC expects the revenue to continue to grow to RM27.6 billion in 2018 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 2.6 percent.
“Mobile data revenue will continue to grow strongly at CAGR of 8.5 percent and become the main driver of the total mobile revenue in the next five years,” said Alfie Amir, Research Manager of Telecommunications at IDC Malaysia.
Continue reading Mobile data to overtake voice in Malaysia in 2017
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Curvaceous HTC One E8 designed for selfies

HTC One E8With a 5MP front-facing wide-angle camera and auto self-timer, the newly-introduced HTC One E8 is designed for selfies. On the other side is a 13MP rear-facing camera.

The stylish HTC One (E8) with its elegant dual curve design also comes with new materials, Motion Launch and HTC BoomSound. A five-inch device features a full HD, borderless display for a cleaner viewing experience.

“The HTC One (M8) had set a new smartphone standard and now we’re taking it in another exciting direction. Combining style and substance, the HTC One (E8) represents the incredible experience people expect from a HTC One device, with a look and feel that’s unlike anything else out there today. If you’re looking for the best flagship smartphone experience and want to stand out from the crowd, this is the phone for you,” said  Jack Yang, President of HTC South Asia.

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NVIDIA adds another SHIELD — an 8-inch tablet for gamers!

SHIELD_family_Titanfall

The new incarnation of the NVIDIA SHIELD has arrived but it comes in a different form factor, albeit an exciting one for gamers.

The SHIELD tablet and the SHIELD wireless controller combine to take mobile gaming to another level. Together, they sport and leverage a variety of NVIDIA technologies, such as SHIELD, NVIDIA Tegra K1,  DirectStylus 2, ShadowPlay, GameStream, and GRID cloud gaming.

Let’s talk about the SHIELD tablet first. Designed and built by NVIDIA, it is a high-performance tablet powered by the NVIDIA Tegra K1 advanced mobile processor and supplemented by regular, over-the-air software upgrades that bring new capabilities and levels of performance.

Continue reading NVIDIA adds another SHIELD — an 8-inch tablet for gamers!
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APAC PC market matches Q2 expectations

IDCThe Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) PC market grew two percent from last quarter and declined 10 percent year-on-year in Q2 to reach 24.3 million units, coming in marginally higher than IDC’s initial forecasts, according to the research firm’s preliminary results.
In India, shipments to an ongoing large education project came in earlier than expected, adding about 100,000 units to the commercial PC segment. Thailand’s coup d’état, on the other hand, resulted in a steep double-digit annual decline as channels were wary to take in shipments. Microsoft’s Bing programme is ramping up in the region’s emerging markets, with Malaysia being the first to come in strong this quarter.
“The ongoing economic slowness in the emerging markets sets the tone of the overall PC demand and inhibited the region’s year-on-year growth. There are pockets of optimism coming from mature markets such as ANZ, Singapore, and Hong Kong, where the smartphones and tablets near saturation. However, the region’s growth has been adversely impacted with the rise of large-screen smartphones in China and most ASEAN countries,” said Handoko Andi, Research Manager for Client Devices Research of IDC Asia/Pacific.
Continue reading APAC PC market matches Q2 expectations
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ZTE mobile phones get Google Now Launcher

ZTE Blade Vec 4GZTE has pre-loaded Google Now Launcher on its smartphones to offer improved user experience and better value to users. It plans to pre-load Google Now Launcher on all Android 4.4 and above smartphones that have Google Mobile Services and Google Play enabled. 

ZTE has worked closely with Google to pre-load Google Now Launcher onto several ZTE devices, including the Blade Vec 4G smartphone, which runs on Android 4.4 and sports the Snapdragon 400 processor with integrated multi-mode 3G/4G LTE designed to deliver a better user experience.

The ZTE Blade Vec 4G and one other ZTE premium device will be officially presented at a ZTE press conference to be held in Hong Kong on July 24.

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NVIDIA GRID Test Drive comes to SEA and Australia

NVIDIANVIDIA has availed GRID Test Drive in Southeast Asia and Australia. GRID Test Drive is a simple and secure way to test the power of NVIDIA’s GRID technology for cloud-delivered graphics acceleration.

NVIDIA GRID technology allows knowledge workers and high-end graphics users such as engineers and designers to utilise graphics-rich applications through the cloud anywhere on any device – with the same quality and performance they would have on a professional workstation.

As the demand for virtualised desktop infrastructure (VDI) continues to grow, NVIDIA’s GRID Test Drive allows anyone considering VDI, or those frustrated with the performance of their current VDI deployment, to easily test GRID for free and experience the difference of having powerful graphics behind their remote desktops and applications, without first having to build a proof-of-concept private cloud.

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PC market on slow road to recovery

GartnerWorldwide combined shipment of devices (PCs, tablets, ultramobiles and mobile phones) are expected to reach 2.4 billion units in 2014, a 4.2 percent increase from 2013, according to Gartner.

After declining 9.5 percent in 2013, the global PC market (desktop, notebook and premium ultramobile) is on pace to contract only 2.9 percent in 2014.

“2014 will be marked by a relative revival of the global PC market. This year, we anticipate nearly 60 million professional PC replacements in mature markets,” said Ranjit Atwal, Research Director of Gartner.

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Tablets to bridge smartphone-notebook gap

frost and sullivanSmartphones (71 percent) and notebooks (74 percent) are widely issued by enterprises. However, according to a Frost & Sullivan  survey, only 47 percent of enterprises issue tablets to their employees. The research firm expects these devices to bridge this gap over the next three years as many of the more data-intensive mobile applications migrate over to tablets.

By 2016, the use of smartphones is expected to decrease from 66 percent to 58 percent, while tablets are expected to increase from 49 percent to 56 percent. Interestingly, while almost 60 percent of enterprises allow personal devices to be connected to the corporate network, only four out of 10 IT decision makers report that their company has a formal bring your own device (BYOD) policy in place.

“Approximately 58 percent of large enterprises have a formal BYOD policy, while only 20 percent of small businesses have a standardised policy. The most common method of enforcing BYOD policies is through network technology solutions at 67 percent, followed by mobile device management at 61 percent,” said Karolina Olszewskan, Research Analyst of Frost & Sullivan.

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ZTE moots pre-5G concept

ZTEWith a highly-connected world where fast Internet access is vital, ZTE has pushed the envelope a little further with its pre-5G concept shared at LTE World Summit 2014 in Nice, France.

It has announced that under certain conditions, some 5G technologies can provide a 5G-like user experience on 4G terminals without changing the air interface standards.

“With next-generation 5G technologies being deployed in 2020, there were industry concerns over what technologies will be used in the next six years. To address this, ZTE proposes to apply some of the 5G technology on top of 4G to meet users’ requirements,” said Dr Xiang Jiying, CTO of wireless products at ZTE.

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Huawei secures railway LTE project

SHRHuawei has won the bid for the Shenhua Group Corporation’s Shuo Huang Railway (SHR) LTE project.

One of the largest coal supplying and trading companies, Shenhua has developed and implemented the world’s first LTE network for heavy-haul railways. SHR, with an operating route length of 594km, is a critical railway section for China’s West-to-East Coal Transfer project.

Shenhua hopes to expand the railway’s capacity to transfer 350 million tons of coal and needed to maintain efficient and safe operations of 20,000-ton capacity heavy-haul trains. A wireless broadband system was required to communicate between the master-slave locomotives located at both ends of trains, which could be up to 2.5km apart. The railway’s 800MHz and 400kHz communications system would not be able to support the expansion with its limited coverage distance and low reliability.

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Gartner acquires Q&A platform

Gartner has acquired Senexx, a cloud-based question and answer platform that identifies and manages expertise within organisations. It will leverage Senexx’s proven expertise to significantly enhance its web search capability and augment its content recommendation engine and […]

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More consumers buying 3D printers

Canalys3D printing has been all the rage this past year. And that’s now backed up by figures that show that this technology is gaining traction. According to Canalys, 26,800 3D printers were shipped worldwide in Q1.

What’s interesting is that while most were purchased by enterprises, 46 percent were bought by consumers, up from 43 percent last year.

“While enterprise engagement will continue to grow, it looks to be the consumer space that will drive shipments in the near future. We are already seeing significant numbers of early technology adopters and hobbyists investing in relatively cheap 3D printers. As prices continue to fall, the technology improves and use cases are tested, this trend is set to continue,” said Tim Shepherd, Senior Analyst of Canalys.

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Violin Memory boosts enterprise flash storage with data services software

Concerto 7000

Violin Memory has given enterprises a boost with its new Concerto™ 7000 All Flash Array, which comes with comprehensive data services software for synchronous and asynchronous replication, stretch metro cluster, storage snapshots, thin provisioning, logical unit number (LUN) and capacity expansion, advanced data protection, and storage scaling.

With these data services, enterprises and cloud service providers can have greater business agility, consolidate data centre resources and leverage new business opportunities.

Critical elements of Violin’s Concerto enterprise data services software include continuous data protection, WAN optimised replication and in-flight encryption that can all be configured on a LUN-by-LUN basis, giving enterprises the ability to tailor the solution to their unique deployment and data centre requirements.

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NVIDIA GPU accelerators powering ARM64 HPC systems

E4 EK003
The E4 EK003 dual-motherboard server appliance features two Tesla K20 GPU accelerators

Server vendors are leveraging the performance of NVIDIA graphics processor unit (GPU) accelerators for 64-bit ARM development systems for high performance computing (HPC).

ARM64 server processors were primarily designed for micro-servers and web servers because of their extreme energy efficiency. Coupled with GPU accelerators using the NVIDIA CUDA 6.5 parallel programming platform, they can now tackle HPC-class workloads.

GPUs provide ARM64 server vendors with the muscle to tackle HPC workloads, enabling them to build high-performance systems that maximise the ARM architecture’s power efficiency and system configurability.

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Adobe Illustrator CC gets GPU acceleration

NVIDIANVIDIA has announced the first GPU-acceleration of Adobe Illustrator CC – enabling graphic artists to seamlessly interact with vector art at any resolution, and to smoothly pan and zoom significantly faster than previously possible. With this new feature powered by NVIDIA GPUs, Illustrator CC can now accelerate the entire canvas by up to 10-times faster than previously possible on Windows 7 or 8-based systems with compatible GPUs.

GPU acceleration in Illustrator CC specifically benefits the wide range of users working with 2D vector graphics, including graphic designers, illustrators and typographers creating media across web, print, mobile and more. While GPU acceleration is the norm in 3D content creation, those working in 2D have traditionally been restricted to driving all computing performance through the CPU. Now 2D artists and designers can experience fully interactive performance with even the most complex, high-resolution graphics.

This new Illustrator CC performance boost is based on an optimised NVIDIA technology called NV Path Rendering that is implemented as an extension to OpenGL, an open standard for graphics performance.

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NetApp introduces storage system platforms

NetAppNetApp has rolled out two new storage system platforms—the extreme-performance FAS8080 EX and the entry value-priced FAS2500. The FAS8080 EX lets growing organisations and service providers drive the performance-intensive SAN and NAS workloads while the FAS2500 hybrid arrays simplify operations, increase productivity through superior integration with ecosystem, extend system life, and minimise future costs.

Designed for demanding business-critical applications, the FAS8080 EX scales to four million IOPS of performance and offers advanced quality-of-service capabilities to enable predictable performance that meets or exceeds challenging service-level objectives. It can be configured either as an all-flash array with more than 4.6PB (petabytes) of flash storage or as a hybrid array with an industry-leading flash cache of nearly half a petabyte.

Additionally, the FAS8080 EX dynamically responds to growing data requirements with seamless scaling to nearly 70PB of capacity and more than 600 I/O connections, which are critical for service providers and large organisations that are consolidating workloads.

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Samsung keeps lead in tablet space

abi researchSamsung has retained its pole position in ABI Research’s tablet vendor Competitive Assessment. In the analysis of 23 leading tablet vendors, ABI Research ranked companies on several criteria for product implementation and vendor innovation. The Korean giant prevailed in the innovation category and finished second in the implementation strategy.

Close behind Samsung in second place is Apple. Clearly dominating in shipment volume, Apple has been a strong contender in the tablet ecosystem. Apple places number one in implementation strategy but comes in close second for innovation. The two leading tablet makers have managed to stay ahead of other tablet OEM vendors.

In third place is Lenovo, which has done a great job of expanding its tablet portfolio by marketing to a large audience range and providing unique user interfaces.

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GST implementation a boon for enterprise application market in Malaysia

IDCWhile the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is not welcomed by most Malaysians, the move is expected to drive growth in the enterprise application (EA) market.

According to IDC, the tax initiative will be a boost to EA vendors as it forces business to either upgrade or replace their legacy system with a system that is GST compliant.

“With GST coming into effect in the early part of 2015, we predict there will be a scramble from the businesses to be fully GST ready in line with government regulations and the implementation will be one of the catalysts for growth in Malaysian EA market for 2014 and possibly in 2015 as well,” said Wong Yih-Khai, Market Analyst of Software at IDC Malaysia.

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Sweet on cloud

Cotton candy — what a simple, yet powerful illustration of the cloud. That’s what Acer offered at its booth at Computex, where visitors were treated to the sweet creation. It’s the Taiwanese IT giant’s way […]

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Simply amazing! 4K and G-SYNC make gaming a dream come true

NVIDIA Gamer's Day crowdIt’s Dragon Boat Festival, a public holiday in Taiwan but instead of choosing to run off for the holidays, hundreds of young gamers made a beeline to ATT where NVIDIA held the NVIDIA Gamer’s Day as a run up to Computex, which starts tomorrow.

From the moment the event kicked off at noon, there was no holding back the enthusiasm as the crowd checked out the latest and greatest in gaming technologies such as 4K monitors, G-SYNC, GameStream, ShadowPlay, SHIELD, GeForce GTX 700 series GPUs, and GeForce GTX 800M series-enabled notebooks. They took photos, touched, played with, and experienced the gaming devices first hand. Watch Dogs, AC4 Black Flag and Daylight were among the games on offer.

A team of five amateur gamers blew aside all the competition by winning six consecutive games to take home a whopping US$10,000.

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NVIDIA clinches Computex Best Choice Awards for Tegra K1 and GRID

Best Choice AwardNVIDIA has done the double by snaring the Computex Best Choice Award for its NVIDIA GRID technology and the Golden Award for the NVIDIA Tegra K1 mobile processor.

This is the sixth year running that NVIDIA has picked up the award, marking the  longest winning streak of any international Computex exhibitor. More than 475 technology products from nearly 200 vendors competed for this year’s recognition.

Tegra K1 is a 192-core super chip, built on the NVIDIA Kepler architecture — the world’s most advanced and energy-efficient GPU. Tegra K1’s 192 fully programmable CUDA cores deliver the most advanced mobile graphics and performance, and its compute capabilities open up many new applications and experiences in fields such as computer vision, advanced imaging, speech recognition and video editing.

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Huawei successfully tests 10Gbps wi-fi

HuaweiJust as consumers are enthusing about 1Gbps fibre broadband, Huawei has upped the ante in wi-fi speed with the successful testing of 10Gbps wi-fi  in laboratory trials at its Shenzhen campus.

This is a significant milestone, as it is marks the dawn of a new era in big data applications using ultra-fast wi-fi technology to boost data rates to 10Gbps.

The 10Gbps prototype achieved a record transmission data rate of 10.53Gbps on 5GHz frequency bands. The success of this prototype development, and the tenfold increase in spectrum efficiency that made it possible, paves the way for the validation of technologies needed to support the creation of next generation wi-fi.

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India PC market sluggish in Q1

IDCThe India PC market continued to slide in Q1, largely due to poor end-user demand, according to IDC. Overall PC shipment was 2.03 million units, representing a year-on-year drop of 25.2 percent over Q1 2013.

The Commercial PC segment accounted for 1.02 million units, showing a marginal increase of 4.1 percent sequentially over Q4 2013.

“The overall Commercial PC market showed first signs of improvement over the last 9-10 months as investment activities have improved in the banking and government verticals. Vendors are optimistic about the overall market sentiments and believe it will pick up gradually among other verticals too in the course of 2014,” said Kiran Kumar, Research Manager of Client Devices at IDC India.

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Samsung Galaxy K zoom LTE available for pre-order in Singapore

Samsung KzoomThe next incarnation of Samsung’s camera specialised smartphone is available for pre-orders in Singapore till May 31. Pre-odered Samsung Galaxy K zoom LTE will come with a redeemable accessory gift pack (worth S$148) consisting of an Autopop Protective Cover, a 3,100 mAh Battery Pack, and a 8GB microSD Card while stocks last.

The Samsung Galaxy K zoom LTE features effortless capturing ability, real optics, and a premium design, offering users the mobile solutions they need with the ability to create professional-quality visual content in a fun, easy–to-use device.

“As the only smartphone on the market that features a unique retracting lens with 10x optical zoom, and a slim design that appeals with an ergonomic grip and sleek modern look, the Galaxy K zoom LTE is ideal for the mobile user who wants the most powerful camera system in a smartphone,” said Irene Ng, Vice President, Marketing of Samsung Asia.

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Xiaomi introduces NVIDIA Tegra K1-powered Mi Pad

MiPad familyXiaomi introduced a slew of products in Beijing yesterday and one that really stood out was Mi Pad, it first tablet powered by the ultra-fast NVIDIA Tegra K1 mobile processor.

Sporting a 7.9-inch display with 2,048 x 1,536 resolution, this tablet comes with very long battery life — its 6700 mAh battery is good for up to 1300 hours of standby time or 11 hours of video streaming. It features 8MP rear and 5MP front cameras, 2GB of RAM, and 16GB or 64GB of built-in memory. If more storage is needed, there’s a microSD slot.

What’s amazing is under the hood. Powering the Mi Pad is the 192-core NVIDIA Tegra K1 mobile processor, which is based on the parallel processing GPU architecture found in the world’s most powerful supercomputers.

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Motorola Solutions delivers cloud-ready wifi services

Motorola SolutionsEnterprises have more options for deployment cost effective wireless local area networks (WLAN). Motorola Solutions’ new VX 9000 is a scalable WLAN cloud solution backed by the functionality of Motorola’s robust NX hardware controller.

The VX 9000 software-based virtualised controller supports up to 25,000 access points in a single instance and can scale to support multiple instances.

Motorola’s new NX 7500 multi-service platform is designed for mid-size enterprises and campus environments and offers comprehensive management of more than 2,000 access points. Powered by WiNG 5, the NX 7500 ensures optimal RF performance, speed and throughput by enabling every transmission to follow the fastest and most efficient route to its destination.

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Technology keeps New Zealanders indoor

IDCBeautiful scenery, spectacular views and natural landscape make New Zealand a wonderful place to delight in outdoor activities. It’s no wonder then that New Zealanders are known to spend lots of time enjoying  outdoor activities.

However, technology seems to be changing the way New Zealanders live. According to IDC, New Zealand consumers are choosing to go out less often for shopping and leisure activities, as they prefer to do these activities in the comfort of their own home, thanks to advances in technology.

The new data reveals that 47 percent of respondents would prefer to do personal shopping online, rather than in a physical store.

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Mobile by entelechyasia

PC shipment up 5% but tablet growth slows in Q1

Worldwide client PC shipment rose five percent year on year to hit 123.7 million units in Q1 , according to Canalys. Growth in tablet shipments slowed to 21 percent, yet at 50.8 million units they continue to outship notebooks. Tablets accounted for 41 percent of the market while notebooks had 38 percent.

Notebooks and desktops in China declined 13 percent and six percent respectively compared with the previous year.

In the tablet market, there was strong growth in the Middle East (100 percent) and Greater China (74 percent). The US market was adversely affected by a drop in Apple iPad shipment, which fell 40 percent. This was offset somewhat by 20 percent growth in China, Apple’s second largest market. Worldwide, iPad shipments in Q1 fell 16 percent year on year to 16.4 million and accounted for 80 percent of Apple’s total PC shipments. Despite this, Apple continued to lead the global PC market. Its share fell both sequentially and year on year from 20 to 17 percent, due chiefly to the increasingly competitive tablet market.

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Mobile by entelechyasia

Global tablet shipment misses target

IDCWorldwide tablet plus 2-in-1 shipments slipped to 50.4 million units in Q1, according to preliminary data from IDC. The total represents a sequential decline of 35.7 percent from the high-volume holiday quarter and just 3.9 percent growth over the same period a year ago. The slowdown was felt across operating systems and screen sizes and likely points to an even more challenging year ahead for the category.

“The rise of large-screen phones and consumers who are holding on to their existing tablets for ever longer periods of time were both contributing factors to a weaker-than-anticipated quarter for tablets and 2-in-1s,” said Tom Mainelli, IDC Program Vice President, Devices and Displays. “In addition, commercial growth has not been robust enough to offset the slowing of consumer shipments.”

Apple maintained its lead in the worldwide tablet plus 2-in-1 market, shipping 16.4 million units. That’s down from 26.0 million units in the previous quarter and well below its total of 19.5 million units in Q1 of 2013. Despite the contraction, the company saw its share of the market slip only modestly to 32.5 percent, down from the previous quarter’s share of 33.2 percent.

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Telecommunications by entelechyasia

Huawei maintains dominance in mobile broadband modem market

abi researchEven as mobile broadband modems and hotspot router shipments fell 21 percent year-on-year to nearly 73 million units, Huawei continued to lead the market with nearly 61 percent share. Together with fellow China company ZTE, the pair shipped more than 85 percent of all mobile broadband modems, according to ABI Research.

The overall drop in the market could be attributed to the declining PC market. USB modem sticks and embedded modem modules led the two-year slide while mobile hotspot routers increased 32 percent.

As the computing marketing continues to evolve with more performance and choices than ever before, mobile broadband modems were not impervious to the transition.

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Gadgets by entelechyasia

Smartphone chipsets used in wearables compromise user experience

abi researchSmartphone components are being used in smartwatches in lieu of optimised smartwatch components, even when claimed otherwise, according to ABI Research.

Teardowns of a number of devices found that nobody has an optimal wearable peripheral solution yet. The Samsung Galaxy Gear and Z-watch use application processors originally targeted for smartphone/tablets and the uWatch goes a step further by using a full blown GPRS SOC, MediaTek MT6260, but only uses the integrated BT. Other watches such as the Sony series and Pebble use discrete solutions. The end result is less than optimal battery life and unnecessary cost/size that get passed on to the consumer.

“Our findings show the chipset suppliers are playing the ‘wait and see’ game before making investments into wearable peripherals. Of the solutions available the oversized application processors draw too much current and cost far too much. Discrete solutions tend to be physically large and also a little higher cost than necessary. The closest match is the SOCs with embedded BT whichcan be both power and size efficient withthe only drawback being slight cost impact. Once the market takes off expect to see a number of truly optimal solutions available,” said Jim Mielke, Vice President of Engineering at ABI Research.

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Enterprise by entelechyasia

Apacer introduces SATA 3 SSD

Apacer SFD 25H-2_loApacer has launched the SATA 3 SFD 25H-M SSD, which features up to 1TB capacity with really fast sequential read/write speed of 510/420MB/second.

To cater to industrial applications, its 512GB version is also designed to operate in the harsh environment of industry-level extended temperature (-40°C ~ 85°C). The product also features anti-shock, anti-vibration, low-power consumption and high-speed transmission.

It can improve access efficiency of servers as an alternative to traditional hard disks, and provide outstanding efficiency and highly reliable operating environment. In addition, it can be applied to embedded devices for industries such as medical, military, gaming, and transportation, especially in airborne surveillance system. The SFD 25H-M is able to keep on recording data repeatedly when working at heights and in low temperatures.

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Enterprise by entelechyasia

Violin Memory and Microsoft develop and avail all-flash array solution

WFAViolin Memory has teamed up with Microsoft to develop and avail Windows Flash Array (WFA), the first all-flash high-performance storage array powered by Windows Storage Server 2012 R2. WFA is a tightly integrated combination of Windows Storage Server 2012 R2 and Violin’s award-winning hardware and software into a single solution that delivers high performance all-flash array storage for enterprise and cloud customers.

The solution is claimed to transform the datacentre by dramatically reducing server overhead and application response times through improved storage performance, fundamentally altering the cost structure of enterprise applications. It enables enterprise and cloud workloads, such as SQL Server, Microsoft SharePoint and Windows Server with Hyper-V virtualised applications, to meet the needs of global enterprises, while satisfying IT operational demands for maximised agility, automation, and orchestration between network, storage and compute resources.

“Microsoft technologies, such as Windows Server, SQL Server, and Microsoft SharePoint, are already adopted by enterprises worldwide and growing dramatically,” said Bill Laing, Corporate Vice- President of Microsoft. “By jointly developing this highly integrated solution with Violin Memory, we are working together to provide enterprise and cloud customers with dramatically improved performance, scalability, and economics for their Windows applications – virtualised, physical, and cloud.”

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Enterprise by entelechyasia

APAC PC market dips for 8th consecutive quarter

IDCThe Asia/Pacific (excluding Japan) PC market declined eight percent sequentially and 11 percent year-on-year in 2014 Q1 to reach 23.8 million units, according to preliminary results from IDC.

Elections in some of the bigger markets contributed to the region’s overall decline. In India, an ongoing large education project was postponed due to the upcoming elections, shaving off about half a million units from the commercial PC segment. In Thailand, political unrest continued to have an adverse impact on the economy, while in Indonesia, government funds were diverted in the run-up to the elections, resulting in lower commercial spending in PCs there this quarter.

“However, as these markets stabilise after the elections, IDC expects commercial activity to resume in the second half as a result of pent-up demand,” said Handoko Andi, Research Manager for Client Devices of IDC Asia/Pacific. “On the consumer side, ongoing distractions from smartphones and tablets as well as cautious channel intake impacted most markets in the region, especially in Southeast Asia.”

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Gadgets by entelechyasia

Smart mobile devices boost audio accessories sales in HK

gfk_logoHigh ownership of smartphones, tablets and phablets in Hong Kong have been positively impacting sales of complementary products such as headphones and headsets, as well as mini-speakers, according to GfK.

The surge in audio accessories sales come at the back of consumers’ fixation with smart mobile devices, having spent more than US$4.2 billion on nearly 8.4 million units of such devices in the past 12 months.

The combined market of headphones, headsets and mini-speakers generated nearly US$77 million in the last one year, reflecting a 10 percent surge over a year ago. While sales revenue for headphones and headsets expanded by nine percent, mini-speakers sold 83 percent more in volume and raked in additional 32 percent in sales dollar.

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