Qualcomm Technologies and Ericsson have completed a 5G New Radio (NR) data connection compliant with global 3GPP 5G NR Release 15 specifications in Standalone (SA) mode of operation.
Datacenters.com launches Colocation Marketplace
Datacenters.com has launched Colocation Marketplace, claimed to be the “first platform to offer transparent co-location pricing from numerous providers to all visitors in an e-commerce platform”.
China and Brazil buck trend as smartphone sales slump in Q2
The signs are not good for smartphone sales as Gartner reports a 1.7 percent decline in Q2. Bucking the trend among the top five markets are China and Brazil. China clocked up 101 million smartphone sales, up 0.5 percent year on year in Q2, to maintain its top position.
VMware makes double acquisition
Ahead of the VMWorld in San Francisco next week, VMware has announced two major acquisitions — Pivotal for US$2.7 billion and Carbon Black for US$1.9 billion.
New Ambi Climate feature balances multiple users’ needs to keep everyone cool and cosy
Keeping cool in an air-conditioned room can raise the temperature if multiple users cannot agree on the correct setting. Hong Kong-based IoT startup Ambi Labs has come up with a new feature for its Ambi Climate controller that aims to keep everyone cool and cosy.
Microsoft buys jClarity to improve Azure
Microsoft has acquired AdoptOpenJDK project contributor jClarity to drive increased performance for Java workloads on Azure.
Samsung Galaxy Note comes of age
By Edward Lim
When it was first introduced in 2011, the Samsung Galaxy Note received brickbats for its 5.3-inch screen size with critics wondering if this was a wrong move for the Korean smartphone maker. History has proven that Samsung had made the right bet as others followed suit with larger screen sizes as well.
Salesforce bags ClickSoftware
Just two months after it’s acquisition of data visualisation firm Tableau, Salesforce has gone shopping again. This time, it has bagged ClickSoftware for US$1.35 billion.
Japan to lead APAC in smartphone decline in 2019
It’s not going to be a good year for smartphones. The global market is expected to dip 2.5 percent year on year, with Japan leading with a 6.5 percent drop.
Qualcomm and Tencent Games ink MOU
Qualcomm and Tencent Games have signed a non-binding memorandum of understanding (MoU) for a strategic cooperation on digital entertainment. This includes joint efforts to optimise future projects such as Qualcomm Snapdragon-based mobile gaming devices, game content and performance optimisations, Snapdragon Elite Gaming enhancements, cloud gaming, AR/VR, 5G gaming use case developments and additional relevant technologies.
APAC GPUaaS market poised for 40 CAGR by 2025
The global GPU as a Service (GPUaaS) market is expected to jump tenfold from around US$700 million in 2018 to US$7 billion by 2025, according to Global Market Insights. The Asia-Pacific (APAC) region is expected to lead this charge with a compounded annual growth rate of more than 40 percent between 2019 and 2025.
IBM seals Red Hat deal
IBM has acquired Red Hat for US$34 billion, one of the biggest technology deals of all time — bettered only by Dell’s purchase of EMC for US$65 billion and Avago’s buyout of Broadcom for US$37 billion, both in 2015.
Private equity firm acquires Corel
Hands up if you’ve not heard of Corel before. Does the company sound vaguely familiar? Founded in the 1980s, this is a company that is well past its glory days. Corel used to be a well-known brand in the PC era with products such as Corel Draw and WinZip.
The future of database is in the cloud
Unsurprisingly, a Gartner report is predicting that three quarters of all databases will reside in the cloud by 2022. Only five percent of migration will remain on premises.
Robots to replace 20m jobs by 2030
Nearly one in 10 jobs will be replaced by robots by 2030, according to a paper released by Oxford Economics. Entitled How Robots Change the World, it highlights that up to 8.5% of the global manufacturing workforce could be displaced by industrial robots just 11 years down the road.
Explosion-proof VoIP phone, anyone?
An explosion can cause injuries to people and damage to the surroundings. Getting help is critical but what if the telecommunications equipment is also destroyed?
Malaysian teams top first Infineon-LG Hackathon
Malaysia scored big at the first Infineon LG </> Make Hackathon on breakthrough Internet of Things (IoT) solutions in Singapore on June 17.
NVIDIA empowers Arm with AI and HPC software
Giving customers choices and enabling innovation in the high performance computing (HPC) space are the key reasons why NVIDIA is providing support for Arm CPUs.
Goodbye and good riddance, iTunes!
By Edward Lim
Apple’s announcement that it is killing of iTunes is music to my ears. It’s about time!
Infineon to acquire Cypress for €9b
Semiconductor giant Infineon Technologies will be acquiring embedded solutions provider Cypress for €9.0 billion.
Taiwan’s fastest supercomputer goes online
Taiwan’s new and fastest supercomputer, Taiwania 2 is also the world’s 20th fastest and 10th most energy efficient. Made in Taiwan, it will be used by the academic and research communities at the Taiwan Computing Cloud.
Sunmi lets consumers pay with their face
Think using the smartphone is a cool way of paying? Well, that’s neat but China-based Sunmi aims to take digital payment a step further with its face-recognition payment solution.
India PC market slides in Q1
Weak consumer demand, high inventory from previous quarters, and supply issues for Intel chips are among the reasons why the India PC market slipped in Q1. According to IDC, the segment dropped 8.3 percent to 2.15 million units that quarter.
NVIDIA strikes back at Intel
Take that, Intel! GPU giant NVIDIA has fired back at Intel, which reported that its Xeon Scalable processors outperforms NVIDIA GPU on ResNet-50 deep learning Inference.
Google fires first salvo at Huawei
By Edward Lim
It was only a matter of time before the spat between the US and China went up another level. And this week, Google joined in the fight by pulling out support for China’s world number 2 phone maker Huawei.
HP Enterprise buys Cray for US$1.3b
Hewlett-Packard Enterprise (HPE) is on the acquisition trail again with the purchase of supercomputing pioneer Cray for US$1.3 billion.
Cray to build world’s fastest supercomputer for US government
The race to have the world’s fastest supercomputer has taken on a new spin with the US Department of Energy commissioning Cray to build the most powerful yet by 2021. Called Frontier, the new 1.5-exaflop supercomputer will be built on built on Cray’s Shasta supercomputing platform using AMD EPYC CPUs and Radeon Instinct GPUs.
Singapore aims for 5G in 2020
Singapore aims to roll out at least two 5G networks by 2020. With its greater reliability, lower latency and ability to connect more devices, the next generation network will enable applications such as augmented reality/virtual reality content and live streaming of 4K/8K videos.
Huawei bucks the trend as global smartphone shipment shrinks in Q1
While its competitors struggled, Huawei strode ahead and emerged the winner in the worldwide smartphone market in Q1. Though it’s still behind market leader Samsung, the China-based smartphone giant narrowed the gap with an astounding 50 percent growth in the quarter, according to IDC.
Facebook plays matchmaker
Singapore has joined 18 other countries, including Thailand, the Philippines and Vietnam, that can access Facebook Dating, the social media platform’s dating feature.
China Unicom ready for 5G rollout
China Unicom is readying to roll out 5G in China with the support of Qualcomm and in collaboration with device partners nubia, OnePlus, OPPO, Vivo, Xiaomi, and ZTE.
OnePlus 7 coming on May 14?
Leaks of the launch of the OnePlus 7 keep coming and CEO Pete Lau seemed to be fanning the flame.
Fujitsu HK appoints Tang as new GM of sales
Fujitsu Hong Kong has appointed Freddie Tang as General Manager of Sales. In his new role, Tang will oversee Fujitsu’s sales and go-to-market strategy in Hong Kong and Macau, including building relationships with strategic and enterprise customers, growing the customer base, developing new vertical markets, and optimising sales functions to achieve cost effectiveness and sales efficiency.
AMD CEO to deliver Computex 2019 keynote
This year’s Computex in Taipei will kick off with a keynote address by AMD President and CEO Lisa Su at the Computex International Press Conference on May 27 at 10am.
Worldwide cloud services to grow exponentially through 2022
Cloud services are really hot with projected growth of 17.5 percent to US$214.3 billion in 2019, according to Gartner. The momentum is expected to continue through to 2022 with the research firm projecting the market size and growth of the cloud services industry at nearly three time the growth of overall IT services.NVIDIA unveils US$99 Jetson Nano
NVIDIA Founder and CEO Jensen Huang made a slew of announcements during his near three-hour keynote address at the GPU Technology Conference last week. But among the date centre and server offerings, partnerships with leading brands and a new development in autonomous driving, one that doesn’t seem as loud and prominent could prove to be the spark to trigger a robotics tsunami.
Hope for lost photos
Have you ever accidentally deleted a photo on your mobile phone and felt really lousy afterwards? A new photo recovery tool can help ease your frustration. The newly-launched Recoverit lets you find lost photos on Android-based mobile devices.
NVIDIA to acquire Mellanox
NVIDIA has reached a US$6.9 billion agreement to acquire Mellanox, a supplier of end-to-end Ethernet and smart interconnect solutions and services for servers and storage.
NTU and Volvo launch world’s first full size, autonomous electric bus
Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and Volvo Buses have launched the world’s first full size, autonomous electric bus. The single-deck 12-metre long Volvo electric bus has a capacity of 80 passengers.Technology to shift occupational categories for 375m by 2030
The constant evolution of technology is reshaping jobs and by 2030, up to 375 million people or 14 percent of the global workforce will need to switch occupational categories.
eSIM Alliance launched
Hong Kong-based eSIM solutions provider 10T Tech has announced the launch of the eSIM Alliance, the world’s first global alliance of mobile operators (MNOs) and virtual mobile operators (MVNOs).
Thailand to trial Huawei 5G
Thailand has bucked an attempt by the United States to block Huawei by letting the Chinese telecom giant trial 5G in the country.
The day my Google Pixel died
By Edward Lim
When my trusty Google Pixel froze last week, I took it as a case of overuse and attempted a reboot. It proved to be a series of fruitless attempts as the Android-based smartphone simply could not be revived. The furthest I got was to the opening screen (see above) but there was absolutely nothing I could do there — the screen just froze again before launching into another reboot.
OnePlus 6T: Impressive, nifty and fun
By CY Lim
The OnePlus 6T has been out in the market for a couple of months now and as one who received it as a gift within the first few days of its launch, I am definitely glad I made the switch from my sluggish Oppo A77. Setting up and transferring data was a breeze especially since it was an intra-Android migration. Within an hour or so, I was ready to go.
Data scientists to get certification
Data scientist is one of the hottest jobs in the era of artificial intelligence (AI) where big data is king. IBM and The Open Group have come together to provide a certification programme for this highly-sought after job.
Singapore unveils AI governance framework
Singapore has released Asia’s first model artificial intelligence (AI) governance framework to provide detailed and readily implementable guidance to private sector organisations deploying AI solutions.
The age of AI in radiology is here
Speaking with a passion of an artificial intelligence (AI) in healthcare evangelist, Kimberly Powell declared that the age of AI in radiology is here. And she has earned the right to say that because she has been championing this since she joined NVIDIA 11 years ago.
6th edition of EmTech Asia draws more than 800 participants
Emtech Asia has grown from strength to strength since its inception. The sixth edition of the conference on emerging technologies and their impact is expected to pull in more than 800 participants from around the world. Last year’s event drew more than 700 participants.
Google avails NVIDIA Tesla T4 GPUs on Google Cloud Platform in Singapore
The Google Cloud Platform running on NVIDIA Tesla T4 GPUs (above) has been beta launched in Singapore, availing the power of GPU cloud computing to customers around the region.
IBM and T-Systems team up on mainframe services
Remember the mainframe? It used to rule the world of computing and was presumed by some to be extinct when the advent of Intel-based servers and GPU-powered supercomputers. Presumed is the key word here because the mainframe is still alive and kicking though it does not command the clout that it did in the past.
SenseTime sets up autonomous driving site in Japan
Leading China-based AI company SenseTime has unveiled an autonomous driving park in Joso, Japan. The testing course will be used to develop autonomous driving technology and conduct road tests of autonomous vehicles.
Finally, an affordable ray tracing GPU from NVIDIA!
When NVIDIA launched on last August the first GeForce RTX GPUs with ray tracing capabilities, fans were excited but taken aback by the the price tag. Costing from US$499, the three cards — the GeForce RTX 2080 Ti, 2080 and 2070 — were a little higher than most gamers were prepared to fork out.
Creative SXFI Air ready for order
The headphone version of Creative’s Super X-Fi is now available for order in Singapore. The Creative SXFI Air brings holographic audio to iPhones and other smartphones without the 3.5mm jack.
Apple misses Q1 revenue projection
Apple has lowered its revenue guidance for Q1 to US$84 billion, down from the earlier projection of between US$89 billion and US$93 billion.
Gojek goes nation-wide in Singapore
Indonesia-based Gojek is taking its ride-hailing service island-wide in Singapore from today. This follows a successful beta launch in November which covered the southern-central and eastern part of Singapore.
China: Quick adopter, widespread use of technology
By Edward Lim
In the early 2000s, I visited Beijing for the first time and was amazed to see a taxi using a global positioning system (GPS) to get me to my destination. To put things in perspective, this was before the arrival of smartphones and GPS wasn’t even used in Singapore.
Elephone debuts full screen smartphone for US$249
US-based Elephone has announced the PX, which it dubbed “The Most Affordable Full-Screen Smartphone” that is packed with top features for users on a budget.
Zhao becomes 1st female managing director of Samsung Electronics HK
Samsung Electronics HK (SEHK) has appointed Yiyin Zhao as its first female Managing Director. She was previously Vice President & Head of IT and Mobile Communication Business
Making 8K movie editing a reality
8K movie is the next big thing and an announcement by RED and NVIDIA is making editing such movies a reality. The partners have introduced the NVIDIA CUDA-accelerated REDCODE RAW decode SDK that gives software developers and studios a powerful new way to work with 8K video.
China bans some Apple iPhone models
Qualcomm has dealt a blow to Apple with Fuzhou Intermediate People’s Court banning the sale of selected iPhone models in China. The move was for the violation of two Qualcomm patents.
Entelechy Asia 