Huawei unveils world's slimmest smartphone, Ascend P6

LONDON: Chinese telecoms giant Huawei on Tuesday launched what it said was the world's thinnest smartphone, which it hopes will take on high-end rivalsApple and Samsung in the global market.

Bidding to extend its market reach outside China, Huawei chose London to unveil its Ascend P6, which is just 6.18mm thick the June 18 launch date reflecting the dimensions. 

"Our theme for this product is elegance with an edge," Richard Yu, the chief executive of Huawei's consumer business group, told an audience of industry figures and journalists at the Roundhouse. 

The north London venue is famous for small-scale concerts and has previously hosted rock icons such as Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. 

Huawei hopes the Ascend P6 will take on its competitors on style and technology, but also on price it has a recommended retail price of 449 euros ($600). 

The phone will be available in 19 countries by the end of July, including China, France, Germany and Italy, with more than 100 others to follow. 

"We want to provide better products, more innovative products with better design," said Yu. 

"Our competitors? For me, it's not in the same level as this product, the (Samsung Galaxy) S4, (Apple) iPhone 5 and 6," he said. 

However, he acknowledged: "We need time to build our brand and win the trust of consumers." 

Nick Woodley, lead designer the firm's London design centre, said the phone was inspired by sheets of paper. 

It weighs 120gram, has a 4.7-inch (119.5mm) touchscreen and boasts two cameras an 8MP camera on the back and a 5MP camera on the front. 

Getting rid of the regular slew of camera scene settings, it has auto scene recognition and an automatic face enhancement tool which allows users to boost their "beauty level" by factors of one to 10. 

The unveiling of the phone in London was a stand-alone event, unlike previous launches at trade shows. 

Starting as a provider of telecom network equipment, Huawei has sought to make inroads into mobile devices by selling smartphones under its own brand over the past three years. 

The company, founded by a former engineer in the Chinese army, has also found controversy abroad for its traditional line of business. 

Huawei has a reputation for secrecy which the company has tried to shed after US claims it was a security threat. 

The US Congress last year warned network equipment supplied by Huawei could be used for espionage and called for its exclusion government contracts and acquisitions. 

Huawei has denied those claims and accused the US government of protectionism. 

The British parliament's intelligence and security committee also recently lambasted the government for failing to monitor the widespread use of Chinese equipment in Britain's broadband and phone networks. 

It raised concerns about claims that Huawei has links to China's army and government and so could be involved in spying on communications in Britain. 

In China's highly competitive smartphone segment, Huawei held a 10.1 percent share in the first quarter of this year, according to consultancy Analysys International. 

This is higher than Apple's 6.4% but below the 17.3% held by market leader Samsung. 

"The handset products Huawei launched before were relatively low-end and low-priced," said Wang Jun of Analysys International. 

"The launch of this higher quality handset is related to Huawei's own strategy of product excellence."

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HTC unveils Butterfly S with UltraPixel camera, Zoe

NEW DELHI: Taiwanese manufacturer HTC has globally unveiled its Butterfly S smartphone, which features technologies that were showcased earlier in its flagship handset HTC One. An upgrade to last year's top-end smartphone Butterfly, the new device has a faster processor, improved camera and offers 25GB of free Dropbox storage. The company has launched the handset only in Taiwan right now and has not revealed its global rollout plans.

The all-new Butterfly S has a 5-inch screen with 1920x1080p resolution and 441ppi pixel density. The phone runs on the 1.9GHz Snapdragon 600 processor (that powers the Samsung Galaxy S4) and comes with 2GB RAM. This device packs 16GB onboard storage and supports expansion up to 64GB via microSD cards.

HTC has included its UltraPixel technology in the 4MP rear camera of Butterfly S; the front camera of this handset has resolution of 2.1MP and a LED flash is placed on the back. Connectivity options in the phone include 2G, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.0, microUSB 2.0 and NFC. The phone runs on Android 4.2 (Jelly Bean), topped with the manufacturer's proprietary Sense user interface. 

HTC Butterfly S will compete against the new crop of phones with full HD screens, including Samsung Galaxy S4, Sony Xperia Z, LG Optimus G Pro and its sibling HTC One. Other rivals are Apple iPhone 5, Nokia Lumia 925 and BlackBerry Z10. Its predecessor, Butterfly, remains the most expensive Android phone in India at Rs 45,500.

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Technology Vendors Survey by CIO Association of India

As an appropriate testimony to Dell’s transformation into an end-to-end technology solutions company that drives business outcomes and creative competitive advantage, CIOs have voted Dell #2 in the Most Respected Vendors list. 224 Indian CIOs were asked “Which technology vendor (operating in India) do you respect the most?” a very large portion of them voted for Dell. Dell’s customer-oriented approach has boosted its rank the number three in 2012 to the number two position this year. 

Dell offers solutions and products basis customer imperatives and needs, which enable CIOs and IT Practioners to TRANSFORM, CONNECT, INFORM AND PROTECT their IT practise. Dell helps transform datacentres virtualization to convergence& cloud; helps businesses embrace consumerization, BYOD and beyond; turns data into insights; helps overcome the evolving security threats & ensuring compliance. 

Sridhar S, Director - Enterprise Solutions Group, Dell India “Customer feedback is at the centre ofthat we do at Dell. Today a CIO is an important business partner and is expected to deliver IT solutions that solve business challenges; we are strongly focussed in giving them the ammunition that they will need to realise their outcome. We are pleased that this focus has shown results. It is our open and flexible approach that differentiates us our competition and we will continue to ensure that the customer benefits remain the priority. We also realise that it is a big responsibility on Dell to remain committed to delivering this value to our customers and we will continue to stay on the path”. 

Dell was also awarded the CIO choice Awards 2013 earlier this year for their solutions in server, storage – hardware, datacentre consultant and datacenter transformation categories. Awardsthese demonstrate Dell’s ability and commitment towards meeting CIOs needs in today’s dynamic business world. The fact that the CIO community recognises Dell’s contributions provides Dell the morale to keep doing what it does best. 

Dell is innovating and expanding its enterprise solutions offerings to customers to enable them to move out of their legacy systems. Dell works closely with customers to help them move out of their existing applications to newer platforms without hurting their IT budgets and ensuring lowest Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). 

About Dell 

Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) listens to customers and delivers innovative technology and services that give them the power to do more. 

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Nvidia to license graphics technology: CEO

SAN FRANCISCO: Nvidia chief executive Jen-Hsun Huang said he will license graphics technology to other companies, a new model for the chipmaker that could lead to new business with Apple, Samsung and other mobile device makers. 

Huang told the Reuters Global Technology Summit in San Francisco that licensing graphics cores and visual patents would help Nvidia take greater advantage of the booming market for smartphones and tablets and tap markets it could not reach through selling its own chips. 

"The bottom line is the world has changed and we're expanding our business model to serve markets that we historically could not serve by selling chips alone," Huang said. 

With its core PC market struggling, Nvidia in recent years has established itself in the fast-growing mobile market, creating processors for tablets that take advantage of its graphics expertise. 

But Nvidia has faced tough competition the much larger Qualcomm, limiting its success. Apple designs its own processors for the iPhone and iPad, and top Android smartphone maker Samsung Electronics increasingly uses its own processors in its devices. 

Licensing its graphics technology to those or other companies could help Nvidia, with a market capitalization of about $8 billion, reach further into the mobile industry than it has done on its own. 

The move will put Nvidia into direct competition with UK-based Imagination Technologies, whose graphics technology is used in Apple's iPhone, Samsung's Galaxy S4 smartphone and other devices. Apple and top chipmaker Intel own stakes in Imagination. 

Asked whether Nvidia hopes to license graphics technology to Apple and Samsung, Huang said he is beginning to engage with the marketplace. 

"We will target customerstheir capacity and desire to build their own application processors is great," said Huang, who co-founded Nvidia two decades ago. 

"This is a way for us to engage customers who don'tto buy chips because theyto create their own, because they have the capacity, creativity and now the scale to build their own," he said. 

Nvidia will also be competing against UK-based ARM Holdings, which licenses processor technology to chipmakers including Nvidia and is increasingly targeting graphics as well. 

Qualcomm uses its own graphics technology on its mobile processors. 

Nvidia is also open to licensing its soon-to-launch Long Term Evolution (LTE) modem technology, Huang said. 

Nvidia is integrating LTE features on upcoming versions of its Tegra chips, making them compatible with high-end carrier networks. Lack of LTE technology has kept Nvidia, Intel and other chipmakers out of the top-tier smartphone market, dominated by Qualcomm. 

Wide aperture

"This is a maturation in their mobility play," Pat Moorhead, an analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy, said of Nvidia's licensing plans. 

"It widens the aperture for them because now they can look at Samsung and Apple, and HTC, and basically everyone who doesn't use Qualcomm." 

Top chipmaker Intel has been slow to modify its powerful PC chips for low-power smartphones and tablets, but its newest crop of mobile chips is expected by many analysts to show major improvements and lead to even more competition in the already crowded mobile chip market. 

Nvidia plans to start by licensing its Kepler architecture that it uses to make high-end graphics chips for PCs. 

Global PC sales plunged 14 percent in the first three months of the year, the biggest decline in two decades of record-keeping, as tablets continue to gain in popularity and buyers appear to be avoiding Microsoft Corp's new Windows 8 operating system, according to IDC. 

Asked whether Nvidia could eventually depend on royalties for most of its business, Huang said, "I think the shape of companies in the future will look increasingly hybrid. Microsoft licenses software, they sell devices, they have services.of the above. I think you'll see more and more companies that arethat." 

He said Nvidia's revenue licensing would trail revenue chip sales for a long time, and that gross margins would improve as the company wins more royalties. 

Nvidia previously licensed graphics technology to Sony for the Playstation 3. In 2011, Intel agreed to pay Nvidia $1.5 billion over six years as part of a cross-licensing agreement. 

"The opportunity went a few million game consoles a year to now, billions of devices per year. The opportunity is now much bigger," Huang said. 

In a major break its traditional business of designing chips, Nvidia later this month plans to begin shipping a hand-held game device using its Tegra 4 processors, a bid to use its appeal with PC game enthusiasts to challenge console makersSony and Microsoft. 

Also underscoring its pursuit of new markets, Nvidia this year has shown off new graphics-intense server products for games and offices, also made with its processors.

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Adobe beats Q2 estimates, Creative Cloud demand up

The company said it expects the number of paid subscribers for Creative Cloud in the current quarter to top the 2,21,000 subscribers who signed up in the second quarter, increasing the total to 7,00,000. The company added 1,53,000 subscribers in the first quarter. 

Adobe is the latest traditional software company to make a big bet on the cloud-based subscription model pioneered by companies such as Salesforce.com, NetSuite and Google. 

Subscription models bring in less money upfront as payment is spread over the entire period of use unlike traditional packaged software, but typically ensure more predictable recurring revenue. 

Shares of Adobe rose 4.4% in after-market trading. They closed at $43.36 on the Nasdaq on Tuesday. 

Promotions to drive adoption of Creative Cloud may affect average revenue per user (ARPU) in the short term, but will add to annualized recurring revenue (ARR) in the long term, chief financial officer Mark Garrett said on a conference call with analysts. 

"If I can get to a better ARR number with more subscriber numbers at a slightly lower ARPU, I would gladly make that tradeoff because it gets more people on the platform, it gives us more critical mass," he said to Reuters. 

Adobe has been shifting to web-based subscription service Creative Cloud a licensing model since last year. 

Customers are responding to the attraction of the Creative Cloud offering and the convenience of subscriptions which are reflected in the results and stock movement, B. Riley & Co analyst Daniel Cummins said. 

Edward Jones technology analyst Josh Olson termed the guidance "pretty impressive." 

"They are essentially setting some pretty high standards in terms of what they need to do for Q3 here, to surpass what was an already impressive Q2 in terms of subscription adds," he said. 

Adobe forecast current-quarter adjusted earnings of 29 cents to 35 cents per share on revenue of $975 million to $1.03 billion. 

Analysts on average are expecting earnings of 35 cents per share on revenue of $1.01 billion, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S. 

Adobe said in May that upgrades for Creative Cloud, which includes Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash, would be available only through online subscriptions. The company also said it would not develop upgrades for Creative Suite, the license-based version of Creative Cloud. 

Adobe said on Tuesday that net income for the second quarter fell to $76.5 million, or 15 cents per share, $223.9 million, or 45 cents per share, a year earlier. 

Excluding items, earnings were 36 cents per share. 

Revenue fell 10% to $1.01 billion. 

Analysts on average had expected earnings of 33 cents per share on revenue of $1.01 billion. 

The company maintained its full-year outlook for adjusted earnings of about $1.45 per share on revenue of about $4.1 billion.

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Google: Internet balloons to help SMBs

SINGAPORE: Google's plans to beam the internet giant balloons sent to the stratosphere could boost small businesses in rural parts of Asia by connecting them online, the company said. 

Karim Temsamani, Google's head of Asia Pacific, said in a speech at the Communicasia conference in Singapore, that the internet balloons might also facilitate communication during disasters. 

Google last week revealed top secret plans to launch thousands of balloons to provide internet connections to remote parts of the world, allowing the more than four billion people with no access to get online. 

Its scientists released up to 30 helium-filled test balloons flying 20 kilometres (12.4 miles) above Christchurch in New Zealand, carrying antennae linked to ground base stations. 

"What's devastating is that only a tiny fraction of SMEs (small-medium enterprises)across Asia are online right now," Temsamani told the conference. 

He said India, one of the region's emerging economies, has 47 million small businesses, but only one per cent are online. 

"Getting more businesses online is crucial to every single country in the region," he said. 

The experimental balloon project, called Project Loon, is one way to provide affordable internet access to "rural, remote and under-served" regions, Temsamani said. 

"For farmers in remote rural areas, this would bring market information that allows them to get better prices merchants," he added. 

The balloons, which once in the stratosphere will be twice as high as commercial airliners and barely visible to the naked eye, will also help in disasters when communication infrastructure is down, Temsamani said. 

"For places with few doctors, this could help relay drug information. In disasters, this could help coordinate supplies," he said. 

The balloon network is controlled by ground stations connecting to the local internet infrastructure and beaming signals to the balloons, which are self-powered by solar panels. 

Users below have an internet antennae they attach the side of their house which can send and receive data signals the balloons passing overhead. 

Some 50 people were chosen to take part in the trial in New Zealand and were able to link to the internet. 

Temsamani cautioned that the project remained in an experimental stage, and would require a lot of work participating nations. 

"These balloons need networks' co-operation to function, we'regoing to have to work together on this," he said. 

He said Google expects half a billion people in emerging markets worldwide, most of them in Asia, to have internet access "between now and 2015". 

"These people will drive this transformation even faster. They will not havethe desktop-based habits we've developed over the past 10 years," he added.

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Soon, 3D-printed batteries for your smartphones

WASHINGTON: US researchers announced they have successfully used the three-dimensional (3D) printing technique to print lithium-ion microbatteries the size of a grain of sand.

The printed microbatteries could supply electricity to tiny devices in fields medicine to communications, including many that have lingered on lab benches for lack of a battery small enough to power them, according to a research team the Wyss Institute at Harvard University and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

"Not only did we demonstrate for the first time that we can 3D-print a battery, we demonstrated it in the most rigorous way," senior author Jennifer Lewis of the Harvard University said in a statement.

To make the microbatteries, the team had to print precisely interlaced stacks of tiny battery electrodes, each less than the width of a human hair, reported Xinhua.

The researchers first created and tested several specialized inks. Unlike the ink in an office inkjet printer, which comes out as droplets of liquid that wet the page, the inks developed for extrusion-based 3D printing must fulfil two difficult requirements: they must exit fine nozzlestoothpaste a tube and must immediately harden into their final form.

The inks also had to function as electrochemically active materials to create working anodes and cathodes, and they had to harden into layers that are as narrow as those produced by thin-film manufacturing methods.

In the end, the researchers created an ink for the anode with nanoparticles of one lithium metal oxide compound, and an ink for the cathode nanoparticles of another.

The printer deposited the two inks onto the teeth of two gold combs, creating a tightly interlaced stack of anodes and cathodes. Then the researchers packaged the electrodes into a tiny container and filled it with an electrolyte solution to complete the battery.

The researchers said despite its tiny size, the battery's electrochemical performance is "comparable to commercial batteries" in terms ofge and discharge rate, cycle life and energy densities.

The findings were published online in the journal Advanced Materials.

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BigRock and .biz Launch Program to Bring More Indian Businesses Online

BigRock joins hands with Neustar, the registry operator for the .biz TLD, to promote .biz as a preferred choice for Indian businesses

Rolls out integrated media campaign to build awareness about getting businesses online 

Launches TVCs featuring new protagonists in BigRock’s quirky cast of Indian businesses 

BigRock, one of India’s leading domain registrars and web hosting companies, today announced that is has joined hands with Neustar to promote .biz as the preferred domain for small businesses in India. 

Neustar Inc., a provider of real-time information and analysis to the Internet, telecommunication, entertainment and marketing industries, also manages the domain name registry for .biz and has been working for over a decade since its launch in 2001 towards establishing .biz as a one-stop solution that helps businesses to enable their online presence with trust, recognition and optimum levels of business uptime. 

As part of this initiative, BigRock and Neustar have outlined an aggressive outreach campaign that entails a series of new television commercials (TVCs), extensive digital outreach, and a complete online presence for businesses that includes a .biz domain, web hosting, hosted email @ their .biz domain, Google Adwords coupons worth Rs. 2500, and moreof which are integrated with an easy-to-use interactive website builder priced at Rs. 199. 

Elaborating on the campaign, Bhavin Turakhia, Founder of BigRock said, “Since we launched BigRock a few years ago, we have worked hard to bring home the message of why being online matters to Indian businesses through our unique messaging. For this .biz program we have just launched, we wanted to appeal to a small business owner’s intrinsic pride of ownership in her/his business – which is something we believe binds every single business owner out there whether big or small. As a business owner myself, I am proud to associate myself with .biz and feel that our tagline for this campaign ‘.biz – when you are proud of your business’ adequately captures this emotion. Today, when only one in 20 small businesses in India has an online presence we feel this message is important to get out there.” 

Commenting on the partnership with BigRock, Alexander Berry, SVP at Neustar said, “The penetration of the Internet and growth of the digital economy in India is very evident as well as exciting. India is already the 3rd largest Internet user base globally, presenting exciting opportunities for businesses that were earlier unheard of. Also, given the various touch points that exist to access the Internet today, it is an apt time for us to reach out to emerging Indian businesses, highlighting the potential and value that .biz and our solutions can offer. We have a thriving base of over 2.3 million .biz domain owners globally who clearly identify .biz as a natural domain extension for businesses. With the coming of new TLDs later this year, we believe it’s even more important to drive home this differentiation. Our partnership with BigRock is a commitment of our efforts in this direction and to bring a high quality domain extension with global appeal to Indian business owners.” 

“By industry estimates we are activating upwards of 50,000-70,000 smartphone users every day in India and these constitute the vast majority of the new Internet users coming online. Rapidly accelerating trends in mobile data usage amongst our population means that in 24 months’ time the Indian Internet scenario will be even more exciting than it is today. We look at growth in other mobile led geographies such as Chinathe increase in domains and web presence by businesses has been unprecedented in the last few years and draw inspiration this trend. A similar trend will manifest in India in the next few years. We look to both educate and build strong value propositions with our .biz program for our customers across India. The .biz website package we offer contains everything a business owner needs to build a basic informational website or a more complex e-commerce enabled portal” said Shashank Mehrotra, GM & Business Head atBigRock. 

He added further “The Neustar team have been fantastic partners for us and their commitment to this market and in helping us build this program has been truly outstanding. We look forward to working with them to make this program a resounding success.” 

About BigRock 

BigRock, an ICANN accredited registrar and hosting company, is a leading provider of web-presence solutions to small-businesses, professionals and individuals. We provide our customers a complete suite of products that help them establish & grow their online presence. Our product portfolio includes - domain registration, web-hosting services, business-class email services, website builder products, and digital certificates. Our product platform represents over 12 years of investment in technology R&D and powers over 8 million domains worldwide. 

About Neustar: 

Neustar, Inc. (NYSE: NSR) is a trusted, neutral provider of real-time information and analysis to the Internet, telecommunications, information services, financial services, retail, media and advertising sectors. We apply our advanced, secure technologies in location, identification and evaluation to our Customers' data to help them promote their businesses and protect them fraud and cyber-security threats. Neustar has three defined business segments: Carrier Services, Enterprise Services and Information Services.

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Quintiles Named a "Best Place to Work in IT" by Computerworld for Fifth Time

Quintiles (NYSE: Q) has been named to IDG’s Computerworld “100 Best Places to Work in IT” list for the fifth time.

Computerworld has recognized the top 100 companies for information technology professionals since 1994 based on criteria such as diversity, career development, training and retention.

“We are extremely honored that the Quintiles organization has been recognized by Computerworld once again,” said Quintiles Chief Information Officer Richard Thomas. “Quintiles works with leading biopharma and healthcare companies around the world, supporting them in their mission to improve health. We have been working over the years to create an environmenttop technology talent has the opportunity to develop professionally and make a difference in the lives of patients around the world.”

In late 2012, Thomas was named a Computerworld “Premier IT Leader,” further indication of Quintiles’ position as the biopharma services industry’s information technology leader. Quintiles was ranked sixth in the 2012 InformationWeek 500, an annual list of the top technology innovators in the United States, evidence that great workplaces can translate to innovative products and services.

'We applaud the organizations on the Best Places to Work in IT list for creating and sustaining dynamic IT work environments,' said Scot Finnie, editor in chief of Computerworld. “It's clear that the best IT workplaces are constantly raising the bar with great benefits, new learning opportunities, access to cutting-edge technologies and challenging business-critical projects.'

About Quintiles

Quintiles (NYSE: Q) is the world’s largest provider of biopharmaceutical development and commercial outsourcing services with a network of more than 27,000 employees conducting business in approximately 100 countries. We have helped develop or commercializeof the top-50 best-selling drugs on the market. Quintiles applies the breadth and depth of our service offerings along with extensive therapeutic, scientific and analytics expertise to help our customers navigate an increasingly complex healthcare environment as they seek to improve efficiency and effectiveness in the delivery of better healthcare outcomes.

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Huawei: No plans to buy Nokia

NEW YORK: Chinese network equipment and cellphone maker Huawei Technologies said it "has no plans to acquire Nokia," responding to a Financial Times report that it would consider buying the Finish phone maker. 

The denial came Huawei's vice president for external affairs, Bill Plummer. 

The story on the FT website on Tuesday had quoted the head of Huawei's consumer business, Richard Yu, as saying: "We are considering these sorts of acquisitions; maybe the combination has some synergies but depends on the willingness of Nokia. We are open-minded." 

Nokia declined comment. 

Nokia's US shares closed up 17 cents or more than 4% at $3.86 on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock had risen as high as $4.12 after the report.

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Experts work on making cybersecurity impenetrable

MELBOURNE: Australian scientists are working on Quantum mechanics which is being applied to computing in order to develop most powerful and impenetrable cybersecurity method ever conceived. 

The team behind the new technology has been tasked with creating an impenetrable network for the Australian government, according to a Australian Broadcasting Corporation report. The technique pioneered by a team of scientists in Sydney, is called quantum cryptography. 

"One of the things you can do with the quantum computing is to expand the data security capabilities a country has," said Morello University of New South Wales. 

Traditionally, cryptography involves three main parties — a sender, the recipient and the eavesdropper or hacker. Hackers at present are able to intercept communications without the sender or recipient knowing, Morello added. 

But quantum cryptography will be able to prevent access by detecting hackers and destroying or altering messages as hackers try to obtain them. "Anyone who attempts to eavesdrop the connection and essentially tap the data would destroy the data on the spot," he said. The problem however is actually in making the computer, he said adding that to make a quantum chip a single phosphorous atom is introduced into a regular silicon chip. The atom's magnetic core — its nucleus is completely isolated the outside world because it so minute. 

"What we have shown is that we can write and read quantum information in the magnetic orientation of the nucleus," said Morello. To give an idea of scale, a computer with 300 quantum bits is thought to be able to contain a level of classical information equivalent tothe elementary particles of the universe. 

"What we are reliant on at the moment is the fact that it's just too hard to decrypt," said Vikram Sharma, the chief of QuintessenceLabs. He added that in future through thingsquantum computers these codes could be broken.

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Nasscom: Big gap between hiring and deployment

Nasscom president Som Mittal speaks to TOI about non-linear growth in the IT industry...

There have been many issues related to on-boarding of students especially in HCL Techstudents protested in front of their offices. What is your view on this?

Educational institutions should work with the industry and see that recruitment period is closer to passing out. In today's world of uncertainty , it is difficult to estimate requirements. There is a big gap between hiring and deployment. If we give letter say this July, a student will pass out 12 months now and then he will go another 18 weeks of training. Companies can't do training for so many students together so for many years companies have been giving joining dates spread over three quarters.

That's why we pushed for 8th semester hiring but then the educational institutions also pushed us back to 7th semester. While this year we have agreed on September for recruitment to begin, the ideal situation would be to recruit post passing out. IIMs don't allow hiring before so why are engineering colleges doing that. Gone are the daysvisibility was higher and we had fast growth on a smaller base.

What is the status of on-boarding of candidates hired last year?

I have spoken to the larger recruiters in the industry and they said that the majority of onboarding of people who were hired in June last year should be completed by this June. There can be minor differences but overall it should be complete by this time.

What is the estimate for hiring next year, which begins this September?

We don't have a cumulative figure but it is going to be less than last year.

What do you think about companies giving letters of intent? In HCL's case, students were told that they will have to join a different division of the firm than the one written in the letter if they wanted to join immediately. If these contracts are not certain, how can students trust these offers?

I think in today's world it cannot be very deterministic . To say that I want this role when we don't even know, one year now, which area is work going to be is not correct. I don't know the specifics of the case but I don't think anyone can guarantee that you are going to have this role 18 months now.

The new model is the way forward. It says that part of the hiring should be done on campus this year — the number that you are sure of on-boarding and the other part must be done same time next year when freshers can be hired off-campus .

Regarding Nasscom's entrepreneurship initiative, do you have any special focus towards social entrepreneurship? Will you be actively supporting such ventures?

We are not working on one sector. We are just promoting entrepreneurship. A large number of new entrepreneurs are looking at the opportunity in Indian market and their services/ products would be addressing this. We won't be actively supporting one kind of companies over another but our efforts to increase digital literacy should help these entrepreneurs.

Is Nasscom considering setting up a fund for very early stage ideas which have been received in significant numbers in the application process?

We ourselves debated this but it will create conflicts with our partners which we don't want. Also, we as Nasscom do not have the capability to asses and disburse funds. However, we have tied up with Angel networks, companiesMicrosoft and Google, SIDBI for loans and incubators and accelerators, some of which do funding.

A fund also got created called Indian Innovation Fund under the department of science and technology (DST) of Indian government and this is available to incubators, mainly in educational space.

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Bharti Airtel slashes 2G data rates by 90%

CHANDIGARH: Triggering competition, Bharti Airtel slashed data usageges by 90 per cent for pre-paid subscribers in Punjab and Haryana, a day after Vodafone lowered datages by 80 per cent for its pre-paid and post-paid customers in three circles. 

Airtel said that the Volume Basedges (VBC) on its recharge vouchers for 2G data usage of three denominations have been reduced to 1 paisa per 10 KB 10 paisa per 10 KB making internet usage affordable for its subscribers. 

The recharge vouchers of Rs 22, Rs 25 and Rs 125 carry a free download limit of 125 MB for five days, 150 MB for seven days and 1 GB for 28 days. 

After the free download, the customers were presentlyged at 10 paisa per 10 KB which have been reduced to 1 paisa per 10 KB with immediate effect, Airtel said in its release. 

The release said that the validity of the Rs 22 and Rs 25 recharge vouchers has been increased to 30 days and that of Rs 125 recharge vouchers increased to 90 days. 

"Looking at the increasing number of mobile internet users in both urban and rural areas, the reduction in rates is further going to boost the usage of mobile internet," the release said adding the benefit, however, would be available only to prepaid customers. 

Vodafone had yesterday reduced the price 10 paisa per 10 KB to 2 paisa per 10KB for Karnataka, UP West and Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh circles for both pre-paid and post-paid customers using the 2G network. 

"These rates are currently applicable in Karnataka, UP West and Madhya Pradesh & Chhattisgarh circles and will be rolled out nationally in a phased manner," Vodafone had said. 

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Infoblox Speeds Up Cloud Deployments with New IPAM Plug-In Integration with VMware vCloud Automation Center

Infoblox Inc., the automated network control company, today announced that the Infoblox IP Address Management (IPAM) Plug-in for VMware is now integrated with VMware vCloud Automation Center. As part of the VMware vCloud Suite, the VMware vCloudAutomation Center is designed to enable rapid deployment and provisioning of cloud services across private and public clouds, physical infrastructures, hypervisors and public cloud providers. The plug-in is designed to deliver cloud infrastructure resources on-demand to provide maximum business agility.

While virtual machines can now be dynamically provisioned, migrated and shut down by an administrator in minutes, the necessary network services to support this virtual environment, such as IP address assignment and management, are still performed largely with manual tools and processes, such as spreadsheets shuffled between various enterprise departments. This can result in days of s for something as simple as assigning an IP address to a virtual machine.

The integration of the Infoblox IPAM plug-in with VMware vCloud Automation Center provides a highly scalable and reliable IPAM solution to address this problem. The plug-in is designed to deliver accelerated private and public cloud deployment by automating IP address allocation/de-allocation along with the creation/deletion of DNS host records directly to virtual machines (VMs) in a matter of minutes.

“Incorporating the Infoblox IPAM plug-in with VMware vCloud® Automation Center™ will allow businesses to gain greater flexibility and accelerated time to value in automated cloud environments,” said Rob Smoot, Senior Director, Cloud Management Marketing, VMware. “With the help of automated IP address allocation, including DNS management and DNS record updates, enterprise IT departments are provided with the capability of full control for high-quality IP address management.”

Available as a no-charge extension to the Infoblox DNS, DHCP, IP Address Management (DDI) product, the solution is designed to assist organizations with large VMware virtualized networks, automating traditionally manual functions such as the assignment of an IP address to a VM, creating or deleting a collection of VMs and gathering information about the VMs. The Tolly Group, a provider of information technology research and product evaluations, recently certified that manual setup and provisioning of IP addresses for virtual machines can take up to 300% more time vs. performing the same tasks with Infoblox IP address management (IPAM) solution for VMware.

“For organizations looking to automate public and private cloud deployments, it is imperative to take a proactive, automated approach to network services,” said David Gee, EVP of Marketing at Infoblox. “We’re excited to provide a highly scalable solution to improve business efficiency, allowing enterprise IT teams to streamline their private and public cloud deployments.”

About Infoblox

Infoblox (NYSE:BLOX) delivers Automated Network Control solutions, the fundamental technology that connects end users, devices and networks. These solutions enable more than 6,500 enterprises and service providers to transform and scale complex networks. Infoblox helps take the burden of complex network control out of human hands, reduce costs, and increase accuracy and uptime. Infoblox is headquartered in Santa Clara, California and has operations in 25 countries.

Forward-looking and Cautionary Statements – Infoblox

Certain statements in this release concerning virtualization and private clouds, and the benefits to enterprises the use of Infoblox’s Infoblox IP Address Management (IPAM) Plug-in for VMware are forward-looking statements, which involve a number of risks, and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially those in such forward-looking statements. As such, this release is subject to the safe harbors created by U.S. Federal Securities Laws. The risks and uncertainties relating to these statements include, but are not limited to, risks and uncertainties design flaws in the company’s products, shifts in customer demand and the IT services market in general, shifts in strategic relationships, s in the ability to deliver products, or announcements by competitors. These and other risks may be detailed time to time in Infoblox’s periodic reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, copies of which may be obtained www.sec.gov. Infoblox is under no obligation to (and expressly disclaims any such obligation to) update or alter its forward-looking statements whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. We do not undertake to update any forward-looking statement that may be made time to time by us or on our behalf.

VMware, VMware vCloud, vCloud Automation Center and VMware vCloud Suite are registered trademarks or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and other jurisdictions. Infoblox is a registered trademark of Infoblox, Inc. in the United States and other jurisdictions.other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective organizations. The use of the word 'partner' or 'partnership' does not imply a legal partnership relationship between VMware and any other company.

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