HP unveils its first net-zero energy data centre in India

The world's second-largest PC-maker Hewlett Packard has unveiled its first net-zero energy data centre that promises to significantly reduce data centre power costs and energy requirements.

In an interview with ET, Chandrakant Patel, senior fellow and director (interim) at HP Laboratories, said the new model would require no energy from traditional power grids. HP data centre plans to make use of solar and alternativerenewable energy sources.

"If you look at some of the large data centres, they use about 7 megawatts of diesel generation. That is the amount of electricity which around 7,000 houses consume," says Patel who has spent several decades of his career studying thermo-mechanical architecture and efficient energy usages.

"By setting up such a data centre you would be paying 2-3 times the total cost for electricity. That is what we wanted to change," he added.

At a time when data centres continue to be one of the largest sources of IT carbon emissions, HP's net-zero energy innovation hopes to operate using local renewable resources. This eliminates several factors such as location constraints, energy supply and costs. According to Patel and his team, this opens up the possibility of introducing IT services to organisations of all sizes.

"The vegetable vendor who visits my home in Baroda, the large refineries in the outskirts and sugarcane farmers in Gujarat will get to access the same advanced technology. With this, demand for bigger and better data centres are going to go up," he added.

The data centre at HP Labs headquarters in Palo Alto in California, which uses solar and other local renewable sources, has served as the initial test bed for building this model. But what surprised Patel and his team was a recent visit to the nearby dairy farm -- where 1,200 dairy cows could produce 500 kilowatts power.

"Livestock manure is better than probably all the other utilities. Large dairy farms and municipal waste dumps across India can take advantage of this," he said. In winter, when the solar output falls significantly in California, the HP centre makes use of alternate energy sources, including gobar gas and wind.

If the sustainable data-centres team at HP Labs are able to convince organisations to switch to these zero-net energy data centres, Indian technology firms could significantly reduce their existing data-centre power costs and energy requirements, and explore newer ways of power generation.

The $2-billion market for information technology infrastructure in India, comprising servers, data-centres, storage and networking equipment, will benefit from this. The Indian IT infrastructure market is expected to grow over 10.3% over the next one year, according to research firm Gartner.

"Indian organisations are heavily focusing on optimising their infrastructure capacity by implementing virtualisation and incorporating newer ways of data centre design," Gartner's Research Director Aman Muglani wrote in a report earlier this month. The IT infrastructure market in India is expected to reach $3.01 billion by 2016.

HP Channel Exodus Continues As Rauch, Kelly Head For Exits

Two high profile Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ) channel executives are leaving for positions with enterprise focused software vendors, CRN has learned.

Frank Rauch, vice president of U.S. channels in HP's Enterprise Servers, Storage and Networking division, is leaving for a position at VMware, sources told CRN Friday. Rauch's title there could not be ascertained, but one source familiar with the matter said he will be replacing Brandon Sweeney, VMware's vice president of Americas channel sales, who is moving up the ranks.

Meaghan Kelly, vice president of channel strategy at HP, is leaving June 15 for SAP, where she will be vice president of global channel marketing, according to an email she sent to partners last week, which was viewed by CRN.

HP and VMware did not respond to requests for comment. Rauch and Kelly could not be reached for comment.

An SAP (NYSE:SAP) spokesperson confirmed that Kelly has been hired and said she will begin on June 18.

The defections of Rauch and Kelly are the latest signs of turmoil atHP, which last week announced it will cut 27,000 jobs by the end of 2014 as part of an ongoing restructuring. Gary Koopman, former vice president of U.S. distribution at HP, earlier this week jumped to Oracle, where he will be group vice president of North America hardware sales.

Rauch, who came to HP in 2002 in its Compaq acquisition, is a popular figure in the HP channel, and one partner told CRN that he will be tough to replace.

"Frank is the glue of the HP partner community, and has been for quite some time," Dean Cappellazzo, CEO of Bedrock Technology Partners, a San Mateo, Calif.-based solution provider, told CRN.

In an executive reshuffling last month, Rauch was named ESSN's vice president of U.S. channels, a move that amounted to a minor demotion, according to partners, since he had previously been responsible for the overall Americas business.

Kelly joined HP in 2008 and until last July was head of the SMB Advisory Council, a division of HP’s Solution Partners Organization that serves the needs of partners in this segment. She previously held marketing roles at Motorola, Pillar Data Systems and Veritas.

"Meaghan will be missed by the resellers who knew and worked with her, especially council members," Rick Chernick, CEO of Camera Corner/Connecting Point, a Green Bay, Wisc.-based HP partner, told CRN.

In an email to partners, Kelly sounded sad to leave but also eager to begin her new role at SAP.

"My time at HP has been phenomenal and it’s bittersweet for me to leave such a great and iconic company," Kelly said in the email. "Having said that, I have a tremendous opportunity in front of me and I’m excited to move over into a new job and into the next phase of my career."

Channel consolidation at the company has been expected since March, when HP merged its PC and printer businesses.

HP said it will cut 9,000 positions in fiscal 2012, with the overall restructuring expected to save the company between $3.0 billion and $3.5 billion by the end of fiscal 2014.

Source: CRN

HP looking to close ranks at Discover 2012 event

HP's leadership and customer base will gather in Las Vegas next week for an event calculated to reassure -- but also to impress.

Alongside more traditional keynote speakers at Discover 2012, like new CEO Meg Whitman, the company will feature DreamWorks CEO Jeffrey Katzenberg -- and the event will be emceed by Kunal Nayyar, a regular on CBS's "The Big Bang Theory."

Katzenberg -- a fixture at major tech conferences -- is scheduled to share the stage with Whitman on Tuesday morning, showing off his studio's use of HP products. A prescreening of DreamWorks' latest animated film, "Madagascar 3," will also be held at Discover, and if that's not enough entertainment, attendees can check out a performance by Sheryl Crow at the closing ceremony.

However, according to IDC lead analyst Crawford Del Prete, the central purpose of Discover will be a serious one. What's needed, he says, is an emphasis on the company's core strengths.

"I think that they're going to use HP Discover to underscore those big trends that touch all customers that are infrastructure-related: the cloud, analytics and big data, and security," he says.

While the recent announcement of large-scale job cuts probably won't dramatically affect the subject matter under discussion at Discover, according to the analyst, it could certainly have an effect on the tone of the event.

If HP's fortunes were less troubled, according to the analyst, attendees might have seen a different focus from the company.

"It probably would have been a little bit more product-focused, whereas I think now it's going to be more [about] strategy, and reinforcing the strategic messaging around stability [and] predictability," Del Prete says. "Had they not gone through the turmoil they went through in the last year, they would have been able to, I think, talk more about long-term innovation and long-term investment areas."

Even with the company's problems, Mark Fabbi, Gartner vice president and distinguished analyst, says that HP is likely to make some business-as-usual announcements at the show.

"I expect to see some success stories, and other illustrations that HP is 'still in the game,'" he says.

Fabbi also says that the degree of HP's weakness shouldn't be exaggerated. "It's easy to get distracted by the corporate soap opera, but despite this many product areas are still doing reasonably well," he says.

Source: Networkworld

First look: Samsung Galaxy S III

Samsung has officially launched its hotly-anticipated Galaxy S III smartphone in Australia. We go hands-on.

Design and display

Samsung officially announced the Galaxy S III in London earlier this month, but today was the first time we've been able to get our hands on it. Much has been said about the Galaxy S III's design, but we can assure you that in no way, shape or form does this feel like a cheap device. Despite its plastic construction, the Galaxy S III doesn't creak or rattle when pressed and the fit and finish is as good as most flagship smartphones on the market.

The Galaxy S III's rounded shape is in stark contrast to its predecessor, the Galaxy S II, which uses a much squarer design. Critics have said this makes the Galaxy S III look like a toy and harks back to the design of older phones. We disagree with both of these statements.

Firstly, the Galaxy S III feels very comfortable to hold in your hand and is much easier to use single-handedly than its major competitors, the HTC One X and the One XL. The slightly concave design and light weight only further add a comfortable feel. In our experience, the Galaxy S III's design makes it easy to reach most of the screen, though its long length means its still a slight stretch to tap near the top of the display. This will obviously depend on the size of your hands and fingers.

Speaking of the display, the Galaxy S III's Super AMOLED HD screen is one of the best on the market. It has a slightly less pixels per inch rating (ppi) compared to the HTC One X/XL, but it doesn't look inferior. We haven't had a chance to do any extensive testing, but text on Web pages is crisp and clear with no visible aberrations and images are bright and vivid with excellent colour reproduction.

One thing that hasn't changed in Samsung devices is the company's insistence on a flexible battery cover. As you can see in our image below, the Galaxy S III uses a similar manufactured cover as its predecessor did. Despite looking like a piece of flimsy plastic in photos, the flexible cover isn't a negative and clips on securely.

Software and performance

From the moment you pick up the Galaxy S III one thing is very clear — this is a super fast phone. There is no evident lag in basic user operations, like swiping through home screens, scrolling through lists, opening Web pages in the browser and closing apps.

Samsung's latest version of TouchWIZ, the user interface layer that sits over the top of the Android UI, is impressive on first glance. We particularly noted that it scrolls through home screens with impressive speed, even if we filled the screens with as many widgets as possible.

One disappointment is Samsung's lock screen, which still lags on occasion. There's often a clear 1-2 second delay when pressing the power or home button to wake the screen from sleep, especially if you haven't unlocked the screen for a while. We've seen the same issue on both the Galaxy S II and the Galaxy Note, so it appears Samsung still hasn't resolved this issue, even if it is a minor one.

We'll have a full review of the Galaxy S III in the coming days, along with a closer look at other issues, like battery life, Samsung's S-Voice software and a number of other exclusive Galaxy S III features. In the meantime, if there's anything you'd like to ask us about the Galaxy S III, let us know in the comments below.

Source: ARNNET

Verizon to buy Hughes Telematics for its M2M tech

Verizon Communications Friday agreed to acquire Hughes Telematics for $612 million.

Verizon said it plans to extend Hughes Telematics' wireless communications technology for vehicles and fleet management to the asset tracking, mobile health and home automation areas.

Hughes Telematics will operate as a subsidiary of Verizon and be run by its current Atlanta-based management team once the deal closes in the third quarter, the companies said in a statement.

The Hughes Telematics technology relies upon fast-growing machine-to-machine (M2M) wireless technology that can be used to monitor and control a variety of devices ranging from home thermostats to heart monitors.

John Stratton, president of Verizon Enterprise Solutions, said Verizon plans to combine its global IP network, cloud, mobility and security systems with Hughes wireless service delivery technology.

Hughes owns a majority stake in Lifecomm, also in Atlanta, which is developing a wearable device for one-touch access to emergency assistance.

Steve Hilton, an analyst at Analysis Mason, said Verizon's acquisition of Hughes "is exactly what a carrier should be doing to better position itself in the M2M sector."

Hughes has good M2M technology that is fairly comprehensive and integrates well with other technologies, Hilton said.

Also, he said, Hughes has extensive relationships with business customers that integrate and buy M2M products.

ABI Research has projected that M2M wireless connections will quadruple over the next six years, from 110 million in 2011 to 453 million in 2017. ABI expects the M2M market will be valued at $3.85 billion in 2017.

Several large wireless carriers, including AT&T, Vodafone and Telefonica, have built M2M software platforms for connecting devices wirelessly, while others are expected to ready-made platforms built by other third parties, ABI said.

Some M2M application developers will also offload core functions, such as data modeling, to third parties.

Source: Computerworld

Online services increased their effort to protect user data, EFF says

While some online services are stepping up their efforts to protect private user data from government requests, there is plenty room for improvement, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) said on Thursday. It is time for all companies that hold private user data to make public commitments to defend their users against government overreach, the foundation said.

The EFF measured the commitment of 18 U.S. companies hosting users' personal data, including Amazon, Facebook and Microsoft, to protect that data from U.S. government requests. It examined their privacy policies, terms of service, published law enforcement guides if available, and the track record of companies defending user privacy in courts.

The companies were awarded stars and half stars in four categories. The EFF investigated whether users were informed about government data demands, determined whether the companies were transparent about government data requests, whether they were willing to fight for user privacy in courts, and whether the companies were fighting to protect user privacy in the U.S. Congress.

The EFF said it was pleased that Facebook, Dropbox and Twitter have stepped up their game since last year, when it published its first report on the topic. Twitter was awarded an extra star because it started fighting for user privacy rights in Congress, and showed more effort to fight for users rights in courts, EFF data showed. The microblog service now has 3.5 stars.

Facebook gained half a star for being more transparent about government requests, bringing its total up to 1.5 stars and Dropbox gained two stars for becoming transparent about government requests and telling users about data demands, bringing its total to three out of four stars.

Sonic.net, an ISP based in California, is the first company to receive a full gold star in each category, the EFF said.

Google maintained its position with two whole and two half stars.

Apple, Microsoft and AT&T still have one star, for fighting for user privacy in Congress, while Comcast picked up its first star for protecting its users' privacy in the courts, according to the EFF data.

Verizon, Myspace and Skype failed to score a star in any of the categories.

"The overall poor showing of AT&T, Verizon and Comcast, who provide Internet connectivity to so many people, is especially troubling," the foundation said.

The EFF added five new companies to the list this year including location based services Foursquare and Loopt. Foursquare was awarded zero stars and Loopt got one for defending privacy in Congress. "We're hopeful that next year we'll see more protections for users from location services providers like Loopt and Foursquare, since location information is so sensitive and increasingly sought by the government," the EFF said.

By publishing the report, the EFF hopes to stimulate companies to improve transparency about what data flows to the government and to encourage the companies to stand for user privacy when it is possible to do so, the foundation said.

Source: Computerworld

Canadian giant CGI snaps up Logica for £1.7bn

UK IT services vendor Logica has agreed to be acquired by Canadian IT consulting and system integration provider CGI for £1.7bn.

The deal will see CGI pay £1.05 per share, up from Logica's closing price of 42.1p on the London Stock Exchange on Wednesday. This caused the firm's share price to jump to 108.02 in the market, a huge rise of 64 per cent.

David Tyler, chairman of Logica, said that while the company had performed well in the past, new market dynamics made it prudent for the company to consider the offer from CGI.

"Competitive intensity has increased as the industry has globalised and scale has become an ever more important factor in cost competitiveness and service," he said.

"In Logica's main European markets there is considerable economic uncertainty, which affects confidence and demand from both public and private clients."

The chief executive of CGI, Michael Roach, said the firm was confident the deal would have a positive long-term impact on both companies clients.

"This announcement is consistent with our profitable growth strategy and with our belief that global consolidation of our industry is both necessary and inevitable," he said.

"It further underscores our ongoing commitment to support our clients as they expand their businesses locally and globally. In addition to operational breadth and depth, the combined business will have critical mass and key blue chip client relationships."

Logica had been struggling for some time after announcing poor financials. Last December, it confirmed it planned to shed around 1,200 employees from its operations in Belgium, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK.

As a result Tom Reuner, principal analyst at Ovum, said the acquisition was not a huge surprise, although CGI emerging as the buyer was more unexpected, but there was a logical fit between the two firms.

"Geographical scope and portfolio are complementary. Both organisations have a strong focus on financial services and public sector and both are deeply entrenched in BPO [business process outsourcing]," he said.

Reuner added the transition would not be easy, but if carried off successfully could prove highly lucrative.

"In these verticals the new organisation has the potential to become a leading global player, but the challenges will lie in the integration and the cost structure, given that both organisations have only limited global sourcing capabilities," he said.

Source: V3

Oracle plans June cloud computing launch as Larry Ellison sounds off on HP and Salesforce

Outspoken Oracle founder Larry Ellison raised eyebrows Wednesday as he attacked several of the firm's key rivals at the same time as revealing the firm would unveil new cloud computing products in June.

Speaking at the D10 technology conference, Ellison weighed in on some of the company's strongest partners and biggest competitors as well as his own company's prospects in the enterprise computing space.

Ellison said that Oracle would make a major push into the cloud computing space on 6 June, when it releases its platform as a service (PaaS) offering. The launch will include service versions of the company's database platform as well as the Fusion brand of applications.

The Oracle boss said that the company's cloud platform would differentiate itself from competitors through its use of user-controlled virtual machines for each customer rather than a conventional multi-tenant architecture.

"The nice thing is you don't always have to upgrade," Ellison said.

"In a multi-tenant model you get the new version when they tell you, when you are in your own virtual machine you upgrade when you decide."

Ellison likened the company's enterprise approach, which combines Oracle hardware, middleware and applications to Apple's iOS environment, in that both offer the user full integration from the hardware through the service level. Ellison said that his company would seek to "do for the datacentre what Apple did for the consumer."

Oracle's competitors were also a favourite topic for the outspoken chief executive. While Ellison said that he still considers Salesforce.com founder Marc Benioff a friend, he thinks the customer relationship management vendor should hardly be considered the trailblazers of software-as-a-service.

"NetSuite was my idea, I called up Evan Goldberg and said were going to do [enterprise resource planning] on the internet," Ellison said.

"Six months later Marc Benioff found out what NetSuite was going to do and he copied it. He said that is a great idea but rather than do ERP on the web he said let's just try and replicate Siebel."

Salesforce.com had no comment on Ellison's remarks.

Ellison also issued a scathing appraisal of former SAP and HP boss Leo Apotheker which included terms such as "thief" and "idiot."

"They sent him to Bolivia, then they sent him to Mongolia," Ellison said of Apotheker's brief tenure atop HP.

"The board finally figured out they should have left Leo in Mongolia, because when he came to California it really got bad."

Ellison had a less harsh appraisal of Facebook and its founder Mark Zuckerberg. Ellison said that while he is no longer a heavy user of Facebook, he is a fan of the social network and considers it a promising platform.

"I told [Zuckerberg] I thought it was a brilliant piece of technology and world-changing piece of technology."

Source: V3

HP Reveals Blueprint for First Net-Zero-Energy Data Center

Hewlett-Packard has been in need of good news from its research and development people, and May 30 it was happy to report some.

HP Labs, the company's central research arm, has devised a new data center architecture that it claims requires no net energy from conventional power grids. If this holds true, it would signify a  major step forward in establishing truly green, locally resource-renewable data centers--and that they aren't far away from becoming reality.

HP Labs researchers describe the Net-Zero Energy Data Center architecture, which matches energy supply with demand as required by IT workloads, in the research paper "Towards the Design and Operation of Net-Zero Energy Data Centers." The paper will be presented May 31 at IEEE's 13th annual Intersociety Conference on Thermal and Thermomechanical Phenomena in Electrical Systems, in San Diego.

HP also will showcase the new architecture at HP Discover, the company's largest client/partner event, June 4 to 7 in Las Vegas.

The sustainable data center at HP Labs headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., has served as the initial test bed for designing and building this blueprint, HP said.

Notorious Energy Eaters

Data centers have always been notorious energy eaters. Power drawn from the walls is currently the biggest single impediment for data center facility expansion, since most urban areas have strict limits on the amount of energy made available to enterprises. Numerous privately held and co-location data centers are tapped out at the limits of local and regional power allocation.

As a result, enterprises are now building data centers in remote, sparsely populated areas where hydroelectric power is plentiful, such as the Pacific Northwest, Canada and the Midwest.

The most recent set of statistics eWEEK has seen indicates that electricity used in global data centers in 2010 accounted for between 1.1 percent and 1.5 percent of total electricity use, respectively. For the U.S., that number was higher, at between 1.7 and 2.2 percent. These metrics come from research by Stanford University and Lawrence Livermore Laboratory Professor Jonathan Koomey.

HP Labs' research illustrates how its new architecture, combined with holistic energy-management techniques, enables enterprises to cut total power usage by as much as 30 percent, as well as dependence on grid power and costs by more than 80 percent.

The new architecture design coordinates several aspects of data center operations. It integrates energy and cooling supply from local renewable sources, with a novel demand-management approach that allows the scheduling of IT workloads based on resource availability and performance requirements.

Cost of Energy Is Prohibitive

"Information technology has the power to be an equalizer across societies globally, but the cost of IT services, and by extension the cost of energy, is prohibitive and inhibits widespread adoption," said Cullen Bash, interim director of the Sustainable Ecosystems Research Group at HP Labs.

"The Net-Zero Energy Data Center not only aims to minimize the environmental impact of computing, but also has a goal of reducing energy costs associated with data-center operations to extend the reach of IT accessibility globally."

One example of how this will work: Noncritical, delay-tolerant workloads are scheduled during daylight hours to coincide with solar supply for data centers equipped with photovoltaic energy generation, HP said. In this way, demand can be "shaped" according to resource availability to reduce reliance on nonrenewable resources.

Key Components of the Design

HP's Net-Zero Energy Data Center uses a management architecture that integrates energy and cooling resources with IT workload planning through four modules:

• Prediction Module: Leverages predictive analytics software to forecast the availability and cost of critical resources, such as renewable energy and IT workload demand.
• Planning Module: Delivers an optimization algorithm that balances workload scheduling with high-level operational goals, such as achieving net-zero energy operation, enabling organizations to schedule workloads based on resource availability, while meeting data-center operational goals.
• Execution Module: Enables organizations to manage workload and energy consumption in real time according to performance requirements and data center operational objectives.
• Verification and Reporting Module: Identifies and remediates misalignment between the plan and execution, ensuring plan accuracy.

To view a brief YouTube video on the Net-Zero Energy Data Center project, go here.

Source: eweek

HP loses as European server market slows

HP emerged as the main loser in an EMEA server market that shrank by double digits in revenue terms in the first quarter.

According to figures from market watcher Gartner, the server market suffered its third consecutive quarter of revenue decline in the three months to 31 March. Revenue came in at $3.2bn (£2.1bn), down 10.5 per cent year on year, with western Europe down 13.1 per cent.

Unit shipments fell for a second consecutive quarter, by 2.2 per cent to 626,085.

Even the x86 segment – which has driven the market for so long – fell back by 2.1 per cent in revenue terms, with the RISC/Itanium Unix and Other CPU segments tumbling 25.7 and 29.4 per cent respectively.

Adrian O'Connell, research director at Gartner, said: "The Unix segment in particular is struggling and although we are seeing results vary by vendor, the overall segment appears to be rapidly approaching a tipping point, which could undermine the long-term viability of the segment."

Market leader HP was the worst hit as its revenue fell 19 per cent to $1.18bn. Gartner said the vendor had been particularly affected by Oracle's withdrawal of support for Itanium.

Dell was the only one of the top five vendors to achieve revenue growth, enabling it to increase its market share from 11.1 to 13.1 per cent year on year.

Second-placed IBM's revenue tumbled 15.3 per cent, while Oracle and Fujitsu's takings fell by 12.2 per cent and 7.6 per cent respectively.

"We are going through a period of significant disruption in which a combination of platform migrations, business challenges and technology changes is sending ripples through the industry," said O'Connell.

"Even the x86 segment that has driven the market for so long will start to face challenges as new servers based on extreme-low-energy processors threaten to undermine the strength of its ecosystem."

Source: CRN

Juniper packs 30 new features into Web security software

Juniper Networks this week unveiled enhancements to the Web security software it obtained via the acquisition of Mykonos Software in February.

The new release of Mykonos Web Security software provides 30 new features and extensions designed to protect against a wider range of attackers and hacking techniques. The software is also designed to simplify configuration for security administrators, and improve scalability for increasing traffic volumes.

Web applications and websites are some of the most popular targets for hackers because they remain the largest unprotected threat in corporate networks, Juniper says. The company says almost 75% of organizations have been hacked at least once in the past two years through insecure Web applications.

The Mykonos software uses deception to create detection points to identify malicious attackers as they attempt to hack their target. The software then dupes attackers by presenting false vulnerabilities to keep them around so it can learn as much about them as possible to prevent future attacks.

This technique uses attackers' actions against them by wasting their time on false vulnerabilities, making the hack costly, time-consuming and tedious for attackers to chase after bogus data.

Among the features in the new software release is the ability of the Mykonos product to detect a wider range of attackers and hacking techniques through new countermeasures. They include preventing brute-force authentication attacks that rapidly guess combinations of usernames and passwords to gain access to systems.

The Mykonos software prevents the attacker from using any compromised credentials even if an attacker happens to "guess" the correct password, Juniper says.

The software also now defends against directory traversal attempts that are used to map websites to gain additional information on how to attack them. Another new countermeasure is the integration of third-party software vulnerability protection, which helps prevent against known software vulnerabilities typically targeted by automated attack scripts.

For simplified use, the software has a new GUI for managing systems and a setup wizard tool that does not require assistance from a Juniper service representative.

Mykonos Web Security also now supports throughput greater than 1Gbps by enabling administrators to add multiple "slaves" to a clustering model. This allows the software to protect higher-volume Web properties, Juniper says.

The software is available now. Juniper sells the annual software licenses for $175,000 with all support and updates included.

Source: Networkworld

Microsoft Offers Windows 8 Release Preview

The Windows 8 Release Preview is available.

And, Microsoft (NSDQ:MSFT) said the company's goal is to have PCs and tablets with Windows 8 and Windows RT -- the version of the operating system developed for ARM-based devices -- on store shelves in time for the holidays.

"Today, Windows 8 Release Preview is available for download in 14 languages," said Steven Sinofsky, president of the Microsoft Windows, in a blog post Thursday afternoon. "This is our final pre-release, and includes Windows 8, Internet Explorer 10, new Windows 8 apps for connecting to Hotmail, SkyDrive, and Messenger (and many more), and hundreds of new and updated apps in the Windows Store."

The Release Preview is available for download from Microsoft Windows' website.

While Microsoft had promised to make the Release Preview available by early June, the announcement was widely expected today after a blog announcing the availability of the software was briefly posted by accident on Wednesday.

"Since our first preview release last September, millions of people now use the pre-release product on a daily basis and millions more have been taking it through its paces, totaling hundreds of millions of hours of testing," Sinofsky wrote. "We genuinely appreciate the effort that so many have put into pre-release testing, and of course, we appreciate the feedback too. Direct feedback and feedback through usage contributed to hundreds of visible changes in the product and tens of thousands of under-the-hood changes."

The Release Preview is the last version of Windows 8 before Microsoft ships the final product, which the company calls the "Release to Manufacturing" or "RTM" version. That is the release that goes to PC makers and other vendors who build Windows into their products.

"Ultimately, our partners will determine when their PCs are available in market. If the feedback and telemetry on Windows 8 and Windows RT match our expectations, then we will enter the final phases of the RTM process in about 2 months," Sinofsky wrote. "If we are successful in that, then we are tracking to our shared goal of having PCs with Windows 8 and Windows RT available for the holidays."

While Microsoft generally doesn't make big changes or additions to products between the Release Preview and RTM stages, Microsoft developers will continue to make improvements, corrections and bug fixes to the software until the code is frozen for the RTM stage.

"From today until RTM, we will still be changing Windows 8, as we have done in past releases of Windows," Sinofsky said. In his blog, he outlined a number of areas developers would be particularly focusing on, including installation tools and functions, security and privacy features, reliability and responsiveness, device installation and compatibility, software compatibility, servicing of Windows 8, and support for new PC hardware.

Microsoft also announced that beginning June 2, customers who purchase PCs with Windows 7 will be eligible to upgrade to Windows 8 Pro for $14.99 under the Windows Upgrade Offer in 131 markets, including in both the U.S. and Canada. 

Source: CRN

AMD releases Catalyst drivers for Windows 8 Release Preview

The Windows 8 Release Preview is out and chip giant AMD has already released Catalyst drivers for its range of GPUs.

By releasing official Catalyst drivers, AMD is able to make sure users of its GPUs have access to all the latest features, such as native 3D support, and optimized screen rotation detection for rotation-aware devices.

Another benefit to using the official drivers is that they are optimized for the platform, and will deliver lower GPU power consumption and improved sleep/resume performance. These features will be of particular interest to those testing the Windows 8 Release Preview on notebooks and other mobile devices that rely on a battery to keep going.

These new drivers feature support for the new WDDM 1.2 (Windows Display Driver Model 1.2) which is new to Windows 8. This new driver model includes preemptive multitasking, reduced memory footprint and improved resource sharing.

There are a number of known issues that are worth bearing in mind if you’re planning on taking the Windows 8 Release Preview for a test drive on a system equipped with AMD graphics. These include:

• Radeon HD 7900, Radeon HD 7800, and the Radeon HD 7700 performance in DirectX 9 applications may be slower under Windows 8 vs. Windows 7.
• CrossFireX configurations using the Radeon HD 7900, Radeon HD 7800, and the Radeon HD 7700 in DirectX 9 and DirectX 11 applications may be slower under Windows 8 vs. Windows 7.
• CrossFireX configurations using the Radeon HD 7900, Radeon HD 7800, and the Radeon HD 7700  in OpenCL accelerated applications may cause a BSOD or system hang.
• Blacklight Retribution (DirectX11 mode) played with a CrossFire configuration may result in a system crash when launching the application (32-bit OS only).
• Video corruption can be seen when playing back movie trailers with Metro video player.

As well as support for the Radeon and FirePro line of graphics chips, there’s also support for theA-, C- and E-series APU CPU/GPU packages.

The new drivers are available for download here. Both the 32-bit and 64-bit editions of Windows 8 are supported.

NVIDIA has yet to update its drivers for the Release Preview. When the Consumer Preview of Windows 8 was released back in February, it took the company two weeks to release the first driver update to support the new platform.

Source: ZDNET

Judge hands another win to Google; rules 37 APIs not copyrightable

The structure, sequence and organization of the 37 Java APIs at question in Oracle v. Google are not copyrightable, according to Judge William Alsup in his ruling on Thursday afternoon.

However, it’s a narrow ruling that only covers the APIs at question in the copyright phase of this case.

Oracle had sued Google over copyright infringement related to the use of 37 Java APIs used on the Android mobile operating system. Google argued they were free to use because the Java programming language is free to use, and the APIs are required to use the language. Oracle tried to make the case that Google had knowingly used the APIs without a license from Sun Microsystems, which was bought by Oracle in 2010.

In what was once touted as a $6 billion case, it now looks like Oracle is going to end up with not much more than a hefty legal bill. Last week, the jury ruled that Google was not guilty of patent infringement on both counts related to U.S. Patent Nos. RE38,104 and 6,061,520. Yesterday, Alsup rejected Oracle’s motion to overturn the jury’s verdict.

That’s after the jury came back with a partial verdict in the copyrights phase of the trial a few weeks ago in which the then-12 jurors said that Google had infringed upon Oracle’s copyrights — but they could not come up with a unanimous answer on the question of fair use.

However, now Alsup has handed another win to Google by ruling that the 37 APIs weren’t copyrightable in the first place. Here is the heart of the ruling:

So long as the specific code used to implement a method is different, anyone is free under the Copyright Act to write his or her own code to carry out exactly the same function or  specification of any methods used in the Java API. It does not matter that the declaration or method header lines are identical.

Under the rules of Java, they must be identical to declare a method specifying the same functionality — even when the implementation is different. When there is only one way to express an idea or function, then everyone is free to do so and no one can monopolize that  expression. And, while the Android method and class names could have been different from the names of their counterparts in Java and still have worked, copyright protection never extends to names or short phrases as a matter of law.

The key point to understand here is that Alsup’s ruling only refers to the APIs in this lawsuit, and he is not handing down a broad ruling that would extend to all APIs in general.

“This order does not hold that Java API packages are free for all to use without license,” Alsup wrote. “It does not hold that the structure, sequence and organization of all computer programs may be stolen. Rather, it holds on the specific facts of this case, the particular elements replicated by Google were free for all to use under the Copyright Act.”

Thus, that calls for two major decisions wrapped up: Oracle’s copyright infringement claims against Google are dismissed, turning Google’s motion for a retrial into a moot point.

Now the big question will be where Oracle heads from here: accept the U.S. District Court’s decision or try to go for an appeal.

The latter seems like an incredible long shot given that it barely won on any counts from the jury on copyrights and absolutely nothing on patents.

The jury only gave Oracle the win on the nine lines of code involved in the rangeCheck method, and Alsup had previously said before Oracle could only hope for statutory damages — a maximum of $150,000 — at best on those. The court later tacked on the test files, but Oracle’s efforts in this case will not result in the payday for which it originally hoped.

Yet Alsup nodded towards the possibility that Oracle will try again anyway, explaining in regards to rangeCheck and the test files that “this circumstance is so innocuous and overblown by Oracle that the actual facts, as found herein by the judge, will be set forth below for the benefit of the court of appeals.”

Nevertheless, an appeal would still be extremely difficult considering that Alsup has tightly buttoned up this case as it related to the 37 Java APIs and Android only.

Google has already issued the following statement:

The court’s decision upholds the principle that open and interoperable computer languages form an essential basis for software development. It’s a good day for collaboration and innovation.

Oracle also issued the following response:

Oracle is committed to the protection of Java as both a valuable development platform and a valuable intellectual property asset.  It will vigorously pursue an appeal of this decision in order to maintain that protection and to continue to support the broader Java community of over 9 million developers and countless law abiding enterprises. Google’s implementation of the accused APIs is not a free pass, since a license has always been required for an implementation of the Java Specification. And the court’s reliance on “interoperability” ignores the undisputed fact that Google deliberately eliminated interoperability between Android and all other Java platforms. Google’s implementation intentionally fragmented Java and broke the “write once, run anywhere” promise. This ruling, if permitted to stand, would undermine the protection for innovation and invention in the United States and make it far more difficult to defend intellectual property rights against companies anywhere in the world that simply takes them as their own.

Source: ZDNET