Intel Seeks Visibility in Cloud Service Market

Intel is making a concerted effort to get traction among cloud customers -- an area where the company already dominates, but is seeking to further entrench itself.

Intel on Wednesday announced a new initiative aimed at the cloud space. The new 

 “Powered by Intel Cloud Technology” program purportedly aims to improve customer experience and value as well as the company’s cloud service capabilities.

In an emailed exchange, an Intel spokesman said it has partnered with 16 leading cloud service providers who have, when combined, in total $3.5 billion of cloud revenue. Those partners plan to provide a service that allows their customers to get a sense of the hardware behind their Intel-based cloud technology. Intel spokesman explained that such a brand visibility is important, just as drivers of a car want to know what kind of engine runs inside of it.

Intel’s new program helps communicate differentiation, Intel claimed, and it improves service performance -- although the company failed to offer specifics. Intel promised it will also improve reliability and security, thus assuring that customers get solid return on investment. The program includes Intel’s integrated Cloud Finder online search engine, which enables customers to find companies that provide cloud services built on similar Intel technology.

Charles King, president and principal analyst at market research firm Pund-IT, said in an interview with EE Times that Intel’s new program came out of cooperation between Intel and Amazon. “You could call this arose from a very successful experimental collaboration with Amazon,” he said.

Building a window into the cloud
 

As for how this program helps differentiate Intel from its competitors in the cloud market, King indicated that there was little competition Intel needs to differentiate itself from as it stands. “I’m not quite sure that there are any competitors doing anything similar to this,” he said. “I think a program like this is necessary because in highly virtualized x86 cloud service environments there are choices that customers can make regarding infrastructure components, the amount of memory, the kind of storage components involved, etc. This program allows customers to figure out what kind of service and what kind of components they need to sign up for.”

Intel may, however, be looking to protect itself from new competition emerging as a result of cloud companies running ARM-based servers. King, however, dismissed that possibility, saying he is not high on ARM servers. The fact remains that new companies are moving into the cloud space and a fair amount of disruption is emerging from different areas of the cloud and server markets.

There is a disadvantage to not having a certain level of transparency of this kind, according to King. “On the down side, if businesses go into cloud services without an exact idea of what kind of services they need, they can run into some serious disappointment, which is really not good for anybody,” he said. “Intel is in a literal sense attempting to build a window into the cloud, which allows everyone to understand what’s going on in a much clearer and more intelligent manner.”

As for how this will impact the future of cloud services, King said that if the program works ideally, as Intel intends it to, it should help cloud services be more predictable and more transparent in a way that should benefit everyone involved. That includes the customers, he said, but also the cloud service providers involved in the program as well as Intel itself.

Intel explained that cloud service providers need to handle a variety of workloads their customers have.

For instance, customers may have simple web hosting but not know exactly what’s inside. The variability of what the customer gets could be up to 60%, Intel said. The cost of using the service may go up compared to what a customer would have paid if better hardware was available. This program is going to expose those features so that the user is able to make more informed decisions.

Intel CPUs power 90 percent or more of the cloud today. Instead of promoting sales of high-end CPUs, Intel said that the new program’s goal is to expose the instances of high-end and lower-end hardware so that people who buy it are aware of the technology they are going to use

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Rokit Boosts Technology Blog Reports Latest News on iPhone 5, Apple Product Developments, Bluetooth Accessories, and More

Rokit Boost offers customers the newest, most state-of-the-art mobile accessories, so it comes as no surprise that they also publish a blog relaying the most recent Apple and technology news. The blog provides details about their latest products, like the iPhone 5 battery case that provides 125% more charge, their lightweight Bluetooth headset, and convenient wireless Bluetooth speakers. However, the vast majority of articles which are posted several times each week relay the biggest technology stories of the day.

The Rokit Boost team writes about every kind of technology issue one can imagine, from an Apple retrospective (When iPhone met world, 7 years ago today) to economics updates (App Store Downloads and Revenue Surpasses 50% Growth on Christmas Day 2013) to electronics security coverage (Leaked Documents Show NSA Could Tap iPhones, Apple Denies Involvement).

Despite the fact that Rokit Boost only created this blog two months ago, there are already more than twenty categories and multiple pages for technology-lovers to peruse. The blogs search function also allows readers to find eloquent, well-researched pieces about whatever interests them. The blogs comment platform also allows their fan community to further discuss the important issues of the day.

In addition to providing high-quality technology news to their patrons, Rokit Boosts blog also demonstrates the companys expertise in their field. In order to provide the most cutting-edge design and fill important gaps in the competitive mobile accessories market, it is vital that the company understand the ever-shifting technology industry. Both Rokit Boosts innovative products and their comprehensive blog show their commitment to this field.

About RokitBoost

Rokit Boost provides unique luxury electronics accessories at a great value. The companys mission is to help their buyers enjoy their beloved mobile devices even more. Their blog is just one of many features that cater to their tech-savvy customers.

They also have a technical support forum designed to offer efficient assistance, a one-year warranty on all products, a 30-day money-back guarantee, and free U.S. shipping.

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The air bag: Self-driving cars at Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas

Las Vegas’s annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) is all about razzle and dazzle. Every January for the past 35 years, the crème de la crème of the geek world has descended upon the Nevada desert to turn Sin City into Nerd Heaven.

Geeky though it may be, however, CES is really the harbinger of all that is new in the digital world. And electronics are seemingly important enough that automakers are now unveiling all new cars in Vegas, just a week ahead of the once omnipotent Detroit North American International Auto Show.

The problem with being dazzled is that the hype seldom matches reality. So it was that Audi’s A8 drove itself onto centre stage at the convention hall inside Sin City’s ultra hedonistic Cosmopolitan hotel to much applause. Said applause grew stronger when the company previewed a video showing a chauffeur able to, well, chauffeur his clients hither and yon all from the comfort of his cozy den, the car literally driving itself with no one behind the wheel. The crowd was, to put it mildly, wowed.

Only it’s an illusion. The technology that will allow a car to drive itself to far-flung destinations with no one behind the wheel is, if not quite ready for prime time, certainly on the horizon.

What still very much needs to be ironed out is who is responsible for that car when no one is behind the wheel. That is, if the car suffers a glitch – like your laptop just last week – and runs down a load of schoolchildren, who is responsible?

Not Audi, that’s for sure. As Ulrich Hackenberg, Audi’s board member for technical development, explained, Audi mandates that all its cars – self-driving or not – have a driver behind the wheel. The driver, Ulrich noted, is still by law responsible for the car. So, yes, although you will start seeing cars in the not-so-distant future that are able to drive themselves, chances are you’ll still be behind the steering wheel and, no, you won’t be sleeping or reading a newspaper because if something does happen, you’re expected to take the reins, no matter how autonomous the car company will claim its products are.

Nor was the question of autonomous motoring the only legality raised at this year’s monster electronics exhibition. Google announced numerous alliances with automakers – Audi included – that will see all manner of communication between car and man. Or, at least, his smartphone.

But, as has become readily apparent in recent months, the question of who owns all that data Google collects is problematic. While most current automobiles have “black boxes” that collect data on where you went, how fast you got there and what time you arrived, we are now entering an era where all this information will be “cloud based”; in other words, on someone else’s server.

Such technology may prove even more invasive to our privacy than our smartphones. We can, after all, shut those down; these new cars will always be “connected”. Police already access the on-board versions of these black boxes in case of accidents. Will they be able to access Google’s database to give you tickets without even having to actually catch you in the act? Ditto for insurance companies who would, no doubt, be very interested in a comprehensive history of your driving habits.

What else was there? Ford showed off some updated apps – one can help you order pizza from Domino’s – for its Sync system and showed off a C-Max Hybrid with a solar panel built into its roof. Audi unveiled some laser-powered headlights that are reputedly three times as luminescent as its current LEDs and Mercedes-Benz trumpeted a watch that will let you stay connected with your car 24/7.

On a thankfully less geeky note, Chevrolet announced a Performance Data Recorder option for its Corvette complete with a 720P windscreen-mounted video camera that lets you automatically record and display your latest racetrack foray. Score one for the gearheads

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UK solar homes hit half a million milestone

Wrexham Council installed 3000 solar systems on social housing units.

  The number of solar installations in the UK registered for the government’s feed-in tariff has topped half a million for the first time, according to official statistics.

The latest data released by the Department for Energy and Climate Change shows that the total number of registered installs reached  501,145 for the week ending 12 January.

Together, the mainly residential systems represent an installed capacity of 1.808GW.

Prior to the Christmas holidays when the publication of statistics was suspended, Leonie Greene, head of external affairs at the Solar Trade Association called the approaching achievement “an extraordinary milestone”.

“Half a million homes have been achieved in three years. We want to achieve the next half a million homes in less than two years so that we can hit the big million in 2015,” she added.

“We'd like to see the whole industry pull together in 2014 to help us get the clear benefits of investment out to the public.”

The UK’s large-scale sector has also enjoyed rapid growth with statistics from NPD Solarbuzz show that segment of the industry grew by 600% in 2013. It was one of only five countries that featured in the top ten for installed capacity of both large-and small-scale solar.

In total 1.45GW of new solar energy capacity was added across the UK in 2013.

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Solar energy firms are getting creative in raising funds

SolarCity employees install solar panels on a West Los Angeles home in 2009. Solar firms have a difficult time persuading banks to fund their projects.

Solar installer SolarCity Corp. has figured out a way to tap retail investors willing to earn green by going green.

The San Mateo company on Wednesday said it plans to offer a way to buy investment products similar to bonds. Instead of being backed by SolarCity, these securities would offer returns backed by solar projects and contracts the company has with customers who have panels installed on their roof.

This is just one in a number of novel ways that solar power companies, many just start-ups, are finding ways to finance their businesses.

Solar developers often have a difficult time persuading traditional banks to fund smaller-scale projects, analysts said. Many investment firms are unfamiliar with the risks of solar and unwilling to wait out the payout period, which can take decades.

"The solar industry is still relatively new in terms of getting big institutional investors," said Michael Barker, senior analyst at research firm NPD Solarbuzz. 

"There is a lot of creativity in this financing space, but it is still relatively nascent."

In the case of SolarCity, analysts said the investments will probably resemble mortgage-backed securities, which banks have offered for years by bundling mortgages together and selling them to investors. They could be especially attractive when compared with the current low returns for bonds.

Tim Newell, vice president of financial products for SolarCity, said the company has traditionally relied on big investors such as Bank of America and Goldman Sachs. 

Also, last year the company raised about $54 million by selling notes secured by solar projects and contracts.

The new approach will open up another way to raise capital for the company, which installs panels on homes, businesses and government buildings and then charges for the electricity they generate.

Newell declined to discuss specifics of the investment products, including rates of returns. He said the first securities will be available for sale in the first half of this year.

Shares of the company rose $2.95, or 4.5%, to $68.50 on Wednesday.

He said the company's latest venture was "a natural progression" as the solar industry matures.

"Today's customers come to SolarCity to buy clean energy," he said. Soon, "they will be able to buy clean energy or buy financial products based on clean energy."

Other companies are looking at crowdfunding to raise money, harnessing the combined power of the Internet and environmentally conscious people.

One of the start-ups experimenting with that approach is Mosaic, which launched a crowdfunding model lastJanuary. The company acts almost like a bank, hooking up solar project developers with institutions, wealthy people, and mom-and-pop investors in California and New York.

The Oakland company takes money from investors and lends it to projects at schools, military housing and other sites.

Investors typically earn 4.5% to 7% annually, co-founder and President Billy Parish said. The company charges an "origination fee" and 1%, he said. This year, Mosaic is also looking into ways for people to invest using their 401(k)s or other retirement accounts.

Parish said only a handful of banks around the nation have a dedicated green energy financing department, and even those that do typically don't lend money for anything but major installations. But Mosaic has so far funded 20 projects with $6.6 million raised from 3,000 investors around the country.

"The banks are keen to finance huge utility-scale solar projects," he said. "But the $500,000 loan, they are not interested. We are able to finance that."

Solar developer HelioPower worked with Mosaic to raise money for five projects, including a Ronald McDonald House in San Diego and an affordable housing venture in Salinas, said Tom Millhoff, HelioPower's vice president of business development.
Millhoff said solar developers save money by raising capital from the local community or the environmentally minded. That's an especially big boost for organizations such as churches, he said, which often have limited resources but loyal members willing to invest in their neighborhood

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Toshiba Flash Marries Q'comm SoCs in Vegas

Toshiba America Electronic Components announced at the Consumer Electronics Show that its universal flash storage (UFS) implementation will be added to the Qualcomm Snapdragon 802 chipset. UFS version 2.0 products will go into production for smartphones and tablets in the second quarter.

"You'll see some initial systems at end of 2014, but basically 2015 is when the primary ramp is," Scott Beekman, senior business development manager for mobile communications memory at TAEC, told us. "By 2016, we expect UFS to account for the majority of [flash] demand for tablets and smartphones."

UFS, a next-generation embedded flash memory device (following eMMC), delivers a threefold boost in performance for advanced mobile applications. UFS 2.0 supports a maximum data rate of 1.2Gbit/s, compared with 400 MBit/s for eMMC 5.0. The UFS serial interface supports command queuing, as well as full duplex operation to read and write at same time.

Though eMMC has lower idle/sleep power and a lower cost, Beekman said UFS provides better power efficiency, and he expects the price gap between the two to decrease over time. UFS 2.0 is not backward compatible with the earlier version 1.1, which ran at up to 300 Mbit/s.

"High-end smartphones and tablets will be the first to adopt and take advantage of the performance benefits of UFS over e-MMC," Scott Nelson, senior vice president of TAEC's memory business unit, said in a press release. "As UFS migrates to mid-range products, the embedded mobile memory market will transition from e-MMC to UFS, though e-MMC will likely continue to support the low-end for some time."

Among lower-tier mobile devices, Beekman said, eMMC will remain dominant though 2016, when UFS will account for approximately 40% of the market. By 2017, UFS will surpass eMMC.

Toshiba is the first company to announce product-ready shipments of UFS, though Beekman said he expects major NAND suppliers will also ship UFS. "Given eMMC is such a dominate solution for smartphones and tablets, it's an important step toward a new solution in the market."

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FCC's Wheeler Stresses 'Values' in CES Debut

The annual onstage chat at the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) between Consumer Electronics Association president Gary Shapiro and the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission -- this year the newly confirmed Tom Wheeler -- always features a little subtle political sparring. This is muted, of course, by Shapiro's hospitality and his pride in the mass cordiality of this immense annual tradeshow.

Tom Wheeler, FCC chairman
(Source: FCC.gov)

But politics did leak into the 2014 discussion repeatedly, first with Shapiro's mention of a six-month delay in Wheeler's Senate confirmation. The suspense was engineered by conservative Republicans, notably maverick Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, worried about possible FCC requirements for disclosure of campaign contributions. More substantial was Shapiro's cautious intimation that the FCC, under interim FCC chief Mignon Clyburn, might have overstepped last year when it killed AT&T's attempted takeover of T-Mobile, costing AT&T some $4 billion.

Emphasizing that the FCC is scrupulous about studying each deal case-by-case, Wheeler smiled and said, "I'm kind of fascinated that there's a kind of Lake Woebegon nature in proposed mergers. I've never seen a merger that wasn't presented as though it was going to increase competition." Noting that a merger by definition eliminates at least one competitor from the market, Wheeler said that the FCC looks carefully at such claims and says, "Really?"

Wheeler's point was that AT&T, despite intensive lobbying for the merger, simply didn't make a strong enough case. Later, he noted that the FCC has no vested interest in interfering in the market as muscularly as it did in the AT&T case. He referred to the "regulatory see-saw": If the market competes freely, protecting values aimed at serving the consumer, he noted, the agency doesn't have to do much.

"But," he added, "the see-saw can go the other way."

Shapiro, who was clearly feeling out the new FCC chairman, also touched a political nerve when he asked whether the agency might encourage a re-write by Congress of the 1996 Telecommunications Act, considering that it predates so many changes in the electronics landscape. Wheeler responded by noting that he was involved in the writing of the now 17-year-old law. He admitted that, in 1996, the Internet was still new and digital concepts were just emerging. But, he stressed, "A set of values were well spelled out."

Wheeler said that Congress's intent was to establish guidelines for telecommunications regulation, "and allow the FCC to stay up to date" with new technologies. "The current act," he stated, "has ample authority to exercise its role in this new environment.

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