Searching Weekly Analysis
Searching Weekly Analysis
M&A, Strategies, Alliances Apple has joined the FlexTech Alliance of over 160 companies to develop high-tech military wearables for the Pentagon, alongside ThinkFilm, Qualcomm and Fujitsu. The alliance has secured $75m in funding. Google has apparently scrapped a project that would have let businesses push adverts to Google Maps users based on location via Bluetooth beacons, after it was deemed too invasive. Infineon, the Siemens silicon spinout, has hinted that it is looking heavily at acquisitions and is open to being acquired itself – an attractive proposition for those with automotive ambitions. The IIC passed 200 members, and announced its new steering committee. Fujitsu has acquired Applied Card Technologies (ACT) to boost its smart city transportation portfolio, putting the digital…
Making good on its threat to offer Android Wear as an option for iPhone users, Google has announced that Android Wear watches are now able to pair with fifth generation iPhones, via an Android Wear app. The tradeoff is that the new abilities are only possible on newer models, and that they do not have the same functionality as the full-Android experience. Ahead of the IFA tradeshow, where dozens of new Android-powered wearables are due to be unveiled, this is big news for the platform – especially in a market that appears to have heavily slowed down following the launch of the Apple Watch. According to figures from Argus Insights, the US wearable market has slowed dramatically after peaking in…
Tech giant IBM has been ranked as the number one smart city supplier, according to a report from Navigant research. The report has produced a top 10 ranking of vendors based on specific criteria, to give the smart city sector what it describes as an objective assessment of their strengths and weaknesses in a potentially prosperous global smart city technology market. Interest from outside investors continues to grow as they eye up arising opportunities for developing sustainability, public services and the economy, just a handful of potential benefits from the IoT – and according to the report, the likes of IBM, Cisco and Schneider Electric are the best bets when considering a partner. The rankings were established by examining the…
ARM has scored a significant goal for its mbed platform for internet of things devices and sensors, which will now be connected directly to IBM’s IoT analytics systems. The two companies have announced plans to integrate the two platforms as the IT giant extends its tentacles into every corner of the IoT ecosystem via its cloud services, analytics engines and web of partnerships. ARM is looking for ecosystem control of its own, though on a far lower layer of the complex IoT stack. Its mbed OS, launched last year, provides a lightweight operating system for embedded devices powered by low end processors or microcontrollers, and integrates with the whole mbed developer platform. As well as unifying many types of chips…
The promises of SON (self-optimizing networks) will only be fully delivered if there is interoperability between different vendors’ implementations, and this is one goal of the OSS Interoperability Initiative (OSSii), formed in 2013 by the three largest network OEMs. Ericsson, Huawei and Nokia took the unusual step of opening up interfaces which they have often guarded fiercely, in the face of rising operator pressure to make their SON platforms, and broader OSS offerings, more open to mix-and-match approaches, especially when it comes to smaller cells. The OSSii allows different products to share data and network information, and they are pre-verified by the cross-vendor body to save customers from complex integration projects. That would certainly be valuable to hard-pressed operators, but…
The AllSeen Alliance, which backs the Qualcomm-created AllJoyn technology for IoT device connectivity and discovery, has signed up yet another supporter at the PHY level, the ULE Alliance, which manages the new IoT-focused generation of the venerable DECT standard. The ULE Alliance was one of five new members announced recently by the AllSeen body, which is sweeping all before it in the race to dominate the IoT connectivity framework in consumer markets, scoring several wins against its nearest rival, Intel-backed IoTivity. DECT may be considered old technology, but it has a huge global installed base and access to protected spectrum (between 1800 MHz and 1900 MHz), unlike many smart home-oriented platforms, which have to fight it out in 2.4 GHz.…
Making good on its threat to offer Android Wear as an option for iPhone users, Google has announced that Android Wear watches are now able to pair with fifth generation iPhones, via an Android Wear app. The trade-off is that the new abilities are only possible on newer models, and that they do not have the same functionality as the full Android experience. Ahead of the IFA trade show in Berlin, where dozens of new Android-powered wearables are due to be unveiled, this is big news for the platform – especially in a market that appears to have heavily slowed down following the launch of the Apple Watch. According to figures from Argus Insights, the US wearable market has slowed…
The battle to provide the standards for next generation video codecs just got serious, as the giants behind three royalty-free designs pooled their resources in order to gang up on the HEVC platform. Cisco, Google and Mozilla are all placing their video codec efforts into the new Alliance for Open Media, which is pursuing an open standard that will not carry patent fees, unlike the dominant H.264 codec. They are joined by Microsoft, Amazon, Intel, Netflix and others, a formidable combination which may mean the reign of H.264’s successor, HEVC, is very short indeed. A royalty-free codec has been a goal of companies like Google for years, especially as video has become so central to the mobile and online experience…
Sony Mobile has unveiled its next-gen Xperia Z5 and Xperia Z5 Compact, and claims to have put both a 4K camera and a 4k screen on the device. The camera starts with a 23 megapixel sensor and has rapid autofocus to shoot in just 0.037 of a second for real-time action shots. The Xperia Z5 Premium has a 5.5 inch 4K Triluminos display and both devices are powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon octa-core 810. The screen will use Sony’s upscaling algorithms to enhance HD video. We were not expecting 4K screens to be commonplace in phones for some while yet. US software encoding specialist Envivio will demonstrate its Cloud DVR at IBC, running on a HP Moonshot for Media server,…
Service management platforms have developed from their roots in enterprise data centers, to embrace other aspects of business operations, extending to areas such as sales planning, that may be served by IT but are not part of it. Broadcasting and pay TV have become prime targets for service management as the field has become more IT driven and aligned with web based IP networking. Many of the underlying ingredients, such as MAM (Media Asset Management), OSS/BSS (Operations/Business Support Systems), workflow management and subscriber management have long been deployed, but they have tended to operate in silos and been poorly integrated. As a result current service management procedures tend to act as a brake on innovation, at a time when broadcasters…
The battle for ownership of the next generation codec just got serious, and this week’s merging of interest by a group of six companies, Microsoft and Google among them, could mean HEVC’s reign is very short-lived. The current debate over who should have royalties for inventing HEVC is likely to spill over into an expensive patent war – fought primarily between members of the two HEVC factions, while Microsoft and Google and others quietly work to obsolete the standard. In the process, pay TV operators, studios, broadcasters and OTT technology providers will all be on tenterhooks, undecided about whether to go ahead with HEVC or wait until a royalty free codec emerges. This week Google and Microsoft threw in their…
At the end of last week, we spoke to Philip DesAutels, the Senior Director of IoT at the AllSeen Alliance, to get the lowdown on AllJoyn’s progress following the addition of Lowe’s emerging Iris smart home platform to the alliance, as well as five new members, including the ULE Alliance. The addition of the backers of DECT ULE gives AllJoyn access to a very exciting PHY layer, with access to protected spectrum. In addition to Lowe’s, the Qualcomm-founded AllSeen Alliance has welcomed RadialPoint, a technical support services provider, as a community member. The ULE Alliance, Continental Automated Buildings Association (CABA), China Electronics Standardization Institute (CESI Technologies), and The Energy Mashup Lab have all joined (pun intended) as sponsored members. AllJoyn…
Qualcomm confirmed reports that it has agreed to sell its UK holdings of L-band spectrum to two of the countries’ mobile operators, Vodafone and Hutchison Three. The chip giant acquired 40 MHz in the 1452 MHZ-1492 MHz band for £8.34m ($12.8m) in 2008. The spectrum was once expected to power a mobile broadcasting launch, but Qualcomm pulled back from its MediaFLO technology in 2010, and since then has concentrated its mobile TV efforts on LTE Broadcast. It sold its US FLO spectrum, which consisted of unpaired 700 MHz frequencies, to AT&T in 2011, and now has followed suit with its UK 1.4 GHz holdings. Like the spectrum AT&T picked up, these assets are of rising interest to operators. Once concerned only…
The latest row has broken out over LTE-Unlicensed technologies, as the telecoms industry – particularly in the US – splits between those with spectrum and those aiming to become major wireless players via WiFi. Qualcomm, T-Mobile USA and others have written to the FCC with a strongly worded objection to a new request, from the WiFi Alliance (WFA), that it effectively takes over coexistence testing between LTE running in the 5 GHz band, and WiFi. The Alliance has expressed concerns that LTE would adversely affect WiFi, and other WiFi players, including the cable industry R&D body CableLabs, have been more outspoken, with some accusing the cellular companies of conducting inadequate tests or presenting over-optimistic results. The issue is particularly urgent…
Fragmentation has dogged Android throughout its history, and the new release 6.0 (aka Marshmallow) only partly addresses the issue. It does provide Google with better abilities to push updates directly to end users, rather than waiting for MNOs to do so – their reluctance to upgrade their devices has been a major reason for the user base to be split between several new and legacy releases, to the frustration of developers and Google. But these tweaks are not enough to prevent the Android ecosystem from fracturing into many distinct pieces, or even forking entirely – after all, Google can only control access to its apps, and use frameworks like the Open Handset Alliance to try to unify the user experience,…
It’s easy to get carried away with Intel’s wackier or more visionary demonstrations at its annual IDF developer forum (see separate item). But even if the IoT markets evolve as quickly as it would like, it will still have years when its core revenues are still coming from PCs and PC-like devices, and from server chips. And even in those bread-and-butter segments, Intel will need to think creatively if it is to maintain its dominance and use that as the foundation of future businesses such as Cloud-RAN. That will certainly mean adjusting the product, pricing and business model for the Pentium and Atom processors and all their associated services, to compete with Chinese rivals and with the ARM community –…
With IDC downgrading its forecasts for PCs and tablets again (see inset), it was no surprise that, at the annual Intel Developer Forum (IDF) in San Francisco, the chip giant was talking about almost anything except the product which has been the seat of its power for so long. Spider robots controlled by CEO Brian Krzanich’s bracelet; a spy camera embedded in an inflatable flying shark; a smart mirror that changes the color of clothes as you try them on; a smart greenhouse – and so it went on. Of course, these wacky demonstrations were designed to showcase very real technologies – which Intel hopes will quickly start to be adopted by the developers of all kinds of products, and…
Qualcomm confirmed reports that it has agreed to sell its UK holdings of L-band spectrum to two of the countries’ mobile operators, Vodafone and Hutchison Three. The chip giant acquired 40 MHz in the 1452 MHZ-1492 MHz band for £8.34m ($12.8m) in 2008. The spectrum was once expected to power a mobile broadcasting launch, but Qualcomm pulled back from its MediaFLO technology in 2010, and since then has concentrated its mobile TV efforts on LTE Broadcast. It sold its US FLO spectrum, which consisted of unpaired 700 MHz frequencies, to AT&T in 2011, and now has followed suit with its UK 1.4 GHz holdings. Like the spectrum AT&T picked up, these assets are of rising interest to operators. Once concerned…
When you look in some detail at the financial make-up of the major US broadcasters, you find retransmission agreements are what are keeping them healthy, balanced by advertising and affiliate deals. But retransmission payments are the key to the continued existence of US broadcasting, and for the popular national broadcast networks, these payments are on the rise. There are two ways to cut a deal with a broadcaster and we have two great examples of this going on this week. On the one hand we have Dish Network reporting Sinclair to the FCC, and making its complaints very public, as it prepared for a lengthy blackout of 129 channels, and on the other we have Cablevision cutting a deal with…
We are starting to hear undercurrents of complaint about the merger between Arris and Pace, and think it’s time we addressed the issue. It appears that the Justice Department’s request for more information on the deal was brought about by US cable companies crying foul and suggesting that their life will be hell without Pace to fall back on. Historically this may well have been true. In the 2000 timeframe Motorola held a lock-in with its Mediacipher conditional access, which was used as an excuse to foist underperforming, expensive devices onto all the US cable companies, the majors included. Three clear initiatives came to their rescue back then, and Pace was involved in perhaps the more complicated of these three.…