PC giant Lenovo is downplaying a recent report that the company is looking to acquire BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion.

The rumour spread on Friday following a Bloomberg report that cited Lenovo chief financial officer, Wong Waiming, as saying that the company is “looking at all opportunities – RIM and many others.” In a statement  on Monday morning, Lenovo said it does not comment on mergers and acquisition rumours or speculation, but clarified Waiming’s statement.

“We are aware that Lenovo’s CFO Waiming was speaking broadly about M&A strategy in a recent interview,” the company said. “RIM was raised as a potential target by the journalist and Mr. Wong repeatedly answered in a manner consistent with all of our previous statements on M&A strategy: Lenovo is very focused on growing its business, both organically and through M&A. When inorganic ideas arise, we explore them to see if there is a strategic fit.

Meanwhile, RIM also issued a statement about the report, but did not directly address the possible Lenovo bid. The company said it is focused at this time on the delivery of its long-awaited BlackBerry 10 operating system, which will be unveiled at a press event tomorrow, 30 January.

“As [RIM CEO Thorsten Heins] said on our most recent results conference call on December 20th, we continue to examine all available options to ‘create new opportunities, focusing on areas where we will be more effective partnering rather than going it alone, and ultimately maximizing value for all stakeholders,’” RIM said in a statement, according to The Next Web. “We do not have anything new to report on our strategic review at this time.”

RIM last year hired bankers from JPMorgan and RBC Capital to help evaluate its strategic options after facing several disappointing financial quarters in a row as it struggles to deal with the popularity of Apple’s iPhone and smartphones based on Google’s Android.

by Angela Moscaritolo

Smartphone sales skyrocketed last year, thanks in large part to Samsung and Apple, but Huawei and ZTE also made gains as Nokia took a tumble, according to new statistics.

Global smartphone shipments reached a record high of 700 million units last year, growing 43 per cent from 490.5 million units in 2011, according to new data from Strategy Analytics.

Smartphone market figures released from IDC were a tad more modest. IDC said smartphone vendors shipped 545.2 million smartphones globally in 2012, which was 10 per cent more than in 2011.

For the fourth quarter of 2012, Strategy Analytics said smartphone shipments grew 38 per cent to 217 million units from 157 million the previous year. IDC similarly reported that smartphone shipments reached 219.4 million in Q4, representing 45.4 per cent of all mobile phone shipments, the highest per centage ever.

It’s no surprise that Strategy Analytics and IDC agreed that Samsung and Apple dominated the smartphone market in 2012. Together, the two rivals accounted for half of all smartphones shipped worldwide, according to Strategy Analytics.

“Large marketing budgets, extensive distribution channels and attractive product portfolios have enabled Samsung and Apple to tighten their grip on the smartphone industry,” Strategy Analytics said.

Even so, there is still room in the market for challengers, according to Kevin Restivo, senior research analyst with IDC’s worldwide quarterly mobile phone tracker.

“Vendors with unique market advantages, such as lower-cost devices, can rapidly gain market share, especially in emerging markets,” Restivo said. “A good example is Huawei, which [in Q4] overtook LG as a top five vendor in the overall mobile phone market and passed HTC to become a Top 5 smartphone vendor.”

IDC mobile phone research mangaer Ramon Llamas, added that the rise of Huawei and ZTE as top five smartphone vendors in Q4 “marks a significant shift” for the market.

“Both companies have grown volumes by focusing on the mass market, but in recent quarters they have turned their attention toward higher-end devices,” Llamas said. “In addition, both companies have pushed the envelope in terms of industrial design with larger displays and smaller form factors, as well as innovative applications and experiences.”

At CES earlier this month, Huawei unveiled its massive, 6.1-inch Ascent Mate.

Smartphone giant Samsung lead the smartphone market in 2012 with a 30 per cent market share worldwide, Strategy Analytics said. The Korean electronics giant shipped a record 213 million smartphones worldwide, the largest number of units ever shipped by a smartphone vendor in a single year. Nokia previously held that record when it shipped 100.1 million units in 2010.

“Despite tough competition in stores and courtrooms, Samsung continued to deliver numerous hit models, from the high-end Galaxy Note II phablet to the mass-market Galaxy Y,” Strategy Analytics said.

Apple, the number two smartphone vendor, grew a “healthy” 46 per cent annually, shipping 135.8 million phones worldwide, the firm said.  The Cupertino-based company’s market share remained flat from the 19 per cent level recorded in 2011. The company found most of its success in 2012 in developed regions like North America, but was “offset partially” in fast-growing emerging markets like Africa, where it has a limited presence.

Samsung and Apple’s success was bad news for Nokia, which retained its position as the world’s third-largest smartphone vendor in 2012, but saw its global market share spiral from 16 per cent to 5 per cent during the past year, Strategy Analytics said. There’s still hope for the company though, as it has significantly improved its Windows Phone portfolio in recent months. Even so, Strategy Analytics said Nokia still lacks a “true hero model” that can compete with Apple’s iPhone 5 or Samsung’s Galaxy S3.

Meanwhile, the larger mobile phone market remained essentially flat in 2012 with shipments of more than 1.7 billion units, IDC said. During Q4, the market grew 1.9 per cent year over year thanks to strong holiday sales. Vendors shipped 482.5 million mobile phones in Q4 compared to 473.4 million a year earlier.

by Angela Moscaritolo

HMV has been acquired by Hilco’s UK division just a week after first entering administration. The retail restructuring group bought the music vendor’s £176 million net debt from its lenders Lloyds and Royal Bank Scotland – though at a purportedly marked-down price.

The deal lands Hilco with a new addition to its growing HMV portfolio, as it purchased the retail chain’s Canadian arm in 2011.

The debt transfer ensures that HMV does not go the way of Comet, with which it shares Deloitte as an administrator. However, the deal doesn’t necessarily ensure that all of the chain’s 223 stores will remain intact, as inevitable organisational restructuring will likely require sacrifices.

If property is made available, there will be no shortage of bidders, what with fellow administration survivor GAME already indicating interest in store purchases, which might also provide HMV’s 4,000-strong workforce with an additional safety net in the face of staff cuts.

Image credit: Flickr (Gwydion M. Williams)

by Oluseun Alufa,

The evolution of computers, and the evolution of life, share the common constraint that in going forward beyond a certain level of complexity, the advantage goes to that which can build on what is already in hand rather than redesigning from scratch. Life’s crowning achievement, the human brain, seeks to mould for itself the power and directness of the computing machine, while endowing the machine with its own economy of thought and movement. To predict the form their inevitable convergence might eventually take, we can look back now with greater understanding to the early drivers which shaped life, and reinvigorate these ideas to guide our construction.

“Life is, in effect, a side reaction of an energy-harnessing reaction. It requires vast amounts of energy to go on.”

Nick Lane, author of a new paper in the journal Cell, was speaking here about critical processes in the origin of life, though his words would also be an apt description of computing in general. His paper, basically, puts forth bold, new ideas for how proto-life forms originated in deep sea hydrothermal vents by harnessing energy gradients. The strategies employed by life offer some insights into how we might build the ultimate processor of the future.

Many of us have read claims regarding the information storage capacity and processing rate of the human brain, and have wondered – how do they measure that? Well, the fact is they don’t. With our limited understanding of how living systems like the brain work, it is folly at this point to attempt any direct comparison with the operation of computing machines. Empirical guesswork is often attempted, but in the end it is little more than hand waving.

Google, while clearly not a brain of any kind, certainly processes a lot of information. We might ask, how well does it actually perform? It is easy enough to verify that a typical search query takes less than 0.2 seconds. Each server that touches the operation spends perhaps a few thousandths of a second on it. Google’s engineers have estimated the total work involved with indexing and retrieval amounts to about 0.0003 kWh of energy per search.

They did not indicate how they estimated this number, but if we think about it, it is a fascinating result, despite their unfortunate prefixing of the units. Suppose we take the liberty of defining this quantity, the energy per search, as a googlewatt. Such a measure would be a convenient way to characterise a computing ecosystem in much the same way that the Reynolds number qualitatively characterises flow conditions across aerodynamic systems.

One might then ask: If the size of a completely indexed web crawl is constantly expanding while the energy per elementary search operation contracts with improvements in processor efficiency, how might the googlewatt scale as the ecosystem continues to evolve? In other words, can we hope to continue to query a rapidly diverging database at 0.3Wh per search, or in monetary terms – at £0.0003 per search?

For the sake of putting energy-per-search on more familiar terms, Google notes that the average adult requires 8000 kilojoules (kJ) a day from food. It then concludes that a search is equivalent to the energy a person would burn in 10 seconds. No doubt brains perform search much differently to Google, but efforts to explore energy use by brains have proved to be confounding.

PET scanning, for example, is not a very reliable tool for localising function to specific parts of the brain. Furthermore, its temporal resolution is pitiful. It is, however, not too bad at measuring global glucose utilisation, from which energy use can be inferred. Subjects having their brains imaged by PET scanner while performing a memory retrieval task frequently appear to utilise less energy than when resting. So if we accept the bigger picture in some of these studies, we often see the counterintuitive result that the googlewatt for a brain, at least transiently and locally, can sometimes take on a negative value. This is not totally unexpected since inhibition of neuron activity balances excitability at nearly every turn. The situation may be likened to that of a teacher silencing the background din of an unruly class and demanding attention at the start of a lesson.

To try to find a more relevant comparison to biological wetware, let’s take a quick look at IBM’s Watson, the supercomputer of Jeopardy! fame. When operating at 80 teraflops, it is processing some 500GB – the equivalent of a million books – per second. To achieve this kind of throughput, Watson replicates the 4TB of data in its file system across 16TB of RAM. While no longer the state-of-the-art, Watson is certainly no slouch.

Each of Watson’s 90 Power 750 server nodes has four processor chips, making for a total of 32 cores per node. Each 567mm chip, fabricated with a 45nm process has 1.2 billion transistors. The Power 750 server was based on the earlier 575 server, but was designed to be more energy efficient and run without the need for water cooling. As it is air-cooled, the 750 cannot consume more than 1600 Watts of power and is therefore limited to 3.3GHz. The 575 could handle 5400 Watts and be run a bit higher at 4.7GHz.

Just in case you might be wondering where these processor speeds come from in the first place, it may be comforting to know that they are probably not just pulled out of a hat. They appear to be part of a sequence known as the E6 preferred number series, which IBM must have a special fondness for, and which is of course, eminently practical.

The point of these details is that to marginally outperform a human at a memory game, Watson churns out 60 MFLOPs/Watt while consuming a whopping 140 kilowatts. The human may be running a 50 Watt system with only about 10 or so Watts being used by the brain. So if life is a side effect of energy-harnessing reactions, computing in silicon looks more like a side effect of an energy-dissipating system!

In fact, the cooling system for IBM’s new 3-petaflop supercomputer, SuperMUC, uses waste heat from the machine to warm the Leibniz Centre where it is housed. It seems our brains still have a few tricks to teach their silicon brethren. How then might we apply some of these tricks to computing?

Phillip Ball published articles last month in Nature and Scientific American where he suggests that future supercomputers might not be powered by electrical currents borne along metal wires, but instead driven electrochemically by ions in the coolant flow. The idea of supplying power along with the coolant is not entirely new – jet fuel has long been used to cool aircraft electronics.

The problem with wires or circuit board traces is that routing dedicated power and ground traces to each transistor is, beyond a certain scale, a poor use of volume. Designers mitigate these problems in multi-layer boards by employing entire planes for ground, and for any of several supply voltages that might be needed. In large computers, 2D boards are stacked along with their cooling apparatus into 3D forms, but critically, the opportunity for efficient and local 3D interconnectivity is sacrificed.

If power was accessible anywhere in the volume, the efficient form of a 2D folded surface within a 3D volume might more readily be brought to bear. Elements in frequent communication but widely separated on a 2D surface can be closely opposed when folded. One may argue that high speed optical interconnects in computers reduce transmission delays and obviate the need for a more complex geometry. Typically, however, the system of interconnects and opto-electronic hardware required to make them work takes up an exorbitant volume.

Life takes on a unique geometry at all scales according to need. Single-celled algae, for example, and the mitochondria that power cells, optimally pack catalytic surface into their volumes using convoluted folds that continually evolve and intercalate according to need. Mitochondria divide when demand for their products increases, and they undergo fusion to perform error correction when their DNA is mutated by toxic oxygen metabolites.

The cerebral cortex also uses an extensively folded and connected surface, as do the dynamic synaptic sculptures within it. Folding and re-folding might even be said to be one of the central preoccupations of life. This holds true whether one is referring to proteins, membranes, or organs. The ability of membranes in particular to enclose and isolate equipotential volumes for use as local power sources or sinks as demand arises is life’s calling card.

It appears that life takes origin not by chance but in the most predictable, inevitable, and simplest way possible. Life needs an energy gradient to drive things, but a gradient not so great that any nascent structure is destroyed before it might be stabilised. While lightning, volcanism, and even cosmic ray bombardment might forge molecular precursors to life, deep sea hydrothermal vents have emerged as the prebiotic mill through which life consistently percolates. The major ions which were segregated by primordial membranes appear to have been H+ and Na+, both logical choices in an ocean environment.
by John Hewitt

The BlackBerry 10 operating system is set to launch in about two weeks, now with 15,000 more applications.

Research in Motion held two Port-A-Thon events on Friday — one focused on the BB 10 Community, and the other on Android developers. In total, it received 15,000 app submissions within 37.5 hours.

RIM’s vice president of develop relations, Alec Saunders, tweeted the news Saturday night, comparing the event to running a marathon. “Thanks to all the devs!” he added.

Beginning at noon on Friday offering a number of incentives based on the volume of approved apps each vendor submitted. With a cap of 20 apps per person, developers porting one to five apps were able to earn $100 (£62) per app, while the first 200 participants to port five to 10 approved apps received one BlackBerry Dev Alpha Device and an additional $100 (£62). Even more extravagant was the prize for those who ported 10 or more apps: the first 10 developers received a paid trip to BlackBerry Jam Europe, on top of the prizes awarded to prior categories.

RIM also held a separate but simultaneous event for Android developers, offering $100 (£62) per eligible app. Those who submitted five or more apps became eligible for a random drawing for one BlackBerry 10 Dev Alpha device.

For those developers who missed the weekend’s events, RIM today announced its Last Chance Port-A-Thon, on 18 January beginning at noon. Similar to former Port-A-Thons, it will be a virtual event, so people can log on from anywhere to participate.

by Stephanie Mlot,

U.K. startup Eyetease Limited got the green light last week to roll out its high-speed Wi-Fi service tp London’s black cab fleet, providing drivers and riders free access to wireless on their laptops, tablets, and smartphones as they travel through the city.

Dubbed CabWifi, the service will use an “ads-for-access” model, forcing 15-second advertisements upon users for every 15 minutes of Internet access. The company figures a few seconds of periodic advertising is worth the savings tourists will get by not accruing roaming charges.

“With dwell times averaging 15 minutes in the back of a taxi, what better way to pass the time than to use your laptop, tablet, book reader, or phone with guilt free internet access? Tourists and business travelers can now access their emails, talk on Skype, or surf the Web without fear of being hit with high data roaming charges when they return home,” CabWifi founder and CEO Richard Corbett said in a statement last week.

The rollout of CabWifi is expected to begin early next year, with the partnership of unnamed major consumer brands, including a global credit card company and a leadingmobile phone manufacturer, according to Eyetease.

Cabbies will be given separate login credentials to also take advantage of the free service. That could help offset the high cost of using taxi apps via data plans, which some drivers claim can double their phone bills, Eyetease said.

Eyetease is also seeking approval for iTaxitop, a venture that seeks to digitize taxi rooftop advertising. The marketing scheme would allow ads, news, and public information to be updated wirelessly and broadcast on either side of the digital screens, with geographic and time-specific accuracy.

Over the last three years, the company has invested more than $25 million in the project and “is determined to champion this new format in London.” Eyetease is pushing for an early 2013 trial for iTaxitop, pending Transport for London approval.

The U.K. is no stranger to high-tech hubs. This summer’s London Olympics were lit up by mobile devices running on free Wi-Fi networks across the area. Virgin Media brought wireless access to the London Underground, initially adding 80 stations to its connectednetwork back in July. Virgin turned its free service into a money-making subscription-based feature once the games ended in mid-August.

In advance of July’s Opening Ceremony (and after Olympic organizers banned 3G hotspots), mobile carrier O2 turned on free Wi-Fi networks in seven squares and shopping streets throughout London.

By Stephanie Mlot

Other firms, among them Hitachi and Toshiba, have also rolled out their own remote-controlled bots recently.

The plant was damaged during the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.

Robots are already working inside the plant, but none has been specifically designed for this kind of work.

One UK expert said that working inside a nuclear reactor was “a challenge for robotics”.

Dubbed MEISTeR (Maintenance Equipment Integrated System of Telecontrol Robot), Mitsubishi’s “tankbot” is about 1.3m (4ft) tall and has two arms, each able to hold loads of up to 15kg (33lb).

The robot is equipped with various tools and has electronics hardened to withstand radiation.

But Jeremy Pitt, deputy head of the Intelligent Systems and Networks Group at Imperial College London, said it was still a challenge for a remotely controlled machine to successfully replace humans in such harsh conditions.

“Operating in extreme environments requires a remarkable range of human skills that might otherwise be taken for granted,” he said.

“Fundamentally, instead of programming a robot to follow a precise series of actions, in open environments the requirement is to programme it to improvise.

“This requires a fusion of conscious reasoning mechanisms, like learning, with subconscious sensing mechanisms.”

Different design

Although currently there are several robots inside the plant, they have not been designed to repair a nuclear reactor.

For instance, the devices made by Qinetiq, introduced at Fukushima immediately after the disaster, were built to search for mines, said the firm’s spokesman Mark Clark.

Using machines not made for such conditions was “always a compromise”, he said, and better robots were needed.

“The operational environment within a large complex such as a power station poses high demands on these robots, which they were never designed to accommodate.

“If you are wishing to operate robots 24/7 inside a debris-filled power station in a radioactive area, it is much better to design the custom robot from the outset to meet specific tasks.”

For instance, Toshiba says its robot has a wireless network that can be controlled in high radiation, looking for a better signal when reception is weak.

Mr Clark explained that the biggest problem associated with robots deployed into such zones was maintenance, because if repairs were needed, it would be difficult for humans to get anywhere near.

The solution would be to fix everything remotely, or while wearing heavy protective clothing.

To simplify the task, robots made to work inside a reactor would have to be “stripped of all unnecessary items”, he said.

“If nuclear robots start leaking hydraulic fluid, they send an alarm before they fail so they can be quickly recovered. Others have the capability to shed or drop off parts of their manipulators so if they get caught up in debris they jettison the trapping section of robot, thus freeing them from the obstruction.

“Most nuclear robots operate on power provided by a trailing umbilical. This means there are no batteries to change and no refuelling issues to contend with.”

The group gathered the data during a series of attacks on Nasa, the FBI, the European Space Agency and many other government agencies and contractors.

Included in the dump were log-in names, passwords, email addresses and CVs, plus the contents of online databases.

The group said it had sent messages to security bosses about 150 insecure servers it had targeted in the attacks.

In a statement posted online Ghost Shell said the attacks were part of its #ProjectWhiteFox campaign to promote freedom of information online.

The data stolen was posted on several different sites to stop it being swiftly found and deleted.

Images posted to a Pastebin page suggest the hacking group accessed some sites by attacking the databases many companies use to catalogue and curate website content.

With cleverly crafted queries, attackers can make these databases surrender data they should be concealing.

As well as mounting attacks on government agencies, the group also targeted contractors and firms working for the US Department of Defense.

In all, 37 separate organisations, agencies and businesses were hit during the campaign.

The group, which is an offshoot of the Anonymous hacking collective, has carried out a series of attacks in 2012.

Details from millions of accounts held at businesses, universities and Russian government departments and companies have all been posted by the group.

It said #ProjectWhiteFox was the last operation it would carry out in 2012.

The prime minister’s spokesman said he accepted the criticism from MPs and peers of the draft Communications Data Bill and would re-write it.

Deputy PM Nick Clegg had threatened to block it unless there was a “rethink”.

No 10 said bringing in new powers was a “government commitment” and everyone was “committed to fixing this problem”.

He said: “We recognise this is a difficult issue. We will take account of what the committee said.”

The deputy prime minister had earlier said he would block the draft Communications Data Bill and push for plans ensuring “the balance between security and liberty”.

His comments came as a committee of MPs and peers criticised the bill’s scope.

Civil liberties campaigners have described the proposals as a “snoopers’ charter”, but Home Secretary Theresa May insists they are vital for countering paedophiles, extremists and fraudsters.

The Conservative and Liberal Democrat leaderships agree on the need for new measures, but they disagree over their scope.

Nick Clegg: ”We need a fundamental rethink, go back to the drawing board”

The plans in the draft bill include:

• Internet service providers having to store for a year all details of online communication in the UK – such as the time, duration, originator and recipient of a communication and the location of the device from which it was made.
• They would also be having to store for the first time all Britons’ web browsing history and details of messages sent on social media, webmail, voice calls over the internet and gaming, in addition to emails and phone calls
• Police not having to seek permission to access details of these communications, if investigating a crime
• Police having to get a warrant from the home secretary to be able to see the actual content of any messages
• Four bodies having access to data: the police, the Serious and Organised Crime Agency, the intelligence agencies and HM Revenue and Customs

A report from the Joint Committee on the Draft Communications Bill, made up of MPs and peers, accepted a new law was needed to help police fight crime and tackle security threats organised online.

But it warned ministers would be able to demand “potentially limitless categories of data” unless the draft bill was amended.

It called for “safeguards” over the new powers to prevent abuse and accused the government of producing estimates of the cost of implementing the plans which were not “robust” enough.

The “net benefit figure” was “fanciful and misleading”, it said.

The MPs and peers added that the draft bill paid “insufficient attention to the duty to respect the right to privacy” and went “much further than it need or should for the purpose of providing necessary and justifiable official access to communications data”.

Mr Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader, said the committee had raised “a number of serious criticisms – not least on scope, proportionality, cost, checks and balances, and the need for much wider consultation”.

“It is for those reasons that I believe the coalition government needs to have a fundamental rethink about this legislation. We cannot proceed with this bill and we have to go back to the drawing board.”

But he added: “The committee did not, however, suggest that nothing needs to be done. They were very clear that there is a problem that must be addressed to give law enforcement agencies the powers they need to fight crime. I agree.

“But that must be done in a proportionate way that gets the balance between security and liberty right.”

‘Secret notices’

In its report, the committee said the home secretary would be given “sweeping powers to issue secret notices to communications service providers, requiring them to retain and disclose potentially limitless categories of data”.

But it added: “We have been told that she has no intention of using the powers in this way. Our main recommendation is therefore that her powers should be limited to those categories of data for which a case can now be made.”

If these powers needed to be enhanced in future, this should be done with “effective parliamentary scrutiny”, it said.

The home secretary wants the bill in place next year.

Security minister James Brokenshire told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme there was a “legitimate debate” to be had.

He added that he wanted to “rebalance” the bill, so that “it’s properly reflecting the needs of the collective and the needs of the individual”.

Mr Brokenshire also said: “If there were to be any extension, that would have to be through the full scrutiny of Parliament. We are saying very clearly that we accept that.”

He added: “We know that we need to work this through the coalition.”

For Labour, shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper said the government was “making a complete mess of a very important issue”.

“It is important that the police and security services can keep up to date with modern technology, but this bill is too widely drawn, is unworkable and gives far too much power to the home secretary without proper safeguards.”

She added: “It is astonishing that the Home Office have had so little discussion with the internet companies who need to deliver this legislation. The Government have been slipshod with this bill from the word go.”

“We have now considered the committees’ recommendations carefully and we will accept the substance of them all. But there can be no delay to this legislation. It is needed by law enforcement agencies now.”

The Intelligence and Security Committee, which has sent a classified report on its findings to Prime Minister David Cameron, after speaking to the security services, called for more detail to be included in the draft bill.

It recommended that it be “future-proofed” to ensure extra powers are not added without scrutiny, adding that there had been “insufficient consultation” between ministers and internet providers.