Apple vs FBI – the complete saga

Last month the stage was set for a battle of the Titans starting on 16th March 2016 with an Order by a Federal judge in California to Apple to assist the FBI to bypass security on an iPhone owned by US San Bernardino gunman, Rizwan Farook.

Shortly after this request was received, CEO of Apple, Tim Cook published an open letter on their website explaining his concerns with the requests and calling it an ‘unprecedented step’.

The iPhone in question was a 5C with a pin lock, which enables encryption, set with limited login attempts before the phone would wipe itself. The FBI request was for Apple to update this phone with custom firmware to be created by Apple that would remove the limited login attempts. The FBI would then apply brute force login techniques to get through the pin lock.

Tim Cook stressed in his letter inviting comment from the public, that creating such software would involve rewriting their own encryption technology which would “weaken those protections and make our users less safe”.

Following the posting of the letter, numerous other technology companies came out to support Apple’s stance against the FBI request, including competitor Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai stated “Forcing companies to enable hacking could compromise users’ privacy”.

March 21st 2016 was the date of Apple’s March event which saw the reveal of both smaller iPhones and iPad Pros. Apple kicked off the event however addressing the current conflict between them and the FBI and reinforced its stance of protecting user’s privacy and continuing to fight the FBI on this request.

Later in the day the FBI responded in a surprising way asking for an upcoming crunch hearing to be postponed with proceedings suspended at least until the following month. The FBI would then seek to use that time to test an alternate method for unlocking the iPhone that would not involve, as it had originally sought, Apple building a specially crafted version of the iOS firmware.

On March 29th 2016 the Department of Justice dropped its case against Apple, reasoning that pursuit of the case was no longer required as they had successfully, with the assistance of a third party, cracked and retrieved data out of the iPhone 5C.  They have since said that the technique used on the iPhone 5C would not work on new iPhone models.

Where it could all have been simpler

It is important to note that the terrorist’s iPhone was in fact a work phone, the terrorists personal phone having been destroyed. This entire legal back-and-forth could have been entirely avoided if the work device was enrolled in corporate Mobile Device Management at which point it could simply have been legally unlocked by the employee’s IT team.

With the FBI confirming the technique used this time would not work on the latest iPhones, we could see a similar saga arise if a newer, more secure iPhone needs to be opened up by the FBI in the future.

When is a Pro not a Pro?

This week Apple unveiled their much rumoured iPad Pro, a larger iPad, equipped with a 12.9” screen with optional accessories for attachable keyboard and stylus dubbed the ‘Apple Pencil’.

• The look of the new iPad Pro with its larger size, especially when attached to its keyboard cover looks much like Microsoft’s Surface Pro line. The big difference here is in its operating system. The iPad pro like all previous models runs on the company’s mobile iOS platform, instead of the desktop platform OSX. This means you will still be unable to use full desktop software like Photoshop or Xcode.
• Apple boasts desktop-class performance, but when limited to mobile Apps you may not see the benefit of this as an end user.
• The extra performance also enables two applications to be run at the same eg. Mail and Word.

The argument for it becomes more difficult though when you consider the iPad Pro actually costs more than a Microsoft Surface.

Justifying the purchase for this new iPad will be a difficult tasks, it is likely aimed at the Apple faithful who already have all the Apple kit, but why purchase the Pro when a MacBook (which can run full desktop software) can be obtained for almost the same price?

There will be specific, niche markets that will reap the benefits of a larger iPad with a pressure sensitive stylus, such as graphic artists, but they will be limited to the mobile App versions of Adobe’s software instead of their full desktop Creative Cloud suite.

It feels like Apple has missed a huge opportunity here, not only in enabling iPads to run full desktop software, but also bringing OSX into businesses which have already iPads.

Apple’s iOS 9 update hints at a bigger iPads for the office

This Monday Apple held their annual Worldwide Developer Conference announcing upcoming features and services across their devices.

Arguably the most interesting development was for the iPad, finally allowing true split-screen multitasking to the tablet.

Like many Apple updates the amount of functionality you will get will be depending on which model you own, with only the iPad Air 2 being deemed sufficient to run the full experience called Split View.

The new feature comes as part of iOS 9 and will allow iPad users to launch two Apps at the same time divided by a vertical split in a very similar vein to Windows tablets. iOS 9 also allows apps such as video to be displayed in a floating windows above your current app.

These new multitasking features will help further validate the use of iPads in businesses, being able to both check emails and edit a document at the same time.

Splitting your view does allow you to get more done but it does also make your workspaces smaller.

The announcement of Split View also gives credence to the much rumoured 12” iPad, this will allow the iPad to go toe-to-toe with Windows tablets and potentially squash their momentum with their own market share.

It is likely we will see a 12” iPad Pro launched within the next 12 months and similarities to this and the Surface Pro line will definitely be drawn. With both potentially having similar design and form factor the true battle will be between iOS 9 and Windows 10.

Whilst Microsoft has proven Surface can replace your laptop can Apple do the same for the iPad?

Europe aims to close the door on encryption flaw risk

There has been a lot of talk recently about whether Government entities be allowed direct, back door access to encrypted messaging systems such as Apple’s iMessage and Facebook’s acquired WhatsApp.

In the US, the FBI asked the U.S. Congress to make encryption back doors in mobile devices mandatory to help combat crime.    Apple, Google and other major  tech companies are currently urging Barack Obama to reject the proposals for back doors for smart phones.

This conversation has mostly taken place in America where government bodies have argued that without back door access to these systems, how can they have a clear avenue for investigating terrorism claims?   There are two main arguments against allowing this. First is users rights’ to have private information. The second is a technical one, with any back door access, you are making a once secure system less-secure, and introducing a new front through which the system can be breached.

European Commission Vice President Andrus Ansip states there are no plans to require backdoors in communications encryption in Europe, “We don’t want to destroy people’s trust by creating some back doors,”

It is reassuring that back doors to secure, encrypted services that users trust is not on the cards for Europe, but if America does get its way then these services and our own mobiles could in fact have back doors – whether or not Europe chooses.  With such security flaws in place, how long would it take a resourceful hacker to use it for their own needs?   Hopefully in a post back door world, countries which do not enforce such a policy will have their own data unreachable from those who do.   If not we could see a new market for European-only encrypted services which promise no back doors for anyone.

IBM and Apple monitor our health

We first reported IBM and Apple’s JV partnership in our blog of 18th July 2014 with AppleCare for enterprises.

The boom in fitness trackers and health apps has prompted the tech giants to make commercial inroads on the opportunities arising from analytic technologies.  IBM has set up a new health unit to create “a secure, cloud-based data sharing hub” as part of their “employee health and wellness management solutions” with the aim that it will provide diagnoses or health alerts for GPs, carers and insurers in future, with the user’s permission.

IBM aspires to offer greater individual insights into people’s health and to advance this strategy, has bought Explorys (which owns one of the largest healthcare databases in the world) and healthcare specialist Phytel (which works with digital medical record systems to reduce hospital readmissions and automate communications).  Added to this, Apple iPhones provide ResearchKit, free software for gathering health data, which Apple states has already been used to develop apps to study asthma, breast cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and Parkinson’s disease.

US consumer technology and wearables supplier Jawbone is trying to engage businesses with its fitness trackers as a way to monitor the health of a company’s workforce.  How does this leave the end user/employee?  For a start, if a company sought to monitor the health of an employee, consent has to be given freely, with the ability to withdraw that consent at any time.

Insurers are also keen to get in on the act, with companies like UK’s Vitality offering rewards to policy holders for undergoing certain activities whilst wearing their devices.  Are we reaching the point though where data analytics lead ultimately to cover being withheld, other than premiums going up or down.

The latest UK Government stats show that 61.9% of adults and 28% of children aged between 2 and 15 are overweight with a higher risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and certain cancers.  The cost of health problems associated with being overweight and obese is estimated to cost the NHS more than £5billion every year.

For GPs, gathering data which gives a broader and more accurate picture of exercise undertaken and calories consumed, could alter health directives on the amount of sleep we need, or which exercises are most effective.

Gazing into the NHS’ future, a carrot and stick approach accompanied by bold education messaging for health reform of UK citizens may be the tough approach needed by the next Government.  However, to succeed, with an NHS in crisis on funding and struggling to hold onto its GPs through which the future frontline is directed, many parts of its processes and systems will have to go digital. This comes back to having data shared securely with privacy maintained and strict governance on who it is share by – and that is a big promise to keep.

 

 

This week’s technology news – 13th February 2015

HP’s doomsday cyber forecast

HP’s CTO Andrzej Kawalec, speaking at the European Information Security Summit in London on 10th February, has predicted a ‘catastrophic cyber attack’ in the next five years.   Before people settle back comfortably and think it is ‘just another cyber attack on a brand’, think again.  Kawalec foresees this as far more serious: “We expect an attack that will cause significant and lasting damage to a major world economy through physical and economic impacts”.

Kawalec acknowledges the enormous challenges around creating a resilient single digital online identity.  Much of the blame he identifies as being a lack of common standards amongst social media platforms, the cloud and devices connecting to the Internet of Things (IoT).

Kawalec identifies a tricky balance to be struck between managing regulatory and privacy concerns and the potential impact on cross-border trade, or exposing industry to financial risk – which must be avoided.

HP have therefore identified three areas of cyber security in 2015 that they will urgently focus on:
• Spending more time and effort understanding our adversaries and how to disrupt them at every step.
• Understand and identify risk to ourselves to ascertain how best to protect, as well as enable information assets.
• The need for businesses to collaborate more – and share information with each other to get a unified view of the threats and extend cyber security capabilities beyond one organisation (as our adversaries have stolen the march on this – and THEY collaborate faster and more efficiently, without being weighed down by any legislation.

On a technical note, Kawalec noted the need to improve management of open-source software within organisations.   He also flagged the need to address security vulnerabilities within supply chains (referring to the 2nd largest US attack on retailer Target in December 2013 which hit 40m payment card users and was the result of a compromise via their air-conditioning supplier).  This highlights the need to change the way organisations deal with their suppliers – and finally, Kawalec impressed on the audience the need to improve securing the end user and the data.

Ultimately, alternatives to password-based authentication will evolve he sees – with greater focus on protecting data.  This, he said, was all part of “understanding our information environments better, see how they work and find better ways of making them secure”.

Amicus ITS has joined the UK Cyber Security Forum, echoing these sentiments that shared knowledge of enterprise security specialists will help create greater strength and unity in 2015.  To find out more click on http://ukcybersecurityforum.com/

IoT revenue opportunity vs business cost
The latest report by technology research marketing company Beecham Research has identified that IoT security could present a revenue opportunity, with security and data management for the internet of things (IoT) a big value-add revenue opportunity for service providers, instead of it being seen as a business cost.

With the growth and complexity of the myriad applications of IoT and emerging smart lifestyles, Beecham Forrester see this will be accompanied by an urgent need to manage connecting devices which use short-range wireless and fixed-line technologies.

Principal analyst and report author, Saverio Romeo anticipates, “Companies will increasingly rely on outsourcing and we expect that revenues from device authentication, device management, data management, billing and security will exceed $3bn by 2020. Out of these, we see security and data management services generating some $1.8bn alone”.

Data management for IoT remains currently a small market, however Beecham Research believes it has the most potential for high gross margins, with IoT security as the most strategic, across the network, device and services domains.  Romeo commented:  “…we see IoT security providers offering high-value, end-to-end security to service and application providers”.

This follows their last report 5 months ago urging industry to take decisive action to secure IoT devices which should be managed over their entire lifecycle (with resets an option, to enable remote remediation to rebuild and extend security capabilities over time).

As with the cyber security story above, this report has highlighted the need for industry players to unite and enable the securing of IoT devices end to end (from silicon semiconductor manufacturers to network operators and systems integrators), with particular attention to the identification, authentication and authorisation of devices and people in IoT systems.

A strong pattern is thus emerging for 2015 in the technology industry with security themes dominating. Where the core value of security is shared by organisations, there is surely a compelling argument for the different businesses to come together, share knowledge and give the end user assurance that they are safe using such devices. This can surely only result in one result:  greater take up in the long term and profitability for all involved.

Value of IT outsourcing review

Figures out by Business Process Outsourcing analysts (BPO), Nelson Hall, regarding UK spend in 2014 on outsourcing and IT totalled £6.65bn, with IT outsourcing accounting for £3.44bn.

New business deals accounted for 55.5% of those signed, up from 33% in 2013. 66% of those deals were fully onshore by UK suppliers, with the remainder having an offshore element and 8% delivered exclusively from offshore locations.

The drive by organisations to digitise through Cloud and software development (DevOps) saw a substantial rise in private and hybrid cloud transformation.  However, the desire for many businesses to transform their business IT infrastructure environment and the costs involved, meant that many could not fully migrate and so a transactional and usage-based pricing model in contracts emerged.

• Private enterprise accounted for 63% of the spending.
• Local government saw 15% increase in average contract values rise to £30.3m.

• The financial services industry spend was £1.1bn in 2014.
• With energy and utilities companies accounting for 187% growth in IT spending (the fastest growing, which reached £1.07bn).

MSPs which can offer a comprehensive array of IT services and on top of this can apply a flexible approach to their customers with fully secured Cloud solutions and 24×7 support will be the beneficiaries of this increasing trend as 2015 gets underway.

Keeping your keys out of the Box

Cloud storage provider Box has announced a new service that could be a first in the file storage arena. The new service is currently in Beta and allows organisations to hold their own encryption keys for their data. This differs from the traditional approach where the service provider tightly guards everyone’s encryption keys.

This new service called Enterprise Key Management (EKM) will appeal to highly regulated industries such as healthcare, finance, government and the legal sector. EKM will also appeal to those worried about hackers, government requests for data and Cloud providers’ own employees having access to their data.

EKM essentially gives you control over the one master key for your data.  But, it also gives you FULL responsibility. You may no longer need to worry about the threat of hackers getting to your data through your service provider but this should only alleviate concerns if you believe your own security is sturdier.

If you do consider EKM, the most important consideration will be the storage of the encryption key itself.  Of course it will need to be resilient enough to survive hardware or site failure, but the strategy to make sure it is backed up, specifically regarding access to it and backups, will need to careful consideration. Whilst EKM does solve many of the issues some have with Cloud storage solutions today it also comes with its own set of new unique challenges and should only be chosen after great consideration.

 

Ever Greener Apple

Apple is no stranger to being green. Not only does the company promote their own products with an environmental check-list on launch, the iPhone producer also uses renewable energies like solar to power their services.

Apple has detailed plans to spend $850 million on a new solar farm in California. This deal marks the largest ever supply of ‘clean power’ to a commercial user. The farm itself will cover 2,900 acres and will have the equivalent to power 60,000 Californian homes. The power from the new farm will be split with 130-megawatts going to Apple to power buildings such as its future campus, while the remaining 150 megawatts is being sold to the Pacific Gas & Energy’s grid.

This huge spend continues Apple’s commitment to use 100% clean energy – and if successful could be used as the blueprint for many other clean energy driven enterprises going forwards.

This week’s technology news – 25th October 2014

Wearable Technology – not so Mickey Mouse

It was never going to be long before the commercial opportunities from wearable technology would be fully grasped by the entertainment industry. Into frame comes The Walt Disney Company, who have been discussing the success of their adoption of wearable technology at the Digital Strategy Innovation Summit recently.  Their new “MagicBand” aims to “improve customer experience and engage with visitors” at its parks and resorts.   This is a neat euphemism for describing big data analytics consuming and helping direct customer behaviour through holding personal details to enable greater marketing opportunities to be had.

The MagicBand uses radio frequency identification (RFID) technology.  Visitors can enter parks, hotel rooms, purchase food and gifts, use fast-track services as well as link Disney photos to an online account with a swipe of their arm.   Acknowledging the issue of privacy and security, Disney’s customers can elect whether or not to share their personal data.  If they do, families can register one time payment details to avoid carrying a wallet to pay for individual items during a stay, or register their children’s names and birthdays to make a “magical” personal greeting at a ride – or have informed conversations with a Disney character whilst walking around.

Should we be surprised, well no, not really.  After all it is 20 years since Tesco employed company DunnHumby in 1994 to analyse their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) data to find patterns to help direct marketing campaigns. This quickly became known as the highly successful Tesco Loyalty Card.  Even this wasn’t cheap though – the scheme is reputed to cost £60million per annum to run.  However, the exploitation of data to direct company decisions is the future and central to the Internet of Things to make our lives easier.  So the more intelligent organisations are about their use of data, its connections, privacy and security, the greater the potential opportunities that can arise in future – and hit the bottom line.

 

 

Apple’s new SIM

Apple announcements come and go, but last week’s big Apple event was mostly underwhelming, bringing incremental refreshes to its iPads and Macs with an absence of exciting new features. A small detail that went unnoticed by most (and wrongly reported by others), is the new Apple SIM that comes included within the new iPads in the US and UK.

The Apple SIM is essentially an Apple branded nano-SIM which lets you swap between different network providers without swapping the SIM itsel.  This can be done by choosing you provider of choice on the iPads touch interface without visiting a physical or web store.  That is the plan at least. Currently here in the UK, only EE have signed up so you are limited to swapping between EE and nothing.

You can thankfully also use a standard nano-SIM in the new iPads, but it has yet to be confirmed that if you sign up for a data plan on the new Apple SIM it will still work if taken out and moved into a non-apple device?

If the answer was no, then this annoyance would likely go unnoticed by most, as only a fraction of iPad buyers opt for the cellular capable option.  However, if this was used in the next iPhone launch, the Apple SIM could tie Apple devices and numbers together making an iPhone to iPhone upgrade painless, but an iPhone to a competitor a difficult or impossible task.

If this was to come into play, it may fly in the States where Apple has stronger control over network carriers and a history of less flexible mobile options.  But here in Europe, it would likely be slammed by anti-trust laws for unfair competitor practises. Apple’s new SIM may be both a starting point and a testing bed laying low in new 4G iPads, but things will escalate extremely quickly if it makes the jump over to iPhones in the future.

 

Yahoo! finds success in mobile

 

Not long ago we saw Marissa Mayer, Yahoo! CEO make the statement that they had missed a huge opportunity in mobile. Since then Yahoo! has been hard at work enhancing its modern mobile portfolio with a sequence of clever acquisitions of mobile app development houses.

With the company revealing its latest quarterly earnings with mobile revenues in excess of $200 million, they estimate growth revenues in mobile to exceed $1.2 billion by the end of this year.

Over the past 10 months Yahoo!’s mobile acquisitions have included Snapchat clone “Blink”, messaging app “MessageMe”, home screen app “Aviate” and mobile analytics startup “Flurry”. In addition to their existing apps these start-ups were also tasked with creating the new Yahoo! App suite including News, Sport and Weather. The surprisingly high quality of these apps have earned them a recent surge in consumer interest and the spin off has been that consumers are returning to use Yahoo! Services.

When a company the size of Yahoo! misses a technology shift as big as mobile apps they can often find themselves in serious trouble. Yahoo! is currently rumoured to be involved in numerous new mobile app development house acquisitions, so in finding success in mobile, it is safe to say they are going to focus more than ever on mobile.  If the next set of acquisitions turn out as well as the last, Yahoo! may see a new lease of life as a heavyweight in the mobile app business.

 

How out of touch are we?

 

Microsoft has been developing touch technology for a while now to embrace realism in resistance and weight on their keyboards and touch pads (see blog 5 July 2013), however touch devices are moving on again to evolve into next generation technology described as “rich touch”.

The iPhone was regarded as being an exemplar of multi-touch interfaces, but recently an altogether more creative suggestion has been made by Professor Chris Harrison of Carnegie Mellon University in the States.  Interfaces have become far simpler for people to use, but Harrison derides the empahsis on size reduction in favour of the flexibility that different touch can provide to expand the use of a device.  All of this is based on analysis of the richness of how humans naturally use their hands, versus how many fingers you use to poke at a screen.  Guitars he sees, are very sensitive for this in terms of touch, pressure and grasp and can pick up on vibration.  Harrison sees this as the key to matching desktop productivity on mobile devices.

Rich touch would enable your knuckle to be used to add another dimension to your pointer finger ie. lassoing part of a photo, or tapping on the screen with your knuckle to bring up a contextual menu and refine and edit content. These variances can work as a “left-click” for touchscreen interfaces. Further options can be cued by the angle of touch to turn the screen into a different menu sequence, so a poke is different to grazing your fingertip across the screen – which could alter the scrolling process (a big deal for smartwatches). Then there is “drilling” the screen to turn volume up or down and other recognition of hand shapes to perform other functions.

All of the above developments seek to connect the user more personally and practically with their devices which should increase output and engagement satisfaction.  As long as options remain for selecting how we access different menus, and rich touch options can be switched on or off, it will add another new rich layer to our user experience, whilst also protecting the less dextrous user amongst us.

 

This week’s technology news – 10th October 2014

HP Divides

Hewlett-Packard has announced it will be splitting the 75-year-old tech giant in two. The computer and printer business will form one half with the corporate hardware and services making up the other half. Current shareholders will be given a stake in each new company. Since the announcement on Monday, HP shares have dropped 8.77% The division is expected to complete the restructure at the end of the 2015 fiscal year, which is the period originally pinned for CEO Meg Whitman’s 5-year recovery plan (which we covered May of this year and November 2013, the year after she took over from former CEO Leo Apotheker. With the split of the company being the last step of HP’s recovery plan, how well do we think these 2 new companies will fare? The computer and printer business is by far the healthiest on the books, so this split may indicate the intention to sell off its more costly corporate hardware and services business, if things do not improve after split. HP has made many changes in direction in recent years including CEOs with each bringing their own dissimilar strategies to the table. The purchase of Palm for $1.2 Billion by former HP CEO Mark Hurd is a crystal clear example of this, when the project was publicly scrapped just weeks after the first device was shipped by his successor, Leo Apotheker. The HP split strategy shows yet another costly change in direction for the tech giant and one that will also be followed by expected large job cuts again worldwide. HP is too large to simply vanish but it is looking like it will be a very different beast in just a few short years.

Not quite a big enough bite of the Apple

Apple sapphire crystal glass manfacturer GT Advanced Technologies (GTAT) faces a bleak future now after its US share value plunged by more than 90% as the firm filed for bankruptcy this week. Following a buoyant bank position with a valuation of $1.5bn at the end of last week, GTAT was left with only $175m in the piggy bank four days later. The picture seemed so much rosier in November 2013, with a deal signed with Apple to manufacture sapphire materials. Analysts took this to mean GTAT’s glass would be rolled out into the new iPhone models.  But the news this summer that the factory being built with Apple would not be up and running till 2015 means that GTAT have missed the boat to produce the glass required. GTAT’s CEO made a robust statement about the company’s continued viability as it filed for “debtor in possession” status and is still expected to have its sapphire glass crystal in two of Apple’s new Watch wearable devices. However, the magnitude of the gap in potential business earnings is palpable and should act as a cautionary note to smaller tech firms as it shows the vulnerability of having all ones eggs in a Giant tech’s basket.

My Signature is Your Command!

With security an ever increasing buzz for data systems, Taiwanese start up, AirSig, has entered the market with a “Harry Potter” style password replacement. The notion is that to access a login, the user wafts their smartphone “wand style” to emulate creating their virtual signature.  Although this seems a bit loosey goosey and reminiscent of playing with sparklers on Bonfire Night, AirSig advocate that their recognition rates are at 99.2%.  The technology company uses gyroscope sensor hardware already found in smartphones, smartwatches and other wearable tech to create a unique algorithm from the virtual signature.  This enables an array of tasks to be performed ranging from authenticating yourself, to unlocking your phone, paying a transactions, to auto-opening doors and playing games and the password is changeable at any time. There is no naivety behind this innovation, as manufacturing giant Foxconn have already backed AirSig to the tune of $2m and the product aroused intrigue from tech giants LG and Samsung because of the possibilities for channel restriction for families through TV remotes as the technology is already embedded in the TV sets. The manufacturers recognise that the game changer would be adoption by a major provider like Facebook.  With companies jostling to create the next foolproof authentication method, only time will tell if AirSig will gain traction with mainstream commercial markets, but with the technology already incorporated in Android apps, it has a chance of succeeding if the naysayers can be convinced.       

The Adobe touch

This week saw Adobe’s annual Max creativity conference in Los Angeles where they show off their latest products and features used by millions in creative industries. New desktop versions of their Creative Cloud applications showcased, improved touch support for Windows 8 and Microsoft’s own Surface Pro 3. This will enable graphic artists to draw directly into applications like Photoshop, whilst also providing touch friendly controls and gestures for all the advance options the suite provides. Apple’s desktops have traditionally had the premium reserved slot in marketing and graphical design departments. Some of the reason given by Mac users were its stability and exclusive applications. Photoshop originally was a Mac exclusive application before also coming out to Windows. Where Microsoft can potentially take the lead with creative minds is its drive with touch and stylus computing. Apple has shown disinterest in putting touch screens on macs and keeping them exclusive to their iPhones and iPads, which are unable to run desktop software like Photoshop. Drawing and manipulating graphics directly on the same machine cuts out peripherals and enables enhanced portability, making the once Mac exclusive application now more commercially inviting for Windows. In addition to Windows as a platform this news also makes Microsoft’s own devices like the Surface Pro 3 a much more viable option for graphic designers. Microsoft’s Marketing team has shifted comparisons of its Surface line from iPads to MacBook Air’s with the aim to convert users of Apple’s lightest computers. The surface Pro 3 is thinner and lighter, with a higher resolution screen and full touch screen with included stylus all for less cost than a MacBook Air. Will we see a future where Macs are replaced with Microsoft touch enabled devices in graphic departments or will Apple play catch up and offer this support on its next generation of computers or even merge iPad and Macs closer together?  Only time will tell, but for now Microsoft has the edge and we will see how willing artists are to trade in their existing tools to take advantage of a touch enabled Adobe suite.

This week’s technology news – 12th September 2014

Financial services organisations not very motivated in defending against cyber threats
A leading software security firm has published its “Global IT Security Risks 2014 – Online Financial Fraud and Protection” survey.   Panelling opinions from 3,900 B2B IT professionals, 82% of respondents said they would consider leaving a financial services firm that suffered a data breach.

The survey also found that the vast majority of 93% of financial services organisations had been exposed to cyber threats between April 2013 and May 2014. With 74% stating that they based their choice of financial services organization on its security reputation, there is clearly a lot of work to be done by the industry worldwide to make themselves more robust against threat.   34% said that the protection of sensitive information was a top priority for their IT department.  However, 27% said they are currently willing to suffer losses due to cyber crime because they believed the cost of protection would outweigh the cost of the losses.

Given the rising sophistication and increasing damage caused by cyber attacks, this may be a stance that has to change in the course of the next 12 months.  It is imperative for any company to maintain maximum operational, reputational and commercial output, but it seems extraordinary that financial organisations seem to be flying against logic in such numbers by not having adequate security and policy safeguards in place considering the value of their customer data and financial information. Added to this is the immense potential fallout on their reputation if an attack led to a data breach.  The very first step for any organisation without proper security safeguards and policies, should be to have an independent review to establish where risk lies across their IT infrastructure and get consensus at Board level to invest in this vital area if they are to protect their business.

The real test for wearables
Apple is rarely the company who creates bleeding edge technology or even new product categories but often is the company who manages to later refine and introduce this technology to the masses. The best example is the iPad. There were many attempts in making the tablet a successful category which was arguably mostly pushed by Microsoft. Microsoft had been deeply involved in the development of Tablet PC’s working with OEMs to create Windows powered tablets capable of running full PC applications with touch and voice recognition, coining the term ‘Windows Tablet PC’ in 2001 with Windows XP tablet PC edition.

The iPad was later released in 2010, taking a much different approach with a stripped down operation system which could not run Mac software, but only new mobile focused apps. This of course was a staggering success, and Apple has since sold over 200 million iPads. Although they did not create the tablet market they managed to change it from a niche to the juggernaut industry it is today.

With the Announcement of Apple’s first wearable, titled simple watch the key question is can it have a similar effect to the wearables category? There’s already a lot of players involved including Sony, LG, Fitbit and Pebble each having launched with various degrees of success but no one player is shouting sells figures, at least not yet.

A big success for watch will be a big success for all parties involved. Looking back historically, the real test for wearables then is watch. If Apple is unable to find financial success here using its tried and true method of repackaging existing technology in a very user friendly way and using its unique and vast marketing approach to convince new consumers and of course there large existing Apple fan base to give this new product category a try, then it’s unlikely anyone else will for now. If it is unsuccessful we will have to wait some time, possibly like the gap between Tablet PCs and the iPad for the next generation of technology and innovators to step in and show us how wrong everyone’s previous attempts were, giving wearables the kick-start from individual successes in a niche to a product category spanning consumer and corporate and accepted by the mainstream majority.

Chess games ahead as opportunity and risk face the data centre market
Leading technology researchers, Gartner have identified four key factors that will radically shake up the data centre market by 2016.

The four are: nationalism, highly disruptive competition, big cloud provider dominance and economic warfare.  Whilst certain elements are already in play now, each will have varying intensity and timeframes, but a major change in one sector would significantly accelerate market disruption of the others and overall impact.  This review alters the current assumptions of the growth of data centres, based on a traditional enterprise IT end user models and a vendor market that seeks to support the status quo.  The introduction of risk as part of the scene will change this landscape.

Gartner see vendor behaviours falling into three categories:

• Protectors – aggressively defending market share and profits.
• Evolutionary disruptors – those prepared to start to make changes whilst defending their own commercial base.
• Revolutionary disruptors – those who seek to challenge the status quo with agile and flexible business models which can respond more dynamically, and thus speed up launches onto the  market with simpler strategies, faster timescales and alternative selling methods.

Gartner has outlined the likely impacts of each disruptive factor:

With the loss of trust towards large multinational providers (helped in no small part by former CIA employee Edward Snowden’s revelations in June 2013), Gartner anticipates a switch to more nationalistic production by smaller suppliers with an increased use of open-source hardware ecosystems to counter the economies of scale displayed by the major players and their hitherto unopposed market share.  Workload processors would shift to ARM and other architectures whilst storage component would shift increasingly to flash.  In extreme cases, motherboard manufacturing they believe, would become regional, rather than concentrated in China.

With the financial potency of 50%+ gross profit margins, many of the storage and networking hardware big players are reluctant to be the game changer and throw the first punch to  disturb what has been a lucrative market thus far for them.  However, change is taking place and with the chance of new workloads going to external IT providers, these buyers will not share the same interest of high-price/high-margin “commercial off-the-shelf” (COTS) products as they shift toward open-source software (OSS) and embedded manageability.

An aggressive jump by a big league player into a neighbouring software market would defend and shore up their position, gaining them the upper hand. This would cause shockwaves and likely result in a price war with many casualties.  Software-defined networking (SDN), software-defined storage, network function virtualisation, extreme low-energy processors and webscale-integrated infrastructures are changing the face of the datacentre infrastructure market.  However, for an Evolutionary Disruptor, at the top of their game, this is their poker hand and they would likely view that whilst the stakes were high, because their move was timed at their peak, they remain strong and choose a now or nothing strike to survive.

Gartner see the dominance of the big Cloud providers as marking the decline of traditional data centre. With new application development and deployment moving from in-house to cloud-first, this will change the expections around new internal applications that require more flexible, distributed and hybrid IT. Webscale architecture is not perfect for running high growth workloads, but through the SaaS model, enables use of excess capacity and highest utilisation to save money in the longer term.  The large cloud providers will gradually soak up the Iaas and PaaS marketing and influence the price of datacentre infrastructure.

The world is changing and technology is at the forefront of an East vs West fight for market control and influence.  In a major step towards reshaping the western dominated international financial system, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) announced a $100 billion development bank and an emergency reserve fund.  Meanwhile, China has separately been investing in a national high-tech R&D program (aka the “863 Program”) since 1986 and heavily subsidised high tech Chinese enterprises to give them a direct edge internationally. With its deep pockets, increased brand respect strong design original design manufacture history, Gartner see China as taking a 2% increased market share by the end of 2017 off western companies.

Google adds spoons to its kitchen drawer of wearable technology
Technology is always evolving, often making things faster, storage bigger and miniaturizing devices to enable them to be worn on the wrist.  The continued drive in this direction of technology comes thanks to their high profitability. So it’s refreshing to see endeavours that focus on wellbeing and enablement.

Google, headed by co-founder Sergey Brin, has announced its purchase of Lift Labs to join their research division Google X.  Lift Labs, comprising a group of scientists and engineers, has used advanced mobile sensing technology to create a spoon that cancels out tremors by up to 70%.  One of a range of attachments in development, it is designed for people who have Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor.  The lack of hand control can make even the most basic task of eating a meal frustrating, so a device with such a major tremor reduction is an intelligent and sympathetic evolution to add dignity to sufferers.

Anti tremor technology helped transform the mechanics, look and feel of film camera technology, Steadicam, back in the 1970s.  It was used in the famous running sequence in 1976 film “Marathon Man” with Dustin Hoffman and the disconcerting ground level footage seen in Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” with Jack Nicholson in 1980.
It is interesting to see a pattern emerging where the motivation of some of these IT behemoths in improving healthcare is being driven or inspired by a personal connection with a CEO or leading board member.  In this case, both the Lift Labs team and Sergey Brin have experienced the effects of Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor through friends and family.  This motivated Lift Labs to create this new compact and adaptable technology to improve quality of life.

With the purchase of Lift Labs, Google is showing their continued focus in healthcare and marks an exciting partnership that could become a life enhancing tool for sufferers and their families.  With an estimated four to six million Parksinson’s sufferers worldwide, it is also a canny investment for Google as the spoon retails for $295.

Video source: http://www.liftlabsdesign.com

 

This week’s technology news – 8th August 2014

Microsoft’s fight against the Feds ramps up another notch

The US Government is seeking to have email data from Microsoft’s Dublin server handed over, but the technology giant has been firmly resisting any such interference in a unique legal case that has been escalating since December 2013.  One of Microsoft’s main attractions for data sensitive companies is to allow its users to choose where their data is stored, helping them maintain strict governance and compliance controls and they argue that this case is about protecting data customers’ rights to privacy in the US and around the world.  As part of an ongoing drug-trafficking trial, a New York federal judge dismissed Microsoft’s latest appeal against a government warrant demanding access to emails stored on servers in Ireland.  Microsoft immediately announced plans to challenge the decision.    Tech companies worldwide have rallied around in support of their competitor on the issue.

The UK Government acted swiftly last month with emergency legislation to close a loophole, following a change in European law, which would have left a gap in the Government’s ability to provide unbroken access for the security services to people’s phone and internet records. as part of wider Government counter-terrorism measures.    Whilst not implying that the sort of data held by businesses is on a par with terrorism threats being tracked, it is the principle of privacy at stake – and the impact of this case will have important ramifications for business users regarding their data storage in the UK and Europe.

Bitcoin bandwagon

First it was the banks seeking to regulate Bitcoin, now the UK Government wants to enter the fray and explore commercial opportunity for virtual/cryptocurrency.   The tenet of its value (currently 1 Bitcoin is worth £347), is held by people’s belief that the virtual tokens have value – and there is a finite number of them being traded.   With retailers increased adoption of Bitcoin (60,000 worldwide), this growth in popularity and rising trade endorsement, has prompted Chancellor George Osborne to undertake a review of the merits and risks of including virtual currency as part of his flagship aim to promote the UK as the “global centre of financial innovation”.

Bitcoin has proved popular with the public, but it still holds risks as it remains unregulated. This is part of the public attraction, being alternative, but also part of the explanation of its allure to criminals as there is no registry identification, only a randomised Bitcoin address (27 – 34 letters and numbers creating a virtual postbox and traded in a Bitcoin “wallet”.  The European Banking Authority is concerned at the lack of consumer protection and the Bitcoin market IS volatile.  Market value is swayed by the volume of online enquiries, chatter and “mining” from the downloads (part of a reinforcement cycle identified in recent research by the Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich).

With the Government aspiring to identify alternative sources of finance for lending to business, Bitcoin might leave too strong a taste of risk on the tongue of industry for the timebeing, and would have to demonstrate greater stability – the exact antithesis of what Bitcoin wants.  This might prove one hurdle too far at present for a Chancellor seeking to be innovative and “on trend” with the City.

The end of an era – Apple and Samsung agree to drop patent lawsuits

Many will recall that following the success of the iPhone, Apple started filing lawsuits for copyright infringement because they believed Samsung’s phones looked a bit too similar to theirs (both on the outside and what was on screen – including the individual designs of App Icons).  This has been ongoing for many years until now.    We are happy to report that an agreement has been made (ex US) covering Australia, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Netherlands, Italy, France and the UK – where all claims have been abandoned.

This potentially signals the closure of the saga (which will include the US) and this incredibly expensive, drawn out and occasional rather nasty patent fight, which has resulted in products being withheld from sale.

Despite the assumption that the outcome would be some new form of cross licencing deal, the two companies have put out statements stating they are NOT pursuing any new licencing deals or other pacts.  Samsung’s shareprice fell after the news.  However, whether this will change the ultimate judgement or outlook for the US case has yet to be seen.  Such a strategic alliance would certainly shake up the mobile industry, putting the squeeze on anyone who is not Apple or Samsung.

BlackBerry has finished the job cuts, but what does its future look like?

After a brutal three years for BlackBerry it seems the worst (the job cuts),  is finally over. Current CEO John Chen hopes to bring the company back into the black in 2016.  So how should the former smart phone juggernaut rebuild themselves in an Apple, Google and Microsoft world?  Being realistic, even in a best case scenario BlackBerry will not be eating Apple’s or Google’s marketshare in the short term, so what’s their best option?

Future Smart Phones should be designed with their primary audience in mind; corporations and governments, these customers demand ultra-secure comms and this should be the main area of focus for their devices. BlackBerry should also not shy away from their roots, while an all-touch option is good, their flagship device should have that old-school Blackberry physical keyboard. Despite popular opinion, they still have their strengths which make them stand out from the slab crowd.  Finally, services are where the real money will be made – and a chance to win over other phone users without getting them to change their phone.

Blackberry has already delivered their BBM app to iPhone, Android and Windows Phone, and they also support their competitors’ devices on their latest servers.  If they made a bigger push in this direction they could substantially build a new user base and really get businesses excited about using BlackBerry once again.