Is Microsoft making Windows worse to make it better?

Windows 10 is being presented as an operating system in continuous development. We’re used to cloud services being a work in progress, but how well does that transfer to an operating system

Windows 10 isn’t just a new operating system; it’s also a new way of delivering an operating system. In theory, Windows as a Service (as Microsoft calls it) promises a continuous stream of new features alongside the familiar security updates, instead of saving up new features for three years and then trying to persuade users those features are worth the cost of an upgrade. (And no, Windows as a Service is not a paid subscription service, unless you’re a business paying for upgrade rights with Software Assurance.)

“This is increasingly the way the industry is heading,” says Gabriel Aul (pictured right), corporate vice president for the Engineering Systems team in the Windows and Devices group at Microsoft. “It’s by no means isolated to technology companies. For example, you even see automotive companies like Tesla using a services model to provide new benefits to customers. We saw it as a natural evolution for Windows

Microsoft has been using the services model for years with its regular security updates, Aul says, and Windows 10 lets the company take it to a new level. “We really do believe Windows 10 is the best Windows ever, and embracing a services model lets us keep making the experience even better with additional productivity, safety and entertainment value offered over time

That’s the theory. But even before Windows 10 shipped, there was considerable pushback against the new Windows as a Service model – and especially against using different branches to deliver updates at different speeds, such as Current Branch (CB) for consumers, who will get update downloads as soon as they occur without the option to postpone them, and Current Branch for Business (CBB) for businesses that want to delay updates (but still without the option to postpone them indefinitely

However, while a great deal of attention has been given to concerns that Microsoft’s new service policy gives you “updates whether you want them or not,” there’s been much less discussion of other implications of this approach. What this means when it comes to features that have been delayed or even downgraded (sometimes temporarily sometimes not) before they get updated.

In the process of Microsoft redesigning the operating system, some features have gone away (sometimes temporarily). For example, the new Edge web browser has fewer capabilities than Internet Explorer users have known for years. And new features in Windows 10 weren’t all ready on day one; instead, they’ll keep arriving over the coming months. For most users, the November ‘autumn update’ was the first instalment.

This is a new approach for operating systems, but it’s something that’s been ‘business as usual’ for years from cloud services such as Gmail, as well as for mobile apps. Until it sought to appeal to businesses with Google Apps, Google services were notorious for staying in beta as the company continued to develop them, and Microsoft Office 365 has added features regularly. “Doing this at the operating system level is definitely harder than for a cloud-based service,” Aul admits, “but we think the model makes sense and we’re committed to making it a smooth and low-friction process for customers.” Even so, it’s not clear how willing business users are to make that transition.

Stepping back or starting small?

In some cases, making the Windows experience ‘even better’ has first meant taking a step back and even removing features. Or, as Aul phrases it, “We believe this approach will allow us to deliver better features on a sustained cadence, but some things will start small and grow as we add capability to them.”

With both Windows Mobile and the Edge browser, that step back was inevitable, because Microsoft started from scratch.

It meant previews of the mobile version of Windows 10 began by being far behind what Microsoft was already shipping with Windows Phone 8.1. Early previews lacked features such as the ability to open Office documents, and even now the new Mail and Calendar apps don’t offer significantly more functionality than the Windows Phone equivalents. In addition, the Windows Store no longer allows users to send apps to their phone from their PC; they have to load the apps directly from the Store on their phone.

That ‘step back to move forward’ process may not always be comfortable, but the belief at Microsoft seems to be that the sacrifices will be worthwhile once the operating system reaches the ‘moving forward’ stage. For example, shifting to a common operating system has allowed Windows phones to get the Edge browser and the same universal apps as Windows 10.

In particular, Microsoft seems to be hoping it will reach the single, unified messaging system it’s been working toward for both PCs and phones. Over the past few years, Microsoft dropped Windows Messenger; it also integrated and then removed Facebook messaging (after Facebook removed the APIs to support that). With Windows 10, Microsoft can integrate Skype messages with SMS and Skype calling with the Phone dialler; and with Cortana on both phones and PCs, users will see missed calls and be able to send text messages from their PCs. The first rudimentary pieces of this arrived in the autumn update.

Aul paints the development of Edge as a shift to implementing more web standards. “Consumers want a browser that takes full advantage of the modern web and new features in Windows 10, but Internet Explorer still plays an important role for some enterprise customers who require a legacy browser. With Windows 10, we’re delivering experiences for the modern web and new apps, while still helping existing customers who may need more time to transition.”

However, although Edge supports the latest HTML standards, it has fewer features as a browser than Internet Explorer, Chrome or Firefox. It’s only in the fall update that Edge added the abilities to synch Favorites, to upload files by dragging them into a browser window, to download files to a specific folder and to stream video from the browser to other devices – features IE has had since Windows 7. The update added a thumbnail preview for tabs, but that only works inside the browser; the taskbar preview still works only for the active tab, so you can’t close individual tabs from the taskbar thumbnail as you can in IE. You can’t pin specific sites to the taskbar either, and you can only re-open the most recently closed tab without digging into your history.

The promised extension support (which replaces the IE model of plugins for everything except Flash) that was expected in 2015 is delayed until some time in 2016; according to Microsoft, it’s still “actively working to develop a secure extension model.” And even though Windows Mobile will bring the Edge browser to phones, they won’t get extensions as quickly as the Windows 10 browser (something that would have put Windows phones ahead of Android).

Troubles for OneDrive

Another area where Windows 10 has taken a step forward and a step back is OneDrive. The OneDrive for Business client has finally advanced from the clunky SharePoint and Groove technology, and it synchs as reliably as the popular OneDrive consumer service.

But the consumer version of OneDrive in Windows 10 lost the sophisticated placeholder feature from Windows 8.1, which let users work with files through Explorer, whether or not they were locally synced – because according to Microsoft that feature confused some users and caused storage problems on small Windows tablets. Users can still pick which folders they want to sync, but doing so requires they use a separate dialog rather than choose directly from Explorer.

Sharing OneDrive files directly from Explorer has also taken a step forward (the Explorer option no longer takes you to the OneDrive site to get the link) and backwards (the feature moves from the Ribbon to the context menu and shares a link that allows editing by default, not just viewing).

It hasn’t helped that Microsoft recently announced that Office 365 users will no longer have unlimited OneDrive cloud storage and fees for OneDrive would be revamped. Is Microsoft listening to user views on functionality when it makes these changes? As you’d expect, Aul says yes.

Our metric for success is delivering a product that people use and love.” he argues. “We have a team of data scientists who rigorously pore over data and feedback from Insiders, and customers to understand the features or changes they want to see in the product, and to help the engineering team build out road maps for product development.”

It’s a little harder to see from the outside what the feedback looks like, because the Windows Feedback app is now the only official way to report bugs and request features. Although Microsoft is keeping its more public UserVoice sites for developer features, including the rendering engine in Edge, it’s closing down the UserVoice sites for Windows 10.

And users may not always feel that Microsoft is listening. For example, when Microsoft announced in January 2015 that it was removing the ‘placeholders’ that allowed OneDrive users to access all their files using a minimum of local drive space, Chris Jones, who was then corporate vice present for OneDrive and SharePoint, stated that “other [important capabilities] will come in updates that follow later in the calendar year – most notably the core capabilities of placeholders that are both reliable and comprehensible.” But there has been no follow-up. More recently, reductions in OneDrive storage allowances precipitated a petition drive.

Building differently to build faster

Delivering major features more quickly – which is the core of turning Windows into a service – means Microsoft must build it differently, Aul explains.

“Moving at this pace requires we build and test in smaller incremental steps than in the past, and test and evaluate the results quickly as we go,” he reveals. “This represents a huge effort and we use stateof- the-art test automation, as well as good old-fashioned dogfooding to find issues quickly and create a tight feedback loop back to developers making changes.”

Aul suggests that building Windows differently will also result in better applications for the latest version, “because third-party developers will be able to focus their energy on one up-todate operating system target rather than a fragmented installed base.”

Depending on Insiders

The testing goes beyond what Microsoft can do alone. “The key advance for us has been adding the millions of Windows Insiders who are contributing to the testing and feedback process,” he says, “which allows us to ensure coverage of new updates for quality and compatibility before they ship broadly.”

According to Aul, testing on so many PCs helps Microsoft to balance the delivery of new features with stability and usability. With the Windows Insiders’ help, since the release of Windows 10 in July, he says Microsoft has found and fixed “tens of thousands of issues” in preview builds. Aul also credits the Insider program

Aul also credits the Insider program with allowing Microsoft to “test and make improvements at a much faster pace” and claims Microsoft is responding to feedback more quickly. “In contrast with how Windows has been released in the past, getting new features out quickly to customers to start using and giving us early feedback allows us to respond quickly and tune the experiences as needed.” That includes the company’s recent promise to give more details about what changes are included in specific updates (although that came after a Windows MVP started a petition on Change.org rather than sticking with Microsoft’s own UserVoice forums).

The autumn 2015 update (codenamed Threshold 2) rolled up the improvements Microsoft had been making since July, continued the subtle interface changes to make the design more consistent and added a host of small extras and options, such as automatically switching time zones when you travel. It also brought back some Windows 8 touch features, such as being able to resize two applications at the same time, and offered the first steps for integrated messaging, with previews of the apps for messages, video and voice calls

Adapting to Windows as a Service

Continuous delivery is likely to become the norm for Microsoft software. In addition to Windows 10 and Microsoft’s Configuration Manager, Office 2016 has the same service model. It even uses the terminology of Current Branch and Current Branch for Business. It also has the same requirement: users must take regular updates to stay supported.

All this doesn’t seem to be holding back Windows 10 adoption – for the most part. Just one month after release Microsoft claimed on its blog that the new OS was already installed on more than 75 million PCs. And in a survey conducted in May 2015 by Spiceworks, 96 percent of 500 IT professionals said they were interested in Windows 10, and 60 percent said their IT department was already evaluating it.

The two biggest reasons those IT professionals gave were the Start button and the free upgrade, followed by security improvements. The faster update cycle and the new Edge browser only made sixth and seventh place on the list.

Iain Chidgey, vice president at Delphix, which creates Data as a Service software, says that Windows as a Service is part of a sea change going on in technology – one that businesses need to take advantage of. “The likes of Apple and Android OS are already steaming ahead with a continuous delivery model; organisations need to accept Microsoft’s latest change and jump in with both feet to avoid missing the boa

Security vulnerabilities found in major laptops

Security flaws pile up in support applications installed by PC manufacturers

The number of vulnerabilities discovered in technical support applications installed on PCs by manufacturers keeps piling up. New exploits have been published for flaws in Lenovo Solution Centre, Toshiba Service Station and Dell System Detect.

The flaws were discovered by a hacker who uses the online aliases slipstream and RoL, and who released a proof-of-concept exploit for them. This prompted the CERT Coordination Center at Carnegie Mellon University to publish a security advisory.

One of the issues is caused by the LSCTaskService, which is created by the Lenovo Solution Centre and runs with SYSTEM privileges. This service opens an HTTP daemon on port 55555 that can receive commands. One of those commands is called RunInstaller and executes files placed in the %APPDATA%\ LSC\Local Store folder.

Any local user can write to this directory, regardless of their privilege, but the files are executed as the SYSTEM account. This means that a restricted user can exploit the logic flaw to gain full system access

Furthermore, there is a directory traversal flaw that can be exploited to trick the Lenovo Solution Centre to execute code from arbitrary locations, so an attacker doesn’t even need to place files in the aforementioned Local Store folder.

Finally, the LSCTaskService is vulnerable to cross-site request forgery (CSRF), an attack method through which a malicious website can relay rogue requests through the user’s browser. This means that, in order to exploit the previous two flaws, an attacker doesn’t even need to have local access to the system where the Lenovo Solution Centre is installed and can simply trick the user to visit a specially crafted web page.

In a security advisory on its website, Lenovo said it is currently investigating the vulnerability report and will provide a fix as soon as possible. Until then, concerned users can uninstall the Lenovo Solution Centre in order to mitigate the risk, the company said

Slipstream also published proof-ofconcept exploits for two other, lower-impact, vulnerabilities – one in the Toshiba Service Station (TST) and another in Dell System Detect (DSD), a tool that users are prompted to install when they click the Detect Product button on Dell’s support website.

The TST app creates a service called TMachInfo that runs as SYSTEM and receives commands via UDP port 1233 on the local host. One of those commands is called Reg. Read and can be used to read most of the Windows Registry with system privileges.

The flaw in DSD stems from the way Dell attempted to fix a previous vulnerability. According to slipstream, Dell implemented RSA-1024 signatures to authenticate commands, but put them in a place on its website where attackers can obtain them. These can be used as a crude bypass method for Windows’ User Account Control (UAC).

This is not the first time vulnerabilities have been found in support tools installed on Lenovo or Dell computers

Windows 10’s ‘Redstone’ update promises a smarter, Office-savvy Cortana

Cortana update will allow it to dive into individual apps and provide more context

Windows 10’s next major update, codenamed ‘Redstone’, promises a smarter Cortana that can work within Office applications. According to a report from The Verge, the personal assistant will become a contextual tool that appears within documents. It will facilitate transitioning tasks across the various smartphone platforms. Microsoft will also beef up the Notifications centre, according to the site.

If the Verge is correct, the continued enhancements to Cortana appear to be evolutionary, rather than revolutionary. For example, it provides contextual information when you highlight a word or phrase in Microsoft Edge. It’s not clear how far its developer plans to go, but Cortana’s improvements could be as minimal as supplying that same sort of context in a Word or PowerPoint document. So far, that context is lacking from Microsoft Office

The digital assistant is one of Windows 10’s signature achievements, along with Universal Apps. Richness is a critical aspect of how Microsoft competes with Google Now and Apple’s Siri – the more sophisticated the digital assistant, the more useful it is. It seems likely that Microsoft will continue to embed Cortana deeply into its core apps – Mail, Calendar, Maps, Edge, and others – with a gap on third-party apps that it doesn’t directly control, such as Facebook

Windows 10 Mobiles on a PC-like software update path

More frequent updates may mean more frequent restarts, however

Microsoft ended 2015 with a cosmic aligning of sorts: all Windows 10 PCs and phones were aligned around a single build. It released a preview build of version 10586.29 on 4 December to Windows 10 Mobile Insiders, and now all eligible Windows 10 PCs and phones can upgrade to this build directly from Microsoft. Although Microsoft has not pushed Windows 10 Mobile to existing Windows 8.1 phones yet, virtually all of its new Lumia 950 (reviewed on page 30) and Lumia 950XL phones (pictured) have been upgraded to Windows 10

In announcing the new build, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of engineering systems Gabriel Aul said that more frequent updates were in the works. “As our partners and Microsoft ship new Windows 10 mobile devices and existing devices are upgraded to Windows 10, all of our users will start to see more updates coming through Windows Update,” he says. “These will be addressing feedback we receive from our Windows Insiders and Windows 10 users.”

If Microsoft increases the tempo of its rollouts, Windows Phone owners will receive new features and bug fixes more frequently than before. That’s a feature Android users have long prized in the Nexus line. Windows 10 Mobile phones purchased from carriers will still ship with carrier apps installed, but at least they’ll otherwise be pure Windows

Toshiba, Vaio and Fujitsu said to be considering laptop and PC merger

Japanese giants considering combining their laptop and PC businesses, according to a media report

It’s been reported that Toshiba, Fujitsu and Vaio are considering a merger of their laptop PC businesses. According to a report in The Nikkei financial newspaper, the three companies have begun specific discussions on the merger later, with the aim of launching the company on 1 April, when the next Japanese financial year begins.

Vaio was spun off from Sony in mid-2014 and will likely be the surviving entity, with Toshiba and Fujitsu merging their laptop businesses into the unit. Ownership will be roughly equal, says The Nikkei.

roughly equal, says The Nikkei. It wasn’t possible to immediately contact the three companies for comment. As we report opposite, global demand for PCs is decreasing. In the third quarter of 2015, shipments dropped to 71 million units, according to IDC. Laptops made up the majority of these sales at 42 million units, but they were also down on the previous year. “We’re entering a phase in the PC industry where we are expecting some consolidation to happen,” says Linn Huang, an analyst at IDC.

He explains that price competition is hurting PC makers, while the prevalence of smartphones and tablet PCs in homes is reducing the need to continually refresh machines as they get older.

The market is led by Lenovo, Dell, HP and Apple, all of which do well in enterprise laptop sales. Other brands are more focused on the consumer market, which is experiencing softer demand than the enterprise sector, Huang adds. Weakness in the domestic Japanese market is also hitting the three companies in question, he says.

NEC, which was a market leader in the Japanese laptop market, merged its portable PC business with Lenovo in 2011.

2015 saw massive decline in PC shipments

IDC says PC sales are expected to be down 10 percent this year, with the tough times continuing in 2016

The PC business can’t climb out of the four-year hole it’s dug for itself, according to researcher IDC. Shipments of new personal computers dropped 10 percent in the fourth quarter of 2015, which means shipments declined 10.3 percent from 2014. The firm now expects all OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) to ship 276.7 million PCs this year, compared to 308.2 million in 2014

This represents the largest one-year contraction since the research firm began tracking shipments in 1996, beating the 9.1 percent record decline of 2013. IDC blamed the latest reduction in shipments on a variety of factors, ranging from larger-than-expected OEMs’ and sellers’ inventories to the ongoing problem of getting systems off factory floors.

The macro reason, however, remained the same as before: consumers have not bought new PCs to replace their increasingly-aging machines. They have instead opted to spend their money on new smartphones and, to a lesser extent, tablets

That doesn’t mean the PC is dead. “Despite the substantial shift in spending and usage models from PCs toward tablets and phones in recent years, very few people are giving up on their PC – they are just making it last longer,” writes IDC analyst Loren Loverde in a statement.

It’s thought that Microsoft’s free Windows 10 upgrade – available to the hundreds of millions of PC owners worldwide now running Windows 7 or 8.1 – hasn’t helped. “The free upgrade... enables some users to postpone an upgrade a little,” says Loverde, though, not indefinitely, he contends.

IDC is sticking to its guns, and predicts that at least some consumers would eventually upgrade their PC hardware because of Windows 10. “Some consumers will use a free operating system upgrade to delay a new PC purchase and test the transition to Windows 10,” Loverde explains. “However, the experience of those customers may serve to highlight what they are missing by stretching the life of an older PC, and we expect they will ultimately purchase a new device.”

Research firms such as IDC and its rival, Gartner, have maintained that consumers will refresh their home PCs at some point, but their regular predictions of that have worn thin. The buy-a-PC time frame has been repeatedly pushed out to a later date.

The silver lining in PC shipments, if there is one, exists because businesses have not – and for the foreseeable future, cannot – relinquish their workforce machines in anywhere near the numbers, or even percentages, of consumers. Businesses still regularly upgrade their systems, albeit often on a lengthier schedule than previously, as they migrate to a new operating system.

“Once commercial adoption of Windows 10 accelerates, and in combination with upgrades to steadily-aging consumer PCs, we expect demand for new PCs to improve for several years as replacements will also be boosted by the end of support for Window 7, just as the end of support for Windows XP boosted shipments in 2014,” Loverde maintains. Microsoft has set Windows 7’s retirement date as 14 January, 2020.

Other analysts have opined that enterprises, having learned their lesson from the scramble to dump Windows XP in 2013 to 2014, will be more likely to replace Windows 7 with 10 before the due date arrives. At the same time, Microsoft has been promoting its new operating system as ready for corporate adoption

IDC forecasts that shipments will stabilise by the end of 2016, and grow through 2019. Even that prediction, however, means that the bottom of the trough won’t come until next year, and the growth from that will be so minor that 2019’s shipments will remain below those of 2015’

ASRock overclocks non K Skylake CPUs

Skylake overclocking on a budget has just been enabled, thanks to ASRock introducing a way to overclock non-K series Skylake chips using the base clock. Overclocking Intel’s latest chips usually requires use of a CPU with an unlocked multiplier, such as the Core i7-6700K, but in December 2015, ASRock officially announced its Sky OC system, which is available via a BIOS update and effectively enables you to overclock the base clock on much cheaper Skylake CPUs.

According to ASRock, the only catch is that the system disables the on-board GPU, but that won’t be a worry for anyone wanting to build a budget gaming system with a discrete graphics card. The system also disables dynamic frequency adjustment using Intel’s Turbo Boost tech. Using an ASRock Z170 Pro4, ASRock says it’s been able to overclock an Intel Core i5-6400 from its stock clock speed of 2.7GHz to 4.3GHz, by overclocking the base clock from 100MHz to 160MHz. The company says it’s also overclocked a Core i3-6100 to 4.4GHz using Sky OC. We’ll be taking a closer look at overclocking non-K series CPUs in the next issue of Custom PC, so watch this space.

Game brings Overclockers PCs to the high street

Enthusiast system builder and etailer, Overclockers UK, has just announced a deal with high street video game store, Game, which will see Overclockers’ gaming PCs on sale in Game’s high street stores. The deal will see an interactive Overclockers UK display stand being introduced to several Game stores, starting with the Basingstoke and Trafford Centre (Manchester) shops, and expanding into eight more Game stores later.

‘The combination of Overclockers UK’s expertise and the retail estate of Game is the ultimate way to introduce and demonstrate gaming hardware to a wider audience,’ commented Overclockers UK’s executive director, Steve Ling. The PC range starts at £560 inc VAT for an OCUK Gambit machine with a GeForce GTX 950 and an AMD FX-860 CPU, and goes up to Skylake systems with liquid coolers and GTX 980 Ti cards, with a variety of configurations in between

Corsair introduces low-profile liquid cooler

The need to find space for a radiator mount has previously limited all-in-one liquid coolers from being installed in very small mini-ITX rigs and low-profile HTPC systems, but Corsair has revealed its intentions to conquer these areas with its liquid-cooling systems too. The company’s new H5 SF cooler squeezes the radiator and cooling fan into a flat unit that sits on top of a mini-ITX motherboard, without the need to incorporate case fan mounts. The unit measures 84mm tall and features an integrated low-noise 120mm blower fan, which Corsair says will effectively draw heat from other components on the motherboard, such as the VRMs, and exhaust it out the vents at the back. The H5 SF is available to order for £80 inc VAT from

HOW TO SPOT A RIP OFF Tracy King shares her tips for avoiding Kickstarter tech scams

i read tonnes of customer reviews while compiling my Christmas wish list this year. This sort of consumer feedback, made possible by the Internet, theoretically democratises retail in a way that previously wasn’t really possible. Beforehand, we’d mostly choose a blender by which brand we trusted. Brands still play a part (the Amazon bestsellers in most categories are household names), but increasingly, customers are prepared to take a punt on lesser-known names.

Kickstarter is a fine example. Although larger brands such as Double Fine or MST3K attract the most investment, when it comes to tech, there’s a Wild West of new and occasionally shady names at which we can throw our money.

Take Shield Apparel, a company I hoped was a spoof but appears to be genuine. It’s raking in tens of thousands of pounds on Kickstarter for a tinfoil hat. An actual tinfoil hat, disguised as a fleecy beanie. The hat ‘protects’ the wearer from ‘electromagnetic smog’ caused by mobile phones and Wi-Fi; as you know (because I’m always banging on about it), this isn’t a real thing. The Kickstarter page and accompanying video is written in dodgy English and contains several of the red flags associated with scams (and spoofs). With that in mind, here’s Tracy’s Handy Guide To Knowing When Something Is A Rip-off

1. Does it solve a problem you didn’t know you had?

This is usually the case for health products, such as the Shield hat. You weren’t aware that your baby’s brain was being fried by the microwave, but now that you do know, you’re going to need this expensive gadget/pill/copper bracelet

2. Does it solve a problem everyone has?

A great example is ‘tired all the time’. I bet you’re nodding because, yep, you’re tired all the time. Me too. Everyone is. But if you buy this tablet, you’ll have the energy of a rabbit

3. Does the marketing contain deliberately sciencey-sounding jargon?

Beware of anything that claims to be ‘quantum’ unless it’s from CERN. Likewise, ‘electromagnetic’ and ‘radiation’ are scary words that don’t mean anything in the context of selling you protective gear for ten quid

4. Is it a testable claim?

You don’t need to be a scientist to know that some claims, such as ‘I am a wizard’ aren’t testable, while other claims, such as ‘I can heal your broken leg with my hands’ are. The Shield hat bumph makes several testable claims, saying it’s ‘antibacterial, antimicrobial, antiradiation, antiodor, antistatic, and radar and infrared invisible’, but it doesn’t supply any actual evidence to support them.

An antiradar hat will be useful for when I want the illuminati to think I’m a headless zombie though.

5. Is the writing poor quality?

This tip isn’t just handy for identifying scammer emails (which use bad grammar deliberately to weed out smarter recipients). Any sincere company that makes a product will employ professional copywriters and marketers to write blurb for each regional territory.

‘We are here for the same reason like everyone else,’ declares Shield Apparel. Okay then! That totally makes sense and I trust you with my money and health!

6. Is the evidence independent?

Sometimes a product will give citations, but when you dig a little further, the tests are funded by commercial entities or even the retailers themselves

The Shield hat, in my opinion, falls afoul of advertising standards and is unlikely to see the end of its campaign, but you can always make your own with the leftover silver foil from your Christmas dinner

THE STICKER PROGRAM Seeing OCUK PCs in Game stores excites Richard Swinburne much more than Lenovo boxes with Razer badges

Lenovo and Razer recently announced a plan to build gaming PCs together. On the surface, this new relationship looks good. Razer is a long-time specialist in this field, and this popular PC gaming brand sponsors numerous eSports teams and stars. Razer has even dabbled in building swanky gaming laptops with its Blade range. However, while the Blade systems have generally been well received by the press, they’re expensive, only available in a few select regions and as a result, they’ve sold in limited numbers.

This partnership with Lenovo brings huge buying power for components, resulting in cheaper costs, and it also brings more manufacturing capacity and global sales reach. Razer’s gaming credibility and Lenovo’s large-scale manufacturing abilities makes it look like a win-win partnership that will enable both firms to compete with established gaming laptop manufacturers. However, Lenovo has little experience with gaming gear, or with PC enthusiasts; it’s seen as a maker of corporate steel and plastic boxes. You use a Lenovo machine for spreadsheets, rather

than playing Splinter Cell. Meanwhile, Razer appeals to the complete opposite end of the spectrum: a premium-focused gaming brand that pays careful attention to design and spec, crafting high-end (and often expensive) hardware. It’s hard to see how the two brands will complement each other – Lenovo doesn’t have much credibility in the world of PC enthusiasts and gaming.

So, are these new systems going to be specced and designed according to the acute gaming insights of Razer’s team, or will they be Lenovo boxes sporting Razer badges? In the announcement, the two companies said they planned to ‘co-brand and co-market special Razer Edition models of Lenovo’s Y series gaming devices’, and that ‘Lenovo will employ its system design and engineering expertise, while Razer will enhance the immersive experience for gamers’. Oh dear, they’re going to be Lenovo boxes with Razer badges.

Gaming and enthusiast credibility is really difficult to establish. At least Alienware’s team is still fully independent of Dell, but even then, how many Alienware machines are seriously considered by PC enthusiasts, seen at LANs or talked up enthusiastically online?

It’s the independent system builders, such as Scan and Overclockers (to name just two), that are arguably a bigger attraction to PC enthusiasts and top gamers. The value of a handbuilt, fully considered system (both inside and out) that’s built and designed by fellow enthusiasts, and constructed using known and well-reviewed components, is a big attraction. System builders follow trends quickly; they’re trusted to put the kit together properly, and their customer service is often faster and more personal than the service from a large corporation.

Comparatively, the recent announcement of a deal between Overclockers and Game (see p15), bringing OCUK’s gaming rigs to the high street, shows how such a partnership could really work. OCUK has carved out plenty of credibility among enthusiasts and gamers over the past 15 years, as both an established system builder and component retailer, while Game has been serving gamers on the high street for over a decade. For me, what’s exciting about this deal isn’t so much the potential for direct sales of OCUK PCs in high street stores, but the idea that we can get properly built and stylish gaming PCs into the view of the wider public, perhaps enticing console gamers back into PC gaming. It’s a great opportunity to reach out to a new generation of gamers, and boost interest in PC gaming and its surrounding community

Ben Hardwidge is delighted to see ASRock’s Sky OC tech bringing overclocking back to its rule-breaking roots

’ll let you into a little secret. Most of the time, my Core i7 CPU isn’t overclocked. I bought a K-series chip, of course – I want the option to push my CPU to its limits for benchmarking, or if I’m running software that really needs it. However, it runs at stock speed for over 90 per cent of the time. It’s not so much that there’s no longer any need for overclocking, but that the top-end K-series CPUs are ironically the chips that need to be overclocked the least. They’re already powerful enough for most people

The chips that really benefit from overclocking are the cheap ones. When I first got into overclocking, back in the 1990s, neither Intel nor AMD approved of overclocking. In fact, they fought hard against it, which is why we ended up with locked multipliers in the first place. At this time, overclocking wasn’t a willy-waving exercise for people with the most expensive components, but a way for cash-strapped enthusiasts to effectively get the performance of an expensive CPU for the price of a cheaper one.

We now have CPUs that Intel and AMD have given us their blessing to overclock but, with the exception of the aging Pentium G3258, they’re all at the pricier end of the scale. Unless you’re using these CPUs for very processor-limited loads, though, which generally doesn’t include gaming, you get little benefit from the clock speed boost.

As such, I’m delighted to see that ASRock has found a way to overclock non K-series CPUs using the base clock (see p15). At the time of writing, several other motherboard makers had revealed similar plans too. It’s debatable how long this feature will be available, and whether Intel will be happy about it continuing, but it’s much more in the spirit of overclocking than tweaking expensive unlocked CPUs.

Overclocking should be about breaking the rules, and using your expertise to get performance that’s genuinely useful, rather than superfluous. The big deal about being able to overclock non-K series CPUs isn’t that you can buy a Core i7-6700 instead of a Core i7-6700K, but that you can buy a much cheaper Core i3-6100 for less than £100 and, according to ASRock, push it to 4.4GHz. Or, if you want more multi-threading power, you could buy a lower-clocked Core i5 chip for £55 less than the 6600K, but overclock it to the same frequency as the 6600K

Given that, even now, few games make extensive use of more than two CPU cores, such a setup would provide a foundation for a great budget gaming rig when it’s overclocked. Combine it with a cheap Z170 motherboard, 8GB of memory and a Radeon R9 380 card and you’ll get a decent Skylake gaming system, complete with Hyper-Threading, for a surprisingly low price

Unless you’re into competitive benchmarking, or you regularly run software that responds well to high CPU frequencies, there isn’t really any point in overclocking an expensive and already powerful CPU. In fact, doing so will just involve increasing the speed of your cooling fans, creating more noise, while also bumping up your electricity bill. This new era of base clock overclocking has the potential to bring overclocking back to its roots, opening it up to people without masses of money to spend, and that’s what it should be all about

Extensions coming to Microsoft Edge

IT LOOKS AS if Microsoft’s Edge web browser could gain support for extensions in the very near future. Twitter user Walking Cat spotted – and grabbed – images of a Microsoft page detailing extensions available for Edge before the company took it down

According to the leaked web page, Edge extensions will be available in a new build of the Windows 10 Technical Preview, allowing users on the Windows Insider Program to get an early glimpse of how they work before they’re rolled out to the general public in a future update.

It seems that Edge extensions will be almost identical to those for Google Chrome, as only a few changes to the code are needed to make Chrome extensions run on Edge. A link to download API documentation was also included on the page, suggesting that users will be able to write their own extensions, too.

The page mentioned some of the heavyweights of the extension world, including Pinterest’s Pin It Button and Reddit’s Enhancement Suite. To access these, it looks as if users will click Edge’s More Actions button in the top-right corner to reveal the extensions as a row of icons above the main menu options.

Of course, not everyone will want to pile a dozen extensions on their copy of Edge, as they can sometimes make the browser slower and cause security problems. However, it’s a step in the right direction for Edge and, depending on the support it attracts from developers, may help bring it into line with Google’s Chrome browser.

It should also help tempt users away from Internet Explorer, old versions of which will stop receiving security updates and support this month, according to Microsoft. “Beginning January 12, 2016, only the most current version of Internet Explorer available for a supported operating system will receive technical supports [sic] and security updates,” Microsoft said on its website. “Internet Explorer 11 is the last version of Internet Explorer, and will continue to receive security updates, compatibility fixes, and technical support on Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10.

“After January 12, 2016, Microsoft will no longer provide security updates or technical support for older versions of Internet Explorer. Security updates patch vulnerabilities that may be exploited by malware, helping to keep users and their data safer. Regular security updates help protect computers from malicious attacks, so upgrading and staying current is important,” the company warned

Samsung’s VR headset costs just £80, but you still need one of its 2015 flagship smartphones to use it

SAMSUNG’S VIRTUAL REALITY Gear VR headset is now on sale for just £80. It’s the first virtual reality headset available to the public beyond Google’s Cardboard viewer, beating rivals Oculus Rift, Valve and HTC’s Vive and Sony’s PlayStation VR to the punch. The only catch is that you need a Samsung Galaxy S6, S6 Edge or S6 Edge+ to use it because it doesn’t have a built-in display.

This makes it a rather expensive package altogether, but those who are eager to enjoy the VR experience can pick one up online from the Samsung Store. It will be available from other retailers, including mobile phone network O2, in the next few months.

We tested the Innovator Edition of the Gear VR, which is an early version of the headset intended mainly for developers, but the consumer edition is 19% lighter and has foam cushioning to make it more comfortable. It’s powered by the same core technology as Oculus Rift, but the Gear VR has been designed from the ground up to work with Samsung’s 2015 range of flagship smartphones. It provides a 96° field of view and has plenty of sensors to help you get the best out of its apps and experiences, including an accelerometer, a gyrometer and a proximity sensor

A touchpad with four directional buttons on the side of the device provides built-in controls, but the headset is also compatible with external controllers such as the SteelSeries Stratus XL gamepad for use with its VR gaming library. More than 25 dedicated VR games will be available on the Gear VR, but you’ll also be able to play retro classics such as Pac-Man, Sonic the Hedgehog and Gauntlet through the Oculus Arcade app.

Alternatively, you can turn the Gear VR into a private cinema with Netflix or Oculus Video. The latter offers over 70 films from 20th Century Fox and Lionsgate, including The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 and the Alien trilogy, as well as over 9,000 videos from Vimeo and all your favourite Twitch broadcasts. Gear VR also supports 360˚ photos, while Oculus Social lets you hang out with friends and family in a virtual living room.

Before You Invest In Erp, here tips

Most SMEs are apprehensive about an ERP deployment as there are various perceptions at work. We discuss those in detail along with a roadmap to successful ERP deployment

The Indian MSME sector comprises of about 36 million units and employs over 80 million people according to 2015 figures reported by the Ministry of MSME. The sector produces more than 6,000 products, which contribute to about 8% of the GDP besides giving 45% to the total manufacturing output and 40% to the country’s exports.

The MSME sector has the potential to spread industrial growth across the country and can be a major partner in the process of inclusive growth. According to research firm Zinnov, India will soon become the largest SME nation globally.

Ironically, while SMEs are an engine of job creation, they are also a significant contributor to job destruction, according to the findings of an EU research report, which state that as few as 50% of firms that started trading in 2011 survived beyond five years.

What’s Driving This Negative Growth in SMEs?

It is understandable that SMEs are particularly affected by market turbulences and their position is clearly unfavorable in the newly created world economic circumstances. SME problems are reflected in reduced demand, difficult access to markets in India and abroad, particularly capital markets, lack of availability of quality manpower and technology and sometimes lack of welldefined processes & systems within the entity.

On top of that, they’re all struggling with similar business challenges like retaining existing customers, acquiring new ones, expanding their reach to cover a wider spectrum of geographies, on time deliveries, keeping track of inventories, man management and cash management, to name a few.

So while tremendous growth opportunities exist in this segment, it’s also a big challenge for SMEs to grow, because they get competition not only from domestic companies but also global ones (especially in other growing global economies).

How ERP Can be a Catalyst to Growth?

Seeing this negative growth, SMEs are now looking at adopting technologies that will help them scale their business and give them a competitive edge. While a significant number of them are still at a basic technology adoption level, others are fast moving to more mature levels and are welcoming new age technologies.One of the key drivers of business growth in SMEs is the level of IT usage as an enabler of well-defined processes.

ERP comes to the forefront when it comes to resolving these SME challenges. Simply put, ERP is a business management system that provides an integrated solution to streamline all business activities by using a common pool of data. It provides the following benefits:

1. Standardization across functions and processes

2. Better management of remote/sales locations

3. Centralized Support Facilitates (Integration)

4. Cost Effectiveness

5. Better ROI on existing investments

6. Operational Efficiency

7. Scalability

8. Improved Reporting and Tracking system

9. Improved Customer Relationship and Customer experience

10. Business Analytics to plan and forecast better

Some Apprehensions About Using ERP Implementing ERP is of course no bed of roses. According to a study, a majority of SMEs, especially in the manufacturing sector are still wary of using ERP as an enabler of their business. Its implementation is considered to be complicated and cumbersome, difficult to integrate in existing systems and, mostly exceeds the initial estimated cost. This also results in time overruns many times defeating the primary purpose.

Most SME owners bemoan lack of understanding of their internal processes by the ERP vendor, thus starting the ERP implementation with an adjustment of sorts. This often creates a feeling of distrust between the vendor and functional teams at the SME. ERP vendors, according to SMEs, are also sometimes accused of initially discussing a complete scope of work (covering the wish list of the customer) and later backing out of their commitments OR demanding more resources citing “complicated processes” at the customer end.

Many SMEs also complain of vendors initially involving senior and experienced resources for implementation but later allocating inexperienced and junior resources for this work. Some of our surveyed customer even complained of junior resources being allocated as Project Managers, a euphemism for a face at the customer site with little knowledge of the customer processes.

The ERP vendors on the other hand complain of cost and time constraints by the customer resulting in such shoddy work at times.

Crucial Success Factors Having understood the challenges and apprehensions in deploying ERP, here are a few factors that can result in a successful deployment:

Top Management commitment: Like we mentioned earlier the leadership team has to be fully convinced of the usefulness of the exercise, generally keeping the teams motivated

Change Management: Too many decisions by the Management without active involvement of the functional heads and respective departments may result in disquiet and an uneasy environment. This issue needs careful handling by experts who understand the issue well and convince the functions of the benefits to all. It also involves training and retention techniques.

Expectation setting: We have not seen many ERP vendors talk of what ERP will NOT achieve. Expectations have to be clearly defined and well articulated.

Defining & handling all Stakeholder: Define and manage all Internal & external stakeholders. This should be in conformity to the Project Management plan. Learning & Development (Coaching) and Employee Retention: Have a well-defined roadmap with clear goals Data Collection processes (the four Vs of Data): The Volume/Velocity/Veracity and the Variety of data to be considered before designing the systems.

Parallel Systems: The existing application may be replaced totally or partially by the new ERP system. All implementation processes should be carried out without affecting the daily operations

Software design & processes defined: The process involves a thorough examination of the business processes in the SME; selection of the best available software solution that matches the requirements of the SME and proper configuration of the selected systems Level of customization to be less than 15-20%: Perhaps one of the biggest reasons for the low success rate of ERP implementation. This normally leads to cost and time overruns.

Proper Project Management plan: Defining dependencies and likely impact on the final deliverables. Also having an effective monitor and control mechanism is crucial.

In India, SMEs are the backbone of the economy and are faced with global competition. It therefore becomes imperative for them to look for means of responding to the dynamic markets. ERP systems have become the most common IT strategy for most large companies. SMEs too are moving towards ERP systems. They need to adopt a proactive approach towards ERP and consider it as a business transformation solution rather than a mere IT solution

Challenges in ERP implementation

• Perception that ERP is a complex system mainly suited for large organizations who have well defined processes and “money to burn”, to quote an SME. Most SME feel they have some “unique” system of working, where “no ERP will work”.

• Low level of awareness among SMEs about what exactly will the business benefit be.

• A massive anti-feeling about ERP, not being helped by too many failed implementation stories amongst their peers. Our surveys indicate more than 60% unsatisfied users of ERP in the SME space.

• All stakeholders not taken in confidence before starting the project. It’s a major contributor to the low level of success of ERP implementations. We have had cases of major differences happening in certain functions when “informed” of the management & IT decision to implement ERP, without taking them in confidence.

• Customers’ existing processes not being studied is also a major hurdle. A proper “As Is” study is mostly avoided due to high cost associated with it. SMEs should consider speaking to a vendor neutral external consultant for the same.

• ERP vendors suggest products that do “Not” fit into the customers’ processes. There are too many instances of adjustments happening on both sides, later, in such cases.

• Change management issues not handled in the right manner. We have seen too many of these across all SMEs, where fear of the unknown (technology) results in subpar performance by the team at the customer end.

• Too many SME still consider ERP implementation as an IT project, instead of considering it as a first step to the Business Transformation Process.

• While it is generally agreed that many standalone business solutions may be a better fit for SMEs then ERP, the onus is on the ERP vendor to integrate existing processes into ERP solution being offered for a near perfect fitment.

Tech Essentials For A Growing Sme

Running a growing business these days requires more than just money to fund capex and opex. You need to ensure that your money goes into business processes that are not just efficient but competitive enough to reach out to the right customers

The fundamentals of doing business for an SME have changed completely. The global economy continues its see-saw battle towards recovery and the overall demand from the developed as well as developing world remains sluggish. Along with this you have commodity prices which are at their lowest levels over the last one decade. These are ominous signs if you wish for recovery of any sorts happening over the next one year or so. So, what should a small business do to grow or may be even survive in such a scenario? Go back to the drawing board and focus on developing strategies to ensure the essential parameters for growth are put on track. For instance, do you need to transform the way you reach out to your target customers? How about transforming the processes involved in manufacturing products or delivering services for your customers? Most businesses today are not left untouched by the digital revolution that’s taking place and hence need to do a lot more to leverage it effectively for deriving business benefits.

Through this story we look at all such tech essentials that a growing business should aspire for. We look at why an ERP solution in whatever form is still a musthave for a manufacturing company. We also talk about the challenges faced while deploying an ERP solution along with expert advice from SME owners who have gone through an ERP deployment and what they’ve learnt from it. We also look at essential online tools that are required to run your business online and promote it amongst major business communities spread across social media. Mobility is an essential ingredient for any successful business today and there is a deluge of enterprise mobility apps, each offering a useful business function, that it becomes difficult for a business to choose the best from the good ones. We choose the best free apps from key business areas such as marketing, finance and accounts, operations and travel to help ease your pain and save some money in the bargain!

Cybercrime And Children In The Digital Age

With the advent of the digital age the exploitation of children is on the rise thereby making them more vulnerable

Online predators and privacy are some of the biggest issues parents are grappling with as cybercrime goes beyond online and moves to take over personal life.

Fast-paced technological innovation and easy accessibility of information and communication technology (ICT) have transformed our societies. The current generation has unprecedented access to computers and mobile technologies, as they have adopted it from an early age. With the advent of the digital age the exploitation of children is on the rise thereby making them more vulnerable.

Norton by Symantec has released the findings from its Norton Cyber Security Insights Report which reveals parents have great concerns about their children in the online world. Perpetrators always look for new ways to evade technological solutions with new tools which makes it necessary for increased cooperation between industry, law enforcement, NGOs and government.

Some of the key findings from this report show that:

• 54 percent worry their children will give out too much personal information to strangers

• 21 percent parents are concerned about their children being lured into meeting a stranger in the outside world

• 51 percent believe what their children will post today will come back to haunt them in the future

• The Norton Cybersecurity Insights Report reflects consumer attitudes from more than 17,000 people surveyed in 17 countries, including 1000 people in India.

Children in the Digital World

According to a study by Boston Consulting Group (BCG) on behalf of the Telenor Group, in India approximately 100 million children will come online by 2017. Despite government’s strict norms that prohibit children under 13 from joining the social-networking site, nearly 76 percent of children ages 7 to 13 visit ‘YouTube’ daily in tier-I and tier-II cities and a vast majority (75 percent) of the parents of 7-13 year-olds are aware of their child for signing up for the YouTube site. Social media is another area which has high concentration of children.

In 2013, the Delhi High Court observed that India is way behind when it comes to online protection of children and changes in online safety-related policies and implementation of digital literacy programs in schools have been moving at a snail’s pace.

The policymakers are quite active when it comes to cybercrime but the debate on online child protection is fragmented. According to a survey by Assocham, 65 percent of kids under 13 use social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Lack of Digital Literacy

“Children in India are in the highest risk category due to increased access to smartphones and affordable internet which makes them the weakest link in the family’s online security,” says Ritesh Chopra, Country Manager, Norton by Symantec.

It is the parent’s responsibility to talk to children about their internet habits. Also, it is necessary to monitor their activity and have rules around their internet use.

Compared to global average, Indian parents worry more about their children online presence

Define Boundaries

Online behavior and real world behavior are one side of the same coin. Parents should set rules about when and for how long children can remain online, the websites they can visit, and how to treat people online. They should also be aware about all the privacy filters for safe browsing.

On privacy

Parents should make sure that their children are not sharing sensitive information online with someone they don’t know. Online etiquette is necessary and children should be groomed early about the implications of reckless online behavior.

6 Essential Steps To Secure Your Apple Device

As iOS becomes popular among hackers, here’s what you need to stay protected

Apple devices, especially iPhones are quite a huge hit amongst Indians, leading to a surge in their popularity in recent years. According to IDC, the company now accounts for 13.5 per cent of global smartphone shipments and 7.5 per cent of global PC shipments. This increase in usage has not gone unnoticed by attackers. In fact, in the last two years, the level of Apple-related malware infections has increased. A recent report by Symantec has shown a significant upsurge in threat and risk detection on Mac OS X computers since 2014. Zero-day brokers have begun offering bounties for Apple vulnerabilities, with US$1 million paid recently for a jailbreak of iOS 9.1. While Apple as well as other security researchers are doing everything they can to ensure the safety of their platform, it’s also important for the users themselves to take the right security measures. Security of your Apple device after all, is in your own hands. Here are six things that you could do.

Never Jailbreak

When you buy an Apple device, you invest in the Apple ecosystem – the App store. This is something a few owners of Apple devices fail to understand as they opt for jailbreaking - the process of removing software restrictions imposed by Apple on its devices. The drawbacks of jailbreaking always outweigh the advantages of doing the same. First, your device will be exposed to higher risk from malware. Next it will be difficult to get updates or patches from Apple. If you don’t install security patches on your devices, you are leaving them wide open to cyber criminals who could eavesdrop on virtually everything on them that’s linked to an Apple app (Calendar, Mail, Safari, FaceTime, etc.), and even third-party apps that rely on Apple’s SSL encryption (Twitter, Facebook, banking apps, etc). Most importantly, no warranty or support will be available from Apple post jailbreaking.

Ignore pop-ups attentively

Attackers targeting a mobile operating system need to find a way to install malware on the device it’s running on, which can be a significant hurdle. Do not fall prey to ad pop-ups with enticing messages asking you to ‘click here’. If you do, this will be the easiest way to invite viruses into the system.

Use strong passwords and change them often

One of the best and easiest ways to protect your Apple device is to change your password often. Also, maintain a strong and longer password than normal. This will make it difficult for hackers to use password hacking software to access your account. In addition to changing your passwords, do not use similar passwords for multiple accounts, especially if those are important accounts or financial institutions. Reusing passwords across different sites and services is a big risk. Just as you would not use the same key to unlock your front door and your car, you should never use the same password for more than one account.

Be mindful of automatic WiFi connections

iPhones have a very good feature which allows you to automatically connect to known WiFi hotspots without your permission. There are high chances of cyber criminals establishing their fake wireless networks with the same name as a trusted public hotspot. In this scenario, you might not even recognize that your iPhone is working within the malicious WiFi network, giving away all of your data to the scammer. That’s why it is very important to be aware of every WiFi hotspot you are in or turn this option off.

Guard your contacts, photos and messages

In recent versions of iOS, there are significant numbers of features and data types that almost any app can access: from GPS to contacts, to messages. For example, if you install a third-party keyboard you must give it full access to everything you are typing in order for you to be able to use it. If this sounds quite non-secure to you, then you have no choice but to go to “Settings” and prevent all these corporation-driven apps from accessing your data. After that, you probably won’t be able to use some of the apps that you have, but that’s a good way to secure your device

Robot Journalism: The Advent Of High Tech Storytelling

Artificial intelligence and automation strongly hints towards a future in which robots and software are going to reduce the need for human workforce

When Newspoll – an Australian opinion polling brand sacked more than 100 staff members and replaced them with robots, it started a new transition in an era where automation was limited to high-end engineering and medical sector only. This telephonic polling company has hired robopolls for automated polling and online surveys. Surveys will be conducted by Galaxy Research under Newspoll brand.

In 1930, during the height of the worldwide depression, eminent British economist John Maynard Keynes famously warned about “technological unemployment” caused by the discovery of means of economizing the use of labor.

Artificial intelligence and automation strongly hints towards a future in which robots and software are going to reduce the need for human workforce.

With advancements in cloud computing and big data organizations are leveraging emerging technologies — such as Artificial Intelligence and machine learning — to classify structured and unstructured data around unique business and processes. There is no doubt that computer algorithms can produce authentic and factually correct content to attract consumers

A new area for robots

Journalism is the new sector in which robots are being used for generating quantitative content.

Robot journalism may sound very futuristic but there is no doubt about the role it’s going to play in our lives. The Associated Press made an announcement about using Wordsmith software to automatically generate news stories about college sports. This software has been created by North Carolina-based Automated Insights. Wordsmith works on algorithms to create content.

The AP — which is also an investor in Automated Insights — already uses Wordsmith to generate stories on quarterly earnings reports of various corporate firms. The Associated Press has also announced that it will use Wordsmith, to generate up to 4,400 corporate- earnings report per quarter, more than ten times the number of reports produced by human reporters. News organizations are experimenting heavily with robot journalism, using computer programs to transform data into news stories or multimedia presentations

For now it is limited to company earnings reports, stock market summaries, youth sports stories and earthquake alerts. Wordsmith is capable of creating a million stories which can be targeted at individual user and their preferences. Powered by users’ data it can provide unique stories which earlier required intensive research

stories which earlier required intensive research. There is no reason to be worried about the rise of robot journalism as they are purely into structured and quantitative data analysis and not into the mainstream journalism related to human emotion or opinion.

Think about them like an assistant reporter which handles all the boring data figures and transforms them into readable content, which further can be clubbed into your original report.

How automation helps

Automation leads to job loss but this is not the case here. On the contrary, automation is freeing up the reporters from digging deep into hard numbers. It will be more problematic for us when a machine with highly developed and ever expanding AI, enters into other fields of journalism like editorials, comparative analysis and human interest stories. If humans, with the aid of espionage and technology were capable of developing the machine which destroyed the German cipher machine Enigma, then I don’t have any doubts regarding our future, where a sizeable amount of human workload will be transferred to the robots.

We already have this intelligent writing software called Quill, which has been developed by Narrative Sciences, a Chicago based company. It turns numerical data into story and has been used for baseball reporting and company earning statements for Forbes. T. Rowe Price, Credit Suisse and USAA have already subscribed to its services to write in-depth reports on mutual fund performance, which are meant for distribution to the investors and regulators

Quill is programmed to write structured sentences, paragraphs and pages. Most of the content produced by these bots is quantitative, thereby, making it an attractive option for finance, health care and journalism sector, where enormous amount of data is analyzed. These heavy-data contents are written after crunching spreadsheets full of sales number, sports scores or stock market figures. So basically it’s about pure computing power skills and the bots are surely going to beat us here

Top Five Iot Startups Leading The Pack

Internet of Things is poised to become one of the most disruptive technologies of the 21st century.Here we discuss five such organisations that leverage it well

Internet of Things is poised to become one of the most disruptive technologies of the 21st century. According to a report by NASSCOM in five years, the global opportunity is likely to touch 300 billion USD and in comparison, India too would boast of a 15 billion USD market in IoT.

The market is still at a nascent stage with sales mostly limited to wearable devices in India. According to Jayesh Ghatge, Market Partner – ThoughtWorks, “Driven by sensor economy Internet of things is going to transform itself into Internet of people, services and data.”

We look at top five IoT startups firing on all cylinders and analyze what sets them apart from others in the emerging IoT market eco-system.

Cooey

Cooey provides end-to-end health-monitoring IoT platform that allows users to collect, store, analyze and share their medical information with the doctor, while providing personalized health tips to patients based on their medical profile. It also connects the users with various healthcare service provides and enables them to get personalized services i.e. medicines, tests, or home care services, delivered directly to the doorstep.

Their wireless body fat analyser and blood pressure monitor WBT1-357-B was launched on Flipkart last year in November. It can measure weight, muscle mass, BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate), Body mass, Body Fat and Visceral fat. It also calculates the BMI (Body Mass Index), and later syncs the data on the cloud and on the smartphone app

Cooey wants to be the go-to app for management of blood pressure and heart disease.

Entrib

Modern technology is making the shop floor smarter with specialized sensors with real-time data communication. Pune based ShopWorx is a real-time big data monitoring and analytics solution that is focused towards manufacturing shop floor and has been customized for two verticals – Plastics Manufacturers and Automotive Assembly line.

There are over 10,000 registered MSMEs in Pune region and Entrib wants to tap into this market

Altiux

In sync with the Smart City plan Altiux demonstrated its solution portfolio for Smart Cities and Smart Manufacturing verticals at IoT Asia 2015 at Singapore, Smart Cities India Expo 2015 at New Delhi and Indian Manufacturing Summit at Mumbai. Their approach towards combining statistics and data analysis has helped process manufacturing enterprises in unlocking true value from their existing data sets without any expensive equipment upgrade.

It is currently building platforms and solutions for IoT devices, cloud platforms and smart homes. It also builds and licences intellectual property (IP) components in key emerging technology domains.

SenseGiz This Belgaum based start-up makes consumer and enterprise products in the wearable tech and IoT space. Their primary focus is to design and develop IoT solutions for security, defence and smart city applications. Their flagship product ‘Find’ which was launched last year is a tracking device that alarms the user if they lose their belongings. The user receives an alarm and a trigger on the smartphone. SenseGiz has sold over 20,000+ units of Find worldwide

After consumer-focused IoT products, SenseGiz is now focusing on making products for use cases in smart cities and smart home.

Yuktix

Yuktix creates environment monitoring solutions for emerging markets. Their idea is to create next generation monitoring solutions focused on making data mobile and data capture, visualization and analysis in a true plug and play format. It also provides weather, air quality, gases and water sensors. Their environment monitoring solution follows standards set by the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) and the World Meteorological Organization. The solution can serve as ready-to-deploy system for smart cities and urban monitoring.

It has also collaborated with Telit, a company providing Internet of Things (IoT) solutions, for its cellular module technology which has been designated to provide mobile data access for Yuktix micro-climatic data collection weather stations in India