IT daily news: tháng 4 2017

Thứ Sáu, 28 tháng 4, 2017

Melbourne startup Bugdojo launches bot-powered QA tool

A startup based out of Melbourne has announced the launch of a bot-powered QA tool, which provides development teams access to software testers on-demand.

A lot of startups and mid-size development teams skip through quality assurance (QA) and software testing in favour of shipping new features and releases as quickly as possible, according to Australian startup Bugdojo.

This is because QA and software testing is seen as time-consuming and expensive, the startup said.

Founded by Melbourne entrepreneur Ash Conway, Bugdojo wanted to address these inconveniences by creating a QA tool that provides development teams access to software testers on-demand by using bot commands as they're building code.

Conway told ZDNet that while it's possible for companies to hire offshore testers cost-effectively, the testing is "far from constant".

"Traditionally, QA resources are most needed towards the end of a release cycle, and are often a bottleneck in the process, requiring a huge backlog of testing to be cleared before release," Conway said.

"Bugdojo solves this problem by making professional QA and testing resources available to development teams on demand. When it comes time to test and QA a release, developers can use Bugdojo's army of testers to continually test throughout the development process, or to clear a backlog in minutes or hours, instead of days or weeks."

Developers interact with a bot inside issue tickets in GitHub or Bitbucket using commands such as "@bugdojo test" or "@bugdojo reject" to start and manage testing. Bugdojo replies to the GitHub or Bitbucket issue with the result of the test, comments made by the tester, and a screen capture video of the testing process.

Conway said the advantage of having a bot interface is that it integrates "seamlessly" into existing software development workflows.

"We believe that tools like Bugdojo should enable teams to get more done within their existing workflow, without adding additional layers of complexity. Every time a developer has to switch context to a new app or log in to a new tool, that's a distraction from their workflow," Conway added.

Conway said that while other QA-as-a-Service platforms use "crowdsourced" workers from online task marketplaces such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk, software testers that apply to be part of Bugdojo are graded against its existing pool of testers through machine learning technology before they have access to clients' tests.

Conway, who also founded Bugwolf, a user acceptance testing platform that applies gamification techniques, said machine learning technology eliminates the expense of managing false positives or the need for a third-party to assess the applicant's skills.

Bugdojo charges $500 per 25 tests, compared with hiring a full-time QA engineer that can cost a company between $80,000 and $150,000 per year.

The testers, of which there are "several thousands", are paid based on the number of pass and failed tests accepted by clients, Bugdojo said.

Bugdojo currently supports testing of websites and web-based applications, but will be moving into mobile apps in the future.

Updated 9.15am AEST 21 April 2017: Quote attribution corrected.

IoT for startups: Telenor unveils free pilot to spur big data, AI development

Starting next week, startups and researchers will be able to test out their ideas for new Internet of Things apps on a free pilot service in Norway.

Telenor has unveiled an experimental pilot service called Telenor Start IoT, for researchers and young companies wanting to explore the Internet of Things (IoT) in Norway.

The Norwegian telecom operator is setting up a physical low-power wide-area (LPWA) experimental network and a backend system and will be giving development kits to startups, students, and developers. This offering will be free for testing and experimentation for five years.

The Telenor Start IoT pilot network offering will initially be based on LoRaWAN technology (LoRa) but other network technologies may also be included, such as the 2G/3G/4G, NB-IoT and eMTC standards, the company said. Telenor will offer such networks commercially in 2018, hence the start of exploring the opportunities now.

In addition to the transmission network, Telenor will provide a developer portal and access to backend services on its Telenor Connexions Cloud Connect product. This platform is built on Amazon Web Services IoT (AWS IoT), and will be made available independently of the underlying transmission technology.

The pilot network is aimed at stimulating LPWA innovation in Norway and will initially be rolled out in the Norwegian cities Trondheim, Tromsø, and Oslo from May 1. All three cities have a good selection of education and research institutions.

"This is part of a broad initiative from Telenor to drive growth in the use of cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, IoT, and big data in Norway," Telenor Group president and CEO Sigve Brekke said in a statement.

The offering is one of several examples of Telenor's strategy of stimulating and supporting startup companies. The company has accelerator programs in place in eight of its markets and says it supported 70 startups in 2016 alone.

Spotify acquires blockchain startup Mediachain to improve music attribution

Spotify has acquired Mediachain in an effort to create a fairer, more transparent, and more rewarding music industry for creators and rights owners using blockchain technology.

VIDEO: Spotify buys blockchain startup for copyright defense

Brooklyn-based startup Mediachain Labs announced on Wednesday that it has been acquired by digital music service Spotify.

At a time when content is widely distributed across the web, often without any recognition of the creator, and when signatures don't survive re-coding, Mediachain's mission has been to inextricably link content to the identity of the creator, offering a channel for attribution, analytics, and payment.

The three-year-old startup, founded by Denis Nazarov and Jesse Walden, has created a number of technologies including a decentralised, open media library built on top of the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), which allows content creators to make statements about their creative works that are cryptographically signed, timestamped in the Bitcoin blockchain, and stored in the IPFS.

Mediachain also launched an attribution engine in October last year that is built on top of its open media library and helps users search for properly attributed images, while allowing creators to secure the rights of their digital content.

Additionally, the startup prototyped its own cryptocurrency, CCCoin, to reward content creators for their contributions.

"From inception, the mission of Mediachain Labs has been to build a more connected world for creators," said the Mediachain Labs team in a blog post. "Inspired by the disruptive technology behind Bitcoin, we set out to explore how the next generation of blockchains and open, peer-to-peer protocols would empower creators to better reach their audiences and earn a living."

Mediachain's team will be joining Spotify in its offices in New York, while it turns over its technologies to the open source software community -- keeping all source code and documentation open source and openly licensed.

Moving forward, the companies will work together to create "a more fair, transparent, and rewarding music industry for creators and rights owners".

A challenge for Spotify and other music streaming services has been getting all the data required to properly license music and pay its creators. For example, The New York Times reported in March last year that Spotify had agreed to pay up to $25 million in royalties to music publishers, as well as a $5 million penalty, to settle a licensing dispute with the National Music Publishers Association.

Instead of creating a centralised database with music rights information, it is expected Spotify, with the help of its newly acquired Mediachain talent, will build a decentralised one that connects artists and other music rights holders with the tracks featured on Spotify.

As Mediachain explained in a blog post, its vision for the problem with attribution is a shared data layer, which it said "is key to solving attribution, empowering creators and rights owners, and enabling a more efficient and sustainable model for creativity online".

"The opportunity to join an organisation that shares this vision comes at a crucial time, when the relatively nascent blockchain community has few bridges to mainstream consumers, creators, or the platforms they use to interact," said Mediachain.

Mediachain has previously raised $1.5 million from Andreessen Horowitz and Union Square.

The financial terms of the Mediachain-Spotify deal were undisclosed.

Can Masayoshi Son and Uber-rival Ola jumpstart an electric revolution in India?

With only some 22,000 electric vehicles sold in India last year, the country has a long way to go to rival its neighbour China's efforts. Yet, private companies like Ola with wealthy visionary-benefactors like Masayoshi Son can help speed things up.

If any one country desperately needed cleaner air immediately it would be India, home to a staggering 10 out of the top 20 of the world's most polluted cities. Nearly half of the children in its capital city of Delhi have severe lung problems.

There are several contributors to the noxious air in India, especially in the north where the problem is the most severe. Farmers burn the stubble of their crops to prepare them for the next harvest. Free-wheeling industrial smokestacks often operate unchecked. Trash, which includes plastic, rubber, and metal, is frequently burnt in public. However, the most consistent polluter is the tens of millions of vehicles, old and new, that are an emblem of India's rising prosperity and its environmental decay.

So, when Masayoshi Son, uber Japanese VC and founder of SoftBank, announced several months ago while on a trip to India that he would personally inject India with "a million electric cars", it should have sent waves of joy and relief through any Indian who read about the news. Yet, there must have been a certain amount of circumspection. After all, this was exactly the kind of vague and expansive statement that only one of the world's wealthiest people could make without any immediate intent behind it.

And yet, a few weeks ago, Ola Cabs, chief rival to Uber in India and a major investment of Son's SoftBank, announced that it would roll out a thousand or so electric vehicles in a pilot program. As we speak, the first lot of electric vehicles, which Reuters reports includes two-wheelers, rickshaws, and cars, will make their way on to the streets of the southern state of Telangana and Nagpur city in central India. "The economics are still not there so we're taking a bit of a risk," said Bhavish Aggarwal, CEO and co-founder of Ola regarding his company's pilot. Clearly, Son's comment had more teeth behind it than expected.

Ola plans to do more to make its pilot successful -- setting up charging stations for the immediate future (which will include battery swapping for some vehicles and quick charges for others) as well as exploring and forging pacts with power and fuel companies.

This is all pretty exciting stuff, but the reality of jumpstarting a "revolution" in electric vehicles, that too in India, can appear quite grim and would take considerable doing. India witnessed the sale of a paltry 22,000 electric vehicles (only 10 percent of which being 4-wheelers) in 2016 compared to 20 million running on some kind of fossil fuel.

By contrast, 351,861 electric car sales were sold in China in 2016, making up roughly 46 percent of the entire universe of plug-ins sold worldwide and an 83 percent increase over the previous year. Chinese car makers were also responsible for 43 percent of all EV production in 2016. By contrast, the US sold just 160,000 and Europe 207,000. Click here to see China's top five models and a breakdown of their sales courtesy of Cleantechnica. (US sales were 160,000 units while Europe's was 207,000.)

Clearly, it doesn't make sense to compare India and China in this department. Looking ahead, champions of EV in India will know that there are a number of existing hurdles. First off, the economic proposition for electric versus gas isn't all that clear and batteries must be replaced every three or four years, which is not going to excite the cost-conscious Indian consumer. There isn't a decent charging infrastructure in the country and therefore range-anxiety, even if it isn't a rational fear for many owners based on their useage, is deep-seated. Tack on frequent power outages in many areas and a shortage of places where you can dispose of batteries in eco-friendly ways and you have a pretty inhospitable terrain for jumpstarting an electric revolution.

However, in order to gauge the reality of the Indian dream for electric glory, it nevertheless is instructive to look at what it took for China to achieve their impressive gains and what India may have to do to transform this goal to within the realm of achievable. One thing is for sure -- it didn't happen overnight.

China has long had a love affair with electric vehicles. The electric-powered bicycle has been the preferred mode of transport for millions of Chinese -- sales of these e-bikes just crossed 200 million units within the last 10 years at the rate of around 20 million e-bikes a year.

These e-bikes, which travel between 20 to 30mph and also allow you to pedal them, cost anywhere between $500 and $1,000. They first started to sell in the 1990s in China but really took off in the early 2000s. One of the biggest catalysts for increased sales occurred when the Chinese government officially stamped these e-bikes as "bicycles", allowing their use in the inner core of many cities while banning the use of petrol-powered scooters and motorcycles. If you think that many Chinese cities are heavily polluted today, imagine what they would be without these directives.

Then there is the not inconsiderable issue of the heart of any electric vehicle: batteries. For cars, the battery is at least 50 percent of the cost of the vehicle and the good news is that lithium ion ones -- predominantly in use globally -- has, in quasi-Moore's law fashion, declined by 73 percent over the last six years and will do so further.

The bad news is that India has no deposits of lithium or cobalt, which it would need for the country to indigenously manufacture them. This means no chance of domestically driving the price of batteries downwards. China on the other hand does, but those are far less than the top lithium producers in the world, who are Australia, Chile, and Argentina.

To make up for this, Chinese companies, many of them state-owned, have been snapping up stakes in lithium and cobalt mines in Argentina and Chile to drive costs lower. Other companies such as Ningde CATL have filed more than 2,000 battery-related patents that are apparently soon to match global leaders in quality. Today, as FT reports, China's battery companies are outpacing the old guard in the battery world, namely South Korea and Japan (whose Panasonic makes batteries for Tesla), and have begun dominating the industry.

Of course, none of this would be possible without the life-giving succor that the state machinery in China is famous for giving its companies. That is how everything from semiconductors to toy manufacturing was jumpstarted, and the e-vehicle revolution is no different. Billions have been pumped into local electric car makers such as Shenzhen-based BYD -- Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has a 10 percent stake -- which is the world's largest electric car and bus maker with a market capitalisation of $18.7 billion.

All of these factors translate to 1 million electric vehicles plying the roads today, and an estimated 5 million by 2020. Not an easy act to follow by any measure, even for a developed country, let alone India.

All of this makes India's desired entrance into the world of electric vehicles, enshrined by the official governmental goal of selling 6 million such vehicles by 2020, all the more delusional. Still, some optimism here is not unwarranted.

Just look at the scale and speed at which the country has adopted solar power -- in well under a decade, India has rapidly become one of the world's leading solar markets with plans to go from the 9GW in installed capacity currently to 100GW by 2022. The unit price of power from several projects has now officially become cheaper than coal power (from 14 rupees to 3 rupees in just six years) and India currently fields the largest solar farm in the world in Kamuthi, Tamil Nadu, with a capacity of 648 MW covering an area of 10 square kilometres.

If it can accomplish this, there's no reason why urgent gains in the electric vehicle department cannot be made. For its part, the government has launched the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric vehicles (FAME) scheme, with around $18 million in subsidies for the purchase of more than 111,000 electric and hybrid vehicles. This may not seem like much when you look at China's efforts, but it is a pretty decent start. It is also looking at a scheme where commercial EVs may be exempt from permits.

Finally the biggest development: For the first time in its short history, India crossed the threshold from being a power-starved to power-surplus nation, a huge bonus for any nation looking to launch an EV revolution. Auto makers are also beginning to wake up -- Nissan is on the verge of bringing the Leaf to the country, while Suzuki Motor Corp, the parent of India's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki India, recently said that it would join hands with Japan's Denso Corp and Toshiba Corp to churn out lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles in India.

Local EV players such as Lithium Urban Tech are also getting energized and launching electric limousine services catering to the corporate market in a far more comprehensive and focused manner than Ola or anyone else.

Of course, you may ask whether EVs in India are really green and clean. After all, how green your car is depends on the juice that it is fed. In India the bulk of power generation, solar gains aside, is undertaken with some of the dirtiest varietals of coal that exist, meaning more particulate matter (PM), sulfur dioxide (SO2), and hydrocarbons (HC) spewed into the air.

According to this website, electric cars in coal-heavy India, China, Australia, and South Africa are pretty much equivalent to petrol vehicles and in the 25-30 miles per US gallon (MPGUS) range. They are followed by the UK, Germany, Japan, and Italy (45-50 MPGUS range) and finally France, Brazil, Switzerland, and Norway who are leagues above with a 100 MPGUS in equivalent emissions.

However, as the website explains, these stats do not include the carbon footprint of refining processing or transporting petrol, nor does it compute the damage caused to the earth by mining minerals like lithium and cobalt for EVs, which also use rock-crushing equipment that are huge energy guzzlers. In fact, the Union of Concerned Scientists has said that manufacturing an EV generates more carbon emissions than making a regular, fossil-fuel-siphoning car.

However, according to the same body of scientists, after all the tallying is over and done with, they have deduced that an EV spews half the amount of emissions compared to a conventional car over its lifetime, which is more than enough reason to cheer the efforts of Masayoshi Son and the Indian government to follow in the footsteps of its neighbour.

Thứ Tư, 26 tháng 4, 2017

Acer Swift 5 review: A decent ultrabook at an affordable price

iPad review: A low-cost tablet with tremendous value

Withings Steel HR, First Take: Stylish smartwatch needs more smarts

Hands on with the Meizu M5s - an affordable alternative to the iPhone 6

Moto G5 review: Motorola's affordable mid-range handset continues to impress

Uber rejects claims iPhone app tracked users after being deleted

The practice eventually led to Apple CEO Tim Cook threatening to remove Uber from the App Store.

Uber has denied any wrongdoing following reports that the mobile devices of former users were tracked even after the Uber app was deleted.

Uber has had more than a share of criticism of late. Uber CEO Travis Kalanick was recently caught engaged in a shouting match with one of his drivers, allegations of a toxic and sexist corporate environment have been made by a former engineer, the company has been accused of industrial espionage against competitor Lyft, and Uber's response to President Trump's immigration ban caused outraged users to create the #DeleteUber campaign and delete their accounts en masse.

Uber has been known to use dodgy software tricks to achieve its goals, such as in the case of the Greyball program which tweaked user apps to track cops and avoid authorities in areas where the ride-hailing service is frowned upon.

It now appears that the company has also tracked iPhone users even after the Uber app is removed from these devices.

The New York Times reports that in early 2015, Kalanick was summoned to Cook's office after Apple engineers discovered a practice called "fingerprinting," which is banned by Apple's privacy requirements.

Kalanick reportedly directed his staff to use this technique as an anti-fraud measure due to problems in China, where users were registering multiple Uber accounts on stolen iPhones and booking rides. The more rides booked, the more rewards and bonuses Uber issued to drivers.

In order to mask these activities from Apple, Uber engineers geofenced Apple's Cupertino, California headquarters which would, in theory, prevent anyone from this area from reviewing Uber's software by obfuscating the code within this region -- keeping Apple unaware of the fingerprinting taking place.

However, it was not long before Cook was made aware of Uber's games. In the meeting, the Apple chief told Kalanick that he'd "heard you've been breaking some of our rules," and told the Uber CEO that Uber either adhered to app guidelines, or the software would be removed entirely from the Apple App Store.

The consequences of such a move would be severe as Uber would lose millions of iPhone users and the likelihood of being stripped of such a customer base would potentially destroy the company.

Unsurprisingly, Kalanick complied with Cook's demand.

In a statement, an Uber spokesperson told The Verge:

"We absolutely do not track individual users or their location if they've deleted the app. As the New York Times story notes towards the very end, this is a typical way to prevent fraudsters from loading Uber onto a stolen phone, putting in a stolen credit card, taking an expensive ride and then wiping the phone --over and over again.

Similar techniques are also used for detecting and blocking suspicious logins to protect our users' accounts. Being able to recognize known bad actors when they try to get back onto our network is an important security measure for both Uber and our users."

Speaking to TechCrunch, Uber said that a form of device fingerprinting is still in use, but one that complies with Apple's rules. If a device has been associated with fraud in the past, new sign-ups now raise a red flag.

MIT thinks 3,000 Uber rides could replace all the taxis in NYC:

Frustrated unlocking your Samsung Galaxy S8? Enable Google Smart Lock

The Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus have oddly positioned fingerprint scanners, but look a bit deeper into your settings to find another option to help keep you phone safely unlocked.

ZDNet's Adrian Kingsley-Hughes posted an article on Friday asserting that the Samsung Galaxy S8 has a major design flaw. He included statements from reviewers across the internet who universally lament the placement of the fingerprint sensor.

After spending more than two weeks with the Galaxy S8 Plus, I can confirm the fingerprint sensor is not positioned in the best location and often makes unlocking the Galaxy S8 an exercise in frustation. Adrian brought up a good point about regular fingerprint failures and the process to unlock causing an impact on productivity.

You could also try the iris scanner, which is secure and works well most of the time. But while it works OK for me, I'm not a real fan of having to hold my phone up so high in front of my face when I am on the train or walking around the city. I feel self-conscious doing it, as if I am taking lots of selfies or photos of those sitting across from me when I hold my phone up in this manner.

Thankfully, Google includes another option for Android smartphone owners. Given my frustrations with the current S8, I dove into my settings to further explore and enable Google Smart Lock. I highly recommend you check out Google Smart Lock on your Galaxy S8, as there are several options for using the technology in your phone to enable a more intelligent locking process.

Keep in mind, these Smart Lock options may reduce the level of security as they offer different strategies to keep your phone in an unlocked phase. The most secure approach is to always lock your phone, but for many of us who use our phones as a vital tool we rarely let it out of our sight and don't need to lock it every single time we are not actively using it.

On-body detection

This is one option I have never tried before and may also be the least secure Smart Lock option. After enabling this mode, your phone will remain unlocked while you hold it or carry it with you. If your phone is with you and unlocked and then is stolen without being set down, the thief may get full access to your phone.

I'm curious to hear of other experiences with this mode to find out how well it does at remaining unlocked while being carried in your pocket. Can Android really determine when you are carrying it or when you happen to lay down with it in your pocket while still carrying it? I will have to test out this mode more before giving up other methods of securing my device.

Trusted places

When you select this option, your Android phone opens Google Maps and lets you select places to add as "safe zones" where your phone will remain unlocked. I currently only have my house selected as a trusted place.

When you add a trusted place, your device should remain unlocked within a radius of up to 80 meters from that designated location.

Trusted devices

I've used this mode in the past with Android Wear watches and now have it setup to work with my Samsung Gear S3 Frontier smartwatch. Trusted devices include devices connected via Bluetooth and also NFC tags that you setup and scan with your phone.

Trusted devices can be watches, headphones, other Bluetooth gear, and NFC stickers you position.

Trusted voice

The Trusted voice option is associated with Google Assistant and its voice detection system. I don't think this works that well with the Samsung Galaxy S8, as I cannot ever get Google Assistant to launch on the S8 Plus unless the phone is plugged in and charging or the display is on. With the LG G6 I can just state OK Google any time to have it launch, but not with the S8.

While one method may not perform as you desire, you can easily enable all four of these modes in Google Smart Lock. I enabled on-body detection, added my home as a trusted place, added my Samsung Gear S3 Frontier as a trusted device, and enabled the trusted voice option on Friday after reading Adrian's article.

My weekend was spent in Galaxy S8 Plus unlock bliss as these methods worked and meant I had a seamless experience in picking up and using my phone. I simply picked up the phone and pressed on the virtual home screen button to start using the phone with no other steps required. The frustration that I experienced before was gone and I plan to keep using Google Smart Lock.

If you want to use the fingerprint sensor to unlock your phone every time, then I recommend using a case that will help you target the proper area next to the camera. I've been using Caseology, Speck, Tech21, and VRS Design cases and find they do help me hit the fingerprint sensor much better than when the S8 Plus is naked.

Samsung Galaxy S8 review: The good, the bad, the beautiful:

Ericsson deploying virtualised video processing for Telstra broadcast

Ericsson technology will allow Telstra to offer virtualised, cloud-based broadcast media processing and distribution via micro services across its network.

Ericsson has announced that Telstra will deploy its virtualised video-processing system in order to offer broadcasters cloud-based processing, transcoding, streaming, and distribution of media workloads via micro-services across its network.

Part of Telstra's cloud media strategy, Ericsson said its MediaFirst Video Processing portfolio will allow the telecommunications provider to process and deliver broadcast-ready content in near-real time.

Ericsson's video-processing suite utilises high-efficiency video coding (HEVC) compression technology and is made up of MediaFirst Encoding Live, MediaFirst Encoding On Demand, MediaFirst Packaging, and MediaFirst Management Controller.

The announcement is an extension of Telstra and Ericsson's partnership on the implementation of broadcast media technology.

"This is the next step in our virtualisation program ... setting up broadcast configured cloud native processing, storage, and network capabilities across our network will enable us to offer broadcasters services to run traditional high bandwidth-intensive media applications where and when they are needed," said Gary Traver, director of Media Telstra.

"Telstra's goal for the broadcast sector is to provide reliable and resilient network access, with strong bandwidth and latency requirements, supporting broadcasters in their shift toward use of IP processing for broadcast content."

Telstra and Ericsson in February announced that they would be launching an LTE-Broadcast (LTE-B) network across the country to be progressively deployed between 2017 and 2018.

As part of the rollout, Ericsson and Expway are working to implement multicast-operation-on-demand (MooD) technology -- which will shift customers between unicast to broadcast transmissions depending on load -- and service continuity between broadcast and unicast coverage areas by November 2017.

Telstra and Ericsson also announced their media content-delivery solution with 21st Century Fox in February, with the solution making use of Ericsson's cloud-based MediaFirst store for processing and origin of the content; Ericsson MediaFirst TV platform for personalisation of the content; and Ericsson Unified Delivery Network for global content delivery.

The system will send personalised movie content to consumers' devices without impacting device performance or data plans by multi-casting it during off-peak times.

According to Telstra CEO Andrew Penn, the solution was designed in response to the increasing uptake of consumers watching entertainment on their smartphones, with Telstra providing its LTE-B and global media network capabilities for the solution.

Telstra earlier this year internationally launched a system for broadcasters to deliver both live and file-based media content worldwide with its Global Media Network, utilising its extensive network resources and infrastructure.

The Telstra Global Media Network relies on the telecommunications provider's global submarine fibre cable network, four teleports, 40 satellites, and broadcast operations in Australia, Asia, Europe, and the United States.

Telstra last year also showcased its fully operational Broadcast Operations Centre (BOC) in Sydney, which manages over 400 video, audio, and data services. It provides broadcasters with content-transfer solutions via its fibre, satellite, and IP networks as part of the Telstra Broadcast Services (TBS) business.

Australian government consulting on safe harbour extension to online services

The Australian government will consult with stakeholders on whether to extend the safe harbour provision to all online service providers, such as cloud services and search engines, in addition to ISPs.

The Australian government has announced that it will hold a series of consultations with stakeholders on extending the safe harbour provisions in the Copyright Act to cover all online service providers.

The proposed amendment would extend the provision beyond internet service providers (ISPs) to also encompass providers such as cloud computing services, search engines, and online bulletin boards.

The provision would protect these online service providers from legal liability for any copyright infringement taking place via the services they provide -- as long as they take "reasonable steps" to remove copyright-infringing material, Communications Minister Mitch Fifield said.

"An expanded safe harbour regime would provide a useful mechanism for rights holders to have material that infringes their copyright removed from online service providers," Fifield said.

"An expanded regime would also ensure that service providers are not held responsible for the infringing actions of their users, provided they take reasonable steps to take down material that infringes copyright."

Department of Communications Secretary Heather Smith will run several roundtable discussions with interested stakeholders on the proposed extension of the safe harbour provision, with Smith to advise the government in June on how it should proceed.

The announcement follows the Productivity Commission last year recommending that Australia apply the safe harbour provision to all online service providers.

"Online service providers, such as cloud computing firms, would face fewer impediments to establish operations in Australia," the Productivity Commission said in December.

"The copyright system will be more adaptable as new services and technologies are developed, facilitating greater innovation. Aligning with international systems further reduces business uncertainty."

The commission had added that Australia's current copyright laws are skewed in favour of rights holders to the detriment of consumers, and said that the government should adopt the Australian Law Reform Commission's recommendations to implement a fair use provision in the Copyright Act.

"Fair use would similarly allow Australia's copyright arrangements to adapt to new circumstances, technologies, and uses over time," the commission said at the time.

Fifield pointed out that the government is currently pushing several piracy-related reforms on copyright law, including through the Copyright Amendment (Online Infringement) Act 2015 , which passed both houses of parliament in mid-2015 and allows rights holders to obtain a court order to block websites hosted overseas that are deemed to exist for the primary purpose of infringing or facilitating infringement of copyright.

In addition, the Copyright Amendment (Disability Access and Other Measures) Bill 2017, introduced last month, was designed to ensure that libraries, archives, educational facilities, cultural institutions, and the disability sector have "reasonable access" to copyrighted content, with their usage of copyright material not constituting infringement.

Back in November, the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties recommended that the government pass the safe harbour provisions amendment to the Copyright Act in order to ensure that Australia would not be in breach of its international obligations as described under the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade deal.

Section H of the Intellectual Property chapter of the TPP had mandated that member states implement both fair use and safe harbour provisions.

"Each party shall ensure that legal remedies are available for right holders to address such copyright infringement, and shall establish or maintain appropriate safe harbours in respect of online services that are internet service providers," Article 18.82 said.

Articles 18.68, 18.69, and 18.74 also provided that criminal and civil penalties do not apply to "a non-profit library, museum, archive, educational institution, or public non-commercial broadcasting entity".

The committee's recommendation followed the Australian Digital Alliance and Copyright Advisory Group in October arguing at a TPP hearing that without the more extensive safe harbour provisions under the proposed Copyright Act amendments, Australia would be in breach of its international law obligations.

While the TPP is now on ice following the United States' abandonment of the multilateral trade deal thanks to the election of Donald Trump, the Australian Treaties Committee said the fact that a Bill exists to expand safe harbour provisions to schools, universities, and online service providers shows that the problem is "real" and the law must be amended.

"In Australia, a mistake was made in the amendment to the Copyright Act that included the safe harbours provision. The Copyright Act contains a safe harbour provision for 'carriage service providers' only. This means that commercial ISPs are provided safe harbour protection, but schools and universities are not," the report said.

"The problem is an Australian one. The fact that the issues raised during the inquiry in relation to safe harbours provisions has reached the stage of being addressed in a draft Bill would indicate to the committee that the problem is real. The committee recommends the Australian government progress the safe harbours amendments to the Copyright Act."

ZTE reveals ultra-cheap Max XL smartphone for Boost Mobile

The smartphone maker has partnered with Boost Mobile for another low-cost smartphone with a big screen.

Starting Tuesday, Boost Mobile customers can pick up ZTE's latest smartphone for just $129.

The ZTE Max XL is the first smartphone on Boost Mobile to implement Sprint's HPUE technology, which means users can expect better LTE coverage and performance.

According to Jeff Yee, vice president of technology, planning and partnerships at ZTE USA, the company had three priorities it took into consideration when working with Boost Mobile on the Max XL: High-speed connectivity, a big screen, and a big battery.

Between HPUE compatibility, a 6-inch FHD display, and a 3,990mAh battery, ZTE is confident the Max XL is a device customers will enjoy using.

Other notable specs include 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB of storage, microSD support up to 128 GB, Android 7.1.1, a 13-megapixel rear camera, and a 5-megapixel front camera, all powered by a 1.4 GHz processor.

With high-end smartphones attracting much of the attention from tech press and users alike, ZTE has quietly and steadily held the fourth spot in the top smartphone vendors in the US. Currently behind LG, Samsung, and Apple, respectively, Yee is optimistic ZTE can catch LG in 2017, claiming the third spot.

ZTE's recipe for success includes listening to carriers and building smartphones specific to their needs.

For example, the ZTE ZMax Pro, built specifically for T-Mobile and MetroPCS, sold 1 million units in two and a half months.

The Max XL is just one of the nearly 80 active SKUs in ZTE's lineup. A number, Yee admits, that is a lot to manage and can lead to confusion for consumers.

ZTE plans to continue building phones for carriers' needs on the low-end, but in 2017 Yee says to expect ZTE to begin spending a lot of time promoting and growing its mid-range Blade smartphone brand.

Boost Mobile customers interested in the Max XL can order the phone directly from Boost Mobile starting today.

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N-day Nvidia, Android driver security flaw details revealed

Zimperium has revealed the details of two N-day vulnerabilities submitted through its exploit acquisition scheme.

The technical details of security vulnerabilities impacting the Nvidia Video and an Android driver have been revealed by Zimperium, which acquired the flaws as part of an exploit acquisition program.

On Tuesday, Zimperium zLabs researchers published a blog post detailing the security flaws, two escalation of privilege bugs found within the NVIDIA Video driver and MSM Thermal driver.

The Nvidia bug, CVE-2016-2435, impacts Android 6.0 on the Nexus 9 handset. The problem arises when attackers craft an application to tamper with read/write memory values and force privilege escalation.

The second security flaw, CVE-2016-2411, involves a Qualcomm power management kernel driver, the MSM Thermal driver, in Android version 6. If an attacker crafts a malicious application, they can give themselves root access through an internal bug in the driver, leading to privilege escalation.

These bugs are well documented, known, and for the most part security updates have been issued. However, Zimperium says that making the technical details available of these so-called "N-day" flaws is important and can act as a catalyst to boost the speed of patch production and to iron out problems arriving between a patch being created and vendors distributing the update in good time.

In February, Zimperium launched an N-day acquisition program which is only interested in known security problems, rather than unknown and unpatched zero-days. Over the next year, the exploit purchaser is budgeting a total of $1.5 million to pick up the details on these exploits.

Once a bug has been discovered and a fix is being worked on, an N-day exploit indicates a time of one or more days in which user systems can be compromised until a security update is issued.

"By focusing on N-days, or patched vulnerabilities, Zimperium is applying pressure on the mobile ecosystem to re-think how and when users receive security updates," the company said at the time. "[The] program will reward the hard work of researchers who wouldn't otherwise receive compensation for an N-day exploit."

The technical details of the N-day exploits have been previously shared through Zimperium's Handset Alliance (ZHA), which includes Samsung, Softbank, Telstra, and BlackBerry.

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Microsoft signs patent deal with Casio for smartwatch technologies

Microsoft's latest patent-licensing deal is with Casio for smartwatch technologies. Is this really another cloud services play for Microsoft?

Microsoft Technology Licensing, the company's patent-licensing arm, has signed a new agreement with Casio Computer Co. Ltd.

The seemingly strange piece of this April 3 pact? The agreement between the two "includes broad coverage for smartwatch technologies," according to the Microsoft press release. (Thanks to Ubergizmo for the link to the release.)

Microsoft is believed to have exited completely the fitness band market last year, though company officials maintain the company will keep a hand in the wearables market.

My guess is this is not an agreement for Microsoft to resell Casio smartwatches or for Casio smartwatches to include any kind of embedded Windows variant. Instead, I'm thinking Casio's smartwatches will make use of Azure and/or Office 365 services in some way, given the press release's mention of Casio watches' "many sensors that support a complement of outdoor features such as activity monitoring, and altimeter, barometer and compass readings." Maybe the Microsoft Health service, designed to provide health and fitness insights, figures into this agreement, as well?

Microsoft revamped its IoT/embedded strategy a year or so ago, focusing on selling and licensing connected services rather than on trying to get Windows embedded in any and every IoT device.

Microsoft isn't commenting beyond what's in the press release.

This isn't the first patent licensing agreement between Casio and Microsoft. The two companies have prior agreements around industrial handheld terminals and business information systems, the press release notes.

Smartwatches less than one-third of all wearables in US: Kantar:

Comcast's Xfinity Mobile success revolves around customer loyalty, retention, lifetime value

Comcast is in the wireless business because it thinks customer perks such as 24/7 text support, automatic Wi-Fi connections and pricing flexibility will make its bundles more powerful.

Comcast could be disruptive to the wireless industry simply because it is measuring success in the context of lifetime value of a customer, retention and the loyalty of its 29 million existing subscribers.

Toss in a digital first sales model, an established distribution model, automatic connections to the Xfinity Wi-Fi footprint and pricing that's based on bundle economics and Comcast could become a player. Comcast's Xfinity Mobile launch boils down to the simple axiom that it's far more efficient and profitable to keep and sell to your existing customers than land new ones.

Comcast executives outlined the Xfinity Mobile plan and the biggest takeaway is that the entire effort revolves around customer relationships and loyalty--and a firm belief that bundle economics work. Comcast is leveraging its Wi-Fi network, but is essentially reselling Verizon's network.

See also: Comparing unlimited plans from T-Mobile, Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T

The win for Comcast will revolve around the customer experience, said Greg Butz, president of Xfinity Mobile. "Customer personalization carries throughout the entire experience," said Butz. "We have a digital experience that we think will have an impact."

Comcast is rolling out Xfinity Mobile pilots with its employee base and then launching to consumers and businesses. Comcast said that Xfinity Mobile can be profitable on a standalone basis due to a strong partnership with Verizon, price points to drive volume, low customer acquisition costs, existing scale and limited capital expense.

"Customer loyalty will be how we'll rate success. How do we keep improving retention?" said Dave Watson, CEO of Comcast Cable. "Wireless is a hyper competitive marketplace, but we're used to competing. How we approach the marketplace will be packaging and bundling."

Among the key Xfinity Mobile points:

Xfinity Mobile will have 24/7 text message customer support.
Comcast is focused on selling to its 29 million customers so marketing, distribution, servicing and other expenses are lower.
Xfinity Mobile is designed to support the core cable business.
The service will feature the popular phones such as Apple's iPhone, Samsung's Galaxy devices and LG phones.
Comcast plans to use automatic provisioning, authentication and discovery to take the friction out of Wi-Fi connections. The hand-off between LTE and Wi-Fi will be designed to be seamless. However, one analyst asked Comcast executives how well they could manage the experience given today's hand-off between LTE and Wi-Fi is often "shitty" and hurts the brand. Comcast executives noted that there's work to do and the experience will improve with Xfinity Mobile.
Pricing is aggressive. Xfinity Mobile will offer $45 per line for an unlimited plan for customers with the best X1 packages. For others, Xfinity Mobile unlimited plans will be $65 per line. Customers who don't want unlimited plans pay $12/GB.

Families can mix and match plans based on a person. For example, a teen may be on an unlimited plan, but parents pay by the GB.
Xfinity Mobile is focused on consumers first, but has plans for business service in the future. Bring your own device models won't be supported initially. See: Comcast's wireless service could be boon to SMB unit

The pricing plans are notable since Comcast can play ball with cutthroat pricing, but leverage other services. "We're looking at the highest lifetime value of a customer. Xfinity Mobile is a great deal for the customer and a good business decision for us," said Butz, who noted that 25 percent of its X1 cable base is eligible for a $45 unlimited plan.

Can Xfinity Mobile work?

Comcast is going to face a few critics. For starters, many consumers are moving away from bundle economics. However, Comcast's wireless could be lumped into existing double and triple plays.

Watson noted that Comcast has a good history of expanding into new markets while not being the first mover. Voice, smart home and Comcast Business were all new markets that were thriving. Watson said the timing for Xfinity Mobile works now. "If you have the right solution in the marketplace and the operations that's the point when you do it," said Watson.

There will also be intense pricing pressure. For instance, Sprint revamped its Unlimited Freedom plan Thursday with unlimited data, talk and text for $50 a month for the first line, two lines for $40 a month and four lines for $30 a month.

Comcast's approach is to charge $45 a line for unlimited plans for its best customers.

Another wild card is whether Comcast buys its own wireless spectrum over time. Comcast executives said the Verizon partnership featured good economics for both sides even though the companies will compete. But the terms of the deal weren't disclosed. Should Xfinity Mobile take off, Verizon network costs would likely rise.

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From heart attacks to fainting, this watch flags up health threats before they strike

Along with a range of health sensors, ContinYou's new Contact watch can send alerts about changes to its wearer's vital signs.

The Contact watch has built-in sensors to measure pulse, blood oxygen level, temperature, and barometric pressure.
Image: ContinYou

Norwegian entrepreneur Terje Tobiassen survived a heart attack while driving in 2014. The experience inspired him to find a way to help himself and others get warnings of imminent health threats, such as falls and fainting.

Tobiassen established the company ContinYou to develop health technology, and this month its first product, the health-monitor watch Contact, will be available in Norwegian stores.

The Contact watch has several built-in sensors to monitor its wearer's pulse, blood oxygen level, temperature, and barometric pressure. By combining data from these sensors, the device can predict dangerous situations before they occur, according to ContinYou.

"Based on increasing pulse and lowered oxygen saturation levels, we can estimate if the wearer is about to faint, or if there is a risk it can happen. Through mobile technology the watch can communicate with heath personnel or the wearer's relatives," Tobiassen said in a statement.

The barometric pressure sensor is used to detect if the wearer falls.

The Contact watch is equipped with a built-in GSM SIM card from mobile operator Telia. Using this communication channel, the watch can alert others when it detects changes in vital signs that give cause for concern, or if the wearer presses its large button.

The cooperation with Telia goes further than just a communication vehicle. Telia will use its marketing muscle to promote the product when it is ready for sale. The Contact watch will also retail through Telia's own stores throughout Norway.

The target users for the device are people aged over 60 years. The company states that it shall be "relevant first and foremost for family and relatives".

Tobiassen's thinking is that welfare technology is not important just for the elderly, but also for their families.

"What happened to me in 2014 was a big strain for my family. This watch will provide safety both for the wearers and their families," he said.

VIDEO: A smart watch to detect heart attacks before they happen

Cisco, Dimension Data reduce rhino poaching in South Africa through IoT

More than a year after launching their Connected Conservation project, Cisco and Dimension Data have claimed that their end-to-end solution has cut rhino poaching in a South African reserve by a dramatic 96 percent.

Rhinos in a South African game reserve
(Image: Screenshot by Tas Bindi/ZDNet)

More than a year after joining forces, Dimension Data and Cisco have said their goodwill project Connected Conservation reduced rhinoceros poaching in a South African game reserve next to the Kruger National Park by 96 percent in 2016, thanks to the use of a solution involving networks, security, Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity, and hybrid cloud computing.

According to the South African Department of Environmental Affairs, the rhino poaching crisis in the country peaked in the last few years, with 1,054 rhinos killed in 2016 -- fewer than the 1,175 killed in 2015, but significantly higher than the 13 killed in 2007. It's believed that more than 5,000 rhinos have been poached in the region over the last eight years.

At the moment, South Africa is home to more than 70 percent of the global rhino population, but if the rate of rhino poaching continues, the species could be extinct by 2025, according to Bruce Watson, Data Dimension's Cisco Alliance group executive.

"Without the promise of seeing rhinos, elephants, lions, and pangolin roaming the plains, tourism in South Africa and the African continent will be severely impacted," Watson added. "As a result, income in the tourism sector will decline and the knock-on effect will create further unemployment in communities."

Watson said Connected Conservation is the first conservation-related approach where the animals are not touched, leaving them to roam freely while a "layered effect" of technology, people, and gadgets protects them.

"Many organisations have committed to protecting rhinos through various reactive initiatives and using a range of devices. These may involve darting the animals with tranquilisers to insert sensors into their horns, or inserting a chip under their skin," Watson said. "This can be extremely stressful and risky for the animal."

Connected Conservation, on the other hand, uses a combination of the companies' network, IoT, security, and hybrid cloud solutions to enable the monitoring and tracking of human movement from the moment an individual enters the reserve.

"The goal of our end-to-end technology solution is to proactively intervene and stop people entering the reserve illegally -- whether it's cutting fences, being dropped onto the ground by helicopters, or simply driving through the entrance," Watson said. "Over time, the solution will be replicated in other reserves in South Africa, Africa, and globally."

In phase one of the project, which was completed in February 2016, Dimension Data and Cisco established a secure reserve area network (RAN) and installed local area networks (LANs) including Wi-Fi hotspots, CCTV cameras, and biometrics at every entrance to the private game reserve. These were all linked to a high-security management control room, which is manned 24/7.

The primary goal of phase one was to establish reliable communications for alerts and warnings, as well as enabling the sharing of live video footage so that security personnel, who are fully trained in warfare, can counter incursions.

"Previously, every day, hundreds of staff, suppliers, contractors, security personnel, and tourists entered and exited the game reserve. The human activity in the environment was not monitored because the reserve is located in a remote area with basic IT infrastructure and access control, manual security processes, and very limited communication," Watson said.

"Digitising the physical security processes provided a more reliable and accurate sequence for allowing people in and out of the reserve. This data provides the game rangers, security personnel, and the technology and control centre teams with valuable historical data, transparency, and visibility."

Watson said all individuals entering the reserve gate are required to show their ID or passport and vehicle registration plates, which are cross-checked with the South African national database and helps security personnel identify whether a person entering the reserve has a criminal record or whether the vehicle has been stolen. Sniffer dogs also check vehicles and individuals going through the gates.

Once illegal entries are detected, "specialised services" are deployed to ensure reserve staff get to the rhinos before they are killed and dehorned, Watson said.

Phase two of the project, which is currently being tested, involves collecting data on every individual entering the reserve, including fingerprints, and using predictive modelling to estimate when an individual or vehicle will enter and exit the reserve.

The solution is not limited to the rhino, nor to the South African context, Watson said. He added that Connected Conservation is a "viable, cost-effective, and replicable business model which can be rolled out anywhere in the world" to protect not only rhinos, but other endangered species such as elephants, lions, pangolin, and tigers, as well as manta rays, sharks, and whales in the ocean.

Maker of Taser weapons goes digital, renames itself Axon in cloud platform bet

Axon is best known for its Taser electrical weapons for law enforcements, but new hires from GoPro and Tesla, as well as traction in its Axon body camera and cloud platform and Evidence.com, give it assets for digital transformation.

Axon, formerly known as Taser and best known for its electrical weapons, is betting that it can become a cloud, analytics, and data company. Over time, Axon's cloud bet could pay off.

Last week, Taser changed its name to Axon, which is the business unit that houses the company's body cameras and back-end evidence platform. Axon features HD body cameras and a cloud-based system that collects data from the hardware and stores it in a site called Evidence.com.

Evidence.com contains more than 6.5 petabytes of data including weapons data logs that are uploaded every 1.2 seconds.

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While Axon is certainly the better digital transformation tale to tell, the company's revenue is dominated by hardware, which accounted for $202.6 million of $268.2 million in 2016 sales. The Axon unit posted 2016 revenue of $65.6 million, up 85 percent from a year ago. Indeed, Axon as a company will be best known for its Taser weapons for the foreseeable future, but its cloud platform traction is real.

Nevertheless, Rick Smith, CEO and co-founder of Axon, is betting on the cloud shift. In March, the company hired Kathy Trontell from Tesla to be chief information officer and Jason Hartford from GoPro to be the senior director of product management.

Smith said the hires will help Axon build out its platform and network.

To aid that build-out, Axon said it will provide free body cameras to every police officer in the U.S. Axon will also provide free hardware, software, data storage, training and support to police departments for one year.

Smith said Axon was going all-in on changing the workflows of law enforcement, collect impartial records of evidence and eliminate paperwork. Axon said it will also build out artificial intelligence and analytics as value-added services.

The Axon workflow goes like this:

Video collected from cameras is downloaded when the devices are docked for charging.
The data is managed in the cloud via Evidence.com. Information is shared and integrated across the systems. Users can also be managed.
Axon also has encryption, security and monitoring, and compliance certifications.

Like many large technology vendors, Axon is managing a shift from hardware to the cloud. In fact, recurring revenue from Taser can help fund Axon's expansion.

What remains to be seen is whether Axon can make the cloud pivot without a few hiccups. Analysts have noted that police departments prefer to buy gear and software upfront due to budget limitations. In other words, the cloud pay-as-you-go model may not scale for police departments.

According to Oppenheimer analyst Andrew Uerkwitz, Axon's one-year deal could drive adoption, but ongoing costs may be an issue for law enforcement agencies.

He said in a research note:

"In a practical sense, we don't see much changing: 1) Already strong demand in body cameras/evidence management systems exists; 2) Procurement laws/regulations limit the impact free trials can have on contracts; 3) up front costs aren't a hindrance to adoption, ongoing yearly costs are the issue. We applaud Axon CEO and co-founder Rick Smith's efforts in jump starting his long-term vision, but see little impact to the numbers."

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