Archive for the ‘trends’ Category

WebCams: From a near-Billion Dollar industry to a multi-Billion Dollar one? Sunday, December 26th, 2010

WebCams are devices that help Internet users to hold a video communication across the Web. The quality of the communication tended to suffer from the low bandwidth typical until recently.

However, with the increasing availability and popularity of broadband, the situation is changing. And the availability of free video communication applications provided by Google and Skype, the appeal of video communications is even more.

The WebCam industry is expected to grow fast in such a context. Logitech is the major player in the market now while others include Creative Technologies, Microsoft, Philips, Cisco and D-Link. Then there are a large number of Chinese manufacturers of OEM equipment included with notebook computers.

WebCams are also important in security applications as they provide the ability to monitor establishments remotely. You can, for example, monitor unauthorized intruders into your establishment while sitting across the globe, for example.

With the increasing importance of security everywhere, from homes to scientific establishments, the potential market for the WebCam industry is great.

The report titles Worldwide WebCam Market Shares Strategies, and Forecasts, 2009-2015 looks at the markets, forecasts and strategies for the WebCam industry that is estimated to amount to $3.2 billion by 2015.

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Posted in broadband network, business, communications, emerging markets, information technology, trends | No Comments »

Environmental and Societal Roles of Information Technology Friday, November 26th, 2010

Information and Communication Technology has a much greater significance than simply as a productivity enhancing tool for business and industry.

Energy consumption has a major impact on our environment as energy generation using conventional methods adds to the carbon footprint. ICT has for example been used to make power grids smarter and minimize energy losses during transmission and end user points. Minimizing losses means that less energy needs to be generated to meet the same demand, thus reducing the environmental impact.

The ICT industry itself is becoming more energy efficient through campaigns such as the green computing initiative, in addition to helping other industries enhance their energy efficiency.

On the social front, ICT can enhance the effectiveness of social services delivery. For example, it can enable remote delivery of education and healthcare to rural and other areas that has not yet had benefited from economic development. It has already enhanced connectivity among people through social networking and by making mobile telephony available in areas where conventional telephony has not reached.

E-governance initiatives can also make it possible to deliver government services much more widely and even effectively.

Information and Communication Technology can thus benefit businesses, government and the civil society. It is in this context that the Global Information Technology Report (GITR) published by the World Economic Forum assumes significance. The report rates the countries of the world on how they have leveraged the potential of ICT for all round improvement.

The latest GITR should be available at GITR page of NetworkedReadiness website.

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Posted in business transformation, e-governance, information technology, trends | No Comments »

Web 1.0 to Web 3.0 Sunday, October 31st, 2010

There is no standard definition from any authoritative body on these terms. Instead, experts note certain trends and coin terms like Web 2.0 to denote the dominance of specific characteristics of a trend.

Web 2.0 is generally defined as the dominance of two-way communication on the Web. Under the original Web, communication was generally one-way, as when a company website puts it product catalog on the Web. Consumers just browsed the catalog and bought a particular item.

With the appearance of blogs, discussion forums, user-edited Wikis, freewheeling interactions on social networking sites like Facebook and more such, the consumer entered the scenario as a major player. People interacted on the Web and these discussions affected their views, opinions and also actions. It is this socialization of the Web that is defined as Web 2.0.

The online catalog company might now allow customers to post product reviews on their website, as Amazon did. And companies might also get into the game themselves writing blogs, participating in discussion forums and social networking interactions, and generally mingling with the Web crowd and getting to become opinion makers. In these ways, businesses get to receive insights into customer minds and even influence customer decisions.

Web 3.0 is viewed as a “semantic” Web. What this means is that the information delivered by the Web will be more relevant and meaningful. As things stand now, we are all familiar with the frustratingly irrelevant results that we often get in response to our searches at search engines. We have to do a lot or research to find exactly what we want.

This happens because search engines go by the words we type in search boxes in a very “literal” way. They bring back all pages that contain the search words, or keywords. However, the same word used in different contexts can have very different meanings. As a result, many results of the search become irrelevant.

In a semantic Web, search engines will be able to understand exactly what we are searching for and bring back really relevant results.

In this semantic Web, or Web 3.0, we can ask questions in plain language and the Web will mine the huge volume of resources it has available and bring back the “right” answer. The Web will be able to make the right connections between different bits of information it has collected, and give us meaningful information.

How to do this is still being worked out (otherwise, it would already have been available).

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Posted in information technology, trends, web 3.0 | 2 Comments »

The World Wide Web Experience Friday, October 29th, 2010

The World Wide Web is no more a boring place. You can see fantastic effects on Web pages. In addition to plain old text, you can listen to music, see animated things and video clips and even full feature films. You can also interact with the page by entering something into form fields and receiving an appropriate response.

Things were not always like this (as the current Web user generation might assume). Web pages are creates using HTML, and that language was designed for scientific stuff (the Internet was the preserve of scientists in those days). HTML had to go through several versions, and browser makers had to make their products compatible with the evolving HTML standards, before things began to change noticeably.

In the meanwhile, third parties were at work. Browser makers introduced their own non-standard tricks in their browsers. And programs residing on the Web servers did some processing to generate pages on the fly before sending them to the clients, viz. browsers.

Then JavaScript and Flash came along to create some interesting effects at the client end itself. Web developers put some script or code into the HTML of the pages and these were processed by the browsers at the user end, instead of being to sent to the server to process and send back the result.

Java language (not to be confused with JavaScript) introduced servlets that made development of full fledged Web applications easier. Web applications are just like any other software, but executed in a Web browser over the Internet or Intranet.

Ajax was a concept that involved using different technologies like Java, JavaScript, Flash, DHTML etc to create highly interactive and interesting Web applications. Sliverlight from Microsoft and Air from Adobe also focused on Web applications.

It is the result of all these developments that you see on the Web now. Of course, there might be some over use of the effects to create irritating experiences; but few will want to go back to the old boring text Web.

In fact, we might soon be using Web based operating systems such as Google’s Chrome OS that boots up in no time (instead of after an interminable time of mysterious processes under a Windows OS, for example). And Adobe Air has already put Web applications executable offline, i.e. even when you are not connected to the Web.

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Posted in cloud computing, information technology, trends | No Comments »

Towards ever smaller Semiconductors Thursday, October 21st, 2010

Semiconductors have been getting smaller and smaller till now using innovative new technologies for their fabrication. Existing optical technology based lithographic processes, however, might not be effective beyond the 22 nanometer node. New technologies will be required to continue the trend of ever smaller semiconductors and computing devices.

Extreme ultraviolet technology has been discussed as one alternative to the above problem. However, 15 years of research into this technology has not delivered a production-ready process.

It is in this context that Leti’s Lithography laboratory in Grenoble, France is exploring alternatives. Leti is an applied research center for microelectronics and information and healthcare technologies. It is located at MINATEC, the micro and nanotechnologies innovation campus in Grenoble.

Leti provides an interface between industry and academic research, transferring innovative technologies into a wide range of sectors. With 1500 employees and more than 250 students conducting research in its laboratories, it has created a portfolio of 1500 families of patents. The laboratory has one of the most advanced equipment sets in the world, including two shaped e-beam systems, two Gaussian-beam systems, and the alpha version of Mapper Lithography’s multi-beam tool.

One of the technologies Leti is focusing now is fully depleted silicon-on-insulator (FDSOI) technology that can lead to fabrication of smaller, denser and faster integrated circuits.

Read about Leti at their website and the story about their plans to highlight FDSOI and 3D technologies at SEMICON Europa at Nanotechnology Now.

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Information Technology Skills in Demand: The Trend Tuesday, October 12th, 2010

What IT skills will be most in demand in tomorrow’s world?

Universities are exploring the possibility of using the new generation’s fascination with smartphones to advantage. One university is handing out iPads to freshers to research whether and how these can be used for better education delivery. Another university is thinking of co-opting students to develop mobile applications for education.

In Estonia, citizens will be voting through their smartphones.

And of course, much of the Web surfing and e-mail has moved to smartphones.

One can hence conclude that a major skill in demand will be the skill to develop applications for mobile devices and deliver information through them. According to 2010 IBM Tech Trends survey, software professionals expect that application development for mobile devices will surpass all other platforms by 2015.

Another trend noticed by the IBM survey is that cloud computing will overtake traditional on-premise computing. This means a requirement for cloud computing specialists.

Another in-demand skill will be the ability to use social media effectively. Social media like Facebook and Twitter reach a vast audience and businesses will naturally be interested in using this reach to market their products and services effectively.

Business analytics skill to identify what is going on is another critical skill that will be in demand. Much more information is now available through media such as the Web and persons skilled in working with the new analytic tools will find themselves in high demand.

Read about the survey findings at PR Newswire.

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Posted in cloud computing, education delivery, information delivery, information technology, mobile web, smartphone applications, trends | No Comments »

ITIL for Information Technology Service Management Sunday, September 5th, 2010

Technology changes fast in the field of IT and the requirements to be met by the IT function are extremely varied under the huge range of environments where it is used. In such a situation, familiarity with the constantly changing best practices is the best guarantee for successful use of IT.

Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) is an approach to the identification, planning, delivery and support of IT services to businesses. Over the 20 years it has been in existence, it has become the most widely adopted framework for IT Service Management (ITSM) in the world.

ITIL was born in UK as a government initiative aimed at providing some consistency in the processes for technology delivery and support in a distributed computing environment. The distributed environment led to inconsistent practices that can not only affect the efficiency of the basic business services but also the predictability of the service levels, a serious problem in governance.

A business service can be defined as providing some value to a customer. The service delivery can benefit by carefully analyzing things like:

* Who is the customer?
* What specific services are needed to meet the customer’s needs?
* What technology resources are available to provide these services?
* How can the service delivery be designed in a cost-effective manner in the light of available technology?
* …

Read fuller details about the ITIL initiative, which is in its third version now, by downloading the ITIL Basics book.

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Posted in best practices, e-governance, information technology, trends | 4 Comments »

Cloud Computing Development Initiative by Microsoft in Taiwan Sunday, June 13th, 2010

Taipei Computex held at the Taipei World Trade Center exhibition halls during June 1 to 5, 2010, saw Microsoft’s OEM division president, Steve Guggenheimer, opening the firm`s first Software and Service Excellence Center in Taiwan. The center will focus on development of cloud computing technology and related applications.

Top Taiwanese enterprises such as Quanta Computer Inc., Inventec Corp. and Delta Electronics Inc. have already deputed their engineers to the center. Over the next three years, more than 100 Taiwanese high-tech companies are expected to join the center. The center is dedicated to development of cloud computing servers.

This is the fourth center of Microsoft in Taiwan, with earlier ICT (Information and Communication Technology) centers being established in 2003, 2006 and 2008 respectively. Guggenheimer complimented Taiwanese achievements in notebook PCs, netbook PCs, handsets, LCDs, and related IT (information technology) products. The new Software and Service Excellence Center will consolidate Taiwanese excellence by extending its product range into the cloud computing area.

Microsoft’s eXtreme Computing Group (XCG) has already initiated work on a prototype of next-generation servers based on cloud computing technology as the first R&D project in the center with Quanta and Delta. Other Taiwanese OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) and ODM (Original Design Manufacturer) companies joining the center can also expect support from Microsoft.

Read the news at CENS.com.

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Posted in business, cloud computing, information technology, trends | 3 Comments »

Security of Cloud Technologies Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Google and others are promoting cloud computing, under which applications and data are stored on the Internet cloud. For clients of cloud computing such as users of Google Apps, this provides the opportunity to focus on their core business instead of worrying over information technology incidentals such as installing and configuring software, upgrading it and attending to data security and backup issues.

Cloud computing service providers will attend to all the incidental issues. Users simply start using the application they want, which can be in as quick as a few minutes. Users can also access the applications and data from anywhere with an Internet connection.

However, users have not yet got all that comfortable with entrusting their data to the cloud service providers. A recent Data Management Healthcheck 2010 survey by BridgeHead Software reports that only 6.5% of the respondents reported having used the cloud to store their data.

The healthcare industry will have to cope with huge volumes of data as it adopts IT more aggressively. Cloud storage of the data can save huge amount of headache typically associated with managing such data volumes. The data must be stored safe from unauthorized access, backed up regularly to ensure that a copy is available in case the original is lost and quickly reconstructed in case a data loss incident occurs.

The major concern of survey respondents about cloud storage was regarding the security and availaibility of the data. The data generated by the industry is highly confidential and the companies are committed to protecting patient data.

Despite such concerns, experts anticipate that the cloud will increasingly be the preferred destination for data storage, backup and archiving. Read the story at: eHealthServer.

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Emerging Trends in Information Technology Saturday, March 6th, 2010

Cloud Computing: With the increasing ease of accessing resources on the Internet, a new trend is emerging to use computing resources available on the Internet “cloud” instead of installing needed software on local machines. Even data storage can be moved to this cloud saving on expensive and difficult-to-manage local storage media. Dedicated service providers on the cloud can relieve computer users from the tedium and costs of tasks that are only incidental, such as software upgrade, data backup, disaster recovery and more.

Virtualization: Virtualization stands for a host of things in the computing world. The essence of virtualization is separating functionality from the underlying physical resource. For example, a computer user typically uses a physical computer to do various computing tasks. However, because the CPU of the computer does work extremely faster compared to the human user, it is possible for several users to use the CPU of a single machine without any apparent degradation in the computing service they receive. A virtualized system makes it possible for multiple users to use such underutilized physical computing resources.

Information Security: Instead of just virus attacks, businesss data is exposed to varied kinds of threats these days. Compliance requirements, preventing unauthorized access to data, theft of data during transmission over the Internet and denial of service attacks are examples of issues that have an impact on information security. Vulnerabilities can occur in hardware, software or during communication. Data losses can cripple businesses as business data is unique. In such a context, the approaches used to ensure confidentiality, integrity and availability of data are undergoing qualitative changes, including adoption of third-party online data storage, security verification of vendors, encryption of data and focused attention on business continuity issues.

Social Media: Social media such as networking sites and blogs are of interest not only to marketers who want to use these to communicate with prospective customers but even to job applicants who might find their applications rejected because of some inappropriate posts they made on their online profile. The media is new and few people know how to use it effectively and safely.

Communication: Communication is one area where practically everybody in modern societies have seen the results of progress. E-mails, live chats, VOIP, Video conferences, Webinars and social media mentioned above are all transforming the way we communicate. And technologies like text-to-voice and voice-to-text can help visual and hearing challenged persons to live more satisfying lives.

A visit to a reputed information technology exhibition is one way interested persons and organizations can get a better idea of the developments and the opportunities they offer for business.

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