A smartphone shopper's dilemma: Wait for the next iPhone or go Android 4.0?

Google and Apple have upped their game in 2012, and a new crop of smartphones running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and Apple's new iOS 6 will offer consumers a tough choice when it comes to choosing a new phone.

Apple isn't expected to launch the next iPhone until the fall. But the company gave a preview of what's to come with the unveiling of iOS 6 mobile software this week at its WWDC conference in San Francisco. From what I can tell, the new iPhone will give the current crop of Android 4.0 devices a run for their money.

In this edition of Ask Maggie I help one reader evaluate the likely trade-offs between one of the hottest new Android devices running Ice Cream Sandwich -- the HTC One X/Evo 4G LTE and the Samsung Galaxy S III and the upcoming version of the iPhone. I also explain why older iPhones won't be getting all the features offered in iOS 6.  Read More

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Application Development: Eclipse Connects Java Developers to VMware Cloud Foundry

The Cloud Foundry Integration Extension for Eclipse lets Java programmers use Eclipse to deploy and manage the applications running on a Cloud Foundry server. The server can either be a local installation of the open-source version of Cloud Foundry or it can be one running inside VMWare Player (called a "Microcloud"). The server could be running on a hosted site registered with CloudFoundry.com, which is owned by VMWare. eWEEK Labs registered with the CloudFoundry.com site, and used the Eclipse extension to connect to the server and change the administrator password. Next, we created a simple Java Dynamic Web application in Eclipse consisting of a JSP page and a servlet. Without leaving Eclipse, we were able to use the extension to easily deploy the entire application to CloudFoundry.com and start it running. Additionally, we made some corrections to the code and redeployed the application. These slides show the steps that took place to get an entire Java Web application up and running and ultimately tested out in the Chrome browser. Read More

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The business of IPv6

IT managers will have their work cut out in making a case to senior level executives

The last time a new Internet protocol came into being was in the early 1980's, when the Internet was still a fledgling research network. Thirty years later, the migration to a new standard, IPv6, is now a gargantuan task that involves businesses, online enterprises and consumers alike.

Without new addresses, billions of people will never be able to use new Internet services or access applications and technologies that are in the blueprints of today's businesses and in the minds of tomorrow's entrepreneurs.

With minimal investment, companies can jump ahead of the competition by making their systems IPv6 compatible, according to Amod Malviya, Vice-President-Engineering at Flipkart. Surely, IT managers across India will have their work cut out in making a case to senior level executives. Read More

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Cisco Advances Mobile Packet Core with ASR 5500

Today Cisco announced the ASR 5500, the first new Cisco platform based on technology that Cisco got with its acquisition of Starent for $2.9 billion in 2009. Following that acquisition Cisco rebranded Starent's mobile gateway as the ASR500 in early 2010.

With the new ASR 5500, Cisco is providing a 10x improvement in performance and is targeting the platform to form the backbone of a service providers' elastic mobile packet core for wireless traffic.

Murali Nemani, director of Service Provider Mobility at Cisco explained to Enterprise Networking Planet.com that the ASR 5000 family of routers is the post office that routes all the mobile traffic through the network.

Kelly Ahuja, senior vice president and general manager in the Mobility Internet Technology Group at Cisco noted that the performance characteristics of the ASR 5500 span multiple areas. In the traditional router world, typically the key dimension is throughput. In contrast, when it comes to mobile, the challenges involve scaling to meet the number of user sessions and transactions per second -- as well as throughput.

"Throughput is driven by Shannon's Law, which is bits per hertz," Ahuja said. "So you can take all the traffic in a mobile network and aggregate down into smaller chunks, but the bigger thing is the sessions."

Preserving state across sessions and services are particular challenges of mobility that bandwidth alone does not address.

"So what we've done is build both the hardware and software infrastructure to scale," Ahuja said. "What that means is we can take a combination of silicon and memory and blend it together in a combination that is optimized to meet the needs of today and the future."

The ASR 5500 has a bigger network processing unit (NPU) and bigger CPUs put into a modular system that enables customers to scale the chassis and then virtualize the services. Read More

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Cisco ASR 5500 Accelerates Mobile Packet Core

Today Cisco announced the the ASR 5500, the first new Cisco platform based on technology that Cisco got with its acquisition of Starent for $2.9 Billion in 2009. Following that acquisition Cisco rebrandedStarent's mobile gateway as the ASR500 in early 2010.

With the new ASR 5500, Cisco is providing a 10x improvement in performance and is targetting the platform to form the backbone of a service providers' elastic mobile packet core for wireless traffic.

Murali Nemani, director of service provider mobility at Cisco explained to InternetNews.comthat the ASR 5000 family of routers is the post office that routes all the mobile traffic through the network.

Kelly Ahuja, senior vice president and general manager in the Mobility Internet Technology Group at Cisco noted that the performance characteristics of the ASR 5500 span multiple areas. Ahuja explained that in the traditional router world, typically the key dimension is throughput. In contrast, when it comes to mobile, the challenges involve scaling to meet the number of user sessions and transactions per second as well as throughput.

"Throughput is driven by Shannon's Lawwhich is Bits per Hertz," Ahuja said. "So you can take all the traffic in a mobile network and aggregate down into smaller chunks, but the bigger thing is the sessions." Read More

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Windows 8 Hybrid Laptop-Tablets Take Center Stage at Computex

The Computex technology show in Taipei--one of Asia's largest--started Sunday with a bang, showcasing hybrid laptop/tablets running Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 OS. The first laptops out of the gate are Windows 8 tablets with detachable docks from Asus and Acer and a sliding tablet PC from MSI.

Hybrid laptop-tablets are designed to offer the best of both laptops and tablets. You can use the devices in a slate tablet mode when all you want to do is tap the touchscreen…or access a physical keyboard for traditional laptop use. There are two kinds of hybrids to choose from: Those with built-in keyboards that swivel, slide, or fold into place or tablets with removable keyboard docks.

Upcoming hybrids will leverage the touch-optimized Metro interface in Windows 8. They’ll cost more than a slate tablet without physical keyboards (e.g., the iPad) but, in return, you get more versatile mobile computing devices running a full desktop operating system. Read More

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Fishing for Profits in Name.Biz

The .in registrations started in 2005. Between then and now, the owner would not have spent more than Rs 4,500 on holding the domain name (Web address). The return is 10,455 per cent in seven years.

With the evolution of the online space, the mad scramble for buying premium domain names so that one can sell them later for huge premiums is akin to the huge rush in the US in the 19th century when lands cleared of native-American settlements were opened for possession by tax-paying farmers on a 'first come, first served' basis. The farmers, in expectation of bumper profit, rushed to claim the best land. When Oklahoma was opened for settlement on 22 April 1889, its population at the end of the day was expected to be in excess of 10,000. 

Things are no different in the online world. For instance, one of the latest Web domains opened for the public on 6 December 2011, .xxx, got more than 55,000 applications within 24 hours.

According to Verisign Inc, an internet registry which handles .com domains, there were 220 million registered domain names at the end of 2011. A domain name is like a plot on which you can build an online office or home. This is because to access a website, you have to type its domain name in your browser. Read More

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Pepsi partners with Twitter for online concerts

PepsiCo is tweeting to a new generation of music lovers. The No. 2 soda company is partnering with Twitter to provide streaming videos of live music concerts to Pepsi's followers on the social networking site. 

The deal is part of Pepsi's new global ad campaign that will also feature a TV ad with singer Nicki Minaj.

The New York-based company isn't yet saying which musicians will be featured for the Twitter concerts this summer. Terms of the deal with Twitter were not disclosed.

The marketing push comes as Pepsi looks to revive the cola wars with The Coca-Cola Co, with up to $600 million in additional marketing slated for this year. 

Investors have criticised PepsiCo for letting its namesake soda lose market share to Coca-Cola in recent years. 

In 2010, Pepsi was bumped from its No. 2 spot by Diet Coke in the US, with Coca-Cola remaining in the top spot, according to the industry tracker Beverage Digest. Read More

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Facebook's Advertising Problem

GM says Facebook ads don't work. While search was made for advertising, social will be harder for marketers.

It may never be clear how much General Motors' public disparagement of Facebook advertising helped cool investor enthusiasm for the social network.

But even if Facebook's IPO woes owe more to problems with stock trading software and skepticism among financial industry insiders than to GM's claim that Facebook advertising doesn't work, the automaker's dissatisfaction with Facebook ads bears further consideration.

Facebook is clearly worth a lot of money. Perhaps not the $100 billion argued with the opening share price of $38, but its present $70 billion market capitalization is not a trivial valuation.

At the same time, other tech companies that straddled advertising and content have flown high and fallen. AOL had a valuation of $222 billion in December 1999. Today, it's worth about $2.6 billion. Yahoo, the darling of the 1990s, is still trying to recapture its glory days after years of uninspired management. Read More

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How IT Can Reclaim Social Relevance

Social technologies are spreading through the business in a decentralized way, not via IT leadership. How can organizations and IT leaders make the most of this trend?

If there's anything that's striking about the changes taking place in technology today, it's that many of the most transformative new advances are bypassing the IT department entirely. One only has to look at the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) phenomenon to see this clearly. Most IT departments are planning to enable (if they haven't already) BYOD, a form of user-led computing adoption. It's easier and easier to make the case today that technology, especially on the edges, is increasingly moving out of IT's hands.

It hasn't always been thus: Graphical user interfaces, computer networks, the Internet, e-mail, and the first and second generations of mobile devices. All of these were embraced and realized by technology leaders as primary computing capabilities in relatively short order. Read More

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