Hang on - will it actually be called the HTC One 2?

Has a New Caledonian certification site just ruined HTC's forthcoming surprise? Unlikely, but at least we'll probably get a mini version.
There has been plenty of confusion over what HTC will call the sequel to the One – and the New Caledonia Office of Posts and Telecommunications website has posted something that has the web convinced it will be a fairly obvious name.
The site is listing the 'HTC One 2' and 'HTC One 2 Dual Sim' among all the other HTC phones ever made, prompting belief that this outlet has been privy to important information about the new phone.

• HTC One 2 / M8 - everything you'd want to know, and then some

While it seems certain that a dual SIM version will appear to accommodate demand in other territories, the name is likely nothing more than a placeholder, as such things can change right up until the last minute with flagships such as this – and as we recently heard, March is looking good for the first time we'll actually see it.

Mini marvel

In terms of matching last year's efforts, HTC is going to give the One 2 a little brother, according to noted tipster @evleaks.
The info is sparse, stating only that "0P6B:HTC M8::0P8B:M8 mini", but the M8 moniker (the internal code for the HTC One 2 device) combined with the item number shows that Evleaks reckons he knows that a mini version is forthcoming.
Even if this is true, there's little chance that we'll see the HTC One 2 Mini for a few months yet, as the Taiwanese firm won't want to launch both at the same time when it can get increased coverage by staggering the launches.
The rumours of a new HTC device are reaching a nice boiling point at the moment though, which means we're surely only weeks away from getting our first look at what could be one of 2014's phones of the year.

Is Apple working on a solar, inductive and motion-charged iWatch, iPhone?

Apple is placing greater emphasis than ever on battery technology to enable its mobile devices to be charged via solar, inductive and motion-powered means, reports have claimed.
The New York Times claims the Cupertino-based company is working hard on building a 'smarter' battery for its iOS devices and perhaps even the long awaited iWatch smartwatch.
Multiple ex-Apple executives told the paper that solar, in particular, continues to be a major focus for Apple engineers.
In terms of the iWatch, solar, inductive and motion charging would allow users to wear the device for longer periods without needing to charge so often.

Going inductive

The company is particularly concerned with inductive charging for the iWatch, which we've seen in the Google Nexus 4 and Nokia Lumia 920 in recent times.
Those handsets charge the device by placing the devices on a wireless plate, but Apple is working on tech that would allow the charging to take place wirelessly via electromagnetic fields.
The iWatch is expected to arrive at some point this year. Will Apple introduce some new battery tech? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

Biggest challenge for Microsoft‘s next CEO: Working under the shadow of Bill Gates & Steve Ballmer

 

Even before the bubbly stops flowing, the next Microsoft chief will have to buckle down to the unenviable task of bringing around a company that was once almost broken up for being too dominant but is now struggling to stay relevant. 

And it will be not be easy—the Redmond, Washington-based company, the big daddy of the software world, has been a non-starter in newer areas like tablet and search engine, where it has burnt huge amounts of cash and made little headway. "The complexity of Microsoft in itself is challenging," said Ravi Venkatesan, former chairman of Microsoft India. 

"Microsoft can't be a leader in everything and now faces more problems due to its siloed culture and lack of risktaking ability." But the biggest challenge for the new CEO will be to work under the shadow of Bill Gates—the founder and one of the richest persons on earth—and Steve Ballmer, the current CEO. 

Many candidates are rumoured to have opted out of the race over concerns that the two former CEOs would tinker too much in decision-making. It might just be easier for Satya Nadella—considered the front runner along with Google's Sundar Pichai—to navigate his way around them as he's a trusted insider and a 22-year veteran at the firm. 

That the company might be preparing for Gates to step down as chairman might also help. The CEO will also have to decide whether to continue with Ballmer's vision of making Microsoft a leader in everything related to technology, including devices and services, or discard the idea and make the company focus on its areas of strength. 

But there is trouble there too. Microsoft dominates a market that is in decline. While Windows is the preferred operating system for traditional personal computers, it runs less than 15 per cent of new devices, according to research and analyst firm Gartner. By end 2013, global PC shipments totaled 82.6 million units, a 6.9 per cent decline from the fourth quarter of 2012. This is the seventh consecutive quarter of shipment decline, Gartner said. "Microsoft has its biggest challenges in the consumer space. Zune, Kin, Surface RT and Windows RT have not been successful," Patrick Moorhead of Moor Insights & Strategy, a US-based hightech industry analyst told ET recently. 

 

Microsoft competes in the new era with giants like Google, Apple, Amazon in the consumer space and also old war horses like HP, IBM and Oracle in the enterprise space. While Google has run away with the mobile internet operating system market with Android, Apple and Samsung dominate the high-end phone and tablet market. On the cloud services front, Microsoft Azure is fighting a pitched battle with Amazon web services and VMWare cloud for dominance. "The new boss will have to reboot the company—from cultural transformation to pushing the envelope on innovation. 

And that's not easy in a company of the size and complexity as Microsoft," said Vineet Nayar, tech industry veteran and former chief of HCL Technologies. Microsoft has also not been able to capitalise on its firstmover advantage in many areas. Ravi Venkatesan, author of 'Conquering the Chaos, Win in India, Win Everywhere', gives the examples of the tablet, which was first launched by Microsoft way back in 1999, and the Windows phone in 2001, ahead of anyone else. 

Then there is the $7.2 billion (Rs 45,100 crore) acquisition to deal with. Turning around the fortunes of the once-dominant handset maker will not be easy for the new CEO. Whoever takes over the 38-year-old company, challenging the established rules at the bureaucratic organisation will be a difficult and uphill task. The new leader is definitely set for a tightrope walk.

Tech companies newest challenge: Building a better battery

 

The next breakthrough smartphone, or maybe the one after that, might not have a traditional battery as its sole source of power. Instead, it could pull energy from the air or power itself through television, cellular or Wi-Fi signals.

Engineers at Apple even tried for many years to build a smarter battery by adding solar charging to iPhones and iPods, a former Apple executive said. And they have continued to experiment with solar charging, two people who work at the company said.

Batteries, long the poor cousin to computer chips in research-obsessed Silicon Valley, are now the rage.

As tech companies push their businesses into making wearable devices like fitness bands, eyeglasses and smart watches, the limitations of battery technology have become the biggest obstacle to sales and greater profits. Consumers are unlikely to embrace a wristwatch computer like the one being worked on by Apple, or Google's smart glasses, if they work only a few hours between charges and must be removed to be plugged in.

So the race is on - both to find alternatives to the traditional battery and to discover ways to make battery power last longer.

Consumers are going to say, "Give me a better battery because it doesn't last long enough," said Mujeeb Ijaz, chief technology officer at A123 Systems, a company that makes batteries for electric cars and invests in startups that are developing new battery technologies.

"That need wasn't there five years ago," he continued. "Now it's a matter of the market and the developers coming together and saying, what is the need and how many R&D dollars do we put in?"

Although computer chips have doubled in speed every few years, and digital displays have become significantly brighter and sharper, battery technology is largely stuck in the 20th century. Device makers have relied on incremental improvements to battery power, now usually supplied by a decades-old lithium-ion concoction, in combination with more energy-efficient chips and screens.

The problem, in part, is that it is hard to ensure the safety of many new power technologies. A faulty battery could potentially turn into a miniature bomb. So the products require exhaustive testing by regulators before hitting store shelves.

Even if a new power system is approved, it often requires adoption by reputable brands like Apple, Samsung or Microsoft before everyday consumers start to trust it.

Some in Silicon Valley, like Tony Fadell, the former Apple vice president who led iPod and iPhone development, think it is smarter to focus on improving batteries and other components by taking small steps, rather than trying to reinvent the battery itself.

"Hoping and betting on new battery technology to me is a fool's errand," said Fadell, who is now the chief executive of Nest, which makes household technology and was bought by Google last month. "Don't wait for the battery technology to get there because it's incredibly slow to move."

Fadell, who is often referred to as "one of the fathers of the iPod" for his work on the first version of Apple's venerable music player, said Apple tried for many years to build a smarter battery by adding solar charging to iPhones and iPods. But the method never proved practical, he said, because mobile devices often stay inside pockets when people are outdoors, and indoor artificial light generates only a tiny amount of energy.

These days, Apple's latest products, including its newest MacBook Airs, iPads and iPhones, rely more on energy-efficient processors and software algorithms to save power than on the battery itself. A spokeswoman for Apple declined to comment on future products and technologies. But there are clues that the company is looking into ways to improve battery technology.

Over the past few years, Apple has hired engineers with expertise in power technology and battery design from companies like Tesla, Toyota and A123 Systems. Last year, Apple acquired Passif Semiconductor, a startup that developed low-energy communication chips.

For its wristwatch, Apple has been testing a method to charge the battery wirelessly with magnetic induction, according to a person briefed on the product. A similar technology is already used in some Nokia smartphones - when a phone is placed on a charging plate, an electrical current creates a magnetic field, which creates voltage that powers the phone.

Apple has also experimented with new power-charging methods for a potential smartwatch, people close to the efforts said, though such experiments are years from becoming a reality. The watch is expected to have a curved glass screen, and one idea is to add a solar-charging layer to that screen, which would give power to the device in daylight, they said.

In the fall, Apple posted a job listing seeking engineers who specialize in solar energy.

Another experiment at Apple has involved charging the battery through movement, a method that is already used in many modern watches. A person's arm swinging could operate a tiny charging station that generates and pushes power to the device while walking, according to a patent filed by Apple in 2009.

In July, Apple was awarded a patent for a flexible battery that could fit in a wristwatch or tablet. Although the battery would be traditional, it would have a thin and curved form that could easily couple with a flexible solar panel layer.

Google also has been looking at new battery technologies, trying to figure out ways to extend the life of smartphones. "People do not want to have to go run and find a charger at 3 p.m. every day," said Mark Randall, senior vice president for supply chain and operations at Motorola, which Google announced last week it would sell to Lenovo.

Samsung, too, has been designing new types of batteries with wearable computers in mind. The company has introduced compact curved batteries that can be installed inside wristbands. And last year, it introduced Dream Battery, which uses solid electrolytes, instead of the liquid or polymer used by lithium-ion batteries, to eliminate the risk of explosions and other safety problems for flexible electronics.

Universities and startups are also making their own efforts - some just as ambitious as Apple's and, perhaps, a little pie in the sky. Nonetheless, they are attracting attention and venture capital.

For example, prominent investors like the Founders Fund; Yahoo's chief executive, Marissa Mayer; and the Andreessen Horowitz firm are backing uBeam, a start-up in Mountain View, Calif., that is trying to develop a system in which devices pull energy from the air. The technology involves piezoelectricity - a form of charge that is created in vibrations of certain crystals and ceramics.

"Battery technology advancements are lagging far behind advancements in mobile tech, while power consumption rate is increasing as consumers demand more from their devices," said Meredith Perry, founder of uBeam.

"When wireless power is everywhere, battery life and charging rates will no longer be critical factors in mobile devices as our devices will always be charging," Perry said.

Yi Cui, a Stanford professor who founded the startup Amprius, is developing a way to replace the carbon anodes in lithium ion batteries with silicon. Silicon, he said, has 10 times the storage capacity of carbon, but it expands and breaks. So Cui and his team coated the silicon with polymer, a soft and stretchy substance similar to the material used in contact lenses, that spontaneously heals tiny cracks during battery operation.

Researchers at the University of Washington have also been working on a method for wireless devices to communicate without using any battery power. The technique involves harvesting energy from TV, cellular and Wi-Fi signals that are already in the air, said Shyamnath Gollakota, an assistant professor of computer science and engineering who is working on the project.

"The idea is basically you have signals around you," Gollakota said. "So why do you have to generate new signals to communicate?"

In a commercial smartphone, a battery would still be necessary for powering the screen and other functions, but the signal-harvesting method would allow phone calls or text messages to be placed without using any power, he said.

At Google, building a better battery is so important that the quest goes all the way to the top. During an earnings call last year, Larry Page, Google's chief executive, said battery life on mobile devices, including tablets and smartphones, was prime for reinvention.

"There's real potential to invent new and better experiences," he said.

New wearable device turns your palm into touch screen

 

A new gesture-based wearable transmitter that turns your palm into a touch interface has been developed by an Indian IT-start up. 

The ring-shaped transmitter called Fin is worn on the thumb and uses Bluetooth to communicate with different devices. 

The portable device enables users to control up to three devices such as smartphones, car radios and smart TVs using only swipes and taps, 'Mashable' reported. 

"People in today's world are becoming more busy, but still they are wasting a lot of time interacting with their smart devices," Rohildev Nattukallingal, founder of the Koch-based RHL Vision Technologies, the startup behind Fin. 

"Fin removes this interaction gap by allowing users to quickly interact with those devices," said Nattukallingal. 

Until now, the device has five pre-programmed gestures. However, users will be able to create customised programmes on an app that will come with the device, in its final iteration. 

The device can control the volume on a TV, and even lets users text or dial a number without touching their phone. 

The developers say they hope Fin can help people who are visually impaired.

More than 80% employees expect better pay hike in 2014: Survey

 

A majority of employees in the country expect better salary hikes in 2014 compared to previous years, spurred by hopes of brighter economic prospects, a survey by HR services firm Randstad has found. With increased pay packets there is also possibility of attrition rates going up, the company said.

As per the firm's 'Workmonitor' survey, 84 per cent of the employees are hopeful about the economic situation in 2014 while another 86 per cent are expecting a higher pay raise in comparison to previous years.

The survey has found that majority of employees in India expect to receive a one-time financial reward/ bonus at the end of this year. This is higher than their global peers.

"With the sentiments of the market looking positive, it is anticipated that employees will expect a better hike in their salary than compared to the last couple of years," Randstad India & Sri Lanka CEO Moorthy K Uppaluri said. According to Uppaluri expectation of pay hike have an impact on attrition rate and therefore the firms "must start focusing on building strong HR practices" that will address the issue related to salaries while also ensuring necessary training programmes and "great" career opportunities.

"By Income, only 70 per cent of the employees earning less than Rs 90,000 expect a pay rise and employees in middle and higher level income range are more optimistic about pay hike," the survey said.

Moreover, the survey also found that over 80 per cent believed that working together with foreign employees added value to their jobs. Besides, working with foreign employees was looked on as value addition by 74 per cent women compared to 52 per cent of the male employees.

Meanwhile, an overwhelming majority (more than 90 per cent) of the Indian employees were also found to be committed to developing their skills last year and 80 per cent said their employers played a important role in this regard.

The Randstad Workmonitor survey is conducted through an online questionnaire among a population aged 18-65 years and employed in a minimum 24 hours a week job.

Sundar Pichai: People live in the cloud 98% of the time

Sundar Pichai, the man in charge of Google Chrome and Android, the world's most popular mobile operating system, spoke to exclusively during his trips to India over the last couple of years. Excerpts from interviews done between 2011 and 2013.

Chromebooks are beginning to take off. What's driving it?

It's cloud-based. In the bring-your-own-device to work scenario, when people walk into office with devices on different platforms, how do you give endpoint solutions to each of them. So we have to move to the cloud. The existing model doesn't work. With Windows you need a lot of effort to keep it running. Chrome has a zero-administrative model.

How's the adoption of Google Apps by businesses?

We sign around 4,000 new businesses every day. About 60% of the top 100 universities in the US are on Google Apps. The benefits of doing collaborative work on Docs is so mindblowing, the answer is clear for most people.

How is it in enterprises, especially now with Microsoft's Office 365 cloud offering?

Even in enterprises we are growing at an extraordinarily fast pace. Just that there's a large legacy market, so it will take years. But the trend lines are very favourable. I'm excited to see Microsoft take a huge step towards the cloud. But for us, when people think of Google Apps, they are not comparing features. It's a much broader bet they are placing, that the apps will work well together, seamlessly, wherever they are and whichever device they are using. So I don't see Office 365 changing this one way or the other.

How's Gmail doing?

It's doing well, especially in India. We have around 50 million unique users here. There have been some articles that Gmail is No. 1 in the US, though we are not the ones saying that. We recently improved the mobile version for Android and iOS.

Any impact of social media on emails? 

No. The email inbox is a personal queue, where we take note of many things and processes. But social media is a stream and there is no need to see everything. There are areas where they overlap.