Phone, Tablet and Gizmo Thread #0x02

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 05 Aug 2014 14:17

even the desi brands are feeling the heat due to lack of differentiating features.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/tec ... 654167.cms

Ranjani Brow · Post by **Ranjani Brow** » 05 Aug 2014 15:07

Samsung dealers threaten boycott over e-pricing

Ranjani Brow · Post by **Ranjani Brow** » 05 Aug 2014 15:41

Is Xiaomi Secretly Sending Smartphone User Data to Chinese Servers?

very shocking newz onlee

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 05 Aug 2014 15:42

they are doing what huwaii is or was doing

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 05 Aug 2014 16:09

..and what NSA is. anything can be passed off now "oh we are just backing up your recovery data, pix etc to our free n fair cloud service"

NSA surely has its real time hooks deep into msft and apple cloud services incl cellphone backups.

negi · Post by **negi** » 05 Aug 2014 16:43

Anujan wrote:Oh I love my airport extreme.

Have you put it through the ACID test ? I mean switch off and turn on the mains while the router boots (to simulate conditions here in Bangalore) and see if the Router is able to still able to gracefully come up.

From website

"Simultaneous dual-band support.
AirPort Extreme features simultaneous dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi. That means it transmits at both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies at the same time. So no matter which band your wireless devices use, they’ll automatically connect to the best available band for the fastest possible performance."

Beamforming sounds good however it raises a question about amount of radiation one is being exposed to for prolonged hours. I might be getting too fussy about this but what the hell.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 05 Aug 2014 17:20

well well well, the next galaxy phone specs leaked.
http://www.gizmodo.in/Gizmodo/New-Galax ... 647639.cms

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 05 Aug 2014 18:58

^so all these devices have reached the garbage in garbage out state.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 05 Aug 2014 19:04

datacenter machines usually need a lot of memory and high power 10GE multiple interfaces as well to access storage arrays from their CPUs.
and the cost of apple isnt exactly cheap vs the purpose build datacenter machines out there. plus dual redundant hotswap power supplies and fan modules are also there, as is a small mgmt card with its own firmware, networking stack and CPU to manage remotely for actually installing or controlling the root partition on the box. HP calls it ILO (integrated lights out mgmt), netz calls it CIMC.

HP really makes some beautiful rack and blade servers. netz I think gets it made through quanta computer another taiwanese co that supplies a lot of gear at the back end but not so visible.

Tanaji · Post by **Tanaji** » 05 Aug 2014 19:53

Noise cancelling head phones are your friends.

I don't think an A7 will beat an i4xxx in single threaded benchmarks even. In multi threaded there is no contest. The only specification where ARM beats everyone is performance per watt metric which is what matters. But its just a matter of time. Intel is the 800 lb gorilla and once it ramps up it will be on par anyway. Already the new. Atoms are pretty good.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 05 Aug 2014 21:32

negi wrote:
Anujan wrote:Oh I love my airport extreme.
Have you put it through the ACID test ? I mean switch off and turn on the mains while the router boots (to simulate conditions here in Bangalore) and see if the Router is able to still able to gracefully come up.

From website

"Simultaneous dual-band support.
AirPort Extreme features simultaneous dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi. That means it transmits at both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz frequencies at the same time. So no matter which band your wireless devices use, they’ll automatically connect to the best available band for the fastest possible performance."

Beamforming sounds good however it raises a question about amount of radiation one is being exposed to for prolonged hours. I might be getting too fussy about this but what the hell.

I have done that on two different Airport Extremes, from differing years, without problem. Don't worry about the radiation unless you have the router under your pillow all night and even then it is questionable. The best RF power I've seen when touching a consumer router is -20 dBm or 0.01 mW. The Airport Extreme doesn't go over -30 dBm or 0.001 mW in a similar circumstance. Remember power density drops off 1/R^2. So, moving even 1 m away from the router will significantly drop power density. The FCC and OSHA limits on RF power density in residential areas is 5 mW/cm^2, in commercial areas it is 10 mW/cm^2.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 05 Aug 2014 21:46

pandyan wrote:
negi wrote:Beamforming sounds good however it raises a question about amount of radiation one is being exposed to for prolonged hours. I might be getting too fussy about this but what the hell.
and that too kids with iphones and ipads hold it close to their face. so, the magical rays that carry bit/bytes will shower the kids as well.

I need to upgrade my router from old/trusty/reliable/popular linksys router. routers these days come with 3-4 antennas/beam shaping/beam forming capabilities. I am confused onlee.

There are no "magical rays" it is 802.11 pulses (frames or packets) being transmitted from 2.4-5.5 GHz. Even held to the face of an infant for prolonged hours will have no effect.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 05 Aug 2014 23:49

I think we are analyzing negativities only.. what if the pulses are triggering the kids to become more agile mutants?

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 06 Aug 2014 01:40

^^^There are no mutations because the microwave energy is thermal and not ionizing. Please visit phijics dhaaga.

What matters is absorbed dose - which is limited because the kids burn through the batteries of mobile devices quickly with all of their games.

KJo · Post by **KJo** » 06 Aug 2014 04:36

Man, this just doesn't do it.

Where have you gone, Mahdi?

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 06 Aug 2014 07:40

he looks more like EJ bringing us the light of the lord, than a CEO

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 06 Aug 2014 07:44

datacenter cooling seems like a full featured area these days...grids of sensors to measure airflow and temp, and redirect/backoff cooling in particular zones as needed. even the controllers who place workloads onto the servers are primed to distribute it evenly than create hotspots. the HW itself has numerous sensors on the motherboards, power supplies, fans to measure and report temp which is again no doubt polled and monitored by some management tools.

must be teams in places like ibm, hp, rackspace, google, amazon, msft working on such matters.

SaiK · Post by **SaiK** » 06 Aug 2014 08:05

Singha wrote:he looks more like EJ bringing us the light of the lord, than a CEO

...and the lord showers the light!

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 06 Aug 2014 10:46

Singha wrote:datacenter cooling seems like a full featured area these days...grids of sensors to measure airflow and temp, and redirect/backoff cooling in particular zones as needed. even the controllers who place workloads onto the servers are primed to distribute it evenly than create hotspots. the HW itself has numerous sensors on the motherboards, power supplies, fans to measure and report temp which is again no doubt polled and monitored by some management tools.

must be teams in places like ibm, hp, rackspace, google, amazon, msft working on such matters.

MSR actually was quite heavily involved in research in this field.

Vayutuvan · Post by **Vayutuvan** » 06 Aug 2014 10:53

There is a fluids company that specializes in data center cooling which is lead by a famous CFD pioneer by the name of Pattankar. He was trained at imperial college, I believe. His advisor in London also has a company doing general CFD. Since the Britisher is hard to work with, the company is not as successful as our Indic compatriot's co.

member_20292 · Post by **member_20292** » 06 Aug 2014 11:29

Singha wrote:in lenovo lineup is there a product comparable to the MBP in size , power, BUILD QUALITY and weight? the Y series or W540?

infront of my own eyes I have seen W520 cases crack for two friends in the past, with normal use, on right side of the trackpad. big long cracks. my own 520 the mouse keys above the trackpad have stopped working , so using as a laptop needs to use a external mouse now. the cd-dvd tray constantly slides out if we just shake the chassis. I am trying to nursemaid it till march next yr when refresh becomes due. early refresh needs VP level approval these days

W520? I use a T530. W is the workstation waala . Even the T series is good . But yes, I havent seen such build quality.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 06 Aug 2014 11:37

W series is their portable wkstation. its power brick is legendary and weighs in at a obese 175W.
I agree T series is equally good albeit screen size and keybd real estate is smaller

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 07 Aug 2014 07:23

I think they forcefeed cold air from below the floor nowadays, let it get hotter as it flows up through the equipment and exit at the top as warmer air.
fans seem to be a wildcard, some are noisy and whiny as hell, some seem to be less dB next gen designs. I think some kind of industry std to move to quieter fans by 20xy will lead to this issue being solved....quieter fans and reducing turbulent airflows in other domains like aerospace is a well understood problem. in vietnam area the piston/turboprop small FAC recce planes had multi bladed wooden props to keep noise down from vietcong spotters.

negi · Post by **negi** » 07 Aug 2014 08:32

IIrc there is a tendency to setup huge datacenters in remote cold areas Iowa for instance is now home to both Chacha's and Facebook's new data centers. I won't be surprised if someone up there is also thinking about setting these up in cold areas close to the poles or even at the poles.

Anujan · Post by **Anujan** » 07 Aug 2014 08:34

One of the big issues is cheap power. So you see datacenters next to dams. Wonder if massive ships with nuclear reactors connected with undersea cables can be made into datacenters.

Mort Walker · Post by **Mort Walker** » 07 Aug 2014 08:52

Anujan wrote:One of the big issues is cheap power. So you see datacenters next to dams. Wonder if massive ships with nuclear reactors connected with undersea cables can be made into datacenters.

Surely you've got to be kidding? A nuclear powered air craft carrier or submarine is for strategic power projection it is very costly to build and maintain. This is BRF man!

For heat exchange you build your nuclear power plant near the coast and it is simply not feasible to build anything like that on large cargo or freight ship. A data center is better to simply be located next to a power sub station for reliable power with minimal loss. This would be much cheaper and a lot less trouble. You can offset some of the power consumption with solar (like Apple is doing) and or wind turbines if wanted.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 07 Aug 2014 08:52

IBN

Seoul: As its smartphone sales stutter and a generational leadership succession looms, Samsung Electronics is under pressure to reinvent itself - to be more innovative, but not lose the rigour and focus that made it a global powerhouse.
One effort this summer to foster a more worker-friendly environment and a more creative culture is to allow staff at its main Suwon campus south of Seoul to wear shorts to work at weekends. Working hours are more flexible, and female staff can take maternity leave without worrying about job security.
The flagship of South Korea's dominant conglomerate, or chaebol, is also trying to address shifting cultural values at home by curbing some of the excesses hardwired into corporate Korea. Forced late-night drinking sessions, long a staple of local office life, are out.
How Samsung is changing its culture
As its smartphone sales stutter and a generational leadership succession looms, Samsung is under pressure to reinvent itself. (Samsung logo, via Shutterstock)

"It's 1-1-9 for evening company outings now: one type of alcohol, in one place and only until 9 pm" said a Samsung employee in his eighth year at the firm. "Younger staff are no longer forced to stay, and the senior workers will be careful not to upset their subordinates," he said, asking not to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media.
Samsung last month posted an unexpectedly sharp drop in second-quarter earnings, squeezed by falling market share in smartphones, and with no obvious driver in sight to reverse the decline. Chairman Lee Kun-hee, 72, who has famously managed Samsung with a sense of "permanent crisis", remains hospitalised following a May heart attack.
The ascension of his son and heir-apparent, the Harvard-educated Jay Y Lee, 46, could be a breath of fresh air, but effecting wholesale change in the way the sprawling company operates would be a Herculean task and could prove a mistake.
"The company is in somewhat of a Catch-22 when it comes to changing its culture," said Jay Subhash, a former senior product manager who left Samsung in April. "It desperately needs to adopt a culture that fosters openness, creativity and innovation. But doing so would jeopardise its greatest existing cultural asset, its militaristic hierarchy, which enables it to operate at lightning speed to outpace the competition."
"Soul searching"
Samsung has long emphasised the need for creativity while hiring more foreign talent as it operates in increasingly diverse markets. Along with relaxed rules on work hours, it stresses a "Work Smart" philosophy to reduce unnecessary time spent at the office.
While it's hoped a looser environment will help stir new ideas, some insiders say progress is slow against what's often described as an entrenched culture of rigid, top-down management.
"Samsung's doing some soul searching right now, it's asking itself 'who am I, and what should I do next?" said Chang Sea-jin, a business professor at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and author of Sony Vs Samsung.
"In the long term, the company needs to become global and open. Giving employees more autonomy can lead to loss of control, but this will in the long run benefit the company by developing talent that can run the business from a global perspective."
The drop in second-quarter profit triggered some symbolic belt-tightening at Samsung: Handset division managers gave up part of their bonuses and downgraded to economy class for shorter flights - acts of loyalty that are part of Samsung's culture, which emphasises urgency in action.
While the company is a market leader in smartphones, TVs, refrigerators and memory chips, it's saddled with a perception that it's a "fast-follower" and not an innovator like Apple or Google.
Samsung is hardly alone in the culture struggle.
Many Korean firms deal with the same issues stemming from the legacy of the country's Confucian, conformist culture, which has also fuelled its industrial success. Several Samsung employees interviewed by Reuters said that those who "stand out" from the norm struggle and often end up leaving.
"The core challenge for Korea is that as a Confucian culture that has deep respect for age, hierarchy is very important and so what you'll find is that it's hard to innovate in an environment where challenging your boss is not something you can easily do," said Shaun Cochran, head of CLSA Korea.
Signs of change
Samsung is making efforts to address that.
In July, Chief Financial Officer Lee Sang-hoon asked how Samsung can respond to rapid changes in the tech industry in the first "Grand Discussion", an initiative for more dialogue, through the company's newly launched Mosaic internal message board. The discussion generated 4,221 ideas and comments.
"Samsung takes pride in the creativity and diversity of its talented people and will constantly strive to create an environment where they have the opportunity to grow," the company said in a statement to Reuters. The company did not make an executive available for an interview, but provided Reuters with written material on various initiatives.
Under its "Creative Lab" program, employees can individually or in teams take a year to develop an idea they come up with if it's deemed worthy of pursuit. Samsung says it had some 14,000 ideas last year through this program and other company initiatives.
Employees and Samsung watchers say cultural change is inevitable as a younger generation of Koreans increasingly demands more than just high wages.
In a survey this year by job portal Incruit, Korean Air Lines ranked as the country's most desirable employer, snapping Samsung's 10-year run at the top. Incruit said Samsung's reputation for imposing a heavy workload and limiting personal time jarred with a growing preference for work-life balance.
That said, some two-thirds of Samsung's nearly 300,000-strong workforce is outside South Korea, and the vast majority of its revenue is generated away from home.
Among leading South Korean firms, Samsung stands out in that it doesn't discriminate on where job applicants were educated, said Im Chan-soo, head of LCS Communications in the southern port city of Busan, which offers private lessons for those preparing for interviews at Samsung.
Staff turnover at Samsung in South Korea was below 3 per cent last year, against almost 17 per cent at its overseas facilities.
"Samsung looks for honest people who are crazy about the company, people who have only looked to Samsung, who have done a lot to try to get in," said Im.
One former Samsung Electronics employee, an American in South Korea, said top managers are globally minded, though many employees and observers interviewed by Reuters said the core of its culture remains distinctly Korean.
"I think change is inevitable," said the current Samsung employee. "It's not because the company decided to be a trailblazer, but because the societal trends are changing. There's a desire to change the system."

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 07 Aug 2014 09:33

^^^Heh heh. Should I say, you read about it here first, many moons ago. Mortullah, ab samajh mein aaya tau-ji hum itne din se aapko kya samjha rahe thay?

It doesn't make one sparrow fart of difference whether Sammy makes it own displays, SoCs and memory when it comes to making CE devices which people will love and use. Its all about UX. UX ensures long-term customer loyalty. Cheapo-ness ensures temporary spurt in sales followed by a crash, as we are seeing with Sammy.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 07 Aug 2014 10:04

beyond a point just tight discipline, long hours, money, alumni from elite schools and alcohol dont work in any domain.

one needs to encourage the dreamers, hermits, renunciates and outlaws who make the critical 5% breakthroughs for the next 25% to execute and exploit. such people are not necessary 'good' people (eg Mahdi

) but are hard to find, generally work on their own in non-linear ways and deliver results.
american cos tend to 'manage' and 'soothe' such ppl carefully while shielding the rest of team from their periodic outburts and tantrums.

member_20292 · Post by **member_20292** » 07 Aug 2014 10:14

Singha wrote:W series is their portable wkstation. its power brick is legendary and weighs in at a obese 175W.
I agree T series is equally good albeit screen size and keybd real estate is smaller

Mine has a 135 W adapter, and a suitable processor . No, I dont run monte carlo

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 07 Aug 2014 10:45

The guy who gives designers a bad name...not to mention steals his subordinates' work and claims them as his own, even going to the extent of creating fake inspirational stories of how he came about the idea.

http://www.theverge.com/2014/8/6/593053 ... ct-profile

archan · Post by **archan** » 07 Aug 2014 11:10

mahadevbhu wrote:
Singha wrote:in lenovo lineup is there a product comparable to the MBP in size , power, BUILD QUALITY and weight? the Y series or W540?

infront of my own eyes I have seen W520 cases crack for two friends in the past, with normal use, on right side of the trackpad. big long cracks. my own 520 the mouse keys above the trackpad have stopped working , so using as a laptop needs to use a external mouse now. the cd-dvd tray constantly slides out if we just shake the chassis. I am trying to nursemaid it till march next yr when refresh becomes due. early refresh needs VP level approval these days
W520? I use a T530. W is the workstation waala . Even the T series is good . But yes, I havent seen such build quality.

Came across this article and it reminded me of some posts here.

Trading in the MacBook Pro for Dell's Precision M3800 workstation
Sounds like a badass machine for those who can justify the cost.

saip · Post by **saip** » 07 Aug 2014 16:42

Anyone know how exactly does internet connection works in India? Not BSNL as it uses DSL modem and phone lines. We had a new internet line. As far as I can tell he ran a cable from his office a few blocks away. He said they receive the signal from nearby Airtel cell tower by Fibre optic cable and then they run cables to nearby houses using plain network cable.

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 07 Aug 2014 16:43

BSNL is ADSL

saip · Post by **saip** » 07 Aug 2014 17:07

Probably. But isnt ADSL a type of DSL? But what I want to know is in India do we get the internet via Cell towers?

krishnan · Post by **krishnan** » 07 Aug 2014 17:16

They could be doing that.

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 07 Aug 2014 17:45

saip wrote:Anyone know how exactly does internet connection works in India? Not BSNL as it uses DSL modem and phone lines. We had a new internet line. As far as I can tell he ran a cable from his office a few blocks away. He said they receive the signal from nearby Airtel cell tower by Fibre optic cable and then they run cables to nearby houses using plain network cable.

airtel would have some fiber connection from cell tower to their back end in town(cellular backhaul application). so looks like he extended that cable network to his office and then copper to your house. so both cellphone calls and your ethernet? internet traffic are going over their backhaul network in shared mode.

but airtel is mostly DSL too. over their landline telephone network.

Mihir · Post by **Mihir** » 07 Aug 2014 18:51

Why is fan noise such a big issue? Modern air handlers don't make much noise even when their fans run at full speed. And in any case, they are placed in dedicated mechanical rooms (which have their own soundproofing) or spaces where there is no continuous human occupancy. The only noise you get in a typical office space is airflow through the duct. But there's little you can do about it apart from using attenuators or providing larger ducts to reduce air velocity. There's a hard limit on the latter because of cost and space constraints.

The real noisemakers are the massive centrifugal chillers and their pumping systems, especially when they run full blast in the middle of summer.

Marten wrote:Wooden or composite blades sound nice, but the noise we're complaining about is from the bearings

The problem with wooden or composite blades is that they can't stand much humidity. If your air stream is cooled before it enters the fan, it is about 95% to 99% humid. Imagine what that would do to a wooden fan.

negi · Post by **negi** » 07 Aug 2014 21:09

^ Ask that to an apple fanpoy, a MBP does not make that characteristic hum like stuff from other lappy manufacturers who have an ugly grill underneath or aft of the chassis to dissipate heat . Over a period of time dust and grime settles in there and motherboard heats up unless you open the thing and clean up the fan blades.

In the server segment I guess fan noise is a barometer for energy loss , in that segment competition is cut throat so everyone wants to squeeze as much juice from all modules, a better designed fan which runs at a higher RPM (read better bearings, blade design, materials ) with lower power consumption is a good thing .

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 07 Aug 2014 21:44

negi wrote:^ Ask that to an apple fanpoy, a MBP does not make that characteristic hum like stuff from other lappy manufacturers who have an ugly grill underneath or aft of the chassis to dissipate heat . Over a period of time dust and grime settles in there and motherboard heats up unless you open the thing and clean up the fan blades.

For laptops, a loud hum can get annoying in a hurry. Over the years, I have owned multiple laptops and one of them (a Gateway M350) used to make a very loud fan noise, like a jet engine spooling up. Other people sitting in the same room hated me when this laptop's fan would start up. Sure, this laptop had a Pentium 4 under the hood, so it needed some serious cooling. Not that it helped matters though, because this laptop was also the hottest one that I ever owned. You could never actually place it on your lap and I was afraid to place it on nice desks as well.