The price means the company anticipates to raise US$18.4 billion or so, a lazy billion or so behind the biggest first-day fund-raiser of all time, Visa. It also means, if we round Facebook’s member numbers down to an even 900 million, that the $104b valuation makes each member worth about $115.

Financial analysts anticipate the share price to rise on listing day, as demand for a piece of the company meant the $38 price exceeded initial expectations of $28 to $35. The nature of the initial public offering process means most shares were pre-sold to institutional investors, a situation which meant lesser investors were unable to get their hands on shares and will instead pay a premium to acquire the stock on the open market.

Just where the stock heads in the medium to long term is anyone’s guess. Some analysts point to strong margins – last year’s profit was $1b on revenue of $3.7b – as a sign of likely future growth. Others point to difficulties monetising users, especially when they access Facebook in the cramped environs of mobile devices. Nay-sayers also suggest Google made more money per user, faster.

Others point out that with $18b of cash sloshing around, Facebook will have all the money it could ever need to acquire companies or build technologies that will help accelerate its monetisation efforts.

The float is a huge technology event unto itself, as US stock exchanges have reportedly tuned their systems for an expected deluge of trades. The Los Angeles Times reports the New York Stock Exchange has dedicated a server to the event and that NASDAQ has set up a dummy ticker for the company to test trades*.

For what it is worth, the huge numbers generated by the float are, however, a drop in the ocean compared to those involved in the European sovereign debt crisis, as European Union members are in hock to a collective €8.2 trillion, according to the Guardian. Greece’s debt, which is proving so burdensome to the planet, was estimated at €355.617b in 2011.

source : go.theregister.com

According to Phillip Hallam-Barker, vice-president and principal scientist of Comodo Group, “The introduction of say actors means you now need to be serious about security if you’re doing social networking: the Facebooks, the Twitters, need to think about themselves targets of attack, because what they do is of interest to states.

“Because of events like the Arab Spring, decisions about the Internet are now being made at the very highest levels of government,” he stated – reflected not only in state-driven attacks on security, but also in the emergence of international various “cyber” treaties, which only exist because the highest levels of government think about the issue worth top-level attention.

Hallam-Barker told AusCERT delegates, it’s clear that say interest in the Internet is growing – and that includes the incidence of state-based attacks of various kinds.

Since June 2010’s Stuxnet, he said, attacks that appear to emanate from says have been occurring with increasing frequency.

It’s not that “the sky is falling”, he stated – after all, the problem of professional criminals crafting attacks on the Internet is at least 15 years old. “It’s us that we have a new threat actor on the horizon, and we need to be aware of them. We don’t need to panic, but we do need to think about say actors as a risk.”

The two code-signing certificates used in Stuxnet, for example, suggests that the key for the code-signed certificates was compromised and grants the signing of device drivers.

Closer to home for Hallam-Barker, when a breach of one of Comodo’s resellers occurred, an attacker was able to request the issue of nine certificates, only one of which the company had been known to have been retrieved.

However, such incidents – and the more-notorious DigiNotar disaster of 2011 – has shaken the certificate industry out of the complacency that it had developed, partly (he said) “because it has worked so well”.

“If the system had been breaking all the time over fifteen years, attacks like DigiNotar would never have succeeded.

Comodo is proposing a “trust broker” that can act as a curator of trust information (not only certificate information) to help provide more dependable information than a browser could collect for itself.

“Even though attacks are rare” when it is a state, “they are very consequential.” And while this means that the Internet’s trust infrastructure needs revision to cope with this, any new proposal “must meet all the requirements of the old”, as well as adding he capability to defend the trust infrastructure from say actors, he said. ®

source : go.theregister.com

The Desire C is one of the first entry-level smartphones to feature the latest version of Android 4.0, and has some competitive specs to boot. For 189.99 you will get a 3.5″ HVGA display, 600MHz processor, 512 MB of RAM, 4 GB of storage and a 5MP shooter. The version which Clove will be shipping is the one with NFC connectivity too.

Expect the Desire C to be available in other European markets soon as well, with its price ranging around 200.

source : www.gsmarena.com

According to a report on CNBC television, HP is looking to cut anywhere from 8 to 10 per cent of its 324,600-strong workforce, and will make the announcement next Wednesday, when it puts out its financial results for the second quarter of its fiscal 2012.

The total cuts would be somewhere in the range of 26,000 to 35,000 employees, if the CNBC report is correct. The idea, their sources say, is to cut costs not only to move to higher profits, but also to free up cash to reinvest in the company.

Bloomberg has also caught wind of the impending job cuts, and states that Whitman and her management team are looking to shed around 25,000 workers, with somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 being culled from its Enterprise Services group, which provides outsourcing and other consulting services to IT departments all over the world.

Both reports state that HP will be doing a combination of early retirement offers for several thousand employees and layoffs for the rest to reach its workforce-reduction targets. Consulting firm McKinsey & Co is helping HP come up with the plan, according to the Bloomberg report.

An HP spokesperson told El Reg that the company does not comment on such rumors. ®

source : go.theregister.com

Lenovo has dropped another 15.6-inch notebook into the market called the ThinkPad Edge E530. Specs-wise, the system is equipped with a 15.6-inch 1366 x 768 LCD display, a 2.30GHz Intel Core i3-2370M processor, an Intel HM77 Express Chipset, an NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M graphics, a 2GB DDR3 RAM, a 320GB hard drive, an HD webcam, a DVD Super Multi Drive, a 4-in-1 card reader, WiFi, Bluetooth 4.0 and runs on Windows 7 Professional 32-bit (SP1) OS. The ThinkPad Edge E530 retails for 71,400 Yen (about $889). [Lenovo]

source : feedproxy.google.com

With its usual alacrity, Sony has managed to release seven SLT models since it first launched the concept, in August 200. In that time, the range has expanded from two models to four and the A37 has a role to play in ensuring the line-up makes sense. Most consumers (understandably) care tiny about product differentiation but the A37 helps make Sony’s lineup more coherent than it’s been in a while – making it easier to work out which product is for you.

The A37 replaces the entry-level A35 and uses essentially the same body that it shared with the original A33 and A55. The hand grip has been altered – making the finger grip slightly deeper and more comfortable. Beyond that, Sony has added the second-generation version of Sony’s 6MP sensor. It also adds a series of features from recent, higher-end SLT models, such as lens correction, focus peaking and the lag-reducing ‘electronic first curtain’ option.

These changes mean the four-model SLT range are all based on the same generation of technology, with logical increases in features and abilities as you move up the range. In order to make the A37 even more distinct, its rear screen has been downgraded, compared to the A35. It gains a tilt up/down mechanism but shrinks down to a low-resolution 2.6″ 230k dot panel, rather than the 920k dot, 3″ version the A35 shared with the more costly A57. The benefit to the user is another $00 taken off the MSRP – meaning the A37 is being launched at a price $50 lower than the original A33.

Beyond this, the changes are subtle – the A37 gains the A57′s improved viewfinder optics, and it becomes the only SLT not to shoot 60p video – instead offering 60i and 24p as its highest frame rate options, both at 24Mbps. The A35′s continuous shooting rates are unchanged, with the camera offering 7 frame-per-second bursts at reduced resolution (8.4MP) in a mainly automated mode.

The A37 gains the A57′s ‘By Pixel Super Resolution’ intelligent interpolation, with the ‘Clear Image Zoom’ it brings. It also grants the introduction of the ‘Auto Portrait Framing’ feature that looks for a good portrait crop in images with a face in them and saves an upsized crop alongside your original image.

The other area the A37 is impressive is the degree to which it accommodates video shooters. It features built-in stereo microphones, a wind-cut filter and the capability to autofocus during motion picture shooting (with phase-detection AF that should minimize over-shoot). There’s also a stereo mic input for more committed shooting. And, if you are willing to use manual focus, you gain more manual control over exposure can use the focus peaking contrast highlighting to help with manual focus following.

Sony SLT-A37 specification highlights Revised 6.MP CMOS sensor ISO 00-2800 (Auto 00-3200) By pixel super resolution intelligent up-scaling Picture Effects processing options 080p24 / 60i HD movies in AVCHD format Focus peaking manual focus aid Stereo microphones and mic input socket

The arrival of the A37 leaves the Sony SLT lineup looking more coherent than it has in some time, with an obvious separation of features between each model.

  SLT-A37 SLT-A57 SLT-A65 SLT-A77 MSRP (US) $599 (with 8-55mm) $799 (with 8-55mm) $999 (with 8-55mm) $999 (with 6-50mm F2.8) Body Size Small Medium Medium Large Pixel Count 6.MP 6.MP 24MP 24MP Control dials  

 2 Viewfinder .5m dot equiv. LCD .44m dot equiv. LCD

2.36m dot OLED

 2.36m dot OLED Rear LCD 2.6″ 230k dot tilting 

 3″ 920k dot multi-hinged and tilting Rear LCD Aspect Ratio 4:3 6:9

6:9

 6:9 Virtual Horizon No 

  Autofocus sensor 5 area (3 cross type) 5 area (3 cross type) 5 area (3 cross type) 9 area ( cross type) Continuous shooting rate (with AF) 5.5 fps (8 JPEG, 6 RAW) 8 fps (25 JPEG, 2 RAW) 8 fps (4 JPEG, 3 RAW) 8 fps (4 JPEG, 3 RAW) Speed priority mode (limited exposure control) 7 fps (8.4MP crop) 0 fps (6MP) 2 fps (8.4MP crop) 0 fps (24MP) 2 fps (24MP) Video rate 080i60 080p60 080p60 080p60 Remote shutter release option No    GPS No No   Battery NP-FW50 NP-FM500H NP-FM500H NP-FM500H Battery life (EVF) 450 shots 550 shots 50 shots 470 shots Battery life (LCD) 500 shots 590 shots 560 shots 530 shots

If you are new to digital photography you may wish to read the DigitalPhotography Glossary before diving into this article (it may help you comprehend some of the terms used).



Conclusion / Recommendation / Ratings are based on the opinion of the reviewer, you should read the ENTIRE review before coming to your own conclusions.



Images which can be viewed at a bigger size have a small magnifying glass icon in the bottom right corner of the image, clicking on the image will display a bigger (typically VGA) image in a new window.



To navigate the review simply use the next / previous page buttons, to jump to a particular section either pick the section from the drop down or choose it from the navigation bar at the top.



DPReview calibrate their monitors using Color Vision OptiCal at the (fairly well accepted) PC normal gamma 2.2, this means that on our monitors we can make out the difference between all of the (computer generated) grayscale blocks below. We recommend to make the most of this review you should be able to see the difference (at least) between X,Y and Z and ideally A,B and C.



This article is Copyright 20 and may NOT in part or in whole be reproduced in any electronic or printed medium without prior permission from the author.

source : www.dpreview.com

The Desire C is no high-end device and it’s perhaps as low spec’d as Android Ice Cream Sandwich would allow. Yup, the nifty smartphone runs Google’s latest and greatest OS release on the measly 600Mhz CPU and 512MB RAM.

Here are some of the results it scored:

As a comparison, when benchmarked with the same application, the Desire S (1GHz) scores 2627 points on AnTuTu, while the Wildfire S (600MHz) got 1522 points. So the Desire C fits somewhere in the middle with its 1929 points. For what it’s worth, both smartphones for the comparison were on Gingerbread.

Numbers aside, the personal remarks of the author were that the Desire C felt really snappy in each day use.

HTC promised the Desire C release later this month and Clove.co.uk are even more specific, quoting a shipping date of May 24. The price in their on-line store is around 190 but you can probably find it around the 170 mark if you shop around.

Source

source : www.gsmarena.com

The park is owned and financed by its parent, Swedish Space Corporation, which selected WA for the facility as part of its international expansion strategy due to its geographically critical coverage area for global satellite tracking.

The satellite park secured its first customer in October with China Satellite Launch & Tracking Control General ( CLTC) which is part of the ambitious Chinese space programme.

CLTC runs China’s launch sites and tracks and controls its spacecraft, and is part of the army’s General Armaments Department.

SSC has been providing the space station tracking component s for the first two Chinese space missions, according to SSC Australia President Brian Mann.

The Dongara East facility was used by SSC for supporting the docking between Shenzhou VIII and the Tiangong-1 experimental module.

Mann stated that a total of AUD$12 million will be invested in the space park by its Swedish parent with strong demand for the remote facility coming from Asia, the US and Europe and two fresh contracts expected to be signed before the end of the year.

Mann added that Telstra has provided a $1.5 million dedicated fibre network for the facility and SSC Australia is currently preparing to invest in a redundancy network.

Last week Science and Innovation Minister John Day officially launched the new Western Australian Space Centre (WASC) stating that it was a core part of the State’s growing portfolio of advanced science and technology facilities.

“The WASC is an attractive site for the location of earth space tracking and communications facilities, with SSC Space Australia in discussions with several countries – including China, Japan, the US and several European countries – looking to locate facilities at the site,” he said.

He added that WA has long been a prime site for space-related facilities, due to geographical location, vast radio-quiet zones, strong technical expertise and well-developed defence, science and trade relationships. “The Mid-West region is already a hotspot for innovation in radio astronomy, with the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) establishing a Mid West Radio Quiet Zone to protect the Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory,” he added. The WASC is part of an emerging eco system of space, satellite and technology industries supporting facilities located in WA.

Horizon Power and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation are supporting remotely operated sites. The government added that high performance computing facilities would also be established in Perth to support the huge data processing requirements of the industry.

Day also pitched the new facility as a sweetener for Australia’s bid to secure the SKA contract.®

source : go.theregister.com

By Chris Kanaracus | IDG News Service

SAP seems to be betting its future on its HANA in-memory database, spotlighting the technology once again at the Sapphire conference in Orlando Wednesday, announcing a slew of new applications, partnerships and functional enhancements for the system.

Thanks to a “shopping spree” by SAP in recent years, the company has been able to surround HANA with a wide variety of important supporting tools, co-founder Hasso Platter stated during a keynote address Wednesday, which was webcast. “We have enriched the system. We think that technically, we have a pretty complete collection of functionality.”

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SAP, which has also been releasing a series of specialized HANA-based applications, announced eight new ones on Wednesday, targeting areas such as sales pipeline analysis, planning and consolidation, cash forecasting, and deposit management. It was not immediately clear when the applications would be generally available.

In addition Wednesday, SAP sought to align HANA with the industry buzzword “big data,” which refers to the large volumes of unstructured information being generatd by social media, sensors and other sources, as well as related efforts to draw valuable business insights from it.

SAP announced that the fourth service pack for HANA is now generally available and includes an integration with Hadoop, the increasingly popular open-source framework for large-scale data processing. This tie-in will provide the capability to read and from and write to the Hadoop Distributed File System and fast batch updating to HANA as well as the Sybase IQ analytic database, SAP said.

SAP has also formed a “partner council” around HANA, with the centerpiece being an agreement with Cloudera, which provides Hadoop services as well as its own distribution of Hadoop.

Riding the huge data theme, SAP was also especially keen on Wednesday to prove that HANA can be scaled out to colossal heights.

The company demonstrated a 100-node HANA cluster, built with IBM hardware, that had 100TB of RAM, 4,000 Intel CPU cores and 150TB of solid-state disk memory.

The system, which cost $4 million for the hardware, “is the world’s largest in-memory database system assembled ever,” SAP executive board member and technology chief Vishal Sikka stated in an interview before the conference.

It is capable of running 1,000 applications for “millions” of users, or can simply take a single database query and run it at warp speed, Sikka said. “This nonsense about scalability, we will shoot it in the head.”

“We’re testing the limits of how far we can go,” Sikka added, during a keynote speak on Wednesday at Sapphire.

Customers will be invited to upload their data to the big cluster and run jobs, even though their activities will be limited to experiments, not production deployments at this time, Sikka stated in the interview.

Finally, SAP announced the availability of HANA developer instances on Amazon Web Services IaaS (infrastructure as a service) platform, which is a crucial step in helping generate interest among the programming community’s grassroots.

HANA takes about a 20 percent performance hit on AWS because the service’s virtualization layer inhibits HANA from interacting closely with the CPUs, as it does with traditional appliances, according to Sikka.

Customers can anticipate HANA to show up on other cloud infrastructure platforms over time, according to Sikka.

source : www.infoworld.com

The Acer Aspire M5 series consists of 14-inch and 15 inch models. Both ultrabooks are powered by Intel’s latest Ivy Bridge processors and a 1GB nVidia GT 640M graphics. The Acer Aspire M5 series also has the same display resolution of 1366 x 768 pixels and a choice of hard disk drive or an solid say drive. These ultrabooks will be launched next month. Sadly, there is no info on pricing at this moment. [Slashgear]

source : feedproxy.google.com