Fed2 Star - the newsletter for the space trading game Federation 2

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by ibgames

EARTHDATE: February 9, 2014

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WINDING DOWN

An idiosyncratic look at, and comment on, the week’s net, technology and science news

by Alan Lenton

This week we take a look at Lenovo, IBM and Google, IKEA’s privacy busting app, the Target bust, new cameras for the ISS, new EU recommendations on personal data, laser weapons and the Shortcut-S keyboard. URLs will take you to material on a nano-chip, an eBay email hack, a fix for a Flash flaw, Microsoft’s new CEO, US government demands for private data and a super-tough glass.

This is the last Winding Down for a couple of weeks, because I will be away on family business for the next two weekends. The next issue will be out on Sunday 2nd of March. You’re all grown-ups, so I’m sure you will be able to cope with the disappointment without breaking down!

And for now, on with the show...

Shorts:

I think Lenovo is going to be an interesting company to watch over the next few years. It’s not been quite so badly hit by the slump in PC sales recently, unlike its major competitors. It acquired IBM’s ThinkPad range some years ago, and has been pretty successful with it. Now it has acquired IBM’s low end server business.

That’s a canny move on its part, and a stupid one on the part of IBM, since data centres have been systematically moving away from big iron and towards cheap commodity servers for at least ten years. And that trend is accelerating. The purchase also means that Lenovo will also gain access to a significant chunk of IBM’s client base, and that can’t be a good thing for IBM.

But that’s not the only purchase Lenovo has made. It also bought Google’s Motorola Mobility division for a cool US$2.91 billion. Google will hang on to the bulk of the patents that came with Mobility when it bought the unit from Motorola. This gives Lenovo a smartphone business that’s well established in China, if in few other places, and a global brand to build on. Lenovo has already shown with its ThinkPad range that it knows how to build on an existing established brand name, so expect to see more of the likes of Moto X and Moto G in the not too distant future.

And what of Google? Was the whole experiment of buying Motorola’s mobile phone division a complete, loss making, failure? On the face of it, it seems so; the division was purchased for US$12.5 billion, and it’s just been sold for US$2.91. I make that a dent of US$9.59 billion in Google’s profits. However, they already sold of part of the division – Motorola Home, a TV set top box business – for US$2.6 billion, bringing the loss to around a mere US$7 billion. I know that sounds like a lot of cash, but they can afford it. And anyway in the arcane world of very big business finance and strategy, all is not what it seems.

For a start, that loss will generate a sizable tax credit to put against the taxes on their other activities. But they also kept most of the patents, and that is the pivotal issue. Google has always been rather light on the patent front, and those patents will help protect its Android operating systems from the trolls and the likes of Apple. That alone has got to be worth a lot of money. Then there is the fact that the sale gets Google out of the smartphone hardware business. The value of that is difficult to quantify, but the strategic value of not being in direct competition with the companies that use its operating system is significant.

And since the Motorola division wasn’t by any means profitable (why do you think Motorola were so keen to get rid of it?) there’s the losses for the years Google was operating the division, that can be set off against current taxes. There is even a notional amount that can be computed for losses that would have occurred if Google had kept their hands on Mobility. I told you the world of very big business is arcane. It makes my head hurt just to think about it.

The bottom line? A win-win situation. Google gets rid of a millstone round its neck, Lenovo gets its hands on an asset that it has already shown (with the ThinkPad) it knows how to turn round. And the rest of us? Only time will tell whether the general public will profit.
http://www.infoworld.com/t/servers/lenovo-buying-ibms-low-end-servers-and-its-customers-234865
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57618023-93/google-sells-motorola-unit-to-lenovo-for-$2.9b/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/29/google_sells_motorola_to_lenovo_for_291bn_but_keeps_the_patents/
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57618055-93/by-ditching-motorola-google-frees-android-from-distractions/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/30/google_motorola_mobility_lenovo_sale/

I see that the flat pack furniture company IKEA have a somewhat broad idea of what they need in the way of information, when it comes to helping you plan your kitchen. It seems their kitchen planning tool wants to access all of the data on your computer and track all the websites you visit! All to make sure everything fits into your kitchen. The NSA would be proud of them.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/29/ikea_demands_access_all_areas_for_kitchen_tool/

I’m sure everyone has heard of the massive break-in to Target’s computers by now. What you may not have heard is how the hackers originally broke in. They got hold of the credentials of Target’s HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) company. No one quite knows exactly why an HVAC company would have been given external access to the computer network of a company like Target, but I, for one, will be interested to see the details when the information becomes public.

Sounds to me like a wake-up call for the damage that the internet of connected things will be able to do as they become more common.
http://krebsonsecurity.com/2014/02/target-hackers-broke-in-via-hvac-company/

I note that the International Space Station (ISS) now has had some new high grade cameras installed. The images we get from Earth orbit will be correspondingly better in the future, assuming everything works as expected. There are problems with the telemetry at the moment but, fingers crossed, that will be solved in the near future. With resolutions in the region of one to five meters per pixel I think some interesting overhead videos will soon be appearing...
http://www.gizmag.com/iss-urthecast-space-hd-camera/30709/

Homework:

The EU has just issued a new handbook which contains an interesting take on anonymising personal data. Unlike existing laws the handbook makes it clear that no identifying element can be left in the data for it to be considered anonymous. This is important not just because of the risk of identification, but also because anonymised data is not considered to be personal data, and so can be kept for as long as wanted and freely sold and traded.

The handbook isn’t binding but it does indicate that in the EU, at least, the politicians are starting to catch up with the improvements in big data processing algorithms over the last ten years. And it provides a useful benchmark for those trying to get meaningful data protection laws on the statute books.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/04/new_data_protection_handbook_outlines_alternative_test_for_determining_anonymisation/

For Geeks:

Laser weapon systems have moved a step nearer. Lockheed Martin has demonstrated a 30-kilowatt laser. The laser combines the output of many lower powered lasers, and is the most powerful laser able to maintain beam quality and electrical efficiency yet produced. Probably a bit too powerful to use as a laser pointer...
http://www.gizmag.com/lockheed-sets-new-record-for-laser-weapon/30655/

Now, here’s a piece of geek oneupmanship which I’m sorely tempted by. A 319-key keyboard! Yes, really. It’s a bit unconventional in the layout, but just think of the cred involved in carting one into the next hackathon and plugging it into your Alienware laptop. Well worth the time taken to learn to use the Shortcut-S keyboard.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/06/shortcuts_photoshop_keyboard/

Scanner: Other stories

NanoFSM state machine could breathe new life into Moore’s Law
http://www.33rdsquare.com/2014/02/nanocomputer-points-way-to-push-past.html#more
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/28/teeny_tiny_state_machine_could_breathe_new_life_into_moores_law/

Joining Microsoft, eBay’s sensitive e-mail is intercepted by hackers
http://arstechnica.com/security/2014/02/joining-microsoft-ebays-sensitive-e-mail-is-intercepted-by-hackers/

Adobe goes out of band to fix frightful Flash flaw
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/02/05/adobe_goes_out_of_band_to_fix_flash_flaw/

Nadella’s success at Microsoft probably depends on Gates
http://www.cringely.com/2014/02/05/nadellas-success-microsoft-probably-depends-gates/

Internet giants, US gov agree to loosen secrecy of private info slurps (but not much)
http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/shedding-some-light-on-foreign.html
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/01/28/internet_firms_us_govt_agree_to_loosen_rules_on_data_disclosure/
http://www.boston.com/business/news/2014/01/27/gov-internet-companies-reach-deal-disclosure/StoBhsVplqvZNVITIeCVnI/story.html

Super-tough glass based on mollusk shells
http://www.gizmag.com/mollusk-nacre-tougher-glass/30654/

Acknowledgements

Thanks to readers Barb and Fi for drawing my attention to material for Winding Down.

Please send suggestions for stories to alan@ibgames.com and include the words Winding Down in the subject line, unless you want your deathless prose gobbled up by my voracious Thunderbird spam filter...

Alan Lenton
alan@ibgames.com
9 February 2014

Alan Lenton is an on-line games designer, programmer and sociologist, the order of which depends on what he is currently working on! His web site is at http://www.ibgames.net/alan.

Past issues of Winding Down can be found at http://www.ibgames.net/alan/winding/index.html.

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