Dell's Embedded PCs Take the IoT to the Mainstream

Dell on Tuesday announced the release of its first purpose-built industrial PC products for the mainstream market: the Embedded Box PC 3000 Series and 5000 Series.

The products are a response to the growing embedded computing market and the lack of reliable devices, Dell said.

The embedded systems market was valued at more than US$11 billion in 2014 and is expected to reach $23.1 billion in 2019, growing at a compound annual rate of almost 15 percent, according to a Technavio study that Dell cited.

Falling component costs, improved power efficiencies, increasing return-on-investment needs, and demand from the Internet of Things are fueling that growth.

Known Quantity

"Customers have consistently told us that current embedded solutions do not meet the level of cost-effective sophistication, scale and support they need for these to be a critical, reliable component of their operations," said Andy Rhodes, Dell's executive director of commercial IoT solutions.

Dell provides global scale and an end-to-end IT and operations technology security portfolio, he said.

The products' rugged design can withstand extreme temperatures while using a fanless cooling system, which is beneficial in several applications, according to Dell spokesperson Sarah Luden.

"These were made to be used in a wide range of industries, from digital signage to factory automation and transportation and construction. Within factory automation, the fan is the first thing to go down," she told TechNewsWorld.

"It's also much quieter, so in a hospital setting, think of MRI machines, where patient care and comfort is important," Luden added.

The IoT is a new arena for many business owners, and investing in costly computers and programmers can be a scary proposition, she noted. "For some people, the Internet of Things is new, so they want to go with a brand they know."

Why This Box Is Different

What makes the Dell PC appealing is its out-of-the-box capabilities, said Christian Juarez, an instructor at TechShop.

Dell Embedded Box PC

The IoT is helping industries streamline their processes to make work more efficient. "The whole point of IoT is bringing everything to the cloud and then connecting to the Internet and then having a control center for it," Juarez told TechNewsWorld.

"What happens a lot of times is that you have to set up the control center yourself. If you're setting it up yourself, as opposed to what Dell's offering, you have to decide on your distro, have all kinds of software running to get everything working together, you have to code things yourself, things of that nature," he said.

"With Dell, they have software built in for you, so you don't have to do that much. Software can be a huge issue, so with something like an out-of-the-box embedded machine you're going to appeal to a lot more people," Juarez added.

Microcomputers like Raspberry Pi are used for control centers, he noted, but that kind of device requires expert-level programming skills that a Dell doesn't necessarily need, which may help companies save money in the long run.

The Embedded Box PCs will be available this summer. Pricing starts at $1,099 for the 3000 series and $1,699 for the 5000 series.


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Windows 10 Gains on 7, Inch by Inch

Windows 10 last month had more user share than Windows XP and Windows 8, according to data released by NetMarketShare.

It held 11.85 percent of the global OS market, though Windows 7 was still No. 1 with 52.47 percent.

Though adoption has slowed, the NetMarketShare numbers helped validate Microsoft's claim last month that Windows 10 was active on 200 million devices.

Hot Start

Windows 10 dashed out to a 4.8 percent gain in user share in August, after launching the previous month. For January, the OS gained about 1.9 percent of global user share.

That gain was the biggest the OS has seen since August, and a holiday bump in PC sales may have boosted January's jump.

"Windows 10 is off to the hottest start in Windows history," Microsoft said in comments provided to the E-Commerce Times by spokesperson Carmen Vasilatos. It is "already running on more than 200 million devices, with unprecedented early demand from consumers and enterprise customers."

Microsoft attributed much of that momentum to its free upgrade offer. The upgrade was available to users running legitimate installations of Windows 7 and higher.

"With 300 million new PCs expected to ship in 2016 alone, we're looking forward to a great year ahead, along with our partners," Microsoft said.

The Surface: Windows 10's Interface

Microsoft hasn't explained the jump from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10, skipping over what would have been Windows 9.

Windows 8, and the Metro tiles it brought with it, turned a lot of people off, but people seem to appreciate the Windows 10 interface, according to Joe Silverman, owner of New York Computer Help.

"Windows 10 was well-reviewed by our technicians and customers in regard to its interface, especially from Windows 8," he told the E-Commerce Times.

Really Getting to Know Windows 10

Two separate tales have been playing out among Windows 10 migrants, according to Silverman.

Customers who bought new computers with Windows 10 preinstalled have been "relatively happy," but the story often is different for those upgrading to the OS, which he described as a potential memory hog after system updates slowed it down.

"At first, customers gladly upgraded to Windows 10 as it is a free upgrade," Silverman said. "Soon after, they complained about the slowness, and we have seen the aftereffects by customers requesting us to downgrade their computers to Windows 7 or 8."

It may be time for another major marketing push: The message of frustrated Windows 10 users has spread inside the tech community, according to Silverman.

"As such, other computer users are leery of performing the upgrade and shied away from installing Windows 10," he said. "It is likely the slow adoption of upgrading Windows 10 will continue due to the negative reviews it is getting."


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Wall Street Backs Off Apple

Their fears confirmed, investors were bearish on Apple Wednesday, the day after the company reported its slowest-growth quarter ever. The company's shares closed the day at US$93.44, down 6.55 percent.

In its Q1 earnings report, Apple prepared investors for what may come next: its weakest quarter for iPhone sales in 13 years. Even worse is that the company may not see a significant boost in handset sales until the launch of the iPhone 7 later this year.

Apple moved about 74.8 million iPhones during the quarter that ended in January, and the company forecast sales of between 50 and 52 million units during the three-month period that will end in March.

The news of Apple's slowing growth came on the heels of reports detailing the rise of Alphabet, Google's recently formed parent company, valued at around $500 billion.

For now, Apple is still the world's most valuable company, with a valuation of around $562 million.

Apple reported that it sold about 16 million iPads and 5.3 million Macs in Q1 -- down about 25 percent and 4 percent, respectively, from the year-ago quarter.

Keeping the Faith

Taking note of the general saturation of the smartphone market, many investors have been turning to Alphabet, Facebook and Amazon for growth. However, those companies rely on ad revenues, which could prove more volatile than Apple's handsets reliance.

Though hardware accounts for more than half of Apple's business, the company has been pivoting toward services, noted Larry Chiagouris, professor of marketing at Pace University'sLubin School of Business.

That should count for something with investors, he said.

"Its ecosystem, to include iTunes and iCloud services, are either already dominant or possibly on the way to being dominant, and so this is not the time to lose faith in the company or its stock," Chiagouris told the E-Commerce Times.

The current perceived loss of faith likely is a byproduct of the times, he suggested. In a connected world, speed rules and investors don't hesitate to look elsewhere for growth when a company stumbles.

Also, investors are more influenced by media reports today than they were a decade or two ago, Chiagouris pointed out.

"All the reporting as of late has been on iPhone sales slowing, and so investors are reacting to these reports," he said. "The more important fact is that, ultimately, hardware companies always confront shrinking margins as the products that they make begin to become less differentiated or even commoditized."

Too Big to Fail

Paradoxically, investor disappointment might be a consequence of Apple's historic rise to become the most valuable company in the world and its position at or near the top of any list of most-respected organizations, suggested Ritch Blasi, president of MediaRitch.

"By continually overachieving in offering innovative products and services, and outperforming financial targets, it has become a darling of investors," Blasi told the E-Commerce Times. "Apple's latest numbers are viewed as not quite up to snuff, and the financial markets are feeling jittery."

While investors may want to hedge some of their bets by looking elsewhere, it would be premature to count Apple out, he said. The company didn't become this powerful by chance.

"While it may never again have the impact magnitude it did when introducing the iPhone," said Blasi, "expect Apple to rebound from this financial burp and continue on its course of changing the way we work and live."


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Major Security Flaw Found in Silent Circle's Blackphone

Security researchers at SentinelOne on Wednesday revealed a vulnerability they discovered in the Blackphone.

The flaw -- an obscure socket -- lets an attacker take over and control communications on the Blackphone, a highly secure Android smartphoneSilent Circle developed and marketed in reaction to news of government surveillance of people's communications.

Silent Circle began taking preorders for the device in 2014, and "despite [its] best attempts, a severe zero day remained undetected for nearly a year before we uncovered it," said Tim Strazzere, SentinelOne's director of mobile research.

No Evidence of Exploitation

The vulnerability, a socket left open and accessible on the Nvidia Icera modem used in the Blackphone, lets attackers take control of many of the modem's functions, including sending and receiving text messages, dialing or connecting calls, and changing the phone's settings.

Attackers could use a malicious application that exploits the vulnerability in the background without the device owner's knowledge, Strazzere told TechNewsWorld.

Exploit-based attacks would be used against this open socket, and "any antivirus- or antimalware-based technology wouldn't prevent it," he observed. "Even an HIPS-based solution that focused on exploits would have missed it since this is a zero-day-based vulnerability with no available signatures used for protection."

The options available to an attacker "are extensive," Strazzere remarked, but "we have seen no evidence that [it] was ever used for surveillance or malicious purposes."

The vulnerability was discovered during a reverse engineering exercise to prepare for a Red Naga training session. Red Naga is a security training group Strazzere and friends created to teach, train and grow the mobile security community at no cost.

The Icera modem is fairly obscure, used only by the Nvidia Shield tablet and "a few phones in India," Strazzere noted.

Because it's obscure, few security researches have looked into it, and devices in the field "might not be getting updates or the attention that more popular modems would receive," he said.

Following notification from SentinelOne, Silent Circle patched the vulnerability, which was found on the Blackphone 1.

It's not clear whether it exists in the Blackphone 2, which Silent Circle released in September.

The Third-Party Risk Factor

It's possible the socket was left open for debugging purposes in preproduction and was mistakenly left that way in production devices, Strazzere speculated.

Most mobile makers use third-party technology.

Third parties for both hardware and software components "are part of the supply chain for mobile device manufacturers and represent a significant risk," said Tim Erlin, director of IT security and risk strategy for Tripwire.

However, providing assurance for both hardware and software "has really been limited to high-level government equipment, so there are few assurance operations [for] the consumer goods market," he told TechNewsWorld.

Third-party providers typically are granted access to critical elements of the internal infrastructure and to sensitive data, said István Szabó, product manager at BalaBit. One remedy would be to monitor and record all activities when third parties access internal systems.

Such monitoring "gives the mobile device producer the ability to detect and immediately terminate sessions if something suspicious occurs ... and provides important evidence to help investigations should an incident occur," he told TechNewsWorld.

Another option is to use a behavioral-based technology such as the one SentinelOne offers to detect, prevent and remediate against attacks.

Silent Circle did not respond to our request to comment for this story.


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iPhone Sales Could Be Slowing

In the runup to the release of Apple's Q1 2016 earnings report Tuesday, one of the big unanswered questions was whether the iPhone could maintain its sales momentum.

Q1 2015 iPhone sales hit a record 74.5 million units, and it's possible the latest quarter's shipments may not equal -- let alone exceed -- that mark.

IDC has forecast of slowing sales industrywide for 2016. The smartphone market will see the first single-digit growth year ever.

The slowdown in China's economy, weak demand for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, and sluggish Apple Watch sales are also of concern.

However, "we think sales are actually going to be up in volume this year compared to a year ago," said Jeff Orr, a senior practice director at ABI Research.

First, China is still a great opportunity despite the slowing down of its economy, and second, the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus were launched "a little later than iPhones used to be launched previously, so we aren't sure whether or not they'll hinder Apple's quarter," he told the E-Commerce Times.

Great Expectations

Apple historically has exceeded analysts' expectations while playing down its performance prior to releasing its earnings reports.

FactSet StreetAccount estimated Apple sold 75.5 million iPhones in the quarter -- surpassing the previous year's record by about 1 million units, according to news reports.

FBR, which slashed its estimates for iPhone 6s sales in December, earlier this month predicted a huge uptick for the upcoming iPhone 7 and dismissed investors' fears about slowing growth at Apple as being overblown, while acknowledging the company has been through a rough patch.

The market agrees -- Apple shares were up by US$1.28 to $100.72 at the time of writing.

"Should we expect any company to keep setting records year over year? The answer is no," Orr said. "The problem Apple has is that investors always expect it to show a meteoric performance. The question is, at what point do you become disgruntled because you don't get meteoric performance out of the company?"

Leveraging Preowned Phones

Sales of refurbished smartphones are taking off, and Apple has ventured into this area.

Refurbished iPhones "can be sold in price-sensitive but growing markets without any brand dilution," pointed out Andreas Scherer, managing partner at Salto Partners.

"It could be tempting to develop a cheaper product that's being sold utilizing a different brand name in order to win in Africa, India and Indonesia, but the better strategy is to sell refurbished iPhones," he told the E-Commerce Times.

Grabbing Market Share

In the future, the replacement business will outpace the new phone business, ABI's Orr suggested.

"For Apple the issue no longer will be offering items good enough for first-time buyers to purchase an Apple product; it will be about getting Android or Microsoft phone users to switch," he explained.

It's "getting increasingly difficult to get that kind of differentiation, but that's not just an Apple problem. It's the same thing Samsung has been facing over the past two years and being hammered by investors over," Orr said.

Where Apple Might Go

Apple "needs to continue to win in its core markets," Scherer observed. That means "relentlessly focusing on replacing existing iPhones with newer versions" in markets such as the United States, and introducing upgrade incentive programs and incentives to buy additional phones as part of family plans through carriers.

Perhaps Apple could move away from its image as the largest manufacturer of smartphones, Orr said.

"We're hearing talk about moving the audio jack and creating a new accessories market that's exclusive and led by Apple -- Beat headphones and other products using the Lightning connector or wireless interfaces," he elaborated.

Other possibilities for Apple are wireless charging, improving battery life, wraparound screens, incorporating OLED technologies, and making iPhones "more user-proof and water-resistant," Orr suggested.


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Rugged Turing Phone to Run on Sailfish OS, Not Android

Turing Robotic Industries this week announced that it has uninstalled Google's Android mobile platform in favor of Jolla's Sailfish OS in its yet-to-appear secure smartphone.

The Turing Phone, molded from a single unit of the Liquidmorphium liquid-metal alloy, is designed to be more durable to absorb shocks and prevent screen breakage.

Preorder pricing ranges from US$610 for the 16-GB version to $870 for the 128-GB model.

Optimized for Swiftness

TRI started taking preorders for the smartphone last year. It delayed the planned shipping date of Dec. 18 to resolve remaining developmental steps for the device, including its security platform and operating system. The new projected shipping date is in April.

Customers found out about the OS switch this week through an email.

The Sailfish OS is optimized to run fast on the Turing Phones and the Snapdragon 801 processor, according to the notice.

"It has a super-secured platform environment, which Android lacks, and it does not use Java for UI (Android). So Turing targets design-savvy users and those who care about their privacy," said Steve Chao, CEO of TRI.

Google Play Store apps and Android apps in general will run on the Sailfish OS via the Alien Dalvik engine. User experience with Android will not be impacted, he told LinuxInsider.

Sailfish vs. Android

The Sailfish OS is a continuation of the Linux MeeGo OS, which was developed by an alliance of Nokia and Intel. The MeeGo mobile software platform was created through the merging of Moblin and the Maemo OS, which was developed by Nokia, according to Turing officials.

"TRI decided to use Sailfish OS because it has a long-term plan to build a trustworthy communications network. Sailfish is based on a pure mobile Linux platform with unmatched speed and with great performance," Chao said.

The decision was not made from a comparison with Android. Rather, the goal is to enable TRI to build an ecosystem around its own devices. The Turing Phone is just one example, he said.

"Sailfish is the perfect platform in which Turing may start building its ecosystem surrounding the IoT and the Future Networks (ISO/IEC 29181)," Chao said.

Tarnished Efforts

It's hard to understand why Turing would swap out the mature Android distro it originally promised. Sailfish is too new to know how it will perform, according to Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.

"Turing claims it's the fastest mobile OS in the market. That may matter since the Turing Phone is running a 2-year-old CPU. While Sailfish is capable of supporting Android apps, early reviews have also noted significant glitches," he told LinuxInsider.

TRI may have discouraged potential buyers with the change in OS. The company got a lot of good press for its idea of shipping a highly durable and secure phone aimed at consumers.

"But the project's delays have tarnished the effort somewhat, and it is not clear how this latest twist will play among Turing supporters," said King.

Better Plan In the Works

The change in OS will have little impact on buyers' interest in the Turing Phone, Chao maintained. The phone will be unique and secure.

"Most Turing users went for Turing's unique design. The design was the most important part of their decision in purchasing it. Most of them were tired of the iPhone and the same looks that Android phones had to offer," he said.

The OS change strengthens the interest of Turing fans who sought a secured environment for mobile computing. Sailfish is the perfect answer to that, he said.

Security Factors

TRI developed a decentralized authentication technology that provides a dramatic improvement over the logic of identity-based encryption, according to the company.

Both the master public key and the unique private key are anonymously bundled into the phone. Each Turing Phone can directly verify the identity of other Turing devices without the need for a third-party key center, it said.

This complete authentication creates a protected communications network insulated from cyberthreats and privacy intrusions, the company said. This circle of trust lets users exchange sensitive data such as Social Security numbers or bank wiring instructions with the assurance the information will reach only the device intended.


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Vaio's Phone Biz to Test Windows 10's Reception in Asia

Vaio on Wednesday announced Phone Biz, a Windows 10 mobile phone.

The device doesn't have a SIM, leaving users free to select their own carriers.

The Phone Biz lets users easily access corporate apps, Microsoft SharePoint and Microsoft Exchange, as well as the Azure cloud, according to Vaio.

The OS is synced with the latest version of Windows 10. Users can manage settings from the same Microsoft account as their PCs.

The Phone Biz incorporates Microsoft's Continuum feature, which lets users connect phones to TVs or monitors, if they want to work on a larger screen.

The Phone Biz supports single sign-on and connection speeds of up to 225 Mbps.

The position and size of tiles are customizable, and the phone comes with the Cortana digital assistant.

The phone can use encryption or a virtual private network. It includes built-in GPS and supports remote data erase and remote locking.

Admins can change users' access to apps and data remotely.

The Phone Biz will be available on NTT DoCoMo's network. It reportedly will begin selling in Japan in April for about US$430.

More About the Phone Biz

The Phone Biz has an aluminum body and a full high-definition tempered glass screen. It has a microUSB 2.0 port, said Vaio.

Four versions will be available. Two use eight-core 1.5-GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 617 processors. One of them has a 5.5-inch 1080x1920 screen and the other a 5-inch 720x1280 screen.

The other two are 5-inch devices with 720x1280 screens. One has a 1.2 GHz quad-core processor and the other a 1.1 GHz quad-core processor.

RAM ranges from 1 GB to 3 GB, and internal storage from 8 GB to 16 GB.

Rear cameras are 8 MP or 13 MP, depending on the model, and front cameras range from 1 to 5 MP.

None of the features is particularly outstanding, said Mike Jude, a program manager at Stratecast/Frost & Sullivan.

However, "the Continuum capability that allows the phone to serve as a platform or CPU for a desktop ... makes the Vaio phone better suited for business use than personal use," he told TechNewsWorld.

"With Sony, it's all about design, so this phone is incredibly good-looking," said Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group.

Sony has a minority stake in Vaio, which it spun off in 2014.

Alternative platforms often work far better in Asia than they do in the U.S., Enderle told TechNewsWorld. The Asia-Pacific region as a whole "is more accepting of diversity, making it a far better geography to launch a phone like this."

Fighting an Uphill Battle

Worldwide smartphone shipments hit a record in Q4 2015, totaling nearly 400 million units, IDC reported. That is nearly 6 percent higher than the same quarter in 2014. As a whole, 2015 was a record year for phone shipments.

However, the Windows Phone OS' share of the market has been hovering around 2 percent since March, according to Netmarketshare.

That hasn't deterred Microsoft, which last fall announced that several Japanese companies would be making Windows 10 phones.

That said, Windows Phone "never really caught on that much, because it's highly dependent on a very good network connection," said Frost's Jude. "With active tiles, you need a reliable data connection and, if you're roaming, that might be hard to come by."

The current push in Japan indicates Microsoft is "fighting for a beachhead and have found Asia a far better geography to get one," Enderle said.

Microsoft "isn't giving up on mobile as the SwiftKey purchase clearly showcases," he noted. "It's looking for a geography to take back and use as a springboard to once again become relevant in this space."


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