Posts Tagged: "Microsoft"

Biometrics, or the measure of human physiological characteristics as expressed by data metrics, is becoming a much more valuable sector of high tech in recent months. By 2020, the global market for biometric systems should surpass $24.4 billion according to data released by Markets and Markets, with the sector growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.5 percent between 2015 and 2020. Biometrics has applications in a couple of growing tech sectors, including e-commerce, e-passports and smartphones. Computer software and hardware developer Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) of Redmond, WA, is looking to apply biometrics tech to its smartphone products.

The fitness wearables market is driving millions of shipments per year in silicon and devices. By 2019, IDC predicts that the worldwide wearables market will grow to around 155.7 million units. In addition to driving revenues — the fitness wearables market alone is projected to reach nearly $30 billion US dollars in 2016 as noted. The patent licensing landscape for this market is on the verge of explosive growth, especially since many of the patents used in IoT technology are nearly 20 years old.

Recently, Windows 10 data tracking has gotten Microsoft into legal troubles with a data regulatory agency that has been engaged with data privacy activism in the past. France’s Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL) issued a formal notice to Microsoft informing the company that it has three months to take measures that will make Windows 10 compliant with the French Data Protection Act. CNIL noted multiple ways in which Windows 10 fails to satisfy French data protection law including excessive data collection from apps and the Windows Store, lack of security measures for personal identification numbers (PINs), a lack of user consent for targeted advertising and no option to block cookies. (At this point, it should be pointed out that CNIL’s official website uses cookies, as the screenshot posted here will show readers.)

As anyone who’s worked at a law firm can attest, lawyers at a firm use each others’ experience to inform their strategy in a given case. Firm-wide emails asking if anyone has appeared in front of a particular judge or tribunal are routine and allow lawyers to benefit from the insights their colleagues provide. Big data analytics allow lawyers to gather this same information, but on a much larger scale. For instance, analytics platforms allow attorneys to view their judge’s complete history, including every decision issued and every case cited, to identify the legal precedent the judge finds most persuasive.

One of the companies which has positioned itself strongly in the industrial Internet sector is American conglomerate General Electric (NYSE:GE) of Fairfield, CT. This company has been melding the massive industrial machinery it manufactures, such as wind turbines and aircraft engines, with sensor networks and computer software platforms which allow the company to better ensure the operational efficacy of its equipment. A 2015 study of the industrial Internet’s impacts on corporations produced by GE and strategy firm Accenture indicates that big data analytics were within the top three priorities for 80 to 90 percent of corporate executives across eight industry sectors; the aviation, wind and power generation industries each eclipsed 90 percent in this regard.

On June 13th, the Redmond, WA-based multinational tech company Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) announced that it had agree to acquire LinkedIn (NYSE:LNKD) in a $26.2 billion cash transaction which values LinkedIn stock at $196 per share. According to news reports, this is Microsoft’s largest corporate acquisition ever. It greatly outpaces the company’s $8.5 billion Skype acquisition and the $7.6 Nokia purchase, both of which happened prior to the tenure of current CEO Satya Nadella. With Microsoft’s acquiring LinkedIn at such a high premium, there has been talks that mergers and acquisitions may increase in the social network sector.

With the advent of enhancements in audio-video technology, Virtual-Reality (VR) has taken the world by storm. While VR has been enjoying most of the limelight, another similar technology – Augmented Reality (AR) is catching up fast. The patent landscape of VR is dominated by Sony followed by IBM, Samsung and Microsoft when it comes to total number of patented inventions. Microsoft is the leader in AR when it comes to the number of inventions filed as patents. It has 602 issued patents and published applications distributed among 151 inventions. Microsoft is followed by Samsung, Sony, LG and Qualcomm.

Of the virtual reality options currently on the market, the Oculus Rift is arguably built upon one of the most technologically robust VR platforms. Capturing the movements of a person wearing the Oculus Rift headset is a sensor which tracks infrared LED constellations projected onto a user. Each Oculus Rift unit comes with the IR LED sensor, a mounting stand, and a cable to connect the sensor to a personal computer for processing resources. Users can also use an Oculus Rift remote or a compatible remote controller, such as an Xbox game controller, to input commands and interact with the virtual world.

From there the Federal Circuit said: ”We do not read Alice to broadly hold that all improvements in computer-related technology are inherently abstract and, therefore, must be considered at step two. Indeed, some improvements in computer-related technology when appropriately claimed are undoubtedly not abstract, such as a chip architecture, an LED display, and the like. Nor do we think that claims directed to software, as opposed to hardware, are inherently abstract and therefore only properly analyzed at the second step of the Alice analysis. Software can make non-abstract improvements to computer technology just as hardware improvements can, and sometimes the improvements can be accomplished through either route.”

Fans of the Star Wars movie franchise might remember Princess Leia’s desperate plea for help to Obi-Wan Kenobi via hologram in Episode IV. Microsoft’s holoportation system goes a step beyond that by offering real-time interaction between remote participants, although a headset is needed to fully participate. The three-dimensional content feed is created by putting a person in a space with a multi-camera array which records video of a participant from multiple angles. Those different angles are spliced together to create a holographic version of a person moving through space and viewable through a headset.

The subsea data center operations will be cooled by the surrounding water and designs with turbines or tidal energy systems, which would further reduce electricity costs, have been considered. Although the data center’s aquatic environment is certainly a novel concept, the use of combined heat and power (CHP) plants to provide a cheap, dedicated power supply and temperature controls is being considered more often in recent months.

IBM once again has topped the list of annual U.S. patent recipients, receiving 7,355 patents in 2015. This is the 23rd consecutive year IBM has received more U.S. patents than any other entity in the world. More than 8,500 IBMers residing in 50 states and territories and 46 countries are responsible for IBM’s 2015 patent tally. IBM inventors who reside outside the U.S. contributed to more than 36 percent of the company’s 2015 patents.

Unlike classical computing, which relies on bits that take on values of either 1 or 0 in order to process information, quantum computing relies on qubits. Qubits can take the distinguishable 1 or 0 value, but unlike classical bits, there are aspects of quantum mechanics, which make qubits much more useful in certain applications. One unique element of qubits are their ability to take on a superposition, meaning that a single qubit can be in multiple states at a single moment in the same way that a light can behave as a wave or a particle at the molecular level. Entanglement, or the state in which two qubits can be inextricably linked even when separated by great distances, is another effect of quantum mechanics which has implications for computing. Superposition and entanglement would allow a quantum computer to rapidly perform calculations which could never be completed by a classical computer, such as finding the factors of a number with more than 500 digits, unlocking a new world in data encryption and analysis.

American business interests could be adrift at sea after the European Court of Justice invalidated the U.S.-EU Safe Harbor agreement, which governs the transfer of data from European citizens to data centers outside of Europe. Meanwhile, the high tech world of Silicon Valley is getting a new, well-heeled neighbor when Japanese automaker Toyota Motors Corp. (NYSE:TM) realizes its plans of establishing a new five-year corporate venture focused on developing artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Google is also undertaking the push to develop its own processing chips in an effort to stem fragmentation of Android device development.

Retailers always top the list of seasonal and holiday hiring sprees but one of the largest employer of seasonal workers the past few years doesn’t own a single brick-and-mortar retail establishment. That would be e-commerce giant Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) of Seattle, WA. In 2014, the Internet retailer announced that it would hire 80,000 seasonal workers during last year’s holiday season. In 2015, Amazon has upped that number to 100,000 workers that it plans to employ on at least a temporary basis. This makes Amazon the single largest employer of seasonal workers during 2015, ahead of United Parcel Service, Inc. (NYSE:UPS) and its 95,000 holiday hires.