#Big data driving market disruption, leaving many organizations fearing irrelevance: Study A global report by Capgemini, provider of consulting, technology and outsourcing services, in partnership with EMC Corporation, reveals that amid the market disruption being driven by Big data,
unless they embrace new data analytics solutions. The report, ig & Fast Data: The rise of Insight-Driven Businesssurveyed over 1, 000 C-suite and senior decision makers across North america, South america, Europe and Asia-Pacific to understand the need and enterprise readiness for Big data adoption.
According to 64 per cent of enterprises surveyed Big data is changing traditional business boundaries and is enabling new providers to move into their industry.
while a majority,(53 per cent) expect to face rivalry from data-enabled start-ups. This suggests that mastering the management
Data-driven insights are fundamental to business performance There is widespread recognition that the data which organizations hold is becoming a core component of market value (59 per cent of respondees).
This is also reflected in the boardroom, with almost a third of companies (32 per cent) having already introduced
or in the process of introducing new C-level roles for data management. Further findings from the report show:
-54 per cent say that investment in Big data over the next three years will outstrip past investment-61 per cent acknowledge that Big data is now a driver of revenues in its own right
they have had to circumvent IT teams to carry out the necessary data analytics required to gain business insights-Over half (52 per cent) of respondents reported that developing fast insights from data was hampered by limitations in the IT development process Accessing Big data faster is where C-suite executives
77 per cent state that decision makers increasingly require data in real-time. John Brahim, Head of Capgemini Insights & Data global practice states:
e have reached an inflection point in the market. Information is at the heart of every business decision
and ultimately to monetize data in its own right. Every enterprise must now define a path to become an insight-driven business.
We have designed a core set of guidelines and created underlying frameworks that will help enterprises to go on the journey to get insights at the point of action everywhere.
Paul Maritz, Pivotal Chief executive officer, EMC Federation-ompelling user experiences and new business models in the digital age are fueled by the dramatically increasing availability and usage of data.
and rapidly react to multiple sources of data, but to build the insights gained into the fabric of
"With 90 per cent of all the data in the world created in the last two years
and 80 billion sensors activated by 2020, organizations must build for Big data business models and insight economies.
Success requires the mastery of data to decisions. The ability to ingest all types of data,
transform data to information, surface up insights, and take action on insights will enable organizations to create disruptive business models.
Those leaders that succeed will find that 20 per cent of their revenue streams will come from these insights by 2020.
More importantly, these companies will possess an unfair digital advantage in meeting regulatory compliance improving operations efficiency, creating new revenue streams,
differentiating in strategy, and delivering on brand authenticity",states R"Ray"Wang, Principal Analyst and Chairman, Constellation Research, Inc i
#More Russian tanks, equipment cross Ukraine border U s. official WASHINGTON (Reuters)- Russian tanks and heavy military equipment have crossed the Ukrainian border in the last few days in breach of a European
-brokered ceasefire agreed on Feb 12, a senior U s. State department official said on Tuesday. The comments by U s. Assistant Secretary of state for Europe, Victoria Nuland, follow accusations by Ukraine
and weapons to support separatists in eastern Ukraine despite the Minsk ceasefire deal, a charge the Kremlin has denied.
The last few days have seen new transfers of Russian tanks, armoured vehicles, heavy artillery and rocket equipment over the border to the separatists,
Brian Mckeon, the U s. principal deputy under secretary of defence, told lawmakers 11 Russian battalion tactical teams were in Russia's Rostov region across the Ukrainian border.
"It's a case of finding it in the stocks of the United states military, and in the case of some equipment we're purchasing it off the production line."
The aircraft's wings are covered by more than 17,000 solar cells that recharge the plane's batteries.
They say the visionary journey is a"strong message for clean technologies.""SI2 is slated to make 12 stops during its 35,000-kilometer (21,700-mile) journey,
but the seat reclines for stretching and its cushion can be removed for access to a toilet.
spanning larger than a Boeing 747 jumbo jet. At about 2, 300 kilograms (5, 070 pounds), the Si2 weighs about as much as a minivan or mid-sized truck.
An empty Boeing 747, in comparison, weighs some 180,000 kilograms (400,000 pounds) u
#Travelex'Supercard'points to lower consumer FX costs LONDON (Reuters)- Travelex (IPO-TUL. L) unveiled a new UK digital wallet
and card scheme on Thursday, an important step by one of the big global players in foreign currency travel money to test out lower margins as existing business models come under threat.
Fuelled by the electronification of the $5 trillion a day global currency market, the World bank has aimed to reduce the cost of exchanging even small sums physically or electronically to less than 5 percent of the value of transactions.
The original deadline for that move has already been missed but those fees are falling steadily,
presenting difficult choices to those like Travelex, Western union (WU. N) or Moneygram (MGI. O) who have large retail networks built on higher transaction costs.
They have been investing to deal with the issue and have far deeper pockets than smaller and nimble tech startups like Transferwise,
It allows British travellers to register up to five UK credit or debit cards which they then use to make payments while abroad electronically,
or through a plastic Supercard issued by Travelex. Crucially the only hard fee charged by the company is the 0. 25-0. 55 percent spreads Visa
and Mastercard tend to charge on top of interbank foreign exchange rates. That compares to real costs of spending euros
or dollars on most cards starting at an absolute minimum of just over 1 percent,
or with Visa and Mastercard closer to 3 percent.""The world has changed. Customer behaviour is changing,
the way they interact with businesses and services of all kinds, not just FX,"said the head of Travelex's new digital team, former Google and e-Harmony executive Sean Cornwell."
"We have set up this digital growth fund to significantly invest in digital products and services,
Over the next few years we are investing tens of millions of pounds.""A number of sector experts Reuters talked to said it was clear that the bigger players were beginning to recognise that they had to change business models
which have relied typically on networks of thousands of sales points in airports, post offices and shops.
at stake for households in many developing economies are differences adding up to millions of dollars in fees annually."
an ex-American express executive who has worked as a consultant for a number of big retail FX firms.
www. travelmoneyconsulting. com)" Are these enormous networks-Western union has almost half a million points internationally, going to be necessary?
Ola due to high encryption codes, say ISPS Dot had issued a letter to Internet service providers (ISPS) asking them to block websites of taxi operators Uber,
However, websites are still accessible to all. ISPS now say they are unable to block taxi aggregator websites Ola and Uber due to high encryption codes.
ISPS can only block http sites and not https as the latter have higher encryption. This means they can block Taxiforsure,
but not Ola and Uber. hese sites can not be blocked because of technical issues. We have given already representation to government earlier.
This was a general representation. We are giving compliance except in https sites, Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) President Rajesh Chharia said.
He added that Dot had accepted itself that there was a need to set up a committee to discuss modalities around blocking of https sites around 3-4 months back.
The Delhi government had written to the Department of Electronic & Information technology (Deity) in March that despite the ban, Uber,
Ola Cabs and Taxiforsure continue to book passengers through their apps. All app-based cab services were banned in the national capital last year after a driver of Uber,
the US-based online taxi-hailing company, was accused allegedly of raping a female passenger e
#MIT researchers announce new transistors for more power efficient electronics A material called gallium nitride (Gan) is poised to become the next semiconductor for power electronics,
Massachusetts institute of technology spin out Cambridge Electronics Inc (CEI) has announced a line of Gan transistors and power electronic circuits that promise to cut energy usage in data centres, electric cars,
Many of these power-electronics systems rely on silicon transistors that switch on and off to regulate voltage but, due to speed and resistance constraints,
waste energy as heat. CEI Gan transistors have at least one-tenth the resistance of such silicon-based transistors,
which allows for much higher energy-efficiency. While Gan transistors have several benefits over silicon, safety drawbacks and expensive manufacturing methods have kept largely them off the market.
The researchers managed to overcome these issues. Power transistors are designed to flow high currents when on,
and to block high voltages when off. But Gan transistors are typically ormally onmeaning, by default,
theyl always allow a flow of current. The researchers developed Gan transistors that were ormally offby modifying the structure of the material. e always talk about Gan as gallium and nitrogen
but you can modify the basic Gan material, add impurities and other elements, to change its properties,
an MIT associate professor who co-invented the technology. To drop manufacturing costs, the researchers developed new fabrication technologies
which involved switching out gold metals used in manufacturing Gan devices for metals that were compatible with silicon fabrication,
CEI is currently using its advanced transistors to develop laptop power adaptors that are approximately 1. 5 cubic inches in volume the smallest ever made.
Among the other feasible applications for the transistors is better power electronics for data centres run by Google
Amazon, Facebook, and other companies, to power the cloud. Currently, these data centres eat up about 2 per cent of electricity in the US.
But Gan-based power electronics, Palacios said, could save a very significant fraction of that.
Another application will be replacing the silicon-based power electronics in electric car, Palacios said. These are in the battery chargers
and the inverters that convert the battery power to drive the electric motors. The silicon transistors used today have constrained a power capability that limits how much power the car can handle.
This is one of the main reasons why there are few large electric vehicles the researchers said. Gan-based power electronics, on the other hand, could boost power output for electric cars,
while making them more energy-efficient and lighter and, therefore, cheaper and capable of driving longer distances v
#Smart sensor developed by Duke university, lets your smartphone hear in noisy parties People trying to talk to Apple electronic personal assistant Siri in a crowded place may soon no longer have to look like they are about to eat their iphones,
thanks to a new invention by Duke university engineers. ee invented a sensing system that can efficiently solve an interesting problem that modern technology has to deal with on a daily basis,
said the paper lead author Abel Xie. his could improve the performance of voice-activated devices like smartphones and game consoles, Xie added.
The sensor developed by Duke engineers can determine the direction of a sound and extract it from the surrounding background noise.
Once miniaturised the device could have applications in voice-command electronics, medical sensing devices that use waves, like ultrasound,
and hearing aids and cochlear implants. The proof-of-concept device looks a bit like a thick, plastic, pie-shaped honeycomb split into dozens of slices.
While the honeycomb openings may all look the same, their depth varies from hole to hole. he cavities behave like soda bottles
when you blow across their tops. The depth of the cavities affects the pitch of the sound they make,
and this changes the incoming sound in a subtle but detectable way, said Steve Cummer, professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke.
When a sound wave gets to the device, it gets slightly distorted by the cavities. And that distortion has a specific signature depending
what slice of the pie it passed over. After being picked up by a microphone on the other side,
the sound is transmitted to a computer that is able to separate the jumble of noises based on these unique distortions.
The researchers tested their invention in multiple trials by simultaneously sending three identical sounds at the sensor from three different directions.
It was able to distinguish between them with a 96.7 percent accuracy rate. The findings were described in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences e
#Blackberry introduces Porsche Design P983 Graphite at Rs 99,990 in India Blackberry has launched the Blackberry Porsche Design P983 Graphite smartphone in India at a price of Rs 99,990.
The company has listed also out a few exclusive Porsche Design accessories that will be included in the box such as a premium stereo headset,
an international charging kit, a polishing cloth and a USB cable for high-speed data transfer. In terms of specifications, the smartphone features a 3. 1-inch touch screen with a 720 x 720 pixel resolution and offers a pixel density of 330ppi.
It is powered by a 1. 5 GHZ dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 processor paired with 2gb RAM.
It includes an internal storage at 16gb and can be expanded further up to 128gb via microsd card.
It comes equipped with an 8mp rear camera along with a 2mp front facing camera. In terms of connectivity, the device includes Wi-fi 802.11 a b/g/n, Bluetooth 4. 0, LTE, FM radio, Micro-USB,
and Micro-HDMI. Running blackberry 10, it is packed by a 2100 mah battery. Commenting on the launch, Hitesh Shah, Director of Sales and Distribution, at Blackberry India stated, ith the launch of the new P983 Graphite from Blackberry,
we bring a unique stylish smartphone combined with the superior productivity and ultimate security experience of Blackberry 10 technology for our Indian consumers.
This new smartphone is custom-built for power professionals aiming to make a style statement while not willing to compromise on effective communication and collaboration. ags:
Blackberry Porsche Design P983 Graphite, Blackberry Porsche Design P983 Graphite features, Blackberry Porsche Design P983 Graphite launch, Blackberry Porsche Design
P983 Graphite price, Blackberry Porsche Design P983 Graphite spec r
#Google Project Ara modular smartphone delayed to 2016 Google had announced earlier this year, that it will unveil the modular smartphone in Puerto rico as part of a pilot program that will allow people to choose their own hardware based on their needs and interests.
Looks like, amidst the all new structuring happening at Google, the modular device will have to wait until next year.
Now, the company has tweeted about the delay in the Project Ara with testing pushed to 2016.
The company disclosed that there are no plans to test the modular phone project in Puerto rico later this year.
The company also disclosed that they are looking for a few locations in the US. Earlier this year
on day 2 of the Google I/O developers conference, at the ATAP keynote, Google engineer Rafa Camargo assembled a Project Ara phone as part of a live demo,
and the phone came alive soon after. Google, known by its employees for frequent eorgs announced a major shake up with the holding company Alphabet.
Google, Google X and other products now become subsidiary of the parent company. Toshiba has teamed up with Gujarat-based Einfochips to provide chips for Google Project Ara.
The camera modules will be made available in both 5mp and 13mp versions, and a 2mp front-facing module is also in the works.
Last year the company had released a video showing the first prototype of the device. The techie for whom the project is named,
Ara Knaian, was seen showcasing the first prototype in the video dubbed Spiral 1. For those not in the know-how,
Project Ara comes with a structural frame that holds smartphone modules of the owner choice,
such as a display, keyboard or say the battery. The approach allows users to swap out malfunctioning modules
or upgrade as new innovations emerge. This also means that the handset can potentially last much longer than normal smartphones do.
Undoubtedly it is an interesting project that has the potential to revolutionise the mobile world e
#Competition and opportunity: What will ASEAN mean for EU industry? By the end of this year member states of the Association of Southeast Asian nations (ASEAN) will be harmonised under one legal framework after ten years of planning.
The union between Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam will establish principles of free movement of goods and (professional) people.
The supplement sector was one of 12 key priorities of the single-market project with plans to harmonise safety standards, health claim substantiation and upper levels for vitamins and minerals and potentially other nutrients.
Speaking at the industry event Vitafoods in Geneva last week Pushpanathan Sundram, managing director of EAS Strategic Advice Asia Pacific division, told us companies outside the ASEAN ten also stood to benefit.
The deal will set a tariff-free zone for all ten countries by 2018, allowing goods to move tax-free between member states.
Under a ules of originarrangement, end products only in part sourced, processed or packaged in the area could also be eligible.
This wouldn be as nstitutionalas the European food safety authority (EFSA), but Sundram said this could evolve in the future. ventually
and data demands many ASEAN players couldn match up to. By mimicking the EU process and therefore bringing the two regionsstandards closer together,
Greater confidence in safety and production standards would also attract ASEAN-based production investment from foreign firms. r
Btr1 and Btr2, are completely new genetic discoveries and according to Geoff Fincher from the University of Adelaide,
what we know about the domestication of the crop. his latest genomic information and the potential to introduce as yet unused wild barley traits may offer great new potential in our barley breeding programs,
said Emeritus Professor Fincher, who co-authored the study. The study was initiated in Japan by a group of geneticists at the Okayama University Institute of Plant science
and Resources and was led by Professor Takao Komatsuda of the National Institute of Agrobiological Sciences. Discoveries related to the brittle rachis show that there is a distinct difference between cell wall thickness in brittle and non-brittle plant types,
which determines whether wild barley drops its grain to the ground at maturity or retains it in the ear. he Japanese geneticists found that the cell walls were much thinner in brittle crop and much thicker in non-brittle crop.
With the latter the grain didn fall off naturally when the plant dried out, Professor Fincher said.
This characteristic originally benefited the barley plant because it helped in dispersing the seed and the natural spreading of the species. After the Japanese geneticists had proved the gene formation was linked to the brittle characteristic,
they now want to see the relationship between the cell wall and other characteristics. Professor Finch said that
although the discoveries have the potential to create possibilities in barley breeding processes, the findings have a largely agricultural interest. he genes are an exciting new genetic discovery
however it is also about the anthropology and domestication of barley as a widely cultivated and consumed grain. n
#Food emulsifiers linked to gut bacteria changes and obesity While it has been suggested long that gut microbiota disturbances are involved in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), obesity and metabolic syndrome,
the new findings suggest emulsifiers might be partially responsible for this disturbance and the increased incidence of these diseases.
The study used mice to test the effect of two common emulsifiers-carboxymethylcellulose and polysorbate-80-on the microbiome make up
and metabolism, finding that relatively low-level concentrations of the emulsifiers resulted in distinct alterations to the gut microbial ecosystem (microbiota) and led to low-grade inflammation and the onset of metabolic syndrome.
Led by Dr Benoit Chassaing of Georgia State university the research team reported that the emulsifier-induced metabolic syndrome was associated with microbiota encroachment, altered species composition and increased pro-inflammatory potential.#
#These results support the emerging concept that perturbed host#microbiota interactions resulting in low-grade inflammation can promote adiposity
#Moreover, they suggest that the broad use of emulsifying agents might be contributing to an increased societal incidence of obesity/metabolic syndrome and other chronic inflammatory diseases.##
##However, Professor Tom Sanders of#King s college London warned that the study findings should not be a cause for concern-citing a major issue with the intake levels used in the study.
Sanders said the research team's#conclusion that overeating in humans may be driven by food additives is'headline grabbing
#Indeed, the nutrition and diet expert added that the very high intake values used in the mouse study mean that it bears no impact for humans,
as we onlt consume tiny amounts of any emulsifier ingredients in the foods we eat.#
#This paper reports the effects in mice of very high intakes of two carbohydrate-based food additives (carboxymethyl cellulose E466 and polysorbate-80 E433...
"A mouse weighs about 20g and drinks about 5 ml water a day, so an intake of 1%of these additives corresponds to an intake of 50mg/d or 2500 mg/kg.""
""The dramatic increase in these diseases IBD, obesity and metabolic syndrome#has occurred despite consistent human genetics, suggesting a pivotal role for an environmental factor,
"commented Chassaing.""Food interacts intimately with the microbiota so we considered what modern additions to the food supply might possibly make gut bacteria more pro-inflammatory."
"Chassaing and his colleagues theorised that emulsifiers might affect the gut microbiota to promote these inflammatory diseases
and designed experiments in mice to test this possibility. Mice were fed two commonly used emulsifiers, polysorbate 80 and carboxymethylcellulsose,
at doses seeking to model the broad consumption of the numerous emulsifiers that are incorporated into almost all processed foods,
they said. The team found that emulsifier consumption changed the species composition of the gut microbiota
-and did so in a manner that made it more pro-inflammatory. According to the team, the altered microbiota had enhanced capacity to digest
which can activate pro-inflammatory gene expression by the immune system, said Chassaing and colleagues. These changes in bacterial expression triggered chronic colitis in mice genetically prone to this disorder,
revealed the team. In contrast, in mice with normal immune systems, emulsifiers induced low-grade or mild intestinal inflammation and metabolic syndrome, characterized by increased levels of food consumption, obesity, hyperglycemia and insulin resistance.
However, the effects of emulsifier consumption were eliminated in germfree mice which lack a microbiota, said the team.
Who also showed that transplant of the microbiota from emulsifiers-treated mice to germfree mice was enough to transfer some parameters of low-grade inflammation and metabolic syndrome.
Chassaing and his team said this indicates that the microbiota has a#central role#in mediating the adverse effect of emulsifiers.
The team is now testing additional emulsifiers and designing experiments to investigate how emulsifiers affect humans.
If similar results are obtained, it would indicate a role for the food additive in driving the epidemic of obesity,
its interrelated consequences and a range of diseases associated with chronic gut inflammation, said the authors.
While detailed mechanisms underlying the effect of emulsifiers on metabolism remain under study, Chassaing and co pointed out that avoiding excess food consumption is of paramount importance."
"We do not disagree with the commonly held assumption that overeating is a central cause of obesity
and metabolic syndrome,"said Andrew Gewirtz, senior author of the study.##Rather, our findings reinforce the concept suggested by earlier work that low-grade inflammation resulting from an altered microbiota can be an underlying cause of excess eating."
"Source: Nature Published online ahead of print, doi: 10.1038/nature14232#Dietary emulsifiers impact the mouse gut microbiota promoting colitis and metabolic syndrome#Authors:
Benoit Chassaing, et a e
#Scientists create food powder from waste, increasing shelf life from two weeks to two years Kent Ngo, Vita Jarolimkova,
Gerald Perry Marin, came up with the idea at the Thought for Food Challenge in Lisbon,
Portugal, winning a runner up prize of $5, 000 earlier this year. The competition addresses the need to come up with innovative ideas to tackle global challenges.
Ngo said Fopo tackles the problem of food security and how to feed the world by 2050,
by buying old stock from grocery stores, processing the produce into powder, and then reselling the final product back on the market.
and Jarolimkova are studying the Erasmus Mundus Masters program Food Innovation and Product Design, at Lund University and Ngo studies a masters of Mechanical engineering and Industrial Design.
The trio said with retailers, importers, and producers throwing away a lot of food due to strict regulations on the expiration date, it makes more business sense for them to sell their fresh produce having only one day left to Fopo.
It will be placed in nearby warehouse facilities, and Fopo will then sell the powder back to retailers with an extended shelf life. urrently studying Masters in Food Innovation and Product Design,
we are very much aware of the problems about food waste, said Jarolimkova. he paradox is that the world is producing a lot of food that is more than enough to feed the population,
but people are still hungry. This made us rethink how we can make use of the food we have
and how to save it through modern technology. ood preservation was done in the past, from fermentation, to Asian spices,
and now using refrigerators. The next step to prolonging shelf life, is breaking down the food further.
The students see the powder as a source of nutrition derived from natural sources without additives,
as compared to processed food. owadays, freeze dried fruits and vegetables are produced as premium snacks, but we aim to use low priced produce and modern technology
which reduces the processing price per kg to produce an affordable range of nutritional food powders,
Team Ahaar developed an automated refrigeration truck to reduce postharvest waste. First place went to team Innovision from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh who won $10,
000 for creating a solar-powered, micro climate chamber to increase the shelf life of produce that is portable and affordable for use in developing countries o
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