Samsung's graphene-breakthrough could lead to flexible, lighter devices

Samsung is working on new innovations in Graphene-synthesis which could pave way to new era of electronic devices.

Samsung has announced a new breakthrough in the manufacture of graphene that could lead to some new categories of devices including mobiles, wearable technology and flexible displays.

Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT) in collaboration with Sungkyunkwan University have developed a synthesis method to produce graphene that can be used in electronic semi-conductors and other applications. Graphene is one of the strongest and most durable materials on the planet. It is about 200 times stronger than steel, 6 times lighter and 20 times stronger than diamond. Graphene is made of densely packed carbon atoms in a hexagonal lattice.
Samsung has developed a new method to create high-quality graphene on silicon wafers, which could pave the way for the mass production of graphene transistors. Samsung stated in a blog post that this could lead to "flexible displays, wearable's and other next-generation electronic devices."
“This is one of the most significant breakthroughs in graphene research in history,” said the laboratory leaders at SAIT’s Lab. “We expect this discovery to accelerate the commercialization of graphene, which could unlock the next era of consumer electronic technology.”






Samsung is not the only company looking into developing graphene. Researchers at IBM, Nokia and SanDisk have been experimenting with the material to create sensors, transistors and memory storage. Engineers at IBM Research have built the world’s most advanced graphene-based chip, that offers 10,000 times improved performance over previous graphene ICs. The new method is also compatible with standard silicon CMOS processes and paves the way to make the first commercial graphene computer chip possible.
Apart from electronics, other industries are also working on the 'Miracle material'. Last year, The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation gave a $100,000 grant to fund the development of graphene prophylactics. Car manufacturers are also exploring how to build electronic cars with graphene bodies that would also work as solar panels which charge the car's battery. Similarly, aircraft makers are also hoping to build planes out of graphene.


SOURCE: Samsung

Can BlackBerry turn profitable by 2016? Check out what their CEO has to say

BlackBerry CEO John Chen: ‘If I cannot make money on handsets, I will not be in the handset business’

BlackBerry CEO John Chen announced that he is ready to shift focus away from the handset division in a bid to turn BlackBerry profitable by 2016.

After announcing a three-year plan to turn things around for Blackberry earlier this year, CEO John Chen has stated that the organization would exit the handset business unless the division turns a profit. Chen said that Blackberry would instead focus on the corporate sector by offering “investments, acquisitions and partnerships.”

Chen did not divulge exact numbers, but did say that overall sales of 10 million units would be a minimum to make a profit. The manufacturer is not off to a great start, as it had recorded revenues for only 2 million handsets last quarter. However, the imminent launch of devices like the BlackBerry Z3 should see increased handset sales this quarter. The BlackBerry Z3 has been manufactured in collaboration with Foxconn and is designed for emerging markets. The Z3 features a 4.5-inch qHD screen, 1.2 GHz Snapdragon 400, 1.5 GB RAM, 5 MP camera, 8 GB internal memory and a micro-SD card slot. The handset will likely be available for under $200, which is great value for the hardware it offers.

Even if BlackBerry does not sell 10 million units, the handset division will not be axed. To offset the revenue loss, Chen said that BlackBerry will focus on generating revenue from its QNX software and BBM instant-messaging service. He suggested that network security solutions were also being considered. “We are building an engineering team on the service side that is focused on security. We are building an engineering team on the device side that is focused on security. We will do some partnerships and we will probably, potentially do an M&A on security.”

Chen re-iterated that BlackBerry as a whole is on course to be profitable by 2016. He said that the organization would be cash-flow positive by February 2015, which if it occurs would be an achievement considering it lost $423 million this quarter. Chen also mentioned that long-term goals at BlackBerry included extending the platform to connect to all manner of connected devices.

“We are not only interested in managing BlackBerry devices. We are interested in managing all devices that you would like to speak to each other,” he said.

Today is the last day of support for Windows XP

Today is the last day of support for Windows XP
April 8 will be the last Patch Tuesday for the 12-and-a-half-year-old OS, but many institutional customers have negotiated for extended support.

The day that Microsoft first warned about in 2007 has finally arrived: it’s the last Patch Tuesday for Windows XP.

Microsoft’s stoic operating system was first introduced to the world in August 2001 — that’s still used by an estimated 27.7 percent of all PCs — will no longer be supported by Microsoft as of tomorrow. While this date has been known for approximately six years in order for users to make plans, the last set of patches does not address a critical zero day vulnerability in RTF files that allows for malware delivery (Microsoft will be issuing patches for newer versions of Windows and World).

But for many, support for Windows XP will be available for a year at a hefty price. Some enterprise level customers of Microsoft, which have an active Premier Support agreement with the company, can continue to have Microsoft support the operating system for another year. Microsoft hasn’t announced an exact figure for this stop-gap support, but Gartner reports that number to be in the $200-per-desktop range with a maximum fee of $5 million.

One of the customers paying for an additional year of support is the United Kingdom’s government. For approximately $9 million, the UK government will have an extra year of support for Windows XP as well as Office 2003 and Exchange 2003.

Microsoft has publicly confirmed that ”there is not a consumer equivalent” to this level of custom support being given to enterprises and the UK government.

Source: Microsoft

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