Don't Buy 4K TV Now

There is a lot of deals and bargains for 4K TV now but hold on your purchase, because right now is the worst time to buy a 4K TV and let me tell you why.

Right now the market is saturated by close-out 2014 models that seem to be a great bargain as they are trying to clear the old stocks but these 4K TV won't be offering what most of the upcoming models have and some of them won't be even compatible. Here are some of the new features expecting to be seen in 2015 model.

High Dynamic Range(HDR):
This feature will increase the contrast ratio of TV where the bright parts of the image will be significant brighter, making it more realistic. And upcoming 4K Blueray and Netflix will have HDR-enabled content.

Expanded Colour:
This feature enable the TV to have significantly richer colours like deeper reds and greens to create a more realistic image.

10-bit LCD panels:
This feature allow for more potential gradations between light and dark creating a smoother image.

4K Blueray and Streaming:
Current 4K TV won't be able to take advantage of any of the picture quality enhancement coming out this year as mentioned above. Some won't be able to even play the upcoming 4K Buleray disk at 4K resolution.

HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2: 
In order to play the upcoming 4K Blueray with new features, you'll need both HDMI 2.0 and HDCP 2.2. HDMI 2.0 is an updated version of the transmission standard that been around for years and you should have no problem with it. Without it, all the new features for your 4K Blueray won't work. However HDCP 2.2 is a new protection standard which you needed to play the disc at 4K resolution. Without it, you probably can only play 1080p, if it work.

So please on hold your 4K TV purchase for few more months and the new 4K TV should be arrive in store, late spring usually.

THE 25 BEST COMPANIES FOR INTERNS

The top internship program in America not only provide the eager students and recent graduates with high salary, but also a taste of real work experience and start to build up their network. For example, an intern in Motorola can earn as such as $4500.

Below is the Glassdoor's 25 Highest Rated Companies for Internships.

Intel confident that Moore's Law still valid beyond 10nm

Intel believes that they can still continue to fulfill Moore's Law beyond 10nm with the introduction of new material and device structure, together with close collaboration between their process development and product design teams.

Mark Bohr, an Intel Senior fellow for logic technology development, told the audience during a panel session in International Solid State Circuits Conference that Intel believe the scaling will continue to provide cheaper transistors, but that has to be justified with cost reduction through new process technology.

Bohr even told the audience that he believe Intel can move to 7nm mode without having to resort to EUV lithography. He declined to provide further detail but emphasized that it could be achieve through the use of new material and structures, citing Intel has published papers on III-IV devices.

Pebble launches new smartwatch on Kickstarter

Pebble is now announcing its 3rd generation smartwatch: the Pebble Time which come with all new design, a colour e-paper display and a microphone for responding to incoming messages and recording voice notes.

However Pebble Time is not available yet. Pebble is going through Kickstarter campaign again where early bird backer can get it for $159 , while the rest of Kickstarter backer can get one for $179. It will be sold at retail price of $199 when it ships in May. Colours come in white, black and red.

The new watch is 20% slimmer than its previous generation and it has a slight curve to sit more comfortable on your wrist. It has a Gorilla Glass and a stainless steel bezel. Its battery will last up to 7 days between charges, just like previous generation.

Pebble Time's voice control features are limited to quick message responses and voice memos. Pebble ensure that existing watchfaces and apps will continue to work with the new watch.

Pebble new products, software and broader plans for 2015

Pebble is one of the successful smartwatch story with more than 1 million devices sold as of Dec 31 2014. Despite fierce smartwatch competition, Pebble still hold a sizable 34% market share, just right behind Samsung (36%) and far ahead of Motorola (16%).

With the launch of Apple watch is coming soon, Pebble is not standing still. The company has plans to release new hardware and software later this year.

Going into 2015 and looking at future products, Migicovsky says the goal is to focus on the software and the overall experience of what a smartwatch is. "We want software that lets you get more done with it becoming complex."

That can be difficult because for some users, the initial response to Pebble and its apps is to want to install as many things as possible. In practice, however, Migicovsky says that too many apps and too many options, overwhelm the user. That's a bad thing because if a user is overwhelmed, they are less likely to stay on the wrist.

Migicovsky says that one of the most important internal metrics Pebble uses is related to its user-retention rate. By that, Pebble means the number of users who buy a watch and are still using it on their wrists weeks or months later.

"We need to know if we can stay on your wrist," Migicovsky says. Ultimately, becoming part of a user's routine and staying on their wrist is what will open up Pebble to its next evolution. "We want to take what people are doing now smartwatches and take it to the extreme."

One area where Pebble is already working on being better is when it comes to helping users reply to notifications. The Pebble beta for Android allows users to reply to text messages or chats with canned responses or with emoji or emoticons.

The most immediate competition Pebble faces right now is from Google's Android Wear platform. The upcoming Apple Watch will be big competition too. Both Google and Apple have more money than Pebble — not to mention more resources to throw at their devices.

Still, part of what makes Pebble unique and different in the smartwatch space is that it is one of the only "mainstream" devices that works with both iOS and Android. Although it's true that Pebble won't ever achieve the sort of tightly-coupled integration that the Apple Watch will have with iOS or the influx of information Google Now offers Android Wear, there is still something to be said for a device agnostic wearable.

But it's not just smartwatches that are competing with Pebble. Increasingly, fitness trackers are starting to eat into the space too. The line between a tracker and a smartwatch was already blurry in 2014. It'll be even blurrier in 2015. To that end, Pebble can do its best to partner with health brands, connected device companies and work on supporting software for companies who sell sensors and smart home products.

For Pebble, 2015 is about doubling down on software, building out its developer community and releasing new products.

Intel's New Skylake Chips May Be Slipping Later in 2015

Digitimes reported unconfirmed delay of the launch of 14nm processor "Skylake". If confirm, this delay would disrupts OEM plan of revealing new Skylake-equipped product at Computex 2015 in Taiwan this coming June.

Intel's official release data for the Skylake architecture was originally Q2 2015 in their roadmap.

Qualcomm settles monopoly charges in China with $975M payout

Qualcomm’s battle with Chinese regulators over charges of monopoly practices has finally come to an end after more than a year of disputes. The US-based chip maker announced overnight that it will pay a US$975 million fine as part of the settlement.

Despite the large sum of money involved, the settlement is not as severe as some had feared, reports the Wall Street Journal. Qualcomm will have to make some changes to the way it licenses its patents in China, but the regulators have not mandated a more serious change to the firm’s business model.

Qualcomm, which is the world’s biggest chip maker thanks to the global smartphone boom, has been under investigation by China’s National Development and Reform Commission since November 2013 as part of the nation’s Anti-Monopoly Law.

China currently has 520 million active smartphone users, and about 400 million new smartphones are shipped to consumer by brands each year. Since many smartphones use Qualcomm’s processors, China accounted for half of the chip maker’s revenue in its most recent earnings report.

“We are pleased that the investigation has concluded and believe that our licensing business is now well positioned to fully participate in China’s rapidly accelerating adoption of our 3G/4G technology,” said Derek Aberle, president of Qualcomm, in the company’s announcement (PDF file here).

Steve Mollenkopf, the CEO of Qualcomm, added that the company is “pleased that the resolution has removed the uncertainty surrounding our business in China.”

MacBook Air drops from 1000 feet at 200km/h from an airplane and survived!

This MacBook Air was accidentally drop of from airplane at 1000 feets at 200km/h when the pilot forgot to do the proper pre-takeoff checks before taking off on his light aircraft, resulting in the Thule bag, which the Macbook Air is kept. flew out of the aircraft.

The pilot searched for his MacBook Air frantically after landed safely on the airport, with the help of willing strangers and the local police. Fortunately for him, his bag was found by a farmer when the bag drops just 1 meter away from him and contacted the pilot through Facebook.

Amazingly, the Macbook Air survived the fall with only busted cooling system, a shattered trackpad and a bent chassis. What more surprising is that there is no crack on the screen and it still work perfectly despite the fall from 1000 feet. Whether or not this is a testament to Apple products' build quality is debatable but the fact that the product is still functioning well deserved a praise.

How China manipulates App Store ranking

How would the services claimed to promote your apps to top ten ranking works in reality? Yes, this is a picture a women sitting before a rack of iPhone 5C all set to the Apple App Store, which has been circulating around social media claiming to be a ranking manipulation service that allow developers to pay to boost their app into the top ten ranking.

The women is supposedly downloading, installing, and uninstalling the same app over and over again to artificially boost its number of downloads in the App Store. But this service does not come cheap. The price list show that it costs RMB 70,000 (abour RM40,000) to boost a single app into the top ten ranking while costs RMB 405,000 (about RM233,000) to keep it there every week.

Getting to the top ten is often a massive visibility boost for developers, which would get their work to be noticed and have more people start to download it, and eventually mean an increase in revenue.

Xiaomi Redmi 2 get enhanced, now with double the RAM and storage

Apparently Xiaomi has listened to their customer and provided an upgrade to the Redmi 2, with RAM upgraded from 1GB to 2GB and storage upgraded from 8GB to 16GB. This is particular good for heavy user as I often found that 1GB of RAM is not enough since MIUI itself has taken lots of RAM space.

Xiaomi will name the upgraded Redmi 2 as the Enhanced Edition. Even though the hardware is upgraded it, it only cost additional 100 yuan compare to original Redmi 2, selling at 799 yuan about (RM465)

Penang Motorola two-way radios factory for SALES?

People familiar with the matter said that Motorola Solution Inc, the maker of walkie talkie or radio equipment to emergency workers and scanning devices for retailer are exploring the option of sale. However the company does not comment on this rumors and speculation.

Motorola Solution is what left after the company spin off its mobile phone business in March 2008 due to pressure from activist shareholder Icahn. Rumor of interested buyers include Raytheon, Honeywell International, General Dynamics or even private-equity firms. The company has see its earning per share drop 33% as sales declined 6% with its outlook for this year remains stagnant.

Apple earnings: 74.5M iPhones sold, record-breaking $18B profit and closes the gap on Samsung

Tim cook surely can have a big smile this time as Apple has a block blaster Q4 in 2015 with earning results of $74.6 billion in revenue and net profit of $18 billion. Apple earning beat Wall Street's forecast of  $69 billion in revenue and leave last year's holiday quarter revenue of $57.6 billions in pale.

Here is the break down in terms of device sales:

• 74.5 million iPhones, up from the 51 million sold a year ago.
• 21.4 million iPads, down from the 26 million a year ago.
• 5.5 million Macs, up from the 4.8 million a year ago.

The 74.5 million iphones sold are a record for Apple. To put that into the perspective of transaction going on, 34,000 iPhones were sold every hour, 24 hours a day. Tim Cook even mentioned that with the introduction of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus, he believe there are a lot of people has switch from Android to iOS. Clearly iPhone has contributed quite significant to the overall Apple company revenue.

With the success of iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 plus, Apple has manage to close the gap with World No.1 smartphone vendor, Samsung. Despite being far more profitable, Apple's shipment still trailed Samsung but has narrow the gap to just 600,000 units in the fourth quarter. Other than Samsung, Apple has to start paying attention to other low-cost Android OEM like Lenovo, Huawei and Xiaomi which see their market share increase at their expense.

Xiaomi's Mi Note sells out in within three minutes

Apparently Xiaomi's Mi Note and MI Note Pro are another hit products and the china-based company announced on its Weibo social networking page that they were sold out within 3 minutes of availability last Tuesday. However, the company didn't release any info on how many units were actually available for purchase during that time.

Xiaomi has always position itself as the Apple of China but with lower selling price at near cost and it has always been alleged for copying Apple. Their similarity with Iphone has never been gone unnoticed and Apple is not happy about it.

Jony Ive, Apple's hardware and software design chief, has criticized Xiaomi for alleged copycatting. "I don't see it as flattery," he said last year in an interview with Vanity Fair. "When you're doing something for the first time, you don't know it's going to work. You spend seven or eight years working on something, and then it's copied. I have to be honest, the first thing I can think, all those weekends that I could have at home with my family but didn't. I think it's theft, and it's lazy."

Right now Xiaomi only focusing on Asia market but soon or later, they would have to enter US or Europe market if they were to keep on growing. This would be a big problem for Xiaomi as those countries has more respect for rules of law and Xiaomi could face a lawsuit from companies like Apple. In fact, Xiaomi was sued by Ericsson in India claiming its phones infringed on Ericsson's wireless technology and the court blocked all sales of Xiaomi phones in India last December before partially lifted the ban. Other than that, Xiaomi also might need to beware of other companies like Unwired Planet which owned a lot of pattern and actively pursuing royalty from other phone manufacturers.

In order to maintain its aggressive growth and hardened their armor chest, Xiaomi is working hard on their patent portfolio. Last year they applied for 2318 patents and Xiaomi plans to get "ten of thousands" more in the coming year. But what is foreseen for Xiaomi in near future is lot of lawsuit as it entering more and more markets and people are aiming to get a piece of their profit.

IBM rumored to lay off 110000 employees

Last week, there is a rumor that IBM is going to lay off 110,000 employees, which is about 25% of their global 430,000 workforce. IBM confirmed that they do have plan for the layoff but it could be perhaps 10,000, not 110,000 that was spread in internet like wild fire.

I believe that rumors always started somewhere. Perhaps the CEO did present his 110,000 layoff plan, maybe exiting some unprofitable business, to board of directors for approval but got shoot down and only 11,000 was approved and that's could be where the rumor started.

They sold their laptop business to Lenova, and sold their server business to Lenova as well last year. They give cash to Global foundry to beg them to agree to take their foundry business away from them. So it won't surprise me if the CEO has presented a business spin off plan to board of director that will affect 110,000 employees since IBM has been busy selling off their lower profit margin business units.