Tech pulse: ‘Internet of Things’ to take CES in spotlight

3,200 is the number of exhibitors who will attend the show with prodcuts in 15 categories.

SAN FRANCISCO: From drones and smart cars to remote-controlled door locks and eyewear, the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) promises to showcase the “Internet of Things,” along with gadgets like smartphones and tablets.

The technology extravaganza that plays out each year in the glitz-laden city of Las Vegas has evolved beyond the eye-popping television technology for which it is known, to serve as a stage for once-dumb devices given brains in the form of computer chips and  Internet connections.

And Smartphone and tablets have become such stars in their own rights, complete with rapid release cycles and exclusive launch events, that the titans in that market tend to leave the CES stage and hordes of press from around the world to gizmos that don’t usually get a spotlight.

“You will see a lot about the Internet of things; all the gadgets that are not a tablet, smartphone or personal computer but are attached to the Internet,” Forrester analyst Frank Gillett said of CES, which officially kicks off on Tuesday.

“Like your car telling you that you are speeding too much or door locks that you unlock with a smartphone,” he continued. “There are all kinds of gadgety things like that.”

CES organizers are also billing the four-day show as the largest “app event” in the world, complete with hackathons and a mobile applications “showdown.”

“Apps have become an integral part of our everyday lives, from use in phones, computers, tablets and wearable technology,” said Gary Shapiro, president of the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) which organises the show.

“The app innovation at CES offers an opportunity for networking, showcasing technology and hackathons focused on this growing tech space.”

The show will feature more than 3,200 exhibitors with products spanning 15 different categories, according to organizers. There will be an array of zones with themes such as seniors, children, health, robotics, and wearable tech.

“I think CES is going through a bit of an identity crisis,” said Vice President Gartner Consumer Technologies Research, Carolina Milanesi. “We used to turn out to play with the toys, now with the software and services being what people are looking for the toys just aren’t as cool anymore.”

Along its hardware showcase, CES is under pressure to adapt to consumers loving digital content and services ecosystems such as the iTunes library tailored for Apple iPhones, iPads, and iPod touch devices, according to Milanesi.

“So, you need the health, connected home and other zones to show end-to-end value being delivered through the hardware,” she said.

Apple has made a practice of skipping CES, opting instead to launch products at private events deemed must-attend media affairs. Other major players in the Smartphone and tablet market, such as Samsung and Google, have followed suit and host product unveilings of their own instead of competing for attention in the CES frenzy.

“Last year, CES exhibits went from an Internet fork to connected cars,” Milanesi said. “There is so much, it is easy to get lost in the noise.”

Analysts did expect arrays of smartphones or tablets powered by Google’s freshly-released KitKat version of the Android mobile operating software. And, while Microsoft no longer formally exhibits at CES, there should be an abundance of hybrid tablet-laptop computers built with the latest Windows software from the technology titan, according to Gillett.

“You will see a big push from Microsoft and Intel on two-in-ones, tablets with removable cordless keyboards that lets you use a tablet as a PC.”

The latest and greatest in television ultra-high definition screens are expected to be on display, but analysts expected them to land in the market with a thud similar to that made by 3-D televisions.

“Your television gets a zillion more pixels, but most people won’t be able to notice the difference,” Gillett quipped.

Automotive offerings will include Toyota unveiling a new hydrogen fuel-cell concept car set for exclusive release in California in the year 2015. “It is a legitimate and logical launching pad for advanced technology in the automobile business,” said John Hanson of Toyota Motor Sales, United States.

Ruling party speeds up privatisation process

The sources said the government wanted to especially favour some US companies as it was planning to hand over very precious reserves and assets of the oil and gas sector to American companies. ILLUSTRATION: JAMAL KHURSHID

ISLAMABAD: In a mad rush to sell off sensitive and important national assets, the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz has left behind the privatisation zeal of even the Musharraf government.

Its haste is fuelled in part by a desire to please some US friends, according to well-placed sources. Already, fears have been expressed in certain quarters that the unusual haste will have an economic fallout: not only will the shares of these organisatons be lost but the nation will also lose its valuable assets.

According to documents available with Daily Express, the federal government has accepted the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government’s wish-list of state institutions it wants to sell off.

The Council of Common Interests (CCI) had approved 65 organisations for privatisation during the last PPP tenure and the present government has selected 31 organisations out of that list. One notable exception is Pakistan Steel Mills which has been excluded from the plan.

The incumbent government, however, has only got permission from the Privatisation Committee of the Cabinet and not the CCI. A meeting of the Privatisation Commission Board has been called on January 8 to approve the appointment of the financial adviser for privatisation.

The sources said the government wanted to speed up the privatisation process as international bidders were still to be included and the minimum period required for completion of the privatisation process was 18 months.

However, the government wants to complete the process for the important organisations like Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDC) in just nine months. The sources said the government wanted to especially favour some US companies as it was planning to hand over very precious reserves and assets of the oil and gas sector to American companies.

The first meeting of the privatisation commission on January 8 will discuss the appointment of financial adviser for the privatisation of government shares in the UBL through stock market, 26% shares of the PIA and PI Investment Limited’s Roosvelt Hotel in New York and Scribe Hotel in France.

The appointment of financial adviser for privatisation of National Power Construction Company, Pakistan Petroleum Limited (PPL) and OGDCL will also be discussed.

The sources said the present government was following the footprints of Musharraf’s government by selling the shares of the OGDCL in the international stock market.

Competition killers: Bayern's Lewandowski deal leaves Bundesliga butchered

The Polish striker has signed a deal to leave Dortmund in the summer and, in the process, ensured that die Roten's only real challengers are far inferior

COMMENT
By Enis Koylu

It’s an old adage in the Bundesliga that Bayern Munich will try to kill off the competition by signing their best players. And, treading along the path taken last summer by Mario Gotze, Robert Lewandowski will ditch Borussia Dortmund for Bavaria.

The Poland star’s move had been a long time coming; having stalled on contract talks as long ago as 2012 he was expected to seal his dream transfer last summer and would have done were it not for Gotze. BVB held on to Lewandowski, knowing that they’d be lost without him.

In the last five months, they have barely been able to keep pace with the Bavarians, but now have lost another of their best players to their hated rivals. Before the start of the season, they needed a minor miracle. Now, they need the red sea to part.
 
And despite all that, they remain the most realistic challengers to Bayern, even without Lewandowski.

Schalke’s insistence on retaining Jens Keller as coach and the swathe of clubs circling for Julian Draxler is preventing them from realising the potential they undoubtedly have, given their bona fide star power in Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and the indisputable talent of Max Meyer and Leon Goretzka.

Leverkusen, meanwhile, are closest to Bayern in the Bundesliga table but have some way to go before they become genuine title contenders. An efficient, workmanlike outfit, capable of producing big performances, their form before the winter break was a stark indication of their lack of depth.

	BAYERN'S TALENT HOOVER
	The announcement that Pep Guardiola would take over as head coach last January for the 2013-14 showed Bayern's forward-planning ambition in assembling formidable talent.
	Mario Gotze's €37 million move from Signal Iduna Park to the Allianz Arena reminded the world that the Bavarians are ruthless when it comes to dismantling competition.
	Having beaten Barcelona 7-0 last season over two legs in the Champions League, die Roten piled on more humiliation by pinching promising midfielder Thiago Alcantara from them.
	Robert Lewandowski's move has long been in the pipeline and, despite Dortmund clinging on to the Pole in the summer, they were helpless to prevent him signing a deal with the reigning Bundesliga champions in January.

The truth is, despite all the excitement and recent growth of the Bundesliga as a spectacle, no club realistically has the finances and prestige to challenge Bayern in the long term.

Sure, Dortmund spent big in the summer of 2013, but that was money earned from Gotze’s surprise sale and the Champions League run. Lewandowski’s Bosman move robs them of the opportunity to repeat the former and their shaky form this term casts serious doubt on their ability to beat the best in Europe once more.

No, BVB have little hope of competing with Bayern for years to come. It took time to transform Lewandowski into the striker who famously scored four goals against Real Madrid. Even if they break the bank, with moves for Jackson Martinez and Diego Costa mooted, their squad is still threadbare, not large enough to challenge Bayern, as the last six weeks before the winter break showed.

So, the chances are Bayern will continue to dominate the Bundesliga for years to come, barring a collapse internally. Towards the end of last season, when Bayern and Dortmund were thrashing teams at will, the Bavarians’ president Uli Hoeness spoke of his fear of a “Spanish situation” developing in Germany, with two teams miles ahead of the rest.

Jurgen Klopp responded enigmatically. "I fear a situation like Scotland with only one team. Next year, we will see the Bayern team and say: 'Oops!'. Hoeness will not have been right about 'Spanish conditions'." He knew that Bayern had all but signed Gotze by then and taking Lewandowski is another nail in the league’s coffin.

There is the wider question of whether the Poland striker will even get a game at the Allianz Arena. Guardiola has always been a vocal admirer of Mario Mandzukic, his current No.9, and has experimented with both Thomas Muller and Gotze as unorthodox centre-forwards.

Giovane Elber has already warned Lewandowski that a regular starting place is far from a guarantee. "It's always a risk for a striker to join Bayern. It's quite difficult when Guardiola plays without a traditional No.9."

If, as the Brazilian fears, the 25-year-old has trouble breaking into the team, that would be saddest indictment of the new-found imbalance in German football.

Manchester United, Manchester City & Chelsea offered Alonso

It has been reported that the likes of Manchester United, Manchester City and Chelsea have all been offered the services of the Spaniard, who runs out of contract at Real Madrid at the end of the season.

The star can move back to the Premier League in the summer on a free, however if any of England's top clubs want to move for him in this market then they will have to pay the Spanish giants a fee.


With Liverpool also interested in bringing the 32-year-old back to Merseyside, the battle for Alonso's signature looks set to heat up.

Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho has previously worked with Alonso during his time at the Bernabeu and could be temped with bringing the Spanish ace to Stamford Bridge.

Meanwhile Manchester United boss David Moyes is desperate to make signings in this transfer window after a disappointing start to the season.

However the Manchester United boss could be put off as Alonso used to play for the Red Devils' bitter rivals, Liverpool.

However if the likes of Manchester United, Chelsea, Manchester City or Liverpool are to bring him back to England, then they may well have to stump up the £140,000-a-week wages that Alonso's currently earning at the Bernabeu.

Today In News : Messi to PSG , Rooney to Psg And Mata to PSG

Messi (Source : DailyMail) 
Paris Saint-Germain are planning to smash the world-record transfer fee with a £210million bid for Lionel Messi. 
Reports in Le Parisien suggest the French champions want to trigger the 26-year-old's release clause with a huge bid for the Argentina forward. 

Rooney (ESPN) 
Paris Saint-Germain forward Zlatan Ibrahimovic has again urged Wayne Rooney to join the French champions if he chooses to leave Manchester United at the end of the season. 

Earlier this year, Ibrahimovic voiced his desire to play alongside Rooney at the Parc des Princes, and said he believes the England international could still move to PSG given United's poor start to the season. 

Mata (The Telegraph) 
Juan Mata's Chelsea future to be tested by approach from Paris Saint-Germain 

Manchester United, Inter Milan and Napoli are also interested in Chelsea's Juan Mata but PSG are most likely to make sort of offer in excess of £35 million to interest London club. 

Mourinho said on Monday that the club had an “open door” should Mata wish to hold talks about leaving but stressed that he remained part of his plans.

Zidane: I could never have been Mourinho's assistant

The 41-year-old says his relationship with the Portuguese wasn't strong enough for him to work alongside him

Real Madrid assistant coach Zinedine Zidane has revealed that he could never have been Chelsea bossJose Mourinho's right-hand man.

Zidane enjoyed a difficult relationship with Mourinho during his time as Madrid's sporting director and he has now stressed that he would never be able to work under the Portuguese coach.

"With [Carlo] Ancelotti, it’s all happened quite naturally. I spoke with him by phone a few days before he joined and we sorted everything out. That was a good moment for me, for him and for the club," Zidane toldCanal+.

"I wouldn’t have been able to take on that role with a coach I didn’t know. I could never have been Mourinho’s assistant for example.

"And besides, he already had an assistant. It wouldn’t have been right to take on the job of being his right-hand man."

Mourinho left Madrid in the summer of 2013 after an unsuccessful 2012-13 campaign in which he fell out with key players such as Iker Casillas and Sergio Ramos.

Snapchat reacts to hacking group releasing millions of phone numbers

App will be updated to let users opt out of the 'Find Friends' function which searches for users in a phone’s address book

Snapchat app. Photograph: Screengrab from Snapchat

The creators of Snapchat have responded to the release of millions of users’ details, exposed when hackers published a partially redacted database matching usernames to phone numbers, but have stopped short of issuing an apology.

The database of millions of US users was uploaded by an anonymous group called SnapchatDB. The last two digits of phone numbers were redacted “to minimise spam and abuse”, but the group said it would consider releasing the unredacted data “under certain circumstances”.

Snapchat has acknowledged a security flaw – first pointed out to it several months ago – and said it would release an update of the app to let users opt out of the vulnerable “Find Friends” function which searches for users in your phone’s address book.

“We’re also improving rate limiting and other restrictions to address future attempts to abuse our service,” Thursday’s blogpost said.

A report about the potential abuse of the Find Friends function was released in August 2013. On Christmas Eve an Australian security research group, Gibson Security, revealed further details of vulnerabilities and said Snapchat had not responded to its warnings.

The app creators responded on 27 December that they had implemented safeguards to “make it more difficult” for people to match up usernames and phone numbers, which they conceded was “theoretically possible”.

Four days later, SnapchatDB uploaded its database of 4.6 million users.

In the most recent blogpost, Snapchat said: “We want to make sure that security experts can get ahold of us when they discover new ways to abuse our service so that we can respond quickly to address those concerns.

“The Snapchat community is a place where friends feel comfortable expressing themselves and we’re dedicated to preventing abuse.”

Snapchat confirmed no other information or data such as Snaps were accessed or released by the hacker