Karnataka pacers to be Coached by Jeff Thomson at KSCA-IDBI Bowling Foundation

IDBI Federal Life Insurance and Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA)  has announced the launch of KSCA-IDBI Federal Life Insurance Bowling Foundation. "The foundation has been established to hone meritorious talent and develop them into first-rate bowlers to boost the domestic and international cricketing landscape in India.

The KSCA - IDBI Federal Life Insurance Bowling Foundation has also roped in former Australian paceman Jeff Thomson to coach the budding fast bowlers. Thomson is arguably the fastest bowler to have played international cricket. With an unusual slinging action, and an aggressive approach, he was a fearsome sight to batsmen in the 70s and early 80s.

On this occasion, Vighnesh Shahane, CEO of IDBI Federal Life Insurance said, "As an organisation we use sports as a platform to inspire positive actions. After the successful launch of MCA - IDBI Federal Life Insurance Bowling Foundation, this association with KSCA is truly exciting for us." "It is a wonderful moment for us at KSCA to be inking this deal with IDBI-Federal Life Insurance bowling foundation with Jeff Thomson. With our constant endeavour to provide better training, we have many youngsters in various age groups who are being nurtured. To be groomed by one of famed fast bowlers from yesteryears will be a dream come true for many youngsters", said Brijesh Patel, secretary of KSCA.

"We believe this will be a long-term relationship in which youngsters from the State will benefit and become better bowlers for the state and country", he added.

IDBI Federal Life Insurance has also announced the launch of the ‘IDBI Federal Life Insurance Frank Tyson Memorial Scholarship'. This scholarship will be awarded to 2 performing bowlers per year in the age group of 17 to 19 years.

Quick Heal IPO Price Band at Rs 311-321; Issue Opens February 8-10, 2016

IT security solutions provider Quick Heal Technologies Ltd on Thursday said it will open its initial public offering (IPO) on February 8, 2016 to raise about Rs.450 crore. The issue will close on February 10, 2016.

The company has priced the offer in the band of Rs.311-321 per equity share. Based on the price band, the total issue size will range from Rs.445 crore to Rs.451.3 crore.

Quick Heal is looking to raise around Rs.250 crore by selling new shares, while its promoters Kailash Sahebrao Katkar and Sanjay Sahebrao Katkar along with private equity investors Sequoia Capital India Investment Holdings III and Sequoia Capital India Investments III will sell some of their shares in the company.

In 2010, Sequoia Capital through its funds Sequoia Capital India Investment Holdings III and Sequoia Capital India Investments III had invested Rs.60 crore in the company. Sequoia is looking to sell 4.6% out of its total 10.25% stake in the Pune-based security software company. The promoters too will dilute around 6.5% of their holding.

ICICI Securities Ltd, Jefferies India Pct. Ltd and J.P. Morgan India Pvt. Ltd are managing the offer.

The firm sells its security products under the brands Quick Heal and Seqrite for desktop, laptop, smartphone and network security and data loss prevention. Since its incorporation, more than 24.5 million licences of its products have been installed, and as of 30 June, the firm had over 6.9 million active licenses spread across more than 80 countries, according to its draft red herring prospectus.

According to the prospectus, Quick Heal plans to spend Rs.111 crore on advertising and sales promotion over a period of three years. It also plans to spend around Rs.42 crore as capital expenditure on research and development and another Rs.30 crore for buying and upgrading office premises.

The IPO comes at a time when India’s benchmark indices have lost a little over 6% since the start of the year. This has raised concerns over the long pipeline of pending IPOs.

Over 30 firms filed their draft papers with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) last year. Most of them have already received the regulator’s nod.

Quick Heal is the third company to tap primary markets this year.

Indian IT-BPO Industry on Track to Reach US$350 Billion by 2025

The National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) has revealed various trends that enabled the Indian IT-BPM industry to clock double-digit growth of 12.3 percent (constant currency terms) in exports and 10 percent in domestic revenues for FY2016. In a press meet addressed by BVR Mohan Reddy, Chairman, NASSCOM, C P Gurnani, Vice-Chairman, NASSCOM and R Chandrashekhar, President, NASSCOM, confluence of digital technologies (cloud, mobility, IOT, social, big data), changing business models, rapidly growing innovative start-up ecosystem, government’s vision of driving digitization, India’s consumer economy were identified as major trends that are spearheading this growth.

INDIA – STARTUP HUB AND DIGITAL SOLUTIONS PARTNER TO THE WORLD

The industry is continuously building and strengthening its digital solutions capabilities. Digital contributed approximately 13 per cent for the leading technology companies. Further, the industry employed over 250,000 digitally skilled employees. Digital M&A deals also witnessed a spike in volume and value crossing USD 2 billion in FY2016 growing 3 times over last year. Increased emphasis on design, creativity, agility and customer experience will lead India to strengthening its position further and presenting itself as the ideal digital solutions partner to the world.

India’s start-up landscape is now a global success story with young start-ups and unicorns making a difference in high impact areas. With over 4200+ start-ups, India is now the third largest start-up base with over 1200+ start-ups being created every year aided by 4.9 mn worth of funding, over 150 active VC/PEs and over 110 incubators and accelerators. 

C P Gurnani, Vice-Chairman, NASSCOM, added, “Digital is reshaping the technology sector and the industry focus is to understand the full potential of digital technologies and help customers make the best of it. Rise of India’s digital quotient is our key priority for the next few years”.

R Chandrashekhar, President, NASSCOM, added, that “The need of the hour is for industry to fundamentally transform its business models, solution offerings, organization structure and capabilities to strengthen its market leadership position. Further, going forward, revenue growth alone may not be an adequate indicator of the growing capability and capacity of India’s technology industry and factors such as investment, valuations, digital solutions portfolio, impact etc. would also need to be considered in assessing the industry performance and contribution to the economy.”

Software Experience is the Key Differentiator for Smartphones Specs

CREO, a Bangalore based fast-growing consumer Technology Company, today unveils facts on the ‘State of Mobile Operating System Adoption In India’, through a research commissioned to CyberMedia Research. In a research on OEMs in the Indian market, which was carried across 158 different smartphone brands amongst over 1476 device models, 72% of Android Phone buyers did not get the latest Android OS or its features at the time of purchase in 2015. For a more robust understanding, an end-to-end study of 400 smartphone users across major cities was also conducted, which revealed that only 38% of Android users had updated their Android OS at least once.

The OEM study clearly reveals that software updates, rather than hardware, emerges as the differentiator and is the future of Smartphones. The research further suggests that OEMs will have to adopt an experience driven approach enabled by OS features as the ‘spec-war’ reaches its peak.

The study of smartphone users on the other hand, reveals that some of the most common user expectations from an OS update  are “Performance Improvement” (77%) followed by “New Features” (57%).

Reinstating CREO’s focus on software experience, Sai Srinivas, CEO, says that  “Regular and relevant software updates ensure that the customer experience is always smooth. At CREO, we promise to release these updates every month, along with powerful and functional features, that give you an experience of A New Phone Every Month!”

The study on OEMs also goes on to reveal that most brands (95%) are only customizing the software at the UI level, which is cosmetic and affects only the OS’s appearance. Commenting on this, Sai adds that, “Most other available Android based OS’ in the market are mere skins of each other. What makes us different is that with our Operating System, we will stay true to the Stock Android UI which we all love, and instead work on building OS level features unheard of on any other Smartphone.”

Hitachi’s Hyper Scale-Out Platform for Big Date is Now Powered by Pentaho Platform

Hitachi Data Systems Corporation (HDS), a wholly owned subsidiary of Hitachi, Ltd. has unveiled the next generation Hitachi Hyper Scale-Out Platform (HSP), which now offers native integration with the Pentaho Enterprise Platform to deliver a sophisticated, software-defined, hyper-converged platform for big data deployments. Combining compute, storage and virtualization capabilities, the HSP 400 series delivers seamless infrastructure to support big data blending, embedded business analytics and simplified data management. 

Modern enterprises increasingly need to derive value from massive volumes of data being generated by information technology (IT), operational technology (OT), the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine-generated data in their environments. HSP offers a software-defined architecture to centralize and support easy storing and processing of these large datasets with high availability, simplified management and a pay-as-you-grow model. Delivered as a fully configured, turnkey appliance, HSP takes hours instead of months to install and support production workloads, and simplifies creation of an elastic data lake that helps customers easily integrate disparate datasets and run advanced analytic workloads.

HSP’s scale-out architecture provides simplified, scalable and enterprise-ready infrastructure for big data. The architecture also includes a centralized, easy-to-use user interface to automate the deployment and management of virtualized environments for leading open source big data frameworks, including Apache Hadoop, Apache Spark, and commercial open source stacks like the Hortonworks Data Platform (HDP).

“Many enterprises don’t possess the internal expertise to perform big data analytics at scale with complex data sources in production environments. Most want to avoid the pitfalls of experimentation with still-nascent technologies, seeking a clear path to deriving real value from their data without the risk and complexity,” said Nik Rouda, Senior Analyst at Enterprise Strategy Group (ESG). “Enterprise customers stand to benefit from turnkey systems like the Hitachi Hyper Scale-Out Platform, which address primary adoption barriers to big data deployments by delivering faster time to insight and value, accelerating the path to digital transformation”

The next-generation HSP system now offers native integration with Pentaho Enterprise Platform to give customers complete control of the analytic data pipeline and enterprise-grade features such as big data lineage, lifecycle management and enhanced information security. The powerful combination of technologies in the next-generation HSP appliance was designed to accelerate time to business insight and deliver rapid return on investment (ROI), while simplifying the integration of information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT)—a strategic imperative for modern, data-driven enterprises.

“Modern enterprises must merge their IT and OT environments to extend the value of their investments. HSP is a perfect solution to accelerate and simplify IT/OT integration and increase the time to insight and business value of their big data deployments,” said James Dixon, chief technology officer at Pentaho. “The HSP-Pentaho appliance gives customers an affordable, enterprise-class option to unify all their disparate datasets and workloads—including legacy applications and data warehouses—via a modern, scalable and hyper-converged platform that eliminates complexity. We’re pleased to be working with HDS to deliver a simplified, all-in-the-box solution that combines compute, analytics and data management functions in a plug-and-play, future-ready architecture. The Hitachi Hyper Scale-Out Platform 400 is a great first-step in simplifying the entire analytic process.”

With HSP, Hitachi continues to deliver on the promise of the software-defined datacenter to simplify the delivery of IT services through greater abstraction of infrastructure, and improved data access and automation. While its initial focus is on big data analytics use cases, the company’s long-term direction for HSP is to deliver best-in-class total cost of ownership (TCO) for a variety of IT workloads. Hitachi will offer HSP in two configurations to support a broad range of enterprise applications and performance requirements: Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) disk drives, generally available now, and all-flash, expected to ship in mid-2016.

“We consistently hear from our enterprise customers that data silos and complexity are major pain points—and this only gets worse in their scale-out and big data deployments. We have solved these problems for our customers for years, but we are now applying that expertise in a new architecture with Hitachi Hyper Scale-Out Platform,” said Sean Moser, senior vice president, global portfolio and product management at Hitachi Data Systems. “Our HSP appliance gives them a cloud and IoT-ready infrastructure for big data deployments, and a pay-as-you-go model that scales with business growth. Seamless integration with the Pentaho Platform will help them put their IT and OT data to work—faster. This is only the first of many synergistic solutions you can expect to see from Hitachi and Pentaho. Together, we are making it easy for our enterprise customers to maximize the value of their IT and OT investments and accelerate their path to digital transformation.”

Rugby Union Matches to Over 100 Countries Now Delivered by Tata Communications

Tata Communications, a leading provider of A New World of Communications, today announces that it will be the Official Broadcast Partner as the top rugby union teams of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres clash in three matches in France and Hong Kong. This builds on Tata Communications’ expertise in live sports broadcasting and content delivery – the company is also the Official Connectivity Provider of Formula 1.

The video feeds of the three matches will be distributed live in high-definition to broadcasters, including Setanta Sports, Eurosport Australia and l'Equipe 21, using Tata Communications’ Video Connect service. Video Connect enables broadcasters to deliver live video feeds from anywhere in the world over Tata Communications’ IP network, with connectivity to over 240 countries and territories. Underpinned by the world’s largest wholly-owned subsea fibre network, it ensures a seamless, high-quality viewing experience for sports fans.

“Up to 20 million rugby fans across 100 countries are expected to tune in for these games, featuring some of the biggest names in the sport, so there is no room for error,” says Brian Morris, Vice President & General Manager, Global Media and Entertainment services, Tata Communications. “In the same way as we harness our superfast fibre network to enable F1 to reach its fans worldwide, regardless of race location, we will use our sports broadcasting and content delivery expertise to bring these historic rugby matches to people’s living rooms.”

In the first match, taking place on February 5th in Toulon, France, the reigning European champions RC Toulon will face The Sharks from South Africa, one of the top teams in the Super Rugby, the pre-eminent professional rugby union competition in the Southern Hemisphere. 

The second match, taking place in Hong Kong on February 6th, will be a clash between five-time French champions Racing 92, and the reigning Super Rugby champions, New Zealand’s Highlanders. This match will see Dan Carter, World Rugby Player of the Year and one of the greatest fly-halfs of all time, lead his new French side against a squad that includes six All Blacks players, as they battle it out for the 2016 Natixis Cup.

In the third match, taking place on February 11th in Toulouse, France, The Sharks will face Stade Toulousain, 19-time French champions and an institution of European rugby, with the winning side taking home the Hemispheres Cup.

“There are 10,000 kilometres and several time zones between the match locations, so we need a partner with the reach and capability in both Europe and Asia to distribute these matches internationally, says Phillipe Spanghero, Director of SL Events, which organises the matches. “Working with Tata Communications will enable us to deliver a brilliant viewing experience for fans, as the best teams of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres battle it out on the pitch.”

Risks of Cancer Can Be Reduced With Very Simple Lifestyle

According to WHO, Cancers is among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, with approximately 14 million new cases and 8.2 million cancer related deaths in 2012. The number of new cases is expected to rise by about 70% over the next 2 decades.

Around one third of cancer deaths are due to the 5 leading behavioral and dietary risks, namely, high body mass index, low fruit and vegetable intake, lack of physical activity, tobacco use, alcohol use. Tobacco use is the most important risk factor for cancer causing around 20% of global cancer deaths and around 70% of global lung cancer deaths.

“Unhealthy lifestyle habits can play a major role in the development of cancer. Contrary to popular belief, cancer is not inevitable. A person has more control over the disease than they might think. A simple change in lifestyle can go a long way in preventing cancers,” said Dr. Neelesh Reddy, Consultant Medical Oncologist, Columbia Asia Hospitals.

While some factors are beyond our control, here are a few healthy lifestyle habits by Dr. Neelesh that can help lower cancer risk.

Avoid smoking or exposure to smoke

The most important lifestyle choice you can make to cut down your cancer risk by half is to quit smoking. Smoking is responsible for not only lung cancer, but many other types as well. Not exposing yourself to second–hand smoke is also another way to prevent cancer.

Practice sun safety

By simply using a good sunscreen throughout the day is enough to reduce your risk of skin cancer drastically. Avoid exposure to UV rays as much as possible, by avoiding the mid-day sun and wearing protective clothing when outdoors.

Include fruits and veggies into your diet

A well balanced diet rich in fruits and vegetables that contain antioxidants, can help repair damaged cells. Green, orange and yellow fruits and vegetables contain the highest amount of antioxidants and are a great way to prevent cancer.

Think before you drink

Studies suggest that men who consume two alcoholic drinks per day and women who have one alcoholic drink per day significantly increase their risk factors for certain type of cancers.

Exercise for cancer prevention

It is suggested that a person must exercise for at least 30 minutes a day, for at least 5 days a week. Apart from burning away those extra calories, it also boosts a person’s morale by releasing endorphins, the feel good hormone.

Drink water

Swap sugary drinks like cola or lemonade for water or unsweetened tea or coffee to help reduce your weight, and thus your cancer risk.

Know your risk factors at your work place

There are certain chemicals that are carcinogenic in nature. Constant exposure to these chemicals can increase your risk of developing cancer. Fumes, dust, chemicals like diesel exhaust, arsenic, beryllium, vinyl chloride, nickel chromates, coal products, mustard gas, and chloromethyl ethers are all carcinogens and can be found in some work environments. If you are exposed to any of these chemicals be sure to talk to your doctor about how you can stay safe.

Get annual health check ups

Screening for cancer and getting an annual health check-up helps in not only catching the disease early but also may help in preventing various other lifestyle diseases. Screening tests like a colonoscopy and Pap smear can detect abnormal cellular changes before they turn cancerous, but they are only effective if done regularly.

Karnataka’s Natural Advantage Will Help State Grow by 2-3% Over India’s GDP, Says Arun Jaitley

A global investors meet (GIM) has kick-off in Bengaluru on Wednesday with the Congress government in the state hoping to pull in more industrial investments as against the earlier two editions of Karnataka GIMs. At the inauguration function, Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley called for Centre-State coordination for attracting global investment. FM Arun Jaitley expects Karnataka to surpass the national growth rate, saying it has the potential to grow at least 2-3 per cent ahead of India's GDP. 

Speaking after inaugurating the global investors' meet 'Invest Karnataka-2016', Jaitley said: ".Karnataka has a natural advantage, first-grade human resource and the natural technology inclination of entrepreneurs and so I would Karnataka to grow at least 2-3 per cent ahead of India's GDP." 

''India has caught the attention of investors across the World. Now it is time we respond in one voice and the Centre and State governments live up to their expectations,'' he adds.

The Siddaramaiah government is looking to garner upwards of Rs three lakh crore of investment from this Investors' meet which was organised in a very planned way by the Congress government in Karnataka.

The previous editions, in 2010 and 2012, claimed of attracting nearly Rs 4 lakh crore worth of investments through almost 400 projects while actually delivering only around 75 which were worth less than Rs 1 lakh crore. Major investment hopes, especially in the steel sector, that arose following the signing of MoUs with companies like Arcelor Mittal and South Korean steel giants Posco have fizzled out over the years due to various problems.

“We are expecting to attract double the investment received so far,’’ chief minister Siddaramaiah said. Karnataka would by 2018 achieve 12 per cent industrial growth, Rs 5 lakh crore investment and will generate 15 lakh jobs, he said. Over 100 top global and Indian business leaders are expected to take part in the meet.

The government is trying to promote small cities and towns as preferred investment destinations. It has formulated various schemes to pitch in large-scale investments in Hubballi-Dharwad and Yadgir districts, among others. To ensure a free and easy business environment, the government has introduced and amended various policies in the State. For example, it launched the Startup Policy, New Industrial Policy, amendments to the Textile Policy, amendments to the Land Reform Act and single window clearances, among others.

As per data available about the 275 projects proposed during the 2010 investors' meet, only 58 were implemented, 116 under implementation, and 101 dropped. In the 2012 meet, 209 projects were proposed, 28 implemented, 104 under implementation, and 77 dropped.

The Industries Department has already identified key areas such as infrastructure, power, information technology, agriculture, and biotechnology as potential opportunities for investors to invest. The government has also created a land bank of 26,268 acres for industries to set shops say reports.

“Over the years Invest Karnataka has come to signify successful partnerships and comprehensive and sustained developments. In this edition too we call upon visionary leaders and global corporations to explore opportunities in Karnataka. The three day event will include focused sectoral, theme and partner country seminars and will attract domestic and global stakeholders” adds Siddaramaiah.

New Campus for Wipro in Karnataka for 25,000 Employees

Wipro is planning to set up a new campus in Karnataka, which has the capacity to house 25,000 employees.

Addressing the gathering at Invest Karnataka 2016, the chairman of Wipro Azim Premji said that the company is in the midst of a major expansion, which includes expansion across all of Wipro’s businesses – from soap to software.

All of its businesses are headquartered in Karnataka, which include IT business, consumer care, aerospace and Wipro GE health care systems.” Karnataka is a very hospitable and a very progressive state to investors,” said Premji.

Premji, while lauding the availability of technical talent, strong science background, nice weather and cosmopolitan culture, expressed that the government needs to solve the infrastructural constraints, by investing more in this area.

Seven Infra Projects Worth Rs 9672.12 cr Cleared By Indian Government

 A government panel has approved 7 infrastructure projects in road and port sectors envisaging an investment of Rs 9,672 crore.

 “The Public Private Project Appraisal Committee (PPPAC) and the Empowered Committee both chaired by Economic Affairs Secretary cleared 6 road projects and 1 ports sector project with estimated project cost totalling Rs 9,672.12 crore,” a finance ministry statement said on Wednesday.

Economic Affairs Secretary Shaktikanta Das tweeted: “Quick clearances given”.

These include 4 National Highway projects, one each in the state of Maharashtra and Himachal Pradesh and two projects in the state of Uttar Pradesh and one port sector project in the state of Goa cleared by the PPPAC.

Besides, the two road projects in Uttar Pradesh have been cleared for Viability Gap Funding VGF).

Under the VGF government support is provided to the infrastructure projects to make them viable and bankable.

The meeting of the PPPAC was held on Tuesday.

Agencies

Guru Bhat Appointed GM at PayPal Chennai Technology Center in India

PayPal, the global leader in online payments, today announced the appointment of Guru Bhat as the General Manager of the Chennai Technology Center in India.

In his role as the General Manager, Guru will be responsible for driving the PayPal’s technology strategy in Chennai, as the company builds on its next-generation payment solutions and services. The technologists in the Chennai center are part of a global team that is constantly innovating and driving software development initiatives that enhance and expand PayPal’s global payments platform.

Guru comes with more than 19 years of international experience in the technology sector, having served as a Lead Architect for Sun Microsystems and subsequently at Oracle, for a total of 12 years in Boston, Massachusetts.

“Guru brings to PayPal a wealth of experience in technology leadership and a passion that is well suited for our innovative, people-focused work culture. We are extremely delighted to welcome him to the PayPal family, and we strongly believe that his knowledge and commitment will be invaluable as we look to build payments for the future.” said Anupam Pahuja, General Manager, Technology of PayPal APAC.

On his appointment, Guru said, “I am extremely excited to join PayPal’s technology center in Chennai. Technology is responsible for the foundations of PayPal, and I look forward to working with the world-class technology talent in Chennai to bring to life our vision to be an everyday part of people’s lives.” 

Swiss Re India First 'My Personal Risk Advisor' Hackathon Won By IIIT – B Team

What if a mobile phone app could assess the risk of an individual and provide ideas to better manage that risk? Well, that thought helped IIT-B bag the first prize.

Swiss Re held an event entitled "My Personal Risk Advisor" Hackathon between January, 30-31. Where16 teams of 70 technologists comprising students, developers and entrepreneurs built applications that enable individuals or small business owners to assess their total risk.

Organised along with IBM, India’s first reinsurance hackathon offered a unique garage-like experience for its participants and provided an opportunity to develop ideas into prototypes. The prototypes were judged based on innovative technology integration, dimensions of risks that were considered while developing the solution, user experience and technical complexity. A panel of esteem judges, which included members from Swiss Re and IBM evaluated the apps.

“The reinsurance sector is at the cusp of a radical transition and the convergence of new technologies will help us manage consumer expectations and to better manage risk.” said Alok Kumar, Managing Director, Swiss Re Bangalore. "Such a platform enables exploration of emerging and disruptive technology to reduce the protection gap, besides further encouraging and nurturing entrepreneurs and start-ups in the sector,” he added.

Team IIIT-B represented by Abhijay Vuyyuru, Anubhav Bhardwaj, and Lijo Johny were adjudged as the winners for their solution. This WhatsApp-based application can click a picture of the food you eat and distribute it to a specific group. This application analyses the image of the food and highlights the calorie content and recommends healthier alternatives. The winning team was awarded a cash prize of Rs 3 lakhs.

Team IIIT-B represented by Amit Gupta, Daksh Varshneya, Tanmayee Narendra, Prerit Jain, Pawan Dhananjay bagged the second prize and were awarded Rs 2 Lakhs.

Manu Dwivedi, Chakshu Ahuja, Rahul Radhakrishnan and Saurav Tomar were declared as the second runners-up and were awarded Rs 1 Lakh.

    

Commenting on winning the hackathon, the first prize winners said, “We are thrilled to win. Being the second most populous nation, India is prone to high health risks and diseases. Our idea was to develop a solution that enable individual to assess and foresee their risk based on the individual’s personality and dietary profiling.”

AMD Offers Thermal Solutions & New Processors for Reliable, Near-Silent Performance

AMD  has launched new thermal solutions, including the flagship AMD Wraith Cooler, as well as the new AMD A10-7860K and new AMD Athlon X4 845 desktop processors.

New AMD Thermal Solutions

Designed for the consumer who cares about how their desktop PC runs, sounds, and looks, AMD now offers new thermal solutions that generate less than one-tenth the noise of their predecessors running at a near-silent 39 decibels. The new AMD thermal solutions are included with seven AMD processors (see table below).

The new AMD Wraith Cooler combines near-silent operation with unique styling via a sleek fan shroud and LED illumination. Providing superb cooling, the new design delivers 34 percent more airflow and 24 percent more surface area for heat dissipation than its predecessor.

“AMD’s new high quality, robust thermal solutions for select processors provide a great out-of-the-box experience at no additional cost to the consumer,” said Merle McIntosh, Newegg Inc’s SVP of Sales and Marketing.  “The Wraith model has attractive styling with LED lighting and runs exceptionally quietly – features we expect will impress our tech savvy consumers.”

Introducing the AMD A10-7860K Desktop Processor

Quiet, efficient and an incredible value, the new AMD A10-7860K APU is powered by 4 CPU cores clocked at 4.0GHz turbo boost and 8 GPU cores running at 757MHz. Smoothly play popular online games like Dota 2, League of Legends, and Counter Strike: Global Offensive with integrated Radeon R7 processor graphics. The A10-7860K is the first unlocked desktop A10 processor to feature 65W TDP (Thermal Design Power) and includes a 95W TDP near-silent thermal solution to ensure quiet operation. In addition, the AMD A10-7860K supports AMD FreeSync technology that puts an end to choppy gameplay and broken frames with fluid, artifact-free performance at virtually any framerate.

“Customers can build a capable, near-silent online gaming PC in a surprisingly small form factor for an unexpectedly low price” said Don Woligroski, Product Marketing Manager at AMD. “The low power requirements mean you can build a tiny system perfect for a small dorm room, for use in the living room as a home theatre PC (HTPC), and portable enough to take to a LAN party.”

The New AMD Athlon X4 845 Desktop Processor

The AMD Athlon X4 845 is the first desktop processor featuring the AMD “Excavator” x86 architecture technology. The quad-core CPU is clocked at 3.8GHz boost and offers AMDs highest IPC core x86 architecture to date. When paired with a discrete graphics card, the AMD Athlon X4 845 enables great gaming and multi-threaded processing performance for an attractive price. The new Athlon X4 845 is a 65W TDP class processor and also comes complete with new AMD 95W thermal solution that provides excellent cooling performance and near-silent operation.

Ambiga Dhiraj Takes Charge as New CEO of Mu Sigma

Mu Sigma, a leading pure-play provider of decision sciences and analytics solutions, announced today that Ambiga Dhiraj, formerly Chief Operating Officer, will assume the role of Chief Executive Officer (CEO) effective immediately. Founder and former CEO, Dhiraj Rajaram, will continue in a full-time capacity with the company and remain as chairman.

Ambiga has been with Mu Sigma for more than eight years, having led functions of talent management, marketing, innovation and product development before assuming the role of COO in February 2012. In that role she drove major improvements to the company’s India operations and the global delivery of products and services to the market. Now she joins an exclusive and short list of female CEOs to lead privately held companies with billion dollar-plus valuations.

“Mu Sigma is moving from its adolescence into its prime,” said company founder Dhiraj Rajaram. “The rate at which we’ve added new clients, combined with the amount of help that our clients demand in realizing the potential of Big Data, led me to this decision to work with them more closely. Ambiga is one of the most design-oriented and operationally strong leaders that I’ve ever worked with. The company had planned for this possibility, and the time is right.”

While Ambiga will lead the company out of Bangalore, Dhiraj will spend more time across the U.S. and other parts of the world to engage more directly with Mu Sigma clients – more than 140 of the Fortune 500. He’ll also spend time designing new offerings for the company’s man-machine ecosystem, forge strategic alliances, and explore options for using the company’s healthy balance sheet to further cement its position as market leader.

“I am honored and excited at the opportunity to lead Mu Sigma in its purpose to help clients adopt a fundamentally new approach to decision sciences and problem solving,” said Ambiga. She began her career in 1998 as a research lead at Motorola, followed by a stint at mobility service provider Kirusa. She holds an M.S. in Computer Engineering, with a specialization in Artificial Intelligence, from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan; and a B.E. in Electrical Engineering from Anna University in Chennai, India.

Shailendra Singh, Managing Director at Sequoia Capital – an investor in Mu Sigma – said, “We support and recognize this change as yet another sign of Mu Sigma’s growth. This move will unleash Dhiraj to help large enterprises capitalize on the incredible amount of change they’re facing.”

Founder Dhiraj added, “It’s been a privilege to lead the Mu Sigma team, but I know in my heart that this new role is how I can add the most value to both the company and its clients. Our purpose as a company will never change, but we must occasionally change how we pursue that purpose.”

Google’s Alphabet Replaces Apple as World’s Most Valuable Firm

Google-parent Alphabet snatched Apple’s crown as the world’s most valuable firm based on the value of shares that leapt with better-than-expected earnings.

At the official close of trade, Alphabet was worth $530.1 billion based on its share value, compared to $534.7 billion for Apple, but shares in the Internet search colossus soared in after-hours trading to reach $791 shortly before 0400 GMT.

If those gains hold in official trading when the Nasdaq opens in New York City today, Alphabet would officially overtake Apple as the world’s biggest company by market value.

Alphabet’s reported quarterly profit rose 5 per cent to $4.92 billion on the back of strong online advertising revenue, particularly from searches done by holiday season shoppers using smartphones or tablets.

“This holiday season, we found that shopping moments replaced shopping marathons,” Google chief executive Sundar Pichai said during an earnings call.

People made purchases online when time allowed, with Google powering many of their searches and serving up related ads.

Google ad revenue climbed globally, gaining on both mobile devices and desktop computers, according to Alphabet chief financial officer Ruth Porat.

The California-based Internet colossus said its revenue topped $21.3 billion in the final three months of last year.

Prime revenue drivers in Q4 were mobile search ads and ads on YouTube, where people watch “hundreds of millions” of hours of video daily.

Porat said the strong revenue growth was a return on years of investment in mobile search, YouTube and so—called programmatic advertising, which involves ads being sold automatically using software.

The earnings report was the first in which recently formed parent corporation Alphabet separated money made by Google from what it calls “Other Bets” such as its work on self—driving cars or delivering Internet using high-altitude balloons.

The new structure under Alphabet is expected to offer more transparency for investors worried about Google investing in money-losing projects.

“Essentially, what they have now is a big advertising business and a venture capital business,” Forrester analyst Frank Gillett said of the new earnings presentation.

Agencies