NI Automated Test Outlook Reinforces the Need for Smarter Test Systems

NI, the provider of platform-based systems that enable engineers and scientists to solve the world’s greatest engineering challenges, announced today the release of its Automated Test Outlook 2016. The annual test and measurement report delivers a comprehensive view of the key trends expected to impact automated test environments with the proliferation of connected devices, from preparing to test mmWave communication to effectively using manufacturing test data to propel business results.

“As strong advocates for excellence in automated test, we work closely with customers and suppliers to understand the top issues facing manufacturing and test departments,” said Jayaram Pillai, Managing Director India at National Instruments. “Whether your challenge is testing millions of Internet of Things devices or managing a 20-year-old test system, our goal is to spark dialogue within your organization to help you lower the cost of test and stay ahead of your competition.”

Automated Test Outlook 2016 explores the following topics:

COMPUTING: Harvesting Production Test Data

Semiconductor organizations pioneer real-time data analytics to reduce manufacturing test cost.

SOFTWARE: Life-Cycle Management Is All About Software

Obsolescence, OS churn, and compatibility challenge long life-cycle projects—an age-old problem warrants revisiting.

ARCHITECTURE: The Rise of Test Management Software

Off-the-shelf test executives are effective solutions for the influx of new programming languages.

I/O: Standardizing Platforms from Characterization to Production

RFIC companies employ IP reuse and hardware standardization across the product design cycle to reduce cost and shorten time to market.

Business Strategy: Making (mm)Waves in Test Strategy

Test managers are adopting modular solutions to economically validate high-frequency components.

Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Celebrates Open Day on March 5, 2016

Indian Institute of Science (IISc’s) annual public outreach event is celebrated to mark both the birth anniversary of the founder JN Tata (March 3) and National Science Day (28 February).

On this day, IISc throws its doors open to students and the public, inviting them to explore, experience and enjoy the wonders of scientific and technological innovation at the Institute. Every year, thousands of visitors flock to see the scientific demos, live experiments and exhibitions, and to interact with researchers at the Institute.

Special Day at CSA and CDS

The Department of Computer Science and Automation (CSA) and the Department of Computational and Data Sciences (CDS) will host its Open Day on Saturday Mar 5, 2016. While CDS will hold its first open day on March 5, CSA has been doing it for years. Several technical and interactive programs will showcase the research and academic work that is conducted at both the departments, including popular talks every hour from faculty, students and industry speakers, and posters and demonstrations. We will also have quizzes on the talks and posters with fun prizes to be awarded to winners!

Nanotech Experts Call to Change Face of Mankind Solutions

India’s Biggest Nanotechnology Event Bangalore INDIA NANO closed highlighting the latest trends on nanotechnology and applications. The international event was organized by the Department of IT, BT, SnT and Vision Group on Nanotechnology along with Jawaharlal Nehru Centre of Advanced Scientific Research under the leadership of Bharat Ratna Prof. Shri C.N.R. Rao, FRS, Chief Mentor, Bangalore INDIA NANO.The power-packed day 2 comprised of an outstanding line up of speakers and programs that demonstrated the efficient adoption of Nanoscience to address human requirements.

Bangalore INDIA NANO saw over 60 global speakers addressing over 13 sessions, the event saw participation of from over 600 delegates with over 40 exhibitors and 2000 business visitors.

Day 2 included a keynote lecture by Prof V Ramgopal Rao who introduced delegates to an amazing ecosphere of nano-electro-mechanical-switches. The application of these switches range from environmental sensing to agriculture and healthcare. This was followed by the second keynote lecture by Dr. Supratik Guha which covered nanotech’s practical application in the internet-of-things. The session also gave a glimpse on how technology impacts in controlling the synthesis, properties and manipulation computing and energy. The session helped gain an insight into the research currently being conducted to launch disruptive technology to influence energy conservation, computing and the digital platform.

Moving on, students to PhD scholars took center stage to participate in ‘Nano Sparx’ in its premier edition at this event to showcase their entrepreneurship in Nanotechnology. The competition saw seven proficient contestants battle it out to win the coveted title. The best Nano Sparx was recognized and awarded to Prasoon Kumar, IIT Bombay.

The ‘Nano for the young’   program was attended by about 500 under grad students who were introduced to the fascinating world of nanoscience and nanotechnology by expert speakers. Another major highlight was a ‘Poster – Walkway of Discovery which attracted over 100 young researchers who presented new ideas in nanoscience and nanotechnology. 10 best posters presenters were awarded with Rs. 20,000 cash prize each.

The agenda included sessions on Nano Manufacturing and Nano Energy that were delivered by subject experts. While Nano Manufacturing covered topics such as large scale manufacturing, large area Nano fabrication self-cleaning anti-microbial surfaces and Science and Technology of micro manufacturing, Nano Energy focused on grapheme applications, transition metal nitride and carbides and the use of carbon based materials in energy storage.

Attendees also joined in the Research Industry Collaboration Hub (RICH) that was designed for the benefit of emerging entrepreneurs with novel business ideas who made a pitch to investors, heads of large RnD labs, ventured capitalists and industry captains.

The eventful day culminated with a valedictory ceremony addressed by Bharat Lal Meena, IAS, Additional Chief Secretary, Higher Education Department, Government of Karnataka and V. Manjula, IAS Principal Secretary to Government Department of IT, Biotechnology and Science and Technology Government of Karnataka. The function included the presentation of the Nano Sparx Awards to Prasoon Kumar, IIT Bombay and Poster Awards to ten recipients.

Glimpse into tomorrow-Day 3 of the Bangalore India Nano 2016 would feature a series of tutorials by nano leaders to cover aspects such as Nano Fabrication Technologies, Nano medicine and Electron Microscopy and Nano Photonics. The tutorials will be followed by an interactive session with the tutors to address queries in the above spheres.

CYBER-i & Intel Security Globally Partner for Managed Security Services

CYBER-i, the cyber security division of AGC Networks, a leading solutions integrator company and Intel Security today announced a strategic Managed Services Provider (MSP) Partnership to offer outcome based managed security services across the globe. This will give the customers a credible solution designed to effectively and proactively prevent/monitor and respond to security incidents in their organizations.

The level of cyber threats is increasing exponentially and this has led to a shortage of skilled security professionals. Thus the overall demand for managed security services in India and globally has increased as organizations seek to maximize/remediate network security through managed services. CYBER-i’s partnership with Intel Security will offer security practitioners with a trusted, reliable security advisor to remotely monitor and support customers while allowing them to maintain control over partner branding, licensing, reporting, billing, and pricing.

Speaking about the partnership,  Atul Khatavkar, Global Head, CYBER-i said “We are extremely excited about the partnership with Intel Security and the opportunities it brings to CYBER-i in allowing us to continue to grow in multiple areas of Cyber Security including Managed Services, Consulting, Advisory and Training. Our Global Security Operations Centre (GSOC) based on Intel Security’s technology backbone is now fully operational in our Mumbai office. We can now offer end-to-end managed services to organizations across business verticals including critical infrastructure, e-commerce, IT/ITES and online retail and to name a few, on premise as well as on cloud, thereby helping organizations thwart advanced threats including zero-day attacks. We at CYBER-i feel confident that aligning ourselves with Intel Security, a leader in the cyber security field will create a win-win situation for our customers, employees and the alliance itself as we continue to grow globally.”

Commenting on the association,  Jagdish Mahapatra, Managing Director for India and SAARC at Intel Security said, “The demand for managed services in India has been peaking as small and midsize enterprises look to increasingly transfer the security responsibility to trusted partners. The combined strengths of Intel Security and CYBER-i will offer a world class managed services framework to the category. Our solutions are designed to enable organizations to become future ready while reducing their overall cost of securing the enterprise. This can help shift their capital costs on security to an operational expenditure model, allowing them to potentially counter technological obsolesce and improve their overall security posture.”

The industry adoption of managed security services is fast growing as many customers need expert implementation partners for deployment. Moreover, as enterprises struggle to come to terms with the rapidly evolving security landscape, they look towards strong partners who can help architect solutions that enhance their security outlook.

Samsung Mobiles & Sony South India’s Most Trusted Brands, Reports IBT

India’s most awaited and rigorous brand evaluation, The Brand Trust Report, India Study, a comparison of the trust held in brands, has been released for 2016. Samsung Mobiles leads South as the Most Trusted Brand as well as All-India rank, followed by Sony which secures 2^nd rank sustaining its rank from All-India rank. Nokia ranks 3^rd in South up one place from the All-India rank. LG is South India’s 4th Most Trusted brand, down one place and Tata secures South India’s 5^th position, steady at the 5^th in the All-India rank and Boost is the 6^th Most Trusted Southern brand improving its rank by moving up 41 places from its All-India rank. Lava is at the 7^th position, up 25 places and Dell at 8^th position is maintaining its position from its All-India rank. Airtel is at 9^th in the South up by four places and Honda is at 10^th in the South India down by four ranks as compared to All-India ranking. Last year the five Most Trusted South India brands LG, Sony, Samsung Mobiles, Dell and HP.

A comparison of the top 20 in each zone shows small differences. However, as we study the entire group of 100 brands these differences across zones become stark. South India has shown its unique preference for 15 brands featured in South zone’s 100 Most Trusted Brands, which are not seen in the 100 Most Trusted of the other three zones. These include – All Out, Lipton, iBall, Dish TV, Good Knight, Oral B, Vim, Mirinda, Bournvita, Iodex, Facebook, Glucon D, Rexona, Olay and Wheel.

The Brand Trust Report, the sixth in its series, is the result of a comprehensive primary research conducted on the proprietary 61-Attribute Trust Matrix of TRA. This year’s study involved 18000 hours of fieldwork covering 2500 consumer-influencers across 16 cities in India and generated 6 million datapoints and 20,000 unique brands from which the top 1000 brands have been listed in this year’s report. The 200 page, hardbound report is available for Rs. 14000.

N. Chandramouli, CEO, TRA, said on the occasion of the report’s launch, “A distinctive trend has been detected in the rankings of South India which shows a minor deviation in comparison to the All-India line. South India’s top 100 brands are almost congruent with India's 100 Most Trusted Brands. Of the 100 south zone brands, only 29 brands were not listed in the India's 100 Most Trusted Brands. 

Except for a few category leaders, the distribution of brands across categories of both the South zone's top 100 and the country's top 100 brands are almost the same. A few brands that featured in the South zone list and topped their categories are Arrow (Apparel); HDFC bank (BFSI), Boost (F&B), Yahoo (Internet), Sonata (Personal Accessories).”

Samsung’s Palm Sized T3 SSD with Capacity Up to 2TB Comes with Built-in Shock Resistance

Samsung India Electronics has announced the launch of Samsung Portable SSD T3, a premium, palm-sized, external solid state drive (SSD) that offers multi-terabyte (TB) storage capacity. Equipped with Samsung’s proprietary Vertical NAND (V-NAND) and SSD TurboWrite technology, the T3 drive provides advanced performance, enabling consumers, content creators, business and IT professionals, to quickly and easily store and transfer large multimedia content across a variety of devices.

Representing a major step forward for external, mobile storage, SSDs offer a truly dependable and versatile solution. Samsung is leading the market by offering a new 2TB T3 SSD, along with a wide range of capacity options including 250GB, 500GB and 1TB.

“With digital content on the rise, consumers, content creators, and business professionals are in need of a high-speed, reliable and secure storage which is accessible from multiple devices such as PCs, smartphones and tablets. Samsung is leading the way in redefining and revolutionizing the external storage market with the success of Portable SSD T1 launched in 2015. We will set new benchmarks with the new Portable SSD T3 without compromising on storage capacity, style and security,” said Sukesh Jain, Vice-President, Samsung India Electronics.

The benefit of the new Portable SSD T3 is the blazing-fast read/write speeds that facilitate quick transfer of data. It is truly an on-the-go device, which gives high flexibility to users owing to its compatibility with laptops, desktops, TVs and android devices. Thanks to its AES-256 bit hardware encryption, it is a preferred choice for transferring sensitive files. With this, users can easily manage their password settings on the move. The new portable SSDs would enrich the lives of consumers as well as enterprises from various walks of life including gamers, media, movie production, architects, and designers, among others.

The security features of the drive also make it among the safest in the world. With 256 bit hardware encryption, the T3 is safer than keeping your money in a bank.

Built for Speed

Built with the same award-winning technology as Samsung’s internal SSDs, the Portable SSD T3 saves users precious time with extremely fast read/write speeds, enabling users to plug in and quickly grab their work to present to prospective clients or partners. The drive comes with sequential read/write speeds of up to 450 megabytes per second (MB/s) with a USB 3.0 super speed interface – up to 4X faster than external HDDs. The responsiveness is as fast as internal SSD with random read/write speed up to 240X faster than external HDD.

Mobility and Durability Suited for an On-the-Go Lifestyle

With its intuitive user interface, the Samsung Portable SSD T3 is easy to set up and protect, so professionals can be assured that their original work will not fall into the wrong hands or get lost due to design, durability or reliability concerns.

With just one user-set password, the drive is safe from unwanted access, thanks to AES 256-bit hardware encryption. With no moving parts, the drive is designed for portability; it can withstand bumps and drops and users do not need to worry about the wear and tear of moving parts that can result in lost or corrupted data. It has a metal body with a shock resistant internal frame. It is shock resistant up to 1,500G and resistant up to 2 meter drop test. It has a thermal guard, which efficiently manages workload to prevent overheating.

The drive is highly secure with its AES 256-bit hardware encryption and users can secure data from unwanted access by installing password security enabling software.

Stylishly Designed for Maximum Portability

The Portable SSD T3 has a slim and compact design that makes it easy to carry anywhere. Smaller and lighter than an average business card holder, it weighs about 51 grams, designed specifically for an on-the-go lifestyle. T3 is compact, measuring 74x58x10.5 mm. It features premium aesthetics such as dark silver metal with black design and anti-scratch urethane coating, making it a sleek, fashionable choice for sophisticated and stylish users.

Increased Compatibility and Data Security

Featuring an adopted USB 3.1 Type C connection, the T3 is compatible with a wide range of USB supported devices, including the latest Android smartphones and tablets, and computers with Windows or Mac OS. Users can send data from the T3 to a PC and vice versa, access content on the T3 through mobile devices, and view the drive’s multimedia content on large-screen devices such as TVs.

T3 uses exFAT, a widely adopted file system, as its default file recognition format to create a seamless user experience. T3 also works with a brand-new complementary Samsung Portable SSD Android mobile app, which supports password changes and remaining capacity checks.

The drive has a simple set-up process for users, with one user-set password. The drive is equipped with AES 256-bit hardware encryption for the high level of security and protection across Windows, Mac and Android OS based devices. Even if the drive should fall into the wrong hands, the data stored on it would be inaccessible.

Availability

The new Portable SSD T3 will go on sale from 21st March, 2016. The price will be Rs 10,999 for 250GB, Rs 18,999 for 500GB, Rs 37,999 for 1TB and Rs 74,999 for 2TB.

Each unit of the Portable SSD T3 comes with a 3 year warranty, and is available in 250 GB, 500 GB, 1TB and 2TB capacities. The device will be available at retail stores as well as leading online stores, including Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal.

8th Edition of Bangalore India Nano Attracts Over Global 600 Delegates

The 8^th edition Bangalore India Nano has once again come into the fore and attracted more than 600 delegates from across the world. The event will see 47 experts deliberating on a wide range of topics.

Addressing the inaugural session, the Minster of Science and Technology Minister SR Patil said, “Karnataka, expecting to ride on the new wave in the market is eyeing creation of 2,000 start-ups this year. The city is already well known globally as the IT and startup capital of India.”
 
"Karnataka is already home to over 4,000 start-ups and the government is keen on creating an environment that will enable kick-start at least another 2,000 this year," adds Patil.

The state has already granted land for a set up by the Centre for Nano and Soft Materials on the Tumkur-Bengaluru Road," he said. Patil also spoke of the new start-up policy that the government has announced to encourage start-ups in the state, after having seen a huge surge in the number of such firms in Bangalore.

Prof CNR Rao noted that the former Diwan of the State of Mysore started the science developments over a 100 years ago. The state began the first university followed by a dam, steel factory and also a paper mills also over a century ago. “If not the far sighted vision of this great visionary, we would have none of this here today. I’m sure that he would have been a great patron of nanoscience if he was here today," Rao adds.

V Manjula, Principal Secretary, Science and Technology Department, Government of Karnataka said: "The global nano-technology industry is a $100 billion industry growing at a healthy rate of 17.5% and this city is already leading the way in India."

The three-day event will address the latest trends in nano-technology with focus on healthcare, clean water, energy, and, manufacturing and research collaboration.

The highlight of the event -- Nano Sparks -- showcasing emerging business ideas by young researchers wishing to convert ideas into start-ups has seen a big plus point for the young.