Having so many labor problems, no wonder multinational companies are leaving France on the first sight of trouble. Wipro is an Indian company, the only reason buying overseas hi-tech firm is to learn their technology. After they learn everything, there is no reason keeping the France operation. Wage is much cheaper in India.

Anne-Francoise Pele, EE Times, 03/05/2010

PARIS — France has seen different forms of social discontent in the past week: Two bossnappings at Siemens Lyon, the occupation of premises at ST-Ericsson Caen and a letter to the press at Wipro-NewLogic Sophia Antipolis.

Social unrest tends to escalate in France. Not a day goes by without a strike, a riot, a demonstration or the promise of one these ingredients. And the recession did not help.

EE Times presents three incidents that have taken place at three French subsidiaries of international groups this week.

Workers squat ST-Ericsson Caen
Since Feb. 25, ST-Ericsson workers have been occupying the premises in Caen, France, night and day to protest against the group’s intention to close the site.

ST-Ericsson, the 50/50 joint venture between Ericsson and STMicroelectronics NV, indeed unveiled in June 2009 a restructuring plan that entailed 146 layoffs in France, over a total of 2,100, and the closure of the company’s site in Caen.

In a discussion with EE Times, Herve Renault, workers’ representative at the workers’ central committee, explained that employees feel completely abandoned by a company to which “they have brought much added-value.”

This feeling is strengthened by the management behavior, he added. “They do not respect the employees they are laying off. Does the acknowledgment of the accomplished work still mean something?”

In the meantime, ST-Ericsson’s spokesperson emphasized to EE Times that the group reported a strong loss in 2009 and, consequently, the restructuring effort is “absolutely necessary to guarantee the company’s financial stability. The continuity of the group’s operations in France and in the world depends on this financial stability.”

Since June, ST-Ericsson’s spokesperson said the management team has expressed its intentions to close the site in Caen while maintaining its commitments in France. “ST-Ericsson has engaged its civil responsibility as it has implemented all it could to minimize the social impact on the Caen region, notably through various measures to accompany employees and to revitalize economically the region. ST-Ericsson reaffirmed this commitment at the Caen Prefecture on March 2, 2010.”

ST-Ericsson France, the spokesperson added, is committed to implement measures and resources to place employees in the Caen region, to promote company creations, to insure internal relocations and support job research. ST-Ericsson said it continues to work on a full or partial sale of the site to a third party.

Renault painted a darker portrait. He noted that ST-Ericsson’s management team has proposed no alternative solution, not even a partial takeover of the activity. “The management absolutely does not fulfill its responsibilities. The proposed support as part of the restructuring plan is minimalist.”

Since June 2009, Renault noted, “the management team has endeavored to contradict the fact that the site closure is not economically legitimate. For the rest, nothing has evolved. The management’s communication is very subtle, especially on the fact that it was pretending to do its best to relocate its employees. Much promises but few concrete moves.”

Renault said he believed the French Government has the means to intercede because it holds 14 percent of the company’s shares, and “if the Government cannot intercede with a company of which it has the financial control, then we can question its capacity of defining a true industrial policy.”

He highlighted that the manager of ST-Ericsson Caen was promoted manager of ST-Ericsson France and resides in Sophia-Antipolis. “Other senior executives have deserted the company a week ago,” he said.

Two managers bossnapped at Siemens Lyon

On Tuesday (March 2), workers at Siemens’ site in Saint-Chamond, near Lyon, freed two managers they had detained in their offices overnight. They said they were willing to reopen discussions on planned redundancies and compensation payments.

The two managers were the head of the plant’s administration and finance department as well as the head of human resources.

France’s Industry Minister Christian Estrosi severely condemned the detentions. He declared: “I refuse violence, especially since a restructuring plan is being negotiated, and we have met Siemens’ workers at my office to explore future solutions to revitalize the labor pool.”

This incident is the latest of a long list of “bossnappings” in French subsidiaries of international groups, including Molex and Sony and 3M.

Wipro-NewLogic workers condemn Wipro’s growth

On March 4, in an open letter to the press, employees of Wipro-NewLogic’s R&D center in Sophia Antipolis, France, who chose to remain anonymous, denounced Wipro’s $1 billion profit and $6 billion sales for the year 2009. The move is part of a vast struggle against Wipro’s decision to cease all of its semiconductor activities in France and close its site in Sophia Antipolis.

The letter also indicated that the group is massively hiring in India, including 4,800 employments in the fourth quarter of 2009, while it continues to lay off employees in Sophia Antipolis. About three fourth of the employees received their letter of redundancy in November, and the second wave has been announced, workers representatives noted.

So far, the letter further explained, “fifteen jobs have been created via the launch of two spinoffs, very few ex-employees have found a new job, and only one person could be relocated inside the group.”

Wipro-NewLogic development center in Sophia Antipolis employs 61 engineers focused on developing Bluetooth IP and WLAN IP. The center also offers design services for digital, analog, mixed-signal and RF-based chip designs.

NewLogic Sophia Antipolis opened in the technology park of Sophia Antipolis in November 1999 as a subsidiary of NewLogic AG, based in Lustenau, Austria. It was founded in 1999 by a group of former VLSI Technology engineers.

In December 2005, Wipro Technologies acquired NewLogic in an all cash deal. Under the terms of the agreement, Wipro paid about Rs.253.94 crores (47 million euros) to acquire hundred percent stake in privately held NewLogic.

Following the purchase, Wipro-NewLogic continued to develop products (Bluetooth 2.0 then 2.1-EDR, WLAN 802.11n).

I don’t buy into the hype of 3D TV or 3D movies. 3D TV is just a fad that comes and goes. It happens before and history will repeat itself. Forget about the lame 3D TV. Holographic TV is the real holy grail of next generation TV technology.

by Rick Merritt﹐ EE Times﹐ 02/25/2010
Vendor groups discuss but yet to act on sensitive issue

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Experts in human perception are expressing concerns stereo 3-D TVs now hitting the market could cause eye strain and related health problems. Industry groups are actively discussing the topic, but in their rush to get systems out the door vendors have yet to fund any major studies of the issues.

Stereo 3-D movies and television could generate as many as seven different perceptual problems, said Martin Banks, a professor of optometry and vision science at the University of California at Berkeley. He gave a talk earlier this month for a broad group of consumer and Hollywood technologists about some of his biggest concerns, and was invited to come back to give a day-long course.

“They seem concerned about it, and my impression is they want to address this,” Banks said of multiple contacts he has had with the industry. “They know they will kill the business if they make an unpleasant experience for people, [but] the question is what they will implement,” he added.

“I think there are real things to be concerned about with the use of stereo displays becoming very widespread, especially if younger children are exposed to them routinely,” added Simon Watt, a lecturer in the school of psychology at Bangor University in Wales who, like Banks, has been conducting studies on eye movements and stereo 3-D displays.

One of the main issues the researchers are studying is the so-called convergence-accommodation conflict. People watching stereo 3-D content have to adjust what they see at one point on a flat screen to information in the content that tells them that object is at another point in 3-D space. Such adjustments are not needed in the real world, so the human brain is not wired to handle them smoothly.

“We were the first to show that causes a variety of symptoms people can find unpleasant” such as headache and fatigue, said Banks.

Recent 3-D movies such as “Avatar” did a good job of minimize the effect, Banks said. But “as you decrease the distance [to the display] the problems created by this conflict accelerate and it’s non-linear so they accelerate quickly.

“Things you could get away with in movies, you can’t in a video game where a kid is close to the screen, so I am more troubled about stereo 3-D TVs than movies,” he added.

Both Banks and Watt are working on one possible solution. In separate efforts they are developing so-called multi-focal-plane displays that could reduce eye strain.

So far 3-D TV consortia in the U.S., Japan and Korea have discussed the issue in their meetings, but not taken any concrete actions.

“It’s still in the discussion phase–we need someone to take the bull by the horns and create teams and structure and so forth,” said Chris Chinnock senior analyst at market watcher Insight Media and a member of the 3D@Home Consortium.

“First, we need to characterize all the factors that can cause eye strain, then find ways to measure the levels of the effects and ultimately develop tools and rating systems for the content,” said Chinnock, rolling out one scenario the groups have considered.

It’s a sensitive issue for the vendor groups. “There’s the danger of a panic about 3-D making you sick, and we’ve got to be careful about not starting that sort of stampede,” Chinnock said. “The key to that is education and understanding what’s real and what’s not,” he added.

Taking a small step forward, Panasonic recently contributed an undisclosed amount to the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC) at the University of Southern California to fund the first step toward a broad study. “Our goal is to get scientifically and statistically valid data on the impact of viewing stereoscopic 3-D content among the general population,” said Phil Lelyveld, a program manager at the ETC.

The Panasonic money will fund two pilot studies to establish the design criteria for two large population studies that still lack funding. Essentially the group aims to provide eye tests to a few theaters full of consumers before and after watching 3-D movies.

“There is no real data today, it’s all anecdotal,” said Lelyveld.

In a marketing survey of 1,914 adults conducted in December by the ETC and the Consumer Electronics Association, 18 percent of the group expected they might have eye strain or headaches from seeing a stereo 3-D movie. Only 12 percent said they had the symptoms after watching one.

Many of the issues are in the content—not the TVs–and may not rear their head for another year or two, said Chinnock.

“I am fairly confident in the first year or two we will have pretty good content because people are on to this,” Chinnock said. “I am more concerned about what happens a few years out when amateurs put out a lot of stereo 3-D content.

“If someone tries to put a movie created for a theater screen on to a 46-inch TV you could blow your eyeballs out trying to focus on objects that are supposed to be behind you,” he quipped.

Some of the new TVs will use algorithms to automatically turn 2-D content into stereo 3-D. Banks said he has not studied the 2D-to-3D techniques.

Those techniques typically create a sensation of depth behind the screen, not in front of it, said Chinnock and others. Thus they may create visible artifacts users may find crude but not contribute as dramatically to the convergence-accommodation conflict as effects that create depth in front of the screen.

Meanwhile the latest crop of 3-D TVs are hitting retail shelves at prices lower than some expected.

Sears announced Monday (Feb. 22) it has new stereo 3-D capable TVs from Samsung at prices as low as $2,500. Vizio, now the largest vendor of LCD-TVs in the U.S., announced models costing as little as $2,000.

For a long time, I was wondering the decision of PMC buying Passive, a PON chip maker. Even though the Passive division did not bring in as much revenue as we expected, but it seems it’s the right acquisition after all. If Marvell and Broadcom are trying to get into the same market, it must be a good market to be in. With the Passive acquisition, PMC is ahead in the game and becomes the market leader of the moment.

by Rick Merritt, EE Times, 02/02/2010
Broadcom, Cavium may be next to jump into PONs

SAN JOSE, Calif. — Marvell is making its first foray into home broadband terminals, launching a new family of chips for passive optical networks. The news comes as the number two player in the PON market, startup Teknovus Inc., is expected to be acquired by Broadcom Corp. or Cavium Networks.

“We didn’t play in DSL and cable set-top boxes but we are jumping in now with the inflection point of optical broadband coming to the home,” said Nafea Bshara, chief technology officer of Marvell’s enterprise business unit.

The timing is good. Market watcher Infonetics Research estimates the worldwide market for PON systems will hit $4.5 billion in 2013 driven by the rise IPTV systems such as those of AT&T and Verizon and rapid rollouts of PON-based services elsewhere, especially in China.

Marvell will roll out four devices this year under the Avanta brand–including Gbit, Ethernet and 10 Gbit/second Ethernet PON chips–leveraging a wide range of its in-house silicon blocks. The $3 billion Marvell hopes to outgun PMC-Sierra which shipped about half the $140 million in PON chips sold in 2008, according to market watcher The Linley Group (Mountain View, Calif.).

“Carriers such as China Telecom are understandably nervous” depending on PON chips from a handful of relatively small chip makers with revenues typically well below $200 million, said Bshara. “They need a credible company to come and support this market,” he said.

Marvell quietly acquired Iamba Networks (Cupertino, Calif.) in a deal that closed in March. It has married Iamba’s Gigabit PON technology with Marvell’s own internally developed Ethernet PON designs to create dual-mode products.

“This is unheard of in the industry today and will drive costs down as it drives economies of scale up,” Bshara said.

The Marvell SoCs will pack plenty of punch. They include the company’s ARM V5-compliant Armada 300 processor at data rates ranging from 1.2 to 2 GHz.

Some of the chips will also integrate a six-port Gbit Ethernet switch that supports Audio-Video Bridging, IP multicasting and a draft Energy-Efficient Ethernet standard. In addition, some will build in a version of Marvell’s Prestera programmable packet processor to handle IPv6, power-over-Ethernet and voice over IP.

The networking blocks leave the Armada processor available to handle third-party apps and carrier services such as data backup and parental controls. Marvell has shipped about 10,000 developer kits for the Armada CPU.

The initial chips will be made in 55nm process technology, consume 3.2W max and fit into a 19x19mm BGA. Some of the devices shipping later this year will be made in a 40nm process.

The chips “sound pretty impressive with greater integration than anything that else on the market,” said Jag Bolaria, analyst with The Linley Group. “PMC-Sierra will now have some real competition from a credible long term supplier,” he added.

The Gbit EPON standard is strongest in Asia with deployments in China, Korea and Japan, said Bolaria. The 2.5 Gbit/s GPON is being used in the U.S. by Verizon.

Late this year, Marvell will roll out a 10G Ethernet PON chip. It is designed for a smaller market of systems that deliver links that fan out to a neighborhood or a large apartment building.

Marvell’s Bshara said he believes he has an edge over competitors such as Broadcom or Cavium believed to be eyeing an acquisition of startup Teknovus which sold an estimated $25 million in PON chips in 2008.

“I am not surprised [Teknovus is] trying to shop themselves around,” said Bshara. “But whoever picks them up will be two years behind us to do the integration,” he added.

“For Teknovus, an exit at this point is good as the market heats up and its technology has the most value,” said Bolaria. “Teknovus does not have the resources to develop the complete client platform including a CPU, Ethernet chip, Wi-Fi, and etc.,” he added

Why they keep calling it 3D TV? It is really just 2.5D that give you an illusion of 3D but not a true 3D. You can tilt you head and a different image from the other side. I don’t think 3D TV will fly nor 3D movies. It’s just a fad that comes and go. The real breakthrough would be holographic TV that gives a true 3D view.

by Junko Yoshida – EE Times – 10/28/2009

YOKOHAMA, Japan — If a panel at a flat-panel display conference held here Wednesday (Oct. 28) is any indication, the possibility of 3-D entertainment in the home is a foregone conclusion, at least if you believe Japanese consumer electronics giants such as Sony and Panasonic.

More accurately, 3-D is a matter of survival for these companies, whose two-dimensional sales continue to decline.

At the conference here, FPD International 2009, top executives promoting Blu-ray systems — from Panasonic and Sony, respectively — made clear that they are ready for a 2010 launch of full HD 3-D-equipped Blu-ray players and matching 3-D TV sets.

The new 3-D Blu-ray format, whose standardization is scheduled to finish at the end of this year, will use two 1920 x 1080p full HD resolution frames, one for the right eye and another for the left eye. 3-D disks will maintain backward compatibility with 2-D Blu-ray players, so that new disks can be played back in 2-D on current Blu-ray hardware.

While there will be a single standard for 3-D Blu-ray disks and players, the market is likely to see fragmented 3-D display technologies on new 3-D TV sets.

Broadcasters likely to opt for different 3-D technology

To further complicate matters, broadcasters who want to reach mass audiences for the minimum investment in infrastructure, hope to offer 3-D programs in a format different from the 120Hz, full-HD frame sequential method adopted by the Blu-ray Disc Association, according to Ikuo Matsumoto, executive director at Fujiwara-Rothchild, a 3-D market research firm based in Tokyo.

Some satellite operators and pay TV companies plan to use a so-called “half-HD” format, which crams two pictures — left eye and right eye — in one frame. There are various “half-HD” methods, because the information going to each eye can be arranged in “line by line,” “top and bottom,” side by side” or “checker sampling” configurations.

Multi-format 3-D TV

Speculation abounds in Japan over whether Blu-Ray promoters, who are also leading large-screen TV manufacturers, are willing to offer multi-format 3-D TV sets. But so far, they’re all mum on their 3-D TV strategies.

However, Masayuki Kozuka, general manager of the storage devices business strategy office at Panasonic Corp., hinted Wednesday that Panasonic 3-D TV will be adapted to broadcast by allowing “side by side” signals. Such signals will then convert to frame-sequential by using special circuitry inside TV sets, he said.

Akira Shimazu, general manager of BD strategy at Sony Corp., agreed that Sony has similar strategies.

It is not clear what other 3-D technologies will be incorporated into these companies’ 3-D sets, however. But one thing is clear: the adoption of Xpol stereoscopic 3D technology is “unlikely,” indicated Kozuka.

Xpol 3D, developed by Arisawa Manufacturing Co., is an optical device based on a micro-polarizer. By bonding it to a flat-panel display, such as LCD, users can view flicker-free 3D stereoscopic content simply by wearing cheaper polarizer glasses, claimed the Japanese company.

Kozuka, however, complained that the Xpol filter on 3-D TV could limit viewing angles for consumers.

Market researcher Matsumoto stressed that a multi-format 3-D TV is “ideal” for broader 3-D market adoption, but integration of a host of new 3-D technologies could result in a cost-prohibitive product, because of the variety of intellectual property involved.

Why are they forcing 3-D so hard now?

Participants in Wednesday’s panel stressed several key reasons why they must seize the moment now to push 3-D into the home.

Four reasons for 3-D push

First, it’s all about digital.

While acknowledging consumers’ lukewarm reaction to the 3-D cinema experience in the past, Panasonic’s Kozuka made it clear that “all digital 3-D technologies today make a world of difference from analog 3-D experiences we used to know.” He added that all-digital 3-D offers less crosstalk and dramatically improves the sense of dimension.

Second, Hollywood studios’ enthusiasm for 3-D is building at full speed right now.

There will be at least 4,000 digital cinema theaters worldwide by the of this year. Hollywood has discovered that profitability per theater triples for 3-D movies, compared to 2-D.

A host of new 3-D flicks are now in production, including “A Christmas Carol” by Robert Zemeckis and “Avatar” by James Cameron.

“We want to ride the momentum, not lose it,” said Sony’s Shimazu.

Third, Blu-ray by itself has done nothing for Hollywood studios’ home video business.

Home video business revenue has been on a slight downward curve over the last few years, acknowledged Panasonic’s Kozuka. In order to reverse this trend, “We need to give consumers a good, visible reason to buy Blu-ray,” he said. That, in the eyes of Blu-ray promoters, is 3-D. “We’ve offered interactive Blu-ray based on Java. We also connected Blu-ray to the Internet,” said Kozuka. “But we think 3-D is the biggest differentiator — clear to everyone.”

Forth, 3-D, if successful, will create whole new opportunities for a range of product lines including both professional and consumer electronics devices.

Sony’s Shimazu claimed that Sony is ready to go 3-D not only with its game console PlayStation 3 but also its Vaio PCs. Naturally, new 3-D TV sets will also play a key role in differentiating their hardware, he added.

Both Sony and Matsushita stand to gain by developing professional 3-D video cameras and other 3-D related services for movie studios and TV production houses.

Seven factors that could trip up the industry’s 3-D push

While 3-D promoters remained optimistic, the Q&A session at the panel offered a long list of reasons why 3-D is still a long shot, or could once again, prove a fad that fizzles in the end.

First problem: subtitles on 3-D content.

How to deal with subtitles, or more importantly closed caption information which is mandatory in the United States, on a 3-D TV remains an unresolved issue. One can put a subtitle on a 3-D film, but when an image jumps off the screen, the subtitle follows. “It all depends on depth of a screen for now, we don’t have a definitive solution,” acknowledged Panasonic’s Kozuka.

Second, sports and live events broadcast in 3-D.

No videographers and producers have enough experience with shooting live events in 3-D.

In a live 3-D baseball game, for example, cameras would have to be relocated from long-familiar 2-D vantage points in order to follow the flight of a 95-mph fastball from pitcher to batter, and again from batter to wherever the ball lands. In a football game, a long pass might be impossible to capture in a single panning shot with one 3-D camera. But if a camera switch is necessary, the whole play could be lost in transition.

Third, animation in 3-D is fine, but what about others?

So far, Hollywood studios have been able to demonstrate the effective use of 3-D in animation films. “But animation is after all depicting a fantasy world,” said Reiji Asakura, an author and audio/video critic in Japan, who moderated the panel.

The real test is in a regular film, shooting the real world. “Even a slight discrepancy shown in 3-D will turn the audience off, because we all have a real-life 3-D experience,” he noted.

Fourth, what about those cockamamie glasses?

Whether using active shutter glasses or polarizer glasses, the question is: “Will consumers be asked to wear them all the time?” asked one of the attendees. The inconvenience factor would be substantial. “Most people today watch TV while doing something else — whether eating supper or reading a newspaper,” he pointed out.

Fifth, how much is it?

No vendors have disclosed how much a new 3-D Blu-ray player or a 3-D TV set will cost — yet. At a time when the global economy remains weak, it’s unclear who’s ready to jump on the newest gadget, except perhaps for the gadget-happy consumers of Japan.

Sixth, did you say “3-D PC?”

In different parts of the world, PCs continue to gain momentum as a primary device for entertainment. Sony says it has a plan for 3-D Vaio PCs, but the company offers no details on how to enable a PC with 3-D.

Seventh, is 3-D safe for your eyes?

The biggest question mark, and a potential deal breaker for 3-D, is — no kidding — optical safety. There is not enough evidence to determine whether watching 3-D intensely on a game console for hours is harmless. Vendors claim they will be taking precautions and working on guidelines. But the safety issue, if mishandled, could send 3-D back to the same drawing board where it died in 1954.

Another example on why our intellectual properties legal system is broken. It is simply ridiculous that someone found a technology company, sell it to pocket billions of dollars, then sue the new owner infringe his copyright.

John Walko – EE Times

LONDON — The founders of Skype, Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, have sued owner eBay and an investor group that last month said it would buy the net-based phone and messaging service, accusing them of copyright violation.

The move could disrupt the $1.9 billion deal.

The lawsuit was filed in Northern California U.S. District Court by the founders’ holding company, Joltid Ltd, and seeks a permanent injunction against Skype and damages.

EBay has denied the allegations.

The suit says Skype used its technology without authorization. It comes as a related lawsuit and counter-claim in the U.K between e-Bay and Joltid over a software licensing agreement between the parties, that Joltid was seeking to terminate, nears a court hearing.

Joltid brought a counterclaim, reiterating that it holds the rights to the peer-to-peer technology and that Skype is in violation of the original agreement.

“The Skype companies have continued to infringe Joltids copyrighted works on a massive scale, the latest, U.S. lawsuit said. “Each day that the Skype Companies continue to make available its Internet telephone software for download, Skype users download Joltid’s copyrighted works approximately six times per second,” the claim suggests.

Ebay licenses peer-to-peer technology from Joltid for Skype, but is understood to have started developing its own alternative software given the uncertain outcome of pending litigation with Joltid.

“Their allegations and claims are without merit and are founded on fundamental legal and factual errors,” eBay said in a statement.

Last month, ebay agreed to sell a 65 percent stake in Skype for $1.9 billion to a consortium including Netscape founder Marc Andreessen’s Andreessen Horowitz, venture firm Index Ventures, private equity firm Silver Lake, and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board.

Everyone has been speculating for years Google is going to make their own OS. Finally the rumor is confirmed. Now the question is whether the Google OS will fall flat like Android, or would be just Android in disguise?

from EE Times

Google Inc. said it plans to develop and soon roll out a new PC operating system that will aim at dislodging Microsoft Corp. from its perch atop the computer world as the two companies continued their intense rivalry for dominance in the technology market.

The new OS to be named Google Chrome Operating System will debut by the second half of 2010 and will initially be targeted at the low-cost netbook market, although it will eventually migrate to the PC segment, an area long-dominated by Microsoft, which is planning to roll out the latest version of its Windows operating system later this year.

“Google Chrome OS will run on both X86 as well as ARM chips and we are working with multiple OEMs to bring a number of netbooks to market next year,” said Sundar Pichai, vice president, product management and Linus Upson engineering director at Google in a blog post. “The software architecture is simple—Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel. For application developers, the web is the platform.”

It is clear Google is targeting the planned operating system at Microsoft with the goal of gradually reducing the stranglehold the world’s biggest software company has on the technology market. Microsoft’s operating system is often preloaded on a majority of the world’s personal computers and the company has a growing monopoly also in the netbook segment.

Google said it is entering the operating system market because the current technology products available to system developers, consumers and corporate technology equipment buyers were “designed in an era where there was no web.” As a result, Google said, the technology market needs to “re-think what operating systems should be.”

The company is already trying to nibble at Microsoft’s share in other market segments. Google rolled out a competing web browser named Google Chrome about nine months ago and the company claims it is already being used by more than 30 million people globally. Google has also tackled Microsoft’s domination of the applications market by developing products compatible with its rival’s Microsoft Office applications.

Google is challenging Microsoft in other areas as well. The company’s Android operating system for mobile devices is believed to be taking off but Pichai noted in his blog post Tuesday (July 7, 2009) that the Google Chrome Operating System would be a new “project, separate from Android.”

“Android was designed from the beginning to work across a variety of devices from phones to set-top boxes to netbooks,” Pichai said. “Google Chrome OS is being created for people who spend most of their time on the web and is being designed to power computers ranging from small netbooks to full-size desktop systems.”

Microsoft has been able in the past to shake off similar efforts by other operating system developers to break into the PC sector. The company’s market share of PC operating system has fallen gradually as open source applications such as Linux gained traction, for instance, but Microsoft still commands a greater share of the operating system segment.

Google’s attempt may represent one of the more direct and potentially viable strikes at Microsoft’s PC operating system dominance. With more than $17 billion in cash and short-term investments as at the end of the March quarter, Google has the means to fund the new operating system and its own domination of the web search engine market also gives it a strong platform to aim darts at Microsoft.

By playing on persistent fears about the vulnerabilities of Microsoft’s operating systems to virus attacks, start-up hiccups as well as concerns about the company’s monopoly status at PC makers, Google may be able to drive a wedge between its opponent and its customers. It’s not clear though if this would be enough to dislodge Microsoft from its premier position in the operating system market.

“People want to get to their email instantly, without wasting time waiting for their computers to boot and browsers to start up,” Pichai said.

“They want their computers to always run as fast as when they first bought them. They want their data to be accessible to them wherever they are and not have to worry about losing their computer or forgetting to back up files,” he added. “Even more importantly, they don’t want to spend hours configuring their computers to work with every new piece of hardware, or have to worry about constant software updates.”

The previous generation looks up to the stars and have sky as their limit. This generation has put too much focus on Earth and become the prisoner of gravity.

Nicolas Mokhoff – EE Times
(06/22/2009 12:01 AM EDT)

On July 20, 1969, as humans set foot on an astronomical body other than Earth for the first time, millions watched on television sets across the globe. The moment was historic, it was awesome, it was exciting, it was unbelievable!

What have the 40 years since wrought?

As I write this, NASA is readying for its next launch, with seven more targeted for the rest of the year.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) and Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) were prepared to launch on Thursday, June 18, with three attempts possible, at 5:12 p.m., 5:22 p.m. and 5:32 p.m. If launch slipped to Friday, June 19, the launch opportunities would be 6:41 p.m., 6:51 p.m. and 7:01 p.m.

Would anyone, I wondered, watch the action on CNN or Fox?

The 2009 mission is no less exciting than 1969′s moon walk. NASA’s Web site explains the technical goals: The LRO is scheduled for a one-year exploration mission at a polar orbit of about 31 miles, the closest any spacecraft has orbited the moon. Its primary objective is to conduct investigations to prepare for future exploration of the moon.

LCROSS will search for water ice on the moon by sending the spent upper-stage Centaur rocket to impact part of a polar crater in permanent shadows. LCROSS will fly into the plume of dust left by the impact and measure the properties before also colliding with the lunar surface.

Coverage of NASA launches is video streamed at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv.

So, it’s all there for us. The communications technology exists for streaming video on a computer screen or broadcasting it via mass-market TV, with high-definition audio, to let us all vicariously participate in the “conquering” of space. But few of us do.

The sad thing is that in an era of prolific technical and scientific discoveries and engineering achievements in space, we tend to fixate on Earth and wonder where we go from here. Bombarded by images of global unrest, numbed by the talking heads dissecting the minutiae of our economic woes, we spend too much time staring at the screen and asking, “what now?” and too little time gazing at the stars and wondering “what if?”

What if our children could be the next explorers of space? What if our sons and daughters could find engineering a rewarding career to pursue?

At a recent MIT symposium celebration of the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, Harrison (Jack) Schmitt, the astronaut on the last Apollo (17) module, mentioned that in a survey of 25- to 30-year olds, a large percentage could not relate to or did not believe in the achievements of Apollo 11.

In his talk, Schmitt mused about the famous “Earthrise” photo taken by the Apollo 8 crew from their space module porthole, saying that the shot of Earth rising above the moon’s terrain had “forever changed the way we look at ourselves.” Yet young people have become so desensitized by the constant barrage of images of today that they fail to appreciate the achievements of the past.

There are many reasons why our young are more interested in fame and fortune than in exploration and discovery. But maybe those who witnessed the first moon walk should remind the young more often that the sky is, literally, the limit.

Maybe common sense is not so common, especially in the hi-tech industry.  I wonder who makes those blunders, executives with engineering background or executives without engineering background.

by Mark LaPedus, Dylan McGrath, Rick Merritt, Nicolas Mokhoff
EE Times (06/10/2009 12:03 PM EDT)

Every once in awhile, electronics firms or individuals who work for them do something that makes everyone else in the industry scratch their heads and, perhaps, wince. We are talking about actions and decisions that—while they may seem perfectly logical to those making the decisions—don’t really add up in the minds of most people.

Perhaps it is the tough economy increasing the pressure and forcing acts of desperation, but it seems to us that there have been an inordinate number of examples of these head scratchers to come to light in recent months. EE Times has compiled a list of 10 moves that, in our opinion, can be called questionable. (We welcome comments in the forum below.)

1. IBM mum on layoffs

IBM has quietly let go some 10,000 workers in recent months, according to an IBM workers labor union. Big Blue has for the most part declined to comment on these layoffs (though a human resources vice president told the New York Times that the company is in constant transformation, eliminating jobs in some areas while adding them in others). Speculation by the union and others is that IBM is keeping layoffs on the down low in order to stay under the radar. But, if so, this policy has backfired miserably, with every whisper of an IBM job reduction attracting greater scrutiny and more distrust/publicity courtesy of the union.

2. The paranoid goof up

In May, the European Commission charged Intel with at least eight violations involving rebate payments to Acer, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Lenovo, NEC and Media Saturn Holding, owner of the MediaMarkt retail chain. It levied a fine of $1.45 billion against the processor giant, its largest fine to date. Intel claimed it has evidence that will refute the European Commission’s conclusion that the company has engaged in anti-competitive business practices. But why did Intel bother with any alleged bad behavior in Europe, or, for that matter, in Asia and the U.S. in the first place? It was plain silly. Its rival, Advanced Micro Devices Inc. (AMD), never seems to get its act together and stumbles over its own feet. Intel usually wins over AMD by default.

3. Jobs’ next job

It’s hard to fault Apple Inc., one of the few high tech companies sailing relatively smoothly on the wings on the iPhone and iPod through the historic downturn. But the company failed the candor test this year when it disclosed January 5 its chief executive had “a hormone imbalance” then came back less than ten days later to say the iconic Steve Jobs would take a six month medical leave. A week later the SEC opened an investigation of just what was going on. Since then, much of the reporting on Apple has focused on the mystery of Jobs’ health. After a decade as CEO, we think it’s time for Jobs to get a succession plan and be transparent about it.

4. Hwang’s gaffe

Once upon a time, Hwang Chang-gyu, formerly the head of Samsung’s chip unit, devised something called ”Hwang’s Law.” Taking a page from Moore’s Law, ”Hwang’s Law” implied that NAND transistor count would double every year. Samsung pushed that idea with its own NAND product efforts. Others followed. The idea worked–and backfired. NAND scaling has enabled cheap MP3 players, USB drives and solid-state drives. But NAND scaling in part has also caused excess capacity–and vast losses–among vendors. This was not entirely Hwang’s fault, but he took the fall. He was demoted and ultimately resigned from Samsung earlier this year.

5. Microsemi-gate

Chip maker Microsemi Corp. assessed penalties against its president and CEO, James Peterson, after determining that he misrepresented his academic credentials. Microsemi fined Peterson $100,000 and forced him to forgo his annual bonus (worth an average of $680,000) after it came to light that Peterson did not have the bachelors or masters degrees he claimed from Brigham Young University. Prior to the proving of the allegations, Peterson sharply denied them, claimed his academic record was being confused with another man with a similar name and questioned the credibility of the person who first brought the lie to light, Barry Minkow of Fraud Discovery Institute. Peterson remains president and CEO of Microsemi. A high-ranking Broadcom executive was reportedly fired last year for falsely claiming to have degrees from the University of California at Irvine.

6. MIPS’ analog divorce

Analog is the hottest thing since sliced bread. Not for one IP vendor. MIPS Technologies Inc., which in August 2007 bought Chipidea, a Portuguese analog and mixed-signal IP company for $147 million, in May divested its analog business group to Synopsys Inc. in an all-cash transaction for $22 million. The marriage lasted only 18 months. At the least the divorce went well.

7. Bad memories

As part of its plan to bail-out Taiwan’s loss ridden DRAM sector, the Taiwan government proposed consolidating all of the island’s DRAM makers into a single company. Thus far, the DRAM vendors have refused. Even a pro-Taiwan lobbying group is mystified. The Taiwanese government plan to consolidate the island’s DRAM industry around the government-backed Taiwan Memory Co. (TMC) remains unclear and could do more harm than good, according to a recent report from that group. TMC may never get off the ground.

8. 450-mm fab dreams

Intel, TSMC and Samsung are separately pushing for 450-mm ”prototype” fabs by 2012. International Sematech is spearheading the effort. Late last year, Sematech updated its 450-mm fab roadmap–amid the worst downturn in the equipment industry. At a Sematech event, no one explained who would pay for the R&D or the 450-mm tools. One analyst said it best: Semiconductor equipment companies should boycott development of tools for the transition to 450-mm wafers, saying chip gear vendors were the losers in the transition to 300-mm wafers and would likely not benefit from the next move to larger wafers.

9. Selling out is OK

Fab automation vendor Asyst Technologies Inc. rejected takeover bids from Aquest Systems Corp. and others last year. Since then the company has filed for bankruptcy and has been all but begging for a buyer. The firm’s CEO resigned in April and it was delisted from the Nasdaq stock exchange. Similarly, fab tool vendor Axcelis Technologies Inc.rejected bids from Japan’s Sumitomo Heavy Industries Ltd. last year. Since then, the company has cut hundreds of workers, been sued by its stockholders, and was forced to sell its stake in a Japanese joint venture to a partner. The company’s stock price has declined from nearly $6 per share a year ago to just over 50 cents per share as of June 8.

(tie) 10. ATE standards are proprietary

Standards in automatic test equipment (ATE) look good on paper, but they certainly don’t work in the real world. ATE vendors simply can’t agree on anything; they hate each other. And consortiums don’t work too. For example, the Semiconductor Test Consortium Inc. (STC) was formed in 2003 to devise ATE standards. The end result: The STC flopped and Japan’s Advantest built a proprietary tester for Intel. Then, last year, Advantest, Amkor, Infineon, Intel, LTX-Credence, Qualcomm, Roos Instruments, Teradyne, and Verigy formed a new organization to devise ATE standards in an effort to lower test costs. The group, called Collaborative Alliance for Semiconductor Test or CAST, recently discontinued its operations and was folded into the SEMI trade group. CAST is still alive but don’t look for ATE standards in the future.

(tie) 10. Fister fumbles

Cadence Design Systems Inc.’s bid to buy Mentor Graphics Corp. last summer may have been the final nail in the coffin of the Michael Fister regime. Fister was known to think big, and the acquisition of Mentor would certainly have been that. Mentor was initially uninterested, but later grumbled that Cadence did not follow through with face-to-face negotiations. A few months later, Fister was gone and a humbled Cadence was watching its sales tumble as it started back on the path to a ratable business model. Ironically, the $1.6 billion that Cadence initially bid for Mentor was close to the amount of the loss that Cadence eventually reported for the fourth quarter of 2008.