<span style='color:red'>Google</span> walkouts: The new tech resistance looked a lot like union organizing
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Google walkouts: The new tech resistance looked a lot like union organizing

Jillian D'Onfro | CNBCAn atypical spirit of tech worker solidarity was on display Thursday morning, as 20,000 Google employees poured from offices in 50 cities around the world as part of a massive walk-out to protest the way the company handles sexual harassment.The widespread demonstrations, spurred by a revealing New York Times report that detailed how Google has shielded executives accused of sexual misconduct, were the largest-scale representation yet of a new type of labor organizing catching on in the tech industry.Brishen Rogers, an associate professor at Temple University who specializes in the relationship between labor and technological development, says that the scale of yesterday's demonstrations amazed him."I've never seen anything like this in the tech sector," says Rogers. "The numbers and level of coordination involved in the Google strike was unprecedented."One Google employee, who asked for anonymity since they weren't authorized to speak about the company, says that Thursday's protests felt like lightning striking in how fast they came together.A family or a job?Collective bargaining hasn't traditionally had a place in Silicon Valley. Unions are nearly non-existent for white-collar tech workers, who typically enjoy large salaries, cushy perks and plenty of career mobility thanks to their high-demand skills.Wendy Liu, the economics editor of UK-based publication "New Socialist" and a former Google employee, says that the protests overall were "incredibly inspiring" as the idea of employee dissent spreads in Silicon Valley."For tech workers to even think of themselves as workers — with the implication that their class interests may run counter to that of their bosses — is an exciting development," she says."Tech companies often try to get employees to see themselves as 'team members,' and part of a 'family' who should feel love and even gratitude for their company."She, too, felt that way when she was at Google, she says, before realizing how unhealthy that dynamic was for workers.On Thursday, Google employees borrowed tactics from historical labor organizing. In their statement of demands, the protest's leading organizers linked themselves to movements like the teachers strike in West Virginia and the "Fight for $15" demonstrations by fast-food workers.Indeed, the San Francisco demonstration was even held in Harry Bridges Plaza — Bridges was an influential union leader in the early 20th century — and speakers spoke of his and other examples of historical labor organizing. Demonstrators in San Francisco also talked about the simultaneous union strikes by Marriott employees.Blue-collar workers at major tech companies, like Facebook's cafeteria workers and Bay Area security guards, have started unionizing over the past several years. In another sign of the burgeoning "new tech resistance," organizers of Google's protests were deliberate about including those contract workers in their demands.Tech firms are increasingly hiring contractors, vendors, and temps (TVCs), which can boost profits and speed up hiring. However, those workers typically make less, shoulder higher benefits costs, and lack the job security of direct employees. Earlier this year, Bloomberg reported the astounding stat that Alphabet employed more TVCs than direct employees. No small feat, as Alphabet had 85,050 direct staffers at the time.Jillian D'Onfro | CNBCGoogle employees hold signs at the protest in Mountain View, California. Many demonstrators at Google's Mountain View headquarters leaned into the idea that the only way to achieve their demands — which include the end of private arbitration, a transparency report about sexual harassment, more disclosures about compensation and an employee representative on the company's board — were only possible if all employees at every level of the company were active and included."I'm here because every one of our voices matter and if we are not standing together the necessary changes won't happen," one employee protester told CNBC.Many of the employees who spoke on stage or to CNBC from the crowd declined to give their full names. The Tech Workers Coalitionis organizing a retaliation hotline, which employees will be able to call if they face retribution for their participation in the walk-out.Michelle Castillo | CNBCGoogle employees walked out on November 1, 2018 to protest what organizers describe as "a workplace culture that's not working for everyone."A woman named Sheree who spoke on stage elicited particularly loud cheers when she challenged attendees to think about how their advocacy would extend beyond a one day event."Showing up today is a really good start," she said. "But to be a true ally you have to sacrifice something. What will you sacrifice?""This doesn't end today"Over the last year, there's been an increase in tech industry organizing, as workers have banded together to try to compel their employers to drop controversial projects or take a stand against government policies.At Alphabet's shareholders' meeting earlier this year, a group of employees bucked leadership by presenting a proposal that called for Alphabet's executive compensation to be tied to diversity metrics. Employees also rebuked the company's lack of transparency around leaked plans fora censored search app in China and a controversial Pentagon contract. In June, following intense employee backlash, Google's cloud unit said that it would not renew contract next year."The Google walkout amplifies the wave of tech worker organizing that we see in #TechWontBuildIt and #NoTechforICE," says Sasha Constanza-Chock, associate professor of civic media at MIT who co-authored a recent open letter calling on Microsoft to drop its ICE contract. "It also links tech worker organizing with #MeToo, just as #NoTechforICE links tech worker organizing with immigrant rights."Activists see Google's blow-out protests as being a bellwether for more organizing to come.Employees from other tech companies in San Francisco joined in the Google walk-out on Thursday, and the Tech Workers Coalition says that in the last year its has attracted more interest, and seen an increase in both email subscribers and actual events."We are organizing to build worker power through rank and file self-organization and education," a spokesperson says. "It's clear the executives won't do this for us, so we're taking matters into our own hands."While changing Google's culture will be a long haul, Google organizers' demands were specific and actionable. Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who spoke on stage at a conference the day of the protests, has not committed to any changes, but told employees in a memo that his team was taking in feedback to "turn ideas into action." Even though Google workers have no legal rights to collectively bargain with management without a union, the energy at the demonstrations indicated that employees will not give up quickly.Celie O'Neil-Hart, one of the leaders of the protest who works at YouTube, rallied employees at the end of the protest to keep the momentum going."This doesn't end today," she bellowed over a loudspeaker in Mountain View. "Let's keep this effort going. Time is up in tech. Time is up at Google."
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Release time：2018-11-05 00:00 reading：1165 Continue reading>>
NXP’s Security-by-Design IoT Enters <span style='color:red'>Google</span> Cloud
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NXP’s Security-by-Design IoT Enters Google Cloud

NXP Semiconductors is bringing to edge devices for Google IoT Cloud the same level of security used in banking.The Dutch semiconductor vendor is unveiled Monday “a solution for secure, scalable connections of devices using NXP’s A71CH to Google IoT Cloud.”NXP calls its A71CH “a trust anchor,” because NXP pre-injects private device credentials into the A71CH for autonomous cloud onboarding and authentication, while public keys are delivered to the customer via a NXP web interface.By implementing its trust provisioning service “at the chip level,” Philippe Dubois, senior director and general manager of IoT security solutions at NXP, told EE Times, “Keys are never exposed to any party during the lifetime of a device.” This allows “offloading the cost of ownership and complexity of key management from OEMs,” according to NXP.‘Security by design’ made easy“Security by design” is a familiar mantra, but for a first-time IoT system designer, what does it exactly mean? What would it take to implement the rigorous security that appears to be demanded of IoT devices in recent days?This pressure applies, for example, to the development of connected industrial devices, sensor networks, IP cameras, smart home devices, home gateways and smart cities.Asked about traditional steps to bring security to IoT devices, Dubois laid out several paths.First, a manual provisioning process is often used in small deployment. For example, there is the “provisioning of devices with credentials done one by one,” he noted. However, this is not optimal, because “it’s not secure (manipulating key in plaintext) and lends itself to errors (human error),” said Dubois. Especially, “it is difficult to scale when more devices are needed… impossible for deployment of millions of devices.”A second option is an “in-house provisioning system” for large deployment.Dubois explained: “Some OEMs invest on a costly manufacturing line for secure provisioning, to ensure keys are kept safe, and credentials are injected in a trusted environment, in a facility with security features like tightly controlled access, careful personnel screening, and secure IT systems that protect against cyberattacks and theft of credentials. This is what is called PKI infrastructure.”For small and medium deployment, the cost vs. revenue balance makes this unprofitable, according to Dubois. PKI infrastructure “has a very high cost and is limited only to large deployment," he said. China factorThird, presumably, one could provision via contract manufacturer (CM). This is an option for a majority of OEMs. Dubois explained that some OEMs choose to provision devices at their CM. But in this case, the OEM has no “grantee” on the trust of his credentials. It’s because “keys may be stolen at CM and communicated to malicious parties, or infrastructure at CM may be weak, especially when the CM is in regions like China,” he added.Dubois noted that this system poses major inconveniences. For example, if an OEM is linked to a CM through the provisioning system, there’s little flexibility to move to another CM. It’s because this change would require the OEM to invest in a new connection to a new CM provisioning system.“NXP Secure Trust Provisioning service, implemented at the chip level,” makes sense, according to Dubois. “With the A71CH, designers can safely connect to IoT clouds and services without writing security code or exposing keys for applications,” he noted.Competitive landscapeAre there other chip vendors offering similar solutions with pre-injected credentials?Dubois told us that Microchip has one. However, NXP’s A71CH, “allows high customization for regions with different requirement,” he stressed. “That’s what differentiates us.”Aside from the collaboration with Google IoT Cloud which NXP has announced Monday, NXP’s A71CH already supports Amazon Web Services (AWS) Cloud, and IBM Watson IoT.Dubois added, “NXP also focuses on the China market.” It has “developed in parallel a purpose-built solution security solution for service providers there including Baidu and Alibaba.” Hence, NXP’s claim for scalability.He claimed in a statement, “Our solution aims to solve scalability and complexity issues commonly associated with securing and managing edge devices. We’re happy to see Google Cloud embrace and encourage security in next-generation devices.”NXP explained that injection of device credentials can be made at NXP secure manufacturing facilities or through NXP approved programming partners.
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Release time：2018-09-11 00:00 reading：1160 Continue reading>>
<span style='color:red'>Google</span> joins Si2 Board of Directors
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Google joins Si2 Board of Directors

Roger Carpenter, a Google hardware engineer with 30 years of experience in electronic design automation and chip design, has been elected to the Silicon Integration Initiative board of directors. Si2 is a research and development joint venture that provides standard interoperability solutions for integrated circuit design tools.Before joining Google, Carpenter held executive roles at three EDA firms: Magma Design Automation, Javelin Design Automation and Envis. His design experience includes positions at Wave Computing, Broadcom, Chromatic Research and Xilinx. A holder of more than a dozen patents, Carpenter received a Bachelor’s and Master’s of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.John Ellis, Si2 president and CEO, said that Google’s membership on the Si2 board reflects the increasing impact of vertical integration in the electronics industry.  “A recent Si2 industry survey showed that over 80 percent of our end users develop some specialized, internal design tools. This proprietary software meets their unique needs and performance requirements,” Ellis said.“Directly accessing the Si2 OpenAccess data base by making use of our Application Programming Interface, designers and integrators have greater control over their bottom line by optimizing their design flow and, in turn, shortening product time-to-market. It’s critical that system houses like Google, along with their unique semiconductor design software needs, are now represented on the Si2 board.”The twelve members of the Si2 board represent leading semiconductor manufacturers and foundries, fabless companies, and EDA software providers.
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Release time：2018-08-30 00:00 reading：1129 Continue reading>>
<span style='color:red'>Google</span> tried to change China. China may end up changing <span style='color:red'>Google</span>.
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Google tried to change China. China may end up changing Google.

Beck Diefenbach | ReutersGoogle CEO Sundar Pichai takes the stage during the presentation of new Google hardware in San Francisco on Oct. 4, 2016.Ever since its founding 20 years ago in a Silicon Valley garage, Google has proudly and often ostentatiously held itself up as the architect of a new model for corporate virtue."Google is not a conventional company," the search engine's founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, told investors as part of the initial public offering in 2004. Google, they said, would always put long-term values over short-term financial gain. "Making the world a better place" would be a primary business goal, and Google's ethical compass could be summed up in a simple and celebrated motto: "Don't be evil."In the years since, Google's once-revolutionary sensibility has been adopted and watered down by much of the rest of the tech industry, becoming the stuff of parody and skepticism. Google itself has played down its former zealousness; Alphabet, its parent company, recently dropped some references to "don't be evil" from its code of conduct.Still, if you work at Google or have bought into its missionary brand, you can point to moments when its ethos did rise to something more than marketing puffery. The most obvious example: In 2010, after four years of attempting to operate a censored search engine in China under a regime there that was becoming increasingly hostile to online freedoms, Google did something that a more conventional company would not have done. It said that it had had enough, and pulled its search engine out of the massive market.Now, Google appears to be changing its mind. Under a plan called Dragonfly, the company has been testing a censored version of its search engine for the Chinese market. In a meeting with employees last week, Sundar Pichai, Google's chief executive, said that "we are not close to launching" a search engine in China, but he defended the company's exploration of the market.More from The New York Times:Amazon's Ripple Effect on Grocery Industry: Rivals Stock Up on Start-UpsApple Buys Rights to Series Based on New York Times Climate Change ArticleSlack Raises $427 Million More, at $7.1 Billion ValuationThe defenses are not unsound. Under any rational business sense, it would be insane to expect one of the world's largest internet companies to stay out of the world's largest internet market, especially when many of Google's American rivals happily operate under that government's intrusive rules. China is Apple's third-largest market, and Microsoft and Amazon both offer a host of services there.But wasn't standing apart supposed to be the hallmark of Google's Googliness? Leaving China was the kind of unorthodox decision the search company once reveled in — a move that sacrificed financial prosperity for the moral high ground, that showed employees and customers that Google, with its planet-swallowing mission to organize all of life's information, was motivated by something deeper than financial ambition.Activists for online freedoms worry that Google's return would have dangerous real-world consequences, perhaps accelerating a great new wave of online restrictions in China and elsewhere. But the most lasting impact might be in how we would have to reimagine what kind of company Google was and what it stood for.It is hard not to see how going back to China would be anything other than a terrific comedown — the most telling act of a company that, day by day, has come to resemble the utterly conventional corporation it once vowed never to become."If Google wants to be judged like any other global company, that's fine," said Ben Wizner, director of the Speech, Privacy and Technology Project at the American Civil Liberties Union. "They should just say so — that their principal obligation is to their shareholders and their bottom line. But that has not been the rhetoric coming out of Google, and I think it's fair to judge them by the standards they have set for themselves."In a statement, a Google spokesman said that "we don't comment on speculation about future plans." But the company's leaders have disputed the idea that returning to China would be a moral reversal. At last week's staff meeting, Mr. Pichai suggested that returning to China would be in accord with the vision the company had in 2006, when it first agreed to censor results to accommodate Beijing.At the time, the company said in a blog post that "filtering our search results clearly compromises our mission" but added, "Failing to offer Google search at all to a fifth of the world's population, however, does so far more severely."Mr. Pichai underlined this argument — that providing some access to the outside world is better than none — by citing his experience growing up in India."My dad worked for a U.K. company, and they went through whether they should be in India or should they pull out," he told Google's staff, according to a transcript obtained by The New York Times. "And they stayed, and that made a difference for my dad. And in all likelihood, I wouldn't be here today if it weren't for that."There are other factors behind Google's potential reversal. The internet has changed a great deal since 2010, and the company's executives have increasingly come to see their decision to leave China as rash, naïve and ultimately counterproductive.Google's decision was set in motion by a Chinese hack into its services that was meant to uncover dissidents and spies. The attack shocked and angered Google's founders. In interviews, Mr. Brin, who was born in the Soviet Union, compared the Chinese government to the "totalitarian forces" that had shaped his youth. He and other executives suggested that taking a stand in China might set a kind of red line for repressive regimes elsewhere."I think that in the long term, they are going to have to open," Mr. Brin told The Times.Since then, China's rules have only hardened, while a host of other governments have stepped up efforts to police speech online.Now even many democratic governments are adopting stringent curbs on online speech. For instance, in Europe, a "right to be forgotten" rule has forced Google and other search engines to remove results that are judged to invade people's privacy, and more rules governing hate speech and propaganda are in the works. Meanwhile, Edward Snowden's leaks showed that the American and British governments have also hacked large internet companies, including Google."This argument makes me very sad: The world is becoming more like China, so therefore we might as well be in China," said Rebecca MacKinnon, an internet freedom advocate at New America, a think tank.She said that advocates of free speech and human rights had long found Google to be an ally in their efforts, and that a reversal in China would be regarded as a major defeat."I wrote a book where I warned that China is Exhibit A for how authoritarian governments adapt to the internet and then begin to change the internet," Ms. MacKinnon said. "And if companies like Google are now throwing in the towel and saying, 'Well, that's where the internet is going' and 'If you can't beat 'em, join 'em' — well, that's deeply troubling."If Google does go back to China, it will likely have to agree to an even more restrictive censorship regime than what it tolerated previously. Mr. Pichai has vowed to be transparent about how such a plan might roll out. But advocates said transparency alone would not mitigate their worries about Google's shift."If Google is trying to promote openness and free societies, then transparency is going to be an insufficient way to make this better," said Mr. Wizner of the A.C.L.U. "The transparency would be aimed at the rest of the world. Google wouldn't be telling Chinese people, 'Here's what you can't see.'"Sure, it's early, and Google's plans are not clear. There remains the possibility that Google will think of some completely nontraditional way to satisfy China's censors without losing its soul.But that seems unlikely. The more plausible conclusion is the more obvious one: Google took on China, and Google lost."Make no mistake," said Michael Posner, a professor of ethics and finance at New York University's Stern School of Business. "This will be a huge victory for the Chinese government and anyone else who wants to severely restrict the internet."
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Release time：2018-08-23 00:00 reading：1142 Continue reading>>
<span style='color:red'>Google</span> is welcome back in China as long as it complies with the law, state media says
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Google is welcome back in China as long as it complies with the law, state media says

Google is welcome to return to China but only if it complies with the law, according to an opinion piece by state-backed newspaper People's Daily, after reports surfaced that the U.S. technology giant is planning to launch a censored version of its search service on the mainland.The Information first broke the news last week that Alphabet-owned Google is planning to re-launch its search engine in China and that it would blacklist certain websites and search terms. Google originally left China in 2010 over concerns regarding censorship.Google's reported move has raised concerns from privacy advocates because it would block material online that the Chinese government does not like. But the country's state-backed media has taken a different view."Regardless of its withdrawal, or whether it can regain access to the mainland, Google has been a politicized brand. This is undoubtedly a tragedy for this well-known multinational company," People's Daily wrote in an article published Monday."The decision to exit the Chinese market was a huge blunder, which made the company miss golden chances in the mainland's internet development."People's Daily said Google is "welcome to return to the mainland, but it's a prerequisite that it must comply with the requirements of the law."Those requirements are essentially policed by Beijing's so-called Great Firewall, which is a huge policy of censorship. For example, Google can't be accessed right now by most Chinese internet users. And many other services, including Facebook, are also blocked. Some websites can also be censored if they are deemed unfavorable.The link to the opinion piece is broken but CNBC made a screen grab of the page before it mysteriously disappeared.State-backed People's Daily in China wrote an opinion piece about reports regarding Google bringing back its search engine to the mainland. People's Daily tried to justify Beijing's stance on online censorship saying that "no country will allow the internet to be filled with pornography, violence, subversive messages, ethnic separatism, religious extremism, racism and terrorism." This is false, of course, as pornography and racism can be found online in many parts of the world.Google did not specifically comment on the People's Daily article but pointed CNBC towards the original statement it released when the story first broke, in which it said that it provides a number of apps in China and has made significant investments in companies on the mainland, such as JD.com. "But we don't comment on speculation about future plans," a spokesperson said.Baidu: We will win againThe CEO of Baidu, the biggest search engine in China, responded to the news Google could launch a rival product. Robin Li said that Google would need to contend with the strength of Chinese companies."Over the years, our industrial environment and scale of development have undergone earth-shaking changes. Chinese technology companies have already taken the lead in the world in discovering new issues and serving new demands. The world is copying from China. This is what every international company that wants to enter the Chinese market needs to confront and think about," Li said in a status update on messaging service WeChat.Li said that Google launched its search service in China before Baidu. But when Google withdrew its search engine from China in 2010, its market share was in decline and Li claimed this was because Baidu had surpassed the U.S. firm with "technology and product innovation.""If Google comes back now, we can... win again, for real," Li said.Google declined to respond to Li's comments.
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Release time：2018-08-08 00:00 reading：1260 Continue reading>>
<span style='color:red'>Google</span> to Appeal Record EU Fine Over Android
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Google to Appeal Record EU Fine Over Android

Google said it plans to appeal a record $5.1 billion antitrust fine handed down by the European Union regulators for restrictions imposed on Android device manufacturers and mobile network operators.The European Commission announced the fine Wednesday, saying Google breached EU antitrust rules by placing contractual restrictions on device manufacturers who obtain Google's proprietary Android apps and services to run on the open-source Android operating system.Specifically, the commission found Google's bundling of its Google Search app and Google Chrome browser along with its Google Play Store — all of which come preinstalled on Android smartphones — to constitute "illegal tying" in violation of EU rules. The commission also found that Google offered financial incentives to device manufacturers and mobile operators if they exclusively pre-installed Google Search on devices and said Google has prevented device manufacturers from using any alternative version of Android that was not approved by Google.Google's primary business is internet search, were the company has a market share of more than 90% across most of the 31-state European Economic Area, the commission said."Google has used Android as a vehicle to cement the dominance of its search engine," said Margrethe Vestager, the EC commissioner in charge of the competition policy, in a press statement. "These practices have denied rivals the chance to innovate and compete on the merits. They have denied European consumers the benefits of effective competition in the important mobile sphere. This is illegal under EU antitrust rules."The EC has been taking an increasingly tough stance against Google and other U.S. tech firms. Last year, the EC fined Google $2.7 billion for abusing its dominance as a search engine by giving an advantage to Google's own comparison shopping service.Google's parent company, Alphabet, said in a brief statement that the company would appeal the decision but that it would take a $5.07 billion charge in its fiscal second quarter to account for the fine. Assuming that the appeal is filed, the case is likely to take years to wind its way through the appeals process.Google CEO Sundar Pichai posted a blog Wednesday criticizing the EC ruling for being off base, arguing that Android gives consumers more choice, not less.The posting read, in part: "The decision ignores the fact that Android phones compete with iOS phones, something that 89 percent of respondents to the commission’s own market survey confirmed. It also misses just how much choice Android provides to thousands of phone makers and mobile network operators who build and sell Android devices; to millions of app developers around the world who have built their businesses with Android; and billions of consumers who can now afford and use cutting-edge Android smartphones."
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Release time：2018-07-20 00:00 reading：1339 Continue reading>>
Ex-Intel executive departs <span style='color:red'>Google</span> as chipmaker searches for CEO
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Ex-Intel executive departs Google as chipmaker searches for CEO

Diane Bryant, a former Intel Corp executive who headed the chipmaker's data center unit, is leaving Alphabet Inc's cloud computing unit less than a year after joining and just as her old employer searches for a new chief executive.Google Cloud, the unit of Alphabet that competes against Amazon.com Inc and Microsoft Corp to sell computing services to businesses, confirmed on Tuesday that Bryant had departed. Bryant left Intel in 2017 and joined Google's cloud unit as chief operating officer later that year.In a statement, Google said of Bryant that it was "grateful for the contributions she made while at Google and we wish her the best in her next pursuit." Business Insider earlier reported the news of Bryant's departure.Intel has launched a search involving both internal and external candidates for a new CEO. Former Chief Executive Officer Brian Krzanich resigned last month after a probe of a relationship he had with another Intel employee that violated a company anti-fraternization policy.Analysts widely expect that Intel's interim CEO, finance chief Bob Swan, will not seek to fill the top job permanently. Intel, which was founded 50 years ago this month, has never appointed an outsider as CEO, instead drawing on longtime top executives.An Intel spokesman declined to comment on the company's CEO search or whether Bryant was under consideration for the job.Before she departed Intel, Bryant oversaw the company's data center group, selling chips to large customers like Facebook Inc, Google and Microsoft. Such "data centric" chip sales have grown to account for half of Intel's revenue.
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Release time：2018-07-05 00:00 reading：1040 Continue reading>>
<span style='color:red'>Google</span> Seeds Latest SDN Effort
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Google Seeds Latest SDN Effort

　　Google contributed code to an open-source project organized by the Open Networking Foundation (ONF), the latest effort in software-defined networks (SDNs). Stratum will use the P4 programming language and a handful of open-source interfaces to manage large networks for data centers and carriers.　　The group aims to release open-source code early next year, available on multiple networking chips and systems. So far, the project consists of a handful of software companies along with five chip vendors, five potential users, and four OEMs, including Barefoot Networks, Broadcom, Cavium, China Unicom, Dell EMC, Mellanox, and Tencent.　　Google committed to move the software into its production networks this year. Its plan to be among the first users of Stratum-based systems “will help grease this market,” said Timon Sloane, vice president of marketing and ecosystems for ONF.　　SDN aims to manage large networks through high-level language programs running on a standard x86 server. That’s a radical departure from today’s nets based on proprietary protocols and tools running on merchant and ASIC switch and router chips.　　Experiments in SDN date back to Google’s B4 network described in 2013 using a variation of the OpenFlow protocol. But OpenFlow proved too limited, so ONF shifted last year to the P4 programming language, launched as an open-source project by network chip startup Barefoot.　　The ONF showed an early version of the code last month at Mobile World Congress (MWC), running on chips from Barefoot, Cavium, and Mellanox. Besides the P4 language, Stratum will use a P4 runtime and three open-source protocols that Google helped develop — gNMI, OpenConfig, and gNOI.　　The participation in Stratum of Broadcom, the dominant vendor of merchant switch chips, marks a milestone for the SDN effort. When the company released its Jericho2 chips earlier this month, it said that it would provide its own C++ tools to select customers but added that most users do not need to program a network chip’s pipeline and pooh-poohed the P4 tools.　　Broadcom and some OEMs selling ASIC-based networking systems are not expected to run P4 programs natively on their chips. Instead, they will create translation layers in SDKs and APIs to let the software describe data-forwarding features of their chips.　　The next big leap for the ONF will be to show Stratum working on a variety of existing and new systems. So far, Cisco, the leading provider of ASIC-based networking systems, is not showing interest in P4.　　“I believe Stratum will be one of the remaining missing links to give software developers access to lower-level hardware,” said Sloane.　　Engineers pulled together the MWC demo in just three months compared to much longer times needed to create networks using multiple proprietary systems, he said.　　Another big step is to get larger groups of OEMs and end users to adopt the Stratum code. “I know of at least three or four other companies — not all operators — doing the paperwork now to join Stratum, and we expect more,” he said.
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Release time：2018-03-13 00:00 reading：1525 Continue reading>>
<span style='color:red'>Google</span> Partners with Qualcomm, MediaTek on Oreo
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Google Partners with Qualcomm, MediaTek on Oreo

　　MediaTek and Qualcomm have announced that they are system-on-chip (SoC) partners for Google’s recent release of the Android Oreo (Go edition) operating system designed for entry-level smartphones.　　Android Go is a version of the Android Oreo operating system that’s designed to run on smartphones with either 512MB or 1GB of RAM. By comparison, flagship handsets on the market today use as much as 6GB of RAM. The no-frills phones will use the Go versions of Google apps such as the main Google app, Google Assistant, Google Maps and Gmail.　　After working with Google, MediaTek said that its MT6739, MT6737 and MT6580 SoCs, among others, have board support packages available to run the Go edition of Android Oreo. Google said it worked with MediaTek to ensure that the Go edition works well on MediaTek’s line of processors, enabling a faster time-to-market mechanism for device manufacturers and ensuring a quality Android smartphone experience that is secure and affordable.　　“Entry-level devices are the gateway to the internet for many people, and we want to make sure everyone has a great experience when they use these devices,” said Sameer Samat, Google vice president of product management. “We’re excited that Android Oreo (Go edition) will significantly improve storage, performance, data management and security.”　　The announcement sets the stage for new entry-level smartphones running SoCs that are optimized for the latest version of Android, Android 8.1 Oreo, which has been released to the Android Open Source Project. Without naming specific SoCs in its product line, Qualcomm made a similar announcement earlier this week.　　Shifting Aim　　As nearly a fifth of the world’s 7.5 billion people now own a smartphone, and feature enhancements are slowing with each new generation, smartphone makers have been shifting their aim toward steadily increasing middle-class consumers in emerging markets like India and China.　　Go uses the existing Google Play Store ecosystem to deliver apps that run smoothly on low-memory devices, helping to cut bill of materials (BOM) costs for phone manufacturers. The cost savings provide the 400 million users who buy entry-level smartphones every year a better option, according to Google.　　With Go, Google has optimized its OS platform, and the Google Play Store to improve the capabilities of entry-level devices, which up to now have been limited by processing power and storage. Google created Go to address these issues and ensure that the devices are secure and that users have more control over data usage.　　MediaTek said the announcement builds upon its existing work with Google, including a recent collaboration on Google’s GMS Express to speed up the certification process. Under GMS Express, Google and MediaTek have joined to launch a new Android conformance and compatibility program which will help smartphone makers build devices using MediaTek SoCs that are installed with Google’s Mobile Services (GMS), including Google Play, Gmail and YouTube.　　“With Android Oreo (Go edition), we are partnering with Google to tackle the performance challenges of lower-memory phones, improving the user experience of entry-level smartphones for consumers in key markets across India, the Middle East and Africa, Latin America and Southeast Asia,” said TL Lee, general manager of MediaTek’s wireless communication business unit.　　Go uses MediaTek’s turnkey reference designs and chipsets to reduce product development time and compliance testing. A range of MediaTek SoCs support Go, including the MT6739 and MT6737 for 4G devices, as well as the MT6580 for 3G devices, allowing handset makers the flexibility to design products for specific price points and markets.　　Go smartphones powered by MediaTek SoCs will be available worldwide by the first quarter of next year. Go smartphones based on Qualcomm’s Snapdragon mobile processors will be available in early 2018, according to Qualcomm.
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Release time：2017-12-08 00:00 reading：1171 Continue reading>>
Keynoter: Noise Analysis Beats <span style='color:red'>Google</span> Now
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Keynoter: Noise Analysis Beats Google Now

　　Researchers are mining a largely untapped data source — the signals and noise generated by smart-device sensors — to enable technologies that solve the world’s hardest human-machine interface problems, Intel Fellow Lama Nachman, Director of the Anticipatory Computing Lab, told a keynote audience at SEMI’s MEMS & Sensors Executive Congress 2017 (San Jose, Calif.). The resultant applications will accurately detect emotions and anticipate needs, without requiring a Google-like dossier of user habits, she predicted.　　“Technology needs to be more active at understanding the needs of the user,” Nachman said. “To do that, our job at the Anticipatory Computing Lab is to really understand what type of help you need in any situation.”　　Reviewing earlier stabs at productivity-enhancing personalized assistants, Nachman praised Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa because they kept it simple, only offering a helping hand in response to specific user requests, whereas Microsoft’s initial efforts to make ad hoc suggestions to users wound up irritating them at best and breaking their train of thought at worst. She praised Google Now’s ability to make ad hoc suggestions to its users that are actually useful (for the most part). The downside to Google Now is the deep knowledge it needs to mine from users’ habits with respect to browsing, location, email, purchasing, and other behaviors — a collection of data amounting to a dossier on each user.　　Instead, Intel’s Anticipatory Computing Lab aims to repurpose the signals and noise produced by the legions of sensors already deployed in smartphones, smart watches and wearables, smart automobiles, and the Internet of Things (IoT) to make ad hoc suggestions that entertain, increase productivity, and even save people’s lives — whether or not they are Intel users — all in real time and without a Google-like secret data bank on user habits.　　“Intel is taking all the sensor feeds available now and reinventing the way they can help people with volunteered information that is always relevant to the person, what you are doing, and what goals you are trying to achieve,” Nachman said. “But to do so, there is a very large set of capabilities that we need to understand, such as emotions, facial expressions, nonverbal body language, personal health issues, and much, much more.”　　Many of these personal parameters can be gleaned from the normal usage of the sensors built into our smartphones, wearables, and IoT devices — for instance, facial expressions from a smartphone’s user-facing camera or the volume of a user’s voice. The sensor data can be fused with smart-watch data on pulse rate, activities, location, and more to anticipate a user’s actions and needs with unprecedented accuracy, according to Nachman.　　“To understand emotions ‘in the wild,’ so to speak, it is essential to understand, for instance, when you are angry. Even if you are not cursing or yelling, your computer should understand when you are pissed off,” said Nachman. “Physical factors like breathing fast can be seen by a user-facing smartphone camera, fast heart rate can be measured by your smart watch, but we need to fuse that with facial expressions and a deeper understanding of how individuals behave.”　　Besides the aforementioned applications, Intel is pursuing such technologies as caring for elderly people or those with disabilities in real time. Indeed, just about everyone can benefit in some fashion from the “guardian angel” model. For instance, Nachman admitted to be a serial food burner, especially when she prepares large spreads for parties. “I need my computer to help me stop burning things,” she said. “Mechanics, repairmen, and even surgeons need their computers to tell them when they have left a tool inside the location they are repairing before they close it up.”　　Another essential, according to Nachman, is the perfection of adaptive, personalized learning that engages each user, especially children, in the optimal way for them. Likewise, she claimed that autonomous vehicles need to keep track of what is happening to the people inside the car as well as the environment around the car. “You especially need to understand how comfortable the driver of the car is when he releases control to the autopilot, [gauging] the anxiety level. You also need to keep track of the activities in which the people in the car are engaging, at least insofar as [the activity] affects the occupants’ safety.”　　Noise is the signal　　Nachman said OEMs and microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) sensor makers are ignoring the noise produced by sensors and actuators, and as a result they are automating functions, such as smartphone camera settings, over which users might want more control. “There is a lot of noise in the environment, but sometimes that is the signal you want to identify,” she said.　　Smartphone cameras automatically adjust exposure and focus, for instance, assuming users are only interested in the foreground. But what if the photographer wants to focus on the criminal lurking in the background? Current smartphones let you touch the part of the scene you want to be exposed properly, but they invariably switch back to the foreground without continuous taps on the background. MEMS sensor makers should, by default, allow users to disable all automatic functions, according to Nachman.　　Nachman cited another product category in which the default settings should not be automatic: RFID tags, which are both sensors and actuators. Ordinarily, RFID readers ping the RFID tag with an RF signal, which is harvested and used to actuate a return signal that identifies the product on which the tag is mounted. In her lab, Nachman demonstrated that by analyzing the noise that results when a person stands between the reader and the tag, it is possible to infer customer engagement. “We found that the noise of the human interrupting the RFID ping could be used to find out which item on a shelf is being touched, which one the buyer is interested in the most, and other useful facts for retailers,” she said.　　Other examples given by Nachman include extracting a person’s respiration and heart rates from the noise in the reflection of wireless signals already saturating the environment from everybody else’s smartphones. The lab has also experimented with putting smart nose pads on a person’s glasses that could render a noisy nasal version of the user’s voice. Using signal processing to remove the nasal noise yields clear voice signals without the use of a microphone.　　The lab found that the noise from the ubiquitous magnetometers in smartphones, wearables, and IoT devices could be mined for a variety of contextual data, for instance whether a person is sitting; standing; walking; exercising; biking; or riding in a car, bus, or airplane. The noise from a smart watch can reveal whether the wearer is talking on the phone, moving a mouse, pushing a button, or stapling. Gyroscope noise can be used to tell, from just a single finger touch, whether a person is intending to point or zoom, thus obsoleting pinch-to-zoom and allowing simultaneous zooming and clicking with one hand.　　Blood pressure measurements — a capability Apple promised in its initial buildup for watches but failed to deliver — can be taken from the noise generated between a smartphone’s two cameras as the phone is pressed against the user’s skin. The camera can also use the noise in a user-facing camera to measure pupil dilation and thereby infer whether the person is drowsy, anxious, or something in between.　　The Anticipatory Computing Lab even developed a way to allow Stephen Hawking to control everything he does with the movement of a single cheek muscle. That movement contains a significant noise element, namely how much control Hawking has over that muscle from day to day (which varies wildly).　　There is also a power-savings component to the research. For example, “people have been thinking up all sorts of GPS applications since it became ubiquitous,” Nachman noted, since GPS “burns up a lot of battery power that the sensor makers never anticipated. Even worse is how to keep the power consumption down for always-on sensors, which must able to sense the intended signals plus the noise in between them, and decide when to turn on the application processor, all while keeping power consumption low.”　　The answers, according to Nachman, are to accelerate the pace of innovation without increasing power consumption by virtue of more configurable smart sensors that know when to turn on the application processor, as well as when to sense noise they were not originally envisioned to sense.
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Release time：2017-11-03 00:00 reading：1278 Continue reading>>

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