Fusion-io 1.6 TB ioFX PCI-Express SSD for Workstation Applications

Enterprise storage solution maker Fusion-io has announced the 1.6TB model of its ioFX workstation acceleration platform, which joins the original 420GB model. Based on the firm’s ioMemory platform, the new high-capacity ioFX features improved workstation application performance, making it ideal for video editing, computer assisted design (CAD), 4K and stereoscopic production, as well as digital intermediate (DI) finishing.

The ioFX utilizes MLC NAND flash memory and PCI-Express 2.0 x4 bus interface. Users can expect up to 1.4GB/s read and up to 1.1GB/s write performance. The powerful throughput eliminates data storage bottleneck, allowing maximized CPU and GPU processing. Fusion ioSphere software is included for remote monitoring and mangement.

To be released in Summer, the 1.6TB ioFX will be priced at $1995.

Oracle Cloud Applications: The Right Ingredients Baked In

Eggs, flour, milk, and sugar. The magic happens when you mix these ingredients together. The same goes for the hottest technologies fast changing how IT impacts our organizations today: cloud, social, mobile, and big data. By themselves they’re pretty good; combining them with a great recipe is what unlocks real transformation power.

Choosing the right cloud can be very similar to choosing the right cake. First consider comparing the core ingredients that go into baking a cake and the core design principles in building a cloud-based application. For instance, if flour is the base ingredient of a cake, then rich functionality that spans complete business processes is the base of an enterprise-grade cloud.

Cloud computing is more than just consuming an application as a service, and having someone else manage it for you. Rather, the value of cloud comes from enabling your business to be more agile in the market place, and shortening the time it takes to deliver and adopt new innovation. It’s also about improving not only the efficiency at which we communicate but the actual quality of the information shared as well. Data from different systems, like ingredients in a cake, must also be blended together effectively and evaluated through a consolidated lens. When this doesn’t happen, for instance when data in your sales cloud doesn’t seamlessly connect with your order management and other “back office” applications, the speed and quality of information can decrease drastically. It’s like mixing ingredients in a strainer with a straw — you just can’t bring it all together without losing something.

Mixing ingredients is similar to bringing clouds together, and co-existing cloud applications with traditional on-premise applications. This is where a common platform built on open standards is critical. It’s essentially a cloud recipe that calls for not only great ingredients, but also ingredients you can get locally or most likely already have in your kitchen (or IT shop.)

Open standards is the best way to deliver a cost effective, durable application integration strategy — regardless of where your apps are deployed. It’s also the best way to build your own cloud applications, or extend the ones you consume from a third party. Just like using standard ingredients and tools you already have in your kitchen, a standards based cloud enables your IT resources to ensure a cloud works easily with other systems, while maintaining the ability to deliver enterprise, real-time reporting executives demand today. Your IT staff can also make changes using tools they are already familiar with. Or even more ideal, enable business users to actually tailor their experience and reports without having to call upon IT for help at all. This frees IT resources to focus more on developing new innovative services for the organization vs. run and maintain.

Carrying the cake analogy forward, you need to add all the ingredients in before you bake it. The same is true with a modern cloud. To harness the full power of cloud, you can’t leave out some of the most important ingredients and just layer them on top later. This is what a lot of our niche competitors have done when it comes to social, mobile, big data and analytics, and other key technologies impacting the way we do business. The transformational power of these technology trends comes from having a strategy from the get-go that combines them into a winning recipe, and delivers them in a unified way.

In looking at ways Oracle’s cloud is different from other clouds — not only is there rich functionality that spans functional pillars like CRM, HCM and ERP, but, social, mobile, and business intelligence are already embedded where it makes the most sense across a complete business process. This strategy enables the Oracle Cloud to uniquely deliver on all three of these dimensions to help our customers unlock the full power of these transformational technologies.

How to Save Battery on an Android Phone?

Android is growing fast in terms of services and apps – that are high hungry for battery – and hence its becoming quite hard to keep up with a battery life of an Android smartphones that lasts all day.

Some people out there can probably stretch the life of a an Android phone battery to say 16 hours or even 24 hours on a single charge with low usage. But, hey, you didn’t buy a smartphone to keep it in your pockets to save battery.

So the question is how to increase battery life of Android phones without compromising with the usage?

Frankly speaking its not possible to get another full day of stand-by – even after digging out all the possible ways of extending battery life – however, there are few things that can save you with few hours of battery life.

In this article we are going to show you how to increase battery life on an android device.

Less Apps Less Battery Consumption:

The lower number of apps installed on your Android device the more battery you can dig out from it. This is probably the best way to save a lot of battery. Dump all unnecessary apps that you had installed once but never used them again – remove them immediately.

Such apps run in the background consuming your device’s RAM and even slowing down your device. By deleting such apps you can definitely get more battery life.

If your Android device is rooted then delete those unnecessary apps that come as stock apps on your device, such as some antivirus apps that always ask you to buy there premium package and you don’t want to. Delete such apps by installing root file manager and going into system files. it’s quite easy.

Installing Battery Saving Apps:

These battery saving apps have profiles or modes in which that they can toggle Wi-Fi, GPS, Mobile data, Sync etc. They automatically turns on and off such things that drains battery. Such apps would run in background and controls such options that drain battery. You can easily find these battery saving apps on Play Store.

Use task killing apps on your android:

Many apps are now available in Play store that are known as task killers. Such apps kill background running apps which frees up memory and ultimately saves battery. There are some automatic task killers and some are manual. You can even set regular task kills. The more memory you have the more fast and responsive your device would be and would save battery life.

Disable Wi-Fi when not needed:

When not using Wi-Fi turning it off is another great way to save battery life. Wi-Fi keeps grabbing new lists of Wi-Fi signal in the area where ever you go, that keeps on consuming more battery life. Even when connected to your home Wi-Fi or office’s Wi-Fi it drains battery, So best deal for you is to disable it when not needed.

Disable GPS when not needed:

Disable GPS while not using. GPS is mostly used by maps like Google Maps or Sygic etc. Such apps uses GPS to find your location and point your location on their maps. Facebook also uses to show your location when posting a status, pics or videos. Even camera uses GPS for geo-tagging. Such features are great but it would drain more battery life and hence should be disabled to save some cells.

Disable Mobile data when not needed:

Mobile data drains more battery life than the Wi-Fi and disabling the Mobile data when not needed is a great deal to save battery.

Select 2G in Network Mode:

Go in to settings/Wireless and networks/Mobile networks/Network mode and choose GSM only in Network mode. Because in Pakistan we only have GSM  — though we are desperately waiting for 3G but until then — changing such settings would also increase battery life.

Save Battery Through Wallpaper:

Live wallpaper drains battery as well as they slow down the processes like opening apps. Live wallpaper looks fancy but definitely are no go for those who want to save battery. Select static picture as a wallpaper that would save battery.

Using a black wallpaper or dark wallpapers on Devices with Super AMOLED or LED backlight screen saves battery further.

Enable Sync or Uploading Only Through Wi-Fi:

Sync files or download large files through Wi-Fi only because this way such operations will take lesser time and hence lesser battery consumption. Apps like dropbox, Google Drive, Skydrive etc. come with the option that you can upload pictures or videos automatically and instantly when you shoot them – don’t select this option. Rather select to upload or sync your data only when on WiFi.

Delete Unnecessary Widgets:

Widgets also drain battery because they keep themselves running to update their status. For example Facebook widget shows new posts and for such function it runs in the background consuming Wi-Fi or mobile data and hence draining the battery. Using less widgets would help you get more battery life.

Use Lower Brightness and Screen Timeout:

Using lower brightness would help you dig out more battery. In android the more features you use at once the more battery it drains out. You will observe battery saved significantly by using lower brightness. While indoor usage try to keep brightness at around 30% to 40% and while in direct sunlight use more brightness that would make visibility easy enough. Using less screen timeout will also increase battery life, Choose screen timeout about 30 seconds or 1 minute not more than that.

Use Dark Themes

If available and possible, prefer dark themes on your phones. Idea is to minimize the white or non-black colors on your display as much as possible. Remember: Anything bright will consume more battery.

Underclocking CPU speed:

For those guys with rooted android devices can lower the CPU speed when performing simple tasks like messaging, calling etc. Under clocking save a lots of battery and even keeps your device cool. Underclocking will reduce speed while playing a heavy game but you can always Overclock it when needed.

Keep the Device Cool:

You would have noticed that device becomes warmer from the back side after playing a heavy 3D game or video streaming or performing heavy tasks that uses more CPU, In such cases the battery drains fast. Keeping device cool saves battery. You can keep the device cool by taking a break for little while until the device gets cool down.

Election Game: Go rich boy, go!

There’s hardly a game that we’ve played in recent times which is quite nearly as simple yet interesting as this one. “Go rich boy, go!” puts you in the shoes of an unnamed boy from a posh area of the city of Karachi who is going out to vote for the first time in his life. It is written by Jahanzaib Haque, the web editor of Express Tribune using, Quest.

The game gives you a choice of three characters (your friend, your crush or your guard) who can accompany you on your journey to the polling station. The trip is long and action-packed as you regularly see dead ends and eventually reach the polling station (which happens to be in a place called Murdabad).

Humour is incorporated in every portion of the game. I won’t be revealing much of it here but the moment your best buddy realises that you haven’t got a name is particularly funny. Upon reaching the polling station you’re given a choice of 5 parties to whom you could cast your vote (including PPP, PTI, MQM, JI and Shahid Nazeer who in this case represents his favoured party).

Although text-based, the best thing about the game is the depth of it. Each move you take is a mere branch of a labyrinth of dialogues and steps. Every step must be executed perfectly and only after judging the entire situation otherwise you’ll have to start all over again, or will lose points. It took me five attempts to finally emerge out as a successful voter. All of the endings in this game are unexpected and extremely funny.

You’re either asked to log in to save your progress or to play as a guest. Go rich boy, go! is just too good to be dismissed as a lame game. I’ve been playing a bit of Nun Attack! lately but even I can’t help laughing wildly or even get tense on a number of occasions.

It’s impossible to judge the game based on this review only. Go try it out yourself here!

How Illegal GSM Gateway Exchanges Affect Operators?

During the operation, maintenance and optimization of a cellular mobile network, variation and fluctuation in mobile traffic is often encountered. Traffic is an indicator about how much the network is being used by subscribers. When a voice call is connected and answered over radio and non-radio links, billing starts.

Traffic is measured in a unit called Erlang — named after Danish mathematician Agner Krarup Erlang. Increased traffic is always a welcoming development; hinting that more users are using the network, thus more revenue is generated. Often when an event like a political rally, anniversary of some Sufi or simply a large gathering takes place, mobile traffic at the site surges. Mobile operators take into account such incidents and take necessary measures to provide seamless access to the network for subscribers.

There are times when surge in mobile traffic corresponds to no known event in the area. More so, when detailed investigations take place, it is revealed that the revenue against that site has not increased. This means that the mobile subscribers are using mobile operator’s radio network but somehow successfully bypassing the core network — the part where billing and routing takes place.

This is done by setting up routers, switches and exchanges which are able to route voice calls when GSM SIM cards are inserted.

A typical way would be to route mobile calls via the SIM card, effectively turning the call from landline to mobile, from mobile to mobile, cutting the cost by over half.

GSM Gateways come in various different shapes, sizes and languages, by languages I mean protocols, e.g. ISDN30e/PRI, ISDN2/BRI, Analogue and VoIP Including H.323 and SIP, depending on what is needed for the company.

For example, for a typical 2 person company, the most cost effective would be the analogue device and connect this to the original analogue line (just like your home phone).

This is, of course, illegal. PTA has been fairly active in this regard to track and shut down such mobs. NR3C extends logistics during such raid on illegal GSM gateways. In fact, NR3C and PTA collectively raided and confiscated the equipment of 9 illegal GSM gateways. However – considering the amount of illegal traffic Pakistan is carrying — this was just the tip of the iceberg.

The world cellular community came together and formed a GSMA Fraud Forum to deal with this. According to a recent CFCA report, US$40.1 Billion is lost annually to fraud and operators who fail to take action both promptly and decisively will see their revenues deteriorate rapidly, it will also negatively affect the customer.

But why operators fail to take action? GSMA Fraud Forum highlights the following reason as the main cause for these illegal mobs to exist:

“Perhaps the most decisive factor is lack of awareness by many mobile operators of the significance of bypass fraud and the vulnerabilities associated with it.

Companies are simply not willing to believe that they have an issue on their network. This assumption is a consequential oversight, revealing the need for a better understanding and appreciation of the mobile fraud situation.”

Illegal termination is usually found where there is a variance between local and international call rates. However, in a number of countries the difference between the local and international calling rates is not significant enough for fraudsters to benefit. An example of this would be Singapore and the United States.