Consumer Electronics Daily News

Data Revolution for Wikipedia

The German chapter of the international Wikimedia movement, Wikimedia Deutschland, is starting the development of a new Wikimedia project, called Wikidata. Wikidata will provide a collaboratively edited database of the world's knowledge. Its first goal is to support the more than 280 language editions of Wikipedia with one common source of structured data that can be used in all articles of the free encyclopedia. For example, with Wikidata the birth date of a person of public interest can be used in all Wikipedias and only needs to be maintained in one place. Moreover, like all of Wikidata's information, the birth date will also be freely usable outside of Wikipedia. The common-source principle behind Wikidata is expected to lead to a higher consistency and quality within Wikipedia articles, as well as increased availability of information in the smaller language editions. At the same time, Wikidata will decrease the maintenance effort for the tens of thousands of volunteers working on Wikipedia.

The CEO of Wikimedia Deutschland, Pavel Richter, points out the pioneering spirit of Wikidata: "It is ground-breaking. Wikidata is the largest technical project ever undertaken by one of the 40 international Wikimedia chapters. Wikimedia Deutschland is thrilled and dedicated to improving data management of the world's largest encyclopedia significantly with this project."

Besides the Wikimedia projects, the data is expected to be beneficial for numerous external applications, especially for annotating and connecting data in the sciences, in e-Government, and for applications using data in very different ways. The data will be published under a free Creative Commons license.

The initial development of Wikidata is being funded with a major donation of 1.3 Million Euros, granted in half by the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence [ai](2). The institute supports long-range research activities that have the potential to accelerate progress in artificial intelligence. It was established in 2010 by Microsoft co-founder Paul G. Allen, whose contributions to philanthropy and the advancement of science and technology span more than 25 years.

"Wikidata is a simple and smart idea, and an ingenious next step in the evolution of Wikipedia," said Dr. Mark Greaves, Vice President of the Allen Institute for Artifical Intelligence.  "It will transform the way that encyclopedia data is published, made available, and used by a global audience. Wikidata will build on semantic technology that we have long supported, will accelerate the pace of scientific discovery, and will create an extraordinary new data resource for the world."

One quarter of Wikidata's initial funding is donated by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through its Science program.

"It is important for science," said Chris Mentzel, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation science program officer. "Wikidata will both provide an important data service on top of Wikipedia, and also be an easy-to-use, downloadable software tool for researchers, to help them manage and gain value from the increasing volume and complexity of scientific data."

Google, Inc. provides another quarter of Wikidata's funding. Chris DiBona (Director, Open Source) says: "Google's mission is to make the world's information universally accessible and useful. We're therefore pleased to participate in the Wikidata project which we hope will make significant amounts of structured data available to all."

Wikidata will be developed in three phases. The first phase is expected to be finished by August 2012. It will centralize links between the different language versions of Wikipedia in one place. In the second phase, editors will be able to add and use data in Wikidata. The results of the second phase are scheduled to be released in December 2012. The third and final phase will allow for the automatic creation of lists and charts based on the data in Wikidata. This will close the initial development process for Wikidata.

Wikimedia Deutschland will perform the initial development, and then hand over operation and maintenance of the project to the Wikimedia Foundation. This is planned to be achieved by March 2013. The team of eight developers is being led by Dr. Denny Vrandecic. He changed from the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology to Wikimedia Deutschland and is, together with Dr. Markus Krotzsch, of the University of Oxford, co-founder of the Semantic MediaWiki project, which has pursued the goals of Wikidata for the last few years. The proposal for Wikidata was developed with financial support by the EU project RENDER, which also involves Wikimedia Deutschland as a use-case partner.

EMV Chip in the US: An Informal Survey

It's been a long time coming, but there are indications that the US is finally going to adopt EMV chip. This technology has already been embraced by the rest of the world as a way to make card payments more secure. Recently, Visa, MasterCard, and Discover have announced measures to encourage EMV migration in the States, several banks have started issuing chip cards (albeit only to frequent travelers) and some merchants are upgrading to EMV-compliant POS terminals. But many questions still remain.

Over the past few months, Auriemma Consulting Group and Savantor undertook a "listening tour" to answer some of those questions. The firms interviewed senior officers at a handful of banks, retailers and other payments organizations to get a feel for what they are thinking and how they see the EMV chip story panning out in the US. Some interesting and important themes emerged, including:

• Everyone believes migration to EMV chip in the US is now inevitable, but few expect it to happen before the newly mandated headlines.

• Many do not regard EMV chip as a high-priority, long-term strategic issue.

• Chip with signature verification is expected to be deployed, rather than Chip + PIN.

• Mobile NFC and other emerging payments models increase uncertainty.

• Large retailers are the main drivers of EMV migration, with many other stakeholders adopting a "wait and see" attitude.

• There is a lack of central coordination and leadership.

Jointly, Savantor and ACG have released a white paper detailing the findings of their research. For a free copy, please contact either firm at www.acg.net or www.savantor.com.

Nissan Plans to Charge Up Cities Across Europe

Cities all over Europe will be invited to embrace electric driving and encourage their communities to support Nissan’s campaign – ‘The Big Turn On’ – in a bid to win 30 quick chargers from Nissan.

The quick chargers are part of a wider initiative from Nissan to get one million consumers switched onto electric driving, in just 100 days. The basis of ‘The Big Turn On’ campaign is to engage the public and support their cities’ bid to win a new electric driving infrastructure from Nissan.

These chargers improve the speed of charging electric cars and help improve the infrastructure for a new zero-emissions future. A quick charger, which complies with the international CHAdeMO standard, can recharge an empty battery to 80 per cent capacity in just 30 minutes, as opposed to the standard charger type, which takes approximately eight hours.

Nissan is also helping to establish the infrastructure needed if the EV is to make a significant contribution to inner-city air quality. By the end of 2012, the Company will have given away over 400 quick chargers to local authorities and partners with the ultimate aim of developing a network of thousands of chargers and creating a number of Electric Highways to link cities across Europe.

Paul Willcox, Senior Vice President for Sales and Marketing, Nissan Europe, said: “Nissan was the first manufacturer to mass produce an all-electric car – the Nissan LEAF. We recognise the importance of a zero-emissions future and to date, along with our Alliance partner, Renault, have invested over €4 billion into electric mobility. Now it’s time to tell Europe about the benefits and demonstrate the Nissan LEAF is a real alternative today, and ‘The Big Turn On’ is designed to do just that.”

At the same time, the campaign will bust many of the myths that have emerged around electric vehicles. The Nissan LEAF was awarded European and World Car of the Year 2011, has a 95% customer satisfaction and a 5* Euro NCAP rating. Among many evidences the initiative will prove that electric vehicles are very economical to run; that Nissan LEAF is incredibly safe; and that the range between charges is easily sufficient for the vast majority of daily trips. The Nissan LEAF has a homologated range of 175 kms (NEDC), which is further than 90 per cent of European motorists drive on a weekday.

The campaign aims to reach one million potential EV advocates in France, the UK, Germany and the Netherlands, through a combination of myth-busting achievements and direct interaction via a massive digital and social movement. ‘Turning on’ is as easy as a ‘click’ - consumers can pledge their commitment to EV by clicking the ‘turn on’ button via The Big Turn On website (www.thebigturnon.com), via social media channels or by signing up for a LEAF test drive.

Telco Giants Bet Big on Carrier Cloud

The emergence of carrier cloud has created a race between the world's biggest network equipment vendors, triggering a series of strategic acquisitions, investments and reorganizations to support network-centric cloud services, according to the latest report from Heavy Reading Service Provider IT Insider (www.heavyreading.com/servsoftware), a paid research service of Heavy Reading (www.heavyreading.com).

Big Vendors Race to Establish Carrier Cloud Leadership examines the evolving infrastructure for carrier cloud and how five key network equipment vendors are positioned to address it. It describes emerging cloud concepts, including unified cloud management, network "cloudification" and service clouds, and dissects network equipment vendor strategies and the threats they face as this market matures.

"'Carrier cloud' is a term being championed by network equipment providers to differentiate clouds delivered to end-users by telcos from the cloud infrastructure supporting services offered by non-network facilities-owning cloud providers," says Caroline Chappell, Senior Analyst at Heavy Reading and author of the report. "It is an emerging and evolving concept that is not yet fully defined. Carrier cloud enables telcos to leverage their network ownership to differentiate their cloud infrastructure from first-generation data center-centric clouds, both in terms of economics and features."

The end goal of carrier cloud is for operators to own a high performance, highly available and secure, yet low cost cloud infrastructure on top of which they can float what NSN has dubbed "service clouds," Chappell explains. "At this point, the network can be completely merged with IT-based data center cloud to create Wave 3 of carrier cloud. The Wave 3 vision is evolving fast and major network equipment vendors are scrambling to understand and support it," she says.

Key findings of Big Vendors Race to Establish Carrier Cloud Leadership include:

• Carrier cloud represents a large opportunity for telcos to leverage their networks as a basis for differentiating themselves from first-generation, data center-centric cloud providers.
• Second-gen cloud will see operators unify the management of data center and network (core and access) resources to provide more secure and QoS-enabled versions of existing cloud services.
• The race is on to support the third wave of cloud, based on network "cloudification" and "software-defined networking" infrastructure. This final stage of IT/network convergence is potentially highly disruptive to operators, network equipment and B/OSS vendors.
• Ericsson and Huawei trail Alcatel-Lucent, Cisco and NSN in the development of second- and third-generation cloud.

CEA Congratulates Leibowitz, Ohlhausen on FTC Confirmations

Gary Shapiro, president and CEO, Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)^®, released the following statement today regarding the confirmations of Jon Leibowitz as chairman and Maureen Ohlhausen as commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

“We applaud the Senate on the reappointment of Jon Leibowitz as chairman and the appointment of Maureen Ohlhausen as commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission.

“Chairman Leibowitz has a proven track record of understanding and appreciating the critical role that the technology sector plays in our society. Ms. Ohlhausen returns to the FTC with her wealth of knowledge regarding technology issues and an understanding of the need for open dialogue between government and industry. We look forward to continuing our work with Chairman Leibowitz and Ms. Ohlhausen as they serve our country.”

eBay Inc. Names Mobile Payments Entrepreneur and Product Innovator David Marcus President of PayPal

eBay Inc. today announced that executive David Marcus has been named President of PayPal, effective April 2. PayPal is the leading online payments provider serving millions of merchants and customers around the world with a faster, safer way to pay and be paid. A member of PayPal's executive management team, Marcus, has been leading PayPal's rapidly growing mobile payments business and has driven important mobile product innovations. Reporting to eBay Inc. President and CEO John Donahoe, Marcus succeeds Scott Thompson, who left the company in January.

"David is the right leader for PayPal," Donahoe said. "He is a successful technology entrepreneur with a passion for great products that engage and delight customers. David leads with a founder's perspective. He will bring start-up energy to PayPal's unmatched global reach and digital payments capabilities. And he will sharpen PayPal’s focus on accelerating product innovation, driving consumer engagement and making paying anytime, anywhere through your digital wallet a safe, easy and convenient experience. David's appointment signals our deep commitment at PayPal, and across eBay Inc., to be a leading technology-driven and customer-focused product innovation company."

As Vice President of Mobile for PayPal, Marcus has helped lead strong mobile payments volume growth and innovation, including PayPal Here. The new global service includes a free app and encrypted thumb-sized card reader, which turns any iPhone, and soon Android smartphone, into a comprehensive mobile payments solution. With PayPal Here, small businesses, service providers and casual sellers can accept debit and credit cards, checks and PayPal, or send invoices using one simple integrated product.

“Shopping is fun, but paying is not,” Marcus said. “PayPal has an incredible opportunity to make the way people pay simple, easy, and safe – everywhere, and at scale. We’re off to a great start in 2012 with breakthrough products that will truly change the way everyone shops and pays. I’m honored and excited to be asked to lead this unique business and help make the digital wallet an amazing experience for merchants and consumers worldwide.”

For 14 years, PayPal has been revolutionizing the payments industry – first with online payments in 1998 and then with mobile payments in 2006. In 2011, PayPal processed $118 billion in payments from over 100 million users in 190 countries, including $4 billion in mobile payment volume. PayPal is now extending its online and mobile capabilities offline, creating innovative in store payments solutions for retailers and consumers. Home Depot recently rolled out PayPal to all of its nearly 2,000 stores nationwide, and PayPal is implementing its point of sale innovations with other national retailers this year.

Marcus joined PayPal in August 2011 after the company completed the acquisition of Zong, a leading provider of mobile payments, where he was CEO and founder.

GE Appoints Four New Company Officers

GE today announces the appointment of four new company officers. GE currently has 199 officers globally who lead large revenue generating businesses or are in critical functional roles, helping to drive growth.

Below are the details of the new officers:

Jose Ignacio Garcia, 39, has been named vice president and chief financial officer for Latin America, GE Global Growth & Operations. In this role, he leads the finance function driving growth and operational excellence across the region.

Jose has more than 15 years of experience in GE finance, previously serving as the CFO for GE Energy’s Power Generation Services business. Prior to that, he was the CFO for GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy, commercial finance leader for GE Power & Water and CFO for GE Energy in China.

Jose earned his graduate degrees from ESADE (Spain), Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales (France) and Brandeis University. He is a graduate of GE’s Financial Management Program and the Corporate Audit Staff.

Anne Kennelly Kratky, 50, has been appointed as a GE company officer. She is currently deputy treasurer and chief risk officer for GE Capital Treasury. In this role, she is responsible for providing oversight and management of financial institution and sovereign credit risk, market risk, and enterprise and operational risk for GE’s Treasury operation.

Anne has over 28 years of experience at GE Capital in a variety of cross functional roles, with 18 years in Risk Management. Prior to joining Treasury in August 2011, Anne held positions such as chief risk officer (CRO) of GE Capital Aviation Services, CRO of Global Media and Communications and managing director of risk in the Structured Finance business as well as a variety of cross-functional roles and leadership positions in sales and marketing, business development and Six Sigma Quality.

Anne holds a Bachelor’s degree in Systems Analysis with a concentration in Finance from Miami University in Ohio and is a graduate of GE’s Information Technology Leadership Program.

Khozema Z. Shipchandler, 38, has been named vice president and chief financial officer for the Middle East, North Africa and Turkey, GE Global Growth & Operations. In this role, he leads the finance function, driving growth, development and operational excellence for GE across the region’s 24 nations.

Khozema brings more than 15 years of experience to this role, having previously served as the chief financial officer for GE Aviation Services, Aviation Systems, & Military Systems.

Khozema is a graduate of Indiana University as well as GE’s Financial Management Program and Corporate Audit Staff.

Marcelo L. Soares, 54, has been named vice president for Latin America, GE Energy. In this role, he is leading GE Energy Latin America, focused on strengthening the business structure and developing the team in the region, while delivering results and solutions to our customers in Latin America.

Marcelo has more than 30 years of experience in GE, serving as the regional leader for Latin America since 2011.

Prior to that position, Marcelo led Global Supply Chain for GE Energy in the same region. During his career with the company, he moved through different positions at GE Celma, a rapidly-growing jet engine overhaul and repair operation facility located in the city of Petropolis, Brazil, where he started as an engineering trainee in 1980 and progressed through several engineering and business management roles of increasing responsibility, until he was named General Manager of Celma in 2001.

Marcelo graduated from the Universidade Catolica De Petropolis with a degree in Mechanical Engineering.

T-Mobile Helping to Advance Mobile Learning and Digital Education for K-12 Schools in the U.S.

Today, T-Mobile USA, Inc. underscored its commitment to make widespread mobile learning a reality as T-Mobile President and CEO Philipp Humm participates in an executive digital learning summit hosted by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and the U.S. Department of Education today in Washington, D.C. Showcasing its support for mobile learning and digital education, T-Mobile announced successful programs in several U.S. schools that are leveraging the company’s high-speed network, affordable rate plans, and mobile broadband devices for a range of purposes, including tutoring, textbook replacement and mobile Internet access at school and at home.

Noting that annual textbook costs for U.S. K-12 public schools has reached nearly $8 billion¹, the FCC and the Department of Education have encouraged the country to transition to interactive digital learning within the next five years. Today, T-Mobile’s Humm and other industry leaders will participate in the next step of that vision by discussing – alongside FCC and Department of Education leadership – how technology can be leveraged and new offers created to support a widespread digital education ecosystem.

“Advancements in mobile technology are rapidly changing how and where students learn, shifting from a paper textbook in a classroom during school hours to a nearly everywhere, all-the-time digital education,” T-Mobile President and CEO Philipp Humm said. “Our work with the FCC and others to advance the Digital Learning initiative and put devices and connectivity in the hands of students will not only help them learn more effectively, but can positively impact our country’s future economic growth.”

To further highlight the need for an expansion of mobile learning solutions and programs, the FCC asserts that approximately 100 million Americans, nearly one-third of the country, don’t have high-speed Internet at home. Unfortunately, those students without access are six to eight percent less likely to graduate than students with connectivity at home². Though federally funded programs, like E-rate, have helped more U.S. schools access the Internet, many do not have the connection speeds needed to deploy a successful mobile learning program³. However, today’s mobile broadband devices have the potential to close that gap, particularly with respect to connectivity, access and functionality. America’s K-12 schools are beginning to deploy these solutions and T-Mobile is partnering with many of them as they do so.

“Reliable connectivity and affordable data access is critical to the success of these mobile learning programs,” said Frank Sickinger, vice president, MNC and federal government sales at T-Mobile USA. “With highly capable mobile broadband solutions running on our high-speed, nationwide 4G network, T-Mobile is able to deliver value to these programs, impact communities across the nation, and contribute to the future of U.S. education.”

Among the successes spotlighted by T-Mobile, the Metropolitan School District of Lawrence Township in Indiana and Illinois-based Learn Charter School Network and Youth Connection Charter Schools are all working with T-Mobile to establish innovative textbook replacement programs. In Texas, 1 to 1 Tutor Distance Learning and has deployed T-Mobile mobile broadband solutions to students to improve online instruction. Similarly, Colorado’s online G.O.A.L. Academy has selected T-Mobile to support their deployment of mobile broadband devices to at-risk students requiring online learning, tutoring and mentoring. Monterey Ridge Elementary School, a California Distinguished Award recipient, is working with T-Mobile to deploy tablet solutions that allow them to enhance the digital learning experience while still utilizing existing technology and solutions, such as smartboards, digital projectors and current eLearning curriculum.

To learn more about T-Mobile and its mobile broadband solutions suitable for mobile learning, please visit mobile-broadband.t-mobile.com. Or, for more information about the company’s GSA schedule or how to kick off a digital education initiative, please contact T-Mobile at [email protected].

References

¹ http://newsbreaks.infotoday.com/NewsBreaks/Etextbooks-Attracting-Involvement-of-the-FCC-Education-Department-and-Higher-Ed-80709.asp

² http://www.fcc.gov/blog/fcc-and-connect-compete-tackle-broadband-adoption-challenge

³ http://transition.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2010/db0923/DOC-301649A1.pdf

X400 Bridge Camera Now Available at Walmart

General Imaging (GIC), the worldwide, exclusive licensee of GE branded digital cameras, announced shipping and availability of the new GE X400 in more than 3,600 Walmart U.S. stores and on Walmart.com. An addition to its highly successful bridge camera lineup, the X400 is the newest member of the GE Power PRO family and is ideal for consumers looking for a step up from the traditional point and shoot camera. A powerful 15x mega-zoom, wide-angle lens is combined with optical image stabilization, improved high dynamic range and pancapture capabilities to make it easier than ever to shoot like a pro.

"We have seen phenomenal growth in both retail and consumer adoption of our GE lineup of high quality digital cameras. Much of that success can be attributed to our Power PRO Series, particularly the X500 digital camera," said Paul Meyhoefer, vice president of marketing and product planning, GIC. "In 2011 GAP Intelligence, a 10-year veteran CE market research firm, named GE as the fastest growing mid-tier camera brand, further validating our commitment to delivering high performance cameras at an exceptional value. The GE X400 rounds out the 2012 GE Power PRO X Series, giving consumers an even more affordable option in the most popular bridge camera category."

GE X400 Power PRO Series

With the GE X400, power and performance have never been so affordable. Sporting a 2.7-inch LCD screen, the X400 touts 15X optical zoom, a 27mm wide-angle lens and 14 megapixels to move you right up close to the action. Equipped with over 20 unique shooting modes plus high dynamic range, which adjusts light exposure for more detail in both light and dark scenes; 3200 ISO for optimal exposure settings; and optical image stabilization to reduce blurry, out of focus pictures the X400 is an irresistible choice for budding photographers of any age.  The X400 is available now in black at Walmart stores nationwide, and in black and white at Walmart.com, for an MSRP of $129.99.

THQ Announces Update for Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium

THQ Inc. today announced that it has refocused Warhammer® 40,000®: Dark Millennium™ from a Massively Multiplayer Online game to an immersive single player and online multiplayer experience with robust digital content, and engaging community features. Further product details, platforms and release timing will be announced at a later date.

“As previously announced, we have been actively looking for a business partner for the game as an MMO. However, based on changing market dynamics and the additional investment required to complete the game as an MMO, we believe the right direction for us is to shift the title from an MMO to a premium experience with single and multiplayer gameplay, robust digital content and community features,” said Brian Farrell, President and CEO of THQ Inc. “Because we believe strongly in the high-quality and vast creative work that is in production, this is the right decision for both our portfolio and for gamers devoted to this powerful property.”

“We are genuinely excited about the new direction that THQ is taking with Warhammer 40,000: Dark Millennium, and we are sure that this will be a great addition to the ever growing stable of authentic and engaging Warhammer 40,000 video games,” said Jon Gillard, Head of Licensing for Games Workshop.

As a result of this change, team sizes at two THQ internal studios will be reduced by 79 full-time employees at Vigil Games in Austin, Texas, and 39 employees at Relic Entertainment in Vancouver, B.C.

Vigil Games will continue to focus on both this game and the critically-acclaimed new title, Darksiders® II, scheduled for release this summer. Relic Entertainment continues to focus its development expertise on THQ’s franchises including Company of Heroes® and Warhammer® 40,000®: Dawn of War®.