IBM devises Green Sigma consulting service

IBM has devised the ‘Green Sigma’ consulting service to minimise usage of water and energy in businesses, with the application of data-analysis software and use of networked sensors. IBM was prompted to develop this device by the corporate initiative to “go green”.

The practice is derived from the ‘Lean Six Sigma’ management strategy, which was deployed for focussing on customer needs and enhancement of operational efficiency of the organisations. Green Sigma would perform accounting of energy and water consumption in a company at its own plant and those of its suppliers. The method is being piloted at 2 of IBM’s and its customers’ facilities.

IBM could succeed in reducing its consumption significantly by tracking usage and initiating corrective actions. It has already saved £167m ($310m) through similar schemes. It could also save 8 million gallons of gasoline by introducing work-at-home programme. IBM is going to make big business by helping businesses to go green.

The souring energy costs and water charges are compelling companies to take stringent corrective measures. But the global leader of IBM’s operation strategy practice, Dave Lubowe, claims that companies are aiming to fulfill corporate social-responsibility (CRS) by taking these initiatives. He adds that consumers are actively watching where companies put their money. Donating it to charities is no longer enough.

Google’s Android security team appeals to security researchers

In an attempt to raise its profile among security researchers, Google’s Android mobile platform security team has improved their awareness in platform monitoring.

The team sent an email to the popular Full Disclosure mailing list, urging security researchers to help Google in detecting and disclosing inevitable flaws in the system. The team requested that Android vulnerabilities may be disclosed to Google rather than making them public.

The team wrote that it was quite difficult to build and maintain a secure mobile platform and though Google could find and fix many of its bugs and flaws in open-source projects, it was still inevitable to discover additional security issues in a complex and vast system. It further added that Google would encourage and appreciate important disclosures, since the use of Android on different devices would require more co-ordination for patching up security holes. Security researchers help in suggesting usable bugs and responsible timelines would help Google in securing ecosystem of Android devices quickly.

Numerous vulnerabilities in Android were reported back in March 2008. Vulnerabilities were tested on an Android emulator which was part of the software development kit (SDK). The developers were given the beta version of SDK on Monday. Android is yet to be deployed on any devices.

Dell adds extra year’s warranty for range of laptops

Dell announced a worldwide extension of warranties of one year on a wide range of its laptops after detecting a flaw in some Nvidia graphics-processing units.

The announcement was made on the Direct2Dell website on August 18. Nvidia disclosed that the fault had arisen due to the weak die/packaging material used in previous GPUs and notebook systems in the beginning of July 2008. It claimed that all these GPUs have higher-than-normal failure rate due to fluctuating temperatures and not all are affected by the flaw.

Dell’s chief blogger Lionel Menchaca informs that fault symptoms could be random characters on screen, multiple images, lines on the screen or simply a blank screen.

The affected notebooks listed by Dell include:

Dell Precision M4300, Dell Precision M2300, Dell Precision M65, Latitude D630, Latitude D620, Inspiron 1420, Latitude D830, Latitude D820, Latitude D630c, XPS M1530, XPS M1330, Vostro Notebook 1710, Vostro Notebook 1510, Vostro Notebook 1400, and Vostro Notebook 1310.

Menchaca wrote that Dell planned to add 12 months of coverage to the existing limited warranty of sixty months for this issue, only available on the listed notebooks but for all customers worldwide. He promised that details of the service plan would be announced in coming weeks. Users of models that may be affected are requested to visit the Direct2Dell website to find recommended links for Bios updates.

Vodafone increasing shops and staff to improve customer service

Vodafone wants to improve its face-to-face customer service by adding 50 shops and 200 extra staff to its existing strength of 500 in the next 12 months. Vodafone already has a 350-strong retail network in the UK.

The first new shops will arrive in London, Bristol and Liverpool this autumn. The remaining shops would be opened in spring 2009.

Vodafone’s director of consumer sales UK, Tom Devine, informs that the company is trying to deliver its best services by enabling face to face dialogue between existing and prospective customers with a retail adviser, closest to their location.

Vodafone has initiated this multi-million pound expansion at a time when its revenues are dwindling due to the decline in consumer spending.

According to analyst James Barford at Enders Analysis, it is worth noting that although the rate is slow, Vodafone is still pushing for growth in the market, which is not the case with most other markets. It is offering cheaper tariffs and rolling out new outlets to remain in competition with its rivals.
Vodafone has the highest number of customers in the government and corporate sector; a push in the consumer market is the right option for its further growth.

It is less costly for a large mobile phone company to expand its network and the gains in terms of brand awareness and customer proximity are significant. According to Barford, Vodafone saves on commission if the customer goes to its shop directly, instead of purchasing through Carphone Warehouse.

UK internet users hard hit by spam

UK internet users have been hit hard by spam in the last three months. As per the claims of anti-spam company, ClearMyMail, thirty thousand spam mails were targeted at UK users. The firm’s spamming index points out that worst hit were the Orange ISP customers who received 96% of the spam mails, during April to June.

Managing director of ClearMyMail, Dan Field, points out that the primary cause for the unprecedented rise in spam, is the increased availability of broadband in the UK. It has made it easier to send spam mails in far greater numbers.

Field reveals that organised crime is making use of local gangs in targeting new customers. These spammers make their mails look legitimate and are the main source of the increasing nuisance. He points out that mails are more dangerous and not just spam which offer you Viagra, but target to trap you in frauds.

Orange clarifies that it is an active member of Messaging Anti-abuse Working Group and initiates serious anti-spam measures. It provides all its customers with an anti-spam, proprietary and third party filtering software, free of cost.

It adds that automatic filtering identifies those emails also as spam which the user actually wants to view. Orange therefore tags the spam and directs it to the inbox with a choice for customers to turn on an anti-spam setting via webmail and send the tagged mail to junk folder.

Linux Foundation releases guide for developers

The Linux foundation is seeking on increasing the participation of programmers in the kernel development process by releasing a guide on the subject.

Jonathan Corbet, a Linux developer and author of the guide who is also executive director of 1wn.net, states that some businesses and developers who were suggesting changes to the Linux kernel were getting confused about the processes used.

He points out that the development lifecycle was not being taken into account by the coders. As per the guide, the stable patches are merged in to the mainline kernel at the interval of 2 to 3 months at the beginning of the lifecycle.

The merger window is closed after two weeks and the project leader Linus Torvalds delivers a ‘release candidate kernel’ for establishment. If new features are pushed for merger outside the merge window, then developers get an unfriendly reception, since only ‘release candidate’ fixes are accepted in the process.

The guide further explains that developers get more frustrated on account of inadequate understanding of the process or if they attempt to circumvent it. Corbet adds that patches are subjected to reviews before acceptance in to the kernel.

According to the not-for-profit Linux Foundation, the 30-page guide would help in further expanding the existing community of 1,000 developers in more than 100 companies.

Mint.com out with new design, loans and savings

Mint.com, the personal finance service launched last year in September, has further enhanced its feature when it unveiled its new design on August 18. There have been improvements in the budgeting tools and the addition of investment and brokerage accounts recently. Critical money management issues are being covered by the new online resources that are also highlighted by Mint. The issues include credit card debts, paying–off study loans and saving for retirement.

The new design is more efficient in correctly directing users from the first time that they arrive there, which is important since most of the features that have been added in the past year are related to personal money management. The new design allows users to find the tools that fit their needs as quickly as possible. They have also tried to increase the appeal to users of varied age and demographics.

In regards to the new design, Mint says it has immediately helped bring forth a double-digit rise in the number of website visitors that get converted into registered members. Keeping in mind that Mint is already a Webby award winner, improvements with the look should only enhance its standing in the online world.

Google apologises to millions of users for system crash

Gmail, Google’s email service, crashed for several hours a few days ago while their engineers tried to detect the cause of the crash.

The popular online company apologised to millions of its users as the fault in the system logged them out from their email. The longest system failure caused anguish for some users and Google was bombarded with protests on internet chat sites and blogs. Many users were annoyed that Google did not put any warnings on its corporate blog and sarcastically remarked that “G stood for Gone”.

Expressing regret, Gmail product manger Todd Jackson reiterated that Google felt users pain and would never take for granted its commitment for running a highly dependable email service. He admitted that people care a lot about their Gmail accounts.

Google is one of the most sought after free email services since its testing began in 2004 and after the formal public launch in early 2007. Its billionaire founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin had promised to bring a revolution in email services, similar to the one brought about by their web search. Gmail’s user numbers increased at phenomenal rate, reaching the 90 million mark at the end of 2007, making it the third largest email service after Yahoo and Hotmail.

Google and Yahoo beat Microsoft in summer traffic

This summer has brought cheers from Google and Yahoo, as both surpassed rival Microsoft in Internet traffic.

The latest report from Nielsen Online research firm indicates an increase of one million visitors in Google’s estimated traffic, bringing the total to 129 million. Yahoo registered a boost of four million visitors in its total of 118 million visitors. But the traffic flow was in contrast at Microsoft, which witnessed a fall of 700,000 visitors to its total of 122 million in June 2008.

Microsoft was the top ranking company on the web last year, with 121 million visitors followed by Google with 117 million visitors. The picture this year is exactly the opposite. However, Google is far behind Yahoo in respect to time spent by the user within the website. While the average time spent on Yahoo is three hours and 31 minutes, it is 2 hours on Google and 2 hours 16 minutes on Microsofts website.

Google’s time number is shooting up due to the introduction of products like wiki-like Knol. In July 2008, people spent two hours on its site compared to one hour and 34 minutes in July 2007.

It is also noteworthy that Apple joined the group of 10 most popular online companies, courtesy iPhone popularity and attracted traffic of 51 million people who spent an average 1 hour and 12 minutes on its site in July 2008.

Google offers Chinese Customers with Fee Music Search website with Top100.cn

Now Chinese online buffs can search for music via Google. The web search giant launched its music search service with Top100.cn for the Chinese audience. Top100.cn is China’s leading music website, co-founded by Yao Ming, the Chinese basketball star.

Now Chinese users can search for their favourite songs by artist name or album title. The best part is that it is free for download. The songs only available to users from China are licensed. Google had been in talks with major music labels like Sony, Universal and EMI since last year.

But Goggle has not announced the record labels to be offering content for the music web search. Google has even invested for the second time (the first investment was in 2005) in the Top 100 for which figures are not available.

With a 26% market share in China, Google’s major competitor is Baidu, which owns 70% of the web-based search market in the country. Industry sources said that 30% of Baidu’s traffic is due to these kinds of music searches.

On the other hand, the largest market for internet consumption is China, which is fighting music piracy. Apparently 99% of the music distributed in China is pirated.  Google will be splitting the ad-revenue gained from this enterprise with Top 100.

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