Biz Tech

Modern Tech introduces latest technology:

Technology for energy management

Ramani - Kangaraarachchi

Modern Tech has introduced leading technology for energy management, remote monitoring and control solutions titled Semaphore systems in Sri Lanka for the first time.

Modern Tech Managing Director Gamini Perera told Daily News Business that energy management is a critical area world over with global climate change and it is even more important to developing Sri Lanka after 30 years of war because high cost of production has become a challenge to all industries in highly competitive markets.

He said it has become imperative to focus and validate core business strategy and execution plans to align processes with the right engineering solutions and technology to enhance performance. The newly introduced Semaphore T Box concept can do wonders in managing energy and reduce cost of maintenance in a big way and it reduces wastage of time, money and other resources.

The launch of the product was held at Waters Edge Battaramulla recently.

Elaborating on the system he said when there is a power failure or any other defect on the top floor in a high rise building the system gets activated immediately and sends SMS and e-mails to the maintenance team and other relevant authorities so that the problem can be rectified on-line smoothly.

Similarly many things can be done through remote controllers under this concept such as temperature in communication towers, water levels in distribution tanks, generator conditions in any place could be monitored and controlled with remote controller from any where in the country.

Some of the services provided by the company include building management systems, temperature control solutions and energy management solutions.

Perera hoped to make several awareness campaigns in Colombo followed by demonstrations as this is new to Sri Lanka.

He has invested over Rs 4 million for equipment at the initial stage and planning to expand the service into other areas through a strong distribution network which will create a number of employment opportunities.

WordPress back up after cyber attack

Blog publishing platform WordPress was running normally on Sunday after suffering cyber attacks suspected to have originated in China.

WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg told TechCrunch, a leading Silicon Valley technology blog powered by WordPress, that the first distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks began on Thursday and continued into Friday.

In a typical DDoS attack, a large number of computers are commanded to simultaneously visit a website, overwhelming its servers, slowing service or knocking it offline completely.

WordPress, which powers millions of websites, said it had been hit by an “extremely large” DDoS attack “affecting connectivity in some cases.” Mullenweg told TechCrunch that 98 percent of the attacks over the two-day period originated in China and they were likely “politically motivated.” He said one of the targeted sites was a Chinese-language site operating on WordPress which also appears to be blocked on Chinese search engine Baidu. He did not identify the site.

Hackers operating from China have been frequently accused of carrying cyber attacks including a widely publicized penetration of Google computers in 2009 which led the Internet giant to halt censorship of its search engine in China.

AFP

Google turns to startups to keep it young

Google co-founder Larry Page is taking charge of the maturing Internet giant in a move seen as recapturing youthful roots in the face of competition from hip upstart startups like Facebook.

The California firm isn’t waiting for Page to formally take the chief executive chair being emptied by Eric Schmidt in April, it is tapping into the energy of nimble entrepreneurs bought with Google’s ample war chest.

“Any engagement that Google can have with the startup community, with entrepreneurs, we learn and we are inspired,” said David Krane of Google Ventures, an arm of the firm that invests in new ideas and young companies.

“We need to be close to the people who are moving quickly and chasing big dreams at the early stage, he said in a Friday interview with AFP.

“Because that can influence and shape the way that we run as we try to fight off some of the natural side effects that come as a company gets larger.”

Google has grown to a global powerhouse with 25,000 employees in far-flung locations since it was started by fellow Stanford University students Sergey Brin and Page in 1998.

AFP

Digital newspaper ‘Daily’ going great:

‘Daily’ is where consumers are - News Corp

The Daily, the digital newspaper created for Apple’s iPad by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., has tallied hundreds of thousands of downloads since its launch a month ago, its publisher said Thursday.

“It’s going great,” Greg Clayman said at the paidContent 2011 conference in New York. ``We’re not disclosing the exact numbers (of downloads) but it’s in the hundreds of thousands.”

Although The Daily has extended a free trial period until March 21, Clayman said a number of readers had already opened their wallets to pay the subscription fee of 99 cents a week.

He declined to say exactly how many paid subscribers The Daily has signed up, joking only that it’s ``more than one and less than a billion.”

Clayman said News Corp. had agreed to the same revenue-sharing that Apple is offering to other publishers with the California-based gadget-maker taking a 30 percent cut of each subscription.

``We get the same revenue share that everybody else does,” he said.

Clayman said News Corp. was not ``locked into” a single platform for The Daily, which is currently only available on the iPad, and it would eventually be offered on tablet computers running Google’s Android software.

``We want to be where the consumers are,” he said.

Apple is the tablet market leader with sales of more than 15 million iPads, Clayman noted, but ``we do expect the Android tablet market will grow.”

Describing The Daily, which News Corp. launched on February 2 at an event in New York attended by the 79-year-old Murdoch, the publisher said ``it really is something new.”

``It’s not a magazine,” he said. ``It’s not a newspaper and yet it is because it publishes news every day. It’s not a website and yet we’re connected to the Internet.

``What the iPad does is it allows you to create something brand new.”

Clayman said The Daily, which was developed at a cost of around $30 million, was distinct from other News Corp. properties, which include newspapers in Australia, Britain and the United States and the Fox television networks.

``The key is we’re building a brand,” he said. ``We do work with other News Corp. entities... (but) we’re not an aggregator aggregating content throughout News Corp.”

The Daily, which has hired a staff of about 100 people from the New Yorker, Forbes, the New York Post and other publications, arrives on a subscriber’s iPad every morning.

The digital publication is Murdoch’s latest attempt to find a way to charge readers for content online in an era of shrinking newspaper circulation and eroding print advertising revenue.

Speaking at the launch event a month ago, Murdoch said he would consider it a success ``when we sell millions.”

AFP