Moto G starts at $179 unlocked, to give low-cost buyers 'a better choice'

News

November 13, 2013 10:16 AM ET

Computerworld - Google's Motorola unit unveiled the Moto G smartphone today priced at $179 unlocked, less than half the price of most high-end unlocked smartphones on the market like the iPhone 5S.

The Moto G will have 8GB of storage, will have no contract and no SIM lock, meaning it can be taken to various U.S carriers to set up service more easily. The 16GB version will sell unlocked for $199, Motorola officials announced in a global event that was webcast. The devices will be sold on the Motorola website.

Moto G goes on sale today in Brazil and parts of Europe. It launches in early January in the U.S. and will be available in 30 countries later next year.

"We believe with Moto G we've given people around the world a better choice," said Motorola CEO Dennis Woodside, noting that 500 million people globally are expected to invest in cheaper smartphones, at prices of around $200, in the next year.

"Full access to the Internet is a right and not a privilege," said Charlie Tritschler, Moto G product manager.

The Moto G will have a 4.5-in. display, at 1280x720 pixels, and 329 pixels per inch, making it the sharpest- looking display in its price class, Tritschler said. It will also run a quad-core Snapdragon 400 processor and include a 2070 mAh battery that provides all-day power. It will run Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean), but can be upgraded to Android 4.4 (KitKat) in January.

The phone runs only in GSM and CDMA networks, not LTE, but will work over HSPA+, which can reach download speeds of 21 Mbps.

Much of the Moto G is modeled after the Moto X smartphone, which sells on U.S. carriers for $100 with a two-year contract. The Moto X first appeared nearly three months ago on AT&T for $200 with a contract.

Woodside claimed the reception of the Moto X was "absolutely fantastic ... People love it." However, analysts said sales of the Moto X have been disappointing, especially for the first phone from Motorola under Google ownership. Strategy Analytics said 500,000 Moto X phones were sold in the third quarter, while Samsung's Galaxy S 4 sold more than 10 million units within a month of its April release.

"The low-priced Moto G finally provides Motorola a competitive offering in emerging regions like China, where Motorola isn't even a top 10 player," noted analyst Patrick Moorhead at Moor Insights & Strategy. "The new phone helps Motorola better compete with local players like Lenovo, Huawei, Coolpad, ZTE, Xiaomi and Oppo."

Motorola's strategy of a high quality, low-cost phone like the Moto G will work, added Ramon Llamas, an analyst at research firm IDC.

"Motorola is demonstrating that low-cost phones don't have to be low quality," he said. "Users in emerging markets -- which are the initial markets for the Moto G -- like affordability, but they also like devices that don't look, feel or operate cheap. At $179, I think the Moto G is going to give the mid-range market a run for the money."

The Moto G will put on notice vendors of Nokia's Lumia 520 and 620 line, LG's mid-range F phones and low-end Samsung Galaxy devices, he said.

This article, Moto G starts at $179 unlocked, to give low-cost buyers 'a better choice', was originally published at Computerworld.com.

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed. His email address is mhamblen@computerworld.com.

See more by Matt Hamblen on Computerworld.com.

Read more about Smartphones in Computerworld's Smartphones Topic Center.

Read More

NASA does long-distance software fix on Mars rover Curiosity

News

November 13, 2013 07:13 AM ET

Computerworld - NASA engineers have fixed a software glitch that had stalled the Mars rover Curiosity during a software upgrade last week.

After going into safe mode last Thursday, full operations were restored for the robotic rover on Sunday, according to the space agency. Curiosity's scientific work is expected to resume Thursday.

The Mars rover Curiosity has two computers, four chips and software designed to last throughout its two-year mission. (Artist concept: NASA)

"We returned to normal engineering operations," said Rajeev Joshi, a software and systems engineer for the Curiosity mission, in a statement. "We are well into planning the next several days of surface operations and expect to resume our drive to Mount Sharp this week."

The software problem occurred the same day that Curiosity's software was updated.

The rover's operations team reported that the trouble was caused by an error in the onboard software that triggered an error in a catalog file. That caused an unexpected reset when the catalog was processed by the new version of the rover's flight software, which had been installed last Thursday.

After reviewing the data that Curiosity sent to Earth Thursday night, NASA engineers were able to replicate the problem in test beds.

To ix the glitch, engineers wrote and tested new commands, which were uplinked to Curiosity on Sunday.

In an interview with Computerworld this past August, Jennifer Trosper, NASA's deputy project manager for the Mars Science Lab Mission said engineers were working on a big software upgrade that would be installed this month.

The upgrade is designed to make it easier for scientists to judge distance in the images the rover takes, as well as giving Curiosity more stability while it's drilling. The new software also will enable Curiosity to immediately send high-priority images to Earth, instead of waiting to send them at day's end.

In late summer, NASA programmers and engineers uplinked another round of new software to the rover that gave Curiosity the ability to do some of its own navigation during drives across the Martian surface.

Previously, Curiosity took pictures of the surrounding terrain and sent them back to NASA, where the images were studied and the rover's next drive was meticulously plotted.

One problem was if the rover got to the top of a hill or encountered a ditch or boulder that hadn't been visible before, it had to stop, take more photos and wait for further instructions.

Now, Curiosity is able to often decide for itself if it's safe to proceed without checking in with engineers on Earth. This enables the rover to log more miles on any given day.

The rover landed on Mars in August 2012 with a two-year mission to help scientists figure out if Mars is able to, or ever was able to support life.

So far, Curiosity has discovered evidence of ancient water flows and water in the Martian soil. However, it has not found methane, which is emitted by living organisms, in the atmosphere.

This article, NASA does long-distance software fix on Mars rover Curiosity, was originally published at Computerworld.com.

Sharon Gaudin covers the Internet and Web 2.0, emerging technologies, and desktop and laptop chips for Computerworld. Follow Sharon on Twitter at @sgaudin, on Google+ or subscribe to Sharon's RSS feed . Her email address is sgaudin@computerworld.com.

See more by Sharon Gaudin on Computerworld.com.

Read more about Government/Industries in Computerworld's Government/Industries Topic Center.

Read More

Microsoft sees huge potential in fuel cells

News

November 13, 2013 06:38 AM ET

Computerworld - Microsoft is touting the use of fuel cells to power data centers, arguing in a paper released Tuesday that its studies find it a technology with much potential.

The paper, boldly titled "No more electrical infrastructure: Towards fuel cell powered data centers," investigates fuel cells as a centralized power source and as distributed power generation technology with fuel cells used at the rack or single server cabinet level.

There is broad industry interest in fuel cells.

In September, eBay unveiled a data center in Salt Lake City that uses fuel cells made by Bloom Energy.

But overall, use of the technology in data centers remains far from mainstream.

Sean James, a senior research program manager at Microsoft's Global Foundation Services and an author of the study, said in a blog post that he sees "tremendous potential" in fuel cells, though "deep technical issues" remain.

"Fuel cells are very clean, reliable and perfect for small form factor applications," wrote James. "By integrating fuel cells with IT hardware, we can cut much of the power electronics out of the conventional fuel cell system. What we are left with is a very simple and low cost data center and fuel cell system."

Technical issues, such as the fuel distribution system, power management and even safety training, remain to be resolved, he noted.

Nonetheless, James argued, in time, "you may end up with one someday delivering clean electricity and heat to your home" via fuel cells. Fuel cells, an electrochemical process to convert energy from hydrogen, natural gas, ethanol or biogas. The eBay facility uses biogas, which comes from agricultural waste.

The paper looks at running an entire data center on fuel cell technology and decoupling data centers from the electric grid. If fuel cells use natural gas, the buried lines delivering it are "not subject to severe weather."

Indeed, in a report released in August, the White House Council of Economic Advisors said severe weather is the number one cause of power outages in the U.S. The report added that "the number of outages caused by severe weather is expected to rise as climate change increases the frequency and intensity of hurricanes, blizzards, floods and other extreme weather events."

The council's report argued for increased spending on grid improvements.

Fuel cells are "much cheaper" than high voltage switchgear, transformers and copper cables, and have no moving parts, unlike generators, the Microsoft paper said.

If the fuels are distributed in a data center and placed at the servers and racks, "we can completely eliminate the power distribution system in the data center, including the power backup generation." If a fuel cell fails, it only affects a small part of the data center, the report said.

There's trade-off in cost with using smaller fuel cells to power individual pieces of equipment. Also, smaller fuel cells used at a server cabinet level may be unable to keep with an almost instantaneous rise in server load.

James said that fuel cells can double the efficiency of traditional data centers, and are also environmentally friendly, even when they use natural gas.

The cost benefits are a moving target, though the paper assumes that they will improve as the industry grows.

Fuel cells are seeing high growth, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, in a report last month. Total fuel shipments increased 34% in 2012 over 2011.

Approximately 30,000 fuel cell systems were shipped in 2012, up from 5,000 in 2008.

Patrick Thibodeau covers SaaS and enterprise applications, outsourcing, government IT policies, data centers and IT workforce issues for Computerworld. Follow Patrick on Twitter at @DCgov, or subscribe to Patrick's RSS feed . His email address is pthibodeau@computerworld.com.

Read more about Data Center in Computerworld's Data Center Topic Center.

Read More