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Broadcom to Buy Network Gear Maker Brocade for $5.5 Billion

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

Broadcom to Buy Network Gear Maker Brocade for $5.5 Billion

Chipmaker Broadcom Ltd said it would buy Brocade Communications Systems Inc for $5.5 billion (roughly rs. 36,672 crores), pushing deeper into the fast-growing market for network equipment used in data centers.

The deal, the latest in a consolidating chip sector, will allow Broadcom to corner a larger share of the data center products market by using Brocade’s fiber channel switches that speed up data transfer between servers and storage devices.

Singapore-based Broadcom, formerly Avago Technologies, is known for its connectivity chips used in products ranging from mobiles to servers, while California-based Brocade makes networking switches, software and storage products.

“We believe the deal is highly complementary to Broadcom’s existing enterprise storage offerings and boosts its exposure to the high-growth data center market,” CFRA Research Angelo Zino said.

The market for IT infrastructure products is expected to expand rapidly. Total spending on cloud infrastructure, including server, storage and ethernet switches, will increase by 15.5 percent to $37.1 billion in 2016, according to research firm IDC.

Broadcom said it planned to sell Brocade’s networking business, which makes controllers and access points that help businesses offer high-speed internet to their customers, to avoid competing with its top customers such as Cisco.

The $12.75 per share offer represents a premium of 46.7 percent to Brocade’s close on Friday.

Brocade’s shares were up 9.5 percent at $12.31, while Broadcom’s stock rose 1.7 percent to $171.73.

Up to Tuesday’s close, Brocade’s shares had gained nearly 30 percent since Bloomberg reported on Monday that the company was in talks to sell itself.

The chip industry has been undergoing rapid consolidation as companies try to capture market share, much of it related to connected devices and cars, and Avago/Broadcom has been one of the sector’s most prolific acquirers.

Since taking over the top job at Avago a decade ago, Chief Executive Hock Tan has turned around a small chipmaker into a giant with a market capitalization of $67 billion.

In the biggest chip deal ever, smartphone chipmaker Qualcomm Inc agreed last week to buy NXP Semiconductors NV for about $38 billion, making it the leading supplier to the fast-growing automotive chips market.

The Qualcomm-NXP deal topped Avago’s $37 billion acquisition of Broadcom Corp last year that formed Broadcom Ltd.

Broadcom’s top customers include Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Intel Corp.

A big part of Brocade’s networking business that Broadcom plans to divest was acquired as part of Brocade’s $1.5 billion acquisition of Ruckus Wireless earlier this year. The unit generated $209 million in product revenue in the third quarter.

“I don’t think there will be a lack in buyers for the IP business,” Drexel Hamilton analyst Cody Acree told Reuters, adding that companies such as Cisco, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and some Chinese firms are trying to make headway in the space.

Reuters reported on Tuesday that a Broadcom-Brocade deal was imminent.

Broadcom said it would take on about $400 million of Brocade’s debt and fund the deal with available cash and debt.

Evercore was Brocade’s financial adviser.

[Source:- gadgets.ndtv]

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Internet

IRCTC, MobiKwik Partner on E-Cash Payments for Tatkal Bookings

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

IRCTC, MobiKwik Partner on E-Cash Payments for Tatkal Bookings

In a bid to tackle the tatkal rush, payments app MobilKwik and IRCTC have joined hands to offer an alternative payment solution while booking tickets. Now, apart from paying via netbanking, credit cards, and other wallets, users can now opt to pay directly from their MobilKwik wallet while booking tatkal tickets.

MobilKwik claims that users can pay with the wallet within 2 seconds, whereas other modes of payment take five to ten times more time. This new e-cash payment introduction will eradicate the need to fill in card details, and wait for the bank to approve the transaction through authentication. Instead, IRCTC will instantly deduct the amount from your MobilKwik wallet without any authentication as a prerequisite.

Of course, for this to work, the user must have installed the app and have money in the wallet for seamless and fast payment. For those uninitiated, tatkal is a service provided by the Indian Railway to book emergency confirmed tickets one-day prior to travel. MobilKwik claims that over 15 percent daily ticket bookings for Indian Railways happen under tatkal, and the e-cash payment option helps in giving the user an added leverage to beat the rush.

This facility is available on the IRCTC website, and users can book their tickets using MobilKwik between 8am-12pm IST daily. “MobiKwik collaborated with Indian Railways to digitize payments on the IRCTC app and IRCTC FoodOnTrack app this year, and now we are powering payments for tatkal online, that will help users book tickets almost instantly. We are proud to support the largest rail network in Asia in their endeavor to digitize payments and provide the best payments experience to their users,” Upasana Taku, Co-founder at MobiKwik said in a statement.

Last year, IRCTC made MobiKwik wallet as the first payment option on IRCTC’s Connect Android App. IRCTC also partnered with Paytm in September this year to allow users to book train tickets through the payment app and website. It had even tied up with Paytm last year to enable e-catering payments.

[Source:- gadgets.ndtv]

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Internet

Google Says Yet to Receive Permission for Street View Launch in India

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

Google Says Yet to Receive Permission for Street View Launch in India

Google is yet to receive permissions – primarily on the policy front – to launch its Street View feature in India, Sanket Gupta, Maps Lead, Google India, said here on Thursday.

Street View allows users to explore world landmarks, discover natural wonders, and step inside locations such as museums, arena, parks and transport hubs. In India’s immediate neighbourhood, countries like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have it in the south Asian region while Indonesia in the southeast, and Japan are deploying it, said Gupta.

“As of now we have not been able to get permissions. Discussions are still happening on that front. It’s more of a decision on the policy side that we have not been able to get permissions. Technically, we just need cameras and cars,” Gupta told the media here.

With more than 5,000 cities and six lakh villages mapped in India, the company aims to develop more country-relevant features.

“There are certain features which are especially relevant to India and the country has inspired the development of such features and many are now available globally.”

“The landmark-based directions feature that we developed for India and from India, has been launched in other countries. We will launch it in Indonesia. Then we have the ‘Named Intersections’ and local guides programme. The offline maps feature was inspired from India,” Gupta said.

India is among the top five countries using offline maps today.

“We are also trying to explore partnership with the Railways for real-time train travel data but we don’t have a timeline on that,” Gupta added.

[Source:- gadgets.ndtv]

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Education

A quarter of pupils ‘write only for school’

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

Girl writing in a diary

A quarter of eight- to 18-year-olds rarely or never write something that is not for school, a report says.

Just one child in five told a survey for the National Literacy Trust they wrote daily outside of school in 2015, compared with 27.2% in 2014.

And that writing was dominated by social network posts and text messages, the survey of 32,500 pupils suggests.

The trust warned the development could have a negative impact on pupils’ results.

Those who write outside school daily were five times more likely to have writing skills above their age group, it added.

And those who enjoyed writing were seven times more likely to have advanced writing skills.

The report said: “Since we started measuring writing frequency as part of the annual literacy survey, in 2010, the percentage of children and young people who write daily outside of class has remained relatively stable, with just over a quarter of people saying that they write something outside of class daily.

Social mobility

“However, in 2015, there was a significant change in the frequency with which children and young people write outside class, with fewer children and young people in 2015 writing as frequently as their peers did in 2014.”

The survey did not just focus on children putting pen to paper, but instead included writing on technology-based formats.

Text messages were the most common form of writing children indulged in, followed by emails, social network site messages and instant messages.

Children most commonly put pen to paper in the form of notes, with a third of children writing them at least once a month.

Letters were the next most common form of writing, with a quarter of children writing letters at least once a month.

Jonathan Douglas, director of the National Literacy Trust, said: “Without solid writing skills, young people will have fewer opportunities open to them, ultimately impacting on their social mobility and indeed on the UK economy.

“If we don’t act now, the futures of children who cannot write well when they leave school could be cut short before they’ve even started.”

The charity is calling for a renewed focus on writing for enjoyment.

[Source:- BBC]

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Education

Religious observance opt-out for pupils to be considered

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

School assembly

A consultation is to be held on whether older pupils should be allowed to opt themselves out of religious observance in schools, the BBC has learned.

All young people in Scotland need parental permission to withdraw from religious activities like assemblies.

The Humanist Society of Scotland (HSS) was seeking a judicial review of that policy for older pupils.

The Scottish government is now to consider revising guidance to head teachers.

Religious observance must take place in Scottish schools at least six times a year.

In England and Wales, sixth form pupils – normally aged between 16 and 18 – have the right to make their own decision about opting out.

The HHS called for older pupils in Scotland to be given the same right.

It came after a report by the UN committee on the rights of the child highlighted the fact that children in Scotland were not able to legally withdraw from religious observance.

It recommended that laws requiring compulsory attendance at religious worship were scrapped.

At that time, the Scottish government ruled out a review of the policy.

This prompted the HSS to take a legal challenge to the Court of Session, arguing that the government may have acted unlawfully by refusing to ensure their guidance remains in line with international humans rights law.

Now the Court of Session has granted a motion to halt that judicial review action for three months.

This was put forward by Scottish ministers with the consent of the HSS.

The three-month period will be used to carry out a consultation which will consider a revision of the guidance on religious observance in schools.

A Scottish government spokesman said: “We believe religious observance in schools should support the values of a diverse, outward-looking Scotland, which encourages young people to develop their own beliefs and values, and understand and respect the beliefs and values of others.

“Listening to the views of young people themselves on all aspects of education is very important, as we have clearly recognised through our approach in the Children and Young People (Scotland) Act 2014 and the current Education Governance Review.

“We welcome the opportunity to work with key interests to discuss how we ensure this approach is fully reflected through religious observance guidance.”

‘Important lessons’

The HSS has welcomed the consultation. Chief executive Gordon MacRae said: “I think we still live in a country where there’s a perception that there are big religious voting blocks and people don’t want to rock the boat.

“I don’t think that’s necessarily true and I don’t think this is an issue that should be religious v non-religious.

“There are many people of faith who also recognise it’s not helpful to force young people to attend religious observance against their will.”

The Church of Scotland welcomed the consultation on religious observance guidance and said it was a decision that should taken by “Scotland as a whole”.

Rev Dr Richard Frazer, convener of its church and society council, added: “The point is that you wouldn’t give children the opt-out from mathematics or English.

“There are certain important lessons that we need to learn in society. And I suppose the Church of Scotland’s perspective is that learning about other faiths, about how people live their lives, is important.”

Barbara Coupar, from the Scottish Catholic Education Service, said: “It’s recognised that when parents choose to send their children to a Catholic school they are choosing to send them to a school which is based on the heritage and traditions of the Catholic church.

“And therefore that is integrated into everything we do, not just into religious education, and not just into assemblies, but also other curricula areas and other parts of the school life.”

[Source:- BBC]

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Education

Councils call for more powers to help struggling schools

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

Ofsted

Regional Schools Commissioners don’t have the capacity to oversee school improvement on a wide scale, local councils say

Town halls are better at raising education standards than government-appointed officials, the body representing local councils has said.

Almost nine out of 10 council-run primaries and secondaries in England are rated as “good” or “outstanding” – more than than academies or free schools, according to the Local Government Association (LGA).

In a new report, the LGA argues that the RSC system lacks the capacity and capability to oversee increasing numbers of schools as the government pushes ahead with plans for all schools to take on academy status.

These commissioners are already responsible for almost a quarter of schools in England – about 5,000 in total, the report says, with each of the eight working with nearly 100 that are judged to be failing or require improvement.

Local authorities perform better in school improvement, the report claims, with 89 per cent of council-run primaries and secondaries judged at least “good” by Ofsted.

A similar proportion of so-called converter academies – those that have converted to academy status – (88.5 per cent) are rated as “good” or “outstanding”, along with 62 per cent of sponsored academies and 82 per cent of free schools.

Richard Watts, chair of the LGA’s children and young people board, said: “Local councils have consistently proven themselves to be more effective at raising school standards than RSCs and this is no surprise.

“Each council is working with fewer schools, who they have good, longstanding relationships with, and they know what’s needed in their local areas.

“It is simply asking too much to expect RSCs to effectively turn around dozens of schools across a huge area.

“Placing more and more power in the hands of few unelected civil servants, who parents cannot hold to account at the ballot box, is out of sync with the government’s aims to devolve more decision-making and responsibility down to local areas and communities.

“With the government planning to end councils’ role in supporting school improvement and intervening in failing schools from next year, we have yet to be convinced that RSCs have the track record or the capacity to take on responsibility for another 13,000 schools.

“We would urge the government to re-consider its plans for full academisation and to focus on working with councils to ensure all our children get the excellent education they deserve.”

A Department for Education spokesperson said the claims were “nonsense” and the figures were “misleading”.

She added: “It is inevitable that councils oversee a higher proportion of ‘good’ or ‘outstanding’ schools as failing schools are taken out of council control and converted to academies, where after being paired with a strong sponsor they stand the best chance of breaking from their often long histories of underperformance.

“All academies operate under a strict accountability system – more robust than in council-run schools. Regional Schools Commissioners are an important part of that system and thanks to their oversight where issues are identified we will not hesitate to take swift action, something that the council-run system would fail to tackle for years.”

[Source:- tes]

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Education

No fees for EU students starting 2017/18 courses in Scotland

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

Scotland’s Education Secretary John Swinney has told the SNP conference that students from EU countries starting in 2017/18 would pay no fees.

In July the minister said there would be no change to funding in 2016/17.

Guarantees were being sought by students after the UK voted to leave the European Union.

Mr Swinney also urged the UK government to “guarantee their [students] right to stay here during their studies and work here after their studies”.

He announced the funding pledge during his keynote address to the Glasgow conference, attended by 3,000 delegates.

  • Follow the BBC’s Philip Sim who will be covering conference news
  • BBC Scotland’s political editor on the SNP’s “best and worst of time”

The MSP said: “We have already confirmed tuition fee funding to support EU students studying here, or preparing to start this year.

“Now, we will extend that guarantee to those starting next year in 2017/18.

“And, unlike Labour and the Tories, that’s tuition-free education we are guaranteeing – not the massive fees they impose on students wherever they come from.”

Classroom of childrenImage copyrightPA
Image captionMr Swinney said he wanted to “substantially eliminate” the attainment gap within a decade

He added: “We will guarantee their funding. But what I demand is that the Tory-Brexit government guarantee their right to stay here during the studies and work here after their studies.

“They are not cards to be played. They are human beings.”

Education was a strong theme in Mr Swinney’s speech.

He said his task to “close the attainment gap for our poorest pupils” was simple.

Mr Swinney added: “And our ambition is equally straightforward: we will make significant progress in closing the gap within the next parliament and substantially eliminate it within a decade.

“It may be a simple objective. It may be a straightforward aim. But it will not be easy. We do not underestimate the scale of our ambition.”

‘Democratic landscape’

He also spoke about the desire to “re-invigorate local government” by “reconnecting it with communities”.

A review is already under way on the role of councils in the delivery of education.

Mr Swinney will now review the relationships between local authorities and health boards.

He said: “We aim to achieve nothing less than to transform our democratic landscape, protect and renew public services and refresh the relationship between citizens, communities and councils.”

“We do this not because it is radical – and it is – but because we believe it is right.

“We do it not because it is easy – it’s not – but because it is in the national interest.

“We believe that national interest lies in placing power in the people of this country’s hands. It is why I believe in independence.”

[Source:- BBC]

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Education

Muslim school takes legal action against Ofsted for ‘unfair’ report that criticised gender segregation

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

school-extremism.jpg

Pupils at an Islamic faith school have spoken out about gender segregation in classes complaining it leaves them unprepared for life, a court has heard.

A schools inspector made the claims in a legal battle at the High Court regarding a controversial report into an unknown school by school inspection body Ofsted. The school, known only as School X, is trying to suppress publication of a highly critical report into its alleged practices.

The Islamic voluntary-aided school which teaches pupils aged 4-16, is disputing claims made by Ofsted inspectors and is seeking a judicial review to see the report quashed.

The inspector told the court that from Year 5, girls and boys were segregated for all lessons, break and lunchtimes, as well as for school clubs and trips. They said a number of pupils had said gender segregation was “having a negative effect on being prepared for life in modern Britain… having a negative impact in terms of preparing them for life”. The inspector told the court: “One young woman referred to it as ‘dumb’.”

Helen Mountfield, QC for Ofsted, said: “Both girls and boys suffer the loss of opportunity to learn how to socialise and in due course work with those of the opposite sex [which carries] a necessary implication that girls are inferior to boys”.

She added the school was failing to protect the rights of pupils: “to equal opportunities to learn and develop and take their place in society.”

However, the school’s legal counsel has argued it has been “singled out” despite other schools having similar policies and added that “Ofsted cannot march in and say there is a detriment to everyone. It simply cannot be asserted that lack of ability to consort with the opposite sex is a detriment.”

[Source:- BBC]

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Internet

Google Cloud Division Announced; Google Apps for Work Rebranded to G Suite

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

Google Cloud Division Announced; Google Apps for Work Rebranded to G Suite

Google repackaged its cloud services and corporate software and hardware offerings into a new unit called Google Cloud on Thursday, the Internet search provider’s latest attempt to catch leaders in the sector Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp.

The new group, run by Google executive Diane Greene, includes web-based work software such as Docs and Sheets, machine-learning and digital-mapping tools that other companies can rent over the Internet, and Android phones, tablets and Chromebook laptops designed for office users, Google said in a statement.

“It’s uniquely Google – a broad set of technologies and products from all parts of the cloud,” Greene said at a company event in San Francisco.

Google’s work software, renamed G Suite, has been around for years and is popular with individuals, startups and other smaller companies. While these programs have always been offered over the web, they weren’t delivered as part of a broader cloud computing service. Greene is combining them to offer a fuller range of services to companies looking to move applications and other work functions to cheaper, more flexible rented data centers.

Google also said Thursday its cloud service now has more than one billion end-users, through the products and services that other companies run on its servers. And Urs Holzle, Google’s longtime infrastructure boss, said Google had invested $11.2 billion (roughly Rs. 74,669 crores) on its cloud division over the past twelve months. He didn’t share revenue numbers.

Greene’s new division has considerable ground to make up. Amazon’s cloud business generated close to $8 billion (roughly Rs. 53,340 crores) in sales in 2015 and posted a 58 percent revenue increase in the most-recent quarter. Microsoft’s Azure cloud revenue doubled in the second quarter. Google is fourth in cloud services behind Amazon, Microsoft and International Business Machines Corp., according to Synergy Research Group. Microsoft also leads in work software still, and it’s Office 365 web-based software suite is popular.

On Thursday, Google unveiled new locations for its rentable servers in Mumbai, Singapore, Sydney, Northern Virginia, Sao Paulo, London, Finland and Frankfurt. More regions will be announced next year, it said.

Google also said it had picked up two new cloud customers, retailer The Home Depot Inc. and Pokemon Go, the viral mobile game. Over the last year, Google has pushed aggressively to woo larger cloud clients, which have in the past mostly gone to Amazon, Microsoft or used their own computer servers and data centers.

Google also introduced a new customer support unit within its cloud division, called Customer Reliability Engineering. Google engineers will work closely with other companies’ operations teams to make sure important cloud applications run reliably, Google said. It’s a necessary upgrade. Despite its technical prowess, Google has faced criticism for not managing customer relations as carefully as competitors like Amazon.

Greene, a Silicon Valley veteran and Google board member, joined the search provider full time in November to revamp its cloud and corporate software efforts. Since then, she has hired more sales and marketing staff and presided over several acquisitions, including the recent $625 million purchase of software developer Apigee.

Greene’s early work has started to show up in Google’s bottom line. Parent company Alphabet Inc. reported in July that “Other” revenue rose 33 percent to a record $2.17 billion in the second quarter, driven by cloud and corporate software businesses.

[Source:- gadgets.ndtv]

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Internet

Google Asks for Airspace Access for Project Loon Internet Balloons

by Rajdeep
written by Rajdeep

Google Asks for Airspace Access for Project Loon Internet Balloons

Google, which is hoping to beam the internet to remote areas of the world via balloon, went before the UN’s aviation agency to ask member states to let it ply their airspace.

The company’s X Lab, which was created to pursue big-vision projects, said it hopes to establish a network of helium balloons floating in the stratosphere that will emit a powerful 4G signal to rural and difficult-to-access areas.

The new initiative – launched in 2013 and dubbed “Project Loon” – saw its first balloon take off from South America in February only to crash at a tea plantation in Sri Lanka, where it was discovered by villagers.

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, had partnered with Sri Lanka to bring the internet to remote areas there. The country’s Information and Communication Technology Agency, which coordinated the tests with Google, described the landing as controlled and scheduled.

Loon has “significantly improved the balloon design, manufacture and launch procedure,” X Lab told the UN’s International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Wednesday, according to a document seen by AFP.

“The balloons are now robust, remaining aloft well beyond the targeted 100 days, and are launched through a custom developed auto-launcher, allowing rapid multiple launches,” X Lab told the organization’s executive committee.

After compiling publicly available wind data with its own flight data, Project Loon was able to model the stratosphere’s air flow, allowing its balloons to “change altitude to ‘catch’ the winds moving at the speed and direction necessary to a given service area,” the document said.

Alphabet requested the assistance of ICAO member states as they met for its 39th triennial assembly, asking them in particular to “establish bilateral or multilateral letters of agreement with adjacent states and Project Loon to allow Loon balloons to safely transit flight information region boundaries.”

“Safety and coordination with the international civil aviation community is very important to Project Loon,” a X Lab spokeswoman told AFP.

Loon is currently working to finalise a safety plan and set up its operations center.

In July, leading social network Facebook launched a similar attempt to bring internet access to remote areas via solar drones.

[Source:- gadgets.ndtv]

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