Vanguard, WEDNESDAY, JUNE 12, 2013 — 25
DIARY
Select ICT events Monetising OTT Services. Holds June 17-19, 2013 in London, UK.
Digital Services World Congress. Holds 18-19 June 2013 in London, UK. Mobile Wallet and Retail Innovation. Holds 18-19 June 2013 in London, UK M2M and Internet of Things. Holds 18-19 June 2013 in London, UK. Digital Services Africa 2013. Holds 25-26 June 2013 in Johannesburg, South Africa.
Preview
,
New inventions shaping life and living
Tagging intruders with DNA
The DNA fog tagging system from Applied DNA Sciences can mark an intruder without their knowledge, making it easier for police to identify them later. DNA marking is already in use, with the most common use being to mark persons of interest at riots. The new system is a bit more general, and is meant to help stop and identify an intruder. Called DNA Fog, the device will fill a room with smoke and DNA-loaded droplets when triggered by a break-in. More than just confuse the intruder, the DNA will mark them for later identification if they are caught. The DNA sequence can be altered, so each building or business can have their own unique code, if desired.
Qualcomm'll not rest until every Nigerian owns smartphone — Dadson BY PRINCE OSUAGWU
A
FTER sponsoring the training of about 30 application developers at the just concluded Mobile Web West Africa (MWWA 2013) in Lagos.Senior Director Business Development West Africa at Qualcomm, Mr Alex Dadson granted Hi-Tech Interview in his Victoria Island Lagos office to talk in details, reasons behind that gesture. At the end of the interview, we were able to discover that Qualcomm has the plan to ensure that every Nigerian owns a smartphone, since that is what is driving developments across the world. Here are the details: Qualcomm is a major player in Nigeria, how do you help in the growth of the economy? We are essentially a technology enabler for the wireless industry. All around the world, what we do is generate ideas around how wireless or mobility can impart people’s life. And with these ideas we develop technology which becomes our popular chipsets that are acceptable by all the Original Equipment Manufacturers, OEMs. This chipsets are used for high-end chipset and also entry level chipsets. The unique nature of our chipsets is such that the same application you can run on high-end devices can also run on low end devices and sometimes with some limitations but in general you can run the app across the entire family of chipsets that we have. The long and short
,
N.I.G.F. 2013. Holds June 18, 2013 in Abuja, Nigeria.
EDITED by Adekunle Adekoya
BY EMEKA AGINAM
B
•Mr Alex Dadson of it is that at Qualcomm we enable technology for the wireless ecosystem as our technology is used by network operators, Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and application developers. There are competitions in these areas you have just described. What stands you out, really? We are not looking at what others are doing. In any case we do not think anybody is a competitor particularly if the effort is geared towards enriching the mobile ecosystem. At Qualcomm, we are constantly innovating along the features that are embodied by our Chipsets. We have very advanced graphics processing unit in our chipsets with solid computational unit, good connecting technology in
Today, we have $100 smartphones, you can get a smartphone that sells for N12,000 That is because we are building our chipsets in a way they can aid cost acquisition of mobile devices without sacrificing capability
I N Back to S NCC's draft new PCs feature I wiretap law HP's Intel's new, low-power D Haswell processors E C M Y K
85% firms not exploiting big data advantage, says CPN
form of modem, excellent radios that talk to 3G and 4G networks and these are all innovations that enable the end users have great experience with their mobile devices and enjoy online mobile content and applications running on their mobile devices. One other thing we also do is look at the challenges and critical needs in the market we operate and then with our technology we provide the needed solution to make life easier for people. So whatever we discover to be a major problem in a place, just like as power is now a problem in Nigeria and other emerging markets, we innovate in the area of power management in phones that have our chipsets. So what technology can take care of this identified problem in Nigeria, for instance? We have a technology called the Asynchronous multi- process technology. It improves and optimizes the phone battery by monitoring how the various chords in the chipsets of the phone are operating and making sure the applications draw mini-
GITEX 2013: FG to benefit from FDI
mal power thereby extending the battery life. Again, there is another innovation, the Augmented Reality (AR) technology. This is a computer based application which actually augments your reality. A phone with Augmented Reality app has the ability to scan and recognize images and then overlay on the screen extra information about the reality you are observing. For example, if you want to know the outside temperature, you could simply point your phone to an outside window and then you certainly will see the actual temperature of the environment on your phone.AR is exciting and the potential of the AR app in this market is incredible. We have demonstrated the use of the AR app in one edition of the Genevive magazine which was augmented with an AR app. In that edition of the magazine, if you open a particular page and see an article, your smart phone recognizes an artiste and plays content related to the artiste. This is one of such practical applications of AR
Continues on page 27
Y 2015, it is expected that more than 85 percent of fortune 500 organizations will fail to effectively exploit big data for competitive advantage, the former Registrar of the Computer Professional Registration Council of Nigeria, Prof Adenike Oshofisan has predicted. Prof. Oshofisan stated this in her address last week in Kwara State at the induction ceremony for 2012/2013 conputer science graduates, the Computer, Library and Science Department of the Kwara State University, Malete, Ilorin conducted by CPN. According to her, big data will be the next frontier for innovation, production and competition, saying that the use of big data will become a key basis of competition and growth for individual firms. The former CPN boss who spoke on a number of emerging technologies including cloud computing, social networks, mobile devices, cyber attacks and big date said that current trends in smart devices and growing internet connectivity were creating increases in the volume of data available. “Collecting and analyzing the data is not enough. It must be presented in a timely fashion so that decisions are made as direct consequences that have a materail impact on productivity or efficiency of the organization. Most organizations are ill prepared to address both the technical and management challenges posed by big data as a direct result. Few will able to effectively explore this trend for competitive
Continues on page 29
Humanity and mobility systems – Imperatives for future of public transportation system