Experience And Scale Matter In The Home Improvement HaaS Space

I have been covering the home improvement HaaS (humans as a service) space for a while now, and if there’s one thing I am evangelizing is that the notion of experience and scale matters. I know that sounds basic, but that’s the reality, and one that is challenged by some.  I am all for changing everything about anything, but when it comes to human nature and trust, these are difficult to build an algorithm around, host at Amazon.com’s AWS and call it a day. Scale is obvious as companies need a wide swath of quality data and need powerful cloud systems to process it in real-time and provide the most relevant results to the end user. This is true at Uber, Instacart and isn’t about just taking your big idea to the Apple iPhone and Amazon.com AWS.

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It’s The End Of The Server As We Know It

The market for enterprise server hardware has experienced a pretty boring run, ­as the basic server building block has not changed significantly in the last 20 years. However, the software that runs on top of servers is in the midst of major transition based on a new set of applications driven by Big Data, the Internet of Things, mobility and cloud-based services. The servers of yesteryear are no longer able to keep pace with the demands of this new generation of workloads where IT is now a focal point for competitive differentiation. As one approach to address this major shift in application requirements, companies like Cisco Systems, Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and Intel are bringing to market a new category of products called composable infrastructure.

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Oracle Has Grand Plans For Cloud Computing, But Is It Too Late To The Party?

Leading database software vendor Oracle Corp. unveiled an ambitious program for cloud computing in the Oracle OpenWorld 2015 event last month. The company announced plans to expand its portfolio in Infrastructure-as-a-Cloud (IaaS), analytical cloud services, cloud applications, and cloud integration services. A major portion of the announcement was devoted to propounding the new Oracle’s new IaaS service, which pitches Oracle capabilities head to head against Amazon’s cloud arm, Amazon Web Services. In every market Oracle addresses, aims for the top. AWS is the de facto leader in public cloud computing and its dominance in IaaS is undisputed. Oracle also faces heavy competition from Microsoft’s Azure and Google, both of which are already heavily entrenched in the cloud industry as basic service providers. Thus, Oracle faces an uphill battle in carving out a market share for itself in what is arguably the most competitive segment in the software world.Leading database software vendor Oracle Corp. unveiled an ambitious program for cloud computing in the Oracle OpenWorld 2015 event last month. The company announced plans to expand its portfolio in Infrastructure-as-a-Cloud (IaaS), analytical cloud services, cloud applications, and cloud integration services. A major portion of the announcement was devoted to propounding the new Oracle’s new IaaS service, which pitches Oracle capabilities head to head against Amazon’s cloud arm, Amazon Web Services. In every market Oracle addresses, aims for the top. AWS is the de facto leader in public cloud computing and its dominance in IaaS is undisputed. Oracle also faces heavy competition from Microsoft’s Azure and Google, both of which are already heavily entrenched in the cloud industry as basic service providers. Thus, Oracle faces an uphill battle in carving out a market share for itself in what is arguably the most competitive segment in the software world.

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AMD’s New Hardware & Software Lineup Can Help It Further Increase Its Market Share In GPUs

AMD’s stock price has increased by over 40% in the last three months, though year-to-date the stock is still down more than 10%. The company has been the worst hit by weaker than expected PC demand, despite a flourishing semi-custom business. With market share losses to Intel and Nvidia , as well as a limited footprint in new emerging markets, AMD has seen a steep decline in its revenue base so far this year. The company expected to see some improvements in the back half of the year driven by some semi-custom wins and its newest APU and GPU products. Indeed, AMD did see some improvement in its Q3 2015 earnings, with revenue increasing 13% sequentially (beating Wall Street estimates), though year-on-year revenue was down 26%.

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Android Marshmallow now available for the LG G4 in Europe

LG G4 owners in Europe can now get of taste of Android Marshmallow. After a limited release to select users in Poland back in October, the latest version of Android is finally making its way out to the general public. LG has not made an official announcement regarding the availability Android 6.0 for the LG G4, but handset owners in Germany, Portugal, Poland, Spain, Romania, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary, the UK, Croatia, and Turkey claim to have downloaded the latest software build for the phone using LG Bridge, LG’s PC-based software management tool. There’s no indication as to when LG will be flipping the switch on its over-the-air update servers, but it shouldn’t be too long.

The update includes all the basic system improvements that Google backed into Android Marshmallow along with a dozen or so LG-specific tweaks to improve the handset’s performance and software experience.

LG G4 Android 6.0 changelog

  • Priority Notifications renamed to “do not disturb”
  • QMemo+ renamed to Capture+
  • Usability improvements through Google Patch
  • LG Bridge renamed to LG AirDrive
  • Manage Google apps and services in new settings menu
  • New Direct Share (recommendations, which app/contact to share content with)
  • Knock Code settings update. Now requires least 6 spaces and at least 3 different patterns
  • New storage menu
  • New silent mode
  • Screen for app settings was simplified and offers different app-management features
  • Battery automatically optimized when device/apps are not used for a certain time.
  • Wipe to delete in Messaging and E-Mail apps can now be undone by wiping in the opposite direction
  • Apps will ask for permissions after installing to ensure better protection of your private data.

If you decide to use LG Bridge to update your LG G4 to Android Marshmallow, be sure to leave us a comment and let us all know what you think of the new software update.

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