SEP 2 IP-based energy management for home

What exactly is smart energy profile (SEP 2) IP-based energy management for the home? Introducing the SEP 2, Tobin Richardson, chairman and CEO, ZigBee Alliance said ZigBee smart energy is the standard of choice for home area networks (HANs).

About 40+ million ZigBee electric meters are being deployed. ZigBee smart energy is being enhanced by network/communications options, support for forward-looking developments, etc. SEP 2 is a joint effort with the HomePlug Alliance. There is a vision of MAC/PHY agnostic SmartEnergy profile.

Robby Simpson, SEP 2 Technical Working Group Chair, system architect, GE Digital Energy, provided the features and benefits of Smart Energy. Features include price communication, demand response and load control, energy usage information/metering data, prepayment metering, text messaging, plug-in electric vehicles, distributed energy resources, billing communication, etc.

Example applications are many, such as smartphones, ESI in the sky, tablets, TVs, plug-in electric vehicles, PCs, solar inverters, thermostats, energy management systems, smart meters, building management systems, smart appliances, etc. There is support for a variety of architectures. The use of IP eases convergence and architecture changes. A consortium for SEP 2 interoperability (CSEP) has been established.

Skip Ashton, ZigBee Arch. review committee chair, senior apps director,  Silicon Labs said implementations of SEP 2 are available from a number of companies and across several MAC/PHYs. All standard documents are available for review.

Jeff Gooding, Southern California Edison (SCE), spoke about creating SEP 2 energy ecosysyems. SEP 2 can bridge multi-platform customer technologies to create a rich ecosystem. SEP 2 customer focused solutions can allow the utilities and energy service providers to use any customer communication channel. SEP 2 pilots at SCE include a gateway pilot and a smart charging pilot. Both are separate pilots.

Coto announces MEMS based magnetically operated switch

Stephen Day.

According to Stephen Day, VP of Technology, Coto Technology has the number 1 share in reed relays and relay products. The Coto brand is associated with the broadest portfolio, best in class quality, dedicated technical support, and a provider of innovative solutions. He was speaking at the ongoing 13th Globalpress Electronics Summit in Santa Cruz, USA.

Coto has announced the RedRock, a new MEMS based magnetically operated switch. The RS-A-2515 is the world’s smallest wafer level packaged magnetically operated reed switch. It consumes zero power, measures 2mm3 in footprint and switches at less than 0.3W. It delivers high reliability and surface mount package.

The small footprint means use of less PCB real estate, no operate power means a longer battery life. The low switching power leads to higher reliability. The high directionality leads to resistance to stray fields. Hot switchable feature leads to higher reliability.

Together, Coto has managed to combine the best of two worlds — traditional reed switches with MEMS processing. There is high aspect ratio microfabrication (HARM). This is the first commercially available switch. It produces structures that generate strong contact closure forces. The forces are many times greater than the previous MEMS based magnetic switches. It also enables hot switching up to several hundred milliwatts.

HARM is the key to making it all possible. The benefits are many, from temperature rise vs. carry current, to RedRock contact life test, 1V 1 mA hot-switched load. RedRock allows for small size, zero power consumption and high power switching.

At the moment, Coto is leveraging RedRock into high growth applications. In the future, Coto will integrate sensor solution as well. RedRock’s unique combination of features include reed — no power and high current, and MEMS — no power and small size, as well as GMR/Hall — small size and high current — to deliver the RedRock, which features no power, small size and high current.

Nominum launches world’s first purpose-built suite of DNS-based solutions for mobile operators

Late last month, Nominum launched the world’s first purpose-built suite of DNS-based solutions for mobile operators at the Mobile World Congress 2012 in Barcelona Spain.

Doug Miller, GM, Mobile Solutions, Nominum, said that Nominum has been in the mobile space for many years now. The news at MWC was to announce the new Nominum Mobile Suite, which takes the lessons learned and best practices from working closely with the top mobile providers in the world to craft purpose-built solutions designed to solve very specific mobile provider needs.

He added: “With the demand on mobile networks at its highest and only growing by the day, mobile providers face specific issues their fixed line counterparts simply do not. For example, the concept of spectrum efficiency is a mobile issue and something Nominum can help with via solutions crafted around our core engines, platforms and applications. There are other examples like this built on both network and subscriber needs.”

DHCP and DNS core engines
So, what are the DNS and DHCP core engines all about? According to Miller, typically when people think of core engines such as DNS and DHCP, the need to respond to queries and enable basic mobile routing and provisioning come to mind. These engines were considered single-purpose network functions. Nothing more, nothing less. However, although these functions are still vital, beyond the base requirements, there are a number of considerations that must also be taken into account.

At the base level, these engines must be considered for latency and availability to ensure the fastest and most reliable network services. Without considering this, the network may have lower performance or potentially become unavailable in its entirety. Further, the concept of network orchestration must be considered. Without these engines, mobile networks simply do not work. This is very different from fixed networks that are not as reliant on DNS as mobile networks. In the case of mobile, there are a number of control plane functions that must be considered.

Arguably more important than these functions is the ability to deliver business-impacting solutions. The concept of spectrum efficiency was already mentioned, but consider the ability to report on customer and network activity. This is a function that was simply never considered when talking about DNS and DHCP. However, with these elements in place, an entirely new world of reporting and analytics is opened up without the need for additional hardware components being added to the network that create additional complexity or add new risks.

Similarly, these engines can also be the basis for subscriber affinity solutions that generate new revenue and add a new dimension to the battle on churn by creating stickiness not possible previously. Simply put, DNS and DHCP can and should be leveraged for more than they have been historically for true business value.

Global forecast estimates based on WSTS’s May semicon sales: Cowan LRA model

This is a continuation of my coverage of the fortunes of the global semiconductor industry. I would like to acknowledge and thank Mike Cowan, an independent semiconductor analyst and developer of the Cowan LRA model, who has provided me the latest numbers.

The WSTS posted May 2011′s HBR, Historical Billings Report, on its website on Tuesday, July 5th, 2011.

According to the WSTS’s HBR, May’s actual sales came in at $23.494 billion with the corresponding May 3MMA sales at $25.031 billion. It should be noted that two months experienced slight downward sales revisions from last month’s published HBR, namely March (down by $0.147 billion) and April (down by $0.112 billion), respectively.

The Cowan LRA model’s sales forecast estimates for May as published last month were $24.565 billion (actual) and $25.474 billion (3MMA), respectively. Thus, the model’s May MI (Momentum Indicator) came in at minus 4.4 percent.

This indicates (mathematically speaking) that the semiconductor industry’s actual May sales result was much lower than the model’s expectation by $1.071 billion and that, most probably, 2011′s sales growth will be trending downward for the rest of this year.

Plugging the latest actual sales number for May into the model yields the following updated sales and sales growths forecast estimates for 2011:

Global semicon sales monthly update based on Cowan's LRA model.

The key take-aways from comparing the latest versus previous month’s forecast results are highlighted below:
* 2011′s sales forecast estimate fell by $3.937 billion to $318.391 billion (from last month’s sales forecast estimate of $322.328 billion).
* Correspondingly, 2011′s sales growth forecast estimate dropped by 1.3 percentage points to 6.7 percent (from last month’s 8 percent sales growth forecast estimate).
* June 2011′s actual sales forecast expectation is $29.435 billion which corresponds to a June 3MMA sales estimate of $25.445 billion assuming no (or minor) sales revisions for either April or May’s previously published actual sales from last month.

Next month’s forecast update based upon June’s actual sales are expected to be available on or about Friday, Aug 5th, 2011.

Cowan LRA model: Global semicon sales forecast based on Oct. 2010 actual sales

This is a continuation of my coverage of the fortunes of the global semiconductor industry. I would like to acknowledge and thank Mike Cowan, an independent semiconductor analyst and developer of the Cowan LRA model, who has provided me the latest numbers.

Cowan has provided the latest monthly sales forecast update. Note that the latest sales forecast results capture not only the last quarter of 2010, but also provide the model’s “take” on 2011. On Sunday, 12-05-10, the WSTS posted the October 2010′s global semiconductor sales report (Historical Billings Report, HBR) on its website.

Therefore, with the WSTS having released its actual Oct. 2010 global semiconductor sales number, Cowan is sharing the latest monthly update to the Cowan LRA Model’s derived forecast numbers. The latest sales forecast estimates for 4Q and 2010 “decreased” from last month’s forecast estimates as summarized and discussed below.

Additionally, Cowan has extended the model in order to provide a “first look” at sales and sales growth estimates for each of the four quarters (and full year) of 2011.

October semicon sales
The actual Oct. 2010 global semiconductor sales released by the WSTS came in at $24.550 billion which is:
* 10.7 percent higher than last year’s (2009) actual October sales of $22.181 billion;
* Down 15.3 percent from last month’s (September) actual sales of $28.981 billion (Note – revised downward by $0.391 billion from last month’s WSTS published sales number of $29.372 billion for September);
* And lower (by $0.593 billion, or down 2.4 percent) compared to last month’s (September’s projection) sales forecast estimate for Oct., that is, $25.143 billion;
* Thus, the Cowan LRA Model’s Momentum Indicator, MI, went less negative (rose to -2.4 percent) compared to last month’s more negative posture (at -6.5 percent).

Note: November 2010’s Sales Forecast Estimate is projected to be $25.566 billion.

Cowan LRA model: Global semicon sales forecast update based on Aug. 2010′s actual sales

This is a continuation of my coverage of the fortunes of the global semiconductor industry. I would like to acknowledge and thank Mike Cowan, an independent semiconductor analyst and developer of the Cowan LRA model, who has provided me the latest numbers.

This Monday, (10-04-10) the WSTS posted the August 2010 global semiconductor sales report (Historical Billings Report, HBR) on its website. Therefore, with the WSTS having released its actual August 2010 global semiconductor sales number, Cowan has provided the latest monthly update to the Cowan LRA Model’s derived forecast numbers.

The updated sales forecast estimates for 3Q, 4Q and 2010 decreased very slightly from the previous month’s forecast estimates as summarized below.

The actual August 2010 global semiconductor sales published by the WSTS came in at $25.358 billion which is:
* 30.8 percent higher than 2009′s August sales of $19.175 billion;
* Up 3.2 percent from last month’s (July) sales of $24.570 billion;
* And lower (by $0.090 billion, or down 0.35 percent) compared to last month’s (July’s projection) sales forecast estimate, that is, $25.448 billion;
* The Cowan LRA Model’s Momentum Indicator, MI, went slightly negative (-0.35 percent) compared to last month’s plus posture (at +5.0 percent), as discussed below.

Cowan’s momentum indicator
August 2010’s actual semiconductor sales (of $25.358 billion) came in slightly lower (by $0.090 billion) than the model’s last month’s August 2010 sales forecast estimate (of $25.448 billion) representing a minus 0.35 percent delta comparing August 2010′s actual sales number (published by the WSTS) to the projected forecast estimate “put forth” by the Cowan LRA forecasting model and reported last month. This percent delta represents the Cowan LRA Model’s MI.

The MI is defined as the percent difference between the actual sales for a given month — in this case August 2010’s just published actual global sales of $25.358 billion and the forecasted sales estimate for August 2010, that is, $25.448 billion, which was calculated and published last month.

The MI can be either positive or negative and is a measure of the percent deviation of the actual monthly sales number from the previous month’s prediction derived by the model’s linear regression analysis of the past 26 years of historical, actual monthly global “sales experience” as gathered and published, each month, by the WSTS.

Note: September 2010’s sales forecast estimate is projected to be $31.402 billion.

Latest monthly update

Cowan's LRA model.

The latest monthly update to 2010′s global semiconductor sales forecast estimate as determined by the Cowan LRA forecasting model notched down very slightly to $305.406 billion corresponding to an updated projected 2010 year-over-year sales growth forecast estimate of 34.9 percent.

These latest forecasted 2010 sales and sales growth estimates decreased marginally from last month’s (July) reported sales and sales growth forecast estimates of $305.729 and 35.1 percent, respectively.

Thus, the full complement of the latest, updated sales and sales growth forecast estimates for 3Q, 4Q and 2010 are detailed in the table immediately below along with the 1Q’s and 2Q’s actual reported sales numbers.

The second table shows the corresponding results from last month’s model run in order to compare the sequential forecast estimate numbers, namely August versus July.

Global semicon sales forecast estimates based on Cowan’s LRA model

This is a continuation of my coverage of the fortunes of the global semiconductor industry. I would like to acknowledge and thank Mike Cowan, an independent semiconductor analyst and developer of the Cowan LRA model, who has provided me the latest numbers.

Here are the latest forecast results for 2010 global semicon sales estimates associated with the forecasting model — the Cowan LRA model for predicting worldwide semicon sales.

The World Semiconductor Trade Statistics (WSTS) today (6-02-10) posted the April 2010 actual sales numbers on its website. Consequently, this is the latest update to Mike Cowan’s forecast results as gleamed from running the Cowan LRA forecasting model incorporating the “actual” April sales.

The actual April global semiconductor sales as released by the WSTS came in at $23.385 billion, which is up 43 percent from last year’s April sales of $16.354 billion and down 11.9 percent from last month’s sales of $26.553 billion, (which was revised upward slightly from last month’s published sales of $26.533 billion).

Therefore, the latest updated 2010 sales number predicted by the Cowan LRA model is $301.865 billion corresponding to a year-over-year sales growth of 33.4 percent for 2010.

These latest sales and sales growth are up from last month’s reported forecast estimates of $294.981 and 30.3 percent, respectively. These upward results reflect the relatively strong April sales as reported by the WSTS.

The full complement of the latest sales and sales growths forecast estimates for 2Q, 3Q, 4Q and 2010 are summarized in the table below along with 1Q’s actual numbers.

Source: Cowan LRA Forecasting Model.

Additionally, the May 2010 global semiconductor sales forecast estimate is projected to be $22.743 billion, which would yield a May 3MMA sales forecast estimate of $24.227 billion, which is normally published by the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) each month in order to characterize the semiconductor industry’s growth posture.

Reputation based security protects you from malware

(L-R): Shantanu Ghosh, VP, India Product Operations, Symantec and Joe Pasqua, VP, Research, Symantec.

Information is everything in today’s connected world! According to Joe Pasqua, VP, Research, Symantec Corp., there are 487 exabytes of data globally, growing at 51 percent annually.

Speaking about the innovative work being done at Symantec Research Labs, he said, it was the Labs’ endeavor to bring together technologies and products in new and interesting ways and help solve problems. “We have a customer centric approach to innovation,” he said.

Symantec Research Labs develops cutting edge technologies to solve real-world customer challenges in security, storage and systems management. It does core research, advanced concepts and collaboratve research.

According to Pasqua, reputation based security changes the manner in which you can protect yourself from malware. It was noticed a number of years ago that there were more of malware. “So, we decided to create a reputation score for every piece of software.”

Symantec Research Labs has an extensive and successful track record. These include core security technologies such as reputation-based security and Browser Defender. Other areas include consumer cloud services, infrastructure software, etc. Pasqua provided a sneak peak of the Symantec Mobile Reputation Security (SMRS) research prototype as well.

More details in a while.

Global semiconductor sales forecast: Cowan’s LRA model (based on Nov. 2009 sales data)

This is a continuation of my coverage of the fortunes of the global semiconductor industry. I would like to acknowledge and thank Mike Cowan, an independent semiconductor analyst and developer of the Cowan LRA model, who has provided me the latest numbers.

Here are the latest forecast results for 2009 and 2010 global semiconductor sales estimates associated with the forecasting model — the Cowan LRA model for predicting worldwide semiconductor sales.

The presently updated global semiconductor sales forecast estimates are based upon the recently published November 2009 actual sales numbers released by the WSTS (posted on its website on Jan 4, 2010).

The table below details the latest, updated forecast numbers covering the next five quarters, that is, from 4Q09 through 4Q10, respectively, as well as for the full years of 2009 (including 4Q09) and 2010.

NOTE – This is the last forecast for 2009 since next month’s sales data from WSTS, namely for Dec 2009, will “wrap up” the year (2009 will become history!) and the model will “shift focus” to 2010 forecast expectations and beyond!

As the table below shows, the latest updates for years 2009 and 2010 chip sales forecast estimates increased by +1.9 percent and +0.5 percent, respectively, to $222.1 billion and $236.5 billion compared to last month’s sales forecast estimates of $217.9 billion and $234.0 billion, respectively.

The updated 2009 and 2010 chip sales forecast estimates correspond to yr-o-yr sales growth forecast estimates of -10.6 percent and +6.5 percent, respectively, which represent a continuing improvement compared to last month’s sales growth prediction of -12.6 percent for 2009 but, however, no change from last month’s same sales growth forecast estimate of +6.5 percent for 2010.

Table Summarizing Latest Cowan LRA Model’s Sales & Sales Growth Forecast Estimates For The Next Five Quarters

Cowan's LRA Model: Sources: WSTS / SIA (Actuals); Cowan LRA Forecasting Model (Forecast Estimates).

Remember that the model is dynamic, that is, is recalculated each month as the year plays out; therefore today’s latest, updated full year sales growth prediction will not sit still but will evolve over the coming months.

Additionally, the model also projects a sales forecast estimate for next month, namely for December 2009. Thus December’s (actual) sales forecast estimate is projected to be $20.023 billion, which corresponds to a 3MMA (three Month Moving Average) sales forecast estimate of $21.28 billion as is normally published by the SIA.

Symantec’s Norton 2010 products use cloud based intelligence

Recently, Symantec brought a completely unique approach to online security with Norton 2010. The Norton Internet Security 2010 and Norton AntiVirus 2010 leverage a new model of security, codenamed Quorum, to attain unmatched detection of new malware and advance far beyond traditional signature and behaviour-based detection.

I managed to catch up with Gaurav Kanwal, Country Sales Manager – India, Consumer Products & Solutions, Symantec, to find out more about this release. Of course, Symantec was kind enough to share a copy of the software.

Norton 2010 products and their unique approach
Cybercrime has surpassed illegal drug trafficking as a criminal money maker. Cybercriminals use phony emails, fake websites and online ads to steal everything you’ve got. Your money, your identity, even your reputation.

To do that, cybercriminals are furiously writing and then rewriting new and unique pieces of malware, hoping to stay under the radar of threat signatures for as long as possible. Symantec security researchers see more than 200 million attacks on average every month, the vast majority of which are never-seen-before threats and delivered via the web.

Kanwal said: “The reality is, the signature approach and other traditional methods of security are not keeping pace with the sheer number of these threats being created by online criminals. Traditional security solutions are obsolete today.

“The faster, safer and smarter Norton 2010 is anything but traditional. Norton 2010 harnesses the power of millions of users united against cybercrime and gives consumers the power to ‘deny’ digital dangers and ‘allow’ a safe online experience.

“Norton 2010 achieves this by leveraging a new and unique model of reputation-based security, codenamed Quorum, to attain unmatched detection of new malware and advance far beyond traditional signature and behaviour-based detection.

“In short, the code name Quorum takes the greatest weapon cyber criminals have in their arsenal – their ability to generate unique pieces of malware at an alarming rate – and turns that very weapon against them.”

The other key and unique feature in the Norton 2010 products is the Norton Insight family of technologies, which uses extensive online intelligence systems to proactively protect the PC and keep users informed of the security and performance impact of files and applications that they encounter in their everyday online experience. The suite consists of:

Norton Download Insight – Uses extensive online intelligence systems leveraging reputation to proactively protect your PC. Analyses and reports on the safety of new files and applications before users install and run them.

Norton System Insight – Provides features and easy-to-understand system information to help keep PCs performing at top speed. Automatic and on-demand application optimisation rejuvenates application performance. Provides a view of recent events on the computer, providing the information required to research and analyze PC issues. Performance graphs help pinpoint what’s causing a computer to slow down.

Norton Threat Insight – Provides details on threats that have been detected on your PC – including useful information on where it came from (the URL) and when it was initially encountered.

Norton Insight Network – Leverages a cloud-based approach unique to Symantec. Based on the technology codenamed Quorum, it takes cloud-based security beyond traditional blacklists and whitelists. It uses a statistical analysis of file attributes based on billions of scans on millions of computers to identify the trust level of a file. This way Norton can identify files to be trustworthy or untrustworthy that would otherwise fall into the grey area of the unknown with only traditional security methods.

Additional key technologies:

SONAR 2 – Sophisticated second-generation behavioural security technology that detects entirely new threats based on their suspicious actions, without the need for traditional fingerprints. Leverages data from the reputation cloud, firewall, network communications (IPS), and file attributes such as location on the PC, origin information, etc., to decide when to detect a program as a threat.

New Antispam (Norton Internet Security only) – Powerful Enterprise-grade spam blocking engine helps keep you clear of unwanted email and safe from email-based scams and infections. 20 percent more effective than the previous engine and requires no training.

Norton Safe Web (Norton Internet Security only) – Website rating service that annotates Google, Yahoo! and Bing.com search results with site safety ratings to warn users about sites that may pose a danger to them. It also includes ecommerce safety ratings to help users make safer online shopping decisions.

OnlineFamily.Norton (Norton Internet Security only) – Norton Internet Security 2010 users can opt to try a subscription to OnlineFamily.Norton, a new Web-based service that keeps parents in the loop on their kids online lives and fosters communication about what’s appropriate and inappropriate behaviour on the Internet.