Google launches under-sea cable link between the US and Japan

A 5,600-mile link between the US and Japan involving world’s highest-capacity undersea internet cable has been launched by Google. The fiber cable, which can transport data at 60 terabits per second (60 million Mbps) is expected to be a significant boost to trans-pacific internet speeds.

The project which is backed by six companies including Google and Asian telecoms groups has “more [capacity] than any active subsea cable,” according to Google’s Urs Holzle.
With more devices going online amidst the growth of cloud internet services, the demand for faster internet speeds and extra capacity is all time high. Today, almost all international internet traffic runs via undersea cables, however, in the internet’s earlier days much of the traffic was via satellites.
The $300m (£220m) “Faster” cable system will connect to hubs in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland and Seattle, and two points in Japan.
Google is also backing a project to build a cable between Florida and Brazil which is expected to finish by the end of the year, while Microsoft and Facebook recently announced a trans-Atlantic cable between Virginia Beach and Bilbao in Spain.
“Faster is one of just a few hundred submarine cables connecting various parts of the world, which collectively form an important backbone that helps run the internet,” Holzle said.
Laying the cable under the sea is a tough task requiring specially-designed ships which can lay up to 125 miles per day. Although the optical fibres that transport data are extremely thin, the cables have to be reinforced with layers of tubing, steel wires and plastic to prevent damage.

Snapchat to bring the biggest update with Memories

Snapchat is ready to bring the biggest update since its inception. Now no more screenshots, you can save the pictures in the app itself. Yes, Snapchat is launching Memories, where you can save the snaps and stories on Snapchat, a “personal collection of your favorite moments that lives below the Camera screen,” announced Snapchat in a blog post.

Snapchat will be launching Memories within next one month, where users will receive a chat message from Team Snapchat whenever Memories becomes available for them.

 

Previously, if users wanted to save their snaps, they had the option of saving it to phone’s camera roll. In Memories, along with that option, users can select to save their snaps to the desired location. If the snap taken is more than 24 hours ago, it automatically adds a frame around it to distinguish it as an older snap. Content within Memories will be automatically backed up to Snapchat servers so users can always access them from their account even if they change phones.
Users can access Memories option below the camera screen by swiping it above and can find all their saved snaps under tabs namely All, Snaps, Stories (collection of snaps), and Camera Roll.
The new feature also come with a handy search option, “It’s super easy to find the Snap or Story you’re looking for in just a few seconds by typing keywords like “dog” or “Hawaii” — that way you can spend less time searching and more time enjoying your Memories,” said Snapchat.
Along with the above-mentioned feature, Memories come with a private PIN protected section called My Eyes, which allows users to save the snaps they do not want other people to see.
Now, you can easily pass your phone among friends & family to share your snaps without sharing any private snaps.

Boston is nation’s top tech-talent exporter

The San Francisco Bay Area added 120,500 tech jobs in the last five years, for a growth rate of 61.5% percent. Major U.S. cities, generally, all saw double-digit growth in tech employment, according to a new report.
There is a fair chance that good number of San Francisco's tech workers came from the Boston area, according this study, 2016 Scoring Tech Talent by CBRE, a real estate services firm.
This report puts the nation's tech population at 4.8 million, and says tech employment has grown by about 1 million over the last five years. Of this total, 37% work for tech companies such as Microsoft, Google and Apple. The balance is made up of people employed outside the tech sector, in industries such as banking and healthcare.
The San Francisco area has nearly 317,000 tech workers, which make up 10% of all jobs in this region. It's followed by the Washington D.C. area at 241,230 jobs, a growth rate of 24% over the last five years.

Boston was 10th on this list of top technology employment markets, with 111,290 tech workers. It had the smallest growth rate, of 13%.
But Boston also saw the largest "brain drain" of tech workers, some 17,225, according to CBRE.
What CBRE did was to look at how many technology-related degrees were produced over a five-year period, and then matched it against how many tech jobs were created in that same market, said Colin Yasukochi, the director of research and analysis at CBRE and the report's author.
Boston is producing "more degrees than jobs," said Yasukochi.

For employers, Boston ought to be a place to recruit workers as well as a place to establish an office, said Yasukochi.

Boston's talent pool is a leading reason General Electric recently announced plans to move its headquarters from Connecticut to Boston.
Some other cities that produce more technology grads than jobs include Phoenix, which saw a brain drain of 12,500 over five years. In Los Angeles, it was 11,156, and for Pittsburgh this figure was nearly 10,000.
Labor costs are the most dominant cost for tech companies, said Yasukochi. In San Francisco Bay area the average payroll cost for 250 people totaled nearly $31 million. In New York, number two on the list of most expensive cities, it was $26.5 million. But if you are willing to locate in Charlotte, N.C., the 20th most expensive city, this same 250-person payroll will cost $23 million
The rising costs in the large markets will help the smaller markets, Yasukochi said.
The number one small tech labor market was Kansas City, Missouri, with a tech labor force at 48,500 and a five-year growth rate of 42%. It was closely followed by Charlotte, N.C., at just over 47,000, but at a growth rate of 75%.
What do Kansas City and Charlotte have in common?
Lower cost and availability of talent were factors shared by each city, said Yasukochi. But both cities have also invested in high-speed broadband networks, "which has had a major impact on stimulating technology growth" in those two markets, he said.
The Kansas City area was the first Google Fiberlocation in the nation. Charlotte is getting Google Fiber as well.

Walmart Pay vs. Apple Pay: Hardware age dictates all

On Wednesday (July 6), Walmart announced that its trial of Walmart Pay would go national. This is good news for Walmart shoppers who want to pay with a mobile device, but the news would have been very different had Walmart instead embraced NFC payments. Walmart opted to go with its own payments system.

"There is something very powerful about the ease and simplicity of Walmart Pay," said Daniel Eckert, senior vice president of services at Walmart U.S., in a prepared statement. What Eckert didn't say, though, was what exactly Walmart Pay was easier and simpler than.
If we contrast Walmart Pay with two popular NFC options — Apple Pay and Android Pay — we come up with a lot of strengths and weaknesses. Whether Walmart Pay would be better for a specific shopper than, let's say, Apple Pay, depends on that shopper's handset.

How is Walmart Pay better?

It works on just about any Android or iOS smartphone or tablet, including much older devices. All it really needs is the ability to download apps — which is pretty much the entry-level definition of a smartphone — and a decent camera (to focus on the QR code). NFC approaches require the latest hardware from the few handset makers that support NFC. Most existing iPhones, for example, can't handle Apple Pay.
Walmart Pay also integrates electronic Walmart receipts into the app and allows them to be viewed at any time.
Before we go into the ways Walmart Pay is worse than NFC, let’s not dismiss how huge an advantage this hardware-agnostic difference is. Walmart's massive size and relatively low-cost merchandise means that it needs to be accessible to as many people as possible. This approach delivers that. If Walmart Pay gets to have only one major advantage, this is arguably the best one to have.

How is Walmart Pay worse?

It was odd that the Walmart Pay statement opted to stress "ease and simplicity," because those are both areas where it is a lot weaker than almost any of the common NFC options.
Let's compare the Walmart Pay experience with the Apple Pay experience. As long as the shopper is willing to use the default card in Apple Pay, all that the shopper need do is hold the phone right above the card reader and do a one-second finger scan. It doesn’t need to be connected to any network, nor does the shopper have to launch an app, key in a password or manipulate the app in any way.
Contrast that with Walmart Pay, which requires the shopper to find and then open the Walmart app, select Walmart Pay and then manually activate the camera and then scan a register QR code — which, as many shoppers will confirm, isn’t always that easy to do on the first or second attempt. Shoppers will also have to enter a PIN or, sometimes, do a finger scan.
Walmart Pay also can't be used for fuel, whereas NFC payment options have no product restrictions. Granted, other than Chevron, there aren't an awful lot of gas stations accepting Apple Pay, but there are some. Not with Walmart Pay.
And courtesy of Walmart's own Walmart Pay page, here are some restrictions for Walmart Pay that are generally also restrictions for most NFC wallets. "Digital coupons will not work. Paper coupons will have to be scanned as they are done today," Walmart said, adding that other current no-nos include cashback, loyalty/rewards and PayPal.
Walmart Pay also can't handle direct access to bank accounts. That's a reversal from the early Walmart mobile wallet plans, back when it still dreamt of using mobile wallets to sidestep, or at least sharply curtail, interchange fees.
Also, based on its initial trials, Walmart Pay anticipates enough QR code glitches that it published a plan for them. "What if the QR Code does not work? Enter the 803 Action Code to print out a QR code for the customer to scan with their phone. Discard this QR Code after the customer successfully scans it. It is only valid for one transaction," the public Walmart Pay page said. It's not clear how this helps, though. If the phone (operator error?) isn't playing well with a screen-displayed QR code, not seeing how a printed version would do better. But it's worth a shot.
Then there’s the big problem, which Walmart was attempting to avoid via the dearly departed CurrentC: Apple Pay works across a large number of merchants, but Walmart Pay only works at Walmart. That said, if the merchant is large enough — and certainly Walmart is — a single-merchant payment method can certainly be effective, as Starbucks has clearly proved.
If it works, it will not only drive a lot more of its customers to use the Walmart app, but it will in effect deliver to Walmart a CRM program, which it has never had. It will suddenly be able to associate specific purchases with specific shoppers. This will open the door to customer-specific offers and potentially differential pricing, albeit down the road.

Govt IT spending to grow to $7 bn in 2016: Gartner

Global consultancy firm Gartner on Thursday said Indian government will see a marginal 3.1 per cent uptick in the IT spend at USD 7 billion for 2016.
"The government in India will spend USD 7 billion on IT products and services in 2016," it said in a note.

This includes spending on internal services, software, IT services, data centre, devices and telecom services by local, state and Union governments, it said.
IT services which include consulting, software support, business process outsourcing, IT outsourcing, implementation, and hardware support is expected to grow at 8.8 per cent in 2016 to USD 1.6 billion, it said.
Interestingly, it said the BPO segment will be growing at a whopping 22 per cent.
The estimate showing a marginal uptick in IT spends comes amid a greater thrust on technology from the government, which has launched the high-octane Digital India initiative.
"The 'Digital India' initiative continues to be driving investments in the government, led by access of government services on mobile devices (part of the mobile government), and expansion on broadband services," its principal research analyst Moutusi Sau said.
Without giving any indication about how it compares with the last year's number, Gartner said telecom services will be a USD 1.5 billion market.
Within the telecom segment, mobile network services will post the fastest growth of 3.5 per cent to be a USD 193 million opportunity in 2016, it said.
Led by growth in infrastructure, the government spending on software will grow by 9.9 per cent to USD 938 million in 2016, she said.