Tag Archives: business

Business, Financial, TechNews

Apple Dethroned

[Image by TeX9.net]
Samsung Takes the Lead in Smartphone Market. Apple Dethroned.

Samsung reclaimed the top spot in the smartphone market and dethroned Apple last quarter, according to market researchers. The South Korean company accounted for nearly 21% of global device sales, IDC reported. Apple’s iPhones held a 17.3% market share. The biggest surge came from Transsion, primarily active in Africa, which saw sales jump by about 85%, capturing roughly one-tenth of the global market and moving up to fourth place.

2023 marked the first time Apple surpassed the long-standing market leader over an entire calendar year. In recent months, Samsung launched its new flagship model, the Galaxy S24, on its usual annual schedule. Sales dipped slightly by 0.7% year-over-year to 60.1 million devices, according to IDC. Apple sold about 50.1 million iPhones, down 9.6%. There were also delivery delays for the more powerful iPhone 14 Pro models due to COVID-19 lockdowns in China. The iPhone remains Apple’s most crucial product by far. The overall smartphone market grew by 7.8% to 289.4 million devices, IDC calculated. The firm is one of several market research companies that regularly estimate electronics sales, as manufacturers no longer provide these figures. IDC ranks the Chinese manufacturer Xiaomi in third place, which increased its sales by over a third to about 14% market share.

Samsung Receives Billions in Support for U.S. Chip Plant

The U.S. is taking the next step to bring more chip production from Asia to its shores. The South Korean Samsung Group will build new development and manufacturing sites in Texas with up to $6.4 billion in government support, as announced by the U.S. government on Monday. These facilities will produce chips using cutting-edge two-nanometer technology. A portion of this has already been allocated. Intel secured $8.5 billion, and TSMC was recently awarded $6.6 billion. This support is crucial, as the Taiwanese company is the top provider of the most powerful chips. Industry pioneer Intel has fallen behind TSMC in manufacturing techniques but aims to catch up.

Samsung plans to invest over $40 billion in total. A plant in Texas, under construction since 2022, is set to start in 2026 with more modern production processes. A second factory will begin manufacturing the following year. Samsung also plans to open a site there for bundling processors and memory chips. The South Korean company is a leading memory Producer. Samsung’s stock ultimately fell 1.79% to 82.2 won in South Korea. Meanwhile, Apple’s stock temporarily dropped 1.10% to 174.61 USD on NASDAQ.

Business, Crypto, Financial, Science, Security

Cryptocurrency Revolution

Image by TeX9.net: Cryptocurrency Revolution
Cryptocurrency: A Revolution in Digital Finance

In recent years, the financial landscape has witnessed a dramatic transformation with the rise of cryptocurrencies. These digital assets have taken the world by storm because of promising to reshape the way we conduct financial transactions, invest and even think about money. The story of cryptocurrencies begins with the creation of Bitcoin in 2009 by an anonymous entity known as Satoshi Nakamoto. Bitcoin introduced the concept of a decentralized, peer-to-peer digital currency and powered by blockchain technology.

Key Features of Cryptocurrencies
  1. Decentralization: Cryptocurrencies are not controlled by any central authority, making them resistant to censorship and manipulation.
  2. Security: Transactions are secured through cryptographic techniques, making it extremely difficult for malicious actors to tamper with the system.
  3. Transparency: Blockchain technology records all transactions on a public ledger, ensuring transparency and accountability.
  4. Accessibility: Cryptocurrencies are accessible to anyone with an internet connection, opening up financial opportunities for the unbanked and underbanked populations.
Impact on Traditional Finance
  1. Reduced Transaction Costs: Cryptocurrency transactions often come with lower fees compared to traditional banking systems.
  2. Financial Inclusion: Cryptocurrencies can provide access to financial services for the billions of people worldwide so the traditional banking system can not exclude them.
  3. Innovation: The blockchain technology underlying cryptocurrencies has sparked innovation in various industries, such as supply chain management, healthcare, and voting systems.
  4. Investment Opportunities: Cryptocurrencies have become an attractive asset class for investors, offering the potential for high returns and diversification.
Key Players in the Cryptocurrency Revolution
  1. Bitcoin (BTC): The original cryptocurrency and so the most recognized. It serves as digital gold and a store of value.
  2. Ethereum (ETH): Known for its smart contract functionality, Ethereum has enabled the development of decentralized applications (DApps).
  3. Binance Coin (BNB): The native token of the Binance exchange and is one of the largest cryptocurrency exchanges in the world.
  4. Cardano (ADA): Known for its focus on sustainability, scalability and interoperability in blockchain technology.
Image by TeX9.net: Cryptocurrency Revolution
Image by TeX9.net: Cryptocurrency Revolution
Business, Computer Chips, Financial, Gaming, TechNews

nVidia & Snowflake cooperation for AI models from cloud

nVidia and Snowflake announce cooperation for generative AI models from the cloud.

The US graphics card manufacturer nVidia and the US software company Snowflake have announced a cooperation. They want to offer companies generative AI from the cloud.

Image: Artificial Intelligence, AI (Inteligencia artificial), via: pixabay, by: geralt.
Image: Artificial Intelligence, AI (Inteligencia artificial), via: pixabay, by: geralt.

The nVidia Corp. and Snowflake Inc. announced at the Snowflake Summit 2023 that they have entered into a partnership.

The goal of the agreement: Providing companies to build generative AI applications using their own data within the Snowflake Data Cloud. Snowflake along with Nvidia enables enterprises to use data in their Snowflake account clouds. So they can build advanced generative AI service. This includs chatbots.

“Data is the foundation for building generative AI applications that understand the complexities and unique voice of each businesss” said Jensen Huang, Founder and CEO of Nvidia.

“nVidia and Snowflake will create an AI factory that will help companies transform their own valuable data into custom generative AI models to build breakthrough new applications. Right from the cloud platform they can run their businesses” added Jensen Huang.

Expanding AI capabilities in Data Cloud enables these customers to build generative AI applications, just where the data they manage already resides. This will reduce costs and latency.

The Snowflake Data Cloud has more than 8,000 customers. In Future it will offer the companies the ability to unify, integrate, analyze and share data within their organizatio, customers, partners, suppliers.

Snowflake’s unified platform offers industry-specific data clouds. Advertising, media and entertainment, financial services, healthcare and life sciences, manufacturing, retail and consumer goods, technology and telecom are included.

Snowflake also recently launched the Government and Education Data Cloud to enable data-driven decision-making for the public sector.

Snowflake plans to host and operate NeMo. NeMo is nVidia’s cloud-native enterprise platform for building, customizing and deploying generative AI models, on the data cloud.

AI, Business, Comes Next, Financial, Science, TechNews

AI boom: These companies and stocks are benefiting

Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing the technology industry and bringing huge profits to some companies. Some come off particularly well.

Image: Programming, Free Stock Picture, MorgueFile.com.
Image: Programming, Free Stock Picture, MorgueFile.com.

The hype surrounding artificial intelligence (AI) has increased significantly in recent years. AI is also increasingly finding its way into everyday work. According to a report by Goldman Sachs, AI will finally hit the mainstream in 2023 and is now “too big to ignore”.

Companies like OpenAI have gained great popularity with AI tools like the now world-renowned chatbot ChatGPT or the image generator Dall-E. Content generated by a bot quickly became the norm.

No wonder, then, that the demand for AI-enabled chips has risen sharply recently. Chip manufacturers like Nvidia benefit from this boom, because AI programs like ChatGPT require a lot of computing power, and GPUs are ideal for these requirements.

Nvidia at the top

With a share of 80 percent, Nvidia dominates the world market for graphics card chips and offers a wide range of products specifically for machine learning. “If the AI ​​trend proves sustainable, the immediate demand will be for chips and computing power, and that’s where Nvidia is the flagship at the moment,” Thomas Hayes, chairman of private equity firm Great Hill Capital, said of Nvidia’s strong gains, according to german news Tagesschau the past few weeks.

But not only Nvidia benefits from the AI ​​hype. For example, AMD, a direct competitor of Nvidia, specializes in developing microprocessors and chipsets. The company has announced that it will make its AI accelerator business its top priority, which could soon rival Nvidia.

Contract manufacturers such as the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and software companies such as Service Now also work closely with Nvidia and are benefiting from the AI ​​boom.

The stock markets are not unaffected by the hype surrounding artificial intelligence. Logically, the most popular stock among professional investors is Nvidia, but other AI-related stocks are also enjoying increasing popularity. Companies like Broadcom, TSMC, and Service Now have all rallied in recent months, significantly increasing their profits. ASML and Marvell were also able to post clearly recognizable growth.

Business, Comes Next, green IT, Science, TechNews

Green IT: How sustainable applications reduce CO2 emissions

Software consumes a lot of energy. A key to sustainable applications: demand shaping.

Image: Programming, Free Stock Picture, MorgueFile.com.
Image: Programming, Free Stock Picture, MorgueFile.com.

According to forecasts by the Green Software Foundation, information and communication technology will account for around 20 percent of all electricity consumption by 2030. Emissions from digital technologies will double by 2025 compared to 2019 levels.

But the technology industry is becoming increasingly aware of its carbon footprint. Last but not least, against the background of the energy crisis, the importance of green IT is becoming increasingly apparent.

Green IT summarizes all measures that combine technological progress with environmental protection. A distinction is made between Green by IT and Green in IT. Green by IT are technologies that actively help to achieve sustainability goals. Such as software that makes consumption measurable and shows potential for optimization. Green in IT, on the other hand, aims to optimize IT processes. So that they have the least possible negative or even positive impact on the environment and resources.

This is not primarily about limitations, but about responsible and resource-saving use of technology. The greatest possible benefit should be obtained from every gram of CO₂ emitted into the atmosphere. This enables the demand shaping principle in software development.

Demand shaping

Demand shaping is a strategy to influence demand to match existing supply. Accordingly, when supply is low, demand is reduced and increases with supply accordingly. An example of this is video conferencing. When the user has low bandwidth, the video quality is reduced while the essential audio quality remains high. Demand (video quality) is adjusted to match supply (bandwidth).

Another example of demand adaptation is progressive enhancement in web design. The most basic form of a website is made available for older browsers and with low bandwidth. The more resources and bandwidth a user has available on their device, the more features are provided. But these are optional.

This principle can also be used to achieve energy efficiency. The energy requirements of applications are matched to availability. Demand shaping is therefore opposed to the widespread over-provisioning principle of providing more resources than are necessary to cover peak loads or increasing demand.

Through demand shaping, so-called “eco modes” can be built into software applications. Similar to those in cars and household appliances. The application can be used in an emissions-friendly way at the expense of performance or at full power with higher energy consumption. Applications can either be set to eco mode by default, or users can choose. Based on the nudging principle.

Another example of sustainable applications are applications optimized for edge computing. Data and process steps or complete applications are brought closer to the users instead of being processed in remote data centers. This not only reduces latency, but also CO₂ emissions, since less energy is required to transmit the data.

Renewable energy

Applications can also be programmed in such a way that the respective mode – energy saving or maximum performance – is made dependent on the availability of renewable energies.

Demand shaping is thus related to the principle of demand shifting, i.e. the shifting of demand. Here the demand for computing, storage or network resources is shifted to other regions or to times when the availability of renewable energies is higher. Companies should rely on solutions that automatically move computing, storage and network resources to where the carbon footprint is lowest.

Both demand shaping and demand shifting are important to reduce CO₂ consumption in IT. Depending on the application, developers should determine whether the computing power of applications should be reduced or relocated if the CO₂ intensity is high.