Sony cuts annual profit outlook by 10%

Sony has cut its annual profit forecast by 10% due to one-off costs from the sale of its battery business.

The Japanese electronics giant will sell the unit to Murata Manufacturing and said it expected to book impairment charges of 33bn yen linked to the sale.

The firm now expects operating profits of 270bn yen ($2.6bn; £2.1bn) for the year ending March, 30bn yen lower than its previous forecast.

Sony is scheduled to release its first-half results on Tuesday.

The announcement was made after markets had closed in Tokyo. During the trading session its shares had closed 1.9% higher.

Google earnings crush targets to drive Alphabet profits higher

Google parent Alphabet surprised Silicon Valley with better than expected results for the last quarter, as advertiser spending on mobile ads catches up with users shift away from desktop computers to smartphones.

Google revenue grew by 21pc compared to the same quarter last year, reaching $18.3bn net revenue compared to analyst expectations of $18bn.

Movidius brings its computer vision tech to the world’s largest security camera maker

Soon your security camera will be able to tell whether it’s the mailman at the door or a thief.

Computer vision is opening up the capabilities of video surveillance technologies that give sensors the ability to understand what they are looking at in the world around them.

Today, Movidius announced an expansive deal with Hikvision, the world’s leading video surveillance company, to begin bringing its low-power Myriad 2 visual processing units into the company’s cameras. Soon those security cameras can begin actively monitoring the spaces they are set up in with all of that analysis happening in real-time on-device.

WhatsApp video calls return to the beta app

We've been waiting for WhatsApp video calls for a while now, and it looks like the feature could finally be getting close. There have been reports this week that video calls have returned to the beta of the WhatsApp app. The feature first appeared in the beta back in May, but was yanked not long after for reasons unknown. The feature's been spotted in the beta versions of WhatsApp for Android, iOS, and for Windows Phone, but unfortunately, to actually make a video call, both parties must have the beta app installed. Hopefully this means video calling will be available sooner rather than later for WhatApps's billion-plus users. The only confusion is why it's taken the company so long.

In a historic moment for AI, computers gain ability to generalize learning between activities

With the many meteoric victories artificial intelligence has scored in the recent past, it’s easy to forget the story line has basically been one of evolution rather than revolution. The deep neural networks upon which the likes of Apple’s Siri and Google Now are built have been in existence since at least the late 1950s, when the Frank Rosenblatt pioneered a multi-layer neural network called the perceptron and suggested additional layers with mathematical notations.

The best ways to sell your big data projects to the CEO

 

CEOs work an average of 57.8 hours per week. They spend over half of this time in meetings, on the phone, on conference calls, or attending public events or business meals—and this doesn't even account for travel. Meanwhile, the business cranks on and trends continue to emerge in markets that demand immediate strategic attention.

Microsoft AI Beats Humans at Speech Recognition

Microsoft's Artificial Intelligence and Research Unit earlier this week reported that its speech recognition technology had surpassed the performance of human transcriptionists.

The team last month published a paper describing its system's accuracy, said to be superior to that of IBM's famed Watson artificial intelligence.

The error rate for humans on the widely used NIST 2000 test set is 5.9 percent for the Switchboard portion of the data, and 11.3 percent for the CallHome portion, the team said.

8GB of RAM? It could be ready in time for the Samsung Galaxy S8

Samsung announced today that it is introducing a new generation of  dynamic random-access memory (DRAM) packages capable of 8GB LPDDR4 DRAM for mobile devices - both a first of its kind and a potential feature of the Samsung Galaxy S8, the company's next flagship smartphone.
What does that mean? According to Samsung, next-generation mobile devices outfitted with such a chip are better suited for tasks such as dual-camera use, 4K UHD playback, and virtual reality. (Daydream, anyone?)
Samsung also adds that its new RAM package can deliver could grant tablets the type of capacity to handle multiple operating systems via virtual machine operation - a feature oft considered exclusive to dedicated PCs.

Big Data and Analytics: Creating New Value

The massive amount of data available from connected devices creates an unprecedented opportunity for increased optimization of products and services -- and, consequently, revenue. The deep investment in big data gathering and analytics is fueled by an ability to create added value for companies based on actionable business insights, and to create added value for consumers by providing lifestyle benefits. While gathering and analyzing data comes at a substantial cost, the return can be great for businesses and impacts almost every facet of business operations. Targeted and Timely Marketing Big data's marketing promise is companies working together on analytics for tailored marketing capabilities that reach the right people at the right time.

Fake News Taints Facebook's Trending Topics

Facebook's Trending Topics section recently has carried a number of trending stories that were either "indisputably fake" or "profoundly inaccurate," The Washington Post reported this week. The news feed six weeks ago ran a false story claiming Fox News had fired anchor Megyn Kelly for being a closet liberal who supported Hillary Clinton. Facebook removed the story, apologized, and promised to do better. It appears that despite that commitment, the Trending Topics section is not yet problem free. Trending Tall Tales In an experiment conducted over several weeks following Facebook's promotion of the fake Megyn Kelly story, the Post recorded which topics were trending for it every day, on the hour, across four accounts.

Gadget Ogling: Google Embraces a Hardware Future

Welcome to Gadget Dreams and Nightmares, the column that's taken just enough time away from pondering how many major email providers have built tools to let the government scan everyone's messages to pore over Google's latest hardware.

Portalys Services

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We design to your imaginations. Our designs for websites and applications are unique in the industry. Our Web Designs are a mixture of Creative Skills and Technical expertise. We use latest technologies like CSS3, HTML5, jQuery, XML etc. to build websites. Our dedicated team of website designers produces optimum websites that load fast and are easy to use. A well designed website should have the best Graphic User Interface (GUI) and we keep this in mind while designing a website.

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Graphic Design is a creative process most often involving a client and the designers. It is our firm believe, based on experience, that the client and the designers can, together, create awesome designs. While working on Graphics we follow artistic and professional concepts that focus on visual communication and presentation. We know how valuable and priceless your brand is. The graphic design of your website, logo, business card and advertising are what people see when they look at your business. And as it is often stated, The First impression is the last impression.

Portalys Profile

Portalys SARL is a Lebanese software company specialized in desktop and online solutions.

We have more than 15 years of experience in providing solutions to clients in Nigeria, China, UK, USA, Australia as well as Lebanese Governments, Municipalities and organizations.

A team of highly experienced developers, graphic designers, copywriters, testers and project managers ensure quality and timely delivery of your projects.