Upcoming Moto X update to fix poor camera performance

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Upcoming Salesforce.com CRM release focuses on Chatter, customer service

Salesforce.com's next CRM (customer relationship management) software release will contain a slew of new features, with many focused on the Chatter collaboration and messaging tool as well as customer service, according to a set of official release notes.

Many new features associated with Chatter concern usability and access to the system. For example, now iOS device users will be able to launch Chatter Mobile from their Salesforce.com email.

[ Also on InfoWorld: Salesforce.com adds premium 'Performance Edition' bundle. | For a quick, smart take on the news you'll be talking about, check out InfoWorld Tech Brief -- subscribe today. ]

This is an important update "as most folks are still email-dependent," said analyst Ray Wang , CEO of Constellation Research.

Another major new feature, albeit available only as a pilot, is called Salesforce Files. It allows users to "securely sync files between Chatter and your desktop and some mobile devices," according to the notes. "This is the competitor to Box," and something customers should look at, Wang said.

For core sales automation, the upcoming release introduces Console for Sales.

This gives users "easy access to sales intelligence and helps you quickly contact leads, assess companies, and identify key contacts -- all in a dashboard-like interface that means more access to contextual data with fewer clicks and less scrolling," according to the notes.

Salesforce.com has also deepened the integration between its application and Microsoft Outlook.

Known as Winter '14, the new release also features improvements to Salesforce.com Communities, including the ability to assign a moderator to groups; and a series of usability updates within the Service Cloud product family, which includes Chatter Answers, Salesforce.com's knowledge base platform and Live Agent, among others.

Meanwhile, Winter '14's new feature lineup for analytics and mobile is less impressive, in Wang's view.

"Next to the mobile apps, analytics still is the weakest part of Salesforce.com," Wang said. "To be clear, it's better reporting and dashboards, not really analytics, as there are no predictive models, or algorithms applied here. This area will require the most attention in the long run but for now, reporting and KPIs are fairly decent."

Many of the new features in Winter '14 came from users' suggestions submitted through Salesforce.com's IdeaExchange, which is admirable on the company's part, Wang said.

As of November, Salesforce.com will no longer offer new customers the ability to purchase Unlimited Edition subscriptions, although it will support existing ones, according to the notes. Instead, the top-tier offering will be the recently announced Performance Edition, which costs more money but includes additional features.

It wasn't immediately clear Monday when the Winter '14 update will go live, although customers with Salesforce.com sandbox accounts can take part in a preview period that begins Sept. 6.

Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris' email address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com

View the original article here

Upcoming Salesforce.com release focuses on Chatter, service

Salesforce.com’s next CRM (customer relationship management) software release will contain a slew of new features, with many focused on the Chatter collaboration and messaging tool as well as customer service, according to a set of official release notes.

Many new features associated with Chatter concern usability and access to the system. For example, now iOS device users will be able to launch Chatter Mobile from their Salesforce.com email.

This is an important update “as most folks are still email-dependent,” said analyst Ray Wang , CEO of Constellation Research.

Another major new feature, albeit available only as a pilot, is called Salesforce Files. It allows users to “securely sync files between Chatter and your desktop and some mobile devices,” according to the notes. “This is the competitor to Box,” and something customers should look at, Wang said.

For core sales automation, the upcoming release introduces Console for Sales.

This gives users “easy access to sales intelligence and helps you quickly contact leads, assess companies, and identify key contacts—all in a dashboard-like interface that means more access to contextual data with fewer clicks and less scrolling,” according to the notes.

Salesforce.com has also deepened the integration between its application and Microsoft Outlook.

Known as Winter ’14, the new release also features improvements to Salesforce.com Communities, including the ability to assign a moderator to groups; and a series of usability updates within the Service Cloud product family, which includes Chatter Answers, Salesforce.com’s knowledge base platform and Live Agent, among others.

Meanwhile, Winter ’14’s new feature lineup for analytics and mobile is less impressive, in Wang’s view.

“Next to the mobile apps, analytics still is the weakest part of Salesforce.com,” Wang said. “To be clear, it’s better reporting and dashboards, not really analytics, as there are no predictive models, or algorithms applied here. This area will require the most attention in the long run but for now, reporting and KPIs are fairly decent.”

Many of the new features in Winter ’14 came from users’ suggestions submitted through Salesforce.com’s IdeaExchange, which is admirable on the company’s part, Wang said.

As of November, Salesforce.com will no longer offer new customers the ability to purchase Unlimited Edition subscriptions, although it will support existing ones, according to the notes. Instead, the top-tier offering will be the recently announced Performance Edition, which costs more money but includes additional features.

It wasn’t immediately clear Monday when the Winter ’14 update will go live, although customers with Salesforce.com sandbox accounts can take part in a preview period that begins Sept. 6.

Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for the IDG News Service.
More by Chris Kanaracus

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NASA plans to test laser communications link with upcoming lunar mission

An upcoming NASA mission will test a new laser communications system that could one day deliver high-definition 3D video signals from Mars and beyond.

The lunar laser communications demonstration will be part of the agency's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) mission, which is scheduled to launch on Sept. 6. The LADEE spacecraft will orbit the moon and collect information on the lunar atmosphere—technically an exosphere—for around 100 days. A laser communications module is built into the satellite.

"NASA has a need for faster download speeds for data from space and that grows everyday, just like it does for the rest of us at home and also from work," said Don Cornwell, mission manager for the lunar laser communications demonstration. He was speaking at a televised NASA news conference on Thursday.

"We'd like to be able to send high-resolution images and movies and 3D even from satellites that not only orbit the Earth but also from probes that will go to the moon and beyond. Communicating with radio waves has served us well for the last 50 years but we now have the technology to use light waves to communicate more data," he said.

NASA Ames / Dana Berry

Here's how the system will work: When the satellite is in orbit around the moon and visible from Earth, one of three ground stations will shoot a laser towards its approximate location. The laser beam from Earth will scan a patch of sky and should illuminate the spacecraft at some point. When that happens, the spacecraft will begin transmitting its own laser towards the ground station and the two will lock on to each other. Once that happens, communications can begin.

The ground stations are at White Sands in New Mexico, at a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory site in Wrightwood, California, and a European Space Agency site in Tenerife, Spain.

The technology should allow an upstream data rate, from the Earth to the spacecraft, of around 20Mbps and a much faster downstream rate of 622Mbps. Home Internet speeds typically run from several megabits per second to several tens of megabits per second.

That's roughly six times the speed that's currently possible with radio-based transmission, said Cornwell. As a bonus, the laser communications equipment also weighs half that of a radio transmitter and costs about a quarter less, he said.

(See a video version of this story on YouTube.)

Cornwell said he hopes the test is the first step in demonstrating the usefulness of laser communications and building confidence in its use in future missions, including those that go deeper into space. He said laser communications systems get more attractive compared to radio the further the spacecraft travels from Earth because the communications beam can be better focused.

"As you go further out into the solar system, it's a much more efficient way to get high bandwidth at low power," said John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science and a former astronaut.

"We've already been having discussions about how you could do laser communications on a rover on the surface of Mars," he said, referencing a NASA mission to Mars planned for 2020.

"This is just the beginning of what will be replacing some of the radio frequency communication in the future," said Grunsfeld. "I think there is no question that as we send humans further out into the solar system, certainly to Mars, that if we want to have high-def 3D video, we're going to have laser communications sending that information back."

Martyn Williams covers mobile telecoms, Silicon Valley and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service.
More by Martyn Williams, IDG News Service

View the original article here

NASA plans to test laser communications link with upcoming lunar mission

An upcoming NASA mission will test a new laser communications system that could one day deliver high-definition 3D video signals from Mars and beyond.

The lunar laser communications demonstration will be part of the agency's Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer (LADEE) mission, which is scheduled to launch on Sept. 6. The LADEE spacecraft will orbit the moon and collect information on the lunar atmosphere—technically an exosphere—for around 100 days. A laser communications module is built into the satellite.

"NASA has a need for faster download speeds for data from space and that grows everyday, just like it does for the rest of us at home and also from work," said Don Cornwell, mission manager for the lunar laser communications demonstration. He was speaking at a televised NASA news conference on Thursday.

"We'd like to be able to send high-resolution images and movies and 3D even from satellites that not only orbit the Earth but also from probes that will go to the moon and beyond. Communicating with radio waves has served us well for the last 50 years but we now have the technology to use light waves to communicate more data," he said.

NASA Ames / Dana Berry

Here's how the system will work: When the satellite is in orbit around the moon and visible from Earth, one of three ground stations will shoot a laser towards its approximate location. The laser beam from Earth will scan a patch of sky and should illuminate the spacecraft at some point. When that happens, the spacecraft will begin transmitting its own laser towards the ground station and the two will lock on to each other. Once that happens, communications can begin.

The ground stations are at White Sands in New Mexico, at a NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory site in Wrightwood, California, and a European Space Agency site in Tenerife, Spain.

The technology should allow an upstream data rate, from the Earth to the spacecraft, of around 20Mbps and a much faster downstream rate of 622Mbps. Home Internet speeds typically run from several megabits per second to several tens of megabits per second.

That's roughly six times the speed that's currently possible with radio-based transmission, said Cornwell. As a bonus, the laser communications equipment also weighs half that of a radio transmitter and costs about a quarter less, he said.

(See a video version of this story on YouTube.)

Cornwell said he hopes the test is the first step in demonstrating the usefulness of laser communications and building confidence in its use in future missions, including those that go deeper into space. He said laser communications systems get more attractive compared to radio the further the spacecraft travels from Earth because the communications beam can be better focused.

"As you go further out into the solar system, it's a much more efficient way to get high bandwidth at low power," said John Grunsfeld, NASA's associate administrator for science and a former astronaut.

"We've already been having discussions about how you could do laser communications on a rover on the surface of Mars," he said, referencing a NASA mission to Mars planned for 2020.

"This is just the beginning of what will be replacing some of the radio frequency communication in the future," said Grunsfeld. "I think there is no question that as we send humans further out into the solar system, certainly to Mars, that if we want to have high-def 3D video, we're going to have laser communications sending that information back."

Martyn Williams covers mobile telecoms, Silicon Valley and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service.
More by Martyn Williams, IDG News Service

View the original article here