Monthly Archive: ‘September, 2012’

In July, Buyers Laboratory LLC (BLI), the world’s leading independent tester of document imaging products, announced their Summer “Pick of the Year” award winners. The prestigious “Pick of the Year” title is awarded to printers and MFPs that exhibit the highest degree of reliability, ease of use, image quality, productivity, value and advanced features.

Every year products powered by CSR’s IPS™ Universal Print Interpreter software are among the BLI “Pick of the Year” award winners. In this latest set of winning products, the IPS Universal Print Interpreter is used eighteen different products from several manufacturers, including HP, Ricoh, Xerox, Oki and Canon.

Credit CSR’s ongoing investment in the IPS solution as the reason for its excellence. CSR works continually to maximize print speed, minimize memory requirements, match compatibility targets and provide value-add features in the IPS solution. Our commitment to provide the most complete and highest fidelity printing solution enables OEMs to deliver color and monochrome printers and multifunction devices capable of printing high quality, complex, graphics-rich documents quickly and efficiently.

The CSR IPS software is the industry’s only market-proven universal interpreter to support all standard print languages: PostScript, PDF, PCL 5, PCL 6, XPS and OpenXPS.
We look forward to continuing to assist our customers in making their printers and MFPs the best in the industry.

Ed Balls visited Cambridge last week to meet local businessmen, where he claimed in an interview that the Government needed to invest more in the innovative companies in Cambridge. BBC Radio Cambridgeshire’s Paul Stainton was keen to get the views of Stuart Jackson, local MP, and Cambridge Labour candidate, David Zeichner, on the interview. Unsurprisingly Stuart disagreed that they weren’t supporting local businesses and the local area and claimed that without Labour’s over spending the economy wouldn’t be in a position where austerity measures have become necessary.

To get a different perspective Paul called on our own CEO, Joep van Beurden, to get his view on who was right. As a businessman, Joep feels it is his job, and the job of other businesses in Cambridge and the UK, to focus on what they can do to help kickstart the economy rather than relying on politicians. However, the fact is that we need to solve the deficit and Joep calls on politicians to sit down together and work out how to turn this around.

Greg Turetzky reports from the event:

Tuesday 18th September 2012

Before all ION papers begin on Wednesday, there is a buildup on Tuesday.  It starts with a meeting called CGSIC (Civil Government Service Interface Council) which serves as a communication channel between the US military (Air Force and Coast Guard) and the civil community and this year was attended by about 150 people. 

There were not any major announcements this year and the focus was on the ongoing budget challenges in the US government and potential spectrum issues.  The next order of business is building the booth, which after a few phone calls to get the stuff delivered went without a hitch (thank Mike Cailean).  The day winds up with a plenary attended by most of the 2000 or so people at the show.  There were three presentations this year on very different topics.  John Deere gave an overview of precision agriculture and how it is needed to help feed twice as many people on the same amount of land by 2050.  Dr David Last gave an entertaining presentation on Forensic GPS and showed several examples of his work as a navigation expert to catch a number of criminals in the UK based on GPS data. 

Finally, there was a presentation on how atomic interferometry can be used to create incredibly accurate accelerometers and gyroscopes.  At the moment, they are too big, expensive and power hungry for consumers, but they hold out the hope that someday, 1m accuracy will be available all the time.  So now, the GPS community is ready for the start of its primary conference of the year.

Wednesday 19th September

Wednesday at ION get geared up very fast.  There are six parallel session going on plus a panel discussion.  One of the highlights is the panel on current status and plans for each of the GNSS systems (GPS, Galileo, GLONASS, COMPASS and QZSS).  All of them continue to move forward with their plans and there were no major announcements this year but some good milestones.  Galileo showed for the first time their planned launch schedule, which is somewhat accelerated from previous announcements.  With the last two IOV (in obit validation) satellites going in October, the production launches start next year.  And with the Arianne 5 launching four at a time, Galileo could end 2013 with 12 operational satellites.  That would mean IOC (initial operating capability) of 18 satellites by 2015 and FOC (full operational capability) of 26 by 2020. 

COMPASS also announced the launch of two satellites yesterday, which in a few weeks when they are turned on, will bring their system to 13 operational satellites.  With another launch this year COMPASS will have full regional coverage in 2013.  GPS and GLONASS continue to provide excellent operational performance with GPS now showing < 1m URE (user range error) and GLONASS catching up at 1.6m.  There were also papers presented on indoor navigation techniques including WiFi®, MEMS and LTE.  This is clearly a hot topic and CSRs papers will be presented on Thursday.  The evening finishes with an exhibitor hosted reception on the show floor with some good local eats (catfish fingers and hush puppies) where we had a good set of foot traffic through our booth.

Thursday 21st September

Thursday at ION is the major paper day.  There are six parallel sessions going on and almost 50 papers on all aspects of navigation are presented.  I was session chair for a group of papers on Indoor Navigation.  Blake Bullock from our Phoenix office presented a paper on SiRFusion^TM that was attended by nearly 100 people.  Many of the other papers in the session focused on a relatively new area: Vision based navigation.  Most of the work is still being done in universities at the algorithm level and it will be a while before it reaches commercial use, but there is definitely a lot of investigation going on using cameras and lighting for indoor navigation. 

CSR ended up presenting three papers in various sessions and was well represented within the technical community.  Next year the show will be in Nashville again, and so will CSR.

On 30th August 2012, CSR’s Auto Business Group successfully held their China Customer Conference in Shenzhen. At the conference, the Auto team announced SiRFatlasVI™ infotainment SoC, the latest generation of the company’s value-leading navigation, multimedia and connectivity solution for creating high-performance, mainstream in-vehicle infotainment systems and portable navigation devices. Besides SiRFatlasVI™, CSR also introduced and showcased its latest cutting edge automotive location and connectivity technologies including TriG RF, CSR8311™, CSR6030™, SiRFprimaII™ and Dead Reckoning.

More than 300 decision-makers, technical experts, engineers, strategic partners and key media attended the conference. Taking advantage of its proven experience, innovation and technical support, CSR is dedicated to helping local manufacturers in the automotive industry rapidly develop and bring to market exciting new automotive Factory Fit and aftermarket products that are able to run multiple functions at the same time for an exceptional user experience.

At the session, Rob Yeh, Sammy Tao, Yinghao Tu, Jessie Ouyang and Rui Tang from the Auto team introduced the company and Auto Business Group, Automotive product roadmap, newly launched SiRFatlasVI™, CSR connectivity solutions and software support to the audience. To expand CSR’s automotive ecosystem, Bluetooth® SMART TPMS (Tyre Pressure Monitor System), Car DVD solution and Coach driving recorder solution were also delivered to the customers by Leslie Xiong and Terrell Fu. Furthermore, George Cheng, VP Sales-Great China introduced the Auto sales team to the customers
Outside the meeting room, the Auto team also set up demos for SiRFatlasVI™, SiRFprimaII™, TriG RF, wireless technology and Dead Reckoning, letting the customers experience unparalleled and high quality location and connectivity solutions. In addition, five strategic partners and customers came to demo their products and solutions which attracted crowds in the demo and coffee break area, where attendees had a chance to meet for hands-on discussions.

Rob Yeh, Director APAC Marketing, CSR Auto Business Group, said of the event, “I am happy that so many customers and partners showed great interest in our products and solutions. With the SiRFatlasVI™, CSR has once again established a new price/performance benchmark for mainstream infotainment solutions, and with our local R&D and support centers, we are best-positioned to help customers get to market quickly to take full advantage of their market window with relevant and differentiated product offerings.”

Thanks to everyone involved for making this such an insightful and interactive day