GE Takes on Industrial Big Data Challenges

Press release:

03 August 2012

GE Takes on Industrial Big Data Challenges

 

• New webinar discusses how to leverage big data for a competitive advantage
• Advanced software technology optimizes decision support to maximize process data to drive real-time improvements

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA — AUGUST 3, 2012—GE Intelligent Platforms (NYSE: GE) today announced the availability of “The Rise of Industrial Big Data,” the company’s latest webinar. GE shares insights into how industrial businesses can maximize the full potential value of their process data and use that insight to drive real-time improvements. The participants discuss advanced software technology that offers an effective, simple, and easy way for companies to efficiently leverage Industrial Big Data for optimized decision support.

“Massive amounts of operational data are coming online with the increasing set of advanced devices and equipment, a movement often referred to as the Industrial Internet,” said Brian Courtney, General Manager Operations Data Management, GE Intelligent Platforms and a webinar featured speaker. “We discuss how industrial businesses can leverage Big Data to create a competitive advantage.”

Discussion topics include:

• The challenges of harnessing industrial big data.
• What critical information can be obtained by managing big data.
• How advanced historians provide critical insights for faster operational decisions and continuous innovation.

Additional speakers include Justin Eggart, GE Energy Executive Engineering; and Kareem Aggour, GE Global Research Senior Computer Scientist.

To view the webinar click here: “The Rise of Industrial Big Data”

About GE
GE (NYSE: GE) works on things that matter. The best people and the best technologies taking on the toughest challenges. Finding solutions in energy, health and home, transportation and finance. Building, powering, moving and curing the world. Not just imagining. Doing. GE works. For more information, visit the company's website at www.ge.com.

PACSystems® RXi Platform Changes How Automation is Done

Press release:

17 July 2012

PACSystems® RXi Platform Changes How Automation is Done

 

• Next generation control platform designed for the needs of the Industrial Internet

• Integration of industry standard technologies, PROFINET and COM Express, to deliver ultimate flexibility and cost-effective upgrades for future control and cloud-based automation software environments

• Innovative rugged design in small form factor to enable factory floor computing, even in harsh environments

CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA. — JULY 17, 2012—GE Intelligent Platforms (NYSE: GE) today announced the PACSystems® RXi, the company’s revolutionary new control and computing platform designed for the needs of the Industrial Internet. Based on leading-edge computing and network technology, and supported by an emerging ecosystem of cloud-based support tools, the RXi will help customers gain productivity benefits from machine-to-machine connections and the skill sets of a digital native workforce. The RXi platform builds on GE’s deep expertise in the design of embedded control platforms as well as industry-standard open architecture technologies that deliver what companies in today’s economy need –- improved performance, integration into the Industrial Internet, and greater uptime and low total cost of ownership (TCO).

To provide the performance sophisticated control applications need today, the core of the product family is a COM Express architecture with multi-core CPUs, which will allow GE to offer a range of products that will be continually refreshed without impacting the user’s application. The RXi platform offers a full complement of high speed interfaces, with multiple gigabit Ethernet and USB 3.0 ports. These high performance features are coupled with GE’s PACSystems control engine to deliver uncompromised performance and application flexibility.

The PACSystems RXi family of controllers has built-in redundant PROFINET interfaces, delivering high performance, high uptime control solutions. RXi Industrial PC (IPC) configurations are unique in the industry, able to run HMI, Historian and analytics applications right at the machine, even in harsh environments. This facilitates better real time control of operations and improved integration into plant-wide and enterprise systems. The RXi platform fully supports GE’s new cloud-based collaborative automation platform development and deployment paradigm.

“The RXi controller is the next evolution of PAC controllers,” said Steve Pavlosky, Product General Manager for GE Intelligent Platforms’ Control & Communication Systems. “The RXi platform is a key element in our strategy to deliver high performance control solutions that can be developed, deployed, and maintained with our new collaborative, cloud-based automation platform – delivering true integration with the Industrial Internet. The platform’s PROFINET-based distributed architecture offers the best combination of high performance control with distributed I/O for lower installation and maintenance costs coupled with redundant I/O networking for high reliability. The RXi runs the same high performance PACSystems control engine found in our RX7i and RX3i products, enabling seamless application portability between form factors. The RXi platform can also be used as a rugged industrial PC platform for the flexibility of an industrial PC for factory floor computing with the reliability of a PLC.”

From a design perspective, the RXi controller is a departure from traditional systems. First, it has no local I/O which creates the basis for future upgradeability. Second, it has built-in PROFINET with ring redundancy to provide a simple to use, low installation cost, high performance redundant I/O network. With open standard PROFINET as the I/O network, users are free to choose best of breed I/O and other devices, like drives and vision systems, for use in their systems. Third, the ability to deploy the RXi architecture using both control and IPC modules interconnected provides a compact, high performance solution for applications requiring visualization, data archiving, or other advanced computational tasks at the point of control. Fourth, since it is based on standard Intel® architecture, GE can deliver control solutions with unique capabilities such as very large memory sizes and on-board storage capability. Finally, the integrated Intelligent Display Module allows users to perform standard maintenance functions without the need for a separate computer running programming software and creates a bridge that integrates the control system with the Industrial Internet.

The platform’s Industrial PC (IPC) is very small form factor, and is rugged and fanless, for companies looking for factory floor computing. GE’s rugged COM Express modular CPU platform incorporates patented thermal monitoring technology with sophisticated passive cooling techniques for a high performance computing “fanless” industrial computing and control platform, eliminating susceptibility to failure which can result in thermal shutdown of other IPC systems that rely on fans for cooling.

The design includes connectors on the controller and IPC so that the two products can be mounted together for cableless communications for applications where both control and computing are desired. The IPC can also be mounted on the back of a series of touch screen displays creating a family of modular panel IPCs.

“This platform supports several trends in the industry including control sustainability, standards based open architectures, computing and control at the machine level, and integration into the Industrial Internet,” continued Pavlosky. “Customers expect their manufacturing assets to outlast the control system. This new way of developing a control platform allows them to maintain their investment while taking advantage of the newest technologies to make their assets more productive, more reliable and more cost efficient.”

For more information: http://www.ge-ip.com/products/family/pac_systems_controllers.

About GE
GE (NYSE: GE) works on things that matter. The best people and the best technologies taking on the toughest challenges. Finding solutions in energy, health and home, transportation and finance. Building, powering, moving and curing the world. Not just imagining. Doing. GE works. For more information, visit the company's website at www.ge.com.

ESET Uncovers ACAD/Medre.A Worm: Tens Of Thousands Of AutoCAD Design Files Leaked in Suspected Industrial Espionage

Press release:

San Diego, CA, June 21, 2012

ESET Uncovers ACAD/Medre.A Worm: Tens Of Thousands Of AutoCAD Design Files Leaked in Suspected Industrial Espionage

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ESET, the leader in proactive protection celebrating 25 years of its technology this year, has uncovered a worm that targets drawings created in AutoCAD software for computer-aided design (CAD). Recently the worm,ACAD/Medre.A, showed a big spike in Peru on ESET’s LiveGrid® (a cloud-based malware collection system utilizing data from ESET users worldwide).

ESET’s research shows that the worm steals files and sends them to email accounts located in China. ESET has worked with Chinese ISP Tencent, Chinese National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center and Autodesk, the creator of AutoCAD, to stop the transmission of these files. ESET confirms that tens of thousands of AutoCAD drawings, primarily from users in Peru, were leaking at the time of the discovery. ESET has made a free stand-alone cleaner available at ESET.com.

http://download.eset.com/special/EACADMedreCleaner.exe

“After some configuration, ACAD/Medre.A sends opened AutoCAD drawings by e-mail to a recipient with an e-mail account at the Chinese 163.com internet provider. It will try to do this using 22 other accounts at 163.com and 21 accounts at qq.com, another Chinese internet provider,” says ESET Senior Research Fellow Righard Zwienenberg.

“ACAD/Medre.A represents a serious case of suspected industrial espionage. Every new design is sent automatically to the operator of this malware. Needless to say this can cost the legitimate owner of the intellectual property a lot of money as the cybercriminals have access to the designs even before they go into production. They may even have the guts to apply for patents on the product before the inventor has registered it at the patent office,” adds Zwienenberg.

ESET has made a free stand-alone cleaner available for public use. Upon the realization of the magnitude of this threat ESET reached out to Tencent, the owner of the qq.com domain.  ESET also established contact with Autodesk. Thanks to the swift actions of ESET and Tencent, the accounts used for relaying the e-mails with the drawings have been blocked and further leakage has been prevented.

ESET research teams around the globe have observed a small number of infections in other Latin American countries along with Peru. In addition, the high number of infections observed in Peru might also be explained by the fact that malware disguised as AutoCAD files may have been distributed to companies that were conducting business with public services in Peru. This leads us to think organizations in this country might have been the primary target of the ACAD/Medre.A operators. ESET is in contact with the local authorities to remediate the affected website.

“If there is one thing that becomes obvious from this piece of malware engaging in suspected industrial espionage is that reaching out to other parties to prevent further damage really works. Without the assistance of Autodesk, Tencent and Chinese National Computer Virus Emergency Response Center which helped ESET in taking down of dropsites and delivery chains, it would have been relatively easy only to clean already affected systems, but systems that would not be cleaned could have continued to be leaking their designs,” says ESET Chief Research Officer Juraj Malcho.

For more information about ACAD/Medre.A worm, please visit ESET Threat Center Blog.

ESET’s free stand-alone cleaner is available at: http://download.eset.com/special/EACADMedreCleaner.exe.

About ESET

ESET is on the forefront of security innovation, delivering trusted protection to make the Internet safer forbusinesses and consumers. IDC has recognized ESET as a top five corporate anti-malware vendor and one of the fastest growing companies in its category. Trusted by millions of users worldwide, ESET is one of the mostrecommended security solutions in the world. ESET NOD32 Antivirus consistently achieves the highest accolades in all types of comparative testing, and powers the virus and spyware detection in ESET Smart Security and ESET Cybersecurity for Mac. Sold in more than 180 countries, ESET’s global headquarters is in Bratislava, Slovakia, with distribution headquarters for North America located in San Diego, California. ESET also has offices in Buenos Aires, Prague, Krakow and Singapore and is represented by an extensive global partner network. For more information, visit http://www.eset.com/us or call +1 (619) 876-5400.

Lenovo Establishes Industrial Base in Wuhan

News release:

Lenovo Establishes Industrial Base in Wuhan

Lenovo’s new facilities in Wuhan will improve the company’s capacity to innovate in mobile internet market and optimize its global supply chain

Beijing – May 7, 2012: Lenovo Group and the Wuhan government today held a groundbreaking ceremony for the establishment of the Lenovo (Wuhan) Industrial Base. The site will include integrated facilities for mobile Internet product R&D, production and sales. The new facility will help drive Lenovo’s innovation capability in the field of mobile Internet and optimize its global supply chain, helping the Company to develop and deliver new mobile internet products and bring them to its customers even faster. Total investment over the next five years is expected to be approximately RMB5 billion, and the facility will begin operations in October 2013.
 

“As an industry leader, we are aggressively moving forward into the PC Plus era, and with our Mobile Internet Digital Home group actively engaged, we are accelerating development in smart phones, tablets, and other mobile Internet terminal markets," said Yang Yuanqing, Lenovo Group chairman and CEO. "We’re determined to firmly seize the tremendous opportunities for innovation in this market, so that Lenovo's customers have even more opportunities to own our award-winning products, from PCs to mobile Internet devices. “When it begins operations, the Lenovo (Wuhan) Industrial Base will greatly improve our innovative capability and further optimize our supply chain, giving us a solid foundation to win in a broader market.”
 

The Lenovo (Wuhan) Industrial Base will mainly focus on the R&D, production and sales of smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices that will cover the Chinese and global markets. By 2014 total sales revenue from the industrial base is expected to reach RMB10 billion, increasing to RMB50 billion within the next five years. The facility also has the potential to create nearly 10,000 job opportunities in the coming years, in a variety of related businesses. Included in this number, Lenovo within the next few years expects to employee several thousand R&D and management staff located at Wuhan, focused solely on advancing R&D in mobile Internet devices and application. The Lenovo (Wuhan) Industrial Base will help improve Lenovo’s entire supply chain as well as its R&D and marketing systems, by building even more end-to-end product capability.
 

As the central city supported by China’s strategy of promoting the development of central regions, Wuhan hosts the nation’s second independent innovation demonstration area after Beijing’s Zhongguancun. Wuhan has benefitted from the government’s efforts to promote the development of China’s central and western regions and has great growth potential, having already attracted investment from many Fortune 500 companies.
 

At the end of 2011, Lenovo became the world’s second-largest PC maker after being the world’s fastest growing PC maker for nine consecutive quarters. At the same time, Lenovo’s mobile Internet business made significant progress. The company is now a top-three smart phone maker in China with double-digit market share, and the second-place tablet maker with a market share of 16.5%, far ahead of its competitors in the android market.

 

ABOUT LENOVO

Lenovo (HKSE: 992) (ADR: LNVGY) is a $US21 billion personal technology company – and the second largest PC company in the world, serving customers in more than 160 countries. Dedicated to building exceptionally engineered PCs and mobile internet devices, Lenovo’s business is built on product innovation, a highly efficient global supply chain and strong strategic execution. Formed by Lenovo Group’s acquisition of the former IBM Personal Computing Division, the Company develops, manufactures and markets reliable, high-quality, secure and easy-to-use technology products and services. Its product lines include legendary Think-branded commercial PCs and Idea-branded consumer PCs, as well as servers, workstations, and a family of mobile internet devices, including tablets and smart phones. Lenovo has major research centers in Yamato, Japan; Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen, China; and Raleigh, North Carolina.  For more information, see www.lenovo.com.