Mei.com and Alibaba launch TMALL Luxury Flash-Sale Channel

Mei.com and Alibaba have launched the TMALL Luxury Flash-Sale Channel with a livestreamed fashion show event featuring 42 looks, all immediately shoppable through the new channel. TMALL is Alibaba Group’s B2C online marketplace, and the TMALL channel, which was soft launched about three months ago, is being managed by Mei.com, which has since 2010 operated a China website that provides a flash sales outlet for nearly 300 well-known international luxury brands through exclusive partnerships. Alibaba invested in Mei.com last year.

Source: Mei.com. The fashion show launching the new channel.

Consumers who watched the fashion show had 'scan and buy' shopping access to the runway looks through the TMALL Mobile phone app.

The fashion show event was livestreamed on the TMALL APP, showcasing 42 runway looks of clothing and accessories, including 30 womenswear looks, 10 menswear looks, and a finale including two children's looks. 

Actor Peter Sheng, famous for the China hit web series Go Princess Go made his runway debut walking in the show in a Carven suit. American socialite Olivia Palermo styled one of the runway looks and was featured as a front-row attendee at the show wearing the look herself. 

Source: Mei.com. From left: Mei.com CEO Thibault Villet
with Palermo and Mei.com President Seamon Shi.

The fashion show brought together luxury brands from five of the world's fashion capitals, Paris, New York, Milan, London, and Shanghai: Sergio Rossi, Proenza Schouler, Stuart Weitzman, Carven, Zegna Sport, and Galeries Lafayette among them.

Interested?

Download the TMALL (天猫[淘宝商城]) app on Android or iOS

Watch the show online at Mei.com

HPE lowers threshold to entry storage portfolio

Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) recently announced enhancements to its entry storage portfolio to help customers with limited budgets harness content and accelerate applications. The new HPE MSA Storage options enable the most affordable dual-controller hybrid flash array from a major vendor¹ while the new HPE StoreEasy 1650 Expanded transforms the economics of storing large volumes of information.

The ability to quickly and efficiently harness the value of information is critical for success. “In today’s economy, agility and speed are critical to stay competitive, regardless of business size,” said Manish Goel, Senior Vice President and General Manager for Storage, HPE. “That’s why Hewlett Packard Enterprise is bringing enterprise storage scale and performance within reach of customers who have even the most constrained budgets.”

Hybrid flash performance for 45% less²

HPE has enhanced its HPE MSA Storage family to include solid state drive (SSD, also called flash) support for the HPE MSA 1040. This expanded support for SSDs results in new hybrid flash configurations starting at under US$8,500³. SSDs have the advantage of requiring less power and space while offering better performance than traditional mechanical hard drives. Both the MSA 1040 and 2040 can now take advantage of flash media. These new SSDs deliver hybrid flash acceleration at prices that are 30% lower⁴ for the same capacity point, putting higher performance and latency reduction within reach of more businesses.

The enhanced HPE MSA 1040 can:

· Boost storage efficiency with advanced storage virtualisation capabilities such as thin provisioning, enhanced snapshot services, wide-striping, and flash-based acceleration.

· Make read caching 70% faster and performance tiering 90% faster for an incremental investment in SSD capacity that costs from US$1,599⁵

· Up to 75% lower storage costs by taking advantage of MSA’s archive tiering capabilities, which automatically place data in the appropriate storage tier - data that is required the most often is stored in more expensive, faster storage, while data that is rarely required is stored in cheaper storage with longer retrieval times⁶.

Network-attached storage (NAS) at 41% lower cost, in 80% less space⁷

For customers who need an affordable solution for bulk and secondary file storage, the HPE StoreEasy 1650 Expanded NAS appliance accommodates 28 large form factor (LFF) drives for up to 224 TB of internal capacity in the 2U form factor, making it the most dense 2U NAS appliance on the market⁸. This scalable solution enables customers to store unstructured data at 41% lower cost in 80% less space with 82% fewer components than the equivalent NetApp FAS system⁹.

This new addition provides rapid configuration tools, storage provisioning templates, and a centralised monitoring dashboard to simplify management. The system features many layers of security—including drive, file system, and data-in-flight encryption—as well as sophisticated data access policies based on automatic file classification. The StoreEasy solution also provides secure anywhere sync-and-share support for Apple iOS and Microsoft Windows devices.

Interested?¹⁰

The HPE StoreEasy 1650 Expanded and the HPE MSA 1040 are part of the HPE Just Right IT portfolio and are available through the HPE Small Business Marketplace. The new MSA SSD drives are currently available at the following prices and capacity points: 400GB for US$1,200; 800GB for US$2,278; 1.6TB for US$4,300; 3.2TB for US$7,500.

SSDs on the MSA 1040 are supported via firmware update GL220, which is posted on hpe.com and free of charge to customers on warranty or a current service contract. The MSA 1040 Advanced Virtualization Upgrade license is priced at US$384 as of February 15, 2016.

The StoreEasy 1650 Expanded starts at US$14,720 with 32TB of capacity.

¹Based on published US List pricing from Dell, EMC, IBM, HPE and Network Appliance, January 2016.

²Cost reduction is based on US list price for MSA 2040 SAN small form factor (SFF) array with 4 x 1GbE iSCSI small form factor pluggables (SFPs)  and 2 x 200 GB SSDs (US$14,768) as compared to the US Smart Buy list price for 1GbE iSCSI MSA 1040 SFF array with 2 x 200 GB SSDs and MSA 1040 Advanced Virtualization upgrade (US$8,038).

³Based on publicly available US list Smart Buy price for 1.4TB, 1GbE iSCSI MSA 1040 SFF array with one 200 GB SSD, four 300GB 10k (10,000 revolutions per minute) HDDs and MSA 1040 Advanced Virtualization upgrade, totaling US$7,817.

⁴Based on US list prices for 400GB SSD at US$2,220 (previously US$3,099), 800GB SSD at US$4,219 (previously US$5,999), 1.6TB SSD at US$7,979 (previously US$10,969).     

⁵Based on US list price for a single 200 GB SSD and a series of workload tests performed by Demartek in coordination with Read Cache and MSA Performance R/W Tiering functionality. Full reports can be found at the Demartek website under the following links – Exchange, SQL, Mixed Virtualized Workloads.

⁶Expressed as cost per gigabyte for storage moved to the Archive Tier and based on HPE internal testing using Archive Tiering capabilities to store infrequently accessed data from Enterprise SAS (10k/15k) drives to Midline SAS (7.2k) drives.

⁷Based on publicly available product information. As compared to NetApp FAS2520 with 216 TB of raw capacity.

⁸Based on HPE internal analysis of publicly available information, February 2016

⁹Based on publicly available product information. As compared to the NetApp FAS2520 with 216 TB of raw capacity.

¹⁰US list prices or publicly available US Smart Buy prices where indicated. Actual prices may vary.

Store data more securely with a Kingston encrypted USB flash drive

Kingston, the memory products provider, has released the DataTraveler 2000 encrypted USB flash drive. The DataTraveler 2000 offers hardware encryption and PIN protection with access through an integrated alphanumeric keypad.

Designed for global security IT professionals, small-to-medium businesses and corporate end users who require electronic data protection, the OS-independent DataTraveler 2000 offers hardware-based, full-disk AES 256-bit data encryption in XTS mode on stored data, with no software or hardware drivers needed.

DataTraveler 2000’s alphanumeric keypad allows users to lock the drive with a word or number combination. For additional security, its auto-lock feature is activated when the drive is removed from the host device and the encr

Source: Kingston. 

yption key and password are deleted after 10 invalid login attempts. An aluminum cover protects the drive from elements such as water and dust.

Said Nathan Su, Flash Memory Sales Director, APAC Region, Kingston: “It is the perfect option to deploy in the workforce where a uniform encrypted data storage solution that works on many different OSes are in use.”

DataTraveler 2000 uses Datalock technology licensed from ClevX. ClevX’s innovative security and mobility solutions can be found on other Kingston encrypted USB flash drives.

Interested?

DataTraveler 2000 is available later in Q1 in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB capacities* and is backed by a three-year warranty, free live technical support and Kingston reliability.

Operating System compatibility	USB 3.1 Gen. 1 (USB 3.0)**	USB 2.0
Windows 10, 8.1, 8, 7 (SP1), Vista (SP2)	✓	✓
Mac OS X v 10.8.x	✓	✓
Linux v.2.6.x	✓	✓
Chrome OS	✓	✓
Android ***	✓	✓

*Some of the listed capacity on a Flash storage device is used for formatting and other functions and thus is not available for data storage. As such, the actual available capacity for data storage is less than what is listed on the products. For more information, go to Kingston’s Flash memory Guide at kingston.com/flashguide.

**USB 3.1 Gen 1 (USB 3.0)

*** Compatible devices only

SanDisk introduces the Ultra Flair USB 3.0 flash drive

Source: SanDisk.

SanDisk, a flash storage solutions provider, has launched the SanDisk Ultra Flair USB 3.0 Flash Drive. The new drive comes in a durable aluminum metal casing and is available in capacities ranging from 16GB to 128GB.

The SanDisk Ultra Flair USB 3.0 Flash Drive offers read speeds of up to 150MBps¹, enabling transfers of a full-length movie in less than 30 seconds².

“As an industry leader in the flash storage space, SanDisk’s goal has always been to continuously reinvent and deliver reliable products. The SanDisk Ultra Flair USB 3.0 Flash Drive has been designed to provide a storage solution for enthusiasts who need high-speed and stylish drives to quickly transfer their high-resolution photos, videos and other big files without any hassle. Our complete USB range helps consumers enjoy a smart digital lifestyle, anytime, anywhere,” said Mark Eng, Country Manager, SanDisk Singapore.

The drive features SanDisk SecureAccess software³ to keep private files safe with password protection and 128-bit encryption, and includes a year’s subscription to RescuePRO software⁴ to recover lost or corrupted files.

Interested?

The SanDisk Ultra Flair USB 3.0 Flash Drive comes with a five-year warranty and is now available in 16GB, 32GB, 64GB, and 128GB* capacities. It will be available within this quarter at a manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) of S$10, S$19, S$37 and S$75 respectively.

* 1 GB = 1,000,000,000 bytes. Actual user storage will be less than this.

1 32 to 128GB: Read speeds of up to 150MBps; write speeds to drive of up to 15 times faster than the Cruzer USB 2.0 drives (4MBps). 16GB: Read speeds of up to 130MBps; write speeds are lower. USB 3.0 port required. Based on internal testing; performance may be lower depending upon host device. 1MB=1,000,000 bytes.

2 Based on 1.2GB MPEG-4 video transfers with a USB 3.0 host device. Results may vary based on host device, file attributes and other factors. For 32GB to 128GB only.

3 Password protection uses 128-bit AES encryption and is supported by Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 10 and Mac OS X10.6+ (software download required for Mac, visit www.sandisk.com/secureaccess).

4 Registration required; terms and conditions apply.

SanDisk introduces Extreme Portable SSD drives

Source: SanDisk

SanDisk, a flash storage solutions provider, has entered the portable SSD market with a family of high-performance drives, including the SanDisk Extreme 900 Portable SSDs, which it says is the world’s fastest line of USB Type C-based portable SSDs; and the SanDisk Extreme 500 Portable SSDs, a new family of pocket-sized, rugged drives.

The SanDisk Extreme 900 drives feature speeds of up to nine times faster than a portable hard drive¹, while the SanDisk Extreme 500 drives offer speeds up to four times faster¹. These powerful solutions are ideal for photographers, videographers, creative professionals and tech enthusiasts looking to move large files quickly.

“As a recognised leader in developing solutions for professional photographers and videographers, we designed this game-changing family of offerings to provide our customers with even greater speeds and capacities to keep up with rapidly increasing demands for high-quality content,” said Mark Eng, Country Manager, SanDisk Singapore.

“Whether a professional or amateur, this level of portability, speed and capacity is exceptional, and we believe it will transform the way people create and produce high quality video content—ultimately saving them time and money.”

The SanDisk Extreme 900 Portable SSDs are all about performance and capacity. Available in up to 1.92TB*, the new drives have a compact, durable aluminium case and feature transfer speeds of up to 850MBps**. These new drives come with both USB Type C and Type A cables to provide the ultimate flexibility.

The SanDisk Extreme 500 Portable SSD is less than half the size of your smartphone and delivers more than four times the speed of a portable hard drive¹. The drive allows users to transfer big videos and photo libraries at up to 415MBps**. Available in up to 480GB* capacity, this light-weight yet durable drive has a black finish with rubber bumpers and a metal ring that allows easy attachment to a bag.

The Windows 10-compatible portable SSDs are built to sustain the most rugged environments, featuring both temperature and impact-resistant materials². The new family of SanDisk Extreme Portable SSDs also include SanDisk SecureAccess software with 128-bit encryption to secure files³.

Interested?

The SanDisk Extreme 500 Portable SSDs are available in Singapore in capacities of 120GB, 240GB and 480GB, at MSRPs of S$188, S$288 and S$499 respectively. The SanDisk Extreme 900 SSDs will be available in Singapore at a later date in capacities of 480GB, 960GB and 1.92TB, at MSRPs of S$769, S$1,149 and S$1,899, respectively. Both new SSD lines feature a three-year warranty⁴.

Read the WorkSmart Asia blog post about SanDisk's mobile memory solutions.

*1TB=1,000,000,000,000 bytes. 1GB=1,000,000,000 bytes. Actual user storage is less.

**Based on internal testing; performance may be lower depending on drive capacity, host device, OS and application. 1MB=1,000,000 bytes.

1 As compared to a 500GB portable hard drive based on internal speed performance tests.

2 Shock resistant (up to 800G) and vibration resistant (5.35 root-mean-square acceleration (gRMS), 50 to 2,000 HZ), withstands extremes in temperature (from -200^oC to +700^oC)

3 Password protection uses 128-bit AES encryption and is supported by Mac OS X v10.6+, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8.

4 See www.sandisk.com/wug

HP enhances MSA Storage for SMBs

HP has announced innovations for HP MSA Storage aimed at helping startups, small and midsize businesses (SMBs) and customers with small sites become more competitive.

New enhancements for MSA 2040 Storage help customers make better and faster decisions by accelerating applications by as much as 45% at no additional cost, through firmware upgrades¹. Several new MSA 2040 bundles lower the cost of deploying hybrid flash by up to 45%². New serial attached SCSI (SAS) connectivity for MSA 1040 Storage makes it the most affordable shared storage system in the market from a major vendor³.

“In the idea economy, time is everything. The smaller the business, the more this is magnified,” said Pras Moorthy, Country Manager, HP Storage, Singapore. “HP is committed to bringing high-impact technologies like flash to smaller customers at incredibly affordable prices – and we are doing it on proven platforms like MSA to give them the power to accelerate their business growth with confidence in their IT infrastructure.”

To help new customers accelerate business initiatives and access these higher performing systems, HP is introducing several new, aggressively-priced, hybrid flash MSA 2040 bundles. These bundles bring hybrid flash to even more affordable price points—up to 45% savings⁴. 

HP also announced new more flexible connectivity choices for MSA customers looking to deploy shared storage to support application high availability without the cost of dedicated storage networking infrastructure. The new HP MSA 1040 SAS array with support for high performance 6Gb/12Gb SAS direct host connections makes it possible to directly connect up to four application servers to create a fully redundant shared pool of capacity that can scale up to 384 TB. Eliminating dedicated SAN switching infrastructure greatly simplifies deployment for smaller sites and costs 34% less than other connectivity options.³

HP is also helping customers reduce power and cooling costs through certification of the MSA 2040 Storage family as part of the ENERGY STAR programme to reduce energy consumption and carbon footprint. The EPA has reported that use of energy-efficient servers and storage within data centres can reduce energy consumption by 20-55%⁵.

Pricing and Availability

· Firmware upgrades to HP MSA 1040/2040 are available via support pages on www.hp.com and are free of charge to existing customers on warranty or support contracts. The latest version, GL210R004, is available to customers in Singapore.

· HP MSA 1040 SAS array bundles are available to customers in Singapore, starting from S$7,680, with GST.

· New MSA 2040 ENERGY STAR certified SKUs are available in Singapore, starting from S$9,600, with GST.

¹Based on comparison of GL200 code release to GL210 prerelease code on MSA 2040 FC with SSDs. Based on internal testing comparing GL200 code release to GL210 release, HP MSA 2040 systems with SSDs can benefit from up to 45% greater random read performance and up to a 20% greater random write performance using an 8k block size and resulting in an average latency of 30 milliseconds or less.
²Based on HP internal analysis, June 2015.
³Based on HP internal competitive analysis of publicly available competitive information, June 2015.
⁴Based on HP internal comparison between US list prices and new single SKU bundles. Subject to change without notice. Other MSA bundles may be priced differently. Specific pricing information available through HP direct sales and authorised resellers.
⁵https://www.energystar.gov/ia/partners/prod_development/downloads/EPA_Report_Exec_Summary_Final.pdf

SanDisk launches mobile memory solutions in Malaysia

Source: SanDisk. From left: Peter Mah, Regional Director, South East Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan, SanDisk Corporation; Estee Chin, Country Sales Manager, Malaysia, SanDisk Corporation and Mark Eng, Country Manager, Singapore and Malaysia, SanDisk Corporation during the launch of SanDisk's new line of mobile memory solutions. 

SanDisk Corporation, a flash storage solutions provider, has announced a new set of mobile memory solutions to help consumers keep up with the need to capture more photos and videos than ever before, and share and store the content across multiple devices and operating systems.

According to a recent industry report from IDC¹, an estimated 1.6 trillion images will be captured and shared this year. Seven out of 10 of those images will be captured on a mobile device. 

The SanDisk Ultra
microSDXC UHS-I card,
Premium Edition is the
world’s highest capacity
microSD card for use
in mobile devices.

“As a global leader in flash storage solutions, SanDisk is well-positioned to offer mobile memory solutions for varying consumer needs,” said Mark Eng, Country Manager – Singapore & Malaysia, SanDisk. 

“We have solutions for many popular devices, and continue to deliver mobile memory solutions that give consumers the freedom to never stop capturing, saving, or sharing – with the benefit of fast speeds to transfer it all quickly.”

SanDisk’s mobile memory category includes: SanDisk microSD cards; SanDisk iXpand Flash Drive; SanDisk Ultra Dual USB Drive and the new Dual USB Drive with Type C Connector.

SanDisk microSD cards come in capacities ranging from 4GB to 200GB. Built to perform in extreme conditions, SanDisk microSD cards are waterproof, temperature proof, shock proof, X-ray proof and magnet proof².

At the 2015 Mobile World Congress, SanDisk introduced the 200GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I card, Premium Edition, the world’s highest capacity microSD card for use in mobile devices. This card can hold up to 20 hours of Full HD video³. It also supports the transfer of up to 1,200 photos⁴ a minute. The 200GB SanDisk Ultra microSDXC UHS-I card, Premium Edition, features a ten-year limited warranty⁵ and will be available worldwide in Q2.

The iXpand Flash Drive, with up to 128GB capacity, is the easiest way to transfer photos and videos between iPhones, iPads, PCs and Mac computers. It can automatically copy photos and videos from the camera roll to the drive when connected, and play all popular format videos and music files from the drive. 

The iXpand Flash Drive is only available at Switch, Machines and Mac Studio in 16GB, 32GB, 64GB and 128GB capacities at a manufacturer's suggested retail price (MSRP) of RM289, RM379, RM549 and RM829 respectively.

SanDisk's Ultra Dual 
USB Drive USB 3.0.

Quickly and easily transfer your files between USB On-the-Go (OTG)-enabled Android smartphones and tablets and PC and Mac computers. Connect the drive to the micro-USB port of your Android device to move up to 64GB of content to the drive. Then transfer files from drive to computer at up to 130MB/s⁶ with the high-speed USB 3.0 connector. The SanDisk Ultra Dual USB Drive USB 3.0 is now available in 16GB, 32GB and 64GB at MSRP of RM39, RM69 and RM129 respectively.

SanDisk's first Dual Flash Drive to include one reversible USB Type-C connector and one USB 3.0 connector makes it painless to transfer content between new-generation devices⁷, and PC and Mac computers. SanDisk Dual USB Drive delivers up to 32GB of instant storage and helps you to transfer content. The 32GB SanDisk Dual USB Drive with Type C connector features a two-year warranty⁸ and will be available in Malaysia in the second half of the year.

*Images from SanDisk. 1GB is approximately 1,000,000,000 bytes. 1MB is approximately 1,000,000 bytes. Actual user storage may be less. 

1 IDC Worldwide Digital Image 2015–2019 Forecast: The Image Capture and Share Bible (February 2015 #254256​)

2 Read the additional information and limitations.

3 Approximations; results and Full HD (1,920x1,080) video support may vary based on host device, file attributes and other factors.

4 Based on 4.1GB transfer of photos (avg. file size 3.5MB) with USB 3.0 reader. Results may vary based on host device, file attributes and other factors.

5 Supports iPhone 5 and newer, iPad Air, iPad with Retina display (4th generation), iPad mini with Retina display, iPad mini and newer, iOS7+ required.

6 Read speeds from drive to computer up to 130MB/s; write speeds lower and vary by capacity. USB 3.0 port required. Based on internal testing; performance may be lower depending upon host device.

7 Requires device with a Type C connector.

8 Some digital rights management (DRM)-protected content cannot be streamed. Check with the content provider for playback restrictions. 

Trend Micro announces zero day vulnerability for Adobe Flash Player on Windows

Trend Micro has shared a new vulnerability affecting Adobe Flash Player for Windows that allows hackers to take over a victim's system. There is no indication that attackers are targeting Adobe Flash Player on other platforms like Mac or Android, the company added. 

TrendLabs researchers have discovered that attackers found this vulnerability first and have been taking advantage of it for some time, a situation called "zero-day” because defenders have no days in which to provide protection against the vulnerability. 

According to Trend Micro, malware that takes advantage of this vulnerability is being spread using malicious banner ads (malvertisements) that may be displayed on legitimate networks. This particular vulnerability is also being used in the “Angler” exploit kit, which is one of the most commonly used exploit kits today and which can spread attacks widely.

Trend Micro advises businesses to:

· Keep systems and programs up-to-date
· Run a mature, full-featured security package

In zero-day situations the first step will only come into effect once Adobe releases a patch. In the absence of a bulletin from the software vendor affected, Trend Micro advises disabling the software until a fix is released.

Trend Micro's existing solutions are able to detect this threat, but the company also recommends that businesses keep themselves protected with an end-to-end advanced persistent threat (APT) solution. 

Read Trend Micro's blog post on the vulnerability here.

DEAL.com.sg celebrates upcoming birthday by giving away S$5 million to customers

Flash sales site DEAL.com.sg is giving away several million dollars to its customers as a token of appreciation for their loyalty since the company's inception in May 2010. The initiative is also being used to help recruit new customers.

Patrick Linden, CEO of iBuy Group, which owns DEAL.com.sg said, "We have decided to give away $5 million to our customers as a token of appreciation for their patronage over the last three and a half years; without them, we wouldn't have been where we are today. To everyone who made this possible, I'd personally like to say - a big thank you!"

From 21 March, every existing DEAL.com.sg subscriber will be given a S$5 discount code. In addition, this code will also be valid for new subscribers to DEAL.com.sg until the site reaches the milestone of 1 million subscribers, or until 30 April 2014, whichever comes first. This discount code can be used to purchase any item on the site, irrespective of the sale price, by 30 April 2014.

Since the company was founded almost four years ago, DEAL.com.sg has grown to become one of the largest flash sale platforms, with the company's initial public offering in December last year on the Australian Securities Exchange.

According to Alexa's Traffic ranking, DEAL.com.sg is one of the top ten most visited Singapore-based sites, averaging over a million unique visitors every month.

Dealguru Holdings, the operator of DEAL.com.sg, announced its merger with three other regional e-commerce players to form iBuy Group earlier this year. The company went on to raise A$37 million in an initial public offering on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX:IBY) on 20 December 2013, bringing DEAL.com.sg from startup to IPO in a relatively short time.