With all the unofficial/official international/world/national days that various tech and governmental organizations and their marketing arms have carved out in recent years (World Paper Free Day, Data Privacy Day, etc.), it's amazing that the Wireless Broadband Alliance found an open spot on June 20 to set aside for the inaugural World Wi-Fi Day.
But let it be known henceforth that June 20th shall be a day "to accelerate affordable wireless connectivity around the world" and "to recognize and celebrate the significant role Wi-Fi is playing in getting cities and communities around the world connected."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Making sense of dataJust as practically every startup these days claims to be a cloud company or an IoT company, they’re all big data and analytics firms, too. Well, not really, but they at least toss the hot terms into their company descriptions. We’ve tried to pull out the real big data and analytics companies to highlight them here, listed alphabetically. Most focus on helping companies make sense of their oodles of data, sometimes for customer service, sometimes for IT purposes and sometimes for security reasons. And not all of them are brand new firms.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Wall Street Technology Association, which provides a forum for financial industry technology professionals, vendors, service providers, and consultants learn from one another, has introduced its board of directors for the new year.Having been around since 1967, the group is one of the oldest organizations catering to IT professionals, so we figure it's a good thing to give those volunteering as leaders to get a bit of attention. Here's the board:*President : James Kostulias, Chief Information Officer, TD Ameritrade To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Networking and computing vendors have a long history of using famous songs to help market their offerings, and also have a tradition of reinventing themselves over and over. So it's no surprise that David Bowie's Changes would wind up in at least one major ad campaign.MORE: A history of singing the Big BluesThe music and fashion icon's death on Sunday at the age of 69 reminded me of that $60 million Novell "The Power to Change" marketing campaign that debuted on Monday Night Football back in the year 2000.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The National Science Foundation this week announced it is divvying up $30 million in funding among three multidisciplinary research projects designed to put advanced computing models to work on nixing software bugs, boosting synthetic biology and creating a more sustainable world.Researchers at Princeton University, Boston University and Cornell University will lead the Expeditions in Computing projects, which each get $10 million over 5 years. The NSF's Expeditions program has funded 19 projects to the tune of $190 million to date, with areas of focus ranging from robotics to the mobile Internet.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Acacia Communications, an optical networking company that boosts bandwidth for cloud and other service providers, Monday filed for an IPO -- a rarity during a year in which the number of tech companies going public is at its lowest since 2009, the year Acacia launched.The $125M filing to go public comes during a year when the rise of the Unicorn, private companies with valuations of $1 billion or more, has blown away the tech IPO market. Tech IPOs this year have included those by First Data, Rapid7 and Pure Storage.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Acacia Communications, an optical networking company that boosts bandwidth for cloud and other service providers, Monday filed for an IPO -- a rarity during a year in which the number of tech companies going public is at its lowest since 2009, the year Acacia launched.The $125M filing to go public comes during a year when the rise of the Unicorn, private companies with valuations of $1 billion or more, has blown away the tech IPO market. Tech IPOs this year have included those by First Data, Rapid7 and Pure Storage.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Operators of convention centers and other public assembly venues are joining forces to avoid becoming the next Marriott or Hilton in the eyes of an FCC Enforcement Bureau that’s been cracking down on Wi-Fi blockers.Wi-Fi blocking has become a hot button issue across the hospitality and convention center industry, as well as across the wireless LAN industry, in light of big FCC fines against outfits found to have been blocking use of wireless hotspots by those who have a legal right to access unlicensed spectrum.MORE: Wi-Fi blocking debate far from overTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Former AT&T executive Gail McGovern gets credit for longevity at the American Red Cross -- she walked into a messy situation in 2008 and has served as CEO since -- but she and her pack of AT&T cronies mainly get taken to task throughout a thorough new ProPublica article on the charity's struggles. Not only has McGovern failed to turn around the financial fortunes of Red Cross, but her management organization's style has hurt morale and limited the charity's effectiveness in aiding Americans, according to the report.(ProPublica, if you don't know, is a nonprofit investigative journalism newsroom, and has been examining the travails of Red Cross over the past couple of years in conjunction with NPR.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
F5 Networks, the Seattle-based application delivery networking company with an increasingly cloud-oriented focus, has announced that CEO and President Manuel Rivelo has resigned "for matters regarding personal conduct unrelated to the operations or financials of the Company."Or as F5 spins it in its press release headline on Monday: "F5 Networks Announces Appointment of Long-Time F5 Executive John McAdam as President and CEO."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
F5 Networks, the Seattle-based application delivery networking company with an increasingly cloud-oriented focus, has announced that CEO and President Manuel Rivelo has resigned "for matters regarding personal conduct unrelated to the operations or financials of the Company."Or as F5 spins it in its press release headline on Monday: "F5 Networks Announces Appointment of Long-Time F5 Executive John McAdam as President and CEO."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Wall Street Technology Association (WSTA) has revealed its 2016 educational series of events, to be held in New York City and Boston, for financial tech pros.The nearly 50-year-old non-profit's events hit on a variety of serious tech issues:* Transforming WANs with Virtualization panel discussion, NYC, Jan. 21* Mobile-First Design and Seamless Delivery seminar, NYC, Feb. 25* Analytics: Achieving a Sustainable Competitive Advantage seminar, NYC, March 15* Assessing Cybersecurity Business Risk and Managing Threats seminar, NYC, April 14* Fraud Data Intelligence Frameworks panel discussion, Boston, April 28To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
RememberingThe networking and computing world, as well as the worlds of science and inventions, lost well-known pioneers as well as younger movers and shakers during 2015. Here’s a brief look back at these people and their contributions.(IDG News Service contributed to this report.)LOOK BACK: 2014’s notable deathsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
128 Technology, a stealthy software startup that "is on a mission to fix the Internet," has quietly and cleverly filed an SEC form regarding a fresh $20M in funding on, of all days, 12/8.The Burlington, Mass., startup has also jazzed up its website since I looked at it last week while prepping to attend the Xconomy "Enterprise Tech Strikes Back" event in Boston at which 128 CEO and Co-founder Andy Ory took part on a panel discussing "Building the Next Great Infrastructure Company."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Long gone are the days of the colorful enterprise networking industry I knew filled with provocative personalities like Cabletron Systems President Bob Levine and 3Com’s Bob Metcalfe. But at this week’s Xconomy Enterprise Tech Strikes Back event held at the Fidelity Center for Applied Technology in Boston, I actually detected some real-life individuality and swagger to go along with good business ideas being touted by the industry’s latest batch of young companies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
I believe the first time I quoted Gary Rowe in a Network World article – a print one at that – was back in July of 1991, when he was an AT&T email services director and the focus was the very glamorous topic of X.500 directories. Fast forward to 2015, I’m still with Network World and Rowe has moved on to form a new consulting and analysis firm called TechVision Research, and sure enough, when we reconnected recently, we found ourselves talking once again about some of the same themes, including identity management and privacy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Japan Prize Foundation
The Japan Prize medal
The Japan Prize Foundation announced this week that it has begun the process of finding nominees for its 2017 awards, which will honor outstanding achievements in the fields of “Electronics, Information and Communication” and “Life Science.” Winners receive a certificate of merit and medal, plus a none-too-shabby monetary award of 50 million yen ($407K US dollars).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is funding creation of a heat map visualization tool that will show where cybersecurity jobs are open across the country. The first rendition should be out late next year.The project, funded through NIST’s National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE), will provide data to help employers, job seekers, policy makers and others sync up. NETWORK JOBS ARE HOT: Salaries expected to rise in 2016Some 230,000 cybersecurity jobs are open across the U.S., according to the Department of Commerce, and the number of openings has roughly doubled over the past 4 or 5 years.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Online tech retailer Newegg isn’t messing around with just Black Friday anymore. It’s calling all of next month Black November as it gears up for holiday sales in what’s looking to be another all-out battle for techies’ wallets.Newegg hasn’t released specific sale information yet, but has outlined plans to kick off deals on more than 900 products Nov. 1-3, gaming bargains Nov. 4-9, a Black Friday preview sale Nov. 10-26, big savings on Black Friday (Nov. 27) itself, and then of course some more deals on Cyber Monday. More and more, we’re seeing retailers describing their holiday sales plans, in a less than detailed manner, with promises of specifics on dates to come.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Ben Edelman/Wikipedia
A warning pops up on computer screen about Sony BMG rootkit on music CD
Hackers really have had their way with Sony over the past year, taking down its Playstation Network last Christmas Day and creating an international incident by exposing confidential data from Sony Pictures Entertainment in response to The Interview comedy about a planned assassination on North Korea’s leader. Some say all this is karmic payback for what’s become known as a seminal moment in malware history: Sony BMG sneaking rootkits into music CDs 10 years ago in the name of digital rights management.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Bob Brown