An intriguing type of quantum computing is one step closer to practicality with the announcement today that experts at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Stanford University and the Technical University of Munich have managed to solve one of the technology’s major problems using common semiconductor materials.The idea behind quantum computing, in the broadest possible strokes, is to use the quantum state of a small particle to store information. The advantage is that each of these particles, called qubits, can store a large range of values, while the regular bits at the core of electronic computers can only represent zero or one. Consequently, the theory goes, certain kinds of computation could be performed at vastly superior speeds.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A report released today by Cambridge, Mass.-based researcher IHS named Huawei, Cisco, Brocade and HP as the four leading companies in the enterprise networking sector.The leaders, according to IHS research director Matthias Machowinski, were chosen in part because of their roles as large-scale providers of a range of networking products and services for the enterprise.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Welcome to the Internet of stupid (hackable) things + Looking into the crystal ball of Amazon’s cloud futureTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Biggest, fastest, occupying the most racksImage by ThinkstockThe latest Top500 supercomputer rankings are out today, to coincide with the annual SC15 conference, which is being held this year in Austin, Texas. While there are plenty of names familiar to Top500 watchers in the new top 10, there are also some new faces. Or, there would be if supercomputers had faces. Have a look.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Recent tests to see whether LTE-U technology interferes with Wi-Fi signals prove conclusively that LTE-U poses no problems whatsoever for Wi-Fi networks, and also that LTE-U (Long-term evolution in Unlicensed spectrum) will drown out Wi-Fi, depending on which party is to be believed.Both the pro-LTE-U side of the debate, backed largely by Qualcomm, and the anti-LTE-U side, made up of a host of different tech companies under the aegis of the Wi-Fi Alliance, say that testing has vindicated their respective positions.+ MORE: LTE-U -- A quick explainer | Worries mount over upcoming LTE-U deployments hurting Wi-Fi +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Wi-Fi Alliance, an industry group that certifies Wi-Fi products for interoperability, has highlighted the importance of the technology to the daily lives of Americans ahead of a testing summit that will try to shed some light on potential conflicts between Wi-Fi and a carrier technology called LTE-U.
LTE-U is a technology that some U.S. wireless carriers want to use to take the pressure off their networks – using the same unlicensed spectrum as Wi-Fi networks. While LTE-U proponents insist that the coexistence features built into the technology will avoid any conflicts, critics aren’t convinced, arguing that LTE-U could disrupt Wi-Fi networks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The FCC announced late last week that it would investigate Verizon, AT&T, CenturyLink and Frontier over highly strict service terms in wireline business service contracts, which critics say lock customers into their deals unfairly.The commission is particularly focused on the special access market, which encompasses the legacy copper links that make up part of the fabric of U.S. Internet service. The large incumbent providers under investigation control a lot of these special access links, and their competitors have been claiming for years that they’ve leveraged these localized monopolies to keep customers from jumping ship.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: IoT standards groups get ready to rumble at CES + Google to enterprises: Ditch your Microsoft contract early for us +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
San Francisco-based startup NodePrime wants to be the proverbial single pane of glass that you use to manage your complicated, heavily virtualized data center, the company announced as it exited stealth today with a $7 million seed funding round in the books.The idea is to provide the type of infrastructure management that Google and Facebook use to manage their outsized data centers. But where Google and Facebook have to spend big on custom hardware and elite engineering talent, NodePrime wants to offer the same capabilities as a commodity.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Hottest Enterprise Network & Computing Startups of 2015To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The bosses are here It’s the 25 companies that have the biggest effects on how U.S.-based enterprise networks operate. They’re a diverse bunch – some make switches, others chips. Some are big carriers, others are big fish in little ponds. And plenty aren’t, technically speaking, networking companies at all. Nevertheless, these are our picks for the biggest influencers on the network.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Uncooking an egg, peeing like a whale, and fathering a few hundred childrenDon’t look so confused – it’s the 2015 Ig Nobel awards, the scientific equivalent of the Razzies, given out to real science projects “that make you laugh, and then make you think.” Or, in the case of several of this year’s “winners,” that make you squirm uncomfortably in your chair. Read on, if you dare.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
I hadn’t come to room 3301 of the Sands Expo to see Zoltan Istvan speak. I had come because the official CTIA Super Mobility 2015 conference app had pinged a notification to me that Mike Tyson – a boxer of some repute – was due to participate in a panel discussion and I wanted to startle my editors by landing a quote from Iron Mike.What I found, instead – I have no notion where Tyson was at the appointed time – was Zoltan Istvan, who is running for president. He is polished, polite and friendly. He was also gracious and patient with a reporter who bumbled into his speech by accident and essentially asked, “What the heck is going on here?”For those unfamiliar with his work, Istvan is a columnist for Vice, former reporter for National Geographic and author of a novel called The Transhumanist Wager, which lays out his hyper-futurist philosophy. In essence, he believes that humanity’s goal must be to create technology so advanced that we become immortal – conquering death with the infinitely sharp sword of logic. Through advances in medical science, the gentle melding of humans and machines and various other technological Continue reading
The initial round of reviews for OnHub, Google’s fancified entry into the home router market, are out, and the consensus is that it’s a neat gadget, but possibly not worth the $200 you’ll fork over to get it.At the moment, the OnHub is essentially a standard home Wi-Fi router that runs Google’s software instead of the bare-bones configuration pages common to home routers. You plug it into your Ethernet connection, download the Android or iOS app, and manage everything from your smartphone. Given that the average home user probably doesn’t know how to do much besides turn their usual router off and on again for troubleshooting, a robust, convenient and user-friendly configuration experience is a solid step forward.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A major corporation is misusing grsecurity’s trademarks and tarnishing its brand – and as a consequence, the leader of the project said Wednesday, grsecurity will stop making its stable patches available to the general public.In an official announcement, grsecurity project leader Brad Spengler said that it was unfair to the project’s sponsors to allow the companies in the embedded Linux industry – which he declined to name, citing legal advice – to dilute grsecurity’s trademarks.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Massachusetts boarding school sued over Wi-Fi sickness + Access points with 802.11ac are taking over enterprise WLANsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Time’s a-ticking, and we’re getting closer and closer to what is almost certainly the launch of the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, though not the iPhone 7. The latest leaks, reported by Chinese website Daliulian, say that the new models to be revealed on September 9 will be available in a metallic pink finish for the first time. Reese Witherspoon’s character from Legally Blond ought to be thrilled.Whether others will be so thrilled with the new color option, and the new devices themselves, is a point of surprising importance as Apple’s stock price took an uncharacteristic nosedive on news that the Chinese smartphone market – second-largest in the world - dropped substantially in the second quarter.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Absolute Data and Device Security adds Microsoft SCCM and SIEM integrationKey features: Absolute has introduced new security functionality that extends IT oversight to include Microsoft SCCM and SIEM integration. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Absolute Data and Device Security adds Microsoft SCCM and SIEM integrationKey features: Absolute has introduced new security functionality that extends IT oversight to include Microsoft SCCM and SIEM integration. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The announcement Monday that saw Google reorganize under the banner of new holding company Alphabet was Big News, we all seem to agree, but it’s much less clear exactly what kind of Big News it is.It’s going to keep investors happy by segmenting some of Google’s wilder moonshot projects out of the main earnings figures, according to the Verge. Or maybe, says the Guardian, Google wants to make itself a smaller target for the European regulators it’s currently battling.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The hits just keep on comingImage by Thinkstock/raspberrypi.orgThe Raspberry Pi, as we’ve seen before, is really all things to all people – the uses to which the tiny computer has been put to are myriad. Here’s the latest roundup of the unique, original and inventive ways people are using the Raspberry Pi. Enjoy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The average U.S. Internet connection speed continues to lag behind that of many other developed nations, according to the latest State of the Internet report from CDN and cloud service provider Akamai.
In the first quarter of 2015, Akamai said, the average U.S. Internet connection speed was 11.9Mbps - considerably below the 23.6Mbps mark posted by South Korea, which had the fastest average connection speed worldwide. The top 10 was dominated by countries from Europe and east Asia, including Ireland, Hong Kong, Sweden and the Netherlands. The U.S. placed 19th in the rankings.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google researchers say that experts and non-experts go about protecting their digital privacy in very different ways, according to survey results they plan to present at the upcoming Symposium on Usable Privacy and Security.The importance of regular software updates is apparently lost on a large proportion of Internet users who aren’t security experts, the survey found. Just 2% of non-experts said that routinely patching software was high on their list of security priorities, compared to 35% of experts.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Hacker: 'Hundreds of thousands' of vehicles are at risk of attack | How to check if you've been attacked by Hacking Team intrusion malware +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In 1995, the top-grossing film in the U.S. was Batman Forever. (Val Kilmer as Batman, Jim Carrey as the Riddler, Tommy Lee Jones as Two-Face. Yeah.) The L.A. Rams were moving back to St. Louis, and Michael Jordan was moving back to the Bulls. Violence was rife in the Balkans. The O.J. trial happened.It was a very different time, to be sure. But all that was nothing compared to how different the world of supercomputing was.+ MORE: The 10 most powerful supercomputers on Earth | Can Dropbox go from consumer hit to business success? +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Jon Gold