Don’t call it a developer conference… …when it’s really Google Prom. OK, it’s also a developer conference, but isn’t that what you picture if I say the words “Google Prom?” I/O generally features at least a couple fairly major announcements from Google, and the 2015 edition isn’t expected to disappoint. Here are the seven things we’re looking for this time around.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The numbers filed with the SEC seem pretty inarguable. Verizon dominates the U.S. wireless carrier industry, both in terms of total subscribers and in a key metric called ARPU, or average revenue per user. AT&T is maintaining its position in second place, Sprint is headed south in a hurry, and T-Mobile is making some un-profits in its new role as the un-carrier, but showing signs of a recovery.But the picture of a leader, a runner-up and two also-rans is more complicated than it seems. A saturated market with fewer new customers to compete for means that the big four’s relative positions in terms of size are increasingly stratified.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Verizon's acquisition of AOL is a move to disrupt the TV market | Apple, Google urge Obama to reject encryption back doors +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The numbers filed with the SEC seem pretty inarguable. Verizon dominates the U.S. wireless carrier industry, both in terms of total subscribers and in a key metric called ARPU, or average revenue per user. AT&T is maintaining its position in second place, Sprint is headed south in a hurry, and T-Mobile is making some un-profits in its new role as the un-carrier, but showing signs of a recovery.
But the picture of a leader, a runner-up and two also-rans is more complicated than it seems. A saturated market with fewer new customers to compete for means that the big four’s relative positions in terms of size are increasingly stratified.
+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Verizon's acquisition of AOL is a move to disrupt the TV market | Apple, Google urge Obama to reject encryption back doors +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
May the Fourth be with youImage by Lucas Films Inc.May 4 is International Star Wars Day, the unofficial holiday where we celebrate the Force, X-wings, Ewoks and women wearing their hair in the shape of their favorite breakfast pastries. But how do you give your week that particular galaxy-far-far-away flavor? Some suggestions follow.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A crowdfunding campaign for a sleek modular smartphone concept has been unceremoniously dumped by IndieGoGo, which shuttered the project’s page on Friday morning.As first reported by ModularAndroid.com, the project page was taken down and all pledges were refunded. A message sent to backers, obtained by that news site, said that Fonkraft “has been suspended due to not meeting our trust and safety standards.”+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Comcast launching 2-gig broadband to trump Chattanooga's municipal gigabit offering + Apple Watch, Samsung Edge glitches anger users, but no outright revolt +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Almost all current or perspective users of smartwatches and other wearable technologies want to use them for work, according to a Harris Poll survey commissioned by MDM vendor MobileIron.The survey, which covered 3,500 workers who use mobile devices for work in the U.S., western Europe and Japan, found that 94% of those who either owned or were planning to own a wearable would want to use them for work tasks.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Review: Docker Swarm soars, and the sky's the limit | Insider threats force balance between security and access +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Researchers at MIT have come up with a novel way to interact with wireless devices – a miniaturized trackpad so small that it can be stuck onto a user’s thumbnail.NailO, as the device is called, is the brainchild of media arts and sciences grad student Cindy Hsin-Liu Kao, a native of Taiwan, who came up with the idea when she couldn’t find the nail art stickers popular in that country in the U.S. She called the device “unobtrusive.”+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Fave Raves: 34 tech pros share favorite IT products + Techiest college commencement speakers of 2015+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Aerohive Networks today announced the availability of the AP130, the company’s latest wireless access point to target educational institutions.The AP130 is a 2x2, 2-stream access point designed to use existing Power over Ethernet infrastructure and to run HiveManager NG, Aerohive’s cloud-based network management platform. HiveManager is generally thought to be one of the company’s key advantages in the wireless marketplace, as it removes the need for a traditional network controller.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Ruckus first to roll out enterprise 802.11ac Wave 2 AP | First Look: Microsoft’s new Spartan browser for Windows 10 +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Ruckus became the first enterprise wireless equipment vendor to roll out an 802.11ac Wave 2 access point today, with the release of the ZoneFlex R710.The R710 features the multi-user MIMO capability characteristic of Wave 2 devices, using what Ruckus calls Beamflex technology – built around antenna polarization – to focus signals directionally, making more efficient use of available bandwidth. The company says the R710 can handle 800Mbps of throughput via the older 2.4GHz frequencies, and 1733Mbps via 5GHz.Analyst and Network World contributor Zeus Kerravala said that the R710 is, in a very real sense, far ahead of its time."There aren't any wave 2 [client] devices expected for at least 18 months," he said. "So they are way early."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The corporate world is serious businessThe annual scramble for momentary flashes of attention in the public eye has become an undignified, childish reversion to the mean, and a symptom of the terrible harm the Internet has done to the business world and to the media. It is with regret that we begrudgingly direct still more of your dwindling attention span to the following unedifying “pranks,” of which we hereby express our disapproval, our tongues far from our cheeks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The financial news for Blackberry is potentially bad this week, as it has been for most of the past few years. Some analysts are predicting that the Canadian company will post losses of as much as 7 cents per share, though the consensus seems to be closer to 3 cents. If that happens, it’ll be Blackberry’s fourth quarter out of the last five to show a decline.
Blackberry, as most know, has been suffering through an ongoing and painful fall from grace for quite a while now. In part, that’s because it’s had an awfully long way to fall – at its apex, Research in Motion was one of the most important technology companies on the planet, taking the business world by storm with its Blackberry handsets and doing at least as much as Apple – which gets the lion’s share of the credit these days – to popularize the idea of a phone that did much more than make calls and send texts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The FCC’s net neutrality decision last month that imposed stricter regulations on Internet Service Providers, under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934, has networking companies opposing each other even more fiercely than usual.The industry is split, though not evenly, between those that support the idea of stricter ISP regulation, re-imposing stricter net neutrality standards and treating the service providers more as public utilities, and those that oppose the measures.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Microsoft's deal with Xiaomi over Windows 10 raises eyebrows | Top 11 oddball real-world tech job interview questions +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Tracking the scores, progress and behavior of millions of players around the globe playing an online game is no laughing matter, according to T.J. Wagner, an executive producer and creative director for World of Tanks publisher Wargaming West, who spoke to Network World last week at PAX East.World of Tanks is a multiplayer-only online wargame, which features two teams of players duking it out in a vast array of mid-20th Century armored vehicles. Players gain access to more powerful tanks and better equipment by playing matches and, if they find the rate of advancement too slow for their taste, by paying real cash for in-game currency that can be used to purchase premium account status and new tanks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
PAX East 2015! I mean, right?!For a festival set up by a couple guys who have a popular gaming-focused webcomic, PAX (the Penny Arcade Expo) sure has grown fast. Started in 2004 in Seattle, PAX is now a group of four annual festivals of nerd culture, held in Boston (PAX East), Seattle (PAX Prime), San Antonio (PAX South) and Melbourne (PAX Australia.) Here’s a look at the expo floor from PAX East 2015.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Among the many other exciting diversions for those of a nerdy bent at the PAX East 2015 gaming convention in Boston this past weekend, there was a LAN party. And as you might expect, it wasn’t your average hastily erected LAN, with computers situated around a couple cheap consumer switches nestled between boxes of pizza.No, the LAN party at PAX East featured fully 420 gaming machines, set out in endless rows on long rectangular tables, and stations for more than 300 computers brought in by conference-goers. The setup was provisioned and managed by LANFest, a non-profit organization sponsored by Intel to raise money for charity via sponsorship of big LAN parties.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Tablets, tablets, tablets!Even though the BBC argues that the age of the tablet has essentially ended, manufacturers exhibiting at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this year have only begun to fight. Here's a look through some of the coolest tablets on display.RELATED: See a running list of stories from MWC 2015To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Aruba Networks today announced the availability of the 7000 series cloud services controller, an all-in-one box that aims to dramatically simplify branch office IT for far-flung businesses.The 7000 series combines a host of capabilities into a single unit, featuring a stateful firewall, deep packet inspection, WAN optimization, RF interference control and user access control, Aruba said.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: HP will buy Aruba to bolster its wireless networking business | Google's new campus plans hint at staggering ambitions | Will network disaggregation play in the enterprise? +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Happy Pi Day!Image by Shutterstock/Stephen SauerHas it really been three years? The Raspberry Pi has been through several updates, new models and sold more than 5 million units since its launch in February 2012 – sounds like a good excuse for a party to us! Here are some suggestions for a fun Pi Day.Play EliteOne of the major early backers of the Raspberry Pi project was David Braben, PC gaming pioneer and creator of the classic spaceship title Elite. An open-source version, Oolite, is still available to play for free, but if you’ve got money and a modern computer, you might try the swanky, impressive new reboot, Elite: Dangerous.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
REUTERS/Stephen Lam
HP's Meg Whitman
HP is in talks to purchase Aruba Networks, with an eye toward acquiring that company’s wireless networking infrastructure technology, according to a report published today by Bloomberg News.Citing anonymous sources, Bloomberg said the deal could be announced as early as next week, though neither HP nor Aruba would comment on the record. The news agency said that analysts’ estimates suggested that Aruba’s sales are growing fast – with the company poised to break the $1 billion-a-year barrier by 2017.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The FCC on Thursday, Feb. 26 is set to vote on new broadband regulations that would require ISPs to practice Network Neutrality. Here's the lowdown on this hot political and technical topic:Before you start, you know that I know what Net Neutrality is already, right?Of course, you work in IT, so I expected that was the case. While others might not be aware that the term is thought to have been coined in 2003 by Columbia law professor Tim Wu – still one of the most vocal proponents of Net Neutrality – no such gap exists in your knowledge.And just as obviously, you’re aware that the basic principle of Net Neutrality is that Internet service providers should not be allowed to discriminate among the different types of traffic that they carry – that is to say, not slowing or blocking legal traffic, nor charging special fees for certain types of traffic.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Jon Gold