As the amount of structured and unstructured data generated through digital growth increases, the need for places to put the stuff is also growing.And it’s going to be in Hyper-converged Integrated Systems (HCIS), according to Gartner analyst Michael Warrilow, speaking at Gartner’s Tech Growth and Innovation Conference in Los Angeles last week.Hyper-converged systems are where software tools are used on commoditized hardware. HCIS is the platform for shared computing and storage resources. It’s “based on software-defined storage, software-defined compute, commodity hardware and a unified management interface,” Gartner explains on its website.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As the amount of structured and unstructured data generated through digital growth increases, the need for places to put the stuff is also growing.And it’s going to be in Hyper-converged Integrated Systems (HCIS), according to Gartner analyst Michael Warrilow, speaking at Gartner’s Tech Growth and Innovation Conference in Los Angeles last week.Hyper-converged systems are where software tools are used on commoditized hardware. HCIS is the platform for shared computing and storage resources. It’s “based on software-defined storage, software-defined compute, commodity hardware and a unified management interface,” Gartner explains on its website.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Retailers have to invest in digital tools such as inventory transparency if they want to retain customers, says shipper UPS in its new report on online shopping.If they don’t, fickle “shoppers will likely go elsewhere to more efficiently meet their needs,” the company says.UPS found that most online shoppers (58 percent) want to see a retailer’s inventory online while they are shopping, and 20 percent will check inventory status at alternate locations or on a retailer’s website when in the store.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Hyper-connectivity is the way of the future. The world is going to become more electronic, and CEOs are banking on digital technology to grow their revenue.To make that a reality, IT services need to be involved, said Helen Huntley, a Gartner research vice president, speaking at Gartner’s Tech Growth and Innovation Conference in Los Angeles earlier this week.It calls for having a kind of device or digital mesh that produces hyper-connectivity for everyone. That, coupled with vast swaths of data and smart machines, will be a principal “strategic technology change” we’ll see, she said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Copenhagen has become the first city in the world to attempt to monetize its, and others’, data through a city data market.Traffic snarl-ups, home break-ins, whether it rained or snowed, and how much electricity the city dwellers use each day is among the data to be traded for cash, city officials announced. Interestingly, the city, which is partnering with Hitachi on the project, also wants to incorporate others’ data.City officials say the availability of municipal data through the City Data Exchange website will help companies “develop new, innovative solutions to create smarter cities.” But it’s both public and “private sector organization” data that will be made available.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Internet of Things will become a bigger connected-device category than smartphones in 2018, telco equipment maker Ericsson says in its latest report.The Swedish company reckons that IoT will grow globally at a CAGR of 23 percent during the period 2015 to 2021, it says on its website.CAGR, or Compounded Annual Growth Rate, is the annual growth rate over the period.That would make IoT a 16 billion unit player by 2021. For comparison, the entire smorgasbord of connected devices will number 28 billion by then, Ericsson says in the report (PDF), published this week.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
"Beware those bearing gifts" is the ancient phrase that dates back a few thousand years. It referred to the wooden horse that was used to dupe the folks of Troy into allowing the Greeks into their city.Well, don’t trust the horse today, either.Freebies are just as likely to be accompanied by trickery now as they’ve ever been, according to scientists who’ve been studying the willingness to communicate confidential information.Presents “greatly increased the likelihood of participants giving away their password,” psychologists from the University of Luxembourg say their research has revealed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
"Beware those bearing gifts" is the ancient phrase that dates back a few thousand years. It referred to the wooden horse that was used to dupe the folks of Troy into allowing the Greeks into their city.Well, don’t trust the horse today, either.Freebies are just as likely to be accompanied by trickery now as they’ve ever been, according to scientists who’ve been studying the willingness to communicate confidential information.Presents “greatly increased the likelihood of participants giving away their password,” psychologists from the University of Luxembourg say their research has revealed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Smartphones can indeed be hacked via public USB-charging ports found around public facilities such as airports, parks and coffee shops, says a computer security firm. Additionally, any PC used for charging can perform the exploit.Hacks of this kind, first publicly written about in 2011, and called "juice-hacking" then, are not a myth, Kaspersky Lab says. That’s despite an apparent lack of reported cases.The security company, known for its antivirus products, says it has proven that forms of the hack can variously make illicit calls, suck files off a device and in its simplest rendition, capture a phone’s unique identifiers, such as a serial number.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Smartphones can indeed be hacked via public USB-charging ports found around public facilities such as airports, parks and coffee shops, says a computer security firm. Additionally, any PC used for charging can perform the exploit.Hacks of this kind, first publicly written about in 2011, and called "juice-hacking" then, are not a myth, Kaspersky Lab says. That’s despite an apparent lack of reported cases.The security company, known for its antivirus products, says it has proven that forms of the hack can variously make illicit calls, suck files off a device and in its simplest rendition, capture a phone’s unique identifiers, such as a serial number.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The gold-standard for time measurement—the 500 or so atomic clocks in use—might be on its way out. The clocks' days, if not their hours or seconds, are numbered.Optical clocks are a better way to measure time, say researchers who published their findings in Optica, the Optical Society's journal. The scientists say the optical technology is more accurate than the previous best-tech, which uses microwave frequency atomic oscillations.“Clocks work by counting a recurrent event with a known frequency, such as the swinging of a pendulum,” the society explains in a press release. Atomic clocks use the natural movement of a cesium atom.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you’ve been putting off software updates on websites that you’ve developed, been bamboozled into managing, or somehow become inexplicably responsible for, you’re not alone. All of the major content management systems (CMS) website brands are out of date much of the time.Magento-built websites are running on aging software 97 percent of the time, according to a security firm that handles clean-ups of attacked website. Magento was the worst of the bunch, but WordPress-, Joomla- and Drupal-driven websites also are not being updated, reveals Sucuri in its first Website Hacked Report (PDF), covering 2016 Q1.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you’ve been putting off software updates on websites that you’ve developed, been bamboozled into managing, or somehow become inexplicably responsible for, you’re not alone. All of the major content management systems (CMS) website brands are out of date much of the time.Magento-built websites are running on aging software 97 percent of the time, according to a security firm that handles clean-ups of attacked website. Magento was the worst of the bunch, but WordPress-, Joomla- and Drupal-driven websites also are not being updated, reveals Sucuri in its first Website Hacked Report (PDF), covering 2016 Q1.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
More evidence of the growing surge in wireless data reliance was released this week with CTIA’s announcement of its 2015 annual survey results.Americans used well over double (137 percent) the amount of data in 2015 than they used in 2014, the wireless industry trade body found. And 2015’s 9.6 trillion megabyte (MB) delivery was three times the throughput sent in 2013. In that year, we used only a measly 2.2 trillion MB.CTIA, formerly known as the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association, says 2015’s 9.6 trillion MB is the equivalent of streaming 59,219 videos every minute. What’s interesting is that despite that 137 percent gain in data last year, subscriber numbers rose only 6 percent over the same period. And the total number of smartphones in use, in the country, was up only about a tenth at 9 percent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Government agencies have done some work to mitigate the danger of electromagnetic threats to the electrical grid, but it’s not enough, says the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).Despite some action by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—such as developing a prototype transformer that would significantly speed recovery from a power outage caused by a failed transformer and studying the impacts of severe space weather, such as solar storms—more must be done to protect the grid, Homeland Security News Wire reports on the April-published GAO study (PDF).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Government agencies have done some work to mitigate the danger of electromagnetic threats to the electrical grid, but it’s not enough, says the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).Despite some action by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—such as developing a prototype transformer that would significantly speed recovery from a power outage caused by a failed transformer and studying the impacts of severe space weather, such as solar storms—more must be done to protect the grid, Homeland Security News Wire reports on the April-published GAO study (PDF).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Government agencies have done some work to mitigate the danger of electromagnetic threats to the electrical grid, but it’s not enough, says the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).Despite some action by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—such as developing a prototype transformer that would significantly speed recovery from a power outage caused by a failed transformer and studying the impacts of severe space weather, such as solar storms—more must be done to protect the grid, Homeland Security News Wire reports on the April-published GAO study (PDF).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
All of the top five tracking tools found on websites are from Google-owned properties.And new, cookie-replacing methods of identifying computers, called fingerprinting, is being used by advertisers, a new study found. Fingerprinting can work by sending audio files to individual web browsers. The method identifies the PC, Princeton University explains in its research (PDF).Princeton says its study, completed in January, is the biggest assessment of online tracking ever. The university trawled a million of the “top” websites.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
All of the top five tracking tools found on websites are from Google-owned properties.And new, cookie-replacing methods of identifying computers, called fingerprinting, is being used by advertisers, a new study found. Fingerprinting can work by sending audio files to individual web browsers. The method identifies the PC, Princeton University explains in its research (PDF).Princeton says its study, completed in January, is the biggest assessment of online tracking ever. The university trawled a million of the “top” websites.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Massive amounts of data is being collected, but isn’t being used to generate business growth, says a public body that has recently completed funding a 2.5-year research project on the subject.Big data should be used in an entrepreneurial way to create “profitable information-based products and services,” says British government agency Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) in a press release.At the moment, it’s just being “hoarded.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Patrick Nelson