EMC pools enterprise smarts to create data lakesEMC is pulling assets from its conglomeration of businesses to help customers build data lakes using EMC storage, VMware virtualization and Pivotal big-data smarts. The Federation Business Data Lake debuting Monday will ingest and analyze data from diverse sources—and may also show how EMC can make the diverse businesses it owns add up to more than the sum of their parts.New US bill aims to limit use of student dataA new bill to be introduced in Congress on Monday aims to place checks on the collection and possible misuse of student data by tech companies that supply services to schools. The Student Digital Privacy and Parental Rights Act prohibits companies such as online homework portals or email services from using or disclosing students’ personal information for advertisement purposes, according to The New York Times.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
As rumors swirl that Apple might be developing an electric car one of its major suppliers, Foxconn Technology Group, is moving ahead with its own plans to bring an electric-powered vehicle to China.On Monday, the electronics manufacturer struck a partnership with Chinese Internet giant Tencent and luxury car dealership China Harmony Auto to develop smart electric cars. All three companies are together establishing a special team for the project, Foxconn said.Foxconn, which is based in Taiwan, is perhaps best known for assembling Apple’s iPhone.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
EMC is drawing on its “federation” of companies to help customers build data lakes using EMC storage, VMware virtualization and Pivotal big-data smarts.The Federation Business Data Lake will ingest and analyze data from diverse sources to give enterprises new insights that can help them make better decisions, EMC says. It can tie together existing EMC assets with new software to run the data lake, and the whole package can be built and started up in as little as seven days, according to the company.EMC’s aim is to help enterprises of all sizes make better use of information they collect, including both structured and unstructured data. Building the data lakes may also show how EMC can make the diverse businesses it owns add up to more than the sum of their parts.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.CartoDB WordPressKey features: For WordPress users looking to add custom maps to webpages. CartoDB is the easiest tool for adding maps to a WordPress site for users to share maps with their posts. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Bare-metal switches that can be programmed like Linux servers aren’t just for big Web companies anymore. They may show up in a lot more average enterprises in the next few years.Cloud-based service providers like Facebook and Google have been building data-center networks out of generic hardware and homegrown software for years. Now vendors including HP and Dell are beginning to sell switches much like they do bare-metal servers. They may pre-load an operating system and provide ongoing support, but that OS is open and their customers will have much more freedom with this new kind of gear than they do with traditional switches from vendors like Cisco Systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Bare-metal switches that can be programmed like Linux servers aren’t just for big Web companies anymore. They may show up in a lot more average enterprises in the next few years.Cloud-based service providers like Facebook and Google have been building data-center networks out of generic hardware and homegrown software for years. Now vendors including HP and Dell are beginning to sell switches much like they do bare-metal servers. They may pre-load an operating system and provide ongoing support, but that OS is open and their customers will have much more freedom with this new kind of gear than they do with traditional switches from vendors like Cisco Systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Could updated analog computer technology – popular from about 1940-1970 –be developed to build high-speed CPUs for certain specialized applications?Researchers at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency are looking to discover -- through a program called Analog and Continuous-variable Co-processors for Efficient Scientific Simulation (ACCESS) -- what advances analog computers might have over today’s supercomputers for a large variety of specialized applications such as fluid dynamics or plasma physics.+More on Network World: Quick look: 10 cool analog computers+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
You may recall that last year around this time Yahoo, Warren Buffett and Quicken Loans teamed up to offer this challenge: If anyone could pick the winner of every single game in the NCAA’s 64-team, six-round March Madness basketball tournament, he or she would win a billion dollars.No one met the challenge, or came close. In fact, the tournament wasn’t even half over before the final perfect bracket sheet was no longer perfect. This came as no surprise to anyone, in large part because the odds against completing the challenge successfully were one in 9 quintillion or one in 128 billion, depending on who’s doing the math, according to this explanation in Slate.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Companies in search of stable, inexpensive energy to power their data needs are looking beyond the borders of their own countries these days. Those willing to look really far might consider harboring their strategic assets in Iceland.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
HTC founder Cher Wang is taking over as company CEO, as the Taiwanese Android smartphone maker fights to revive its struggling business.Peter Chou, the previous CEO, will remain with the company, and lead its “Future Development Lab” to identify new growth opportunities, HTC said Friday.Wang, who was already company chairwoman, had been taking a larger managerial role in the last two years, so that Chou could focus on product development.On Friday, the board of directors and HTC’s executive team agreed to formalize that progression and name Wang as CEO to usher in its next stage of development, the company said.During Chou’s tenure, HTC became a major Android handset maker, but its market share and sales have since declined in the face of fierce competition from Apple, Samsung Electronics, and an emerging crowd of Chinese vendors.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A leaked report by staff at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission paints an ugly picture of Google as a bullying monopolist and adds credence to complaints from rivals who have long criticized its business practices.The report, which was mistakenly provided to the Wall Street Journal as part of a public records request, reveals that FTC staff concluded in 2012 that Google’s business tactics had caused “real harm to consumers and to innovation,” and the staff recommended a lawsuit against the company.The FTC’s commissioners ultimately decided not to take action and closed their investigation of Google. But the conduct described in the 160-page critique paints a damaging picture of the company and seems to vindicate rivals such as Yelp that have complained about its tactics.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Hard on the heels of its Competitor Discovery tool last month, GinzaMetrics has unveiled a new set of tools that aims to help marketers understand the impact of their social-media efforts.Its Social Intelligence Suite can reveal how social channels are contributing to revenue and other goals so brands can better plan how to use them for marketing. The suite has four tools, focused on marketing channel performance, the competitor social landscape, content insights and social engagement analytics.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Stoke the rumor fires once again. Bernstein Research has issued a note this week that states storage giant EMC is prepared to buy, and that Arista Networks and Brocade might make good fits.Arista, for one, combined with EMC’s VMware possession and go-to-market capability would create an alternative to Cisco “stronger than anything present in the market today,” the note states.The report’s authors say the catalyst for the EMC buying speculation were remarks by CEO Joe Tucci at a recent analyst meeting that “consolidation opportunities” existed for EMC that were instantly accretive. They say EMC could do up to a $10 billion+ cash deal.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Data can be stored in DNA. In fact, organic DNA can hold massive amounts of data, and it can last a long time. However, one of the main problems with it as a storage medium is that it's been unreliable.But that might be about to change. Scientists are beginning to get a handle on error correction and longevity issues.DNA as network storageScientists think DNA might be a solution for the degrading data storage of the future. They think that magnetic storage, of the kind found in hard drives, microfilm, or flash memory, will not last forever, and possibly not as long even as yellowing bits of paper—the oldest known paper document in the West dates from the 11th century.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Acer is pumping more horsepower into its Chromebook C910 with an optional Intel Core i5 processor based on the Broadwell architecture.The laptop, which has a 15.6-inch screen, has been available with Core i3 or Celeron processors. The Core i5 processor will add more application and graphics performance to the laptop.Intel’s Core chips based on Broadwell are also used in Google’s high-end Chromebook Pixel, which was announced last week starting at $999 with a Core i5 processor. But the Acer Chromebooks are reasonably priced by comparison, and the C910 with Core i5 is priced at $499.99.Chromebooks are targeted at those who do most of their computing on the Web; an Internet connection is needed for most applications.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
An IBM project to expand the market for its Power processor is making headway, with new hardware announced Wednesday that aims to challenge Intel's dominance in the data center.IBM still has a lot of work to do, but the project it launched two years ago to open up the Power architecture for use by other hardware makers is gaining momentum. The idea is to lower the cost of Power-based systems so they can be sold into hyperscale data centers and high-performance computing environments, areas dominated today by x86 processors.Tyan, a server manufacturer in Taiwan, will deliver the first commercially available OpenPower server in the second quarter, a two-socket system aimed at hyperscale customers such as Internet service and cloud providers, IBM said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Congratulations: You’ve decided your data is sensitive enough (or you’re paranoid enough) to store it on a secure USB drive. Basically encrypted storage on a stick, these portable flash drives come with FIPS 140-2 level three validation, meaning the cryptographic module will be rendered inoperable if tampering is detected. It costs quite a bit to acquire validation, which is part of the reason for premium pricing of these drives.Most people administer and unlock secure USB drives using software apps, which run on the host machines to interact with the drive. That’s the approach taken by the Kingston Data Traveler 4000 G2 (second generation) USB 3.0 thumb drive that’s reviewed here.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Norwegian browser developer Opera Software has bought virtual private network service SurfEasy to help its users protect their privacy when accessing the Web from smartphones, tablets and computers.The acquisition of the Canadian company also appears to be the latest in the company’s strategy to expand into other products beyond the browser.SurfEasy offers applications to encrypt Internet traffic on Windows, Mac, iOS and Android devices as well as a password-protected USB plug-in that lets users browse securely from any computer or network, without leaving a trace.Opera bought SurfEasy because Internet users are increasingly looking for ways to securely access the Internet, the company said in a release announcing the deal. The financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Chinese telecommunications and networking equipment giant Huawei Technologies is partnering left, right and center at Cebit as it seeks to more firmly establish itself in Europe.Huawei derives around one-tenth of its revenue from enterprise products, with the bulk of the rest coming from mobile phones or carrier networking equipment. But the company has bigger ambitions for this segment.Germany is still a major manufacturing power, and one of the focuses of the Cebit trade show is the modernization of its industries through what the Germans call “Industry 4.0,” a move to increase interoperability and real-time monitoring in manufacturing and distribution systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Yahoo is closing its only remaining office in China and laying off between 200 and 300 employees there, news reports said on Wednesday.The moves are part of CEO Marissa Mayer’s efforts to rein in costs at the aging Internet company. Yahoo’s office in Beijing, the company’s only physical presence in mainland China, has housed an R&D center employing engineers.“We will be consolidating certain functions into fewer offices, including to our headquarters in Sunnyvale, California,” a Yahoo representative told the Wall Street Journal.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here