If you can't afford Intel's super fast Optane SSDs but need a massive speed boost, the company's latest DC P4600 and DC P4500 SSDs may fill the need.The new SSDs are based on conventional 3D NAND and targeted at data centers. The SSDs will be used in servers or storage arrays to serve up quick video streams, voice-assistant AI responses, and even pull out information from databases.These SSDs are a reliable upgrade for those who don't want to mess with Optane, which is based on brand-new memory technology. According to Intel's rough estimate, the P4500 and P4600 drives provide two times faster read and write performance compared to predecessors, the DC P3520 and P3600 drives.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Tinder was ticked after 40,000 profile photos were scraped to create the People of Tinder dataset, accused the person behind the script of violating its terms of service, and asked Kaggle to remove the dataset from the platform. Nevertheless, it was downloaded hundreds of time before the take-down which now results in a 404 error.The People of Tinder dataset was created by Stuart Colianni; it consisted of 40,000 images from Tinder users in the San Francisco Bay Area – half were of women and half were of men. He intends to use the dataset with Google’s TensorFlow’s Inception to create a neural network capable of distinguishing between male and female images.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
By now, you've probably seen the ad that Pepsi released to the world and then quickly withdrew when it became obvious how tone deaf it was.I don't have anything to say about the ad that hasn't been said already, but I do want to examine the conditions that led to an ad of such obliviousness to be released. Why? Because Pepsi’s failed attempt to promote itself may have some lessons for those anxious to keep their company from experiencing a similar calamity when it comes to the release of personal data. I’d like to use this post to explore how the Privacy By Design approach to improving organizational awareness about data protection may offer a way to avoid such pitfalls.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Android is getting security fixes for more than 100 vulnerabilities, including 29 critical flaws in the media processing server, hardware-specific drivers and other components.Android's monthly security bulletin, published Monday, was split into two "patch levels," which are represented as date strings on the "About" page of Android devices.The 2017-05-01 security patch level covers fixes for vulnerabilities that are common to all Android devices while the 2017-05-05 level covers additional fixes for hardware drivers and kernel components that are present only in some devices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you want to stop someone from driving a car, you can take away the keys. Quick, easy and effective. Alternatively, removing the wheels and engine will work, too.A container is an OS extension that takes away keys, leaving the OS intact. A virtual machine (VM) reworks the architecture, separating the car from the wheels and engine. Taking the keys is easy, but the driver might have spares, and a car can be hot-wired in about a billion ways. Removing the wheels and engine is a lot of trouble, but the car won’t move without them. And when you mount snow tires, that removable wheel architecture is handy.Time-sharing computers
Containers and VMs go back to the beginning of time-sharing, an outstanding advance in mid-twentieth century computing. A single time-sharing computer supports multiple users running multiple tasks at the same time. Each user thinks they control the entire machine.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Remember scrambling like mad for new technology?I know people who camped out overnight to secure their place in line for the latest version of a smartphone. Others significantly overpaid or added their names to pre-order lists months in advance—just to make sure they had the most up-to-date device. When the iPad2 was released back in 2011, some stores sold out within 10 minutes even though it was estimated that 60 percent of consumers purchasing the tablet already owned the original version launched only the year before. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple has long been known keeping a big rainy day fund. But according to Lee Pinkowitz, a Georgetown University professor of finance quoted in the Wall Street Journal, “they’re saving for a millennial flood."The numbers are truly astonishing. The company has some $250 billion—a quarter of a trillion!—in cash, cash equivalents, and short- and long-term securities, including corporate paper, U.S. Treasury bond and money-market funds, the Journal said. Add it up, and it’s more than the total foreign-currency reserves held by many countries— including plenty of pretty big countries, like Mexico and Indonesia. In fact, as the Journal notes, it’s more than the foreign reserves of the U.K. and Canada … combined.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Mass Effect: Andromeda takes you to the Andromeda galaxy, where you will lead our fight for a new home in hostile territory as the Pathfinder -- a leader of military-trained explorers. Prime members right now get 33% off this title for PS4, Xbox One and PC.
Microsoft hopes a new Windows 10 operating system called Windows 10 S will usurp Chromebook's domination in education and provide a better way for students to learn.The new version of Windows, announced at an event in New York Tuesday, is targeted at teachers, students, artists and creators. It's got features very similar to that of Chrome OS in Chromebooks, which dominates the education market.It has a traditional Windows 10 desktop look, and will only run applications downloaded from the Windows App store. That means all applications will be verified and secure.Windows 10 acts like a "container" that will run secure apps. A version of Microsoft's Office Suite will also come to Windows 10 S.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Last week, I wrote about the move toward cybersecurity vendor and technology consolidation, along with a growing emphasis on technology integration in the enterprise. Here’s some additional data that reinforces those conclusions. As part of a recent ESG research project, 176 cybersecurity and IT professionals were presented with several statements and asked whether they agreed or disagreed with each one. Here are the results:
82% of survey respondents “strongly agree” or “agree” with the statement: "My organization is actively building a security architecture that integrates multiple individual product." This is likely part of a SOAPA (security operations and analytics platform architecture) project.
81% of survey respondents “strongly agree” or “agree” with the statement: "Cybersecurity product integration has become an important consideration of our security procurement criteria." In other words, stand-alone point tools don’t make the purchasing cut in most cases.
78% of survey respondents “strongly agree” or “agree” with the statement: "The security products my organization buys are regularly qualified on their integration capabilities." This aligns with the previous point.
73% of survey respondents “strongly agree” or “agree” with the statement: "My organization tends to select best-of-breed products." Once again, the data reflects that Continue reading
Fitbit wants you to motivate the women who motivate you, and they're offering 50% off select gifts, plus free 2-day shipping when you spend $50 or more on Alta, Flex 2, Charge 2, or others. Jump over to Fitbit's site and browse their gift guide and exclusive discounts in honor of Mother's Day.
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Intel is reporting a firmware vulnerability that could let attackers take over remote management functions on computers built over nearly the past decade.The vulnerability, disclosed on Monday, affects features in Intel firmware that are designed for enterprise IT management. Enterprises using Intel Active Management Technology, Intel Small Business Technology and Intel Standard Manageability on their systems should patch them as soon as possible, the company says.The vulnerable firmware features can be found in some current Core processors and all the way back to Intel's first-generation Core, called Nehalem, which shipped in 2008. They're part of versions 6.0 through 11.6 of Intel's manageability firmware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
AMD's Ryzen chips are off to a strong start in desktops, and more chips are coming in the second half of this year.New chips for desktops, called Ryzen 3, will come in the earlier part of the second half, while Ryzen mobile chips -- code-named Raven Ridge -- will come out around the end-of-year holiday season.AMD CEO Lisa Su shared the release schedule during a first-quarter earnings call on Monday. She also said top PC makers will launch desktops with the already shipping Ryzen 5 and 7 chips later this quarter.The Ryzen 3 is expected to be for low-end desktops, while the Ryzen 5 and 7 chips are faster. Late last week, Acer announced its Aspire GX desktop with Ryzen chip options.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Managing the health of the corporate network will directly affect the productivity of every user of that network. So network administrators need a robust network monitoring tool that helps them manage the network, identify problems before they cause downtime, and quickly resolve issues when something goes wrong.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
An effective DNS (Domain Name System) infrastructure is a critical component of system uptime, which is essential to the viability and continuity of web services. For complex websites, a third of page load time can be attributed to DNS lookups. Inadequate or improperly configured DNS can have a potentially catastrophic impact on a company’s online presence.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Less than one-fifth of enterprise IT assets are in the cloud, but it looks like more are on the way.One-third of data-center professionals and IT practitioners plan to deploy workloads in the cloud in the next year, according to a survey by the Uptime Institute, an advisory group focused on improving critical infrastructure.Companies still rely mostly on their own infrastructure and multi-tenant data centers, including collocation facilities, the survey found. Sixty-five percent of IT assets are in-house, and only 13 percent in the cloud.But the move to the cloud continues. The survey found 67 percent of respondents had seen at least some workloads that would have run internally in the past move to the cloud.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
There’s a cloud option out there for almost every IT workload, but a survey from the Uptime Institute indicates that about two-thirds of enterprise computing is still done in company-owned data centers.The study, which polled more than 1,000 IT professionals and data center workers via email earlier this year, found that 65% of enterprise workloads were running in data centers owned or operated by those enterprises, and that that number is just about the same as it was in 2014.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Microsoft to slash cloud-connection rights for stand-alone Office + Old Windows Server machines can still fend off hacks. Here's howTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
New products of the weekImage by HPEOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Bluescape visual collaboration softwareImage by bluescapeTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. National Security Agency will no longer sift through emails, texts and other internet communications that mention targets of surveillance.The change, which the NSA announced on Friday, stops a controversial tactic that critics said violated U.S. citizens' privacy rights.The practice involved flagging communications where a foreign surveillance target was mentioned, even if that target wasn't involved in the conversation. Friday’s announcement means the NSA will stop collecting this data.“Instead, this surveillance will now be limited to only those communications that are directly ‘to’ or ‘from’ a foreign intelligence target,” the NSA said in a statement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A new malware program that targets macOS users is capable of spying on encrypted browser traffic to steal sensitive information.The new program, dubbed OSX/Dok by researchers from Check Point Software Technologies, was distributed via email phishing campaigns to users in Europe.One of the rogue emails was crafted to look as if it was sent by a Swiss government agency warning recipients about apparent errors in their tax returns. The malware was attached to the email as a file called Dokument.zip.What makes OSX/Dok interesting is that it was digitally signed with a valid Apple developer certificate. These certificates are issued by Apple to members of its developer program and are needed to publish applications in the official Mac App Store.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here