It's been quite some time since we've seen a brand new iPhone design. In fact, Apple has essentially relied upon the same iPhone design since the iPhone 6 was first introduced all the way back in 2014. Now there's certainly nothing wrong with the current design -- which is rather sleek and svelte -- but products that don't evolve in the fast moving world of technology are easy to categorize as stale.Of course, the iPhone 7 is hardly stale underneath the hood, but a strong case can be made that iPhone owners are desperately hoping for a brand new redesign. Not to worry, the upcoming iPhone 8 will reportedly heed the call.According to a variety of sources, Apple's iPhone 8 will introduce a cutting edge new design with an edge to edge OLED display. What's more, the display itself is said to occupy the entire front face of the device, which is to say that Apple will completely eliminate both the top and bottom bezels.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Internet of Things (IoT) is hitting a tipping point. While there has been a fair amount of IoT chatter and hype over the past few years, deployments have been limited to the traditional machine to machine (M2M) verticals such as oil and gas, mining and manufacturing. Over the past couple of years, though, more verticals have been looking to connect more non-traditional IoT devices.The reason I think we’re at this tipping point is because businesses aren’t referring to these deployments as “IoT” but rather it’s becoming normal operations to connect more and more devices. + Also on Network World: The Internet of Things security threat +
Healthcare has rapidly been connecting patient devices, retailers are making point-of-sale systems “smart,” hotels are looking to improve the guest experience, and sports and entertainment venues are connecting more devices. While these verticals may seem different, the commonality of IoT initiatives is that when everything is connected, you can change the way the business interacts with customers, students, patients, patrons, employees or other constituents that interact with the organization. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Intel NUC Kit NUC6i5SYH is a Mini PC with the power of a desktop PC. Equipped with Intel’s newest architecture, the 6th generation Intel Core i5-6260U processor, NUC6i5SYK has the performance to stream media, manage spreadsheets, or create presentations all in a 4x4” form factor. With 7.1 surround sound and an HDMI port for brilliant 4K resolution, the NUC6i5SYH is an ideal home theater PC. There’s room for a 2.5” SSD or HDD and up to 32 GB of RAM. This NUC is a barebones kit, meaning it is ready to accept the memory, storage, and operating system of your choice. It's currently listed as a #1 best seller on Amazon with 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 160 people (read recent reviews here). It's typical list price of $386 has been reduced 22% to $299.99, a good deal that may not be available for very long. See the discounted Intel NUC Kit on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
San Francisco -- IBM’s Watson supercomputer can now consult with the company’s security information and event management (SIEM) platform to deliver well researched responses to security events and do so much faster than a person.Called IBM Q Radar with Watson, the new offering is the introduction of IBM’s push for a cognitive security operations center (SOC) that will be built around Watson contributing to decisions made in tandem with other security products from the vendor. IBM announced the service at the RSA Conference 2017.In the case of Q Radar, when the SIEM catches a security event, human security analysts can choose to enlist Watson’s help analyzing the event to determine whether it fits into a known pattern of threat and put it a broader context, IBM says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
What if all your company’s computers and applications were connected directly to the Internet? That was the assumption behind BeyondCorp, a new model for network security that Google proposed back in 2014, and it’s one that’s starting to get some attention from networking and security vendors.Enterprises have moved beyond the traditional workspace in recent years, allowing employees to work remotely by using their personal devices and accessing apps in private or public clouds. To bring roaming workers back into the fold, under the security blanket of their local networks, companies rely on VPNs and endpoint software to enforce network access controls.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It's a sad state of affairs when business apps need security measures, but that's what it has come to these days. Microsoft has added some new features to Office 365 designed to add intelligence to catch suspicious behavior and mitigate risk, which it outlined in a recent blog post. Office 365 also needs these security measures because it is cloud based. That means its users are connecting outside their firewall, which adds all kinds of risk, both from intrusion and accidental data loss. There are three new security features: Office 365 Secure Score, Office 365 Threat Intelligence Private Preview, and Office 365 Advanced Data Governance Preview. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It’s a great time to be in networking. Anytime we connect an object or an experience to the network, we change its nature and increase its value. The network effect of connecting more and more things in more ways is driving exponential benefit to the pioneers who are imagining the many new possibilities. The voice-controlled home assistant, connected car, connected spare bedroom and other innovations are early examples that we already take for granted.The age of the network is here. This means the network gets built into every product and service, and that requires the network to be everywhere and you can connect to it all the time. Mobile has gotten pretty darn good in recent years. Unless, of course, you’re on a certain floor or in a certain area of a large building. Dead zones still occur regularly behind commercial-grade walls and energy-efficient windows.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The technology industry is perhaps the biggest user (some might say abuser) of buzzwords. Who can recall the scene on HBO's comedy "Silicon Valley" where startup after startup tried to show just how hip they were by detailing their focus on social, mobile and local? We had SoLoMo, MoLoSo, LoSoMo and every other combination under the sun.The reality is that, 9 times out of 10, buzzwords mean nothing other than giving potential customers the ability to tick another box on their assessment forms.So I was a little skeptical when ExtraHop -- a vendor that offers organizations the ability to monitor all of the traffic occurring across their networks -- pitched me on its new SaaS offering that, according to the company, has lots of machine-learning goodness on tap.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Talk of a new version of Windows 10, dubbed "Cloud," surfaced last week as eagle-eyed bloggers uncovered clues in a recent beta and preliminary code leaked to the Internet.It was unclear what purpose another edition would serve, but because it will apparently run only Universal Windows Platform (UWP) apps obtained from Microsoft's store, many assumed that Windows 10 Cloud would play rival to Google's Chrome OS, the browser-based operating system for Chromebook personal computers.[ Related: Fix Windows 10 problems with these free Microsoft tools ]
Chromebooks have gained ground in education, where their low cost -- both in device price and in managing those devices -- has been irresistible to many schools. In response, Microsoft joined forces with chip maker Qualcomm to announce that the former's partners would market Windows PCs powered by ARM-based silicon later this year. For its part, Microsoft will craft a version of Windows 10 for ARM chips.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It's common knowledge that where you work -- meaning who employs you -- impacts your happiness. But according to new data from employee review site Kununu, your workplace happiness is also affected by location, location, location.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Fighting severe size and power constraints, the makers of smartphones have achieved levels of ingenuity not seen on the desktop. This results in mobile devices that not only have multiple cores, but multiple sizes and types of cores.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
As-a-service offerings for things such as DDoS and malware -- including ransomware -- via exploit kits has seriously lowered the bar for entry into the criminal market. Hackers no longer need to have sophisticated skills in order to gain entry into the world of cybercrime.According to Geoff Webb, vice president of strategy at Micro Focus, the industrialization of the processes and the availability of the tools has created this expanded forum that allows non-technical people, anyone really, to enter into the digital crime market. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It warms a hacker's heartImage by ThinkstockValentine’s Day is historically about love, flowers and chocolate. Unless you're a hacker, then it’s about worms, vulnerabilities, data theft and more. Preying on our need for love and affection, hackers have historically unleashed some hard-hitting attacks around Valentine’s Day, or in relation to the topic of love. So, before you open that Valentine’s Day email or click through to that online dating site, WatchGuard’s Marc Laliberte runs you through some of the most nefarious love-related cyber-attacks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Sometimes innovation is best left on the drawing boardImage by Ryan WhitwamIt's hard for a phone to get noticed by consumers when it looks like all the other flat black slabs out there. That has led some OEMs to try some particularly wacky things—gimmicks to set them apart. Just because a gimmick is new doesn't mean it's good. In fact, there are a lot of gimmicks that look cool at a tradeshow, but in real life they're terrible ideas. Here are some of the worst to make it to market.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
I recently served as master of ceremonies for a digital B2B conference in Europe. Of the many great presentations, one that caught my attention described how one scopes, develops and delivers minimum viable product (MVP).
MVP is a product state that is purposely designed to do the basic job. It is viable, but also minimal in its extra features, functions and overall look and feel. Regardless of whether a website, mobile app or kiosk is used to promote a brand or sell a physical product and collect payment, delivered as a MVP, each would be initially launched with minimum capabilities and provide a simplistic look and feel.Why MVP?
The concept of minimum viable products was introduced as a way to get a product into a market fast and with low risk. The product is quickly designed and launched, followed by refining and improving the product based on feedback garnered from the customers using the product. This quite formulaic approach allows companies to churn out products as quickly as possible. More important, if they were to fail, the process would be faster and cheaper.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
RSA Conference underwayImage by Web SummitRSA, the world’s largest security conference, is underway this week in San Francisco with attendees from around the world gathering to hear the latest strategies for fighting cyberattacks. They’ll also be able to view the latest hardware and software to protect their most valuable corporate assets. Here is a brief description of some new security products being announced at the conference.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Two senators have written to the U.S. Department of Defense about reports that President Donald Trump may still be using an old unsecured Android phone, including to communicate through his Twitter account.“While it is important for the President to have the ability to communicate electronically, it is equally important that he does so in a manner that is secure and that ensures the preservation of presidential records,” Tom Carper, a Democrat from Delaware, and Claire McCaskill, a Democrat from Missouri, wrote in the letter, which was made public Monday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Companies looking for a new video- and teleconferencing system have a fresh face to turn to in the market: Amazon Web Services.On Monday, the public cloud provider announced the launch of Amazon Chime, a new service that’s designed to compete with the likes of WebEx, Skype for Business and GoToMeeting. It’s a powerful swing at some very entrenched enterprise software players by the public cloud provider.AWS launched the service with native applications for Windows, MacOS, iOS and Android. Chime’s infrastructure is based in the U.S., but Gene Farrell, AWS’s vice president of enterprise applications, said that the service can be accessed worldwide.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A security researcher is showing that it’s not hard to hold industrial control systems for ransom. He's experimented with a simulated water treatment system based on actual programmable logic controllers (PLCs) and documented how these can be hacked.David Formby, a PhD student at Georgia Institute of Technology, conducted his experiment to warn the industry about the danger of poorly-secured PLCs. These small dedicated computers can be used to control important factory processes or utilities, but are sometimes connected to the internet.For instance, Formby found that 1,500 of these industrial PLCs are accessible online, he said while speaking at the RSA cybersecurity conference on Monday. It's not hard to imagine a hacker trying to exploit these exposed PLCs, he added. Cybercriminals have been infecting businesses across the world with ransomware, a form of malware that can hold data hostage in exchange for bitcoin.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Qualcomm will start shipping sample chips for the next generation of Wi-Fi by June, helping device and network vendors develop products that might quadruple users’ speeds and lengthen battery life.The new silicon uses an early version of IEEE 802.11ax, a specification designed to make wireless LANs more efficient and increase their performance as a result. The formal standard isn’t expected to be signed off until late next year, but it’s common for some components using a new standard to ship before that step takes place.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here