President Barack Obama has commuted the prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, the former U.S. soldier who disclosed classified data to WikiLeaks relating to the Iraq War.Manning was originally serving a 35-year sentence, but on Tuesday Obama reduced it. She’ll now be freed on May 17.Manning was convicted of leaking U.S. military and diplomatic information to WikiLeaks back in 2010 that included videos of airstrikes in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with classified documents sent to the U.S. State Department. She was arrested and began serving jail time the same year.The data supplied by Manning helped put WikiLeaks on the map as source for secret government information but drew swift condemnation from U.S. officials. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Hewlett Packard Enterprise has agreed to buy SimpliVity for US$650 million as expands its hyperconverged offerings, and analysts believe it's a great deal.SimpliVity makes management software that helps administrators gain control over data-center resources. The tools help enterprises make efficient use of server, storage and networking resources.The deal is expected to close in the second quarter.For months, HPE was rumored to be pursuing SimpliVity, which also offers convergence tools for servers from Dell, Lenovo and Huawei. Hyperconvergence companies are a hot commodity. Nutanix, a top player in the market, went public in September last year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Oracle executives today revealed the results of years’ worth of engineering and development efforts on its IaaS public cloud and announced a new bare metal cloud database service and an international geographic expansion.
Oracle is typically not considered one of the top IaaS public cloud leaders, but the company has hopes of competing in the market by combining its infrastructure services – which focus on its core database services – with a suite of application development and software as a service offerings. At its Cloud World event in New York today, company executives laid out their vision of how they will take on competitors such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Salesforce.com.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft on Monday reminded customers running Windows 7 that they have just three years of support remaining, told them that the aged OS was "long outdated" and urged them to upgrade to Windows 10.Windows 7 will exit what Microsoft calls Extended Support on Jan. 14, 2020; at that point, the company will stop all security updates.Microsoft used the three-years-and-counting milestone to simultaneously denigrate Windows 7 and promote its successor. "Windows 7 is based on long-outdated security architectures," said Markus Nitschke, the head of Microsoft Germany, in a post to a German-language company blog, adding that the OS "does not meet the requirements of modern technology, nor the high security requirements of IT departments."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Free Software Foundation
The Free Software Foundation Tuesday announced a major rethinking of the software projects that it supports, putting top priority on a free mobile operating system, accessibility, and driver development, among other areas.
The foundation has maintained the High Priority Projects list since 2005, when it contained just four free software projects. Today’s version mostly identifies priority areas, along with a few specific projects in key areas:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Researchers at top universities, backed by funding from federal and other outfits, are pumping out loads of research on network security, wireless networking and more. Here's a recap of 7 impressive projects from recent months.1. Not that you trust mobile apps in the first place…
Carnegie Mellon University researchers took a deep dive into about 18,000 popular free apps on the Google Play store and found that not only about half of them lacked a privacy policy but a good number of those that have policies aren’t adhering to them.
As many as 4 in 10 apps with policies could be collecting location information and nearly 1 in 5 could be sharing that data without getting your permission to do so, To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Artificial intelligence should enhance human workers, not replace them, at least according to the CEOs of IBM and Microsoft.Ginny Rometty and Satya Nadella made clear their view of the role of AI in a panel discussion at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Tuesday, just a few hours after Rometty circulated IBM's three guiding principles for the development of cognitive technologies to company staff.Less dramatic and snappily expressed than Isaac Asimov's three laws of robotics, IBM's three principles are nevertheless intended to limit the harm the introduction of AI technologies causes.The first thing to understand is the purpose of these technologies. For IBM, Rometty said, "it will not be man or machine: Our purpose is to augment and be in service of what humans do."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
After months of recalls, scares, and device-killing software updates, Samsung is finally ready to reveal the results of its investigation into the exploding Galaxy Note7s. According to a report from Reuters, the electronics giant will detail its findings on Jan. 23, and to the surprise of no one, it has concluded that the battery is the culprit.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Many developers still embed sensitive access tokens and API keys into their mobile applications, putting data and other assets stored on various third-party services at risk.A new study performed by cybersecurity firm Fallible on 16,000 Android applications revealed that about 2,500 had some type of secret credential hard-coded into them. The apps were scanned with an online tool released by the company in November.Hard-coding access keys for third-party services into apps can be justified when the access they provide is limited in scope. However, in some cases, developers include keys that unlock access to sensitive data or systems that can be abused.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft will ship its first PC-attached mixed reality headsets for Windows 10 PCs to developers starting in March at the Game Developers Conference.The first Windows 10 VR headsets from Microsoft will be units for developers to write and test applications based on the Windows Holographic platform.The headsets will work with Windows 10 Creators Update, said Vlad Kolesnikov, senior program manager at Microsoft, during a webcast on Friday.GDC is being held from Feb. 27 to March 3 in San Francisco.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Terrorist groups are embracing a huge number of digital tools to recruit members and plan attacks, putting them a step ahead of governments trying to combat them, a group of counterterrorism experts said.Twitter removed about 250,000 accounts connected with ISIS in one year, but the terrorist group uses 90 other social media platforms, Rob Wainwright, the director of Europol said Tuesday. Terrorist groups have begun to live stream their attacks, and they are using the internet to launch "innovative crowdfunding" campaigns, he said at the World Economic Forum in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland."The technology is advanced," Wainwright added. "They know what to do, and they know how to use it."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Just a few years ago, there were about 6 to 10 well regarded AV vendors that dominated the market. Fast forward to 2017 and my colleague Doug Cahill and I are currently tracking around 50 endpoint security vendors. Why has this market changed so much in such a short timeframe? New types of targeted threats regularly circumvented signature-based AV software over the past few years. This weakness led to system compromises, data breaches, and panicky CISOs in search of AV alternatives. This in turn persuaded the fat cats on Sand Hill Rd. to throw VC dollars at anything that hinted at endpoint security innovation.Okay, I get the need for more than signature-based AV but there simply isn’t room in the market for 50 endpoint security vendors. Thus, it’s safe to assume a lot of M&A activity and outright business failures this year. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
TP-Link has discounted its 50W smart bulb 43% to just $19.99. Use the Kasa app to turn on/off or dim from anywhere in the world. Set up a schedule, set the mood, and even control with your voice via an Alexa-enabled device such as Echo or Dot. Reviewers rate 4 out of 5 stars (see reviews) on Amazon, where you can get yourself one (or more) for just $20, a good deal considering it typically lists north of $20 and sometimes $30 with various online retailers. See the discounted TP-Link smart LED bulb on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Internet access has gone through several generations that started with dial-up modems. I still remember my “blazing fast” upgrade from 24 kbps to 56 kbps.Dial-up modems gave way to always-on broadband solutions. Initially there were two choices: Cable (DOCSIS) and telephone (DSL). Wireless (LTE) has emerged over the past few years as a viable option for connectivity beyond smartphones.Many investors think the next generation will be wireless connectivity. It’s unfortunate that “Skynet” is associated with the villainous, fictional neural machines from the Terminator movies because each of these solutions will deliver the internet from the sky. After all, the sky is where the clouds are.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The company that provides GPUs to Apple's iPhones now wants to shake up the Android landscape by bringing high-quality VR experiences to low-end phones.
GPUs from Imagination Technologies are used in both iPhones and Android handsets. The company's latest PowerVR Series8XE Plus GPU will be installed in Android handsets priced between US $200 and $400.
The use of virtual reality in Android devices is growing fast. But most VR-capable phones, like the ones supporting Google's DayDream platform, are expensive because of powerful GPUs and high-resolution screens. Cheap VR headsets like Google Cardboard can be used with inexpensive phones, but the experience is uneven.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency has revoked its November 2016 finding that Arista’s redesigned products don’t infringe a key Cisco patent -- as a result Cisco called on Arista to stop importing those products and recall others sold with redesigned software.The finding is the latest round in a high-stakes battle between Cisco and Arista over patents and copyrights that has been going on since 2014. In the summer of 2016 the US Trade Representative began an import ban as well as a cease and desist order covering Arista products imposed by the International Trade Commission in June where it ruled that Arista had infringed on a number of Cisco’s technology patents.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you hate hitting a digital dead end, such as by surfing to a 404 or “page not found” error, then Chrome and Firefox users should consider doing away with them altogether…that is, as long as there is an archived copy available.When you surf to a dead link, both browsers have an extension/add-on which will automatically offer to serve up a preserved copy of the page via the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine. It’s one way to push back against “link rot,” meaning all those URLs that return nothing of value since sites are redesigned and undergo structural changes that result in broken links.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Shopping can be fun but also harrowing, especially in electronics or shoe stores. You can't find help or can't figure out if a specific product is in stock.In the future, the shopping experience should be much better thanks to technology. The store will recognize you, dig into your shopping habits, and guide you in the right direction. If your favorite product is in the store, retailers will make sure you know through messaging.That Minority Report-type technology is still many years away but will be possible with the magic of sensors, cameras, and data analytics. But some retailers have an early start: Some furniture stores are already using virtual reality so buyers can preview how furniture will look in a room.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Of course, in the digital world, anyone can claim to be anyone. Yet a person claiming to be the IT director of a medical marijuana dispensary took to Slashdot in hopes of receiving legal advice after the point of sale system the MMJ used was hacked.Denver-based MJ Freeway, a medical marijuana “seed-to-sale” tracking software company experienced a “service interruption” – that turned out to be a hack – a week ago on January 8. The hack of the point-of-sale system left more than 1,000 retail cannabis clients in 23 states unable to track sales and inventories. Without a way to keep records in order to comply with state regulations, some dispensaries shut down, while others reverted to tracking sales via pen and paper.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you’re looking at deploying 802.11ac Wi-Fi access point (AP) technology, as most companies have already, you may want to consider upgrading the speed of your wired connection between your APs and your wiring-closet Ethernet switch to avoid the kind of network saturation that puts a damper on worker productivity.
The 802.11ac Wi-Fi standard now accounts for 67.1% of dependent wireless AP shipments and more than 80% of revenue, “setting the stage for near obsolescence of the 802.11n standard by 2018 in the mainstream enterprise segment,” according to the research firm IDC.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here