Wi-Fi is an obvious candidate for connecting almost any device that can be plugged into a wall, because it’s already running in nearly every home that has broadband. But can all those products work in lockstep when timing matters, like while video and audio are streaming on several devices?The Wi-Fi Alliance says it has a way to make sure they do. On Thursday at CES, the industry group announced Wi-Fi Certified TimeSync, a specification for precise time synchronization among Wi-Fi devices. It’s expected to be available in the middle of this year.When Wi-Fi began as a wireless way to send packets of data between computers, synchronized clocks didn’t matter. When the packets arrived, the screen appeared or the page was printed. But now that Wi-Fi has a growing role in home entertainment, timing matters.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A malicious program called KillDisk that has been used in the past to wipe data from computers during cyberespionage attacks is now encrypting files and asking for an unusually large ransom.KillDisk was one of the components associated with the Black Energy malware that a group of attackers used in December 2015 to hit several Ukrainian power stations, cutting power for thousands of people. A month before that, it was used against a major news agency in Ukraine.Since then, KillDisk has been used in other attacks, most recently against several targets from the shipping sector, according to security researchers from antivirus vendor ESET.However, the latest versions have evolved and now act like ransomware. Instead of wiping the data from the disk, the malware encrypts it and displays a message asking for 222 bitcoins to restore them. That's the equivalent of $216,000, an unusually large sum of money for a ransomware attack.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
CES has turned into the first car show of the year, with major automakers choosing to show off upcoming features in Las Vegas. Microsoft wants to help make cars more intelligent, and it unveiled a new suite of services Thursday to do so.The Connected Vehicle Platform brings together a smorgasbord of services from Microsoft, including Azure IoT Hub, Cortana Intelligence Suite, Microsoft Dynamics and many others. In addition, Office 365, Skype for Business and Cortana can be integrated with the platform.It’s not a surprising move. Microsoft frequently packages cloud services as suites, then markets them for kick-starting particular applications. Furthermore, the company has been saying for some time that its goal in car tech is to support carmakers rather than build its own connected cars.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
For the ultimate protection against drops and scratches, Spigen has invented the Rugged Armor case for your 42mm Apple Watch. The case features glossy accents and carbon fiber textures, and air absorption for superior shock protection. The product ships with 2 screen protectors as well, and is currently listed for just $11.99, 20% off its list price. See the deal on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In 2020, 4K will be passe. The 2020 Tokyo Olympics will be broadcast in the 8K resolution, which is four times deeper than 4K.The 8K resolution -- 7680 x 4320 pixels -- will make movies will look stunning, and gaming will be even better than on today's PlayStation Pro or Xbox One S.There's a good chance you aren't thinking of 8K yet because you haven't even moved to 4K. The early 8K adopters will be gamers looking to buy the latest and greatest hardware, and creative professionals making 8K content.Content creation is as important as the hardware itself, and efforts to broadcast at 8K are underway. PCs are getting ready: Microsoft has said Windows 10 will support 8K.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It’s no surprise that lots of pundits and cybersecurity industry insiders claim that 2017 will be a challenging year full of nation state attacks, ransomware, and a continuing wave of data breaches. I concur with this common wisdom, but I also believe that 2017 will be remembered as the year where cybersecurity analytics and operations encountered a wave of unprecedented scale. Now I know that the need for security scalability is nothing new. Leading SIEM vendors can all talk about how they’ve had to rearchitect their products over the past few years to scale from thousands to millions of events per second (EPS) and somehow make sense of all this activity. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It’s no surprise that lots of pundits and cybersecurity industry insiders claim that 2017 will be a challenging year full of nation state attacks, ransomware, and a continuing wave of data breaches. I concur with this common wisdom, but I also believe 2017 will be remembered as the year where cybersecurity analytics and operations encountered a wave of unprecedented scale. Now, I know that the need for security scalability is nothing new. Leading SIEM vendors can all talk about how they’ve had to rearchitect their products over the past few years to scale from thousands to millions of events per second (EPS) and somehow make sense of all this activity. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. government should consider a broad range of retaliations against Russia for its attempts to interfere with November's presidential election, the outgoing director of national intelligence recommended.The default response to cyberattacks shouldn't necessarily be a cyber one, intelligence director James Clapper said Thursday. "We should consider all instruments of national power," he told a Senate committee. "We currently cannot put a lot of stock ... in cyber deterrence. Unlike nuclear weapons, cyber capabilities are difficult to see and evaluate and are ephemeral."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
There'll be a to-do list from the IT department in the president's "in" tray when Donald Trump enters the White House later this month.In a cabinet exit memo published Thursday, the Office of Science and Technology Director John P Holdren and U.S. CTO Megan Smith review President Barack Obama's technology achievements, and set 10 technology priorities for his successor.Twitter doesn't get a mention.At the top of Holdren's and Smith's list is to invest in fundamental research, and to publish the results. Such work may one day lead to profitable products, but the pay-off is too far in the future to motivate most businesses to contribute -- and were they to do so, they would probably keep the results to themselves.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Residents of a small island community in Virginia are up in arms over Verizon insisting the town’s volunteer fire company pony up $73,000 to have telecommunications equipment moved off a parcel of land on which the department is building a new firehouse.
At the center of the clash is the Chincoteague Volunteer Fire Company, which besides selflessly protecting the island’s 3,000 residents is also renowned for its stewardship over the Chincoteague Ponies, a herd of 150 wild horses that, well, has nothing to do with the Verizon dispute but is so interesting you should take a few minutes to check out this website.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The adoption of smart city technology to manage traffic, water supplies, air pollution and other needs will see an upswing this year in U.S. cities, according to AT&T's smart city executive and a market research analyst.IBM and Cisco have been pitching the themes of a smarter planet and the internet of everything for more than five years. Now, city governments nationwide are pushing pilot projects of these efforts and seeking ways to raise revenues for tech deployments by issuing bonds and imposing sales taxes to pay for them."2016 was when a lot of cities and their leadership got active around wanting to become smarter, but 2017 is the year we'll see cities move from the project phase to building out a holistic framework for smart technology," said Mike Zeto, general manager of the AT&T Smart Cities business unit, in an interview.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Intel is serious about bringing its Project Alloy untethered VR headset to the masses. On Wednesday, company CEO Brian Krzanich said at the company's CES press conference that it will be available in the fourth quarter of 2017. That will be roughly a year and a half after the company announced it at the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco.It’s still unknown how much a Project Alloy headset will cost, or even which company will make it. Krzanich said that the headsets will be made available through Intel’s hardware partners, but didn’t provide details beyond that.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
“Digital” is the new “cloud.” Once upon a time, these words meant something. Now they mean whatever a speaker wants them to mean -- especially if, internally or externally, they’re trying to sell you something. Not surprising, this level of ambiguity has created a fertile environment for mythical thinking.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
In the first week of the new Congress, U.S. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) is attempting to win support for a controversial H-1B reform bill.The bill, introduced Wednesday, is called the "Protect and Grow American Jobs Act" (HR 170) and co-sponsored by Rep. Scott Peters (D-Calif.). It is aimed at tightening, but not closing, a loophole in the visa law that has benefitted large H-1B-using firms.[To comment on this story, visit Computerworld's Facebook page.]Issa introduced this bipartisan bill last July. It faced some criticism and stalled in committee. The big difference this year is the impending inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Want to make a cool $20,000?All you have to do is hack the Nintendo 3DS, a handheld console that’s been out for a few years already. A listing on HackerOne spells everything out: Hackers will receive a cash payment for discovering a vulnerability in the system, which does let gamers make purchases and stores private information like your age and gender. There’s a range for this, of course -- some discoveries will pay $100. Also, anyone who files a report must follow the exact template.It makes you wonder -- why would a major Japanese corporation offer a reward like this? Why is it even worth the expense, especially when you know they have internal security researchers?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Increased user awareness of phishing threats, better antivirus technology, more industry-wide information sharing and cross-border efforts by law enforcement authorities will combine to turn the tide against ransomware this year, according to some security experts, but others expect the attacks to continue to increase.According to a security expert who requested anonymity, ransomware cybercriminals took in about $1 billion last year, based on money coming into ransomware-related Bitcoin wallets.That includes more than $50 million each for three wallets associated with the Locky ransomware, and a fourth one that processed close to $70 million. Cryptowall brought in close to $100 million before it was shut down this year. CryptXXX gathered in $73 million during the second half of 2016, and Cerber took in $54 million, the expert said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Dynamic resource management for cloud computing is at a critical crossroad. The ultimate objective when provisioning software-defined infrastructure, synchronizing inter-cloud resources, or allocating network bandwidth is allowing applications to successfully execute on demand without concern for capacity. While these approaches are effective in supplying applications with additional capacity on demand, the downside is that application performance may not be optimized in the process.Cloud applications and services have become so complex that the runtime synchronization of resources required to support them drags down overall performance and leaves capacity unused. To tap this unused capacity, and deliver the performance expected, we need to enhance resource management with something like intelligent resource execution.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In 2016, I wrote several columns encouraging readers to begin taking steps to turn their networks into a platform for innovation. As I’ve said previously, forward-thinking companies view the network as an asset, rather than an expense, and leverage its full benefits to enable new services, new sources of revenue, and new ways to compete. But let’s be honest, agreeing in theory is one thing; getting started is something else altogether.So, in the spirit of New Year’s resolutions for 2017, let’s actually peel back the onion a bit. Over the next few columns, we’re going to roll up our sleeves and get to work.Let’s begin.3 steps to turn your network into a growth engine for your business
To make it as is simple as possible, here are three things you can do in 2017 to realize this sometimes daunting, but more-important-than-ever, network revitalization:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The 10 most revolutionary iPhone featuresImage by ThinkstockTen years ago, Steve Jobs stepped on the stage at the Moscone Center in San Francisco and introduced the world to the iPhone. “I have been looking forward to this for two and a half years,” Jobs said that day. “And today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone.” To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Sweet 15Image by AppleApple announced the iPhone on January 9, 2007, and brought computing into the palms of our hands. More than any other device since the PC, the iPhone represents a change in the way citizens of wealthy countries interact with the world. Of course, the iPhone isn’t just a single gadget, but rather 15 of them. Have a look.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here