ARM has a big problem -- it rules in smartphones and tablets but hasn't broken into servers and supercomputers. ARM servers are devalued partly because many applications don't work with the chips.But ARM has acquired Allinea Software with the hope of partially resolving the compatibility issue. Allinea provides software development, debugging, and porting tools, which should make it easier for people to write applications for ARM-based servers and supercomputers.The acquisition will "provide a channel to thousands of developers using supercomputers and give us better first-hand knowledge of the issues being addressed as software is ported to new ARM-based systems," Javier Orensanz, general manager of the development solutions group at ARM, said in a blog entry.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Red Hat just announced that it is making Red Hat OpenStack Platform 10 available. This release is based upon the OpenStack ‘Newton’ release and is designed to increase system-wide scalability, simplify management and improve workload orchestration. It will also enhance both network performance and security.
Additionally, Red Hat OpenStack Platform 10 introduces a new software life cycle, with optional support up to 5 years.New features
New enhancements and updates to Red Hat OpenStack Platform 10 include:
A more streamlined user experience driven by an easier-to-use graphical user interface (GUI) that reduces the complexities of installation and management. Designed for production use, the Red Hat OpenStack Platform director GUI provides several newly integrated functions, such as automatic upgrades and updates (including Ceph), advanced networking configuration, high availability, and the option to deploy file sharing via the Manila service, using the integrated drivers available from NetApp and Red Hat Ceph Storage.
Improved flexibility for greater scalability through the introduction of customizable services and administration roles using Red Hat OpenStack Platform director. Cloud operators are now able to control their OpenStack environment at a more granular level by customizing OpenStack services to run and scale independently of each other. This offers greater Continue reading
Without the macOS update released this week, Apple's disk encryption can be easily defeated by connecting a specially crafted device to a locked Macbook.The attack is possible because devices connected over Thunderbolt can access the computer's RAM directly before the OS is started through the direct memory access (DMA) feature. The DMA mechanism is typically used by disk drive controllers, graphics cards, network cards, and sound cards because accessing the memory through the CPU would otherwise keep the processor busy and unavailable for other tasks.Apple's macOS has DMA protections, but they only kick in when the OS is running. However, the EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) -- the modern BIOS -- initializes Thunderbolt devices at an early stage in the boot process and this enables them to use DMA before the OS is started, security researcher Ulf Frisk said in a blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Evernote CEO Chris O'Neill has had a long couple of days. The company he runs recently ignited a firestorm among its users when it announced a privacy policy change that would have required users to open up all their notes for analysis in order to take advantage of forthcoming machine learning features. "We let our users down," he said in an interview. "We really tactically communicated in about as poor a way as we could."Evernote is going back to the drawing board and reversing course on the proposed policy. Users won't have their data shared with employees to help with machine learning unless they explicitly opt in. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A giftScam artists see the holidays as an opportunity to rip people off. This year is no different. PhishMe’s Chief Threat Scientist Gary Warner has caught a few to share.Paypal: Suspicious activityImage by PhishMeTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A Russian-speaking hacker has been found selling stolen login credentials for a U.S. agency that tests and certifies voting equipment, according to a security firm.The hacker was attempting to sell more than 100 allegedly compromised login credentials belonging to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), the security firm Record Future said in a Thursday blog post. The company said it discovered online chatter about the breach on Dec. 1.Some of these credentials included the highest administrative privileges. With such access, an intruder could steal sensitive information from the commission, which the hacker claimed to have done, Recorded Future said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
CSS3Image by Mark Gibbs / NikotafAlong with HTML5 and JavaScript, Cascading Style Sheets (particularly version 3) have evolved into a cornerstone of modern Web content design. CSS is used to not only set the visual style of a Web page and its contents, it also allows for sophisticated control of user interaction and animation, printing, and device detection. In this roundup, I’m highlighting some of the most powerful and novel pure CSS libraries (pure, as in they work their magic without the aid of JavaScript or anything else). If you have a favorite CSS3 library, pure or not, you think I should include in the next collection, let me know.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you’re into photography you’ll probably have tried all sorts of software tools in the quest for the perfect image. Over the years my favorite apps for managing, tweaking, and massaging images have been Adobe Lightroom and, when I want very specific results, Adobe Photoshop. The problem that I have had with Photoshop, in common with many other people, is that getting really good at correcting problems takes a lot of time and experience; Photoshop is not only complex but its features are so remarkably broad that photo editing becomes death by choices.Recently I’ve come across some software titles for OS X (macOS … whatever) that makes much of the power of Photoshop available in what you might consider pre-packaged forms for very reasonable prices. And, as we will see, some of the apps also operate as Photoshop plug-ins making serious photo editing easier. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Citrix is a bit like the pachyderm in the proverb about the blind men and the elephant. How customers describe the company depends a lot on which of Citrix’s diverse products they touch. It’s a desktop and app virtualization company. It’s a networking company. A secure file sharing company, a mobility management firm.Mobility and networkingTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Internet giant Yahoo announced a massive data breach Wednesday that affected over one billion accounts, making it by far the largest data breach in history. This follows the disclosure in September of a different breach that affected more than 500 million of the company's customers.What stands out with this new security compromise is that it occurred over three years ago, in August 2013, and that hackers walked away with password hashes that can be easily cracked.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cisco Systems suffered a major defeat in its long legal fight against rival Arista Networks on Wednesday when a federal court jury rejected its demand for damages.The jury in the Northern California district court in San Jose also ruled Arista didn’t infringe a Cisco patent, nor Cisco’s copyright on its user manuals, Arista said in a statement. Other patents had been removed from the case earlier.Cisco sued Arista, an upstart maker of enterprise network gear, for patent and copyright infringement in 2014. It alleged the company had copied Cisco’s products and the CLI (command-line interface) that engineers have long used to configure and manage Cisco switches and routers. Arista was founded by former Cisco executives in 2004.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
TEKsystems 2017 IT forecast shows IT budgets rebounding from a slump in 2016, and IT leaders' confidence high going into the new year. But challenges around talent acquisition and organizational alignment will persist.The research, which polled 700 CIOs, IT hiring managers, directors and vice presidents in October 2016, found that almost half, 49 percent, expect their IT budgets to increase in 2017. Only 12 percent of respondents say their IT budgets will decrease, and 39 percent say their budgets will stay the same.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A Wednesday summit between some of the most powerful people in technology and U.S. president-elect Donald Trump covered a wide ground but avoided discussion on two of the biggest issues facing the industry: the use of encryption and government surveillance.Trump's team called the meeting the start of "a conversation and partnership in order to spark innovation and create more jobs in the U.S." and said it could be repeated as often as once a quarter once he assumes the presidency.Many in Silicon Valley had been vocal opponents of Trump prior to the election, but in meeting executives of the region's biggest companies on Wednesday, Trump sought to gain their support. In particular, he asked them for "specific innovative solutions that have been blocked by narrow thinking in Washington," his team said in a statement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cloud providers and large enterprises don't know enough about what's going on in their networks, according to Nokia.The networking equipment vendor wants to remedy that by enhancing its products with technologies from U.S. IP network analytics vendor Deepfield, which it has just announced plans to acquire. Deepfield provides real-time information about application demand and data flows that Nokia intends to use to help its SDN (software-defined networks) steer traffic.Nokia sees Deepfield's analytics tools as a way to help its customers -- including ISPs and telcos, hosting companies and others operating cloud services at scale -- to better control and protect their networks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
No matter where you rank on the totem pole in your company, it's important to resign from your job gracefully. However, for executives, the resignation process looks slightly different. There is a lot to consider before leaving an executive position and going about it the wrong way can quickly become career-damaging down the road.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Google may know more about me than I know about myself.I'm not just saying that, either: I recently started poking around in Google's personal data repositories and realized that, between my wide-reaching use of the company's services and my own brain's inability to remember anything for more than seven seconds, Google may actually have the upper hand when it comes to knowledge about my life.From face-tagged photos of my past adventures (what year did I go to Nashville, again -- and who went with me to that Eddie Vedder show?) to the minute-by-minute play-by-play of my not-so-adventuresome days (wait, you mean I really only left the house once last Wednesday -- and just to get a freakin' sandwich?!), Google's got all sorts of goods on me. Heck, even my hopes and dreams (which may or may not involve sandwiches) are probably catalogued somewhere in its systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Ho-ho, whoaImage by ThinkstockThe downtime created by the holiday season is a fan favorite for enterprise employees and hackers alike. As workers are enjoying time away from the office for vacations or working remotely, hackers are viewing this slow down as an optimal time to attack corporate systems. To avoid having your organization turn into this holiday’s victim, security professionals provide tips for IT managers to protect corporate data, as well as share recommendations for using the slower cycles to test security systems. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Larger enterprises have the resources to not only afford the technology needed to grow in the digital age, but they also have the budget and manpower to build security into their overall ecosystems.Does the K-12 education sector have the means to do the same? As the use of technology becomes more prevalent in public schools, will collecting more data potentially increase the cybersecurity risks for the K-12 sector?Earlier this fall, the Center for Data Innovation released a report, Building a Data-Driven Education System in the United States, in which they said 93 percent of teachers are regularly using digital tools to assist classroom instruction in some capacity.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The rapidly expanding wearable device market raises serious privacy concerns, as some device makers collect a massive amount of personal data and share it with other companies, according to a new study.Existing health privacy laws don't generally apply to wearable makers, the study says. While consumers are embracing fitness trackers, smart watches, and smart clothing, a "weak and fragmented" health privacy regulatory system in the U.S. fails to give consumers the privacy protections they may expect, said the study, released Thursday by the Center for Digital Democracy and the School of Communication at American University.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Though some critics love to knock PCs as dinosaurs, laptops and desktops have gotten sexier, faster and even smarter. For every blue screen of death, there are droves of technological enhancements driving PCs into the era of virtual reality, 4K video and 5G connectivity. Here are the top 10 PC technology and trends to watch next year.VR PCs on your head
Intel/IDGNS
An Intel employee demonstrates the company's Project Alloy headset on stage during IDF 2016 in San Francisco on August 16, 2016.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here