There was a time when differentiating between Apple’s pro and consumer lines was easy. Even after Apple stopped painting its entry-level Macs with candy-flavored colors, there was always a clear separation between the machines meant for professionals and the ones for everyone else. They didn’t just look the part, they delivered the power, performance and features the majority of people didn’t need but pros demanded (and could afford).As the first major revision in more than 4 years, Apple’s new notebooks seem to tick off the right boxes. They’re fast. They have improved retina displays. They’re fitted with the latest expansion ports. The 15-incher is powerful enough to drive a pair of 5K displays. And that’s before we get to the svelte and powerful Touch Bar.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Ring Video Doorbell is the world's first battery-operated, Wi-Fi enabled, HD video doorbell. The device enables homeowners to see and speak with visitors from anywhere in the world by streaming live audio and video of a home's front doorstep directly to the free iOS or Android app. The doorbell's built-in motion sensors detect movement up to 30 feet, and HD video recording stores all recorded footage to the cloud which can be accessed via the Ring app. The Ring Doorbell is quick and easy to set up as it mounts and syncs in minutes and has a built in battery, however, it can also be powered through your existing doorbell wires. Over 11,000 people have reviewed the Ring Video Doorbell on Amazon (read reviews) and have given it an average of 4 out of 5 stars. Right now its list price of $199 has been reduced to $160. See it now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The world's fastest computer runs a Chinese chip, and that fact hasn't escaped notice by the U.S. government.So how does the U.S. government bludgeon the Chinese chip threat? A new U.S. government working group aims to encourage domestic companies to use homegrown chip technology and resist the urge to buy inexpensive Chinese semiconductors.The White House this week established the Semiconductor Working Group, a private-public advisory group that will create policy and research guidelines for semiconductor development. The ultimate goal is to retain U.S. leadership in semiconductor technology.Nations are waging a battle to build the world's fastest computers, and homegrown chips are at the center of that race. Supercomputers help with economic projections, weapons development, scientific simulations, and scenarios critical to national security.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cisco Systems is finding its way into storage through its successful server business. On Tuesday, it’s introducing modular systems that can be deployed with many different combinations of computing and storage capacity.Though it’s not Cisco’s first foray into storage, the UCS S3260 Storage Server offers a density and a freedom of configuration that stands out against other systems, even competing on cost with public cloud services, the company says.The server was announced at the Cisco Partner Summit in San Francisco. It’s the first entry in Cisco’s S-Series, a line of systems designed to serve both enterprises and companies that provide cloud services to others.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft today quietly put an end to sales of Windows 7 licenses to computer makers, marking a major milestone for the seven-year-old OS.According to Microsoft's rules, the Redmond, Wash. company stopped selling Windows 7 Professional or any version of Windows 8.1 to OEMs (original equipment manufacturers) as of Oct. 31.The end of Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 left only Windows 10 as a long-term choice for OEMs that pre-load Windows on their wares.The original end-of-sales deadline for Windows 7 Professional was to be Oct. 31, 2014 -- two years after the launch of Windows 8 -- but early that year Microsoft broke with practice and only called for an end to consumer systems. It left open the cut-off for Windows 7 Professional, saying it would give a one-year warning before it demanded that OEMs stop selling PCs with that edition.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Web traffic from smartphones will make up 43% of all web traffic next year and will reach 52% globally in 2019, according to research firm Forrester.The implications of such mobile web growth are profound, especially for e-businesses trying to effectively reach their customers and partners.Such widespread reliance on mobile devices instead of desktops means that enterprises next year should begin a dramatic shift to in-house mobile developer teams, Forrester said in a new report, Mobile is the face of digital.Beginning next year, there will also be a robust focus on other ways, besides apps, for mobile users to connect to businesses. Already, some consumer transactions and communications to companies via mobile are done through third-party software, such as Facebook Messenger, Amazon Alexa, and Apple's iMessage or Siri, Forrester said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
High aboveImage by Reuters/Noah BergerApple’s “Spaceship” headquarters building, which is under construction but will soon be completed, gets a lot of attention but there are other high-tech headquarters that look good – especially from above. Here we take a look at just a few of them.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft this week has open sourced the design specifications of servers and racks that make up its hyperscale Azure cloud data centers, contributing the information to the Open Compute Project (OCP).OCP was founded in 2011 and now includes member companies such as Facebook, Intel, Google, Apple, Dell, Rackspace, Cisco, Juniper Networks, Goldman Sachs, Fidelity and Bank of America, who share design specifications for hardware used in their data centers. OCP is meant to be an open source community where member companies share how they buy and configure components used to make data center equipment.Microsoft joined OCP in 2014 and has contributed server and data center designs for its Azure cloud. This week the company announced that it will contribute Project Olympus, which are a series of hardware design specifications for “next-generation hyperscale hardware design,” the company said in a blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you don’t run an order of magnitude test on your thoughts before they come out of your mouth, I am going to have to fire you. So ended an otherwise fantastic review with my boss who had earned a Ph.D. in physics from MIT. What she really meant was I should apply mathematical common sense to my ideas to check the feasibility before I discussed them. I immediately applied her criticism because I enjoyed working for someone as gifted as her and the world was amidst a recession. I never forgot her comment.The order of magnitude of the 650,000 Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin emails reported by The Wall Street Journal is not a big number. It is what 20-30 office workers deal with in a year. If someone made up the number 650,000 to make it appear an obstacle to quickly completing the investigation, they should have combed through it with an order-of-magnitude test.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Researchers have devised a new malware attack against industrial programmable logic controllers (PLCs) that takes advantage of architectural shortcomings in microprocessors and bypasses current detection mechanisms.The attack changes the configuration of the input/output pins that make up the interface used by PLCs to communicate with other devices such as sensors, valves, and motors. PLCs are specialized embedded computers used to control and monitor physical processes in factories, power stations, gas refineries, public utilities, and other industrial installations.The attack, which will be presented at the Black Hat Europe security conference in London on Thursday, was developed by Ali Abbasi, a doctoral candidate in the distributed and embedded system security group at the University of Twente in the Netherlands, and Majid Hashemi, a research and development engineer at Quarkslab, a Paris-based cybersecurity company.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cisco today said Roland Acra has rejoined the company as a senior vice-president/general manager for its data center business. If the name sounds familiar to Cisco watchers anyway, that’s because this will be Acra’s third stint with the company since 1991.“As a long-standing industry expert in Internet routing, software engineering and communication protocol development, Roland fits right in – once again. He is a Cisco veteran having held several general management and executive leadership positions from 1991 – 2003. In 2010, he came back to Cisco as Vice President in our Smart Grid Business Unit, following the acquisition of Arch Rock, a developer of IPv6-based wireless sensor networks where he served as President and CEO. Prior to Arch Rock, he was the President and CEO of Procket Networks,” wrote David Goeckeler senior VP/GM for Cisco’s networking and security business in a blog about Acra’s return.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Today, Nov. 1, marks the beginning of the Black Friday 2016 holiday shopping season for Dell, Amazon and New Egg, all of which have formally revealed deals on everything from laptop computers to virtual reality gaming systems to.DELL STRIKES EARLY
Dell is offering select deals for 24 hours starting at 8am EST on Nov. 1 and then more blockbusters on Nov. 24-25 for Black Friday and Nov. 28 for Cyber Monday. Dell's hoping to lure potential buyers into its various loyalty programs to get earlier access to deals, and is offering free shipping for those who shop at Dell.com.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The DDoS attacks that flooded Dyn last month and knocked some high-profile Web sites offline don’t mean businesses should abandon it or other DNS service providers, Gartner says.In fact, the best way to go is to make sure critical Web sites are backed by more than one DNS provider, says Gartner analyst Bob Gill.+More on Network World: Gartner Top 10 technology trends you should know for 2017+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Amazon has quietly released another good set of deals on its popular Kindle series of e-readers. For a limited time, Kindle's price sinks from $80 to $60, Kindle Paperwhite from $120 down to $100, the Kindle Voyage drops from $200 to just $180, and the worry-free Kindle for Kids Bundle is reduced from $125 to just $80. The Kindle discounts are being offered for a limited time, so if you're in the market for one, you may want to consider the deal.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Looking to broaden the qualities of its open source stack, the OpenSwitch project said SnapRoute and Dell EMC will add new features to its network operating system.Specifically, the new contributions include:
SnapRoute’s open source network stack and management services, which support a modular, hardware independent NOS, accessible through a complete set of APIs.
Dell EMC’s OS10 Open Edition, which represents an open, disaggregated base subsystem incorporating hardware and platform abstraction layers for networking switching applications. On top of OS 10 base module run application modules which include traditional Layer 2/3 networking functions and other IP, fabric, security, and management and automation tools from Dell, Linux, third-parties and the open source community.
“OpenSwitch is now one step closer to providing the data center community with an open source network operating system that enables organizations to focus on developing innovative networking solutions, which can exploit Cavium’s extensible switch architecture to address rapidly changing market needs," said Albert Fishman, Linux Foundation OpenSwitch project marketing chair and senior technical marketing manager of Cavium Switching Platform Group.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Boost the range of your existing WiFi and create a stronger signal in hard-to-reach areas with a WiFi range extender like this one from Netgear, which is highly rated and currently discounted 43% on Amazon. . This compact AC750 wall-plug WiFi booster delivers AC dual band WiFi up to 750 Mbps, and is small and discreet, easily blending into your home decor. Well over 13,000 people have reviewed the AC750 on Amazon (read reviews) and have given it an average of 4 out of 5 stars. Right now its list price of $70 has been reduced to $40. See it now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In a job-seeker’s market, employers will do everything they can to attract and retain skilled talent. For some companies, that extends to the technology they offer to employees.At IBM, employees can now choose Apple devices, thanks to an initiative launched in June of 2015. In the first few months of the user-choice program, IBM deployed 30,000 Macs to its workforce. Today, IBM has 90,000 Macs deployed and is on pace to exceed 100,000 by year end.The Mac@IBM program is part of a larger effort to transform company culture, according to Fletcher Previn, vice president of Workplace as a Service at IBM.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Messaging and collaboration applications are the most mission-critical mobile apps in enterprise today, according to a new survey of executives commissioned by Adobe. More than half of the professionals surveyed (57 percent) said mobile apps for messaging and collaboration are critical to their organizations' success, and a similar number of respondents (59 percent) said such apps will continue to be critical in 2019. The survey, which was conducted by Edelman Intelligence, included responses from 1,500 executives in HR, sales and marketing from companies with more than 1,000 employees located in the United States, India, China, the United Kingdom and Germany. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The internet of things (IoT) is set to transform municipal life, according to government officials surveyed by the nonprofit trade association Computing Industry Trade Association (CompTIA)."Cities and city leaders are thinking more holistically about different uses of technology that are integrated and bringing different aspects of the city together into a unified whole," says Tim Herbert, senior vice president, research and market intelligence, CompTIA."Improved decision-making made possible through new or better streams of data ranks as the highest perceived benefit," he adds.How to build a smarter city
In June and July of this year, CompTIA surveyed 172 government personnel with some degree of technology decision-making responsibility for its Building Smarter Cities report. It found that one-half of local, state and federal government personnel believe IoT and the smart cities enabled by IoT will definitely provide value. A further 39 percent felt IoT and smart cities would probably provide value.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Last month, BlackBerry announced that it was quitting the phone-making business, but the BlackBerry name will live on. That's because the company has entered into a licensing agreement with an Indonesian company that will manufacture, distribute and promote BlackBerry-branded devices running BlackBerry software.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)