We all know Windows 10 is a continuously evolving operating system with regular changes made over the course of its release cycle. It seems those changes are extending to the Control Panel, the central hub for system settings. Windows10Update.com noted that a modest but significant change in build 14942, the latest Fast ring preview version released by Microsoft, made a change to how the Control Panel is presented when using the Power Menu (the Windows and X key) Instead of the Control Panel shortcut that was placed between the Task Manager and File Explorer in the operating system, there is now a full menu of options that match the Control Panel's set of applets. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
iOS 10 adoption continued to climb a month after its release, with some sources pegging the upgrade on more than two-thirds of iPhones.At the one-month mark, iOS 10 accounted for 68.2% of all iOS editions detected by Mixpanel, whose analytics platform is used by mobile app developers to track usage and user engagement.That was slightly higher than the 62.8% accumulated by iOS 9 last year at the same post-release point, and far above iOS 8's 48.9% in September 2014.The modern record for iOS uptake remained with iOS 7 -- a major UI (user interface) and UX (user experience) overhaul -- which captured a 72.7% share in its first month.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Almost 6,000 online shops have been compromised by hackers who added specially crafted code that intercepts and steals payment card details.These online skimming attacks were first discovered by Dutch researcher Willem de Groot a year ago. At that time, he found 3,501 stores containing the malicious JavaScript code. However, instead of getting better, the situation is increasingly worse.By March the number of infected shops grew by almost 30 percent to 4,476, and by September, it reached 5,925. More than 750 online stores who were unwillingly skimming payment card details for attackers in 2015 are still doing so today, showing that this type of activity can go undetected for months, the researcher said in a blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Pocketknives are amazing! All the tools you need in one handy form.Designing products to easily adapt to the need isn’t easy. Internet of Things (IoT) devices are no exception. How can they be designed to connect regardless of their location?Wivity, the pocketknife for IoT connectivity, has the answer.Its compact IoT modems readily adapt to connection as needed. Wivity modems work worldwide across different networks—without requiring different designs for every region. They support Wi-Fi, 3G, 4G, LTE, SIGFOX, LoRaWAN and satellite connections.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft's big Ignite conference for IT pros wrapped up at the end of September, and that means the company dumped a ton of new cloud capabilities to attract people to Azure. Here's the run-down on all the major news you need to know about:Azure data centers in Germany and the UK go live
In its continuing quest to expand the global reach of its public cloud platform, Microsoft announced the general availability of four new Azure regions: two in the U.K. and two in Germany. The UK data centers are fairly standard cloud regions, but data in the German DCs is under the control of T-Systems International, a German company that's a subsidiary of tech giant Deutsche Telekom.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A backdoor in Android firmware provided by manufacturer Foxconn allows attackers to root devices to which they have physical access, according to a security researcher and barbecue enthusiast who dubbed the vulnerability Pork Explosion.Jon Sawyer (who also goes by jcase online) discovered the vulnerability at the end of August, and publicized it on his blog on Wednesday, a day after smartphone vendor Nextbit, which was one of the most heavily affected OEMs, released a fix for the problem.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Hardcore fans mourn the death of Nexus by denouncing the Pixel + Darkweb marketplaces can get you more than just spam and phishTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
While the internet itself was first envisioned as a way of enabling robust, fault-tolerant communication, the global routing infrastructure that underlies it is relatively fragile. A simple error like the misconfiguration of routing information in one of the 7,000 to 10,000 networks central to global routing can lead to a widespread outage, and deliberate actions, like preventing traffic with spoofed source IP addresses, can lead to distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.The Internet Society (ISOC), a cause-driven nonprofit organization that seeks to promote the open development, evolution and use of the Internet and the parent organization of the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standards body, is moving to change that. In 2014, ISOC introduced its Mutually Agreed Norms for Routing Security (MANRS) initiative. Today ISOC announced that the initiative membership has more than quadrupled in its first two years, growing from its initial nine network operators to 42 network operators today.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you want to have even a chance of defeating cyber attacks, you have to be quick.So, in hindsight, there is no mystery why the federal government’s Office of Personnel Management (OPM) was a loser to attackers who exfiltrated personal data – including in many cases detailed security clearance information and fingerprint data – of more than 22 million current and former federal employees.Hackers, said to be from China, were inside the OPM system starting in 2012, but were not detected until March 20, 2014. A second hacker, or group, gained access to OPM through a third-party contractor in May 2014, but was not discovered until nearly a year later.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. government will invest tens of millions of dollars in smart-city technologies and in small-satellite broadband as part of a US$300 million package focused on innovation.The package of new investments, announced Thursday, will include $65 million in government funding and $100 million in private funding for smart cities technologies. Two new government grant programs will focus on easing traffic congestion and on creating new on-demand mobility services, including smartphone-enabled car sharing, demand-responsive buses, and bike-sharing.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
President Barack Obama today issued an Executive Order that defines what the nation’s response should be to a catastrophic space weather event that takes out large portions of the electrical power grid, resulting in cascading failures that would affect key services such as water supply, healthcare, and transportation.+More on Network World: NASA: Top 10 space junk missions+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Famed physicist and author Stephen Hawking will deliver a keynote address and a at Microsoft's Future Decoded conference on Nov. 1-2 in London. The conference will focus on doing digital business, exploiting the power of algorithms and data. Hawking will deliver the closing speech on the first day of the event and speak about artificial intelligence and how it might impact people. Hawking, who has a form of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), uses a computer-based communication provided by Intel to speak, and actually does use both Microsoft Windows and Skype, according to his web page.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
We live in a network-centric world, and network laws are beginning to govern business models and even global economics. When you understand these laws, you begin to understand why we live in a world where new network-centric business models (think Google, Facebook, Amazon, Airbnb, etc.) become de facto monopolies that result in incredible wealth creation.More important, you might be able to figure out how to put these same network effects to work for your business to spur growth and increase customer and shareholder value.Metcalfe’s Law and network effects
The first law to understand is Metcalfe’s Law. As you probably know, Bob Metcalfe is the co-inventor of Ethernet. I’ve met Bob a few times in my career. He’s smart, kind and very intuitive. Back in the dawn of networking, he made an observation about how networks work, and he put an equation behind it. That equation has come to be known as Metcalfe’s Law. Here’s how it goes and why it’s critical for modern business models, not just for the networks that underpin them.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A second hacking group is also trying to rob banks by exploiting the SWIFT money transfer system, following a US$81 million heist in February that used a similar approach.The cyberattacks have been going on since January and have been targeting companies in the U.S., Hong Kong, Australia, and other countries, according to a Tuesday report from security firm Symantec.A "rough guess" is that about 100 organizations have been hit so far, based on the 74 individual computer infections detected, the security firm added.As part of their attacks, the hackers used malware to cover up records of fraudulent transactions made over SWIFT, preventing their victims from learning about the money theft.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cease FireImage by REUTERS/Edgar SuIt’s official: the Galaxy Note7 is no more. The company already pulled out a miracle with its unprecedented recall to address the phone’s defective battery, only to be scorched again when more units started igniting. Samsung has now stopped production and wants you to (again) power off your device for good.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
After years of being offered as separate technologies, storage and memory are beginning to merge. It's already happening, for example, with 3D Xpoint, a technology from Intel and Micron that can serve as memory, storage, or both.
Now, a new consortium, called Gen-Z, is out to ease the transition to this new class of storage and memory in computers. It's creating a new specification and architecture that will make it easier to add new forms of non-volatile memory to computers.
Gen-Z will have a new connector, fabric and data transfer protocol. One goal is to create an open standard so new forms of memory can communicate with processors and accelerators in a coherent manner. Gen-Z will also work with SSDs like QuantX from Micron.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The long fight over LTE networks sharing frequencies with Wi-Fi may be just the first of many battles as device makers and service providers try to make the most of the limited available spectrum.Around the world, regulators and industry are working on how to let different kinds of networks use the same spectrum. The new techniques and policies they use should lead to better mobile performance in some areas, but it’s also likely that wireless performance will fluctuate more as you move around.LTE-U has grabbed headlines because it involves licensed carriers using some of the channels that consumers depend on for Wi-Fi service, which often is free or runs on users' own routers. Wi-Fi supporters cried foul last year after Qualcomm and some U.S. carriers proposed the technology, and it took until last month for the two sides to reach an apparent peace agreement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Talk about closing the barn door after it’s already burned to the ground:
H/T to longtime Buzzblog reader Dan Wakeman.
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Security and enterprise mobile management (EMM) are big concerns for businesses of all sizes as they scramble to make sure corporate data is secure. And there's no shortage of EMM products, but there are features already baked into your operating system?Microsoft, for example, with its Windows 10 update, Redstone 1 -- officially called the Windows 10 Anniversary Update 1607 -- introduced a slew of new IT friendly features. Here are the six most notable features in the latest update that will get IT celebrating.Windows Information Protection
With Windows Information Protection (WIP), previously called enterprise data protection (EDP), IT departments can get a handle on BYOD. It allows you to manage data on enterprise-owned and personal devices to avoid any security issues if a device falls into the wrong hands. Employees won't have to change the devices or apps they use and businesses can have the peace of mind of being able to encrypt and remote-wipe corporate data without affecting personal data.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It’s no secret the tech industry has a diversity problem. Google, Twitter, Facebook, Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon, Apple and Pinterest are among the companies that have publicly shared how few of their tech positions are filled by women and minorities.This lack of diversity is a big problem for these companies, affecting their innovation and damaging their culture. One study found that companies with racially diverse leadership teams financially outperform their peers by 35 percent. Diversity boosts the bottom line.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
MIT-CHIEF, a not-for-profit student group that promotes cooperation between the United States and China in technology and innovation, is readying its annual conference with a focus on machine learning, new materials and more.The MIT-China Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum (CHIEF) Annual Conference, to be held Nov. 12-13 at MIT, will feature 6 panels and 6 keynote speeches that in addition to the topics cited above, will hit on energy, advanced manufacturing, healthcare and autonomous driving. Speakers will include those from academia and industry, including venture capital firms, and represent outfits such as Microsoft, Stanford University and AutoX.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here