As holiday gadget season kicks in, we are about to be inundated with gift ideas. And for those used to seeing, or indeed flying quadcopter drones, looking as one would imagine aerial food mixers to appear with four motors and props at the end of four arms, there’s a new form-factor—tailless, single-wing drones.At hobbyist flying fields, more of the fuselage-lacking wing-style drones, reminiscent of Northrop’s B2 stealth bomber, are appearing. And while multi-rotors are by no means off the field, some of the more experienced flyers have taken to piloting and/or building flying wings.Existing model aircraft designers include TBS and Zeta.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft announced in July that it planned to offer a version of Windows 10 on a monthly subscription rate for enterprise customers, and today it officially launched Windows as a Service through its Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) network.Businesses of any size can now subscribe to Windows 10 Enterprise E3, its official name, for $7 per user per month. In its announcement, Microsoft described E3 this way:
"Windows 10 Enterprise E3 was designed for businesses that handle sensitive customer data (such as credit card or social security numbers), operate in regulated industries, or create and monetize intellectual property. These businesses need enterprise-grade security and management capabilities found in the Windows 10 Enterprise edition, such as Device Guard, Credential Guard and Managed User Experience." To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Days after reports that a new ransomware attack was deleting files from web servers, security researchers determined that some of the affected servers were hacked through insecure deployments of the Redis database.Over the past week, reports popped up on support forums about web servers being wiped clean and hosting a ransom note through which attackers offered to return the deleted files in exchange for two bitcoins (around US$1,150). Experts from tech support forum BleepingComputer.com dubbed the new threat FairWare.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A Romanian hacker known as Guccifer has been sentenced to 52 months in prison after breaking into internet accounts of about 100 U.S. citizens, including government officials.The 44-year-old Marcel Lehel Lazar was sentenced on Thursday. He was extradited from Romania and brought to court in the U.S., where he pleaded guilty to the hacking-related charges in May.From Oct. 2012 to Jan. 2014, Lazar targeted the email and social media accounts of his U.S.-based victims, as a way to steal their personal information and email messages. That included hacking a family member of two former U.S. presidents and several former U.S. officials. “In many instances, Lazar publicly released his victims’ private email correspondence, medical and financial information and personal photographs,” the Department of Justice said in a statement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Stolen data obtained from music site Last.fm back in 2012 has surfaced, and it looks like hackers made off with accounts belonging to more than 43 million users.That's according to LeakedSource, a repository for data breaches that obtained a copy of the stolen data. Included in the trove are users' names, email addresses and passwords secured with an aging hashing algorithm called MD5, LeakedSource reported in a blog post on Thursday.Last.fm hasn’t responded so far to a request for comment. The music service reported the breach four years ago and asked all its users to change their passwords immediately. It never made clear how many accounts were affected, however, or the hashing method it used to secure the passwords.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
July 23, 2012 was a big day for VMware. It was the day the company, which up until then had been known mostly for bringing server virtualization to the enterprise, entered the networking market. By spending $1.26 billion to buy startup Nicira, VMware got something else too: Martin Casado, considered one of the forefathers of the software defined networking movement.
Fast forward to Feb. 24, 2016 and it was another big day for VMware. It was the day Casado left the company for a position at Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Thrust into the spotlight to replace Casado on the day of his amicable departure was Rajiv Ramaswami, a former executive at Broadcom and Cisco who now leads VMware's networking and security business unit. This week at VMWorld in Las Vegas Ramaswami and VMware's network virtualization product, NSX, took center stage.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The U.S. Department of Justice today said Marcel Lazar, aka hacker “Guccifer,” was sentenced today to 52 months in prison for unauthorized access to a protected computer and aggravated identity theft.+More on Network World: FBI: Bank robbery? There’s an app for that+Lazar, originally from Romania, was extradited to the U.S. earlier this year and was awaiting this sentencing for breaking into the email and social media accounts of various U.S. officials including former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell as well as a the daughter of former President George H.W. Bush.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
There’s broad recognition among enterprises of the need for network modernization, but many decision-makers are constrained by the prospect of capital equipment outlays, proving a solid return on investment, or fear of being locked into a proprietary solution. Those are key findings in a soon to be published survey conducted by IDG Research Services.
One third of IT decision-makers think it’s highly likely their organizations will modernize their network connectivity strategies over the next year and another 46 percent indicate there’s some likelihood. Today, virtually every enterprise places a premium on flexibility and agility, and few are willing to commit to long-term, costly outlays for network technology that can’t adapt to their future needs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
By Joe Faranetta
MPLS (multi-protocol label switching) VPNs have long been recognized as a preferred option for dedicated, high performance connectivity over a wide area network (WAN), such as linking data centers or branch offices that require high volume and reliability. But smaller groups and individual workers typically were offloaded to the public internet, primarily utilizing the IPsec suite of protocols to create a VPN link.
The MPLS VPN is a high-speed, single-carrier-operated network. An enterprise can directly link any of its MPLS VPN sites directly and at high speeds, without going through the public internet routing process where data packets can travel circuitous routes and often require retransmission of lost packets.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
DJI says smartphone users will be able to shoot smoother, more cinematic video with a new handheld gadget that packs video stabilization technology used on the company's drones.The Osmo Mobile, which was announced at the IFA trade show in Berlin on Thursday, combines a three-axis camera gimbal with a larger handle and smartphone mount.In a demonstration, the device indeed produced much smoother shots than when shooting smartphone video handheld. And I could tell it was working to keep the smartphone steady because I could feel a low-level vibration in the handle while using it. It was the gimbal continuously readjusting to compensate for shakes and small movements of my hand.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Taking a cue from some of its U.S. peers like Google, Chinese Internet search giant Baidu has decided to open source its deep learning platform.The company claims that the platform, code-named PaddlePaddle after PArallel Distributed Deep LEarning, will let developers focus on the high-level structure of their models without having to worry about the low-level details. A machine translation program written with PaddlePaddle, for example, requires significantly less code than on other popular deep learning platforms, said Baidu spokeswoman Calisa Cole.The PaddlePaddle platform has been used in-house by Baidu to develop products and technologies for search ranking, large-scale image classification, optical character recognition, machine translation and advertising, Baidu said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple's confirmation that it will be making news on Sept. 7 means that our regular iPhone 7 rumor roundups are winding down, but you didn't expect the rumors to dry up before the big day, did you?Just this week, the following fresh scuttlebutt has surfaced, more or less confirming a couple of the most persistent rumors about the next big iOS devices:*Mashable cites a Dutch site that posted a technical document for the iPhone 7 Plus describing "EarPods with Lightning connector," adding support to the strong rumor that Apple is ditching the traditional 3.5mm headphone jack. A Lightning-to-headphone jack adapter and Lightning-to-USB cable connector are also mentioned.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Building a tricked-out PC from scratch can be a satisfying experience. But it's not for everyone, which is why we have modular desktops like HP's new Elite Slice.The Elite Slice is a mini-PC that lets users add features just by snapping external modules onto the main box. No more unscrewing the chassis just to add a component.The modules stack up underneath the base unit. A proprietary connector based on the USB 3.1 protocol binds the PC with the modules.Snapping modules onto the Elite Slice is as easy as joining two Lego parts. For HP, the modular desktop eases PC customization and reduces cable clutter.The Elite Slice is targeted at business users who wants a desktop that's stylish. The mini-PC is priced starting at $699 and will ship this month. Audio, optical-drive and VESA mounting-plate modules will be sold separately for between $35 and $110.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Starting salaries for big data pros will continue to rise in 2017 as companies jockey to hire skilled data professionals.Recruiting and staffing specialist Robert Half Technology studied more than 75 tech positions for its annual guide to U.S. tech salaries, including 13 jobs in the data/data administration field.In the big picture, starting salaries for newly hired IT workers are forecast to climb 3.8% next year. (See also: 14 hot network jobs/skills for 2017)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
One of the more interesting iPhone 7 rumors suggests that Apple’s next-gen iPhone will come with a 256GB storage options. While 256GB of storage may seem excessive, it perhaps stands to reason that the iPhone 7 Plus -- on account of its dual camera system which will take presumably large high-res photos -- will need more storage than many are anticipating.That said, an interesting iPhone 7 leak hit the Apple blogosphere earlier today when a spec sheet purporting to be for the iPhone 7 was posted on the Chinese microblogging website Weibo. As evidenced via the photo below, a 256GB iPhone 7 Plus model may be announced next week at Apple’s special media event.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The use of turn signals drastically increases safety of cars. Now cycling can have that same benefit with these turn signal gloves from Zackees. These machine washable gloves are made from premium materials -- tough, flexible leather and breathable spandex. The LED lights are powerful and bright, running on rechargeable coin batteries that will last for several weeks of moderate daily use before needing a charge. Ambient light sensors increase brightness 4x during the day. These gloves average 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 150 people (read reviews), and their typical list price of $99 has been reduced 24% to $74.95.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft today updated the Windows 10 beta, switching on a controversial technology that commandeers users' upload bandwidth to shift some responsibility for updating from the company's own servers.Build 14915 was released earlier Wednesday to participants in the Windows Insider "Fast" track.The notable change highlighted by Dona Sarkar, the software engineer who acts as the public face of Insider, was the enabling of Windows 10's "Delivery Optimization" technology.INSIDER Review: Enterprise guide to Windows 10
Delivery Optimization, formally dubbed "Windows Update Delivery Optimization" (WUDO) by Microsoft, was part of Windows 10 from the get-go. But it was only switched on as of the November 2015 upgrade, which was pegged as 1511. Insider builds of Windows 10, however, were exempt until now.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
People who feel that there’s “nothing new to see” in the world of notebooks and tablets should take a look at what Lenovo announced today. Ahead of the IFA show in Berlin, the company announced four new offerings, highlighting design upgrades and features that challenge users to think about what can be done with a computer. That’s no small feat in today’s technology device world, where everything often looks the same, with just a different label slapped on the cover.Here’s a quick look at the announcements:Yoga Book
This 2-in-1 device takes its Book moniker seriously - when spread out flat, the device looks a lot more like a book than a notebook or even a tablet (see photo above). The Yoga Book features a “halo keyboard”, which is a full touch screen backlit keyboard that integrates software and hardware into the interface. The glass touch screen includes an anti-glare coating to create a touch-typing experience, which should be helpful since there are no physical keys. Instead, it displays as a solid white outline on the Yoga Book’s second panel, and it’s only on when the user needs a keyboard. Software is also included that “learns about and adapts Continue reading
A small open source firm behind the erasure of Hillary Clinton's personal email server is enjoying a lot of free publicity thanks to the investigation into the server's contents. BleachBit, an open source system erasure tool, has been around for a few years and won some accolades, and now it's the center of attention on the Clinton email scandal.It started with Trey Gowdy, the Republican congressman from South Carolina leading the investigation into the private email server. He mentioned BleachBit in an interview, saying Clinton's 33,000 deleted emails have been "deleted where even God can't read them."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft is trying to make it faster for people to download Windows updates by using the vast network of PCs around the world to deliver them. A new beta build of Windows 10 released on Wednesday enables Delivery Optimization by default, which lets PCs download update bits from other computers connected to the internet. Those bits can be delivered alongside those brought in from Microsoft's servers, to help speed up the process of downloading updates, especially on less reliable network connections. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here