Last year, private sector companies globally spent more than $75 billion on security software to safeguard their systems and data.That number is expected to grow about 7% annually, according to Gartner and other analyst firms. It doesn’t include all the massive amounts spent on fraud prevention by banks, a number that is widely underreported and expected to reach into the billions annually.Has all that spending made private sector data and systems any safer? Is customer personal data any safer?MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 6 simple tricks for protecting your passwords
The general answer is no, according to many analysts, but that’s not necessarily because the latest software is considered ineffective.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Convenient, discreet and easy to install, extended Wi-Fi coverage is just an outlet away with the NETGEAR N300 Wi-Fi Extender. Boost your Wi-Fi for mobile devices and connect a wired device such as Smart TVs or game consoles. Boost your existing network range & speed, delivering Wi-Fi up to 300Mbps. External antennas provide better Wi-Fi coverage and higher speed, while the convenient wall-plug design saves space. It works with any standard Wi-Fi router & is ideal for keeping your mobile devices connected as you move throughout your home. With nearly 12,000 reviews on Amazon, it averages 4 out of 5 stars (read reviews). Its typical list price of $39.99 has been reduced by 25% to $29.99. See the discounted NETGEAR N300 Wi-Fi Extender. now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft has acquired Genee, a startup that provided a virtual assistant for scheduling appointments. The deal, announced Tuesday, will bring the Genee team into the Microsoft fold and put them to work on bringing intelligence into Office 365. Genee's service let users loop in an artificial intelligence assistant that could interpret sentences like "set up lunch at some point this week" and turn them into calendar appointments. Acquiring Genee is part of Microsoft's ongoing crusade to build intelligent productivity software and services using AI. The company has focused on that area under the tenure of CEO Satya Nadella, with features like Office Delve, which finds documents shared within an organization that are relevant to a user, and Focused Inbox in Outlook, which filters unimportant email into a separate tab so it's not cluttering a user's experience. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Linux kernel is improving faster than ever, gaining 7.8 patches per hour and 4,600 lines of new code every day.That's according to a new report published Monday by the Linux Foundation and focusing on the state of kernel development. Entitled “Linux kernel development -- how fast it is going, who is doing it, what they are doing, and who is sponsoring it,” the report is the seventh the nonprofit has published on the topic in roughly as many years.This year’s paper covers work completed through Linux kernel 4.7, with an emphasis on releases 3.19 to 4.7. The last report was released March 2015 and focused on versions 3.11 to 3.18.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
One of the biggest Linux events of the year opened with a look at the social role of the largest open-source project in history, as well as Linux’s potential place in the history books.LinuxCon North America 2016 kicked off today in Toronto with keynotes from Linux Foundation director Jim Zemlin and Ainissa Ramirez, an author and former Bell Labs researcher who works to make technology accessible to the mainstream.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: 10 sci-fi technologies we are close to having + ARM has a new weapon in race to build world's fastest computersTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Cable Matters USB-C HDMI / VGA Multiport Adapter is an essential companion for a computer or tablet with USB-C. Connect to a Gigabit network, install a USB peripheral device, and connect a display with VGA or HDMI input. Plug & Play with a single USB-C port and no external drivers required. Whether your device has a USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 port, you can use this adapter.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The IT security market is certainly an interesting one, as it’s so big and so fragmented. Forbes posted a story at the end of last year stating the market is at $75 billion, with it expected to reach $170 billion by 2020. Every business and technology leader I talk to tells me how important security is, so I have no reason to doubt that $170 billion number.In addition to the overall massive size of the security market, another interesting fact is the huge number of vendors that play in it. I believe the 2016 RSA conference had something like over 600 sponsors, with at least 100 being first-time sponsors. No other IT market has that many vendors with start-ups consistently popping up.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Fortscale 2.7Key features: Detecting insider credentials compromised on the Dark Web and remote lateral movement. Plus, new user experience that makes it easier for security professionals to identify and stop insider threats automatically. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Windows 10 Anniversary Update has caused its fair share of problems for users, such as freeze-ups of their PCs and the most recent issue of it crashing computers with a webcam attached. So, it's understandably tempting for some people to jump at a repair utility. In the case of the "Windows Self-Healing Tool," please don't.
This utility has been circulating on several technology news sites, with people repeating its claim to fix problems associated with Windows 10. It has the air of authorization because it has a Microsoft logo on it and was first posted on the Microsoft Answers forum for Surface users.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Getting pregnant is much harder than movies would have you believe.In fact, women have only a 25 percent chance of getting pregnant every month. So, it’s no surprise that couples are keen to improve their odds. IoT makes it a little easier.Why it’s hard to get pregnant?
There is just a 12- to 24-hour window each month when a human egg can be fertilized by a sperm. This fertile window occurs during the six days after ovulation while the egg passes down the fallopian tube. Pinpointing the exact time period, though, is hard because it varies from woman to woman. Sex has to take place within this fertile window to maximize the chances of becoming pregnant.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Dell UltraSharp 34 inch Curved Monitor engages you in a new wrap-around viewing experience with a 21:9 ultra-wide curved screen that offers more display area and enhanced viewing comfort. Easily display content from 2 different PCs at the same time with the Picture-by-Picture or Picture-in-Picture features, via the USB 3.0 upstream ports. Plus enjoy the convenience of using just one keyboard and mouse to navigate content from both PCs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
According to ESG research, 63 percent of networking and cybersecurity professionals working at enterprise organizations (i.e. more than 1,000 employees) believe network security operations is more difficult today than it was two years ago. Why? Because enterprises have to deal with more connected devices, network traffic and applications than two years ago.What’s more 47 percent of respondents claim that it is difficult to monitor network behavior from end to end, while 41 percent say network security operations difficulties result from increasing use of cloud computing.+ Also on Network World: It’s time to pull the trigger on security automation +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
ARM conquered the mobile market starting with Apple's iPhone, and now wants to be in the world's fastest computers.A new ARM chip design being announced on Monday is targeted at supercomputers, a lucrative market in which the company has no presence. ARM's new chip design, which has mobile origins, has extensions and tweaks to boost computing power.The announcement comes a few weeks after Japanese company Softbank said it would buy ARM for a mammoth US$32 billion. With the cash, ARM is expected to sharpen its focus on servers and the internet of things.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Security researchers continue to find ways around biometric-based security features, including a new attack which can defeat face authentication systems.You might be careful about posting photos of yourself online, either refraining from it or setting the images to private, but your “friends” might post pictures of you online. It wouldn’t matter if those pictures of you are low quality or there were as few as three publicly available photos of you, researchers from the University of North Carolina have developed a virtual reality-based attack that can reproduce your face well enough to trick face authentication systems.In “Virtual U: Defeating Face Liveness Detection by Building Virtual Models from Your Public Photos” (pdf), the researchers called “the ability of an adversary to recover an individual’s facial characteristics through online photos” an “immediate and very serious threat.” The team devised an attack which can bypass “existing defenses of liveness detection and motion consistency.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Amazon is currently discounting its Tap speaker by 12% to $114.99. It averages 4 out of 5 stars from 2,545 customers (read reviews). The Tap is a more portable version of their popular Echo speaker. The tap lasts for up to 9 hours on a single charge and is Alexa-Enabled, so you just "tap" and ask it to play your favorite music from most streaming music services, check sports scores, request an Uber, order a pizza, and much more. Learn more about the discounted Tap and explore buying options now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
There’s no doubt that pretty much everything humans do can be sliced, diced, and replicated by algorithms so it’s not surprising that recent work by Tom S. F. Haines, Oisin Mac Aodha, and Gabriel J. Brostow, researchers at University College London, has resulted in the fall of yet another bastion of being human: Handwriting. How did they do it? Machine learning.Their paper, called "My Text in Your Handwriting," describes software that semi-automatically analyzes a sample of a handwriting, then generates whatever text you want in what looks like the identical style of the original handwriting sample. UCL’s press release explains:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It's a competitive real-estate rental market out there, and Trulia wanted to capitalize on the interest with a new Facebook Messenger bot it launched earlier this month.The bot lets users search for rental properties and keep up to date on new properties when they become available. Trulia's bot came out of a quarterly hackathon project hosted by at real estate tech firm this past May, and the company learned a lot about bot-building. The experience showed that businesses should give bot-making a shot, even if they're not tech companies, said Yardley Ip, general manager for Trulia Rentals."Given that the tools are so easy to use, and it's so lightweight to develop [a bot], I think businesses should try it," Ip said. "At least, at minimum, from the customer service angle. Because there are frequently asked questions that users and customers have, and why not use a bot as a way to respond to your users quickly?"To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Companies large and small have already embraced the hackathon as a way to foster collaboration and innovation, and now the NBA has announced that it's jumping on board.Scheduled to take place next month in New York, the NBA's first-ever event is open to undergraduate and graduate student statisticians, developers and engineers in the U.S. who are interested in building basketball analytics tools. Participants will present their work to a panel of expert judges and an audience of NBA League Office and team personnel. Prizes will be awarded to the top three teams, including a tour of the NBA League Office and a lunch with NBA staff.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Speed is kingImage by University of California, DavisThis year's Hot Chips conference is all about chips that can rake, power efficiency be damned. That's because virtual reality, machine learning, and self-driving cars demand heaps of processing power, not low power consumption. Here are some the fastest chips being detailed at the conference, starting Sunday in Cupertino, California.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Dell’s massive acquisition of EMC reportedly has passed legal muster in China, clearing what is expected to be its last hurdle.The acquisition, announced last October with an estimated value of US$67 billion, has been approved by Chinese regulators, according to the New York Post. That’s expected to be the last step toward closing the deal, though the companies may not announce its completion formally until next week. The combined company will be called Dell Technologies, while its PC business will keep the pure Dell name.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here