NASA this week picked six companies to develop prototype deep space habitats that astronauts could somewhat comfortably live in on long space journeys – particularly to Mars.According to NASA, an effective habitat contains “pressurized volume plus an integrated array of complex systems and components that include a docking capability, environmental control and life support systems, logistics management, radiation mitigation and monitoring, fire safety technologies, and crew health capabilities.” +More on Network World: The weirdest, wackiest and coolest sci/tech stories of 2016 (so far!)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Windows Store for Business is a counterpart to the consumer Windows Store so familiar to home users. That means you can find the same universal Windows Platform apps in both stores. One difference is that the Store for Business works only with devices running Windows 10 or Windows 10 Mobile, where the consumer Windows Store supports devices running Windows 8 and 8.1 as well.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Enterprise CISOs are in an unenviable position. Given today’s dangerous threat landscape and rapidly evolving IT initiatives, CISOs have a long list of tasks necessary for protecting sensitive data and IT assets. At the same time however, most organizations are operating with a shortage of skilled cybersecurity professionals. According to ESG research, 46% of organizations claim that they have a “problematic shortage” of cybersecurity skills in 2016 (note: I am an ESG employee).In the past, CISOs (and let’s face it, all cybersecurity professionals) were control freaks often suspicious of vendors and service providers. Faced with today’s overwhelming responsibilities however, many CISOs I’ve spoken with lately say they’ve changed their tunes and have adopted more of a portfolio management approach to their jobs. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Smart lighting, smart meters, smart building systems and other smart endpoints. It seems every device today is a “smart” device.The level of intelligence for the various devices can vary greatly. For example, a smart automobile must make far more autonomous decisions than, say, a wearable fitness monitor. While the range of devices varies greatly, all smart devices have in one thing in common: they are connected to a network. It’s this vast number of connected endpoints—50 billion by 2020, according to ZK Research—that is the foundation for the Internet of Things (IoT).+ Also on Network World: IoT security threats and how to handle them +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Although vendor-written, this contributed piece does not promote a product or service and has been edited and approved by Network World editors.As euphemisms go, it's hard to beat the term “service outage” as used by IT departments. While it sounds benign -- something stopped working but tech teams will soon restore order -- anyone familiar with the reality knows the term really means “Huge hit to bottom line.”A quick perusal of the tech news will confirm this. Delta Airline’s global fleet was just grounded by a data center problem. A recent one day service outage at Salesforce.com cost the company $20 million. Hundreds of thousands of customers were inconvenienced in May when they couldn't reach Barclays.com due to a “glitch.” And a service outage at HSBC earlier this year prompted one of the Bank of England's top regulators to lament that, “Every few months we have yet another IT failure at a major bank... We can’t carry on like this.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Commonly installed Trane thermostats were vulnerable to hacking for a while, says a security firm. The Internet of Things-connected gadgets had been liable to provide burglar-friendly, private information because their authentication system was weak and they use hardcoded credentials, Trustwave claims in its SpiderLabs blog.Trane is an Ingersoll Rand brand that specializes in heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems (HVAC). Ireland-based Ingersoll Rand is a “$13 billion global business,” it proclaims on its website.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple’s acquisition this past week of Turi, a Seattle machine learning company that has its roots in the open source GraphLab project, brings to six the number of deals Apple has made this year that have gone public. So while Apple’s $2.5 billion in R&D spending during its recently completed second quarter represented a 25% increase over the year-ago period and indicates that Apple is building plenty of futuristic technology in-house, the company continues to buy startups at roughly the same pace it has for the past three years, during which it has snapped up 9 to 15 businesses annually – at least that we know about.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Twitter is not liable for providing material support to the Islamic State group, also referred to as the ISIS, by allowing its members to sign up and use accounts on its site, a federal judge in California ruled Wednesday.The lawsuit against Twitter filed by the familes of two victims of a terror attack in Jordan is similar to another filed by the father of a victim of the Paris attack in November against Twitter, Google and Facebook for allegedly providing material support to terrorists by providing them a forum for propaganda, fund raising and recruitment.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Ecuador has granted a request from Swedish prosecutors to question WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange at its embassy in London, where he has been holed up for over four years.Assange was granted asylum by Ecuador in 2012 after he slipped into the country’s embassy in the U.K. He is wanted by police in Sweden for questioning in connection with a sexual assault investigation.U.K. police have said that they would arrest Assange to meet an extradition request from Sweden if he steps out from the Ecuador embassy. But Assange and his supporters have expressed fear that from Sweden, he could be transferred to the U.S. to face charges under the country's Espionage Act.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
No need to break the bankSure, swanky new Surface Pros and $1,200 graphics cards may capture all the headlines, but on a practical level, the real story is that PCs aren’t cheap. As a working father with two kids and a mortgage to pay, I understand that all too well. But if your computer’s starting to feel pokey, there’s fortunately no reason to rush out a spend hundreds on a new one.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Internet has serious security problems that need to be fixed. Despite many calls to action over the years for the industry to band together and work on solutions, progress has been mild. What’s needed isn’t necessarily more security technology. What’s needed are better tools for developers so that they can improve the security of their code.In his keynote at Black Hat in Las Vegas, Dan Kaminsky, chief scientist and co-founder of White Ops, advocated for environments and coding frameworks that make it easier for developers to implement security without compromising usability or stifling creativity. His keynote, “The Hidden Architecture of Our Time: Why This Internet Worked, How We Could Lose It, and the Role Hackers Play,” called on the security industry to think about how new programming environments could have basic functionality and security features built in and turned on by default.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In industries such as finance, retail, healthcare and others, IT employment broadly declined in July by 88,000 jobs, or 1.9%, according to tech industry trade group CompTIA.The cuts last month reduced occupational IT employment by 46,000 jobs so far this year, to about 4.43 million.That sounds alarming, right? Perhaps not -- if you widen the picture a bit.INSIDER: 15 ways to screw up a job interview
In June, IT occupational employment showed a net gain of 74,000 jobs, and this month-to-month volatility is normal because of the way the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reports the data, according the industry group. The government data includes part-time workers, such as someone doing Web design on the side.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Crumbling wallsImage by Steve TraynorDespite billions of dollars invested in cybersecurity, businesses lose critical data daily. We’ve secured our organizations like fortresses, building layers of walls around networks, applications, storage containers, identity, and devices. But when an unhappy employee moves high-value designs onto a USB drive or sends important email attachment outside the “secure” network, those walls crumble the moment we need them the most.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The right apps make your Chromebook indespensibleImage by Ryan WhitwamEver since Google introduced Chrome OS on the CR-48 prototype laptop back in 2011, Chromebooks have relied on web apps and simple Chrome extensions to get things done. Now, Chromebooks are getting access to the Play Store with heaps of Android apps. Not all of them work well on Chromebooks, and others don't really add to the experience, but some of them can give your Chromebook a big boost. We tested dozens of popular apps on an Acer R11 to see which are which—here are the ones you should install on your Chromebook.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Security researcher Salvador Mendoza demonstrated a flaw in Samsung Pay at Black Hat last week, in which the tokens used to secure transactions could be predicted, and used to authorize fraudulent payments.
Samsung responded with a statement calling the report "simply not true."
"Samsung Pay is safe, secure and consumers can be assured that there is no known risk associated to using our payment service," the company said.
But then, in a separate, more detailed document, Samsung admitted that it is possible to capture a token, but said that it was extremely difficult to do so.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple's interest in the enterprise hasn't always been obvious. And though the company changed its ways to some extent during the past few years, it still prefers to let its devices and services act as its entryway into enterprise. Many IT leaders would like to see Apple focus more on the business market, but they also understand the company may never act like a traditional enterprise vendor. Apple's business partnerships with Cisco, IBM and SAP are well-publicized, but those deals are the exception and not the norm, according to a set of CIOs and IT leaders who spoke with CIO.com. Why Apple's awkward approach to enterprise works
Many turning points have helped change the IT industry's perception of Apple. However, CIOs often disagree on the relevance of specific events to enterprise, based on the special interests and IT requirements of their organizations. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Oracle has denied in a California federal court charges leveled by a former manager that she was sacked after she refused to cook accounts in the company’s cloud business and threatened to blow the whistle on the accounting practices.The software and cloud computing giant appears to be fleshing out its original stand that the employee had been terminated for poor performance and not as a whistleblower, which would give her a number of protections under securities laws.In a filing in June in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Svetlana Blackburn, a senior finance manager for North America SaaS/Cloud Revenue, alleged that her superiors had instructed her to “to add millions of dollars in accruals to financial reports, with no concrete or foreseeable billing to support the numbers," an act that she had warned was improper and suspect accounting.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In today's hyper-connected social media-centric culture, there aren't many topics that are off-limits. People seem comfortable sharing the most intimate details about meals, travel, kids, pets and personal drama, not to mention their feelings and opinions on politics, current events and religion. But there's one subject that seems to render even the most outspoken people mute: their professional success. And that's a big problem.Social stigma
"People are so comfortable sharing their personal lives with a broad swath of people, but when it comes to work, that's when they get shy -- and that's exactly when they shouldn't be. Whether you're an active or a passive job seeker, it's important to have a strong sense of who you are, what you've accomplished and where you want to go next in your career and be able to broadcast those facts to your network," says Catherine Fisher, senior director, member marketing and communications at LinkedIn.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Security researchers used the recent Def Con hackers’ convention to show just how easily some Bluetooth-based smart locks can be opened.Researchers Ben Ramsey and Anthony Rose of Merculite Security took a look at 16 smart locks from companies such as Ceomate, Elecycle, iBlulock, Mesh Motion, Okidokey, Plantraco, Quicklock, and Vians. Ramsey and Rose discovered that of those 16 locks, 12 could be hacked. Several of them could also be hacked with little to no effort. The researchers’ presentation slides are available on GitHub; the presentation was first reported by Tom’s Guide.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here