With hundreds of millions of Android devices in use today, there’s little wonder why the Android development job market continues to show strong demand.Job search website Monster.com, for example, consistently shows more than 1,000 Android developer job postings, with California continuing to be a top destination. Android developers are also in high demand in New York City and Boston, among other cities. And job search website Indeed.com reports $163,000 as the average salary for Android developers. It’s clear that motivated developers will find plenty of opportunities to work on Android apps at startups, agencies, and other organizations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you believed the vendors, you'd think Wi-Fi was simple: Turn on your computer or other device, hop on the Internet and you're set to go.But as we all know, life isn't quite that easy. Your home or office network can have dead spots where devices can't seem to connect, or where the connections get slow or flaky. Public hotspots can make you prey for hackers and snoopers. And when you are at a hotspot, you might need to share your connection with your other devices, including smartphones and tablets.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: How to use public Wi-Fi hotspots safely
While there is no way to immediately solve all the problems associated with wireless connectivity, there are applications that can make things better -- and many of them are free. I've rounded up nine free pieces of Windows software that can go a long way toward helping you solve your Wi-Fi issues at home, in your office or on the go.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Imagine waking up to an urgent 5 a.m. call: Something has taken over your corporate network and encrypted all of your data, and supposedly the only way to get it all back is to pay a significant sum to an anonymous third party using Bitcoin. While that scene might sound like something out of Hollywood, it is actually very real – and it’s exactly what several variants of ransomware are doing to organizations around the globe.Two recent appearances of ransomware in the news demonstrate that it is a problem that is growing in both volume and significance, as larger and larger organizations, some critical to public and social services, are impacted by an outbreak:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Salaries increase across 12 tech job categoriesImage by ThinkstockMondo's 2016-2017 IT Salary Guide points to steady increases in tech salaries across 12 verticals. The study points out that as technology influences every industry, the demand for STEM workers is only going to increase, with a projected 1.5 million open positions in STEM by the year 2020. If you are already in the technology field, or are hoping to break into it, it couldn't be a better time. Mondo tracks the salaries of popular technology jobs to see how the annual compensation range increases year over year and this most recent report shows increases in nearly every tech job evaluated; and for jobs that didn't increase in this report, they at least didn't show a decline in average salary either. DevOps/SDNImage by ThinkstockTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A security researcher has created a free security tool that can detect attempts by ransomware programs to encrypt files on users' Macs and then block them before they do a lot of damage.Called RansomWhere? the application is the creation of Patrick Wardle, director of research and development at security firm Synack. It's meant to detect and block the encryption of files by untrusted processes.The tool monitors users' home directories and detects when encrypted files are rapidly created inside them -- a telltale sign of ransomware activity.When such activity is detected, RansomWhere? determines the process responsible and suspends it. To limit false positives -- legitimate encryption programs being detected as ransomware -- the tool whitelists all applications signed by Apple and most of those that already exist on the computer when RansomWhere? is first installed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Meet the new Ubuntu: A Linux release tailor-made for enterprises Image by CanonicalUbuntu Linux 16.04 LTS is now out, and its extended support makes it particularly suitable for businesses. Here's an overview of what you can expect to find.Five years of supportImage by CanonicalTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
This year's IEEE Communications Society William R. Bennett Prize, known as the most honored award for papers in the networking communications field, goes to a Korean team for its breakthrough research on offloading data traffic from cellular networks to Wi-Fi.The award recognizes the work of Professor Kyunghan Lee from the School of Electrical and Computer Engineering of Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST); Prof. Yi Yung, Prof. Chong Song, and Dr. Joohyun Lee of Electrical and Computer Engineering at KAIST; and Executive Vice President Injong Rhee of Samsung Electronics, Mobile Division.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple notebook refreshes aren't announced during special media events anymore, but Apple still knows how to pull a trick out of its sleeve when it has to. Earlier today, Apple quietly announced a compelling refresh to its 12-inch MacBook line.First and foremost, Apple's new 12-inch MacBook models now sport Intel's Skylake dual-core M processors, an addition which should make Apple's svelte notebook much more energy efficient. On top of that, Apple's MacBook line was also graced with improved graphics performance, faster flash storage and last but not least, a full additional hour of battery life.While the dimensions of the refreshed MacBook haven't changed - it's still just 13.1 millimeters thin while weighing in at just 2 pounds - the internals have been beefed up tremendously.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Some clothes already hang out on the Internet. Pharrell Williams’s hat has its own Twitter account, as does Mark Zuckerberg’s hoodie. Your clothes could be next to get online identities, though it won't make them famous.IoT startup Evrythng is teaming up with packaging company Avery Dennison to give apparel and footwear products unique identities in Evrythng’s software right when they’re manufactured.The companies have high hopes for the Janela Smart Products Platform, seeing a potential to reach 10 billion products in the next three years. The system could put a simple form of IoT into the hands of millions of consumers who weren’t even shopping for technology.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The AWS Summit in Chicago this week kicks off an international tour of dozens of Summits from New York to Tokyo this year, culminating with AWS re:Invent in December. At today’s conference Amazon Web Services GM of Product Strategy Matt Wood announced new features for the cloud platform.But one thing that was not officially discussed has been a rumored product that could give Amazon partner reason for concern.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: AWS Exec on competing with Google and Microsoft; the next big thing in the cloud| 10 big announcements from Google’s cloud conference +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Pop-Tech magnetic dashboard mount is a very simple, minimalistically designed mount that uses a strong magnet instead of clips or cradles to hold your phone securely in place, even on bumpy roads. The unit works with most major cell phones, and thanks to a steel ball allows you to rotate your device 360 degrees to adapt to most surfaces and angles. It averages 5 out of 5 stars from over 90 reviewers (read reviews). With a list price of $39.99, the current 70% discount on Amazon put this unit at just $11.99. If you're looking for a simple to use and unobtrusive mount, this item may be worth considering at its current price.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A new Amazon cloud service announced Tuesday could help companies with legacy applications have an easier time taking the leap to the cloud. Amazon Web Services General Manager Matt Wood announced the new Application Discovery Service, which will allow companies to easily analyze legacy applications running on their data centers. It will help companies start the migration of their application data up to the cloud, and then work with one of Amazon's partners to get their applications running in AWS.The service lets users identify their applications and the infrastructure dependencies of those applications and then measure a performance baseline of those applications operating on-premises before companies consider moving them to the cloud. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is suing the U.S. Department of Justice over its failure to disclose if Internet companies have been compelled to decrypt user data and communications.The EFF action targets applications to and decisions by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), a Washington, D.C., based court that meets in secret to consider cases related to government surveillance and national security.The court's decisions are classified, and Internet companies are prohibited from disclosing any details about warrants received as a result of arguments in front of the court.The result is that little is known about the extent of the court's activities. In October, the EFF filed a freedom-of-information request seeking more information but, according to its lawsuit, the DOJ said it couldn't find any documents relating to the issue.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
HPE/Aruba is said to be planning to acquire the intellectual property of failing startup Rasa Networks within the next 2 to 4 weeks, according to sources close to the matter.The transaction could see between $5 million and $10 million change hands, the sources added, noting that it’s not a full buyout of the company, but merely a deal for Rasa’s IP and, potentially, one or two of the company’s data scientists.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Don’t buy into hybrid cloud headache hype, GE’s cloud guru says + Meet a handheld server with a 13-terabyte SSDTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Building the Internet of Things is a dirty job, but someone's got to do it.Researchers at the University of Bath have revealed a breakthrough -- cheekily dubbed "pee power" -- involving the use of urine to power electronic devices in remote locations.MORE: 10 Internet of Things companies to watchYou can read the details in their paper, titled "Towards effective small scale microbial fuel cells for energy generation from urine." But in a nutshell, they've figured out how to build one-inch-square fuel cells that cost a buck or two and that get their buzz from urine, which interacts with "electric" bacteria. So-called microbial fuel cells are seen as being a carbon-neutral source of power generation, and could be used to provide juice to devices such as smartphones.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A DARPA-funded research team said recently it had developed a tiny component for silicon-based circuitry that could double the radio-frequency (RF) capacity for wireless communications—offering faster web-searching as well as the development of smaller, less expensive and more readily upgraded antenna arrays for radar, signals intelligence, and other applications.+More on Network World: Einstein was right: Gravitational waves exist!+The work was led by Columbia University electrical engineers Harish Krishnaswamy and Negar Reiskarimian and funded under DARPA’s Arrays at Commercial Timescales (ACT) program, which is looking to develop wireless electronic components that can be integrated into larger, more advanced systems quickly. DARPA said ACT products aim to “shorten design cycles and in-field updates and push past the traditional barriers that lead to 10-year array development cycles, 20- to 30-year static life cycles and costly service-life extension programs.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The OS X command line developer tools include an old version of the Git source code management system that exposes Mac users to remote code execution attacks.The Git client allows developers to interact with source code repositories. It is not installed by default on Mac OS X, but it is included in the Command Line Tools package for Xcode, Apple's integrated development environment (IDE).Software developers who create applications for OS X or iOS are likely to use Xcode and to have Apple's Command Line Tools package installed on their Macs. The latest version of this package includes Git version 2.6.4, released in December.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Technology vendors and law enforcement agencies need to look for a compromise that allows police to gain access to encrypted devices during criminal investigations, lawmakers say.Many tech vendors and privacy advocates have suggested there is no available compromise between strong security for device users and police access to encrypted communications. But members of a congressional committee on Tuesday pushed both sides in the ongoing encryption debate to look again for a possible middle ground.As Apple and the FBI continue to argue in court about whether the company should assist the agency with unlocking iPhones, "it's time to begin a new chapter in this battle, one which I hope can ultimately bring some resolution to the war," said Representative Tim Murphy, a Pennsylvania Republican.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Fixstars' Olive is like the Raspberry Pi of servers, but with a twist -- it packs 13TB of solid-state drive storage in a system that can be held in one hand.Olive could be viewed as a full-fledged computer crammed into a 2.5-inch SSD drive. The 13TB drive makes it one-of-a-kind in a market where compact computers are hungry for storage.Some unique features make the server better suited for businesses than homes. It is customizable, with an FPGA (field-programmable gate array), which can be reprogrammed for specific tasks. It can also be used as a portable server to dish out movies, or to collect, store and distribute data related to databases or the Internet of Things.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
General Electric is on an aggressive pursuit of going embracing cloud services, the company's CTO – IT Chris Drumgoogle told me recently.GE has tens of thousands of apps; petabytes of storage and more than $100 billion in annual revenue. So it can’t rely on just a single vendor. Drumgoole says that GE’s highest value apps in the cloud straddle across at least two providers. Lower-priority apps can run in one cloud.
Chris Drumgoole, CTO of IT, General Electric: Hybrid cloud hype is 'overblown'To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here