In what could be a giant leap for Internet of Things (IoT) form factors, scientists say they have invented a spray-on antenna. And the bug-spray-like application will outperform traditional metal antennas, they claim.If it indeed does outperform traditional antennas, the clear, ink-like radiators will transform physical mediums used in constructing networks. Flexible substrates, windows, or data center walls even could be made into antennas, which would then drastically alter the data-collecting landscape.“Installing an antenna [could be] as easy as applying some bug spray,” an article on Drexel University’s website says.To read this article in full, please click here
An academic researcher’s talk on Monday at the Fog World Congress in San Francisco demonstrated both the limits of distributed computing structures and their critical importance to future IoT and augmented reality (AR) implementations.Dr. Maria Gorlatova’s recent work has centered on the study of fog and edge architecture – specifically, the way in which particular methods of architecting those systems can affect latency and response time. She's studying the differences in systems which are on- and off-campus, that have different points of execution, which seems like the academic way of saying “where the computational work is done.”To read this article in full, please click here
Whoever thought the chief competitors to HP Enterprise and Dell EMC would wind up being some of their biggest customers? But giant data center operators are in a sense becoming just that — a competitor to the hardware companies that they once and, to some degree still, sell hardware to.The needs of hyperscale data centers have driven this phenomenon. HPE and Dell design servers with maximum, broad appeal, so they don’t have to have many SKUs. But hyperscale data center operators want different configurations and find it cheaper to buy the parts and build the server themselves.Most of them— Google chief among them — don’t sell their designs; it’s just for their own internal use. But in the case of LinkedIn, the company is offering to “open source” the hardware designs it created to lower costs and speed up its data center deployment.To read this article in full, please click here
The latest update to the Wi-Fi protocol standard, 802.11ax, has been designed to transmit data even faster, to better negotiate bandwidth among several computers and other devices connected to a network, and to more reliably deliver high-bandwidth applications to them, such as streaming video, than the protocol standard it succeeds, 802.11ac.To take advantage of these gains, client and networking devices need to have hardware that supports the new protocol, of course. Many network device makers have announced 802.11ax products to come. They’ve also filed 802.11ax devices with the FCC for licensing, which reveal more technical information about them.To read this article in full, please click here
“Turn Me Loose”
I finally delivered four large boxes of CDs to my local library – my collection of nearly 1,000 titles, some as old as 33 years, like my Loverboy CD, when I acquired them in back in 1985. And back in 1985, or maybe 1986, I did a similar uncluttering with my cassettes and vinyl (except for a few select albums like an original release of Dark Side of the Moon).Music has gone from 12” vinyl to more compact cassette tapes to even more compact CDs and now streaming services that connect listeners to music anywhere, anytime. Just as music technology has changed through the years to provide more flexibility on how music is consumed, the application consumption model has changed, too. The “job of the WAN” has always been to connect users to applications, but wide area networking (WAN) technology based on conventional branch routers has not kept up to provide the optimal means of connecting to them.To read this article in full, please click here
Future cellular Internet of Things (IoT) networks are going to be expected to deliver much lower latency and significantly higher reliability. Getting to that point, however, must be a step-by-step approach, said a telco equipment executive at Mobile World Congress Americas earlier this month.“Doing one at a time is not so difficult, but doing both at the same time is a challenge,” said Jawad Manssour, head of Networks Portfolio Management at Product Area Networks with equipment maker Ericsson, during a presentation at the conference.Ericsson is one of the world’s big three principal base station and cellular equipment vendors, along with Huawei and Nokia. Mobile network providers Sprint and Ericsson recently announced that they are building a distributed virtualized core IoT network and an IoT operating system.To read this article in full, please click here
Cisco today exposed 13 vulnerabilities in its IOS and IOS XE switch and router operating software that the company said should be patched as soon as possible.The vulnerabilities were detailed in Cisco’s twice-yearly dump of IOS exposures. All have a High Impact security rating, and fixes should be evaluated by users quickly.[ Also see Invaluable tips and tricks for troubleshooting Linux. ]
The company said this particular batch of issues could let an attacker gain elevated privileges for an affected device or cause a denial of service (DoS) on an affected device.To read this article in full, please click here
In 2018, the concept of a smart building is no longer surprising. With the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT), so-called smart buildings and homes are everywhere, providing various degrees of intelligent management and control of various building systems, including lighting, HVAC, communications, and security. In most cases, however, those “smart” capabilities are still relatively limited, don’t always work together, and require a significant amount of human attention to function.Dwight Stewart, founder and CTO of 5-year-old Power-over-Ethernet (PoE) vendor Igor, dreams of something much bigger and better. He sees the firm’s new Nexos smart building platform as the first step toward his vision of truly autonomous buildings.To read this article in full, please click here
We’re back! Here’s the latest monthly roundup of big and not-so-big news in the world of IoT, ranging from carrier doings to a neat little startup. Buckle up.California legislates IoT securityCalifornia’s state legislature this month sent a bill to Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk that would mandate the use of “reasonable” security features in any connected devices, which are defined as any device that “is equipped with a means for authentication outside a local area network.” So, essentially, anything that can be accessed via the Internet would be subject to SB 327.To read this article in full, please click here
We’re back! Here’s the latest monthly roundup of big and not-so-big news in the world of IoT, ranging from carrier doings to a neat little startup. Buckle up.California legislates IoT security
California’s state legislature this month sent a bill to Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk that would mandate the use of “reasonable” security features in any connected devices, which are defined as any device that “is equipped with a means for authentication outside a local area network.” So, essentially, anything that can be accessed via the Internet would be subject to SB 327.To read this article in full, please click here
Hitachi Vantara launched a wide range of new hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) systems, software management, and automation tools at its Hitachi Next 2018 conference taking place in San Diego.The move is meant to be a convergence of products, just as Hitachi Ventara as a company is going through a convergence. The U.S. subsidiary of the Japanese tech giant was formed last year by combining three business units: Hitachi Data Systems, the systems and storage infrastructure business; the Hitachi Insight Group IoT business; and the Pentaho Big Data business.To read this article in full, please click here
The Fedora Project says the Fedora 29 beta is now availalbe — the latest version of the free and open-source Fedora OS. The major additions to this release include:
Modularity support across all editions, allowing multiple versions of the same software (e.g., node.js) to be selected on a per-system basis and then deployed through containers
Better performance and reliability for ARM single boards (such as Pi) given enhanced ZRAM support for swap on ARMv7 and aarch64
The "freeze" (moving Fedora 29 out of the "beta" stage) is expected on October 9.To read this article in full, please click here
It’s a fairly common scenario. An end user calls the help desk about a problem he’s experiencing. He might say, “I can't access the inventory application.” The worker has no idea why he can't get to the application today when it worked fine yesterday. The help desk consultant collects the relevant information for the ticket, which then gets escalated to the network operations center that is the control center for the enterprise.The technician assigned to the ticket doesn't know if this is a true network problem, an application problem, or even something that is specific to that user's workstation or environment. Narrowing the possible causes of the problem will require some investigation using various toolsets. Traditional network monitoring tools can tell if there’s anything wrong with a server, router, or switch on that user’s network segment. If those major components are fine, the hunt for the root cause gets underway. This can be time consuming in the absence of user-specific metrics.To read this article in full, please click here
Intel is revamping its strategy around the data center by going beyond the Xeon chip and into silicon photonics transceivers. The company announced Monday at the European Conference on Optical Communications (ECOC) that samples of its silicon photonics transceivers targeting 5G wireless infrastructure and data centers are available now, with production set to start in the first quarter of 2019.The company notes that global data center IP traffic is increasing significantly. In 2016, global data center IP traffic was 6.8 zettabytes, and that will triple by 2021 because of all this data generated by humans and the Internet of Things (IoT).The choke point becomes copper wire, the standard for Ethernet connectivity. Copper wire can only effectively transmit about eight to 10 meters, said Eoin McConnell, director of marketing for the connectivity group in Intel’s data center group. Fiber optics can go as far as 10 kilometers.To read this article in full, please click here
Update:
On Sept. 16, 2018, after being questioned by The New Yorker about his abusive behavior, Linus Torvalds apologized for his conduct and announced he was stepping back from kernel development to get help understanding people's emotions and how to respond properly. In addition, for the first time, the Linux community will be adopting a Code of Conduct to create a welcome and opening environment. -----------------------------------------------A prominent Linux kernel developer announced today in a blog post that she would step down from her direct work in the kernel community, saying that the community values blunt honesty, often containing profane and personal attacks above “basic human decency.”To read this article in full, please click here
Update:
On Sept. 16, 2018, after being questioned by The New Yorker about his abusive behavior, Linus Torvalds apologized for his conduct and announced he was stepping back from kernel development to get help understanding people's emotions and how to respond properly. In addition, for the first time, the Linux community will be adopting a Code of Conduct to create a welcome and opening environment. -----------------------------------------------A prominent Linux kernel developer announced today in a blog post that she would step down from her direct work in the kernel community, saying that the community values blunt honesty, often containing profane and personal attacks above “basic human decency.”To read this article in full, please click here
Former Intel executive Renee James, who could have been the CEO following the ouster of Brian Krzanich last June, has instead launched a broadside attack against her former employer in the form of Ampere Computing, a startup company that develops ARM-based chips for the data center.Sound familiar? It’s what Cavium has been doing for some time — and gaining a good bit of momentum. However, the fields are still very green, and Ampere has more than enough room to grow.[ Now read: What is quantum computing (and why enterprises should care) ]
Ampere is based in the Silicon Valley but has an office in Portland, Oregon, not far from Intel’s primary development facility in Hillsboro, and apparently Ampere has been picking up Intel employees left and right.To read this article in full, please click here
Apple is dropping the Back To My Mac remote access feature, and in a recent support document they urge you to be prepared by looking for alternatives.RemotePC by iDrive is a full-featured remote access solution that lets you connect to your work or office computer securely from anywhere, and from any iOS or Android device. Right now, their 50 computer package is 90% off or just $6.95 for your 1st year. So if you need an alternative to Back To My Mac, or have been thinking about remote access, now is a good time to consider RemotePC. Learn more about it here.To read this article in full, please click here
Large companies need to maintain a robust IT infrastructure if they want to thrive in the digital age, and they can’t accomplish this without certified IT professionals. Luckily, traditional schooling isn’t necessary to land an IT job; IT professionals simply need to pass their certification exams, and they can do so thanks to the wealth of training courses available. One such resource is this Ultimate IT Certification Training Bundle, which is currently on sale for $39.To read this article in full, please click here
Using a sole communications technology doesn’t make sense in many Internet of Things (IoT) implementations, says connectivity vendor Sigfox.In fact, the company, which provides Low Power Wide Area (LPWA) networks, says one could use a hybrid that includes an unlicensed LPWA network along with a licensed, cellular LTE narrowband IoT (NB-IoT) or LTE Cat M1 network solution instead. That way you can support cheap, unlicensed IoT short messaging close up, as is offered by Sigfox and others, and then offload the sensor traffic to more expensive, licensed LTE cellular mobile networks as the devices move off home base, such as what happens in asset tracking, Sigfox says.To read this article in full, please click here