The WannaCry ransomware outbreak may have spurred Microsoft into updating its abandoned operating systems to protect against the malware, but it turns out virtually all of the action was around Windows 7, which remains in wide use. A researcher with Kaspersky Labs noted that virtually all of the infections they found involved Windows 7, especially the 64-bit version. That’s hardly surprising, since there haven’t been 32-bit x86 processors on the market in years.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
I confess, I don’t receive the MagPi magazine – which is a shame for a print enthusiast like myself, because it looks like a handsome and skillfully made publication. It’s also a shame because I could have received a new AIY projects kit from Google, which would have let me add voice recognition and AI capabilities to the Raspberry Pi projects that I am definitely going to get started on one of these days.Issue 57 of MagPi comes with the aforementioned add-on board, which is a joint project of Google and the Raspberry Pi Foundation. It’s probably the simplest way yet to add voice recognition to Pi projects, though it’s far from the only one, of course. You can use Google’s voice recognition API with your own hardware, you can wire it up to Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant – suffice it to say, there are options.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Bandai's Pac-Man Connect and Play brings back your favorite classic video games right to your television. Connect the included cords directly into your television A/V jacks, and head back in time. Featuring 12 Classic games like: Pac-Man, Pac-Man Plus, Bosconian, Galaxian, Mappy, Super Pac-Man, Galaga, Dig Dug, New Rally X, Pac & Pal and Xevious. Not to mention, Pac-Man 256, which offers fans the chance to play the coveted level once made unavailable due to a bug in the program of the supposedly never-ending game. The list price of $19.99 has been reduced 25% down to $14.96 on Amazon, where it's currently listed as a #1 Best Seller. Get your Father's Day shopping done right now. See this deal on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Historically, GPUs have been used in graphics-heavy processes such as video games. It’s fair to say that to serious gamers, Nvidia-based graphics cards have become the de facto standard. However, as I pointed out previously, GPUs have become increasingly more important in applications such as artificial intelligence (AI), virtual reality (VR) and analytics.I was fortunate to attend Nvidia’s annual GPU Technology Conference last week, and the keynote from CEO Jensen Huang was perhaps the most innovative future-looking session I have seen in a long time.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Compatible with the new Macbooks, Chromebooks and more, this reversible connector from Aukey is USB-C to HDMI. Mirror or extend your display and experience the lightning fast data transfer speeds that come with this new generation of USB technology. The adapter's typical list price of $39.99 has been reduced 60% down to just $15.99. See this deal on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Netgear makes some popular routers, but do you really want the company behind your model of router to collect data such as your IP address and MAC address? If the answer is no, then you need to disable the ‘analytics’ data collection.Netgear’s NightHawk R7000 router, dubbed as “best-selling” and “top-rated” router on Amazon, is now collecting users’ data. Not just Wi-Fi information, but also information about connected devices, MAC address and IP. The data collection was enabled in the latest firmware update.A Slashdot user spotted the change after Netgear updated its data collection policy. A support article – “What router analytics data is collected and how is the data being used by Netgear? – states:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Echo Dot is a hands-free, voice-controlled device with a small built-in speaker—it can also connect to your speakers or headphones over Bluetooth or through a 3.5 mm audio cable to deliver stereo sound to the speakers you choose. Dot connects to the Alexa Voice Service to play music, make calls, send and receive messages, provide information, news, sports scores, weather, and more—instantly. Echo Dot can hear you from across the room, even while music is playing. When you want to use Echo Dot, just say the wake word “Alexa” and Dot responds instantly. If you have more than one Echo or Echo Dot, Alexa responds intelligently from the Echo you're closest to with ESP (Echo Spatial Perception). Buying a certified refurbished Dot typically saves you 10%, but right now Amazon is offering a 16% discount on that discount, so you'll be paying just $37.99 -- a total 24% discount over its "brand new" counterpart. Amazon's certified refurbished program ensures you'll receive a product that looks and functions good as new, complete with a warranty, so there's not much to worry about here. See this deal on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Netgear makes some popular routers, but do you really want the company behind your model of router to collect data such as your IP address and MAC address? If the answer is no, then you need to disable the "analytics" data collection.Netgear’s NightHawk R7000 router, dubbed as “best-selling” and “top-rated” router on Amazon, is now collecting users’ data. Not just Wi-Fi information, but also information about connected devices, MAC address and IP. The data collection was enabled in the latest firmware update.A Slashdot user spotted the change after Netgear updated its data collection policy. A support article—“What router analytics data is collected and how is the data being used by Netgear?—states:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Everyone knows that thoroughbred racehorses typically get funny, exotic names—from Hit It A Bomb to Paulassilverlining. But who knew there was a horse named Cloud Computing, let along that nag would snag the second jewel in the 2017 Triple Crown?It turns out The Preakness Stakes winner was a 13-1 long shot, but it doesn’t take an expert handicapper to see that the technology platform is becoming a prohibitive favorite. Heck, I’ve been making that call for a while now, including down the stretch this year:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple's upcoming iPhone 8 certainly won't be the priciest device to ever come out of Cupertino, but it will certainly be the most expensive iPhone Apple has ever released. Hardly a surprise, Apple is planning to pack a ton of advanced technology into its flagship 2017 iPhone. In addition to an edgeless OLED display, it's widely believed that the device will incorporate improved water resistance, facial recognition technology, support for what may be next-gen augmented reality, faster internals, wireless charging and more.So while the current entry-level iPhone 7 only costs about $649, some analysts are anticipating that the entry-level iPhone 8 will set users back a cool $1,000. That's a significant price increase to say the least, but many analysts believe that Apple will have no problem selling users on the idea of shelling out $1,000 for the company's state of the art smartphone.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
I’ve written a lot about ESG’s security operations and analytics platform architecture (SOAPA). SOAPA is happening because enterprise organizations are surrounding SIEM with lots of other security analytics and operations tools to accelerate incident detection and response. As this occurs, many organizations are actively integrating these technologies together with the goal of building an end-to-end, event-driven, security technology architecture.SOAPA is impacting security strategies of large organizations, leading to reactions and changes on the supply side. What type of changes? I recently sat down with Haiyan Song, EVP at Splunk, to discuss Splunk’s views on SOAPA. Here are a few highlights of our discussion:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In 2016, May 4 was all about SharePoint. In another “May moment” this year (May 16), Microsoft unveiled the latest innovations for SharePoint and OneDrive during the SharePoint Virtual Summit. If you missed the event, you still can watch the entire program online.There were lots of exciting announcements, and it’s worth watching the entire two-hour event, but it included several compelling announcements related to technology capabilities that can help organizations realize their knowledge management goals.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Keep your PS4 or PS4 Slim compact, organized and functioning properly with this vertical stand from Pecham. It features an integrated cooling fan, dual controller changing and a USB hub for powering & charging your phone or other devices as needed. Pecham's stand currently averages 4.6 out of 5 stars from over 185 people on Amazon (82% rate the full 5 stars: read reviews here), where its list price of $29.99 has been reduced 47% to just $15.99. See this deal now on Amazon. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Running its courseImage by UntangleNetwork World's long-running product of the week slideshow has come to an end with this edition. Vendors are still welcome to discuss their products with reporters. Thank you to all who have submitted products. CyphonImage by dunbarTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In 2005 when Google was a $6.1 billion business, the database that underpinned the company’s primary cash cow – it’s AdWords online advertising platform that accounted for more than 95% of its revenue – was not keeping up with the growth of the company.Typically when a traditional database needs to scale, a process called sharding is used. It breaks data into multiple smaller databases to distribute load. More than a decade ago, the database powering AdWords was getting so large that one reshard took multiple years. A new database was needed. So Google built one.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Deep dive on Amazon, Microsoft and Google cloud storage options | NoSQL takes the database market by storm +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Thousand megabit broadband is a turning point for internet delivery speeds. Newer tech, such as virtual reality, and the incumbents, such as video streaming, will benefit. Right now, though, only about 17 percent of the U.S.’s population has access to those super-fast speeds, which are primarily delivered by fiber, according to Viavi Solution’s latest Gigabit Monitor report.Although Gigabit is kicking in, it’s not going to be particularly simple to implement at the networking level, internet metrics company Ookla said earlier this month. Upgraded, wired installs will likely handle the throughput better than existing, now commonly used Wi-Fi, among other things, the company said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
We often say, “HTTPS is secure,” or “HTTP is not secure.” But what we mean is that “HTTPS is hard to snoop and makes man-in-the-middle attacks difficult” or “my grandmother has no trouble snooping HTTP.”Nevertheless, HTTPS has been hacked, and under some circumstances, HTTP is secure enough. Furthermore, if I discover an exploitable defect in a common implementation supporting HTTPS (think OpenSSL and Heartbleed), HTTPS can become a hacking gateway until the implementation is corrected.HTTP and HTTPS are protocols defined in IETF RFCs 7230-7237 and 2828. HTTPS was designed as a secure HTTP, but saying HTTPS is secure and HTTP is not still hides important exceptions.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
When Google first told the world about its Tensor Processing Unit, the strategy behind it seemed clear enough: Speed machine learning at scale by throwing custom hardware at the problem. Use commodity GPUs to train machine-learning models; use custom TPUs to deploy those trained models.The new generation of Google’s TPUs is designed to handle both of those duties, training and deploying, on the same chip. That new generation is also faster, both on its own and when scaled out with others in what’s called a “TPU pod.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft’s annual Build developers conference is becoming a must-see for developers, given the huge amounts of information and technical deep dives available over the three days of the show. However, the show has been biased toward American developers, since it’s been held in only U.S. west coast cities: Seattle, before that San Francisco, and originally in Anaheim, California. So, recognizing some folks can’t make the trip, Microsoft is bringing the show to them on a global tour this June. It’s rather short notice for some folks. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
For some reason, Microsoft has unleashed a flood of developer news after its Build developers conference. One of them is the announcement of the new Windows Template Studio, an evolution of Windows App Studio it launched a few years back for building Windows Universal Apps without actually writing code. Universal Windows Platform (UWP), or universal apps, is an ongoing project from Microsoft to develop software once that can run on a variety of devices running Windows, from PCs to tablets and phones and the Xbox console. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here