Spring is officially on the calendar, despite having a bunch of snow still on the ground around my house. But that doesn’t matter to several of the companies displaying new products and services at the Digital Focus Spring Spectacular, held last night in New York. Here’s a roundup of some new devices that I hope to review soon: Epson
Epson showed off its new projector aimed at houses looking for projection in well-lit rooms.The Home Cinema 1450 ($1,499 MSRP, available April 17) is a 3LCD projector that delivers up to 4,200 lumens of color brightness and 4,200 lumens of white brightness and full 1080p resolution. The difference between the 1450 and other projectors is its ability to provide a brilliant image in a room with lights on (like a living room, as opposed to a home theater room setup). The projector includes a built-in 16-watt speaker, and supports cable/satellite boxes, game consoles, Internet streaming devices (Roku, Chromecast, Fire Stick, Apple TV, etc.) through its two HDMI ports and a Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL3) port.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
After 40 critical vulnerabilities on Samsung's Tizen -- used in smart TVs and smartwatches -- were exposed this week by Israeli researcher Amihai Neiderman, the company is scrambling to patch them.But Samsung still doesn't know many of the bugs that need to be patched. It's also unclear when Tizen devices will get security patches, or if older Tizen devices will even get OS updates to squash the bugs.Beyond Samsung's smart TVs, Tizen is also used in wearables like Gear S3 and handsets like Samsung's Z-series phones, which have sold well in India. Samsung wants to put Tizen in a range of appliances and IoT devices. Tizen also has been forked to be used in Raspberry Pi.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you're trying to do business intelligence (BI) on big data and the capability to handle large number of concurrent queries is a key issue for you, Google BigQuery may well be the way to go, according to a new Business Intelligence Benchmark released Thursday by AtScale, a startup specializing in helping organizations enable BI on big data.[ Related: Google BigQuery update aims for enticing Hadoop users ]To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Georgetown University is testing a cloud phone service intended to replace its 25-year-old system, which would cost millions of dollars to replace. The move, part of a broader telecommunications infrastructure overhaul, advances the private university's plan to migrate to consumer-friendly cloud and mobile software, says CIO Judd Nicholson. Georgetown University
Georgetown University CIO Judd Nicholson.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Canonical, the company behind the best-known Linux distribution in the world and one of the biggest players in commercial open source software, has announced several large-scale changes of direction that have created big ripples in the open source world.The biggest news is that the company will no longer focus development resources on its Unity desktop front-end for Linux – a long-standing project designed to make Ubuntu a viable operating system for a wide array of endpoints, including phones and tablets. Instead, Ubuntu will move back to the venerable GNOME desktop environment, which it split from in 2010.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Samsung's profit soars after recovery from Note7 debacle + Microsoft Surface beats Apple iPad in JD Power testsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Two powerful U.S. lawmakers are pushing President Donald Trump administration's to tell them how many of the country's residents are under surveillance by the National Security Agency.In a letter sent Friday, Representatives Bob Goodlatte and John Conyers Jr. asked the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to provide an estimate of the number of U.S. residents whose communications are swept up in NSA surveillance of foreign targets. Goodlatte, a Republican, is chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and Conyers is the committee's senior Democrat.Committee members have been seeking an estimate of the surveillance numbers from the ODNI for a year now. Other lawmakers have been asking for the surveillance numbers since 2011, but ODNI has failed to provide them.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In this era where disinformation, alternative facts and other falsehoods are the rule of the day, the researchers at DARPA are looking to build a mechanism that can glean some truth from the obfuscation.DARPA says the program, called Active Interpretation of Disparate Alternatives (AIDA), looks to develop a “semantic engine” that generates alternative interpretations or meaning of real-world events, situations, and trends based on data obtained from an extensive range of channels. The program aims to create technology capable of aggregating and mapping pieces of information automatically derived from multiple media sources into a common representation or storyline, and then generating and exploring multiple theories about the true nature and implications of events, situations, and trends of interest, DARPA says. +More on Network World: DARPA plan would reinvent not-so-clever machine learning systems+ To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
From the time it launched, Windows 10 has been the source of controversy over its aggressive monitoring of user activity, and I readily admit to fanning those flames at the start. A cottage industry of utilities has sprung up that will turn off all of the offending features in one fell swoop, which has quieted a lot of people, me included.RELATED: 11 hidden tips and tweaks for Windows 10
With the release of the Windows 10 Creators Update, Microsoft has made a major change in the nature of its data collection in the OS and has revealed a great deal of information on the telemetry that it gathers from your system. It is documented in a lengthy blog post by Windows chief Terry Myerson.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices. Click here to subscribe. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) received reports of 59 cyber incidents at energy facilities in 2016. This is an increase of nearly a third over 2015. Security specialists believe this number is quite conservative, considering that energy companies aren’t required to report cyberattacks to DHS.But the actual number of incidents isn’t the really concerning part of the story. More worrisome, say federal cybersecurity officials and private security specialists, is that the vast majority of energy industry companies lack the technology and personnel to continuously monitor their operational systems for anomalous activity, which leaves them unable to detect intrusions when they happen. Consequently, they don’t even know about incidents to be able to report them.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
I’ve worked with McAfee for a long time—from its independent days, during the Network Associates timeframe, through financial issues, back to McAfee and the go-go Dave DeWalt era, and finally as Intel Security. To be honest, Intel’s acquisition of McAfee was always a head-scratcher for me. The 20-somethings on Wall Street crowed about Intel cramming McAfee security in its chip set, but this made no sense to me—Intel had long added security (and other) functionality into its processors with lukewarm market reception. The two cultures were a mismatch, as well. Ultimately, it seems Intel came to a similar conclusion and recently spun out McAfee in a private equity stew. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The allocation of radio spectrum is a fiercely contested matter. Government regulators—the FCC in the U.S., OFCOM in the U.K., and others—manage spectrum as a national resource. They seek to balance the needs of various groups, including cellular operators, government users, scientific and amateur radio groups. And, of course, they represent the public both directly and via their political masters.Industries that depend on access to spectrum must work hard to ensure continuing access, and they must head off proposals for new services that might cause interference. As established users of the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands, here are some of the areas where the Wi-Fi industry is active today, working with regulators.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A cycle of increasing new malware is well underway and could last the rest of this year if a trend established over the past two years continues.Defenders enjoyed a nine-month dip in malware innovation last year, but that’s over with, according to a cycle identified by McAfee Labs.Its latest McAfee Labs Threats Report says that starting at the beginning of 2015, the volume of new threats has fluctuated in a regular pattern, with two to three quarters of growth followed by three quarters of decline. The last three quarters of 2016 showed decline, so the next uptick should have started last quarter.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
For decades, the enterprise Wi-Fi network served one purpose: to connect users devices to the company network. However, the rise of digital transformation has caused many organizations to leverage Wi-Fi to create new experiences.A good example of an early adopter of this concept is the Orlando Airport, which went fully wireless a couple years ago. However, as I pointed out in the article, creating a differentiated indoor mobile experience is difficult with Wi-Fi only because Wi-Fi triangulation is accurate to roughly 5 to 15 meters. That may be sufficient for a handful of use cases, but most indoor services need to be more accurate than this. Consider a nurse trying to locate a critical piece of medical equipment. An accuracy range of 10 meters could pose quite a challenge. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Amazon Prime members get an exclusive 20% off the pre-order of Prey. In Prey, you awaken aboard Talos I, a space station orbiting the moon in the year 2032. You are the key subject of an experiment meant to alter humanity forever – but things have gone terribly wrong.
Data is one of the most valuable assets a modern business holds. When a company decides to move to the cloud, data security and privacy become a natural and top concern for management.That concern stems largely from discomfort: Businesses don't like the idea of losing control of their data by giving it to another company to manage. As CTO of a large SaaS company, one question I hear from new clients time and time again is: Can we limit the access your employees have to our sensitive data? It’s a question I’ve done a lot of thinking about—and one that every cloud company needs to address if it wants business leaders to feel more confident about data security and privacy—and therefore, more comfortable overall about embracing the cloud. Ultimately, when it comes to protecting data—from using the latest firewall and encryption technologies to earning leading industry certifications—the goal is to win the customer's trust.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
History repeats itself as Microsoft, late to the tablet party and needing a few revisions to make Surface a success, has beaten all of its tablet rivals in the JD Power 2017 U.S. Tablet Satisfaction Study. It's the first time Microsoft has topped the charts since the survey was first introduced by JD Power.Overall, Microsoft scored 855 out of a possible 1,000 points, narrowly beating Apple with 849 and Samsung with 847. JD Power said Microsoft was the top performer in three areas: pre-loaded applications, internet connectivity and availability of manufacturer-supported accessories. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Ajit Pai has disclosed preliminary plans to roll back some of the net neutrality provisions in the U.S., which could be put to vote as soon as May or June, according to news reports.In a meeting this week with industry associations, Pai is said to have outlined a plan that would do away with the classification of broadband providers as common carriers subject to the oversight of the FCC.The new proposal would, however, require the broadband providers to promise to preserve net neutrality principles such as by not blocking or prioritizing Internet traffic, according to the news reports.The reclassification of broadband as a public regulated utility was part of a move by the previous administration of President Barack Obama to preserve net neutrality in the U.S. The FCC voted 3-2 in February 2015 to reclassify broadband as a regulated public utility by invoking Title II of the Communications Act, thus prohibiting providers from selectively blocking or throttling or offering paid prioritization of Internet traffic.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Robots are supposed to do good things for us, not bad things to us.But there is plenty of evidence that, like the billions of other connected devices that make up the Internet of Things (IoT), the growth of robot technology is coming with loads of features, but not much of a security blanket.More evidence came in a report on home, business and industrial robots released last month by security research firm IOActive, which found that “most” of them lacked what experts generally call “basic security hygiene.”Those included the predictable list: Insecure communication channels, critical information sent in cleartext or with weak encryption, no requirement for user names or passwords for some services, weak authentication in others, and a lack of sufficient authorization to protect critical functions such as software installation or updates.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cost-conscious businesses are increasingly buying unlocked smartphones for their workers, instead of more expensive smartphones with two-year service plans that are locked to a certain wireless U.S. carrier."Unlocked makes more sense," said Craig Riegelhaupt, direct of product marketing for mobile at Tangoe, an IT and telecom expense management software and services vendor that functions as a consultant to thousands of large businesses.There's a "definite" trend among Tangoe customers toward buying unlocked smartphones, as more procurement officers and managers for lines of business vie to reduce costs, he added. "They are always cost-conscious."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Speaking to the immense demand Apple is forecasting for the iPhone 8, the Cupertino-based company recently inked a deal for a whopping 92 million OLED panels from Samsung. While reports from earlier in the week pegged Apple's OLED order in the 70 million range, a more recent from Digitimes relays that the figure has since been bumped up."Based on the contract," the report notes. "Samsung Display will ship 70-92 million small-size OLED panels to Apple in 2017... This means that about 30% of iPhone devices shipped in 2017 will come with curved OLED panels, given that Apple currently ships about 200 million iPhone devices a year."Hardly a surprise, many analysts are anticipating that the iPhone 8 will anchor the largest iPhone upgrade cycle in history. Not only will the iPhone 8 introduce a long overdue change to a form factor that has largely remain stagnant since 2014, but the current pool of iPhone owners in the market for an upgrade is larger today than it's ever been before. Taken together, demand for the iPhone 8 will presumably be off the charts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here