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Category Archives for "Network World Wireless"

Samsung reboots its smart home, IoT strategy with the Galaxy S8

Samsung has a portfolio of devices and appliances that would make Apple envious. But unlike Apple, Samsung devices don't work well together.With the Galaxy S8 smartphones and other new products, Samsung hopes that will change. The company is setting in motion a grand plan to build smart homes where its devices operate seamlessly and provide a consistent user experience.Samsung's S8 smartphones will be able to activate appliances through Connect, an app based on the company's SmartThings platform. With just a flick of the finger, the app will allow users to start a robot vacuum cleaner, dim lights, or even ask a Family Hub refrigerator to analyze contents and send a supermarket shopping list.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What is bitemporal and why should the enterprise care?

This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.Today, databases are the primary system of record, and organizations are required to keep an accurate picture of all the facts, as they occur. Unfortunately, traditional databases are only temporal and cannot provide a truly accurate picture of your business at different points-in-time.What organizations need today, particularly in regulated industries, is support for bitemporal data.  With a bitemporal database, you can store and query data along two timelines with timestamps for both valid times—when a fact occurred in the real world (“what you knew”), and also system time—when that fact was recorded to the database (“when you knew it”). To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

10 practical privacy tips for the post-privacy internet

ISPs and providers can now sell your data and browser histories. The U.S. Congress sold you out. If you had any browsing dignity, you don’t now. Too bad you couldn’t pay the legislators as much as the data wolves.You should have been doing these things all along, but now it’s time to decide just how much dignity you have. Most of you won’t bother. This isn’t for you. Click away, and go surf.For those remaining, take these privacy tips seriously.1. Educate yourself about cookies and clean them out regularly For some of you, this means a daily cleanout. What you DO NOT clean out (will cause you hassles) are cookies associated with financial institutions. They will put you through a drill when they don’t find the cookie that they like. Scrape them. Every browser has the ability to do this, with Chrome being the most difficult. But we’re not surprised because it’s from Google—the company whose very life depends on knowing information about you.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM technology creates smart wingman for self-driving cars

IBM said that it has patented a machine learning technology that defines how to shift control of an autonomous vehicle between a human driver and a vehicle control processor in the event of a potential emergency.+More on Network World: IBM on the state of network security: AbysmalBasically the patented IBM system employs onboard sensors and artificial intelligence to determine potential safety concerns and control whether self-driving vehicles are operated autonomously or by surrendering control to a human driver.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Do you own your social media contacts or does your employer?

Who among us hasn't taken a contact list when they left a job? Whether you leave voluntarily or involuntarily, one of the things you pack up is your Rolodex, or the modern equivalent, to take with you to the next job. It's pretty much standard.But what if you are a public figure and have a sizable social media following? Can you keep your millions of Facebook and/or Twitter followers? That issue has not been hashed out, but it might be in Dallas.+ Also on Network World: Facebook working with fact-checkers to weed out fake news + The Blaze, a news network established by talk show host Glenn Beck, is in the midst of parting company with its highest profile on-air talent aside from Beck. The company is severing ties with Tomi Lahren, a hotheaded 24-year-old whose on-air blasts of "snowflakes" and Black Lives Matter have made her a rising star in conservative circles.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

SS8’s time machine is designed to automate the hunt for compromises  

This column is available in a weekly newsletter called IT Best Practices.  Click here to subscribe.  When it comes to enterprise security, it has long been established that prevention, though critical, is not enough. Prevention largely depends on knowing what is bad and priming security devices like firewalls and intrusion prevention systems with the rules necessary to keep bad stuff out. The problem is, something can be bad but nobody knows it yet, so there’s no rule to put in the firewall. An attacker’s damage can be done long before the rule is created.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Mobile networks still stink, with more workers coming

A new survey sponsored by NetMotion Software and WBR Digital shows that mobile network connectivity problems are the top reason for mobile-related trouble ticket submissions at enterprise companies. But that might not matter in terms of growth – as the same survey indicated that more than half the companies (56%) expected their mobile workforce to increase this year.Despite Wi-Fi networks and mobile WAN (3G, 4G, etc.) being available for the better part of a decade or more, as well as mobile devices that have been in the hands of workers for almost the same amount of time, frustrations still exist when it comes to mobile networks. “Intermittent network connectivity or poor application stability can leave an employee cut off from essential information they need to do their jobs, leading to a frustrated worker and an unsatisfactory customer engagement,” the executive summary notes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ed Meyercord’s plan for Extreme Networks proves to be ‘better than most’

Any fan of the PGA Tour will never forget the “better than most” call by NBC’s Gary Koch. On March 24, 2001, Tiger Woods stepped up to execute one of the most difficult putts of his career. Halfway to the hole, Koch uttered the words “better than most” as it looked like his putt was going to be a good one. It wound up going in, and that become yet another notable moment in Tiger’s illustrious career where great execution was becoming the norm. In the highly tumultuous networking market, Extreme Networks’ CEO, Ed Meyercord, continues to make moves that are “better than most,” putting his company in a position to be a long-term share gainer in a market that badly needs more strong vendors. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

8 great testing tools for mobile app developers

8 great testing tools for mobile app developersImage by geralt via PixabayThe rapid proliferation of mobile devices presents a particular nasty testing issue for mobile app developers. With so many operating system versions, browsers, and devices in circulation, ensuring a quality experience across all combinations can be nearly impossible, especially when you have a limited number of devices on hand.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What Microsoft failed to deliver in the Windows 10 Creators Update

If the Windows 10 Creators Update had worked out as Microsoft had promised, we all would be taking 3D selfies, importing them to Windows, and then sharing them among our closest friends and coworkers via Office presentations and mixed-reality headsets.Microsoft sold us that vision as part of the Creators Update launch last fall. But somewhere between then and the Creators Update rollout announcement April 29, key pieces went missing. Microsoft previously said that its My People experience would be left for the “Redstone 3” update in the fall. The company never warned us, however, that we wouldn't see the Windows Capture app, which creates 3D objects simply by tapping your smartphone. If there’s a way to share 3D objects within the Holotour app within the HoloLens, I haven’t seen it. And, of course, neither the HoloLens nor the third-party mixed-reality devices are commercially available yet.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IP theft: Declining, or just more stealthy?

Eighteen months ago, President Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping announced, with considerable fanfare, an agreement aimed at curbing economic espionage.According to the Sept. 25, 2015 White House press release, “neither country’s government will conduct or knowingly support cyber-enabled theft of intellectual property, including trade secrets or other confidential business information, with the intent of providing competitive advantages to companies or commercial sectors.”So, with Xi due to meet with President Trump in early April, an obvious question is: Has the agreement been effective?The reviews on that are mixed, but there is general agreement that while it hasn’t stopped, the theft of intellectual property (IP) by the Chinese against the US is not as rampant as it was several years ago when The Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property estimated total losses, including jobs, competitiveness, stock value, market share, in the hundreds of billions, and former National Security Agency director Gen. Keith Alexander famously called it, “the greatest transfer of wealth in human history.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Windows 10 Creators Update: The 5 biggest changes

Windows 10 just keeps getting bigger and better.Microsoft just announced that the Windows 10 Creators Update will start rolling out on April 11, building upon the foundation laid by vanilla Windows 10 and its subsequent “November” and “Anniversary” updates. While not every feature that Microsoft promised at the Creators Update’s reveal last fall actually made the final cut, it’s still overflowing with helpful new extras that polish rough edges and just plain make things more fun.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Open-source developers targeted in sophisticated malware attack

For the past few months, developers who publish their code on GitHub have been targeted in an attack campaign that uses a little-known but potent cyberespionage malware.The attacks started in January and consisted of malicious emails specifically crafted to attract the attention of developers, such as requests for help with development projects and offers of payment for custom programming jobs.The emails had .gz attachments that contained Word documents with malicious macro code attached. If allowed to execute, the macro code executed a PowerShell script that reached out to a remote server and downloaded a malware program known as Dimnie.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

VMware patches critical virtual machine escape flaws

VMware has released critical security patches for vulnerabilities demonstrated during the recent Pwn2Own hacking contest that could be exploited to escape from the isolation of virtual machines.The patches fix four vulnerabilities that affect VMware ESXi, VMware Workstation Pro and Player and VMware Fusion.Two of the vulnerabilities, tracked as CVE-2017-4902 and CVE-2017-4903 in the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures database, were exploited by a team from Chinese internet security firm Qihoo 360 as part of an attack demonstrated two weeks ago at Pwn2Own.The team's exploit chain started with a compromise of Microsoft Edge, moved to the Windows kernel, and then exploited the two flaws to escape from a virtual machine and execute code on the host operating system. The researchers were awarded $105,000 for their feat.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

PodPi makes STEM education exciting!

When I was a kid, the way science was taught was, on the whole, pretty boring … well, except for chemistry where the class chemistry wiz would “accidentally” blow things up or make horrible smells every now and then. Science was a class to get through with gritted teeth and even today, getting kids interested in STEM education (Science, Engineering, Technology, and Mathematics) is still difficult. The problem is how to make topics that appear dry and complicated into something kids can get excited about. Five years ago, Stéphane Côme, the founder, chairman, and chief technology officer of LCS Technologies, a consulting firm specializing in Oracle database wrangling, decided that he wanted to give back to the community and that his focus should be on inspiring children to get involved with computers and software. Côme told me he started off by establishing a Meetup group to teach children and their parents through hands-on technology projects:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trump extends Obama executive order on cyberattacks

U.S. President Donald Trump is extending by one year special powers introduced by former President Barack Obama that allow the government to issue sanctions against people and organizations engaged in significant cyberattacks and cybercrime against the U.S.Executive Order 13694 was introduced on April 1, 2015, and was due to expire on Saturday, but the president sent a letter to Congress on Wednesday evening informing it of his plans to keep it active."Significant malicious cyber-enabled activities originating from, or directed by persons located, in whole or in substantial part, outside the United States, continue to pose an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States," Trump wrote in the letter. "Therefore, I have determined that it is necessary to continue the national emergency declared in Executive Order 13694 with respect to significant malicious cyber-enabled activities."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Extreme swallows Brocade’s data center networking business for $55M

Extreme Networks continued to amass a nice nest of data center technology saying today it would buy Brocade's data center networking business for $55 million in cash from its current owner Broadcom.Broadcom bought Brocade last year for about $5.5 billion but has since sold off Brocade’s Ruckus Wireless Wi-Fi business for $800 million to Arris International and now the data center networking business to Extreme.+More on Network World: When the Internet Engineering Task Force meets this week in Chicago it will have a new chair – Cisco Fellow Alissa Cooper +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

G Suite vs. Office 365 cloud collaboration battle heats up

CIOs and IT managers are increasingly adopting Microsoft’s Office 365 and Google’s G Suite for collaboration, productivity and messaging. These cloud-based productivity suites are expanding, gaining new feature sets and new apps for enterprise users. Earlier this month, both Google and Microsoft introduced chat-based collaboration apps to reposition for competition in this fast evolving and hotly contested space.Microsoft's Teams, which has been in beta since November, was released for general availability for Office 365 customers. And Google introduced a rebuilt Hangouts, which has been split into two apps — Hangouts Chat for chat-based communications and Hangouts Meet for audio and video conferencing.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to fend off cyberattacks and data breaches

According to research conducted by Symantec, the number of cyberattacks against small businesses (companies with fewer than 250 employees) has been steadily growing over the last six years, with hackers specifically targeting employees (phishing). And while distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attacks are still a leading form of cyber warfare, ransomware and malware attacks, targeting users of smartphones and internet of things (IoT) devices, as well as PCs and systems running on Macs and Linux, are also a big threat to small businesses.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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