The U.S. will go ahead with its plan to hand over oversight of the internet's domain name system functions to a multistakeholder body on Oct. 1, despite fierce opposition from some lawmakers and advocacy groups.The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers operates under contract with the U.S. Department of Commerce the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions that enable the efficient operation of the internet domain name system (DNS). These include responsibility for the coordination of the DNS root, IP addressing, and other internet protocol resources.The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA), an agency located in the Department of Commerce, said in March 2014 that it planned to let its contract with ICANN expire on Sept. 30, 2015, passing the oversight of the functions to a global governance model. NTIA made it clear that it would not accept a plan from internet stakeholders that would replace its role by that of a government-led or intergovernmental organization or would in any way compromise the openness of the internet.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Three civil rights groups have filed a formal complaint against Baltimore City police for using cell site simulator technology to investigate potential crimes, calling the process racially biased and unauthorized.The groups called the use of Stingray phone tracker technology "racially discriminatory," and even a disruption of emergency calling services, according to the complaint filed with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) early today.The 37-page complaint by the Center for Media Justice, Color Of Change and the Open Technology Institute at New America calls on the FCC to enforce two sections of the Communications Act. That act requires the police to obtain a federal license to operate cell site (CS) simulator equipment on frequency bands that are exclusively licensed to cellular phone carriers in Baltimore, according to the complaint.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A compact computer called Euclid from Intel should make the development of robots much easier.Euclid looks much like the Kinect camera for Xbox consoles, but it's a self-contained PC that can be the guts of a robot.It's possible to install the Euclid computer where the "eyes" of a human-like robot would be typically placed. Intel demonstrated the Euclid computer in a robot moving on stage during CEO Brian Krzanich's keynote at the Intel Developer Forum on Tuesday.Euclid has a 3D RealSense camera that can serve as the eyes in a robot, capturing images in real-time. It has motion and position sensors that can help the robot move around both indoors and outdoors.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft yesterday announced that beginning in October it will offer only cumulative security updates for Windows 7 and 8.1, ending the decades-old practice of letting customers choose which patches they apply."Historically, we have released individual patches ... which allowed you to be selective with the updates you deployed," wrote Nathan Mercer, a senior product marketing manager, in a post to a company blog. "[But] this resulted in fragmentation where different PCs could have a different set of updates installed leading to multiple potential problems."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Windows 10 Anniversary Update may have just been released, but Microsoft never rests: It's well into work on the next two major updates for Windows, code-named Redstone 2 and Redstone 3. (Redstone 1 was the code name for the Windows 10 Anniversary Update.) Why Redstone? In the popular game Minecraft, which Microsoft bought in May 2014, redstone is an ore you mine and then use as a power source.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Industry reports have it that Cisco will soon – possibly as early as today -- cut as many as 14,000 jobs – or about 20% of its 73,000 member workforce.+More on Network World: Cisco: IP traffic will surpass the zettabyte level in 2016+According to a report from tech site CRN the cuts emphasize the Cisco’s growing emphasis on software which is requiring staff with a different set of skills, CRN reported. Early retirement plans have already been offered to employees as well.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
I’m going to make a prediction. Within 18 months after the next circuit shrink and iteration of the Google Tango technology, at least 20 percent of Android Phones will include Tango features as a standard feature, maybe sooner.Google Tango, a technology platform that uses computer vision to allow mobile devices to detect their position relative to the world around them, will dramatically change augmented reality (AR). In doing so, it will leave the iPhone and iPad in its AR dust.+ Also on Network World: Lenovo wants consumers to take Google Tango for granted, so does Google +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Not even the National Security Agency is immune to carelessness, according to noted leaker Edward Snowden. The agency’s operatives can get lazy, and sometimes they leave behind files inside the servers they’ve hacked.That could explain how an anonymous group managed to obtain hacking tools that may belong to the NSA. The files are up for auction to the highest bidder, and allegedly include cyber weapons that rival the Stuxnet computer worm.Counterhacking
On Tuesday, Snowden, a former NSA contractor, tweeted that it isn’t “unprecedented” for cyberspies to try to hack the agency’s malware staging servers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Two high-profile airline technology meltdowns stranding thousands of travelers in the recent weeks have prompted two US senators to push carriers to bolster their technology.
Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.)this week sent a letter to the most recent offenders -- Delta and Southwest -- as well as 11 other airlines to get a better handle on whether or not their information technology systems are reliable and resilient.
+More on Network World: Not dead yet: 7 of the oldest federal IT systems still wheezing away+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Intel has unleashed a new competitor to Raspberry Pi 3 with its new Joule development board, which packs in superior graphics and wireless connectivity.The chipmaker has loaded the development board with technology found in regular PCs: a 64-bit quad-core Atom processor, 4K graphics, 802.11ac connectivity, and DDR4 memory features.However, Joule doesn't compete on price with the Raspberry Pi, which sells for US$35. A high-end version of the Joule board is on sale at the Intel Developer Forum this week for $369.99.The Joule will provide big-time computing power for robots, drones, smart devices, and wearables. Like Raspberry Pi, Joule supports flavors of Linux and the Windows 10 IoT Core operating systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A public auction of stolen NSA malware may be a warning to the U.S. that blaming Russia for the hack of the Democratic National Committee could have dire consequences, says Edward Snowden, who also famously breached NSA security.In a series of tweets, Snowden spelled out his interpretation of what’s behind the auction of hacking tools allegedly stolen from the NSA, and he concludes that Russia is trying to demonstrate it has ammunition to strike back if the U.S. exacts penalties for the DNC breach.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you're looking for curb appeal after the sun goes down, or an added element of safety along pathways, you may want to consider this deal. This stylish set of 8 landscape lights is solar powered and designed for all-weather operation. Its internal batteries charge during the day, and is completely removeable and replaceable if needed (standard rechargeable AA's). They currently average 4 out of 5 stars on Amazon from over 1,100 customers (read reviews). The list price of $43.99 has been reduced by 28% to just $31.53 for a set of 8. See the discounted Moonrays solar landscape lights now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Intel isn't yet shipping its Optane SSDs, but they soon will be available for testing over the cloud.
This is good news for enterprise users, who are eagerly awaiting the new class of storage and memory shown to break SSD speed records.
Optane is based on 3D Xpoint technology, which is 10 times faster than the technology in standard SSDs. It also can serve as a substitute to traditional DRAM, but software needs to be written so parts of Optane operate like memory tiers.
Optane SSDs will be available at the end of the year to enterprises and gamers. Unfortunately for gamers, the cloud-based Optane test bed will be accessible for free only to enterprise users looking to test applications tied to financial transactions, machine learning, autonomous driving, and other uses, Intel said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Prize competitions backed by the government continue to grow with great success, according to a report by the White House Office of Science and Technology.+More on Network World: DARPA $2M contest looks to bring AI to wireless spectrum provisioning+It has been over six years that the government set the America Competes Act which in combination with Challenge.gov has prompted more than 700 public-sector prize competitions that have doled out more than $80 million in prizes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Intel isn't known for its graphics processors, but the company is promising a big improvement with its 7th generation Core processors, code-named Kaby Lake.The Kaby Lake chips, which will succeed Skylake, will feature integrated 4K graphics processors, the company said at the Intel Developer Forum on Tuesday.Intel showed off Blizzard Entertainment's Overwatch shooter game running smoothly on a Dell XPS with a Kaby Lake chip during Intel CEO Brian Krzanich's keynote.Intel also showed off an HP 2-in-1 running 4K graphics.The chip will allow PCs to play premium 4K content smoothly, said an Intel representative demonstrating the PC. The chip will have hardware-accelerated 4K video decoding.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Apple's highly anticipated iPhone 7 may be coming to stores a little bit later than initially anticipated.
If you recall, reputed leaker Evan Blass published a tweet last month indicating Apple's next-gen iPhone was slated to hit store shelves on Friday, Sept. 16. This rumor was seemingly bolstered when Bloomberg indicated that Apple was planning a special media event for Wednesday, Sept. 7.
But now comes word via 9to5Mac that Apple's iPhone 7 might arrive a bit later in the month. According to a leaked memo purporting to come from an official AT&T retail document, AT&T has two days pinned down for special merchandising resets: Sept. 9 and Sept. 23. While certainly not conclusive and admittedly speculative, this tends to suggest that pre-orders for the iPhone 7 may in fact begin on Sept. 9, with shipments finally arriving two weeks later on Sept. 23.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The TaoTronics energy-saving LED Desk Lamp comes with vision-friendly, low power consumption LED light source, adjustable color modes, and dimmable brightness settings, making this ideal for your dorm room, home or office. With a slight touch from your finger tips, you can switch between a strong white light to soft yellow light. 5 different color temperatures and 7 brightness levels for you to fine tune your illumination. This new generation of eco-friendly LED lighting consumes 75% less power than traditional incandescent lights, while providing the same amount of light. No more fumbling to get a charger, the USB port tucked away behind the touch panel comes in handy for when your smartphone or tablet needs a quick charge. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Aussie cops hacked U.S. TOR users as part of a child porn investigation, according to a report by Motherboard. The IP addresses of at least 30 Americans were turned over to the FBI.The police knew the owner of the dark web child porn site called “The Love Zone” started all of his messages with “hiyas.” Search engine results turned up over 450,000 hits for hiyas, but police whittled away at it until they had identified the owner; the former childcare worker is currently serving 35 years for "evil, depraved" sex offenses.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google is continuing its campaign to entice enterprises to its public cloud platform by rolling out database services stable enough to serve businesses' production workloads. To that end, the company announced the general availability of three database-focused products: the second generation of Cloud SQL, its managed database service; Cloud Datastore, its NoSQL document database; and Cloud Bigtable, its NoSQL database service that powers products like Gmail. Each of those products has a service level agreement associated with it, guaranteeing a certain amount of availability. Dominic Preuss, Google's lead product manager for storage and databases, said in an interview that many companies wait until after cloud services have been declared generally available before adopting them. Tuesday's announcements are aimed at reaching those customers at a time when Google is trying to position its cloud as a competitor to Amazon, Microsoft and IBM for large business customers. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you are a holdout who did not make the move to Windows 10, you're going to see its influence on your legacy operating system anyway. Microsoft is changing the way it delivers updates to Windows 7 and Windows 8.1, mirroring the delivery model of Windows 10.Normally a Windows update for 7 or 8.1 would mean a number of individual updates. Every Patch Tuesday you got 6, 10, 15 or whatever number of individual updates, each with their own number. However, starting in October, Microsoft will release all Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 updates using a "Monthly Rollup" method similar to the cumulative rollup of all fixes in one lump sum.The update process will also be added to Windows Server 2008 and Server 2012. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here