Hey kids, let’s check out the official trailer for a new movie called “I.T.” Looks awesome, right?
Waitasecond! The IT guy in question is now a handsome, brooding young guy with some mental problems? Wait, he’s the bad guy? Noooooooooooooo!For years, the depiction of the stereotypical IT guy has been one of the “nerdy guy that nobody wants to talk with”, or the obnoxious, know-it-all, “let me do this, you clearly don’t know tech” kind of person. See the following examples:Saturday Night Live: Nick Burns, your company's IT Guy:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
For August 2016, Patch Tuesday isn’t too painful. Microsoft released nine security bulletins, five of which were rated critical due to remote code execution (RCE) vulnerabilities.Why so few this month? Michael Gray, VP of Technology at Thrive Networks, suggested, “It stands to reason that Microsoft may have kept things simple so as not to over-shadow the release of their Windows 10 Anniversary update.”CriticalMS16-095 is the cumulative monthly fix for Internet Explorer. It resolves five memory corruption vulnerabilities and four information disclosure flaws.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A year or two ago, the storm in a teacup of the day was news that Red Hat, one of the largest technology vendors built off the back of open-source technologies, was turning against its one-time BFF Mirantis.
For those unaware of the situation, Mirantis is a vendor that focuses entirely on the OpenStack cloud computing operating system. Wishing to ensure that it had a part to play in emergent open-source initiatives, a few years ago Red Hat made a strategic investment into Mirantis, and at the time indications were that Red Hat might be sizing up the fast-growing company for a future acquisition.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The RAVPower Savior 9000mAh portable charger has both a built built-in Apple Lightning Connector and a foldable two prong wall plug so you don't need to bring an extra cable to charge your Apple Device. The additional USB output is 1A & Lightning output is 2.4A - this means you can have incredible charging speeds up to 3.4A To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Lenovo is developing an SSD storage board with a monstrous 48TB capacity, and the company plans to release it by the middle of next year.The board is basically a collection of high-capacity SSDs. It provides an efficient way of cramming more SSD storage into computer slots, instead of using individual drives.The 48TB storage capacity will fit in a space for two standard 2.5-inch storage drives. That's significantly more storage than available in two Samsung PM1633A SSDs, which are now the largest capacity SSDs at 15.36TB and will fit in the same slots.Lenovo, known more as a PC and mobile device maker than a storage company, is developing the board in its research labs. Companies like Seagate, Toshiba, NxGn Data, and Amphenol are helping Lenovo develop the technology, part of a program called Project Spark.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
There's plenty of lip service paid today to the importance of customer service, but a new study suggests brands are failing miserably at delivering it. Social media, it turns out, isn't making things any better.In any given year, more than 80 percent of consumers try to reach a brand, and for most of them, it's an exercise in frustration, according to new data from The Northridge Group. Fifty-five percent say they need to use two or more communication channels to contact a company or brand before an issue is resolved. In general, 44 percent of consumers say companies don't make it easy to contact them.As for social media, 77 percent of consumers say they use social channels to contact companies at least as much as they did a year ago, but one in five never even get a response, Northridge found.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Some people frown on Pokémon Go hunts in historic areas, but a new FCC ruling could make it even more tempting to risk a glare and a wagging finger.On Monday, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission announced a deal to made it easier for mobile operators and building owners to install cellular gear on many old buildings, including some in historic districts. Just because those structures may evoke the past doesn’t mean they can’t have the screaming 5G wireless speeds of the future.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
While some are focused on threats to IT security posed by coming quantum computers, the National Science Foundation is putting $12 million into developing quantum technologies designed to protect data traversing fiber-optic networks.
The NSF will support six interdisciplinary teams consisting of 26 researchers at 15 institutions to perform fundamental research under the Advancing Communication Quantum Information Research in Engineering (ACQUIRE) area within the NSF Directorate for Engineering's Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) program. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Perhaps one day we’ll see bridges that repair themselves or houses that could restore walls after a fire.Sounds a bit like science fiction yes but a new program announced by the masters of making science fiction fact, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, this week announced a program that would combine the structural properties of traditional building ingredients with attributes of living systems to offer a class of living material that could be grown where needed, self-repair when damaged and respond to changes in their surroundings.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Yes, history repeats itself. I’m looking at the July 20-27, 2009, issue of Network World.The front page headlines are:- Black Hat to expose attacks- Microsoft’s embrace of Linux seen as strategic- Data Loss Prevention Clear Choice Test- Burning Questions:1) Are mobile Web apps ever going to grow up?2) How much longer are you going to hang onto that Ethernet cable?3) Do you have any idea how much money you’re wasting on international wireless services?I saw Network World's Tim Greene, author of the 2009 Black Hat article, sitting in the working press area, seven years later, typing furiously.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Kinsa Smart Thermometer takes accurate readings in just 10 seconds. It is also incredibly durable, comfortable, and easy to use. With the free iOS & Android app it remembers and records fever, symptoms and medications for each family member on your phone so you don’t have to. Keep track for yourself, another caregiver, or your doctor.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Last week’s Black Hat 2016 conference was a whirlwind of activity. Here’s a few of my takeaways:1. I kind of like Black Hat better than the RSA Conference. At Black Hat, you talk about the real challenges facing our industry and discuss intellectual ways to overcome them. At RSA, everyone throws buzz words at you and tells you how they solve all your problems. And maybe it’s because RSA is in San Francisco, but you can always count on the Sand Hill Rd. crowd to show up at RSA and let you know how rich they’ve become protecting all of our sensitive data. Black Hat is whiskey and grit, RSA is Merlot and PR messaging. In other words, the folks who really know, live, and fight for cybersecurity are in Vegas while those looking to make money on cybersecurity are at RSA.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Hundreds of millions of Android devices based on Qualcomm chipsets are likely exposed to at least one of four critical vulnerabilities that allow non-privileged apps to take them over.The four flaws were presented by security researcher Adam Donenfeld from Check Point Software Technologies on Sunday at the DEF CON security conference in Las Vegas. They were reported to Qualcomm between February and April, and the chipset maker has since released fixes for the vulnerabilities after classifying them as high severity.Unfortunately, that doesn’t mean that all devices are yet protected. Due to the fragmentation of the Android ecosystem, many devices run older Android versions and no longer receive firmware updates, or they receive the fixes with months-long delays.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Federal Trade Commission made an appeal at DEF CON in Las Vegas this past week in hopes of getting hackers to help them crack down on manufacturers and service providers that leave customers vulnerable.Top of the list: ransomware, malvertising, networked cars and security for the internet of things.Of particular interest in the case of IoT is preventing one device from compromising a consumer’s entire private network, says Lorrie Cranor, the FTC’s chief technologist.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
This splitter from SOWTECH takes one HDMI full HD 1080P signal and outputs two duplicate signals, full strength with no signal degradation. Amazon indicates that this is a #1 best seller in its category, is rated 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 120 customers (read reviews), and right now its list price of $36.99 is discounted by 60% to just $14.87. See the discounted SOWTECH HDMI splitter now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It may be about time to finally declare a winner in the long and sometimes bitter battle for mobile dominance between Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android. According to a recent survey of thousands of developers around the world, Android is increasing its lead for developer mindshare, eroding the long-standing maxim of creating apps for “iPhone first.”Android sets a record
In Developer Economics: State of the Developer Nation Q3 2016, released last week, VisionMobile reports Android now has a whopping 79 percent "mindshare" among mobile developers, the highest for any platform the company has measured since it began its quarterly surveys back in 2010. The record comes as the mindshare for iOS has consistently tracked at 51 percent to 55 percent since 2013 (although that figure rises to 61 percent for professional developers). To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.Open Threat Exchange (OTX)Key features: AlienVault OTX is an open threat intelligence community where security practitioners research and share emerging threat data. Members can create private discussion groups related to specific industries, regions and threats. More info.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
See the gadgets athletes are using at the Rio OlympicsImage by IOC/David Burnett/ContactThe 2016 Rio Olympics is finally getting underway and there'll be no shortage of tech at this year's event. Athletes use all kinds of gadgets to help them train and stay fit, from heads-up displays used by cyclists to jump trackers worn by the volleyball team. Here's the a few of the gadgets that have made it to Rio. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft has reduced the I-changed-my-mind period in Windows 10 by two-thirds, cutting it from 30 days to 10, the company confirmed.Users who upgraded to Windows 10 were able to roll back to the preceding Windows as long as they did so within 30 days. To make that possible, Microsoft stored the older operating system in a special folder on the device's drive, consuming up to 5GB of storage space. After the grace period expired, the folder's contents were deleted.With last week's Anniversary Update, aka version 1607, the 30 days were reduced to 10. (Microsoft identifies its major upgrades using numerals representing year and month of the release.)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The quickest way to launch the cyber equivalent of a nuclear war is for the targets of cyberattacks to try to “hack back” against their tormentors.Or, maybe not.The debate over that has raged for decades, with a majority of security experts arguing that the difficulties of attribution and the dangers of escalating retaliatory counterattacks make hacking back a losing proposition.But what if it didn’t involve trying to corrupt or destroy an attacker’s network? What if it wasn’t exactly “kinder,” but was a bit “gentler,” involving intermediate-level responses like so-called “naming and shaming” of perpetrators, or blocking access to U.S. markets of foreign companies that benefit from cyber espionage?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here