The SanDisk Connect wireless stick is a flash drive with a unique twist -- you can access it wirelessly. Whether it's in your pants pocket, in your bag, or on the picnic table at your campsite, the Connect wireless stick lets you stream media or move files wirelessly with up to three computers, phones or tablets simultaneously. Connections are made via built-in wifi (think "hotspot"), so no external wireless or internet services are needed. A USB connection is also available, if desired. Storage on this model is a generous 200GB. Reviewers on Amazon report at least 8-10 hours of battery life on one charge. This model is currently discounted 22% down to $93.56. Learn more and review buying options now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Yahoo is founded in 1994Image by JD Lasica/FlickrIn early 1994, Stanford University grad students Jerry Yang and David Filo launch the website, Jerry and David's Guide to the World Wide Web. Within months, they rename it Yahoo.Yahoo goes public with huge stock gainsImage by Yahoo/FlickrTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Once upon a time if you wanted employees to collaborate you'd probably encourage them to use Internet Relay Chat (IRC). But about three years ago Slack appeared on the scene, and since then it's been eating IRC's lunch. That's because it's much easier to install, get up and running, and use than IRC, making it massively popular with nontechies. And thanks to a well-documented API it's easy to integrate with other programs and services. That means it's customizable and infinitely extensible, which makes it popular with developers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Most companies fail to secure the "keys to the kingdom," according to a new benchmark survey .Last week, privileged account management (PAM) specialist Thycotic and research firm Cybersecurity Ventures released their 2016 State of Privileged Account Management security report, based on the responses of more than 500 IT security professionals who have participated in the Privileged Password Vulnerability Benchmark survey to date.High priority, low compliance
While 80 percent of respondents indicated PAM security is a high priority for their organizations, and 60 percent said PAM security is required to demonstrate compliance with government regulations, 52 percent of participants received a failing grade on enforcement of proper privileged credential controls.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Hand-in-hand with the forthcoming adoption of a low-speed Ethernet standard by the IEEE, proponents of the technology will hold an interoperability plugfest in October to tout the readiness of 2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T products.The new specification -- IEEE P802.3bz – defines 2.5GBASE-T and 5GBASE-T, significantly boosting the speed of traditional Ethernet without requiring the tearing out of current cabling.+More on Network World: Ethernet everywhere!+Perhaps most significantly 2.5GbE and 5GbE will allow connectivity to 802.11ac Wave 2 Access Points, considered by many to be the real driving force behind bringing up the speed of traditional NBase-T products.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A look backImage by YahooWith Yahoo’s sale to Verizon for $4.8 billion confirmed this morning, the Wayback Machine offers us an opportunity to see how one of the Internet’s most iconic address – www.yahoo.com – has evolved over the years.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Despite initial concerns, smartphones equipped with Qualcomm modems are not vulnerable to a recently announced vulnerability that could potentially allow attackers to take over cellular network gear and consumer mobile devices.
The vulnerability was discovered in ASN1C, a popular compiler that produces C code for parsing ASN.1 encoded data. Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1) is a standard for representing, encoding, transmitting, and decoding data in telecommunications and computer networking.
Many devices, from mobile phones to switching equipment inside cellular infrastructure parse ASN.1 data and do so using programs that were created by compilers such as ASN1C, which is developed by U.S.-based Objective Systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Nano is a prefix that means small, really small. Maybe even microscopic small. So that means we know right away Nano Server is very small version of Windows Server 2016. But wait, didn’t we already have that with Windows Server 2012 Core. Nano Server is a nice GUI-less version of the server technology.+ Also on Network World: Is Windows Nano Server a data center game-changer? +Nano makes Server Core look bloated and massive. Don’t believe me? Let’s looks at some numbers.The full GUI Server version of Windows Server has required the following:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Moore’s Law, which says the number of transistors within an integrated circuit will double every two years, had a good long run but its end may be near – very near – potentially a mere five years away. By 2021, even if chip makers could further shrink and add more transistors, the high cost of manufacturing would make it financially impractical.That’s not the only problem, according to the last installment of the International Technology Roadmap for Semiconductors 2.0 (pdf).By 2020 to 2025, it will be “practically impossible” to reduce device dimensions. While one solution is to stack the transistors, it can’t get so hot that it burns up either.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
This innovative "lounge" requires no external pump and is a suitable substitute for folding chairs, bean bags, hammocks, picnic blankets and pool floats. To inflate, simply unfold, scoop air into it, roll and buckle. Elastic loops allow you to anchor your lounger to solid ground in the windiest conditions. Currently averages 5 out of 5 stars on Amazon from 59 reviewers (read reviews). It's list price of $79.99 has been reduced by 51% to just $39. See this discounted summer item now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
While it may seem like half the world is chasing Pokemon right now, the other half is not even on the Internet.About 3.9 billion people, or 53 percent of the population, will still be offline at the end of this year, the International Telecommunication Union estimates. Even in Europe, the most connected region, 20.9 percent of all people aren’t online. In Africa, the least connected continent, 74.9 percent are offline.Those figures are part of the annual statistical report from the agency, which is part of the United Nations. The report also showed there’s still a huge divide between rich and poor countries, and a growing gap between men and women, when it comes to internet access. It shows that efforts by companies like Google and Facebook to get all people connected could take a long time.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Wait, what?If this rumor about Verizon buying Yahoo for $5B is true, we have an honest to goodness schadenfreude moment for me as someone who remembers the days of the Buddy List, giant banner ads (which is actually still common at Yahoo Mail for some reason), and those plastic discs they might still sell at Walmart for gaining “high-speed Internet” access.As you may know, Verizon also owns AOL. Those three letters, combined with the Yahoo exclamation mark, create some vivid memories. Few of them are good ones. I remember having to wait for my modem to connect to AOL back in the day, and for the banner ads at Yahoo.com to finish loading. It’s a curious development, but it makes about as much sense as other luminous icons of tech combining into an ungodly entity driven by brand dominance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft this week said that consumer subscriptions to Office 365 topped 23 million, signaling that the segment's once prodigious year-over-year growth had slowed significantly.The Redmond, Wash. company regularly talks up the latest subscription numbers for the consumer-grade Office 365 plans -- the $100 a year Home and the $70 Personal -- and did so again this week during an earnings call with Wall Street analysts."We also see momentum amongst consumers, with now more than 23 million Office 365 subscribers," CEO Satya Nadella said Tuesday.But analysis of Microsoft's consumer Office 365 numbers showed that the rate of growth -- or as Nadella put it, "momentum" -- has slowed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
AMD emerged as a serious threat to Intel in servers more than a decade ago, but after a series of missteps and bad chips, the company's server business is hanging on by a thread.Now, AMD is rebooting its server chip business with the upcoming Zen CPU, which will also be used in PCs. AMD is getting creative with Zen and considering merging the CPU with a high-performance GPU to create a mega-chip for high-performance tasks."It's fair to say we do believe we can combine a high-performance CPU with the high-performance GPU," AMD CEO Lisa Su said during an earnings call on Thursday.Su's comment was in response to a question on whether AMD would ultimately combine its Zen CPU with a GPU based on the upcoming Vega architecture into one big chip for enterprise servers and supercomputing.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Verizon's continuing its ongoing mission to pare down the number of customers on unlimited data plans by migrating them to ones with hard limits. Recently, the company came up with a way to get rid of its biggest data hogs.
Verizon is notifying customers using an “extraordinary” amount of data per month that they must move off their unlimited data plan by August 31. If they don’t switch, the carrier will disconnect their accounts, though they’ll have 50 days to reactivate them on a limited plan, as first reported by Droid Life.
Verizon ceased offering unlimited data plans in 2011.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft will preview a new service today that lets enterprises mine data that Windows collects, including software usage statistics, to accelerate adoption of Windows 10.The service, called Upgrade Analytics, was announced Tuesday by Marc-Andrea Klimaschewski, a company program manager, in a brief post to a company blog. He said that it would launch as a public preview Friday.Klimaschewski characterized the service as a tool that businesses can use to determine whether PCs -- in general or individually -- were eligible for upgrading to Windows 10. Upgrade Analytics, Klimaschewski wrote, "Provide[s] customers with insights which allow them to quickly evaluate application and driver readiness and mitigate potential problems."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Tinder users beware. The popular dating app generally doesn’t verify most user accounts, but that hasn’t stopped spammers from pretending to offer the service.In recent weeks, automated bots masquerading as Tinder profiles have been telling real users to get “verified,” as part of a clever scam to sell them porn, security firm Symantec said on Thursday.The spam bots first send off flirty messages, like “Wanna eat cookie dough together some time?” only to then ask whether Tinder has verified the user.It’s a free service, the spam bot will claim, and done “to verify the person you wanna meet isn’t a serial killer lol.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
European Union plans to extend export controls on so-called "dual-use" technologies to include cyber-surveillance tools could put the brakes on sales of smartphones.Dual-use technologies are those that can serve civil or military purposes, and some countries impose restrictions on their sale because of fears that they could be used to abuse human rights in the destination country. A draft of new EU export regulations could put smartphones in that category because of their location-tracking capabilities.The potential for some technologies to be misused has been a concern in the EU since documents leaked following a compromise of Italian company Hacking Team revealed that it had sold its cyber-surveillance tools to repressive regimes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If you're expecting widespread availability of gaming desktops with AMD's Zen chips by year-end, don't hold your breath.It's been a long wait for Zen since it was first announced in mid-2015. It's shaping up to be the best CPU from the company in more than a decade, and the AMD faithful are hungry to get their hands on a desktop with the chip.High-end desktops with Zen will be available, but in "limited volume towards the end of the fourth quarter," said Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, during an earnings call Thursday. The number of available Zen-based desktops will depend on how testing of the chips goes and how ready PC makers are to ship the machines, Su noted.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
With Pokémon Go currently enjoying, what I would call, a wee-bit-o-success, now seems like a good time to talk about a few things people may not know about the world's favorite new smartphone game.This is not an opinion piece. I am not going to tell you Pokémon Go is bad or that it invades your privacy. I’m merely presenting verifiable facts about the biggest, most talked about game out there.+ Also on Network World: The Pokémon Go effect on the network +Let’s start with a little history.Way back in 2001, Keyhole, Inc. was founded by John Hanke (who previously worked in a “foreign affairs” position within the U.S. government). The company was named after the old “eye-in-the-sky” military satellites. One of the key, early backers of Keyhole was a firm called In-Q-Tel.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here