The Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro will attract more than just athletes and tourists this year. Hackers from across the world will also be on the prowl, trying to exploit the international event. That means visitors to the Olympics and even people watching from home should be careful. Cyberthreats related to the games will probably escalate over the coming weeks and could creep into your inbox or the websites you visit.Don't click if it's too good to be true
The Olympics have become a beacon for cyber criminals, said Samir Kapuria, senior vice president with security firm Symantec. A great deal of money is spent on the international event, so hackers naturally want a slice of the pie, he added.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
With this deal, the Pebble Time smartwatch is currently sub-$100, which for some may make this a worthwhile purchase considering everything it can do. First off, the Pebble Time gives you all of your notifications in a glance, from calendar items to texts, emails and incoming call data. Pebble Health comes built-in, and tracks your activity and sleep with daily and weekly reporting. A built-in mic lets you take voice notes or give quick responses. Choose from thousands of watch faces and apps. The Pebble Time is water resistant up to 30 meters, and its e-paper screen reads clearly in bright sun and is scratch resistant. Its battery lasts up to 7 days on a single charge. There is a lot packed into this highly rated wearable, which averages 4 out of 5 stars on Amazon from over 630 customers (read reviews). With the current 29% off deal you can pick it up for just $91.90, a significant discount from its typical $149.99 list price. See the Pebble Time Smartwatch now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Cisco has patched what it called a critical vulnerability in its Unified Computing System (UCS) Performance Manager software that could let an authenticated, remote attacker execute commands.+More on Network World: Quick look: Cisco Tetration Analytics+Cisco UCS Performance Manager versions 2.0.0 and prior are affected and the problem is resolved in Cisco UCS Performance Manager versions 2.0.1 and later. UCS Performance Manager collects information about UCS servers, network, storage, and virtual machines.According to Cisco the vulnerability is due to insufficient input validation performed on parameters that are passed via an HTTP GET request. An attacker could exploit this vulnerability by sending crafted HTTP GET requests to an affected system. An exploit could allow the attacker to execute arbitrary commands with the privileges of the root user.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Small business owners are getting a new feature tailored just for them in Microsoft Office 365 -- a full-service system for scheduling appointments for their services over the internet.Microsoft Bookings is a new service that makes it possible for business owners to create their own scheduling page, and then let potential customers make an appointment online. It's supposed to be a boon for businesses used to running that process through a series of emails, phone calls, or text messages.Customers will be able to look at a list of prices, and then schedule time for an appointment with a list of employees. Bookings will then email the customers a confirmation including an invitation they can put on their calendars.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
More than 130 restaurants at the Cicis pizza chain were the recent target of hackers, and customers' credit card data may have been stolen.The company reported the data breach on Tuesday and posted a list of the restaurants affected, most of which are located in Texas.The hackers struck by secretly installing malware into the restaurant’s point-of-sale systems. Other companies, including fast-food chain Wendy’s and retailer Target, have been attacked in the same way in order to steal payment card data.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Who doesn’t love the fundamental promise of containers? Simple development, segmented applications, rolling changes, etc. They are certainly a blessing to both developers and operations. But if not thoughtfully designed, container virtual networking could be the curse that plagues us for years.Let’s start with a little perspective. The rise and wide deployment of virtual machines and containers coincides with mainstream data center networking evolving from a hierarchical layer 2/3 network to a flatter layer 2 interconnect. Since cloud infrastructure is inherently multi-tenant, traditionally virtual LANs have been used to isolate applications and tenants sharing a common infrastructure. But as containerized applications explode in number, the VLAN maximum size limit of 4,096 becomes grossly inadequate for very large cloud computing environments.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for U.S. president, has antagonized much of the tech industry by opposing free trade and immigration but has otherwise nearly ignored this vital segment of the nation's economy.As Republicans meet in Cleveland this week to officially declare Trump as their presidential candidate, several tech groups have called on him to release a tech agenda. The huge Consumer Technology Association has issued three press releases in the past week calling on Trump to outline his tech priorities.The U.S. tech industry is "too critical to our country's future to be a policy afterthought," Gary Shapiro, the trade group's president and CEO, said in one release. Shapiro's veiled criticism of Republican Trump is notable after the trade group exec once accused Democrat Barack Obama of running "the most antibusiness administration" in his lifetime.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft said last week that it won’t hit its target of one billion Windows 10 devices in use by June 2018, claiming that jettisoning its smartphone business is reducing the number of devices that could run its new operating system. However, with more employees electing to use other computing devices for work, migration to Windows 10 is not a priority for some CIOs who are busy procuring cloud services, honing their analytics software and otherwise tackling more pressing projects.
Thanks to the proliferation of PC alternatives, including Macs and iPads, worldwide PC shipments declined 5.2 percent from the second quarter of 2015, marking the seventh consecutive quarterly decline, Gartner said last week. The research firm says upgrades to Windows 10 could jumpstart PC sales among businesses toward the end of 2016 to the beginning of 2017.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Wish your (or your kids) Nintendo 3DS, 3DS XL or 2DS could support amiibo? It can, with this nifty NFC reader/writer accessory from Nintendo. After a simple pairing process, your game system is ready to unlock new game modes, characters, bonuses and more with just a tap from an amiibo accessory. It's true -- go ask your kids! It may just save you the upgrade to the new 3DS, for now. Typically listed for $20, it's currently slashed 50% down to just $10 for Amazon prime members only. Check out the dramatically discounted NFC accessory on Amazon right now.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Google's intelligent cloud developer tools are expanding with the launch of a new Cloud Natural Language API on Wednesday. The service is aimed at helping developers create applications that understand human language.It's an important move for Google, as public cloud providers are racing to host new applications built with intelligent capabilities. Natural language processing allows developers to build apps that can tackle the challenging task of understanding how humans communicate, and it is key for things like building intelligent assistants and chat bots.This API can provide a bunch of information about a block of text back to an application, including the overall sentiment of a passage and an analysis of the structure of a sentence. The system can also identify entities mentioned, including people, organizations, locations, events, and products.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Windows 10 breaches French law by collecting too much personal information from users and failing to secure it adequately, according to the French National Data Protection Commission (CNIL).Some of the privacy failings identified can be remedied by users willing to delve deep into the Windows 10 settings, but one of the commission's gripes is that better privacy should be the default setting, not one users must fight for.CNIL served Microsoft with a formal notice on June 30, giving it three months to comply with the law, but only made it public on Wednesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
I’ve been on a good number of roller coasters in my day and generally love riding on them. So when Network World Cool Tools Editor Keith Shaw and I were researching the story of Six Flags New England introducing virtual reality headsets on their star Superman ride, I knew I wanted to experience it for myself.The ride is incredible, even without the VR headset: It’s got a 220-foot drop, 5,000+ feet of track and it goes 77 miles per hour. It’s a trill-lovers paradise.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Virtual Flying with Superman: How Six Flags added even more thrills to its top roller coaster | Superman the Virtual Reality Ride, in pictures | First-person reaciton to Superman VR Ride +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Over the years, I’ve ridden lots of roller coasters - everything from the “kid coaster” at the local carnival, to Space Mountain and other Disney coasters, to the mega-monstrous coasters at Six Flags and other amusement parks. There is something very exciting about the first drop, a corkscrew loop or the speeds that you attain when riding a coaster. That said, as I’ve gotten older I find myself riding them less. Depending on the coaster, the shaking and head bumping that sometimes occurs gives me a sense of nausea or dizziness following the ride, and the recuperation time takes longer than when I was in my 20s. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
You take your seat on the roller coaster and a large belt is locked into place. A Six Flags ride attendant places a virtual reality headset over your eyes. A chin strap is tightened, and you look forward in the headset.Suddenly, you’re inside Superman’s Metropolis in an immersive experience. You can’t see the coaster, the ride attendants or even the person next to you. You only see the virtual Sky Tours seat, which looks like the pod of a large Ferris wheel. As the ride begins, you see the simulated urban landscape, but then Lex Luthor, Superman’s nemesis, comes into view. The physical coaster is climbing up the track, but you have no idea how high you are. Luther has an electricity gun, which he fires at the train, along with some LexBots that also grab the train, detaching you from the track.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Superman battles Lex Luthor in virtual MetropolisImage by Six FlagsAt the Six Flags New England amusement park in Agawam, Mass., visitors can now experience virtual reality on one of the park's most popular roller coasters - Superman The Ride.The first drop is a doozyImage by Six FlagsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
It’s earnings season, which for publicly-traded technology vendors in the cloud market means it’s time to update investors on the momentum of emerging products helping to displace eroding revenue from legacy offerings.For two technology vendor stalwarts – Microsoft and IBM - cloud computing has played a significant role in their earnings this quarter.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: 4 Numbers that stood out in VMware’s earnings| Who’s right behind Amazon in IaaS revenue? Not Microsoft +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Hirotec America recently embarked on its first IoT effort and, as new as it is, the effort is already paying dividends, says Justin Hester, Research & Development Project Manager. Hirotec is a $1.4 billion tier one parts and tooling supplier to automakers, specializing in closures (such as doors and hoods) and exhaust systems. Hester was instrumental in getting the IoT effort off the ground at the company’s US headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan, but has since moved to Japan to work on Hirotec’s global IoT efforts from the company’s global headquarters in Hiroshima.
Justin Hester, Research & Development Project Manager, HirotecTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
In the late 1800s, Mark Twain was rumored to have said, “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” If Mark Twain were a technology, he would be Fibre Channel.It seems every year some smart industry prognosticator predicts that Ethernet will obviate the need for Fibre Channel, and it will go the way of the dinosaur or the mainframe. But that hasn’t been the case at all. In fact, Fibre Channel is still around and very much alive. Why? Because it’s the best, most cost-effective technology for storage networks. And for most organizations, storage is everything. The Fibre Channel fabric connects business applications and users to the mission-critical data that drives the company. This is why almost every large organization that is dependent on data, such as financial services firms, healthcare institutions and retailers, depend on Fibre Channel.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
With SQL Server 2005 now out of support, if you haven’t already started migrating your older databases onto a newer, supported release to stay in compliance with regulations like PCI DSS, that’s now urgent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
Storing all of the books ever written on media the size of a postage stamp is possible with atom-based memory, say scientists.Five hundred terabits per square inch is doable, in fact. That would be 500 times more efficient than current state-of-the-art commercial hard drives, say the researchers from Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands.To prove the feat could be accomplished, the scientists created an 8,000 bit memory “where each bit is represented by the position of one single chlorine atom,” the university says in a press release.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here