Many manufacturers have been vying for the title, " best enterprise hybrid tablet" since the release of the Apple iPad Pro and Samsung TabPro S. However, none have managed to live up to the Surface Pro 4, which was quickly hailed as one of the fastest adopted enterprise tablets soon after its release, and it recently surpassed the Apple iPad Pro for sales in the U.K.It's popularity is no accident Microsoft has spent years tirelessly improving its hybrid offerings, and that work has resulted in an ideal hybrid enterprise device. Microsoft's Surface Pro 4 has a lot going for it in the corporate world, and it and become a great option for any IT department looking to transition to a hybrid tablet device. If you're thinking of getting a Surface Pro 4 for business, here are the top five features of the Surface Pro 4.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Internet of Things (IoT) offers many possible benefits for organizations and consumers—with unprecedented connectivity of countless products, appliances and assets that can share all sorts of information. IoT also presents a number of potential security threats that organizations need to address.“There is no doubt the levels of risk are set to increase alongside the growth in deployment of IoT devices,” says Ruggero Contu, research director at Gartner. IoT will introduce thousands of new threat vectors simply by increasing the number of networked points, Contu says.While IoT offers great opportunities, in interconnected environments “the security risks increase exponentially and the attack vector or surface is—in theory—potentially limitless,” says Laura DiDio, director enterprise research, Systems Research & Consulting at Strategy Analytics.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
You’d think that people would be squashing up against the limits of what you can do with a Raspberry Pi by now, but you’d be wrong. One enterprising Redditor has decided to play Pinocchio to a toy GameBoy – handed out by Burger King as part of a promotion – and turn it into a real one, using an emulator and a Raspberry Pi Zero.
It’s an impressive feat of electronic DIY by user Joe7Dust, publicized by fellow Redditor ChaseLambeth, who had been trying to do the same thing himself before he noticed that someone else had already had the finished article.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The biggest names in data centers and clouds are now vying to dominate the emerging IT battleground in factories, vehicles and power plants.The so-called industrial Internet of Things calls for data-gathering and analysis at the edge of enterprise networks, where conventional systems wouldn’t be efficient or hardy enough. IT stalwarts like HPE, IBM and Dell say they can now meet those requirements.The challenge is to make sense of large amounts of data pouring in from sensors on industrial equipment and act on what the data reveals. It may alert companies to immediate problems or give long-term insights into how things are working. For example, IoT can tell enterprises when parts are getting worn down so they can replace them before systems fail.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
If there's one thing that separates Asus from its competitors, it's the company's willingness to experiment with new designs.Asus has had a few big hits that the rest of the industry followed, like the Eee PC in 2008, which sparked the craze for netbooks. Other products have fared less well, like the PadFone, a hybrid device that includes a smartphone that docks into a tablet.But year after year, in a hardware industry that shies away from risk, Asus usually has a surprise or two up its sleeve. Last week it was a home help robot called Zenbo, whose cute antics and affordable price-tag stole the show at Computex.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Bob Brown/NetworkWorld
SplunkLive! in Boston
With a company and product name like Splunk, you’ve gotta hang a bit loose, as I found upon sitting in at the company’s SplunkLive! event in Boston this week. The first customer speaker of the day gave a frank assessment of his organization’s implementation (“the on-premises solution, we struggled with it…”) and his frustrations with the licensing model. You have to give Splunk credit for having enough confidence in its offerings to showcase such a kick-off case study.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
With 200 to 300 microcontrollers and microprocessors in the typical automobile, cars are already pretty smart. And Google’s and Tesla’s continued development, as well as auto manufacturers’ R&D investments in preparation of autonomous cars, indicate cars are about to get much smarter.That increased intelligence means vehicles will have more silicon devices that are more integrated, with more densely packed circuitry. Functional modules, such as control systems, infotainment, and autonomous steering and braking, multiply the number of chips per car that semiconductor manufacturers can sell into each car.To fill the gap between the connectivity capabilities of today’s cars and the complex connectivity in next-generation cars, Qualcomm today announced its Connected Car Reference Platform intended for the car industry to use to build prototypes of the next-generation connected car. Every category from economy to luxury car will be much smarter than the connected luxury car of today, creating a big opportunity for Qualcomm to supply semiconductors to automakers and suppliers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Channel coding, aka, error control codes, is a foundational building block in almost all modern communication systems. Over the decades there has been a long list of champions and pretenders for the crown of supreme code du jour or perhaps more accurately, code de la génération. As we approach our fifth generation of wireless, is there anything left for the information theory gang to do? Have we pushed this frontier to its limits? I would suggest not. Innovation in this space suggests a little renaissance period in channel coding is coming because of requirements for 5G. But first a look at how we got here.Channel coding history
Channel coding is one of the main reasons our wireless networks work the way we like them to do—fast and error free. The general idea is simple. First pad the information/packet/bits at the source node with some redundant bits to be transmitted over the communication medium. Then, at the receiving end, exploit the redundancy of the extra padded information to overcome the side effects of the channel, e.g. randomness, noise, interference, etc.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
With the Surface 4/Surface Book doing very well and grabbing more and more market share, Microsoft isn’t saying much about the next generation of its tablet/notebook products. However, a leak from China may have some clues.All that’s known is that the next generation of Surface products was pushed back to early 2017. A leak to Indian publication Mobipicker.com says one reason for the delay is because Microsoft wanted to use the latest processor from Intel, code-named Kaby Lake. Kaby Lake is expected in the third quarter, which would make shipping by year’s end pretty tough. So, Microsoft simply pushed Surface 5 into next year rather than rushing it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft has released a new beta build of Windows 10 aimed at enhancing various aspects of the operating system, including support for the LastPass extension in the Edge browser, as the company hurtles toward releasing a major update in the coming months. Build 14361, released Wednesday, includes updated icons, the LastPass password manager extension for Microsoft Edge, and support for running Docker containers natively on Windows. Windows Ink, Microsoft's tools for working with pen input on a touchscreen Windows 10 device, also received several improvements.The build is another one on the road to what Microsoft is calling the Windows 10 Anniversary Update -- a major release of its latest operating system that packs in a slew of new features. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
While mobile payment systems like Apple Pay and Samsung Pay are growing, they haven't lived up to the hype that surrounded their arrival in 2014.But newer biometrics security technologies beyond the use of fingerprint scans could boost adoption rates when purchases are made in-store with smartphones. Those technologies include palm vein sensors or even sensors that assess a person's typing patterns or movements.INSIDER: 5 ways to prepare for Internet of Things security threats
For online purchases, iris scans could help authenticate buyers. And while SMS (Short Messaging Service) is an option, banks want greater security when using SMS payments. That's where a multimodal approach -- integrating facial, voice and behavorial scans into what's required for a purchase -- might help.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
D-Link is working to fix a weakness that allows attackers to take over remote control of one of its cameras so they can eavesdrop, and the company is checking whether others of its products have similar vulnerabilities.The vulnerability allows for the injection of malicious code and forces a password reset, which means attackers can gain remote access to the camera’s feed, thereby enabling eavesdropping, according to Senrio, a startup that monitors devices, scores how vulnerable they are and alerts when it detects suspicious behavior.It also means that regardless of how strong a password users set up, it can be overridden.The camera – D-Link DCS-930L Network Cloud Camera – might not be the only device affected by the vulnerability, a spokesperson for Senrio says. “Senrio has also agreed to evaluate a number of additional D-link products to assess if the vulnerability can be found in the firmware in those items,” the spokesperson said in an email.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
A few weeks ago, I sat on a panel hosted by CenturyLink on sustainability and efficiency in IT. At CenturyLink’s sunny Irvine, California, data center my co-panelists gathered ahead of going on stage and on camera. One of the panelists remarked that enterprise IT was dying—dying—slowly dying. But I believe this characterization is too broadly phrased and an inaccurate choice of words.The enterprise’s data center paradigm has changed irrevocably. And it will progress on its change cycle as enterprises embark on fewer new builds, and trends show that market share favors the commercial data center service providers. The paradigm of public cloud puts the sometimes outmoded ways of the enterprise data centers and legacy enterprise IT into an unfavorable light. But rest assured, there are some positive signs for enterprise IT—and good results ahead—but some changes do need to occur.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, as the old saying goes, and that's just as true in cybersecurity as it is in health. So believes Cylance, a startup that uses AI to detect and prevent cyberattacks.On Wednesday, Cylance announced that it just raised a whopping US $100 million in Series D funding. It will use the new infusion to expand its sales, marketing, and engineering programs.Dubbed CylanceProtect, the company's flagship product promises AI-based endpoint security while using a fraction of the system resources required by the approaches used in most enterprises today. Enabling that are technologies including machine learning.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The Samsung Level U Pro Wireless Headphones combine Ultra High Quality Audio (UHQA) technology with noise-isolating ear gels to deliver clear, vivid sound. It's designed to comfortably sit around the neck, and is splash and sweat resistant. The headphones can take calls as well. Calls and music are controlled intuitively through smart magnets in the earbuds. The Level U Pro averages 4 out of 5 stars on Amazon from over 220 customers (read reviews). It's typical list price of $99.99 has been reduced by 35% to just $64.50. Learn more and review buying options now on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Who among us hasn’t set up a new and unique email account for a particular commercial transaction just so we’ll know who to blame when the account gets flooded with spam? Well, a member of Reddit’s community devoted to systems administration (r/sysadmin) says he took the tactic a step further … actually, 12 steps further.From a post headlined: “How to get blacklisted as a vendor.”
Yesterday I was hunting for a new vendor. Mostly out of curiosity (but also to help me in picking a company that's not completely sleazy) I set up a batch of temporary phone numbers in our VoIP system, 12 in all, and called each vendor from a different number.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Getting a handle on cloud-based virtual operations is no easy task. Next month researchers from the Intelligence Advance Research Projects Activity (IARPA) will introduce a new program that looks to address that management concern by developing better technology to manage and secure Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environments.+More on Network World: Intelligence agency wants computer scientists to develop brain-like computers+IARPA, the radical research arm of the of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence will introduce the Virtuous User Environment (VirtUE) which it says aims to “creatively define and develop user environments that are more dynamic, secure, auditable, transferrable, and efficient than the current offerings provided by traditional physical workstations and commercial VDI; develop innovative, dynamic analytics and infrastructures that can leverage these newly developed user environments to both automatically detect and deter security threats that IC user environments will be subject to in the new cloud infrastructure.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
This week the International Avaya Users Group (IAUG) is holding its annual event in Orlando. The IAUG is an independent user community, so even though the event was centered on Avaya, it was run by a group of customers and not the vendor. The theme of the event, “Engage” has been Avaya’s theme for many of its events over the past year, and it carried over into the user event. Gary Barnett, Avaya’s senior vice president and general manager of Engagement Solutions gave the day one keynote. In case you’re wondering what Engagement Solutions are, it’s really Avaya’s entire collaboration suite, which includes customer and team “engagement” solutions, as well as mobile application.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
The rise in global cyberattacks and the “critical deficit of security talent” helped bug bounty programs grow in the last year and to diversify from those offered by “tech giants” to more traditional industries.One trend over the last year has been for payouts to increase, according to the 2016 State of Bug Bounty report (pdf). Last year, the average bug reward on Bugcrowd’s platform was $200.81; this second annual report shows an increase of 47%, with the average reward rising to $294.70.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
Microsoft kicked off the Spark Summit in San Francisco with news of "an extensive commitment for Spark to power Microsoft's big data and analytics offerings, including Cortana Intelligence Suite, Power BI and Microsoft R Server."Spark started as an open source project at the University of California, Berkeley AMPLab in 2009 and was given to the Apache Foundation in 2012. A company to further Spark development was formed called DataBricks.Spark is a significant accelerator for Hadoop, the primary software used in big data analytics, because it does all of the work in memory. Hadoop ran primarily as a disk-based batch process, using a framework called MapReduce to execute a batch process, often overnight. You got your insight the next day. That’s why despite big data’s promise of real-time analytics, it often couldn't deliver.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here