Oldies but goodies make presence felt amid glitzy startups at RSAC

SAN FRANCISCO -- The sprawling show floor at this year’s RSA Conference featured hundreds of shiny, new companies, from Acalvio to ZingBox. It seemed like every vendor in the hall managed to incorporate into its marketing pitches at least one of the 2017 hot buzzwords – Advanced Threat Protection, machine learning, AI, threat intelligence, IoT.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

5G is coming, but don’t get carried away, T-Mobile USA’s CTO says

T-Mobile USA's Chief Technology Officer Neville Ray prescribed a dose of reality for the 5G mania overtaking Mobile World Congress this week, telling Ericsson’s kickoff press briefing Monday morning he’s still in the LTE business.“5G is not ready yet,” Ray said. “It’s maturing quickly, but it’s not real today, and I can’t go and deploy a 5G radio to serve my customers with and give them a handset.”For one thing, using millimeter-wave frequencies like 28GHz for mobile services is still a big technical challenge, Ray said. He dismissed so-called commercial 5G deployments in the U.S. involving fixed-wireless service to homes, including one involving Ericsson and Verizon, as fringe use cases for the technology.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Dell Adds Gateways for Industrial Internet of Things

Dell's edge gateways provide some analytics at the edge.

Nokia Says ‘5G First’ Will Deliver from Core to Cloud

It's based on Verizon's 5G specifications.

Shedding the Lights on Operations: REST, a NMS and a Lightbulb

It’s obvious I’ve caught the automation bug. Beyond just automating the network I’ve finally started to dip my toes in the home automation pool as well.

The latest addition to the home project was the Philipps hue light bulbs. Basically, I just wanted a new toy, but imagine my delight when I found that there’s a full REST API available. 

I’ve got a REST API and a light bulb and suddenly I was inspired!

The Project

Network Management Systems have long suffered from information overload.

Notifications have to be tuned and if you’re really good you can eventually get the stream down to a dull roar. Unfortunately, the notification process is still broken in that the notifications are generally dumped into your email which if you are anything like me…

Yes. That’s really my number as of this writing

One of the ways of dealing with the deluge is to use a different medium to deliver the message. Many NMS systems, including HPE IMC, has the capability of issuing audio alarms, but let’s be honest. That can get pretty annoying as well and it’s pretty easy to mute them.

I decided that I would use the REST interfaces of the Continue reading

How to watch The Oscars on your iPhone and iPad

Later this evening, the 89th Academy Awards ceremony will kick off live from Los Angeles. With Jimmy Kimmel assuming hosting duties once again, we'll undoubtedly be greeted with a number of hilariously crafted sketches as we learn which films and actors were Oscar worthy in 2016.If you're one of millions who have cut the cord, or even if you just so happen to be on-the-go during tonight's televised broadcast, there's no need to fret. Indeed, catching all of the festivities straight from your iOS device is certainly doable, though there are some restrictions which we'll get to in a second.The Oscars ceremony is set to air on ABC and will begin at 8:30 on the east coast and 5:30 on the west coast. That said, here's how you can ensure that you won't miss even a second of the festivities.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Best iPhone 8 concept design videos of 2017, so far

Apple’s much anticipated 10th anniversary smartphones, possible the iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, iPhone 10, iPhone X or some combination of these, are expected to arrive in the fall of 2017. Creative minds are sharing videos of their design concepts, and who knows, maybe Apple will be inspired? Take a look...Now you see it This iPhone 8 design with a transparent screen, ultrasonic fingerprint sensor and piezoelectric speaker comes from designer Georgy Pashkov. Apple of your Eye Iskander Utebayev and Ran Avi's "Just iPhone 8" conceives the camera lens being sort of in the middle of the smartphone, in the Apple logo. Now that's a fresh twist.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Lenovo to integrate Amazon Alexa in Moto smartphones

Lenovo is working with Amazon to get the Alexa voice assistant into a range of Motorola smartphones, and in the process, looking to depose Google's voice assistant technology.The partners will first focus on developing an Alexa "Mod," a block that will attach to a Moto Z modular handset. The companies will then integrate Alexa directly into a variety of Moto handsets and devices, Lenovo said during a press conference in Barcelona on Sunday.The Moto Z is much like Google's Project Ara, where individual parts like speakers and projectors can be added to boost the functionality of the handset.The exact details of the Alexa Mod for Moto Z weren't provided, but an onstage image showed a speaker that could hook up to the handset. It looked like a flatter and curved version of Amazon's Echo or Echo Dot.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Samsung’s Galaxy S8 launch set for March 29

At Mobile World Congress (MWC) over the weekend, Samsung finally gave us a clue as to when we might see an official launch introduction for the company's highly anticipated Galaxy S8. To be sure, you can bet that Samsung is eagerly counting down the days so that they can firmly put the fiasco that was the explosion-prone Galaxy Note 7 behind them once and for all.Cutting right to the chase, Samsung's Galaxy S8 will be unveiled at what will presumably be an extravagant launch event on March 29 in New York City. To help build excitement for the event, we were also graced with a short but sweet teaser video which takes us on an incredibly quick journey through the history of cellular phones.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cloud companies are eyeing cell services, Nokia CEO says

Enterprises and cloud companies will start trying their hands at cellular this year, Nokia President and CEO Rajeev Suri predicts.“Enhanced reality” and events such as concerts may be where cloud giants first get into mobile services, Suri said at a Nokia event in Barcelona on the eve of Mobile World Congress.“The first webscale players will enter the wireless access domain with mainstream technologies,” Suri said. Webscale usually refers to operators of big clouds, like Google, Facebook, and Alibaba. Suri didn’t name any names.For enterprises, an emerging technique called network slicing will allow them to virtually run their own private services on mobile operator networks. Meanwhile, systems that bring LTE to unlicensed or shared frequencies, like LAA (Licensed Assisted Access), will also help open doors to private cellular networks. Nokia is already working with some energy utilities on these kinds of deployments, and at MWC it will join Qualcomm in demonstrating a private LTE network, Suri said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cloud companies are eyeing cell services, Nokia CEO says

Enterprises and cloud companies will start trying their hands at cellular this year, Nokia President and CEO Rajeev Suri predicts.“Enhanced reality” and events such as concerts may be where cloud giants first get into mobile services, Suri said at a Nokia event in Barcelona on the eve of Mobile World Congress.“The first webscale players will enter the wireless access domain with mainstream technologies,” Suri said. Webscale usually refers to operators of big clouds, like Google, Facebook, and Alibaba. Suri didn’t name any names.For enterprises, an emerging technique called network slicing will allow them to virtually run their own private services on mobile operator networks. Meanwhile, systems that bring LTE to unlicensed or shared frequencies, like LAA (Licensed Assisted Access), will also help open doors to private cellular networks. Nokia is already working with some energy utilities on these kinds of deployments, and at MWC it will join Qualcomm in demonstrating a private LTE network, Suri said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Samsung’s disjointed OS strategy poses a hurdle for users

Samsung's Windows-based Galaxy Books, unveiled Sunday at Mobile World Congress, point to a critical weakness in the company's multiple-OS strategy. The company uses Windows 10 in PCs, Android in smartphones, and Tizen across wearables and smart appliances. This has led to a lack of coherence among Samsung devices, in contrast to the near-seamless product integration that has fueled Apple's success as the world's most valued company. The specific issues with the Galaxy Books are relatively small, but are nevertheless symptoms of the larger problem: walls among devices and an inconsistent user experience across the company's product line. The lack of a broad app ecosystem for Samsung devices has not helped.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google to kill Spaces group discussion & messaging app

Google has begun populating its 2017 graveyard, with its Spaces app for group discussion and messaging grabbing an early plot.Google Space won't even last one year: It was introduced in May of 2016 and will be shut down on April 17, 2017, according to a Google support page. Google Google MORE: What Google killed in 2016To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google Spaces headed to the graveyard

Google has begun populating its 2017 graveyard, with its Spaces app for group discussion and messaging grabbing an early plot. Google Space won't even last one year: It was introduced in May of 2016 and will be shut down on April 17, 2017, according to a Google support page. Google Google MORE: What Google killed in 2016To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Nostalgia rules as classic phone brands come alive at MWC

Classic phone brands from yesteryear are coming alive in Barcelona.Nokia, Blackberry and Moto were among the unlikely headline makers ahead of the Mobile World Congress trade show, which starts on Monday. Moto is owned by Lenovo, and the unit is still called Motorola Mobility.The new smartphones mixed up retro ideas with new features. A new Nokia 3310 candy-bar phone is the modern version of its classic namesake, while the new Blackberry KEYOne handset has a hard keyboard, which made previous smartphones under the brand popular.The Blackberry and Nokia brands have tremendous cachet, and fans will root for these brands to win again, said Roger Kay, principal analyst at Endpoint Technologies Associates.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Akyumen’s Hawk smartphone packs a projector

Over the past decade there have been several attempts to cram video projectors into smartphones. All ultimately failed, but a Silicon Valley startup reckons it has the recipe right and is hoping for a warm response from consumers when its phone debuts later this year. The Akyumen Hawk is a 5.5-inch Android handset that packs a low-profile projector into the upper half of the phone. The 35-lumen projector has enough power to display an image over a distance of about a meter in a normally lit room and at up to 100 inches in a more dimly lit room. Akyumen says the secret to its phone is a proprietary projector that stays cool even after hours of use. And indeed, during a demonstration in Barcelona on Sunday, the phone was only slightly warm despite the projector being used for at least 20 minutes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Samsung mulls iris scanners on smartphones to log into Windows PCs

Soon, your Samsung phone may be able to recognize your iris and log you into your Windows PC. Iris-scanning via phone is not yet a feature available for Samsung's latest Galaxy Book 2-in-1s, which were announced at Mobile World Congress. But the company wants to quickly bridge the gap between its Galaxy smartphones, which run on Android, and its Windows PCs and 2-in-1s. Software called Samsung Flow links the company's Android smartphones to Windows PCs. Samsung and Microsoft are looking to collaborate on logins via Windows Hello -- designed to use biometric authentication to log into PCs -- and one big Flow feature is the ability to use Galaxy smartphones to wirelessly log into the new Galaxy Book.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Huawei’s P10 camera-phone comes in more colors than the rainbow

Huawei Technologies calls the P10 a smartphone, but its CEO doesn't have much to say about its communication capabilities.Richard Yu, CEO of the company's consumer business group, might instead have been talking about a new camera when he boasted of the device's Leica-style portraiture and, in fact, like its predecessor it was "co-engineered" with camera-maker Leica.The device runs Android 7.0 on a Huawei Kirin 960 processor with four 2.4GHz ARM Cortex A73 cores and four 1.8GHz ARM Cortex A53 cores and has 4GB of RAM and 32, 64 or 128GB of flash depending on the model.It has a 5.1-inch Full-HD screen and a 3,200 mAh battery with USB-C charging. It measures 145.3 millimeters by 69.3 mm by 6.98 mm, and weighs about 145 grams.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ransomware attacks targeted hundreds of MySQL databases

Hundreds of MySQL databases were hit in ransomware attacks, which were described as “an evolution of the MongoDB ransomware attacks;” in January, there were tens of thousands of MongoDB installs erased and replaced with ransom demands. In the new attacks, targeted MySQL databases are erased and replaced with a ransom demand for 0.2 bitcoin, which is currently equal to about $234.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ransomware attacks targeted hundreds of MySQL databases

Hundreds of MySQL databases were hit in ransomware attacks, which were described as “an evolution of the MongoDB ransomware attacks;” in January, there were tens of thousands of MongoDB installs erased and replaced with ransom demands. In the new attacks, targeted MySQL databases are erased and replaced with a ransom demand for 0.2 bitcoin, which is currently equal to about $234.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here