Plat.One acquisition marks start of $2B IoT investment plan for SAP

SAP has bought IoT software developer Plat.One, marking the start of a plan to invest US$2 billion in the internet of things over the next five years.Some of those billions will be spent on the creation of IoT development labs around the world, SAP said Wednesday. It already has plans for such labs in Berlin, Johannesburg, Munich, Palo Alto, Shanghai and São Leopoldo in Brazil. The company is also rolling out a series of "jump-start" and "accelerator" IoT software packages for particular industries, to help them monitor and control equipment.Another compoent of SAP's IoT plan is to acquire new businesses, the latest of which is Plat.One. This company makes a platform that helps smart devices talk to one another and with a central database, translating between the different protocols they use to communicate. Plat.One says it manages 200,000 devices for 25 enterprise customers, including three telecommunications companies: BT, T-Systems and Telecom Italia.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

10 tips for a successful cloud plan

How do you get started using the cloud?For some organizations, cloud usage has already begun by someone in the company - whether they know it or not. But to have a successful cloud deployment, it’s helpful to have a plan.Consultancy Cloud Technology Partners is one of many companies that help customers adopt public IaaS cloud computing resources. CloudTP says the following 10 tips are key for a successful cloud rollout.1. Alignment workshopsAfter a company has made a decision to use IaaS cloud computing services, it’s helpful to have a level-set meeting with important stakeholders at the company to get everyone on the same page. Typical groups involved in this meeting would be security managers, finance and procurement professionals, infrastructure engineers, operations workers and third-party consultants. Typically a senior IT manager or CIO leads the process. It’s important to have a clear message to this group of why the cloud is being explored.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Policing or Shaping? It Depends

One of my readers watched my TCP, HTTP and SPDY webinar and disagreed with my assertion that shaping sometimes works better than policing.

TL&DR summary: policing = dropping excess packets, shaping = delaying excess packets.

Here’s the picture he sent me (watch the video to get the context and read this article to get the background details):

Oracle denied new trial in copyright dispute with Google over Java

A federal court in California has denied Oracle another trial in its long-standing copyright infringement dispute with Google over the use of Java code in the Android operating system.A jury had cleared Google of copyright infringement in May this year, upholding the company’s stand that its use of 37 Java APIs (application programming interfaces) in its Android mobile operating system was fair use, thus denying Oracle up to US$9 billion in damages that it was seeking.A number of developers and scientists  backed Google saying that APIs, which are the specifications that let programs communicate with each other, were not copyrightable and any bid to change that would stifle innovation. The administration of President Barack Obama had in its opinion sided with Oracle and said that the APIs are copyrightable like other computer code.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

GE Digital and Bosch Battle IoT Fragmentation With Open Source

Both companies are working to open source the IoT core.

Discounts on New Amazon Echo Dot (2nd Gen) Bundles – Deal Alert

Echo Dot is a hands-free, voice-controlled device that uses Alexa to play & control music (either on its own, or through a connected speaker/receiver), control smart home devices, provide information, read the news, set alarms, and more. Right now Amazon is discounting 3 bundles featuring an all new Echo Dot: 17% off Echo Dot + Philips Hue Starter KitTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Mozilla-backed selfie stunt challenges Europe’s copyright laws

Stiff EU copyright proposals that theoretically ban memes, gifs and even pictures of some landmarks are the target of a campaign backed by Firefox browser maker Mozilla, which has encouraged a campaign of digital civil disobedience it’s calling Post Crimes.Post Crimes is centered on a web app that lets users mock up selfies of themselves in front of several European landmarks, then send them as postcards to EU lawmakers to ridicule the proposed copyright laws.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: 802.11ad is the fastest Wi-Fi that you might not ever use + Swift CEO reveals three more failed attacks on banking networkTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

10% off SAP Crystal Reports 2016, Through Friday Only – Deal Alert

SAP Crystal Reports software is the de facto in reporting, and it's currently discounted 10%, through Friday, if you use the code CRYSTAL10 at checkout. With SAP Crystal Reports you can create powerful, richly formatted, dynamic reports from virtually any data source – delivered in dozens of formats, in up to 24 languages. A robust production reporting tool, SAP Crystal Reports turns almost any data source into interactive, actionable information that can be accessed offline or online, from applications, portals and mobile devices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Wyoming’s open source enterprise code library a secret no more

Wyoming’s 250-person Enterprise Technology Services (ETS) group knew it had a good thing in its Enterprise Extensible Code Library, but it chose to keep things under wraps outside of the state until last week when members of that team attended an annual confab for state government CIOs.It was at the National Association of State Chief Information Officers (NASCIO) convention in Orlando that the ETS code library project was honored with a Recognition Award for Enterprise IT Management Initiatives, and the inquiries from other states and organizations started streaming in.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Make a Wi-Fi gadget with a $9.99 Orange Pi development board

If you want to fashion a smart gadget, robot, or drone with wireless capabilities on the cheap, a US$9.99 development board from Orange Pi will help you reach that goal.The Orange Pi i96 shouldn't be confused with the $35 Raspberry Pi 3, which is much more powerful and can be a full-fledged Linux PC. The smaller Orange Pi has limited horsepower and is targeted at smart gadgets, drones, and internet of things devices.If you want to create a gadget to show off at a Maker Faire event, the Orange Pi i96 is the kind of board you'll rely on. The board was first announced at the Linaro Connect conference, happening this week in Las Vegas.For its price and target market, the Orange Pi has features not found on competitive boards. It includes Wi-Fi, 4GB of flash storage, and 2GB of RAM. It also has a micro-SD slot, a micro-USB connection, and includes the Linux-based Ubuntu OS.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Aqua Scores $9M Series A Led by Microsoft

Aqua will be involved in Microsoft initiatives while staying true to its roots.

Worth Reading: Project autobuild

LinkedIn’s data center infrastructure has grown at a massive scale. Starting with one server setup, one cabinet at a time, we’re now powering on hundreds of servers at a time and seeing them come online automatically. You could call it “Zero Touch Provisioning” for systems. This evolution presented us with many challenges, however. This post will describe how our Systems Platform team solved several of the problems they faced during this transformation by using a combination of innovations from the open source community and the team’s own technical talent. —LinkedIn Engineering Blog

The post Worth Reading: Project autobuild appeared first on 'net work.

Mediatek’s developer board features a 10-core chip and Android 6.0

Like PCs, developer boards like Raspberry Pi are getting more horsepower to run faster applications and 4K graphics.Take the Mediatek X20 Development Board, which started shipping for US$199 this week. It is crammed with the latest mobile chips that give the developer board PC-like computing power.It has a 10-core Mediatek X20 chip, which is being used in new mobile devices from companies like Meizu and LeEco. The board comes with Android 6.0, and it's not yet known if it will be upgraded to Android 7.0.There still isn't much need for 10 CPU cores in smartphones or tablets, but the developer board could put the chip to good use. Quad core chips are considered powerful enough for handsets.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

63% off Anker Compact Car Jump Starter and Power Bank – Deal Alert

This device from Anker is small enough to fit in your glove box, but packs enough power to jump start your 3L gas or 2.5L diesel engine a whopping 15 times on a single charge. Advanced safety features ensure total protection against reverse polarity, surges and short circuits. So there's no risk in hooking it up wrong or backwards like with traditional jump starters. It also has two built-in USB charging ports for your mobile devices, and comes with an 18-month warranty. It averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from 1,000 people on Amazon (read reviews), and its list price has been reduced to just $59. See the discounted Anker car jump starter on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Bringing IoT data into public clouds is getting easier

The formidable processing power and analytical tools available in public clouds could make industrial IoT more effective and less expensive. But bringing IoT data into the cloud takes more than a network connection.On Tuesday, two companies moved to help enterprises adapt their IoT data for popular cloud services. OSIsoft introduced its PI Integrator for Microsoft Azure, and Particle announced a custom integration with Google Cloud Platform.While some large enterprises with sensitive IoT data do all their analytics in-house, public clouds offer greater scale and better security than many organizations can achieve on their own, MachNation analyst Dima Tokar said. And more advanced analytics, including better error correction, in some cases can give enterprises the same insights with fewer sensors, he said. Trading hardware for software -- especially the cloud-based kind -- typically means savings.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Bringing IoT data into public clouds is getting easier

The formidable processing power and analytical tools available in public clouds could make industrial IoT more effective and less expensive. But bringing IoT data into the cloud takes more than a network connection.On Tuesday, two companies moved to help enterprises adapt their IoT data for popular cloud services. OSIsoft introduced its PI Integrator for Microsoft Azure, and Particle announced a custom integration with Google Cloud Platform.While some large enterprises with sensitive IoT data do all their analytics in-house, public clouds offer greater scale and better security than many organizations can achieve on their own, MachNation analyst Dima Tokar said. And more advanced analytics, including better error correction, in some cases can give enterprises the same insights with fewer sensors, he said. Trading hardware for software -- especially the cloud-based kind -- typically means savings.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Six years old and time for an update: CloudFlare becomes Cloudflare

Today, Cloudflare turns six years old, and if you’re reading this on our blog, you may have noticed that we look a bit different today than the cloudflare.com that you’ve visited in the past. More on that a bit later in this post.

What we’re most excited about today is that over the past six years, we’ve made the Internet safer, faster and a more reliable place for any domain whether it’s used for a website, web application or API.

We currently count more than 4,000,000 customers as members of the Cloudflare community, and we’ve been working very hard to bring the best of the modern Internet to you.

Levelling the Internet playing field is Cloudflare’s mission and it’s what gets us out of bed every morning and into one of our offices. Last week, we took away what we think are the last excuses for any domain to not be encrypted with our three launches during Encryption Week.

Yesterday, we announced the 100th city added to the Cloudflare global network of data centers. In the coming days, we have more exciting products that we’re opening up to the public for early access that will expand our offering to Continue reading

ETSI Releases NFV 2 Specifications

Telefónica exec is appointed chairman of ETSI NFV ISG.

Down the rabbit hole, part 1: Making my life private and secure

Over the years I’ve done a number of—let’s just call them “experiments in computering”—where I attempt to use my computers in such a way that is outside of my comfort zone. Living entirely in a terminal. Getting rid of all Google software and services. Using nothing but a version of FreeDOS. That sort of thing. I typically give myself the simple goal of “do it for 30 days, and see how it goes.” In the process, I always learn something—about what I like, about what is possible. And even if I don’t learn a cotton-pickin’ thing of value, it’s still kinda fun—kinda. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Down the rabbit hole, part 1: Making my life private and secure

Over the years I’ve done a number of—let’s just call them “experiments in computering”—where I attempt to use my computers in such a way that is outside of my comfort zone. Living entirely in a terminal. Getting rid of all Google software and services. Using nothing but a version of FreeDOS. That sort of thing. I typically give myself the simple goal of “do it for 30 days, and see how it goes.” In the process, I always learn something—about what I like, about what is possible. And even if I don’t learn a cotton-pickin’ thing of value, it’s still kinda fun—kinda. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here