Faster, longer-range Bluetooth 5 to reach devices soon

A new version of the Bluetooth wireless spec will be coming to devices soon, giving users faster connectivity among devices over longer distances.The new version, Bluetooth 5, is a big upgrade over Bluetooth 4.2, the current specification. In a clear line of sight, the range of Bluetooth 5 could stretch to 400 meters, said analysts at The Linley Group in a research note this week. That means users could connect a smartphone to a Bluetooth speaker that may not even be visible.Final Bluetooth 5 specifications will be disclosed by the end of this year or early next year, the Linley analysts said.In a typical, realistic setting, Bluetooth 5 will offer a range of up to 120 meters, which is four times that of Bluetooth 4.2, and be two times faster, with data transfer rates of 2Mbps, said Chuck Sabin, director for business strategy at the Bluetooth-Special Interest Group, which sets the standards for Bluetooth.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: On decomposing systems

Flexibility (we tend to call it agility) and faster development times remain top of mind today. Comprehensibility less so, but perhaps we should be paying more attention there? Say you’re all bought into cloud native microservices based architectures, is splitting your system up into multiple independent services going to help you achieve your goals? —The Morning Paper

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Star Trek’s 50 years of technology, optimism and naiveté

Thursday marked the 50th birthday of a TV and film institution, "Star Trek," and was met with far more joy and happiness than most 50th birthdays are.What started as a struggling TV series that limped along for three years has become an institution and part of our culture, with terms, references, and catchphrases now a regular part of our lives.At the time of its creation, science fiction was more optimistic than it is today. It tried to envision a better future where our problems were solved.Even so, it took some serious brass to put an Asian, Russian, and black woman on the bridge of that ship in 1966. Creator Gene Roddenberry wanted to go one further and make the second-in-command a woman but that was a bridge too far, which paved the way for Spock.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

This new imaging system can read closed books

They say you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, but a new imaging system from MIT can see right through the cover and read the book while it's still closed.That's thanks primarily to terahertz radiation, the band of electromagnetic radiation between microwaves and infrared light, and the tiny gaps of air between the pages of any closed book.Terahertz radiation can distinguish between ink and blank paper in a way that X-rays can’t, and it also offers much better depth resolution than ultrasound does. The prototype new system developed by researchers from MIT and Georgia Tech uses a standard terahertz camera to emit ultrashort bursts of radiation and then measure how long it takes for that radiation to be reflected back. An algorithm then gauges the distance to each of the book's individual pages.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple takes iPhone 7 preorders, quickly exhausts supply of Jet Black

Apple began taking pre-orders for its iPhone 7 and 7 Plus earlier today, and not surprisingly, some models quickly exhausted their supplies, leaving customers with weeks to wait.The scramble to order an iPhone began at midnight PT, 3 a.m. ET, when Apple and U.S. carriers opened the doors to their online sales sites.By business hours, Apple's iPhone 7 Plus in Jet Black -- a new, highly-polished finish -- faced a delay in shipping that stretched into November, with the smaller iPhone 7 Jet Black reporting a shipping delay of 3 to 4 weeks. The matte black iPhone 7 Plus was also in demand, with shipping dates out two to three weeks. However, other colors of both the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus were still available for pre-ordering with Sept. 16 arrival dates.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

128 Technology Doesn’t Like the Term ‘SD-WAN’

But its technology can still replace MPLS.

Show 305: A Eulogy For TRILL?

A few years ago, TRILL looked like the way forward in networking. Today? Not so much. We talk w/ Jon Hudson about what happened & where the standard is now. The post Show 305: A Eulogy For TRILL? appeared first on Packet Pushers.

10 million tiny computers: Raspberry Pi Foundation announces milestone

The signs were there at the Raspberry Pi’s launch. The debut of the beloved little card-computer was marked by overwhelming demand, so much so that the Raspberry Pi Foundation, “punch-drunk” at the response, had to suspend orders temporarily.Now, more than four years after the fact, 10 million Raspberry Pis have been sold and the demand shows no signs of slowing down. It represents orders of magnitude more success than project founder Eben Upton anticipated.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Ultimate guide to Raspberry Pi operating systems, Part 3 | 10 more fascinating things to do with a Raspberry Pi +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

23% off SnapPower Guidelight – Outlet Coverplate with LED Night Lights – Deal Alert

The SnapPower Guidelight is a plug-and-play replacement for standard plug-in night lights and hardwired lights. It installs within seconds and requires no wires or batteries. SnapPower is designed to look and function like a standard outlet cover by day, with LEDs that provide ambient lighting at night. It's list price of $22 has been reduced on Amazon to $16.95.  To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

SDxCentral Weekly News Roundup — September 9, 2016

Brocade launched its Strategic Collaboration Program

T-Mobile Teams with Samsung on 5G Tests

US Cellular will also launch 5G tests next week.

A satisfying tale of sleuthing, justice

Texas-born Christian Hascheck teaches computer science in Vienna, Austria when not working on his own projects, which include a novel grading system. In 2012, he won $500 worth of Apple gift cards for a funny sysadmin story about ferreting out a not terribly sophisticated rogue Wi-Fi operation.Then the move aboard. He tells the story on his blog: Since then I have repeatedly tried to use or sell (the cards) but since I'm not currently living in the US it wasn't possible for me.My last attempt to sell them was via reddit. I know there are a lot of scammers out there, so I thought Bitcoin would be the right choice since the scammer can't just reclaim their money after I gave them the card codes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A satisfying tale of sleuthing, justice

Texas-born Christian Hascheck teaches computer science in Vienna, Austria when not working on his own projects, which include a novel grading system. In 2012, he won $500 worth of Apple gift cards for a funny sysadmin story about ferreting out a not terribly sophisticated rogue Wi-Fi operation.Then the move aboard. He tells the story on his blog: Since then I have repeatedly tried to use or sell (the cards) but since I'm not currently living in the US it wasn't possible for me.My last attempt to sell them was via reddit. I know there are a lot of scammers out there, so I thought Bitcoin would be the right choice since the scammer can't just reclaim their money after I gave them the card codes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Bridge to the Ocean

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Worth Reading: Do we still need OSPF areas?

When OSPF was created it used areas to minimize the size of the topology graph (and the time it took to run Dijkstra algorithm). In the meantime, the CPU speeds increased by orders of magnitude, and graph computation algorithms got a few optimization boosts (incremental SPF for example). —IPspace

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Open Networking Reveals Its Fractal Nature

An insider's view of open networking.

Today’s supercomputers will get blown away by these systems

The Department of Energy says the $40 million it is investing in nearly two dozen multi-year projects will result in exascale computing systems that perform calculations on data 50 to 100 times faster than today's most powerful supercomputers.The DoE Exascale Computing Project says such high-performance computing systems can make at least a billion billion calculations per second, and will be used to process data for applications such as energy security, economic security, scientific discovery, healthcare and climate/environmental science. The U.S. is shooting to attain such powerful systems by the mid-2020s and China is aiming for 2020.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Today’s supercomputers will get blown away by these systems

The Department of Energy says the $40 million it is investing in nearly two dozen multi-year projects will result in exascale computing systems that perform calculations on data 50 to 100 times faster than today's most powerful supercomputers.The DoE Exascale Computing Project says such high-performance computing systems can make at least a billion billion calculations per second, and will be used to process data for applications such as energy security, economic security, scientific discovery, healthcare and climate/environmental science. The U.S. is shooting to attain such powerful systems by the mid-2020s and China is aiming for 2020.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Today’s supercomputers will get blown away by these systems

The Department of Energy says the $40 million it is investing in nearly two dozen multi-year projects will result in exascale computing systems that perform calculations on data 50 to 100 times faster than today's most powerful supercomputers.The DoE Exascale Computing Project says such high-performance computing systems can make at least a billion billion calculations per second, and will be used to process data for applications such as energy security, economic security, scientific discovery, healthcare and climate/environmental science. The U.S. is shooting to attain such powerful systems by the mid-2020s and China is aiming for 2020.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

UK police listened in to 9 percent more calls last year

The U.K. government has published a report on the staggering scale of surveillance in the country last year.The report, compiled by the Interception of Communications Commissioner's Office (IOCCO), covers the surveillance activities of the U.K.'s three main intelligence agencies (MI5, the Secret Intelligence Service, and GCHQ, the Government Communications Headquarters), the tax authority, and a number of police forces.It shows that warrants for the interception of communications rose 9 percent and that authorities continue to collect communications metadata -- information about who called or connected to whom, when, how often -- with abandon. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here