Who gets to telecommute once Zika’s bite comes closer?

Florida’s announcement Tuesday that a locally transmitted Zika case turned up Pinellas County, which includes St. Petersburg, moves reported cases of the virus a little closer to Georgia. That’s where Maria Stephens, who is pregnant, works as a senior data research analyst.Stephens was initially skeptical about Zika and paid little attention to the headlines about it.“I don't really respond to dramatization and felt that things were possibly being blown out of proportion,” said Stephens. “I'm a statistician at heart and only listen to numbers, so when my quant-minded OB-GYN shared the figures with me, this threat became a lot more real."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Best Android phones: What should you buy?

Choosing a new Android phone isn’t easy. The Android universe is teeming with options, from super-expensive flagship phones, to affordable models that make a few calculated compromises, to models expressly designed for, say, great photography. Chances are that whichever phone you buy, you’ll keep it for at least two years. So choosing the best Android phone for you isn’t a decision you should take lightly. But we can make things easier. Everyone has different priorities and needs, so we’ve made some picks for the best Android phone in several categories. At the bottom of this article, we also list all our recent Android phone reviews—in case you have your eye on a model that doesn’t make our cut.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A deeper look at business impact of a cyberattack

Few would dispute that cyberattacks are increasing in frequency and in intensity, and most organizations confirm they have now suffered at least one cyber incident. But do those organizations have a true sense of the full impact on the organization? After all, the direct costs commonly associated with a data breach are far less significant than the “hidden costs” incurred.Indeed, the “hidden” costs can amount to 90 percent of the total business impact on an organization, and will most likely be experienced two years or more after the event. These are among the findings of a recent study by Deloitte Advisory entitled, “Beneath the Surface of a Cyberattack: A Deeper Look at the Business Impacts.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

A deeper look at business impact of a cyberattack

Few would dispute that cyberattacks are increasing in frequency and in intensity, and most organizations confirm they have now suffered at least one cyber incident. But do those organizations have a true sense of the full impact on the organization? After all, the direct costs commonly associated with a data breach are far less significant than the “hidden costs” incurred.Indeed, the “hidden” costs can amount to 90 percent of the total business impact on an organization, and will most likely be experienced two years or more after the event. These are among the findings of a recent study by Deloitte Advisory entitled, “Beneath the Surface of a Cyberattack: A Deeper Look at the Business Impacts.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Internet use is replacing human memory

There’s more evidence that the internet is changing the way we think. Problem solving and recall are among the things people use the internet for. However, the more one does it, the more reliant on the internet one gets, researchers say.And so much so that people who use Google and other internet tools a lot don’t even try to remember things, a study just published in Memory says.“Memory is changing,” says Dr. Benjamin Storm, the lead author in academic publisher Routledge’s press release. “Our research shows that as we use the internet to support and extend our memory, we become more reliant on it. Whereas before we might have tried to recall something on our own, now we don't bother.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Why Would I Attend the Virtual Firewalls Workshop?

One of my subscribers considered attending the Virtual Firewalls workshop on September 1st and asked:

Would it make sense to attend the workshop? How is it different from the Virtual Firewalls webinar? Will it be recorded?

The last answer is easy: No. Now for the other two.

NYT says Moscow bureau was targeted by cyberattack

The Moscow bureau of The New York Times was the target of a cyberattack, though there are no indications yet that the hackers were successful, according to the newspaper.The hackers are believed to be Russian, the newspaper said Tuesday evening. It quoted a spokeswoman for the newspaper as saying that it had not hired outside firms to investigate the attempted breach.Earlier in the day, CNN reported that the FBI and other U.S. security agencies were investigating attacks by hackers, thought to be working for Russian intelligence, that targeted reporters at the New York Times and other U.S. news organizations. CNN quoted unnamed U.S. officials briefed on the matter.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

NYT says Moscow bureau was targeted by cyberattack

The Moscow bureau of The New York Times was the target of a cyberattack, though there are no indications yet that the hackers were successful, according to the newspaper.The hackers are believed to be Russian, the newspaper said Tuesday evening. It quoted a spokeswoman for the newspaper as saying that it had not hired outside firms to investigate the attempted breach.Earlier in the day, CNN reported that the FBI and other U.S. security agencies were investigating attacks by hackers, thought to be working for Russian intelligence, that targeted reporters at the New York Times and other U.S. news organizations. CNN quoted unnamed U.S. officials briefed on the matter.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Open source 25-core chip can be stringed into a 200,000-core computer

Researchers want to give a 25-core open-source processor called Piton some serious bite. The developers of the chip at Princeton University have in mind a 200,000-core computer crammed with 8,000 64-bit Piton chips. It won't happen anytime soon, but that's one possible usage scenario for Piton. The chip is designed to be flexible and quickly scalable, and will have to ensure the giant collection of cores are in sync when processing applications in parallel. Details about Piton were provided at the Hot Chips conference this week. The goal was to design a chip that could be used in large data centers that handle social networking requests, search and cloud services. The response time in social networking and search is tied to the horsepower of servers in data centers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

MIT is dragging hard-wired network chips into the agile era

Cloud computing is changing the demands on networks more quickly than ever. Now researchers say it’s possible to program routers all the way down to their packet-forwarding chips in the quest to keep up.Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and five other organizations have found a way to make data-center routers more programmable without making them slower. This could allow enterprises to take advantage of new traffic and congestion management algorithms without replacing their routers.The project takes SDN (software-defined networking) beyond the control plane, where things like configuration are handled, and into the data plane that actually forwards packets. Now programmers can change how the network decides which packets to send and which to keep in a buffer, for example. Eventually, that might mean deploying networks with fewer routers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

MIT is dragging hard-wired network chips into the agile era

Cloud computing is changing the demands on networks more quickly than ever. Now researchers say it’s possible to program routers all the way down to their packet-forwarding chips in the quest to keep up.Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and five other organizations have found a way to make data-center routers more programmable without making them slower. This could allow enterprises to take advantage of new traffic and congestion management algorithms without replacing their routers.The project takes SDN (software-defined networking) beyond the control plane, where things like configuration are handled, and into the data plane that actually forwards packets. Now programmers can change how the network decides which packets to send and which to keep in a buffer, for example. Eventually, that might mean deploying networks with fewer routers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

62% off MovieSherlock Pro Video Downloader for Mac – Deal Alert

MovieSherlock converts the videos you download to MP4 and MP3 formats, all saved in high-definition native video format at 1080P/780P quality. So you can download your video 15 times faster than real time, perfect for stockpiling hours of HD video for later viewing.This MovieSherlock Pro Video Downloader program is currently 62% off, and iIf you’re a movie buff, MovieSherlock Pro Video Downloader for Mac is about to be your new best friend. The software lets you download videos from nearly any website, including both YouTube and Hulu.  See it now for $15 for a limited time only.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ashley Madison misled users with a fake security award

It’s never a good sign when a website markets itself with a phony security award. But that’s what Ashley Madison did prior to last year’s massive data breach.On Monday, privacy officials in Canada and Australia found that the Canadian adultery website used deceptive and confusing practices to make customers think the service was secure.Privacy authorities from both countries have been investigating Ashley Madison following last year’s hack, which exposed personal data on 36 million users, including names, credit card numbers, and in some cases, their sexual fantasies. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Ashley Madison misled users with a fake security award

It’s never a good sign when a website markets itself with a phony security award. But that’s what Ashley Madison did prior to last year’s massive data breach.On Monday, privacy officials in Canada and Australia found that the Canadian adultery website used deceptive and confusing practices to make customers think the service was secure.Privacy authorities from both countries have been investigating Ashley Madison following last year’s hack, which exposed personal data on 36 million users, including names, credit card numbers, and in some cases, their sexual fantasies. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Amped Wireless goes mesh with Ally brand

The wireless mesh wave is in high gear now. Just a day after Netgear announced its new wireless mesh-based home Wi-Fi system (Orbi), Amped Wireless today announced that pre-orders were now open for its system, the ALLY Wi-Fi System.The system is a wireless mesh system (Amped Wireless calls it a “seamless roaming solution”) that includes MU-MIMO technology, AC1900 Wi-Fi (802.11ac) and a mobile app for setup and network monitoring purposes. Customers can buy one unit (aka the ‘router’) for $199.99, or buy a two-unit system (with a ‘router’ and ‘extender’, branded ALLY Plus) for $379.99. Amped Wireless says the units will ship in early October. The two units are pre-paired and labeled as a router and extender, similar to the Netgear Orbi system. This is different from systems by eero and Luma, which are identical units that then become routers or extenders based on placement during the setup process.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Android is switching to a regular maintenance schedule for more predictable updates

Minor tweaks and bug fixes aren’t new for Android updates, but Google wants to make the process far less haphazard. A post on the Android Developers Blog details that Google is moving to a regular maintenance schedule “over the coming quarters,” with an eye towards a predictable process and more feedback from developers.Vice president of engineering Dave Burke said Google has already started work on some issues that are on the list and will transition to a new schedule in the coming months. Just as it did with the Android N Preview, updates will come first to a Dev Preview before they’re sent out to everyone else. You’ll be able to download and flash the latest preview to try it out in advance of a final release.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: Photographing the Internet

Shuli Hallak photographs the Internet. And when we say she photographs it, we’re not just talking about cool pictures of wires (although those are in her portfolio) but entire worlds that are up and running right under our noses but remain invisible. Her work is helping to demystify the sometimes complicated language surrounding the open Internet and is building a new understanding of how important the open Internet is for people everywhere. —Internet Society

The post Worth Reading: Photographing the Internet appeared first on 'net work.

IDG Contributor Network: SimpliVity delivers use case-focused hyperconverged solutions

SimpliVity is a vendor in the hyperconverged infrastructure market. What that means in plain English is that SimpliVity offers a product that is both hardware and software. Essentially it's about specific software tailored to the infrastructure on what it sits. The hyperconverged space is a busy one with several vendors all trying to justify their existence and differentiate themselves from the commodity way the large webscale vendors think about their infrastructure. The continuum is very stark. On one end lies Google, Facebook, et al., which consider physical servers to be replaceable, generic items that they think little about, focusing instead on the software that sits on top of them. At the other end, lies vendors such as HP, VMware and SimpliVity, which articulate the extra value that comes from converging hardware with software.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

iPhone 8 may feature a curved OLED display

Based on no shortage of product leaks and rumblings from the rumor mill, the iPhone 7 design will in large part be similar to what we've already seen on Apple's iPhone 6 and 6s models. In fact, there will likely be only two minor design changes on Apple's next-gen iPhone: the removal of the standard 3.5mm headphone jack and the migration of the iPhone's antenna lines from the back to the side of the device.In turn, it's only natural that some industry analysts have expressed concern that the current iPhone design is getting a little bit long in the tooth. Compounding matters is the fact that surveys have suggested that current iPhone owners would be more inclined to upgrade with a completely new design as opposed to the standard introduction of improved internals.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IHS Report: Most NFV Deployments Start with vCPE

81% of service providers will deploy NFV by 2017.