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Category Archives for "Networking"

Microsoft will miss its one billion Windows 10 device target

Last year, Microsoft announced that it planned to have a billion devices running Windows 10 by the middle of 2018. Now, the company is saying that was too ambitious."We’re pleased with our progress to date, but due to the focusing of our phone hardware business, it will take longer" to reach the goal, Microsoft Corporate Vice President Yusuf Mehdi said in an emailed statement. "In the year ahead, we are excited about usage growth coming from commercial deployments and new devices.”The missed target is rough news for the company, which has relied on that promise to attract developers to build apps for Windows 10.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

AT&T deploys drones for cell tower inspections, network expansion

AT&T is now using drones to conduct aerial inspections of its cellular towers and foresees them as a way to beef up its wireless LTE network.Down the road, the carrier said it might use a drone as a Flying Cell on Wings (COW) to enhance LTE coverage at a large concert or sporting event where thousands of fans can clog the network. Or a drone could be used in rapid disaster response, offering wireless coverage when a vehicle is unable to drive to an area hit by a storm or other catastrophe. AT&T Future possible applications include turning a drone into a Flying Cell on Wings to beef up LTE coverage at a concert or to quickly set up LTE service in a disaster-ridden area.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Internet router using merchant silicon

SDN router using merchant silicon top of rack switch and Dell OS10 SDN router demo discuss how an inexpensive white box switch running Linux can be used to replace a much costlier Internet router. The key to this solution is the observation that, while the full Internet routing table of over 600,000 routes is too large to fit in white box switch hardware, only a small fraction of the routes carry most of the traffic. Traffic analytics allows the active routes to be identified and installed in the hardware.

This article describes a simple self contained solution that uses standard APIs and should be able to run on a variety of Linux based network operating systems, including: Cumulus Linux, Dell OS10, Arista EOS, and Cisco NX-OS. The distinguishing feature of this solution is its real-time response, where previous solutions respond to changes in traffic within minutes or hours, this solution updates hardware routes within seconds.

The diagram shows the elements of the solution. Standard sFlow instrumentation embedded in the merchant silicon ASIC data plane in the white box switch provides real-time information on traffic flowing through the switch. The sFlow agent is configured to send the sFlow to an instance Continue reading

This fake Pokemon Go game will secretly drive porn ad clicks

A newly discovered fake Pokemon Go game will actually lock your phone and then secretly run in the background, clicking on porn ads.Security firm ESET found it on Google Play and its called Pokemon Go Ultimate. However, once downloaded, the app itself doesn’t even pretend to offer anything remotely like the hit game.Instead, it simply appears as an app called “PI Network.” Once it runs, the app will then freeze the phone with a screen lock of a Pokemon Go image, forcing the user to restart the device, ESET said on a blog post on Friday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

My big intro to BI & analytics vendor MicroStrategy

MicroStrategy, a veteran of the business intelligence and analytics market that is currently littered with so many startups, has plenty to boast about and isn’t shy about doing it.Its revenue comes in at more than half a billion dollars, the company is profitable, and it serves giant customers like eBay and the U.S. Postal Service. A competitor of vendors such as SAP and Tableau, MicroStrategy gushes over how Gartner analysts rate it. And according to globetrotting CEO and Co-Founder Michael Saylor, Version 10 of MicroStrategy's flagship product is “the most powerful software ever released” -- so much so that a customer could feel secure including "a nuclear order of battle into an [encrypted and geolocked] application, put it on an iPad and hand it to the President of the United States."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

My big intro to BI & analytics vendor MicroStrategy

MicroStrategy, a veteran of the business intelligence and analytics market that is currently littered with so many startups, has plenty to boast about and isn’t shy about doing it.Its revenue comes in at more than half a billion dollars, the company is profitable, and it serves giant customers like eBay and the U.S. Postal Service. A competitor of vendors such as SAP and Tableau, MicroStrategy gushes over how Gartner analysts rate it. And according to globetrotting CEO and Co-Founder Michael Saylor, Version 10 of MicroStrategy's flagship product is “the most powerful software ever released” -- so much so that a customer could feel secure including "a nuclear order of battle into an [encrypted and geolocked] application, put it on an iPad and hand it to the President of the United States."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

This fake Pokemon Go game will secretly drive porn ad clicks

A newly discovered fake Pokemon Go game will actually lock your phone and then secretly run in the background, clicking on porn ads. Security firm ESET found it on Google Play and its called Pokemon Go Ultimate. However, once downloaded, the app itself doesn’t even pretend to offer anything remotely like the hit game. Instead, it simply appears as an app called “PI Network.” Once it runs, the app will then freeze the phone with a screen lock of a Pokemon Go image, forcing the user to restart the device, ESET said on a blog post on Friday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Digital transformation pushes big banks into application outsourcing

Large application outsourcing transactions in the banking sector hit a record five-year high last year, according to a recent report by outsourcing consultancy Everest Group. There were 54 new big application outsourcing projects in the sector with a total contract value of $5.9 billion in 2015—an increase in volume of 45 percent and in value of 25 percent over the previous year.[ Related: How to turbocharge digital transformation ]Financial institutions tend to outsource applications around three different dimensions, says Jimit Arora, partner at Everest Group There are systems to run the business which are outsourced for cost reduction and efficiency reasons. There are systems to manage the business, which may involve issues of regulatory compliance or cybersecurity and are driven by cost or penalty avoidance. And there are systems to change the business, which are efforts to drive revenue growth by introducing new products and services more quickly.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Pokémon Go just redeemed Google Glass’ failure to launch augmented reality

Google Glass was supposed to be a device that made augmented reality (AR) into a viable, useful, popular technology. But we all know how that turned out: Instead of inspiring people to see the world in new ways, Google Glass convinced everyone that AR was a useless, awkward, socially invasive technology of interest to only so-called “glass-holes.”+ Also on Network World: How Google Glass set wearable computing back 10 years +Instead, a silly smartphone game for kids is doing what Google Glass failed so miserably at: making AR fun and involving, if not exactly useful.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

MIT researchers: Network pros could learn a lot from ants

How ants decide where to move their nests may hold lessons for computer scientists seeking efficient ways to gather data from distributed networks of sensors, according to MIT researchers.It turns out that the frequency with which explorer ants bump into each other as they wander around looking for a new home for their colony is a pretty good indicator of how many other explorer ants are investigating the same site.+More on Network World: What’s hot at Cisco Live | Hungry ants knock out FiOS service … again +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

MIT researchers: Network pros could learn a lot from ants

How ants decide where to move their nests may hold lessons for computer scientists seeking efficient ways to gather data from distributed networks of sensors, according to MIT researchers.It turns out that the frequency with which explorer ants bump into each other as they wander around looking for a new home for their colony is a pretty good indicator of how many other explorer ants are investigating the same site.+More on Network World: What’s hot at Cisco Live | Hungry ants knock out FiOS service … again +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US pumps $400 million into next-generation wireless research

The U.S. National Science Foundation will spend more than US$400 million over the next seven years to fund next-generation wireless research in an effort to bring super-fast mobile service to the country.U.S. officials hope the investments, announced Friday, will speed up the county's move to next-generation 5G mobile service, potentially offering speeds of 10Gbps, and allow for a rapid expansion of the internet of things. The next-generation mobile services will enable self-driving cars, an "always on" IoT, smart cities, new virtual reality offerings, and video to aid police, firefighters, and emergency medical responders, said John Holdren assistant to President Barack Obama for science and technology.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

In Nice attack, government’s official terror alert comes too late

"Take cover," the French government warned people in Nice via its official terror alert app.But the alert came almost three hours after police shot the driver of a truck as he plowed through crowds gathered on the waterfront late Thursday to watch a firework display celebrating France's national holiday.The System to Alert and Inform Populations (SAIP) app, introduced last month, is supposed to provide more timely and informative warnings than the existing nationwide network of sirens and radio messages. The ministry began working on the app after the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015, finally putting it into service on June 8.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

In Nice attack, government’s official terror alert comes too late

"Take cover," the French government warned people in Nice via its official terror alert app.But the alert came almost three hours after police shot the driver of a truck as he plowed through crowds gathered on the waterfront late Thursday to watch a firework display celebrating France's national holiday.The System to Alert and Inform Populations (SAIP) app, introduced last month, is supposed to provide more timely and informative warnings than the existing nationwide network of sirens and radio messages. The ministry began working on the app after the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015, finally putting it into service on June 8.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Blockchain-based OS for banks surfaces, could shake up retail banking

Some banking software is so old that programmers have had to come out of retirement to fix glitches in the code and integrate it into mobile phone device interfaces. That’s if the banks could find the poor guy, who's probably out fishing somewhere, or if he’s still alive.Yet banks haven’t wanted to invest in from-scratch, well-documented re-engineering. It’s too expensive—bankers prefer to count money than spend it—and it’s difficult to justify a new back end to owners because code is so invisible. Banking code has thus stagnated and gotten patched when necessary, or possible, despite fraud and cyber theft.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here