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Category Archives for "Networking"

AT&T’s acquisition of DirecTV appears headed for approval with conditions

AT&T’s acquisition of DirecTV appears headed for approval, with Tom Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission circulating to commissioners an order recommending approval, although with some conditions.The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division also announced Tuesday that it will close its investigation into the around US$48 billion deal.Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer of the Antitrust Division said in a statement that the division had concluded that the combination of AT&T’s land-based Internet and video business with DirecTV’s satellite-based video business does not pose a significant risk to competition.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

AT&T’s acquisition of DirecTV appears headed for approval with conditions

AT&T’s acquisition of DirecTV appears headed for approval, with Tom Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission circulating to commissioners an order recommending approval, although with some conditions.The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division also announced Tuesday that it will close its investigation into the around US$48 billion deal.Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer of the Antitrust Division said in a statement that the division had concluded that the combination of AT&T’s land-based Internet and video business with DirecTV’s satellite-based video business does not pose a significant risk to competition.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New York judge rules against Facebook in search warrant case

A New York judge ruled Tuesday that Facebook has no legal standing to challenge the constitutionality of search warrants served on its users, highlighting the limits to online companies’ abilities to protect user privacy.Last year, Facebook appealed a court decision requiring it to hand over data, including photos and private messages, relating to 381 user accounts. The data was sought as part of an investigation by the New York County District Attorney’s office into a disability fraud case.Other companies including Google and Microsoft filed briefs supporting Facebook’s move, as well as the American Civil Liberties Union.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Importance of BGP NEXT_HOP in L3VPNs

In an MPLS network with L3VPNs, it's very easy for the NEXT_HOP attribute of a VPN route to look absolutely correct but be very wrong at the same time. In a vanilla IP network, the NEXT_HOP can point to any IP address that gets the packets moving in the right direction towards the ultimate destination. In an MPLS network, the NEXT_HOP must get the packets moving in the right direction but it must also point to the exact right address in order for traffic to successfully reach the destination.

Five arrested in JPMorgan hacking case

U.S law enforcement officials have arrested five individuals who reportedly were involved in the high-profile 2014 computer hacking of JPMorgan.Three of the individuals were arrested for stock manipulation while the other two were arrested for running an illegal Bitcoin exchange, according to the FBI.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

In Q2, Yahoo spent a pretty penny to achieve unusual growth

Yahoo reported on Tuesday an uncharacteristic rise in revenue for the second quarter, but it came with a hefty sum spent on boosting its search traffic.Total sales for the period ending June 30 were US$1.24 billion, up 15 percent from the previous year. In the company’s announcement, CEO Marissa Mayer called it the most substantial growth in revenue in nearly nine years.Yahoo’s revenue from search ads and display ads both grew, at rates of 22 percent and 15 percent, respectively.It would appear that Mayer’s efforts to turn around the struggling Internet portal have begun to pay off. Yahoo has struggled in recent years to grow its ad sales and attract users to its various online properties.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

In Q2, Yahoo spent a pretty penny to achieve unusual growth

Yahoo reported on Tuesday an uncharacteristic rise in revenue for the second quarter, but it came with a hefty sum spent on boosting its search traffic.Total sales for the period ending June 30 were US$1.24 billion, up 15 percent from the previous year. In the company’s announcement, CEO Marissa Mayer called it the most substantial growth in revenue in nearly nine years.Yahoo’s revenue from search ads and display ads both grew, at rates of 22 percent and 15 percent, respectively.It would appear that Mayer’s efforts to turn around the struggling Internet portal have begun to pay off. Yahoo has struggled in recent years to grow its ad sales and attract users to its various online properties.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

To Cisco-backed Sensity, lights are just IoT waiting to happen

Cisco Systems is tightening its relationship with Sensity Systems, a Silicon Valley startup that wants buildings and cities now adopting LED lighting to embrace the Internet of Things.Sensity makes sensors and computers designed to be integrated with LED lights that can go into existing outdoor light fixtures. With Sensity’s gear, the fixtures can do more than light up the streets and parking lots where they’re installed. Its cameras, thermometers and other sensors can tell a lot of stories about what’s going on under the lights. Parking, security and pedestrian traffic are key applications.As lighting owners move to LED to save energy, Sensity wants to usher them into the age of IoT and data analysis. It estimates there are about 4 billion outdoor light fixtures around the world and most will be converted to LED over the next 10 to 15 years.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

To Cisco-backed Sensity, lights are just IoT waiting to happen

Cisco Systems is tightening its relationship with Sensity Systems, a Silicon Valley startup that wants buildings and cities now adopting LED lighting to embrace the Internet of Things.Sensity makes sensors and computers designed to be integrated with LED lights that can go into existing outdoor light fixtures. With Sensity’s gear, the fixtures can do more than light up the streets and parking lots where they’re installed. Its cameras, thermometers and other sensors can tell a lot of stories about what’s going on under the lights. Parking, security and pedestrian traffic are key applications.As lighting owners move to LED to save energy, Sensity wants to usher them into the age of IoT and data analysis. It estimates there are about 4 billion outdoor light fixtures around the world and most will be converted to LED over the next 10 to 15 years.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft reports first quarterly loss since 2012 after Nokia write-down

Microsoft has reported its first quarterly loss in three years, largely as a result of a $7.5 billion write-down for its acquisition last year of Nokia’s devices and services business.Microsoft’s net loss for the quarter, the fourth of its fiscal year, was $3.2 billion, compared to $4.6 billion in profit during the same period a year earlier, the company announced Tuesday. That translated into a loss of $0.40 a share. Microsoft’s quarterly revenue declined more than 5 percent year over year to $22.2 billion. The news comes after a few tumultuous weeks for the company. Microsoft announced two weeks ago that it was cutting 7,800 jobs to streamline its smartphone hardware business.  The company also transferred technology and employees from the Bing Maps team to Uber and sold part of its display advertising business to AOL.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Some Impressions from Open Networking Summit 2015

I’ve used the Open Networking Summit (ONS 15) the last few years as part of my education plan to re-tool for the word of SDN and NFV. You can too – the ONS posts videos from most of the sessions (except those that cost a few extra $$.) While I think it’s worth attending the show for the hallway conversations alone, I think you can pick up a lot from just watching the sessions.

I plan a few posts about things I learned at the show; to start, this post hits a few highlights about a few speakers and topics that made a particularly strong impression.

Quick Aside

Sorry it took a while to make this post. This blog site got infected, and I've spent all my blog time working to overcome the problem. Should be back on track now!

 

Small Appetizers

To get rolling, here are a few big observations from the show – things that might not jump out at you if you just cherry pick a few of the videos to watch.

First, Open Source software rules. Open Daylight was of course prominently mentioned, but so was ONOS. But it wasn’t just an Continue reading

Nokia Here said to be snatched up by Audi, BMW and Daimler for $2.7B

Audi, BMW and Daimler will jointly purchase Nokia’s Here digital mapping service for roughly $2.7 billion, and they plan to invite other auto makers to take a stake in the company as well, according to reports published on Tuesday.The deal could be signed in the next few days, with an announcement targeted for next week, according to separate reports in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and German publication Manager Magazin. All reports were based on anonymous sources familiar with the deal.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google grabs Pixate to improve its apps, and others

Google has acquired Pixate, whose app-prototyping service could help Google make better apps of its own.Pixate provides a suite of tools to help mobile developers design and prototype their apps. Thousands of mobile designers at companies including Amazon, Apple and Facebook—and Google—have used its services, the company says.The Google acquisition will help Pixate expand its service to improve the app development process for many more designers across iOS, Android and other platforms, the company said Tuesday.Pixate will live on as a standalone service. But its tools will also aid in Google’s own development processes. This would include material design, Google’s new design aesthetic to unify the look and feel of its various apps and online services. Google released a material design guide for Android L at its I/O conference last year, partly in an effort to compete against the slick design of Apple’s services.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Expect more prize competitions to address tough IT, high-tech challenges

Many people criticize the federal government for myriad problems, but there is at least one program in recent years that has been a success – the use of competitions or crowdsourcing to address sometimes complex problems. And because of those accomplishments you can expect many more such contests in the future.+More on Network World: DARPA’s $4M cyber-threat clash down to seven challengers+The White House Office of Science and Technology notes that in January 2015 the government will celebrate the fifth anniversary of the America Competes Act which in combination with Challenge.gov has prompted more than 400 public-sector prize competitions which have doled out some $72 million in prizes.  Some agencies like NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency as well as private entities like the X Prize Foundation have used competitions to address high-tech challenges for years with great success.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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