HP to ship its Omen X VR backpack PC in June

HP will make a major virtual reality push in June, when it will start shipping its Omen X VR backpack PC.The backpack PC has already been announced, but the company until now had not provided a shipping date. HP is accepting applications from gamers and commercial developers to test the product.There will be two types of Omen X backpack PCs, Ron Coughlin, president of the Personal Systems Business at HP, said in an interview. HP will release a VR backpack for gamers, and one for commercial customers, he said.Users will be able to carry the PC like a backpack and hook up a VR headset like HTC's Vive. Wearing the backpack PC allows users to move around freely.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Security researcher blasts Tizen: ‘May be the worst code I’ve ever seen’

Samsung has had enough struggles with Tizen, the open-source operating system it is positioning as an alternative to Android. But now Tizen is being blasted by a security expert for being full of egregious security flaws and sloppy programming.Israeli researcher Amihai Neiderman, who heads the research department for Equus Software, spoke at Kaspersky Lab's Security Analyst Summit and later to Motherboard, the tech site run by Vice.com. Neiderman said Tizen's code "may be the worst code I've ever seen. Everything you can do wrong there, they do it."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Security researcher blasts Tizen: ‘May be the worst code I’ve ever seen’

Samsung has had enough struggles with Tizen, the open-source operating system it is positioning as an alternative to Android. But now Tizen is being blasted by a security expert for being full of egregious security flaws and sloppy programming.Israeli researcher Amihai Neiderman, who heads the research department for Equus Software, spoke at Kaspersky Lab's Security Analyst Summit and later to Motherboard, the tech site run by Vice.com. Neiderman said Tizen's code "may be the worst code I've ever seen. Everything you can do wrong there, they do it."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Security researcher blasts Tizen: “May be the worst code I’ve ever seen”

Samsung has had enough struggles with Tizen, the open source operating system it is positioning as an alternative to Android. But now Tizen is being blasted by a security expert for being full of egregious security flaws and sloppy programming. Israeli researcher Amihai Neiderman, who heads the research department for Equus Software, spoke at Kaspersky Lab's Security Analyst Summit and later to Motherboard, the tech site run by Vice.com. Neiderman said Tizen's code "may be the worst code I've ever seen. Everything you can do wrong there, they do it."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Slack makes it easier to say you’re out to lunch

Slack is making it easier for coworkers to see what other people in their organization are up to, thanks to a new status-message feature unveiled Thursday.The functionality, which is rolling out to the messaging service’s customers over the next few days, lets users set a message in their profile that informs others about their activities.Statuses will show up next to users’ names inside Slack’s chat window, in their profiles, and next to their names in the Quick Switcher, which lets users easily switch between different chat channels and direct messages. Slack An illustration shows how Slack's custom status feature looks inside the service's desktop chat app.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

14% off APC 11-Outlet Surge Protector with USB Charging Ports and SurgeArrest – Deal Alert

Be it a lightning strike that destroys a home entertainment center or consistently fluctuating power that degrades the performance and shortens the life of your electronics – surges, lightning, and other power disturbances can have a devastating impact on the valuable electronics you rely on every day. The P11U2 from APC offers guaranteed surge protection. Connect and protect up to 11 electronics, and conveniently charge your mobile devices via 2 additional USB ports. Installation is convenient and easy with a 180-degree rotating power cord and right-angle plug. Lastly, three LED indicators inform you if there is any overload, unit, or wall wiring issues. The P11U2 averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 1,500 people on Amazon (read reviews), where its typical list price of $34.99 is discounted 14% to $29.99. See this deal on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

14% off APC 11-Outlet Surge Protector with USB Charging Ports and SurgeArrest – Deal Alert

Be it a lightning strike that destroys a home entertainment center or consistently fluctuating power that degrades the performance and shortens the life of your electronics – surges, lightning, and other power disturbances can have a devastating impact on the valuable electronics you rely on every day. The P11U2 from APC offers guaranteed surge protection. Connect and protect up to 11 electronics, and conveniently charge your mobile devices via 2 additional USB ports. Installation is convenient and easy with a 180-degree rotating power cord and right-angle plug. Lastly, three LED indicators inform you if there is any overload, unit, or wall wiring issues. The P11U2 averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 1,500 people on Amazon (read reviews), where its typical list price of $34.99 is discounted 14% to $29.99. See this deal on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Travelers enlists Symantec to advise cyber insurance customers

The Travelers insurance company has teamed up with Symantec to give policyholders cyber security assessments and consultation in order to help them manage risks.The self-assessment consists of filling out a 25-question survey and getting a written report of how well their network and data protection stacks up. If they want to, they can talk to a consultant who walks them through the results and recommends steps they could take to remediate risks.+More on Network World: Synack: Hackers wanted after firm gets $21.25M funding from Microsoft, HPE+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Travelers enlists Symantec to advise cyber insurance customers

The Travelers insurance company has teamed up with Symantec to give policyholders cyber security assessments and consultation in order to help them manage risks.The self-assessment consists of filling out a 25-question survey and getting a written report of how well their network and data protection stacks up. If they want to, they can talk to a consultant who walks them through the results and recommends steps they could take to remediate risks.+More on Network World: Synack: Hackers wanted after firm gets $21.25M funding from Microsoft, HPE+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Unpatched vulnerability exposes Magento online shops to hacking

An unpatched vulnerability in the Magento e-commerce platform could allow hackers to upload and execute malicious code on web servers that host online shops.The flaw was discovered by researchers from security consultancy DefenseCode and is located in a feature that retrieves preview images for videos hosted on Vimeo. Such videos can be added to product listings in Magento.The DefenseCode researchers determined that if the image URL points to a different file, for example a PHP script, Magento will download the file in order to validate it. If the file is not an image, the platform will return a "Disallowed file type" error, but won't actually remove it from the server.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Changing The Baby With The Bathwater In IT

If you’re sitting in a presentation about the “new IT”, there’s bound to be a guest speaker talking about their digital transformation or service provider shift in their organization. You can see this coming. It’s a polished speaker, usually a CIO or VP. They talk about how, with the help of the vendor on stage with them, they were able to rapidly transform their infrastructure into something modern while at the same time changing processes to accommodate faster IT response, more productive workers, and increase revenue or transform IT from a cost center to a profit center. The key components are simple:

  1. Buy new infrastructure from $vendor
  2. Transform all processes to be more agile, productive, and better.

Why do those things always happen in concert?

Spring Cleaning

Infrastructure grows old. That’s a fact of life. Outside of some very specialized hardware, no one is using the same desktop they had ten years ago. No enterprise is still running Windows 2000 server on an IBM NetFinity server. No one is still using 10Mbps Ethernet over Thinnet to connect their offices. Hardware marches on. So when we buy new things, we as technology professionals need to find a way to integrate them Continue reading