How the Internet changed the Nyirarukobwa Primary School

Google’s AI shifts from the next platform to its next products

Last October, when Google Home was announced, Google CEO Sundar Pichai christened AI as the next platform. Yesterday, AI became a Google product that could become as transformative and as large and potentially pervasive as Google Search.Google’s grand bargain with its users will not change: indispensable free apps in return for users’ data. Easier to use conversational interfaces such as Google Home and Google Assistant built with AI could be the next free indispensable Google app purchased with the users’ information as the currency. It is a virtuous cycle. User interaction with indispensable apps like Google Search, Translate and Assistant that use AI, creates more data to create new indispensable AI systems. Pichai confirmed this during the Google I/O keynote when he said:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

55% off Panda Security Ransomware and Virus Protection Products for Home Users – Deal Alert

Panda security solutions will fully protect you against the newly released malware and ransomware attacks, and Panda is offering 55% off all security products for home users using the coupon code ANTIRANSOMWARE at checkout. See Panda's Internet Security product here, or their Antivirus Pro product here, and enter the code at checkout to activate the 55% savings. This code will work for all Panda Security products for home users.  To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

55% off Panda Security Ransomware and Virus Protection Products for Home Users – Deal Alert

Panda security solutions will fully protect you against the newly released malware and ransomware attacks, and Panda is offering 55% off all security products for home users using the coupon code ANTIRANSOMWARE at checkout. See Panda's Internet Security product here, or their Antivirus Pro product here, and enter the code at checkout to activate the 55% savings. This code will work for all Panda Security products for home users.  To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Save 20% on Amazon’s New Generation of Fire Tablets – Deal Alert

The all-new Fire 7 and Fire HD 8 feature longer battery life, a thinner and lighter body, better Wi-Fi connectivity, and Alexa. It features a beautiful 7" IPS display with higher contrast and sharper text, a 1.3 GHz quad-core processor, and up to 8 hours of battery life. 8 or 16 GB of internal storage and a microSD slot for up to 256 GB of expandable storage. Amazon has also introduced two new Fire Kids Edition (Fire 7 and Fire HD 8 Kids Editions). To go along with the launch, customers who purchase any 3 new generation Fire Tablets save 20% by using the code FIRE3PACK at checkout. See the full lineup here.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Introducing Argo — A faster, more reliable, more secure Internet for everyone

The Internet is inherently unreliable, a collection of networks connected to each other with fiber optics, copper, microwaves and trust. It’s a magical thing, but things on the Internet break all the time; cables get cut, bogus routes get advertised, routers crash. Most of the time, these failures are noticed but inexplicable to the average user — ”The Internet is slow today!” — frustrating user experiences as people go about their lives on the Internet.

Today, to fix all of this, Cloudflare is launching Argo, a “virtual backbone” for the modern Internet. Argo analyzes and optimizes routing decisions across the global Internet in real-time. Think Waze, the automobile route optimization app, but for Internet traffic.

Just as Waze can tell you which route to take when driving by monitoring which roads are congested or blocked, Argo can route connections across the Internet efficiently by avoiding packet loss, congestion, and outages.

Cloudflare’s Argo is able to deliver content across our network with dramatically reduced latency, increased reliability, heightened encryption, and reduced cost vs. an equivalent path across the open Internet. The results are impressive: an average 35% decrease in latency, a 27% decrease in connection errors, and a 60% Continue reading

Why you need an enterprise architect

As more enterprises tackle digital transformation and recognize the value of aligning their IT strategy, technology and processes with broader business goals, there's a growing need for talented pros who can reduce complexity, establish solid technology processes and ensure tech's used consistently across business units and functional areas.Increasingly that role is filled by an enterprise architect: someone who can translate a company's business strategy into concrete solutions, design and execute an IT systems architecture blueprint to support that strategy, says Rich Pearson, senior vice president of marketing and categories at technology skills marketplace Upwork.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Higher performance for oVirt Python SDK

Python SDK version 4.1.4 introduced support for sending asynchronous requests and HTTP pipelining.

This blog post explains those terms and will show you an example how to use the Python SDK in an asynchronous manner.

Asynchronous Requests

When using asynchronous requests, the client sends the request and defines a method (usually called callback), which should be called after the response is received but the client is not waiting for the response. In order for SDK to work in an asynchronous fashion, we introduced two new features to our SDK: multiple connections and HTTP pipelining.

These features provide significant value when the user wishes to fetch the inventory of the oVirt system. The time to fetch the inventory may be significantly decreased, too. A comparison of the synchronous and asynchronous requests folows.

Multiple Connections

Previously the SDK used only a single open connection that sequentially sent the requests according to user program and always waited for the server response for corresponding request.

In the new version of the SDK, the user can specify the number of connections the SDK should create to the server, and the specific requests created by user program uses those connections in parallel.

HTTP Continue reading

RackWare, like everyone, wants to manage hybrid clouds everywhere

RackWare offers a management and automation platform that enterprises use to manage their computing resources to more closely follow demand. RackWare’s core proposition is that its management suite delivers cost savings to customers of a suggested 40 to 50 percent. Additionally, RackWare promises to deliver the highest levels of performance and availability to their customers.The company today released a new take on its management suite that aims to extend the existing core RackWare offering. The new platform promises to offer enterprises a single solution (they refrained from calling it a single pane of glass) to move applications, protect those same applications and manage all the different applications across the totality of their infrastructure. Justifying the move, RackWare points to a recent IDC report that suggests 70 percent of heavy cloud users are considering a hybrid cloud strategy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: RackWare, like everyone, wants to manage hybrid clouds everywhere

RackWare offers a management and automation platform that enterprises use to manage their computing resources to more closely follow demand. RackWare’s core proposition is that its management suite delivers cost savings to customers of a suggested 40 to 50 percent. Additionally, RackWare promises to deliver the highest levels of performance and availability to their customers.The company today released a new take on its management suite that aims to extend the existing core RackWare offering. The new platform promises to offer enterprises a single solution (they refrained from calling it a single pane of glass) to move applications, protect those same applications and manage all the different applications across the totality of their infrastructure. Justifying the move, RackWare points to a recent IDC report that suggests 70 percent of heavy cloud users are considering a hybrid cloud strategy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: RackWare, like everyone, wants to manage hybrid clouds everywhere

RackWare offers a management and automation platform that enterprises use to manage their computing resources to more closely follow demand. RackWare’s core proposition is that its management suite delivers cost savings to customers of a suggested 40 to 50 percent. Additionally, RackWare promises to deliver the highest levels of performance and availability to their customers.The company today released a new take on its management suite that aims to extend the existing core RackWare offering. The new platform promises to offer enterprises a single solution (they refrained from calling it a single pane of glass) to move applications, protect those same applications and manage all the different applications across the totality of their infrastructure. Justifying the move, RackWare points to a recent IDC report that suggests 70 percent of heavy cloud users are considering a hybrid cloud strategy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: 3 benefits you didn’t expect from Linux containers

Linux containers are gaining significant ground in the enterprise, which is not surprising, since they make so much sense in today’s business environment. With that said, container technology as we know it today is relatively new, and companies are still in the process of understanding the different ways in which containers can be leveraged.In a nutshell, Linux containers enable companies to package up and isolate applications with all of the files necessary for each to run. This makes it easy to move containerized applications among environments while retaining their full functionality.+ Also on Network World: Adapting the network for the rise of containers + The recent Bain and Company study “For Traditional Enterprises, the Path to Digital and the Role of Containers” found that “respondents are beginning to benefit from faster innovation as well as improved development and deployment cycles. For example, adopters frequently report 15  to 30 percent reductions in development time. Adopters also report initial cost savings of 5 to 15 percent due to greater hardware and process efficiencies.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Is protected health information safe in the cloud?

Many healthcare providers face the decision on if they should store protected health information (PHI) in the cloud. There are benefits and concerns to storing PHI in the cloud, and the decision to do so should be analyzed.PHI is any health-related or insurance payment information that is stored or managed by a healthcare provider that can identify a specific individual. Examples of PHI are patient names, addresses, Social Security numbers, X-ray images, lab results, insurance payment information and medical records. Even information about a patient’s planned future procedures is PHI. Government regulation of PHI is covered in the HIPPA Privacy Rule, and all healthcare providers in the United States must adhere to it or face fines.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Interop ITX: WLAN Design and Security Tips

Let’s build a small network automation solution!

Do you have the feeling that you should know more about network automation, but don't know where to start? I was facing that same problem in 2015, and then started exploring Ansible (plus YAML, Jinja2, Git, Puppet…), creating small playbooks, and finally came to a point where I said "now I know that you can have a small solution solving an actual problem ready in a few weeks even if you know absolutely nothing today".

Cisco to Lay Off 1,100 Employees by November 2017

And the company expects revenue declines of 4-6% next quarter.

Here’s how Google is preparing Android for the AI-laden future

The future of Android will be a lot smarter, thanks to new programming tools that Google unveiled on Wednesday. The company announced TensorFlow Lite, a version of its machine learning framework that’s designed to run on smartphones and other mobile devices, during the keynote address at its Google I/O developer conference.“TensorFlow Lite will leverage a new neural network API to tap into silicon-specific accelerators, and over time we expect to see [digital signal processing chips] specifically designed for neural network inference and training,” said Dave Burke, Google's vice president of engineering for Android. “We think these new capabilities will help power a next generation of on-device speech processing, visual search, augmented reality, and more.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google’s Plan to Make GCP ‘The Best Cloud for Machine Learning’

It's an 'AI-first world,' Google CEO Sundar Pichai said.

AMD Disrupts The Two-Socket Server Status Quo

It is funny to think that Advanced Micro Devices has been around almost as long as the IBM System/360 mainframe and that it has been around since the United States landed people on the moon. The company has gone through many gut-wrenching transformations, adapting to changing markets. Like IBM and Apple, just to name two, AMD has had its share of disappointments and near-death experiences, but unlike Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, Sequent Computer, Data General, Tandem Computer, and Digital Equipment, it has managed to stay independent and live to fight another day.

AMD wants a second chance in the datacenter, …

AMD Disrupts The Two-Socket Server Status Quo was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Community Forum: What are your hopes and fears about the Internet?