IDG Contributor Network: Wasabi serves up some spicy AWS-killer claims

What happens when you take a couple of very seasoned co-founders, investment from some high-profile investors, and an uber-dominant existing vendor? Well, in Wasabi’s case, you get some pretty outlandish claims. But before we got on to that, let’s look at the who and what for Wasabi.Wasabi is a cloud storage company founded by Jeff Flowers and  David Friend. Those names might ring a bell, since they’ve started, built and sold five previous technology companies. Most recently they co-founded backup company Carbonite and previously founded Pilot Software.RELATED: Engineering firm uses cloud storage to speed file loads, and then unplugs its MPLS net These two can’t seem to stop themselves, and for their latest idea, they’ve already raised a ton of cash—$8.5 million to date with key investors, including Bill Sahlman, Harvard Business School marketing prof and angel investor; Desh Deshpande, who donated $100 million to MIT for the Deshpande Center; Ron Skates, former CEO of Data General; Jeff Parker, founder of CCBN; and Howard Cox from Greylock Partners.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apparently, Wikipedia is a threat to public order and national security

It’s easy to criticize Wikipedia for a lot of things. Besides being the source of many a plagiarized term paper, its crowd-sourced nature also means it’s occasionally subject to internecine warfare and political infighting over articles.Wikipedia the largest general reference on the net But now Turkey has blocked the self-described “largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet,” under a vague law that allows the country to “block access to individual web pages or entire sites for the protection of public order, national security or the well being of the public,” according to The Guardian.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apparently, Wikipedia is a threat to public order and national security

It’s easy to criticize Wikipedia for a lot of things. Besides being the source of many a plagiarized term paper, its crowd-sourced nature also means it’s occasionally subject to internecine warfare and political infighting over articles.Wikipedia the largest general reference on the net But now Turkey has blocked the self-described “largest and most popular general reference work on the Internet,” under a vague law that allows the country to “block access to individual web pages or entire sites for the protection of public order, national security or the well being of the public,” according to The Guardian.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google focuses on a future of even better mobile cameras

Smartphone cameras are about to get even better.Peyman Milanfar, a Google software engineer who had worked in the computational photography group, posted a lengthy analysis about using a smartphone camera to shoot nighttime photos with the same quality of an expensive DSLR.Milanfar’s post chronicles his quest for high-quality nighttime images taken with a smartphone. DSLR cameras do well in this application, but smartphone cameras struggle. A DSLR can take good quality photos at night because it has a very large sensor that collects more light. The Nikon D500 DSLR boasts a 20.9 million pixel sensor with a pixel size of 4.2µm. The D500 sensor is enormous compared to the top ranked Google Pixel phone’s sensor with 12.3 million pixels that are 1.55µm. It also has a large, adjustable and precise lens that captures and focuses more light from the field of view on the sensor, reducing visual distortion, compared to the Pixel’s constrained, fixed camera lens assembly.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Facebook able to target emotionally vulnerable teens for ads

Facebook is so proud of its algorithms that it conducted research about exploiting posts by kids as young as 14 to show how its algorithms could help advertisers pinpoint emotionally vulnerable moments for the purpose of targeted ads.The Australian (paywall) got its hands on a 23-page Facebook document, dated in 2017, marked as “Confidential: Internal Only,” and authored by two Australian Facebook executives, Andy Sinn and David Fernandez. While no screenshots were included, the report allegedly explained how Facebook could analyze posts, photos and interactions to help determine the emotional states of 6.4 million “high schoolers,” “tertiary” (college) students and “young Australians and New Zealanders ... in the workforce.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Facebook able to target emotionally vulnerable teens for ads

Facebook is so proud of its algorithms that it conducted research about exploiting posts by kids as young as 14 to show how its algorithms could help advertisers pinpoint emotionally vulnerable moments for the purpose of targeted ads.The Australian (paywall) got its hands on a 23-page Facebook document, dated in 2017, marked as “Confidential: Internal Only,” and authored by two Australian Facebook executives, Andy Sinn and David Fernandez. While no screenshots were included, the report allegedly explained how Facebook could analyze posts, photos and interactions to help determine the emotional states of 6.4 million “high schoolers,” “tertiary” (college) students and “young Australians and New Zealanders ... in the workforce.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Leaked document shows how Facebook can target emotionally vulnerable teens for ads

Facebook is so proud of its algorithms, it conducted research about exploiting posts by kids as young as 14 to show how its algorithms could help advertisers pinpoint emotionally vulnerable moments for the purpose of targeted ads.The Australian (paywall) got its hands on a 23-page Facebook document, dated in 2017, marked as “Confidential: Internal Only,” and authored by two Australian Facebook executives, Andy Sinn and David Fernandez. While no screenshots were included, the report allegedly explained how Facebook could analyze posts, photos and interactions to help determine the emotional states of 6.4 million “high schoolers,” “tertiary” (college) students and “young Australians and New Zealander ... in the workforce.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Leaked document shows how Facebook can target emotionally vulnerable teens for ads

Facebook is so proud of its algorithms, it conducted research about exploiting posts by kids as young as 14 to show how its algorithms could help advertisers pinpoint emotionally vulnerable moments for the purpose of targeted ads.The Australian (paywall) got its hands on a 23-page Facebook document, dated in 2017, marked as “Confidential: Internal Only,” and authored by two Australian Facebook executives, Andy Sinn and David Fernandez. While no screenshots were included, the report allegedly explained how Facebook could analyze posts, photos and interactions to help determine the emotional states of 6.4 million “high schoolers,” “tertiary” (college) students and “young Australians and New Zealander ... in the workforce.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

NSA suggests using virtualization to secure smartphones

The U.S. National Security Agency is now suggesting government departments and businesses buy smartphones secured using virtualization, a technology it currently requires only on tablets and laptopsThe change comes about with the arrival of the first virtualization-based smartphone security system on the U.S. Commercial Solutions for Classified list.CSFC is a program developed by the NSA to help U.S. government agencies and the businesses that serve them to quickly build layered secure systems from approved components.An HTC A9 smartphone security-hardened by Cog Systems using its D4 virtualization platform is now on that list, alongside devices without virtualization from Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, and BlackBerry.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

NSA suggests using virtualization to secure smartphones

The U.S. National Security Agency is now suggesting government departments and businesses buy smartphones secured using virtualization, a technology it currently requires only on tablets and laptopsThe change comes about with the arrival of the first virtualization-based smartphone security system on the U.S. Commercial Solutions for Classified list.CSFC is a program developed by the NSA to help U.S. government agencies and the businesses that serve them to quickly build layered secure systems from approved components.An HTC A9 smartphone security-hardened by Cog Systems using its D4 virtualization platform is now on that list, alongside devices without virtualization from Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics, and BlackBerry.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Save $45 on Amazon Echo Right Now When You Buy Certified Refurbished – Deal Alert

You can pick up Amazon Echo for far below list price, if you're comfortable buying refurbished. Which you can be -- certified refurbished products are tested and certified to look and work like new, and come with warranties. Amazon Echo is a hands-free speaker you control with your voice. Echo connects to the Alexa Voice Service to play music, provide information, news, sports scores, weather, and more—instantly. All you have to do is ask. Echo has seven microphones and beam forming technology so it can hear you from across the room—even while music is playing. Echo is also an expertly tuned speaker that can fill any room with 360° immersive sound. When you want to use Echo, just say the wake word “Alexa” and Echo responds instantly. If you have more than one Echo or Echo Dot, Alexa responds intelligently from the Echo you're closest to with ESP (Echo Spatial Perception). Echo's typical list price is $179.99, and certified refurbished models list for $164.99. But right now with this deal Amazon has further discounted them to $134.99. See the certified refurbished Amazon Echo on Amazon.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

I’m excited for a new Ubuntu release—for the first time in a long time

It's been many years since I regularly used Ubuntu. Back in "ye olden times" I would consider myself one of the most outspoken advocates for Canonical's Linux distribution—often proclaiming the (near) perfection of Ubuntu—but those times have long since faded into the mist. Nowadays, I use Ubuntu only when there is a good reason to review a new release—which has happened less and less. And even in those cases, I tend to use it sparingly. There were many reasons for that change. Mostly it boiled down to a general disagreement with the direction Ubuntu was taking.+ Also on Network World: Lessons learned from the failure of Ubuntu Touch + I wasn't a fan of their in-house developed desktop environment (Unity). I didn't like how slow it was. I didn't like how buggy it was. I didn't like how un-customizable it was. I guess it would be fair to say, "I didn't like it." To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Swiss Army Knife File System Cuts Through Petabytes

Petabytes are in the future of every company, and luckily, the future is always being invented by the IT ecosystem to handle it.

Those wrestling with tens to hundreds of petabytes of data today are constantly challenged to find the best ways to store, search and manage it all. Qumulo was founded in 2012 and came out of the chute two years ago with the idea that a software-based file system that includes built-in analytics that enables the system to increase capacity as the amount of data grows. QSFS, now called Qumulo Core, also does it all: fast with big …

Swiss Army Knife File System Cuts Through Petabytes was written by Jeffrey Burt at The Next Platform.

A Peek into the Internet’s Future

Last week in Geneva I presented the Internet Society's Internet Futures project during UNCTAD E-Commerce week. Each time I present this project, I gain new perspectives from people who care deeply about the Internet's future. One government participant wondered what the digital divide will look like in 5-10 years. Will the divide only be about access to technology or will new divides emerge? The implications of censorship, cybersecurity, national economic readiness, and education all loom large in the minds of our community when we think about digital opportunity in the future.

We at the Internet Society are always thinking about what’s next for the Internet and how our community can make a positive impact.

Sally Shipman Wentworth

Windows Phone brought in just $5 million last quarter

I have avoided the steady drumbeat of bad news surrounding Windows Phone because after a while it gets repetitive and morbid, but this one makes it abundantly clear it’s time to draw a sheet over Microsoft’s mobile phone business. For its third fiscal quarter of 2016, ended March 31, Microsoft reported sales of just $5 million. It didn’t actually say it that way, though. For its 10-Q financial filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Microsoft simply said "Phone revenue declined $730 million."And if you look at the same quarterly report from one year ago, it reported sales of $735 million. So, do the math. Just two years ago, its phone hardware revenue was $1.397 billion. That’s a collapse if ever I saw one.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cloud vs. on-premises: Finding the right balance

Greg Downer, senior IT director at Oshkosh Corp., a manufacturer of specialty heavy vehicles in Oshkosh, Wisc., wishes he could tip the balance of on-premises vs. cloud more in the direction of the cloud, which currently accounts for only about 20% of his application footprint. However, as a contractor for the Department of Defense, his company is beholden to strict data requirements, including where data is stored."Cloud offerings have helped us deploy faster and reduce our data center infrastructure, but the main reason we don't do more in the cloud is because of strict DoD contract requirements for specific types of data," he says.In Computerworld's Tech Forecast 2017 survey of 196 IT managers and leaders, 79% of respondents said they have a cloud project underway or planned, and 58% of those using some type of cloud-based system gave their efforts an A or B in terms of delivering business value.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cloud vs. on-premises: Finding the right balance

Greg Downer, senior IT director at Oshkosh Corp., a manufacturer of specialty heavy vehicles in Oshkosh, Wisc., wishes he could tip the balance of on-premises vs. cloud more in the direction of the cloud, which currently accounts for only about 20% of his application footprint. However, as a contractor for the Department of Defense, his company is beholden to strict data requirements, including where data is stored."Cloud offerings have helped us deploy faster and reduce our data center infrastructure, but the main reason we don't do more in the cloud is because of strict DoD contract requirements for specific types of data," he says.In Computerworld's Tech Forecast 2017 survey of 196 IT managers and leaders, 79% of respondents said they have a cloud project underway or planned, and 58% of those using some type of cloud-based system gave their efforts an A or B in terms of delivering business value.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Strategy first: How to do mobile dev right

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, there was a company that was finally doing business on the web. Its developers were exhausted after spending years learning about HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and jQuery, and dealing with all the various browsers the company’s silly partners and customers wanted to use instead of the company’s Gold Standard, Internet Explorer 6.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

1 … 2,071 2,072 2,073 2,074 2,075 … 3,808