Samsung’s profit soars after recovery from Note7 debacle

The costly Galaxy Note7 debacle, which led to the recall of about 3 million smartphones because of overheating batteries, seems to be behind Samsung Electronics, with the company forecasting a 48 percent growth in operating profit in the first quarter.Samsung has not had a new flagship smartphone on the shelves ever since it stopped production of the Note7 in October after replacement phones shipped by the company were also found in some cases to have the battery issue. The company now has its hopes for the high-end of the smartphone market pinned on the new Galaxy S8 and S8+, which is expected to reach shelves later this month.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Technology Short Take #81

Welcome to Technology Short Take #81! I have another collection of links, articles, and thoughts about key data center technologies, and hopefully I’ve managed to include something here that will prove useful or thought-provoking. Enjoy!

Networking

10 steps to cut through the data management complexity

The modern enterprise is data-driven. The capability to quickly access and act upon information has become a key competitive advantage. But business data is often siloed and fragmented. To gain a competitive edge from your information, you need a single view of your data.Most organizations today have a complicated process for managing their data, one that usually involves multiple data sources of variable structure, ingestion and transformation, loading into an operation database and supporting the business applications that need the data. Analytics, business intelligence (BI) and reporting tools require access to the data, which frequently requires a separate data warehouse or data lake. These layers all need to comply with security protocols, information governance standards and other operational requirements.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

U.S. seeks curbs on use of entry-level H-1B programmers

The U.S. government is taking action that will likely increase the visa denial rates of H-1B programmers, a move that could help U.S. nationals, both in terms of wages and jobs.The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) wants programmers who offer skills that are specialized or unique. That means firms seeking to hire programmers at entry-level wages may see their H-1B visa requests denied.There's a reason the U.S. doesn't want entry-level visa workers.[ Further reading: 8 project management skills in high demand ] Take for instance, Michigan, a state that President Donald Trump won. The prevailing wage for an entry-level computer programmer in Flint is $38,000, while the mean wage for that occupation in the city is $60,000.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple breaks with secrecy to rebut negative narrative

In a very unusual move, Apple this week renounced its usual secrecy about future products to counter questions about its commitment to the Mac, analysts said today.At an invite-only meeting with a handful of Apple bloggers and reporters, two of Apple's top executives -- marketing head Philip Schiller and Craig Federighi, who leads software engineering -- acknowledged that the firm's strategy for the Mac Pro, the company's top-of-the-line desktop, had been a mistake. While a refreshed Mac Pro will not ship this year, Schiller and Federighi promised that one is in the pipeline.[ Further reading: 15-in. MacBook Pro delivers on speed and design – for a price ] Along with talk of the Mac Pro -- a niche item in Apple's Mac line, which in turn has been dwarfed by the iPhone -- the executives stressed that the company was committed to the professional part of its customer base. Apple will ship new iMacs this year, they said, some configured for the "pro" users at the advanced end of the spectrum.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Raspberry Pi roundup: The unbearable Pi-NAS of being; Pi takes rook; and a little teeny Mac

If you haven’t read the story of the original mechanical Turk, you really should. This was a 1770s machine that appeared to use complicated mechanisms to play competent chess against even very good human players, and it has fired the imaginations of everyone from computing pioneer Charles Babbage to today’s steampunk nerds. Here’s a great summary from Atlas Obscura.The Turk has lent its name to many things over the years, including Amazon’s Mechanical Turk micro-job service, but the latest is the Pi-powered Raspberry Turk, which works like this: The heart of the machine is a Raspberry Pi 3 running an open-source chess engine called Stockfish. A Pi camera module and a lot of custom Python code let the system translate the physical pieces into a chess position that the Stockfish engine can digest, and little tiny magnets embedded in the tops of the pieces let the robotic arm actually move things around.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apache Struts 2 exploit used to install ransomware on servers

Attackers are exploiting a vulnerability patched last month in the Apache Struts web development framework to install ransomware on servers.The SANS Internet Storm Center issued an alert Thursday, saying an attack campaign is compromising Windows servers through a vulnerability tracked as CVE-2017-5638.The flaw is located in the Jakarta Multipart parser in Apache Struts 2 and allows attackers to execute system commands with the privileges of the user running the web server process.This vulnerability was patched on March 6 in Struts versions 2.3.32 and 2.5.10.1. Attackers started exploiting the flaw almost immediately, leaving very little time for server administrators to deploy the update.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apache Struts 2 exploit used to install ransomware on servers

Attackers are exploiting a vulnerability patched last month in the Apache Struts web development framework to install ransomware on servers.The SANS Internet Storm Center issued an alert Thursday, saying an attack campaign is compromising Windows servers through a vulnerability tracked as CVE-2017-5638.The flaw is located in the Jakarta Multipart parser in Apache Struts 2 and allows attackers to execute system commands with the privileges of the user running the web server process.This vulnerability was patched on March 6 in Struts versions 2.3.32 and 2.5.10.1. Attackers started exploiting the flaw almost immediately, leaving very little time for server administrators to deploy the update.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: Intel Defends Chip Innovation

With absolute dominance in datacenter and desktop compute, considerable sway in datacenter storage, a growing presence in networking, and profit margins that are the envy of the manufacturing and tech sectors alike, it is not a surprise that companies are gunning for Intel. They all talk about how Moore’s Law is dead and how that removes a significant advantage for the world’s largest – and most profitable – chip maker. After years of this, the top brass in Intel’s Technology and Manufacturing Group as well as its former chief financial officer, who is now in charge of its manufacturing, operations, and sales, pushed back today with its first event dedicated explicitly to its chip factories and the processes they use to etch devices. —The Next Platform

The post Worth Reading: Intel Defends Chip Innovation appeared first on 'net work.

Expect prices for PCs and mobile devices to rise this year

If you plan to buy a new PC or mobile device this year, you'll likely be shelling out more cash than in previous years. Prices are going up, and expensive devices are in demand.On average, the price of PCs and phones will go up by 2 percent this year, Gartner said in a research report released on Thursday. The calculations are based on U.S. dollars and average market sizes.Breaking those numbers down, PC prices are expected to go up 1.4 percent this year, while mobile phone prices will go up 4.3 percent.The prices will go up largely due to the rising prices of components. Also, more users are upgrading to more expensive and feature-rich mobile handsets.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Online privacy meets abortion debate

The attorney general of Massachusetts has taken the abstraction of online privacy and brought it into  crystal clear focus by barring a Boston advertising agency from targeting anti-abortion ads at the cellphones of women the moment they arrive at reproductive health facilities.From a story in the Boston Globe: “You Have Choices,” one message said. Others offered “Pregnancy Help,’’ and assured recipients, “You’re Not Alone,” according to Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, who on Tuesday announced a legal action that alleged the ads illegally used consumer health data.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Cloud failures can occur anywhere on the hype cycle

Cloud architecture has settled into its “plateau of productivity” phase in the hype cycle. It has gone through experimental adoption, irrational enthusiasm, and despondent disillusion. Does that mean cloud projects are more likely to succeed now? Good question. The answer depends on both the business and engineering side of the project.On the productivity plateau, the battle is over. Efficient implementations blithely pile up profits for the stakeholders. Stop! This is not exactly my experience as a software engineer and architect. Projects succeed and fail in every stage of the hype cycle. The predominant reasons for failure may change with the phase, but a more mature technology is no guarantee of success. An engineer builds systems to meet the stakeholders’ requirements. The hype cycle is perception and expectation, not requirements.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Openfabric: A Short Video of the IETF Presentation

The most current version of the draft can be found here. There is one more comment from Uma that still needs to be addressed, and one more section that needs to be added. There will probably be more changes, as well, over time. These sorts of drafts do not happen through one person; a number of folks have worked on various bits of the draft, including Shawn, Nikos, Ivan, Les, Naiming, Uma, and others—the folks who have added ideas, etc., are included in the contributors section, which is always worth paying attention to!

The post Openfabric: A Short Video of the IETF Presentation appeared first on 'net work.

US trade lobbying group attacked by suspected Chinese hackers

A group of what appears to be Chinese hackers infiltrated a U.S. trade-focused lobbying group as the two countries wrestle with how they treat imports of each other's goods and services.The APT10 Chinese hacking group appears to be behind a "strategic web compromise" in late February and early March at the National Foreign Trade Council, according to security vendor Fidelis Cybersecurity.The NFTC lobbies for open and fair trade and has pledged to work with U.S. President Donald Trump to "find ways to address Chinese policies that frustrate access to their market and undermine fair trade, while at the same time encouraging a positive trend in our trade relationship." Trump will meet with China President Xi Jinping in Florida this week.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US trade lobbying group attacked by suspected Chinese hackers

A group of what appears to be Chinese hackers infiltrated a U.S. trade-focused lobbying group as the two countries wrestle with how they treat imports of each other's goods and services.The APT10 Chinese hacking group appears to be behind a "strategic web compromise" in late February and early March at the National Foreign Trade Council, according to security vendor Fidelis Cybersecurity.The NFTC lobbies for open and fair trade and has pledged to work with U.S. President Donald Trump to "find ways to address Chinese policies that frustrate access to their market and undermine fair trade, while at the same time encouraging a positive trend in our trade relationship." Trump will meet with China President Xi Jinping in Florida this week.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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