How to remain relevant in a changing IT world

Brian LeClaire exercises, in his words, “like there’s no tomorrow.”And while he does, LeClaire tracks his workout stats through Polar and FitBit workout devices, which tie back to Go365, Humana’s new health and wellness app. The more his heart rate hits, say, 60 percent of its maximum for 30 minutes, the more rewards he reaps.[ Related: Fitness apps moving up to the big leagues ]But this isn’t some executive perk: Go365 is one of the latest initiatives that Humana, the $54-billion healthcare insurance provider, has launched in its ongoing focus on customer experience driven by technology. Humana, like its major competitors in the healthcare space, have faced monumental challenges in recent years as both current and potential customers have begun demanding that their providers offer services that mirror the technology they use in their personal lives.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Save 38% on the TP-LINK Wi-Fi Smart Plug, Works with Amazon Alexa – Deal Alert

The TP-LINK HS100 smart plug is quite simply a power outlet that you can control from anywhere. Using your smartphone, you can turn devices on & off, set programs to turn them on & off at set times while you're away, or engage a "countdown timer" which powers the switch off after a set amount of time. Installation is simple -- just plug a device into your smart plug and connect to your wifi network. The HS100 is also compatible with Amazon Alexa, for voice control. Buy multiple plugs and get creative.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The 3 biggest challenges facing augmented reality

Until the massive success of Pokémon Go in 2016 when augmented reality (AR) was catapulted into the public’s consciousness, AR was overshadowed by its cousin, virtual reality (VR). Many were more optimistic about the applications of virtual reality compared to augmented reality.  However, as AR and VR have evolved over the past year, it has become evident that AR offers more practical daily use cases. From retail to education to manufacturing, AR is positioned to drive business value across sectors. With that, there are still several challenges that lie ahead for the mass adoption of AR in the short term. Here's a look at three:1. Augmented reality hardware Today, no AR headsets are available for consumers. Microsoft HoloLens and Meta 2 have released developer versions, but they have not yet announced when we can expect their devices to ship to consumers. Even more, HoloLens and Meta still boast hefty price tags at $3,000 and $949, respectively. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cog Systems offers more secure version of HTC A9 smartphone

It sounds like a smartphone user's worst fear: Software that starts up before the phone's operating system, intercepting and encrypting every byte sent to or from the flash memory or the network interface. This is not some new kind of ransomware, though, this is the D4 Secure Platform from Cog Systems. The product grew out of custom security software the company developed for governments, and which it saw could also be put to use in the enterprise as a way to make smartphones more productive while still maintaining a high level of security. It includes a Type 1 hypervisor, a virtualized VPN and additional storage encryption that wrap the standard Android OS in additional layers of protection largely invisible to the end user.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cog Systems offers more secure version of HTC A9 smartphone

It sounds like a smartphone user's worst fear: Software that starts up before the phone's operating system, intercepting and encrypting every byte sent to or from the flash memory or the network interface. This is not some new kind of ransomware, though, this is the D4 Secure Platform from Cog Systems. The product grew out of custom security software the company developed for governments, and which it saw could also be put to use in the enterprise as a way to make smartphones more productive while still maintaining a high level of security. It includes a Type 1 hypervisor, a virtualized VPN and additional storage encryption that wrap the standard Android OS in additional layers of protection largely invisible to the end user.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Business Case for Serverless

You can’t pick a technical direction without considering the business implications. Mat Ellis, Founder/CEO of Cloudability, in a recent CloudCast episode, makes the business case for Serverless. The argument goes something like:

  • Enterprises know they can’t run services cheaper than Amazon. Even if the cost is 2x the extra agility of the cloud is often worth the multiple.

  • So enterprises are moving to the cloud.

  • Moving to the cloud is a move to services. How do you build services now? Using Serverless.

  • With services businesses use a familiar cost per unit billing model, they can think of paying for services as a cost per database query, cost per terabyte of data, and so on.

  • Since employees are no longer managing boxes and infrastructure they can now focus entirely on business goals.

  • There’s now an opportunity to change business models. Serverless will make new businesses economically viable because they can do things they could never do before based on price and capabilities.

  • Serverless makes it faster to iterate and deploy new code which makes it faster to find a proper product/market fit.

  • Smaller teams with smaller budgets with smaller revenues can do things now that only big companies could do Continue reading

Worth Reading: A fistful of bitcoins

The point forcefully made in ‘A Fistful of Bitcoins’ remains true today – Bitcoin offers little in the way of anonymity. In fact, we get better and better at techniques for de-anonymising block chain transactions over time. See for example ‘Data-driven de-anonymization in Bitcoin.’ The Mt Gox and Silk Road communities discussed in today’s paper both spectacularly disappeared though. Mt Gox ceased trading in February 2014, after losing about $350M ($473M?) worth of Bitcoin (‘Mt Gox: The History of a Failed Bitcoin Exchange‘). —The Morning Paper

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Iraq Downs Internet To Combat Cheating…Again!

Earlier this morning, the national fiber backbone of Iraq was taken offline in an effort to combat cheating on 6th grade placement exams.  It was the fourth such outage in the past five days.   2017 marks the third year Iraq has used government-directed internet blackouts to combat cheating on student exams.

These recent outages are a continuation of a growing (and somewhat puzzling) trend by governments in many developing parts of the world to cut communications services in a desperate attempt to staunch rampant cheating on high-stakes student exams.

Iraq’s Exam Blackouts

In the summer of 2015, we broke the story of periodic early-morning outages of the national backbone of Iraq’s internet.  These were the first such government-directed national internet outages to combat cheating on exams and were subsequently covered by publications such as Ars Technica and The Daily Beast.

Last year, Iraq shut down the national fiber backbone ten times in May.  Iraq then conducted a second round of outages in August for make-up exams and then finally directed a third round of outages to coincide with yet another round of make-up exams in October.  (A copy of the government order is pictured above. Continue reading

Intel isn’t yet done with x86 smartphone chips

Smartphones with Intel-based x86 chips aren't dead yet. Intel may have stopped making Atom chips for smartphones, but a partner is keeping that effort alive.Chinese chip maker Spreadtrum is still making x86 smartphone chips based on the Atom architecture named Airmont. The company will ship a powerful eight-core Atom variant for smartphones in the second half of this year.Smartphone makers will be able to use the Spreadtrum SC9861G-IA chip in mid-range handsets. It will have a PowerVR GT7200 graphics core and support 4K video and displays with resolutions up to 2560 x 1440 pixels.It's far more powerful than the original Atom smartphone chips made by Intel. Handsets with the chip were shown at Intel's booth at the ongoing Mobile World Congress trade show.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Python: Real World Hacking on StackStorm (Network Engineer Focussed)

It’s miserably cold, raining (the kind that gets you really wet) and a strange dark grey light covers the UK. Some would say a typical day on this island. That said, I have a coffee in hand and some thoughts to share!

For the last year working for Brocade, I’ve been heavily focussed on delivering talks, demonstrations and knowledge on the excellent StackStorm open-source project (referred to as ST2 from this point onwards for brevity). This post does not go in to what ST2 is, but for those who don’t know, it’s an event driven workflow engine. Input, decision/s, output. Simple! The ST2 website itself is a great resource for information as well as other well known blogs. ST2 is quite feature rich and under constant development. One would say it’s an agile tool for a growingly agile world.

So What Have You Been Making?

I can’t spoil what it is I’ve been building, but one of the challenges was to use the built in key-value (KV) store (currently built on Etcd with a ST2 specific abstraction layer) to use as a point of data convergence. What does this mean in real terms? I have multiple things happening and I Continue reading

Down the rabbit hole, part 7: How to limit personal data collection from city cameras

My home is my sanctuary. My computers (and handheld devices) all run free software systems that have been (fairly) tightly buttoned down and secured. My online documents, messaging and emails are handled either on my own servers or by companies dedicated to open source and security. Is my personal information 100 percent safe and unhackable? No, but it’s pretty good. And it’s about as good as I can get it without making significant sacrifices in the name of privacy. But eventually I need to leave my home. And that is where things get much more difficult. Let’s talk, briefly, about the challenges faced when trying to maintain a certain level of personal privacy when traveling around your city. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Down the rabbit hole, part 7: How to limit personal data collection from city cameras

My home is my sanctuary. My computers (and handheld devices) all run free software systems that have been (fairly) tightly buttoned down and secured. My online documents, messaging and emails are handled either on my own servers or by companies dedicated to open source and security. Is my personal information 100 percent safe and unhackable? No, but it’s pretty good. And it’s about as good as I can get it without making significant sacrifices in the name of privacy. But eventually I need to leave my home. And that is where things get much more difficult. Let’s talk, briefly, about the challenges faced when trying to maintain a certain level of personal privacy when traveling around your city. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

oVirt Gamification–The oVirt Game You Didn’t Know you Were Playing

Gamification is the concept of applying game mechanics and game design techniques to engage and motivate people to achieve their goals.

It taps into the basic desires and needs of the users impulses which revolve around the idea of Status and Achievement.

To put it in other words, it is turning day-to-day tasks, the kind you might do at home or work, into a game which you can earn points, badges and compete with other people that are doing the same things.

oVirt & Gamification

You probably didn't know, but this isn't the first time oVirt gamification is being used. A few years ago there was an initiative to use oVirt UI plugins system to add Gamification to the project, there was even a "space invaders" game written and available to play inside oVirt!

So What is New?

The oVirt infra team recently reached out to 'GetBadges', a company which provides 'Gamification as a Service'. Luckily for us, open source projects get to have a free game! So oVirt was rewarded with its own oVirt Open Source Game.

The game works automagically every time you contribute to the project. Current integrations are only active on specific projects like 'ovirt-engine' and Continue reading

Android struggling in tablets as Windows 10 2-in-1s come on strong

In 2010, Apple's Steve Jobs welcomed the post-PC era when it introduced the iPad. Now in 2017, PCs are still around and on their way to recovery, while slate-style tablets are struggling. Apple remains the top tablet seller, but its shipments are diving, and Android tablets aren't as hot as they used to be. Unlike its heyday, tablets aren't expected to be huge presence at this year's Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona. Lenovo and Samsung are launching some Android tablets, but more attention is being heaped on Windows 10 2-in-1 PCs that can be tablets and laptops. Where Android has faltered, Windows is now taking over. Many people are replacing tablets with multipurpose Windows 2-in-1 PCs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Scaling Compute to Meet Large-Scale CT Scan Demands

Computed tomography (CT) is a widely-used process in medicine and industry. Many X-ray images taken around a common axis of rotation are combined to create a three-dimensional view of an object, including the interior.

In medicine, this technique is commonly used for non-invasive diagnostic applications such as searching for cancerous masses. Industrial applications include examining metal components for stress fractures and comparing produced materials to the original computer-aided design (CAD) specifications. While this process provides invaluable insight, it also presents an analytical challenge.

State-of-the-art CT scanners use synchrotron light, which enables very fine resolution in four dimensions. For example, the …

Scaling Compute to Meet Large-Scale CT Scan Demands was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

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