Facebook appoints Xiaomi exec Hugo Barra to head VR business

Facebook has appointed Xiaomi executive Hugo Barra to lead its virtual reality initiatives, including the Oculus VR business that was acquired in 2014.The appointment was announced by the company's founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who said that Barra will lead all of Facebook's virtual reality efforts including the Oculus team.Facebook's decision to hire Barra as vice president of virtual reality may have been influenced in part by his exposure to the Chinese market, which is forecast by IDC to account for 20 percent of worldwide virtual reality head-mounted displays next year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Password-free security uses voice, user behavior to verify identity

Tired of conventional passwords? So is Nuance Communications, a tech firm that is promoting the human voice as a way to secure user accounts.The company’s voice biometric product is among the technologies that promise to replace traditional -- and often vulnerable -- password authentication systems, which can be easy to hack. That isn’t the case with Nuance’s solution, the company claims.   “To determine if it’s you or not, we are looking at over 100 different characteristics of your voice,” said Brett Beranek, Nuance’s director of product strategy.The problem with passwords The need to move beyond passwords hasn’t been more urgent, given that hackers are routinely finding ways to steal them. Last year, Yahoo, LinkedIn and Dropbox all reported major data breaches involving account details such as email addresses and hashed passwords.  To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Password-free security uses voice, user behavior to verify identity

Tired of conventional passwords? So is Nuance Communications, a tech firm that is promoting the human voice as a way to secure user accounts.The company’s voice biometric product is among the technologies that promise to replace traditional -- and often vulnerable -- password authentication systems, which can be easy to hack. That isn’t the case with Nuance’s solution, the company claims.   “To determine if it’s you or not, we are looking at over 100 different characteristics of your voice,” said Brett Beranek, Nuance’s director of product strategy.The problem with passwords The need to move beyond passwords hasn’t been more urgent, given that hackers are routinely finding ways to steal them. Last year, Yahoo, LinkedIn and Dropbox all reported major data breaches involving account details such as email addresses and hashed passwords.  To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Get 72% off NordVPN Virtual Private Network Service For a Limited Time – Deal Alert

NordVPN gives you a private and fast path through the public Internet. All of your data is protected every step of the way using revolutionary 2048-bit SSL encryption even a supercomputer can’t crack. Access Hulu, Netflix, BBC, ITV, Sky, RaiTV and much more from anywhere in the world. Unmetered access for 6 simultaneous devices. You're sure to find dozens of good uses for a VPN. Take advantage of the current 72% off deal that makes all of this available to you for just $3.29/month (access deal here). This is a special deal available for a limited time.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Pharmaceutical giant partners to push analytics

Merck KGaA is getting cozier with Silicon Valley, seeking partnerships with leading technology companies and universities to further its fortunes in a pharmaceutical industry undergoing a significant transformation around software and data, says CIO Alessandro De Luca. The German pharmaceutical firm, best known for its cancer and multiple sclerosis drugs, earlier this month inked partnership inked with Palantir, a maker of big data analytics software.Palantir will help Merck research which patients will respond to certain drugs to improve patient outcomes, the company said in a statement. Merck will eventually use Palantir's software with other commercial applications, including artificial intelligence software, to help predict drug demand and automate the supply chain.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trump fence-sitting on encryption backdoors can’t last

It looks like the Donald Trump administration is interested in encryption backdoors, but, like his predecessor’s, so far it has fallen short of coming out for them or against them. Trump himself famously urged a boycott of Apple for refusing to help the FBI crack an iPhone used by the terrorist who attacked in San Bernardino, Calif., which indicated he favored backdoors. But that was last year. The latest comes from Sen. Jeff Sessions, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, who says he favors strong encryption but also favors law enforcement being able to “overcome encryption” when necessary.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Trump fence-sitting on encryption backdoors can’t last

It looks like the Donald Trump administration is interested in encryption backdoors, but, like his predecessor’s, so far it has fallen short of coming out for them or against them. Trump himself famously urged a boycott of Apple for refusing to help the FBI crack an iPhone used by the terrorist who attacked in San Bernardino, Calif., which indicated he favored backdoors. But that was last year. The latest comes from Sen. Jeff Sessions, Trump’s nominee for attorney general, who says he favors strong encryption but also favors law enforcement being able to “overcome encryption” when necessary.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Why Collaboration was Key in the Successful Transition of the IANA Functions

On September 30, 2016, the contract between the U.S. government and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) over the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) ended. This marked a process of almost 20 years that started with the privatization of the Domain Name System (DNS) in 1998. With the contract expired, taking stock of the process becomes critical. What unfolded for more two years was not just about the transition of a set of functions, critical to the operation of the Internet: it was also about the ability of the Internet community to stay true to the practices that have historically made the Internet evolve and work better.

Konstantinos Komaitis
Leslie Daigle
Phil Roberts

CCDE – The CCDE Mindset

This post was written to help CCDE candidates get into the right mindset but is very applicable to network architects and network engineers in general.

We humans tend to have a lot of bias. Sometimes it’s based on experience but often it’s based on how pure a technology is or a bad implementation of a protocol. Often we don’t reevaluate our opinion so if we had a STP incident in the past, STP becomes inherently bad for all future.

Preparing for the CCDE from a technology standpoint is relatively easy compared to getting into the right mindset and getting enough exposure to network designs. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a technically difficult exam but the number of candidates taking the exam that have the right knowledge level of technology are far higher than the number of people actually passing the exam. I have seen this time and time again.

Because we have this bias we immediately base our feeling and design based on our feelings or previous experience without taking the business requirements and technical constraints into consideration.Yes, maybe MPLS was the best answer to the question from a technical standpoint but maybe there was a constraint that only Continue reading

Worth Reading: Windows 10 steps up ransomware defenses

Here’s some good news for the countless businesses getting ready for the migration to Windows 10: Microsoft recently announced that its Windows 10 Anniversary Update features security updates specifically targeted to fight ransomware. No defense is completely hack-proof, but it’s great to see the biggest names in the tech world are putting ransomware at the top of their list of concerns. —Cloud Security Alliance

The post Worth Reading: Windows 10 steps up ransomware defenses appeared first on 'net work.

US Park Service tweets were result of old Twitter passwords

Two instances of tweets from U.S. National Park Service accounts that became political hot potatoes in the last few days were the result of bad password management, according to officials.The first incident took place on inauguration day when the main National Park Service account retweeted images from a CNN reporter that compared unfavorably the crowd size at President Donald Trump's inauguration with that of President Barack Obama's in 2009.When Trump began to openly dispute the images and smaller crowd sizes, the National Park Service deleted the retweet and apologized."We regret the mistaken RTs from our account yesterday and look forward to continuing to share the beauty and history of our parks with you," it said on Saturday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US Park Service tweets were result of old Twitter passwords

Two instances of tweets from U.S. National Park Service accounts that became political hot potatoes in the last few days were the result of bad password management, according to officials.The first incident took place on inauguration day when the main National Park Service account retweeted images from a CNN reporter that compared unfavorably the crowd size at President Donald Trump's inauguration with that of President Barack Obama's in 2009.When Trump began to openly dispute the images and smaller crowd sizes, the National Park Service deleted the retweet and apologized."We regret the mistaken RTs from our account yesterday and look forward to continuing to share the beauty and history of our parks with you," it said on Saturday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Is Snapchat the real augmented reality powerhouse?

When you think of augmented reality (AR), names like Microsoft Hololens, MagicLeap, Vuforia and Blippar come to mind. When you think of social media, you think of Instagram, Snapchat, Linkedin and Facebook. However, one of these social media players is an augmented reality company in disguise—Snapchat.Snapchat, owned by Snap Inc., is one of the biggest AR companies today. Over the past few years, Snapchat has been rolling out more and more features to its ephemeral photo sharing app that are blurring the line between our physical and digital worlds. Snapchat’s evolution In July 2014, we saw Snapchat’s first move towards AR with geofilters. AR overlays digital assets on the real environment. With geofilters, users could now place location-based image tags on their photos. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft’s new mixed reality initiatives tap power of HoloLens

Late last year, Microsoft announced the launch of Trimble's SketchUp Viewer for its HoloLens headset, which would allow for 3D images designed in SketchUp to be viewed in a more life-like scenario. The Viewer is just for viewing models but is done on a flat monitor. With HoloLens, the models appeared real. Since then, Microsoft has been working with Trimble and the Construction Information Technology Lab at the University of Cambridge to expand on use of HoloLens and mixed reality technology in the architecture, engineering, construction and operations (AECO) industries. Today, the Microsoft announced details of two new trials that are underway at Cambridge. The first is Automated Progress Monitoring, a way to address routine maintenance and inspection of remote structures. It can be a laborious, time consuming and error-prone procedure, one where automation can replace humans because machines don’t get sloppy. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

BrandPost: The industry’s largest survey of IT practitioners and managers

Portions of this post were originally posted on the Puppet blog, and are republished here with Puppet's permission.Puppet is pleased to announce our sixth annual State of DevOps survey. It's the biggest, most in-depth survey of IT professionals in the industry. Just as we have for the past few years, we've created the survey in collaboration with the principals of DevOps Research & Assessment (DORA): Nicole Forsgren, Jez Humble and Gene Kim.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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