DARPA picks 30 contenders to battle in wireless spectrum competition

DARPA says there are now 30 contenders for its $3.75 million Spectrum Collaboration Challenge (SC2) whose goal is to get mobile devices more intelligent access to the ever-tightening wireless spectrum.+More on Network World: Intelligence agency opens $325,000 advanced, automated fingerprint gathering competition+ The defense research agency last March announced Spectrum Collaboration Challenge and said the primary goal of the contest was to infuse radios with “advanced machine-learning capabilities so they can collectively develop strategies that optimize use of the wireless spectrum in ways not possible with today’s intrinsically inefficient approach of pre-allocating exclusive access to designated frequencies.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: An infrastructure for on demand service profiling

LinkedIn has built hundreds of application services, with thousands of instances running in data centers. Optimizing the performance of these services can dramatically improve user experience and reduce operational costs, and profilers are commonly used to help achieve this. LinkedIn’s On-Demand Profiling infrastructure (“ODP”) is one method we use to identify these optimizations. Profiling is a useful method to improve the performance of services. However, the tooling solutions for profiling don’t have fixed standards, are often decentralized, can be costly, and for a company with a large server footprint such as LinkedIn, are inconvenient to use at best. —Linkedin Engineering Blog

The post Worth Reading: An infrastructure for on demand service profiling appeared first on 'net work.

Hyperscalers Ready To Run Barefoot In The Datacenter

Breaking into the switch market is not an easy task, whether you are talking about providing whole switches or just the chips that drive them. But there is always room for innovation, which is why some of the upstarts have a pretty credible chance to shake up networking, which is the last bastion of proprietary within the datacenter.

Barefoot Networks is one of the up-and-coming switch chip makers, with its “Tofino” family of ASICs that, among other things, has circuits and software that allow for the data plane – that part of the device that controls how data moves …

Hyperscalers Ready To Run Barefoot In The Datacenter was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Firebolt: the fastest, safest ads on the web

Firebolt: the fastest, safest ads on the web

Cloudflare’s mission is to help build a better Internet. That means a faster, more secure, open Internet world-wide. We have millions of customers using our services like free SSL, an advanced WAF, the latest compression and the most up to date security to ensure that their web sites, mobile apps and APIs are secure and fast.

One vital area of web technology has lagged behind in terms of speed and security: online ads. And consumers have been turning to ad blocking technology to secure and speed up their own web browsing.

Firebolt: the fastest, safest ads on the web

Today, Cloudflare is introducing a new product to make web ads secure, fast and safe. That product is Firebolt.

Firebolt

With Firebolt, ad networks can instantly speed up and secure their ads, resulting in happy consumers and better conversion rates.

Firebolt delivers:

Lightning fast ad delivery

Cloudflare's global network of 102 data centers in 50 countries, combined with routing and performance technologies, makes the delivery of online ads to any device up to five times faster.

Free, simple SSL

Adding SSL to ad serving has been challenging for some ad networks. Cloudflare has years of experience providing free, one click SSL for our customers. Firebolt ads are Continue reading

After AppDynamics sale, is anyone going to snap up the rest of the APM market?

Cisco’s purchase last week of application performance management vendor AppDynamics for $3.7 billion in cash and assumed equity awards could signal that the APM sector in general is a potential M&A target, according to industry analysts.The APM market, which Gartner last summer said grew to $2.7B billion in 2015, is fragmented, and has been for some time. That means that consolidation may be overdue, with Cisco’s AppDynamics buy marking the start of the race.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Cisco’s AppDynamics purchase: A big price tag that could have big dividends + New Office 365 subscriptions for consumers plunged 62% in 2016To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Toxic Cultures and Reality

I have lived through multiple toxic cultures in my life. It’s easy to say, “just quit,” or “just go to HR,” but—for various reasons—these are not always a good solution. For instance, if you are in the military, “just quit” is not, precisely, an option. So how should you deal with these sorts of bad situations?

Start here: you are not going to change the culture. Just like I tell my daughters not to date guys so they can “fix” them, I have never seen anyone “fix” a culture through any sort of “mass action.” You are not going to “win” by going to the boss, or by getting someone from the outside to force everyone to change. You are not going to change the culture by griping about it. Believe me, I’ve tried all these things. They don’t (really) work.

Given these points, what can you do?

Start with a large dose of humility. First, you are probably a part of a number of toxic cultures yourself, and you probably even contribute at least some amount of the poison. Second, you are almost always limited in your power to change things; your influence, no matter how right you Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: How to practice cybersecurity (and why it’s different from IT security)

Keeping companies safe from attackers is no longer just a technical issue of having the right defensive technologies in place. To me, this is practicing IT security, which is still needed but doesn’t address what happens after the attackers infiltrate your organization (and they will, despite your best efforts to keep them out).I’m trying to draw attention to this topic to get security teams, businesses executives and corporate boards to realize that IT security will not help them once attackers infiltrate a target. Once this happens, cybersecurity is required.  + Also on Network World: Recruiting and retaining cybersecurity talent + In cybersecurity, the defenders acknowledge that highly motivated and creative adversaries are launching sophisticated attacks. There’s also the realization that when software is used as a weapon, building a stronger or taller wall may not necessarily keep out the bad guys. To them, more defensive measures provide them with additional opportunities to find weak spots and gain access to a network.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: How to practice cybersecurity (and why it’s different from IT security)

Keeping companies safe from attackers is no longer just a technical issue of having the right defensive technologies in place. To me, this is practicing IT security, which is still needed but doesn’t address what happens after the attackers infiltrate your organization (and they will, despite your best efforts to keep them out).I’m trying to draw attention to this topic to get security teams, businesses executives and corporate boards to realize that IT security will not help them once attackers infiltrate a target. Once this happens, cybersecurity is required.  + Also on Network World: Recruiting and retaining cybersecurity talent + In cybersecurity, the defenders acknowledge that highly motivated and creative adversaries are launching sophisticated attacks. There’s also the realization that when software is used as a weapon, building a stronger or taller wall may not necessarily keep out the bad guys. To them, more defensive measures provide them with additional opportunities to find weak spots and gain access to a network.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to stay relevant as a CIO

“All technology positions are migrating towards having to be hands-on,” Christopher Barron, CIO at Zander Rose LLC, told the audience at the December 2016 CIO Perspectives event in Houston. “That classic perception of a strategic CIO as being someone who always sits away, who tells other people what to do [is going away] …. All the leadership positions in IT, even if you are strategic, you’re going to have to be hands-on. Your customers will demand that.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

10 principles of a successful IoT strategy

The internet of things (IoT) presents an opportunity for enterprises to rewrite the rules of their industry. The potential upside is massive: According to research firm Gartner, there will be nearly 20 billion devices on the IoT by 2020, and IoT product and service suppliers will generate $300 billion+ in revenue.By bringing together sensors, connectivity, cloud storage, processing, analytics and machine learning, IoT may well transform countless industries, from healthcare to manufacturing to utilities, transit, government and more. But IoT is still in its early days. Creating and executing an IoT strategy for your organization is no mean feat, says John Rossman, author of The Amazon Way on IoT: 10 Principles for Every Leader from the World's Leading Internet of Things Strategies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tim Cook: ‘Apple would not exist without immigration’

Apple has championed the causes of marriage equality and environmental sustainability in recent years, so its employees looked to the company’s leadership in the wake of President Donald Trump’s executive order on immigration from predominantly Muslim countries. The order, which restricts immigration from seven countries and outright bans refugees from Syria, was handed down late Friday and led to protests in several U.S. cities and at airports where refugees were being detained.“Apple would not exist without immigration, let alone thrive and innovate the way we do,” Apple CEO Tim Cook wrote in an email to the company’s employees, later published by Re/code. “I’ve heard from many of you who are deeply concerned about the executive order issued yesterday restricting immigration from seven Muslim-majority countries. I share your concerns. It is not a policy we support.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Dropbox highlights productivity enhancements in rollout of new services

Dropbox kicked off its 2017 product launches with a pair of major announcements Monday aimed at improving users’ productivity at work. The cloud storage company announced the general availability of its Paper document collaboration service, along with the closed beta of a Smart Sync feature that gives users easy access to every file shared with them in Dropbox. Paper , first announced in 2015 , gives users a shared workspace to work with one another on documents. It’s designed to be the product people use for collaborative tasks like brainstorming and taking meeting notes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google strengthens Android relationship with Intel in IoT

Intel may have cut ties with Android on smartphones and tablets, but the company's partnership with Google on Android for the internet of things is growing stronger.Google's Android Things, a slimmed down version of Android for smart devices, will be coming to Intel's Joule 570x computer board.The combination will allow makers to cook up Android-based gadgets or smart devices for use in home, retail, or industrial settings.The Intel board adds a lot of processing and graphics muscle to projects. With 4K graphics capabilities, the 570x is good for devices with screens or computer vision, like robots and drones. Intel demonstrated a bartending robot that used the board at its annual trade show last year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Spear phishing tough to block, even when using automation tools

Trying to filter out phishing emails is tough work, even for organizations trying to find a better way through automation, according to a new study from security software company GreatHorn.The company makes software that seeks out phishing attempts and can autonomously block them, but even its customers don’t switch on all the features, according to GreatHorn’s study of how customers dealt with just over half a million spear phishing attempts.The most common autonomous action, taken a third of the time against suspicious emails, was to alert an admin when a policy was violated and let them decide what to do. This option is also chosen in order to create a record of potential threats, the company says. Another 6% of emails trigger alerts to the recipients so they can be on the lookout for similar attempts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Spear phishing tough to block, even when using automation tools

Trying to filter out phishing emails is tough work, even for organizations trying to find a better way through automation, according to a new study from security software company GreatHorn.The company makes software that seeks out phishing attempts and can autonomously block them, but even its customers don’t switch on all the features, according to GreatHorn’s study of how customers dealt with just over half a million spear phishing attempts.The most common autonomous action, taken a third of the time against suspicious emails, was to alert an admin when a policy was violated and let them decide what to do. This option is also chosen in order to create a record of potential threats, the company says. Another 6% of emails trigger alerts to the recipients so they can be on the lookout for similar attempts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cisco fosters Blockchain protocol development, IBM shows why technology could relieve security anxiety

Cisco has helped form a consortium to develop blockchain that could secure Internet of Things applications and more while new study by IBM shows why the technology could become invaluable for businesses worldwide.Reports from Reuters and a press release from the group said that Cisco has teamed up with Bank of New York Mellon, Foxconn, Gemalto and blockchain startups Consensus Systems (ConsenSys), BitSE and Chronicled to form a blockchain consortium that said it will develop a shared blockchain protocol for aimed at IoT products.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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