Big data on campus

Facing federal and state pressure to raise retention and graduation rates, dozens of colleges and universities are developing analytics tools to help students make better decisions about everything from courses to social activities.Purdue University has notified its 7,300 incoming freshman about a new web application that could help them better acclimate to life on campus. Administrators at the West Lafayette, Ind., school view the software as a critical tool for an institution whose graduation rate hovers at around 50 percent.Called Forecast, the software is designed to anticipate the danger of students performing poorly by analyzing the time they spend in class and on campus, as well as how often they access coursework. "We're looking at how student engagement is impacting the overall prediction of success on campus," says Brent Drake, Purdue's chief data officer, who's leading the initiative.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Slack CEO describes ‘Holy Grail’ of virtual assistants

NEW YORK -- Slack CEO Stewart Butterfield has an audacious goal: Turning his messaging and collaboration platform into an uber virtual assistant capable of searching every enterprise application to deliver employees pertinent information. And if Slack succeeds, it could seal the timeless black hole of wasted productivity enterprise search and other tools have failed to close."I think the team-level virtual assistant is the next software product category for enterprise that is on the order of [Microsoft] Office in terms of longevity and value," says Butterfield, who spoke to CIO.com at the office of shared workspace provider WeWork. "That’s a long shot for us because you have Baidu, Facebook, Microsoft and Google and a whole bunch of companies that have interested heavily in machine learning and search."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

UK spy agencies illegally collected data for years, court rules

The U.K.'s spy agencies breached the European Convention on Human Rights for years by secretly collecting almost everything about British citizens' communications except their content, a U.K. court has ruled.However, now that the U.K. government has admitted what it is doing, the collection is legal, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled Monday.It has yet to rule on the issue of proportionality, or whether the agencies' actions were reasonable given the threat they sought to counter.Responding to a June 2015 complaint by campaign group Privacy International, the tribunal said the secret intelligence agencies had breached the ECHR for years because of the way they gathered bulk communications data (BCD) and bulk personal data (BPD).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

UK spy agencies illegally collected data for years, court rules

The U.K.'s spy agencies breached the European Convention on Human Rights for years by secretly collecting almost everything about British citizens' communications except their content, a U.K. court has ruled.However, now that the U.K. government has admitted what it is doing, the collection is legal, the Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruled Monday.It has yet to rule on the issue of proportionality, or whether the agencies' actions were reasonable given the threat they sought to counter.Responding to a June 2015 complaint by campaign group Privacy International, the tribunal said the secret intelligence agencies had breached the ECHR for years because of the way they gathered bulk communications data (BCD) and bulk personal data (BPD).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Reality check: My weekend with the Sony PlayStation VR

Virtual reality has taken another step towards the mainstream, with gaming giant Sony now in the fray with its PlayStation VR headset. Launched last week for $399, the PS VR gives gamers the chance to experience VR in the comfort of their own living rooms. In terms of the VR space, it’s a system that is a jump from the Google Cardboard and Samsung VR experiences, while less expensive than the higher-end systems like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive gear.Sony sent me the PS VR last week, right before the public launch of the system. After spending a few days with the equipment, I’m left with mixed feelings about the system and VR in general. Certainly, this will be a hit of the holiday shopping season (my kids absolutely loved trying it out), but you can tell that we’re still at a starting point in VR with some of the glitches, gaming experiences and how VR should fit in with the rest of the gaming ecosystem.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Gartner: Artificial intelligence, algorithms and smart software at the heart of big network changes

Artificial intelligence, machine learning and advanced algorithms are at the heart of an emerging digital world.That was one of the chiefs components of Gartner’s Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president and global head of Research opening remarks at today’s Gartner Symposium/ITxpo show in Orlando.More on Network World: Will future developments in the realm of Artificial Intelligence be like the wild west or a more controlled situation? +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Gartner: Artificial intelligence, algorithms and smart software at the heart of big network changes

Artificial intelligence, machine learning and advanced algorithms are at the heart of an emerging digital world.That was one of the chiefs components of Gartner’s Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president and global head of Research opening remarks at today’s Gartner Symposium/ITxpo show in Orlando.More on Network World: Will future developments in the realm of Artificial Intelligence be like the wild west or a more controlled situation? +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Fabric versus Network: What’s the Difference?

We often hear about fabrics, and we often hear about networks—but on paper, an in practice, they often seem to be the same thing. Leaving aside the many realms of vendor hype, what’s really the difference? Poking around on the ‘net, I came across a couple of definitions that seemed useful, at least at first blush. For instance, SDN Search gives provides the following insight—

The word fabric is used as a metaphor to illustrate the idea that if someone were to document network components and their relationships on paper, the lines would weave back and forth so densely that the diagram would resemble a woven piece of cloth.

While this is interesting, it gives us more of a “on the paper” answer than what might be called a functional view. The entry at Wikipedia is more operationally based—

Switched Fabric or switching fabric is a network topology in which network nodes interconnect via one or more network switches (particularly crossbar switches). Because a switched fabric network spreads network traffic across multiple physical links, it yields higher total throughput than broadcast networks, such as early Ethernet.

Greg has an interesting (though older) post up on the topic, Continue reading

Datanet: a New CRDT Database that Let’s You Do Bad Bad Things to Distributed Data

 

We've had databases targeting consistency. These are your typical RDBMSs. We've had databases targeting availability. These are your typical NoSQL databases.

If you're using your CAP decoder ring you know what's next...what databases do we have that target making concurrency a first class feature? That promise to thrive and continue to function when network partitions occur?

No many, but we have a brand new concurrency oriented database: Datanet - a P2P replication system that utilizes CRDT algorithms to allow multiple concurrent actors to modify data and then automatically & sensibly resolve modification conflicts.

Datanet is the creation of Russell Sullivan. Russell spent over three years hidden away in his mad scientist layer researching, thinking, coding, refining, and testing Datanet. You may remember Russell. He has been involved with several articles on HighScalability and he wrote AlchemyDB, a NoSQL database, which was acquired by Aerospike.

So Russell has a feel for what's next. When he built AlchemyDB he was way ahead of the pack and now he thinks practical, programmer friendly CRDTs are what's next. Why?

Concurrency and data locality. To quote Russell:

Datanet lets you ship data to the spot where the action is happening. When the action happens it Continue reading

WikiLeaker Assange’s internet access cut by a ‘state actor’

A "state actor" has cut off internet access for Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, the transparency activist organization said Monday.Assange's internet link has been "intentionally severed by a state party," WikiLeaks said in a Monday morning tweet."We have activated the appropriate contingency plans," the organization added.In recent days, WikiLeaks has published thousands of leaked emails from the account of John Podesta, chairman of U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign. Clinton's campaign, along with President Barack Obama's administration, have accused WikiLeaks of cooperating with Russian hackers in an effort to raise questions about the legitimacy of the upcoming U.S. presidential election.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

WikiLeaker Assange’s internet access cut by a ‘state actor’

A "state actor" has cut off internet access for Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, the transparency activist organization said Monday.Assange's internet link has been "intentionally severed by a state party," WikiLeaks said in a Monday morning tweet."We have activated the appropriate contingency plans," the organization added.In recent days, WikiLeaks has published thousands of leaked emails from the account of John Podesta, chairman of U.S. presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's campaign. Clinton's campaign, along with President Barack Obama's administration, have accused WikiLeaks of cooperating with Russian hackers in an effort to raise questions about the legitimacy of the upcoming U.S. presidential election.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

OpenG Rap: Unlicensed to Ill

Indoor cell signal feels so wack! Do not worry though, MC Ruckus and the Dawgs (aka Ruckus OpenG engineers) will set you straight with this funky gold-teeth-laden introduction to new technology. We got your back, yo! #OpenG #WhatDidIJustWatch Read more...

Worth Reading: Stop Trying to Deter Cyber Criminals

With the foregoing in mind, the key question today is, “Given the very problematic historical record, why should anybody think that cyber deterrence will somehow now become a useful and functional policy option?” And when one adds the fresh wrinkles of anonymity and/or deniability of the perpetrator, the low cost—relative to other forms of aggression—of cyberspace-based attack, and the virtually nonexistent barriers to entry that diffuse power to swarms of hackers, the goal of achieving reliable, robust cyber deterrence seems well out of reach. —ACM

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IDG Contributor Network: Parking available! CloudParc uses IoT, machine vision to improve city parking

Finding a parking space is like a treasure hunt. Lots of aggravation for a few moments of joy.Parking is a challenge for city officials, too. How do you maximize both parking revenues and driver convenience?+ Also on Network World: Smart City Challenge: 7 proposals for the future of transportation +Is there a better way to mark parking spots without installing meters? How can drivers be charged automatically for parking? How can cities struggling with tight budgets afford such new services?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Catch OpenG in the Wild

In partnership with Dell/EMC, Ruckus, now a Brocade company, will be showing its first live demo of OpenGTM at Dell EMC World this week. OpenG is a solution that greatly improves in-building cellular coverage and capacity at a much lower cost than DAS or traditional small cells. Because OpenG uses the newly-released US 3.5GHz CBRS coordinated shared radio spectrum, enterprises and venues can finally deploy a single in-building cellular solution to serve subscribers of all mobile operators.

Lawmakers question DOJ’s appeal of Microsoft Irish data case

Four U.S. lawmakers are questioning a Department of Justice decision to appeal a July court decision quashing a search warrant that would have required Microsoft to disclose contents of emails stored on a server in Ireland.Last Thursday, Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, filed an appeal of the ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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