Apple offers new battery for iPhone 6s phones that suddenly shut down

Apple has said that a few iPhone 6s smartphones are unexpectedly shutting down, confirming a problem reported last week by a Chinese consumer protection group.The company said the problem is restricted to a small number of phones within a limited serial number range that were manufactured between September and October last year.Apple said it was not a safety issue, and appeared to suggest that the problem would be resolved by a replacement battery which the company offered free. It did not say how many iPhone 6s phones were affected and in which markets.The China Consumers Association asked Apple to investigate problems with iPhone 6 and iPhone 6s phones that were automatically shutting off. The unexpected shutdowns were said to happen when the phone’s battery charge dropped to between 60 and 50 percent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM Opens IoT Solutions Group Dedicated to Watson Platform

The goal is to help customers tackle industry-specific IoT challenges.

Symantec will acquire identity protection firm LifeLock in $2.3B deal

Aiming to boost its consumer security business, Symantec is acquiring LifeLock, a vendor of identity protection services, for US$2.3 billion in enterprise value. The deal will create what the two companies described as the world’s largest consumer security business with over $2.3 billion in annual revenue based on last fiscal year revenue for both companies. The immediate opportunity for Symantec comes from the large number of consumers worldwide that have been victims of cybercrime, generating as a result greater user concern in digital safety. The companies estimate the market at $10 billion, and growing in the high single digits. In the U.S. alone, the total addressable market is estimated to be about 80 million people.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Symantec will acquire identity protection firm LifeLock in $2.3B deal

Aiming to boost its consumer security business, Symantec is acquiring LifeLock, a vendor of identity protection services, for US$2.3 billion in enterprise value. The deal will create what the two companies described as the world’s largest consumer security business with over $2.3 billion in annual revenue based on last fiscal year revenue for both companies. The immediate opportunity for Symantec comes from the large number of consumers worldwide that have been victims of cybercrime, generating as a result greater user concern in digital safety. The companies estimate the market at $10 billion, and growing in the high single digits. In the U.S. alone, the total addressable market is estimated to be about 80 million people.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Intel Declares War on GPUs at Disputed HPC, AI Border

In Supercomputing Conference (SC) years past, chipmaker Intel has always come forth with a strong story, either as an enabling processor or co-processor force, or more recently, as a prime contractor for a leading-class national lab supercomputer.

But outside of a few announcements at this year’s SC related to beefed-up SKUs for high performance computing and Skylake plans, the real emphasis back in Portland seemed to ring far fainter for HPC and much louder for the newest server tech darlings, deep learning and machine learning. Far from the HPC crowd last week was Intel’s AI Day, an event in …

Intel Declares War on GPUs at Disputed HPC, AI Border was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

Details Emerge On “Summit” Power Tesla AI Supercomputer

The future “Summit” pre-exascale supercomputer that is being built out in late 2017 and early 2018 for the US Department of Energy for its Oak Ridge National Laboratory looks like a giant cluster of systems that might be used for training neural networks. And that is an extremely convenient development.

More than once during the SC16 supercomputing conference this week in Salt Lake City, the Summit system and its companion “Sierra” system that will be deployed at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, were referred to as “AI supercomputers.” This is a reflection of the fact that the national labs around the …

Details Emerge On “Summit” Power Tesla AI Supercomputer was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Networks Drive HPC Harder Than Compute

It is hard to tell which part of the HPC market is more competitive: compute, networking, or storage. From where we sit, there is an increasing level of competition on all three fronts and the pressure to perform, both financially and technically, has never been higher. This is great for customers, of course, who are being presented with lots of technology to choose from. But HPC customers tend to pick architectures for several generations, so there is also pressure on them to make the right choices – whatever that means.

In a sense, enterprises and hyperscalers and cloud builders, who …

Networks Drive HPC Harder Than Compute was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Using GNOME Keyring as Git Credential Helper

In this post, I’m going to show you how to use the GNOME Keyring on Ubuntu 16.04 as a credential helper for Git. This post stems from my work in transitioning to Linux as my primary OS, an effort I’ve ratcheted up significantly in the last few weeks. What I’m including here isn’t new or ground-breaking information; I’m posting it primarily to make the information easier to find for others.

On Ubuntu 16.04, the basis for integrating GNOME Keyring into Git as a credential helper is already installed into the /usr/share/doc/git/contrib/credential/gnome-keyring directory. However, if you try to simply run sudo make in that directory, it will fail. In order to make it work, you must first install some additional development libraries:

sudo apt install libgnome-keyring-dev

Once you’ve installed this additional package, running sudo make in that directory will quickly compile a binary named git-credential-gnome-keyring. Once you have that binary, then you can configure Git to use GNOME Keyring as a credential helper. You can do this a couple of different ways:

1. You can use the git config command, like this:

    git config --global credential.helper /usr/share/doc/git/contrib/credential/gnome-keyring/git-credential-gnome-keyring
   

2. You can edit ~/.gitconfig directly, using the text editor of your Continue reading

50-plus jaw-dropping Black Friday 2016 tech deals

Some have begun referring to this month as Black November since pre-Black Friday, Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales have all blended together. Not all the supposed deals are actually deals at all – in many cases, the retailers are just trying to offload stuff – but there are plenty of bargains to be had on the hottest smartphones, tablets, PCs and gaming systems. Here’s a look at some of the best deals.Websites such as BFads.net, BlackFriday.com and BestBlackFriday.com have all been helpful in collecting this information. MORE: Best Black Friday Apple Watch dealsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Stacking Up Software To Drive FPGAs Into The Datacenter

Every new hardware device that offers some kind of benefit compared to legacy devices faces the task of overcoming the immense inertia that is imparted to a platform by the software that runs upon it. While FPGAs have so many benefits compared to general purpose CPUs and even GPUs because of their malleability, the inertia seems even heavier.

Any substantial change requires a big payoff to be implemented because change is inherently risky. It doesn’t help that the method of programming FPGAs efficiently using VHDL and Verilog are so alien to Java and C programmers, and that the tools for …

Stacking Up Software To Drive FPGAs Into The Datacenter was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

iPhone 8 launch will see Apple release 3 brand-new devices

Given that the overall design of the iPhone hasn't changed much since the release of the iPhone 6 back in 2014, there's a lot of pressure on Apple to deliver a home run when the company launches the iPhone 8 later next year.Though next year's iPhone would ordinarily be called the iPhone 7s, it's widely believed that Apple's next-gen iPhone will represent such a compelling upgrade that Apple will opt to call it the iPhone 8 instead.Now, as for what Apple has in store for us with the iPhone 8, the company's plans are beginning to crystalize slowly but surely. According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo (via Apple Insider), Apple next year will introduce three distinct iPhone models.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

iPhone 8 launch will see Apple release 3 brand new devices

Given that the overall design of the iPhone hasn't changed much since the release of the iPhone 6 back in 2014, there's a lot of pressure on Apple to deliver a home run when the company launches the iPhone 8 later next year.Though next year's iPhone would ordinarily be called the iPhone 7s, it's widely believed that Apple's next-gen iPhone will represent such a compelling upgrade that Apple will opt to call it the iPhone 8 instead.Now as for what Apple has in store for us with the iPhone 8, the company's plans are beginning to crystalize slowly but surely. According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo (via Apple Insider), Apple next year will introduce three distinct iPhone models.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IoT security camera infected within 98 seconds of plugging it in

One and a half minutes is all it took after plugging in an internet-connected security camera for the camera be infected with malware.Unlike the average Jane or Joe Doe who would not want their security camera to be immediately infected with malware, Rob Graham, CEO of Errata Security, called it “fun” to watch the infection happen. He tweet-documented his experience.Graham purchased an inexpensive device – this $55 IoT security camera made by JideTech.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IoT security camera infected within 98 seconds of plugging it in

One and a half minutes is all it took after plugging in an internet-connected security camera for the camera be infected with malware.Unlike the average Jane or Joe Doe who would not want their security camera to be immediately infected with malware, Rob Graham, CEO of Errata Security, called it “fun” to watch the infection happen. He tweet-documented his experience.Graham purchased an inexpensive device – this $55 IoT security camera made by JideTech.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

OFNet SDN network emulator

OFNet is a new software-defined network (SDN) emulator that offers functionality similar to the Mininet network emulator and adds some useful tools for generating traffic and monitoring OpenFlow messages and evaluating SDN controller performance.

OFNet is an open-source project that is distributed as a virtual machine (VM) image. The OFNet source code is available in the OFNet VM’s filesystem. In this post, we will use the OFNet VM provided by the OFNet developer to run SDN emulation scenarios in OFNet.

The OFNet Virtual Machine

The OFNet VM image is packaged as an OVA file which can be imported into most virtual machine managers. In this case, we are using VirtualBox. You may download the OFNet VM from this link.

The OFNet VM contains a Linux system running Ubuntu 12.04 and has the VirtualBox extensions installed.

Create a new virtual machine using the OFNet VM image, start up the VM and log in. After logging in, review the available OFNet documentation and install Wireshark.

Install the OFNet VM in VirtualBox

Import the OFNet.ova file into VirtualBox. Use the File → Import Appliance VirtualBx menu command or press <Ctrl-I>. Navigate to the location where you saved the OFNet.ova file Continue reading

Amazon Discounts Kindle E-Readers Up To $30 Through 11/28 – Deal Alert

Amazon has quietly released another good set of deals on its popular Kindle series of e-readers, and this time the discount runs through 11/28 only. Kindle's price sinks $30, Kindle Paperwhite is discounted $20, the Kindle Voyage drops $30, and the worry-free Kindle for Kids Bundle is reduced $30 as well.  To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Spousetivities at AWS re:Invent

For the first time ever, Spousetivities will be at AWS re:Invent in Las Vegas! This means that IT pros traveling to Vegas can plan on bringing along their spouse, partner, significant other, or family member(s) and know that there are fun, safe, organized activities for them.

So what’s planned? Here’s a quick look:

• More cooking fun with Chef Phillip Dell, a previous season winner on Food Network’s “Chopped” show
• Hoover Dam and Grand Canyon tour (a must-see if you haven’t been before)
• Vegas food tour (hosted by Chef Dell, of course!)

As is a tradition with Spousetivities, participants in the activities have the chance to win prizes like iPads, Bose headphones, VR headsets, and lots of other goodies.

Crystal’s blog post on the Spousetivities site has a few more details, and registration is open right now.

Best Black Friday 2016 Windows deals

While Windows phone deals are not surprisingly few and far between for Black Friday 2016, plenty of other Microsoft Windows desktops and laptops, Surface tablets and Xbox gaming deals can be had this holiday shopping season. Come Nov. 25, and even earlier for Microsoft itself and retailers, here are some of the best deals around.(Websites such as BFads.net, BlackFriday.com and BestBlackFriday.com have all been helpful in collecting this information.) To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Internet of Things Messaging, Part 1: Introducing MQTT

In the world of the Internet of Things one thing you’ve got lots of, apart from things, is messages. When IoT devices generate messages, they send stuff like status reports and environmental measurements; when they receive, they’re being told what to do (“open that valve” or “send your status”) or they’re storing data from other devices or, or ,or … there are endless use cases. Moreover, the number of IoT devices is growing incredibly fast and only their combined message traffic is growing faster. And as well as the explosion of the IoT, there are applications running on smartphones, tablets, and computers that all need the same type of messaging service.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Reverese Shell on Linux

Reverse shell is technique when a client connects to a server and the client provides its shell to the server. Clients is typically a host hidden behind the NAT or a firewall having an access to the server but not vice versa. Thanks to a reverse shell the server controls a client's shell having an access to the client's network even the client is hidden behind the NAT. They are several methods how to create a reverse shell used depending on software available on the client. I will show how to create a reverse shell using SSH, Ncat and Bash.

Picture 1 - Network Topology

Picture 1 shows our testing topology. The client (Ubuntu Server 16.04) is located behind the NAT with the IP address 192.168.1.4/24. The server (Kubuntu 16.04) has assigned the IP address 172.17.100.7/16.

1. Reverse Shell Using SSH Reverse Tunnel

This method is based on the fact that the client has knowledge of the server SSH login credentials and vice versa. SSH server must be running on both the server and client. Client must be allowed to access server through firewall.

Client:
$ ssh -R 10000:127.0.0.1:22 [email protected]. Continue reading