IDG Contributor Network: The 8 fallacies of distributed computing are becoming irrelevant

In 1969, the U.S. Department of Defense created ARPANET, the precursor to today’s internet. Around the same time, the SWIFT protocol used for money transfers was also established. These are both early examples of distributed systems: a collection of independent computers that appear to users as a single coherent system.Many come to know they have a distributed system when the crash of a computer they’ve never heard of affects the whole system. This is often the result of assumptions architects and designers of distribution systems are likely to make.In 1994, Peter Deutsch, who worked at Sun Microsystems, wrote about these assumptions to explore what can go wrong in distributed systems. In 1997, James Gosling added to this list to create what is commonly known as the eight fallacies of distributed computing. Traditional approaches, which use time-based replication to architect and build distributed systems, suffer from many of these fallacies and result in systems that are inefficient, insecure and costly to maintain. Modern approaches, using complex mathematics such as the Paxos algorithm, overcome many of these significant hurdles.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Dropbox data breach is a warning to update passwords

Recent data breaches underline the need for Internet users to regularly update the passwords for all their Internet accounts.On Wednesday, Spotify reset the passwords of an unspecified number of users, just a day after data on 68 million accounts from Dropbox began reaching the Internet.In a notice to users, Spotify said their credentials may have been compromised in a leak involving another service, if they used the same password for both.“Spotify has not experienced a security breach and our user records are secure,” the company said in an email. The password reset is merely a precaution, it said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Dropbox data breach is a warning to update passwords

Recent data breaches underline the need for Internet users to regularly update the passwords for all their Internet accounts.On Wednesday, Spotify reset the passwords of an unspecified number of users, just a day after data on 68 million accounts from Dropbox began reaching the Internet.In a notice to users, Spotify said their credentials may have been compromised in a leak involving another service, if they used the same password for both.“Spotify has not experienced a security breach and our user records are secure,” the company said in an email. The password reset is merely a precaution, it said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDC predicts a rebound in tablet sales

Tablet sales have been in a serious downward spiral, but market research firm IDC has reason for optimism and believes they are due for a comeback.There is a caveat to that prediction, and that's because of a qualifier category: detachables. Tablet sales are already down 11.5 percent worldwide, while convertible and detachable devices are enjoying an uptick in sales, which is expected to continue through 2020, with shipments reaching 194.2 million as detachable tablets continue to take share from traditional PCs. + Also on Network World: Enterprise use of hybrid tablets growing fast +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Which countries have open-source laws on the books?

As the institutional use of open-source software continues to expand like an octopus, the public sector remains a key target market.Government users like Linux and other open-source software for several reasons, but the most important ones are probably that total cost of ownership is often lower than it is for proprietary products and that open-source projects don’t vanish if the company providing them goes under.Government IT folks are likely quite familiar with the perils of proprietary legacy systems - a recent Congressional hearing revealed that there are computers that date back to 1976 still in use at the federal level, and that critical taxpayer data is stored on a system written more than 50 years ago, in assembly language.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Huawei picks new name, but no new technology, for ‘Nova’ phones

Practical and reliable is the image Huawei Technologies is trying to project with two new smartphones unveiled at the IFA tradeshow on Thursday. The two phones are aimed squarely at the mid-market, and feature tried and trusted technologies, according to Kevin Ho, president of Huawei's handsets product line. So it's strange that, for phones with so little novelty, Huawei has decided on the name Nova. The Nova and Nova Plus are solid phones with rigid, confidence-inspiring aluminum cases. They run Android Marshmallow on eight-core Qualcomm processors with 3GB of RAM and 32GB of flash storage, expandable via a microSD slot. There's a fingerprint sensor on the back of the case.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Baidu open sources its deep learning platform PaddlePaddle

Taking a cue from some of its U.S. peers like Google, Chinese Internet search giant Baidu has decided to open source its deep learning platform.The company claims that the platform, code-named PaddlePaddle after PArallel Distributed Deep LEarning, will let developers focus on the high-level structure of their models without having to worry about the low-level details. A machine translation program written with PaddlePaddle, for example, requires significantly less code than on other popular deep learning platforms, said Baidu spokeswoman Calisa Cole.The PaddlePaddle platform has been used in-house by Baidu to develop products and technologies for search ranking, large-scale image classification, optical character recognition, machine translation and advertising, Baidu said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Last ditch iPhone 7 rumor rollup: EarPod, 256GB storage speculation gains steam

Apple's confirmation that it will be making news on Sept. 7 means that our regular iPhone 7 rumor roundups are winding down, but you didn't expect the rumors to dry up before the big day, did you?Just this week, the following fresh scuttlebutt has surfaced, more or less confirming a couple of the most persistent rumors about the next big iOS devices:*Mashable cites a Dutch site that posted a technical document for the iPhone 7 Plus describing "EarPods with Lightning connector," adding support to the strong rumor that Apple is ditching the traditional 3.5mm headphone jack.  A Lightning-to-headphone jack adapter and Lightning-to-USB cable connector are also mentioned.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HP’s Elite Slice mini-PC stacks up features with snap-on modules

Building a tricked-out PC from scratch can be a satisfying experience. But it's not for everyone, which is why we have modular desktops like HP's new Elite Slice.The Elite Slice is a mini-PC that lets users add features just by snapping external modules onto the main box. No more unscrewing the chassis just to add a component.The modules stack up underneath the base unit. A proprietary connector based on the USB 3.1 protocol binds the PC with the modules.Snapping modules onto the Elite Slice is as easy as joining two Lego parts. For HP,  the modular desktop eases PC customization and reduces cable clutter.The Elite Slice is targeted at business users who wants a desktop that's stylish. The mini-PC is priced starting at $699 and will ship this month. Audio, optical-drive and VESA mounting-plate modules will be sold separately for between $35 and $110.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Big data salaries set to rise in 2017

Starting salaries for big data pros will continue to rise in 2017 as companies jockey to hire skilled data professionals.Recruiting and staffing specialist Robert Half Technology studied more than 75 tech positions for its annual guide to U.S. tech salaries, including 13 jobs in the data/data administration field.In the big picture, starting salaries for newly hired IT workers are forecast to climb 3.8% next year. (See also: 14 hot network jobs/skills for 2017)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

iPhone 7 Plus may come with a 256GB storage option

One of the more interesting iPhone 7 rumors suggests that Apple’s next-gen iPhone will come with a 256GB storage options. While 256GB of storage may seem excessive, it perhaps stands to reason that the iPhone 7 Plus -- on account of its dual camera system which will take presumably large high-res photos -- will need more storage than many are anticipating.That said, an interesting iPhone 7 leak hit the Apple blogosphere earlier today when a spec sheet purporting to be for the iPhone 7 was posted on the Chinese microblogging website Weibo. As evidenced via the photo below, a 256GB iPhone 7 Plus model may be announced next week at Apple’s special media event.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

24% off Zackees LED Turn Signal Bike lights

The use of turn signals drastically increases safety of cars. Now cycling can have that same benefit with these turn signal gloves from Zackees. These machine washable gloves are made from premium materials -- tough, flexible leather and breathable spandex. The LED lights are powerful and bright, running on rechargeable coin batteries that will last for several weeks of moderate daily use before needing a charge. Ambient light sensors increase brightness 4x during the day. These gloves average 4.5 out of 5 stars from over 150 people (read reviews), and their typical list price of $99 has been reduced 24% to $74.95.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: Open Flow Controller Performance

OpenFlow’s architecture is inefficient, and caps performance while sucking unnecessary power. That’s the conclusion of a bunch of Comp. Sci boffins from researchers at Australian brain box Data61 and Sydney University, who assessed four major OpenFlow controllers – NOX, Maestro, Floodlight and Beacon. Their paper is at Arxiv. Poor old OpenDaylight was also tested but not reported: “the performance [was] too low to provide any insightful comparison”. To cut to the chase: none of the controllers tested got anywhere close to line speed, whether running on a network processor (based on Tilera chips), or on a Xeon E5-2450-based server (more on the configurations later). —The Register

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Microsoft conscripts upload bandwidth in Windows 10’s latest Insider update

Microsoft today updated the Windows 10 beta, switching on a controversial technology that commandeers users' upload bandwidth to shift some responsibility for updating from the company's own servers.Build 14915 was released earlier Wednesday to participants in the Windows Insider "Fast" track.The notable change highlighted by Dona Sarkar, the software engineer who acts as the public face of Insider, was the enabling of Windows 10's "Delivery Optimization" technology.INSIDER Review: Enterprise guide to Windows 10 Delivery Optimization, formally dubbed "Windows Update Delivery Optimization" (WUDO) by Microsoft, was part of Windows 10 from the get-go. But it was only switched on as of the November 2015 upgrade, which was pegged as 1511. Insider builds of Windows 10, however, were exempt until now.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Lenovo kicks off IFA with four new notebook/tablet offerings

People who feel that there’s “nothing new to see” in the world of notebooks and tablets should take a look at what Lenovo announced today. Ahead of the IFA show in Berlin, the company announced four new offerings, highlighting design upgrades and features that challenge users to think about what can be done with a computer. That’s no small feat in today’s technology device world, where everything often looks the same, with just a different label slapped on the cover.Here’s a quick look at the announcements:Yoga Book This 2-in-1 device takes its Book moniker seriously - when spread out flat, the device looks a lot more like a book than a notebook or even a tablet (see photo above). The Yoga Book features a “halo keyboard”, which is a full touch screen backlit keyboard that integrates software and hardware into the interface. The glass touch screen includes an anti-glare coating to create a touch-typing experience, which should be helpful since there are no physical keys. Instead, it displays as a solid white outline on the Yoga Book’s second panel, and it’s only on when the user needs a keyboard. Software is also included that “learns about and adapts Continue reading

The company behind Hillary Clinton’s erased emails is riding high

A small open source firm behind the erasure of Hillary Clinton's personal email server is enjoying a lot of free publicity thanks to the investigation into the server's contents. BleachBit, an open source system erasure tool, has been around for a few years and won some accolades, and now it's the center of attention on the Clinton email scandal.

It started with Trey Gowdy, the Republican congressman from South Carolina leading the investigation into the private email server. He mentioned BleachBit in an interview, saying Clinton's 33,000 deleted emails have been "deleted where even God can't read them."

To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The company behind Hillary Clinton’s erased emails is riding high

A small open source firm behind the erasure of Hillary Clinton's personal email server is enjoying a lot of free publicity thanks to the investigation into the server's contents. BleachBit, an open source system erasure tool, has been around for a few years and won some accolades, and now it's the center of attention on the Clinton email scandal.It started with Trey Gowdy, the Republican congressman from South Carolina leading the investigation into the private email server. He mentioned BleachBit in an interview, saying Clinton's 33,000 deleted emails have been "deleted where even God can't read them."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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