Windows 10 migration a low priority for some CIOs

Microsoft said last week that it won’t hit its target of one billion Windows 10 devices in use by June 2018, claiming that jettisoning its smartphone business is reducing the number of devices that could run its new operating system. However, with more employees electing to use other computing devices for work, migration to Windows 10 is not a priority for some CIOs who are busy procuring cloud services, honing their analytics software and otherwise tackling more pressing projects. Thanks to the proliferation of PC alternatives, including Macs and iPads, worldwide PC shipments declined 5.2 percent from the second quarter of 2015, marking the seventh consecutive quarterly decline, Gartner said last week. The research firm says upgrades to Windows 10 could jumpstart PC sales among businesses toward the end of 2016 to the beginning of 2017.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Prime Members: 50% off Nintendo 3DS amiibo NFC Accessory – Deal Alert

Wish your (or your kids) Nintendo 3DS, 3DS XL or 2DS could support amiibo? It can, with this nifty NFC reader/writer accessory from Nintendo. After a simple pairing process, your game system is ready to unlock new game modes, characters, bonuses and more with just a tap from an amiibo accessory. It's true -- go ask your kids! It may just save you the upgrade to the new 3DS, for now. Typically listed for $20, it's currently slashed 50% down to just $10 for Amazon prime members only. Check out the dramatically discounted NFC accessory on Amazon right now.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google launches new cloud service for understanding human language

Google's intelligent cloud developer tools are expanding with the launch of a new Cloud Natural Language API on Wednesday. The service is aimed at helping developers create applications that understand human language.It's an important move for Google, as public cloud providers are racing to host new applications built with intelligent capabilities. Natural language processing allows developers to build apps that can tackle the challenging task of understanding how humans communicate, and it is key for things like building intelligent assistants and chat bots.This API can provide a bunch of information about a block of text back to an application, including the overall sentiment of a passage and an analysis of the structure of a sentence. The system can also identify entities mentioned, including people, organizations, locations, events, and products.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Windows 10 personal data collection is excessive, French privacy watchdog warns

Windows 10 breaches French law by collecting too much personal information from users and failing to secure it adequately, according to the French National Data Protection Commission (CNIL).Some of the privacy failings identified can be remedied by users willing to delve deep into the Windows 10 settings, but one of the commission's gripes is that better privacy should be the default setting, not one users must fight for.CNIL served Microsoft with a formal notice on June 30, giving it three months to comply with the law, but only made it public on Wednesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Windows 10 personal data collection is excessive, French privacy watchdog warns

Windows 10 breaches French law by collecting too much personal information from users and failing to secure it adequately, according to the French National Data Protection Commission (CNIL).Some of the privacy failings identified can be remedied by users willing to delve deep into the Windows 10 settings, but one of the commission's gripes is that better privacy should be the default setting, not one users must fight for.CNIL served Microsoft with a formal notice on June 30, giving it three months to comply with the law, but only made it public on Wednesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Internet router using Cumulus Linux

Internet router using merchant silicon describes how an inexpensive white box switch running Linux can be used to replace a much costlier Internet router. This article will describe the steps needed to install the software on an x86 based white box switch running Cumulus Linux 3.0.

First, add the Debian Jessie repository: 
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://ftp.us.debian.org/debian jessie main contrib" > \
/etc/apt/sources.list.d/deb.list'
Next, install Host sFlow, Java, and Bird: 
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install hsflowd
sudo apt-get install unzip
sudo apt-get install default-jre-headless
sudo apt-get install bird
Install sFlow-RT (the latest version is available at sFlow-RT.com): 
wget http://www.inmon.com/products/sFlow-RT/sflow-rt_2.0-1116.deb
sudo dpkg -i sflow-rt_2.0-1116.deb
Increase the default virtual memory limit for sflowrt (needs to be greater than 1/3 amount of RAM on system to start Java virtual machine, see Giant Bug: Cannot run java with a virtual mem limit (ulimit -v)):
sudo sh -c 'echo "sflowrt soft as 2000000" > \
/etc/security/limits.d/99-sflowrt.conf'
Note: Maximum Java heap memory has a default of 1G and is controlled by settings in /usr/local/sflow-rt/conf.d/sflow-rt.jvm file.

Install the Active Route Manager application: 
sudo sh -c "/usr/local/sflow-rt/get-app. Continue reading

I love roller coasters, so how about a virtual reality coaster?

I’ve been on a good number of roller coasters in my day and generally love riding on them. So when Network World Cool Tools Editor Keith Shaw and I were researching the story of Six Flags New England introducing virtual reality headsets on their star Superman ride, I knew I wanted to experience it for myself.The ride is incredible, even without the VR headset: It’s got a 220-foot drop, 5,000+ feet of track and it goes 77 miles per hour. It’s a trill-lovers paradise.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Virtual Flying with Superman: How Six Flags added even more thrills to its top roller coaster | Superman the Virtual Reality Ride, in pictures | First-person reaciton to Superman VR Ride +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Superman VR roller coaster in pictures

Superman battles Lex Luthor in virtual MetropolisImage by Six FlagsAt the Six Flags New England amusement park in Agawam, Mass., visitors can now experience virtual reality on one of the park's most popular roller coasters - Superman The Ride.The first drop is a doozyImage by Six FlagsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Virtual flying with Superman: How Six Flags New England added more thrills to its top coaster

You take your seat on the roller coaster and a large belt is locked into place. A Six Flags ride attendant places a virtual reality headset over your eyes. A chin strap is tightened, and you look forward in the headset.Suddenly, you’re inside Superman’s Metropolis in an immersive experience. You can’t see the coaster, the ride attendants or even the person next to you. You only see the virtual Sky Tours seat, which looks like the pod of a large Ferris wheel. As the ride begins, you see the simulated urban landscape, but then Lex Luthor, Superman’s nemesis, comes into view. The physical coaster is climbing up the track, but you have no idea how high you are. Luther has an electricity gun, which he fires at the train, along with some LexBots that also grab the train, detaching you from the track.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

First-person: How the roller coaster experience changes with VR and why I love it

Over the years, I’ve ridden lots of roller coasters - everything from the “kid coaster” at the local carnival, to Space Mountain and other Disney coasters, to the mega-monstrous coasters at Six Flags and other amusement parks. There is something very exciting about the first drop, a corkscrew loop or the speeds that you attain when riding a coaster. That said, as I’ve gotten older I find myself riding them less. Depending on the coaster, the shaking and head bumping that sometimes occurs gives me a sense of nausea or dizziness following the ride, and the recuperation time takes longer than when I was in my 20s. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Open19: A New Vision for the Data Center

This is coming out of the architecture team at LinkedIn—it’s really interesting for mid-tier scalers, large financials, and the like, so I thought I’d share it here as well.

This week at the DatacenterDynamics Webscale conference, I have the privilege of announcing the first step in a long journey, an initiative that we hope will further the state of hardware in the data center. Called Open19, this new project aims to establish a new open standard for servers based on a common form factor. The goals of Open19 are to provide lower cost per rack, lower cost per server, optimized power utilization, and (eventually) an open standard that everyone can contribute to and participate in.

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Microsoft, IBM tout cloud services as key drivers of earnings strength

It’s earnings season, which for publicly-traded technology vendors in the cloud market means it’s time to update investors on the momentum of emerging products helping to displace eroding revenue from legacy offerings.For two technology vendor stalwarts – Microsoft and IBM - cloud computing has played a significant role in their earnings this quarter.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: 4 Numbers that stood out in VMware’s earnings| Who’s right behind Amazon in IaaS revenue? Not Microsoft +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft, IBM tout cloud services as key drivers of earnings strength

It’s earnings season, which for publicly-traded technology vendors in the cloud market means it’s time to update investors on the momentum of emerging products helping to displace eroding revenue from legacy offerings.For two technology vendor stalwarts – Microsoft and IBM - cloud computing has played a significant role in their earnings this quarter.+MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: 4 Numbers that stood out in VMware’s earnings| Who’s right behind Amazon in IaaS revenue? Not Microsoft +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Auto parts supplier has big plans for its nascent IoT effort

Hirotec America recently embarked on its first IoT effort and, as new as it is, the effort is already paying dividends, says Justin Hester, Research & Development Project Manager.  Hirotec is a $1.4 billion tier one parts and tooling supplier to automakers, specializing in closures (such as doors and hoods) and exhaust systems.  Hester was instrumental in getting the IoT effort off the ground at the company’s US headquarters in Auburn Hills, Michigan, but has since moved to Japan to work on Hirotec’s global IoT efforts from the company’s global headquarters in Hiroshima. Justin Hester, Research & Development Project Manager, HirotecTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Brocade’s Gen 6 Fibre Channel meets the needs of a digital world

In the late 1800s, Mark Twain was rumored to have said, “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” If Mark Twain were a technology, he would be Fibre Channel.It seems every year some smart industry prognosticator predicts that Ethernet will obviate the need for Fibre Channel, and it will go the way of the dinosaur or the mainframe. But that hasn’t been the case at all. In fact, Fibre Channel is still around and very much alive. Why? Because it’s the best, most cost-effective technology for storage networks. And for most organizations, storage is everything. The Fibre Channel fabric connects business applications and users to the mission-critical data that drives the company. This is why almost every large organization that is dependent on data, such as financial services firms, healthcare institutions and retailers, depend on Fibre Channel.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Building Highly Scalable V6 Only Cloud Hosting

This is a guest repost by Donatas Abraitis, Lead Systems Engineer at at Hostinger International.

This article is about how we built the new high scalable cloud hosting solution using IPv6-only communication between commodity servers, what problems we faced with IPv6 protocol and how we tackled them for handling more than ten millions active users.

Why did we decide to run IPv6-only network?

At Hostinger we care much about innovation technologies, thus we decided to run a new project named Awex that is based on this protocol. If we can, so why not start since today? Only frontend (user facing) services are running in dual-stack environment, everything else is IPv6-only for west-east traffic.

Architecture

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