Beyond games and roller coasters: Next steps for virtual reality

In our recent beginner’s guide to virtual reality, we showcased various Google Cardboard VR headsets and apps to try out on a limited budget. A lot of those apps were either gaming-based apps or ones that gave you an experience, like a virtual roller coaster ride or a view of 360-degree photos of a particular location (like New York City).If you’re not interested in those types of experiences, you might say, “Is that it?” and miss out on the next steps with VR, which could expand the use of the technology in your own life or as part of your business.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The end of free Windows 10 upgrades may prop up PC shipments

Microsoft will end its free Windows 10 upgrade program on July 29, possibly giving an unexpected boost to PC shipments in the second half this year, according to IDC.Buyers may opt to buy a new Windows 10 PCs instead of upgrading existing PCs with a paid version of the OS. Many businesses are evaluating Windows 10 and could also upgrade.Windows 10 hasn't helped boost PC shipments so far. Instead of buying new PCs, people have been taking advantage of the free program and upgrading PCs from older Windows versions.The PC market is still in a slump, and that didn't change in the second quarter. But shipments were better than expected, and that sets the stage for a mini-recovery in the second half.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Who’s right behind Amazon in IaaS cloud revenue? Not Microsoft

Research firm IDC is out with its latest semi-annual tracking of IaaS public cloud vendors and while the top provider in this market – Amazon Web Services – will not surprise you, numbers two and three just might. IDC estimates that IBM’s Infrastructure-as-a-Service cloud revenues are larger than those of Microsoft in this still-emerging market. +MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Gartner says cloud will be “default” software deployment option by 2020 | Top 5 Storage vendors shows massive shift to cloud +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New iPhone 7 leak provides our best look at Apple’s next-gen smartphone

With just about two months to go before Apple introduces the iPhone 7 to the world, recent product leaks have given us a pretty good idea of what to expect from Apple's next-gen smartphone—at least from a design point of view.Over the past few weeks, we've certainly seen no shortage of spy shots and blurry shots of iPhone casings. But a recent leak courtesy of Nowhereelse.fr has given us our clearest look yet at we can expect from the iPhone 7's design.As evidenced via the photo below, the antenna lines that we had to withstand on the iPhone 6 and 6s have thankfully been relegated to the sides of the device. In other words, the back of the iPhone 7 is incredibly smooth and sleek.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Pluribus enriches virtual management system with central console, apps

Pluribus this week added a key piece to its virtual network management portfolio – a central management console and framework for helping customers better see and control their virtual network environment.The company announced VCFcenter, which it describes as a single pane of glass that will let customers comprehend business service flows and packets across their networks. VCFcenter is key because the company’s primary analytics application -- VCF-IA – will plug into the system as well as new reporting and deep packet analysis applications that combined offer a powerful management system for virtual environments the company says.+More on Network World: Cisco platform lets IT rein-in disruptive data center operations, security, applications+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Auto thieves adopting cybercrime-like tactics

In addition to recently publicized hacks of electronic auto ignitions with laptops, car thieves have several other high-tech techniques they’ve put to use—or will soon unleash upon their victims, according to stolen vehicle recovery firm CalAmp LoJack Corp.The lawlessness includes portable scanner boxes that exploit electronic key fobs; identity theft, where the Personally Identifiable Information data stored within the vehicle and in the vehicle computer is stolen; and car cloning, which is when a Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) is faked, allowing new documents to be produced.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Auto thieves adopting cybercrime-like tactics

In addition to recently publicized hacks of electronic auto ignitions with laptops, car thieves have several other high-tech techniques they’ve put to use—or will soon unleash upon their victims, according to stolen vehicle recovery firm CalAmp LoJack Corp.The lawlessness includes portable scanner boxes that exploit electronic key fobs; identity theft, where the Personally Identifiable Information data stored within the vehicle and in the vehicle computer is stolen; and car cloning, which is when a Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) is faked, allowing new documents to be produced.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

File sharing site Megaupload will return in January, claims Kim Dotcom

The creator of Megaupload plans on reviving the infamous file sharing site on Jan. 20, five years after the U.S. government shut it down.“It will be better than the original and it will feel like home,” tweeted Megaupload’s creator Kim Dotcom on Sunday.He made the announcement as U.S. authorities are trying to extradite him to face copyright infringement charges. In 2012, the U.S. government pulled the plug on his file-sharing site, which was accused of helping to distribute pirated music and video.Dotcom, who is based in New Zealand, has appealed his extradition to the U.S., and a court hearing is set for August.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft to partners: Make more money

While Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella today touted "digital transformation" during a 30,000-foot-view speech before thousands of resellers, the executive in charge of the firm's global partner group got down to dollars and cents."It starts for us with our mission. Everything we do, every product we build, every decision we make, in even our partner programs, is grounded in our mission, to empower every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more," Nadella said shortly after he stepped onto the stage at Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference (WWPC) in Toronto Monday.Nadella's "empower every person..." phrase has been his go-to description of Microsoft's strategy since June 2015, when the CEO unveiled the mission statement in an all-hands email.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

OS X code names for US election candidates

Code names for operating systems have become “de rigeur” in the industry but, as far as I can figure out, it wasn’t until 2001 after Apple’s marketing people started using code names as part of their branding (OS X "Cheetah”) that other OS vendors adopted the practice. Note that it wasn’t that other companies didn’t have code names for their products, it was just that they just didn’t use them as part of product marketing until Apple did (for example, how many people know that Windows XP was code named “Whistler”?).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Athletes worried about Zika can skip Olympics, but what about tech workers?

Golfer Jordan Spieth announced this morning that he will not play in the Olympic Games because of concerns over the Zika virus, meaning the world’s top four players in his sport have now opted out of going to Brazil. Savannah Guthrie, who hosts Today on NBC, will not be there either. The golfers are self-employed and need answer to no one, while Guthrie is pregnant. All enjoy the power of celebrity.But what of the rank-and-file employees who work for major technology companies sending large contingents to Brazil to provide services and show off their wares? Are they being asked – or compelled -- to ignore the risks? Conversely, could women of child-bearing age be denied the opportunity to go at an employer’s discretion? We asked a number of vendors and an expert in employment law.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft releases a new IFTTT language for wider use

Last month Microsoft introduced Flow, a service that allows you to create conditional connections between its business services. It supported both Microsoft products, such as Office, Office 365 and SharePoint, and non-Microsoft services, such as Twitter, Slack, Google Drive and Dropbox, letting you build conditional actions.For example, you could have a text alert generated when you received an email, automatically pull tweets into an Office app or get Slack notifications when a file is uploaded to a Dropbox folder.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

GE and Microsoft work together on IoT services in the cloud

GE and Microsoft have teamed up to bring the industrial giant's Predix platform-as-a-service offering to the Azure cloud, the two companies announced Monday. It's a move that helps add to the portfolio of Internet of Things services available through Microsoft's cloud platform, at a time when the company is pushing its service for IoT applications. The announcement came during Microsoft's Worldwide Partner Conference in Toronto, where GE CEO Jeff Immelt talked with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on stage.Predix is a platform-as-a-service offering that's designed for building applications that have industrial uses. Predix services that developers can tap into include asset management and anomaly detection offerings, among others. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Competition Heats Up In Cluster Interconnects

Any time a ranking of a technology is put together, that ranking is always called into question as to whether or not it is representative of reality. Rankings, such as the Top 500 list of the top supercomputers in the world, has been the subject of such debate with regards to the Linpack Fortran performance benchmark that is used to create the rankings and its relevance to the performance of actual workloads. When it comes to networking, the changes in the list in recent years are likely a better reflection of what is going on in high performance computing in …

Competition Heats Up In Cluster Interconnects was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

How to marry content, business process management

Alfresco Software was born a decade ago as an open source enterprise content management (ECM) provider and the company has enjoyed growing success with major corporations and government agencies struggling to deal with an explosion of information. More recently, Alfresco jumped into the business process management (BPM) market and its integration of ECM and BPM is gaining from enterprise buyers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

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