After a slow start, Dell turns up the dial on Steam Machines

Dell had high hopes for the Alienware Steam Machine after its delayed release last year, but it did not become as popular as its twin, Alienware Alpha, a Windows-based PC gaming console.The viability of Steam Machines, a family of Linux-based PC gaming consoles with SteamOS, has been questioned, but Dell isn't giving up yet. With better hardware and an expanding list of gaming titles, Dell is hoping that interest in Alienware Steam Machines will grow.The Steam Machine's rectangular console is based on a concept design from Valve, the world's largest independent game distributor. At the E3 show this week, Dell is announcing Steam Machines with faster graphics processors and chips. The systems will start shipping this week. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple Pay comes to the web

Apple Pay will soon be let users make online purchases, the company announced Monday at the WWDC 2016 keynote speech.“Now when you’re shopping online, you’ll have a ‘Pay with Apple Pay’ button,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering. The new feature will be available when the latest version of macOS, Sierra, becomes available to Mac users this fall.Federighi said the online “Apple Pay” button will require users to authenticate their identity from a TouchID device—iPhone or Apple Watch—to preserve the security of their transactions.Apple Pay first went into operation in October 2014, but it’s been confined to real-world brick-and-mortar transactions—with iPhone owners using that device to pay for items when checking out at such stores—as well as purchases made from iOS apps. Today’s announcement expands the service to the broader realm of e-commerce—putting the service in broader competition with online pay services like PayPal.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple Pay comes to the web

Apple Pay will soon be let users make online purchases, the company announced Monday at the WWDC 2016 keynote speech.“Now when you’re shopping online, you’ll have a ‘Pay with Apple Pay’ button,” said Craig Federighi, Apple’s senior vice president of software engineering. The new feature will be available when the latest version of macOS, Sierra, becomes available to Mac users this fall.Federighi said the online “Apple Pay” button will require users to authenticate their identity from a TouchID device—iPhone or Apple Watch—to preserve the security of their transactions.Apple Pay first went into operation in October 2014, but it’s been confined to real-world brick-and-mortar transactions—with iPhone owners using that device to pay for items when checking out at such stores—as well as purchases made from iOS apps. Today’s announcement expands the service to the broader realm of e-commerce—putting the service in broader competition with online pay services like PayPal.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5 reasons Microsoft is buying LinkedIn, in pictures

5 reasons Microsoft is buying LinkedIn, in picturesImage by MicrosoftMicrosoft is making its biggest tech acquisition ever, spending $26.2 billion for enterprise-focused social networking company LinkedIn. Why did it do it? On Monday, Satya Nadella and LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner discussed five compelling reasons. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

In pictures: 5 reasons Microsoft is buying LinkedIn

In pictures: 5 reasons Microsoft is buying LinkedInImage by MicrosoftMicrosoft is making its biggest tech acquisition ever, spending $26.2 billion for enterprise-focused social networking company LinkedIn. Why did it do it? On Monday, Satya Nadella and LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner discussed five compelling reasons. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Why Microsoft bought LinkedIn for $26 billion, in one word: Cortana

The image above says it all: Microsoft spent $26.1 billion to ensure that you’ll never walk into a meeting “cold” again.Picture a typical business trip: meetings all day, drinks at night. A good salesperson knows his or her contacts before he or she steps foot in the door. But that goes for coworkers as well: How you you make them feel comfortable? How do you make them part of a team? How do you let them know who to approach, both inside and outside the company?All of this usually takes some effort on your part, or at least a competent assistant. And that’s the role that Microsoft hopes to play, especially with its digital assistant, Cortana, and Office 365.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

AT&T and Samsung detail security gaps

Cybersecurity would seem to be a top priority for enterprises, but there are still breaches and apparent gaps in their defenses and the way that companies respond to attacks.In separate announcements on Monday, both AT&T and Samsung drew attention to the dilemma. They recommended new enterprise security assessments that build on the services already offered by both companies.Samsung announced a new partnership with Booz Allen Hamilton to help enterprises find and address gaps in their mobile security. This approach includes a two-day, on-site mobile security assessment for each client, using a model based on security standards from the bodies like the National Institutes of Standards and Technology, among others.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

AT&T and Samsung detail security gaps

Cybersecurity would seem to be a top priority for enterprises, but there are still breaches and apparent gaps in their defenses and the way that companies respond to attacks.In separate announcements on Monday, both AT&T and Samsung drew attention to the dilemma. They recommended new enterprise security assessments that build on the services already offered by both companies.Samsung announced a new partnership with Booz Allen Hamilton to help enterprises find and address gaps in their mobile security. This approach includes a two-day, on-site mobile security assessment for each client, using a model based on security standards from the bodies like the National Institutes of Standards and Technology, among others.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

AT&T and Samsung detail security gaps

Cybersecurity would seem to be a top priority for enterprises, but there are still breaches and apparent gaps in their defenses and the way that companies respond to attacks.In separate announcements on Monday, both AT&T and Samsung drew attention to the dilemma. They recommended new enterprise security assessments that build on the services already offered by both companies.Samsung announced a new partnership with Booz Allen Hamilton to help enterprises find and address gaps in their mobile security. This approach includes a two-day, on-site mobile security assessment for each client, using a model based on security standards from the bodies like the National Institutes of Standards and Technology, among others.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

NERSC Preps for Next Generation “Cori” Supercomputer

The powerful Cori supercomputer, now being readied for deployment at NERSC (The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center), has been named in honor of Gerty Cori. Cori was a Czech-American biochemist (August 15, 1896 – October 26, 1957) who became the first American woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize.

Cori (a.k.a. NERSC-8) is the Center’s newest supercomputer. Phase 1 of the system is currently installed with Phase 2 slated to be up and running this year.  Phase 1 is a Cray XC40 supercomputer based on the Intel Haswell multi-core processor with a theoretical peak performance of 1.92 petaflops/sec. It …

NERSC Preps for Next Generation “Cori” Supercomputer was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

When prepend fails, what next? (3)

We began this short series with a simple problem—what do you do if your inbound traffic across two Internet facing links is imbalanced? In other words, how do you do BGP load balancing? The first post looked at problems with AS Path prepend, while the second looked at de-aggregating and using communities to modify the local preference within the upstream provider’s network.

There is one specific solution I want to discuss a bit more before I end this little series: de-aggregation. Advertising longer prefixes is the “big hammer” of routing; you should always be careful when advertising more specifics. The Default Free Zone (DFZ) is much like the “commons” of an old village. No-one actually “owns” the routing table in the global Internet, but everyone benefits from it. De-aggregating don’t really cost you anything, but it does cost everyone else something. It’s easy enough to inject another route into the routing table, but remember the longer prefix you inject shows up everywhere in the world. You’re fixing your problem by taking up some small amount of memory in every router that’s connected to the DFZ in the world. If everyone de-aggregates, everyone has to buy larger routers and more Continue reading

IDG Contributor Network: Flash flood alerts: How sonar IoT systems help protect communities in Honduras

Rivers in Honduras flood frequently and suddenly, wreaking havoc, washing away houses, ruining crops and displacing families. Could IoT help provide early warning of floods?Robert Ryan-Silva took on this challenge with the Hidrosónico project. As director of the DAI maker lab, he’s an expert in applying technology for humanitarian projects around the world.Many villages and farms in Honduras are prone to flooding because they are on river banks. Designing a solution was challenging. It had to detect rising flood waters and alert families to evacuate in time. The solution had to be affordable, rugged and easy to install. Making things harder was the fact that mobile phones had only 20 percent penetration in Honduras.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

App makers should take responsibility for the effects of their creations

Imagine you’re a parent, living with your family in a quiet suburban subdivision. With very little traffic, your kids happily play in the street in front of your house. And then one day, construction begins on a distant thoroughfare, and suddenly hundreds of cars are racing down your formerly sleepy side street seeking to avoid the backup. And those cars didn’t arrive there randomly, they were sent there by traffic and navigation apps like Google’s Waze.For increasing numbers of people around the country, there’s no need to imagine this scenario, they’re already living it. And it brings up a couple of important questions: Who’s fault is this problem, and what can—and should—be done about it? The answers, unfortunately, aren’t simple.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Challenge Of Coding Across HPC Architectures

With the International Supercomputing 2016 conference fast approaching, the HPC community is champing at the bit to share insights on the latest technologies and techniques to make simulation and modeling applications scale further and run faster.

The hot topic of conversation is often hardware at such conferences, but hardware is easy. Software is the hard part, and techniques for exploiting the compute throughput of an increasingly diverse collection of engines – from multicore CPUs to GPUs to DSPs and to FPGAs – evolve more slowly than hardware. And they do so by necessity.

The OpenACC group is getting out ahead …

The Challenge Of Coding Across HPC Architectures was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

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