How to escape that forced Windows 10 upgrade you mistakenly agreed to

On Monday, hordes of angry Windows users pelted Microsoft with complaints about being lured into upgrading their PCs over the weekend. For months, Microsoft has been urging users running Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 to upgrade to Windows 10 before the free offer expires on July 29. But the series of dialog boxes and other messages that Microsoft has sent users have become increasingly deceptive, burying the opt-out links amid text that appears to commit users to the upgrade.Normally, closing the dialog box by clicking the red box in the upper righthand corner automatically opted out. Over the weekend, clicking that red box started opting users in to the upgrade.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How IoT will change the job market

The Internet of Things (IoT) is poised to bring millions of devices online, and as many as a quarter million unique IoT applications will be developed by the year 2020. That means opportunities for skilled developers and technologists will abound. However, there are other, subtler ways the IoT will affect the job market."We're seeing tech companies around the globe getting organized and creating IoT strategies, but where they're struggling is they don't have the processes and talent in-house to make these things happen," says Ryan Johnson, categories director for global freelance marketplace Upwork. By tracking data from Upwork's database, Johnson and his team have identified major technology skills companies need to drive a successful IoT strategy.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Lawsuit seeks the secrets behind the H-1B lottery

Two business immigration groups have filed a lawsuit seeking information about how the H-1B visa distribution system -- including the visa lottery -- works. It alleges that the U.S. has no right to keep most of the records secret.It is not surprising that the H-1B distribution system is coming under scrutiny in a lawsuit. The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) this year received 236,000 H-1B visa petitions for the 85,000 visas allowed under the current cap. The agency distributes visas each year via a lottery. The odds -- roughly one-in-three -- create a lot of frustration for applicants.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to avoid phishing attacks

Keep the network out of reach of criminalsImage by Susana FernandezAccording to the Verizon data breach investigation report published last month, phishing remains a major data breach weapon of choice. Trend Micro added that ransomware is expected to be one of the biggest threats in 2016 and that a single ransom demand will go much higher, reaching seven figures.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to avoid phishing attacks

Keep the network out of reach of criminalsImage by Susana FernandezAccording to the Verizon data breach investigation report published last month, phishing remains a major data breach weapon of choice. Trend Micro added that ransomware is expected to be one of the biggest threats in 2016 and that a single ransom demand will go much higher, reaching seven figures.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Government failing to fully address EMP threats to the grid, officials say

Government agencies have done some work to mitigate the danger of electromagnetic threats to the electrical grid, but it’s not enough, says the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).Despite some action by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—such as developing a prototype transformer that would significantly speed recovery from a power outage caused by a failed transformer and studying the impacts of severe space weather, such as solar storms—more must be done to protect the grid, Homeland Security News Wire reports on the April-published GAO study (PDF).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Government failing to fully address EMP threats to the grid, officials say

Government agencies have done some work to mitigate the danger of electromagnetic threats to the electrical grid, but it’s not enough, says the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).Despite some action by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—such as developing a prototype transformer that would significantly speed recovery from a power outage caused by a failed transformer and studying the impacts of severe space weather, such as solar storms—more must be done to protect the grid, Homeland Security News Wire reports on the April-published GAO study (PDF).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Government failing to fully address EMP threats to the grid, officials say

Government agencies have done some work to mitigate the danger of electromagnetic threats to the electrical grid, but it’s not enough, says the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO).Despite some action by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS)—such as developing a prototype transformer that would significantly speed recovery from a power outage caused by a failed transformer and studying the impacts of severe space weather, such as solar storms—more must be done to protect the grid, Homeland Security News Wire reports on the April-published GAO study (PDF).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Businesses lack a streamlined approach to digital transformation

Technology is transforming the business world, but for many companies, it's happening faster than they can keep up. Gartner released a report on the state of digital business transformation in 2016, polling 396 leaders of large companies in over 30 countries. The research showed that CEOs are generally optimistic about the future of digital transformation. Three quarters of CEOs reported an understanding about the future of digital transformation and that there needs to be a shift in how it's approached -- but just because they understand the implications doesn't mean they've made any moves towards going digital.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Response: Fibre Optic Multi-Core per Core Is Exciting

This article has opened my eyes to a future where a single fibre cable can have multiple cores. The future of Ethernet is yet to be determined as the IEEE community fights over whose technology patents will be used so that revenue from FRAND licensing can justify their own positions. So while we wait for […]

The post Response: Fibre Optic Multi-Core per Core Is Exciting appeared first on EtherealMind.

Scaling Data Backup Beyond Data Protection

What It Means To Embrace Digital Transformation

Need more analytics speed? Cray wants to light a fire under your big data

It's no secret that analytics is eating the enterprise world, but if there's anything in perpetually short supply, it's speed. Enter Cray, which on Tuesday unveiled a new supercomputing platform designed with that in mind.Dubbed Urika-GX, the new system is the first agile analytics platform to fuse supercomputing with an open, enterprise framework, Cray said.Due to be available in the third quarter, Urika-GX promises data scientists new levels of performance and the ability to find insight in massive data sets quickly. The system is tuned for highly iterative and interactive analytics, and integrated graph analytics offers rapid pattern matching.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

This site aims to be the Yelp of the SaaS world

Online reviews have already transformed the way people choose everything from restaurants to respiratory therapists, and now SaasGenius wants to do the same for enterprise software in the cloud.This week the company will launch a beta version of its service, and it invites participants to submit reviews of business software in 12 different categories.In the past, businesses looking for software relied primarily on word-of-mouth reviews, but SaasGenius aims to tap the model that's become so common on the consumer side.“We all now rely heavily on websites like Yelp and TripAdvisor in our personal lives -- these sites feature trusted reviews to help us make quick, easy purchase decisions," said Tom Gorski, cofounder and CEO at the firm. "Even employees in large companies now expect a more customer-like online research and buying experience.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Chip Upstarts Get Coherent With Hybrid Compute

Accelerators and coprocessors are proliferating in the datacenter, and it has been a boon for speeding up certain kinds of workloads and, in many cases, making machine learning or simulation jobs possible at scale for the first time. But ultimately, in a hybrid system, the processors and the accelerators have to share data, and moving it about is a pain in the neck.

Having the memory across these devices operate in a coherent manner – meaning that all devices can address all memory attached to those devices in a single, consistent way – is one of the holy grails of …

Chip Upstarts Get Coherent With Hybrid Compute was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

Virtual reality expert doesn’t see an easy fix for VR nausea

How real are virtual reality gaming experiences? If a video of a first-person shooter horror game on the HTC Vive are any indication, fairly real – at least real enough to totally freak out this chick. I own neither Vive nor Oculus at this point; yet I built a beast of a box and am interested in HTC Vive due to SteamVR Desktop Theater Mode which would allow a person to play every game in their Steam library in virtual reality. I can’t wait to slay VR room-sized Bitterblack Isle monsters and the continual flood of new foes on Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

EP04: Interview with Data Center Solutions expert Loy Evans at Cisco

Loy has been in the IT industry over 20 years. He got his start as a programmer, but jumped into the networking side of the house early in his career. He’s holds a CCIE in Routing & Switching and is currently employed at Cisco Systems as a Data Center Solutions Consultant. Loy has a true passion for Data Center technologies and has been a distinguished speaker at Cisco Live numerous times.

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IDG Contributor Network: Why cellular 911 has location problems

IDG Contributor Network: Why cellular 911 has location problems

Over the past two decades, the personal communications habits of Americans have profoundly changed. CTIA – The Wireless Association reported that the penetration of cellular devices surpassed 100 percent in 2012, and as of the latest 2014 report, penetration is now at 110 percent.With so many mobile devices deployed, it isn't surprising that the majority of calls to our nation’s 911 emergency public safety answering points (PSAP) originate from those devices. In fact, most U.S. dispatch agencies will tell you that wireless callers are responsible for at least 80 percent of their emergency call volume. Likewise, in the European Union, that number is well into the 90 percent range in many locations. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worth Reading: What network management can learn from Google Maps

Those of you who have been following my blog posts know that I find Network Management tools intensely frustrating, basically because in 25+ years they seem to have evolved so little. I comprehend the economics behind network management products; it is a small market compared to Servers and now Security, so budgets cap R&D. Even so, I’m left feeling that surely we could do better, a lot better! —NetCraftsmen

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