Community is Key

So in case anyone didn’t know, I got to speak at Interop Las Vegas 2016 last week. It was an amazing experience, and I think it changed my professional outlook on a lot of things.  I had never attended a large conference like this before, and it was slightly daunting in that respect, to say […]

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DHS moves to bolster intrusion/detection for federal networks

Looking to address a substantial shortfall in the government’s major weapon for defending against cyber attacks, the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) said it has added a new intrusion prevention security service to the National Cybersecurity Protection System (NCPS)— also known as Einstein 3A.In a Privacy Impact Assessment, the DHS said the intrusion prevention, a Web Content Filtering system, provides protection at the application layer for web traffic by blocking access to suspicious websites, preventing malware from running on systems and networks, and detecting and blocking phishing attempts as well as malicious web content. This service will be added to the existing E3A intrusion prevention security services that are already in place, the DHS stated.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft expands its Azure cloud platform to South Korea

Microsoft is expanding the global footprint of its cloud platform to South Korea, and it has officially launched its previously announced data center in Canada, the company announced Tuesday. In South Korea, Microsoft's cloud will be getting two new regions, including one in Seoul. They're aimed at serving both customers of the company's Azure cloud platform, and also its other services, including Office 365 and Dynamics CRM Online. Customers also now have full use of two Microsoft Azure regions in Canada, located in Quebec City and Toronto. This announcement is part of Microsoft's ongoing plan to expand the geographic reach of its cloud computing platform. The expansion serves a pair of purposes: meeting the data sovereignty needs of customers, and making it faster for people to access Microsoft's cloud. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Facebook Flow Is An AI Factory Of The Future

We have been convinced for many years that machine learning, the kind of artificial intelligence that actually works in practice, not in theory, would be a key element of the next platform. In fact, it might be the most important part of the stack. And therefore, those who control how we deploy machine learning will, to a large extent, control the nature of future applications and the systems that run them.

Machine learning is the killer app for the hyperscalers, just like modeling and simulation were for supercomputing centers decades ago, and we believe we are only seeing the tip …

Facebook Flow Is An AI Factory Of The Future was written by Timothy Prickett Morgan at The Next Platform.

What SWAG will Google I/O 2016 attendees take home?

Next week, Google will show its love for independent software developers by giving them an exclusive first-look at new technologies and early and free access to new hardware at the ninth annual Google I/O conference. Here are a couple of educated guesses at free hardware, which developers call SWAG (something we all get), attendees will take home.Early access hardware giveaways The past is a good predictor of the future. Looking back at earlier I/O shows, Google wanted to give their loyal developers a head start developing for strategic new platforms and bestowed upon them the newest hardware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Privacy advocates want protections for US residents in foreign surveillance law

Congress should limit the ability of the FBI and other agencies to search for information about U.S. residents in a database of foreign terrorism communications collected by the National Security Agency, privacy advocates say.The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act, which allows the NSA to collect foreign Internet communications, expires in late 2017, and Congress should require that the communications of U.S. residents swept up in the controversial Prism and Upstream programs be protected with court-ordered warrants, privacy advocates told a Senate committee Tuesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Privacy advocates want protections for US residents in foreign surveillance law

Congress should limit the ability of the FBI and other agencies to search for information about U.S. residents in a database of foreign terrorism communications collected by the National Security Agency, privacy advocates say.The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Amendments Act, which allows the NSA to collect foreign Internet communications, expires in late 2017, and Congress should require that the communications of U.S. residents swept up in the controversial Prism and Upstream programs be protected with court-ordered warrants, privacy advocates told a Senate committee Tuesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Dropbox goes off to college with new Education service

Dropbox launched a new service on Tuesday to help graduate students, college faculty and staff collaborate on files while they’re at school. Schools can now pay $50 per user, per year for Dropbox Education, a version of the cloud storage company’s premium offering for organizations that’s tailored to the cost-sensitive education market. Dropbox is trying to sell more paid services, but its offerings have been aimed primarily at businesses. Dropbox Education will cost much less than the company's business plans, which typically run from $150 to $300 per user, per month.It’s a move that could give the company a bigger foothold in the lucrative education market at a time when Dropbox is working hard to expand its business beyond a large base of free consumer users. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Worldwide mobile app market hits $34 billion

Remember a few years ago when everyone and his brother was scrambling to build a mobile app in a frantic gold rush to get rich quick? Well, there was plenty of real gold in them thar virtual hills, but as in most gold rushes, only few people actually struck it rich.Similarly, over time the nimble advantages of the early online prospectors have been overtaken by the giant companies that now largely own the digital world.At least, that’s my takeaway from IDC’s new Worldwide Mobile Applications Forecast, 2016-2020 study. According to the IDC research, “mobile device users installed nearly 156 billion mobile applications worldwide in 2015, generating $34.2 billion in direct (non-advertising) revenue.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Intel Stretches Deep Learning on Scalable System Framework

The strong interest in deep learning neural networks lies in the ability of neural networks to solve complex pattern recognition tasks – sometimes better than humans. Once trained, these machine learning solutions can run very quickly – even in real-time – and very efficiently on low-power mobile devices and in the datacenter.

However training a machine learning algorithm to accurately solve complex problems requires large amounts of data that greatly increases the computational workload. Scalable distributed parallel computing using a high-performance communications fabric is an essential part of what makes the training of deep learning on large complex datasets …

Intel Stretches Deep Learning on Scalable System Framework was written by Nicole Hemsoth at The Next Platform.

How we built Origin CA: Web Crypto

At CloudFlare we strive to combine features that are simple, secure, and backed by solid technology. The Origin CA is a great example of this. You no longer need to go to a third-party certificate authority to protect the connection between CloudFlare and your origin server. You can now get a certificate to encrypt the connection between CloudFlare and the origin from CloudFlare directly with one click.

In certificate-based security, the most important thing is protecting the private key. We designed the one-click certificate dashboard to maximize private key security. Your private key is created client-side in your browser using the W3C’s Web Crypto API and only the public key is sent to CloudFlare’s servers. This security feature turned out to be a big win for usability as well as an interesting technical challenge.

Certificate authorities don’t need your private key

Most certificate authorities (CAs) specialize in one type of transaction: they take a certificate signing request (CSR) (and sometimes a fee) and in return they provide a signed certificate. A CSR is a way to tell a certificate authority what your public key is and to prove you have control of the corresponding private key. The certificate authority doesn’t Continue reading

6 traits engineers need to succeed as IT leaders

Engineers and developers often make the best IT leaders. Not only are they forward-thinking and tech-savvy, but they've already have the trust and the loyalty of your IT team and they know the ins-and-outs of a great culture. If you're looking for good IT leadership, you should start from within your own ranks, says Kathy Harris, managing director of technology executive recruitment firm Harris Allied. Not only will this foster greater trust and engagement, it can be a powerful recruiting tool for other elite talent, Harris says."Top people always want to work with other star talent. They understand that within that environment they can learn, grow and be challenged professionally. Including engineers and developers in your IT leadership also means there's someone at the table who understands the technology, the methodology, the quirks of your organization and the culture," says Harris. Here are six traits to look for in a great IT leader.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Public sector embraces bigger, longer outsourcing deals

Over the past five years, as outsourcing in the commercial sector has grown steadily but modestly, the annual contract value of outsourcing deals in the public sector has more than doubled, according to analysis by outsourcing consultancy ISG. Today, public sector outsourcing deals account for two-thirds of the annual contract value in the market overall.Much of the activity is happening in the U.S., which consists almost entirely of information technology work and driven in large part by Department of Defense spending, according to ISG. The Department of Homeland Security and the Department of Health and Human Services, contending with the changes mandated by the Affordable Care Act, are also significant users of third-party IT services.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5 key requirements of successful big data projects

VANCOUVER, BC - Successful big data projects have five key requirements, says Amy Gaskins, a data scientist with more than a decade of experience designing and implementing data and intelligence projects for the private sector, government agencies and the U.S. military.In her keynote presentation at the Apache: Big Data North America conference in Vancouver on Monday, Gaskins stressed that five factors can make or break big data projects: Buy-in. It's commonly acknowledged at this point that big data projects need buy-in from senior leadership to succeed. But Gaskins says that's not enough. You need buy-in at every level, including middle management and workers themselves. "You need to get it from senior leadership, but also the middle and bottom. Why are we doing this? Everyone needs to understand." Urgency. "Is there an existential threat to your business or the mission if you don't do this?" Gaskins asks. Transparency. Do people both inside and outside the organization know what we're doing and why? Can it be repeated? Involvement of non-data science subject matter experts (SMEs). Non-data science SMEs are the ones who understand their fields inside and out. They provide the context that allows you to understand what Continue reading

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