Coming soon: The Internet of Pee-Powered Things

Building the Internet of Things is a dirty job, but someone's got to do it.Researchers at the University of Bath have revealed a breakthrough -- cheekily dubbed "pee power" -- involving the use of urine to power electronic devices in remote locations.MORE: 10 Internet of Things companies to watchYou can read the details in their paper, titled "Towards effective small scale microbial fuel cells for energy generation from urine." But in a nutshell, they've figured out how to build one-inch-square fuel cells that cost a buck or two and that get their buzz from urine, which interacts with "electric" bacteria. So-called microbial fuel cells are seen as being a carbon-neutral source of power generation, and could be used to provide juice to devices such as smartphones.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

‎DARPA: Researchers develop chip part that could double wireless frequency capacity

A DARPA-funded research team said recently it had developed a tiny component for silicon-based circuitry that could double the radio-frequency (RF) capacity for wireless communications—offering faster web-searching as well as the development of smaller, less expensive and more readily upgraded antenna arrays for radar, signals intelligence, and other applications.+More on Network World: Einstein was right: Gravitational waves exist!+The work was led by Columbia University electrical engineers Harish Krishnaswamy and Negar Reiskarimian and funded under DARPA’s Arrays at Commercial Timescales (ACT) program, which is looking to develop wireless electronic components that can be integrated into larger, more advanced systems quickly. DARPA said ACT products aim to “shorten design cycles and in-field updates and push past the traditional barriers that lead to 10-year array development cycles, 20- to 30-year static life cycles and costly service-life extension programs.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

‎DARPA: Researchers develop chip part that could double wireless frequency capacity

A DARPA-funded research team said recently it had developed a tiny component for silicon-based circuitry that could double the radio-frequency (RF) capacity for wireless communications—offering faster web-searching as well as the development of smaller, less expensive and more readily upgraded antenna arrays for radar, signals intelligence, and other applications.+More on Network World: Einstein was right: Gravitational waves exist!+The work was led by Columbia University electrical engineers Harish Krishnaswamy and Negar Reiskarimian and funded under DARPA’s Arrays at Commercial Timescales (ACT) program, which is looking to develop wireless electronic components that can be integrated into larger, more advanced systems quickly. DARPA said ACT products aim to “shorten design cycles and in-field updates and push past the traditional barriers that lead to 10-year array development cycles, 20- to 30-year static life cycles and costly service-life extension programs.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Something Old, Something New…

Some time back a reader sent this question in—

Is there some list of design fundamentals which were “true” or at least “good rules of thumb” in the past (2 months to 20 years and beyond) which are still proclaimed as true and good, which we need to throw out, or at least question closely today?

It’s an interesting question—the problem is, of course, that there are two sorts of answers to this type of question. The first is rather specific, and the second is rather general. Let’s try the more specific answer first, and see if we can get to the more general one.

There are several rules of thumb that are no longer useful today.

OSPF and IS-IS flooding domains should be limited to 50/100/200 routers/intermediate systems. The old “50 in an area rule” is something several of us asked to be removed from Cisco Online something like 10 years ago, as it didn’t even apply then. I’ve heard 200 more recently, but the reality is—there is no right number here. I just did a two post series on dividing up flooding domains that might be useful here (part 1 and part 2).

There are provider Continue reading

Outdated Git version in OS X puts developers at risk

The OS X command line developer tools include an old version of the Git source code management system that exposes Mac users to remote code execution attacks.The Git client allows developers to interact with source code repositories. It is not installed by default on Mac OS X, but it is included in the Command Line Tools package for Xcode, Apple's integrated development environment (IDE).Software developers who create applications for OS X or iOS are likely to use Xcode and to have Apple's Command Line Tools package installed on their Macs. The latest version of this package includes Git version 2.6.4, released in December.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Outdated Git version in OS X puts developers at risk

The OS X command line developer tools include an old version of the Git source code management system that exposes Mac users to remote code execution attacks.The Git client allows developers to interact with source code repositories. It is not installed by default on Mac OS X, but it is included in the Command Line Tools package for Xcode, Apple's integrated development environment (IDE).Software developers who create applications for OS X or iOS are likely to use Xcode and to have Apple's Command Line Tools package installed on their Macs. The latest version of this package includes Git version 2.6.4, released in December.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Lawmakers call for middle ground on law enforcement access to encryption

Technology vendors and law enforcement agencies need to look for a compromise that allows police to gain access to encrypted devices during criminal investigations, lawmakers say.Many tech vendors and privacy advocates have suggested there is no available compromise between strong security for device users and police access to encrypted communications. But members of a congressional committee on Tuesday pushed both sides in the ongoing encryption debate to look again for a possible middle ground.As Apple and the FBI continue to argue in court about whether the company should assist the agency with unlocking iPhones, "it's time to begin a new chapter in this battle, one which I hope can ultimately bring some resolution to the war," said Representative Tim Murphy, a Pennsylvania Republican.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Lawmakers call for middle ground on law enforcement access to encryption

Technology vendors and law enforcement agencies need to look for a compromise that allows police to gain access to encrypted devices during criminal investigations, lawmakers say.Many tech vendors and privacy advocates have suggested there is no available compromise between strong security for device users and police access to encrypted communications. But members of a congressional committee on Tuesday pushed both sides in the ongoing encryption debate to look again for a possible middle ground.As Apple and the FBI continue to argue in court about whether the company should assist the agency with unlocking iPhones, "it's time to begin a new chapter in this battle, one which I hope can ultimately bring some resolution to the war," said Representative Tim Murphy, a Pennsylvania Republican.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

SDN is NOT an Innovation, its Iteration

The big Red Herring in networking over the past ten years is most things labeled “innovative” when the word that should be used is “iterative.”

The post SDN is NOT an Innovation, its Iteration appeared first on EtherealMind.

Meet a handheld server with a 13-terabyte SSD

Fixstars' Olive is like the Raspberry Pi of servers, but with a twist -- it packs 13TB of solid-state drive storage in a system that can be held in one hand.Olive could be viewed as a full-fledged computer crammed into a 2.5-inch SSD drive. The 13TB drive makes it one-of-a-kind in a market where compact computers are hungry for storage.Some unique features make the server better suited for businesses than homes. It is customizable, with an FPGA (field-programmable gate array), which can be reprogrammed for specific tasks. It can also be used as a portable server to dish out movies, or to collect, store and distribute data related to databases or the Internet of Things.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Today Is A Big Day For Page Rules

Today we're releasing a whole suite of upgrades to page rules: API support, additional settings, pausing a page rule and a mobile-friendly design. Page Rules is the technology that allows you to configure your CloudFlare settings on a per-URL basis. It's often our most powerful feature, enabling CloudFlare domain owners to customize CloudFlare's functionality to exactly match their application's needs.

Announcing API Support For Page Rules

Page Rules are now fully programmable via API.

$ curl -X POST "https://api.cloudflare.com/client/v4/zones/${ZONE_TAG}/pagerules" 
    -H "X-Auth-Email: [email protected]" 
    -H "X-Auth-Key: 000000000000" 
    -H "Content-Type: application/json" 
    --data '{
        "targets":[{
            "target":"url",
            "constraint":{
                    "operator":"matches",
                    "value":"*example.com/images/*"
            }
        }],
        "actions":[{
            "id":"always_online",
            "value":"on"
        }],
        "priority":1,
        "status":"active"
    }'

Starting today, you can script the creation and modification of page rules. You can integrate page rules into your deployment process to bypass caching on every new API endpoint you ship, or to automatically sync your page rules across your domains on CloudFlare. Check out the page rules API docs and get started today. We can't wait to see what automations you build.

13 New Settings Now Available On Page Rules

Instead of the short list of settings you could previously toggle, we've added menus with almost every Continue reading

Worth Reading: 30 years later, where is the smart home?

…it is rather puzzling that now, 30 years later, our homes are not much smarter than those of the 1980s. Yes, we have more gadgets and devices but no integrated holistic smart home. Given this, I can’t see that the version we now have in mind regarding the design for the smart home of 2016 will see a sudden rapid deployment.

The post Worth Reading: 30 years later, where is the smart home? appeared first on 'net work.

NYPD hijacks #UnlockJustice to bash encryption, but its hashtag gets hijacked

A coalition, including the New York Police Department and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, launched an anti-encryption campaign along with a hashtag of #UnlockJustice because “crime victims are entitled to stronger protections than criminals.”“The debate over encryption is often referred to in terms of privacy and security, with little regard for the impact on crime victims,” the press release stated. The Manhattan DA complained about the 230 inaccessible Apple devices running iOS 8 or higher that it can’t unlock and how unfair encryption and “warrant-proof” devices are to crime victims. Companies, according to Vance, should not be permitted “to provide criminals with unprecedented, evidence-free zones.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

NYPD hijacks #UnlockJustice to bash encryption, but its hashtag gets hijacked

A coalition including the New York Police Department and Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance launched an anti-encryption campaign along with a hashtag of #UnlockJustice because “crime victims are entitled to stronger protections than criminals.”“The debate over encryption is often referred to in terms of privacy and security, with little regard for the impact on crime victims,” the press release stated. The Manhattan DA complained about the 230 inaccessible Apple devices running iOS 8 or higher that it can’t unlock and how unfair encryption and “warrant-proof” devices are to crime victims. Companies, according to Vance, should not be permitted “to provide criminals with unprecedented, evidence-free zones.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Sorry, Boaty fans: The Internet can’t always get what it wants

No one laughed more than I did when the Internet stepped up and voted overwhelmingly to name a British research ship Boaty McBoatface. The suggested moniker still made me giggle days later.But now comes word that the officials tasked with actually naming the ship are not that big on Boaty. From a story in the Guardian: However, Jo Johnson, the science minister, signaled the government was preparing to activate its get-out clause. “The new royal research ship will be sailing into the world’s iciest waters to address global challenges that affect the lives of hundreds of millions of people, including global warming, the melting of polar ice and rising sea levels,” he said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Sorry, Boaty fans: The Internet can’t always get what it wants

No one laughed more than I did when the Internet stepped up and voted overwhelmingly to name a British research ship Boaty McBoatface. The suggested moniker still made me giggle days later.But now comes word that the officials tasked with actually naming the ship are not that big on Boaty. From a story in the Guardian: However, Jo Johnson, the science minister, signaled the government was preparing to activate its get-out clause. “The new royal research ship will be sailing into the world’s iciest waters to address global challenges that affect the lives of hundreds of millions of people, including global warming, the melting of polar ice and rising sea levels,” he said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Don’t buy into hybrid cloud headache hype, GE’s cloud guru says

General Electric is on an aggressive pursuit of going embracing cloud services, the company's CTO – IT Chris Drumgoogle told me recently.GE has tens of thousands of apps; petabytes of storage and more than $100 billion in annual revenue. So it can’t rely on just a single vendor. Drumgoole says that GE’s highest value apps in the cloud straddle across at least two providers. Lower-priority apps can run in one cloud. Chris Drumgoole, CTO of IT, General Electric: Hybrid cloud hype is 'overblown'To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Viber follows WhatsApp in adding end-to-end encryption to its messaging service

Viber, a popular instant messaging and Voice-over-IP service provider with more than 700 million users, has implemented end-to-end encryption to protect its customers' communications against snooping.The move comes after Facebook-owned WhatsApp turned on full end-to-end encryption earlier this month, bringing secure and private instant messaging into the mainstream.The majority of IM apps have long encrypted the communications between users' devices and their own servers. However, in such a configuration, the service providers themselves can still read communications as they pass through their servers to get routed to the intended recipients.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Viber follows WhatsApp in adding end-to-end encryption to its messaging service

Viber, a popular instant messaging and Voice-over-IP service provider with more than 700 million users, has implemented end-to-end encryption to protect its customers' communications against snooping.The move comes after Facebook-owned WhatsApp turned on full end-to-end encryption earlier this month, bringing secure and private instant messaging into the mainstream.The majority of IM apps have long encrypted the communications between users' devices and their own servers. However, in such a configuration, the service providers themselves can still read communications as they pass through their servers to get routed to the intended recipients.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Former Cisco UCS Team Tackles Containers

A new breed of data problems needs a new breed of appliance, Diamanti figures.