First look: Apple’s new MacBook is small, yet completely capable

A few years ago, my first impression of the MacBook Air was generally dismissive -- I felt the Air was underpowered and overpriced -- until I took a second look and realized it was perfect for road warriors. I won't make that mistake twice with Apple's latest MacBook. Like the MacBook Air, the 12-in. MacBook has new design elements that will be a deal-breaker for some and a revelation for others.As of this writing, I've spent less than a week with this laptop -- and the MacBook, with its forward-thinking design and accompanying tradeoffs, is the type of computer that requires time to get a real feel for its strengths and weaknesses. Instead, think of this as more of a first impression; I'll see how these observations hold up when I fully evaluate the MacBook after I've used it more.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Toshiba hopes to charm developers with kits for building wearables

Toshiba is hoping developers will use its application processors to build wearable devices, and has launched hardware and software development kits to help make it happen.The chip industry has become transfixed by the massive potential of the market for wearables and other IoT (Internet of Things) devices. Vendors such as Intel and Broadcom are developing products and offering development tools to make them easier to integrate. Toshiba has now joined the fray.The company’s new development environment includes an HDK (hardware development kit) embedded with the TZ1001MBG application processor, an SDK (software development kit) that runs on it, as well as a software development tool, according to Toshiba.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Hottest products at Interop 2015

Interop 2015Image by ShutterstockInterop 2015 is in full swing this year with an estimated 12,000 attendees and 300 exhibitors, including 125 new ones compared to last year. Check out our roundup of the hottest products and services being announced or displayed at this year’s conference. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google aims to transform European newsrooms

Google will give €150 million (US$163 million) to European publishers and digital journalism startups in the next three years as part of a wider package that aims to support the news sector.The Internet giant has had a difficult relationship with publishers in many countries in Europe over using snippets for its news indexing, but having eight top publishers joining its initiative may soften up other publishers to also do a deal.The move also comes just weeks after the European Commission charged Google with abusing its dominant position in Internet search services in Europe and started an antitrust probe into Android over app bundling practices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google aims to transform European newsrooms

Google will give €150 million (US$163 million) to European publishers and digital journalism startups in the next three years as part of a wider package that aims to support the news sector.The Internet giant has had a difficult relationship with publishers in many countries in Europe over using snippets for its news indexing, but having eight top publishers joining its initiative may soften up other publishers to also do a deal.The move also comes just weeks after the European Commission charged Google with abusing its dominant position in Internet search services in Europe and started an antitrust probe into Android over app bundling practices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Internet of Stupid Things

In those circles where Internet prognostications abound and policy makers flock to hear grand visions of the future, we often hear about the boundless future represented by “The Internet of Things”. In the vision of the Internet of Things we are going to expand the Internet beyond people and press on with connecting up our world using billions of these chattering devices in every aspect of our world. What do we know about the “things” that are already connected to the Internet? Some of them are not very good. In fact some of them are just plain stupid. And this stupidity is toxic, in that their sometimes inadequate models of operation and security can affect others in potentially malicious ways.

Xiaomi tries to end waiting period for phone buyers, amid complaints

Targeting sales of 80 million phones this year, Xiaomi is planning to end “flash sales” of small quantities of its best-selling products.The fast-rising company is China’s largest smartphone vendor, but its devices haven’t always been easy to buy. Xiaomi typically sells limited quantities of its smartphones once a week through its website, forcing customers to often scramble to place orders online.Chinese media have dubbed Xiaomi’s distribution model as a form of “hungry marketing”, that leaves consumers starving for more products. It’s also been the harshest complaint leveled against the company, said Xiaomi president Lin Bin on Tuesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

SendGrid resets passwords as investigation reveals deeper breach

SendGrid is resetting the passwords for all of its customers after an investigation showed a cyberattack it sustained earlier this month was more extensive than first realized.The company, which provides a service for companies to mass email their customers without getting blocked, said earlier this month an account of a Bitcoin-related customer was compromised and used to send phishing emails.Further investigation by FireEye’s Mandiant division had showed the attackers also compromised a SendGrid employee’s account and accessed internal systems on three days in February and March, wrote David Campbell, the company’s chief security officer.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Best Buy to accept Apple Pay, wants to give customers options

Best Buy said its customers could start using Apple Pay from Monday to make purchases on its app through the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, thus appearing to break ranks with a group of leading U.S. merchants who are backing an alternative payment system.“The acceptance of Apple Pay in the Best Buy app is the latest enhancement for our mobile platform,” the giant retailer said in a statement on Monday. Best Buy stores in the U.S. will start accepting Apple Pay later this year, it added.Apple CEO Tim Cook also announced during an earnings conference call Monday that Apple Pay would be supported on the Best Buy app and in stores later this year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Best Buy to accept Apple Pay, wants to give customers options

Best Buy said its customers could start using Apple Pay from Monday to make purchases on its app through the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, thus appearing to break ranks with a group of leading U.S. merchants who are backing an alternative payment system.“The acceptance of Apple Pay in the Best Buy app is the latest enhancement for our mobile platform,” the giant retailer said in a statement on Monday. Best Buy stores in the U.S. will start accepting Apple Pay later this year, it added.Apple CEO Tim Cook also announced during an earnings conference call Monday that Apple Pay would be supported on the Best Buy app and in stores later this year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

WordPress quickly patches second critical vulnerability

WordPress patched a second critical vulnerability in its Web publishing platform on Monday, less than a week after fixing a similar problem.Administrators are advised to upgrade to WordPress version 4.2.1. Some WordPress sites that are compatible with and use a plugin called Background Update Tester will update automatically.WordPress is one of the most-used Web publishing platforms. By the company’s own estimation, it runs 23 percent of the sites on the Internet, including major publishers such as Time and CNN.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US trade judge rules against Microsoft in phone patents case

Microsoft has lost the latest round in a patent-infringement case that could lead to an import ban on its phones.Administrative Law Judge Theodore Essex of the U.S. International Trade Commission ruled on Monday that Nokia and Microsoft Mobile products infringed two patents held by R&D company InterDigital. Essex’s decision is preliminary and will be reviewed by the full commission, which is expected to announce its final ruling on Aug. 28. The final ruling could lead to a ban on importing the phones into the U.S.The ruling covers most of Microsoft’s mobile phones, according to InterDigital spokesman Patrick Van de Wille. Microsoft acquired Nokia’s devices business last year. The patents in the case cover technologies involved in powering up a phone and having it connect to 3G wireless networks. Even though most current cellphones use 4G LTE, they still have 3G capability for use where 4G isn’t available.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Free Networking Books

It’s hard to believe in our ‘you are the product’ monetized world but there are some really good, high quality, free networking books out there, with absolutely no strings attached (think Ultron). Here’s a quick list of the one’s I know about. Please do let me know about any others you are aware of in […]

Author information

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson

Steven Iveson, the last of four children of the seventies, was born in London and has never been too far from a shooting, bombing or riot. He's now grateful to live in a small town in East Yorkshire in the north east of England with his wife Sam and their four children.

He's worked in the IT industry for over 20 years in a variety of roles, predominantly in data centre environments. Working with switches and routers pretty much from the start he now also has a thirst for application delivery, automation, SDN, virtualisation and related products and technologies. He's published a number of F5 Networks related books, is a regular contributor at DevCentral and was an F5 DevCentral MVP for 2014.

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The post Free Networking Books appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Continue reading

China, iPhone 6 help Apple to another record quarter

Apple achieved its second straight quarter of record results as demand for the new iPhone 6 surged and China became Apple’s second most important market after the U.S.The company sold 61.2 million units of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus during the the first three months of 2015, blasting past the 44 million [m] it shipped during the same quarter of last year when the iPhone 5S was still new on the market.Those sales helped Apple to a net profit of $13.6 billion [b], up by almost 33 percent, on revenue of $58 billion [b] for the quarter, up 27 percent. That’s above the $55 billion [b] Apple had said it was expecting and the $56 billion [b] consensus expectation from financial analysts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

China, iPhone 6 help Apple to another record quarter

Apple achieved its second straight quarter of record results as demand for the new iPhone 6 surged and China became Apple’s second most important market after the U.S.The company sold 61.2 million units of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus during the the first three months of 2015, blasting past the 44 million [m] it shipped during the same quarter of last year when the iPhone 5S was still new on the market.Those sales helped Apple to a net profit of $13.6 billion [b], up by almost 33 percent, on revenue of $58 billion [b] for the quarter, up 27 percent. That’s above the $55 billion [b] Apple had said it was expecting and the $56 billion [b] consensus expectation from financial analysts.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

NASA exploring half-million dollar fast computing challenge

NASA is looking at developing a public competition that would pit competitors in developing fast, powerful computers that would help support advanced applications.According to NASA, despite tremendous progress made in the past few decades, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) tools in particular are too slow for simulation of complex geometry flows, particularly those involving flow separation and combustion applications. To enable high-fidelity CFD for multi-disciplinary analysis and design, the speed of computation must be increased by orders of magnitude, the space agency said.+More on Network World: The zany world of identified flying objects+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Massachusetts drafts regulations for car-hailing services like Uber, Lyft

Drivers for Web-based, ride-hailing services in Massachusetts would be subject to criminal background checks by the state and their company if a bill unveiled Friday by the state’s governor becomes law.That safety provision is just one outlined in a bill that is designed to regulate companies like Uber and Lyft without stifling themThe proposed law would place such services in a new regulatory category called transportation network companies” and require them to obtain a special license from the state Department of Public Utilities, which oversees other modes of transportation. To cover the cost of this oversight, the companies would be subject to a yearly tax based on the revenue they earn in the state. Details on how the tax would be calculated weren’t provided.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The hollow rhetoric of nation-state threats

The government is using the threat of nation-state hackers to declare a state-of-emergency and pass draconian laws in congress. However, as the GitHub DDoS shows, the government has little interest in actually defending us.

It took 25 days to blame North Korea for the Sony hack, between the moment "Hacked by the #GOP" appeared on Sony computers and when President Obama promised retaliation in a news conference -- based on flimsy evidence of North Korea's involvement. In contrast, it's been more than 25 days since we've had conclusive proof the Chinese government was DDoSing GitHub, and our government has remained silent. China stopped the attacks after two weeks on their own volition, because GitHub defended itself, not because of anything the United States government did.

The reason for the inattention is that GitHub has no lobbyists. Sony spends several million dollars every year in lobbying, as well as hundreds of thousands in campaign contributions. When Sony gets hacked, politicians listen. In contrast, GitHub spends zero on either lobbying or contributions.

It's not that GitHub isn't important -- it's actually key infrastructure to the Internet. All computer nerds know the site. It's the largest repository of source-code on the Continue reading

Facebook adds free video calling to Messenger

Users can now place free video calls with Messenger, as Facebook continues to extend the app beyond simple text-based chats.With the feature, Facebook is also taking a jab at competing products like Apple’s FaceTime, Microsoft’s Skype and Google Hangouts. Facebook previously allowed video calling through its site on the desktop, but not within its Messenger app.The video calling feature is available in the iOS and Android Messenger apps. iOS users will be able to video chat with Android users, and vice versa. It began rolling out Monday in the U.S. and more than a dozen other countries including Mexico, Nigeria and Uruguay, with availability in more regions slated for the coming months, Facebook said in a blog post.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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