The weirdest, wackiest and coolest sci/tech stories of 2015 (so far!)

Your wackiestIn 2015 the science world has been dominated by space event – NASA’s flyby of Pluto and subsequent deluge of information about that dwarf planet. Then we have another NASA probe – Kepler – pointing out one closest-to-Earth planet discoveries to date. There have been tons of other interesting stories though regarding 3D printed cars, drones, high-tech singers and more. Take a spin:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google to decouple Google+ from some of its sites

Google is severing the ties between its social network and other of its services, so that users will not need to log in to other sites like YouTube using a Google+ account.In the coming months, people will only need a standard Google account—not a Google+ account—to do things like share content, communicate with contacts, and create a YouTube channel, the company announced Monday. YouTube will be one of the first products to adopt the change.Since launching Google+ in 2011, the company has tried to integrate it into its various other properties, partly in an aim to unify people’s identities across them. But the integrations have not always gone smoothly. Google sparked outrage from users when in 2013 the company began requiring people to hold a Google+ account to post YouTube comments.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Security researchers take aim at Roku streaming media players

If you are sick of your ever-increasing cable bill, have you considered becoming a cord cutter? If you spent a bundle on your TVs but they aren't smart TVs, you likely aren't planning to abandon them. PCMag has a decent cord cutter's guide; for folks without a smart TV, TechHive's media streamer buyers' guide compared Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Google Chromecast, Nvidia Shield Android TV, and Roku 3 before recommending Roku 3 "as the best all-around option." TechHive explained:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Thank You SysAdmins!

With SysAdmin Day coming up on Friday, July 31st, now is a great time to thank our SysAdmins for everything they do! Without them, who knows what we would do when a server is down. For setting up servers, monitoring for stability, … Continued

IDG Contributor Network: Robots could wipe out the human race, expert says

Robots will become smarter and faster than humans, an Oxford University professor said recently. And not only will robots be better than us at a lot of things, they'll eventually take over and make humans redundant, the professor reckons.Predictions Dr. Stuart Armstrong, of Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, thinks the future relationship between humans and robots is not going to turn out well for the humans. Among the prophecies? Armstrong thinks humans could be wiped out because robots' Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) comprehension is going to be too literal. For example, the robots could interpret an instruction such as "prevent human suffering" as "kill all humans."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Where to start with Cisco & SourceFire

Since Cisco announced EoX for both it’s traditional IPS and it’s CX-Modules it’s been time to start looking at the new SourceFire modules, however that can be quite an undertaking since SourceFire is a completely different beast from its predecessors. Which raises the question where do you start to begin getting familiar with this new system. […]

Good Enough

catalog-rack
Looking at my desk in the late 1990’s, that little haven where I came in early in the morning, and left ealry’ish in the afternoon, you’d see a catalog rack. Only it wasn’t full of catalogs, it contained a full set of the latest Cisco IOS documentation. We whined when a new version of the docs came out that wouldn’t fit in the catalog racks we already owned, and ordered another one. There was a bookcase on the side which contained the documentation from the last two or three versions of the IOS code, and then every hardware manual I could find. Another stack of books would be lying in a corner, the “quick reference” stuff that wouldn’t fit in one of the catalog racks. All over the walls were pieces of paper, carefully crafted shortcut sheets, shared around the TAC, pinned up. Given the nature of cubicle walls, we either bought special cubicle clips, or we made to do with various sorts of push pins. Just a few years later, the ISO auditors came along and made us throw it all away. Every last scrap. The dumpsters were filled to the max. Extra dumpsters were brought in, and we Continue reading

30 – VxLAN/EVPN and Integrated Routing Bridging

VxLAN/EVPN and Integrated Routing Bridging

Summary

As I mentioned in the post  28 – Is VxLAN Control Plane a DCI solution for LAN extension, VxLAN/EVPN is taking a big step forward with its Control Plane and could be used potentially for extending Layer 2 segments across multiple sites. However it is still crucial that we keep in mind some weaknesses and lacks related to DCI purposes.

DCI is not just a layer 2 extension between two or multiple sites. DCI/LAN extension is aiming to offer business continuity and elasticity for the cloud (hybrid cloud). It offers disaster recovery and disaster avoidances services for Enterprise business applications, consequently it must be very robust and efficient. As it concerns on Layer 2 broadcast domain, it is really important to understand the requirement for a solid DCI/LAN extension and how we can leverage the right tools and network services to address some of the shortcomings that rely on the current implementation of VxLAN/EVPN offering a solid DCI solution.

In this article we will examine the integrated anycast L3 gateway available with VxLAN/EVPN MP-BGP control plane, which is one of the key DCI requirements.

Integrated Routing and Bridging

One of the needs for an efficient DCI deployment is the Continue reading

Most Android phones can be hacked with a simple MMS message or multimedia file

The vast majority of Android phones can be hacked by sending them a specially crafted multimedia message (MMS), a security researcher has found.The scary exploit, which only requires knowing the victim’s phone number, was developed by Joshua Drake, vice president of platform research and exploitation at mobile security firm Zimperium.Drake found multiple vulnerabilities in a core Android component called Stagefright that’s used to process, play and record multimedia files. Some of the flaws allow for remote code execution and can be triggered when receiving an MMS message, downloading a specially crafted video file through the browser or opening a Web page with embedded multimedia content.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Predicting winners and losers in the EMV rollout

We're just a couple months shy of the big EMV liability shift. That’s when companies that don't accept chip-enabled debit and credit cards take on financial responsibility for hacks and fraud.But who's ready? Who's not? And who will come out ahead when that October 1 deadline rolls around?"We operate a very large, diversified, complex payments ecosystem in the U.S.," says Randy Vanderhoof, director of the EMV Migration Forum. "We have thousands of issuers of payment cards. We have millions of merchant retailers and tens of millions of point of sale devices that all need to be upgraded and changed to support EMV."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Monday, July 27

Facebook prevails in shareholder lawsuit over IPOYou have to own stock to participate in a shareholder class action lawsuit, an appeals court has ruled, confirming an earlier Manhattan district court ruling. The case brought by Facebook shareholders accused the company of withholding key financial information from the public until after its IPO. Circuit Judge Dennis Jacobs said that because the shareholders weren’t owners of Facebook stock at the time the sales information wasn’t disclosed, they had no legal standing to sue.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Monday, July 27

Facebook prevails in shareholder lawsuit over IPOYou have to own stock to participate in a shareholder class action lawsuit, an appeals court has ruled, confirming an earlier Manhattan district court ruling. The case brought by Facebook shareholders accused the company of withholding key financial information from the public until after its IPO. Circuit Judge Dennis Jacobs said that because the shareholders weren’t owners of Facebook stock at the time the sales information wasn’t disclosed, they had no legal standing to sue.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New products of the week 07.27.2015

New products of the weekOur roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow.CudaLaunchKey features – CudaLaunch is designed for both mobile workers and IT administrators, with simple end-user features for productivity and easy-to-use management features for administrators. More info.  To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How much do CIOs really make? Pay packages of 25 Fortune 500 execs revealed

Inside CIO paychecksCIO salaries in the U.S. average between $157,000 and $262,500, according to Robert Half Technology. But salary is just the beginning. Cash bonuses and equity awards can propel pay packages into the millions. To find out how much CIOs at giant global companies really earn, we scoured the proxy statements of the 500 largest U.S. companies (according to Fortune's ranking) and found 25 that disclosed CIO pay. Here are the details on their pay packages, organized from lowest to highest paid. If available, compensation for these individuals in prior years is included.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

1 … 3,300 3,301 3,302 3,303 3,304 … 3,759