Google-backed Magic Leap opens up to third-party developers

Magic Leap, the mysterious startup backed by Google that is developing a headset for augmented reality, wants outside help to create content for its device.On Tuesday, the company said it would be opening its platform to third-party developers with an SDK (software development kit) that would let developers create content for Magic Leap’s system.Magic Leap has developed what it calls a photonics light field chip, which would project 3D images directly on people’s eyes and superimpose those images over what users see in the real world. It’s designed to be superior to stereoscopic vision, which uses two different images to trick the eye into thinking something is 3D. Magic Leap thinks this “augmented” content could take any number of forms, for applications in gaming but also in storytelling and communications.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Uh, the only reform of domestic surveillance is dismantling it

A lot of smart people are cheering the reforms of domestic surveillance in the USA "FREEDOM" Act. Examples include  Timothy Lee, EFF, Julian Sanchez, and Amie Stepanovich. I don't understand why. Domestic surveillance is a violation of our rights. The only acceptable reform is getting rid of it. Anything less is the moral equivalent of forcing muggers to not wear ski masks -- it doesn't actually address the core problem (mugging, in this case).

Bulk collection still happens, and searches still happen. The only thing the act does is move ownership of the metadata databases from the NSA to the phone companies. In no way does the bill reform the idea that, on the pretext of terrorism, law enforcement can still rummage through the records, looking for everyone "two hops" away from a terrorist.

We all know the Patriot Act is used primarily to prosecute the War on Drugs rather than the War on Terror. I see nothing in FREEDOM act that reforms this. We all know the government cloaks its abuses under the secrecy of national security -- and while I see lots in the act that tries to make things more transparent, the act still Continue reading

Oracle brings Ghostery into Marketing Cloud to help users monitor their websites

The average company has about 70 different types of third-party code on its website but is aware of only about a third of them. The rest are hidden in services like ad networks, widgets and analytics tools, and they can bog down performance, threaten security and compromise search-engine optimization.That’s according to Ghostery, which on Tuesday announced a partnership with Oracle whereby its TrackerMap Live monitoring tool is now available to users of the Oracle Marketing Cloud. Offered on the Oracle Marketing AppCloud, TrackerMap Live is designed to help reveal the interconnected ecosystem of code and third-party tags on company websites.Using TrackerMap Live, companies can pinpoint where each tag on their site comes from and see what its effects are. Along the way, they can determine whether vendors are placing unwanted or non-secure piggyback tags on their website without permission.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The White Box SDN Twitter 45

With SDN and white box news flying fast and furious through the Internet, it can be hard to keep up with really great articles. Twitter is a great place to monitor breaking White Box and SDN news, but where do you start? This blog presents a list of 45 top White Box SDN Twitter handles you should follow to keep up. The following Tweeters have their fingers on the pulse of White Boxes and SDN. See the list below or follow the whole group at Pica8’s SDN 45.

  1. @bigswitch – Big Switch Networks
  2. @BradCasemore – Brad Casemore
  3. @capveg – Rob Sherwood
  4. @CIMICorp – Tom Nolle
  5. @Cloud_SDN – Cloud SDN
  6. @colin_dixon – Colin Dixon
  7. @craigmatsumoto – Craig Matsumoto
  8. @CumulusNetworks – Cumulus Networks
  9. @DanPittPaloAlto – Dan Pitt
  10. @e_hanselman – Eric Hanselman
  11. @ecbanks – Ethan Banks
  12. @etherealmind – Greg Ferro
  13. @IEEESDN – IEEE SDN
  14. @ioshints – Ivan Pepelnjak
  15. @IPv6Freely – Chris Jones
  16. @jonisick – Joe Onisick
  17. @JRCumulus – JR Rivers
  18. @martin_casado – Martim Casado
  19. @mbushong – Michael Bushong
  20. @mitchwagner – Mitch Wagner
  21. @NetworkedAlex – Alex Walker
  22. @NickLippis – Nick Lippis
  23. @ONLab_ONOS – Open Networking Lab
  24. @ONUG_ – Open Networking User Group
  25. @OpenDaylightSDN – Open Daylight Project
  26. @openflow – Open Networking Foundation
  27. @OpenSourceSDN – Continue reading

IPv6 DMVPN Routing

In our last article we looked at IPv6 over IPv4 DMVPN configuration, where IPv4 transport was used to tunnel IPv6 traffic. In this blog post I would like to show you how to deploy pure IPv6 DMVPN network, and even more importantly, how to enable one IPv6 Routing Protocol over another in the Cloud.

Since IPv6 will be now also used as the underlying transport, the overall configuration of the DMVPN devices will be a little bit different from the previous example; also note that our topology was slightly modified :

IPv6-DMVPN-20

Key thing here is that NBMA addresses are no longer IPv4; basically IPv6 is used everywhere, which means that our mappings on the Spokes will be always referring to v6 information.

Let’s start our configuration. We will first configure our Hub (R3), then the Spokes (R2, R4), and finally enable routing on the Overlay network. Since IPSec is optional, we will not be using it in this example (note that to protect IPv6 packets IKEv2 would have to be used, not IKEv1).

R3 (Hub) configuration. Again, everything is IPv6, including the tunnel mode. Don’t forget that link-local addresses must be always hard-coded on a given Cloud, on every device Continue reading

Senate passes bill to rein in NSA phone dragnet

The U.S. Senate has passed legislation intended to rein in the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of domestic telephone records, sending the bill to President Barack Obama for his signature.The Senate’s 67-32 vote Tuesday on the USA Freedom Act restores a limited telephone records program at the NSA to resume after the old bulk collection program expired Sunday night. After Obama’s signature, the NSA will have six months to transition its phone records database to U.S. telecom carriers.The USA Freedom Act, aimed at ending bulk collection of telephone records, was needed after revelations about the program by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in mid-2013, supporters said. Some digital rights groups have blasted the bill as “fake reform,” but the bill’s limits on the NSA will help restore the U.S. public’s trust in government surveillance efforts, said Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and sponsor of the bill.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Senate passes bill to rein in NSA phone dragnet

The U.S. Senate has passed legislation intended to rein in the National Security Agency’s bulk collection of domestic telephone records, sending the bill to President Barack Obama for his signature.The Senate’s 67-32 vote Tuesday on the USA Freedom Act restores a limited telephone records program at the NSA to resume after the old bulk collection program expired Sunday night. After Obama’s signature, the NSA will have six months to transition its phone records database to U.S. telecom carriers.The USA Freedom Act, aimed at ending bulk collection of telephone records, was needed after revelations about the program by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden in mid-2013, supporters said. Some digital rights groups have blasted the bill as “fake reform,” but the bill’s limits on the NSA will help restore the U.S. public’s trust in government surveillance efforts, said Senator Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat and sponsor of the bill.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Faster Wi-Fi is coming soon to a device near you

Wi-Fi in your home or office could get a big speed boost by the end of this year with Qualcomm's newest chip, which reaches new highs in data transfer speeds.The peak wireless data transfer speeds of the QCA9994 and QCA9984 Wi-Fi chips will reach 1.7G bps (bits per second). That speed can be achieved through single or multiple data streams from devices on an 802.11ac Wi-Fi network.MORE: Full speed ahead for 802.11ac WiFiThe speed tops Qualcomm's previous high of around 1Gbps, which it achieved in products released last year. To put the wireless speed in perspective, the data transfer speeds of a wired USB 3.0 connection peaks at 5Gbps, which in most cases is considered adequate for external hard drives.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Really smart phones: Now they can predict your GPA

Researchers at Dartmouth College and the University of Texas at Austin have developed an Android app that they say can predict students’ grade point averages without prior knowledge of data such as SAT scores, IQ or school track records. What’s more, the technology could have future applications for predicting employee performance.SmartGPA is a cloud-backed app that relies on embedded passive sensors as well as special algorithms that can determine behaviors by the phone user, from studying to partying to face-to-face-communications to sleep. That information can then be crunched to predict students’ GPA within 17 hundreds of a point, according to Andrew T. Campbell, who co-authored paper on the research with colleagues from Dartmouth and the University of Texas at Austin.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Home heating provided by cloud servers is now a reality

One of the problems with traditional data centers has always been that the servers create a lot of heat. And that waste heat needs to be disposed of to prevent server components, switches, and other parts from overheating and malfunctioning.Various solutions have been tried over the years, including building data centers near the sea so cold sea water can be used for cooling. Facebook built a site in Sweden near the Arctic Circle to take advantage of ambient cooing—it's cold up there.And of course, expensive grid-powered air conditioning is the default solution.Data furnaces Dutch company Nerdalize reckons it's got a better answer. It suggests getting rid of data centers, distributing servers throughout communities, and using them to heat homes.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to use Google’s new privacy and security tools

Google stores, manages and sometimes sells an astonishingly large and complex amount of user data. Unfortunately, that digital information isn't always kept secure or private, but Google puts some degree of control in the hands of its users. To offer you a little more control, Google this week rolled out an updated online hub designed to help manage privacy settings, called My Account, as well as a pair of tools that streamline the process of safeguarding user data.A brief history of Linux malware The My Account hub gives Google users more context on how and where their information is shared, when they can opt to remain private and the types of ads they see on Google or elsewhere online. Google redesigned My Account to display its many user settings in a more intuitive way, and the Security Checkup and Privacy Checkup tools show users how to control and manage some of the data they share with Google.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Pinterest turns its feed into a store with ‘buyable pins’

Pinterest, whose site is used by many to bookmark desired retail items, will now let its users buy those items directly from its site.Content on Pinterest’s site is organized into visual bookmarks or “pins,” which users can save to their own profiles. Starting later this month, a new type of pin called “Buyable Pins” will arrive in users’ feeds, to let them purchase a variety of items without leaving Pinterest’s site.More than 2 million different products will be sold on Pinterest, through partnerships with major retailers like Macy’s, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, as well as smaller boutique brands like Cole Haan, Kate Spade and Poler Stuff.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Pinterest turns its feed into a store with ‘buyable pins’

Pinterest, whose site is used by many to bookmark desired retail items, will now let its users buy those items directly from its site.Content on Pinterest’s site is organized into visual bookmarks or “pins,” which users can save to their own profiles. Starting later this month, a new type of pin called “Buyable Pins” will arrive in users’ feeds, to let them purchase a variety of items without leaving Pinterest’s site.More than 2 million different products will be sold on Pinterest, through partnerships with major retailers like Macy’s, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus, as well as smaller boutique brands like Cole Haan, Kate Spade and Poler Stuff.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What if the iPhone debuted in 1984?

So many of the iPhone 6S or iPhone 7 design concepts we see are wildly futuristic: They boast holograms and shape-shifting and increasing thinness.But Pierre, Cerveau, a Bangkok business development manager with engineering chops, has put forth a throwback iPhone design concept that goes all the way back to 1984, when Apple introduced its second Macintosh computer, the 512K. Gotta love that rotary dial.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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