How CIOs can reduce shadow IT in government

If government CIOs want to bring IT out of the shadows, they need to start by understanding what kind of tools agency personnel need to do their jobs.That's one of the chief takeaways from a new study looking at shadow IT in the government -- those unauthorized applications and services that employees use without the permission of the CIO and the tech team.MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: 26 crazy and scary things the TSA has found on travelers The new analysis, conducted by cloud security vendor Skyhigh Networks, identifies a startling amount of applications in use in public-sector organizations. According to an analysis of log data tracking the activities of some 200,000 government workers in the United States and Canada, the average agency uses 742 cloud services, on the order of 10 to 20 times more than the IT department manages.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Asus mini-PCs pack Skylake chips, 4K video capabilities

There is a lot to look forward to in Skylake PCs, if mini-PCs from Asus showed on the Computex show floor are an indicator.Lying in one corner of the Asus booth were two mini-desktops based on Intel’s upcoming sixth-generation Core processor. With the powerful processors, a host of port options and support for 4K video, the tiny computing powerhouses could be full-fledged desktop replacements.Skylake has been described by Intel as its most significant chip release in a decade. It will succeed a family of chips code-named Broadwell, which is in PCs now. Tablets, laptops and desktops based on the new chip architecture are expected in the second half of this year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Wednesday, June 3

Senate finally reforms NSA surveillanceNearly two years after former NSA contracter Edward Snowden went public with revelations that the agency was collecting Americans’ phone records in bulk so that it could trawl through them at leisure, the U.S. Senate has finally acted to rein in what at least one court ruled was illegal surveillance. The Senate’s 67-32 vote Tuesday on the USA Freedom Act will allow a limited telephone records program at the NSA, and give it six months to transition its phone records database to U.S. telecom carriers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft isn’t giving up on basic phones, upgrades the Nokia 105

Microsoft has launched an upgraded version of the Nokia 105 phone, but a growing interest in smartphones will make it difficult for the company to repeat the success of the original version.The US$20 Nokia 105 is aimed at first-time mobile phone buyers and people looking for a long-lasting backup device for their smartphone, according to Microsoft, which decided to keep the Nokia brand for its most basic phones.The new model has a bigger phonebook, better voice quality and longer talk time. Users can choose between models that have one or two SIM slots. It still has a 1.45-inch screen and an FM radio.The original model was introduced in 2013, and has sold more than 80 million units to date. Repeating that will be hard for Microsoft, since consumers all over the world are increasingly choosing smartphones. Microsoft’s overall phone sales dropped by about 30 percent during the first quarter year-on-year, even though Windows smartphone sales increased slightly, according to Gartner. At the same time smartphones represented 73 percent of total phone sales, up from about 63 percent.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

This startup promises a better way to buy or sell a used car

Who wants to buy a used car through eBay or Craigslist, when you need a mechanic to inspect it? Buying through a dealer can also be intimidating and expensive, with sales reps often having unclear agendas.Shift, an online startup, thinks it can solve those problems, and provide an easier way for people to sell their cars.The company provides a listing service for used car shoppers to browse other people’s cars, and let owners list their cars for sale. But more than a listing service, the company employs mechanics to perform inspections on cars for sale, and hires workers to gather sellers’ service records and vehicle history reports. Shift’s workers will also deliver used cars to prospective buyers for test rides, within an hour.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Video: Implementing VLAN-aware Bridge with OpenFlow

Reinventing the wheels makes little sense. Implementing old solutions with new tools might be in the same category, but at least it shows you the power and shortcomings of the new tools.

Building a VLAN-aware bridge in OpenFlow is thus a mandatory case study, and as you’ll see in the video from the OpenFlow Deep Dive webinar, it’s not as easy as it looks. For more details, watch the whole OpenFlow webinar (6 hours of in-depth videos), which you also get by buying Advanced SDN Training or ipSpace.net subscription.

Watch the video

CCDE Practical Training Demo Video

I have been delivering CCDE practical training for quite some time. Couple months ago I have started a survey for my CCDE training. 134 people voted and here is the results. From the votes as I understand, many people have been looking for a demo, sample videos from my CCDE practical training class. Below is the half an hour CCDE Practical demo video from my CCDE training.… Read More »

The post CCDE Practical Training Demo Video appeared first on Network Design and Architecture.

AMD to launch next-generation Fiji GPUs on June 16

Gamers, buckle up—AMD will launch its highly-anticipated graphics processing unit, code-named Fiji, on June 16 at the E3 conference.Many were expecting Fiji to launch at a press event at Computex on Wednesday, but that didn’t happen. Instead, AMD did show off key technology, which will first appear in Fiji and could give significant speed and power saving gains to future graphics chips.On stage, AMD CEO Lisa Su showed a chip for technology called HBM (high-bandwidth memory), which could make graphics chips faster and more power-efficient.HBM offers 3.5 times the bandwidth per watt of GDDR5, which is currently used in memory chips. Instead of being placed next to each other, HBM stacks memory chips, which are connected through a high-speed thread. HBM is also faster due a wider bus and its closer location to graphics processors.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Comcast and TWC are (still) among the most hated companies in America

The annual American Customer Satisfaction Index for 2015 placed Comcast and Time-Warner Cable near the very bottom of all telecom and technology companies in the rankings, the researchers involved announced Tuesday.The ACSI’s ratings – on a 100-point scale – gave Comcast a score of 54 as a TV service provider and 56 as an ISP, well below the industry average of 63 in both categories. TWC received a 51 in the former category and a 58 in the latter. The ratings were based on the ACSI’s in-house analysis of survey responses from 14,000 Americans, which were collected during the first quarter of 2015.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Ransomware creator apologizes for 'sleeper' attack, releases decryption keys + Intel to buy Altera for $16.7B, eyes IoT market +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Comcast and TWC are (still) among the most hated companies in America

The annual American Customer Satisfaction Index for 2015 placed Comcast and Time-Warner Cable near the very bottom of all telecom and technology companies in the rankings, the researchers involved announced Tuesday.The ACSI’s ratings – on a 100-point scale – gave Comcast a score of 54 as a TV service provider and 56 as an ISP, well below the industry average of 63 in both categories. TWC received a 51 in the former category and a 58 in the latter. The ratings were based on the ACSI’s in-house analysis of survey responses from 14,000 Americans, which were collected during the first quarter of 2015.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Ransomware creator apologizes for 'sleeper' attack, releases decryption keys + Intel to buy Altera for $16.7B, eyes IoT market +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

AMD skips Chromebooks, bets on Windows 10 with new Carrizo chips

Chromebooks may be hot-ticket items, but with its sixth-generation A-series chips for mainstream laptops, AMD is placing its bets on Microsoft’s Windows 10.The new chips, code-named Carrizo, will appear in laptops priced between US$400 and $800 from Asus, Acer, Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard and Toshiba. The first wave of laptops will become available starting in July, initially with Windows 8, and later in the year with Windows 10.The new chips include quad-core A8 and A10 processors, which have up to six GPU cores, and the faster FX chips, which have up to eight GPU cores. Some new laptops based on the chips were shown at the Computex trade show in Taipei this week.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Facebook mandates stronger digital verification of apps

Facebook will require application developers to move later this year to a more secure type of digital signature for their apps, which is used to verify a program’s legitimacy.As of Oct. 1, apps will have to use SHA-2 certificate signatures rather than ones signed with SHA-1. Both are cryptographic algorithms that are used to create a hash of a digital certificate that can be mathematically verified.Apps that use SHA-1 after October won’t work on Facebook anymore, wrote Adam Gross, a production engineer at the company, in a blog post.“We recommend that developers check their applications, SDKs, or devices that connect to Facebook to ensure they support the SHA-2 standard,” Gross wrote.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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

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