FCC proposal would extend Lifeline voice subsidy to broadband

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will consider including broadband within a controversial program that subsidizes telephone or mobile service for poor people.Recipients of the FCC’s Lifeline program, which provides a US$9.25 monthly subsidy for voice service, could use that money to purchase broadband service instead under a proposal from FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. Eligible households would continue to receive one $9.25 monthly subsidy, and they could choose whether to apply the money to traditional telephone service, mobile service or broadband, FCC officials said Thursday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Like routers, most USB modems also vulnerable to drive-by hacking

The majority of 3G and 4G USB modems offered by mobile operators to their customers have vulnerabilities in their Web-based management interfaces that could be exploited remotely when users visit compromised websites.The flaws could allow attackers to steal or manipulate text messages, contacts, Wi-Fi settings or the DNS (Domain Name System) configuration of affected modems, but also to execute arbitrary commands on their underlying operating systems. In some cases, the devices can be turned into malware delivery platforms, infecting any computers they’re plugged into.Russian security researchers Timur Yunusov and Kirill Nesterov presented some of the flaws and attacks that can be used against USB modems Thursday at the Hack in the Box security conference in Amsterdam.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

20 best iPhone/iPad games

GamesAs we head toward summer 2015, it’s time to check in and see how the mobile gaming industry has fared for Apple iOS platforms, the iPhone and iPad. Here’s a look at top rated games issued so far this year, based on App Store user reviews and professional reviewers on Metacritic. We hope you’ll discover a few hidden gems in here.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Lenovo aims at toppling rivals in the server market

Following its IBM x86 server business acquisition, Lenovo plans on attacking the enterprise hardware arena with low-cost products to undercut the competition.“We can give a better cost solution to enterprise companies,” said Lenovo Executive Vice President Gerry Smith in a press briefing in Beijing Thursday.The Chinese vendor is preparing to offer a wide range of products, targeting markets including supercomputing and hyperscale servers for data centers. “We’re going to play in every segment,” Smith said.Lenovo last year bought IBM’s x86 server business as a way to drive company growth. The deal helped make the Chinese vendor the world’s fourth largest server vendor in this year’s first quarter, with a 7.5 percent share, according to research firm IDC. A year ago, Lenovo had only a 1.1 percent share.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Design Considerations for North/South Flows in the Data Center

Traditional data centers have been built by using standard switches and running Spanning Tree (STP). STP blocks redundant links and builds a loop-free tree which is rooted at the STP root. This kind of topology wastes a lot of links which means that there is a decrease in bisectional bandwidth in the network. A traditional design may look like below where the blocking links have been marked with red color.

DC1-STP

If we then remove the blocked links, the tree topology becomes very clear and you can see that there is only a single path between the servers. This wastes a lot of bandwidth and does not provide enough bisectional bandwidth. Bisectional bandwidth is the bandwidth that is available from the left half of the network to the right half of the network.

DC2-STP

The traffic flow is highlighted below.

DC3-Bisectional

Technologies like FabricPath (FP) or TRILL can overcome these limitations by running ISIS and building loop-free topologies but not blocking any links. They can also take advantage of Equal Cost Multi Path (ECMP) paths to provide load sharing without doing any complex VLAN manipulations like with STP. A leaf and spine design is most commonly used to provide for a high amount Continue reading

20 best iPhone/iPad games

GamesAs we head toward summer 2015, it’s time to check in and see how the mobile gaming industry has fared for Apple iOS platforms, the iPhone and iPad. Here’s a look at top rated games issued so far this year, based on App Store user reviews and professional reviewers on Metacritic. We hope you’ll discover a few hidden gems in here.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Cellphone use involved in more than 1 in 4 car crashes

Cellphone-related car crashes were up for the third straight year in the United States and now account for more than one in four crashes, according to the National Safety Council.The nonprofit council created by Congress in 1913, a few years before cellphones came onto the scene, has based its latest report on crash stats from 2013. Its numbers involve crashes involving drivers who are texting or talking on either handheld or hands-free phones.  The Council estimates texting-related crashes rose from 5% to 6% while those involving talking on phones stayed at 21%, for a total of 27% of the 5.7 million crashes in 2013.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

PQ 50 – Network Service Header (NSH) Deep Dive & Use Cases

On this Packet Pushers Priority Queue episode, we chat with Cisco's Jim Guichard & Paul Quinn about the topic of Network Service Header (NSH). What is NSH meant to be? What might we use NSH for? What will it take to make NSH a widely adopted reality? This is a follow up to Show 238, where Greg was not feeling the NSH magic. The plan was to show Greg the light. Did Jim & Paul succeed?

Author information

Ethan Banks

Co-host at Packet Pushers

Ethan Banks, CCIE #20655, has been managing networks for higher ed, government, financials and high tech since 1995. Ethan co-hosts the Packet Pushers Podcast, which has seen over 3M downloads and reaches over 10K listeners. With whatever time is left, Ethan writes for fun & profit, studies for certifications, and enjoys science fiction. @ecbanks
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The post PQ 50 – Network Service Header (NSH) Deep Dive & Use Cases appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Ethan Banks.

#AnsibleFest NYC 2015 – Speaker Lineup

AnsibleFest NYC 2015

We’re proud to announce some of the speaker lineup for AnsibleFest NYC. AnsibleFest is a day-long conference bringing together hundreds of Ansible users, developers and industry partners to share best-practices, case studies and Ansible news.

Check out our line up of some of the sessions.

AnsibleFest is next Thursday, June 4th in NYC.

Register today as space is very limited.

Ansible v2, James Cammarata, Director of Engineering

A walk through of some of the new features and benefits in the 2.0 release.

Bio:

James Cammarata is a Director of Engineering at Ansible. He is the lead developer of Ansible, and has worked on tools such as Ansible and Cobbler in the past.

Twitter @thejimic

Ansible Tower 2.2, Bill Nottingham, Director of Product, Ansible

Everyone knows about Ansible’s simple, agentless, and powerful automation. (At least, we assume that’s why you’re here.)  But sometimes you need more in your organization - you want to be able to find out what happened with your playbook run last week. You want to delegate your rollouts to the dev team, so you don’t have to do it.

We’ll show how Ansible Tower adds control, security, and delegation around Ansible. Plus, we’ll Continue reading

New ‘Internet of Animals’ actually seems useful for pet owners

And now for something completely different, courtesy of the country that definitely does things differently. Japan is rolling out Anicall (site is in Japanese), a social network for dogs and cats that it refers to as "The Internet of Animals."Anicall first rolled out in January at the first ever Wearable Expo in Japan, but more details were shared on the show "Great Gear" on NHK World, the English-language version of Japan's biggest broadcast network.Anicall works with your smartphone and a plastic collar for the pet. Instead of using GPS and Wi-Fi, the collar uses Bluetooth to communicate, giving it a much longer battery life.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Not even an Apple Watch can save shirtless dad bod

Maybe I don't get out enough, but I haven't seen too many Apple Watches in the wild yet. The first 2 I saw belonged to fellow IDG Enterprise editors, who were wielding them at our recent offsite editorial meeting. Both gave "so far, so good" reviews to the devices. The third one I spotted in the wild was at a big concert in Boston this past weekend and the wearer made quite an impression on those in the vicinity. Aside from sunglasses, the only apparel he wore above his waist was the Apple Watch with blue wristband. He was the only shirtless guyI remember seeing at the event, which attracted a mainly college/20-something demographic that I sense this gent was not a member of.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How now IoT cow? Sensors can track Elsie’s temperature

The Internet of Things is many things to many people - we’re seeing things like Internet-connected basketballs to vending machines and other devices that connect to the cloud to provide valuable data.One thing I didn’t expect in the IoT world was a device that could measure a cow’s temperature.But that’s exactly what Brad Walters, CEO of Monnit, showed me recently at Interop 2015. Walters’ company makes more than 40 different types of sensors that fit into the world of IoT. Most of the things are dry (or wet) devices that measure temperature, water sensing or gas leaks - important things that can mean the difference between a small problem or a major disaster, whether inside your home or at your remote data center.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Review: The New IT

The New ITThe New IT
Jill Dyche

Research has found that almost half of the CEOs described CIOs as being out of touch with the business and unable to understand how to apply IT in new ways. Over half also considered IT “a commodity service purchased as needed.”

So begins Jill Dyche in her examination of the relationship between IT and business. This statement sums up the entire point of this book: IT needs to find a way to be more engaged in the business world. Rather than just selling IT as a “commodity to be purchased,” IT leaders need to learn to show how IT can drive business value.

The author breaks the topic into three major parts — What’s Wrong with IT, Your IT Transformation Toolkit, and Leadership in the New IT. The first section, of course, outlines the litany of problems with IT in the business world today, from not having a seat at the table to being more about process and tools than actually driving business value. The second section contains a set of exercises that might (or might not — as in my case) apply to you and your role in IT leadership. These exercises involve Continue reading

Avago buying Broadcom for $37 billion to create networking chip giant

Avago Technologies has agreed to buy Broadcom in a deal that will create a networking chip giant with a wide variety of products, including components for the burgeoning IoT sector.It has offered US$37 billion for Broadcom, including $17 billion in cash and equity valued at approximately $20 billion, it said on Thursday. The combined company will offer products for wired and wireless networks.MORE M&A: 2015 enterprise network/IT acquisition trackerBoth companies’ chips are found in wireline and wireless networks. Avago also makes chips for optical networks, while Broadcom’s are used in connected home and car equipment and the Internet of Things. It recently announced support for Apple’s HomeKit platform, and chipsets for 802.11ac networks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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