IDG Contributor Network: Energy servers bring eco fuel cells to Comcast, IKEA buildings

What do cable company Comcast and furniture seller IKEA have in common, other than that one of them requires the other's birch veneer entertainment center to hold its cable box?Both are using fuel cells to power some of their buildings.Social currency Bloom Energy, which makes fuel cell generators, is seeing interest in its carbon footprint-friendly electricity fuel cell systems as the corporate world clamors to obtain brownie points from the public looking to do business with socially aware companies. Fuel cells are clean, sometimes renewable energy sources.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

May Ansible Training Recording

Untitled_designWe held another free Ansible Training session today. These trainings are held online and are scheduled twice a month. If you haven't attended one yet, please register here. The trainings are free, run about two hours and cover a number of Ansible basics.

Here is the recording from today's session:

Feds slap PayPal with $25 million fine over credit service

The nation’s financial consumer protection watchdog has ordered PayPal to cough up US$25 million in fines for deceptive practices around the company’s credit service, which included signing up customers for the service without their consent.PayPal illegally signed up customers for PayPal Credit, formerly known as Bill Me Later, without their permission, made it their default payment method, and then failed to address disputes when customers complained, said Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray in the agency’s announcement Tuesday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The coolest smartphone not made by Apple is coming to America

Yota, the Russian smartphone maker with the dual-screen phone, announced this week that it will bring its YotaPhone 2 to the U.S. through an Indiegogo campaign to raise $50,000 to pay for certifications and regulatory fees in North America.And the crowd has delivered. As of this writing, Yota has raised $80,000 in just a few hours, well beyond what it needed. Now to clear the FCC hurdles.The YotaPhone 2 can be pre-ordered for $500, and you get a three-month subscription to BookMate as well as a Yota Bumper case. There is also the Yota Wireless Power Bank for wireless charging, which will cost $50.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Microsoft does something else right with Windows 10

Microsoft seems determined to do the right thing with the upcoming version of Windows. After decades of sticking it to loyal Windows users with pricey upgrades and short-term perspectives, Microsoft under Satya Nadella seems to have seen the light.See also: Microsoft does the right thing, makes Windows 10 a free upgrade Earlier this year, Microsoft made the enlightened decision to make Windows 10 a free upgrade for Windows 7 and Windows 8 users, and it has recently become clear that Microsoft will take another step to support Windows 10 users. The company intends to bypass the mobile carriers and update Windows 10 mobile devices directly as well—at least for business users with its Windows Update for Business program.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Survey claims New York startup scene is more innovative

A new survey is attempting to kick-start a rivalry between New York and Silicon Valley, claiming tomorrow’s innovative tech companies will pick east over west to set up shop.Out of 318 executives surveyed, more picked New York over Silicon Valley as the superior place to start a business, due to factors such as growing interest from venture capitalists, support from city and state government, and the considerable talent pool from Wall Street firms and Fortune 500 companies in the city.The survey was conducted by a New York-based data analysis company, 1010data, so we should probably take the findings with a grain of salt. But it claims the executives surveyed, taken from its customer base, were from companies throughout the U.S.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

12 lesser-known Apple Watch tips and tricks you should know

It can even tell the time!Nearly four weeks after the Apple Watch first launched, it seems that Apple has finally gotten a grasp on supply issues. With the pool of Apple Watch users growing each and every week, it's high time that we focus on some of the cooler and lesser-known features of Apple's new wearable. While some basic features like checking text messages or answering calls are pretty well known, the Apple Watch, as with most Apple products, houses a number of compelling features underneath the surface which serve to make the device all the more useful.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Utah researchers make light-speed computing breakthrough

University of Utah researchers are touting an engineering breakthrough that they say could have supercomputers working at the speed of light within three years and other computers including mobile devices doing the same sometime after that.The University's Menon Research Group, led by Associate Professor Rajesh Menon, specializes in the intersection of nanotechnology and optics, and has a good track record of commercializing its work. MORE: 10 cool network and computing research projectsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Utah researchers make light-speed computing breakthrough

University of Utah researchers are touting an engineering breakthrough that they say could have supercomputers working at the speed of light within three years and other computers including mobile devices doing the same sometime after that.The University's Menon Research Group, led by Associate Professor Rajesh Menon, specializes in the intersection of nanotechnology and optics, and has a good track record of commercializing its work. MORE: 10 cool network and computing research projectsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Open Choices In Networking

neo-architect

I had an interesting time at the spring meeting of the Open Networking User Group (@ONUG_) this past week. There were lots of discussions about networking, DevOps, and other assorted topics. One that caught me by surprise was some of the talk around openness. These tweets from Lisa Caywood (@RealLisaC) were especially telling:

After some discussion with other attendees, I think I’ve figured it out. People don’t want an open network. They want choice.

Flexible? Or Predictable?

Traditional networking marries software and hardware together. You want a Cisco switch? It runs IOS or NX-OS. Running Juniper? You can have any flavor of OS you want…as long as it’s Junos. That has been the accepted order of things for decades. Flexibility is traded for predictability. Traditional networking vendors give you many of the tools you need. If you need something different, you have to find the right mix of platform and software to Continue reading

Six China residents charged with stealing US mobile phone technology

Six residents of China face economic espionage and theft of trade secret charges for allegedly funneling radio frequency technologies used in mobile devices from U.S. companies to a university controlled by the Chinese government.The defendants facing charges in the U.S. are connected to Tianjin University in China. The U.S. Department of Justice released a 32-count indictment on Tuesday, three days after Tianjin University Professor Hao Zhang was arrested at the Los Angeles airport while trying to enter the U.S. from China. The five other defendants remain at large.The six are charged with stealing thin-film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR) technology used in mobile phones from two U.S. companies, according to a DOJ press release. FBAR technology filters incoming and outgoing wireless signals so that a mobile phone only receives and transmits the specific communications intended by the user. In addition to consumer applications, FBAR is used in several military and communications technologies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

BGP Security

I set up a set of slides on BGP security for some folks I know at Level 3 over the last couple of months, and then presented them to an internal Ericsson audience this week. I just posted them to Slideshare, as well —

I wrote an entire series on this same topic a while back on Packet Pushers, if you want commentary to go with the slides —

Part 1: Basic Operation
Part 2: Protections Offered
Part 3: Replays, Timers, and Performance
Part 4: Signatures and Performance
Part 5: Leaks

The post BGP Security appeared first on 'net work.

Cisco, Chambers looking for one last shot at VMware?

Reports surfaced last week that Cisco may be close to buying hyperconvergence start-up Nutanix.The speculation is based on an article in Storage Newsletter by Jared Rinderer, an analyst at Equity Capital Research Group. In it, Rinderer says outgoing Cisco CEO John Chambers is looking to leave with a bang – one last big acquisition to stick it to partners-turned rivals EMC and VMware.Nutanix makes integrated compute/storage, networking, virtualization and management products for the data center that run on x86 hardware. The privately held company is recognized as the leader in the hyperconverged infrastructure market, which was recently entered by VMware with its EVO:RAIL product.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

AWS upgrades highlight growing focus on cloud management

Amazon Web Services is hoping better management tools will convince enterprises to move more applications to the cloud, but getting their internal management processes right is even more important than anything the vendor can offer.On Monday, Amazon updated its OpsWorks management platform to work with Windows Server, and published a new API that lets IT staff start thousands of so-called spot instances with one request.Step by step, cloud providers like Amazon are adding new features to make the IT management capabilities they offer to their customers more efficient and all-encompassing. As enterprises move more and larger IT systems to the cloud, advanced management functionality is becoming increasingly important.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

URL-spoofing bug in Safari could enable phishing attacks

The latest versions of Safari for Mac OS X and iOS are vulnerable to a URL-spoofing exploit that could allow hackers to launch credible phishing attacks.The issue was discovered by security researcher David Leo, who published a proof-of-concept exploit for it. Leo’s demonstration consists of a Web page hosted on his domain that, when opened in Safari, causes the browser to display dailymail.co.uk in the address bar.The ability to control the URL shown by the browser can, for example, be used to easily convince users that they are on a bank’s website when they are actually on a phishing page designed to steal their financial information.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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