ICANN seeks opinion on legality of ‘.sucks’ registration process

The body that manages the Internet domain name system has asked regulators in the U.S. and Canada to comment on the legality of the high prices and procedures used by Vox Populi Registry for registrations of ‘.sucks’ domain names by trademark owners.The move Thursday by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) follows a recent letter from its Intellectual Property Constituency, which asked that the rollout of the new .sucks gTLD (generic top-level domain) should be halted.The IPC, which represents the holders of trademarks and related intellectual property, described the registration scheme for the domain as predatory and designed to exploit trademark owners. It said Vox Populi had announced it would charge trademark owners US$2,499 and above to register domain names during the early ‘sunrise’ period.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

US blocks Intel from selling Xeon chips to Chinese supercomputer projects

U.S. government agencies have stopped Intel from selling microprocessors for China’s supercomputers, apparently reflecting concern about their use in nuclear tests.In February, four supercomputing institutions in China were placed on a U.S. government list that effectively bans them from receiving certain U.S. exports.The four institutions, which include China’s National University of Defense Technology, have been involved in building Tianhe-2, the world’s fastest supercomputer, and Tianhe-1A.The two supercomputers have been allegedly used for ”nuclear explosive activities,” according to a notice posted by the U.S. Department of Commerce.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

White Lodging Services confirms second payment card breach

A large hotel management company has confirmed a second payment card breach in less than 14 months, underscoring the difficulties businesses are having with data thieves.White Lodging Services said the second breach was detected on Jan. 27 after unusual payment card activity was discovered on credit cards used at four Marriott-branded hotels. The compromised data includes customer names, card numbers, security codes and expiration dates, it said in a statement.The Merrillville, Indiana-based company manages hotels under agreements with hotels owners and is a separate entity from the specific hotel brands it operates.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Show 232 – Big Switch Networks on the State of Open Networking – Sponsored

Rob Sherwood, CTO, Big Switch Networks, discusses the state of open networking with Ethan and Greg. We cover trends in hyper scale networking, the state of SDN's evolution, hardware/software disaggregation, and integrating SDN underlays & overlays. For example, we discuss how Big Cloud Fabric ties into VMware.

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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 Show 232 – Big Switch Networks on the State of Open Networking – Sponsored appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Ethan Banks.

IBM, Fujifilm show tape storage still has a long future

IBM and Fujifilm have figured out how to fit 220TB of data on a standard-size tape that fits in your hand, flexing the technology’s strengths as a long-term storage medium.The prototype Fujifilm tape and accompanying drive technology from IBM labs packs 88 times as much data onto a tape as industry-standard LTO-6 (Linear Tape-Open) systems using the same size cartridge, IBM says. LTO6 tape can hold 2.5TB, uncompressed, on a cartridge about 10 by 10 centimeters (4 by 4 inches) across and 2 centimeters thick.The new technologies won’t come out in products for several years and may not be quite as extreme when they do, but the advances show tape can keep getting more dense into the future, said Mark Lantz, manager of IBM’s Advanced Tape Technologies Group.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM, Fujifilm show tape storage still has a long future

IBM and Fujifilm have figured out how to fit 220TB of data on a standard-size tape that fits in your hand, flexing the technology’s strengths as a long-term storage medium.The prototype Fujifilm tape and accompanying drive technology from IBM labs packs 88 times as much data onto a tape as industry-standard LTO-6 (Linear Tape-Open) systems using the same size cartridge, IBM says. LTO6 tape can hold 2.5TB, uncompressed, on a cartridge about 10 by 10 centimeters (4 by 4 inches) across and 2 centimeters thick.MORE: What's behind Microsoft's not-so-crazy startup spending spreeTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Jawbone’s UP3 will ship April 20 — just don’t take it swimming

Jawbone’s latest activity tracker, the UP3, will finally ship April 20 after being delayed for months, though without a core feature the company had hoped for.Water resistance issues led to delays in the product’s launch, Jawbone said Thursday. The company was hoping for a product that could be submerged up to 10 meters underwater, but Jawbone couldn’t achieve that. The shipping product will withstand everyday splashing and showers, like other trackers, but will be unsuitable for swimming or submerged use, Jawbone said in a blog post.Customers who want to cancel their pre-order can do so with no charge, the company said. Jawbone had originally planned on launching the UP3 late last year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Jawbone’s UP3 will ship April 20 — just don’t take it swimming

Jawbone’s latest activity tracker, the UP3, will finally ship April 20 after being delayed for months, though without a core feature the company had hoped for.Water resistance issues led to delays in the product’s launch, Jawbone said Thursday. The company was hoping for a product that could be submerged up to 10 meters underwater, but Jawbone couldn’t achieve that. The shipping product will withstand everyday splashing and showers, like other trackers, but will be unsuitable for swimming or submerged use, Jawbone said in a blog post.Customers who want to cancel their pre-order can do so with no charge, the company said. Jawbone had originally planned on launching the UP3 late last year.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Apple trying to discourage Apple Watch lines at launch

In many ways, new Apple product launches have become ritualistic affairs. The night before a new product goes on sale, enthusiastic consumers line up outside of Apple retail stores in lines that sometimes stretch out for blocks on end.With the Apple Watch slated to launch in a few weeks, that ritual may finally be coming to an end. According to an internal Apple memo obtained by Business Insider, Apple retail head Angela Ahrendts wants to put the days of waiting in line in the past, all in the interest of enhancing the customer shopping experience. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Salesforce revs up Pardot with two new B2B marketing-automation tools

It’s coming up on two years since Salesforce acquired Pardot, and on Thursday the company enriched its resulting Sales Cloud B2B marketing-automation product with two new key capabilities.Intelligent Engagement Studio, for instance, offers granular targeting, testing and reporting capabilities designed to help marketers and sales teams connect with prospects in new ways. For example, the new feature enables adaptive lead-nurturing campaigns that evolve based on more than 100 triggers.Previously, B2B marketers could see only basic behavioral data such as the rates at which prospects opened their emails; sales-stage data from their CRM systems was not integrated with it. Now, with Intelligent Engagement Studio, marketers can act on the combination of those data points. So, when someone advances to a new sales stage and also views a specific piece of content, Intelligent Engagement Studio will analyze those data points to proactively route the prospect to a new lead-nurturing path.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Salesforce revs up Pardot with two new B2B marketing-automation tools

It’s coming up on two years since Salesforce acquired Pardot, and on Thursday the company enriched its resulting Sales Cloud B2B marketing-automation product with two new key capabilities.Intelligent Engagement Studio, for instance, offers granular targeting, testing and reporting capabilities designed to help marketers and sales teams connect with prospects in new ways. For example, the new feature enables adaptive lead-nurturing campaigns that evolve based on more than 100 triggers.Previously, B2B marketers could see only basic behavioral data such as the rates at which prospects opened their emails; sales-stage data from their CRM systems was not integrated with it. Now, with Intelligent Engagement Studio, marketers can act on the combination of those data points. So, when someone advances to a new sales stage and also views a specific piece of content, Intelligent Engagement Studio will analyze those data points to proactively route the prospect to a new lead-nurturing path.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The first woman CEO to appear in a Google Images search is … CEO Barbie

The Ellen Pao-Kleiner Perkins trial shone a light on discrimination in the tech industry, but for a more immediate look at the challenges women face in corporate America, look no further than a Google Images search.Doing a search at the site for “CEO” reveals just one female face in the top results: CEO Barbie. The doll (which may not even be a real Barbie product) appears way down in the results, under a sea of male, mostly white faces.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

For Citrix & Extreme, Q1 Isn’t Coming Up Roses

Citrix's restructuring takes a toll; Extreme's customers postpone some orders.

Amazon offers network file storage in the cloud

Amazon Web Services continues to chip away at the enterprise storage market, with plans for a new service designed to be a nimbler alternative to network attached storage (NAS) appliances.The Amazon Elastic File System (EFS) will provide a shared, low-latency file system for organizations or project teams that need to share large files and access them quickly, such as a video production company.“The file system is the missing element in the cloud today,” Amazon Web Services head Andy Jassy said Wednesday at the AWS Summit in San Francisco. The service is not yet available for full commercial use, though a preview will be available shortly.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Pairing iPhones with Android Wear smartwatches may become possible

Google is said to be developing a version of Android Wear to let iPhone owners sync their phones with smartwatches running Google’s OS.Google is close to finishing the final technical details, according to a report in The Verge which cited one unnamed source close to the development team.A Google spokesman declined to comment.If Google is in fact working on this, it could boost its efforts to compete against Apple’s upcoming Apple Watch. Smartwatches running Android Wear currently derive much of their functionality via an integration with Android-based smartphones. Android Wear smartwatch sales haven’t been great.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

How to overcome 3 hybrid cloud integration challenges

Cisco invests in mobile wallet

Cisco has invested in MobiKwik, an Indian “mobile wallet” company that offers payment for goods and services from a consumer’s desktop or mobile device. Cisco has taken an undisclosed minority stake in the company’s $30 million Series B round.The investment was led by Cisco’s India corporate development team. The lead investor was Tree Line Asia, and American Express and existing investor Sequoia Capital also helped fund the round.The funds will support user and personnel growth, expanding its merchant network, marketing and investments in data analytics. MobiKwik currently has over 15 million users and 25,000 merchants.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

What’s behind Microsoft’s not-so-crazy startup spending spree

Microsoft so far this year has been the most acquisitive company in enterprise IT, snapping up at least four firms on top of four others that it bought in the last two months of 2014. And while the buyouts might at first glance appear scattershot – we’re talking text analysis, calendaring and digital pen startups among others -- there does seem to be a grand plan here.Our regularly updated Enterprise Networking & IT Acquisition Tracker shows through the first calendar quarter that Microsoft has announced more than twice as many buyouts as any other company (not that all acquisitions are immediately made public and taking into account that our tracker is focused on enterprise-related acquisitions -- Google has bought at least four consumer-oriented companies).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Workday targets professional services with new suite

Anyone who’s ever worked in professional services knows that the focus there on people and billable projects can open up a world of specialized requirements from any supporting business software. With that very distinction in mind, Workday on Thursday unveiled a new suite of financial and human-resources tools designed specifically for professional services users.Offering functionality for both financial management and human capital management, Workday Professional Services Automation aims to give companies a unified alternative to the patchwork of often-disconnected solutions that many currently rely on. A single system delivers insights and analytics regarding people, revenue, expenses and profitability, allowing customers to optimize project performance, Workday said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Solving the Cloud Security Crisis

Will SDN be a key component?