Facebook reveals the logic behind its forced Messenger split

Facebook annoyed and puzzled many people last year when it forced them to download its Messenger app for chats. Its reasons for doing so are now clearer: Messenger is becoming a beast of an app, with its own links to outside businesses and software apart from Facebook’s main site.At the company’s F8 developer conference this week in San Francisco, executives pulled back the curtain on the new Messenger. It’s now a storefront and a platform for other mobile apps, which can be downloaded from within Messenger and integrated into people’s Messenger chats. There are more than 40 outside app partners already aiming to spice up users’ conversations with things like personalized GIFs, tools to turn your texts into songs, and even sports animations from ESPN. The apps can be accessed by hitting the “...” button on the Messenger compose screen.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Tim Cook plans to donate all his money to charity

On the path to becoming a billionaire, like many prominent tech CEOs before him, Apple's Tim Cook isn't the type of guy prone to blowing large sums of cash on lavish expenditures like yachts, mansions, and fast cars.On the contrary, Cook revealed in a recent in-depth interview with Fortune that he plans to quietly give away all of his money to charity, save of course some money set aside for his nephew's college education. He plans to give away all his wealth, after providing for the college education of his 10-year-old nephew. There should be plenty left over to fund philanthropic projects. Cook’s net worth, based on his holdings of Apple stock, is currently about $120 million. He also holds restricted stock worth $665 million if it were to be fully vested. Cook says that he has already begun donating money quietly, but that he plans to take time to develop a systematic approach to philanthropy rather than simply writing checks.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

French self-driving car goes for a spin around Paris monument

For this self-driving car, the roadside hazards included traffic jams, undisciplined bystanders—and centuries-old cannons.That’s what you get when you demonstrate your latest technology at the National Army Museum in central Paris, as French companies Safran and Valeo did on Friday.Safran, a defense contractor, and Valeo, an automotive parts manufacturer, kitted out a Volkswagen CC with radar, lidar and all-round cameras for their demonstration, and let it loose on a winding track around the museum grounds. They wanted to show how close the European automotive industry is to its goal of having self-driving cars for sale in 2020.There were no wheel-spins or clouds of dust: This was a simulated urban environment with traffic lights, slow-moving or stopped vehicles ahead, and speed limits of 20 km/h or less. The car glided to a halt a few meters behind a stopped vehicle, moving on as soon as the way was clear; respected stop signals; and slowed gently at a variable sign indicating the speed limit had dropped to 10 km/h. When the curious crowd spilled into the road at the circuit’s finish line, the car pulled up cautiously a few meters short of the line.To read this article in Continue reading

USB Type-C peripherals are on the way, and storage devices are first up

With Apple’s latest MacBook and Google’s newest Chromebook just out and featuring the new USB Type-C connector, we’re on the lookout for peripherals that use the interface, and storage devices appear to be first out of the gate.Because the Type-C connector can be used to recharge laptops, it may ultimately do away with the need to carry bulky power adapters. Like older USB technology, Type-C will also connect monitors, external storage drives, printers, cameras and other peripherals. One beauty of the system is that cables have the same connector on both ends, and can be inserted into ports without worries about which side is up or down.Storage devices will eventually benefit from Type-C’s USB 3.1 protocol, which can transfer data at 10Gbps (bits per second), double that of USB 3.0. But the first peripherals we’re seeing support only USB 3.0 speeds.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

5 freshly-funded cloud computing companies worth watching

Investors made a crowd around the cloud this week, investing $175 million in companies focused on everything from storage to the WAN to the supply chain.Sure, “the cloud” is a broad term and in reality, what new tech company doesn’t have some cloud angle? But 5 companies that announced funding this week, some familiar to us and some not, all have legit claims on being cloud computing businesses.The big winner of the bunch this week was FinancialForce.com, a San Francisco cloud ERP provider based on the Salesforce1 Platform that touted $110 million in fresh funding led by Technology Crossover Ventures. Existing investor Salesforce Ventures also chipped in. The $110 million, which will go toward product development, sales, marketing and more, adds to $50 million committed about a year ago by Advent International.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Build Your CCIE Security Knowledge with Cisco Docs!

A good knowledge of Cisco’s Documentation is what could make a difference in passing or failing the exam. Because of that, I would like to show you how to access most useful Doc CD resources on a per blueprint-section basis. In addition, we will also take a look at the location of a particular document, so you know how to access it without using the Search function. Same thing as what you will have to do to access those resources in the lab.

Unless otherwise mentioned, all documents discussed in this blog are part of Configuration Guides.

1.System Hardening and Availability

Probably the most useful doc here will be for Control Plane features. However, I am going to show you more so you at least know how to find them.

Our starting point for this section is IOS Configuration Guides :
IOS and NX-OS Software -> IOS -> IOS Software Release 15M&T -> 15.2M&T

Routing Protocol Authentication :

IP Routing : RIP -> Configuring Routing Information Protocol
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/ios-xml/ios/iproute_rip/configuration/15-mt/irr-15-mt-book/irr-cfg-info-prot.html
IP Routing : EIGRP -> IP EIGRP Route Authentication
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/ios-xml/ios/iproute_eigrp/configuration/15-mt/ire-15-mt-book/ire-rte-auth.html
IP Routing : EIGRP -> IPv6 Routing : EIGRP Support
http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/td/docs/ios-xml/ios/iproute_eigrp/configuration/15-mt/ire-15-mt-book/ip6-route-eigrp.html
Continue reading

PlexxiPulse—Reflecting on Arrow’s IoT Immersions Conference

We took a short ride to Boston this week’s for Arrow’s Internet of Things Immersions Conference. Dave Husak, our CTO and EVP of products and technology, participated in a panel alongside executives from Arrow, EMC, Intel, NXP and Oracle to discuss the role software defined networking will play in future Big Data deployments. Dave spoke to why innovative infrastructure is necessary to manage mixed workloads and big data jobs of different priorities. Interested in seeing Plexxi in action? We’ll be on the road for the next few months—stay tuned or drop us a line at [email protected] for more information.

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Below please find a few of our top picks for our favorite news articles of the week. Have a great weekend!

Light Reading: Open Networking Acronym Soup
By Marc Cohn
During the past few years, software-defined networking (SDN) and network functions virtualization (NFV) have emerged as the next big thing in networking. As a result, we’ve seen established networking standards development organizations (SDOs) such as the ITU, IETF, TMF, among others, leap on the bandwagon to address SDN and NFV. In addition, many new industry groups have been created, including the ONF, ETSI NFV ISG and ONUG, not to mention Continue reading

Congress moves quickly on cyberthreat information sharing

The U.S. Congress is moving forward quickly with legislation that would encourage private companies to share cyberthreat information with government agencies, despite concerns that two leading bills weaken consumer privacy protections.The House of Representatives Intelligence Committee voted Thursday to approve the Protecting Cyber Networks Act (PCNA), just two days after the bill was introduced.The House bill “is a cybersurveillance bill at least as much as it is a cybersecurity bill, and it is written so broadly that it could wind up making the Internet less safe,” Robyn Greene, policy counsel at the New America Foundation’s Open Technology Institute [OTI], said by email.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

New mobile-malware detection technique uses gestures

Mobile malware is a growing problem, but researchers from University of Alabama at Birmingham have figured out a new way of detecting when shady mobile apps get up to no good, such as trying to call premium-rate numbers unbeknowst to a phone’s owner.The technique relies on using the phone’s motion, position and ambient sensors to learn the gestures that users typically make when they initiate phone calls, take pictures or use the phone’s NFC reader to scan credit cards.Some mobile malware programs already abuse these services and security researchers expect their number will only increase.The technology developed by the UAB researchers can monitor those three services and can check whether attempts to access them are accompanied by the natural gestures users are expected to make. If they’re not, they were likely initiated by malware.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

iPexpert’s Newest “CCIE Wall of Fame” Additions 3/27/2015

Please join us in congratulating the following iPexpert client’s who have passed their CCIE lab!

This Week’s CCIE Success Stories

  • Thomas Loran, CCIE #7113 (Service Provider)
  • Karl-Johan Stjernqvist, CCIE #47637 (Wireless)
  • Rob Wiggins, CCIE #8375 (Data Center)
  • Michael Fowler, CCIE #47172 (Routing and Switching)
  • Patrick Perry, CCIE #47548 (Routing and Switching)
  • Heino Ala-Honkola, CCIE #47729 (Wireless)

We Want to Hear From You!

Have you passed your CCIE lab exam and used any of iPexpert’s self-study products, or attended a CCIE Bootcamp? If so, we’d like to add you to our CCIE Wall of Fame!

Show 230 – Load Balancing With Citrix NetScaler – Sponsored

Load balancers (or application delivery controllers, if you prefer) have been a topic that come up from time to time on Packet Pushers. In today’s sponsored show, members of the Citrix NetScaler team join hosts Ethan Banks and Greg Ferro in an introductory discussion of the NetScaler load balancer family.

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 Show 230 – Load Balancing With Citrix NetScaler – Sponsored appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Ethan Banks.

IDG Contributor Network: Last-mile mobile optimization boosts app performance

News watchers might have noticed a bunch of hot air and chest pounding emanating from media nuts a few days ago.The reason: the end of civilization was nigh for traditionalists, because Facebook and the New York Times had made a deal for Times content to be wrapped into Facebook pages, rather than simply linked to.Big deal, you might say. Makes sense. Add venerable 1851-launched newspaper content to a 1.3 billion-user social network, and stir thoroughly.Well, it does make sense. However, intriguingly, there's more to it than a simple you-scratch-my-back media deal. What's most interesting about this move is the technical reason prompting it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Last-mile mobile optimization boosts app performance

News watchers might have noticed a bunch of hot air and chest pounding emanating from media nuts a few days ago.The reason: the end of civilization was nigh for traditionalists, because Facebook and the New York Times had made a deal for Times content to be wrapped into Facebook pages, rather than simply linked to.Big deal, you might say. Makes sense. Add venerable 1851-launched newspaper content to a 1.3 billion-user social network, and stir thoroughly.Well, it does make sense. However, intriguingly, there's more to it than a simple you-scratch-my-back media deal. What's most interesting about this move is the technical reason prompting it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Safari users in the UK can sue Google over alleged privacy violations

The U.K. Court of Appeal won’t block a privacy lawsuit that alleges Google tracked Safari users without authorization, so the three plaintiffs can continue their legal fight against the search company.“These claims raise serious issues which merit a trial. They concern what is alleged to have been the secret and blanket tracking and collation of information, often of an extremely private nature, as specified in the confidential schedules, about and associated with the claimants’ internet use, and the subsequent use of that information for about nine months,” reads the decision, released Friday. “The case relates to the anxiety and distress this intrusion upon autonomy has caused.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Network Break 33

Take a Network Break! Grab a coffee, a doughnut and then join us for an analysis of the latest IT news, vendor moves and new product announcements. Sponsored by Viptela - SDN WAN that give 10x more for 1/3 the cost.

Author information

Greg Ferro

Greg Ferro is a Network Engineer/Architect, mostly focussed on Data Centre, Security Infrastructure, and recently Virtualization. He has over 20 years in IT, in wide range of employers working as a freelance consultant including Finance, Service Providers and Online Companies. He is CCIE#6920 and has a few ideas about the world, but not enough to really count.

He is a host on the Packet Pushers Podcast, blogger at EtherealMind.com and on Twitter @etherealmind and Google Plus.

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The post Network Break 33 appeared first on Packet Pushers Podcast and was written by Greg Ferro.

BlackBerry shocks with Q4 profit but CEO Chen can’t stop sales slide

BlackBerry surprised Wall Street by getting its bottom line back into the black in the fourth quarter, but sales shrunk significantly again, putting in question CEO John Chen’s assertion that the company’s turnaround is on track.BlackBerry is trying to become less dependent on hardware, counting instead on software such as the BES12 enterprise mobile management platform, which can be used to manage not only the company’s devices but also iOS, Android and Windows Phone smartphones.During the quarter, which ended Feb. 28, software revenue grew 24 percent on a sequential basis and 20 percent year-on-year to US$67 million, the company said Friday morning before the U.S. financial markets opened.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

BlackBerry shocks with Q4 profit but CEO Chen can’t stop sales slide

BlackBerry surprised Wall Street by getting its bottom line back into the black in the fourth quarter, but sales shrunk significantly again, putting in question CEO John Chen’s assertion that the company’s turnaround is on track.BlackBerry is trying to become less dependent on hardware, counting instead on software such as the BES12 enterprise mobile management platform, which can be used to manage not only the company’s devices but also iOS, Android and Windows Phone smartphones.During the quarter, which ended Feb. 28, software revenue grew 24 percent on a sequential basis and 20 percent year-on-year to US$67 million, the company said Friday morning before the U.S. financial markets opened.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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