Uber’s loyalty deal with Starwood Hotels could boost global growth

Uber likes to promote its service as an easy way to get from point A to point B with a smartphone. Now the company wants to reward you for making one of those points a hotel.The ride-hailing service is teaming up with Starwood Hotels & Resorts to boost the use of its app among the well-traveled crowd. Through the partnership, members of Starwood’s guest loyalty program can link their accounts with Uber accounts and earn Starwood credits whenever they take an Uber ride. They’ll earn more credits if they take the ride while staying in one of the hotel company’s 1,200 properties in 100 countries.The arrangement goes into effect Wednesday, marking Uber’s first partnership of this sort with a hotel operator.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Google scraps annual Pwnium bug-hunting contest

Google is scrapping Pwnium, its annual bug hunting event, and folding it into an existing year-round program in part to reduce security risks.The company held Pwnium annually at CanSecWest, a security conference in Vancouver, to find security problems in its Chrome OS, Chrome browser and affiliated applications.But Tim Willis of the Chrome Security Team wrote in a blog post that the annual event isn’t best for either researchers or the company.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Anthem’s latest breach estimate says 78.8 million were affected

The Anthem data breach may have exposed 78.8 million records, according to a more finely tuned estimate by the health insurance company, but Anthem is still investigating exactly how many records hackers extracted from a database.Hackers accessed a database at Anthem that contained customer and employee records with names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses and member IDs, the health insurance company said on Feb. 4. Some records included employment information and income levels, but no financial information was compromised, it said.It marked one of the largest data breaches to affect the health care industry, adding to a string of recent attacks that have shaken large companies, including retailers Home Depot, Target and Michaels.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Initial Post with GitHub and Jekyll

Over the past several months, I’ve found myself holding back on writing posts simply because my blog platform does not support the ability to embed code or even change fonts to resemble code, CLI, or working on a terminal. Screen shots are good, but offering the ability to copy and paste is nice, plus it just looks cleaner. This is unacceptable.

Additionally, I have been doing much more with GitHub and markdown. So, after reading what Scott Lowe had done with his migration to Jekyll and GitHub pages, it seemed like that was a great idea. Not only should I be able to improve what I can write, I should be able to decrease the time it takes to write a post. Awesome. The journey shall begin.

Rather than harp on my existing blog platform and that it does not have an export option, I’ve decided not to prolong the process and make this a gradual migration. Going forward, I will be posting the full blog posts at jedelman8.github.io along with ONLY the excerpt at jedelman.com. When you go to continue reading from the excerpt, you’ll then be redirected to the new site. Over time, I really Continue reading

NetSfere promises enterprise messaging with end-to-end security

If all the well-publicized hacks over the past year or so have had any effect on the corporate world, it’s been to make enterprises more worried than ever about security. Throw in the bring-your-own-device trend, and that concern gets compounded considerably.Such issues were part of the motivation for the recent launch of the Confide app for confidential enterprise messaging, and they’re also a big piece of the thinking behind the NetSfere messaging service that Infinite Convergence rolled out on Tuesday.Though Infinite Convergence launched its cloud-based messaging service for enterprises on a trial basis last fall, the security-minded offering just became globally available. Device-to-device encryption and administrative controls are among the service’s key features, which add up to end-to-end secure messaging capabilities, the company says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

NetSfere promises enterprise messaging with end-to-end security

If all the well-publicized hacks over the past year or so have had any effect on the corporate world, it’s been to make enterprises more worried than ever about security. Throw in the bring-your-own-device trend, and that concern gets compounded considerably.Such issues were part of the motivation for the recent launch of the Confide app for confidential enterprise messaging, and they’re also a big piece of the thinking behind the NetSfere messaging service that Infinite Convergence rolled out on Tuesday.Though Infinite Convergence launched its cloud-based messaging service for enterprises on a trial basis last fall, the security-minded offering just became globally available. Device-to-device encryption and administrative controls are among the service’s key features, which add up to end-to-end secure messaging capabilities, the company says.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HP gives a bleak forecast as split approaches

Hewlett-Packard has lowered its financial outlook for the year after another quarter of declining sales and profit.CEO Meg Whitman is trying to get HP in shape before the company splits itself in two later this year. One half will sell PCs and printers and the other will focus on back-end business products.But the strengthening dollar has been making life tough for U.S. multinationals, and HP is no exception. A strong dollar can have several negative effects, including making overseas sales seem smaller when they’re translated back into the home currency.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Kenya abandons school laptop project, moves to computer labs

The Kenyan government has abandoned its school laptop program, valued at more than US$600 million, following a controversy over the manner in which the contract for the project was awarded to India’s Olive Telecommunications.Kenya’s Public Procurement Administrative Review Board (PPARB) revoked the bid award last year, prompting Olive to take the matter to court.PPARB ruled after a review of the bidding that the project was wrongly awarded to Olive because the Indian company is not an original equipment manufacturer, as required by the Kenyan project requirement.Olive reportedly uses Chinese subcontractors to manufacture Olive-branded devices, and allegedly added computers to its list of products only after it was shortlisted by the Kenyan government.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

DOJ offers $3 million reward for Gameover Zeus botnet suspect

Two U.S. government agencies are offering a US$3 million reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction of a Russian man suspected of having served as an administrator for the destructive Gameover Zeus botnet.The U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of State’s Transnational Organized Crime Rewards Program announced the reward for information about suspect Evgeniy Mikhailovich Bogachev on Tuesday. Bogachev is charged in the U.S. with several crimes related to Gameover Zeus, which targeted banking credentials and other personal information over a two-year period.Gameover Zeus was responsible for more than 1 million computer infections, resulting in financial losses of more than $100 million, the DOJ said in a press release. The DOJ, working with law enforcement agencies from other countries, disrupted the botnet in mid-2014.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

DHS to allow H-1B spouses to work in US

Spouses of U.S. immigrants holding high-skill H-1B visas will be able to work in the country later this year, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Citizenship and Immigration Services has announced.The DHS decision will benefit holders of H-4 visas, which allow spouses of H-1B and other employment visa holders to legally live in the U.S. Until now, H-4 visa holders could not work in the U.S. until they received a green card, granting them permanent residency.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Can anyone catch Apple and Google in the smartphone market?

IDC's recent report on smartphone operating system market share points to Apple and Google squeezing out Windows Phone and BlackBerry again, making the smartphone market a two-horse race. Melissa Chau, IDC Senior Research Manager, said: "Instead of a battle for the third ecosystem after Android and iOS, 2014 instead yielded skirmishes, with Windows Phone edging out BlackBerry, Firefox, Sailfish and the rest, but without any of these platforms making the kind of gains needed to challenge the top two." With just Apple and Google as serious contenders, Apple has to maintain its iPhone 6 momentum from the fourth calendar quarter of 2014, when the company boosted unit shipments to 74.5 million, compared to just 51 million units during the same quarter of 2013.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Reddit bans nude photos, sex videos posted without consent

Reddit, the online message board known for its users’ unrestrained posts, is going against its laissez-faire philosophy and moving to restrict an abusive form of sexual content.Under a revised privacy policy going into effect on March 10, it will be officially prohibited for Reddit users to post naked photos and sex videos if they lack permission from the people depicted.Affected people should email the company at [email protected] to expedite the removal of the offending photos or videos “as quickly as possible,” Reddit said in the policy.Reddit, which bills itself as “the front page of the Internet,” has built its following of nearly 160 million users by letting them express themselves with various degrees of anonymity to communicate about any topic. The site’s “Ask Me Anything” discussions are popular threads.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IBM brings location awareness to MobileFirst apps

Enterprise apps built with IBM’s MobileFirst management and development platform can now be made more aware of their surroundings.The new capabilities, included in an upcoming MobileFirst update, could give app users more information about their location and let enterprises more granularly tailor their apps to user needs, said Mike Gilfix, vice president of IBM’s MobileFirst platform.MobileFirst is IBM’s package to build enterprise mobile applications that tie directly into the data and business logic of backend IT systems.The software is targeted at those organizations that don’t have sufficient in-house IT or development staff to fully build and support apps. About 75 percent of organizations have a backlog of up to 20 mobile apps that they plan to build, but haven’t yet, according to a survey commissioned by IBM and conducted by OutSystems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Universal SSL: Encryption all the way to the origin, for free

Last September, CloudFlare unveiled Universal SSL, enabling HTTPS support for all sites by default. All sites using CloudFlare now support strong cryptography from the browser to CloudFlare’s servers. One of the most popular requests for Universal SSL was to make it easier to encrypt the other half of the connection: from CloudFlare to the origin server.

Until today, encryption from CloudFlare to the origin required the purchase of a trusted certificate from a third party. The certificate purchasing process can be tedious and sometimes costly. To remedy this, CloudFlare has created a new Origin CA service in which we provide free limited-function certificates to customer origin servers.

Today we are excited to announce the public beta of this service, providing full encryption of all data from the browser to the origin, for free.

Encrypted all the way

CloudFlare offers three modes for HTTPS: Flexible, Full and Strict. In Flexible mode, traffic from browsers to CloudFlare is encrypted, but traffic from CloudFlare to a site's origin server is not. In Full and Strict modes, traffic between CloudFlare and the origin server is encrypted. Strict mode adds validation of the origin server’s certificate. We strongly encourage customers to select Strict mode Continue reading

10 products that take you back to the future

Let's go retroImage by REUTERS/Aaron HarrisWhen BlackBerry released its Passport phone last fall, it married a modern smartphone operating system -- BlackBerry's new QNX-based OS -- with a physical keyboard, which less than a decade ago had been a ubiquitous smartphone feature but now seemed like a relic from another age. Still, the company hoped that enough people pined for the older technology to drive sales.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

HP Embracing Whitebrand/Bare Metal/Britebox Ethernet Switching

HP is now offering a whitebox Ethernet product range to its customers in a recent announcements. Whether you call this britebox, whitebrand, bare metal or branded whitebox, the final outcome is the same. HP is offering customers another choice to buy the network products that meets their requirements.

The post HP Embracing Whitebrand/Bare Metal/Britebox Ethernet Switching appeared first on EtherealMind.

Apple’s most obvious product placement in movies and TV

Everywhere you lookWhile Apple does not pay for product placement in TV shows and movies, that hasn't prevented Apple products from showing up in all kinds of places in the media. As for how it all happens behind the scenes, Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller once explained that Apple has a point person who works closely with Hollywood to get Apple products as much screen time as possible.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Extreme Networks CEO touts open SDN strategy, robust wireless as key assets in changing net market

Extreme Networks Extreme Networks CEO Charles Berger: "The change for Extreme vs. where we were prior to the [Enterasys] acquisition is pretty dramatic." It’s been about 15 months since Extreme Networks completed the acquisition of Enterasys Networks, a move that bolstered not only Extreme’s financial heft, but widened its switching line and beefed up its wireless LAN capabilities. Extreme CEO Charles Berger gave IDG US Media Chief Content Officer John Gallant an update on the progress of integrating Enterasys’s technology and discussed how software-defined networking is reshaping the industry. He also discussed how Extreme’s work on in-venue wireless with NFL teams and others will benefit all customers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Extreme Networks CEO touts open SDN strategy, robust wireless as key assets in changing net market

Extreme Networks Extreme Networks CEO Charles Berger: "The change for Extreme vs. where we were prior to the [Enterasys] acquisition is pretty dramatic." It’s been about 15 months since Extreme Networks completed the acquisition of Enterasys Networks, a move that bolstered not only Extreme’s financial heft, but widened its switching line and beefed up its wireless LAN capabilities. Extreme CEO Charles Berger gave IDG US Media Chief Content Officer John Gallant an update on the progress of integrating Enterasys’s technology and discussed how software-defined networking is reshaping the industry. He also discussed how Extreme’s work on in-venue wireless with NFL teams and others will benefit all customers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Extreme Networks CEO touts open SDN strategy, robust wireless as key assets in changing net market

Extreme Networks Extreme Networks CEO Charles Berger: "The change for Extreme vs. where we were prior to the [Enterasys] acquisition is pretty dramatic." It’s been about 15 months since Extreme Networks completed the acquisition of Enterasys Networks, a move that bolstered not only Extreme’s financial heft, but widened its switching line and beefed up its wireless LAN capabilities. Extreme CEO Charles Berger gave IDG US Media Chief Content Officer John Gallant an update on the progress of integrating Enterasys’s technology and discussed how software-defined networking is reshaping the industry. He also discussed how Extreme’s work on in-venue wireless with NFL teams and others will benefit all customers.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here