FTC targets group that made billions of robocalls

Given the amount of time the FTC and others have put into curing the robocall problem, it is disheartening to hear that a group of companies for almost a year have been making billions of illegal robocalls. The Federal Trade Commission and 10 state attorneys general today said they have settled charges against a Florida-based cruise line company and seven other companies that averaged 12 million to 15 million illegal sales calls a day between October 2011 through July 2012, according to the joint complaint filed by the FTC and the states. + More on Network World: FTC: Imposter scams bully into top 3 consumer complaints spot +To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

EU countries agree on watered-down roaming and net neutrality plans

European Union countries have proposed keeping roaming charges around at least until mid-2018, going against proposals from the European Parliament and Commission for their all-out abolition by the end of the year.At the same time, representatives of the countries proposed weakening the net neutrality rules already agreed on by the Parliament and the Commission. The counter-proposal sets the stage for heated discussions as the 28 EU member states, gathered as the Council of the EU, try to reach a compromise with the EU’s other two law-making bodies on a new telecommunications law before the end of June.The Council proposed introducing a basic roaming allowance within which consumers can make and receive calls, send text messages and use data services without paying roaming fees. Once this allowance is used up though, the operator will be allowed to charge a fee, albeit much lower than current charges, the Council said. It proposes reassessing the situation in mid-2018 to see if further regulatory measures are needed to phase out charges altogether.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Meru Networks targets growing market for cloud-managed Wi-Fi

In the application world, the cloud has been all the rage. It's hard to find any application today that's not offered as a cloud service. The cloud has also had a significant impact on infrastructure and more and more customers are buying compute services from the likes of Amazon and Google.However, most network products are still procured using traditional means. Pay for it up front and then pay an annual or monthly fee for maintenance. There are a handful of network solution providers that offer "cloud-managed" solutions, and while they do offer a cloud-based management interface, the vendor typically charges an upfront fee for the hardware and then the customers' "cloud" cost is for the management tools.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Pebble smartwatch sets second Kickstarter record, and it’s not done yet

With 23 days to go in its latest Kickstarter funding campaign, Pebble has raised over $15 million. Last year, Pebble shipped more smartwatches than Android Wear. This year, the company might ship more than Apple.The smartwatch maker went back to Kickstarter, where it initially found enough funding to enter the smartwatch market, to fund its next watch, and again it set a record.Pebble set a Kickstarter record once before. Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky started the company in his college dorm room in the Netherlands, eventually becoming a fledgling startup selling BlackBerry smartwatches. Migicovsky and his team had a new idea for growth – the original Pebble smartwatch that worked with iPhones and Android smartphones – but they needed an investment to build it.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Routing between Docker containers using GNS3.

The idea is to route (IPv4 and IPv6) between Dockers containers using GNS3 and use them as end-hosts instead of Virtual Machines. Containers use only the resources necessary for the application they run. They use an image of the host file system and can share the same environment (binaries and libraries). In the other hand, virtual machines require […]

Routing between Docker containers using GNS3.

The idea is to route between Dockers containers using GNS3 and use them as end-hosts instead of Virtual Machines. Containers use only the resources necessary for the application they run. They use an image of the host file system and can share the same environment (binaries and libraries). In the other hand, virtual machines require entire OS’s, with reserved RAM […]

Can a Barcelona romance bring Wi-Fi and cells together?

In the romantic city of Barcelona, cellular and Wi-Fi are getting set up on a lot of dates this week.It’s a classic story: They’ve been neighbors for years and don’t always get along, but a lot of friends think they’re the perfect couple. There’s more matchmaking than ever at this year’s Mobile World Congress.The two types of networks are complementary, because often Wi-Fi is strong where cellular is weak, and vice versa. Most people use their cellphones outdoors and try to get on Wi-Fi when they’re indoors. But due to growing demand for mobile services, the line between the two is starting to blur. Vendors and carriers at this year’s show are demonstrating new technologies that bring them together.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Are robotics startups gaining traction? Affirmative

Editor's note: Traction Watch is a new column focused obsessively on growth, and is a companion to the DEMO Traction conference series, which brings together high-growth startups with high-potential customers. Companies can apply here to showcase, or those similarly obsessed can register here to attend.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Smartphones are about to become network hubs

Here's the quandary with smartphones: despite featuring copious radios within, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi over both the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands, 4G LTE, Near Field Communication (NFC), and so on, the radios with the most propensity for delivering media don't work together.The two Wi-Fi bands found in today's smartphones generally aren't used at the same time. The issue has been related to needing two antennas connected at the same time for the different bands. It's because the frequencies used have very different characteristics.New routersThis dual-band limitation is about to change, for a couple of reasons.Firstly, the newest routers, or wireless access points, that are being sold are already kitted with the two radios and antennas configured to work together at the same time. I wrote about a few of these monsters recently in a post titled "Is it time to move to beamforming 802.11ac?"To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

IDG Contributor Network: Smartphones are about to become network hubs

Here's the quandary with smartphones: despite featuring copious radios within, such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi over both the 2.4 and 5 GHz bands, 4G LTE, Near Field Communication (NFC), and so on, the radios with the most propensity for delivering media don't work together.The two Wi-Fi bands found in today's smartphones generally aren't used at the same time. The issue has been related to needing two antennas connected at the same time for the different bands. It's because the frequencies used have very different characteristics.New routersThis dual-band limitation is about to change, for a couple of reasons.Firstly, the newest routers, or wireless access points, that are being sold are already kitted with the two radios and antennas configured to work together at the same time. I wrote about a few of these monsters recently in a post titled "Is it time to move to beamforming 802.11ac?"To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Internet.org hopes to reach 100 countries in a year, up from six now

BARCELONA -- Internet.org, which is already offering free Internet service in six countries, has ambitious plans to connect to 100 countries in the next year."We like big, ambitious goals at Facebook," said Chris Daniels, head of Internet.org in a discussion with several reporters at Mobile World Congress (MWC).Facebook and several partners founded Internet.org two years ago; it is already serving 7 million customers in Columbia, Ghana, Tanzania, Kenya, India and Zambia. Many of those who were originally connected for free are now paying some fee for more advanced data services.Daniels, a vice president at Facebook in charge of Internet.org, said the conversion of free Internet users to paying customers is critical to the carriers who provide the Internet infrastructure that makes the service possible.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Review: Microsoft Azure beats Amazon and Google for mobile development

In the last year I've reviewed six MBaaS (mobile back end as a service) platforms: FeedHenry, Kinvey, Parse, AnyPresence, Appcelerator, and Appery.io. I also briefly examined the MBaaS platforms associated with Pivotal CF and IBM Bluemix in my reviews of those PaaS (platform as a service) offerings. All of these MBaaS platforms run on some kind of public cloud, and some can be installed on-premise or in hybrid cloud configurations.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Attackers clone malware-laden copies of popular apps

Criminal hackers have hacked/cloned most of the top 100 paid apps and top 20 free apps for Android and iOS, according to data from Arxan’s State of Mobile App Security report, 2014. These attackers use the infected apps to gain entry to the enterprise in order to compromise its most treasured information.And with the movement toward doing networking in software, the ability to enable micro-segmentation to add policy-based traffic analysis and filters between any pair of endpoints is becoming an additional security option, which enterprises should consider.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)

Flappy apps give users the angry bird

Sadistic software switchersSadistic software switchers have been known to swap in malicious versions of these seven popular mobile apps.RELATED: Attackers have cloned malware-laden copies of the most popular apps your employees useTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Net neutrality will put U.S. behind Europe, Cisco’s Chambers says

U.S. net neutrality rules will help Europe take the lead in broadband, Cisco CEO John Chambers says.The regulations approved last week by the U.S. Federal Communications Commission will slow down broadband deployment, Chambers said at Mobile World Congress on Tuesday. Instead of focusing on net neutrality, the government should aim for more available broadband, he said.+ ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD Follow all the stories from Mobile World Congress +"Sometimes, if you're not careful, your regulatory goals can slow down your end goals," Chambers said. He praised German Chancellor Angela Merkel, saying she's kept Germany focused on fast Internet access for every citizen. The U.S. led in the Internet era until about 2010 but in a few years will be behind the major European countries, India and China, he said.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Momentum grows around Microsoft’s Windows 10 for phones

Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 OS hasn’t taken the world by storm, but its successor, Windows 10, is off to an encouraging start even before its release.Only a handful of Windows 10 handsets were on display on the show floor of Mobile World Congress in Barcelona this week, but with some device and chip makers announcing their intentions to support Windows 10 on smartphones, that could translate to many more handsets becoming available by year end. Microsoft has said that Windows 10 will provide a more consistent user experience across smartphones, tablets and PCs. A technical preview of the OS is already available, with the final version expected to reach handsets later this year. Some handsets, but not all, running Windows Phone 8.1 will be upgraded to Windows 10.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Wednesday, March 4

Alibaba opens its cloud for business in U.S.Alibaba is set to compete for cloud services with Amazon Web Services, Google Compute Engine and Microsoft Azure with a new data center in California, the first outside China for the Aliyun subsidiary. It is initially targeting low-hanging fruit: the U.S. operations of Chinese companies. But its use of proprietary technology may be a turnoff for prospective customers who are wary of cloud lock-in.IBM plugs its OpenPower servers into the cloudIBM wants to show that its Power processors are a good alternative to Intel’s x86 chips in the cloud market, so it’s rolling out an infrastructure-as-a-service using OpenPower servers. The SoftLayer division is starting the Power move with a data center in Texas but will later roll out the service worldwide.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

Budget smartphones shine at Mobile World Congress

Budget smartphones from the likes of Sony, Microsoft and up-and-comer Alcatel OneTouch have improved to such an extent that the question whether or not to buy one of the latest high-end smartphones is tougher than ever before. The launches of the Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 edge from Samsung Electronics and the One M9 from HTC didn’t disappoint. However, it wasn’t expensive flagship smartphones like those that dominated in Barcelona, but smartphones that cost US$300 or less unlocked. Even with such cheaper phones, manufacturers are increasingly focusing on looks. A company that has succeeded in this regard is Sony, with its Xperia M4 Aqua. The product has a plastic frame and back, instead of glass and metal, but Sony has chosen materials that still look good.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here

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