Articles
Total 26 articles, created at 2016-03-05 18:02
1 Adoption of Health Apps, Wearable Devices Grows
An Accenture report found that the vast majority of consumers and doctors believe wearables help patients engage in their health.
The number of U. S. consumers using wearables and mobile apps for managing their health has doubled from 16 percent in 2014 to 33 percent today.
The findings are part of a seven-country Accenture survey of roughly 8,000 consumers, including 2,225 in the United States.
The majority of both consumers (77 percent) and doctors (85 percent), the reported found, said that using wearables helps a patient engage in his or her health.
In addition, four in 10 consumers who use health apps said they have discussed or shared mobile app data with their doctor in the past year.
Of the one in five consumers who were asked by a doctor to use wearables to track their health, such as fitness or vital signs, three-quarters (76 percent) followed their physician's recommendation.
"Overall, as wearable devices and health apps become more popular, they also face some criticism. For example, some say wearables lack the ability to keep consumers' attention in the long run—perhaps they use it for a few months and then it becomes less consistent," Dr. Kaveh Safavi, senior managing director for Accenture's global health care business, told eWEEK. "Others have noted potential privacy concerns associated with data sharing and tracking of this sort, or the pitfalls of a lack of true interoperability between consumers, health care providers and other key parties at this time. "
We live in an age where technology is constantly changing, and so are privacy and security measures to protect consumers using the new devices and apps, Safavi said.
"Cyber-security is a real consideration in health care," he said. "Accenture estimated in October 2015 that one in 13 patients—25 million people— will have personal information like Social Security or financial records stolen from technology systems over the next five years. "
Consumers most frequently use health apps for fitness (cited by 59 percent of respondents), diet/nutrition (52 percent), symptom navigation (36 percent) and accessing their patient portal (28 percent).
While the vast majority (90 percent) of consumers said they would be willing to share wearable or app data with medical providers, far fewer said they would be willing to share that data with their health plans (63 percent) or employers (31 percent).
"Adoption rates of health apps and wearables over the past two years have been significant, showing that patients are leading the way in using digital tools to manage their own health," Safavi said. "U. S. consumers continue to demand a digitally-enabled health care experience, yet health care falls behind many other industries in making this available to them. That said, to get ahead, providers can invest in digital tools and strategies to better adapt to consumers' changing expectations. " 2016-03-05 17:19 Nathan Eddy www.eweek.com
FBI director calls encryption a 2 'vicious guard dog' as iPhone unlocking row hits Congress
APPLE AND THE FBI have gone head-to-head in Congress over whether the firm should be forced to unlock the iPhone of a terrorist in the San Bernardino case.
FBI director James Comey wa s first to take the stand during the five-hour hearing. He said that the debate was the "hardest issue" he's confronted in government.
"The logic of encryption will bring us, in the not too distant future, [to a situation] where all conversations and papers and effects are entirely private. There’s a lot of good about this, a lot of benefits," he said. "[But] there are many costs to this. Law enforcement is dependent on being able to obtain warrants to look at information. That’s the way law enforcement provides public security. "
However, Comey added that the rising use of encryption makes it almost impossible to access information and communications. "What we get is unreadable. We cannot decrypt that which is covered by strong encryption," he said.
As such, the request to force Apple to create a way into the iPhone is necessary to ensure that the data can be accessed, according to Comey.
"We are not asking to expand the government’s surveillance authority, but rather we are asking to ensure that we can continue to obtain electronic information and evidence pursuant to the legal authority that Congress has provided to us," he said.
Comey also claimed that the FBI asking for a ‘backdoor’ is wide of the mark, saying that it is more about removing a ‘guard dog’ on the door that already exists in iPhones.
“There’s already a door on that iPhone. We’re asking Apple to take the vicious dog away and let us pick the lock,” he explained. Comey did admit that the case could set a precedent that would give the FBI powers to unlock other phones in the future, but claimed that this is not the FBI's aim and that the action the FBI is asking for would not work on newer iPhones.
"Any decision by a court is potentially useful to other courts, [although] I happen to think there are technical limits to how successful this San Bernardino technique could be given how phones have changed," he said.
In response, Apple lawyer Bruce Sewell reiterated the firm's stance that the FBI's demands are too broad and pose too many risks to citizens' safety and privacy.
"The FBI has asked a court to order us to give them something we don’t have, to create an operating system that does not exist because it would be too dangerous," he said.
"They are asking for a backdoor into the iPhone, specifically to build a software tool that can break the encryption system which protects personal information on every iPhone.
"The FBI is asking Apple to weaken the security of our products. Hackers and cyber criminals could use this to wreak havoc on our privacy and personal safety.
"It would set a dangerous precedent for government intrusion on the privacy and safety of its citizens. "
Sewell also noted that, even if Apple was forced to build the backdoor, criminals could always find other ways to keep their information hidden in encrypted apps, citing the example of the Telegram messaging app.
“If Apple is forced to write a new OS to degrade the safety and security in phones belonging to hundreds of millions of innocent people it will weaken our safety and security, but it will not affect terrorists in the least,” he said.
The outcome of the case remains uncertain, but Apple was boosted on Tuesday by a ruling in a New York court that the company should not be forced to unlock an iPhone owned by a drug dealer, echoing the San Bernardino case. µ 2016-03-05 17:06 www.theinquirer.net
3 New Mac malware linked to infamous Hacking Team
MALWARE FOUND IN THE WILD and uploaded to VirusTotal at the beginning of February bears all the hallmarks of Hacking Team, the Italian security software outfit that supplied covert computer cracking and surveillance tools to governments worldwide.
The malware wasn't detectable by any of the major antivirus scanners at the time, and even at the beginning of this week could be detected by only 10 out of 56 antivirus software packages and services.
SentinelOne security researcher Pedro Vilaça published a technical analysis of the malware earlier this week under the headline: The Italian morons are back! What are they up to this time? . Key elements of the malware indicate that Hacking Team was back in business within three months of a breach in July last year in which all the company's emails, and much of its technology and techniques, were leaked by a hacker or ex- employee who has not been publicly identified. "Looking at the dropper code and comparing it with older samples, we can't spot many differences," said Vilaça in his analysis of the malware.
"The structure is more or less the same and the tricks still the same, so you can refer to my slides and older blog posts if you are interested in those details. The only difference is that this time the dropper only packs a single persistence binary and a configuration file. Older samples packed more stuff. "
The malware can be accurately dated as the code shows that it was last updated in October/November and the embedded encryption key is dated 16 October.
The Shodan search engine, which collects data on open network ports, indicates that the malware's host was first seen on 15 October 2015, and that the last information was gathered on 4 February, according to John Matherly, the programmer behind Shodan.
Vilaça added in an update: "I just found some unique code in this dropper. This code checks for newer OS X versions and does not exist in the [July 2015] leaked source code. "Either someone is maintaining and updating HackingTeam code (why the hell would someone do that?) or this is indeed a legit sample compiled by Hacking Team themselves.
"Reuse and repurposing of malware source code happens (Zeus, for example), but my gut feeling and indicators seem to not point in that direction. "
Vilaça strongly believes that Hacking Team is behind this new Mac OS malware because of the way it is coded. "When you have reversed all their samples let's say you start to know them quite well," he said.
His belief is also based on comments from former Hacking Team employees who have said that the malware is consistent with the company's "normal practices".
"Hacking Team is still alive and kicking but they are still the same crap morons," he concluded. µ
To hear more about security challenges, the threats they pose and how to combat them, sign up for The INQUIRER sister site Computing's Enterprise Security and Risk Management conference , taking place on 24 November. 2016-03-05 17:06 www.theinquirer.net
Microsoft supports more handsets 4 in Windows 10 Mobile Build 10586.122
MICROSOFT HAS added support for a handful of extra handsets in the latest Cumulative Update of Windows 10 Mobile, the version of Windows 10 aimed at smartphones.
Windows 10 Mobile Insider Preview Build 10586.122 was made available overnight to testers on Microsoft's Windows Insider programme who have signed up for the Slow and Release Preview Rings. This means that the code is more stable than that delivered to those opting for the cutting-edge Fast Ring.
This Cumulative Update continues to address feedback Microsoft receives from users of its own Lumia devices, but adds support for four additional Windows Phone handsets. These are the MCJ Madosma Q501, BLU Win HD W510U, BLU Win HD LTE X150Q and Alcatel OneTouch Fierce XL.
As is the case with these updates, Preview Build 10586.122 delivers several bug fixes and improvements reported by testers. These include bugs in the Microsoft Edge browser, one that prevented the option to 'Close all Tabs' actually closing all open tabs, and another that prevented Word Flow input on some web sites.
Microsoft has also improved the battery life of devices by updates to the way background processing is performed for some operations, while overall reliability of the operating system, including of the Start screen, app updates and the Windows Feedback app, has been addressed. A full list of the fixes can be found on Microsoft's Windows Experience blog.
Gabe Aul, Microsoft's director of programme management for the Windows Fundamentals team, appealed for Windows Insiders to give feedback, particularly on the experience of upgrading from Windows Phone 8.1.
"If you're a Windows Insider who is willing to help test the upgrade path that most customers will be taking from Windows Phone 8.1, you can use the Windows Device Recovery Tool to go back to Windows Phone 8.1 and then download the Windows Insider app from the Store and jump into the Slow or Release Preview rings to pick up Build 10586.122 for your phone," he said.
"We appreciate Insiders helping us test the upgrade from Windows Phone 8.1 to help ensure our customers have a great experience. "
Windows 10 Mobile was officially released on new Microsoft Lumia handsets late last year , but most owners of older Windows Phone handsets are still waiting for a version of the release code that will upgrade their devices. µ 2016-03-05 17:06 www.theinquirer.net
Government confirms plans to close 5 the BBC licence online catch-up loophole
UK CULTURE secretary John 'Who?' Whittingdale has confirmed that legislation to close the loophole for licence fee payers who watch only catch-up TV will be enacted soon.
Whittingdale told the Oxford Media Convention that he will bring forward legislation "as soon as practicable", according to the BBC , going so far as to suggest that it could even be in this parliament.
The BBC licence fee currently applies only to live television, so it can be argued that viewers of BBC iPlayer don't have to pay. Unless, of course, they're watching a live simulcast, in which case they have to click a button saying that they do have a licence. In other words, the law is a hopelessly out-of-date ass.
Mr Who told delegates: "When the licence fee was invented video on demand did not exist. And while the definition of television in the legislation covers live streaming, it does not require viewers to have a licence if they watch BBC programmes through the iPlayer even if it is just a few minutes after transmission.
"The BBC works on the basis that all who watch it pay for it. Giving a free ride to those who enjoy Sherlock or Bake Off an hour, a day or a week after they are broadcast was never intended and is wrong. "
The licence fee has always been subject to complications caused by changes in technology. Many BBC programmes were made with no contractual clause for video recordings, DVD sales and such like, explaining why some key programmes have never been repeated, why others were junked as having no commercial value and, most importantly, why you can get only one series of Rentaghost on DVD.
A BBC spokeswoman said: "We are happy to have reached an agreement with the secretary of state on how to close the iPlayer loophole. Its swift closure will help give the BBC funding certainty. "
The BBC Charter is up for renewal in 2017, and the company is already looking to maximise income in the wake of a government which is, to say the least, lukewarm on the licencing model.
The BBC Three yoof channel was moved off linear broadcast last month to become an online channel making it even more difficult to ensure that viewers are paying for it. µ 2016-03-05 17:06 www.theinquirer.net
6 Shocking problem forces Amazon to recall Fire tablet chargers
EVERYTHING SELLER AMAZON has been forced to recall chargers for Fire devices sold after September 2015 as there is a chance they could zap tablet-tappers with a jolt of electricity.
Amazon sent an email to customers informing them of the risk posed by chargers for the Fire tablets , which include the best-selling model and, worryingly, one designed for kids.
"We have determined that, in rare cases, when the power adapter included with the UK Fire 7in and UK Fire Kids Edition 7in tablet is pulled from the wall socket, the adapter assembly may detach and create a risk of electrical shock,” Amazon said.
The chargers in question bear the FABK7B model number. We reckon the first four letters stand for Fry All Bad Kids, but we’ve had a lot of coffee today.
Amazon stressed that the shocking problem occurs only on rare occasions, but the firm is pulling the plug on the problem and offering to replace the adapter or offer £12 in credit to order another one. After all, the last thing Amazon wants is a shocked and angry parent banging on the corporate doors about an electrocuted child.
Fire users can charge the tablets using a USB cable attached to a laptop or PC in the meantime, which bypasses the shock risk. People with a spare generic USB charger can also use that instead and not get a bolt through their fingers when playing Angry Birds or Crossy Road.
Amazon isn’t alone in having chargers that go bad and channel their inner Thor. Apple had to recall some iPad and MacBook chargers in January after discovering that they posed a shock risk, and Microsoft urged its Surface Pro users to ditch their chargers earlier this month after receiving 56 reports of cables catching fire. µ 2016-03-05 17:06 www.theinquirer.net
Reinstating Moore’s Law: a next- 7 generation transistor for mobile technology
In 1991, Sony commercialised lithium- ion battery technology, which took the electronics of the transistor and made it portable – revolutionising mobile telephones and laptops in the process and paving the way for the tablet and smartphone.
A quarter of a century later, this technology has not significantly developed any further. In its early years, it had no need to. It solved some early problems for Sony, such as the size and weight of batteries needed for handheld video, and provided an adequate battery solution for the first consumer mobile phones.
This remained the case until the early 2000s, when batteries in mobile phones would regularly last for days on end without needing to be recharged. However, the last decade has truly been the era of the smartphone, and as the functionality and performance of phones have improved, one thing has remained constant – the inadequacy of battery life.
The latest smartphones are more than 10 times faster than their predecessors, but the battery is still lucky to last a day with average usage. Given the huge gap between the original iPhone and the iPhone 6s, keeping this comparable is still impressive, although it is more to do with better processors than improved batteries.
Now researchers have developed new piezoelectric transistor materials that could see processors working at one-tenth of the current voltage, consuming up to 100 times less power as a result and greatly improving battery life.
The new piezoelectric materials change their shape, or ‘strain’, in response to applied voltages. Applying a voltage to the material causes strains in it that result in tiny changes in shape, and withdrawing the voltage causes the material to return to its original form.
The close relationship between the mechanical and electrical properties of piezoelectric materials means that an applied voltage forces a reorientation of a material’s molecular dipole moments and therefore physical shape. As this relationship is reversible, the addition of strain produced by a piezoelectric actuator can cause a piezoresistive material to switch from being an insulator to a conductor and back, offering the possibility of reading and writing digital information. 2016-03-05 13:51 Mark Stewart www.computerweekly.com
Quantifying the Business Value of 8 Dell XC Powered by Nutanix Software
Download this white paper as it explores IDC’s research demonstrating that organizations running workloads on Nutanix solutions such as Dell XC are benefiting from cost and staff efficiencies, the ability to scale their infrastructure incrementally, very high resiliency, and strong application performance. 2016-03-05 17:03 www.itworldcanada.com
What you need to know about 9 vendor risk management in financial institutions
The industry adoption of SOC 2 and continuous monitoring services like BitSight Security Ratings will help pave the foundation of confidence that financial institutions and their business partners are looking for. In fact, continuous risk monitoring is one of the most practical and efficient methods your financial services organization can use to prepare for the changing threat landscape. Organizations that adopt these cybersecurity best practices can improve security awareness across their organization and gain increased visibility into vendor threats.
Download this white paper as it discusses: 2016-03-05 17:03 www.itworldcanada.com
10 The State of Application Delivery: 2016 Report
Because we rely on them so heavily, applications must be available when we need them, able to respond within a split second to meet our demands, and secure enough to protect our confidential information.
To do that, applications need services. Without them, they are like cars without fuel, banks without vaults, and passports without pictures. Services do things like improve availability and performance to ensure that applications are always accessible and performing as users expect. They also help you protect your network, systems, users, devices, and confidential information, and give you the control you need to decide which applications users can access.
Download this report to learn the number and types of applications and services being used by F5 customers, what their greatest challenges are in delivering them, which services they need more of, and which ones they plan to deploy in the future. 2016-03-05 17:03 www.itworldcanada.com
11 Attacks targeting ISIS, Ukraine bring cyberwar out of shadows
Last December, part of the Ukraine saw its power grid suddenly go dark.
No one's claimed responsibility, but the grid had been hit by an online attack that took out the system remotely. Experts agree on a likely suspect: the Russian government, headquartered more than 800 miles away.
It appears to be the first time a cyberattack has knocked out a power grid.
The outage is just one example of the growing threat of cyberwar, a practice that's become a primary focus of governments and terrorist organizations worldwide. Underlining this point, the US has started going public with its own attacks. On Monday, Department of Defense Secretary Ash Carter said that the US is hitting ISIS systems with cyberassaults.
The attacks aim "to cause them to lose confidence in their networks, to overload their networks so they can't function," Rogers said, according to multiple reports. He didn't provide details, and the Department of Defense didn't respond to a request Friday for more information. If we didn't know it already, the Ukraine attack and Ash's remarks make it clear there are destructive skirmishes taking place in cyberspace right now, and increasingly they're spilling into people's daily lives.
Most attacks seek to fly under the radar, leaving it unclear whether the target's own systems are at fault or whether they've been hit, according to Wired reporter Kim Zetter's 2014 book "Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon. "
In 2012, it took cybersecurity researchers and journalists months to ferret out who was behind Stuxnet, malicious software found on computers running the Iranian nuclear enrichment program. Surprise: It was the US and Israel.
Michael S. Rogers, the director of US Cyber Command, which carries out cyberattacks for the military, didn't mention attacks on ISIS when he spoke at the cybersecurity-focused RSA Conference in San Francisco on Tuesday. He only brought up attacks on infrastructure once to describe the threat to the US.
"It's only a matter of the when, not the if, you are going to see a nation state, a group or an actor engage in destructive behavior against critical infrastructure of the United States," Rogers said. After the attack in the Ukraine, the White House and the Department of Homeland Security warned US utilities and infrastructure providers that a similar attack could be used against them.
Testifying before the US Senate last March, Rogers said "a purely defensive reactive strategy" isn't enough. Aside from being resource intensive, such defensive tactics could come too late to do any good. "We also need to think about how can we increase our capacity on the offensive side," he said.
But former White House counterterrorism czar Richard A. Clarke has criticized the shadowy nature of cyberwar in the US. Cyberattacks are conducted "without public debate, media discussion, serious congressional oversight, academic analysis or international dialogue," he wrote in his 2010 book "Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About it. "
Speaking Thursday at a luncheon near the cybersecurity-focused RSA Conference in San Francisco, retired Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace said the powers the US has to hack aren't to be trifled with.
But, he noted, here's the rub with cyberweapons: They don't blow up on impact. Once code that targets critical infrastructure creeps onto the enemy's computer, that enemy can potentially use it too.
Also, Pace noted that cyberweapons are easy to make but very hard to defend against.
"I know we cannot defend against what we can do offensively," he said. 2016-03-05 17:06 Laura Hautala www.cnet.com
12 Tech Data Rides Apple Enterprise Boom To PC Growth A near-doubling of Tech Data’s Apple business over the past two years has helped the distributor fend off currency headwinds and grow its desktop and notebook businesses.
The Clearwater, Fla.-based distributor saw net income climb 8 percent for the quarter ended Jan. 31, from $74.9 million last year to $80.9 million this year, or $2.29 per share on a non- GAAP basis. This was an all-time, fourth-quarter earnings-per-share high, beating Seeking Alpha expectations of $2.09 per share.
Sales climbed 2 percent, from $7.34 billion in last year’s fourth quarter to $7.48 billion in this year’s quarter, beating Seeking Alpha’s estimate of $7.11 billion.
[RELATED: Tech Data Stock Dives As Weak Enterprise Demand Drags Sales Down ]
“Clearly, the Apple product line is finding its way to the enterprise through routes to market like Tech Data,” Bob Dutkowsky, Tech Data’s CEO, said during an earnings call Thursday. “The Apple product line has gotten much broader than it was a few years ago.”
Earnings were released before the market opened Thursday. Wall Street was pleased with the results, sending Tech Data’s stock price up 1.4 percent to $73.95 per share.
Tech Data’s relationship with Apple has dramatically deepened as the Cupertino, Calif.- based vendor has moved beyond the iPhone into notebooks, desktops, iPads and television, Dutkowsky said. Apple is Tech Data’s largest vendor partner for the second consecutive quarter and accounts for 24 percent of its overall business today, up from just 13 percent two years ago.
Tech Data’s low-cost logistics network and expanded product offering has enabled the distributor to win in the marketplace and bring more Apple products to business ecosystems, Dutkowsky said. Specifically, non-Windows PCs such as the Chromebook and Apple devices allowed Tech Data to deliver strong results in its North American desktop sales and European notebook business despite overall PC softness. HP Inc. was Tech Data’s only other major vendor partner, with the printing and PC giant accounting for 10 percent of the distributor’s overall sales in the most recent quarter. Pre-split Hewlett- Packard accounted for 20 percent of Tech Data’s overall sales in the quarter ended Oct. 30, while Cisco – which made up 10 percent of Tech Data’s sales in the quarter ended Oct. 30 – has fallen below 10 percent.
Dutkowsky said it’s way too early to pass judgment on how Tianjin Tianhai’s proposed acquisition of Ingram Micro would affect the distribution landscape and whether Tech Data would be able to gain market share as a result of its largest competitor being owned by a Chinese conglomerate.
“Competitors come, they go, they change profiles, they diversify, all of those change,” Dutkowsky said. “We respect them [Ingram Micro] as a competitor. We’ve performed very well in our markets against them.” 2016-03-05 17:04 Michael Novinson www.crn.com
Sources: Cisco Said To Have 13 Offered $4B For Nutanix Last Year, Also Tried To Acquire SimpliVity
Cisco Systems says it has been a fan of Springpath, the hyper-convergence startup it's partnering with on its new HyperFlex offering, since the startup's early days in 2012.
Yet during the first half of 2015, Cisco unsuccessfully tried to acquire both Nutanix and SimpliVity, the No. 1 and No. 2 startups in the hyper-convergence market, multiple sources with knowledge of the matter told CRN recently.
Now, Cisco is competing with them with HyperFlex Systems, a new product line it launched this week that marries its Unified Computing System (UCS) servers with Springpath's software-defined storage technology. Cisco has invested in Springpath and also has the option of acquiring it based on revenue results, according to CRN's sources.
[Related: Startup Nutanix To Cisco: Welcome To Hyper-Convergence Market, Good Luck Catching Up With Us ]
The sources said Cisco mounted an especially dogged pursuit of Nutanix, which has raised more than $312 million and has a valuation north of $2 billion, making two separate bids to acquire the San Jose, Calif.-based startup.
Cisco's best offer was around $4 billion, but Nutanix's asking price was between $6 billion and $7 billion, according to the sources, who didn't want to be named.
After Nutanix declined the offer, Cisco cut off related talks about doing an OEM agreement with the startup, the sources said.
Cisco, which formed a UCS partnership with SimpliVity in 2014, also made an acquisition offer to SimpliVity sometime around the time of the startup's $175 million Series D funding round in March 2015, sources said. It's not clear how much Cisco offered for the startup, which is based in Westborough, Mass.
Spokespeople from Cisco, Nutanix and SimpliVity all declined comment. Springpath didn't respond to a request for comment.
Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins, in a Q&A with press Tuesday during the vendor's Partner Summit in San Diego, said Cisco "actually looked at all our options" in the hyper-convergence space before deciding to invest in Springpath.
Robbins also described Springpath's technology as "next-generation thinking" and said when the vendor shared early builds of HyperFlex with a select group of partners, "the feedback I got was, 'Wow, you guys are on to something.' " 2016-03-05 17:04 Kevin McLaughlin www.crn.com
Dell Working Capital Program Tops 14 $5B, Partners Use Cash Flow To Drive Growth
Cash-strapped partners struggling to adapt to customers' new IT consumption models have driven a whopping 200 percent growth in the fourth quarter alone through a Dell program designed to free up working capital.
In the fourth quarter, Dell partners participating in the program did $1.8 billion in flooring volume, compared with $600 million in the same quarter a year ago, according to figures provided by Dell. What's more, since it was first launched 18 months ago, Dell's Working Capital Program has booked $5.4 billion in flooring volume.
"No business on the planet can grow without adequate financing. It's as simple as that," said Dan Serpico, CEO of San Francisco-based Dell partner FusionStorm. "What the Dell program does is allows us to finance, by leveraging Wells Fargo, large quantities of Dell business that quite frankly we would not be able to do. " [Related: Report: Banks Close To Finding Investors For Dell-EMC Acquisition Debt]
Serpico said it's hard to quantify how big an impact the working capital program has had on FusionStorm, but it has been significant.
"We were just under $100 million in Dell sales last year," Serpico said. "Would it be $50 million without [the program]? It's hard to say, but there is a clear correlation between our growth and the ability to utilize this program. "
"Dell isn't going to give us a direct line of credit," Serpico said. "They don't have a strong distribution program where you can tap into a line of credit with your distributor, but you can tap into this program. It provides us with the ability to do deals we'd be tapped out of. "
Perhaps the best part of the program, Serpico said, is its seamlessness. "Our guys never think about it, and that probably is the best validation," he said. "We have been in places with other brands that don't have the credit capacity where guys worry about being able to do a deal. Sales guys having confidence is the underlying emotion to them being able to sell. The fact they don't have to think about it absolutely helps. " In an interview with CRN editors, Dell Channel Chief Cheryl Cook explained that the working capital program solves a key problem for partners that other vendors have not addressed -- namely, that customers moving to a cloud business model are booking IT spending as an operational expense, rather than a capital expenditure.
It also allows partners to take on deals much larger than they're accustomed to, Cook said.
"It's all around cash-flow optimization for their business, expanded credit with us to allow them to continue this rapid pace of adoption with Dell," Cook said. "It's different from what some of our competition is doing, which is why I think some people are really embracing it. " 2016-03-05 17:04 Matt Brown www.crn.com
15 5 Companies That Had A Rough Week
The Week Ending March 4
Topping this week's roundup of companies that had a rough week is VMware, whose loss of yet another key executive is raising questions about possible turmoil amid Dell's pending acquisition of EMC, VMware's majority owner.
Also making the list were IBM (or, more specifically, IBM workers) for undergoing a round of layoffs, Nimble Storage for its tumbling stock value, Amazon for its decision to drop device encryption for its Kindle Fire tablets, and just about every leading smartphone maker for projected slower sales this year.
Not everyone in the IT industry was having a rough go of it this week. For a rundown of companies that made smart decisions, executed savvy strategic moves -- or just had good luck -- check out this week's 5 Companies That Came To Win roundup. crn.com 2016-03-05 17:04 Rick Whiting www.crn.com
Exclusive: Dell Channel Chief Cheryl Cook On Doubling 16 Enterprise Incentives, Increasing Premier Ranks And EMC Integration
Cook: Dell Aggressively Pushing Channel Sales Dell Channel Chief Cheryl Cook is taking an aggressive, disruptive approach to the market with the Round Rock, Texas, company in the process of finalizing its blockbuster $59.5 billion acquisition of EMC.
Cook, vice president of Global Channels and Alliances for Dell, spoke about doubling the new business incentive program for storage, networking and converged infrastructure and a new Premier Plus partner level. Dell moved 50 elite partners into the new Premier Plus level and then upped the Premier Plus ranks by 60 percent, adding 30 more partners to the top tier.
Cook also spoke about a new cash-flow windfall for partners , with Dell injecting a whopping $5 billion in new financing into the channel in the past 18 months.
Finally, Dell is aggressively pushing partner sales growth within the specific business units as part of a sales offensive aimed at getting partners to sell the full Dell portfolio from client devices to complex data center solutions.
The conversation with CRN editors came as Dell received approval from European and U. S. regulators for its acquisition of EMC. What follows is an edited excerpt of that conversation. 2016-03-05 17:04 Matt Brown www.crn.com
Cisco CEO Robbins Talks Nutanix, 17 InterCloud, Open Compute Project And The Biggest Partner Summit Takeaways
Robbins On The Record
Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins fielded questions from reporters Tuesday during the 2016 Cisco Partner Summit on the company's entrance into the hyper-converged infrastructure market, the status of its InterCloud cloud computing strategy and the biggest partner takeaways from the event.
This week at the event in San Diego, the networking giant unveiled a number of new products and services , a revamp of its partner strategy and a pair of acquisitions that had channel partners buzzing.
During the Q&A session, Robbins sounded off on hyper-convergence rival Nutanix, why Cisco's InterCloud strategy is still solid, Cisco's evolvement in the Open Compute Project, the channel takeaway from Partner Summit and the difference between himself and former CEO John Chambers. 2016-03-05 12:24 Mark Haranas www.crn.com
Don't rage against the machine: 18 humans, not robots, will cause the AI uprising
One of the most enduring threats in science fiction is the spectre of artificial intelligence: the idea that computers will get so smart they'll become essentially conscious... and then try to take over.
From HAL9000 to Skynet to Ex-Machina's Ava, you'd be forgiven for being a little insecure about our continued place in the universe. But do we have actually have anything to worry about, or is it all just scaremongering?
Essentially, the big worry is that with continued improvements in AI we'll eventually hit what has been dubbed 'The Singularity' – the point where AI becomes so smart that it's smart enough improve itself.
And if a machine can constantly create an even better version of itself then it would be like cutting the technological brake cables: computers would quickly be so smart that not only would we be unable to control them, our puny organic brains couldn't even begin to comprehend what they're doing or how they're doing it. Scary, eh?
Many of science and technology's biggest names have weighed in with their take on whether we should fear runaway artificial intelligence.
"One can imagine such technology outsmarting financial markets, out-inventing human researchers, out-manipulating human leaders and developing weapons we cannot even understand," wrote physicist Stephen Hawking and his colleagues in the Independent , adding "Whereas the short-term impact of AI depends on who controls it, the long-term impact depends on whether it can be controlled at all. "
Billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk (below) is so worried about the implications of out-of-control AI that he's put his money where his mouth is, and has donated $10m to the Future of Life Institute, which studies ways to make AI safe.
Credit: On Innovation Creative Commons
Bill Gates has waded in too, saying "I am in the camp that is concerned about super intelligence. First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super-intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well.
"A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern. I agree with Elon Musk and some others on this, and don't understand why some people are not concerned. "
Of course, this hasn't stopped Microsoft (which Gates is no longer in charge of) investing in some impressive AI research of its own.
Apple has generally been perceived as more reticent about AI, which necessarily involves combing through a lot of our data to train algorithms – something Tim Cook has previously criticised Google for. But this hasn't stopped Apple splashing out on an AI firm of its own.
Actually, most of the world's largest tech companies are currently hard at work engineering ever more intelligent machines. Google Now and Siri already combine a number of complex technologies, such as natural language processing (understanding what our voices are saying) and semantic text recognition (what our words actually mean). Facebook has also been experimenting with AI, building a bot it calls 'M' for Facebook Messenger. The idea is that you'll be able to carry out certain tasks, such as booking flights for finding directions, just by talking to it, as though it was a human contact on your Facebook.
The reason much of this smart technology has arrived recently is because the continued exponential increase in computing power, cloud computing and increased storage has enabled the development of advanced 'neural networks' which simulate the same sorts of connections we have in our brains. Neural networks will play a key part in any singularity, as teaching computers to learn is how you teach them to improve.
Perhaps the best way to explain neural networks is this video showing a computer learn to play Super Mario World. At first the computer is dumb, but using a process that's similar to evolution by natural selection, it's able to learn and improve. The same principles can be applied to a wide range of things (such as driving a car, or interpreting natural language), the main limitation so far being available computing power – but this is increasingly becoming less of a problem.
The most recent big AI news has been Google achieving another milestone: AlphaGo (powered by its DeepMind project) beat the best human players at the game 'Go', which is many times more complex than chess (the number of available moves in a game is supposedly greater than the number of atoms in the universe).
Google researchers have developed the first computer capable of beating the best human players at the highly complex game Go.
So should we be worried? Perhaps not. One thing that unites all of the famous names above is that none are actual experts in artificial intelligence – and if you ask the experts, they have a slightly different take.
Mark Bishop, Professor of Cognitive Computing at Goldsmiths University, explained why he doesn't believe, as do the likes of Elon Musk, that we could see 'out of control' AI in the not too distant future.
Professor Bishop is well aware of the potential dangers of AI – and specifically the creation of 'autonomous war machines', such as drones that shoot based not on a human deciding but an algorithm.
His worry is that we could be on the verge of a military robot arms race, and last year he co- signed an open letter published by the Future of Life Institute warning against this very thing.
But as for AI taking over completely? Less of a worry. Professor Bishop told techradar: "I remain sceptical of the wilder claims of some of the letter's proponents, as brought up by, say, Stephen Hawking's concerns regarding the 'singularity' or Elon Musk's vision of humanity conjuring up an AI demon within 10 years. "
But that isn't to say that there aren't potential problems.
"I certainly do believe that there are extremely serious dangers – perhaps existential – in arming and deploying LAWS (Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems). " Professor Bishop added.
Kersten Dautenhahn, who is Professor of Artificial Intelligence, is also unsure that we're heading for an AI-powered apocalypse.
"I am not worried about AI becoming a threat to people or taking over the world," she told us. "AI has been around since the fifties, and great progress has been made recently in particular, with better and faster (and smaller) computers and computing devices. " Professor Dautenhahn points out that these advances have so far have been "domain- specific". In other words, despite the huge advances we've seen in computing over the last 70 years or so, the intelligence that powers Siri could not power a weapons system, where human brains can do both. This suggests that there's a limit to exactly how intelligent computer code can be – and if there are limits to what a computer can learn, there can be no singularity.
"Even a system that learns and adapts will learn and adapt within the boundaries set by the programmers/researchers writing the code and building the system," Professor Dautenhahn explains. "I can't see any scientific evidence suggesting AI in the near or far future will be a threat to us. "
The bigger threat, she says, is us pesky humans. "People using AI in irresponsible ways – this is the real threat. New technology has always been used in benign ways, and in not so benign ways. It's up to us to decide how AI will be used. "
So while it might not be the singularity that wipes us out, improvements in AI could still be very dangerous. Robots may have conducted symphonies, but experts in AI say it's unlikely they'll ever be able to write one
Professor Dautenhahn also thinks there's another factor limiting the ability of AI to replace us in every aspect of life and eventually take over: interaction. Humans are, apparently, really good communicators – and making machines that can understand the full range of human interaction is very difficult indeed.
This means that if robots hope to replace us, while they might be great at doing sums and so on, they still need to master some incredibly difficult skills.
"Interaction with computers and robots is often inspired by human-human interaction," she explains. "And there is a good reason for this: research in the US and elsewhere has shown clearly that humans tend to treat interactive systems, including robots and computers, in a human-like, social manner. "
In other words, we want our robots to be more like us. Professor Dautenhahn says this is why speech and gesture recognition has become so intensely researched – but the technology is still severely lacking. "We do not have a system that can we can smoothly communicate in a human- like way with speech in noisy environments and on any topic we choose", she points out.
Professor Bishop, meanwhile, seems to suggest there's a more fundamental problem: the complex philosophical arguments that underpin our understanding of artificial intelligence.
He believes it comes down to three major things that computers can't do: simulate consciousness, genuinely 'understand' in the same way we do, and demonstrate "genuine mathematical insight or creativity".
So while a robot might be able to win a TV quiz show, as IBM's Watson did in 2011, if Professor Bishop is right we shouldn't expect robots to start writing symphonies or directing plays.
In short, there will always be a space where humans can do more than computers can – or, as Professor Bishop puts it in more philosophical terms: "Because of these shortcomings, it seems to me that a computational system, such as a robot, can never exercise teleological behaviours of its own, but merely act as an agent at its owner/designer's command; such a system could not wilfully disobey a command any more than Newton's apple could wilfully defy gravity and not fall to earth. "
So will robots/AI replace us? Looking at what computers are already taking care of, to a certain extent it has already happened. Computers are driving our cars, picking our news stories and answering our questions.
But that's not the intelligence we're all worried about – and according to the experts who matter, we've no need to worry about the robots taking over; although neural networks have become increasingly smart, there appear to still be fundamental barriers that will prevent a singularity.
Which is good news for us.
This isn't to say that we don't need to be responsible – as the Professors Bishop and Dautenhahn point out, in the wrong hands, or used for the wrong reasons, intelligent robots could still cause an awful lot of damage – but at least the decision on whether to inflict that damage will probably made by a human, and not an algorithm.
Article continues below 2016-03-05 13:18 By James www.techradar.com
19 The 404 Show 1652: Scott Jones has seen the other side (podcast)
Today we welcome Scott Jones back to the show. Scott is a veteran of the games and tech press for many years. He's written for countless publications and recently finished a multi-year run as a co- host on EP Daily. Now Scott finds himself in the budding world of VR, but not before a life-altering event completely rewrote his path in life. Tune in to hear his inspiring story that is guaranteed to move you.
Subscribe to our wonderful program:
Follow everyone on Twitter! 2016-03-05 12:13 Jeff Bakalar www.cnet.com
Top Android news of the week: 20 Google I/O, BlackBerry Priv, charger recall
Traditionally, having a lot of external storage hasn't dealt with the problem faced when running out of system storage for apps. Samsung is addressing that with the Galaxy S7 by allowing owners to move apps to SD storage.
Source: Android Community
Amazon is recalling chargers used with Kindle Fire tablets in the UK and Ireland. The chargers came with some Fire 7-inch and Kids Edition 7- inch tablets. The company admits a shock hazard exists with the chargers and will replace them at no charge.
Source: Engadget
Google I/O is the company's big developer conference held every year. Historically, it has sold out quickly after registration begins and those wishing to attend must registrar quickly. Google will raffle places at the conference for those who register between March 8 and 10.
Source: Android Community
The BlackBerry Priv, the company's first Android phone, has only been available in the US at AT&T and T-Mobile until now. The Priv is now available from Verizon but it's not cheap at either $30/month for 24 months or $720 in a lump sum.
Source: ZDNet 2016-03-05 13:00 James Kendrick www.zdnet.com
21 In Case You Missed It – February 28 to March 5 Edition
Some things never get old, like tropical Hawaii. Sapphire's R9 390 8GB shows the benefits of doubling down on VRAM, smoothing over a few rough spots.
We talk with Jason Rubin of Oculus Studio, and Eric Nofsinger of High Voltage Studios
I'm only an amateur photographer (at best), but that doesn't stop me from technolusting after (much!) better gear 2016-03-05 13:00 Paul Lilly www.maximumpc.com
Combine data mining and 22 simulation to maximise process improvement
We are living in an increasingly interconnected world – not just in the number of digital devices, but also in how actions can have dozens, if not hundreds or more consequences that cascade through a series of permutations, resulting in unforeseen consequences. But using a computer model of these can predict probable consequences.
Data mining has become something of a buzzword in recent years. It is also a misnomer and the term has been increasingly misused. Alan Mason, CEO of data mining firm AJM Consulting , prefers to use the term “process diagnostics”, as he believes it is more accurate for what the technique entails.
Rather than extracting data, as the term implies, data mining is the process of analysing large datasets and understanding their patterns. An understanding of past trends can allow insight when making decisions about current situations. Data mining is often applied in process industries – chemical, pharmaceutical, nuclear, etc – where a small change in the beginning of a process can, through a series of interconnected events, have major consequences that were initially unforeseen.
An example application is AJM Consulting’s work with the Sellafield reprocessing and decommissioning site. AJM used process diagnostics to study the real-time data and operational history of the cooling process for the Waste Vitrification Plant, where the highly radioactive, toxic and corrosive waste is entrapped in corrosion-resistant borosilicate glass for long-term storage. Through this study, AJM identified specific events on the plant that accelerated the rate of corrosion of the cooling coils.
Taking this one step further, AJM could confidently predict when each cooling coil would fail. The Waste Vitrification Plant could withstand a certain number of cooling coils failing, but to have all of them fail would be catastrophic. Thus, AJM could mitigate the risk of unacceptable cooling coil failures, as well as save money for their customer by minimising corrosive processes and avoiding plant shut-downs. 2016-03-05 12:14 Peter Ray www.computerweekly.com
23 PC upgrades: Getting the biggest bang for your buck
PCs are lasting longer than ever, but it seems that people are interested in upgrading them so they last even longer. But to get the best bang for the buck from an upgrade you have to spend money wisely, because there are certain upgrades that will give you next to nothing in return for your money.
What follows are the best and worst types of PC upgrades you can spend money on, along with an idea of how much the upgrade will set you back.
Let's begin by looking at the best upgrades.
Gone are the days when I would put RAM upgrades at the top of the list.
Hard drives are the past. If you want performance, then you need to get a solid-state drive (SSD) inside your PC. Rather than your data being stored on a rotating magnetic platter, an SSD stores the data in flash chips.
Not only does fitting an SSD offer a massive performance boost, but it also brings with it improved reliability.
The easiest way to find the right SSD for your system is to visit Crucial and either enter your system details or use the system scanner. Alternatively, if you know what you are looking for, visit your favorite online retailer.
Prices start from around $70.
Any modern PC running a 64-bit version of Windows with 4GB or less of RAM will benefit from a bump to at least 8GB, and possibly 16GB if you use a lot of RAM hungry applications such as Photoshop.
The easiest way to find the right RAM for your system is to visit Crucial and either enter your system details or use the system scanner. Alternatively, if you know what you are looking for, visit your favorite online retailer.
8GB of RAM will set you back around $50.
The easiest way to give a PC some extra pep for running a game is to upgrade the graphics card. The graphics card is one place where OEMs skimp on performance to keep prices down, and there are countless PCs out there which are powered by the GPU on the APU (an APU is a CPU that has an integrated GPU).
AMD or Nvidia? I don't think it matters unless you're going for the high-end, in which case you're better off with Nvidia.
A budget graphics card will set you back around $99 while something more mainstream will cost $200 to $300. A budget of around $750 will put you squarely in the high-end camp (you can easily pick up a GeForce GTX 980 Ti for this sort of money), and if you want to go ultra-high-end, well, it's best to be sitting down when looking at the pries!
If you've got games in mind that you want to play, then I'd suggest you fire up Google and do some research. See what other people are using and what sort of performance they are getting out of a specific graphics card. You can compare the performance of different graphics cards against your current option at gpu.userbenchmark.com .
Back in the day we used to connect PCs to the internet using a cable, but this isn't always possible, and nowadays a wireless solution is usually cheaper and a lot more convenient. Problem is, most USB Wi-Fi dongles are absolute garbage. If you're using one of these then I suggest you look at upgrading it to a PCI-based Wi-Fi card (assuming you have a space PCI slot available).
Not only will your data throughput be better, but a decent multiple-antenna PCI-based 802.11n Wi- Fi card will give you a far more reliable connection too.
This upgrade shouldn't cost you more than about $20 to $30.
If you nuke your existing operating system (back up your data first!) installation and reinstall it fresh, your PC will invariably be noticeably faster and more stable.
Yes, it's a huge hassle, yes, it's going to take time, and no, it's nowhere near as cool as installing a new bit of shiny inside your PC, but I'm consistently amazed by how different a PC -- especially one that's been going for a few years - - feels after reinstalling the OS.
Here are upgrades that I see people wasting their money on in the hope of ending up with a better or faster PC.
Processors seem to be getting faster all the time, right? But here's the thing, a 2.2GHz CPU is only 200MHz faster than a 2.0GHz CPU, and in the real world those extra megahertz don't translate into a great deal of extra performance.
Unless you are in a position to do a major CPU upgrade without gutting your PC -- and by that I mean that your motherboard is able to handle the CPU you have your eye on -- then I don't recommend taking this route. Even then, if you have RAM, storage or graphics card bottlenecks then a CPU upgrade is just going to be an exercise in throwing money away.
I only recommend CPU upgrades if you are also prepared to swap out the motherboard and RAM (and possibly the graphics card) at the same time.
I've come across a lot of people who have thrown away good money on upgrading their motherboards in the hope that it will bring a performance boost, either directly or through tweaks and overclocking.
Don't bother. Even if the new board promises the earth when it comes to overclocking, unless you have high- quality RAM and good CPU cooling, you'll get little or nothing in return for your money, and could just be paving the way for more spending (for example, a new copy of Windows if your current installation is an OEM version).
Unless you're running Windows XP or earlier, don't waste your upgrade money on upgrading your copy of Windows. Not only will the gains be negligible -- and that's assuming you see gains -- but it's also a slippery slope that can lead you to spend a lot more money on new hardware, not to mention opening you up to driver headaches and such. 2016-03-05 12:37 Adrian www.zdnet.com
Samsung's Galaxy S7, S7 Edge 24 Available Through Carriers March 11
Samsung's latest flagship smartphones, the Galaxy S7 and the Galaxy S7 Edge, will go on sale March 11 from AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, U. S. Cellular and Verizon Wireless in the United States. These handsets are packed with enhancements that Samsung hopes will lead to robust sales in a crowded marketplace. Each carrier is offering the handsets on varying financial terms, through installment plans or direct purchases and no-interest monthly payments. The latest Galaxy S7 Edge and S7 handsets are water-resistant and are powered by Qualcomm quad-core 2.15GHz/1.6GHz processors for U. S. users and include 4GB of LPDDR4 memory, 32GB of built-in storage, microSD expansion slots, a 12-megapixel dual-pixel rear camera and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera. The Galaxy S7 Edge features a 5.5-inch quad-HD Super AMOLED display and a screen that wraps around both right and left edges of the device, while the Galaxy S7 has a 5.1-inch quad-HD Super AMOLED display. Preorders are being accepted presently. Peruse this eWEEK slide show for the full details and pricing for the latest Galaxy S7 smartphones from each carrier. 2016-03-05 11:01 Todd R. www.eweek.com
Exclusive: HPE CEO Whitman On HPE's New Hyper-Converged 25 Product, Cisco's HyperFlex, Dell- EMC, And A Potential 'Recession' If Trump Is Elected President
Whitman On Hyper-Converged, Dell- EMC And Trump
Hewlett Packard Enterprise CEO Meg Whitman spoke with CRN about the company's soon-to-be- released hyper-converged product , the gains HPE is seeing from Dell-EMC uncertainty, and the potential economic fallout if Donald Trump is elected president.
HPE is set to unleash this month a "market- changing" new hyper-converged product that will be priced 20 percent below market leader Nutanix's product, said Whitman. She expects the new product to open the door for HPE to be a "leader" in the $5 billion fast-growth hyper- converged market.
The interview with Whitman came after HPE posted better-than-expected results for its first fiscal quarter, ended Jan. 31, sending HPE shares up 15 percent. HPE posted non-GAAP diluted net earnings per share of 41 cents in the first quarter on sales of $12.7 billion, just above the Wall Street consensus of earnings of 40 cents per share on sales of $12.68 billion. The results marked the third consecutive quarter of year-over-year sales growth in constant currency for HPE, said Whitman. 2016-03-05 12:15 Steven Burke www.crn.com
26 Rick Snyder: Cisco Is Opening Account Planning Data To Channel
At the 2016 Cisco Partner Summit in San Diego, Cisco Americas channel chief Rick Snyder discussed the new Cisco Ready for Partners Account planning tool, which the networking giant will soon make available to Cisco partners.
Snyder described the tool as a database of "all the different assets that are out there in the installed base for our partners. "
He said partner account managers gather in what Cisco calls "transform workshops" to put together a business plan to go after the install base for service providers. The group also focuses on new avenues through which partners could sell software, services and digital upgrades.
"Our partner account managers are really leading this upgrade," Snyder said.
The new tool fits in with the trend of resellers seeking recurring revenue through providing services like installation and upgrades, a trend that has been in part driven by consumer demand.
"Customers are demanding that they want to consume technology differently," he said. "So that's one driver. And then of course, software is an area where we're driving [recurring revenue] as well. " 2016-03-05 12:15 Meghan Ottolini www.crn.com Total 26 articles. Generated at 2016-03-05 18:02