Announcement
Total 100 articles, created at 2016-03-14 18:00 1 Valve teases SteamVR Desktop Theatre Mode Valve teases SteamVR Desktop Theatre Mode. Adds VR support to older games. 2016-03-14 17:47 2KB www.bit-tech.net
(2.00/3)
2 PCIe SSD roundup 2016: Some stall while others progress The PCIe SSD market is still important but PCIE flash drive makers are split between those that continue to develop their products and those for whom product evolution has stalled 2016-03-14 18:00 2KB www.computerweekly.com 3 Seven steps to becoming a digital business leader Developing employees to embrace a digital-first approach can bring significant personal and organisational benefits. 2016-03-14 18:00 2KB www.computerweekly.com 4 A look at the upcoming Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse The Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse service combines SQL capabilities with the ability to grow, shrink or pause in seconds. 2016-03-14 18:00 1KB searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com 5 A look inside the SAP IQ column-oriented database The SAP IQ 16 column-oriented database can be used to deploy decision support, business intelligence, data warehouse and data mart implementation. 2016-03-14 18:00 1KB searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com 6 Kaspersky warning over Android Triada Trojan 'as complex as any Windows malware' Some 60 per cent of Android devices at risk, claims Kaspersky,Security,Mobile Software,Threats and Risks ,Kaspersky,Android,security 2016-03-14 18:00 3KB www.v3.co.uk 7 Government consultancy spend spirals out of control once again - so what now? Can anything be done to help Whitehall kick its addiction to consultancy?,Services and Outsourcing,Government ,Government,SMB Spotlight,smb-services 2016-03-14 18:00 883Bytes www.computing.co.uk 8 API management – what's the business case? Computing discusses the merits of API management with top UK IT leaders and CA Technologies,DevOps ,DevOps,in-depth 2016-03-14 18:00 673Bytes www.computing.co.uk 9 Why bet365 is open sourcing its Erlang code Bet365's Chandru Mullaparthi explains why the online betting giant has adopted Erlang – and why you should, too,Open Source,Big Data and Analytics ,Erlang,bet365,open source 2016-03-14 18:00 822Bytes www.computing.co.uk 10 Pentagon offers bug bounties to hackers to test its systems Pentagon invitation to hackers - with big cash rewards on offer,Security,Cloud and Infrastructure ,security,Pentagon,Bug bounty 2016-03-14 18:00 2KB www.v3.co.uk 11 TalkTalk ‘underestimated’ cyber security challenge, says CEO Dido Harding But Harding says she has no regrets about the way the company dealt with the hack,Security ,security,TalkTalk,hack,Data breach 2016-03-14 18:00 3KB www.computing.co.uk
12 Haringey to join Islington and Camden Councils' shared ICT services agreement The three councils hope to save a total of £6m a year with shared IT services agreement,Public Sector ,council,Shared Services 2016-03-14 18:00 3KB www.computing.co.uk 13 IP Bill is 'undemocratic', says Conservative MP Investigatory Powers Bill is being rushed through parliament in order to avoid proper debate, argues David Davis MP,Legislation and Regulation,Privacy ,Government,Privacy,Communications Data Bill,Counter-Terrorism and Security Bill 2016-03-14 18:00 5KB www.computing.co.uk 14 Half of organisations would struggle to get mission-critical systems up-and-running in hours following a disaster Computing research: organisations fear terrorism almost as much as flooding,Security ,security,Disaster Recovery,Business Continuity,Fujitsu 2016-03-14 18:00 926Bytes www.computing.co.uk 15 Privacy and security in the cloud are not the same thing 'Companies claim they have world-class security and therefore privacy, but you can have world-class security and have no privacy whatsoever' ,Cloud and Infrastructure,Security Technology ,GDPR,EU Data Protection Regulation,NetApp,Safe harbour,Privacy By Design,AWS,Amazon Web Services,Cyber security 2016-03-14 18:00 1KB www.computing.co.uk 16 The entrepreneurial Powa of Dan Wagner How the company that was going to be bigger than Google burned through $225m and crashed in just three years,Mobile,Cloud and Infrastructure ,Dan Wagner,Google 2016-03-14 18:00 3KB www.computing.co.uk 17 Nine out of 10 UK CIOs 'concerned' about EU's new data protection laws Organisations face fines of up to four per cent of global turnover under new EU data protection laws,Leadership,Legislation and Regulation,Security ,CIO,GDPR 2016-03-14 18:00 2KB www.computing.co.uk 18 Google's AlphaGo AI smashes top professional at ancient game of Go First Chess, now Go. What next? Buckaroo? Ker-Plunk?,Software,Internet of Things ,Artificial Intelligence,Google,AlphaGo,DeepMind 2016-03-14 18:00 2KB www.theinquirer.net 19 DevOps not a silver bullet, but does have some merit, says Specsavers global CIO Phil Pavitt was sceptical that DevOps was "just another Gartner gimmick",DevOps,Leadership ,Specsavers,DevOps,Puppet Labs 2016-03-14 18:00 3KB www.computing.co.uk 20 Snowden calls 'bullshit' on FBI claim that only Apple can unlock phone Investigators “wouldn’t need phone” to learn what they need, echoes David Davis MP,Public Sector,Security ,FBI,Apple,Edward Snowden 2016-03-14 18:00 3KB www.computing.co.uk 21 Tor is 'brilliant' but highlights the dangers of encryption, claims GCHQ chief "Those who do harm are hiding in the noise of the internet by using what the rest of us use" - GCHQ's Robert Hannigan,Security ,encryption,GCHQ 2016-03-14 18:00 3KB www.v3.co.uk
22 Microsoft SQL Server to run on Linux with SQL Server 2016 Linux version of Microsoft SQL Server 2016 planned for release next year,Cloud and Infrastructure,Software ,Cloud,databases,SQL Server 2016-03-14 18:00 3KB www.v3.co.uk 23 Hilton installs IBM Watson-powered 'robot concierge' Concierge 'Connie' named after hotel chain's founder Conrad Hilton,Internet of Things ,IBM,IBM Watson,Hilton 2016-03-14 18:00 2KB www.v3.co.uk 24 Bill Gates calls for tighter safeguards on bulk data collection Gates discusses the iPhone case, AI and the Microsoft Surface Book in his latest Reddit chat,Business Software,Privacy ,Microsoft,Bill Gates,Windows 10,Artificial Intelligence 2016-03-14 18:00 2KB www.computing.co.uk 25 HSCIC appoints director of data science Informatics specialist Daniel Ray appointed to head up Centre of Excellence for big data and data science,Big Data and Analytics,Careers and Skills,Health ,Big Data 2016-03-14 18:00 2KB www.computing.co.uk 26 GCHQ admits £1bn spend on cyber security 'hasn’t worked' "We’ve spent quite a lot of money, but still failed," admits CESG director Dewedney,Security ,GCHQ,Cyber security 2016-03-14 18:00 2KB www.computing.co.uk 27 'Go back to your training schedule' to educate users and cut down phishing attacks, says Mimecast Policy and governance tips to be revealed in next Wednesday’s web seminar,Leadership,Security ,Mimecast,Cyber security,phishing,Spear Phishing 2016-03-14 18:00 2KB www.computing.co.uk 28 60 per cent of government spend with SMEs is via larger contractors – NAO report Departments rely on goodwill of large suppliers to report spending accurately to the Crown Commercial Service,Government ,SMB Spotlight,smb-services 2016-03-14 18:00 4KB www.computing.co.uk 29 Google releases Android N developer preview - adds split- screen support and Doze improvements Nexus owner? Sign-up and download it now,Mobile,Mobile Phones,Internet of Things ,Google,Mobile,Android 2016-03-14 18:00 2KB www.theinquirer.net 30 Get Privacy Shield wrong and it will have to be renegotiated in 2018, warns data protection lawyer Privacy Shield, the EU-US data transfer agreement intended to replace Safe Harbour, contains only 2016-03-14 18:00 5KB www.computing.co.uk 31 YOOX Net-a-Porter Group picks IBM for 'game-changing' post-merger tech platform confirms CIO “Multi-brand”, “omni-channel” and a lot of other buzz phrases,Leadership ,CRM,ecommerce 2016-03-14 18:00 2KB www.computing.co.uk 32 CSC Lorenzo system partly to blame for Sheffield NHS Trust £12m deficit Sheffield NHS Trust beset by "data issues" attributed to Lorenzo,Health ,CSC,NHS 2016-03-14 18:00 2KB www.computing.co.uk
33 Government to review its contracts with Atos after IT failure Cabinet Office to probe Atos outsourcing deals ,Government,Public Sector,Supplier,Services and Outsourcing ,Atos,Cabinet Office,GDS 2016-03-14 18:00 3KB www.computing.co.uk 34 Dell Survey Uncovers Challenges to Providing UC to Remote Workers More and more businesses are looking to provide a unified communications experience to remote workers, but there are hurdles to overcome. 2016-03-14 14:00 1KB www.eweek.com 35 Samsung Galaxy S7 & S7 Edge not quite waterproof, torture tests reveal Warranty-seller SquareTrade abused the latest smartphones from Samsung and Apple and found the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge survive dunking better, but not without some sonic scars. 2016-03-14 11:48 1KB www.cnet.com 36 Robotic exoskeleton for paraplegics approved for market A robotic exosuit that will help paraplegics stand and walk is the second to be approved for clinical and personal use by the FDA. 2016-03-14 11:48 2KB www.cnet.com 37 What will the iPhone 7 look like? Probably not a lot different to the iPhone 6S A leak which claims to show a schematic of the upcoming iPhone 7 suggest that Apple plans on retaining much of the design of the iPhone 6/6S. 2016-03-14 11:35 1KB www.zdnet.com 38 Galaxy S7 specs, release date and price Everything you need to know about picking up Samsung's latest flagship handset 2016-03-14 11:32 6KB www.theinquirer.net 39 Florida sheriff says he'll jail 'rascal' Tim Cook Technically Incorrect: Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd says that in his county, if Apple refused to obey a court order, he'd take very simple action. 2016-03-14 11:48 2KB www.cnet.com 40 Automakers invest in tech to stop you dozing off at the wheel Could technology which detects when you are distracted at the wheel save lives? 2016-03-14 11:21 2KB www.zdnet.com 41 Microsoft March madness update: Switching phones and making returns It's been almost two weeks since I started the month with Microsoft evaluation, but I'm making a couple of changes while continuing on with Microsoft for mobile. 2016-03-14 11:21 5KB www.zdnet.com 42 HTC 10 release date rumours, specs UK: HTC One M10 launch expected 19 April in London. Plus: latest leaked photos The original HTC One was launched in 2013 and followed up with the brilliant One M8 in 2015. Now we have the same-y One M9 but what will HTC do with the One M10? Will it launch this year? Here are the rumours about the HTC One M10 release date... 2016-03-14 11:05 6KB www.pcadvisor.co.uk 43 Overwatch release date, price, editions and trailer: Pre- order to get Overwatch open beta early access, skins and other game content Overwatch is the new first person shooter game from Blizzard. With its 21 unique characters is coming to PC, PS4 and Xbox One. 2016-03-14 11:01 4KB www.pcadvisor.co.uk
44 Pure Storage launches FlashBlade, aims to grab big data workloads The all-flash storage provider also launched a systems aimed at SMBs as well as a new converged effort. 2016-03-14 10:59 2KB www.zdnet.com 45 More hands-on with the Raspberry Pi 3: Bluetooth, OpenELEC, and Ubuntu MATE All about Raspbian GNU/Linux, WiFi and Bluetooth, my first test with Ubuntu MATE on the Pi 3, and a note about NOOBS and OpenELEC. 2016-03-14 10:52 5KB www.zdnet.com 46 Collaboration tools for IoT devs What happens when online collaboration meets supply chain management? A whole slew of hardware startups. 2016-03-14 10:36 3KB www.zdnet.com 47 Malware the root cause of $80 million Bangladesh Bank heist A typo prevented an extra $20 million being stolen, but a malware infection allowed the funds to be taken in the first place. 2016-03-14 10:27 3KB www.zdnet.com 48 Spotify just stuck another nail in Windows Phone's coffin Firm has quietly stopped supporting Microsoft's mobile operating system 2016-03-14 10:26 2KB www.theinquirer.net 49 These flying machines are the most remarkable in US history (pictures) Since 1911, the Collier Trophy has recognized a significant aerospace achievement, from early seaplanes to the supersonic X-1. This year it went to a NASA mission. 2016-03-14 12:58 862Bytes www.cnet.com 50 Google's AlphaGo isn't taking over the world, yet The machine beat world champion Lee Sedol at Go, but computers still remain way behind humans at pretty much everything other than crunching data. 2016-03-14 12:58 4KB www.cnet.com 51 Functional human hearts regenerated from skin cells A team of researchers has used adult skin cells to regenerate functional human heart tissue, a major step forward in bioengineering organs. 2016-03-14 11:48 2KB www.cnet.com 52 Apple's biggest problem is a marketing problem Technically Incorrect: In its fight with the FBI, Apple has to persuade the public to care about something it's not shown much inclination to care about before. 2016-03-14 11:48 4KB www.cnet.com 53 $50 million 'Smart City Challenge' finalists announced at SXSW In Austin, Texas, US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx has just unveiled the seven cities that are still in the running for $50 million in funding that could radically reinvent their streets. 2016-03-14 11:48 2KB www.cnet.com 54 Inside GE's Digital Solutions unit: Talking IoT development with Ganesh Bell GE launched a broad effort last year to bring digital transformation to utilities. Here's a look at how it's going, developer recruitment, IoT, security, cloud and analytics. 2016-03-14 09:47 1KB www.zdnet.com
55 What you missed in tech last week: Windows 10 adware, Pirate Bay outage, iPhone 5SE We round up the top 10 stories from the past seven days 2016-03-14 09:47 2KB www.theinquirer.net 56 Checking in: SXSW apologizes after telling Olympic fencer to remove hijab Even a free-spirited gathering like South By Southwest has its diversity struggles. And something as mundane as badge registration brings it to the forefront. 2016-03-14 11:48 2KB www.cnet.com 57 Galaxy S7 vs. iPhone 6s: Which is tougher? New tests pit Samsung's new Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge against Apple's iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. Do the waterproofing claims hold true? Which is the toughest smartphone? 2016-03-14 09:30 1KB www.zdnet.com 58 Screening Room wants to take 'going to the movies' out of going to the movies Hollywood's biggest directors and Napster co-founder Sean Parker want to let you download films on the same day they hit theatres, but would you pay $50 for the privilege? 2016-03-14 11:48 3KB www.cnet.com 59 George Osborne will announce driverless cars plans in Budget Will probably have one running by the back door 2016-03-14 09:23 2KB www.theinquirer.net 60 SNL mocks Tidal streaming service as incompetent Technically Incorrect: When the Britney Spears stream is about to die, Ariana Grande is co-opted to save the day. It turns out to be an "Undercover Boss" episode. 2016-03-14 11:48 1KB www.cnet.com 61 Watch Samsung Galaxy S7 go through its toughest test yet How does the new Galaxy do? 2016-03-14 09:00 2KB www.techradar.com 62 The world of Minecraft is now used for artificial intelligence innovation Can the popular game provide a cheap but effective way for startups to test artificial intelligence projects? 2016-03-14 08:55 3KB www.zdnet.com 63 AdBlock Plus is causing YouTube error messages Adblock Plus and YouTube aren't playing nice together and that has some people concerned. 2016-03-14 08:30 2KB www.pcworld.com 64 Facebook and Twitter blocked in Turkey following deadly Ankara blast Turkish court issued an order to telecommunications authority TIB to block the use of social media; Twitter and Facebook plus other websites after images spread on the platforms showing the suicide car bombing that killed 34 and injured 125 dozens in the Turkish capital of Ankara, local broadcasters reported. CNN Turk and Turkish NTV reported saying... 2016-03-14 07:02 1KB pctechmag.com 65 How CIOs can drive digital innovation through collaboration CIOs drive innovation by building digital awareness, forming digital innovation teams, and creating innovative opportunities in the form of new products and services. This three step approach accelerates the innovation cycle and optimizes the leveraging of information and technology for competitive advantage. 2016-03-14 07:01 3KB www.cio.com 66 Exclusive: Verizon Launches First-Ever Distributor Program, Helps Partners Deepen Security Offerings Verizon has launched a new distributor partner program. The carrier's first distributor partner, Synnex, will be helping solution providers bundle Verizon's Rapid Response Retainer along with their own security solutions for the first time as a packaged solution. 2016-03-14 07:00 3KB www.crn.com 67 Digital Storm Equinox Review Thin, light, and powerful 2016-03-14 07:00 4KB www.maximumpc.com 68 Opportunity: IT Intern – Nairobi International Rescue Committee Description: He/she will provide users with solutions to questions and issues with their computer hardware and software. Job Purpose/Objective: The IT Intern will be primarily responsible with providing support for our internal users on the use of their desktops and laptops. Through our ticketing system and the telephone, He/she will... 2016-03-14 06:58 3KB pctechmag.com 69 Stayz, Airbnb call for NSW-wide regulation for accommodation sharing economy Executives of Airbnb and Stayz have called for consistent guidelines in NSW to address any complaints around noise and amenities. 2016-03-14 06:39 4KB www.zdnet.com 70 Basslink-affected TPG must leverage Telstra cable: Tas government The government has urged TPG to use Telstra's cable assets to continue servicing its Tasmanian customers following the Basslink outage. 2016-03-14 06:06 6KB www.zdnet.com 71 NBN should abandon CVC charges, reduce POIs: MNF CEO NBN should step away from CVC charges and lessen the number of POIs if it wants to remain competitive, MNF CEO Rene Sugo has said. 2016-03-14 05:40 8KB www.zdnet.com 72 HPE shows off avatar booth at Cebit Hewlett Packard Enterprise has incorporated the mother of all photo booths into its stand at the Cebit trade show in Hanover, Germany, this week, and is inviting visitors to step inside to create their own digital avatar. 2016-03-14 04:50 4KB www.computerworld.com 73 Softorino YouTube Converter review: Great video downloader with a big caveat Effortlessly download ad-free videos directly to your computer or a connected iOS device. 2016-03-14 04:30 5KB www.macworld.com 74 AlphaGo’s unusual moves prove its AI prowess, experts say Playing against a top Go player, Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo artificial-intelligence program has puzzled commentators with moves that are often described as “beautiful,” but do not fit into the usual human style of play. 2016-03-14 04:29 7KB www.computerworld.com 75 HPE offers new business model for fashion, fitness and gaming businesses Hewlett Packard Enterprise has a new business model for the clothing retail, fitness and PC gaming industries: Get into the modeling business. 2016-03-14 04:09 4KB www.itnews.com 76 Retail's gift card crackdown self-defeating For many years, gift cards have been ultra-popular for both shoppers and thieves. As mobile domination has soared, the convenience of gift cards — for both sides — has grown right along with it. In an attempt to fight theft, some retailers have started to crack down on how gift... 2016-03-14 04:00 4KB www.computerworld.com
77 Galaxy S7 Edge review: Samsung's vanity phone is all grown up The Galaxy S6 Edge felt like an experiment, but this year's curved flagship proves the Edge has some staying power after all. 2016-03-14 04:00 13KB www.greenbot.com 78 Australian startups head to Singapore to nurture their growth A growing number of Australian entrepreneurs and tech companies are taking their business ideas to Singapore, where the local government has already invested over AU$1.72 billion into creating an innovation ecosystem. 2016-03-14 03:49 5KB www.zdnet.com 79 Microsoft to open-source AI development platform based on Minecraft Microsoft has decided to open-source a platform used by its researchers to test artificial- intelligence research. 2016-03-14 03:48 2KB www.computerworld.com 80 DoJ vs. WhatsApp on encryption: Here we go again -- Gov vs. Math Justice Dept. to fight WhatsApp over encryption, say anonymous sources. As President Obama steps up the rhetoric at SXSW, unattributed briefings to useful idiots set the stage for the next chapter of Government vs. Math... 2016-03-14 03:46 1KB www.computerworld.com 81 New products of the week 3.14.16 Our roundup of intriguing new products from companies such as HPE and A10 Networks. 2016-03-14 03:35 8KB www.networkworld.com 82 Razer Blade Stealth review: This is a feisty ultrabook at an incredibly low price The Blade Stealth may look a lot like the Blade and Blade Pro gaming laptops, but it's really a good ultrabook that could assume some gaming chops whenever the Razer Core graphics amplifier comes out. 2016-03-14 03:30 10KB www.pcworld.com 83 Defense in depth: Stop spending, start consolidating When it comes to layered defense and security tools, less is often more just as more can sometimes be less. The average enterprise uses 75 security products to secure their network. That's a lot of noise and a lot of monitoring and testing for security practitioners. 2016-03-14 03:16 7KB www.csoonline.com 84 How to catch March Madness without paying for cable TV Our cord-cutter's guide will show you how you can watch every game in the tournament for free. 2016-03-14 03:05 5KB www.techhive.com 85 7 VPN services for hotspot protection When connected to a VPN service, the websites you access think you’re at the location where the VPN server is located. This can help anonymize your Internet traffic so it’s much harder for websites to track your personal browsing history. We evaluated seven services. 2016-03-14 03:00 9KB www.networkworld.com 86 10 surprisingly practical Raspberry Pi projects anybody can do Streaming. Gaming. Networking. Even printing! These projects prove the Raspberry Pi is far more than a toy. Here are 10 surprisingly useful projects anybody can do. 2016-03-14 03:00 6KB www.pcworld.com
87 Microsoft's Visual Studio 2005 support ends in April In addition, Microsoft will no longer support. Net Framework 2.0 under certain configurations 2016-03-14 03:00 2KB www.infoworld.com 88 Really hoping he teaches bio, not chem or physics Tech pilot fish for a local high school gets a trouble ticket about a teacher's laptop that has a problem -- every time the teacher unplugs the AC power supply, the laptop dies. 2016-03-14 03:00 1KB www.computerworld.com 89 Goodbye, America. I'm becoming a nomad (again)! You should, too. There's never been a better time to live everywhere. Here's why -- and how. 2016-03-14 03:00 8KB www.computerworld.com 90 Microsoft upgraded users to Windows 10 without their OK This weekend's Windows 10 upgrade has users angry, and it's unclear if the ploy will continue 2016-03-14 03:00 8KB www.infoworld.com 91 Fight, Apple, fight: Don’t let the feds kill our security We either have strong encryption and unassailable digital privacy, or we have total madness 2016-03-14 03:00 4KB www.infoworld.com 92 4 reasons not to pay up in a ransomware attack Ransomware attacks are on the rise. Here are four good reasons why you shouldn't pay to get your data back -- and one reason why people do 2016-03-14 03:00 6KB www.infoworld.com 93 The top 14 new open source projects Open source has become the engine of invention. You'll find ample proof in this year's Black Duck Open Source Rookies of the Year awards 2016-03-14 03:00 14KB www.infoworld.com 94 First aid for forced Windows 10 upgrades A wave of forced Win10 upgrades hit over the weekend. Here’s how to treat infections 2016-03-14 03:00 7KB www.infoworld.com 95 TV's 'Mr. Robot' will take on encryption as Apple's battle with the FBI rages on At SXSW creator Sam Esmail said the show's second season will explore themes in the ongoing Apple-FBI fight. 2016-03-14 02:45 1KB www.macworld.com 96 The dirty dozen: 12 cloud security threats Introducing the 'Treacherous 12,' the top security threats organizations face when using cloud services. 2016-03-14 02:00 13KB www.computerworld.com 97 Why you’ll wear an Apple Watch to keep your job Want health insurance you can afford? You’d better wear an Apple Watch 2016-03-14 01:22 4KB www.computerworld.com 98 Sphero's BB-8 wins the cutest racing competition at SXSW Two of the Star Wars droids were pitted against each other, and the result was hilarious. 2016-03-14 01:00 789Bytes www.macworld.com 99 Google And Facebook Step Up Encryption Efforts | HotHardware The very public (and heated) battle between the FBI and Apple over encryption has spilled out into the public and factions are beginning to take sides. The battle lines are clearly drawn with public opinion largely split and tech giants lining up to support Apple’s decision to not “hand over... 2016-03-14 00:00 2KB hothardware.com
100 Digiwell's implanted NFC chip lets you open doors with a wave of your hand Forget learning lock-picking: At Cebit, Digiwell will fit you with an NFC chip that will let you open doors without a key. 2016-03-14 00:00 3KB www.pcworld.com Articles
Total 100 articles, created at 2016-03-14 18:00
1 Valve teases SteamVR Desktop Theatre Mode (2.00/3) Valve has teased a new SteamVR feature, dubbed Desktop Theatre Mode, which will allow non-VR games to be used with a SteamVR-compatible headset. Valve has announced SteamVR Desktop Theatre Mode, a new feature of its virtual reality platform that will allow games not made with VR headsets in mind to operate with the HTC Vive and other SteamVR hardware. With the launch of the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift just around the corner, and Sony expected to follow with the PlayStation VR in short order, it's no surprise that companies heading to the Game Developer Conference (GDC) are gung-ho about virtual reality. Valve, naturally, is particularly enthusiastic about the technology: it has invested heavily in its SteamVR platform, and has even partnered with smartphone maker HTC to produce a flagship hardware bundle with motion control, positional tracking, and a high-quality stereoscopic head-mounted display dubbed Vive. A big for early adopters of VR, however, is availability of software. Like those who first picked up a 3dfx accelerator board, VR owners are likely to find themselves limited to a small number of titles until the technology proves itself to have a large enough market to become a mainstream target platform for developers. Where developer-centric bundles like Oculus VR's early Rift Developers Kit (Rift DK) hardware allowed users to hack support into existing titles, a smoother experience will be demanded of the retail hardware - and that's something Valve is claiming to offer. In an email sent out to press ahead of GDC, Valve explained that it is soon to launch a SteamVR compatibility feature that will allow existing games on SteamVR hardware without waiting for the original developers to produce a patch. ' SteamVR Desktop Theatre Mode is in early beta, ' the company's email read, ' and will be showcased at next week's Game Developer Conference in San Francisco. Desktop Theatre Mode enables users to play non-VR games with VR systems such as the upcoming HTC Vive and others. ' Full details of which headsets and games will be supported are not yet available, with Valve expected to maker a broader announcement - and possibly even launch an open beta - at GDC. pcworld.com 2016-03-14 17:47 Published on www.bit-tech.net
2 PCIe SSD roundup 2016: Some stall while others progress Computer Weekly’s 2015 review of PCIe SSD products focused on consolidation in the market. At the time, a range of acquisitions had taken place and some suppliers left the market altogether. In 2016, we see a divide between suppliers that continually evolve their server flash products and those that appear to have stalled in provision of updates to their offerings. HGST, SanDisk and Micron appear to have slowed their product releases and instead focused on other product ranges – such as traditional flash drives – or on developing base technology for their products, which is the case for Micron with 3D Nand and 3D XPoint on the horizon. The other suppliers in our survey have pushed on with products that deliver increased capacity and performance. Only Samsung appears to have evolved to use new technology, with the PM1725 and PM953 based on 3D TLC Nand. NVMe support isn’t consistent. Typically, only suppliers releasing products have moved to support the NVMe standard. There do, however, seem to be more products available using the M.2 format, including Sandisk’s X400 M.2 2280 at only 1.5mm thick. The PCIe SSD market doesn’t seem to have evolved as fast as the traditional drive-format market. This is presumably because PCIe SSD hardware had a significant price mark-up over their SAS / Sata -format counterparts. Therefore, customers are more likely to push these products until the end of their useful lifetime. The more widespread adoption of TLC flash may see this change, as it offers suppliers the ability to deliver products to a lower price/capacity point. This refresh may coincide with more suppliers releasing NVMe supported products, as they play catch-up with leaders such as Intel and Samsung.
2016-03-14 18:00 Chris Evans www.computerweekly.com
3 Seven steps to becoming a digital business leader For more than a decade, business and IT have become increasingly inseparable and started co- evolving, and this unstoppable integration is altering the very nature of companies, competition and work. Along with globalisation, it is the defining economic transition of our time. To succeed in this world, senior executives must increasingly think digital first , while professionals and employees at every level must learn new skills and adopt new ways of working. Those who embrace this future will enjoy exciting career opportunities, but those who resist it will be increasingly marginalised. We see both patterns in many large organisations today. Nowhere is the impact of these forces greater than in the enterprise IT function. IT has always been among the most “ inside-out ” parts of the firm because developing and managing internal information systems has required – and still requires – a deep and sustained focus on the detailed nature of individual company operations and processes. This heads-down culture is so strong that companies often appoint dedicated business relationship managers (BRMs) who have the communications and consulting skills needed to keep IT’s efforts aligned with the overall goals of their firm. Although the need for traditional BRMs remains, to ensure their future relevance, they must become more than just effective internal business partners; they must also emerge as externally engaged digital business leaders (DBLs). The difference is one of orientation – while BRMs focus mostly on internal systems, processes and applications, DBLs primarily engage with the wider digital ecosystem: the startups, technologies, platforms and disruptive business models coming out of Silicon Valley and elsewhere. Finding the time, budgets, skills and bandwidth to make this inside-out to outside-in transition while still taking care of demanding internal work is the biggest and most difficult strategic challenge facing enterprise IT today. The following seven recommendations can help.
2016-03-14 18:00 David Moschella www.computerweekly.com
4 4 A look at the upcoming Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse Currently in preview, Microsoft refers to its Azure SQL Data Warehouse as a fully managed, elastic and petabyte-scale columnar data warehouse service that's compatible and integrated with the Microsoft SQL Server ecosystem. It provides an enterprise with a distributed database management system that can store and process large volumes of relational and nonrelational data. The SQL Data Warehouse service enables customers to elastically pause their usage or shut down their compute infrastructure, while maintaining the data. During a pause, the data is maintained, but can't be accessed. Customers pay for only the commodity storage used to persist the data, potentially reducing the cost of their enterprise data warehouse. With Azure SQL Data Warehouse, customers can increase or decrease query power in seconds. Instead of paying for dedicated fixed ratios of disk and compute, they can take full advantage of storage at cloud scale and then apply query compute based on seasonal requirements. The data warehouse service is delivered with two simple meters -- compute and storage -- so costs can be easily forecasted. Customers of all sizes across all industries can use Azure SQL Data Warehouse. Organizations with SQL Server and Transact-SQL (T-SQL) expertise may benefit from SQL Data Warehouse if they need to add nonrelational capabilities to their existing data warehouse or no longer want to manage their on-premises data warehouse.
2016-03-14 18:00 Craig S. searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com
5 A look inside the SAP IQ column-oriented database SAP IQ is a relational column-oriented database management system that can be used to implement highly scalable data warehouses. The high-performance column store technology of SAP IQ can deliver high-speed compression and ad hoc analysis without complex tuning. This DBMS includes additional functionality for managing data warehouses and business intelligence applications, including analytics, multilingual client application performance interfaces, federation and Web enablement. SAP IQ 16 runs on multiple operating systems including Windows, Linux x86, Linux POWER, HP-UX , AIX, Solaris x86 and Solaris SPARC. SAP IQ can be deployed either on-premises or in the cloud.
2016-03-14 18:00 Craig S. searchdatamanagement.techtarget.com
6 Kaspersky warning over Android Triada Trojan 'as complex as any Windows malware' Security software company Kaspersky has warned that a new trojan targeting Android devices is as sophisticated as any Windows malware, and poses a threat to some 60 per cent of Android devices. Anyone running Android 4.4.4 or earlier is at risk, warned Kaspersky, who claimed that the malware was created by "very professional cyber criminals" and can enable in-app purchase theft and all the problems that come with privilege escalation. "Triada is as complex as any malware for Windows, which marks a kind of Rubicon in the evolution of threats targeting Android," the company said. "Whereas previously, the majority of trojans for the platform were relatively primitive, new threats with a high level of technical complexity have now come to the fore. " Android users are at risk if they download apps from untrusted sources, but Kaspersky said in a blog post that the apps can "sometimes" make their way onto the official Android store. "A distinguishing feature of this malware is the use of Zygote, the parent of the application process on an Android device that contains system libraries and frameworks used by every application installed on the device. In other words, it's a demon whose purpose is to launch Android applications," Kaspersky explained. "This is the first time technology like this has been seen in the wild. Prior to this, a trojan using Zygote was known only as a proof-of-concept. The stealth capabilities of this malware are very advanced. "After getting into the user's device Triada implements in nearly every working process and continues to exist in the short-term memory. This makes it almost impossible to detect and delete using anti-malware solutions. " The security firm added that the complexity of Triada's functionality proves that professional cyber criminals with a deep understanding of the targeted mobile platform are behind the creation of this malware. Kaspersky warned that it is almost impossible to rid a device of the malware if it is infected. "Once Triada is on a device, it penetrates almost all the running processes, and continues to exist in the memory only. In addition, all separately running trojan processes are hidden from the user and other applications. As a result, it is extremely difficult for the user and antivirus solutions to detect and remove the trojan. " To hear more about security challenges, the threats they pose and how to combat them, sign up for Computing 's Enterprise Security and Risk Management conference on 24 November. It's free for qualifying end users
2016-03-14 18:00 www.v3.co.uk
7 Government consultancy spend spirals out of control once again - so what now? Government spending on temporary staff and consultants seems to be spiralling out of control, reminding former HMRC CIO Phil Pavitt of the days before Francis Maude was appointed paymaster-general and...
2016-03-14 18:00 www.computing.co.uk
8 API management – what's the business case? API management - or the idea of publishing application programming interfaces in a secure, scalable environment to the internet - has been touted as the next big thing for a few years now, but what, exactly...
2016-03-14 18:00 www.computing.co.uk
9 Why bet365 is open sourcing its Erlang code
The story of why bet365 has developed Erlang support libraries for the open source community begins with a challenge that is common in online businesses around the world. How do you scale your systems...
2016-03-14 18:00 www.computing.co.uk
10 Pentagon offers bug bounties to hackers to test its systems Hackers have been invited by the US Department of Defense (DoD) to try and break into its network - with bug bounties on offer to those who uncover flaws. The invitation was issued on Facebook, where US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said that the government wants to use cyber talent to uncover potential risks. "Today we announced that the DoD will invite vetted hackers to hack the Pentagon in an effort to test our digital security in the first federal government bug bounty. Under the pilot programme, we will allow qualified participants to identify vulnerabilities on the department's public web pages," he wrote. "The bug bounty is modelled after similar competitions conducted by some of the nation's biggest companies - Microsoft, Google and Facebook - to improve the security and delivery of networks, products and digital services. " Applicants will need to register and undergo a background check to take part. Carter explained that the project is an attempt to ensure that the DoD has the necessary security measures in place to protect its assets. However, no mission-critical assets will be tested during the event. "Bringing in the best talent, technology and processes from the private sector helps us deliver comprehensive, more secure solutions to the DoD and better protect our country," he said. "This bug bounty will not compromise any of the department's critical, mission-facing systems. Instead, it will challenge our digital security in new and innovative ways. " The event will begin in April and more information will be published nearer the time, including the bug bounty amounts. "I am always challenging our people to think outside the five-sided box that is the Pentagon. Inviting responsible hackers to test our digital security certainly meets that test," added Carter. "I am confident that this innovative initiative will strengthen our digital defences and ultimately enhance our national security. I encourage all who meet the requirements to participate in this historic opportunity to see if you can hack the Pentagon. " To hear more about security challenges, the threats they pose and how to combat them, sign up for Computing 's Enterprise Security and Risk Management conference on 24 November.
2016-03-14 18:00 www.v3.co.uk
11 TalkTalk ‘underestimated’ cyber security challenge, says CEO Dido Harding TalkTalk CEO Dido Harding has admitted that the company underestimated the challenge of ensuring its cyber security was up-to-scratch, in light of the catastrophic data breach it suffered last year. The hack, in which 156,656 TalkTalk customers had their personal details accessed, cost the firm £60m, and led to 95,000 customers abandoning the company. PwC has since conducted an internal analysis of the company's cyber security capabilities, and Harding has said that the subsequent report makes "sobering" reading. "We thought we had taken security seriously. We were underestimating the challenge," Harding told the Financial Times. But Harding has no regrets with the way the firm dealt with the hack - claiming that the company was "open and honest from day one". "Being honest pays dividends. My fellow CEOs are in danger of concluding the opposite. Don't take it into the dark," she said. She wants the government to make it mandatory for all companies to report data breaches - as only telecoms groups do so at present. But as Dan Hedley, an associate on the technology team at law firm Thomas Eggar states, mandatory reporting is already on its way to the UK. "[It's] already coming, and has been for some time: it's in the European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which is expected to come into force in 2018, and it's also in the forthcoming Network and Information Security Directive, which won't apply to everyone - but the GDPR will," he said. Harding, who told a parliament committee in December that she was accountable for security at the time of the hack , said the attack raised "existential" questions about how the firm operated, but claimed that in the long-term it would become "one of the most positive things for TalkTalk". She said that the PwC investigation found that TalkTalk was acting like a start-up rather than an established organisation, and that the firm now needed to "mature in the way it operates". Harding added that generally companies were not asking the right questions when it came to cyber security. "The danger is we are asking the wrong question: are we safe? It's a lazy question because the only really safe way is not being online. We tend to see security as a technology issue not a business one," she said. Computing's Enterprise Security and Risk Management Summit 2016 is on 24 November in London. It's free for end users to attend. For more information click here.
2016-03-14 18:00 www.computing.co.uk
12 Haringey to join Islington and Camden Councils' shared ICT services agreement Haringey Council is to join Islington and Camden Councils' shared digital and ICT service agreement. Islington and Camden signed an agreement back in September, which aimed to save the councils a combined £4m a year once fully operational, with a "one off" cost of £5m. The shared service was scheduled to be operational by next month. Both councils had been under pressure to reduce their IT expenditure, having estimated that they will need to deliver combined savings totalling £185m by 2018/19. The shared ICT services agreement was an attempt at making some of those savings. And now, a third north London council wants to be involved in the partnership. The addition of Haringey Council would involve a more ambitious programme of change, potentially saving £6m a year across the three boroughs, Camden Council suggested. The costs and savings of the project would be shared equally between the three boroughs. Under the proposals, a joint committee made up of representatives from all three councils will meet in public to oversee the service. In addition, a single post will be created to lead and manage it - in much the same way that Ed Garcez leads the Tri-borough shared partnership as its CIO. If all the councils accept the move, then recruitment for a head of service will take place in late spring. The launch of the shared service would then move back from April to 1 October 2016. Islington Council's executive member for finance and performance, councillor Andy Hull, said that he was "delighted" that Haringey wanted to join the partnership, adding that it made sense for local authorities to work together to deliver services as government funding cuts are hitting councils across the country. Councillor Jason Arthur, Haringey Council's cabinet member for resources and culture, said: "This exciting partnership with Camden and Islington has the potential to help Haringey deliver excellent digital services that will make life easier for residents, whilst at the same time saving money and protecting more of our budget for other key areas. " Camden Council's cabinet member for finance and technology, councillor Theo Blackwell, suggested that in future the joint service may also be able to generate income for all three councils through selling its combined expertise. The decisions on whether to proceed with the proposals will be made by Islington Council's executive on 10 March, Haringey Council's cabinet on 15 March, and Camden Council's cabinet on 6 April.
2016-03-14 18:00 www.computing.co.uk
13 IP Bill is 'undemocratic', says Conservative MP The way the government is rushing the Investigatory Powers Bill (IP Bill) through parliament is undemocratic, according to Conservative MP David Davis. Davis, who in July 2015 won a High Court ruling stating that sections 1 and 2 of the Data Retention and Investigatory Powers Act 2014 (DRIPA) were unlawful , told Computing that the government is trying to rush the Bill through because it is scared of proper debate. "It's the government's strategy now to do these things too quickly," said Davis. "It's because they are outgunned by experts in the public domain who understand the subject better than they do. Now that's not a very high bar, I wouldn't trust most ministers to programme my video recorder! " Drawing a parallel with the original so-called 'Snoopers' Charter' (the Draft Communications Data Bill, much of which now forms part of the IP Bill) he added: "They put that in front of a pre- legislative committee chaired by David McLean, a famously right wing minister of state of the Home Office, and that committee absolutely gutted it, which destroyed the credibility of the government's evidence. "So their strategy has gone from trying to do this via the conventional parliamentary route, to the absolute opposite, to push things out so fast. " Davis, a prominent privacy advocate, said that when he offered to join the joint committee designed to scrutinise the draft Bill "the blood drained from the whip's face". "It was plain that they were never going to have me anywhere near that committee! Somebody who knows about the subject? Good God! " He exclaimed. This same rush strategy, Davis explained, was used previously when the government attempted to push through DRIPA, which was presented to the House of Commons as an emergency piece of legislation. "We know via the Liberals [the Liberal Democrat party], who were in government at the time, that [the government] discussed this for three months [among themselves] before bringing it to the Commons to go through in one day. A Bill like that should take three to four months to debate. After it had gone through the House of Commons in one day, it took them six to nine months to put the statutory instruments in place to make it work. So where was the urgency? There was none! It was completely bogus! " Davis also bemoaned the state of the opposition, suggesting that the process could be challenged were Labour more inclined and able to fight the issue. "If we had a decent opposition there could be a comeback to this. The technical majority [on the government's side] is between 12 and 16. I'd have to find between seven and nine people on my side if the opposition was uniform, but it's all over the shop. "Andy Burnham [the Shadow Home Secretary] has got neither the confidence nor the courage to take this on. But that's not entirely pejorative. It's highly technical and [the opposition] is afraid of being accused on being soft on terrorism. " Davis also criticised the amount of time being allowed for debate in the House later this month. "We are supposed to come back to this in two weeks' time and debate [the Bill], and each of us will have six minutes [to comment on the Bill and suggest amendments] in a speech. It's undemocratic. We ought to have a couple of days on the floor of the House for what's called the second reading, that's the 'in principle' debate. "You can't even deal with one of the subjects in this Bill - and there are probably five or six big subjects - in six minutes. "Then there's the Committee Stage, which should be held on the floor of the House when it's a constitutional Bill like this. The report stage, which is the final amendment stage, should be on the floor of the House, and it should have plenty of time. " He added that the government has attempted to ward off any bad press by promoting the fact that the Bill has a section setting out protections of journalists' correspondence - hoping that journalists will be sufficiently delighted to cover the proposed legislation favourably. "They're trying to weight the coverage [in their favour]," said Davis. "They know that after the telephone hacking scandal [that they got bad press], in part because journalists weren't very happy about it. It's very cunning. "
2016-03-14 18:00 www.computing.co.uk
14 Half of organisations would struggle to get mission-critical systems up-and-running in hours following a disaster The mission-critical systems of the typical organisation in the UK would be down for hours in the event of a disaster, while recovering lost data would take a similar amount of time. But many admit that...
2016-03-14 18:00 www.computing.co.uk
15 Privacy and security in the cloud are not the same thing The new European data protection regulations mean that customers of cloud companies, and the cloud firms themselves, must increasingly focus on privacy as well as security. Traditionally, cloud firms have...
2016-03-14 18:00 www.computing.co.uk
16 The entrepreneurial Powa of Dan Wagner Less than 18 months ago, entrepreneur Dan Wagner was boasting that Powa Technologies, his mobile payments and e-commerce company, was worth almost £2bn. Powa was not only going to compete against Square, Shopify and others, but would be bigger than Google and Alibaba, according to Wagner. Somehow, he managed to nab an estimated $225m in funding, including more than $150m from Wellington Management - which he burnt through in just three years, before Powa crashed into administration last month with just $250,000 in the bank and net debts of $16.4m. Bentley driver Wagner, though, seems to have done all right - his previous company Venda racked up pre-tax losses of £53m on revenues of just £92m, yet still managed to pay-out £6m to directors before NetSuite, bafflingly, snapped it up . Steven Prowse, who had been acting CFO for three months in 2014, described Wagner as " just a salesman obsessed with image - mainly his own ", in a blog post on LinkedIn. He accused Wagner of using his parents' permit to park his Bentley in the disabled spot, and of employing his best mate from school, Ant Sharp, who he described as "Andrew Ridgely to Dan's George Michael". It was Sharp who was largely responsible for the company's terrible reviews on the employment website Glassdoor. Indeed, the management he adds, "were the worst I've seen in over 30 years. Breathtakingly immature and bipolar". Prowse then went on to describe an accounting system that would appear to have been an open invitation to fraud (although there is no suggestion of any fraud at the company). "The main accountant not only put the invoices into the system, but could also make payments by themselves. The amount had no limit. So not only could they sneak through a small invoice and pay themselves, they could have taken the full amount from [investors] Wellington, tens of millions of pounds, and transferred it to their own account," said Prowse. It took a lot of persuading to convince Wagner to tighten such practices, Prowse added, before he was abruptly fired when he criticised Sharp's management skills to Wagner. He wasn't the only one. In response to a blog by Julie Meyer, the mysteriously successful founder of First Tuesday and Ariadne Capital, defending Wagner and Powa , a number of former employees descended to the comments section to have their say. "I always loved the company-wide emails Dan would send out criticising people's work," wrote marketing manager Jacques Corby-Tuech, while software engineer Emma Burrows commented: "I particularly liked the bit where I was recruited as part of a development team that had 19 devs on it by the start of May 2014 and was the only developer left on the 'team' by the end of the year. " Others have suggested that Powa made staff redundant one year by leaving them a voice mail on new year's eve. Of course, the real proof that Wagner has really made it as a tech failure is that he has his very own parody Twitter account, which can't be edited by "admirers" nearly as easily as his Wikipedia entry.
2016-03-14 18:00 www.computing.co.uk
17 Nine out of 10 UK CIOs 'concerned' about EU's new data protection laws A whopping 87 per cent of UK CIOs are concerned that their organisation might be exposed under the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a new report has found. The report, commissioned by Egress Software, asked 200 UK CIOs how concerned they are about the new regulations, which will become law in 2018. Only 13 per cent said they were not concerned at all by GDPR, but the majority (61.5 per cent) said that they were ‘a little concerned', and more than a quarter (25.5 per cent) said they were 'very concerned'. The GDPR represents a major change in the way that personal data must be managed for any organisation that does business in, or with, the EU. They will need to make sure they are able to delete all of a consumer's personal data quickly and completely from their systems, on request. There will also be mandatory reporting of serious data breaches and organisations will be expected to know what data might have been affected - within 24 hours, if possible. And organisations found to be in breach of the regulation face hefty fines of up to four per cent of global turnover. The findings from Egress's research chime with the conclusions of a report commissioned by software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider Intralinks at the end of last year. It found that more than half of global companies expected to be fined for non-compliance with GDPR , and that two- thirds of worldwide companies would review their business strategies in EU countries in the next year. Last month, Computing carried out an online poll of about 100 medium-to-large organisations and found that only 20 per cent were well prepared for GDPR, with a further 26 per cent stating that they have just started preparing for the regulation. Surprisingly, a total of 44 per cent were unaware or only vaguely aware of the new rules.
2016-03-14 18:00 www.computing.co.uk
18 Google's AlphaGo AI smashes top professional at ancient game of Go Google's AlphaGo artificial intelligence computer program has claimed its top human scalp at the ancient game of Go by beating challenger Lee Sedol in the first of five bouts. It follows a win in October last year for AlphaGo against Fan Hui, a lower ranked player, which was only publicised in January. While IBM's DeepThought beat a human at chess back in 1997, the wider range of branching moves makes Go a harder proposition for AI to master. Sedol had initially been confident of wiping the floor with his silicon challenger, although he seemed more apprehensive as the date approached. It was a close match, according to those who tuned-in to the live webcast, and many were surprised by the result, including Sedol himself. " I was very surprised because I did not think that I would lose the game. A mistake I made at the very beginning lasted until the very last ," he said, according to a report in The Guardian. Sedol conceded that AlphaGo played a very good game tactically. The latest four-hour contest was streamed on YouTube (see below) although it was, by all accounts a bit dull unless you're really into Go. AlphaGo may, perhaps, have been motivated by money. The winner will scoop a $1m prize. It's not known whether AlphaGo has been told that if it wins, the pot will be donated to charity. DeepMind, the unit of Google that developed AlphaGo, is based in London. Demis Hassabis, the founder and CEO of DeepMind, was full of praise for Sedol before the start of the match but very pleased with the win for artificial intelligence. Google has provided a short write-up of its victory, allowing some praise for the human. "AlphaGo takes the first game against Lee Sedol. They were neck-and-neck for its entirety in a game filled with complex fighting," said the firm in a Google Asia Pacific blog post. "Lee Sedol made very aggressive moves but AlphaGo did not back down from the fight. AlphaGo took almost all of its time compared to Lee Sedol who had almost 30 minutes left on the clock. " They may beat us at Chess and now Go, but the machines still have some way to go before they can challenge humans at football.
2016-03-14 18:00 www.theinquirer.net
19 DevOps not a silver bullet, but does have some merit, says Specsavers global CIO DevOps, the integration of developers who build and test IT services, and the teams that are responsible for deploying and maintaining IT operations, is not a "silver bullet" approach but does have some merit, according to Specsavers global CIO Phil Pavitt. Pavitt told Computing that he was "suspicious" when he first heard of the term, believing it to be "just another Gartner gimmick". "Was there any really heavy DevOps usage? There wasn't really. I mean it was just the next generation of agile, because companies who were selling stuff had run out of things to sell and were repackaging the same products," he said. But after the initial scepticism, Pavitt admitted that he now does see some merit in the approach. "Is it a silver bullet? Absolutely not. Does it improve margin? Marginally. We're dramatically increasing the amount of agile delivery that we do; we have organisations that have been training our staff and we have four or five hour projects which are agile that we have just commissioned and they'll be ready very soon," he explained. Specsavers has also put together small, agile project stand-up spaces and 'Kanban boards', all of which are contributing to the company becoming increasingly agile, said Pavitt. "I think in one or two cases we may have what people would call DevOps, but I don't think we do [just] because it's called DevOps, but because it makes some sense there," he said. "I think it's a bit of a fashion statement. I haven't seen many organisations taking it so seriously as if it is the only way to go, but [I am] certainly seeing some cases where it can enhance how agile teams can deliver," he added. Pavitt is not the only IT leader to have previously been sceptical about DevOps. In 2013, a CA Technologies poll found that 45 per cent of respondents didn't even know what DevOps was, and another 17 per cent thought it was all hype. While in 2014, nearly a quarter (23 per cent) of IT decision-makers claimed that they were not familiar with the term. But last year, a 2015 State of DevOps Report , conducted by Vanson Bourne for "data-as-a- service" company Delphix, found that DevOps was becoming increasingly prevalent in UK organisations, with 77 per cent having introduced dedicated budgets and support teams for DevOps, and more than a third (35 per cent) spending £1m or more on DevOps per year . However, on a live Computing webcast, Puppet Labs founder and CEO Luke Kanies has warned many organisations not to approach DevOps in the same way they had approached cloud computing just a couple of years ago. A couple of years ago, he said "every company had to have a cloud strategy. What we found was that most organisations' private cloud strategies was to rename their VMware vSphere infrastructure to be their private cloud. "In the same way, a lot of organisations have been implementing DevOps by taking all their ops teams and just calling them DevOps engineers. Or, hiring a slightly more senior ops engineer and giving them a different title, but with fundamentally the same role and the same dynamic - that's not the right way to implement DevOps," he said. Want to get the best out of DevOps? Come to Computing's DevOps Summit 2016 on 5 July in London - it's free for qualifying end users. More details here.
2016-03-14 18:00 www.computing.co.uk
20 Snowden calls 'bullshit' on FBI claim that only Apple can unlock phone Edward Snowden has described the FBI's claim that only Apple can unlock an iPhone to help it investigate the communications of the San Bernardino shooters as "bullshit". Snowden joins a growing number of commentators ( excluding Microsoft founder Bill Gates ) questioning the FBI's true intentions behind its demands on Apple , which have been rebuffed by CEO Tim Cook, who argues that the agency is in effect demanding that his firm make obsolete security technology it has spent considerable time and effort creating. Speaking by video feed at pro-democracy organisation Common Cause's Blueprint for a Great Democracy conference in Washington DC yesterday, Snowden stated that he believes "we have to use the technical community to enforce our rights", instead of allowing government to force co-operation that may be unethical or undemocratic. "We do have some evidence today of methods that do work," he continued. "The Apple versus the FBI case is a good example of this," said Snowden , adding that "the FBI would not be as pissed off as they are" if Apple wasn't setting an important precedent by flatly refusing to co-operate. Snowden, like others, disputes that the FBI's demands on Apple are about simply getting to the bottom of one case. "The FBI has said in court that Apple has the ‘exclusive technical means' - these are their words - the ‘exclusive technical means' [to access the device]," said Snowden, before adding: "Respectfully, that's bullshit. " Snowden said that there have been similar attacks since the 1990s that the FBI has investigsted without calling for any specific assistance from technology vendors. David Davis, MP for Haltemprice and Howden and a former Shadow Home Secretary, agreed with Snowden in a recent conversation with Computing , stating that the FBI's argument for forcing Apple to develop a security bypassing tool seems unfounded: "The truth is, terrorist encryption is often in the form of agreed phrases," Davis told Computing . "The Omagh bombing in Northern Ireland, when the signal was given back by the bombers that the thing was placed, [the perpetrator] said ‘The brick is in the wall', he didn't say ‘I've placed the bomb'. "It's rather obviously a code phrase, but you might use a more mundane code phrase. So even if you did away with encryption, all you'd do is make them move on to something more sophisticated. So generally speaking I'm on Apple's side in this argument. It sounds hard, but the truth is, [we must ask] ‘What are they going to learn from these two [perpetrators]?' They already will know who they talk to, they get that through metadata, they wouldn't need the phone for that. "
2016-03-14 18:00 www.computing.co.uk
21 Tor is 'brilliant' but highlights the dangers of encryption, claims GCHQ chief GCHQ chief Robert Hannigan has described the Tor network, which enables people to surf the net anonymously using encryption, as a “brilliant invention” - but one that highlights the growing problem of encrypted services. During a long speech at MIT, Hannigan covered many aspects of the current technology landscape, touching on encryption, surveillance and the balance between civil liberties and data access that government security agencies, such as GCHQ, have to strike. He cited Tor as an example of “the ethical problem” that encryption presents. "Tor is... a brilliant invention that is still invaluable to those who need high degrees of anonymity, notably dissidents, human rights advocates and journalists. But [it is] an invention that is these days dominated in volume by criminality of one sort or another," he said. However, despite the difficulties caused by encryption, or that of the iPhone owned by one of the San Bernardino shooters the FBI is trying to unlock , Hannigan maintained that encryption is still important. “I am not in favour of banning encryption. Nor am I asking for mandatory backdoors. I am puzzled by the caricatures in the current debate, where almost every attempt to tackle the misuse of encryption by criminals and terrorists is seen as a ‘backdoor'," he said. "It is an over-used metaphor, or at least misapplied in many cases, and I think it illustrates the confusion of the ethical debate in what is a highly charged and technically complex area. " Instead, Hannigan said that governments need to start tackling the encryption problem with more nuanced legislation, something he claims that the UK is pursuing with the Investigatory Powers Bill (IPB). "In the UK, we have just embarked on a new discussion of these broad issues and powers," he said, adding that the new Bill is not an attempt to gain new powers, but more a move to codify the powers that already exist in a single statute. “It does not give the intelligence agencies new powers, but tries to put in one place powers that were spread across numerous statutes,” he said. Hannigan also denied claims that there is any intention to ban or weaken encryption. “On encryption, it simply repeats the position of earlier legislation. Where access to data is legally warranted companies should provide data in clear where it is practicable or technically feasible to do so. No one in the UK government is advocating the banning or weakening of encryption,” he said. Hannigan countered the argument of those who claim that large-scale monitoring of major web channels will do nothing to stop terrorists communicating, arguing that it will make it easier to track them on lesser-used platforms. “Our problem at the moment, in short, is that those who do harm are hiding in the noise of the internet by using what the rest of us use. Pushing them off these channels is surely a shared goal for consumers, industry and government,” he said. “We do not expect to reach perfection in this, but we need to clear some ground and know where to focus our efforts.” Despite Hannigan's comments, many are wary of the government's attempt to rush through the IP Bill , noting numerous concerns relating to data protection, privacy and monitoring , especially given the speed at which the government wants to make the Bill law.
2016-03-14 18:00 www.v3.co.uk
22 Microsoft SQL Server to run on Linux with SQL Server 2016 Microsoft has made the surprise revelation that SQL Server 2016 will include a version that will run on Linux. The company has provided public preview releases of SQL Server 2016 since May last year, and the release candidate version was last updated at the start of this month. Microsoft will now herald the arrival of SQL Server 2016 with a Data Driven event in New York on Thursday, 10 March culminating in general availability of the platform later this year. But Microsoft has revealed that it also plans to release a version of SQL Server that will run on Linux, starting with the core relational database capabilities currently available in the private preview release. Full availability is slated for the middle of 2017. Bringing SQL Server to Linux will enable Microsoft to deliver a consistent data platform across Windows Server and Linux, as well as on-premise and cloud, according to Scott Guthrie, executive vice president for Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise Group. "SQL Server on Linux will provide customers with even more flexibility in their data solution. One with mission-critical performance, industry-leading TCO, best-in-class security, and hybrid cloud innovations like Stretch Database, which lets customers access their data on-premise and in the cloud whenever they want at low cost, all built in," Guthrie wrote on the Official Microsoft Blog. Microsoft will face stiff competition in the Linux database market, as there are already a number of database vendors providing relatively mature relational database platforms. These include Oracle's MySQL, part of the widely used Lamp stack, plus MariaDB and EnterpriseDB , to name but a few. MariaDB has already become the database of choice for inclusion with Linux distributions, including Red Hat Enterprise Linux, although many of these are now lining up to praise Microsoft for bringing SQL Server to the platform. Equality drive However, it will take Microsoft some time to bring SQL Server for Linux up to feature parity with its Windows-based counterpart. The private preview of SQL Server on Linux currently has only the core capabilities, and those applying to join the preview programme will find that it is currently available only for Canonical's Ubuntu Linux or as a Docker image. "We are delighted to be working with Microsoft as it brings SQL Server to Linux," said Canonical founder Mark Shuttleworth. "Customers are already taking advantage of Azure Data Lake services on Ubuntu, and now developers will be able to build modern applications that use SQL Server's enterprise capabilities. " Microsoft said that SQL Server on Linux will be based on SQL Server 2016, meaning that it should eventually have most if not all of the same features, including encryption capabilities and in-memory database handling as an option for all applications.
2016-03-14 18:00 www.v3.co.uk
23 Hilton installs IBM Watson-powered 'robot concierge' The Hilton hotels chain is working with IBM to create a Watson-powered robot concierge that can provide information to guests. The machine is called Connie after the hotel chain’s founder, Conrad Hilton, and is stationed at the Hilton McLean hotel in Virginia. It uses IBM Watson to understand natural language and answer questions about the hotel, local attractions, restaurants and services. Connie is effectively powered by a suite of Watson APIs that help it make sense of questions posed by humans, as well as greet guests when they enter the hotel. The robot also draws on information from WayBlazer, a company in the IBM Watson ecosystem , and specialises in providing travel information that can be parsed by cognitive computing techniques to provide travellers with specific information during the travel booking process. Access to WayBlazer’s pool of travel information enables Connie to recommend attractions well beyond the perimeter of the Hilton hotel. The machine learning capabilities of Watson mean that Connie ought to get smarter each time it responds to a query, adapting and improving its recommendations as it goes about its day-to- day duties. Connie is intended to work alongside Hilton’s customer-facing workforce rather than replace hotel staff with artificial intelligence, according to the hotel chain. However, the robot will undoubtedly be seen as a potential threat to jobs in the future , particularly as it is getting smarter, but it is not the "rise of the machines" that many technology industry luminaries forecast . Connie illustrates how even traditional companies are delving into digital technologies to augment and drive business growth or reputation rather than simply providing supporting infrastructure. Examples of this tend to be in the hospitality industry. The Amba Hotel in Marble Arch, for example, uses a virtual reality app with Google’s Cardboard and Samsung’s Gear VR headsets to show 360-degree tours of its hotels to potential clients looking at booking a conference venue. Connie is also arguably the pinnacle of the Internet of Things as it merges big data, APIs derived from cloud-powered analytics and smart machines. This area is one of the key drivers in the digital transformation of enterprises and industrial companies.
2016-03-14 18:00 www.v3.co.uk
24 Bill Gates calls for tighter safeguards on bulk data collection Microsoft founder Bill Gates has demanded more public debate around bulk data collection, stating that there are currently insufficient safeguards in place to ensure that the information is only used for the proper reasons. Gates made his comments in his third 'Ask Me Anything' session on web forum service Reddit . "I think there needs to be a discussion about when the government should be able to gather information. What if we had never had wiretapping? Also the government needs to talk openly about safeguards," he said. "Right now a lot of people don't think the government has the right checks to make sure information is only used in criminal situations. So this case will be viewed as the start of a discussion. "I think very few people take the extreme view that the government should be blind to financial and communication data, but very few people think giving the government carte blanche without safeguards makes sense. "A lot of countries like the UK and France are also going through this debate. For tech companies there needs to be some consistency, including how governments work with each other. The sooner we modernise the laws the better," he said. Gates also called for improved regulation around artificial intelligence, a hot topic given that a computer has recently beaten the world champion at board game 'Go' . "I think it is worth discussing [regulation] because I share the view of Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking that when a few people control a platform with extreme intelligence it creates dangers in terms of power and eventually control," he said. He also discussed his unsurprising use of the Microsoft Surface Book and Windows 10. "I just recently switched to the Surface Book. I only detach the screen a few times a week and I like the keyboard better than my previous Surface [and] I use the latest version of Windows - always updated Windows 10," he said.
2016-03-14 18:00 www.computing.co.uk
25 HSCIC appoints director of data science The Health and Social Care Information Centre (HSCIC) has hired a director of data science to head up its Centre of Excellence. Last month, HSCIC revealed that it was setting up a Centre of Excellence for big data and data science with the Department of Health and the Cabinet Office. The idea was initiated under the government's Data Science Programme, which was set up in 2014 to help the government make better use of data science in policy-making and service delivery. Although it is unclear how the centre will run or how it fits in with HSCIC's overall strategy, the organisation has hired informatics specialist Daniel Ray to be its director of data science. Ray has worked in the NHS for 17 years, during which time he has led informatics teams in all sectors of healthcare and completed a number of international healthcare data projects. His most recent role was director of informatics at University Hospitals Birmingham NHS Foundation Trust (UHB), where he co-founded the university's Quality and Outcomes Research Unit (QuORU). Ray, who will join HSCIC on March 14, said he was "very excited" about his new role, which would involve "further unlocking national health datasets to help underpin evidence-based policy making". He said that in his new role he would also "be able to create an enabling secure environment to catapult world-class research on the unique data holding the NHS". Professor Martin Severs, HSCIC's lead clinician and interim director of information and analytics, said that Ray brought with him "knowledge and perspective of three key arenas that support high-quality patient care - the NHS, the independent sector, and academia". "His digital transformational work at University Hospital Birmingham is well known, while his appointment as a professor with the Farr Institute is testament to the regard in which he is held in the world of big data," he said. Computing 's Big Data and Analytics Summit 2016 is NEXT WEEK. To find out more, and to reserve one of the few remaining places, please see Computing 's Events website.
2016-03-14 18:00 www.computing.co.uk
26 GCHQ admits £1bn spend on cyber security 'hasn’t worked' GCHQ is losing the cyber security war, according to director of cyber security at CESG (Communications-Electronics Security Group) Alex Dewedney, who admitted that, despite a £1bn spend over the past five years, "the bottom line is it hasn't worked". Speaking at the RSA security conference in San Francisco late last week, Dewedney also suggested a "more interventionist policy" may now be needed. "I think the best way to sum up the challenge we face is that while we've done a lot over the past five years and spent quite a lot of money as a government, particularly in those years of austerity we've been through, the bottom line is it hasn't worked," Dewedney said. While he said that he could "point to lots of achievements around understanding the threats much better", Dewedney maintained that the UK is "not winning the fight on cyber security". Dewedney said "there's been something of a mantra in the UK that the solution to all of our problems is information sharing and partnerships". "[People believe that] if we keep doing that, then somehow it will magically cause improvement to happen. That approach by itself is not sufficient," said Dewedney. "We can't just pass information on threats to businesses and tell them to go and deal with it themselves," said Dewedney, who added that 90 per cent of UK enterprises suffered cyber security breaches last year. Dewedney also criticised the UK government for "not... spending money on fixing legacy IT issues" that have left a situation that, he said, "is killing us". "I've tried to make this argument to my bosses that surely you have to start [with legacy] before you try to do anything more sophisticated," he said. "But the response has been ‘I'm not spending cyber security programme money to subsidise other departments' IT budgets'. " While Chancellor George Osborne last November pledged to double cyber security funding to £1.9bn by 2020 , chiefly to try to prevent "ISIL... using the internet for hideous propaganda purposes", Dewedney argued that funding is not the most pressing issue. The problem is "not so much a money issue as it is a human resources issue", he said.
2016-03-14 18:00 www.computing.co.uk
27 'Go back to your training schedule' to educate users and cut down phishing attacks, says Mimecast Testing and training end users regularly on cyber security protocol is key to cutting down phishing - or worse, whaling - attacks in your business, email management and security firm Mimecast has advised. Speaking to Computing ahead of our web seminar entitled "Are you a Phish or a Whale? ", which will take place next Wednesday, 16 March, Mimecast's cyber security specialist Orlando Scott-Cowley - who will be appearing on the panel along with law firm BLM's IT director Abbey Ewen - stressed the supreme importance of education for end users. "Once you've got the technology solved, you need to look at the end users - the policy, the procedure and the people inside the business," observed Scott-Cowley. "Because that's where the attack will happen - the cyber criminals know they can get an email into a user's inbox, and they can socially engineer them into doing things. "So, do you know how your users will react? " asked Scott-Cowley. "Have you trained them? Do you do only induction training at the start of a job, or maybe a six- monthly refresher? Or do you test and train them on a regular basis? "Raising users' understanding on the risks is important, but so also the need to know the true effect on the business. So going back to your training schedule is vital. " At the same time, Scott-Cowley acknowledged that the technology piece is another key part of helping to manage the behaviour of end users. "Gateway controls are the most important - you have to protect our users with some kind of secure email gateway. Attackers will use email to compromise users because it's incredibly easy to drop a malicious link or weaponised attachment," said Scott-Cowley. "So make sure a gateway you have on the perimeter is able to detect that type of traffic, but then also rewrite the URL or sandbox the attachment to make sure there's nothing hiding behind those elements of the message. " To learn more about the topic, and join in with the debate in real time, join us on 16 March for the web seminar. You can easily sign up ahead of time by visiting the seminar's mini-site.
2016-03-14 18:00 www.computing.co.uk
28 60 per cent of government spend with SMEs is via larger contractors – NAO report Sixty per cent of government spend with SMEs was via another, larger contractor with SMEs in their supply chain, according to a National Audit Office (NAO) report released today. In 2010, the government set a target for 25 per cent of procurement spending to reach SMEs by 2015 and, according to an estimate by the Cabinet Office, it met this target in 2013-14 and surpassed it by two percentage points in 2014- 15. However, the NAO said that it could not be certain that the amount government spends with SMEs has increased over the last parliament because the data it has used is not directly comparable, year-on-year, as a result of numerous changes in the way it calculates SME spend. Alarmingly, the 27 per cent figure for 2014-15 is made up of both direct spend with SMEs - which amounts to £4.9bn or 10.9 per cent of overall spend - in addition to indirect spend, in which SMEs are appointed as subcontractors in the supply chain in a public sector contract with a larger provider. Indirect spend amounts to £7.3bn in 2014-15 and is 16.2 per cent of overall government spend, or 60 per cent of overall SME spending. However, according to the NAO, the government's understanding of its indirect spending with SMEs is "incomplete". "Departments told us that they rely on the goodwill of large suppliers to report spending accurately to the Crown Commercial Service (CCS) as departments usually have no way to verify the accuracy of the figures," claims the NAO. "Suppliers may only have data on their spending with the next tier of their supply chain, so may not report spending with SMEs in lower tiers. Furthermore, suppliers may have different approaches to collecting and validating data, and identifying SMEs, leading to inconsistent measurement," it adds. Improving access for SMEs The NAO states that the government currently bases its approach on the assumption that more SMEs will win work with government if there are fewer barriers to SMEs being able to bid. However, it states that wider trends in government contracting mean that, although SMEs can bid for work, they are often not suitable to deliver it. According to former HMRC CIO Phil Pavitt, more and more SMEs are providing IT services, but the procurement teams within government have processes that eliminate them from consideration. "It is not uncommon for politicians and IT leaders in government wanting the right thing but procurement officers stop that," he told Computing . Last year Pavitt, who is now global CIO at Specsavers, suggested that procurement teams were the "biggest enemy" to SMEs breaking in to government. The NAO suggested that the government needed to make a more concerted effort not only to remove barriers to bidding, but also to ensure that the way in which government procurement is done can achieve the desired benefits of using SMEs. It added that the government should also balance its aspirations for using SMEs with other potentially conflicting priorities such as pressures on departments to make savings. Among its recommendations, the NAO said that the government should stop changing its basis for estimating SME spending and start to identify areas of government where different providers can bring the most benefits. It said that the government needed to identify where it ought to have oversight of the relationship between primary contractors and their subcontractors, and emphasised the need for greater visibility and transparency of government procurement. It suggested that the CCS should work with the Cabinet Office and Government Digital Service (GDS) to assess the feasibility of an integrated cross-government procurement platform to support its commercial strategy. On the back of another NAO report into government spend, Computing looked into what the government could do to ensure that spend on consultancy and temporary staff did not spiral out of control .
2016-03-14 18:00 www.computing.co.uk
29 Google releases Android N developer preview - adds split- screen support and Doze improvements Google has released a developer preview of the next version of Android for Nexus devices, codenamed 'N'. Google typically waits until its annual I/O conference, which will kick-off on 18 May this year, to make developer previews available, but the company has decided to do things a little differently this year. Those with a compatible device, such as a Nexus 5X or Nexus 6P , can sign up for the Android N preview which will be available to download as an over-the-air update. Naturally, Google doesn't recommend that regular consumers use the preview as it is "not intended for daily use or consumer use". This change, which echoes Apple's iOS public beta system, sees Google ensuring that all bugs are ironed out before the software is officially rolled out, and could also mean that devices start getting Android updates more quickly. "By releasing a 'work in progress' build earlier in development we have more time to incorporate developer feedback," Google claimed in a blog post. "Also, the earlier preview allows us to hand off the final N release to device makers this summer so they can get their hands on the latest version of Android earlier than ever. " Android N's stand-out addition in terms of features is split-screen multitasking, which makes Android phones and tablets capable of running two apps side by side. Google said that developers will need to opt-in to the split-screen mode, as well as a new ‘picture-in-picture’ mode also debuting in Android N. The next version of Android also brings iOS-style direct-reply notifications, which means users will be able to reply to texts and Facebook messages, for example, from the notification panel, along with a new bundled notifications feature. Android N has improvements to Google's battery-saving Doze mode, which will now save power whenever the screen is switched off, and better support for the Java 8 language. The full list of devices that can give Android N a spin is the Nexus 6, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus Player, Nexus 9 and Google Pixel C. However, Google hasn't yet revealed what the next version of Android will be called. ..
2016-03-14 18:00 www.theinquirer.net
30 Get Privacy Shield wrong and it will have to be renegotiated in 2018, warns data protection lawyer Privacy Shield, the EU-US data transfer agreement intended to replace Safe Harbour, contains only "cosmetic" changes and there is much work to do if it will not have to be renegotiated. That's according to Sheila Fitzpatrick, worldwide data governance counsel and chief privacy officer at storage firm NetApp, who also sits on the data protection advisory committee at the EU. To read the US press you'd think Privacy Shield is pretty much a done deal. This is a combination of wishful thinking and misunderstanding, she says. "The US has difficulty in understanding the protection of personal data because it is almost a foreign concept. Businesses are used to having whatever data they need, whether it's consumer data or employee data, they're used to having it at their fingertips. " By contrast the Europeans are much more sceptical. "In the EU there is a lot more caution and there's certainly mistrust right now. The EU is saying that a lot of work needs to be done. There's a lot of scepticism about how committed is the US really towards the privacy framework just based on past history. " Far from any deal being done, several significant hurdles remain before Privacy Shield can cross the finish line, including approval by the 28 EU member states, a non-binding vote by the Article 29 Working Party group of data protection officials (WP29), and a final decision by the College of Commissioners. Even after that it may still be struck down by the high court. "At that time the ECJ [European Court of Justice] can step in because if any of the member states say this isn't restrictive enough it can be invalidated based on the justification they used [to invalidate] Safe Harbour," Fitzpatrick explains. Self-certification One of the problems some European states had with Safe Harbour was that US companies wishing to transfer personal data from the EU were allowed to certify themselves. It had been assumed by many that self-certification would be dropped in its replacement, but it is still there at the insistence of the Americans. "Self-certification is a sticking point in terms of what enforcement looks like," says Fitzpatrick. "The audit is a concern because right now they're saying it will be a joint audit between the FTC [US Federal Trade Commission] and the ombudsman and the EU. But will there be an audit conducted in the States before the EU is even informed? " The ombudsman The data ombudsman is another sticking point. This is the official to whom EU citizens can turn to if they feel their privacy has been breached by an American firm. However, this supposedly independent post is actually embedded in the FTC, which itself is part of the US State Department. "It was supposed to be a separate, totally unbiased office that would report through the administrative branch but it was not to be part of the State Department or the FTC," says Fitzpatrick. "Well, the position will report directly to the Secretary of State so there is a major concern that the bodies will not be unbiased and given free rein to basically implement the laws. " Notification Another bone of contention is how individuals are to be informed whether or not their data has been breached. There is a 45 day window within which a company must report back to an EU citizen who has made a complaint, but exactly what needs to be reported is unclear. "They could do a 45-day forensic investigation and then say ‘no, your data wasn't impacted,' and you never have to be notified," Fitzpatrick says. A lot of work remains if Privacy Shield is to be ratified in June as planned, she says. "First of all they have to define the framework in writing, put more details around it. The US has been tasked to go away and create the ombudsman, the responsibility and the functions and how the registration and self-certifications can occur. " Only after that can it go before the EU member states, WP29, the College and ultimately, possibly, the ECJ. But even if it is passed, it faces a sterner test when the EU General Data Protection Regulation becomes law in 2018. "The talk at the moment is that Privacy Shield may have to be renegotiated in 2018 because the GDPR obviously puts many more obligations, responsibilities and accountabilities onto any not just US-based multinational companies but any organisation that does business in Europe," Fitzpatrick says. Unless the protections built into Privacy Shield are significantly stronger than those in Safe Harbour, any relief felt by US firms when the Privacy Shield "deal" was announced last month is likely to be short-lived.
2016-03-14 18:00 www.computing.co.uk
31 YOOX Net-a-Porter Group picks IBM for 'game-changing' post-merger tech platform confirms CIO YOOX Net-a-Porter has revealed that it's chosen IBM to handle the development of a unified customer technology platform, following last year's merger of YOOX and Net-a-Porter. CIO Alex Alexander called the choice a "game-changing alliance". "This game-changing alliance will benefit our customers and brand partners, allowing us to push our ambitions even further as we continue to create the future of fashion," said Alexander. "The partnership with IBM will enable our exceptionally talented technology team to focus on what it is renowned for: industry-leading innovation, cutting-edge technology and customer-centric solutions. " As the combined companies operate what they're calling "multi-brand proprietary online stories" in addition to "numerous Online Flagship Stores" of leading fashion and luxury brands, the firm decided that pulling together all of YOOX and Net-a-Porter's technology under one umbrella was the best way to proceed. IBM products that Alexander will roll out include IBM Order Management for order fulfilment, as well as IBM WebSphere Commerce for the e- commerce piece. The new group expects the adoption to "expedite and facilitate the post-merger system integration process" while "minimising costs and execution risk" across a global 2.5 million customer base in a business that made €1.7bn in 2015. Alexander has been in the CIO post at Yoox since July 2015, subsequently becoming CIO of the new group after the merger completed in October 2015. Hugh Fahy, who was initially CIO of Net- a-Porter, replacing Richard Lloyd-Williams as CIO back in 2014 , has since moved to the CTO role at notonthehightstreet.com. Lloyd-Williams moved to another e-commerce company, Discover&Deliver, as CEO, but was let go in 2015 by founder Isabel Rutland. Rutland told Computing at the time that she would never hire another ex-CIO in a CEO role , explaining that "CIOs tend to be by nature introverted people" who are better "working in very small groups or on their own". Rutland claimed that being a CEO was "not for him" when discussing Lloyd-Williams, and in future she would seek a CEO with the "right human characteristics and a dynamism" that a CIO "probably wouldn't" possess.
2016-03-14 18:00 www.computing.co.uk
32 CSC Lorenzo system partly to blame for Sheffield NHS Trust £12m deficit CSC's electronic patient record system Lorenzo is partly to blame for a £12m shortfall at Sheffield Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, according to an integrated performance report by the trust's board of directors published last month. The Trust went live with Lorenzo in September last year but, according to the report, it is one of the main reasons that Sheffield Teaching Hospitals had underperformed. "The under-performance remains largely in respect of elective activity, out-patients, critical care and a larger than expected deduction for emergency re-admissions within 30 days," the report claims. "There are still data issues following the implementation of the new Lorenzo PAS [patient administration system] towards the end of September, which are creating challenges in reporting complete and accurate income figures. " But the bigger issue, according to the report, is the operational impact of the new system on booking and scheduling processes - particularly in out-patient services. Since the implementation of Lorenzo, the trust has seen a rise in did not attend (DNA) rates for outpatient appointments, with an analysis of the issues has shown that for some patients the DNA status was recorded incorrectly. The new system has also led to delays in administrative processes affecting pathway management, while administration tasks around outpatient booking have been more time- consuming too. It said that Lorenzo experts were visiting outpatient areas to assess the issues and recommend changes to processes where appropriate. The report said that the position the trust is in after nine months of the financial year "remains of concern". It added that action was being pursued to improve the delivery of activity, efficiency and financial plans and to mitigate risks and to maximise contingencies. "Resolving the issues following the Lorenzo implementation and getting activity back to normal levels is critical," it said.
2016-03-14 18:00 www.computing.co.uk
33 Government to review its contracts with Atos after IT failure The government has committed to review £500m worth of contracts with controversial outsourcing company Atos, following a major IT failure. The Guardian reports that the Cabinet Office said the government will undertake a full review of every contract worth over £10m that has been carried out with Atos. The move indicates that the government is frustrated with the performance of the French outsourcing firm, which has been blighted by numerous project failures. One of the most prominent issues encountered by Atos was the exit of its healthcare division from a contract under which it carried out the Work Capability Assessments, which checks if benefits claimants are fit for work. Atos’s latest fiasco concerns its role in the implementation of the General Practice Extraction Service (GPES), an IT system designed for NHS organisations to extract data from all GP practice computer systems in England. The investigation stems from the National Audit Office (NAO) discovering a botched planning and procurement process leading to costs for the project escalating from £14m to £20m. Atos had a key role in delivering a tool to manage data extraction but according to the NAO is had fundamental flaws and did not work. This prompted the public accounts committee to investigate Atos' role in the project and said it did not show an “appropriate duty of care to the taxpayer” and acted only within its own short- term interests. Atos has defended itself against such accusations saying it was not able to see the entire project it was contracted to work on. An Atos spokeswoman also told V3 that it was unable to test its part of the system in a live environment because it did not have access to components provided by other organisations. The company Atos claims the system delivers 40 extractions per year, but the NAO noted only NHS England has received data from the GPES. Regardless, as a result of the failure, the committee urged the government to probe Atos' relationship with the UK public sector as its major supplier, with the goal of ensuring such mistakes do not happen again. While it is rare for the Cabinet Office to probe a single supplier, its plan to investigate all Atos’ contracts with the government could spell further bad news for the company, given it is currently working HM Revenues & Customs, the Department of Health, the Ministry of Justice and NHS Scotland. However, Atos appears to be willing to submit to probing from the Cabinet Office, judging by a spokeswoman’s comment to The Guardian . “We look forward to working with the Cabinet Office with whom we have a transparent and open relationship and we look forward to maintaining our green rating for delivery across Whitehall,” she said. While Atos is in the Cabinet Office’s sights, it is not likely to be the only major IT supplier and outsourcing form with government contracts likely to come under scrutiny. The government’s supposed ambitions to move away from major deals with large enterprises and its goal to bring more development ad support of digital services in-house, is all part of the efforts of the Government Digital Service to drive more digital services in Whitehall and reduce its IT costs and inefficient projects .
2016-03-14 18:00 www.computing.co.uk
34 Dell Survey Uncovers Challenges to Providing UC to Remote Workers As the workforce becomes increasingly mobile and more employees work remotely or telecommute, the value of unified communications (UC) as a way of enabling collaboration and improving productivity will continue to grow. A study last year by Osterman Research found that while some businesses are hesitant to fully embrace UC—with reasons ranging from cost and return-on-investment (ROI) concerns to a lack of understanding of the impact of UC and prior investments in legacy telephony products—almost three-quarters of businesses said they saw benefits of the technologies. Osterman also expects that the percentage of businesses using UC will grow from 45 percent now to 68 percent next year, thanks in large part to a more remote workforce. However, a new survey by Dell outlines the challenges businesses are facing in providing a UC experience to remote workers that mirrors what they can find in the office. Among the hurdles is a lack of visibility into UC usage that is costing money and hindering productivity. Dell, which offers its Unified Communications Command Suite for on-premises and remote-worker environments, also outlined some steps businesses can take. This eWEEK slide show highlights some of the survey's findings.
2016-03-14 14:00 Jeffrey Burt www.eweek.com
35 35 Samsung Galaxy S7 & S7 Edge not quite waterproof, torture tests reveal In the tests, which you can watch for yourself below, all four superphones are submerged in 5 feet (1.5 m) of water for 30 minutes. Both new Galaxy phones still functioned just fine once dried off, but with audio permanently muffled and distorted. Technically if it's only resistant to immersion up to 1 meter, however, it should be rated IP 67 and Samsung is definitely still claiming that the phones are "water-resistant; IP 68 certified up to 30 min. in 1m of water. " To earn that IP 68 protection rating, the device needs to resist water in more than 1 meter for 30 minutes, so perhaps someone needs to do a new torture test under 1.1 meters of water to see if that IP 68 certification is actually deserved. Samsung did not respond to a request for clarification on the rating. Maybe I'm just nitpicking, or maybe SquareTrade tested a few bum Samsung phones for water resistance, but the video makes at least one other thing clear -- the screens on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus are more sturdy than their Samsung Galaxy S7 competitors. When subjected to a new tumble test, the iPhone 6s was the only phone of the four to survive, while the Galaxy S7 Edge was the first to succumb to the pressure of a bendability test. Check out the full results below and decide for yourself which phone makes the most sense for doing parkour in the rain.
2016-03-14 11:48 Eric Mack www.cnet.com
36 Robotic exoskeleton for paraplegics approved for market After 10 years in development and a clinical trial that involved some 1,200 patient sessions, the US Food and Drug Administration has approved a robotic exoskeleton designed by a team of researchers at Vanderbilt University. "If the person wearing it leans forward, he moves forward. If he leans back and holds that position for a few seconds, he sits down. When he is sitting down, if he leans forward and holds that position for a few seconds, then he stands up. " The exoskeleton is a rigid framework that fits around the patient's legs, with powered joints at hip and knee. A wide belt straps around the torso to keep the exoskeleton secure, and crutches or a walking frame helps the wearer keep their balance. It's powered by a rechargeable battery that can be taken out and replaced as need arises. The Indego exoskeleton will automatically adjust the amount of robotic assistance to the individual. If the wearer has some mobility, the exoskeleton will supply less assistance, which not only preserves the battery life, it will allow the wearer to use their own muscles. For wearers with no mobility, the Indego will operate at full power. Initially, the exoskeleton, which has been available in Europe since November 2015, will cost $80,000 per unit. However, the team hopes next to get Indego approved for insurance reimbursement, which will make it much more accessible. "I'm really glad," said Goldfarb said. "It is particularly gratifying because it is the first thing that has come out of my lab that has become a product that people can purchase, which hopefully will make a significant improvement in their quality of life. "
2016-03-14 11:48 Michelle Starr www.cnet.com
37 What will the iPhone 7 look like? Probably not a lot different to the iPhone 6S Expecting the iPhone 7 to look different to the existing iPhone 6S? The latest leak suggests that the new iPhone will look very familiar to existing iPhone owners. The eagle-eyed amongst you might have noticed a few differences: It's also claimed that the new design is slightly thinner than the current design (because Apple knows you want your iPhone to be thinner, right?). Many had expected that Apple would revamp the design of the iPhone with the release of the iPhone 7, but the current crop of leaks seem to be pointing to a device that looks much like what Apple has released for the past couple of years.
2016-03-14 11:35 Adrian www.zdnet.com
38 Galaxy S7 specs, release date and price THE GALAXY S7 is finally official, alongside the Galaxy S7 Edge. While the smartphones offer incremental updates over last year's Galaxy S6, many likely will be wooed by the news that the handset's will offer IP68 protection against water and a microSD slot. We've rounded up everything about the Galaxy S7's availability below. Release date The Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 went on sale just moments after their MWC unveiling, with the likes of Carphone Warehouse and O2 quick to start taking orders for the much-hyped smartphones before they start shipping on 11 March. What's more, as expected, those who pre-order the device will bag themselves a free Gear VR headset, and those who are quick to order the smartphone could receive it as early as 8 March. Although Samsung has yet to confirm the release date, Carphone Warehouse is already allowing customers to register their interest in the phone. The retailer says that the handset will go up for pre-order "shortly after" its likely MWC unveiling. Price The Galaxy S7 will start at £569 SIM-free, while the Galaxy S7 Edge - which features a larger, 5.5in curved screen - will start at £639. Both devices can be pre-orders from Samsung's official website. Unsurprisingly, both phones will be available at all of the major operators too. Over on the EE website, you can grab a Galaxy S7 for £49.99 on a £44.99 per month tariff, including unlimited texts and minutes and 4GB data. This goes up to a £49.99 tariff for the Galaxy S7 Edge , but EE has plenty of other contracts on offer. O2 is offering the Galaxy S7 on pay monthly from £9.99 upfront on £54 per month contract which comes with 3GB data and a free Jabra headset worth £150. Oddly, the Galaxy S7 Edge is being offered on a cheaper £51 tariff , but we've been in touch with O2 to check this is accurate. Over on the Three website, you can grab the Galaxy S7 from £99 on a £35 contract, which comes with 1GB data each month, going up to £41 per month for the bigger-screened Galaxy S7 Edge . Vodafone, which is involved in Samsung's free Gear VR offer, is selling the Galaxy S7 from £44 per month with a £29 upfront cost and the Galaxy S7 Edge on a £50 tariff. Virgin Media has got in on the Galaxy S7 pre-ordering action, too. It's selling the handset for from £34 per month , albeit with just 250MB data, and the Galaxy S7 Edge from £38 per month. Naturally, you can pick up both the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge at Carphone Warehouse , which is offering the handsets across EE, O2, Vodafone and its own iD network and is also throwing in a free Gear VR. Specs Thanks to a host of online speculation, we knew almost all there was to know about Samsung's duo of smartphones ahead of their glitzy MWC reveal. As expected, the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge both sport designs similar to that seen on their predecessors, boasting premium metal and glass construction with a slight bit of added curvature to the rear of the phone. Improving on last year's models, though, the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge both come with IP68 certification, which means that can withstand being dunked into water for 30 minutes. The batteries have received big upgrades, now up to 3,000mAh on the Galaxy S7 and 3,600 on the Galaxy S7 Edge. Wireless charging support returns, though the microUSB port hasn't been upgraded to USB-C. The standard Galaxy S7 keeps the Galaxy S6 's 5.1in display size, although the Galaxy S7 Edge has, as mentioned, been upped to 5.5in, naturally retaining its distinctive tapered screen. Nonetheless, both devices share the same Super AMOLED tech and 2560x1440 QHD resolution, producing pixel densities of 576ppi on the Galaxy S7 and 534ppi on the Galaxy S7 Edge. Another shared feature is always-on functionality, allowing the devices to show basic status informations and widgets on the lock screen while keeping power consumption down to one percent per hour. Rumours that the Galaxy S7 family would include pressure-sensitive displays turned out to be mistaken, though the Galaxy S7 Edge does, at least, gain the Shortcuts feature previously exclusive to the Galaxy S6 Edge+ - this allows users to set custom app and contact shortcuts accessible via a tab on the phone's screen curve. One of the more surprising leaked details is the use of 12MP rear cameras, down from 16MP on previous models. However, pixel size has been increased, and the Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge also feature improved f/1.7 sensors for better low-light performance, we're not too worried about their photography capabilities. The front camera is unchanged, sticking at 5MP. Another surprise is that the larger Galaxy S7 Edge is in fact the thinner device, measuring 151x73x7.7mm and weighing 157g while the Galaxy S7 measures 142x70x7.9mm and weighs 152g. In the UK, both devices will use Samsung's own Exynos 8890 SoC, which contains four 2.3GHz cores, four 1.6GHz cores and 4GB of RAM. In North America, the Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 is used instead. As for storage, only 32GB and 64GB internal drives have been confirmed, seemingly leaving the 128GB option of previous Galaxy S models out in the cold. With newfound support for up to 200GB of microSD storage, though, it 's not a total loss. On the software side, the latest Android 6.0 Marshmallow will be the OS, although it will be customised with an updated version of Samsung's TouchWiz skin, which has been redesigned with softer, more rounded icons. Samsung Knox, a tool for creating encryption-secured private storage spaces for sensitive data and apps, is also pre-installed. The Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge also include a Live Photos-style feature where photos are animated when viewed in the Gallery app via short video clips automatically recorded immediately before, during and after taking the shot. µ
2016-03-14 11:32 Carly Page www.theinquirer.net
39 Florida sheriff says he'll jail 'rascal' Tim Cook Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives. American society has been infused with a slightly intemperate edge over the last few weeks and months. Our tolerance levels are dangerously low. Our threat levels are shooting past orange. While the forces of Trump gird themselves against sudden oncomers, Apple finds itself in a painful battle against the government over the phone issued to one of the San Bernardino terrorists. The FBI wants Apple to hack it. Apple claims this will create a backdoor, through which many nefarious parties might enter. "You cannot create a business model to go, 'We're not paying attention to the federal judge or the state judge. You see, we're above the law,'" he said earlier this week in a press conference to discuss a recent murder case in which the suspects had taken photos of their victim on their phones. "The CEO of Apple needs to know he's not above the law," he added. Apple didn't respond to a request for comment. For Judd, this situation is very clear. "I can tell you, the first time we do have trouble getting into a cell phone, we're going to seek a court order from Apple," he said. "And when they deny us, I'm going to go lock the CEO of Apple up. I'll lock the rascal up. " I had rather thought that Florida has a certain respect for rascals. They're part of Floridian folklore. They're free spirits who do their thing regardless of the potential consequences. Judd himself is, indeed, something of a folk hero. I fear, though, that locking up Apple's CEO may be slightly more complicated that Judd expects. Apple's lawyers are wily sorts. How odd, though, that a law enforcement official should think of Cook as a rascal. Compared to Apple's previous CEO, he's positively Rascal Flatts to Steve Jobs's Bob Dylan.
2016-03-14 11:48 Chris Matyszczyk www.cnet.com
40 Automakers invest in tech to stop you dozing off at the wheel Major automakers are investing in car monitoring systems which detect when you are distracted or too tired to drive effectively. According to the Wall Street Journal , a number of high-profile vehicle manufacturers are investing and testing driver monitor systems which keep an eye on your movements and body readings, in order to give you a nudge or alert you when your focus is faltering. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA)'s early predictions (. PDF) for accident rates in the months January to September 2015, approximately 26,000 people in the US died in road accidents -- an increase of over nine percent based on 2014 statistics. Driver distraction is only one possible cause of accidents and fatalities, of course, but automakers hope that implementing Internet of Things (IoT) and connected technology in our vehicles, they may reduce at least one aspect of driving which can result in injury, accidentally or otherwise. Automakers including General Motors, Toyota and Volkswagen, among others, are exploring monitoring systems for our next-generation vehicles. While we already have rear-view cameras, cruise control, seatbelt alarm nagging, GPS systems and infotainment dashboards -- not to mention Google's self-driving car project -- an alert to stop you using your smartphone, taking a call or your hands off the wheel could increase overall safety, especially when it comes to younger and less experienced drivers. You do have to ask, however, whether drivers will be enamoured with the prospect of being monitored so much in their vehicles, as well as whether constant beeps, alarms and nagging will actually make drivers less attentive and deaf to correction. In November, Ford revealed a "drug-driving suit" designed to give people a taste of what it is like to drive a car while high. The suit, destined for use at driving schools, simulates the effects of cannabis, cocaine, heroin and MDMA through sensors, goggles, lighting equipment and padded weights.
2016-03-14 11:21 Charlie Osborne www.zdnet.com
41 Microsoft March madness update: Switching phones and making returns I'm now a couple weeks into my month with Microsoft products and have a few changes to my lineup and recent experiences to share. My primary T-Mobile SIM continues to live in a Windows 10 Phone, which has proven to be the biggest challenge for me. March madness? Going mobile one month with Microsoft-only tech With a new Surface Pro 4 and Lumia 950 XL in hand, Matthew Miller is going all in with Microsoft this month. I made a decision yesterday to return the Lumia 950 XL. As I wrote in my full review , the hardware is pretty dull and I tired of holding it close to my face to unlock it. Mozo can't seem to make enough cases and the leather one I ordered continues to get pushed out to some future possible delivery date. There were a couple lockups and while the camera is excellent, I pulled out my Lumia 830 and find that hardware much more compelling than the 950 XL. Since I can also update that to the latest Windows 10 Mobile software, I couldn't justify the $600+ to keep the 950 XL in my collection and am sending it back. The Lumia 830 is all setup now and performing well. At first I was concerned about the app gap on Windows 10 Mobile, primarily as it relates to banks dropping support for Microsoft's mobile platform. However, I discovered that the promise of Windows 10 universal apps is starting to be a reality. USAA and American Express both now have Windows 10 universal apps so I can conduct most of my banking on the Lumia 830. The apps still are not as good as on iOS and Android, but you can get by. We also recently saw Instagram for Windows 10 launch across Microsoft's mobile platforms. There are very few essential apps missing on Windows 10 Mobile, but I would still like to see the quality and depth of the application experience improve over time. Based on a request from a reader, I purchased a Display Dock for the Lumia 950 XL and took it with me on a trip to New Orleans last week. I brought the Lumia 950 XL, the dock, an HDMI cable, the USB Type-C charger, a USB Type-C cable, my Bluetooth Arc mouse, and a Bluetooth mobile keyboard. All of this gear actually ended up being more than just taking along the Surface Pro 4 and a Type Cover. I hooked up the Lumia 950 XL to my hotel LG TV to try to use the phone as the central hub to get work done. There were several apps supported by Continuum and the dock, but many more that were inaccessible for use on the big display. The trackpad functionality of the phone was more frustrating than useful while the Bluetooth mouse worked well. The entire experience was acceptable, but response showed a bit of lag and it wasn't anywhere close to as productive an experience as I have directly on the Surface Pro 4. For myself, I could never see an actual usage scenario when I would choose to use Continuum, beyond a cool technology demo, so I'm returning the Display Dock as well. My Surface Pro 3 performed flawlessly with Windows 10, after Microsoft resolved its Mail client failures. However, I'm finding a few minor issues with the Surface Pro 4 that require me to perform a reset. I bought the new Surface Dock hub accessory and often have to restart to get my secondary display to appear. I also went back to using a Bluetooth keyboard rather than the Type Cover while using the Surface Pro 4 with the Surface Dock since the Type Cover regularly decided to stop working. I cannot use the Type Cover trackpad or keys to do anything with the connected Surface Pro 4 so gave up on trying to save a bit of desk space with the Type Cover. The Dell XPS 12 is being returned as I just don't have the time to focus on using it and the Surface Pro 4. The XPS 12 2-in-1 is an excellent alternative to the Surface Pro 4 and I may try to get one for my engineering work when my Dell laptop is replaced. The Band 2 continues to capture lots of data and get regular Microsoft Health updates. Actually, the latest Health app update for the Lumia 950 XL resulted in the inability to connect the Band 2 at all so that's another reason I went back to the Lumia 830. One thing about using the Band 2 as my primary wearable is that I discovered how the battery life impacts my usage. If I wear the Band 2 all day long, then I need to charge it before running and tracking a run with GPS while also charging it after the run to be able to track my sleep. Thus, I am finding I need to charge it from one to three times a day. This has resulted in a couple of days of missed sleep or missed step tracking and has resulted in way too much thinking about the battery status of the Band 2. If I gave up on sleep tracking, then I could charge it once a day. Actually, that would be twice a day if I went for my one hour run too. I'm finding that having a device for activity tracking and another just for running is probably a better approach to tracking my life. I am continuing to use the Band 2 while also testing out the Fitbit Blaze on my other wrist.
2016-03-14 11:21 Matthew Miller www.zdnet.com
42 HTC 10 release date rumours, specs UK: HTC One M10 launch expected 19 April in London. Plus: latest leaked photos It would appear that HTC adopted the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” attitude with the One M9 smartphone. It’s a decent phone, but too similar to its predecessor, the One M8. Here we’re rounding up all the rumours surrounding the M9’s successor. It's said to be codenamed Perfume, but sold as the HTC One M10 or just 'HTC 10'. We’ll keep this page updated so bookmark it if you want to get the latest on the HTC One M10 release date, specs and price in the UK. See also : Best new phones in 2016. Update 14 March: Based on the the leaked images by @evleaks, HTC is rumoured to launch on 19 April in London - it's the date on the screen. The phone is said to go on sale first in the US on 9 May. HTC has also posted teasers (including the video above) with the hashtag #powerof10. This adds much weight to the argument it will call it the HTC 10, and drop the 'One' from the name, but it's impossible to tell if the leaked photos below the black teaser image are the same device. An HTC spokesperson has also commented following the LG G5 and Galaxy S7 launches saying the new device will have a "very, very compelling camera experience". The rumoured four colour options are: Topaz Gold, Glacier Silver and Carbon Gray. That may be only three, but the fourth comes from the option of having silver with either a white face or a black face - note the two at the top have white fronts, and the bottom two black fronts. The photos below are claimed to be the HTC 10. The first are via @tanalibera and are the first credible images which aren't renders. The HTC logo is gone front and - shown more clearly on the white model below - there's a home buttom which is said to double as a fingerprint scanner. You can also see that there's just one speaker grille, so rumours that HTC is dropping BoomSound are correct. The photos also show that HTC has decided to go with touch-sensitive buttons below the screen, like Samsung still does, rather than the more usual on-screen fare. Some people will like this move, others will probably see it as a deal-breaker. Whatever your view, the design is very much like the One A9 , but we'll have to wait and see if this is indeed the final design which will launch in a month. It certainly appears so. The following render of the HTC One M10 comes from XDA Developers contributor, hamdir , and is based on the rumour that the phone will look similar to the One A9. The mock-up shows a front-facing fingerprint scanner below the screen and an improved screen-to-body ratio compared to the M9. It might be the same size but with a 5.2in display. Via VentureBeat , we now have a reasonable idea of what the One M10 is packing: According to the report, the phone does not feature front-facing 'Boomsound' speakers. While the big top and bottom bezels meant the One M9 was bigger than some rivals with larger screens, the one-piece aluminium unibody is still a thing of beauty. The report doesn't have any detail on design, but it’s unlikely that HTC will change to another manufacturing technique for the next model. While the leaked specs include 32GB of storage, there may be other options, with rumours including 64GB and 128GB. An older Taiwan forum leak said there would be a 23Mp rear camera (not 27Mp as older rumours suggested) and a front-mounted fingerprint scanner. The latter now appears to be more certain, but we'll just have to wait and see if HTC returns to it's home-grown UltraPixel camera tech or not. The VentureBeat leak doesn't mention or confirm rumours that HTC will make the new phone waterproof with an IP78 rating. The screen, of course, is the other component that HTC needs to improve upon to compete with the other 2016 flagships. The One M9’s 5in 1920x1080 display was perfectly good but a disappointment to many because it was the same as the One M8’s and lagged behind the QHD resolutions of rivals, namely the Samsung Galaxy S6 and LG G4. If the specs above are right, it's looking like HTC won't go with a 4K screen like Sony with the Xperia Z5 Premium. As soon as more details are leaked, we'll be sure to update this page. The One M8 had a list price of £550 and that increased to £579 for the One M9. Expect the 2016 phone to cost a similar amount. It’s too early to say for sure, but as it will certainly be another flagship phone, it's sure to have a price to match. Back in June, HTC’s Chairwoman Cher Wang apologised to shareholders for the disappointing recent performance, adding that the company will launch a “hero product” in October 2015. This turned out to be the One A9, reviewed, a phone which looked a lot like the new iPhone 6S which Apple launched in September She also said that HTC would make significant improvements in innovations and design for the next flagship model next year. The One M8 and One M9 were launched in early 2014 and 2015 respectively, and the latest is that the One M10 will not be launched at MWC. Instead, HTC will hold its own launch event in London on 11 April after the show. The purported on sale date will be 9 May (in the US). The website says that the forum leaks reveal what was suspected: several prototypes were rejected and this has prevented an earlier launch. It's expected that due to limited supplies of the Snapdragon 820 pricessor, the new phone won't go on sale in March but April in ''the domestic market'. Here's the One M9 (left) and One M8 (right): The One M10 would be the most logical progression, but after poor sales of the One M9, HTC might move to a new name – the codename is now rumoured to be Perfume – to try to avoid comparisons with the disappointing One M9. Reports ( here and here ) from China indicated that HTC will finally scrap the naming system which started life as a codename (M7) but stuck as the phone's real name. BUT, the latest reports suggest it will, in fact, be called the One M10 after all. Early rumours were that the codename was HTC O2, but it's currently said to be Perfume.
2016-03-14 11:05 Jim Martin www.pcadvisor.co.uk
43 Overwatch release date, price, editions and trailer: Pre-order to get Overwatch open beta early access, skins and other game content Overwatch is the 'shooter of tomorrow' from gaming behemoth, Blizzard, which has made titles including World of Warcraft, StarCraft and Hearthstone. Here's what you need to know about the Overwatch release date, price, beta, pre- order, early access and the official trailer (above). See also: The most anticipated games of 2016 . After months of waiting, it's now official that the Overwatch release date is 24 May. See below on how to get the Overwatch beta and early access. As well as a set release date, Blizzard has announced that players can try the Overwatch beta by pre-ordering the game on Battle.net or at GAME. Overwatch is available on PC, PS4 and Xbox One and you'll need to pre-purchase before 29 April to get open beta access. The early access to the Overwatch open beta will begin on 3-4 May with an all-access open beta period on 5-9 May. In fact, pre-purchasing will mean you get two early access keys for the open beta (one for a friend). Keys will be distributed on or before 2 May. There's one more benefit to pre-ordering Overwatch which is getting the Noire Widowmaker skin at launch. Overwatch pricing varies depending on where you pre-order. The official Battle.net price on PC is £29 but you can get it on Amazon for just £36 (minus the early access benefits). GAME has slightly higher prices (£47) but some exclusive benefits (see editions below). There is a regular Overwatch Edition which is available from Battle.net and costs £29. You get early access to the open beta and 21 heroes. Origins Edition The Overwatch Origins Edition includes the above plus five skins (Overgrown Bastion, Security Chief Pharah, Strike-Commander Morrison, Blackwatch Reyes, and Slipstream Tracer) and content for other Blizzard games (Heroes of the Storm - Tracer Hero, World of Warcraft - Baby Winston Pet, StarCraft II Portraits, Hearthstone Cardback and Diablo III - Mercy Wings). Collector's Edition If you're willing to pay £99 the Overwatch Collector's Edition include the above, plus a 28cm Soldier 76 statue (approx. 28cm), steelbook DVD case, full colour artbook and the Overwatch soundtrack. Exclusive items Pre-ordering any edition at GAME will get you an exclusive metal plate featuring all the Overwatch characters. Meanwhile, Amazon has an exclusive Origins Edition which comes with a 'Memory of War' metal coin and a metal badge bundle. Pre-order Overwatch: • on PC at Battle.net • on PS4 at PlayStation Store • at GAME • at Amazon To be determined! We'll be sure to share regional dates and times for the Open Beta (including the early access portion of the Open Beta) once those details have been locked down. Players will have access to the full roster of 21 heroes, along with every map that will be available at launch. Since Overwatch is multiplayer, Xbox Live Gold is required to play during the open beta and at launch. PlayStation Plus is not required during the open beta, but will be required to play at launch. No. All progression including skins, rewards, levels, and stats gained during the open beta will be reset at launch. This includes early access. Overwatch does not support cross-platform play, either during open beta or at launch. Yes. The closed beta will end before 3 May. The exact date is still to be determined, though closed beta participants will get advanced notice. With 21 characters (or heroes) at launch, Overwatch has a similar feel to a MOBA like Heroes of the Storm. Rather than simply picking a different skin, you'll be able to play a character which suits your style. Here's the full Overwatch characters list. • Bastion • D. Va • Genji • Hanzo • Junkrat • Lúcio • McCree • Mei • Mercy • Pharah • Reaper • Reinhardt • Roadhog • Soldier: 76 • Symmetra • Torbjörn • Tracer • Widowmaker • Winston • Zarya • Zenyatta
2016-03-14 11:01 Chris Martin www.pcadvisor.co.uk
44 Pure Storage launches FlashBlade, aims to grab big data workloads Pure Storage launched an all-flash blade system along with a flash array aimed at capturing big data workloads and expanding the company's footprint among small and midsized businesses. The company launched FlashBlade and a FlashArray in an effort to grab "multi-petabyte- scale data sets. " Pure's launch comes as giants such as EMC are moving to all-flash systems and noting that traditional disk storage systems are likely to be relegated to archiving in the future. Matt Kixmoeller, vice president of marketing and product management at Pure, said the company's systems initially were used to crunch structured data, but are increasingly being used for unstructured information. "Unstructured data expands our categories," said Kixmoeller, who added that Pure's latest systems are designed to scale to 15 FlashBlades in a rack. Pure Storage delivers solid Q4, revenue up 128 percent | Pure Storage adds 3D memory, Oracle and SAP systems, predictive support | EMC goes all-in on Flash storage, launches DSSD D5 rack system He also said that Pure can get costs down to less than $1/GB usable storage. With Pure's move it's going after the network attached storage market. Kixmoeller's argument is that workloads for science and engineering, analytics and the Internet of things will all go cloud scale. The FlashBlade will combine power to process data as well as metadata and have 8TB and 52TB capacities. Pure's Elasticity software runs the FlashBlade and can handle multiple protocols used in big data. Here's a look at the key takeaways for FlashBlade. In addition, Pure launched a new system in its FlashArray/m family of products designed to court smaller businesses. The FlashArray//m10 will start at less than $50,000 with a full year of support. Pure is hoping that the m10 becomes a starter system that will grow with companies. The m10 could also be used for large enterprise remote offices. The company also launched a system called FlashStack Mini, which is converged and designed to start at less than $100,000. Pure's FlashStack is preintegrated with Cisco's UCS servers as well as virtualization tools from VMware and Microsoft. The m10 and FlashStack Mini will be available in June. FlashBlade is open for early access release with general availability in the second half. Pure has shipped alpha systems to co- development customers.
2016-03-14 10:59 Larry Dignan www.zdnet.com
45 More hands-on with the Raspberry Pi 3: Bluetooth, OpenELEC, and Ubuntu MATE The Raspberry Pi 3 Model B. I've had my Raspberry Pi 3 for a bit more than a week now, and I have been trying a few different things with it. The results have been mixed so far, but mostly good. (Oh, and by the way the Pi-Shop.ch is still showing them as in stock and available for delivery, so the reputed supply shortages don't seem to have hit Switzerland, at least yet. So if you are desperate to get a Raspberry Pi 3, you could come for a nice little ski vacation in Switzerland, and pick one up while you are here!) Getting back to the point, I have looked at a number of different aspects of the Pi 3, so rather than write this as a narrative, I am just going to make a list of points and information. Once you have done that the Pi 3 will boot, rather than hanging like mine did, but it still doesn't include all of the wi-fi and Bluetooth packages. You can install them as well, of course, but you have to decide for yourself at what point it becomes more reasonable to just download a new Raspbian or NOOBS image, rather than fighting your way through all of the upgrades and installation, and figuring out the hard way what else is missing. The initial wi-fi configuration made on the Pi 3 also worked on a Pi Zero, which had the Broadcom wi-fi USB Hub, a Pi 2, which had a Pi USB wi-fi Dongle, and a Model B+, which had an ordinary Broadcom wi-fi Nano USB adapter. Finally, for those who are very determined (or stubborn), if you keep blueman installed after you have manually connected to the mouse, the panel icon will change color to show that bluetooth devices are connected. You can also click the blueman icon, and choose Devices to get a list of currently known/active Bluetooth devices. There will certainly be an update to Raspbian in the near future which fixes this problem with connection via GUI. I thought this can't be right, I must be doing something wrong, so I shut down again, and plugged the Raspberry Pi USB WiFi Dongle into the Pi 3, then booted NOOBS again. Whoops! This time the wireless network tab is active! I shut down, removed the USB dongle, booted again (I'm a slow learner), and once again it didn't offer wireless network connections. So apparently the NOOBS installer doesn't support the Pi 3 built-in WiFi adapter yet. I assume there will be another NOOBS release before too long. That means OpenELEC, which is what I had wanted to install, has not been updated to show Pi 3 compatibility in the NOOBS image yet (I know that OpenELEC actually does have a Pi 3 compatible release, 6.0.3). That got me curious, so I took the NOOBS SD card and booted it in each of my Raspberry Pi systems. The results were: Raspberry Pi 3 Raspberry Pi 2 Raspberry Pi Model B+ Raspberry Pi Zero Raspberry Pi Model B I knew that the latest OpenELEC release (6.0.3) was in fact Pi 3 compatible, so maybe the problem was just that the NOOBS installer didn't know that. I thought maybe if I put the NOOBS card in a Pi 2, and installed OpenELEC there, it would pick up the new version. Then I could just move the SD card to the Pi 3 and the world would be a wonderful place. No such luck. First, the OpenELEC version that installs on the Pi 2 is 5.0.3, which is not Pi 3 compatible. If I then go ahead and boot that on the Pi 2 and let it automatically update, it only goes up to 5.0.8, which is still not Pi 3 compatible. The jump from OpenELEC 5.x to 6. X is too large to make with automatic update. Being particularly hard-headed, I then tried to update it manually to 6.0.3, but that failed as well, complaining about some sort of file size error. At that point I decided to surrender. But I didn't give up entirely. I downloaded the OpenELEC Pi2/Pi3 image , which is amazingly small - I think the download was complete before I took my hand away from the mouse after clicking it. Detailed file information and checksums are under Details on the download page. I have to say that I was a bit disappointed with the performance when I tried this. It wasn't awful, but it just didn't feel like it was significantly faster than it had been on the Raspberry Pi 2. It might be that my expectations were too high after seeing the improvement in Raspbian, or perhaps the Ubuntu MATE developers are still working on it - as they have said that Bluetooth support isn't done yet. So I will be watching for the next release. I think that if the Pi 3 is going to be used as a simple low-cost desktop computer, as many people have said, then Ubuntu MATE should be one of the prime candidates for this use.
2016-03-14 10:52 J.A. www.zdnet.com
46 Collaboration tools for IoT devs These microscopic robots swim in blood to diagnose disease Fifty years after Raquel Welch took her Fantastic Voyage, nanomachines are a reality. I've written about the dawning age of the hardware startup. Cheap, fast prototyping and inexpensive sensors have put hardware development in the hands of everyone with access to CAD software and a makerspace. But prototyping a cool gadget does not a company make. The frequent failures of well- funded Kickstarter and Indiegogo campaigns to become full-fledged (read: profitable) companies is telling. The devil is in the details, and when it comes to hardware companies, the details are in the supply chain. So it's no surprise that we're starting to see new services aimed at helping hardware developers connect with experts and suppliers. That's a role that accelerators have traditionally played, but accelerators work by taking a small number of promising teams and putting tremendous resources behind them. A new generation of internet-based collaboration services will open up the playing field--any promising developer will soon be able to connect with suppliers and experts through an online interface that operates much the way that office collaboration tools do. "A significant challenge for hardware development has been bridging the gap between advancements in online collaboration and innovations of IoT device creators with the outdated practices of the global manufacturing and supply chain industries," says Lucas Wang, CEO of HWTrek , which bills itself as a one stop shop for IoT hardware innovators working to manage their product development, connect with manufacturing and supply chain industry experts, and bring their connected device projects to market. Companies like HWTrek are hoping to capitalize on a huge trend. The IoT market is expected to reach $1.7 trillion in 2020, up from $655.8 billion in 2014 according to IDC. Meanwhile the electronics manufacturing services (EMS) industry including electronics original design services (ODM) should expect revenues of $505 billion in 2019. The source of innovation is shifting to small and medium-sized businesses in these industries due to the obstacles of collaboration in the traditional supply chain model. HWTrek's pitch is that its hardware development ecosystem platform removes these impediments and rewires the supply chain from Shenzhen, where the company has a network of suppliers, to the rest of the world. The idea isn't new. There's an army of supply chain consultants mentoring promising startups that have opted not to go the crowdfunding or accelerator route. What is innovative is HWTrek's "sandbox" or "ecosystem" approach, which extends the power of collaborative development tools and open wholesale marketplaces like Alibaba to the post-development stage. It's a service to keep an eye on, and likely not the last we'll see hoping to lower the barriers to entry for hardware companies in startup land. And if you want to see what the next gen hardware gadgets will be, take a look at their Discover page, which highlights projects from developers in the ecosystem.
2016-03-14 10:36 Greg Nichols www.zdnet.com
47 Malware the root cause of $80 million Bangladesh Bank heist Researchers believe that malware installed within the Bangladesh Bank's computer systems allowed cyberattackers to learn how to withdraw and take off with $80 million from the institutes' Federal Reserve bank account. This month, reports emerged of a group of unknown hackers launching a fraudulent scheme against the central bank of Bangladesh and the Federal Reserve Bank, based in New York. As reported by Reuters , a group of cybercriminals were able to steal a total of $80 million from the Federal Reserve's Bangladesh account -- used for international settlements -- through a series of rapid and large transactions made to entities across Asia. It is believed that some type of malware infected the Bangladesh central bank's computer systems weeks prior to the heist, which took place between 4 - 5 Feb this year. This malware, although not identified, likely contained surveillance functions which allowed the group to watch and learn how money was processed, sent and received, pointing to a potential remote access Trojan (RAT) or a similar form of spyware. Investigators have also mentioned the possibility of a zero-day vulnerability. As zero-day exploits are unknown to vendors and, therefore unpatched, if this is the case, the bank would have had no defence against such an attack. Officials believe that after this crash course in the bank's processes, the group worked out how to withdraw funds from the bank's US counterpart without obstacle by using stolen credentials for SWIFT, a financial messaging system used by banks worldwide. Almost three dozen payment requests were sent to the Federal Reserve in quick succession, with funds being sent to bodies in the Philippines and Sri Lanka before the unusual activity was noticed and US officials contacted their Bangladeshi counterparts. The attackers, while possessing an understanding of the banking system, made a simple mistake which cost them $20 million in stolen funds. A $20 million online transfer request was made out to a fake Sri Lankan non-profit organisation called Shalika Foundation. However, as the cybercriminals misspelled "foundation," the transfer was held up -- leading to a request for clarification from a routing bank, Deutsche Bank. The transaction was then blocked alongside other transfer requests waiting in the queue. If this typographical error had not been spotted, the attackers may have been able to complete the remaining transactions, which would have totalled almost $1 billion in stolen cash. Cyberforensics firm FireEye's Mandiant team is working with investigators and the banks in question to find out how the cyberattackers managed to conduct the theft. The Bangladesh Bank said weaknesses have been identified in its systems, and it could take years to shore up the financial institution's defences. The Federal bank has denied any system compromise. Either way, investigators are still on the hunt for the stolen funds and the group behind the cyberattack.
2016-03-14 10:27 Charlie Osborne www.zdnet.com
48 Spotify just stuck another nail in Windows Phone's coffin MUSIC STREAMING SERVICE Spotify has quietly thrown the towel in on Windows Phone, confirming that it will no longer be plying its app with updates. MSPoweruser has the scoop and reports that Spotify has become the latest app to give up on Microsoft's mobile operating system. Spotify confirmed this in a statement, saying: "We can confirm Windows Phone 8.x is no longer supported. You can still use our Spotify application on the associated devices but it will no longer receive any further updates and download the application. We apologize for the inconvenience.” While users of Spotify for Windows Phone won't receive any further updates, the app is still available to download from the Windows Store, for now. This app is compatible with Windows 10 Mobile, which could finally arrive on older Lumia devices this month , but when quizzed as to whether it will release a native app for Microsoft's latest smartphone operating system, Spotify didn't have much to say. "Regarding Windows 10, we can’t say at the moment if or when any specific release will be out, but as soon as there is something new, you will receive a notification on your device that an update is available and prompted to download it. " Spotify canning support for its Windows Phone app is yet another sign that the end could be nigh for Microsoft's mobile plans. The operating system currently accounts for less than two percent of the global smartphone market, and analyst outfit IDC expects this to shrink to 0.9 percent by 2020 - if the firm remains in the market that long. It's not just Windows Phone that's struggling. Earlier this month, WhatsApp announced that it would no longer be supporting its BlackBerry application , although seems to have a bit of faith in Microsoft with the advice that its users should "upgrade to a newer Android, iPhone or Windows Phone" to continue using the service. During its announcement, WhatsApp reflected on happier times for BlackBerry, saying that the Canadian phone maker, along with Nokia, commanded 70 percent of mobile devices when the messaging app launched in 2007. This figure has now shrunk to less than one percent, and WhatsApp noted that Apple, Google and Microsoft now account for 99.5 percent of smartphones sold globally. µ
2016-03-14 10:26 Carly Page www.theinquirer.net
49 These flying machines are the most remarkable in US history (pictures) The Last Taco Truck in Silicon Valley Ingenuity, betrayal, and a killer habanero sauce all have their part to play in Michelle Richmond's brilliant send-up of the US tech world. A startup evangelist is held hostage, a guy from Portland is in debt and #FrancoNeedsATaco.
2016-03-14 12:58 Jon Skillings www.cnet.com
50 Google's AlphaGo isn't taking over the world, yet A supercomputer programmed by Google just beat a human at a really complicated game. But don't worry about the computer winning at anything else. On Saturday in South Korea, a Google artificial- intelligence program dubbed AlphaGo beat world champion Lee Sedol in Go, an ancient and complex board game in which strategy and tactics collide with intuition and cunning. "When I look back on the three matches, even if I were to go back and redo the first match, I think I would not be able to win because I misjudged AlphaGo," Lee said at a postgame press conference on Saturday, following his third straight defeat. Against the odds, Lee came back and beat Google's computer the following day, but it wasn't enough to tip the scales of the contest. The Google DeepMind Challenge, which has taken place at the Four Seasons Hotel in Seoul, has drawn tens of thousands of online spectators who have followed the matches live on YouTube. Streams of the software versus wetware competition have received more than 3 million views since the contest started on Wednesday. Though Lee has officially lost the best-of- five contest, he will play one more match to establish a final score in the face-off, which ends Tuesday. The public interest wasn't piqued solely by the popular game, which is played widely in Japan, China and Korea. For many, Google's success raises questions about how the relationship between man and machine will evolve. After all, if Google's software can win a game that hinges on little more than feel, won't it someday be able to do something less complex, like your job? Not anytime soon, say computer scientists. Despite their fast advances, robots remain too woefully single-minded to give humanity a giant pink slip. Oren Etzioni, the CEO of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, says teaching computers to read and then answer questions about that content is still a work in progress. For example, when Etzioni had computers read eighth-grade science texts, they could answer only about 60 percent of the questions on a test. "Understanding a single sentence can be a lot more complicated than playing Go," Etzioni says. Computers, he says, have yet to demonstrate that they "can solve fuzzier problems where things are more nuanced. " Go's complexity is what drew Google's artificial intelligence team to it. Facebook is also working on a program that can play the game. Go, which originated in China thousands of years ago, is played on a 19x19 grid with black and white stones. The board's size means the number of possible moves is greater than the number of atoms in the universe, according to Google, making it a more difficult programming challenge than chess. Artificial intelligence expert David Levy says Go's complexity makes Google's win a bigger victory than IBM's 1997 triumph over world chess champion Gary Kasparov. "Singularity is much closer than most people previously thought," said Levy, referring to the mooted moment in computer science when computers outpace humans. Levy has twice won the Loebner Prize, an award for creating the most humanlike computers. Nolan Bushnell, founder of Atari, was also impressed by AlphaGo's feat. "Go is the most important game in my life," Bushnell said. "It's the only game that truly balances the left and right sides of the brain. The fact that it has now yielded to computer technology is massively important. " Still, Google's Go victory doesn't mean the end of humanity as we know it is nigh. "For all its difficulty, Go is still an artificial problem with very simple rules," says Pedro Domingos, a computer science professor at the University of Washington. "Building a home robot, for example, is something of a different order of magnitude altogether -- the robot needs common sense, physical dexterity, etc, which are all still sorely lacking in AI. " There you have it. Your job is safe for now. Updated at 11:48 a.m. PT on March 13: adds results of fourth contest.
2016-03-14 12:58 Max Taves www.cnet.com
51 Functional human hearts regenerated from skin cells The team's technique potentially allows heart tissue to be built with the patient's own cellular material, which reduces the need for an exact donor match, and also vastly lowers the chance of immunorejection. It's not possible to simply grow an entire heart from cells. Organs require a scaffold to give the cells a shape. In the normal course of things, this scaffold, known as an extracellular matrix, is created from proteins secreted by the cells. "Generating functional cardiac tissue involves meeting several challenges," lead author Jacques Guyette said in a statement. "These include providing a structural scaffold that is able to support cardiac function, a supply of specialised cardiac cells, and a supportive environment in which cells can repopulate the scaffold to form mature tissue capable of handling complex cardiac functions. " Rather than grow these extracellular matrices, which would take time, the team used 73 donor hearts from the New England Organ Bank. These hearts had been determined unsuitable for transplantation. To prepare the hearts, the team stripped them down to the extracellular matrix with a detergent solution. This removes all the living cells and leaves behind a neutral scaffold for the new cellular material. These muscles cells were then introduced into the extracellular matrix. Within days, they grew into contracting muscle tissue. Finally, the growing heart was placed in a bioreactor with a nutrient solution, and stressors that reproduced the conditions under which a living heart operates. After 14 days, the team found dense regions of immature cardiac muscle tissue that contracted normally under electrical stimulation. "Regenerating a whole heart is most certainly a long-term goal that is several years away, so we are currently working on engineering a functional myocardial patch that could replace cardiac tissue damaged due a heart attack or heart failure," Guyette said. "Among the next steps that we are pursuing are improving methods to generate even more cardiac cells-- recellularizing a whole heart would take tens of billions -- optimizing bioreactor- based culture techniques to improve the maturation and function of engineered cardiac tissue, and electronically integrating regenerated tissue to function within the recipient's heart. "
2016-03-14 11:48 Michelle Starr www.cnet.com
52 Apple's biggest problem is a marketing problem Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives. Caring is hard. We go around claiming we do it. We even say we care about others on occasion. Inside, though, there's often a little voice that tells us otherwise. It focuses us on our immediate needs, as opposed to those that might affect us in the long- term future, or even in a few hours. And as for caring about others, involving ourselves in their well-being -- well, we're good at pretending, especially those of us who live in the Bay Area. Apple has long been the master of emotional involvement. It's got us to care about computers and phones when once they seemed like just utilitarian machines. Now, however, it faces a far bigger task to get us to care. It wants us to care about encryption. Last year, Cook already began to make pronouncements about Apple being the one company whose products were truly secure. He insisted that Apple wasn't interested in your personal data at all. Apple fought a court order to hack the phone by creating a new version of iOS software that allowed the government thousands of chances to guess the phone's password. The company claims that once the hack has been created, it could fall into the wrong hands. Moreover, the backdoor could be used for many other, non-terrorist cases. Cook has one problem with his passionate stance: us. But how many of these people care about it enough on a daily basis? There's no concrete evidence that people really care about security at all. The proactive measures we take to keep our gadgets secure are often minimal. We were only too happy when Google came along to allow it and other email providers to scan our every written word just so they could send us "better" ads. We were only too reluctant to bother about privacy controls on Facebook. Even now, we think we know how they work -- when we remember to do something about them, that is. All we seem interested in is something for nothing. That's the way we are. Facebook and Google were only too happy to deal with us on this basis. They gave us easy, efficient platforms to connect with other people, sometimes even people we actually knew. The something we gave up was any true semblance that the words we wrote on the gadgets we used would remain private. All this coincided nicely with our yearning to "share" ever more about ourselves. How tempting it became to tell people about the music we were listening to, the vacations we were taking, the restaurants we were visiting and the escalopes we were eating. Now Cook must find a way to get us all to care about the possibility that the government -- or others -- might creep into our most personal elements. But we've lived with that fear for a while. And we've ignored it. Our retailers get hacked and we only get annoyed if we're directly affected. Our banks get hacked and we hope that our account still has our money in it. When Apple became refuseniks, some freedom organizations went on the march. But the reaction of most people bordered on indifference. Donald Trump incites mass protests. Encryption does not. So Apple's greatest task now is to get the mass of humanity to care about the security of their phones. At heart, we think it's all a little too complicated. We don't like complicated. It's too difficult. After all, we like Apple's brand because it represents the ultimate in stylish simplicity. So Apple, a company whose marketing has always been able to act upon consumers' emotions, now must find a way to get people to feel strongly about something that they've disregarded for many years. That will take a lot of different thinking.
2016-03-14 11:48 Chris Matyszczyk www.cnet.com
53 $50 million 'Smart City Challenge' finalists announced at SXSW Those finalists are: Interestingly, seven finalists were announced, two more than expected. "We were blown away, quite frankly," said Foxx, saying that these cities are "beginning to think anew about how transportation can once again be the driving force of the American economy. " The proposals were so good, apparently, they had no choice but to pick two more. The competition was specifically open to midsize cities, populations between 250,000 and 850,000. Entries came from as far west as Anchorage, Alaska, and as far east as Providence, Rhode Island, each proposing exactly what they would do with the $50 million award, funding that would do things like add wireless transmitters for vehicle-to-infrastructure communications. Finalists were selected based on how well their proposals match the DOT's goals -- and how likely they look to succeed. Each of the finalists will receive $100,000 in funding to help refine and finalize their proposals before the final selection process begins. They'll want to brush up, because the winner will receive $40 million in funding from the federal government, with a further $10 million coming from Vulcan Philanthropy, Paul Allen's investment company. Vulcan in particular is hoping to foster the development of mobility technologies that will reduce emissions. However, while the final selection is still to come, it seems everyone's a winner. Secretary Fox said that the other 71 cities would also receive assistance from the federal government to help implement their dreams and goals. Probably not $50 million worth, though.
2016-03-14 11:48 Tim Stevens www.cnet.com
54 Inside GE's Digital Solutions unit: Talking IoT development with Ganesh Bell General Electric has created its GE Digital Solutions unit within GE Power and put enterprise software veteran Ganesh Bell in charge. The aim: Bring the Internet of things, cloud and analytics to utilities to create better services and new business models. In September, GE outlined its Digital Power Plant suite and now has 15 new customers on the platform. In addition, GE has launched an alliance program to grow the digital industrial ecosystem. We caught up with Bell, chief digital officer for GE Power's Digital Solutions division, to chat about digitizing utilities, recruiting developers and transforming GE's software business. Here's a recap. IoT: The Security Challenge The Internet of Things is creating serious new security risks. We examine the possibilities and the dangers.
2016-03-14 09:47 Larry Dignan www.zdnet.com
55 What you missed in tech last week: Windows 10 adware, Pirate Bay outage, iPhone 5SE LAST WEEK saw Microsoft hoarding the technology news spotlight here at the INQUIRER and the firm probably isn't too pleased about this. The firm, to put it lightly, didn't have a good PR week. First up, it was revealed that Microsoft had been hiding advertising in its Patch Tuesday updates urging users to, you guessed it, upgrade to Windows 10. What makes it even more spectacular is that it is in no way separate from the security patch - you uninstall the security patch or keep the ad-generating payload. It was soon after revealed that Microsoft was looking to piss off business users, too, with corporate users being shown nag screens that shame their bosses for not upgrading them to Windows 10. Of course, last week wasn't all about Microsoft, and we've rounded up the top 10 stories from last week below. µ Updategate: Microsoft is burying adware in its Patch Tuesday updates Compulsory upgrade nag comes with your security fixes The Pirate Bay was sunk for hours Kanye ...? Nvidia GeForce 364.47 GPU driver is borking gamers' PCs Definitely not 'the way it's meant to be played' Windows 10: Microsoft delays Redstone 2 update until 2017 Firm wants to take advantage of twice-cooked chips Locky ransomware menace is spreading like some kind of virus Lock up your servers Apple announces 21 March event, iPhone 5SE and new iPad expected What a surprise Seagate unveils world's fastest SSD capable of 10GBps throughput And the budget model ain't bad either Updategate: Microsoft nagware tries to turn workers against sysadmins The last scintilla of trust just rode out of town Android banking trojan uses Flash to pinch your money It takes all sorts Passive WiFi could be 10,000 times more energy efficient Could be the WiFi answer to ZigBee and Z-Wave
2016-03-14 09:47 Carly Page www.theinquirer.net
56 Checking in: SXSW apologizes after telling Olympic fencer to remove hijab Even as South by Southwest tries to highlight diversity as a main theme of the famous Austin festival, the tech, film and music confab has still had its issues. Ibtihaj Muhammad, a member of the 2016 US Olympic fencing team, was registering for the festival on Saturday afternoon when she was asked to remove her hijab. Muhammad, who is Muslim, told the attendant she wears the headscarf for religious reasons, but the checker still insisted she take it off for her badge photo. "I can't make this stuff up," she wrote on Twitter. Then after she received her badge (she's still wearing her hijab in the photo), she was given a badge with the wrong name: Tamir Muhammad from Time Warner. "It is not our policy that a hijab or any religious head covering be removed in order to pick up a SXSW badge," event organizers said in a statement. "This was one volunteer who made an insensitive request and that person has been removed for the duration of the event. We are embarrassed by this and have apologized to Ibtihaj in person, and sincerely regret this incident. " The incident is sure to be embarrassing for SXSW, which has doubled down on discussing diversity issues this year. In October, the festival started a firestorm after it canceled two panels about harassment in video gaming. After receiving heavy criticism and threats from media outlets to boycott the festival, SXSW instead created an entire all-day summit devoted to discussing online harassment. Even an event as free-spirited as South by Southwest has diversity struggles. Perhaps the most telling example of the festival's struggles is its check-in processes -- actually quite an apt metaphor. Those processes have been illustrative of how the 30-year-old festival is still trying to deal with the nuances, emotions, and even logistics of trying to create a more diverse environment. At the online harassment summit, which was held at a hotel across the river and away from most of the other programming at the Austin Convention Center, the check-in process was intensive. Security to get into the building was tighter than any event at the conference, with a bag-check more stringent than when President Barack Obama spoke at the festival the day before. There were also policemen stationed near each of the three ballrooms. "Do I hope it changes soon? " she said. "Yes, every day. "
2016-03-14 11:48 Richard Nieva www.cnet.com
57 57 Galaxy S7 vs. iPhone 6s: Which is tougher? Protection-plan specialists SquareTrade have been busy testing the durability of Samsung's new Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge smartphones, and pitting them against Apple's iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus in its latest Breakability tests. To help them carry out repeatable tests, SquareTrade added two new robots for the latest round of Breakability tests - the Deep Water DunkBot and the TumbleBot. The Deep Water DunkBot submerges phones under five feet of water for 30 minutes to test water resistance, while the TumbleBot continually drops the devices in an enclosed chamber at a rotational speed of 50 revolutions per minute for 30 seconds in order to test durability. How did the devices fair? Here's a video of the testing in action. "Samsung's new phones may hold up to an impressive amount of water, but we've found that they still struggle to keep up with the iPhone when it comes to screen durability," said Aileen Abaya, director of communications at SquareTrade. "So while the S7 and S7 edge may be perfect for underwater adventurers, those of us who are clumsy or accident-prone should still be careful about drops and tumbles. "
2016-03-14 09:30 Adrian www.zdnet.com
58 Screening Room wants to take 'going to the movies' out of going to the movies Would you pay $50 to stream a movie at home? What if it meant skipping the queues and seeing the movie on the same day it opens in theatres? Ever since the days of VHS, film buffs have had to wait anywhere from a few weeks to a few months for their favourite movies to make from the cinema to their TV screen. Screening Room is looking to change this by cutting that window of time between cinema and home entertainment release altogether. The concept is simple. You'll be able to stream a film on the same day it's released in theatres, but the convenience will come at a premium: $50 for a 48-hour viewing period per film. You'll also need a dedicated set-top box (equipped with anti- piracy protection measures), which will set you back a further $150. Coughing up $200 before you can even watch your first movie may seem exorbitant, but Screening Room is hoping that convenience will trump cost, giving hardcore movie fans the titles they want without the need to leave home. It's not the first time Sean Parker has mainlined entertainment straight into homes, bypassing the behemoths of the content industry. In 1999, at the age of 19, Parker launched the file-sharing service Napster and quickly became both the face of online piracy and the man credited with revolutionising digital music. But it's not just the directors who need to back the operation. In order to guarantee day-and-date releases, Screening Room will need the support of the major studios and rights holders who own the copyright on the titles and hold the aces when it comes to distribution deals. There's no use in charging $50 a pop and promising opening-day streaming if you can't secure the kind of tentpole titles that get movie buffs into cinemas in the first place. And finally, there's the movie theatres themselves. Screening Room is reportedly promising as much as $20 from the $50-per-movie fee to theatre owners to ensure they play nice. Variety also reports that each title will come with two movie tickets to go see the film in person -- a seemingly contradictory offering, until you remember just how much cinemas can charge on candy bar sales. Hollywood was built on back-lot deals, and it seems that showbiz's answer to movie streaming might have to follow the same path in order to get off the ground. After all, there are still plenty of vested interests that are used to getting their cut of the movie industry pie, and Screening Room will need to appease at least some of them. But even if Screening Room launches without a hitch, the central question remains: Will people pay $50 to watch a movie? And will they ditch the decades-long tradition of watching the silver screen and pick up the remote instead? Screening Room did not immediately respond to request for comment.
2016-03-14 11:48 Claire Reilly www.cnet.com
59 George Osborne will announce driverless cars plans in Budget UK CHANCELLOR George Osborne will give citizens early warning notice about where and when driverless cars will be on their streets, during his upcoming Budget speech. Osborne has been hailing driverless cars for so long now his thumb must be hurting. Driverless cars are one of the things that the UK is supposed to be a world beater in, so you could have put money on them coming up in his address to parliament. It is the Guardian that has the skinny on where the cars will begin to roll out and around , and park in that space you were going to park in. "At a time of great uncertainty in the global economy, Britain must take bold decisions now to ensure it leads the world when it comes to new technologies and infrastructure. That's what my Budget will seek to do," Osborne said, according to the paper. "Driverless cars could represent the most fundamental change to transport since the invention of the internal combustion engine. Naturally, we need to ensure safety, and that's what the trials we are introducing will test. " This makes sense, of course, given folks' justifiable concerns about how exactly driverless cars wil co-exist with human-controlled vehicles. Any trial involving the typical traffic-cone strewn UK motorway, we suspect, would be a baptism of fire and F-words for participants, and a challenge for even the smartest of artificial intelligence. Just recently a Google car made a bad decision about changing lanes and bus drivers, and consequently rudely introduced itself to the side panel of a people carrier. That was in the US, and no one got hurt. Driverless cars got a mention in the Budget last year as well. Then George Osborne was offering £100m and boasting that the government would match any investment from industry. µ
2016-03-14 09:23 Dave Neal www.theinquirer.net
60 SNL mocks Tidal streaming service as incompetent Technically Incorrect offers a slightly twisted take on the tech that's taken over our lives. I've yet to encounter anyone who feels deeply about Tidal's streaming music service. Except for Kanye, that is. There again, I'm not sure too many people are passionate about Apple Music either. It's there. It talks me into using it by dint of exclusives. OK, then. Here we are at Tidal central. It seems a threadbare affair. There's a confidence that everything is streaming smoothly. It's quickly shown to be overconfidence. The Britney Spears stream turns to a trickle. Enter Chloe the intern. Astonishingly, she's a very good singer. It helps that she's played by Ariana Grande. But then the Shakira stream goes down, closely followed by the Rihanna. Is this the sort of crisis Tidal has to deal with every day? Thankfully Chloe steps in to impersonate everyone but, well, Ariana Grande. (She's not a big fan.) But what if the Kanye stream goes down? Who will impersonate him? There's surely no one.
2016-03-14 11:48 Chris Matyszczyk www.cnet.com
61 Watch Samsung Galaxy S7 go through its toughest test yet The Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge are the best phones in the world right now, and one of the reasons for that is Samsung once again made its flagship devices water resistant. Dunking the phones in shallow water for several minutes during our review process didn't do any harm, and now a lab has given both rigorous waterproof and breakability test and filmed the entire ordeal. It turns out that the Samsung Galaxy S7 and its curvier cousin are waterproof up to a point, according to the extreme duress tests conducted by warranty service SquareTrade . Both handsets survived the promised "IP68 rating" by withstanding 1.5 meters under water for 30 minutes, but not a single minute more than that. The pair of Galaxy phones were intact after a half hour submerged, but the audio was permanently distorted. That's still excellent news for anyone who accidentally takes a dip in a pool. Apple's iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus became known for the BenGate controversy in 2014, but the company remedied that problem with the stronger aluminum of the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus . The same can't be said for the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge, however. Both phones failed the same bendability tests, and the curved screen of the new Edge scored poorly in corner drop tests. The 5.1-inch Galaxy S7, meanwhile, literally fell flat on its face in the face down and cracked instantly during its drop test, and the two phones scored below average in the labs' new tumble test. The good news is that water won't fry your brand new smartphone, but it's no less breakable than the Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge. You may still need insurance, or maybe just a strong Samsung Galaxy S7 case. Article continues below
2016-03-14 09:00 By Matt www.techradar.com
62 The world of Minecraft is now used for artificial intelligence innovation The popular construction game Minecraft is due to become a testbed for artificial intelligence software designed by startup and scientists alike. Minecraft, a game based on construction and blocks, is played by millions of users on both consoles and the PC. Developed by Stockholm- based Mojang, the game was snapped up by Microsoft in September 2015 for $2.5 billion, followed up by the Redmond giant's acquisition of Teacher Gaming LLC's MinecraftEdu line of teaching tools in January this year. The game has now gone far beyond its roots as a simple building game, and through mods and additional development can also be used as a teaching tool to instruct students on topics including conservation and resource management. However, the platform is now destined to contribute to the field of artificial intelligence. Dubbed "Project AIX," Microsoft said on Sunday a new platform, based on Minecraft, is being used by scientists to "train" an AI to learn how to do things in the Minecraft environment. The tester AI is currently being developed to be able to learn how to do things such as climb mountains in the virtual world -- although not without continual dives into lava and rivers. "The agent starts out knowing nothing at all about its environment or even what it is supposed to accomplish," Microsoft says. "It needs to understand its surroundings and figure out what's important -- going uphill -- and what isn't, such as whether it's light or dark. [...] It needs to understand -- via incremental rewards -- when it has achieved all or part of its goal. " AIX spawned after the lead researcher, Katja Hoffman, became frustrated with the limits of other programs available which are only able to use simple games to test AI agents. Minecraft's virtual reality, in comparison, is considered sophisticated enough for deeper tests and is also far cheaper than building robots for testing in the physical realm. Hoffman said: The main problem with today's AI, Hoffman says, is going beyond tasks and into learning through the involvement of multiple sensors. This "general intelligence," which mimics how humans learn and make decisions, is complex and a far more daunting task to instil within computers than recognizing words, commands and storing information. The platform consists of a mod for the Java Minecraft version as well as advanced code to assist AI in working with the Minecraft environment. The platform is compatible with Windows, Linux and Mac OS X, and researchers can tailor their artificial intelligence agents to run in whatever programming language they wish. AIX is currently available to a handful of researchers in a private beta, but will be released to the open-source community in summer.
2016-03-14 08:55 Charlie Osborne www.zdnet.com
63 AdBlock Plus is causing YouTube error messages With various websites experimenting with blocking ad blockers , now is not a good time for a major site to quietly clash with a major ad- scrubbing utility. But that’s exactly what happened recently when users started complaining that Adblock Plus was not working in some instances with YouTube. ABP users recently complained that for the length of a pre-roll ad they were seeing YouTube’s “snow crash” screen. If you’ve never seen it, it’s a screen that looks like disabled TV antenna reception and says, “An error occurred. Please try again later.” After that brief interruption, the video would playback normally. What’s odd about this behavior is that ABP usually blocks pre-roll ads completely, allowing users to jump right into their selected video. It’s not clear what’s causing the issue. The most far-fetched suspicion is that Google plans to experiment with getting around ad blockers or blocking ad blockers outright. Others suggest that the YouTube Chrome app is interfering with the extension, as happened in September when a security fix created a bug that stopped ABP from blocking ads. In my tests, I was unable to replicate the issue, but it may not be that easy. On Reddit and the ABP forums people have reported that the issue happens while logged in to some Google accounts and not others. It’s also not clear if this is a browser-specific issue. Some people are coming across the issue on Firefox, while Venture Beat , which first reported on the issue, found it only happened on Chrome. It’s not clear if the issues are on Adblock’s side or YouTube’s. We’ve contacted both parties for comment.
2016-03-14 08:30 Ian Paul www.pcworld.com
64 64 Facebook and Twitter blocked in Turkey following deadly Ankara blast Turkish court issued an order to telecommunications authority TIB to block the use of social media; Twitter and Facebook plus other websites after images spread on the platforms showing the suicide car bombing that killed 34 and injured 125 dozens in the Turkish capital of Ankara, local broadcasters reported. CNN Turk and Turkish NTV reported saying that several users have been reporting difficulties in accessing both the social media sites. RT reports that, Broadcast media has also been apparently banned from covering certain aspects of the attack. A journalist from Today’s Zaman, a sister publication of the newspaper Zaman that was recently taken over by the government, said “a ban on networks for coverage of explosion in Ankara” had been issued. After an explosion hit Turkey’s capital city of Ankara, leaving at least 34 people dead and 125 others injured, no one has yet come out to claim the responsibility for the attack.
2016-03-14 07:02 Nathan Ernest pctechmag.com
65 How CIOs can drive digital innovation through collaboration I have good news for the CIO community: Senior executives at leading companies are getting the message that leveraging information and technology to improve competitive advantage changes the dynamics of the enterprise and must be at the core of every corporate strategy. Here are a few examples. As CIO, you need to ensure that your company's strategic plan focuses on creating digital awareness, forming digital innovation teams, and developing digital opportunities, as shown in the "digital innovation collaboration model" below. Why is this important? Here are three reasons: IT organizations can lead this initiative if done strategically. Using the digital innovation collaboration strategy, IT organizations can develop a collaborative process that enables teams to work together more effectively to develop new and improved products and services that create unique customer experiences. Today, companies have to view the entire ecosystem, across the entire value chain to achieve such innovation. The digital innovation collaboration model provides the ability to look at processes from a unique perspective and develop three main competencies. I'm sure your company has implemented some degree of a digital innovation collaboration strategy. But how effective is it? To find out, you need to measure two dimensions. The first is the degree of business value your strategy provides to the enterprise for each of the three competencies. The second dimension is the breadth of the footprint implemented across the business for each of the three competencies. This is depicted in the graphic below. I've developed a digital collaboration assessment that can help you measure your strategic maturity by capturing best practices for each of the three competencies and underlying components. The assessment enables you to score the degree of maturity in your organization for each best practice. The scoring can then be plotted on the grid. You can then analyze the results and develop a plan to improve the maturity of your enterprise digital collaboration initiative. To obtain a copy of the assessment, contact me at [email protected]. In today's digital economy, every company must develop and implement a digital collaboration strategy. I've attempted to articulate a plan that executive teams can utilize to develop new and innovative products and services that create unique customer value, improve margins, and enhance shareholder wealth. Please contact me with any comments or suggestions. I look forward to hearing from you.
2016-03-14 07:01 Phil Weinzimer www.cio.com
66 Exclusive: Verizon Launches First-Ever Distributor Program, Helps Partners Deepen Security Offerings Verizon Enterprise Solutions is adding a new branch to its blossoming channel program, Verizon told CRN exclusively. The latest Value Added Distributor Program is aimed at helping the telecom giant sell its networking, security and managed services -- starting with its Rapid Response Retainer offering -- to more traditional solution provider partners. The carrier is kicking off its distributor program with the help of Fremont, Calif.-based IT distributor and solution provider Synnex Corp., a longtime Verizon partner. Synnex will now include Verizon’s Rapid Response Retainer (RRR) security offering in its broad portfolio of connectivity, cloud and collaboration services. [Related: Partners Praise Verizon's Robust Wireless Network As Carrier Takes Top Spot In J. D. Power Survey ] The distributor will also allow its solution provider partners to wrap their own services around Verizon's technology so they can sell customizable IT bundles, said Tim Acker, Synnex's vice president of mobility and connected solutions. The Verizon-Synnex partnership is intended to help Synnex partners already selling security, networking and unified communications solutions to beef up their security offerings by integrating RRR. It also opens up another recurring revenue stream, according to the carrier. "[RRR] is really a best-of-breed approach to proactive consulting, preparation and insight services for customers, followed up with incidence response services," Acker said. "We are taking [RRR] and allowing partners to bundle it as a part of their broader [offerings], so they can deliver one solution instead of a customer having multiple security sources. " Verizon's RRR service includes forensics, cyber incident assessments and designated security experts from Verizon who can go out to customer sites to conduct IT investigations 24/7. The offering was first rolled out to enterprise end customers last summer, and Verizon opened Rapid Response Retainer up to its channel of solution provider partners in August 2015. But resellers have been asking for RRR to be a part of their solution as opposed to offering RRR as a standalone service. The new partnership and distributor partner program will add a new set of opportunities for both Synnex and Verizon, Acker said. Through the distributor program, Verizon and Synnex are working together to package RRR in an easy-to-sell bundle for partners because traditional solution providers are used to reselling packaged offerings that complement their own business, said Wendy Petty, executive director of global channels for Basking Ridge, N. J.-based Verizon.
2016-03-14 07:00 Gina Narcisi www.crn.com
67 Digital Storm Equinox Review In order to get a respectable amount of power from a gaming laptop, it’s got to be big and bulky. That’s been accepted as gospel for quite some time, but now we have notebooks like Digital Storm’s Equinox as exceptions to the rule. Armed with a 6700HQ and a 970M, the laptop is extremely thin and defies many preconceived notions about gaming notebooks. Weighing just four and a half pounds and measuring .78 inches thick, it’s so thin and light that we thought the box was empty when we opened it. To be fair, the box that it shipped in is a little weird and had some folders and other stuff covering the laptop, but still, that’s pretty crazy. Aesthetically, we like the look of the notebook; its simple and clean, and predominately black. It’s much sexier than the big, bulky notebooks that we’ve grown accustomed to in the gaming genre. And its thinness doesn’t mean the laptop is lacking in ports. The Equinox features two USB 3.0 ports, a headphone/mic jack, a USB C port, SD card reader, HDMI, and Mini DisplayPort. It’s thick enough to just fit its Ethernet port, which is greatly appreciated for LAN events. It also uses a dual-fan thermal cooling design and has both side and rear exhausts. Our only complaint about the chassis is that it’s a fingerprint magnet. Luckily, you won’t mind getting your hands on the SteelSeries keyboard since its competent and offers RGB keys with three different color zones. It does have an oddity that takes some getting used to though, in the placement of the Windows button, which is to the right of the space bar. The trackpad, while equally competent, also takes a little getting used to because it’s oriented slightly left of center. The laptop’s speakers, by Dynaudio, are good and offer decent firepower. The 15.4-inch monitor here uses a PLS panel, which offers better viewing angles than most TN panels we’ve seen, but can’t match the color accuracy of an IPS display. All in all, the 1080p matte panel is good, but not great. It’s still capped off at 60Hz and there’s no G-Sync support either. In case you were wondering, the monitor is able to bend back roughly 165 degrees and has an approximately one-inch bezel around the display. The laptop’s other specs are more impressive than its monitor. Ours came outfitted with a 6700HQ CPU with 16GB RAM, and a GeForce GTX 970M with 6GB VRAM, which is actually a lot of GPU horsepower for a laptop this thin. The Equinox didn’t skimp storage-wise either—our unit came with a 250GB NVMe SSD, and a 1TB 7,200rpm HDD for mass storage. Performance-wise, the CPU gains were a mixed bag compared to our Alienware 14 zero-point laptop. It performed roughly even in our Stitch benchmark, about 10 percent better in our multithreaded x264 benchmark, but surprisingly, lost by nine percent in our Proshow Producer benchmark. Things looked a lot more lopsided in the Equinox’s favor when it came to GPU performance, where it bested our ZP by 94–200 percent! In short, you should be able to play the majority of games here maxed out at 1080p. We fired up Rainbow Six Siege, which is a moderately taxing game, and were able to garner average fps in the mid 60s. In the graphically demanding Rise of the Tomb Raider, however, we got around 30fps on low settings. Ouch. That stung quite a bit, but is perhaps more of an indication that the game isn’t very well optimized for PCs. Still, this isn’t a gaming desktop, nor is it using desktop components, so you shouldn’t expect that level of performance here. What you can expect, however, is a decent amount of heat and noise. When the Equinox is firing on all cylinders, it can be a bit warm and loud. Nothing extremely offensive, but it won’t go unnoticed. Another downside of the laptop’s thin design is that it doesn’t have a huge battery, and died on us after the 120 minute mark, which is pretty bad. Still, with a laptop this thin, you should expect some concessions somewhere, and the Equinox doesn’t make too many of them. This laptop is quite powerful for what it is and is extremely portable. It also offers a decent array of ports and is pretty sexy for a gaming notebook. At $2,000 it isn’t cheap, but you’re paying for what you get here. Fortunately, what you’re getting is great. Our zero-point notebook is an Alienware 14 with a 2.4GHz Intel Core i7-4700MQ, 16GB DDR3/1600, 256GB mSATA SSD, 750GB 5,400rpm HDD, a GeForce GTX 765M, and Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. BioShock Infinite tested at 1920x1080 at Ultra DX11 settings; Metro: Last Light tested at 1920x1080 at DX11 medium quality settings with PhysX disabled.
2016-03-14 07:00 www.maximumpc.com
68 Opportunity: IT Intern – Nairobi International Rescue Committee Description : He/she will provide users with solutions to questions and issues with their computer hardware and software. Job Purpose/Objective : The IT Intern will be primarily responsible with providing support for our internal users on the use of their desktops and laptops. Through our ticketing system and the telephone, He/she will provide users with solutions to questions and issues with their computer hardware and software. Key Responsibilities: Level I Help Desk Support – Including but not limited to password resets, account creations, account terminations, desktop and laptop builds and printer support Level II Help Desk Support – Including but not limited to Sophos anti-virus assistance, Windows 7 Professional support, Microsoft Office 2007/2010/2013 support, Active Directory Maintenance, Microsoft Exchange/Email support, general laptop, desktop and printer repair, and light network troubleshooting. Enterprise Ticket Management – Work inside our (Helpdesk system) enterprise ticketing system, Service-Now, to provide timely and transparent staff support of all requests Vendor Management – Work directly with IT vendors (Service providers) to obtain support, repair and warranty information Hardware Inventory – IT intern to work with our Supply Chain department in imaging, distributing and tracking all hardware; also tracking and installing all purchased software for country program Preventative Maintenance – IT intern will also be responsible for checking on critical systems to ensure there are no interruptions in business continuity and take part in the monthly maintenance “blackout windows” Various Projects – Position will need to assist IT officer on various IT projects such as AD integration and office 365 implementation. Required Qualifications : College degree or equivalent certification Proficient in Microsoft family of products (Windows, Office and Server). HOW TO APPLY : Full description of this position and application details can be viewed through their website . Deadline for Applications is 18th March 2016.
2016-03-14 06:58 PC Tech pctechmag.com
69 Stayz, Airbnb call for NSW-wide regulation for accommodation sharing economy Airbnb and Stayz have called for regulation of short-term holiday rentals to be consistent across NSW. Executives from the two companies, as well as the Holiday Rental Industry Association (HRIA), have appeared at a parliamentary inquiry into the adequacy of regulation. A mandatory code of conduct would solve most of the issues raised surrounding noise and amenities, HRIA's Trevor Atherton told the inquiry on Monday. Applying a code of conduct, which already exists, wouldn't be a burden on homeowners or councils while a development application would be "tantamount to prohibition" because it was costly and slow, he said. When councils received noise complaints, there needed to be communication with the holiday rental company so they could take action, he said. Stayz regional director Anton Stanish agreed. The website, which lists 43,000 properties across Australia, does not allow "party houses" and holds the property owner responsible for enforcing the rules, he said. "We delist such properties," he said. Stayz is "seeking clear and consistent guidelines" across the state instead of harsh regulation that would force owners to sell their properties, he told the inquiry. Airbnb executive Mike Orgill said the company also wanted consistency, but steered clear of a mandatory code of conduct. If anyone had complaints they would soon be able to hand them straight to Airbnb through a new system the company was rolling out, he said. "The code is designed for professional operators" but many Airbnb hosts rented out their own homes or rooms within, Orgill told the inquiry. A two-way review system of hosts and guests meant bad apples could be weeded out and guests had incentive to behave properly, lest they get the thumbs down, he said. The inquiry is being conducted by the Legislative Assembly's committee on environment and planning, with a report and recommendations expected later this year. The inquiry comes after the New South Wales government released a position paper earlier this year that discussed how the government hopes to address what it called the collaborative economy. Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said in October that he wants Australians to make money from sharing their properties and services and proposed a plan to "make it happen". His party released a National Sharing Economy Principals Fact Sheet [PDF] that outlined six principles for the sharing economy that Shorten hopes to turn into rules and regulations to help give rise to the next Uber or Airbnb. These principles include the regulated sharing of primary property; appropriate wages and working conditions for staff; correct tax payments; proper protection and insurances; access for all, including those with a disability; and zero tolerance for those that defy the law. At the end of last year, Sam McDonagh, Airbnb Australia and New Zealand country manager, said he wants to work with governments of all levels in Australia to come up with fair and progressive homesharing legislation. At the time, he said one of the biggest issues the startup faces globally is the different interpretation on a federal, state, and local government level of what homesharing actually means. "One of the unique things about cities and places throughout the world that make them amazing places to visit is that they're different," McDonagh said. "We're in 34,000 cities and in many instances there are many local governments that govern and regulate within those cities. "
2016-03-14 06:39 Aimee Chanthadavong www.zdnet.com
70 Basslink-affected TPG must leverage Telstra cable: Tas government The Tasmanian government has spoken out against TPG's inability to service its customers in Tasmania, saying it will have to purchase extra capacity across Telstra's fibre-optic cable due to the Basslink subsea cable outage. The Basslink Interconnector, the world's second- longest subsea cable providing energy and wholesale high-speed telecommunications services across fibre-optic assets to Tasmania, has been down since December. Tasmanian Minister for Information Technology and Innovation Michael Ferguson said the state government was "very disappointed" that TPG's group of internet service providers (ISPs) had still not made provisions for the outage, "urging them to buy more capacity on the remaining Telstra cables". "Our understanding is that customers of TPG, which includes iiNet, Internode, and Netspace brands, have been affected, while customers of other non-Telstra ISPs are provided for," Ferguson said in a statement. "Today, I have spoken to TPG senior management to put forward the concerns of Tasmanian customers. I have been assured that TPG are aware of the issues and will continue to expand their use of the ample Telstra capability. "As I stated some time ago, Telstra advised there was sufficient capacity to cater for all Tasmanian retail and wholesale customers on the two fibre bundles it owns and operates across Bass Strait. " Ferguson added that he had also "reminded" Telstra Wholesale "of the importance of constructively receiving requests for more capacity from TPG". Telstra commented on Monday morning that it is the duty of telcos to provide continued services for their customers despite outages, with Telstra offering capacity to allow this. "Our network between Tasmania and the mainland has capacity available for our retail and wholesale customers while Basslink's undersea cable is being repaired," a Telstra spokesperson told ZDNet. "It is the responsibility of individual internet service providers to make appropriate arrangements for events like this so their customers continue to receive the services they expect. "Following the Basslink cut, we have been working with impacted ISPs to provide additional capacity. " Telstra added that it cannot disclose the details of confidential commercial arrangements with its wholesaler customers. ZDNet understands that TPG has negotiated for extra bandwidth over Telstra's fibre-optic cable from Thursday. Basslink last week provided an update on the outage, saying it should be repaired by late May . Basslink said it found the fault around 98km from the Tasmanian coast after collating over 500 hours' worth of images and data from 20 remote-operated vehicle dives. "We empathise with the community over the time that it has taken," Basslink CEO Malcolm Eccles said. It is now able to proceed in repairs, the first stage of which involves cutting the cables. Further cable cutting may be required to narrow down the exact location of the fault due to its "complex nature" and "lack of visible damage", Basslink explained. Ferguson said over the weekend that the Tasmanian government had taken its own services off the Basslink cable in early March in preparation for the cable cutting. "Government traffic was shifted off the Basslink cable earlier this month to avoid any possibility that important government services would be interrupted when the cut was made," Ferguson said. After cutting the cables, the ends will be brought onto the repairs ship, tested, and capped to prevent water leakage. Once the cables are cut and capped, the ship will return to Geelong, Victoria, to pick up further equipment, spare cables, and specialised repair workers to take back to the fault location. New cables will be inserted where the cuts were made. In addition to affecting TPG's Tasmanian telecommunications services, the Basslink outage also slowed down repairs to TPG's own submarine cable between Sydney and Guam , which experienced an outage in early February. TPG's maintenance contract provides for relatively fast shipments based out of New Caledonia for hardware to repair any cable faults that arise; however, the maintenance ship was at the time already repairing the Basslink cable system fault. "TPG Telecom has a maintenance agreement which provides the group access to the CS Ile De Re based in Noumea, New Caledonia. This ship is stocked with spare cables and other hardware for repairs to the cable system. We have been informed that the same ship is being used to repair the Basslink cable system," a TPG spokesperson told ZDNet last month. "As a result of the Basslink repairs, extra delays can be expected and therefore TPG is currently considering other options for a faster repair using an alternative vessel. At this stage, TPG is not able to quote exact restoration times. "Once TPG has a firm handle on the restoration times we will update our customers accordingly. " "As a result of the Basslink repairs, extra delays can be expected and therefore TPG is currently considering other options for a faster repair using an alternative vessel. " On February 17, TPG updated the issue on its website, saying it had sourced an alternative cable repair ship that had departed Taiwan for Cairns, Queensland, where it would be loaded with repair equipment. TPG removed the outage alert for the Guam cable from its website last week. Basslink did not respond to a request for comment.
2016-03-14 06:06 Corinne Reichert www.zdnet.com
71 NBN should abandon CVC charges, reduce POIs: MNF CEO CEO and co-founder of retail and wholesale VoIP provider MNF Rene Sugo has said the National Broadband Network (NBN) company risks failure if it does not change its wholesale pricing structure by removing connectivity virtual circuit (CVC) pricing and reducing its points of interconnect (POIs). Speaking at the 2016 Tech Leaders conference in the Blue Mountains, north of Sydney, Sugo said NBN will continue to suffer from low uptake for two reasons: Wholesale pricing and the mobile "NBN bypass" being offered by Telstra, Optus, Vodafone Australia, and TPG. In terms of the former, NBN will not be able to offset the cost of constructing its network for an extended period of time, because its wholesale pricing structure has a reliance on connecting a high number of users, according to Sugo. "The NBN wholesale pricing model business case is currently usage-based and relies on reaching a certain percentage of service activations to generate sufficient revenue to repay the investment of building the network," Sugo explained. "In order to reach this activation target, NBN has to be the 'number one choice' for data services for consumers, and be available at a viable price point for service providers of all sizes to resell - - and, as it stands, this is not going to be realistic. " With less activation numbers than forecast, revenue will need to be supplemented through higher CVC pricing for wholesalers and, as a result, higher retail prices for consumers. To avoid this "snowballing", the four largest telecommunications providers will instead focus on gaining market share through their mobile offerings, Sugo claimed. "The big telcos have more attractive bypass alternatives to sell to their consumers. This NBN bypass will eat away at the NBN market share, posing a major barrier to reaching activation and revenue targets. " Telstra, Vodafone, Optus, and TPG all offer high-speed services across their 4G, 4G Plus, and fibre-to-the-building services, with 5G coming within four years. Due to the rising trend towards using primarily mobile services, these telcos provide an "NBN bypass", Sugo argued. "As retail prices rise, NBN will become less and less attractive to consumers, driving them more to bypass services, further decreasing NBN uptake, leading to further NBN cost increases in a vicious cycle. "The end result: The NBN business case falls short of recovering its massive build cost. " He added that the 121 POIs "distinctly favour" the four largest telcos, precluding mid-tier telcos from directly linking to the NBN. "The promised 'level playing field' is nothing more than a mirage. With the untenable 121 POIs, direct NBN interconnect is out of reach to most and they are already forced to resell NBN via the big providers, putting further squeeze on the slim margins," he said. "Meanwhile, CVC costs also favour large providers who have the scale to reach greater contention efficiency, while mid-size providers need a higher margin of CVC headroom to ensure reasonable contention, translating into higher cost per user. " NBN's CVC charge reserves a consumer's bandwidth from the POI. The wholesale pricing structure incorporates a two-part model, with the CVC charge paid in addition to the access charge levied across all speed tiers. In November, NBN announced a two-year trial of discounted CVC wholesale pricing , rewarding telcos that offer customers high-usage plans across high-speed services with a lower levy. The CVC will now be calculated on the average dimensioning of CVC per end user, rather than the volume of purchase of CVC. Prior to this, NBN bowed to industry pressure in November 2014 and committed to dropping its CVC charge for RSPs from AU$20 per 1Mbps to AU$17.50 per 1Mbps , beginning in February 2015. RSPs had argued prior to this that the CVC charge would make it difficult to offer competitive market prices, with iiNet claiming in August 2013 that it could not provide unlimited broadband plans through subsidiary Jiva with a CVC charge of AU$20 per 1Mbps. Internode founder and now NBN non-executive director Simon Hackett had fought with the company over its CVC pricing from 2011, stating that the charge, combined with the competition regulator's decision to expand the NBN to 121 POIs, would result in many smaller carriers being priced out of the market. In order to prevent mass abandonment of NBN services in favour of mobile broadband, Sugo suggested boosting competition by reducing the POIs, removing CVC usage-based costs, and restructuring the wholesale pricing. "A fair model would allow middle players to step up and effectively compete in the market, driving NBN uptake and balancing out the challenge of the NBN bypass services," Sugo said. The government should also write off part of its NBN construction, so that it does not increase wholesale pricing in order to recoup its costs, Sugo said. In September last year, Sugo told ZDNet that the policy involved in rolling out the national high- speed network is making it difficult for smaller players in the market in regards to costs. According to Sugo, retail service providers (RSPs) are caught in the middle of broadband usage climbing higher, NBN's decision to charge RSPs on a per-megabit basis, and the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission continuing to push down costs for consumers, meaning RSPs are being "squeezed to nothing". "We're all being forced off Telstra's copper -- which is not great -- onto NBN's solution, but our costs are actually going to go up. So how do we, as retail providers, keep pushing the cost to the consumer down when we're getting forced to absorb this massive regulated cost on the input side? " he asked. "There's only so much efficiency you can get; we're cutting all the other costs, and we're getting scaled, but then we're having to pay a large cost per megabit to the NBN Co for access to the consumer ... so the more and more broadband they use, the more it costs. " Also speaking from the Tech Leaders summit on Monday, Shadow Communications Minister Jason Clare criticised the broadband technology being used for the NBN, referencing a recently leaked document that said FttP is cheaper than the Coalition first thought. "The cost of fibre to the node has almost tripled -- up from AU$600 a premise[s] to over AU$1,600, and the cost of fixing the old Telstra copper to make fibre to the node work has blown out by more than 1,000 percent," Clare said. "Last Wednesday night, the head of NBN Co, Bill Morrow, gave us another interesting piece of information. He finally revealed how many nodes they are building. The answer is more than 30,000. "A few months ago NBN Co said that they would need an average of 350 metres of new copper for every node they stood up. Do the maths. That means NBN Co has to buy more than 10 million metres of new copper to make all of this work. "We really are getting a Copperart version of the NBN. 10 million metres is enough copper to connect us here in the Blue Mountains to Bangalore. It's enough to connect us to Russia. It's almost enough to get us from here to Silicon Valley. "And to add insult to injury, we got another leaked document two weeks ago that reveals that while the cost of Fibre to the Node is going up, the cost of Fibre to the Premise is going down. " MNF, which rebranded from its previous name of MyNetFone late last year after being founded in 2004 and listed on the Australian Securities Exchange (ASX) in 2006, last month reported a first-half net profit of AU$4 million on revenue of AU$83.98 million. This it attributed to the contribution of New Zealand telco Spark's international voice business, TNZI, which it bought for NZ$22.4 million in April last year.
2016-03-14 05:40 Corinne Reichert www.zdnet.com
72 HPE shows off avatar booth at Cebit Hewlett Packard Enterprise has incorporated the mother of all photo booths into its stand at the Cebit trade show in Hanover, Germany, this week, and is inviting visitors to step inside to create their own digital avatar. HPE integrated products from three companies to create the Avatar Platform , which builds 3D models of people that can then be digitally clothed and animated. The avatar creation process begins in a full body scanner that is about 3 meters on a side. Built by Doob Group , it takes 64 pictures simultaneously using an array of cameras stacked in several rings around the subject. Those images are then passed to the Quantum Human software package from Quantum Matrix , which pieces them together to create a three-dimensional mesh or model of the person in the scanner. Finally, software from South Korean company Physan is used to simulate virtual clothing. Working from the original manufacturing patterns for the clothing, it can simulate the appearance of the finished article and even its drape -- the way it folds and curves as it hangs from the body. Although the photos are taken in less than a second, the whole process from entering the room to generating the avatar takes 8 to 10 minutes, said Manuel Meyer of HPE enterprise services. For now, HPE's system is just a prototype, costing about €120,000 ($135,000). "We can bring that down to €10,000 to €15,000 by scaling," he said. Doob already has its scanners in retail stores in New York, Los Angeles, Berlin and its home town, Düsseldorf, where it sells people 3D-printed models of themselves for between €95 and €575 depending on scale. It charges an additional €35 for the data in a 3D-PDF file. HPE hopes the data from its integrated system can be free for the end user, with other parties subsidizing the cost of the scan. The company sees three target markets for the system. First is online clothing retail, where the value of the system would be in reducing the cost of returns, Meyer said. The average return rate is around 30 percent, according to HPE, which estimates that allowing online customers to "try on" clothes for color and size could reduce that to 10 percent, saving businesses globally up to $36 billion each year. Using a digital avatar with the same proportions as their own body, customers can test how purchases will look and, to some extent, how they will fit, increasing the chances that they will be satisfied with a purchase. "For fashion, you need to wear tight clothes for the scan," he said. That requirement could change as HPE is looking into ways to allow people to wear normal clothes during the scan, then take a few key measurements that can be used to adapt a standardized statistical model of the human body to create the model. Fitness centers could use the system to help customers track the effectiveness of their workouts. "When you start a training program, you have a certain body shape," Meyer said. By taking regular scans, "you can see how it changes over time. " Finally, there's the PC gaming industry, which might pay for the scans as a way to maintain player engagement. Many online role-playing and first-person shooter games allow players to customize how they see themselves or how others see them. However, the customization is typically limited to a menu of clothing or accessories dictated by the game developer, or the application of a "skin" or pattern to a standard body shape generated by the software. Enabling digital avatars that mimic their body shape and appearance could be a way to increase player interest. HPE is talking to game developers about allowing players to upload avatars in file formats commonly used for the exchange of 3D-modelling data, including FBX and OBJ. "They will be able to use their avatars in games as soon as game manufacturers open up the API," Meyer said. Once people have their digital avatar, they can reuse the data in other applications, he said. Further out, the system could be used to create avatars for virtual reality conferencing systems, he said. That could potentially reduce the bandwidth required to convey body movements and facial expressions viewable from any angle.
2016-03-14 04:50 Peter Sayer www.computerworld.com
73 Softorino YouTube Converter review: Great video downloader with a big caveat Use commas to separate multiple email addresses Your message has been sent. There was an error emailing this page. By J. R. Bookwalter Macworld | Mar 14, 2016 4:30 AM PT In just a few clicks, Softorino YouTube Converter makes it easy to download, convert, and transfer YouTube videos to your Mac or iOS devices. There was a time not so long ago when downloading YouTube videos to a personal computer required a mere click of the mouse. Try this trick today and you’ll discover it’s not quite so simple, thanks to Google’s renewed efforts to block downloads in favor of the advertising revenue generated by streaming. Of course, one can get around this by paying $10 per month for YouTube Red, which provides an ad-free viewing experience and the ability to save videos or songs for offline playback on mobile devices. But there are other ways to circumvent this challenge without the need for a subscription, assuming you don’t mind skating on the side of the legal pond where the ice is considerably thinner. YouTube Converter is a $20 Mac application from Softorino, the folks behind the insanely useful and clever Waltr software. Like that software, YTC makes it easy to sync videos directly to an iOS device without the need to first import them into iTunes. (Be sure to turn off automatic sync in iTunes, which will remove videos transferred by YTC or Waltr.) A fuel gauge at the bottom displays the progress as files are downloaded and transferred. The difference here is that YTC can also download videos directly from YouTube’s servers, converting them on the fly to one of four quality settings of your choosing: 4K, 1080p, 720p, or 360p. (Native 480p videos transfer without conversion with 720p selected). The resulting file is then transferred to the Home Videos section of Apple’s built-in Videos app, complete with thumbnail artwork. With YTC running, all that’s required is to copy a YouTube URL, which is automatically pasted into the application. Choose a quality setting and destination (which can be the Downloads folder of your Mac or any connected iOS device), click the red Convert button, and YTC does the rest. Now that YouTube has become the modern equivalent of a jukebox, music lovers will be happy to hear that YTC also includes an audio-only setting, allowing videos to be downloaded sans picture and similarly synced directly to the built-in Music app. There’s even a Preferences setting to favor MP3 over the Apple-centric default M4A format. Transferred videos automatically display the same thumbnail artwork as their YouTube equivalent in the iOS Videos app. YouTube Converter really does take the headache out of saving videos. It’s far more painless and intuitive than other solutions I’ve used. The developers encourage sharing the software with three friends, which then unlocks the ability to download videos from Vimeo as well, but first you’ll be required to “activate” by sharing your own email address with Softorino. (Bah!) But first you’ll want to consider the implications of using YTC: YouTube’s current Terms of Service prohibit the downloading of most videos, particularly those which generate coveted advertising revenue. That technically makes software like YouTube Converter illegal, although Softorino brashly justifies its use by comparing any potential crime to jaywalking and passing the software off as a time-shifting “DVR for YouTube.” For this reason, my testing was limited to content I actually own or have licensed to others, including an entire feature-length movie with advertising was enabled. YTC worked like a charm on nearly every URL I threw at it, the only exceptions were Google Play, private, or age-restricted videos, which the software failed to recognize. (The latest version adds the ability to download videos from Facebook and Instagram, which are far easier than YouTube, at least for now.) Softorino YouTube Converter transfers videos directly into the built-in iOS Videos app under the Home Videos category. Although you can copy multiple URLs into YTC while videos are processing, I found this method frequently tripped up current downloads; multiple URLs can instead be queued ahead of time, then transferred all at once, which worked more reliably. On occasion, transfers to my iPhone 6s Plus and iPad Pro would fail to work, but reconnecting or restarting the device always got things working again. Softorino YouTube Converter is an elegant solution for downloading videos for offline playback, but the questionable legality of using it in the first place will make it a non-starter for any Mac users with a conscience. This story, "Softorino YouTube Converter review: Great video downloader with a big caveat" was originally published by Macworld . J. R. Bookwalter — Contributor It’s becoming harder to find, but we’ll show you where you can get music for free without raising the... Which graphics card is best for your money? We test over a dozen AMD and Nvidia GPUs to help find the... If you're looking for a good time but don't have a dime to spare, these 16 free PC games will leave you... The issue is whether the lab tested the phones according to what Samsung actually promised, which is 1... CIO.com's sortable, searchable directory of technology conferences makes it easy to find events coming... Adblock Plus and YouTube aren't playing nice together and that has some people concerned.
2016-03-14 04:30 J.R. www.macworld.com
74 AlphaGo’s unusual moves prove its AI prowess, experts say Playing against a top Go player, Google DeepMind’s AlphaGo artificial- intelligence program has puzzled commentators with moves that are often described as “beautiful,” but do not fit into the usual human style of play. Artificial-intelligence experts think these moves reflect a key AI strength of AlphaGo, its ability to learn from its experience. Such moves cannot be produced by just incorporating human knowledge, said Doina Precup, associate professor in the School of Computer Science at McGill University in Quebec, in an email interview. “AlphaGo represents not only a machine that thinks, but one that can learn and strategize,” agreed Howard Yu, professor of strategic management and innovation at IMD business school. AlphaGo won three games consecutively against Lee Se-dol last week in Seoul, securing the tournament and $1 million in prize money that Google plans to give to charities. The program, however, lost the fourth game on Sunday when it made a mistake. Lee has warned that the game has some weaknesses. The program started as a research project about two years ago to test whether a neural network using deep learning can understand and play Go, said David Silver, one of the key researchers on the AlphaGo project. Google acquired British AI company DeepMind in 2014. The AI program uses as a guide probable human moves from its ‘policy network,’ consisting of a model of play by human experts in different situations, but may make its own move when its ‘value’ neural network evaluates the possible moves at a greater depth. Unlike humans, the AlphaGo program aims to maximize the probability of winning rather than optimizing margins, which helps explain some of its moves, said DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis. Go players take turns to place black or white pieces, called “stones,” on the 19-by-19 line grid, to aim to capture the opponent's stones by surrounding them and encircling more empty space as territory. Lee Se-dol ponders his next move in Go game against AlphaGo on March 12. It was expected that it would take many years for AI systems to beat Go, which is seen as more complex than other popular strategy games like chess and has far higher “branching” or average number of possible moves per turn, Precup said. “The field of AI is typically benchmarked using complex games and problems, in this case mastering the game of Go,” said Babak Hodjat, cofounder and chief scientist at AI company Sentient Technologies. The AlphaGo win marks “a significant high point” in the complexity of problems that can now be tackled using machine learning, Hodjat said via email. Go involves high-level strategic choices, such as "which battle do I want to play" or "which area of the board to control", and several battles might be running in parallel, according to Precup. “This kind of reasoning is thought to be a hallmark of human thinking,” wrote Precup. There were earlier attempts at Go programs but these were too weak compared to human players, she added. AlphaGo follows in the footsteps of the chess-playing Deep Blue computer that beat Garry Kasporov in 1997. Another IBM computer, Watson, won in 2011 in the Jeopardy quiz show. The DeepMind program is very different from Deep Blue as the IBM program relied mostly on searching through a very large space of positions, but otherwise contained heuristics derived from human experts, Precup said. AlphaGo also has a powerful search component, but it learns on its own how to play the game, rather than being "told" what people do, she added. Despite all its engineering ingenuity, Deep Blue was designed to achieve a single purpose: Winning a chess game, Yu of IMD said. “All of the time and energy that goes into the program wasn’t useful for solving any other problems,” he added. Google is planning to test its AI technology in newer applications beyond gaming, such as healthcare and scientific research. “The core deep learning technology is quite good for any time-series pattern classification problem,” Hodjat said. His company has used similar technology for its Sentient Aware e-commerce visual intelligence product. The algorithms in AlphaGo are general purpose and have been deployed in many situations, Precup said. The program relies on two kinds of learning, reinforcement learning, and deep networks, both of which have been used in many applications such as human prosthesis and automated speech recognition. “One may need to tune the algorithms a bit but they are not dependent on the problem domain,” she said. A general-purpose algorithm, capable of self-learning and mimicking reinforcement learning in humans, opens “a future with new possibilities beyond the realm of a human mind,” Yu said. AlphaGo, however, falls short in the ability to understand human natural languages, an area where IBM scores, according to Yu. “By digesting millions of pages of medical journals and patient data, Watson provides recommendations -- from additional blood tests to the latest clinical trails available -- to doctors and physicians,” he said. “If one day, the self-learning property of AlphaGo can be combined with Watson’s understanding of human language and turn them into a general purpose algorithm, the human advantage will sure reach its final limit,” he added. Concern about the loss of the human advantage has figured in the background during the contest between Lee and AlphaGo, with many commenting online that the South Korean was fighting on behalf of mankind in an epic battle with a computer. But experts think that a victory in Go, a deterministic, perfect information game with set rules, doesn’t mean the time has reached yet when machines will overtake humans. “AI is quite good now in many cognitive applications that used to be the exclusive domain of humans,” Hodjat said. But it is still years away from achieving the broad and general abstracting power of human intelligence, he added. “One thing that we do not have yet are ‘general-purpose’ AI machines, which use the same internal brain to do many different tasks, like play Go, understand text and play violin, for example,” said Precup. This is the next frontier, but we are still quite far from it, she added. Microsoft said on Sunday that it was working on projects in the area of general intelligence. AI researchers have been able to develop tools, to recognize words for example, but have not been able to combine the skills effortlessly as humans do, it added.
2016-03-14 04:29 John Ribeiro www.computerworld.com
75 HPE offers new business model for fashion, fitness and gaming businesses Hewlett Packard Enterprise has a new business model for the clothing retail, fitness and PC gaming industries: Get into the modeling business. The company has incorporated the mother of all photo booths into its stand at the Cebit trade show in Hanover, Germany, this week, and is inviting visitors to step inside to create their own digital avatar. HPE integrated offerings from three companies to create the Avatar Platform , which builds 3D models of people that can then be digitally clothed and animated. The avatar creation process begins in a full body scanner that is about 3 meters on a side. Built by Doob Group , it takes 64 pictures simultaneously using an array of cameras stacked in several rings around the subject. Those images are then passed to the Quantum Human software package from Quantum Matrix , which pieces them together to create a three-dimensional mesh or model of the person in the scanner. Finally, software from South Korean company Physan is used to simulate virtual clothing. Working from the original manufacturing patterns for the clothing, it can simulate the appearance of the finished article and even its drape -- the way it folds and curves as it hangs from the body. Although the photos are taken in less than a second, the whole process from entering the room to generating the avatar takes 8 to 10 minutes, said Manuel Meyer of HPE enterprise services. For now, HPE's system is just a prototype costing about €120,000 (US$135,000). "We can bring that down to €10,000 to €15,000 by scaling," he said. Doob already has its scanners in retail stores in New York, Los Angeles, Berlin and its home town, Düsseldorf, where it sells people 3D-printed models of themselves for between €95 and €575 depending on scale. It charges an additional €35 for the data in a 3D-PDF file. HPE hopes the data from its integrated system can be free for the end user, with other parties subsidizing the cost of the scan. The company sees three target markets for the system. First is online clothing retail, where the value of the system would be in reducing the cost of returns, Meyer said. The average return rate is around 30 percent, according to HPE, which estimates that allowing online customers to "try on" clothes for color and size could reduce that to 10 percent, saving businesses globally up to $36 billion each year. Using a digital avatar with the same proportions as their own body, customers can test how purchases will look and, to some extent, how they will fit, increasing the chances that they will be satisfied with a purchase. "For fashion, you need to wear tight clothes for the scan," he said. That requirement could change as HPE is looking into ways to allow people to wear normal clothes during the scan, then take a few key measurements that can be used to adapt a standardized statistical model of the human body to create the model. Fitness centers could use the system to help customers track the effectiveness of their workouts. "When you start a training program, you have a certain body shape," Meyer said. By taking regular scans, "you can see how it changes over time. " Finally, there's the PC gaming industry, which might pay for the scans as a way to maintain player engagement. Many online role-playing and first-person shooter games allow players to customize how they see themselves or how others see them. However, the customization is typically limited to a menu of clothing or accessories dictated by the game developer, or the application of a "skin" or pattern to a standard body shape generated by the software. Enabling digital avatars that mimic their body shape and appearance could be a way to increase player interest. HPE is talking to game developers about allowing players to upload avatars in file formats commonly used for the exchange of 3D-modelling data, including FBX and OBJ. "They will be able to use their avatars in games as soon as game manufacturers open up the API," Meyer said. Once people have their digital avatar, they can reuse the data in other applications, he said. Further out, the system could be used to create avatars for virtual reality conferencing systems, he said. That could potentially reduce the bandwidth required to convey body movements and facial expressions viewable from any angle.
2016-03-14 04:09 Peter Sayer www.itnews.com
76 Retail's gift card crackdown self-defeating For many years, gift cards have been ultra-popular for both shoppers and thieves. As mobile domination has soared, the convenience of gift cards — for both sides — has grown right along with it. In an attempt to fight theft, some retailers have started to crack down on how gift cards are purchased. This move is ultimately self-defeating, if not outright suicidal. The thieves will find other tactics and the shoppers will shop elsewhere. Congrats, retailers: You'll have succeeded in becoming less popular for all. Let's start with the problem. When a bad guy steals a physical payment card (or enough card details to complete purchases), he or she knows the clock is ticking. If it's a physical card, the thief can only use that card until the customer discovers the theft and alerts the bank, which will immediately shut down the card. In a physical theft, Thieves never really know if they have minutes or hours left to use the card. If they have stolen the card details only, the clock starts from the moment of the first fraudulent use of the card. And it ends when the customer is alerted to a problematic transaction. What thieves often do is take advantage of a technology hole with most retailers. That hole is that the specific identifying numbers of gift cards are not always tied to the card that made the purchase. In other words, when a bank shuts down credit or debit card 123456, there is usually not an automatic way to instantly shut down any gift cards recently purchased by payment card 123456. Therefore, thieves like to take stolen cards/stolen card credentials and immediately purchase as many gift cards as they can. In effect, that extends how much time they have to use the gift cards to purchase merchandise that they quickly monetize through pawn shops, eBay or even street sales. The proper fix for this problem is to close the loop. Make sure that every purchase of a gift card includes the serial number of that card, so that a canceled payment card can almost instantly cancel all recently purchased gift cards. But the retail industry has opted for a different way. Instead of universally fixing the hole, they have opted to make it harder for legitimate shoppers to purchase gift cards. A key motivator for this change is the liability shift, where retailers who have not completed the move to EMV have to accept more fraud liabilities. Given that gift cards do not use EMV (at least not yet), the fraud costs for those are also being covered by not-yet-EMV-embracing retailers. "Some merchants are requiring that customers buy the cards with cash or asking that they show identification. Others have cut back to smaller denominations, put limits on repeat purchases or stopped selling certain cards altogether, according to people who are familiar with the stores’ policies. The restrictions are putting a crimp on an increasingly popular form of plastic, not only among gift-givers, but also among shoppers — in stores and online — looking to rack up loyalty points by using a credit card," noted The Wall Street Journal. "Kroger is in the midst of upgrading its checkout equipment to accept chip cards and expects to complete the overhaul by the end of the month. To ward off thieves, the grocer is limiting the number of gift-card purchases that are made on a credit card within a 24-hour period, said Chris Hjelm, the chain’s chief information officer. " A store-specific gift card is a gift from the retail gods. It replaces the $20 bill stuffed into a birthday card with a card that can only be spent at fill-in-the-blank retailer. Cutting back on the size of these cards, limiting repeat purchases or halting gift card sales are all terrible ideas. If the retailer doesn't feel like linking card IDs to purchases — which is potentially the best long- term answer — what about asking for additional identification on gift cards? That would address the fraud fears without making the cards more difficult to sell.
2016-03-14 04:00 Evan Schuman www.computerworld.com
77 Galaxy S7 Edge review: Samsung's vanity phone is all grown up Use commas to separate multiple email addresses Your message has been sent. There was an error emailing this page. By Florence Ion Greenbot | Mar 14, 2016 4:00 AM PT I was such a skeptic about last year’s Galaxy S6 Edge, but then I ended up buying one from my carrier. I still have it, and I still bring along the S6 Edge as my “camera phone” when I know the Nexus 6P just won’t cut it. That said, I’m actually seriously disappointed in myself for not waiting another year before using my upgrade to buy a smartphone. The Galaxy S7 Edge is one of those Android flagship devices that’s worth blowing your carrier subsidy for. It has all the same fantastic specifications of the Galaxy S7, including a Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB of RAM, and a 12-megapixel rear- facing camera. It’s also a remarkably attractive phone, and a pronounced example of how badly Samsung wants to eclipse its biggest competitor, Apple. If last year’s Edge-mania was any indication, this is a phone that will be wildly popular among Samsung fans. It’s bigger, but it’s more comfortable to hold than the 5.1-inch Galaxy S7. Last year, Samsung followed up the 5.1-inch Galaxy S6 Edge with a 5.7-inch S6 Edge+ about six months later, which I assume was to test the waters on which size would sell the best. It appears the Korean manufacturer had more success with the bigger device. Curvy and loving it. The Galaxy S7 Edge is a 5.5-inch phone, so while it’s not as big as the S6 Edge+, it will take up significant space in your hand and in your pocket. I’ve been living with a Nexus 6P for the last five months and I can attest that a bigger phone really is the best for getting lots of work done—it helps that there’s a Multi Window feature as part of Samsung’s interface, so you can use two applications at a time if needed. And with the Galaxy S7 Edge, you have a Quad HD Super AMOLED display with 534 pixels per inch. Samsung’s displays are among the best in the business for brightness, contrast, and color. The Galaxy S7 Edge’s curved screen cascades down into the sides. The curve is still undeniably cool. I love the look of the Galaxy S7 Edge, but curved screens aren’t for everyone. Over time you’ll realize that you use it differently than you would a basic flat phone. For instance, if you have larger hands, you might accidentally activate the screen when part of your palm grazes the curved edge. I often encountered this issue with last year’s smaller Galaxy S6 Edge, and again while testing this year’s model. However, there is something to be said about wielding this particular phone. It’s one of the most comfortable Samsung devices I’ve ever held due in part to the combination of the smooth, curved back glass and its rounded edges. It really is a better looking device than the regular Galaxy S7, and I can see more people choosing this one precisely because of how stunning it is. The Galaxy S7 Edge’s viewing angles are fantastic. This photo doesn’t do it justice, but it’s interesting to see how the image on the screen appears to melt into the metal-and-glass chassis. Lastly, and this is something I failed to mention in the original Galaxy S7 review, the Galaxy S7 Edge’s metal-and-glass chassis is highly prone to scratching. You’ll seriously need to be delicate with the phone and cover it in a case and screen protecter as soon as you take it out of the box. The S7 Edge’s edge-specific features can be accessed via a tab that peeks out from either side on the Home screen. This year’s Galaxy S7 Edge variant is not only bigger and fancier-looking, but it comes with software features meant to make your one-handed-with-a-curved-phone life easier, too. They’ll be especially familiar if you’ve used last year’s Galaxy S6 Edge and Edge+ features at all. The Galaxy S7 Edge’s edge-specific software features may be helpful to some, but I doubt they’ll be helpful to all. There are now more Edge panels to choose from. You can have a total of nine different ones, including a Tasks Edge, which adds shortcuts to oft-used tasks like snapping a selfie or creating a new contact, or a news tickers from the likes of Yahoo! News and CNN. Apps and People Edge are back, too, but have been expanded to allow up to ten options this time around, instead of five. You can download additional Edge panels, but unfortunately you can’t make any of your own. Thankfully, you can turn off the edge-specific features if you don’t want them. I can see these features being particularly helpful when you’re in a bind, with only a thumb to navigate your phone’s screen. But I’ve lived with the Galaxy S6 Edge for over six months and I never used any of its edge-specific features. I doubt I’d use these either; Yahoo and CNN are not my primary news providers, and if I really wanted to snap a selfie, all I’d have to do is double- press the Home button. This is another one of those features that’ll likely be highlighted in advertisements, but isn’t the most exemplary part of the phone. If you’re as unconvinced as I am, you can easily turn off the Edge features from inside the Settings panel. The Edge feed is the only edge-specifica feature I’d use. Not all the Edge features are futile. There’s a new feature called Edge Feeds you can access if you enable the Night Clock. Quickly swipe up and down on the edge to bring up a news ticker, check in on your S Health step counter, or peruse notifications. You can choose to view stocks and sports scores, too, without having to pick up your phone and turn on the screen. The Night Clock is the only edge-specific feature of the Galaxy S6 Edge that I consistently used, and I imagine that it’ll be the same with the Edge Feeds on the S7 Edge. This is something I could actually benefit from because I can discreetly check on notifications without turning on the screen. And it’s better than getting buzzed on an external accessory like a connected smartwatch because it’s less disruptive. Touchwiz is still a little much. You’ll want to customize it the minute you take the phone out of the box. Samsung’s TouchWiz interface is still the same: intuitive for some and gaudy for others. The application drawer is a mess of icons and folders, but there are still some user friendly features, like the ability to long-press on a quick setting button to go to the relevant setting screen, as well as a one-handed operation mode, which enables you to adjust the screen size and layout for easier control of the interface when necessary. Also, there’s less Samsung-bundled bloatware, though the carriers are having a field day with this particular generation of Galaxy devices, for whatever reason.. The Galaxy S7 Edge’s built-in gaming features are fun to use for even the most casual of mobile gamers. The Galaxy S7 Edge also comes bundled with a software feature especially tailored for gamers. The Game Launcher, which houses all the icons to any games installed on your device, also offers an option to enable the Game Tools overlay. You can learn more about these features in the Galaxy S7 review. Like last year’s Edge variant, the Galaxy S7 Edge is ostensibly a Galaxy S7 in a slightly larger, curvier chassis. It features the same fingerprint sensor embedded into the Home button, supports both Qi and PMA wireless charging standards, works with both Samsung Pay and Android Pay, is water- and dust-resistant, offers an MicroSD expansion slot, and charges with a soon-to-be-archaic MicroUSB port. And like the Galaxy S7, it doesn’t support Quick Charge 3.0 either (only Quick Charge 2.0), though it does offer fast wireless charging. With day to day tasks like editing photos and browsing the web, the Galaxy S7 Edge is killer. It’s especially impressive in synthetic benchmarks like AnTuTu. And don’t worry: Games load quickly and run smoothly with the Galaxy S7 Edge’s Adreno 530 GPU. The Galaxy S7 Edge is also powered by the same 2.2GHz Snapdragon 820 processor and 4GB of RAM. There’s not too much differentiation in performance between the regular GS7 and the Edge version, save for battery life. That’s because the S7 Edge is equipped with a 3600mAh battery pack. The Galaxy S7 Edge's bigger battery gives it an hour more screen-on time than the regular Galaxy S7. The S7 Edge’s 20 percent larger battery pack lets this phone run the PCMark battery test for an hour longer than the regular Galaxy S7, which already has great stamina. I can attest that the numbers match up with real world experience, too. On standby overnight, the Galaxy S7 Edge hardly used up even two percent of its battery life thanks to Marshmallow’s built-in Doze mode. The Super AMOLED display is an energy hog when the brightness is cranked up, but when it’s off and the phone is laying dormant in the corner of your desk all day, it seems to store up energy like it’s hibernating for winter. I took me almost three entire days to kill the S7 Edge with minor use. This is the kind of phone you’d buy a tripod and a holster for, and get into some serious smartphone camera action. The Galaxy S7 Edge employs a 12-megapixel rear-facing camera sensor with Dual Pixel technology, which refers to the fact that there are two photodiodes in every pixel of the camera sensor. This allows every single pixel to be a phase-detection autofocus point. That means faster, more accurate focus in all conditions. In perfect lighting environments—bright studio lights—the Galaxy S7 Edge’s rear-facing camera soars. (Click for full resolution.) It’s interesting to see how sensitive it is to subtle lighting changes, however. In this lab shot, we have two large lamps set to the lowest brightness setting. The room looks almost peach, even though the lights are white. (Click for full resolution.) In low light environments, the Galaxy S7 Edge performed on par with the Galaxy S7, which beat out its predecessors with its f/1.7 aperture. (Click for full resolution.) Our lab tests also showed that while the Galaxy S7’s 12-megapixel sensor has an aperture of f/1.7, it’s only marginally better in low light situations against the Galaxy S6’s f/1.9 aperture. It’s also interesting to note how sensitive the sensor is to certain lighting situations. Here’s a photo taken with the manual mode. I adjusted each individual element of the photo and then snapped it with the Galaxy S7 Edge on a tripod. Here’s a photo of the same tree snapped in auto mode, with HDR on by default. The weather’s been exceptionally gloomy in Northern California, so I haven’t been able to take any shots that show how the Galaxy S7 Edge shoots in bright sunlight. Still, I was impressed with S7 Edge’s photo-taking abilities in both indoor and outdoor situations. There’s even a few new camera modes to choose from, including one tuned specifically for food shots, though it’s just a macro mode that blurs out the environment around the subject. The face slimming and spotlight selfie features are odd and can easily distort your face if you don’t use them correctly, but I know people who legitimately use them for their head shots on social media. The Galaxy S7 Edge employs a 5-megapixel front-facing camera for all your selfie-taking needs. It has the same f/1.7 aperture as the rear-facing camera, in addition to a host of new software features for those of you especially concerned with the way your selfies look. They’re fun to use, though they’re not exactly groundbreaking. And like the Galaxy S7, the S7 Edge front-facing flash uses an unflattering screen burst to light up your face. I practiced a bit of existential meditation when it came time to figure out whether the evolutionary Galaxy S7 was worth upgrading for. Spoiler alert: If you already have last year’s Galaxy S6, it’s not. But I feel differently about the Galaxy S7 Edge. Samsung’s vanity phone is definitely all grown up. It’s bigger, because it’s the best form factor for those curved-edges, and it features those flagship bells and whistles you won’t get from a Nexus device. It’s absolutely the kind of phone I could see myself wielding for more than two years, and it’s nice to see Samsung thinking of its devices as long-term mainstays rather than disposable plastic devices. If you’re due for an upgrade and you want the best Android phone with the nicest body, the Galaxy S7 Edge is it. This story, "Galaxy S7 Edge review: Samsung's vanity phone is all grown up " was originally published by Greenbot . Florence Ion — Staff Writer Florence reports on all the latest Android smartphones and tablets for Greenbot and PCWorld. Follow her on Twitter at @ohthatflo for her musings on the world of Android and other topics. It’s becoming harder to find, but we’ll show you where you can get music for free without raising the... Which graphics card is best for your money? We test over a dozen AMD and Nvidia GPUs to help find the... If you're looking for a good time but don't have a dime to spare, these 16 free PC games will leave you... If you need to buy a laptop soon, you might as well make it today. Microsoft's selling the Dell XPS for... SteamVR’s Desktop Theater Mode will put you on a virtual living room for playing 2D Steam games. CIOs drive innovation by building digital awareness, forming digital innovation teams, and creating...
2016-03-14 04:00 Florence Ion www.greenbot.com
78 Australian startups head to Singapore to nurture their growth Australian startups and established tech companies are heading to Singapore to find funding, business partners, and customers in a region where the government has invested years into becoming Southeast Asia's Silicon Valley. According to Gemma Manning, founder of Sydney-based Gemstar Technology, some Australian companies can find it easier to expand by tapping into Singapore, where the government has pumped AU$1.72 billion into innovation. Manning, whose company is taking six Aussie firms on a trade mission to Singapore this week, hopes the Australian government will choose the city-state as one of five global Landing Pads that formed part of its AU$1.1 billion National Science and Innovation Agenda , which covered more than 20 measures centred on its "Ideas Boom" rhetoric. Last month, Assistant Minister for Innovation Wyatt Roy announced the first three locations for the government's AU$11 million startup landing pad initiative , aimed at accelerating Australia's access to international business networks, entrepreneurial talent, business development, and investors by creating a unique ecosystem for innovation to thrive. Silicon Valley was revealed as the inaugural landing pad location, with the initiative taking up tenancy at RocketSpace technology campus in San Francisco; Tel Aviv was named as the second host city; and the third is pencilled in for Shanghai. The remaining two are expected to be positioned in Europe and in another capital city in Asia. "I feel positive and more inspired by what we are doing now as a nation in terms of innovation. But we have a long way to go and I think countries like Singapore can't be ignored when we are looking at policy and how to create these ecosystems," Manning said. "The funding environment is very attractive, as is the drive for public-private partnerships. They want to commercialise technology to help drive their future income. " Singapore placed ahead of Australia in the 2015 Global Innovation Index, slotting in at seventh while Australia came in at 17th. Previously, Roy said Australia is yet to have the networking density that Silicon Valley has. On a recent visit to Tel Aviv, the 25-year-old assistant minister said there was a strong cultural element in Israeli innovation that Australia can learn from. "I've often said that we need to embrace the best elements of our culture -- that aspirational mindset, that 'have a go' mentality -- and support the underdog," Roy said at the time. The six local companies Gemstar is taking to Singapore range from tech startups looking for funding through to established companies ready to expand. The group includes Melbourne tech firm Parent Paperwork, which automates forms schools send home to parents, and a startup whose app encourages kids to exercise more. "The point is we're not taking business away from Australia," Manning said. "We want to fast- track them and help them grow. " Lincoln Easton, founder of building and construction industry cloud-based billing provider Progressclaim.com, is currently in Singapore with Gemstar. He said he is hoping to find business partners and clients in the region to help him expand in Southeast Asia, where the construction market is almost as big as in the US. Easton, whose clients include Mirvac, said that while Australia's R&D incentives are good, there is often too much bureaucracy involved. Australia also has a risk-adverse culture when it comes to investing in startups, he said. "We are not saying we want to move out of Australia," he said. "What Malcolm Turnbull's government is doing with new incentives to invest in startups is really exciting but in our case it has probably come a bit late. "It's aimed at quite early-stage companies. They shouldn't discount people who are a bit further down the line. " The R&D Tax Incentive allows companies to claim a tax break for the money they spend on internal R&D, and in February last year, Parliament passed new legislation that limits the amount for which companies can claim R&D tax breaks to AU$100 million. The legislation was backdated, which left the laws to apply retrospectively from July 1, 2014. It was revealed at Senate Estimates in October that manufacturing was the industry with the largest number of R&D registrations ; professional, scientific, and technical services were second; and information media and telecommunications came in third -- accounting for only 18.3 percent of the total R&D registrations for the 2014 income year. Building on the government's proposed crowdfunding legislation released last year, the National Science and Innovation Agenda also saw early investment capital increase from AU$100 million to AU$200 million, as well as a 20 percent non-refundable investment tax offset capped at AU$200,000 per investor per year; a 10-year capital gains tax exemption; and a reduction in bankruptcy default from three years to one.
2016-03-14 03:49 Asha Barbaschow www.zdnet.com
79 Microsoft to open-source AI development platform based on Minecraft Microsoft has decided to open-source a platform used by its researchers to test artificial-intelligence projects. The AIX platform, which is already being used by Microsoft Research and is available under a private beta to select academic researchers, allows researchers to use the unstructured play mode in the Minecraft game as a testing ground for their AI research. AIX will also be made available this summer under an open-source license. The announcement comes at a time when Google DeepMind is grabbing attention for the Go games being played by its AI program AlphaGo with a key Go player Lee Se-dol. AlphaGo won three straight games of the five-games match in Seoul but on Sunday lost to Lee. Microsoft is, however, has focused AIX on projects that involve general intelligence, which it says "is more similar to the nuanced and complex way humans learn and make decisions. " Computers can now do specific, complicated tasks like understanding speech and translating it, recognizing images and writing captions about them, Allison Linn, a senior writer at Microsoft, wrote in a post on the Microsoft blog Sunday. “A computer algorithm may be able to take one task and do it as well or even better than an average adult, but it can’t compete with how an infant is taking in all sorts of inputs -- light, smell, touch, sound, discomfort -- and learning that if you cry chances are good that Mom will feed you,” Linn wrote. Artificial intelligence researchers have been able to develop tools, like recognize words for example, but have not been able to combine these skills effortlessly as humans do, Linn added. Researchers trying to teach a real robot to climb a hill would have to replace or repair it each time it falls into a river. Five computer scientists at a Microsoft Research lab in New York are doing that in a less costly way -- trying to get a Minecraft character to climb a hill. Microsoft acquired Mojang, the developer of Minecraft, in 2014. The AIX platform, developed by Microsoft’s lab in Cambridge, U. K., consists of a "mod" for the Java version and code that helps artificial intelligence agents sense and act within the Minecraft environment, according to Linn. Both components can run on Windows, Linux or Mac OS, and researchers can use any programming language to program their agents.
2016-03-14 03:48 John Ribeiro www.computerworld.com
80 DoJ vs. WhatsApp on encryption: Here we go again -- Gov vs. Math Your humble blogwatcher curated these bloggy bits for your entertainment. You have been reading IT Blogwatch by Richi Jennings , who curates the best bloggy bits, finest forums, and weirdest websites… so you don’t have to. Catch the key commentary from around the Web every morning. Hatemail may be directed to @RiCHi or [email protected] . Opinions expressed may not represent those of Computerworld. Ask your doctor before reading. Your mileage may vary. E&OE.
2016-03-14 03:46 Richi Jennings www.computerworld.com
81 New products of the week 3.14.16 Our roundup of intriguing new products. Read how to submit an entry to Network World's products of the week slideshow. Key features: Thunder CFW is the first converged security solution for service providers, cloud providers and large enterprises that includes a high-performance Gi / SGi firewall with integrated DDoS protection and carrier grade NAT and data center firewall with server load balancing and DDoS protection. Thunder CFW also includes a high-performance secure web gateway with integrated explicit proxy, URL filtering and SSL insight, IPSec site-to-site VPN and aGalaxy centralized management support. More info. Key features: AlienVault OTX is the first open threat intelligence community that enables threat researchers and security professionals to actively discuss, explore, validate and share the latest threat data, trends, techniques and research. More info. Key features: ADTRAN’s Ethernet switches are ideal for deploying scalable, resilient, high- performance networks to support growing bandwidth demands. The 10G Ethernet switches deliver advanced multi-layer switching, higher bandwidth, performance and resiliency. More info. Key features - BMF inline mode simplifies deployment and change management of multiple DMZ/Extranet security tools. Enhancements include flexible policy-based service chaining, custom messages for tool health and sub-second health checks that enable deeper visibility. More info. Key features: UC-One Connect is a highly focused mobile-first messaging application for business users that integrates individual and group chat (IM), voice calling, call settings like Forwarding and DND, and presence. UC-One Connect is optimized for iOS and Android platforms and is integrated with the enterprise directory, enabling business users to find and connect with colleagues quickly and easily. More info. Key features - Brocade’s G620 switch offers the industry’s highest port density, delivers breakthrough performance across 32G and 128Gbps links and shatters application performance barriers with up to 100 million IOPS. More info. Key features: Built.io Contentstack, the award-winning headless CMS has a redesigned, intuitive user interface with over 100 new features for content editors, dozens of new tools for developers and native mobile SDKs. More info. Key features: Chef Delivery’s new Dependency Management feature ensures tests are automatically run at the appropriate stage of the development process, safely promoting only releases that pass to eliminate break-risk in production. More info. Key features: New Damballa Failsafe 6.2 network security monitoring solution includes retroactive analysis, 10Gbps throughput and integration with Carbon Black Enterprise Protection. More info. Pricing - FinalCode for Box is delivered as a SaaS application that integrates with a company’s Box Business or Enterprise Edition. The FinalCode for Box application starts at an annual subscription price of $12 per user per month. The FinalCode add-on for Box starts at $4 per user per month. The FinalCode client, used by Box recipients, is available at no charge for external collaborators and supports Windows, Apple and Android devices. Key features- FinalCode for Box allows for the management and control of viewing or editing file permissions outside the Box container by invoking the FinalCode controls directly within the Box interface. More info. Key features: DgSecure Monitor is designed for the monitoring, detection, and alerting of potential breaches of sensitive data across the enterprise and the cloud. DgSecure Monitor keeps track of who is doing what to an enterprise’s sensitive data, and delivers real-time, policy- based alerts whenever unauthorized access or unusual access behavior occurs. Unlike traditional IT monitoring solutions for firewalls, networks, or applications that can produce an unmanageable amount of alerts and result in months of analysis before a potential breach is spotted, DgSecure Monitor is focused solely on safeguarding the sensitive data an organization truly cares about—cutting through the clutter to detect real threats in just minutes. More info. Pricing: Enterprise Edition: Premium (24×7 Support) $12,500 per Server Unit, Standard (8×5 Support) $10,000 per Server Unit Key features: GridGain In-Memory Data Fabric enables high-performance transactions that run 1,000x faster than disk-based approaches. It provides high-speed transactions, real-time streaming and fast analytics in a single, comprehensive data access and processing layer. More info. Key features: HPE SecureData Mobile, a new addition to the HPE SecureData family, provides security at data capture in mobile applications and enables end-to-end sensitive data protection from the native mobile app (iOS and Android) to enterprise’s trusted hosts. More info. Key features: Through OPSWAT Metadefender integration, continuously monitors all networked devices to ensure security and compliance, and allows only authorized, non-compromised endpoints access. Automates policy enforcement and behavioral identification of high-threat activities. More info. Pricing: MapR Converged Data Platform which is free with Community Edition and pricing starts at $4,000 per node for Enterprise Edition. Key features: MapR Converged Data Platform gives customers new big data capabilities across MapR Streams, MapR-DB, and MapR-FS from powerful security and data governance, to optimal Docker support and extreme performance. More info. Key features: Dragon Legal Individual speech recognition software was designed specifically to meet the documentation, transcription, and mobility needs of individual legal professionals and those in smaller practices. More info. Key features: OpenLegacy eSuite Integration Platform makes it easy for enterprises to integrate their back-end systems of record with mobile, Web or cloud applications through a set of standard APIs. More info. Key features: Monitors Docker container status, uptime/downtime, CPU usage, memory, packets and traffic in/out, and exit code. No need to acquire a specific application performance monitoring solution. More info. Pricing: Enterprise site licenses start at $2,995. Cloud-only site licenses start at $1,995 Key features: SmartDraw 2016 is the easiest way to create complex, powerful, professional- looking visuals. SmartDraw offers 70 smart templates for more than 4,500 types of visuals. More info. Key features: Through an updated UI and offline reset capabilities, Password Reset Server 5.0 enables end-users to securely reset their Active Directory and Office 365 passwords from a web portal or Windows Logon screen. More info. Key features: TrapX DeceptionTokens is a critical new component of the DeceptionGrid platform that extends lightweight, easy-to-deploy, agentless tokens onto real-world IT assets, enabling enterprises to quickly identify compromised endpoints. More info. Key features: Varnish Massive Storage Engine (MSE) 2.0 with optional cache persistence allows websites to retain data across restarts and reboots and ensures that websites will not lose their cache content. More info. Key features: Revolutionary preemptive intelligence identifies network hosts compromised with active network-based and application-level vulnerabilities (Heartbleed, Shellshock, Juniper Backdoor, malicious WEB-shells, Exposed FTPs, compromised SSH servers, etc.) to preventatively shield internal devices. More info. Key features: Track current consumption and control power switching and reboot functions via remote, out-of-band connection. Features outlet current monitoring, event alarms and activity log. Also includes enterprise management software. More info. Key features: provides a software-driven private cloud that offers the ease-of-use of a public cloud coupled with complete control and security. This new cloud model is delivered through hyper-converged ZeroStack Cloud Building Blocks that integrates compute, clustered storage, software-defined networking and management software running as part of a highly resilient control plane. This on-premises infrastructure is consumed and managed by the innovative ZeroStack Cloud Portal, which provides analytics-based insights and optimizations for application deployment. More info.
2016-03-14 03:35 Ryan Francis www.networkworld.com
82 Razer Blade Stealth review: This is a feisty ultrabook at an incredibly low price The Razer Blade Stealth has impressive specs for an ultrabook that starts at $999. Use commas to separate multiple email addresses Your message has been sent. There was an error emailing this page. By Hayden Dingman PCWorld | Mar 14, 2016 3:30 AM PT The Razer Blade Stealth is not a gaming laptop. I know, you’re checking over your shoulder for the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. But it’s true! Despite sharing many design cues with Razer’s standard Blade and Blade Pro gaming laptops, the Blade Stealth is an ultrabook. Actually, when I say “many design cues,” I mean “all the design cues.” The Stealth may occupy Razer’s MacBook Air slot, but it eschews the tapered look of most laptops in that tier. Instead, the Blade Stealth features the same sleek, black MacBook Pro-esque design of its larger siblings—scaled down to hold a 12.5-inch screen instead of the standard Blade’s 14-incher. We reviewed the $1,399 model of the Blade Stealth, which features a 4K Ultra HD (3840x2160) IGZO touchscreen. It’s beautiful, albeit surrounded by an unsightly black bezel that seems especially conspicuous when placed next to Dell’s XPS 13. Razer has nixed a wedge-style design in favor of a MacBook Pro look. You can also buy the Blade Stealth with a 2560x1440 screen. Razer claims the 1440p version reproduces only 70 percent of the Adobe RGB spectrum, as opposed to the 4K model’s 100 percent, but unless you’re doing high-end color work you probably won’t care. At $999, it’s probably the better value—with the significant caveat that we haven’t tested it ourselves. The keyboard is perhaps the most significant downgrade from the standard Blade. To fit into the ultrabook form factor, Razer’s significantly slashed the key travel. The resulting keyboard is extremely fast for typing, but with woefully stilted tactile feedback. It does look beautiful, though. Razer’s included its Chroma per-key RGB backlighting in the Blade Stealth, meaning you get access to the full suite of crazy (and not-so-crazy) effects found on the Razer BlackWidow Ultimate: Spectrum Cycling, Breathing, Reactive, and a handful of others. It’s not necessary in the least, and it does mean Razer’s sort-of bloated Synapse software runs at boot, but it turns heads. Also, the keyboard keys use a normal typeface for once—not the “VIDEO GAMES, RIGHT?” typeface currently found on the Blade, Blade Pro, and BlackWidow. More of this please, Razer. Each key on the Razer Blade Stealth is individually backlit. Razer did make one annoying oversight, though. The actual functions of its various function keys aren’t lit. F1 is Mute, F6 is Play, et cetera—but it’s impossible to tell in the dark, because Razer only backlit the “F1” part, while the “Mute” icon next to it is dark. Baffling. I also needed to tweak the trackpad out of the box. Default settings for both the pointer and scrolling sensitivity were too slow, though the fix takes an easy thirty seconds. I just cranked up the sensitivity by a few notches (which you can do through Synapse or Windows 10 itself), and the trackpad is smooth and precise enough to handle it. As for ports, the Blade Stealth sports HDMI and a USB 3.0 Type A port on the right side, plus another USB 3.0 Type A port, a 3.5mm audio jack, and—its main claim-to-fame—a Thunderbolt 3 USB-C port on the left side that handles charging in addition to data transfers. I’m not a fan of the Blade Stealth’s power cable though, which ends in a thin USB-C plug that sticks straight out from the machine when inserted. I’ve been unreasonably paranoid about snapping the cable in half with a careless motion, given that it doesn’t easily pop out of the slot when jostled. Welcome to the USB-C future, I guess. The main question about the Blade Stealth is how it stacks up against others in its price range. After all, Razer has a certain reputation (deserved or not) for padding the prices of its premium products, and this is its first foray into lower-cost hardware. Personally, I think they nailed it. Remember: The Blade Stealth is not a gaming laptop. Razer has an ambitious future plan to release the Razer Core, a Thunderbolt 3-enabled graphics amplifier, so you can augment the Stealth with a desktop graphics card and use it as a pseudo- gaming laptop. But the Core isn’t out, nor does it even have a release date, so there’s no sense banking on that functionality at the moment. (Whenever the Core does become available, we plan to review the Stealth/Core combo.) With that in mind, the Blade Stealth is pretty damned great for an ultrabook. On paper, its specs beat out pretty much every competitor: It features a 2.5GHz Core i7-6500U processor, Intel’s HD 520 integrated graphics, 8GB of DDR3/1866 RAM, and a PCIe SSD anywhere from 128GB up to 512GB. The Lenovo Yoga 900 has similar specs, but starts at $1,199. The MacBook Air starts cheaper, at $899, but that version only offers a last-generation 1.6GHz Core i5 processor, a 900p screen, and 4GB of RAM. Microsoft’s Surface Pro 4 has 8GB of RAM and a 2736x1824 screen, but just an Intel Core i5-6300U. And while the XPS 13, the Blade Stealth’s strongest rival, has a brilliant bezel-free screen, the $999 model only packs a 1920x1080 screen with no touch capabilities and a Core i5-6200U. (Recall that the $999 Blade Stealth has a 2500x1440 touchscreen.) Now, does that processor disparity matter? Not really. The difference between the i5-6200U and the i7-6500U is minimal for day-to-day use. In fact, when we tested the XPS 13 and Blade Stealth side by side, the XPS 13 won out on certain menial tasks. Dollar-for-dollar, the Blade Stealth’s specs are a better buy, but its benchmark performance varied. For example, the XPS 13 put out some particularly good numbers in PCMark 8 Work Conventional—its score was 2,887, while the Blade Stealth clocked in at 2,426. We were at a loss to explain this disparity at first, given that with better hardware, you’d expect the Blade Stealth to score higher. A closer look at PCMark’s graph showed the issue. For whatever reason, the Core i7-6500U inside the Blade Stealth continually hopped between its standard 2.5GHz clock and a lower 1.5GHz step, whereas the XPS 13 stayed at 2.3GHz for the entire test. At first, we thought Razer might be throttling the processor to keep the Blade Stealth cool on your lap. But if the company did choose to do that, the throttling is happening at fairly low temperatures—our graphs show the i7-6500U stepping down when it hits 50 degrees Celsius, which isn’t that high. It’s also possible that it's standard behavior for the i7-6500U to step down during low-intensity tasks. The Yoga 900 (which is also equipped with an i7-6500U) and Dell’s own XPS 13 Gold (which features a similar i7-6560U processor) posted lower benchmark scores than the Core i5 XPS 13 in the same PCMark 8 test. Our second hypothesis seems supported by the results of our processor-intensive Handbrake test, during which we have Handbrake encode a 30GB MKV file into an MP4 using the Android Tablet preset. The Blade Stealth finished its task in 6,255 seconds (about an hour and 44 minutes), while the XPS 13 took 6,839 seconds (about 10 minutes longer). Does it ultimately matter? Probably not. Ultrabooks aren’t known for being powerful workstations, and it’s doubtful that’s what you’re buying this machine for. What’s more important is that the Blade Stealth hangs right in the pack—certainly with machines at the same price, and in many cases with ultrabooks a few hundred dollars more expensive. That extends to gaming as well—the little you’ll be able to manage with an ultrabook, at least. The Blade Stealth was consistent with other HD 520-equipped laptops, scoring 3,413, while the XPS 13 and Yoga 900 netted 3,444 and 3,121 respectively. The Blade Stealth’s only major downside (at least, for our review unit) was battery life. Our battery rundown clocked a mere 5 hours and 37 minutes of screen-on time—which, while expected for a 4K UHD panel, still means a lot less usable time away from an outlet. For contrast, the Surface Pro 4 and its 2736x1824 screen made it to 6 hours and 26 minutes, while the 1980x1020 XPS 13 hit 8 hours and 17 minutes. If battery life is a concern, the 1440p version of the Blade Stealth may be more your thing, as it should have similar performance to this 4K UHD model given its specs. The Blade Stealth is an excellent ultrabook, even if that’s all you ever plan to use it for. I’m not a fan of the USB-C charger method, at least in its current (read: flimsy) incarnation, but otherwise this is a feisty machine at an incredibly low price—especially given the fact it’s, you know, made by Razer. We’ll be sure to test the Blade Stealth again when Razer gets around to releasing its Thunderbolt 3 graphics amplifier, the Razer Core, but suffice it to say the Stealth is a smart buy regardless of whether you want it for semi-mobile gaming in the future. This story, "Razer Blade Stealth review: This is a feisty ultrabook at an incredibly low price" was originally published by PCWorld . Hayden Dingman — Games reporter It’s becoming harder to find, but we’ll show you where you can get music for free without raising the... Which graphics card is best for your money? We test over a dozen AMD and Nvidia GPUs to help find the... If you're looking for a good time but don't have a dime to spare, these 16 free PC games will leave you... Hewlett Packard Enterprise has a new business model for the clothing retail, fitness and PC gaming... The Galaxy S6 Edge felt like an experiment, but this year's curved flagship proves the Edge has some... Our roundup of intriguing new products from companies such as HPE and A10 Networks.
2016-03-14 03:30 Hayden Dingman www.pcworld.com
83 Defense in depth: Stop spending, start consolidating When it comes to layered defense and security tools, less is often more just as more can sometimes be less. The average enterprise uses 75 security products to secure their network. That's a lot of noise and a lot of monitoring and testing for security practitioners. To make sure that the security tools not only work but work in harmony with each other, some security professionals recommend taking a closer look at the layers of the security ecosystem to eliminate redundancies that contribute to alert overload. There is a lot of threat intelligence information out there, and Stephan Chenette, CEO, AttackIQ said all of that threat information can be overwhelming. "They need to use the threat information to determine what is applicable to their organization and tailor it to their industry. Risk has a number of factors, not only the impact to organization but also the real probability of the threat," Chenette said. Security teams need to distill down all of that threat intelligence and find what matters in relation to their business because most enterprises aren't regularly testing all of their security tools, "The alerts that matter are being missed," Chenette said. The security industry has long touted defense in depth as the solution to thwarting off attacks, but the reality is that more layers don't prevent attacks, said Chenette. For many enterprises there is a disconnect between the products they are buying and their effectiveness. "Many people are putting firewall, IPS, and antivirus in place thinking that intelligence is actually going to help them," Chenette said. What is more effective is taking that threat intelligence and running attack tests and attack models to identify potential blind spots. "Defenders think in lists but attackers think in graphs," Chenette said. In order to build the best defense in depth strategy, the organization needs to start looking at what’s at risk and what’s at stake and then determine how to create security around those assets. "Hope is not a strategy," said Chenette, so in order for companies to improve their security strategy, they need to realize that technology can fail. "Controls fail over time, and the worst outcome is that there is a breach because they had a control in place that should’ve detected," Chenette said. Stephan Chenette, CEO, AttackIQ It's important to know what security controls are in place, whether the controls are even working, and whether those are the right controls for the realistic threats. With an average of 75 security tools in play, redundancy exists. "Many organizations are hiring security experts to manage redundant products and manage alerts that don’t mean anything. The goal of continuous testing is to find the core amount of security products. To truly have a smart strategy and resilient architecture," Chenette said. Businesses that are trying to solve the hyper-convergence of technical and business problems by purchasing tools to mitigate risk, "are instead ending up with a lack of mitigation and a lot more telling me I have a problem," said Stan Black, CSO, Citrix. Black said, "What we are all talking about now are complex attacks going after this ecosystem of technologies and trying to find the weakest link. " The bad actors know that they can find a weak link, likely long before the enterprise. Once they get in, they progress. "They end up with a multi front attack on the network. Cryptolockers have an inherent immediate need for security teams to focus on thwarting them," said Black. "They launch one of those and in concert launch a secondary attack with other malware that is their primary. They are using the window to come in and probe, send phishing emails, or change binary codes as they learn more about your response to these attacks," he continued. Many of the issues with layered defense appear on different fronts. An IT help desk gets a call, then the security operations team starts seeing red flags on their screens. The events occur on different fronts, and they are not talking to each other. "We need a common set of logs. Each group traditionally has captured their own logs for their unique purposes. We need to be moving toward a common language so that we can have a high fidelity look back to see an increase in persistence and nature. By using the same set of logs we are now able to work in concert and have full clarity of what other teams are seeing," Black said. Black attributed the high number of security tools in an average enterprise security architecture to multiple acquisitions and growth over time. Rarely is the merging of security infrastructures a top priority during an M&A ; thus, larger enterprises end up with a lot of redundancy in security tools. "There are two ways to remove the problem," said Black. "Either find significant overlap between one problem and another--there's likely upwards of 50% overlap--or find which tools provide the highest level of fidelity and actionable information, and then remove or significantly reduce all others over time. " While some products do individually add value to the overall ecosystem, managing all of the security technology has become very complicated, said Geoff Webb, vice president of solutions strategy at Micro Focus. Most enterprises are looking at their many layers of defense in depth and realizing that they have added many different tools to protect against many different types of attacks. "The security team's ability to manage and develop the architecture that is compromised," said Webb, "because it's difficult to understand exactly what’s happening. " Webb said, "It’s important to be realistic about what is possible given the people you have. Also, I recommend that they have a strategy that maximizes the results while minimizing the noise in the way they build their infrastructure. That’s why we are seeing this shift to analytics and machine learning. All of those are the result of the need to find balance in this space of too many things to look at and too little help. " Both Webb and Black recommended that security practitioners shift their thinking in order to build their security strategy in a way that protects from the inside out. "A very successful security team makes it hard to get in but also focuses on quickly getting them out and limiting the damage they can do," said Webb. The physical network still needs defense, so firewalls and switches need to be in place, but many security professionals are exploring behavior analytics and virtualization technologies in order to understand user behavior and have complete visibility into the extended network. "You really have to focus on what is the critical stuff," said Webb. Understanding the key sets of information. The confidential and private information should be the starting point to building a better security strategy. "Look at whether you really need this product that is monitoring this information. Build outwards based on information and people rather than building inwards. Take a hard look at what the problem we are trying to solve is as opposed to putting tools in to prevent what was a previous security risk," said Webb. Webb said he often recalls a quote from Bruce Schneier, who said, "Complexity is the enemy of security. " The more complex the security infrastructure, the harder it is to defend.
2016-03-14 03:16 Kacy Zurkus www.csoonline.com
84 How to catch March Madness without paying for cable TV For millions of sports fans, brackets, not baseball, herald the arrival of spring. With its big upsets, Cinderella stories, and weird mascots , the NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball Championship has transcended sports to become a cultural event. But it’s a bittersweet time for cord cutters. If the logistics of following 68 teams through a month- long tournament aren’t arduous enough, nearly 70 percent of games are televised on cable channels. That includes the championship game, which for the first time in its 78-year history will air on a pay network. This year all 67 games will be broadcast across four networks: CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV. Based on the current schedule, we’ve put together a strategy that will allow you to watch every minute of March Madness live without a cable subscription. The options below will take you although the way through to the title game on April 4. You can catch the 21 games on CBS with only an antenna. The good news is all you need to watch these games is a good antenna. Don’t have one? RCA has teamed with Sling TV on a promotion that gives you 10 days of free Sling TV service when you buy a new antenna. That’s worth considering because… Turner Sports will air 46 games this year: 21 on TBS, 13 on TruTV and 12 on TNT. Most of the action is on the flagship station, including Sweet Sixteen, Elite 8 (which it's splitting over a weekend with CBS), Final Four, and the National Championship. It will also televise select first and second round contests. TruTV and TNT will televise earlier round matchups. Each will also provide “Team Stream” coverage of the Final Four and National Championship. These original telecasts, sponsored by Bleacher Report , are tailored for each of the competing teams, with separate broadcasters, alternate viewing angles, and school specific content. Sling TV’s Best of Live TV package will get you all the Turner Sports broadcasts. Sling TV helped fill in the postseason gaps for cord-cutting NBA fans , and it’s just as essential for college-hoops lovers. As part of the $20-per-month Best of Live TV package, you get TNT and TBS. Sling TV is also throwing in TruTV —normally only available as part of the $5 Lifestyle Extra package—free for the duration of the tournament. If that’s not enough to satisfy your basketball jones, you can add the Sports Extra package for an additional $5 a month and get more college coverage via ESNPU and SEC Network. If a pay-TV subscription makes you squeamish, remember that Sling TV requires no contract so you can easily cancel once the tournament ends. Thanks to the nature of sports broadcasting contracts, streaming options remain slim. There are a couple of ways to for stream tournament games live, though each has its caveats. One is Sony’s PlayStation Vue, which launched a year ago as an alternative to costly cable subscriptions. With its high monthly fee and big bundle of channels, though, it looked a lot like the model it claimed it was combatting. Sony recently cut its prices , however, and the basic $40 monthly package offers 60 channels including CBS, TBS, TNT and TruTV. Still, that’s double the cost of Sling TV. And it’s currently only available in Chicago, Boston, New York, Dallas, Miami, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. We wouldn’t suggest rushing out and subscribing to PlayStation Vue just to watch March Madness, but if you’re already a user you can watch the entire tournament via your Playstation console, Chromecast, Amazon Fire TV, or iPad. NCAA March Madness Live streams all 67 tournament games, but you’ll still need a cable subscription to view most of them. The other option is NCAA March Madness Live. The NCAA is once again offering all 67 games for free through the app. In addition to the game streams, the app offers live scores and stats, an interactive bracket, classic March Madness videos, game notifications, and curated social content. This year the app expands to 12 platforms: desktop, Amazon Fire tablets, Amazon Fire TV, iPhone, iPad, Android handset, Android tablet, Windows handset, Windows desktop, Apple TV, Apple Watch, and Roku players. The claim that you can watch the entire tournament with NCAA March Madness Live is misleading, though. While anyone can view the CBS broadcasts with the app, users require an active cable subscription to log in and watch any of the Turner Sports streams. Still, it’s worth downloading if you don’t want to miss any of the CBS matchups when you’re away from a TV. Watching sports without cable is still more of a challenge than other TV content. But don’t let cutting the cord make you miss the NCAA champs cutting the net. Take advantage of these cable alternatives and you’ll have sideline seat for one the greatest sporting events of the year.
2016-03-14 03:05 Michael Ansaldo www.techhive.com
85 7 VPN services for hotspot protection Virtual private networks (VPNs) have many uses. When connected to a VPN service, the websites you access think you’re at the location where the VPN server is located. This can help anonymize your Internet traffic so it’s much harder for websites to track your personal browsing history. This also allows you to access content that’s restricted where you are currently located, such as Netflix or Hulu when traveling overseas. We evaluated seven third-party VPN services. Here are the individual reviews: On our Android device, we installed the Avast SecureLine app, version 1.0.7704. By default, you only see a status icon for the app on the status bar of Android and on the notification drawer when you’re connected to the service. However, you can optionally enable the icon and notification to be present when disconnected as well. The Android app is also very simple. There’s no shortcut to any help or documentation within the Android app or Windows application, but it really isn’t needed given how simple the apps and service are. Additionally, your Internet traffic would be encrypted when you’re on unsecured Wi-Fi networks, such as public hotspots. This prevents local eavesdroppers from capturing your browsing history and logins. Read the full review. SecureLine is one of the many security solutions provided by Avast, known mostly for their free antivirus. Pricing starts at $7.99 per month for one PC or Mac, $2.59 per month for one Android device, and $2.99 per month for one iOS device. For businesses, it’s $5 per device per month via their managed services solution. We installed the SecureLine Windows application, version 1.0.244. A notification icon in the system tray of Windows lets you know if it’s connected or not. You can right-click the icon to quickly connect or disconnect, or left-click to bring up the application. The app is small and very simple. Freedome VPN is from F-Secure, which provides antivirus and other security solutions. There’s a 14-day free trial. After that pricing starts at $49.99 per year for up to three simultaneous devices. There are additional pricing options that include support for up to five and seven simultaneous devices. Additionally, they offer Freedome in their business solutions, which is manageable via their Protection Service Portal. We evaluated version 1.0.2246.0 of the Freedome Windows application, which includes a notification icon in the system tray of Windows. The main window shows a big circle which tells you the connection status and serves as a connect/disconnect button. On the sides of that, you see the amount of traffic you have sent/received and the number of harmful sites and tracking attempts blocked. Below you see the VPN location, which you can click on to change to one of 21 countries. The Private Search tab explains how to search without websites being able to track you. Tracker Mapper lets you track yourself and build a visualization of what sites or services are trying to track you. HMA is short for Hide My Ass. The service is hosted by Privax. Pricing starts at $11.52 per month, supporting up to two simultaneous devices. We evaluated version 2.8.24 of their Windows application. Its system tray icon in the lower-right of Windows. You can right-click the icon to quickly connect/disconnect and to initiate an IP address change. Double-clicking brings up the application. Upon opening the Windows application, you’ll find a more extensive GUI than the other services we reviewed in order to support all the advanced features and settings. The Dashboard contains the basic connection settings, shortcuts, and stats. The Country Selection tab lets you search through the available VPN locations. The IP Address Settings tab allows you to view your current and past IP addresses and schedule automated IP changes. Then the Secure IP Bind tab allows you to define applications on your computer that you want to prevent from using your regular Internet connection if the VPN is disconnected. The Speed Guide tab provides a utility for speed testing the VPN servers. Hotspot Shield is powered by AnchorFree. They offer a free service with limited features and functionality, and a paid service, called the Elite version. The shortest subscription length for the Elite version is six months for $19.99, equivalent to $3.33 per month, supporting up to 5 devices. Business pricing starts at $19.95 per month or $99.95 per year for up to 20 devices. Although the free version can be useful, it has some limitations. The Elite edition removes ads and enables access to all virtual locations, provides increased speeds, supports unlimited bandwidth usage, gives you additional malware protection, and offers better support. We evaluated version 5.0.2 of the Hotspot Shield Windows application. It includes a notification icon in the system tray of Windows. A normal left click on the icon shows the application. There’s two unique features of the Hotspot Shield service that you actually may never see, but work in the background. The data compression feature helps reduce the amount of real data consumption. The malware protection alerts you of any web pages you visit that are detected as unsafe, along with a screen shot of that particular webpage. NordVPN provides a three-day free trial upon emailing them. Pricing starts at $8 per month, $30 every six months, or $48 per year with a 30-day money back guarantee. We evaluated version 5.53 of the NordVPN Windows application. There’s a notification icon in the system tray of Windows, which is red when not connected and green when connected. However, you can’t right-click the icon to quickly connect or disconnect. You must open the application, select the desired connection protocol (TCP or UDP) and server location, and click Connect. You can configure program and connection properties by clicking the Settings button in the upper-right corner of the application. This includes the ability to set the DNS servers, default connection protocol, proxy server, and auto-connect settings. You can also add programs and processes to the Process Kill List, if you’d like any to automatically close if the VPN connection is lost. When you’re connected to a VPN, the application will display your username, number of devices currently logged on, expiration date of your subscription, and VPN server info along with your current IP. StrongVPN is offered via a unique licensing and pricing scheme, which may be okay with those who know exactly what they want, but could certainly be confusing to the more average users. We evaluated version 1.5.1 of the StrongVPN Windows client. The notification icon in the system tray of Windows is red when not connected and green when connected. You can right- click the icon to quickly connect or disconnect, or to access the properties or advanced settings. After opening the application and signing in, you’ll find a relatively small window where you can choose the server location and connection method: UDP, TCP, or proxy. You can click the Change Location button to access a wizard to help find the fastest servers, and if you’ve chosen a subscription that supports both OpenVPN or PPTP, you can find a server that supports the protocol you prefer. From the main window, you can click the Advanced button to access advanced stats, settings, and properties. StrongVPN provides a web portal that’s more functional than most other VPN providers. In addition to accessing help tickets and billing information, you can view and change your server details. This includes your desired server location, ports, and credentials. SurfEasy offers a limited free edition or a full-featured seven-day free trial. Pricing starts at $2.99 per month for one mobile device or $4.99 per month for up to five computers or mobile devices. We evaluated version 3.4.470 of the SurfEasy Windows client. After opening the application and signing in, you find the client is fairly small and simple. In the upper-right corner of the window are two drop-down menus. The globe icon lets you select the server location country and then it will automatically choose the exact server location in that country. The gear icon drops down the same tool menu as when right-clicking the system tray icon. There’s also tabs that show your current VPN server location when connected along with your public IP and status of ad tracker blocking. There are also help shortcuts you can utilize when troubleshooting. One shortcut leads to the support section of their website, which has a FAQ look and feel. Though there’s step-by-step guides on using their clients, we didn’t find full documentation listing and describing all the client features and settings.
2016-03-14 03:00 Eric Geier www.networkworld.com
86 10 surprisingly practical Raspberry Pi projects anybody can do Most of the Raspberry Pi coverage you’ll see around the web focuses on the more fantastical projects —magic mirrors, portable gaming handhelds, intelligent drones, and so forth. And for good reason! Those maker masterpieces show what sort of power the $35 mini-PC is capable of in the hands of someone with a little imagination and a bin full of spare electronics. But most people won’t use the Raspberry Pi to whip together crazy creations. In honor of Pi Day and the recent releases of the supercharged Raspberry Pi 3 and dirt-cheap Raspberry Pi Zero , we’re digging into the more practical projects possible with the Raspberry Pi, from media streaming to extending the range of your Wi-Fi network. It’s time to put that $35 computer to real work. The original $35 Raspberry Pi may have been revolutionary to makers, but it took off with PC enthusiasts as well thanks to its ability to double as a dirt-cheap home theater PC. That allure may have waned a bit in recent years as dedicated devices like the Chromecast hit the streets at similarly low prices, but using a Raspberry Pi as a media streaming box still offers far more power than those streaming-centric sticks, especially if you have a sizeable local media collection. There are a slew of HTPC-centric Raspberry Pi operating systems out there, each revolving around slapping your HD videos on the big screen. OSMC and OpenElec are two such choices built around the popular Kodi media center software (formerly XBMC), while RasPlex transforms your Pi into the ultimate Plex streaming box. Likewise, if you have a dumb TV that you’d like to add web browsing and other basic computing abilities to, the Raspberry Pi does the trick without costing anywhere near as much as a Chromebit or Windows-powered Compute Stick. You’ll want to use a Raspberry Pi 2 or 3, though—the original Pi and the Raspberry Pi Zero are just pokey enough to be frustrating for general tasks. Bonus: If you’re connecting the Raspberry Pi to your TV, you can use it to stream web videos, too! You can also have your Raspberry Pi play wingman for the other devices in your house, serving as a centralized device that performs helpful tasks. Case in point: You can use the mini-PC as a Time Machine capsule for Macs or a cheap NAS box for general file storage if you connect an external USB hard drive to the machine. Hit those links for technical details, and one tip if you’re planning to convert the computer to a file server: Use a wired ethernet connection rather than Wi-Fi if you’re able. Printing isn’t as prevalent as it used to be, but the Raspberry Pi can help you transform that chunky old USB printer in your closet into a networked printer that every device in your house can use. You’ll need a power source for each gadget, obviously, as well as a USB connection between the devices, but setting it up is pretty straightforward. This MakeUseOf tutorial walks you through the process step-by-step. Raspberry Pi doesn’t make the home networks you use, but it can make the home networks you use better if you configure the mini-PC as a wireless range extender. Doing so can help your Wi- Fi signal reach the farthest corners of your house and help wipe out dead zones. Configuring the device to bolster your home network will take a bit of time, and you’ll need to buy a USB Wi-Fi adapter to do it, but again, it’s relatively straightforward with a guide. Pi-Point is a go-to resource for transforming your Pi into a wireless access point, but you may find Adafruit’s tutorial more reader-friendly. Gaming emulators are a legal gray area, but there’s no doubt that using the Raspberry Pi as a butt-kicking console emulator is a popular use for the machines. It can play games from a wide variety of consoles right on up to the PlayStation 1 era if you manage to snag some legal game ROMs, though the older the system being emulated, the better the performance. Curious? Check out Lifehacker’s detailed guide to turning your Raspberry Pi into a retro gaming console for the full scoop. The Raspberry Pi’s media chops aren’t limited to video streaming alone. Numerous operating systems have also been released that transform the device into a high-fidelity music player when connected to a speaker, sort of like a more powerful, flexible version of Chromecast Audio. The various music-oriented OSes available offer different features; poke around the FAQs and features of each to see which is right for your needs. Here are tutorials on how to have your Raspberry Pi turn dumb speakers into smart music solutions with Volumio and Rune Audio (pictured), both of which offer mobile apps so you can control your tunes with your phone. You could always use the Raspberry Pi as it was originally intended, too: As a low-cost way introduction to programming and computer science. The mini-PC’s loaded with all sorts of software encouraging deep-level tinkering. Beyond the command-line terminal you’ll need to wade in often, you’ll also find versions of Wolfram Mathematica, Python program creation tools, and Scratch, an animation coding IDE for kids, in the Raspbian operating system that the Raspberry Pi Foundation encourages new users to install. Get smart! Or you could play Minecraft. There’s a free Raspberry Pi version of Minecraft that anybody can download at no cost. Even better, it’s designed to teach you how to use the Python programming language as you build out the world. (Hey, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella did say that part of the reason the company purchased Mojang was to lure kids into computer science .) Download Minecraft: Pi Edition and jump in with this helpful tutorial . Let’s finish where we began. Once you’ve wrapped your head around the Raspberry Pi’s potential, why not try your hand at one of those awe-inspiring inventive projects? PCWorld’s look at 10 insanely innovative, incredibly cool Raspberry Pi creations can help with the inspiration, while the project guides at Instructables , Hackaday , and the Raspberry Pi Foundation website itself are ready to walk you step-by-step through the really awesome stuff like the magic mirror above.
2016-03-14 03:00 Brad Chacos www.pcworld.com
87 Microsoft's Visual Studio 2005 support ends in April Beginning next month, Microsoft will end support for its Visual Studio 2005 software development platform, which was released more than 10 years ago. Microsoft's Eric Zajac, senior program manager for Visual Studio, stated on Friday that it's time to "say good-bye" to the platform. "In line with our support policy , starting April 12, 2016, Microsoft will no longer provide security updates, technical support, or hotfixes, for all Visual Studio 2005 products and the redistributable components and runtimes included with them," he said. The announcement affects products in the Visual Studio 2005 line ranging from Standard Edition to Professional Edition; Team Suite; and Express Editions for Visual Basic, Visual C++, and Visual C#. The company also will cease supporting. Net Framework 2.0 under certain configurations on April 16. (In some cases, Microsoft will continue supporting version 2.0 when. Net Framework 3.5 relies on it to operate.) Support ends for the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server application lifecycle management server on July 16. Microsoft's plan of record has been to cease Visual Studio 2005 support next month, Directions on Microsoft analyst Rob Sanfilippo said. "This should come as no surprise to teams, and plans should have been in place for upgrading," he noted. "Development technologies have changed dramatically since VS 2005 was released and five major versions of the IDE have been released since that version, so the end of the official support lifecycle should not have a major impact. " Microsoft could not provide numbers on how many developers were still using Visual Studio 2005. Unsurprisingly, Zajac advises developers to upgrade to the latest versions of Visual Studio. "A lot has happened in software development since 2005 -- we're looking at you, C++ 11, TypeScript,. Net 4.6, Cordova, Roslyn, and UWP (Universal Windows Platform)," Zajac said. Visual Studio 2015 was released in July 2015 , and this week, Microsoft updated its Visual Studio Tools for Apache Cordova package .
2016-03-14 03:00 Paul Krill www.infoworld.com
88 Really hoping he teaches bio, not chem or physics Tech pilot fish for a local high school gets a trouble ticket about a teacher's laptop that isn't working correctly -- every time the teacher unplugs the AC power supply, the laptop dies. "We've gotten a few laptops in the recent past that had bad batteries from the manufacturer, so I figure that's the problem again," says fish. "With a replacement battery in hand, I head to the teacher's office, where I find him online with the laptop, without the AC power supply plugged in. "I ask politely, 'So the laptop seems to be working fine now?' "'Well, not really,' the teacher says. 'The laptop will still die after a few hours if I don't plug it in again.' "And this is one of the science teachers, too... "
2016-03-14 03:00 Sharky www.computerworld.com
89 Goodbye, America. I'm becoming a nomad (again)! I've been trying to escape the surly bonds of sedentary living for a decade. Mobile devices and the Internet enable us to live and work just about anywhere. I've been trying to realize that possibility for ten years, with mixed success. I started gradually. In the summer of 2006, my wife and kids had the summer off, but I didn't. It occurred to me that as a writer who worked from home, I could theoretically work from any location where an Internet connection could be found. So what if I took a trip, but worked the whole time? Long story short: It worked. We visited Central America and Southern Mexico exploring Mayan ruins. I managed to find Wi-Fi almost everywhere, even then. I did research, joined conference calls, held vendor meetings and wrote and submitted my columns. After that incredible experience, I realized that I could live abroad full time while continuing to work as if I were still in Silicon Valley. So my wife and I "downsized" into a much smaller house. And then we moved temporarily to Greece. The standard label for a location-independent, live-anywhere online worker is "digital nomad. " I don't like the phrase "digital nomad" because nomads are no more digital than anyone else. Using the Internet to work remotely is no longer rare or exotic. I'm no more "digital" than anyone else. So I prefer simply "nomad. " After several months living in Greece, our nomad lifestyle was ruined when my wife got an unfortunately great offer working at AT&T in Silicon Valley. So she re-entered the rat race, complete with a daily commute, cubicle and all the rest. But after three and a half years, she couldn't stand it anymore. So she quit, and we went nomadic again. But this time, we went all the way. We got rid of half our stuff and stored the rest. Then we left the country without a home to come back to. We started in Greece again, but also lived in Spain, Italy, Kenya, Turkey and Morocco. I had no intention of ever giving up our nomadic lifestyle. But it happened again: More than two years ago, I got an offer I couldn't refuse, anchoring the daily Tech News Today podcast for TWiT. The show was recorded in-studio, so I had to stay put while doing it. That was a great experience, but it kept us from living abroad. I left the show in December. And now I'm going nomad once again! Over the past couple of months, my wife and I re-arranged our lives, packed all our belongings into storage and tomorrow, we're leaving the United States to live around the world! I want you to join me. But before I make that pitch, first let me clarify what living nomadically is really all about. It's not "travel" per se, and it's definitely not a vacation. Our standard policy is to choose a specific city or town and live there for two or three months. We often use AirBnB to book the accommodations. (AirBnB is now operating in 190 countries.) We look for the fastest Internet connection we can find, plus we try to live within walking distance of the city's best food markets. Once we arrive, we live like "temporary locals. " We shop at the store, cook our own meals, do dishes and laundry and all the other things people do. We even get a local gym membership, when possible. We get to know the neighbors and the people who work at the markets and shops. People who imagine nomadic living is an endless vacation will be disappointed to learn that I spend most of my time working, typically putting in more than 60 hours a week. As nomads, we do experience the local culture while on breaks from work, or in the evening or days off. Over the period of, say, three months, we squeeze in the amount of sightseeing that a tourist might do in a week or two. But nomads enjoy something that tourists do not -- we truly understand what it's like to live in a place, and to sometimes make lifelong friends all over the world. Why now is the best time ever to go nomad I first wrote about the digital nomad lifestyle exactly 9 years ago this week. I also started a weekly digital nomad blog on the Computerworld.com site called, " The World Is My Office. " I tried in this space to define what a "digital nomad" is. I also tried to puncture the insipid fluff and hype around nomad lifestyles promulgated by almost all the digital nomad blogs by telling it like it is. (Most digital nomad blogs portray the lifestyle as blogging on deserted beach in Thailand, which it is not.) When I wrote about the nomad lifestyle in the past, it was an obscure, exotic and seemingly unlikely way to live. But in the past two years, the "digital nomad" phrase and idea has become - - dare I say it? -- mainstream! No, most people still aren't living nomadically. But the movement has grown, and cultural awareness about it has taken off. And why not? After the great recession, changes in workplace norms, the increasing digitization of communication and work and other trends, it makes sense to work remotely -- the remoter, the better. When you can work from home, you can work from Rome, as the author demonstrates here. My favorite slogan for nomadism is: "If you can work from home, you can work from Rome. " And telecommuting and remote work are very much on the rise. Some 37% of US workers have now telecommuted, according to a Gallup poll. Some have even predicted that half the workforce will telecommute full time within four years. And the nomad products! It's an increasingly growing industry with countless books and blogs. But now there's a digital nomad cruise , a digital nomad documentary , a digital nomad magazine and a digital nomad dating service. National Geographic even hired a professional digital nomad. More importantly, the world has changed in the nomads' favor. A new category of travel service has emerged for all-inclusive digital nomad situations. By paying a set fee, these companies will provide a room, co-working space, airline tickets, travel insurance and more in several countries in a row. All the users live together, so everyone in the living and working spaces is also a digital nomad. The companies I know of that provide these package deals include The Remote Experience , DNX Camp , Caravanserai (now called Roam.co), Terminal 3 , Remote Year and Roam . Google last week unveiled a handy feature on Google Flights called "Interests. " You tell Google what kinds of things you like to do, and they'll tell you where to go. A site called Nomad List lets you click on your criteria for living (clean air, female-friendly, etc.), and then it will list recommended cities, complete with cost of living, weather and other information. Anyone who wants even more help can turn to Teleport , a service that walks you through the planning and execution of your nomad dream. Everyone's heard of AirBnB, which enables you to rent rooms, apartments and homes. And many know about HotelTonight, which is about last-minute booking. A new site called Overnight combines the two concepts, enabling you to book last-minute AirBnB type accommodations. You'll really appreciate this one when you find yourself on some far-flung island without a reservation. I'm even seeing nomad-friendly financial services. One startup called Revolut gives you an internationally accepted credit card, plus an app that lets you transfer money. In short, it's a wonderful time to join the nomad movement, live abroad and experience what it's like to live as a citizen of the world. At first, the mere existence of laptops and the ubiquity of Wi-Fi hotspots made nomadic living possible. Now, a universe of on-demand and sharing-economy services has made it almost easy. By the way, If you want to follow my adventures around the world -- you can do it on my shiny new site, " Becoming Nomad. " On that site, I'll share my photos, stories and the products and services I use to make it all happen. If you've ever entertained the dream of living abroad as a nomad, my advice is: Just do it. All you really need is a good laptop, a little courage and an overpowering wanderlust.
2016-03-14 03:00 Mike Elgan www.computerworld.com
90 Microsoft upgraded users to Windows 10 without their OK Although I've seen sporadic reports of forced Windows 10 upgrades appearing out of the blue for several weeks now, the complaints really started piling up Friday evening. More and more Windows 7 and 8.1 customers are complaining that Microsoft upgraded their computers to Windows 10 -- and they didn't do anything to bring it on. For some people, that's a nuisance. For others, it's considerably more than a Microsoft "accident" like the kind we saw last October. Skimming lightly through the Reddit deluge , I found comments like these: Those are just the more printable versions. It's easy to dismiss claims like this as the result of newbies playing where they shouldn't be, or occurrences brought on by mishandling of Microsoft's precious settings. That's balderdash. Nothing could be further from the truth. I myself was bitten on Saturday morning -- and what I discovered has me spitting nails. Here's what I know for sure. A couple of weeks ago, I built a test Windows 7 Pro virtual machine using Hyper-V in Win10. I brought it from SP1 through all of the updates (a long process), not checking or unchecking any options. It's a clean machine, with all the defaults. Windows Automatic Update, for example, is set to Install Updates Automatically (Recommended). Recommended updates is set to Give Me Recommended Updates the Same Way I Receive Important Updates. Friday night, I cranked the PC up and saw the GWX icon -- the one that says Get Windows 10 when you hover over it -- in the system tray. It's an old sore point. I've been writing about the GWX icon for a year now, ever since Microsoft surreptitiously released the KB 305583 "Get Windows 10" patch last April. Windows 10 upgrade checked and ready to run. Looking at Windows Update (Start > Control Panel > System and Settings > Windows Update > Check for Updates), I saw that the Upgrade to Windows 10 Pro, Version 1511, 10586 box was checked (see screenshot). It's in the Optional category, and it isn't italicized -- which normally means it isn't a recommended patch. Of course, this is a Win7 Pro test PC. The last thing I want to do is change it to Windows 10.1 (er, Windows 10 Version 1511, Build 10586). So I unchecked the box, signifying that I didn't want to install the upgrade. I left the PC running overnight. Windows 10 upgrade failed. On Saturday morning, I woke up to a notice that Windows 10 couldn't be installed (see screenshot), failing with an error 80007000E-2000C. Of course, I hit the roof. I hadn't given Microsoft permission to install Windows 10. I'd even gone so far as to uncheck the update. Usually error 80007000E means one of the installation files is scrambled. Sure enough, the C:\Windows\SoftwareDistribution folder has 1.7GB in it. When I ran Check for Updates, the old Upgrade to Windows 10 Pro, Version 1511, 10586 is listed, and its box is checked. Windows Update now tells me "Upgrade to Windows 10 / Start installing the newest version of Windows now. " The only button on the dialog is Get Started. If this were a real, working machine, I would've run GWX Control Panel long ago to keep the Win10 crap off my PC. But it's a test PC, and I don't want to flip those bits. I even left Automatic Update set to its default -- something I never do in the real world. I then unchecked the Upgrade to Windows 10 Pro, Version 1511, 10586 box again. A couple of hours later, I checked the Optional updates and, sure enough, Upgrade to Windows 10 Pro, Version 1511, 10586 was checked again. After experimenting a bit, it became apparent that Windows Update itself checks that box every time it's run, whether Give Me Recommended Updates the Same Way I Receive Important Updates is selected or not. I don't recall ever seeing Windows Update act that way, and I've been watching Windows Update for a long, long time. Go ahead. Make my day. So, I unchecked the upgrade line one more time, and left it alone overnight on Saturday. When I got back to the PC on Sunday morning, the Upgrade to Windows 10 Pro, Version 1511, 10586 was checked, but Windows Update hadn't tried to run the upgrade. Instead, it sported that cheerful “Upgrade to Windows 10” invitation (see screenshot) that you've no doubt encountered. The Upgrade to Windows 10 Pro, Version 1511, 10586 entry is still in the Optional list, and it's checked once again. My guess -- and it's only a guess -- is that Microsoft had a change of heart on Saturday and stopped forcing Windows 10 down the throat of every Win7/8.1 customer with Automatic Update turned on. I say that because the descriptions of forced upgrades on the Web vary all over the place. Some people say they were never asked for permission (as was the case for me on Friday night). Others say a EULA appeared with no explanation. Still others say they were given a variable amount of time -- ten minutes, one hour -- to respond, or their PCs would automatically get the Windows 10 payload. I say it's only a guess because Microsoft doesn't document any of this stuff. The only documentation I've found is Mary Jo Foley's post on ZDnet from Friday, “How existing Windows users can refuse Microsoft's Windows 10 update.” My experience, and the experiences of many on the Web, vary greatly from Foley's claims. I never made a reservation for Windows 10. I wasn't "clearly prompted" before Win10 started its installation. I wasn't offered, and certainly didn't accept, a Windows 10 EULA. I received no notification that my PC is scheduled to be updated -- not three or four days prior to the dirty deed, and not prior to the installation proceeding. I wasn't offered a chance to reschedule or cancel. It must be emphasized that Foley uses both Win10 and Win7 -- and she doesn't intend to change OSes on the Win7 PC until it keels over. She's not at fault. Microsoft's not even communicating with one of its best-known allies. Combined warning and EULA. I tried the experiment again on Sunday, this time running the update manually. Windows took a long time to download the bits, and I was then offered the “Great, we'll get the upgrade started” dialog you see in the screenshot. I was subsequently offered to set a time for the download. The sequence on Sunday is very, very different from the sequence I experienced on Friday night (where no input was required), and also very different from many descriptions on the Internet. I can only surmise that things hit the fan in Redmond, and damage control was in full force by Sunday. It appears as if corporate users behind Windows Update servers were spared the indignity -- although many admins set their update servers to pass through recommended updates, and it looks like this was passed on to some domain-joined PCs as if it were a recommended update. There's no KB number associated with Upgrade to Windows 10 Pro, Version 1511, 10586, thus no documentation, no way to hide it, and no definitive indication to users that it's a recommended update, although anecdotally it behaves that way. Microsoft warned in early February that it would start dishing out Windows 10 as a recommended update , but nobody signed on for this kind of abuse. And we still haven't seen the "hell no" switch that Windows chief Terry Myerson promised back in October: "You can specify that you no longer want to receive notifications of the Windows 10 upgrade through the Windows 7 or Windows 8.1 settings pages," he said then. Perhaps Microsoft forgot. It remains to be seen what the real rules of engagement might be. Microsoft hasn't documented anything, as is its wont. We don't even know if the EULA should appear at the beginning or the end of the installation sequence -- a big consideration for those who don't want to download 3GB of useless data. I have detailed information about recovering from a forced Windows 10 update in a companion post. If you got bit, head over there for a cure. If you haven't been bit yet, make sure you run GWX Control Panel , then turn Automatic Update to Check for Updates but Let Me Choose Whether to Download and Install Them.
2016-03-14 03:00 Woody Leonhard www.infoworld.com
91 Fight, Apple, fight: Don’t let the feds kill our security The last few turns in the Apple/FBI fiasco have been illuminating and highly disturbing -- it’s becoming a war. Late last week, the Department of Justice filed a motion against Apple that included this incendiary tidbit: “Apple’s rhetoric is not only false, but also corrosive of the very institutions that are best able to safeguard our liberty and our rights.” Apple’s public response called out the DOJ on a number of issues, not the least of which was in reference to that charge: “Everyone should beware, because it seems like disagreeing with the Department of Justice means you must be evil and anti-American. Nothing could be further from the truth.” Among all of the attacks on data privacy in the past few years, this case stands to be the most important. It will go a long way toward determining digital privacy rights for the foreseeable future. This is not a case about a single phone or a terrorist or a technology company. This is a case that will likely set a precedent for whether tech firms will be required to provide backdoor access to their products. To be clear -- this backdoor is not to provide access to the data present on one of Apple’s products when asked, or with a warrant, but instead to ensure that all of its products can be accessed if needed. As much as the DOJ denies it, this will require building a master key. And that isn’t good for anyone. I find it’s difficult to relay the gravity of this situation to nontechies. If viewed solely through the prism of the San Bernardino tragedy, it might seem that Apple is being obstinate. However, if viewed as it really is -- that the DOJ is asking Apple to do something that would jeopardize the privacy of everyone using its technology -- it’s a different matter altogether. The problem comes down to this: A master key, or global method of accessing a protected, encrypted device, is absolutely indistinguishable from a critical vulnerability. It’s an exploit. Technologically, it’s no different than a buffer overflow bug that allows remote root access. To ask a technology company to build a vulnerability into its products is insanity. It’s also a massive liability. Interestingly, the former director of the CIA agrees. We have seen what happens when sensitive personal data from phones is released following a successful exploit. In August 2014, hundreds of extremely personal and compromising pictures of celebrities were accessed and released on the Internet. Other personal data were accessible as well. Celebrities were targeted, but anyone using iCloud was exposed. That exploit was possible due to a bug in the iCloud API that allowed for unlimited brute-force password attempts. The ability to perform such brute-force attacks is precisely what the DOJ is demanding -- specifically, that Apple remove the function that destroys the data on an iPhone if more than 10 failed attempts have been made. Call it a bug or a feature, it’s the same exploit. Now the DOJ wants Apple and other companies to willingly implement it in their products. As with all the talk about backdoors in encryption standards, master keys, and the like, this is anathema. We work extremely hard to prevent such problems. Mandating their existence is lunacy. It's in the best interests of us all that Apple -- and every technology company -- keep the data that its customers store on its products private and secure. These companies shouldn't want or need to have any sort of access to that data. We salt and one-way encrypt passwords and financial data for the same reasons. This is basic data security and privacy protection. This is what keeps the wolves at bay.
2016-03-14 03:00 Paul Venezia www.infoworld.com
92 4 reasons not to pay up in a ransomware attack When a demand for your money or your data pops up on a critical system, you have only a short period of time to decide whether to respond to a ransomware attack. Online extortion is on the increase, as criminals use a variety of attack vectors, including exploit kits, malicious files, and links in spam messages, to infect systems with ransomware. Once all the files have been encrypted, victims can either try to recover the files on their own or pay the ransom. While there have been some exceptions, victims are seldom able to break the encryption and restore access. More often, successful circumvention of a ransomware attack involves wiping the affected systems and promptly restoring everything from clean backups. As they saying goes: Do not feed the trolls -- otherwise, they'll keep making provocative statements to get a reaction. Ransomware is a little like that; paying ransom simply encourages the attackers. Criminals talk; they will tell others who paid the ransom and who didn’t. Once a victim is identified for paying up, there's nothing stopping others from jockeying for a piece of the ransom pie. Another danger looms: The same attackers can come back. Since you paid once, why not again? Relying on a criminals to keep their word is a risky endeavor. It seems like a simple exchange -- money for a decryption key -- but there's no way to tell the ransomware gang can be trusted to hold up their half of the bargain. Many victims have paid the ransom and failed to regain access to files. This cuts both ways: Why pay up if you don't expect to get your data back? Reputation matters, even in the criminal world. The CryptoWall gang is well known for its excellent customer service, such as giving victims deadline extensions to gather the ransom, providing information on how to obtain bitcoins (the preferred method of payment), and promptly decrypting the files upon payment. Other malware families, such as TeslaCrypt, Reveton, and CTB-Locker, have less reliable reputations. Which can really be trusted? Paying to find out is not the best strategy. Extortionists typically don't ask for exorbitant amounts; the average ransom ranges between $300 to $1,000. But as more organizations succumb, criminals feel increasingly confident enough to raise prices. It’s hard to put a market price on data if the victims really, really need to get their files back. Consider that Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center paid $17,000 to restore access to its electronic medical records system. That's a pittance compared to potentially $533,911 in lost revenue while the hospital's IT department tried to reclaim the data and patients went to different hospitals, based on rough calculations by Andrew Hay, the CISO of DataGravity. Maybe it's $17,000 now, but the gang might easily demand $50,000 next week, and so on. It’s simple economics. The seller sets prices based on what the buyer is willing to pay. If victims refuse to pay, attackers have no rationale to raise the ransom amounts. Take the long-term view. Paying ransom restores the data for the organization, but that money will undoubtedly fund additional criminal activity. Attackers have more money to spend on developing more advanced versions of ransomware and more sophisticated delivery mechanisms. Many cyber crime gangs operate like legitimate companies, with multiple revenue streams and different product lines. The money from ransomware schemes can be used to fund other attack campaigns. "There is always a liability piece to what the money is funding," said William Noonan, deputy special agent of Cyber Operations for the U. S. Secret Service, speaking at a Verizon RISK Team event during the RSA Conference in San Francisco. Paying the ransom feeds the problem. Each of the above arguments are perfectly valid. But there’s a compelling reason why many wind up paying: They need their files back. They don’t have a choice. When ransomware hits all the case files at a police department, there's no time to wait for someone to try to break the encryption and recover the files. When active investigations are pending, restoring from backups may take too long. Set aside the should-haves and could- haves -- if the organization did not have a sufficiently robust backup strategy in place to restore the files (or the backups got corrupted, too), preaching about the importance of prevention is extremely unhelpful. Many victims may also decide to pay out of fear that if they don’t, the attacker will cause more damage in retaliation. Organizations who opt to pay are not alone. In a recent BitDefender study , half of the ransomware victims said they paid, and two-fifths of the respondents said they would pay if they were ever in that situation. Industry estimates suggest the CryptoWall gang has extorted victims out of more than $325 million since June 2014. It can’t be stressed enough that persistent backups make it possible for organizations to recover from a ransomware infection without having to pay the criminals. A good backup strategy includes Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. This is not a Windows-only problem, as ransomware has been found for all three operating systems. Mobile devices aren't immune, either. Think holistically across all platforms. Not paying ransom is the better decision, but organizations should not be shamed of giving in to attackers’ demands. It’s a complicated question, and each organization should make the call most appropriate for its situation. But once paid, take precautions so that if another ransomware infection strikes, not paying at all becomes an easier choice to make. Prevention pays off.
2016-03-14 03:00 Fahmida Y. www.infoworld.com
93 The top 14 new open source projects Welcome to the eighth edition of the Black Duck Open Source Rookies of the Year awards. Each year, Black Duck reviews the world of open source and recognizes the best new projects launched during the past year -- and since 2014, we've published the results on InfoWorld. Most of the top projects in this year's Rookies are sponsored and contributed to by for-profit companies. Some projects are adjuncts to their sponsors' core products or offshoots of internal development initiatives, while others drive development of the core products themselves. Generally, the award winners reflect three industry trends: Voyage of the Docker container ship: Docker, a previous Open Source Rookies of the Year selection , has established containers and devops as heirs apparent to server virtualization. The Docker ecosystem continues to expand, with several projects, including ones sponsored by Red Hat and Capital One. The rise of open collaboration: The success of Facebook messaging and Skype for personal use fuels demand for similar solutions in the office, with real-time tools like Slack and GoToMeeting gaining broad adoption. Those proprietary solutions face competition from open source alternatives, which promise all the same features of the originals without the lock-in. The renaissance of artificial intelligence: We may be a long way away from truly sentient machines, but deep learning techniques are enabling computers to teach themselves by using multiple processing layers to model the neural network of a human brain. Rocket. Chat is an open source Web chat platform built for communities and companies that want to host their own chat service. The Rocket. Chat team has taken a modular “package” approach, enabling Rocket. Chat to offer an impressive array of features aimed at making real time communications work -- from simple messaging and emoji support to face-to-face videoconferencing, multiuser audio conferences, screen sharing, and more. Rocket. Chat provides native desktop applications for OS X, Windows, and Linux, with mobile apps for iOS and Android. It even has a native Firefox OS application for both desktop and mobile. And because it’s open source, Rocket. Chat is a great option for developers looking to build and evolve their own chat platform. Another open source alternative to Slack is Mattermost , whose story begins with the company’s origins as an HTML5 game developer. Initially built as a games portal and messaging app to reach gamers outside Facebook, Mattermost was recast as a collaboration solution when the company tried to change its internal messaging service, only to find its archives “held for ransom” by the provider. The result is an open source, on-premises Slack alternative written in Go and React. Mattermost consolidates all team communication into one place through an intuitive interface that's searchable and accessible anywhere. Users share messages and files across phones and PCs, keeping vital communications within the safety of a private IT infrastructure. Mattermost interfaces are Slack-compatible and provide access to third-party software created for Slack. The company offers two versions, one designed to support teams of one to 50, and another for organizations with hundreds or thousands of users. Videoconferencing solutions like WebEx and GoToMeeting have become standard tools in many office environments. These solutions have historically relied on proprietary desktop applications, but new Web browser capabilities are changing that. Enter Hubl.in , a free and open source video conferencing solution from the open source software company Linagora, makers of the OpenPaaS collaboration platform. Hubl.in takes real-time communication to the next level by enabling free browser-based video conferencing without requiring a plug-in. The OpenPaaS team boasts, “if you can read this page, you can probably use Hubl.in right now.” Hubl.in is based on WebRTC, which enables decentralized communication between browsers. This means your videoconference is not streamed to Hubl.in in any way, increasing security and providing an additional layer of privacy. Deep learning techniques aim to teach computers to teach themselves by using multiple processing layers to model the neural network of a human brain, then feeding the network with large quantities data to learn from. MXNet is a lightweight deep learning library created by DMLC, the people behind CXXNet, Minerva, and Purine2. It applies lessons learned from those projects to mix symbolic and imperative programming. At its core, MXNet uses a dynamic dependency scheduler that automatically parallelizes both symbolic and imperative operations on the fly. A graph optimization layer built on top makes MXNet both fast and memory-efficient. The library is portable and lightweight, and it readily scales to multiple GPUs and machines; it can even run such tasks as image recognition on a smartphone. The DMLC group is dedicated to making large-scale, open source machine learning widely available. To that end, MXNet also contains a collection of blueprints and guidelines for building deep learning systems. Enterprises of all sizes know they need to develop software quickly and efficiently to stay competitive. Google is very good at this, so to spread the wealth, it has released Bazel , a subset of its internal software build system. Bazel aims to accelerate the build process and increase reliability through a shared code repository in which all software is built from source. It automates testing and releases, using both parallelism and caching to speed processing, and is particularly suited for projects with large codebases, multiple languages, multiple platforms, and extensive testing. Bazel’s core features have undergone thorough testing in the demanding work environment at Google. Its current iteration supports Linux and OS X, but not Windows. Developers of mobile apps face a difficult decision: Should they build using native tools for Android, iOS, and the rest, or opt for a cross-platform solution? On the one hand, native apps are faster and offer a better user experience. But developing native apps means writing the same app at least twice in very different languages and frameworks. Cross-platform tools, typically for JavaScript coders, enable apps to be written only once, but those apps often perform poorly and serve up substandard user interfaces. React Native , an open source project sponsored by Facebook, lets you have it both ways. A framework for building native applications using the React JavaScript library, React Native enables application logic to run in JavaScript, but keeps the user interface fully native across both iOS and Android. For developers, React Native represents a paradigm shift in how to approach mobile app development: “Learn once, write anywhere.” Docker containers are revolutionizing the way devops teams package and deploy applications, but many organizations still struggle to orchestrate container management at scale. Enter Kontena , an open source container management solution “built to maximize developer happiness.” Kontena features a host of proven technologies and features for accelerating container development and breaking barriers to successful deployment: multihost, multi-AZ container orchestration, Weave overlay network technology, VPN access to backend containers, and an intuitive application deployment workflow. Kontena offers everything a company needs to develop, deploy, and monitor containerized systems. It can be installed into any cloud infrastructure, is fully open source, and will soon expand beyond Docker to support Windows containers, CoreOS rkt, and other container technologies. Docker’s Open Container Initiative may have streamlined application packaging, but it can still be difficult to manage asset dependencies and relationships through every instance of a multicontainer application. Nulecule is a specification for packaging complex multicontainer applications while ensuring smooth deployment across all instances. Sponsored by Red Hat, Nulecule offers a holistic system for managing the description and transportation of asset relationships. Most container orchestration systems treat multicontainer applications as individual components rather than as a larger entity. This approach limits flexibility and portability for the whole application. By contrast, Nulecule’s composite container-based application specification creates a standardized way to describe and package multicontainer applications while including all dependency references and orchestration metadata within each container image. The devops workflow is often cluttered with tricky, complicated compliance protocols that slow development and frustrate software engineers. InSpec eases the path to release by automating the compliance testing process to make compliance an integral part of the development lifecycle. An open source framework for specifying compliance, security, and policy requirements, InSpec offers a host of sophisticated features, including tests specifically targeted to compliance issues, metadata tags for prioritizing controls, and a command-line interface to run tests quickly and efficiently. Users write controls with InSpec’s specially designed, human- and machine- readable language. InSpec then flags any security, compliance, or policy issues it detects according to those inputs. And because the inspection framework runs locally on the node being inspected, InSpec can examine any node in an infrastructure system. The tech giants aren't alone in investing in open source. This year Capital One went searching for a devops dashboard, but found both commercial and open source solutions lacking. So the company built its own: Hygieia , an enterprise devops dashboard released last year as an open source project on GitHub. Capital One uses Hygieia during software development to give teams and leaders a simple, accessible snapshot view of the whole devops process. Rather than covering only a portion of the development process, as most conventional dashboards do, Hygieia offers a comprehensive overview via two view methods: widget view and pipeline view. Widget view reveals more detailed information: features in the current sprint, code contribution activities, continuous integration activities, code analysis, security analysis, unit and functional test results, and deployment and environment status. The pipeline view pulls back to show each component’s lifecycle progression through development, testing, and deployment stages. When open source contributor Benjamin Kerensa was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes in May 2015, he realized no open source tools existed to track glucose levels or other metrics for people like him. That September, Kerensa and a small team of developers released Glucosio, the first open source diabetes monitoring application. Glucosio users enter and track blood glucose levels and get helpful tips through an in-app assistant that prompts users to stay hydrated or check their blood sugar. Users can even contribute to diabetes research by opting to submit anonymous demographic or personal glucose trend information. Kerensa and the Glucosio team are dedicated to providing free, user- centered apps for diabetes management and research. Glucosio is currently available in 20 languages and has been downloaded in every continent. Kerensa also plans to offer a free API for researchers to access anonymized diabetes data from users who opt in to the program. San Francisco-based HashiCorp is best known for Vagrant, a tool to create and configure lightweight, portable development environments. HashiCorp's new open source Vault project calls itself a tool for "securely managing secrets": API keys, passwords, certificates, employee credentials, and other sensitive resources. Vault encrypts and decrypts data without storing it, allowing security teams to define encryption parameters and giving developers the power to store encrypted data without having to design their own encryption methods. Vault can even generate secrets on demand for AWS or SQL databases, then automatically revoke these dynamic secrets after their terms are up. Through a unified access interface, tight access control, and detailed audit logs, users can be confident their secrets are safe. Rancher Labs has developed a highly efficient way to run containers: an operating system in miniature, with everything needed to run containers and nothing more. RancherOS is a 20MB Linux distribution specially designed to be the easiest way to manage Docker containers. The idea is similar to that of CoreOS, but with a twist: Everything within RancherOS runs as Docker containers -- even the operating system itself. RancherOS runs Docker directly on top of the Linux Kernel and distributes all user-space Linux services as Docker containers, resulting in two system instances. The System Docker instance initiates all system services (udev, DHCP, the console), each of which run in a container. The User Docker instance creates unique user containers within the larger User Docker container. RancherOS delivers updates and features through containers and can host container management platforms (such as Rancher Labs' Rancher system) at any scale. OWASP (Open Web Application Security Project) Foundation is a nonprofit community that provides resources and tools for Web application security. Many Web developers aren’t aware of the security risks and vulnerabilities they face. To that end, the OWASP SKF (Security Knowledge Framework) provides a free, open source Web app security system, which also serves as a training tool to teach developers about application security. The SKF supports software developers throughout the product lifecycle, ensuring security in both predevelopment and postrelease updates. OWASP-SKF analyzes the processing techniques that developers use to edit their data, then matches those patterns to known security vulnerabilities. After providing descriptions of linked vulnerabilities and offering feedback on how to implement solutions, the SKF validates that security fixes were implemented correctly.
2016-03-14 03:00 Black Duck www.infoworld.com
94 First aid for forced Windows 10 upgrades Judging by the decibel level, this past weekend Microsoft opened the floodgates for many more forced Windows 10 upgrades. I have no idea how many are affected, but loud screams of pain are popping up all over the Internet. If you're attached to a corporate domain and you got updated this past weekend, complain loudly to your administrators. Chances are good that they are well aware of your predicament. If you aren't attached to a domain, follow the steps I outline in this post. But before you do that, first, be of good cheer: There's a very good chance you can beat Microsoft into submission. And second, no, you aren't going crazy, and no, you didn't do anything wrong. I had the same problem. On Saturday morning, one of my Win7 test PCs suddenly sprouted an error message, saying that the attempt to install Windows 10 had failed. It was an absolutely clean Windows 7 PC, and I hadn't done anything to draw Microsoft's ire. (Beyond the usual, anyway.) Just sitting there, overnight, it tried to install Windows 10. Many of you know good and well what Windows 10 looks like. But for those who don't, there's an easy check: Look down in the lower left corner of the screen, next to the Windows icon. If there's a box to the right of the icon, you're running Windows 10. If you were running Windows 7 or 8.1, this new version of Windows won't act like your previous version. Click on the Windows icon and you see a Start menu that looks only vaguely like the one you're accustomed to. Many people find that some of their programs and/or some of their peripherals don't work. When you click on things, unfamiliar programs may appear. Very complex story, shortened: Many of you are running Windows 7 or 8.1 with Automatic Update turned on. And that, combined with some very sneaky changes on Microsoft's part, has led to the mess we're in today. I've been railing against Auto Update for more than a decade. Now, many of you are witnessing firsthand why you should curtail Auto Update's wayward ways. Not to put too fine a point on it, but if you enable Automatic Update then Microsoft owns your computer -- it can make your PC do anything it likes. You've been pwned. GWX Control Panel To scale back Automatic Update in Win7, using an administrator-level account, choose Start > Control Panel > System and Security. Under Windows Update, click the Turn Automatic Updating On or Off link. (If you have Control Panel set to View by Icons, click Windows Update, then on the left choose Change Settings.) In the dropdown menu, select Check for Updates but Let Me Choose Whether to Download and Install Them. While you're here, uncheck the box Give Me Recommended Updates the Same Way I Get Important Updates. Then click OK. In Windows 8.1, the instructions are basically the same, although you have to right-click the Start icon to be able to choose Control Panel. If you're using Windows 7 or 8.1 and want to keep using that version until you're ready to move to Windows 10, you need to take one more preventive step: Download and run GWX Control Panel. Use its buttons (see screenshot) to Prevent Windows 10 Upgrades, Delete Windows 10 Programs, and Delete Windows 10 Download folders. Then either put it in Monitor Mode, so it'll run itself every time Microsoft monkeys with your system, or keep it handy and rerun it every time you apply Windows or Office updates. Remember: You have until July 29, 2016, to get your free upgrade to Windows 10 -- and it may well stay free after July 29. There's no reason to feel pressured to move to Win10 now. Windows 7 will be supported until Jan. 14, 2020; Windows 8.1 will be supported until Jan. 10, 2023. Windows 10 upgrade failed. Many people have reported that they're seeing "Windows 10 couldn't be installed" messages, like the one in this screenshot. That's what happened to me on Saturday morning -- I hadn't done a thing to encourage Microsoft to upgrade my test PC, but there it was. Windows 10 upgrade EULA If you see the Windows 10 End-User License Agreement (see screenshot), there is hope. Microsoft has changed how it's installing the Windows 10 upgrade. It now downloads and installs most of the upgrade, then puts this EULA on your screen. If you're the kind of person who just clicks Accept on any EULA (I'll raise my hand here) and then clicks Start the Upgrade Now, your PC reboots and you have Windows 10. On the other hand, if you have the presence of mind to click Decline, the Windows 10 installer slinks back into the darkness, aborts the reboot, and lets you continue with Windows 7 or 8.1. Be watchful for that EULA, because there's no “OK to install Windows 10?” prompt, no “Please stop bugging me with this Win10 upgrade already” option. This, in spite of Windows chief Terry Myerson's promise last October that there would be. (Some of you have reported that there was no prominent EULA screen, and no upgrade warning, so you got upgraded without giving any permission. That's what happened to me last Friday. But by Sunday morning the sequence changed, at least for me.) If you have installed Windows 10, don't panic. Unless you feel an immediate urge to jump into Windows 10, you should roll your computer back to Windows 7 or 8.1. There are good reasons for going back now. A big one: Many changes you make after switching to Win10 -- including documents that you create or change on your Desktop, or in the Public Documents folder -- may not make it back to Windows 7 or 8.1. Another big one: If you don't remember your original Win7 or 8.1 login ID and password, you won't be able to open Win10. At all. I take you through the rollback steps, and its oddities and gotchas, in my InfoWorld article “ How to roll back your Windows 10 upgrade .” For most people, most of the time, rolling back from Windows 10 to Win7 (or 8.1) is as easy as choosing Start > Settings > Update & Security > Recovery. On the right, you'll see the entry "Go back to Windows 7" or "Go back to Windows 8.1," depending on the previous version of Windows installed. Click Get Started, then follow the instructions for "Keep my files. " You'll likely end up with your old version of Windows. Most of the time, that is. As long as the forced upgrade reboot didn't mess up anything, all you're out is an hour or two or three, 3GB or so of unwanted Win10 downloads, and 21GB of space taken up in a tidal wave of Win10 upgrades. If you're one of the unfortunate few who has problems with the rollback, look in my InfoWorld article about the rollback under the heading "What to do if the wheels fall off. " Note that rolling back does not protect you from Microsoft's efforts to turn your PC into a Windows 10 PC. The minute you get your PC rolled back, run GWX Control Panel to make sure you don't end up in the same briar patch tomorrow morning. If you decide to move to Windows 10, that's great. I'm using Windows 10 on all of my main PCs right now, and I like it. I wrote a 1,000-page book about Windows 10. But I'm also willing to put up with the problems -- and there are plenty of problems. The problem here is that Microsoft isn't giving users a real choice as to when or if they move to Windows 10.
2016-03-14 03:00 Woody Leonhard www.infoworld.com
95 TV's 'Mr. Robot' will take on encryption as Apple's battle with the FBI rages on Esmail said that he addressed the encryption issue with the show’s FBI consultants, who had an unsurprising opinion on the public debate over citizens’ right to privacy. But that doesn’t mean that the creator necessarily agreed with them. “We talked to our FBI consultants about [depicting the Apple-FBI issue], and their view is that encryption should allow for this sort of third-party side-door thing,” Esmail added. “But I’m on Tim Cook’s side.” A photo posted by Christian Slater (@realchristianslater) on Mar 13, 2016 at 11:47am PDT “I think it’s a really important issue, and I’m not sure people really understand the nuances,” he said. “It’s going to be a public discourse for ten years.” The USA Networks show premiered at SXSW last year, where it received the Audience Award. Most recently, the show scored the Golden Globe for Best Drama in January. In addition to the Sunday panel, USA built a ferris wheel and arcade experience at SXSW to promote the second season, which is expected to premiere in July.
2016-03-14 02:45 Oscar Raymundo www.macworld.com
96 The dirty dozen: 12 cloud security threats Enterprises are no longer sitting on their hands, wondering if they should risk migrating applications and data to the cloud. They're doing it -- but security remains a serious concern. The first step in minimizing risk in the cloud is to identify the top security threats. As the RSA Conference earlier this month, the CSA (Cloud Security Alliance) listed the “Treacherous 12,” the top 12 cloud computing threats organizations face in 2016. The CSA released the report to help both cloud customers and providers focus their defensive efforts. The shared, on-demand nature of cloud computing introduces the possibility of new security breaches that can erase any gains made by the switch to cloud technology, the CSA warned. As noted in previous CSA reports, cloud services by nature enable users to bypass organization- wide security policies and set up their own accounts in the service of shadow IT projects. New controls must be put in place. “The 2016 Top Threats release mirrors the shifting ramification of poor cloud computing decisions up through the managerial ranks,” said J. R. Santos, executive vice president of research for the CSA. Cloud environments face many of the same threats as traditional corporate networks, but due to the vast amount of data stored on cloud servers, providers become an attractive target. The severity of potential damage tends to depend on the sensitivity of the data exposed. Exposed personal financial information tends to get the headlines, but breaches involving health information, trade secrets, and intellectual property can be more devastating. When a data breach occurs, companies may incur fines, or they may face lawsuits or criminal charges. Breach investigations and customer notifications can rack up significant costs. Indirect effects, such as brand damage and loss of business, can impact organizations for years. Cloud providers typically deploy security controls to protect their environments, but ultimately, organizations are responsible for protecting their own data in the cloud. The CSA has recommended organizations use multifactor authentication and encryption to protect against data breaches. Data breaches and other attacks frequently result from lax authentication, weak passwords, and poor key or certificate management. Organizations often struggle with identity management as they try to allocate permissions appropriate to the user’s job role. More important, they sometimes forget to remove user access when a job function changes or a user leaves the organization. Multifactor authentication systems such as one-time passwords, phone-based authentication, and smartcards protect cloud services because they make it harder for attackers to log in with stolen passwords. The Anthem breach, which exposed more than 80 million customer records, was the result of stolen user credentials. Anthem had failed to deploy multifactor authentication, so once the attackers obtained the credentials, it was game over. Many developers make the mistake of embedding credentials and cryptographic keys in source code and leaving them in public-facing repositories such as GitHub. Keys need to be appropriately protected, and a well-secured public key infrastructure is necessary, the CSA said. They also need to be rotated periodically to make it harder for attackers to use keys they’ve obtained without authorization. Organizations planning to federate identity with a cloud provider need to understand the security measures the provider uses to protect the identity platform. Centralizing identity into a single repository has its risks. Organizations need to weigh the trade-off of the convenience of centralizing identity against the risk of having that repository become an extremely high-value target for attackers. Practically every cloud service and application now offers APIs. IT teams use interfaces and APIs to manage and interact with cloud services, including those that offer cloud provisioning, management, orchestration, and monitoring. The security and availability of cloud services -- from authentication and access control to encryption and activity monitoring -- depend on the security of the API. Risk increases with third parties that rely on APIs and build on these interfaces, as organizations may need to expose more services and credentials, the CSA warned. Weak interfaces and APIs expose organizations to security issues related to confidentiality, integrity, availability, and accountability. APIs and interfaces tend to be the most exposed part of a system because they're usually accessible from the open Internet. The CSA recommends adequate controls as the “first line of defense and detection.” Threat modeling applications and systems, including data flows and architecture/design, become important parts of the development lifecycle. The CSA also recommends security-focused code reviews and rigorous penetration testing. System vulnerabilities, or exploitable bugs in programs, are not new, but they've become a bigger problem with the advent of multitenancy in cloud computing. Organizations share memory, databases, and other resources in close proximity to one another, creating new attack surfaces. Fortunately, attacks on system vulnerabilities can be mitigated with “basic IT processes,” says the CSA. Best practices include regular vulnerability scanning, prompt patch management, and quick follow-up on reported system threats. According to the CSA, the costs of mitigating system vulnerabilities “are relatively small compared to other IT expenditures.” The expense of putting IT processes in place to discover and repair vulnerabilities is small compared to the potential damage. Regulated industries need to patch as quickly as possible, preferably as part of an automated and recurring process, recommends the CSA. Change control processes that address emergency patching ensure that remediation activities are properly documented and reviewed by technical teams. Phishing, fraud, and software exploits are still successful, and cloud services add a new dimension to the threat because attackers can eavesdrop on activities, manipulate transactions, and modify data. Attackers may also be able to use the cloud application to launch other attacks. Common defense-in-depth protection strategies can contain the damage incurred by a breach. Organizations should prohibit the sharing of account credentials between users and services, as well as enable multifactor authentication schemes where available. Accounts, even service accounts, should be monitored so that every transaction can be traced to a human owner. The key is to protect account credentials from being stolen, the CSA says. The insider threat has many faces: a current or former employee, a system administrator, a contractor, or a business partner. The malicious agenda ranges from data theft to revenge. In a cloud scenario, a hellbent insider can destroy whole infrastructures or manipulate data. Systems that depend solely on the cloud service provider for security, such as encryption, are at greatest risk. The CSA recommends that organizations control the encryption process and keys, segregating duties and minimizing access given to users. Effective logging, monitoring, and auditing administrator activities are also critical. As the CSA notes, it's easy to misconstrue a bungling attempt to perform a routine job as "malicious" insider activity. An example would be an administrator who accidentally copies a sensitive customer database to a publicly accessible server. Proper training and management to prevent such mistakes becomes more critical in the cloud, due to greater potential exposure. The CSA aptly calls advanced persistent threats (APTs) “parasitical” forms of attack. APTs infiltrate systems to establish a foothold, then stealthily exfiltrate data and intellectual property over an extended period of time. APTs typically move laterally through the network and blend in with normal traffic, so they're difficult to detect. The major cloud providers apply advanced techniques to prevent APTs from infiltrating their infrastructure, but customers need to be as diligent in detecting APT compromises in cloud accounts as they would in on-premises systems. Common points of entry include spear phishing, direct attacks, USB drives preloaded with malware, and compromised third-party networks. In particular, the CSA recommends training users to recognize phishing techniques. Regularly reinforced awareness programs keep users alert and less likely to be tricked into letting an APT into the network -- and IT departments need to stay informed of the latest advanced attacks. Advanced security controls, process management, incident response plans, and IT staff training all lead to increased security budgets. Organizations should weigh these costs against the potential economic damage inflicted by successful APT attacks. As the cloud has matured, reports of permanent data loss due to provider error have become extremely rare. But malicious hackers have been known to permanently delete cloud data to harm businesses, and cloud data centers are as vulnerable to natural disasters as any facility. Cloud providers recommend distributing data and applications across multiple zones for added protection. Adequate data backup measures are essential, as well as adhering to best practices in business continuity and disaster recovery. Daily data backup and off-site storage remain important with cloud environments. The burden of preventing data loss is not all on the cloud service provider. If a customer encrypts data before uploading it to the cloud, then that customer must be careful to protect the encryption key. Once the key is lost, so is the data. Compliance policies often stipulate how long organizations must retain audit records and other documents. Losing such data may have serious regulatory consequences. The new EU data protection rules also treat data destruction and corruption of personal data as data breaches requiring appropriate notification. Know the rules to avoid getting in trouble. Organizations that embrace the cloud without fully understanding the environment and its associated risks may encounter a “myriad of commercial, financial, technical, legal, and compliance risks,” the CSA warned. Due diligence applies whether the organization is trying to migrate to the cloud or merging (or working) with another company in the cloud. For example, organizations that fail to scrutinize a contract may not be aware of the provider’s liability in case of data loss or breach. Operational and architectural issues arise if a company's development team lacks familiarity with cloud technologies as apps are deployed to a particular cloud. The CSA reminds organizations they must perform extensive due diligence to understand the risks they assume when they subscribe to each cloud service. Cloud services can be commandeered to support nefarious activities, such as using cloud computing resources to break an encryption key in order to launch an attack. Other examples including launching DDoS attacks, sending spam and phishing emails, and hosting malicious content. Providers need to recognize types of abuse -- such as scrutinizing traffic to recognize DDoS attacks -- and offer tools for customers to monitor the health of their cloud environments. Customers should make sure providers offer a mechanism for reporting abuse. Although customers may not be direct prey for malicious actions, cloud service abuse can still result in service availability issues and data loss. DoS attacks have been around for years, but they've gained prominence again thanks to cloud computing because they often affect availability. Systems may slow to a crawl or simply time out. “Experiencing a denial-of-service attack is like being caught in rush-hour traffic gridlock; there is one way to get to your destination and there is nothing you can do about it except sit and wait,” the report said. DoS attacks consume large amounts of processing power, a bill the customer may ultimately have to pay. While high-volume DDoS attacks are very common, organizations should be aware of asymmetric, application-level DoS attacks, which target Web server and database vulnerabilities. Cloud providers tend to be better poised to handle DoS attacks than their customers, the CSA said. The key is to have a plan to mitigate the attack before it occurs, so administrators have access to those resources when they need them. Vulnerabilities in shared technology pose a significant threat to cloud computing. Cloud service providers share infrastructure, platforms, and applications, and if a vulnerability arises in any of these layers, it affects everyone. “A single vulnerability or misconfiguration can lead to a compromise across an entire provider’s cloud,” the report said. If an integral component gets compromised -- say, a hypervisor, a shared platform component, or an application -- it exposes the entire environment to potential compromise and breach. The CSA recommended a defense-in-depth strategy, including multifactor authentication on all hosts, host-based and network-based intrusion detection systems, applying the concept of least privilege, network segmentation, and patching shared resources.
2016-03-14 02:00 Fahmida Y. www.computerworld.com
97 Why you’ll wear an Apple Watch to keep your job With Apple Watch , Cupertino has taken a leadership position in the mass- market for connected health, and its latest patent shows how machine intelligence could save lives. Apple’s latest filing describes a way in which an Apple Watch can constantly monitor a wearer’s heartbeat, warning them of impending heart attack. The patent explains the system will dial emergency services if it spots signs of heart attack. The system watches physical and environmental symptoms, such as heartbeat, motion, temperature or even elevation and emergency alerts can automatically be sent to pre-created lists of contacts The patent isn’t confined to heart attacks, it could potentially monitor numerous forms of crisis, including things like car accidents, muggings or anything else the built-in accelerometer, heart monitor, microphone and other sensors can detect. Apple’ s solution takes some of the ideas of some of the more useful emergency apps, such as this one . While the existence of the patent does not mean the company will launch the service, it is a solution that’s bang on industry expectation, with many analysts predicting millions of workers will soon be required to use these monitoring technologies to keep their jobs. Why will this happen? Health insurers are already introducing insurance packages in which use of solutions like these is encouraged in exchange for lower premiums. Company health insurance policies will also see this introduced, meaning wearing of such things will become part of what you need to do to keep your job. Government, road transit chiefs and emergency services will also want this to happen, partly to reduce the cost of caring for an aging population and partly to help create smart city and transit systems. That's not to say there will be no benefits, of course -- researchers very recently claim to have made early stage progress on sensors that can detect cancer inside 15-minutes. If that technology can be proved then early identification of cancer symptoms through connected wearable sensors could save lives, but this won't happen yet. Regulation remains a stumbling block for health-based solutions. Apple CEO, Tim Cook, alluded to this earlier this year when he conceded that the company last year had to abandon some of the health-related features it had hoped to introduce in the first Apple Watch because of the length of time regulatory approval takes. Cook also shared a heart-related story concerning a US high school football player, whose life was saved when his Apple Watch detected his heart rate had become elevated in response to the early onset of wider organ failure. The potential to save lives is huge – but there is also a threat : As connected devices gather increasing quantities of information, people’s lives become easier for criminals to monitor and steal – identity theft, burglary and bank fraud become as easy as getting into a person’s private files and the depth and personal nature of the data collected by these devices should make any user security conscious. While the promise of connected health is huge, in order for these benefits to be fully realized people need to be certain their details are completely secure. It is precisely the kind of certainty that is being directly threatened by the ongoing struggle between Apple, other tech firms, and the FBI, according to Apple and its allies. This is why the outcome of that struggle is so critical. Though if the decision goes against the company then the entire tech industry will have all the excuse it needs to ignore such concerns in future.
2016-03-14 01:22 Jonny Evans www.computerworld.com
98 Sphero's BB-8 wins the cutest racing competition at SXSW It’s a good thing Sphero’s BB-8 droid is really cute, because it sure isn’t speedy. Amazon Launchpad teamed up with Sphero in the midst of the chaos at South by Southwest to pit the droids against each other in a race to the finish line, and let’s just say BB-8 isn’t exactly a fierce competitor.
2016-03-14 01:00 Caitlin McGarry www.macworld.com
99 Google And Facebook Step Up Encryption Efforts | HotHardware The very public ( and heated ) battle between the FBI and Apple over encryption has spilled out into the public and factions are beginning to take sides. The battle lines are clearly drawn with public opinion largely split and tech giants lining up to support Apple’s decision to not “hand over the [encryption] keys” the FBI. Given this very public spotlight on encryption , a new report claims that Google and Facebook are making efforts to further increase their encryption levels to protect user data and keep it out of the hands of nefarious parties and even law enforcement agencies. For its part, Google is reportedly showing a renewed interest in its End to End encrypted email platform. First announced back in 2014 , End to End has moved at a glacial pace and “has been an ongoing effort” for Google according to at least one person familiar with the project. Complicating matters is the fact that Google makes the bulk of its money via advertising, and advanced encryption makes it harder for the company to scan users emails in an effort to target them with ads. “There are lots of difficulties at Google that aren’t same at Apple,” says a source for The Guardian . “The business models are just different.” As for Facebook, it’s embracing encryption with a two-pronged strategy. The social media giant will first work to enhance security in its own Messenger app. The second strategy is to add encryption to its wildly popular WhatsApp messaging service. WhatsApp is said to be adopting encryption code developed by privacy expert Moxie Marlinspike. If you may recall, Marlinspike is behind the popular encrypted messaging app Signal. Efforts to increase security through encryption make your personal data safer from prying eyes, but law enforcement officials see it as an affront to their policing efforts. The U. S. Government has also played up the domestic terrorism angle as a reason to tamp down the use of encryption — hence the fight over unlocking the iPhone 5c tied to the San Bernardino mass shooting. The fight over encryption is far from over, and tech companies are in a virtual arms race to see who can provide the most secure platform for customers. Law enforcement may be fuming at such prospects, but depending on the outcome of Apple’s upcoming legal fight, only legislation from Congress may be enough to stop the encryption movement.
2016-03-14 00:00 hothardware.com
100 Digiwell's implanted NFC chip lets you open doors with a wave of your hand Patrick Kramer pulled back his sleeves and reached out an empty hand to offer his business card. His contact details appeared on the smartphone screen as if by magic, but it was a sufficiently advanced technology that made it happen. For an encore, he opened a locked door without a key. When anyone else touched the handle, it remained locked. Unlike other magicians, Kramer willingly explained the secret to the trick, which is so simple a dog could perform it: In the flesh between his left thumb and forefinger, he has inserted a tiny glass bead containing an NFC chip. There's no point trying to teach your pedigree pooch this trick: It probably already knows how it's done. Microchipping of valuable pets and livestock is increasingly common , and is already mandated in some countries. It will become compulsory for dogs in England and Scotland from April, and is already required in other parts of the U. K. Kramer's company, Digiwell, can microchip you too, right here at the Cebit trade show in Hanover, Germany. The company sells two types of implant: the newer xNT, which operates at 13.56MHz, and the 125kHz xEM, compatible with older RFID access control systems. As with other NFC chips, you can use a suitably equiped mobile phone to read from or write to the xNT, which is how Kramer's business card trick works. It will cost you €69 (US$77) including the special syringe to insert it and a few bits and bobs to keep everything sterile while you do it. It's possible to do it yourself, but Digiwell recommends you have it done by someone qualified -- a category that includes tattoists and veterinarians. You can get chipped for free at Cebit if you'll submit to the procedure on stage during what Kramer refers to as "happy hours. " They start at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. every day till the show closes on Friday. Cebit received over 200,000 visitors last year, but only 10 or 15 of those are likely to submit to the chipping process, Kramer said. "Thirty would be a huge success," at an enterprise IT trade show like Cebit, he said, although Digiwell typically implants that many chips at much smaller events dedicated to " biohacking ," a field at the intersection of citizen science and body modification. The key question, of course, is does having a chip implant hurt? This reporter wasn't ready to find out, but Kramer said it's like pinching yourself between the thumb and forefinger: a sensation of discomfort, rather than pain. "We have some people who think it really hurts, and others who say, 'Oh, did you already do it?' Everyone reacts differently," he said. Even if there's no pain, what might you gain? Kramer uses his chip implant to carry his business card and to open the front door of his house, which is fitted with a special NFC lock. Other applications being tested include authorizing bitcoin payments and checking in for flights, he said. Digiwell goes out of its way to reduce the risk of infection in the implanting process, but one biohacker last year sought to increase it: U. S. Navy Petty Officer Seth Wahle programmed an NFC impant to infect Android phones with malware when he held them, according to CIO magazine.
2016-03-14 00:00 Peter Sayer www.pcworld.com
Total 100 articles. Created at 2016-03-14 18:00