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Total 87 articles, created at 2016-05-04 00:09 1 plan to rebrand as after EMC deal closes

(2.01/3) Dell to reorganise and rebrand after closure of EMC mega-deal,Hardware ,Dell,EMC 2016-05-03 19:11 3KB www.computing.co.uk 2 10 Best Practices for Network Monitoring in the Face of IT Complexity

(1.00/3) New tech helps make companies more productive but can complicate IT pros' jobs. We look at 10 tips for network monitoring in a complex IT world. 2016-05-03 21:38 1KB www.eweek.com 3 EMC World: VCE VxRack Gets New Nodes To Ease OpenStack Deployment

(1.00/3) The new Neutrino nodes for the VCE VxRack 1000 drastically cut the time needed to deploy IaaS based on OpenStack, and will soon be available for Hadoop and VMware Photon. 2016-05-03 13:16 2KB www.crn.com 4 New S. Dakota law to be a test case for a U. S. Internet sales tax

(1.00/3) A new South Dakota law may end up determining whether most U. S. residents are required to pay sales taxes on their Internet purchases. 2016-05-03 11:07 4KB www.computerworld.com 5 Amazon.com shows European Commission how to achieve e-commerce equality

(1.00/3) With its latest distribution initiative, Amazon.com might achieve what the European Commission has struggled with for years: The creation of a borderless online marketplace where the price of goods and the cost of shipping them is the same for all European Union citizens. 2016-05-03 08:43 4KB www.computerworld.com 6 26 games you should be most excited about for 2016 We round up the best games set to come out in 2016 for PS4, Xbox One, PC, Wii U, 3DS and more. 2016-05-03 13:00 11KB www.pcadvisor.co.uk 7 Vidyo CEO Talks Channel Disruption From Mitel-Polycom Deal, Future Of Partnership With Mitel Vidyo CEO Eran Westman tells CRN that some Polycom partners have already signaled their interest in working with the videoconferencing and collaboration specialist. 2016-05-04 00:08 1KB www.crn.com 8 CloudPhysics Introduces Data-Driven IT Monitoring Software Geared For Partners The startup's new Partner Edition was requested by partners already using the end-user version to manage, monitor and assess customer IT environments. 2016-05-04 00:08 2KB www.crn.com 9 Capital One 'Galvanized' By Wallet Development Capital One had to loosen up controls to allow development of a new mobile app, Wallet, but the 20-year-old firm benefited in the long run. 2016-05-04 00:08 3KB www.informationweek.com 10 On Dell-EMC's Storage Overlap, Future Acquisitions And The Blockbuster Deal's Channel Impact In a Q&A session after his EMC World keynote, Dell addresses a number of topics and notes that partners are 'keyed in' on the integration and are now selling EMC and Dell together as if it's one solution. 2016-05-04 00:08 1KB www.crn.com

11 IBM Puts Its Twist on Blockchain With New Security Framework IBM launches new secure blockchain services for financial services, government and healthcare on IBM Cloud. 2016-05-03 22:48 4KB www.eweek.com 12 HP Unveils Its Latest Pavilion Notebooks, Convertibles, Desktops HP's new x360 portables come in three screen sizes each, while its latest all-in-one desktop model gets a micro-edge display option. 2016-05-03 22:48 7KB www.eweek.com 13 Companies are throwing money at data scientists but don't know what to do with them, claims Lenovo's Mohammed Chaara believes companies are paying huge wages for data scientists but don't have a strategy for making the most of them,Big Data and Analytics ,Big Data,Big Data and Analytics 2016-05-03 22:47 3KB www.computing.co.uk 14 New branding unveiled for merged Dell-EMC organization LAS VEGAS – Speculation has been rampant since Dell announced its acquisition of EMC late in 2015 in the biggest business deal 2016-05-03 22:47 3KB www.itworldcanada.com 15 AMD Creates Site Dedicated to Polaris GPU Company officials say the 14nm graphics technology that features a FinFET design will help drive AMD further into such areas as gaming and virtual reality. 2016-05-03 21:44 4KB www.eweek.com 16 Security Think Tank: Strategies for meeting cyber security skills needs What strategies can organisations use to ensure they are able to hire the information security professionals they need and that good candidates are not being missed or overlooked? 2016-05-03 21:42 925Bytes www.computerweekly.com 17 Patches 40 Android Flaws in May Update No surprise, but once again mediaserver is identified as being vulnerable, as Google patches two critical and five high impact vulnerabilities in the component. 2016-05-03 21:41 4KB www.eweek.com 18 Cloud security and enabling workforce mobility are two biggest IT challenges for SMBs, says HPE SMBs need an 'imagination' to pick services that suit them, says HPE's chief technologist of SMBs,Strategy ,SMB Spotlight,smb-services 2016-05-03 21:41 2KB www.computing.co.uk 19 Company officials cite softer-than-expected revenue for its Fibre Channel networking unit and slow U. S. federal business. Company officials cite softer-than-expected revenue for its Fibre Channel networking unit and slow U. S. federal business. 2016-05-03 22:42 3KB www.eweek.com 20 Democratising analytics: A case of IT vs the business 'Keep your enemies close,' says Toys 'R Us strategic analytics director Pat Murphy,Big Data and Analytics ,Teradata,Big Data and Analytics,Big Data,data science,data scientist,in-depth 2016-05-03 19:41 938Bytes www.computing.co.uk 21 New Canadian ransomware campaign shows how attacks are tailored: Sophos There's a large-scale ransomware attack going on this week with attackers using a phony Bank of Montreal template to lure victims into 2016-05-03 19:12 5KB www.itworldcanada.com

22 'I'm Satoshi Nakamoto,' claims Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright Not everyone's convinced, however...,Security ,payments,encryption 2016-05-03 19:11 2KB www.computing.co.uk 23 Why Samsung's SmartThings Home Controller Is Under Fire Can Samsung rebound from reports that SmartThings is vulnerable to attacks? Here's a look at whether it is a viable product in the field of smart home devices. 2016-05-03 21:38 1KB www.eweek.com 24 How to set up and use with a BBC micro:bit with your phone or PC The micro:bit is more powerful than the original BBC Micro but it’s easier to program. You can even code on your phone and send the program to the micro:bit by Bluetooth. Here’s how to use a micro:bit 2016-05-03 16:24 4KB www.pcadvisor.co.uk 25 Google freezes Go 1.7 ahead of beta release Google wants to adhere to a faster release cycle for Go from now on 2016-05-03 16:16 2KB sdtimes.com 26 Samsung 850 Evo 500GB review: a class-leading SSD that offers fantastic overall performance One of the best budget SSDs money can buy: the Samsung 850 EVO – a fantastic upgrade to speed up your system. 2016-05-03 16:15 6KB www.pcadvisor.co.uk 27 How to get free Wi-Fi anywhere: get online on your phone wherever you roam There's no need to use up your precious 4G data allowance when you're around town, as so much free WiFi is now available. In this feature we show you how and where to find it, and also a few things to watch out for so... 2016-05-03 16:15 4KB www.pcadvisor.co.uk 28 Best Android phones 2016 UK: What's the best Android phone? The top Android phones money can buy - best Android phone reviews What’s the best Android phone 2016? The simple answer is the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge, but there are 19 other amazing phones on our list of the top Android phones of 2016, which covers everything from the HTC 10 and Nexus 6P to the LG G5,... 2016-05-03 16:12 16KB www.pcadvisor.co.uk 29 XebiaLabs innovates pipeline orchestration, adds new release dashboards and introduces DevOps ChatBot New version of XL Release helps enterprises orchestrate and control large and complex releases, so they can produce software more quickly and with fewer errors. 2016-05-03 15:35 4KB sdtimes.com 30 Best 2016: What's the best ? The 20 best laptops you can buy in the UK today - best Windows laptop reviews, best MacBook reviews, best power laptop reviews A list of the UK's best laptops available to buy in 2016. Keep reading to find out what is the best laptop of 2015. Best laptop reviews - best Windows laptops, best MacBooks. 2016-05-03 15:29 21KB www.pcadvisor.co.uk 31 The Channel Company MES Conference Gets 'Trumped' By Presidential Hopeful Guess who took a break from his busy campaign schedule to snap photos with attendees at the Midsize Enterprise Summit? 2016-05-03 15:02 3KB www.crn.com

32 Gartner: 5 Coolest Enterprise Networking Vendors Making Waves In 2016 Here are the five coolest emerging enterprise networking vendors that solution providers should know in 2016, according to market research firm Gartner. 2016-05-03 14:44 1KB www.crn.com 33 ID15 concept car interior: The future of not-driving Autonomous driving will fundamentally change how we interact with the inside of our cars. Yanfeng Automotive Interiors is behind the interior technology in many of today's cars, and with the Innovation Demonstrator 2015 concept car (ID15) we got a sneak peek and just what they... 2016-05-03 16:41 887Bytes www.cnet.com 34 Survey finds roadblocks keep developers from fully adopting containers Shippable survey of developers found that they are adopting container technology for their applications, but there is a gap in full container adoption 2016-05-03 13:48 3KB sdtimes.com 35 The Week in iOS Accessories: The everywhere doorbell Our latest roundup includes a new home doorbell that you can answer from your iPhone. 2016-05-03 13:30 2KB www.itnews.com 36 iPhone 7 Plus UK release date, specs & features rumours: A bigger battery and a rumoured headphone jack Apple's next phablet will be the best iPhone yet, with new specs and features - potentially including dual-cameras and wireless charging. Here's your guide to the iPhone 7 Plus rumours, including the iPhone 7 Plus UK release date, UK price and specification. 2016-05-03 13:23 10KB www.pcadvisor.co.uk 37 India has shot down Apple's plan to sell refurbished iPhones India reportedly has rejected Apple’s plan to sell refurbished iPhones in the country, a blow to the company’s hopes for growth there. 2016-05-03 13:13 1KB www.itworld.com 38 Apple CEO Becomes TV Spin Doctor Tim Cook uses televised interview to claim Apple's best days are still to come, and calm investor fears. 2016-05-03 13:06 3KB www.informationweek.com 39 SAP further commits to Francophone Africa Region by opening new office in Morocco As further evidence of its commitment to driving digital transformation on the African continent and the company's expansion across focus territories, SAP Africa announced the official opening of its new office in Casablanca, Morocco. The office opening coincided with the 2016 SAP Africa Francophone Partner Forum... 2016-05-03 12:58 5KB pctechmag.com 40 21% off LG Nexus 5X Unlocked Smartphone 32GB - Deal Alert This unlocked, multi-mode phone will work on all US carriers including AT&T, Verizon, T- Mobile and Sprint, as well as most international carriers. It's currently available for $80 off its list price of $429.99. 2016-05-03 12:27 1KB www.infoworld.com 41 Nokia and Ooredoo Qatar Sign Three-Year Network Expansion Agreement Nokia Corp. and Ooredoo Qatar have signed a three-year agreement under which Nokia will upgrade and expand Ooredoo's existing mobile broadband network across the country to meet ever-growing subscriber demands. With one of the most vibrant economies in the Middle East, Qatar needs to... 2016-05-03 12:26 1KB pctechmag.com

42 GitLab releases security fixes, Pants 1.0, and Sauce Labs integration for JIRA— news digest: May 3, 2016 GitLab releases critical security fixes; Pants 1.0 is released; Sauce Labs has a new integration for JIRA 2016-05-03 12:19 4KB sdtimes.com 43 NVIDIA Releases 365.10 WHQL Game Ready Driver With more game releases and open betas coming down the pipe this spring, driver developers are getting busy preparing our graphics cards for the... 2016-05-03 12:15 1KB www.anandtech.com 44 What’s on tap for container technology in 2016 Some debates remain, including what operating system will run under container applications 2016-05-03 12:12 6KB www.itworld.com

45 Apple stops tocking: It wants to escape an unsustainable pace In "tick" cycles, Apple releases a new look for a product; in alternating "tocks," dramatic improvements in internals. It's time for it to stop watching the clock. 2016-05-03 12:00 8KB www.itnews.com 46 Windows 10 nagware patch KB 3035583 back on Windows 7 PCs Documentation is sketchy, but the patch has just appeared as an unchecked optional sucker punch 2016-05-03 11:59 2KB www.infoworld.com 47 Philips' new 43-inch monitor might make native 4K practical Philips is releasing the BDM4350UC in the United States and the UK today. This 43-inch 4K IPS display supersedes the company's BDM4065UC monitor... 2016-05-03 11:44 2KB techreport.com 48 Complete guide to Star Wars Battlefront, including DLC and offline story rumours: May the 4th be with all PC users as EA offers free Battlefront trial Celebrate Star Wars Day with a free trial of Star Wars Battlefront for PC - your complete guide to Star Wars Battlefront, including DLC and offline story rumours. 2016-05-03 11:33 6KB www.pcadvisor.co.uk 49 Users describe pros and cons of hyperconverged storage products Enterprise users weigh in on their favorite features and offer suggestions for improvement. 2016-05-03 11:22 1KB www.computerworld.com 50 Report: HTC to finally launch Android Wear smartwatch in June Such a move could make it one of the first watches to ship with Android N. 2016-05-03 11:22 1KB www.itnews.com 51 65% off Holy Stone Drone Quadcopter with HD Camera - Deal Alert Amazon is currently featuring this 6-axis quadcopter with HD camera for $79.99, which is 65% off its list price of $229.99. 2016-05-03 11:16 1KB www.itnews.com 52 AngularJS 2 reaches release candidate The expected next steps for Google's framework are bug fixes followed by a general release of the upgrade 2016-05-03 11:13 2KB www.infoworld.com 53 BMC introduces MainView for Java environments, enabling a transaction engine for digital business BMC's MainView for Java Environments discovers and manages Java for z/OS performance to unlock its potential on the mainframe 2016-05-03 11:11 4KB sdtimes.com 54 Tesla Details 'Bioweapon Defense Mode' For Air Filter In a blog post, Tesla engineers detail how the company's high-tech vehicles are using a filtration system robust enough to scrub the dangerous toxins from the interior atmosphere. 2016-05-03 11:05 3KB www.informationweek.com 55 16 standout Android apps with fingerprint support Take full advantage of your phone's fingerprint sensor with these genuinely useful fingerprint-ready apps. 2016-05-03 11:04 2KB www.computerworld.com 56 Deeplink unveils app assistant, AppWords Concierge Deeplink announces the private beta for an in-app personal mobile assistant designed to help app developers and end users 2016-05-03 11:00 2KB sdtimes.com 57 NYC scowls at LTE-U in open letter The City of New York became the latest entity to weigh in on the subject of LTE-U, as an open letter from the mayor’s office to policymakers at the 3GPP standards body pushes for thorough protection for existing Wi-Fi. 2016-05-03 10:57 2KB www.computerworld.com 58 Quantum computers pose a huge threat to security, and the NIST wants your help An upcoming competition will invite the public to propose and test 'quantum-resistant' encryption schemes 2016-05-03 10:40 3KB www.infoworld.com 59 Alleged Kaby Lake CPU shows its face in SiSoft Sandra database Back in March, we reported on the demise of ’s long-held “ tick-tock ” product development strategy. For years, Intel... 2016-05-03 10:27 2KB techreport.com 60 Twitter’s Connect tab takes another shot at the 'who to follow' problem Twitter's Connect tab reformats the Find People button with more personalized recommendations. 2016-05-03 10:22 1002Bytes www.itnews.com 61 Trend Micro: 6 most popular homebrewed terrorist tools Terrorist are developing apps that include pre-packaged encryption, DDoS, and a for tech-light jihadists 2016-05-03 10:14 1KB www.infoworld.com 62 Elite 100: Past Winners Talk Strategy, Best Practices How are the top IT leaders at the top companies grappling with digital transformation, the third platform, the rise of analytics and big data, and other industry shifts? We asked them during the opening session of the InformationWeek Elite 100 conference. Here's what they said. 2016-05-03 10:10 4KB www.informationweek.com 63 4 projects ripe for a Rust rewrite As Rust matures, projects aimed at reimplementing existing software in a language built for safety become more practical -- and more numerous 2016-05-03 10:08 3KB www.infoworld.com 64 PwC’s CIO on the power of collaboration Sigal Zarmi’s experience leading a pan-European system rollout taught her valuable lessons in building consensus, working through cultural differences and implementing the right change-management policies. 2016-05-03 10:06 7KB www.itnews.com

65 Forza Motorsport 6: Apex release date UK. Open beta announced for Windows 10 Forza 6 will be an Xbox One exclusive with over 450 ForzaVista cars, 26 tracks and night and wet races. Here's what you need to know about Forza Motorsport 6 including release date and gameplay video 2016-05-03 10:06 2KB www.pcadvisor.co.uk 66 Maintenance In Two Words: Preventive And Predictive It's unacceptable to have a service provider that only fixes what breaks; the market demands that companies avoid failures altogether and have the right information at the right time. 2016-05-03 10:00 2KB www.informationweek.com 67 Could Android eventually reach 100 percent market share? Also in today's open source roundup: The best customizable Android Wear watch faces, and what's new in Lubuntu 16.04 LTS 2016-05-03 09:57 3KB www.infoworld.com 68 Bowers & Wilkins is the trophy acquisition of a startup with high-end audio ambitions Venerable British audio company Bowers & Wilkins has been snapped up by a startup that's flush with Silicon Valley cash. Little-known Eva Automation has no publicly announced products, but it has top-notch management and superstar backing. Better still, B&W founder Joe Atkins will remain as CEO. 2016-05-03 09:53 3KB www.itnews.com 69 Hefty Google Keyboard update brings one-handed mode, cursor control, other new tricks The new version is packed with features like quick access to emojis, a dedicated number pad, and smarter word predictions. 2016-05-03 09:20 2KB www.itnews.com 70 Warp Speed: Faster Development Cycles Are The New Normal At the InformationWeek Elite 100 conference, tech leaders described how warp speed is the new normal when it comes to development cycles. But that's an opportunity as much as a challenge. 2016-05-03 09:06 2KB www.informationweek.com 71 Dish Network's traveling technicians get into the iPhone repair business As streaming video eats the TV business, Dish Network technicians become iPhone repair pros. 2016-05-03 09:01 1KB www.itnews.com 72 Mavenlink offers a consulting service, because services bring protection Maybe coincidental, or maybe a response to an increasingly turbulent marketplace. 2016-05-03 09:00 5KB www.computerworld.com 73 Exclusive: Sophos Sees 'Tremendous' Synchronized Security Growth, Launches New Tools London-based Sophos says it is seeing traction with its partners and is launching new tools to help partners accelerate that growth even further, the solution provider said. 2016-05-03 09:00 3KB www.crn.com 74 The IoT company behind the curtain Greenwave Chief Scientist Jim Hunter explores the promise of the Internet of Things and the challenges it still faces. 2016-05-03 08:59 1KB www.computerworld.com 75 Nvidia and Samsung settle long-running patent litigation It's been well over two years since Nvidia tried to block all shipments of Samsung's Galaxy phones and tablets, claiming that these... 2016-05-03 08:46 2KB techreport.com 76 25 Mother's Day gifts with geek appeal Mother's Day gifts inspired by science, technology, engineering and math 2016-05-03 08:08 7KB www.itworld.com 77 Solution Providers: How Well Are You Being Managed? The Elements Of Vendor Relationships As a solution provider, are you adding value to your customers' businesses? 2016-05-03 07:04 1KB www.crn.com

78 Recursive, but smart: WalkMe brings an app-like paradigm to app delivery The world of IT is increasingly modular. WalkMe's new applet store demonstrates that. 2016-05-03 07:00 3KB www.computerworld.com 79 Windows 10 on pace to reach 20% share by June Windows 10 is on pace to power 20% of all Windows desktop systems by the end of June, or around the time issues its next major upgrade, according to data published this week. 2016-05-03 06:44 4KB www.computerworld.com 80 Why your outsourcers’ cost of living adjustments don’t work Cost of living increases are intended to keep IT outsourcing staff happy and working hard on your account. However, only a fraction of the money makes it into the pockets of those workers. Here are three ways to fix that. 2016-05-03 06:36 6KB www.itnews.com 81 10 best-paying companies in tech The technology industry offers some of the highest salaries of any industry, thanks to high demand for software engineers, developers or data scientists. But, according to Glassdoor, these 10 tech companies pony up the top pay. 2016-05-03 05:18 11KB www.computerworld.com 82 Think that printer in the corner isn’t a threat? Think again Sitting in the corner, sometimes collecting dust, is an overlooked attack surface 2016-05-03 04:33 6KB www.infoworld.com 83 Why you need DRM for your documents From protecting merger discussions to everyday document management, enterprise DRM is a mature, mainstream enterprise technology. So why aren’t more companies using it? 2016-05-03 04:01 12KB www.itnews.com 84 Appellate court ruling will make a lot more work for Web designers The decision from a case involving a company’s method of presenting its terms and conditions is otherwise fairly meaningless. 2016-05-03 04:00 4KB www.itnews.com 85 Solar shift: Falling costs make owning better than leasing The costs of consumer and small business-grade solar systems have dropped significantly in recent years, sparking a move away from leasing the systems to outright purchases so owners can reap the financial benefits. 2016-05-03 03:01 9KB www.itnews.com 86 AngularBeans brings together Angular and Java for Web dev AngularBeans 2 will accommodate Angular's own next-generation upgrade and add container support 2016-05-03 03:00 2KB www.itnews.com 87 MacScan 3 review: Easy-to-use software stomps out malware, tracking cookies A one-stop shop to tackle the ever-increasing threat of malware on OS X. 2016-05-03 03:00 6KB www.itnews.com Articles

Total 87 articles, created at 2016-05-04 00:09

1 Dell plan to rebrand as Dell Technologies after EMC deal closes (2.01/3) Dell has revealed plans for a major rebrand that will see the company renamed as Dell Technologies after its acquisition of storage giant EMC closes. However, the enterprise division will trade as Dell EMC, while PCs for consumers and businesses will continue to carry the Dell brand. The plans were unveiled at the EMC World event in Las Vegas in a keynote by Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell. The move will create an umbrella "family" brand for the group of companies once Dell's acquisition of EMC is completed. There had been rumours earlier in the year that the company was struggling to raise the finance to underpin the deal , but any issues seem to have been overcome. "Our vision is a strategically aligned family of businesses that brings together customers' entire infrastructure, from hardware to software to services, from the edge to the core to the cloud," said Dell. He continued: "Dell Technologies will create more value for customers and partners than any other technology solutions provider today. We will be more nimble and innovative, and we will deliver world-class products and solutions to customers of all shapes and sizes. " Dell Technologies will comprise the combined businesses of Dell and EMC, the PC business and affiliated businesses including VMware, SecureWorks, Pivotal, and RSA. However, it appears that products and services will be marketed under two sub-brands, with Dell EMC for enterprise products and solutions sold directly and via the channel to large organisations, while Dell will continue to be the branding for client systems aimed at consumers, business and institutional customers. Dell claimed that the acquisition remains on schedule under its original timetable and terms, although it is still subject to approval by EMC's shareholders, regulatory clearance in some jurisdictions, and other customary closing conditions. The acquisition, which was announced last October , was given approval to proceed by both the EU and US regulatory authorities earlier this year. Meanwhile, EMC World has also seen a number of new product and services announcements. Virtustream unveiled Virtustream Storage Cloud, a global cloud storage platform aimed at large enterprises, service providers, and public-sector organisations that need to secure, manage, and store mission-critical data in the cloud. The company claims that it will offer enterprise levels of resiliency and performance, combined with true web scale when available later this month. EMC itself released a new family of affordable storage systems intended for small and medium- sized businesses, as well as departmental enterprise requirements. The EMC Unity portfolio is available in all-flash or hybrid array, versions plus software-defined and converged configurations. Features include support for file, block and virtual volumes, snapshots and remote replication and integrated copy data management. Prices start below $10,000 (£6,800). EMC also announced MyService360, a new service-oriented cloud-based dashboard intended to provide more oversight into the status and health of a customer's entire EMC data centre environment. It will consolidate proactive monitoring of EMC systems deployed across a customer's global enterprise, and is available at no additional cost to customers with an EMC warranty or maintenance agreement, the firm said.

Dell will become Dell Technologies after its EMC buyout techreport.com

Dell plus EMC has a name: Dell Technologies infoworld.com 2016-05-03 19:11 Daniel Robinson www.computing.co.uk

2 10 Best Practices for Network Monitoring in the Face of IT Complexity (1.00/3) IT teams—old-school and new-generation alike— must rely on the availability, reliability and performance of their daily production networks, servers and business applications. That's a given. But deployment, orchestration and maintenance complexity is growing fast as these teams face seemingly unending waves of new technology. There's a lot more to learn about and juggle when it comes to the cloud, bring-your-own-device (BYOD) practices, virtualization, the Internet of things (IoT), wireless and mobility. While these waves of new tech generally have brought increased productivity and cost savings, 66 percent of surveyed IT professionals stated in a recent survey by IT management software vendor Ipswitch that increasing IT complexity is making it more difficult for them to do their jobs successfully. Based on our own reporting plus insight provided by Ipswitch Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer Jeff Loeb, this eWEEK slide show offers 10 best practices for network monitoring in today's complex IT world.

Best practices for .NET Framework compatibility sdtimes.com 2016-05-03 21:38 Chris Preimesberger www.eweek.com

3 EMC World: VCE VxRack Gets New Nodes To Ease OpenStack Deployment (1.00/3) EMC Tuesday unveiled a new node for its VCE VxRack System 1000 hyper- converged infrastructure platform that the company says provides customers with an engineered solution for quickly deploying Infrastructure-as-a-Service capabilities. The new Neutrino nodes allow for the deployment of an enterprise-grade, cloud-native IaaS in a few days, said Jeremy Burton, president of enterprise products and marketing for EMC, Hopkinton, Mass. The VCE VxRack System 1000 is an engineered hyper-converged rack-scale system tying compute, storage and networking resources with integrated management. [Related: EMC World: Sources Say EMC Will Target AWS S3 With New Easy Storage Connectivity To Virtustream ] Burton told members of the IT press and analyst community at EMC World , held this week in Las Vegas, that the VCE VxRack System 1000 allows customers to choose from a variety of nodes designed for specific applications, including a Flex node leveraging the EMC ScaleIO software-defined software application and a software-defined data center node including VMware vSphere Enterprise, VMware Virtual SAN, VMware NSX, vCenter Server and components of VMware vRealize Suite. The new Neutrino nodes provide quick deployment of cloud-native IaaS services, Burton said. The first is OpenStack. "They allow you to run a full OpenStack distribution that we will be distributing," he said. There will also be Neutrino nodes for the VMware Photon lightweight Linux operating system for cloud-native applications and for Hadoop big data management, Burton said. The different services can be run side-by-side in the nodes, he said. The hardware for the Neutrino nodes is a 2U commodity appliance with four nodes configured with a flexible mix of flash and hard disk capacity. A VCE employee told CRN that a new appliance featuring a single node but much more storage capacity will ship in the third quarter for applications requiring the higher capacity. World Wide Technology already has a customer list of between 10 and 20 companies for the Neutrino nodes, said Brent Collins, global practice manager for data center infrastructures for the St. Louis-based solution provider and EMC channel partner. "There's a clear use case for it for anything that requires data services," Collins told CRN.

EMC's latest VCE nodes aim to make clouds easy computerworld.com 2016-05-03 13:16 Joseph F www.crn.com

4 New S. Dakota law to be a test case for a U. S. Internet sales tax (1.00/3) A new South Dakota law may end up determining whether most U. S. residents are required to pay sales taxes on their Internet purchases. The South Dakota law , passed by the Legislature in March, requires many out-of-state online and catalog retailers to collect the state's sales tax from customers. The law is shaping up to be a legal test case challenging a 25-year-old U. S. Supreme Court ruling that prohibits states from levying sales taxes on remote purchases. Unless courts overturn the South Dakota law, it will embolden other states to pass similar Internet sales tax rules, critics said. The law could "set the course for enormous tax and administrative burdens on businesses across the country," Steve DelBianco, executive director of e-commerce trade group NetChoice, said in a statement. If dozens of states adopt Internet sales taxes, online sellers could face audits and changing tax rules in thousands of taxing jurisdictions nationwide. Even with software that could make tax calculations easier, that would be a burden, NetChoice says. And online shoppers could end up paying up to 10 percent more for many products. Supporters defended the law. It's time to provide a "level playing field" for bricks-and-mortar retailers that are required to collect sales taxes, said state Senator Deb Peters, a Republican and the main sponsor of the tax legislation. With South Dakota's sales tax going up from 4 percent to 4.5 percent in June, out-of-state sellers have an advantage. Even before the law went into effect Sunday, it prompted two lawsuits. Last Thursday, the state sued four online sellers, including Newegg and Overstock.com, in an effort to force them to register with the state and collect its sales tax. The law requires out-of-state retailers to collect sales tax if they have more than US$100,000 in sales, or 200 remote transactions, in South Dakota each year. Then, on Friday, NetChoice and the American Catalog Mailers Association sued the state , arguing the new law violates the Supreme Court's Quill v. North Dakota decision from 1992. South Dakota lawmakers passed the law "with the express understanding that its terms contradict" the Supreme Court, lawyers for the two trade groups wrote in their lawsuit. The law is "plainly unconstitutional" because it usurps the U. S. Congress's authority to regulate interstate commerce, they said. In the Quill decision, the Supreme Court ruled that states could not impose sales taxes on sales by out-of-state retailers because the taxes, with varying rules across thousands of jurisdictions, would be burdensome for sellers to collect. After the ruling, retailers with no store or warehouse in a state were not required to collect the state's sales tax. The court left an opening for the U. S. Congress to streamline sales tax collection and allow states to extend it to out-of-state businesses. Lawmakers in Congress have been trying to pass Internet sales tax legislation for more than a decade, but opponents have stalled it. Software and smartphone apps now make sales tax calculations easy, Peters said by email. "The burdens outlined in Quill no longer exist," she said. Peters encouraged the Supreme Court to rule on the South Dakota sales tax law. "We've been petitioning Congress for almost two decades to address the issue of remote sales tax collection because the ever-growing problem has negatively impacted local businesses and state revenue," she said. "To date, Congress has failed to act, leaving states to take action on their own. "

South Dakota law will be a test case for a US Internet sales tax itnews.com 2016-05-03 11:07 Grant Gross www.computerworld.com

5 Amazon.com shows European Commission how to achieve e-commerce equality (1.00/3) With its latest distribution initiative, Amazon.com might achieve what the European Commission has struggled with for years: The creation of a borderless online marketplace where the price of goods and the cost of shipping them is the same for all European Union citizens. The e-commerce giant has long used its knowledge of shopping trends to ensure that its warehouses across the U. S. maintain stock close to expected demand, for Amazon itself and also for merchants using its fulfillment services. Now with the Pan-European Fulfillment By Amazon program, it's planning to roll out a similar service for small businesses operating in the EU, many of which are reluctant to operate outside their home country. The program will enable small businesses to offer faster delivery, at lower prices, to more EU destinations, the company says. The Commission has long dreamed of an online shopping experience free of "geoblocking" -- the practice of online retailers restricting their sales to certain countries. The Commission is concerned that manufacturers may be to blame for such restrictions, using anticompetitive distribution contracts to prevent retailers from competing across borders. Such practices would allow manufacturers to ensure that their products sold for higher prices in richer countries, for example, and milking markets for all they are worth. However, manufacturers of consumer goods are responsible for less than a third of retail geoblocking, a Commission survey of online retailers of clothes, shoes, sporting goods and consumer electronics found earlier this year. Three in eight retailers questioned said they imposed geographical restrictions on sales, but only one in eight reported that this was due to suppliers' contractual requirements. For the most part, retailers employed geoblocking because they refused to deal with the complexity and expense of foreign delivery services or foreign currencies and payment methods. Those are two of the cross-border logistics challenges that Amazon says it will handle for sellers that opt in to its pan-European fulfillment program. By distributing goods across 29 warehouses in seven European countries to meet anticipated demand, and delivering directly from the one nearest to the customer, Amazon expects to reduce delivery costs and shipping times for sellers. It already makes such transfers for its own sales and stock. More than 50 percent of Amazon sellers in the EU already use the company to sell in more than one country: The new program could bring their stock closer to customers and, Amazon said, allow them to participate in Amazon Prime, the company's flat-rate delivery service. Sellers will only pay the local fulfillment fee of the market in which the goods are delivered: There will be no cross-border fee, Amazon said. There are other barriers to cross-border commerce in Europe, though, including -- the Commission freely admits -- the language barrier. The European Union has 28 member states and 24 official languages. Amazon operates five European marketplaces, for the U. K., France, Germany, Spain and Italy, and can automatically translate listings from one marketplace when showing them to a customer in another. It also offers sellers a manual translation service for some listings. One thing Amazon isn't offering to help cross-border sellers with is their VAT declaration. Value- added tax rates and rules vary among EU member states , and sellers are required to declare sales and tax due to authorities in each country where sales of goods to consumers exceeded a certain threshold, typically between €35,000 and €100,000. Amazon.com shows European Commission one way to eliminate geoblocking in e- commerce itnews.com 2016-05-03 08:43 Peter Sayer www.computerworld.com

6 26 games you should be most excited about for 2016 Release date: 10 May 2016 Available to pre-order from: Amazon , GAME , Zavvi Platforms: PS4 We are super-excited about Uncharted 4: A Thief's End. It's an upcoming third-person shooter that adds to the popular Uncharted series, following on from Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception but set three years after that game ended. Drake is joined by his apparently not-dead-after-all brother Sam as they attempt to solve a mystery involving pirates and, of course, hidden treasure. Everything we know so far about Uncharted 4 can be found here . Read next: What to expect at E3 2016 Release date: 13 May 2016 Available for pre-order from: Amazon , GAME , Zavvi Platforms: Xbox One, PS4, PC Classic first person shooter Doom is getting a reboot with a new game set to arrive next year. Watch the trailer and find out more here . Release date: 20 May 2016. Available to pre-order now from: Amazon , Gamestop , ShopTo , Zavvi Platforms: Xbox One, PS4, PC, Mac This open world first-person shooter is the sequel to the Homefront game, with its story taking place two years after the events in the original. You can find out everything there is to know so far about Homefront: The Revolution here . Release date: 24 May 2016 Available to pre-order now from: Amazon , GAME , Zavvi Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, Windows PC Upcoming multiplayer first-person shooter Overwatch is set to make its way onto PS4s, Xbox One and Windows PCs within the first half of 2016, after a closed beta that took place in America and Europe in October 2015. The game is set on Earth in the future, when robots threaten humanity. You'll play as one of six in a team, which will go head-to-head with a second team of six. You'll be able to choose your character's abilities and role classes, and you'll be required to work closely with your teammates to win. Click for more information on Overwatch including early acces to the open beta . Release date: 7 June 2016 Available to pre-order from: Amazon , EA , GAME , Zavvi Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC The original free-running game Mirror's Edge came out on Xbox 360 and PS3 in November 2008, with mobile versions launched in 2010. The new Mirror's Edge was then announced in 2013 and Catalyst was originally supposed to be released on 25 February 2016, but we'll now have to wait until 7 June after several delays. It should be worth the wait, though, with missions as well as puzzles and races to be completed in the city that's free for you to explore. Find out more about Mirror's Edge: Catalyst here Release date: 24 June 2016 Available to pre-order from: Amazon , 365Games , ShopTo , GAME Platforms: PS4, PC No Man's Sky is an incredibly cool-looking sci-fi game that lets players explore and survive in an infinite procedurally generated universe. Planets and solar systems will be built as you play, and each will be different to the next. Watch trailers and find out more in our No Man's Sky release date article . Release date: 28 June 2016 Available to pre-order from: Amazon , GAME Platforms: PS3, PS4, PS Vita, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Nintendo 3DS, Wii U and PC. One of the most predictable things to follow Star Wars Episode 7 has been confirmed by Warner Bros. That's right, you'll be able to play through one of the biggest blockbuster movies of recent times in classic Lego video game form. This is the Lego game you are looking for. Find out more about Lego Star Wars The Force Awakens here. Release date: 23 August 2016 Available to pre-order from: Amazon , GAME , Zavvi Platforms: PC, Xbox One, PS4 15 years after the launch of the original Deus Ex, Square Enix announced at E3 2015 that a new game is coming to the franchise. Mankind Divided is set in an open world in the year 2029, in which the decisions you make will tailor the story, and the ending can be different for each player. Find out more about Duex Ex: Mankind Divided here . Release date: 30 September 2016 Available to pre-order now from: Amazon , GAME , Zavvi Platforms: PS4, Xbox One. The ever popular Final Fantasy franchise is set to be added to with a new game for the new generation consoles later this year, available to pre-order now. It's an open-world adventure that is the first of the numbered series to feature action-orientated combat in real time, and it looks amazing. We've got a round-up of all there is to know about Final Fantasy XV so far . Release date: 7 October 2016 Available to pre-order now from: Amazon , GAME , Steam Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC Mafia 3 is coming out this year, and there's no doubt it's highly anticipated. Set in 1968 in New Orleans, the game sees players take on the role of Lincoln Clay, a Vietnam veteran whose familiy have always been involved with organised crime. Find out more in our Mafia 3 release date & features round-up . Release date: 11 October 2016 Available to pre-order now from: Amazon , GAME Platforms: Xbox One It hasn't even been released yet, but Gears of War 4 is already being dubbed game of the year for many gamers. The popular Xbox-exclusive franchise is set 25 years in the future, and gamers will play as new protagonist JD Fenix, son of Marcus Fenix who players of the series will already be familiar with. Find out more about Gears of War 4 here . Release date: 11 November Available to pre-order now from: Amazon , Base , Zavvi Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC Bethesda used its first ever E3 2015 press conference to reveal that Dishonored 2 is set for a 2016 release. There's little information about the game at the moment, but you can find out everything there is to know so far in our Dishonored 2 article. Release date: TBC 2016 Available to pre-order now: Amazon , GAME , ShopTo Platforms: Xbox One Xbox One exclusive ReCore is a new action-adventure game set to arrive in the second half of 2016. The game follows the last few remaining humans on earth and their friendly robot companions, who together hope to tackle obstacles and enemy robots in an effort to rebuild humanity. Everything we know so far about ReCore . Release date: TBC 2016 Available to pre-order now from: Amazon , Zavvi Platforms: Wii U Ok, you might have have a wait a while for this but it will be worth the wait, we hope. Although Nintendo has confirmed Zelda for Wii U, we still haven't got a solid release date aside from a very vague 2016 (it was 2015). find out more in our Zelda for Wii U release date, UK price, gameplay features article. We had to wait a long time for Mario Kart 8 and it was worthwhile, so we're sure the same will be true here. Zelda for Wii U will be set in a completely open world and Nintendo's short teaser is enough to get us excited about the game. Release date: TBC 2016 Available to pre-order now from: Amazon , GAME , ShopTo Platforms: PS4 We're really excited about Horizon Zero Dawn, an upcoming PlayStation exclusive from Guerrila Games. It's set 1,000 years into the future, when robotic creatures have taken over the planet. You'll play as bow-yielding heroine Aloy as she hunts the creatures and uses their machine parts to her advantage. Find out more about Horizon Zero Dawn here . Release date: TBC 2016 Available to pre-order from: Amazon , GAME , ShopTo Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC Medieval warfare game For Honor sees players take on the role of a Viking, Samurai or Knight, with each faction offering its own unique abilities. Unusually, players use controller's analogue sticks to control movements and actions in battle, demanding greater accuracy to be successful. You'll find out more in For Honor article. Release date: TBC 2016 Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC While many developers are focused on first-person shooters like Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 or open-world games like Fallout 4, developers Hello There are creating something different. Enter Vector, a futuristic racing game with a musical twist. Find out more about Vector here . Release date: TBC 2016 Platforms: PS4 Matterfall is an upcoming game for PS4 that has grabbed our interest. It follows an unexpected hero fighting for survival on a ravished sci-fi world infected by an alien material known as Smart Matter. Find out more about Matterfall here . Release date: TBC 2016 Platforms: PS4, Xbox One, PC Set to be the last in the series, 20 years after the original Tekken was ported to the PlayStation, Tekken 7 is said to include the conclusion to the Mishima clan saga. Find out more about Tekken 7 here . Release date: TBC 2016 Platforms: Xbox One Unveiled at Gamescom 2015 in August, Crackdown 3 is set to be one of the most exciting games on the horizon, showcasing some truly amazing technical advancements that make it stand out from the crowd. Intrigued? You should be. Find out more in our Crackdown 3 round-up here . Release date: TBC 2016 Platforms: Xbox One, PS4, PC Rumours about the next Call of Duty are thin on the ground, but it was confirmed by Infinity Ward in February so fans are getting excited nonetheless. So far, rumours suggest that it'll be set in space in the future, but we don't know what it'll be called just yet. It could be Black Ops 4, Modern Warfare 4, Ghosts 2, Advanced Warfare 2 or somethinc completely new. Find out more in our Call of Duty 2016 rumour round-up . Release date: TBC 2016/2017 Platforms: PS4 Announced during Sony's Paris Games Week in October, Detroit: Become Human is an exciting upcoming sci-fi game created by Heavy Rain and Beyond: Two Souls developer Quantic Dream. We love the announcement trailer for this one, which you can watch here . Release date: TBC 2016/2017 Platforms: Xbox One At Gamescom 2015, developers Platinum Games unveiled Scalebound, the epic of two lonely characters, whose life is bound together until the end. Want to find out more about Scalebound and its world of dragons? Visit our Scalebound round-up. Loved this list? You might also like our round-up of the most anticipated VR games . Release date: TBC 2016/2017 Platforms: PS4 It's been more than 10 years since Kingdom Hearts II arrived on PS2 in 2015. Since then, fans have been eagerly awaiting the next instalment, and there was a time when we were unsure whether there would be one at all. The good news is, there definitely is going to be a Kingdom Hearts 3. The bad news is we still don't know when it's coming out. We do, however, know that Tangled and Big Hero 6 will star in Kingdom Hearts 3, and we can't wait. Find out more in our Kingdom Hearts 3 rumour round-up. Release date: TBC 2016/2017 Platforms: Xbox One, PS4, PC With Titanfall clocking up an impressive 10 million players, it's no surprise that the upcoming sequel is highly anticipated. The good news is that, unlike its Xbox exclusive predecessor, Titanfall 2 will be multi-platform allowing even more players to join in the fun. We don't know much about it yet but we do know that it's set to be revealed properly on 12 June during E3 2016. Find out more in our Titanfall 2 release date & features article.

The ultimate list of PlayStation 4 games to play in 2016 pcadvisor.co.uk 2016-05-03 13:00 Ashleigh Allsopp www.pcadvisor.co.uk

7 Vidyo CEO Talks Channel Disruption From Mitel-Polycom Deal, Future Of Partnership With Mitel CEO Sounds Off On Mitel-Polycom Acquisition Vidyo CEO Eran Westman told CRN that some Polycom partners are now seeking to work with the videoconferencing and collaboration specialist in the wake of Mitel's nearly $2 billion bid for Polycom. "We've already been approached by some of their partners -- some of them are quite significant -- to see if we are interested in working with them," said Westman in an interview. Polycom declined to comment when reached by CRN. Westman weighed in on the Polycom-Mitel acquisition, competition against Microsoft, and the future of Hackensack, N. J.-based Vidyo's partnership with Mitel. Following are edited excerpts of the conversation.

2016-05-04 00:08 Mark Haranas www.crn.com

8 CloudPhysics Introduces Data-Driven IT Monitoring Software Geared For Partners CloudPhysics channel partners have been using the company's platform for years to manage and assess their customers' virtualized IT environments, but that wasn't the intended use case of the analytics platform. After recognizing that partners were doing more with its product than reselling it to end users, the Santa Clara, Calif.-based startup introduced Tuesday a Partner Edition of its software that's actually geared for channel use. The new edition is designed to not only help consultants and managed service providers optimize and oversee virtualized customer data centers, but also to nurture their relationships with those customers, Jeff Hausman, CEO of CloudPhysics , told CRN. [Related: The 10 Coolest Virtualization Startups Of 2015 ] CloudPhysics focuses on making IT work better through data-driven insights, he said. The software anonymously samples customers and uses their operational data to identify working hazards or performance problems in virtual server, storage and networking environments. Early partners who started using the product themselves encouraged CloudPhysics to develop the latest edition, Hausman said. "We went from being channel-friendly, to realizing, 'Wait a minute, channel partners are a whole different model and a whole different opportunity,' " Hausman told CRN. While CloudPhysics has always been focused on the channel, said Hausman, Partner Edition adds functionality unique to that model. "It's bringing the same concept of big data and analytics insights to help drive a relationship between the partners and the customers they serve," Hausman said. "We're allowing partners to take those data-driven insights to make better decisions on behalf of and in conjunction with their customers. " The company, founded in 2011 by former VMware employees, and partially funded by VMware co-founders Diane Greene and Mendel Rosenblum, has been growing dramatically, Hausman said, tripling its sales over the past year. The Software-as-a-Service offering allows partners to address challenges around cloud migration, new hardware, performance analysis, re-architecting, and avoiding operational hazards. They can use the platform as an end-to-end solution to make periodic assessments or run continual managed service offerings.

2016-05-04 00:08 Joseph Tsidulko www.crn.com

9 Capital One 'Galvanized' By Wallet Development Capital One, as a 20-year-old financial institution, had to set aside many established practices to come up with a more enticing mobile application, one distinctly centered on customer experience. On May 2, Skip Potter, managing VP of engineering, Capital One Financial, told attendees at the InformationWeek Elite 100 Conference that the firm's Wallet app had become a game-changing move and "a galvanizing experience" for the company. An important part of the new thinking was allowing recommended changes to filter up through the ranks instead of being "ordered from the top down," he told the gathering at the Four Seasons Hotel in Las Vegas. One example was the pushback from engineering as features were added and enhanced in a pressurized effort to get the new application ready for launch in late 2014. "Engineering said, 'We're dying here trying to make all the changes,'" Potter recalled. Implementing a well-thought-out API reduced the impact of frequent changes by giving engineering a constant front end that remained stable, despite code changes underneath it. [Want to read more about Capital One's transformation? Read Capital One: Think Like a Designer, Work Like a Startup .] "You have to trust the folks on the ground to bring you to the right spot," he advised. A constant conversation between designers, product managers, and developers allowed many new ideas to float up and get sorted out. Then the agreed on final approach was brought back into the organization's regular development disciplines and project management. The end result was "a more human-centered product development" process and a customer experience with the mobile app that proved a win for Capital One in the marketplace. It digitized many elements of a customer's transactions and centralized them on the phone. It pulled together transaction details, such as the name and location of the business and the transaction amount, so users could more readily identify whether the transaction was actually one of theirs or not. If requested, it displayed the location on a Google Map. It combined bank transactions with instant message notification of purchases. It allowed a phone snapshot of a receipt to be combined with the transaction details. It even displayed rewards customers were earning through their card use. The Wallet app became one of the payment options under Apple Pay for the iPhone as it came out last October. There were several large financial institutions at Apple's announcement, but "we stood out," said Potter. The success of Wallet helped Capital One usher in the digital age to its millions of credit card customers. "It was galvanizing to business leaders, to the engineers, and also the product designers," Potter said. It illustrated to them how they could unleash talent within the organization without losing control of their basic business processes. "You have to let a lot of things bloom, then prune it back," he advised, but successfully navigating the process proved transformative. When Wallet was launched, Capital One rebranded its diverse IT staff as one group, "Technology. " "It changed the way we thought about designing and engineering a product… We're not just an IT shop. Our whole company is now more of a product organization," he said.

2016-05-04 00:08 Charles Babcock www.informationweek.com

10 Michael Dell On Dell-EMC's Storage Overlap, Future Acquisitions And The Blockbuster Deal's Channel Impact Michael Dell Sounds Off Dell CEO Michael Dell Monday took questions from press and analysts at EMC World on his company's planned acquisition of storage giant EMC, the storage product overlap between the two companies and the channel impact of the blockbuster deal. The Q&A session came after Dell took to the main stage for his keynote at EMC World Monday and took aim at rival Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Dell said the company, which split into HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise last November, is slashing R&D spending at the expense of innovation. "They're getting smaller, they're separating their edge from their core with far less revenue, less innovation, less investment in R&D, less software, a smaller supply chain and losing share in each of their businesses to Dell," said Dell. Meanwhile, Dell and EMC work on a proposed, $60 billion merger that would create an $80 billion global IT industry powerhouse. The deal, expected to close by the end of October, is awaiting approval by EMC shareholders, as well as the Chinese government. The following is an edited excerpt of Dell's Q&A.

2016-05-04 00:08 Matt Brown www.crn.com

11 IBM Puts Its Twist on Blockchain With New Security Framework IBM launches new secure blockchain services for financial services, government and healthcare on IBM Cloud. Once again, IBM has taken an emerging technology and put its own special twist on it to make the technology work for Big Blue and its enterprise customer base. This time it’s the blockchain distributed ledger technology that IBM has optimized. IBM has been able to tap into emerging technologies and quickly adapt them to the IBM way. The company has done this with a host of technologies such as Apache Spark , Hadoop, Cloud Foundry , Java, Linux, the Internet of Things (IOT) and more. A blockchain is essentially a distributed database that enables users to design a digital ledger of transactions and share it amongst a distributed network of computers. Blockchain is the technical foundation of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies, largely because it provides a transparent, secure and simple way to transact business. The core components of blockchain are: a network of computers, a network protocol and a consensus mechanism. IBM refers to blockchain as an operating system for interactions. “It has the potential to vastly reduce the cost and complexity of getting things done,” reads a description of blockchain on IBM’s Bluemix site . “The distributed ledger makes it easier to create cost-efficient business networks where virtually anything of value can be tracked and traded, without requiring a central point of control.” However, because blockchain is an emerging technology, no standards have been established on the requirements to securely operate blockchain networks in the cloud, IBM said. To help speed the adoption of blockchain for business, IBM announced a new framework for securely operating blockchain networks, as well as new services on the IBM Cloud that meet existing regulatory and security requirements. Although, blockchain networks are built on the notion of decentralized control, some cloud environments leave back doors open to vulnerabilities that allow tampering and unauthorized access, IBM said. The company tasked its security experts, cryptographers, hardware engineers and researchers to create new cloud services for trusted blockchain networks. “When it comes to blockchain for the enterprise world, our research has shown that permissioned blockchains are the only way to go,” said Jerry Cuomo, vice president of Blockchain at IBM, in a blog post . Moreover, in contrast to their permissionless counterparts, permissioned blockchains are the only systems that can enforce policies that can constrain both access to data, and participation in the network, based on identity, Cuomo said. “This design enables participating companies to comply with data protection regulations. Permissioned blockchains are also more effective at controlling the consistency of the data that gets appended to the blockchain, allowing for more granular decision processes to be built on top of them.” IBM’s new blockchain cloud services provide an auditable operating environment with log data to support forensics and compliance. The services also enable users to store crypto keys and monitor unauthorized attempts to enter the system. The new IBM Cloud services also provide protected environments to prevent leaks through shared memory or hardware. IBM's new blockchain solutions and initiatives are an interesting example of how the company can move, more or less unilaterally, to innovate in emerging technologies, said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.

2016-05-03 22:48 Darryl K www.eweek.com

12 HP Unveils Its Latest Pavilion Notebooks, Convertibles, Desktops HP's new x360 portables come in three screen sizes each, while its latest all-in-one desktop model gets a micro-edge display option. HP has debuted a new generation of notebook and convertible portable computers that are thinner and lighter than its previous models, as well as a new all-in-one computer and a Pavilion desktop machine with a footprint 30 percent smaller than its earlier version. The latest machines are aimed at a wide range of customers, from general users to students, families and others, with colorful designs and myriad features and options. The new lineup was announced by HP on May 3. The new HP Pavilion x360 (pictured) comes in a range of colors and is available in three screen sizes—11.6 inches, 13.3 inches and a new 15.6-inch version—while the HP Pavilion laptops will come in 14-inch and 15.6-inch versions. The latest HP Pavilion all-in-ones will be available with a standard 23.8-inch Full HD display or with optional 23.8-inch quad HD or 27-inch Full HD touch-screen or non-touch-screen displays, while the latest Pavilion is available with a wide range of processor, memory and storage drive options. "Some customers want thin and light PCs for on the go while other customers want power and performance to create and store," Kevin Frost, vice president and general manager of consumer personal systems at HP, said in a statement. "HP's redesigned Pavilion PCs offer affordability and a variety of options for customers to get the functionality they need in a PC packed with style and personality. " The HP Pavilion x360 Convertible The redesigned 11.6- and 13.3-inch Pavilion x360 models are 12 to 14 percent thinner than the models they replace and are also lighter than previous versions, according to HP. The 11.6-inch version is 0.75 inches thick and starts at 2.93 pounds, while the 13.3-inch model is 0.77 inches thick and starts are 3.48 pounds. The all-new 15.6-inch version is 0.94 inches thick and starts at 5.07 pounds. All three x360 machines get a new geared hinge that is inspired by the HP Spectre x360, allowing the machines to be positioned into four different user modes. The x360 can be configured with a range of processors, including Intel Celeron, Intel Pentium and up to sixth-generation Intel Core i7 CPUs, depending on the model. Also available are memory configurations up to 16GB and solid-state drive (SSD) storage up to 512GB or hard drives up to 1TB, depending on the model. The machines can also be equipped with standard HD or optional Full HD In-Plane Switching (IPS) displays on the 13.3 inch and 15.6 inch models. The Pavilion x360s come in an assortment of colors, including Natural Silver, Modern Gold, Dragonfly Blue, Cardinal Red and Sport Purple. The 11.6-inch Pavilion x360 will be available on May 15 at HP.com starting at $379.99 and at BestBuy.com starting at $399.99. The 13.3-inch version will be available May 29 on HP.com starting at $479.99 and on BestBuy.com starting at $499.99. The 15.6-inch version will be available May 25 on HP.com starting at $579.99 and through select retailers on July 6 starting at $729.99. The Pavilion Notebooks HP's latest 14-inch and 15.6-inch Pavilion notebooks arrive roughly 11 to 22 percent thinner and lighter than the models they replace and also boast smaller footprints, according to the company. The 14-inch model starts at 3.3 pounds and is 0.76 inches thick, while the 15.6-inch model starts at 4.26 pounds and is 0.88 inches thick. The 17.3-inch Pavilion model starts at 6.28 pounds and is 1.17 inches thick. The new Pavilion notebooks can be configured with up to sixth-generation Intel Core i7 processors, as well as optional Nvidia GeForce 940MX, Nvidia GeForce GTX 950M or Nvidia GeForce GTX 960M graphics. Also available are optional seventh-generation AMD A12-9700P quad-core processors with optional R7 Graphics on select models. The machines can be purchased with up to 16GB of memory, SSD drives up to 512GB, and hard drives up to 2TB on select models. Optical drives as well as edge-to-edge HD or Full HD IPS displays with optional touch are also available on some notebook models. The latest Pavilions come in a range of colors, including Natural Silver, Modern Gold, Blizzard White, Onyx Black, Cardinal Red, Dragonfly Blue and Sport Purple. The 14-inch Pavilion notebook will be available at select retailers on June 12 starting at $539.99, while the 15.6-inch version will be available May 18 on HP.com starting at $579.99 and through select retailers starting at $599.99. The 17.3-inch version will be available on HP.com on May 18 starting at $899.99 and through select retailers starting at $1,099.99. HP All-in-Ones HP's latest all-in-ones are available with 23.8-inch Full HD, 23.8-inch quad HD or 27-inch Full HD touch-screen or non-touch-screen displays with an optional micro-edge display on some models that increases the usable size of the screen. The machines can also be configured with Intel Pentium or up to sixth-generation Intel Core i7 processors, along with optional Nvidia GT 930A graphics, or seventh-generation AMD processors up to the A10 CPU. The machines can also be purchased with hard drives up to 3TB or hybrid drives up to 1TB SSHD drives and memory configurations up to 16GB. The latest all-in-ones include a new open-framed stand with an airy design and ports that are hidden in the front and back of the machine. An optional Intel RealSense camera is available on select models. B&O Play audio tuning is also included in the new machines. The 23.8-inch all-in-one will be available July 10 through HP.com and select retailers starting at $699.99, while the 27-inch version will be available July 3 through HP.com and select retailers starting at $999.99. The HP Pavilion Desktop HP's latest Pavilion desktop has a footprint that is 30 percent smaller than past versions and is available with a wide range of processors, including Intel Celeron CPUs, up to sixth-generation Intel Core i7 processors with optional Nvidia GT 730 to Nvidia GTX 750i graphics, or seventh- generation AMD CPUs up to the A12 processor. Also available as options are up to 16GB of memory, up to 3TB of hard-drive storage and an optical drive. The machines support up to two displays and include myriad ports for peripherals, including two front and two rear USB 2.0 ports, two rear USB 3.0 ports, a High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) out port, a VGA port and a 3-in-1 media card reader. The machines, which will come in Natural Silver, Blizzard White or Twinkle Black, will be available on HP.com on June 29 and at select retailers on June 26 starting at $449.99. An optional 32-inch quad HD display for the new desktop computer will also be available on HP.com and through select retailers on June 26 starting at $399.99.

2016-05-03 22:48 Todd R www.eweek.com

13 Companies are throwing money at data scientists but don't know what to do with them, claims Lenovo The world's biggest PC maker Lenovo is in the market for data scientists - but claims that it is competing with employers scooping up talent with big salaries, yet who don't know what to do with them once they've recruited them. That is the no-nonsense assessment of Mohammed Chaara, director of the Customer Insight Center of Excellence, Strategy & Analytics, at Lenovo. "There is a demand for talent, and you're competing with employers who don't even know what they want to do with analytics but are willing to pay the price. So the challenge is both in supply and demand," he told the media at SAS's headquarters in North Carolina. Chaara's comments chime with what Jody Porrazzo, data scientist at multinational media company UBM told Computing at the SAS Global Forum, that the only thing the business understands when it comes to data science and analytics "is that they don't understand it". Lenovo's Chaara said that the company currently has three groups of analytical talent. "We have those who have recently graduated and have done some cool internship somewhere and they usually come in with knowledge of new technologies, like Hadoop or Spark. "Then you have these mid-level analytics experts who are very strong on data modelling in a traditional way, but who lack the business acumen to be a leader within the organisation. And, finally, you have a more business-focused group which is really limited to BI and descriptive reporting," he said. Chaara suggested that a data scientist is someone who should have a working knowledge in all three of those groups, but hiring someone like that is currently a real challenge for many organisations . The Chinese company has organised hubs of expertise. "We have four centres of excellence - four hubs of analytics and multiple teams embedded into the unit. We have about 100 people who are involved with analytics and this has grown drastically over the past two to three years," he said. Dudley Gwaltney, group vice president and manager of analytical modelling at SunTrust Bank, also addressing the media at the SAS global event, suggested that the main skill he looks for when attempting to hire a data scientist is "intellectual curiosity", but he admitted that this was an incredibly hard characteristic to measure - and it's not something easily found on a CV either. Lenovo's Chaara agreed with Gwaltney and added that it was difficult to know whether a candidate has this "intellectual curiosity" in one-on-one interviews either. Chaara also revealed that Lenovo was using machine learning to analyse unstructured data from YouTube and . " How SMBs Can Punch Above Their Weight In The New Economy ", a free webinar presented by Computing , will be broadcast live today at 11am. Register now!

2016-05-03 22:47 Sooraj Shah www.computing.co.uk

14 New branding unveiled for merged Dell-EMC organization LAS VEGAS – Speculation has been rampant since Dell announced its acquisition of EMC late in 2015 in the biggest business deal in history at $68 billion if the EMC brand would continue after the close of the transaction. Well Dell CEO Michael Dell put that to rest at the EMC World show by confirming after the close the newly integrated operation will be rebranded Dell Technologies. “What do I call the new company? Well, I believe the acquisition of EMC is a family move and I would like to continue the company as a family. Since I’ partial to my own name it will be called Dell Technologies,” Dell said at the EMCWorld conference. He added that after the deal was announced Dell embarked on a worker study with about 7,500 employees from Dell and EMC to measure culture. Michael Dell revealed that the culture is very similar with the top five traits being the same. The first trait being customer focus, he said. Michael Dell has been consistent in his message ever since the announcement saying that Dell and EMC portfolio are complimentary. But for those partial to the EMC brand; not to worry as it will remain as a sub-brand. The Dell EMC brand will be the new company’s Enterprise business sub-brand; The original “Dell” name will continue to be used for client solutions. Going forward the new Dell Technologies will comprise the combined enterprise infrastructure businesses of Dell and EMC, the PC business and affiliated businesses including VMware, SecureWorks, Pivotal, Virtustream, RSA and VCE. The two brand names coming together could build confusion in the marketplace but David Goulden, the CEO of EMC II does not see it that way. “It reflects big on two very strong brands. There is EMC’s infrastructure business with storage and Virtustream, RSA and what we are doing with that with all of the Dell server assets and converged infrastructure makes it roughly twice the size of the business today. These are well- known brands and we want to keep the EMC brand relevant and the Dell brand is strong and it’s a simple as that.” Both Dell and EMC sources have told CDN that the transaction remains on schedule under its original timetable and terms, which is expected to be Oct. 16, 2016. The transaction remains subject to approval by EMC’s shareholders, regulatory clearance (one specific to the China market) in certain other jurisdictions and other customary closing conditions. “The combination of Dell and EMC can be the most trusted provider in IT. Together we can modernize IT and help you for the digital future,” Dell said.

2016-05-03 22:47 Paolo Del www.itworldcanada.com

15 AMD Creates Site Dedicated to Polaris GPU Company officials say the 14nm graphics technology that features a FinFET design will help drive AMD further into such areas as gaming and VR. officials earlier this year at the 2016 Consumer Electronics Show introduced Polaris, its upcoming GPU architecture that they said will help drive the company's ambitions in such areas as gaming, immersive computing and virtual reality. Now the processor vendor has an online microsite dedicated to the architecture, promoting new features in the graphics chip, from improved performance and support for next-generation gaming monitors to enhanced virtual reality (VR) capabilities. It also touts the fact that the Polaris 10 and 11 GPUs will be built on a 14-nanomter 3D FinFET transistor design, which enables significant improvements in performance and power efficiency. The FinFET PC GPU architecture will help more than double the performance-per-watt of previous Radeon graphics technologies, according to company officials. It also allowed AMD to drop its graphics offerings in size from 28nm—where the company had been for five years—to 14nm, enabling it to better compete with rivals like Nvidia and Intel. "The Polaris architecture precisely combines the latest 14nm FinFET process and AMD's advanced power, gating and clocking technologies for a superior cool and quiet gaming experience," the company says on the site. Graphics technologies continue to be a key part of AMD's future efforts, enabling the company to compete in a broad range of growth areas in the industry, including gaming, immersive computing and VR. Company executives have pointed to graphics, semi-custom chips, the data center and high-end PCs as key drivers in AMD's turnaround efforts and strategy to return to sustainable profitability. Over the past year, AMD has created the Radeon Technology Group (RTG) to oversee GPU efforts, unveiled a range of new GPUs—including the Fury chips last year, which were the first to include the vendor's high-bandwidth memory (HBM) technology—rolled out Radeon Software Crimson to replace its Catalyst Control Center and compete with Nvidia's GeForce Experience software, and introduced the Boltzmann Initiative , a project designed to make it easier to develop high-performance computing applications for the FirePro graphics technology. Polaris will play an important role in pushing AMD's graphics ambitions. In a video in January when Polaris was first introduced, Joe Cox, senior director of graphics IP at the company, said Polaris will offer significant improvements in performance-per-watt for the Radeon family of GPUs. "If the goal is to be in a market with a compelling new product that has compelling new power [and] performance, I would expect nothing less," Cox said. During a conference call April 21 to talk about the company's first-quarter financial numbers, AMD President and CEO Lisa Su said she was pleased with the company's work around graphics. "Our investments in graphics and our focus on creating industry-leading drivers and software are starting to pay off," Su said, according to a transcript on Seeking Alpha. "We have delivered seven new graphics driver releases in the first quarter alone, not only improving the performance and user experience of our GPUs, but also adding support for new AAA game titles and features like our innovative XConnect external GPU technology. " She said AMD will continue to expand its efforts in graphics, noting that VR will play an important role in the company's future in both the consumer and commercial spaces and pointing to AMD's new $1,500 Radeon Pro Duo platform for VR creation and consumption. The Polaris GPUs will launch in the middle of the year, she said, adding that "Polaris delivers double the performance-per-watt of our current mainstream offerings, which we believe provides us with significant opportunities to gain share. "

2016-05-03 21:44 Jeffrey Burt www.eweek.com

16 Security Think Tank: Strategies for meeting cyber security skills needs The skills gap reported by cyber security professionals worldwide is often discussed as purely a supply-side issue, or a “talent shortage”. What is rarely discussed is whether the organisations hiring cyber security staff are actually looking for the right skills, asking the right questions and looking in the right places.

2016-05-03 21:42 Adrian Davis www.computerweekly.com

17 Google Patches 40 Android Flaws in May Update No surprise, but once again mediaserver is identified as being vulnerable, as Google patches two critical and five high impact vulnerabilities in the component. Google has released its fifth security update for its Android mobile operating system so far in 2016, this time patching 40 vulnerabilities. Of those, 12 are rated as critical, with two of the critical issues identified as remote code execution vulnerabilities in Android's much maligned mediaserver component. In addition to the two critical issues in mediaserver, there are five other vulnerabilities in mediaserver that Google has rated as having high impact and two as having moderate impact. Google's mediaserver, which is in the same general area of Android as the libstagefright (Stagefright) media library, has been the subject of security researcher scrutiny since July 2015 when Zimperium zLabs Vice President of Platform Research and Exploitation Joshua Drake first reported flaws. The two critical flaws in mediaserver—CVE-2016-2428 and CVE-2016-2429—were reported to Google by Alibaba security researcher Weichao Sun. "During media file and data processing of a specially crafted file, a vulnerability in mediaserver could allow an attacker to cause memory corruption and remote code execution as the mediaserver process," Google warns in its advisory. "This issue is rated as Critical severity due to the possibility of remote code execution within the context of the mediaserver service. " Also of note is a critical issue (CVE-2015-1805) that Google is only now patching in Android that was first patched by the upstream Linux kernel community in June 2015. "An elevation of privilege vulnerability in the kernel could enable a local malicious application to execute arbitrary code within the context of the kernel," Google's advisory states. For the five issues (CVE-2016-2448, CVE-2016-2449, CVE-2016-2450, CVE-2016-2451 and CVE-2016-2452) in mediaserver that Google rates as having high impact, the root vulnerability is privilege escalation. The privilege escalation issues were reported to Google by security researchers Mingjian Zhou, Chiachih Wu and Xuxian Jiang from research firm Core Team. "An elevation of privilege vulnerability in mediaserver could enable a local malicious application to execute arbitrary code within the context of an elevated system application," Google's advisory warns. The moderate flaws in mediaserver are identified as CVE-2016-2459 and CVE-2016-2460 and were reported to Google by Trend Micro security researcher Peter Pi. The flaws are information disclosure issues that could potentially enable an application to gain unauthorized access to sensitive information. Zuk Avraham, founder and CTO of Zimperium, isn't surprised that Google continues to find vulnerabilities in Android month after month. "Google is getting better and better at closing more holes, but there are just so many out there," he told eWEEK. "In every release, we see new remote code execution vulnerabilities as well as local privilege escalation. " Avraham's company was the first to report on issues related to Android's mediaserver, which Google has patched nearly every month since first starting a monthly patch cycle in August 2015. "Unfortunately, it does not look like we'll have a month or quarter without new mediaserver bugs anytime soon," he said. Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at eWEEK and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist.

2016-05-03 21:41 Sean Michael www.eweek.com

18 Cloud security and enabling workforce mobility are two biggest IT challenges for SMBs, says HPE Security of cloud services and enabling workforce mobility are the two biggest IT challenges for SMBs, according to HPE's chief technologist of small and medium businesses (SMBs), Marcus Bentley. Bentley, who was speaking on Computing web seminar How SMBs can punch above their weight in the new economy , said that these two areas are the main sticking points for SMBs alongside the usual "doing more with less money and doing it better with no downtime" that every organisation has to contend with. Bentley said that SMBs "need imagination" and to step back and see the context in which they are operating. He said businesses should also look externally to achieve their targets. "I've seen a lot of businesses forgetting about service level. If I pick up the phone to them, are they going to get back to me in 20 minutes, a couple of hours - or days? " he questioned. Bentley added that, thanks to new types of service providers, SMBs that don't have the budget to build bespoke systems themselves can rely on partners or new niche types of services. "There are big service providers such as Amazon, Azure and Google, and then there are medium-sized ones which are a bit more niche. So SMBs can get something not necessarily off- the-shelf, that's a bit different," he said. Intel's chief strategist and architect Jim Henrys suggested the biggest challenge for SMBs is to keep up with the pace of change in the industry. He gave the example of companies that are trying to adapt agile practices, with open working areas, post-it walls and whiteboards, and suggested that while this could encourage collaboration, SMBs had to think about how they can extend these practices to the way they work with external partners, for example, sharing the ideas from a whiteboard or post-it wall with a partnering business. He said for this to happen, IT needed to not just be aligned to the business, but actually intertwined with it, and with every employee being technology literate. For more on what SMBs need to know about the latest technologies, take a look at our SMB Spotlight channel in association with HPE and Intel.

2016-05-03 21:41 Computing Staff www.computing.co.uk

19 Company officials cite softer-than-expected revenue for its Fibre Channel networking unit and slow U. S. federal business. Brocade officials expect revenue for the most recent financial quarter to come in below expectations due to a general weakness in IT spending, echoing what other tech vendors have mentioned in recent months. Executives with the networking vendor in February had expected revenue for Brocade’s second fiscal quarter to come in between $542 million and $562 million. However, they announced May 2 that revenue instead will hit between $518 million and $528 million. Brocade is scheduled to announce second-quarter earnings May 19. In a statement, Lloyd Carney said the "general softness in IT spending" is similar to what other vendors in the tech industry had pointed out in recent months, adding that Brocade realized weaker than anticipated revenue in its storage-area network (SAN) revenue and pressure on its IP networking unit, especially from service providers and U. S. federal business. "We are addressing these near-term challenges by continuing our focus on sales execution in this weaker-demand environment, maintaining prudent expense controls and managing our investments in line with our stated priorities," Carney said. "We continue to execute on our strategy to build a pure-play networking company for the digital transformation era that expands our market reach, diversifies our revenue mix, and creates exciting, incremental opportunities for growth. " Among the other vendors that have issued revenue warnings is rival Juniper Networks , which earlier in April pointed to weak demand from enterprise customers and poor timing on deployments by some top-tier telecommunications customers in both the United States and Europe. For the previous quarter, Brocade reported $574 million in revenue, flat from the same period the year before. In a conference call in February to discuss the quarterly financial numbers, Carney noted solid performance in the company's Fibre Channel storage and SAN businesses, but said the IP networking business was being hurt by a steep seasonal decline in the U. S. federal business. "As a result, we're maintaining a more modest view of our IP networking business in the first half of the year," the CEO said, according to a transcript on Seeking Alpha. "However, we do expect significant improvement in the second half as the U. S. federal markets becomes seasonally stronger and new products provide an opportunity to accelerate growth. " Brocade officials, who over the past several years have worked to build out the company's software-defined networking (SDN) capabilities, announced in April that the company was buying Ruckus Wireless for $1.2 billion in a bid to bolster its wireless networking expertise.

2016-05-03 22:42 Jeffrey Burt www.eweek.com

20 Democratising analytics: A case of IT vs the business Two personalities at April's Teradata Universe conference in Hamburg stood out in terms of their crossover appeal: a presentation by strategic analytics director Pat Murphy, from Toys ‘R Us, and the...

2016-05-03 19:41 Peter Gothard www.computing.co.uk

21 New Canadian ransomware campaign shows how attacks are tailored: Sophos There’s a large-scale ransomware attack going on this week with attackers using a phony Bank of Montreal template to lure victims into clicking on a malicious attachment, says Chester Wisnewski, a Vancouver-based senior security advisor at Sophos Inc. He knows because he got one of the messages in his email as he was heading to Las Vegas on Monday for the security vendor’s annual partners conference. “Literally as I got on the plane I got what looked like a BMO phish, and in fact it was ransomware,” he said in an interview. “It was amazing how well crafted it was because the Web site booby-trapped with the exploit is literally a carbon copy of the BMO online login landing page.” He also recently received a phony message purporting to be from Quebec Internet and cable provider Videotron. These are timely example that illustrates a SophosLabs blog released today pointing to a growing trend of cybercriminals to target and even filter out specific countries when designing ransomware and other malicious cyberattacks. Based on data collected from Sophos endpoints, firewalls and gateways, it shows attackers are now crafting customized spam to carry threats using regional vernacular, counterfeit logos, and impersonating tax and law enforcement agencies. Tricks include phony shipping notices, refunds, speeding tickets and electricity bills. Looking for spelling mistakes to tip you off? You may not find them. In the U. K. an phony home repair invoicing campaign is going on now that inserts recipients’ street addresses to convince people the messages are real, he added. Like the tailored BMO message he got, Wisnewski says criminals likely assembled information from one or more data breaches to tailor attacks at certain countries. That’s why BMO spam is going to Canada, not Germany, he said. “You have to look harder to spot fake emails from real ones,” Wisnewski said. “There’s not a lot of good answers to that problem,” he admits. “It’s not like we can tell people, ‘Stop opening email and clicking links. I’ve been telling people that for 15 years but nobody’s listening. So we have to find better technological solutions from getting us in trouble from these more socialized lures.” Patching and updates are crucial, he said. For example, the latest versions of Microsoft Office are better at stopping document malware — for example, giving admins the ability to disable macros in documents that came from the Internet. Similarly Windows 10 is more secure that Win 7, he said. Using a sandbox and Web filtering are also useful, he added. The report also said researchers have found different ransomware strains target specific locations. For example, versions of CryptoWall predominantly hit victims in the U. S., U. K., Canada, Australia, Germany and France. TorrentLocker has attacked primarily the U. K., Italy, Australia and Spain, while TeslaCrypt honed in on the U. K., U. S., Canada, Singapore and Thailand. Sophos also said its customer data shows that while Western countries are highly targeted for malware, less developed countries show higher attacks or infections. For example, nations with what Sophos calls a high threat exposure rate (infections/attackers per 1,000 Sophos endpoints) include Algeria (30.7 per cent), Boliva (20.3 per cent), Pakistan (19.9 per cent) and China (18.5 per cent) and India. Nations ranked with the lowest TER include France at 5.2 percent, Canada at 4.6 percent, Australia, and the U. K. Wisnewski suspects computer users in countries with the higher TER don’t update or patch their systems as often as those in other countries. Separately Sophos released a report on Microsoft Office exploits found in Q4 2015, which said that — again — CVE-2012‐0158 , a critical Windows bug that allows remote control execution was responsible for 48 per cent of Office infections. However, use of the newer CVE‐2015-1641 exploit (15 per cent) is increasing. The report adds that in many cases the malicious documents contained multiple exploits. The largest used the DL-1 generator (36 per cent), followed by the CVE‐2014‐6352 PowerPoint vulnerability. “The cybercrime groups find Office documents a convenient way to deliver malicious program to their targets,” says the report. “They have been using this method steadily over the past two years and there is no sign that they intend to give up on this method. “But their approach is evolving over the time: they use several black market tools to generate the exploited documents, and thanks to the development of these tools they get to use newer Office exploits. “However, they don’t get to use zero days. Even the freshest exploit in their arsenal was fixed six months before the widespread usage started. It shouldn’t be difficult to protect against the activities of this group: Just applying the patches for Microsoft Office could disarm the attack.”

2016-05-03 19:12 Howard Solomon www.itworldcanada.com

22 'I'm Satoshi Nakamoto,' claims Australian entrepreneur Craig Wright An Australian entrepreneur and cryptographer has claimed that he is "Satoshi Nakamoto", the elusive creator of bitcoin. It isn't the first time someone has claimed to be Nakamoto, however. Some two years ago, US news magazine Newsweek claimed to have unmasked the real Nakamoto, despite the subject's repeated and vehement denials. This time, an Australian cryptographer and entrepreneur called Craig Wright is claiming to be Nakamoto. Wright has insisted to the BBC, the Economist and other publications that he really is Nakamoto. The BBC reporter who spoke to Wright claims that he "digitally signed messages using cryptographic keys created during the early days of bitcoin's development" to prove his claim. The keys are "inextricably linked to blocks of bitcoins " created by the shady creator Nakamoto, according to the BBC. It added that prominent people around bitcoin have accepted Wright as Nakamoto, including Gavin Andresen, chief scientist at the Bitcoin Foundation, who blogged his support. "I believe Craig Steven Wright is the person who invented bitcoin," he wrote. "I was flown to London to meet Dr Wright a couple of weeks ago, after an initial email conversation convinced me that there was a very good chance he was the same person I'd communicated with in 2010 and early 2011. After spending time with him I am convinced beyond a reasonable doubt: Craig Wright is Satoshi. " However, not everyone is convinced. The Economist urged Wright to supply more proof by doing another signing, but he declined, telling the paper that he wasn't "going to keep jumping through hoops". That paper can't make its mind up, noting that Nakamoto is supposed to be a private person, something that Wright is not. But it admitted that "he clearly seemed to know what he was talking about". Last year, Wright's Australian home was raided by the police after a report on Wired magazine suggested he may be Nakamoto. However, the Australian police claim that their presence was "not associated with the media reporting overnight about bitcoins".

2016-05-03 19:11 Dave Neal www.computing.co.uk

23 Why Samsung's SmartThings Home Controller Is Under Fire The smart home market is set to grow enormously in the next five years from $43 billion in worldwide revenue in 2015 to more than $100 billion by 2020, according to Juniper Research. Multiple big-name companies, including Samsung, Apple and Google, want to claim generous shares of this rapidly evolving market. However, Samsung is contending with the fallout of recent news reports claiming that its smart home platform is vulnerable to remote hacks. Security researchers say they have found that Samsung's SmartThings home device controller is vulnerable to phishing scams and malware that could allow a cyber-attacker to take control of the controller. If the reports about the security flaws hold true, Samsung's hopes that SmartThings will take a healthy slice of the smart home market could be dashed. This slide show covers the good as well as the bad aspects of SmartThings to help prospective buyers determine whether it's still a viable product in the fast-growing field of smart home devices.

2016-05-03 21:38 Don Reisinger www.eweek.com

24 How to set up and use with a BBC micro:bit with your phone or PC A million Year 7s are getting their own micro:bit this year, and the hope is that it will inspire them to learn to code. The tiny computer has an LED ‘screen’, Bluetooth, sensors and buttons so you can do a surprising amount with it. For some inspiration, see 8 fun projects you can do with a micro:bit When you get a micro:bit it should come with a micro USB cable and a battery pack that lets you power it on the move (the USB cable will also provide power). When you first turn it on it will tell you the button on the left is A and on the right is B. It then runs a basic ‘catch the dot’ game which uses the accelerometer to move your dot to the position of the static dot by tilting the micro:bit. What you do next is up to you. If you have an Android phone with version 4.4 or later, or an iPhone with iOS 8.4 or newer, you can install the official micro:bit apps (the Android one is developed by Samsung). Launch the app and then tap ‘Connections’, then ‘Pair a new micro:bit’. Then press and hold buttons A and B while pressing and releasing the reset button which is on the back. Now draw the pattern you see on the micro:bit’s screen to start the pairing process. If it fails, tap the ‘i’ button to see why. In our case, it was because the board had an old version of the firmware. To fix that, you need to go to the micro:bit website, create a quick bit of code and transfer it to the micro:bit. The latest software will be copied over in the process. For more see the slide ’Website’ later in this guide. Press the A button when you see an arrow flashing left and then enter the six-digit code when you get a pairing request on your phone. You’ll then see a pairing successful message on the screen, and a tick symbol on the micro:bit To code on your phone, tap Create Code and then when the website loads, scroll down to the Microsoft Touch Develop section: this is a coding language made with phones and touchscreens in mind. Tap on ‘Follow Tutorial’. Tap on ‘let’s get started’ and follow the instructions on screen to build your code. Once done, you can tap ‘run main’ to check your program is working as expected, then tap Microsoft Block editor to go back (in the web browser) and tap ‘compile’. You’ll need to save the file, which is easier on an Android phone. On an iPhone you’ll have to have a cloud storage app installed such as Microsoft OneDrive or Google Drive and save it to that. To do it, tap Open in… and then choose the cloud storage app. Go back to the main menu and tap Flash, then My Scripts, then choose the script you just created. It will look for the micro:bit and begin transferring the program and this will run once it's done. You might find it easier to program the micro:bit using the official website from a laptop or PC. Head there in a browser and connect your micro:bit to your computer using the USB cable. It should appear like a USB flash drive. If not, check in My Computer for a removable drive called MICROBIT. On the website, click Create Code from the menu at the top and choose Follow Tutorial in the Microsoft Block Editor section. It should open a window with some simple code called “astonishing script” or something similar - all scripts are automatically named for you. Click Compile, then save the resulting .hex file to your micro:bit, just as you would a file to a USB thumb drive. Don’t worry if you don’t see the file appear alongside the two existing files as this is normal: the micro:bit will reboot and start running the program.

2016-05-03 16:24 Jim Martin www.pcadvisor.co.uk

25 Google freezes Go 1.7 ahead of beta release Google’s Go programming language is preparing to advance to version 1.7. Yesterday afternoon, Russ Cox, who works on the Go team at Google, e-mailed the language’s developer list to indicate that the end of this week would be the cutoff point for proposed changes and fixes in the forthcoming 1.7 release. That release should, if things continue on path, see its first beta on May 31. Cox indicated that this release cycle is stricter than in the past, the last of which ended in February with the release of Go 1.6. (Related: SCM brings control to the software development workflow ) This next release will likely feature many bugfixes for things broken in 1.6, but Cox cautioned against working on any remaining older issues by the team. This is a change for them, and shows Google is focusing on its new release schedules. Wrote Cox, “As noted in past e-mails to golang-dev and on golang.org/wiki/Go-Release-Cycle , the constraints above are stricter than in past cycles. An explicit goal is to ship the first beta on time, by May 31, instead of many weeks late as has been our past practice. (If the past pattern held, this release’s first beta would be seven weeks late, or one week before the scheduled release date.)” Past releases, such as the 1.0 to 1.1 release timeframe, had taken as long as 14 months. The new cycle aims for releases every seven to eight months. Go has been growing in Silicon Valley and other bastions of early adopters, but it remains No. 44 on the TIOBE programming languages index, behind languages like Haskell, Erlang, Scheme and even Logo.

2016-05-03 16:16 Alex Handy sdtimes.com

26 Samsung 850 Evo 500GB review: a class-leading SSD that offers fantastic overall performance By Christopher Minasians | 3 hours ago See full specs £109.04 inc VAT SSDs are continuously dropping in price, and the Samsung 850 Evo not a new SSD to the market, but with falling prices now competes with some of the budget drives out there. As Samsung make most of the chips within the market, it's interesting to see how it compares with its competition, while still being aimed at those who want good performance at an affordable price. Now at a cheaper price, does the 850 Evo still hold its own? Read on to find out. Read next: Best SSDs 2016. The 850 Evo can be found in various different capacity, including 120, 250, 500GB and huge 1, 2TB storage options – no matter your preference, Samsung has you covered. In our case, we were sent the 500GB version from Ebuyer that can be found for £125.99 . The various different versions can also be found on Amazon, from £50.90 for the 120GB variant to £492.62 for the massive 2TB option . We compared the Evo 850 to a few other class-leading SSDs, such as the Kingston KC400 SSDNow 512GB that can be found for £132.82 , Crucial BX200 480GB that can be found at £93.04 and the PNY CS2211 240 GB found at $84.95 (around £58.13) in the US . When connected to our Windows 10 test rig, we found the 850 Evo to provide us with 465GB of usable storage, resulting in a £0.23 cost per GB – a good price compared to current rivals. Prices change on a daily basis, but these were correct at the time of review: Samsung offers a great after-sales support, by offering five years warranty with the 850 Evo 500GB, which goes to show how confident they are with their drives Read next: Best portable hard drives 2016 . The Samsung Evo 850 uses a SATA III 6GB/s interface. The SSD has a few interesting features, such as RAPID mode which significantly increases read/write speeds by leveraging system resources within the CPU and DRAM installed on your computer. The mode has to be enabled through the Samsung’s Magician software which is free to download. The SSD also features Dynamic Thermal Guard protecting your SSD from overheating in extreme situations and also has AES 256-bit and TCG Opal 2.0 hardware encryption to securely protect your data from hackers - this however needs to be enabled through Samsung’s Magician software and be used on a UEFI-enabled BIOS. More information about the technology used within the SSD and its features can be found on Samsung’s website. Read next: Best NAS drives 2016 . We tested the Evo 850 using various benchmarks, notably CrystalDiskMark and AS SSD benchmark , both of which provide accurate, reliable synthetic benchmark data. Two of the most important results are the 4Kb read/write speeds – this simulates real-world applications by moving small amounts of data which is moved around in random, non-sequential ways. As you’ll be able to see below, we found the Evo 850 to be extremely impressive. This means that in real-world applications, you’ll notice a big improvement in application performance compared to, say, an old mechanical hard drive. We tested a 500GB Seagate 7200rpm hard drive which can be found for £38.95 , and it was, unsurprisingly, completely outclassed in every single aspect by the Evo 850. When we looked at the 4K-64 read/write benchmarks, we noted the huge differences between the hard drive and the SSD, where the Seagate managed only 1.78/1.29 MB/s respectively, whilst the Evo 850 had an incredible 381.24/321.86 MB/s speed. These small tasks (such as moving small files around in your computer) make it hard for a HDD to perform at a high speed, showcasing why you need to buy yourself an SSD if you haven’t got one already. Interestingly enough, we did find the Evo 850 was outperformed by the other SSDs in a few tests, including the 0 Fill Random Read 4KiB tests, with the Evo 850 scoring only 35.52 MB/s versus the Kingston SSDNow KC400512GB with 87.494 MB/s. However, this was the only time we found the Samsung Evo 850 to be truly outclassed, meaning the drive performs extremely well across the board. Moving on to our copy and compression tests through AS SSD’s benchmarking tools, we found the Evo 850 performed extremely well in its compression abilities. As you’ll be able to see from the graph below, we didn’t notice any glitches, inconsistencies, or random spikes through our tests. In comparison, we found Samsung's competitors to have certain spikes or have a greater variance between their read and write speeds. The copy benchmark showcases the ability of the drive to copy a certain file size whilst performing a certain operation, for example whilst copying a game. The Evo 850 didn’t really shine, like it did in our previous benchmarks, but did provide consistent results. We would definitely recommend the 850 Evo 500GB to anyone looking to either upgrade from a traditional hard drive or thinking about upgrading from their older generation SSD. The results speak for themselves, and through its impressive and consistently class-leading benchmark scores we would consider the Evo 850 is still one of the best SSDs money can buy. The Samsung 850 EVO 500GB is an extremely impressive SSD that provides class-leading technology and speeds to the market. Through our benchmark results, we found the drive to perform consistently well and above all its competitors. We wouldn’t hesitate to recommend to recommend the SSD for those looking to upgrade from an old hard drive or an old-generation SSD. Best Samsung Galaxy S7 deals: Where to buy Galaxy S7 & Galaxy S7 Edge 1995-2015: How technology has changed the world in 20 years Can better UX end the ad-blocking war? Why programmers think Mac OS X is the best operating system to use for coding

2016-05-03 16:15 Christopher Minasians www.pcadvisor.co.uk

27 How to get free Wi-Fi anywhere: get online on your phone wherever you roam In a perfect world we’d all have smartphones that came with free, ultrafast 10G internet connections boasting unlimited data plans. Actually that scenario could create some kind of nightmarish future where people never look up from their devices, so maybe life isn’t so bad after all, especially when it’s quite possible to use free Wi- Fi when you’re out and about. See also: When is 5G going to be available Here are some easy ways to keep in touch with friends, view the latest pictures of lattes on Instagram, or stream your Spotify playlist - all for free. See also: Best new Smartphones 2016 , Best Music Streaming service comparison review , and How to keep your kids safe online It’s an obvious place to start as these days you can’t move in branches of Costa or Starbucks for people working on their laptops or browsing the internet on their phones. This is because coffee shops are one of the easiest places to get free WiFi. For the larger chains this usually comes via setting up a free account with services such as The Cloud, 02 WiFi, or whatever flavour of provider is on offer. You’ll have a limited number of devices that can connect at any one time (usually between three and five) but these can be swapped out as and when you need them. Independent coffee shops also offer free connections, but this is more normally on their own private WiFi, so you’ll need to ask at the counter for the ID and password. Some might point out that this isn’t free, as you have to buy a coffee. But of course the drink costs the same whether you have an internet connection or not, and now you have coffee! Although libraries are facing tough times at the moment, the government recently announced a plan aiming to have free Wi-Fi available in all UK libraries by March 2016. As we’ve now passed this date, there’s a good chance that popping into your local home of books will result in a gratis connection. While you’re there be sure to check out a few books, smile at the librarians, and write to your MP to ensure that we don’t lose these precious resources. Over the last few years many of the major museums and art galleries around the UK have been installing free WiFi for visitors. The V & A, Science Museum, and National Gallery all now offer the service, which they often pair with special on-line content to complement the exhibits. Look for other venues around the country, and top up your culture level while Tweeting about the experience. If you’re a BT broadband customer, like many people in the UK, then you already have access to the wide range of BT WiFi hotspots. Download the BT WiFi app for your iOS, Android, Windows Phone, or Blackberry device, enter your account details, then you’ll instantly have unlimited access to over 5 million hotspots in the UK, and a further 9 million around the world. Another main player in the mobile space is 02, which offers free connection to its network of WiFi hotspots. All you need to do is download the 02 WiFi app from your platform’s app store, set up the free account, and you’ll be able to take advantage of connections available in places such as McDonalds, Subway, All Bar One, Debenhams, and Costa. What’s that I hear you cry? You’d never stoop to such vile behaviour! Of course not, you reputation is beyond reproach. But for those who find themselves in a tight spot and see an unlocked network appear on their smartphone’s list of options….stop. This is one of the easiest way to have your data stolen, identity cloned, and generally not have a good time. Hackers often set up fake networks that look innocent, and even emulate ones you would expect to find in a venue, all in the hope of getting you to connect. From that point on everything your device communicates to the server is essentially going into the hacker’s pocket. For this reason it’s never a good idea to access your bank details on a public network, send sensitive information, or exchange the kind of selfie images that unwise teenagers seem to find so agreeable. If you don’t know the network, and the venue you’re in doesn’t seem to know it either, keep well away. For more details on staying safe on public WiFi read our guide on How free WiFi could be stealing your data .

2016-05-03 16:15 Martyn Casserly www.pcadvisor.co.uk

28 Best Android phones 2016 UK: What's the best Android phone? The top Android phones money can buy - best Android phone reviews What’s the best Android phone 2016? The simple answer is the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge , but there are 19 other amazing phones on our list of the top Android phones of 2016, which covers everything from the HTC 10 and Nexus 6P to the LG G5 , Sony Xperia Z5 , Xiaomi Mi 5 and OnePlus 2. Android phone buying advice and best Android phone reviews. Android has the largest market share in the smartphone world, but whereas Apple’s share is divided between just a few iPhones with obvious differences between them there are hundreds of Android phones available to buy. And the choice gets even more confusing when you consider that each Android phone manufacturer has multiple Android phone product lines, each with its own features and benefits. Also see: Best smartphones 2016 UK In our best Android phones chart we focus primarily on flagship devices, with the exception of where a phone lower down the range stands out for its excellent value (see the OnePlus X and Moto G ), feature set or performance. The phones in this group are those most likely to be bought on a contract, however, and their initial cost will be largely irrelevant. If you are buying them SIM-free you should check out our best SIM-only deals , but if budget is a primary consideration for you, also see our round-up of the best budget phones. When we talk about flagship smartphones, we really just mean the top model in a company’s phone line-up. You’d usually expect to pay between £500- and £600 for it SIM-free, or around £40- to £50 a month on a contract. But cheaper phones can have flagship specs - and especially when you consider some of the surprisingly affordable Chinese phones we review. In 2016 a flagship Android phone specification will look something like this: • Android 6.0 Marshmallow • Slim, lightweight metal frame • 5-5.in Quad-HD IPS display with Gorilla Glass 4 • Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 quad-core processor or comparable octa-core chip • 4GB of RAM • 32GB of storage, plus microSD support • Fingerprint scanner • 12Mp-plus primary camera with dual-tone flash, optical image stabilisation, laser autofocus and large apertures, plus support for 4K video recording • 5Mp selfie camera • 4G LTE Cat.9 • Dual-band 802.11ac Wi-Fi • Bluetooth 4.2 • NFC, GPS, GLONASS, OTG • Circa-3000mAh battery We’ve placed the Samsung Galaxy S7 edge at the top of our list because it is the fastest Android phone in our benchmarks, with the longest battery life, the best camera quality , and it has a load of extra features such as the dual-curved-edge screen, heart-rate scanner and new always-on display (also seen in the standard Galaxy S7 and LG G5). We love its premium metal- and-glass, waterproof build, and although there isn’t a huge amount new in this year’s model Samsung really didn’t need to make any huge improvements to retain its crown for best Android phone. But that’s not to say the other phones in our list are not worth a second look, and especially now that we get closer to the point where it’s impossible for phone makers to differentiate their devices on traditional grounds such as performance (all are excellent). The LG G5, for example, has a cool new modular design that lets you bolt-on accessories to expand its functionality, and it’s one of few flagship phones to feature a removable battery. The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 has a large screen with stylus support for enhanced productivity, while the HTC 10 supports Hi-Res audio, and the Sony Xperia Z5 ties into PS4 Remote Play. For the ultimate in screen quality, the Premium variant of the Xperia Z5 has a crazy-high-resolution 4K screen. The Xiaomi Mi 5 is significantly cheaper than the competition here, but offers many of the same features. Had it not been for its lack of Google Play support out of the box and MIUI 7 operating system (a great OS, but some aspects are not intended for a European audience) we would have placed it much higher up the chart. For a pure Android experience there can be no better than Google’s own Nexus 6P, and as a Nexus device it will always be first to receive new operating system updates. (Also see: What's the fastest smartphone 2016 for comparison with more Android phones.) Of course, with all the best Android phones on a similar level for awesomeness, your choice make come down purely to how it looks - and that’s something we can’t help you with, other than to point out the build quality information not visible from the PR shots. Click on any phone in our list of the best Android phones to read our full reviews. Note that still to come this year we are expecting new Android flagships from Google and Samsung in the form of the 2016 Nexus phones (which will be the launch vehicles for the new Android N operating system) and Galaxy Note 6. Also see: Best new phones coming in 2016. Read on for our expert opinion of what our the 20 best Android phones money can buy. The BQ Aquaris M5 is a fantastic phone, which offers fantastic sound reproduction, impressive camera abilities and an untamed Android experience all for an affordable price. It's hard to fault this budget smartphone, which has only recently entered the UK market. Read our BQ Aquaris M5 review . With various upgrades including a waterproof design, great cameras and stock Android, the new Moto G 2015 is a great affordable phone. The device is still a bit chunky and it's a shame to see the stereo speakers gone. It's worth opting for the model with 16GB of storage and 2GB of RAM and when you customise the device with Moto Maker the price is a not so attractive £209. The Vodafone Smart Ultra 6 is worth a look at just £125 with its Full HD display. Read our Motorola Moto G 2015 (3rd gen) review . The OnePlus X is the best value smartphone of the year. We love the premium design in a smaller form factor to the firm’s other phones. Software is a strong point and you get a gorgeous screen. However, cuts had to be made somewhere and the X is lacking features such as NFC, 11ac and Wi-Fi. It also is missing the fingerprint scanner and USB Type-C port found on the OnePlus 2. Battery life isn’t great and cameras aren’t best in class but this is a great phone for the price. Read our OnePlus X review . Overall, the Moto X Play is a decent mid-range phone. But, it's not the great upgrade which Moto X owners were looking for. The camera is good, as is the screen, but performance could be better - as could battery life. Had Motorola offered the dual-SIM version in the UK and made the phone waterproof, it would have had enough to be a decent alternative to the OnePlus 2. For many, this more powerful rival will be more appealing. It's also cheaper and has optical stabilisation and the option to shoot 4K video. Yet, if you like the idea of creating your own custom phone and don't want the hassle of getting an invite to buy a OnePlus 2, it's really not a bad deal at all. Read our Motorola Moto X Play review . Those looking to upgrade from a Nexus 5 will be happy and sad in almost equal measure. The 5X is a fantastic phone overall, with excellent cameras, a good turn of speed and an excellent screen. But it's noticeably bigger than its predecessor despite the small increase in screen size, it has limited storage compared to the Nexus 6P and it lacks a couple of camera features due to the slower processor. The absence of wireless charging is another blow for some, but additions such as the fingerprint scanner will make it a great upgrade for others. Read our Google Nexus 5X review . Honor has once again impressed us with a flagship smartphone at an outrageous price. For under £250 you get a lot of phone for your money. Performance is good with the main camera and fingerprint sensors being the highlights on the hardware side. Emotion UI isn't our favourite Android skin but it's perfectly usable and you can always change it if you like. Read our Honor 7 review . The Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge is a beautiful smartphone, one of the most attractive but the design has flaws such as sharp edges. While a non-removable battery is an inevitable outcome, we're surprised about the lack of waterproofing and a microSD card slot. Hardware is strong with a gorgeous screen, fast processor and great all-round camera. The key point here is that while dual edge display sounds like an amazing innovation it has very limited in functionality so simply isn't worth the extra money compared to the regular Galaxy S6. Read our Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge review . If you're looking for a big screen phone, the Moto X Style is a great choice. It's got great specs across the board and it cheaper than rivals like the Nexus 6P and Galaxy S6 Edge+. We love the screen, stock Android and cameras. However, it really comes stands out when using the Moto Maker to customise it which costs more. With a screen only slightly smaller and a fingerprint scanner the OnePlus 2 is the spanner in the works here at £289 for the 64GB model. Read our Motorola Moto X Style review . The lack of NFC, a microSD card slot, a removable battery, and quick- and wireless charging means the OnePlus 2 is not a flagship killer. It does have some killer new features though, including USB Type-C, 4G dual-SIM support and some powerful hardware. At the reduced price of £249 (we don't recommend the 16GB OP2), it's an unrivalled deal. Read our OnePlus 2 review . We’re very impressed with the Elephone P9000, which is a great all-round Android phone at an unbelievable sub-£200 price. It’s fast, battery life is good, it’s feature-packed and it even runs Marshmallow. Wireless- and quick-charging-, NFC-, USB-C-, dual-SIM- and microSD support are the icing on the cake. Recommended. Read our Elephone P9000 review . The Xperia Z5 Compact is the best small phone around, but then there's not much competition in this area anymore and there are a number of phones offering decent specs for a lot less. Those looking for Z5 design and specs in a smaller frame will be pleased but it's a shame about the chunky design with the sharp edges. The fingerprint scanner is a great addition and the Snapdragon 810 with almost stock Android provides slick performance. However, the camera isn't as good as Sony makes it out to be. Read our Sony Xperia Z5 Compact review . A fantastic Android flagship that comes in at an outrageously low price, the Xiaomi Mi 5 has the braun and the beauty to match the greats. Perhaps not a wise choice for first time Android users, but those comfortable in customising the setup will love the excellent-value, gorgeously designed Xiaomi Mi 5. Read our Xiaomi Mi 5 review . There's no doubt that the Xperia Z5 is a solid flagship smartphone from Sony and an improvement on the Z3+. We certainly like the new frosted glass rear cover and the addition of a fingerprint scanner in that slim power button. The camera isn't great compared to the best phone cameras out there though, and you can get a better phone for similar money. The price has dropped, and it's now a decent-value waterproof flagship with a Micro-SD card slot. However, you can't use it underwater, and there are newer rivals which are better value, take better photos and have better performance. Read our Sony Xperia Z5 review . So, what do we think of the Galaxy Note 5? We’re very fond of just about every aspect of the Galaxy Note 5, from its curved and sleek design to its vibrant display and high-resolution camera. It can handle almost anything you can throw at it thanks to its CPU, GPU and 4GB of RAM and we experienced no lag during our testing. The only bad point is that the Note 5 would sometimes falsely detect the S Pen detaching – and to point out such a minor fault says a lot about the quality of the handset. With this being said, we’re both surprised and sad that the Galaxy Note 5 won’t be heading to UK shores any time soon. Read our Samsung Galaxy Note 5 review . When comparing the P9 to other flagships, it’s important to remember the £449 price which makes it considerably cheaper than many of its rivals (but not the identically priced Nexus 6P that's also made by Huawei). Overall, we're impressed with the phone: it's well built, feels good and looks good. The cameras aren't the absolute best out there, it doesn't top the charts in game tests and the screen isn't Quad HD, but these minor quibbles are outweighed not only by the price but also because, unlike the Nexus, the P9 lets you stick in a microSD card to expand the storage. If you can afford it, the Galaxy S7 is a better phone overall, but this is a great choice if you can't. Read our Huawei P9 review . There's a lot to like with the new HTC 10 including a number of hardware upgrades across screen, camera and audio, plus a Nexus-like stock Android experience. However, we're not totally sold on the design and it's tough at the top these days. While the HTC 10 is a solidly good phone and a respectible upgrade for M9 owners, it doesn't blow the competition out of the water. The features which appeal the most are more niche than mass market. Read our HTC 10 review . Originally, Nexus phones stood out for being excellent value at a price that was low, but not the lowest. They weren't an alternative to flagship phones, but they had the advantage of running stock Android and getting the next version more quickly. The 6P, though, is not only a flagship, but is arguably the best Android phone to buy at the moment. It won't suit everyone due to its size, nor those looking for a phone with dual-SIM slots or a removable battery. There's no support for wireless charging either. But the excellent screen, front-firing speakers, quick charging, great cameras, speedy performance and Android Marshmallow add up to make this a phone that's a pleasure to use. And yes, it's also cheaper than its rivals, so unless you think it's worth shelling out extra on the Note 5, Galaxy S6 Edge+ or iPhone 6S Plus, the Nexus 6P is the one to buy. Read our Google Nexus 6P review . The LG G5 is one of the most radical phones to come along in a while and we’re glad the firm has shaken things up with the modular design. The G5 is innovative and interesting with unique features but it’s a shame the design and build feels unfinished in areas. It’s a top-notch device which can hold its own with the best phones in performance and cameras, but it’s LG’s modular design which is the real selling point here. There is bags of potential but the future of this is unclear so it’s hard to be definite right now. The G5 is one of the best phones around but for completely different reasons to the Galaxy S7. Read our LG G5 review . The Samsung Galaxy S6 was the best phone of 2015 and, although it’s still early days, the Galaxy S7 is a serious contender for best phone of 2016. Samsung has taken into account what its fans want, addressing the three main areas of concern: removable storage, waterproofing and battery life. It’s also upgraded the core hardware and photography gear, added an always- on display and some useful software. Right now the Galaxy S7 is simply unbeatable. Read our Samsung Galaxy S7 review . The Galaxy S7 edge is no longer the semi-gimmick it was before. Although some of the main features are things from the Galaxy S5 – Micro-SD and waterproofing – Samsung has given fans what they want. It's now a refined, sophisticated and highly desirable piece of technology. The battery isn't removable but the phone lasts longer than before and has seriously powerful specs under the hood. It has almost everything you could want from a phone even though the IR blaster is gone. We're also very impressed with the new camera and unless the screen is too big for you (despite some software features to help out) we think it's worth getting the S7 edge for the extra £70 with its gorgeous looks and extra functionality. Right now, this is the best smartphone money can buy. Read our Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge review .

2016-05-03 16:12 Chris Martin www.pcadvisor.co.uk

29 XebiaLabs innovates pipeline orchestration, adds new release dashboards and introduces DevOps ChatBot XebiaLabs , a recognized leader in DevOps and Continuous Delivery software tools , today announced the launch of XL Release version 5.0 as well as XL Deploy version 5.5 and a new DevOps ChatBot. XL Release allows companies to automate, orchestrate and gain visibility into their software release pipelines at enterprise scale. XL Release 5.0 simplifies the way stakeholders get insight into the software delivery process – from IT executives to program managers to developers. The new configurable dashboards and productivity features are designed to help manage complex, multi-level and interdependent software release pipelines. “As releases happen faster and pipelines grow more complex, enterprises know they need to do more than automate their release processes. Just as importantly, they need a way to understand, organize, manage and monitor large amounts of interdependent release information,” said Derek Langone, CEO at XebiaLabs. “We designed the new capabilities to meet the needs of large enterprises that are focused on achieving business results – whether they are working with existing middleware and big data systems, or implementing new container or IoT initiatives.” XL Release 5.0 Highlights Release Orchestration Delivers Business Results By automating even more of the release process and automatically managing dependencies, enterprises can release software faster, with fewer errors. Organizations get the detailed visibility they need to monitor the process and keep track of their features throughout the software development lifecycle with a unified view that spans third party tools. With XL Release’s added visibility and control, DevOps and Continuous Delivery initiatives become more effective and efficient. Enhanced Cloud Provisioning Options for XL Deploy In conjunction with XL Release 5.0, XebiaLabs also released version 5.5 of its popular XL Deploy product, which provides enterprise-scale deployment automation for any environment, from Docker to mainframes. The new version integrates provisioning of cloud environments as part of the deployment process, eliminating the need to wait days or even weeks to get the cloud resources that teams require. Developers can now more easily “self-service”: they can spin-up and tear down cloud environments as part of their automated deployment, and the system ensures that necessary controls are met. This capability helps teams save money by making the most efficient use of cloud resources. It also gives them deeper visibility into – and better control of – deployments for both applications and environments. ChatOps – a ChatBot for DevOps To help DevOps teams better communicate, XebiaLabs recently introduced a new ChatOps feature. Many DevOps teams already use chat tools extensively to work more efficiently and bring together distributed teams. The new plugin for XL Deploy facilitates communication and increases productivity by letting teams monitor deployment activity, trigger deployments and troubleshoot incidents from inside their chat tool of choice, such as HipChat or Slack. More details are available on the XebiaLabs blog at: http://blog.xebialabs.com/2016/04/22/xebialabs- launches-chatops-automation-software/ XebiaLabs customers are eager to use the new product features. “The new version of XL Release offers interesting new dashboarding functionality that will help us see what’s in each release and get better visibility into release status. Also, the advanced release orchestration will let us automatically manage parent/child relationships between different releases,” said Sander Ettema, Manager, Linux Unix at Rabobank ICT. “These new features provide a lot of value in a complex environment like ours.” Availability XL Release 5.0 and XL Deploy 5.5 are available now. Download a free trial: www. XebiaLabs.com/XL-Release www. XebiaLabs.com/XL-Deploy

2016-05-03 15:35 SD Times sdtimes.com

30 Best laptops 2016: What's the best laptop? The 20 best laptops you can buy in the UK today - best Windows laptop reviews, best MacBook reviews, best power laptop reviews What's the best laptop? The best laptop is the Dell XPS 13, followed closely by the UX303U and the Microsoft Surface Book but there are plenty of other options. Learn more about the best laptops in our best laptops chart below. Despite the rise of tablets, there are still plenty of consumers still looking for the best laptop. Sometimes you just can't beat what a laptop can offer. What's the best laptop is an easy enough question to ask but the answer depends largely on what you want to do with it. If you simply want it to be top-notch in all departments then you've come to the right place as we've rounded up the best laptops that we've reviewed to date. If you're looking for something for more laptop buying advice head here and you can also check out our piece on the most reliable laptop makers . As with any product we review, the best laptops are rated in various categories - performance, build quality, features and value for money – along with an overall score, potentially with an award, too. Note that star ratings don't always dictate ranking as it applies to the date it was reviewed. If you're looking for something specific, we have various other laptop charts including best budget laptops , best Chromebooks , best ultraportable laptops and best gaming laptops. You can also take a look at the best convertible laptops and tablets for the best of both worlds. As much as we can, we make sure all the laptops in the chart are available to but in the UK. However, it's not something we can check every day so there's a chance you might not find the model listed. There are also often many different SKUs (versions/models) of a laptop so the specs might vary to those on the model we've reviewed (we can't always choose the sample). Most laptops will come pre-installed with Windows 10 now but there's a chance you might find one with Windows 8.1. Really that's no bother since you can upgrade for free so don't be too put off if this is the case. For more details see: Will my PC or laptop get Windows 10? Of course, our best laptops group test also includes the best MacBooks, which run OS X out of the box. Macs are often more expensive than Windows laptops, but Apple's laptops are better value than ever before. You might feel that the premium build quality and features warrant spending extra, although many Windows laptop manufacturers have stepped up their game recently. In this chart, there's no cap on how much the device can cost – sometimes the best does come at a steep price. The big question here is do you really need to shell out bags and bags? We ask because you can get a lot of laptop, even for under £250 – provided you only need to do basic tasks like browse the web, email and create the odd document. If so see the best budget laptops. Spending a bit more, around £500 and above, will potentially get you a nice laptop but it's likely to have an entry-level set of specs. We're talking the most basic processor on offer, less storage and a lower resolution screen. It might also not be the thinnest and lightest. Ramp up the amount you're happy to splash out - £800 and up - and you'll be looking at the best of the best with a blazing fast processor, plenty of RAM, hordes of storage and a gorgeous display. You should also expect excellent build quality and premium materials. That's why it's crucial to read laptop reviews before you buy. The size of your screen is an important decision when buying a laptop. After all they typically range from 11- all the way up to 17in. A smaller screen might be harder to work on but it means that the laptop will be far more portable, handy if you need to take it around with you wherever you go. Bear in mind that a smaller device means less space for features like ports. At 17in, you're buying a desktop replacement laptop which isn't deigned to be moved around often. You'll likely get a full-size keyboard, lots of connectivity and possibly even an optical drive, too. Generally, unless you're looking at either end of the spectrum, a 13in laptop is the sweet spot for us combining portability without scrimping on features. Make sure you check the reviews of each device and the specs to make sure it has what you need. While many laptops have a resolution of 1366x768, you should look for something more if you want the best. Full HD (1920x1080) and higher should be a tick box and you can even get 4K laptops now, although arguably it's not necessary. The couple more things to consider for the display is whether you need it to be touch sensitive. This normally adds to the cost and might be something which is essential or a waste of money, depending on your usage. Most laptops come with a glossy screen but most people prefer a less reflective matt finish so that's something to look out for, too. As usual, storage depends on what you want to use a laptop for. As a general rule of thumb get as much as possible without wasting money on the upgrade (manufactures can charge a premium on this area). An SSD will mean you're laptop runs faster but doesn't provide as much space as a traditional hard drive. Some laptops come with a combination of the two but many due to size restrictions. Again, check the specs carefully before you buy if you don't want to end up carrying around an external drive. Remember that there are also plenty of cloud storage options but this isn't so helpful when you don't have an internet connection. Most people will benefit from a 500GB drive to store files such a photos, videos and music. However, if you're looking at storing large amount of data (perhaps you're a photographer shooting in RAW or you simply want all your box sets ready to go) then look for 1- or 2TB of space. Also see: Best SSDs 2016 . Memory (RAM) is where programs and files are stored only while you're using them, and more is always better. Consider 4GB an absolute minimum, with 8- to 16GB the ideal figure if you can afford the upgrade. You can't have too much. Unless you're going to run complex and demanding software or gaming, you don't need the latest top-spec processor. It doesn't hurt, of course, but it's best to find a nice balance as there's nothing worse than waiting for a app to load etc. If you're happy to splash out then you're probably looking at the latest generation (6th) Intel Core i7 chip. Entry-level spec models are likely to offer a Core i3 or even a Core M processor instead. A Core i5 sits nicely in-between so check how much extra it is to upgrade before making a final decision. If you're not sure which generation the Intel processor is, look at the model number as the first digit represents this. For example, a Core i5-6500 is a sixth-generation CPU. While most come with Intel processors, you can still find AMD powered devices around. See AMD vs Intel for more information. If you're looking to use the laptop for gaming, even if it might be primarily a work device, you won't want to fully rely on the built-in graphics which come part of any Intel chip. To game with decent resolutions and frame rates, you'll want a dedicated graphics card (a mobile version anyway, although some have been fitted with desktop class regardless). You'll probably want to go check out the best gaming laptops to find something. We recommend all the laptops here: there isn't a duff one among them. However, we urge you again to read through the full review before spending your hard-earned cash. None of them are perfect and what will suit your needs might not simply be the device ranked at number one. Battery life and warranty are two things which vary between laptops. The latter may well differ depending on where you buy the laptop from, too. John Lewis, for example, tends to offer longer warranty than rivals. After-sales service is something you should consider, not only laptops but pretty much everything you buy. Check whether the company has a UK-based support line, and forums (including our own) are an ideal place to get an idea of whether a manufacturer is generally good or bad at carrying out work under warranty. You might not even have to deal with the manufacturer directly if you have a fault in the first six months as it's the retailer's responsibility to deal with issues. This is when it pays to have purchased from Amazon, John Lewis and others which will often replace or refund without quibble. After al that, it's also worth considering whether a laptop is what you really want. You can get some great bargains on desktop PCs these days, and if you don't want a large tower system taking up space there are plenty of all-in-one PCs to choose between. These integrate the computer behind the monitor, so they're much neater. Also, some tablets offer similar functionality to basic laptops. See our piece about choosing between laptop vs iPad , for instance. Read on for our pick of the UK's 20 best laptops and links to our best laptop reviews. The Asu ZenBook Pro UX501 is a laptop that looks great on paper, if you’re not turned off by its price. It has plenty of power, high-quality build and an ultra-high resolution screen matched with a touchscreen. And it can even play games. It’s everything many people want in a laptop. However, a few little niggles stop it from being the MacBook Pro 15 and Dell XPS 15 killer you might be hoping for. First, the screen’s dated architecture limits the impact of the high resolution in most environments. It’s incredibly reflective on two different levels. That the CPU fan is a little irritating and the touchpad very loud are very minor points, but combined with the screen issue make for a laptop not quite up there with the very best. You can afford to be picky when you have this much money to spend. Read our Asus ZenBook Pro UX501 review . Hewlett Packard has done well to build a lighter weight 15-inch mobile workstation laptop with much of the strength and integrity of its traditional models that are far less mobile in real terms. Sacrifices have been made to the main CPU by fitting dual-core rather than quad-core, and the AMD GPU is a middleweight part rather than fire-breathing FirePro. But importantly the 15u runs cool and quiet enough not make itself a nuisance, even under load. Assuming the version we tested will cost under £2000 it could provide decent value, majoring on resilience more than style and sheer performance, but well enough equipped to prove attractive to the target professional audience. Read our HP ZBook 15u G2 review . The Gigabyte P37X is built for gaming speed, based on a large 17-inch display chassis but in a thinner than traditional case. With the help of the best single-chip mobile graphics processor currently on the market it can play any game you want, up to very high rendering quality. It may not stand out in style but it gets the job done, albeit at a high price. Read our Gigabyte P37X review . Sensibly powered for great games action, while remaining portable and comfortable to use, the GE62 is only compromised by tricky upgrade potential and disappointing battery life. It has a great display and respectable keyboard for gaming, and crucially plays games at high detail without distress. Read our MSI GE62 2QD Apache Pro review . After some extensive testing, we found the MacBook Air (13-inch, Early 2015) to be little different overall to the 2014 model. The Thunderbolt 2 update will prove useful for connecting to high-resolution UHD displays, and a few percent of added processor power is never unwelcome. But hoped-for improvements in graphics performance and battery longevity did not arise in our testing, in spite of a new Intel processor which was expected to shepherd benefits in both areas. Launched at the same price as last year’s model it still deserves attention as one of the finest ultraportable laptops available - doubly so now that its flash-drive speed has shot up another 100 percent - and it will remain the more affordable option in lightweight notebooks when the new MacBook launches this month. Read our 13-inch MacBook Air (early 2015) review . Available at the same price as last year, the new 11-inch MacBook Air has the same super-fast storage as before, and around 10 percent increase in processor performance. Gaming performance was always borderline, and now we find it no better and even fractionally slower. But overall battery runtime increased by almost a third in our tests, a very useful upgrade on the already very decent 10 hour-plus battery life of the previous generation. Read our MacBook Air (11 inch, early 2015) review . The new ZenBook is a great home for Intel’s new Core M processor, which proved up to basic daily tasks in Windows with no obvious lag in the interface. Good battery life and decent screen quality are further plus points to a well-made case with a familiar design to Apple fans. At a price of £650 this is an attractive package as a carry-anyway Windows laptop. Read our Asus ZenBook UX305F review . A very decent laptop replacement, and an okay tablet, the Surface Pro 3 is undeniably impressive. If you need a single device to do everything we can't think of any better device. And when you consider the cost of buying a discrete laptop, tablet and desktop PC the Surface Pro 3 is priced to shift. The question remains as to whether people want a single device rather than multiple gadgets that are better at their individual tasks. Microsoft's latest results suggest that Surface Pro 3 is winning hearts and minds. Has it won yours? Read our Microsoft Surface Pro 3 review. The Satellite P50t has high-end touches on a midrange model, such as UHD IGZO screen and nVidia gaming graphics, plus some metal machining to suggest premium build. It’s let down by a reflective screen and lousy battery life. Despite underwhelming benchmark results it should be speedy enough for general duties. Read our Satellite P50T-C-109 review . For under £600 the Aspire V3-574G is easy to recommend. It's a commendable balance of virtues from the IPS screen, to the precise trackpad and highly regarded CPU. Nvidia graphics allow fluid gameplay up to 720p. The five-hour battery life, while half that of the best, may even get you through half a day’s use away from the mains. Read our V3-574G review . There is a great deal to like and rave about the Surface Pro 4. The design is thinner and lighter for starters. The screen is awesome, there's plenty of power available, the new Surface Pen is better and the Type Cover is a vast improvement on the last one. However, the design is inherently awkward at times, it's more expensive that a lot of laptops and the Type Cover, which you'll pretty much need, isn't included lowering the value. Read our Microsoft Surface Pro 4 review . While it looks just like every Retina-screened 13-inch MacBook before it, the Early 2015 revision is streets ahead of earlier models. Its storage speed is up to double the already ground- breaking speed of the 2013 model. The new Force Trackpad brings tangible benefits in touch control, with an intelligent coprocessor that helps interpret our digital movements. And the Broadwell processor, with other running changes too, has spearheaded just about the greatest upgrade any mobile computing user could ask for, namely insanely long battery life. Improvements in graphics performance were less emphatic in our tests, but at least always positive changes. The world’s finest 13-inch notebook is now unassailable, especially given it’s kept the same sub-£1000 price point as its predecessor. Read our 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro (early 2015) review . Most ultraportables we test are dumbed-down MacBook Air clones with cheap construction and low-grade components. That's why it makes a particularly refreshing change to find a Windows laptop that not just matches but surpasses Apple's popular ultraportable in a key area like screen quality. The price is much higher than even the Retina-display 13-inch MacBook but if you must have a laptop built for Windows that can make a statement in build quality and top- class components, check out EliteBook Folio 1040 G1. Read our HP EliteBook Folio 1040 G1 review . The Lenovo Yoga 900 is a laptop that really asks you to believe in its design style. After all, it doesn’t come cheap and for the price you can get a laptop with much more power if you’re not out for something immensely portable. That’s where this laptop excels: portability. As well as being slim, light and all-round lovely, the smart hinge lets it sit where most other laptops just can’t. The battery should last through a full day’s work as well. The trackpad can feel fiddly and the display isn’t perfect, but if you’re feeling flush this is one of the top ultraportables around. Read our Lenovo Yoga 900 review . Lumpy but suggesting longevity, the Inspiron 15 7000 Series ought to survive as desktop replacement at home or the office. Powerful discrete graphics will please gamers and professionals, although the reflective screen and a trying trackpad knock points off usability. If you can live with these foibles, it's good value. Read our Dell Inspiron 15 7559 review . We must admit to feeling a tinsy bit short-changed by the no-show of quad-core Intel Broadwell processor in this year’s 15-inch MacBook Pro model. However this refresh sees two aspects expanded that are always in demand – faster graphics and longer battery life – while also introducing to the machine the highly versatile Force Touch trackpad interface. Meanwhile the uplift in flash storage speed may look like a nerdy numberfest but will reward any user with some real-life leaps in daily productivity. The 15-inch maintains its place as the premium mobile workstation laptop, and puts that much more clear distance between it and the Windows tributes. Read our Retina MacBook Pro review (15in, 2015) review . The HP Envy 13 gets a lot of things right. The design, the trackpad, the performance and the screen are all very good. Using this laptop is a real delight in most respects, its physical portability is fantastic and it has clearly been designed with a sensible budget in mind. It’s a good buy. There are a few issues, though. Unless use is very light, battery life is disappointing and the build quality is slightly less impressive than it at first appears – there’s some flex to the body, making it a bit less luxurious than you might expect looking at photos. Given the excellent combination of features, performance and value though, it’s only the battery life you need to really stop and think about before buying. The Asus UX305 lasts longer, and while that laptop lacks a backlit keyboard and some of the HP’s raw power, that might be enough to justify switching teams. Read our HP Envy 13 review . It's expensive but the Surface Book is an amazing piece of technology combining excellent (and unique) design, top-notch build quality and high-end specifications. Battery life is amazing and there's a lot you can do with the Surface Book model with the Nvidia GPU. The big question is can you afford one? Read our Microsoft Surface Book review. At around £900 the ZenBook UX303U approaches the build finesse but lacks the unbeaten battery of the similarly priced MacBook Air, although it can claim faster processor performance and a superior full-HD matt display. This latest ZenBook is a well-balanced, smart and powerful Windows notebook. Read our Asus ZenBook UX303U review . The Dell XPS 13 9343 stands as a shining beacon of hope in the world of Windows laptops, a compact laptop that outdoes the obvious competition in some key respects like screen quality and near-borderless display. Here is a 13.3-inch laptop that takes up little more space than an 11.6-inch model. Poor thermal management needs to be improved, while a non-touchscreen version could answer other outstanding issues. Read our Dell XPS 13 9350 review .

2016-05-03 15:29 Marie Brewis www.pcadvisor.co.uk

31 The Channel Company MES Conference Gets 'Trumped' By Presidential Hopeful Gartner analyst Mike Cisek takes a selfie with presidential candidate Donald Trump. Technology executives at The Channel Company's Midsize Enterprise Summit East had a celebrity sighting of presidential proportions when Donald Trump mingled briefly with attendees at the conference hotel in Indianapolis this week, where he is hunting for votes in Tuesday's Republican presidential primary. Trump Monday was walking through an area of the JW Marriott Indianapolis hotel where conference attendees were holding meetings when a group flagged him down to take a few photos. "We started seeing the Secret Service over at the elevators," said Esther Rodriguez, an account executive with The Channel Company, which publishes CRN. Rodriguez said she then called out to Trump, "‘Hey! Can we take a picture?' And he said ‘Sure.' So he stopped. " [Related: Big Data's Big Role In Big Politics ] One resulting photo showing Trump posing with Gartner analyst Mike Cisek, a presenter at the conference, was displayed for attendees Tuesday morning prior to the day's general session. Cisek said he sought the photo because he is a "huge Trump fan. " Should Trump be elected, Cisek would like to see him lower corporate taxes and ease the burden of federal regulations on business, as well as change immigration policy – a cornerstone of Trump's candidacy – to tilt the balance more toward American workers, especially for those in technology. "A lot of [current immigration policy focuses on] driving the uptick in H-1B visas and I hope that stops," Cisek told CRN. Tuesday's Republican primary in the Hoosier State – seen as pivotal to Trump's efforts to secure the GOP nomination at the July convention – served as a backdrop to MES. And the presence of Trump and his security detail was a topic of conversation among some of the roughly 500 attendees. Robert DeMarzo, senior vice president of event content and strategy at The Channel Company, said he reached out several times to Trump and his campaign manager through Twitter after learning of the encounter in an effort to get the businessman to stop by the conference, but had not received a reply as of late Tuesday morning. DeMarzo said some of the feedback he received from attendees about Trump's presence at the hotel is that they would like to understand his position around technology issues given major concerns such as Internet bandwidth regulation and cybersecurity.

2016-05-03 15:02 Rick Saia www.crn.com

32 Gartner: 5 Coolest Enterprise Networking Vendors Making Waves In 2016 Coolest Enterprise Networking Vendors The increase in the number of cloud services and the changes in application architectures are significantly impacting the way enterprise networks are designed, built and managed. These five networking vendors might not be the first to come to mind when we think of the enterprise, but market researcher Gartner found that these lesser-known companies are creating unique solutions to solve emerging network challenges. "A lot of these vendors are innovating around improved management and simplifying the network operations processes," said Andrew Lerner, research director at Gartner, Stamford, Conn., in an interview with CRN. "Most of these vendors are small and are early in their traditional channel development efforts, but several are getting creative in their channel and go- to-market approaches. " Here are five vendors Gartner ranks as the coolest network vendors making waves in the enterprise that solution providers should take a closer look at.

2016-05-03 14:44 Mark Haranas www.crn.com

33 ID15 concept car interior: The future of not-driving Roku Streaming Stick 2016 Roku has the most apps, the simplest interface and the best search, making it CNET's favorite way to stream Netflix, Amazon, Hulu, HBO and all the rest.

2016-05-03 16:41 Emme Hall www.cnet.com

34 Survey finds roadblocks keep developers from fully adopting containers In a survey of more than 300 software developers, Shippable reported that a majority are increasing their use of containers for their applications, but a few challenges are still in the way of widespread container adoption. Shippable worked with research firm Survata to conduct the survey , which found that one third of developers think release cycles are much faster with containers. The survey also found that more than half (52%) are using containers in production for their new applications, and 89% expected to increase their use of containers within the next year. The survey showed popular registries that developers are using include Google Container Registry (54%), Amazon EC2 Container Registry (45%), and Docker Hub (34%). (Related: Mesosphere releases HA load balancer ) While the survey found an increase in container adoption, there are a few common reasons why developers are not using containers. One challenge they cited was a lack of skills to fully leverage container technology, and their company infrastructure is not designed to work with containers. Additionally, developers do not have the technology skills in-house, are concerned about container technology being too “immature,” and see the technology as having security risks. A primary security risk developers said concerned shared elements on the host, according to Tom Trahan, vice president of business development at Shippable. He said that, theoretically, if a person can access these shared elements, they can access all other containers running on the system. However, Trahan said that, according to people he met at the Container Security Summit last month, this is an issue caused by improper use of containers, not one inherent in them. “Overall, containers reduce risk to an organization since they enable more DevOps automation, and have a reduced surface area for attack since containers only include the software dependencies required for the application running in it and no more, reducing the number of potential vulnerabilities and requiring fewer elements to be patched,” he said. As for the lack of technology skills to fully adopt containers, Matt Carter, vice president of marketing at Shippable, said that developers can start to understand the leading container technologies by looking at the pros and cons of each. He said that a majority of these technologies can be purchased at little to no cost, and then a developer can start understanding the role of a container and how to “pull an image or build one of your own,” he said. For full adoption of container technology, Carter said that Shippable has seen developers become a driver for container evaluation, but in the last year, Ops teams have become key players as well. With the help of the Ops team, it could increase the amount of developers that are fully adopting container technology. “As Ops and developers see the benefits of containerized apps, the adoption rate will increase rapidly,” said Carter.

2016-05-03 13:48 Madison Moore sdtimes.com

35 The Week in iOS Accessories: The everywhere doorbell The latest roundup includes a new home doorbell that you can answer from your iPhone. Read on! The $199 August Doorbell Cam (also available on Amazon ) lets you see who is on your front porch—whether you’re at home, or away—on your iPhone. It’s motion triggered, and records the people who approach, so you can have a record of visitors. And it makes a handy intercom: Let people in remotely to drop off a package, then ensure the door is locked again once they leave. The $30 Hemp Earbuds by Jamboo (also available on Amazon ) are designed “with top quality bamboo on the earpieces, middle connector, and headphone jack.” The cord itself is hemp woven with cotton thread, making your listening experience extremely organic. The Slim PRO is a 10,000-mAh external battery with ports to charge both iOS and Android devices; it’s also made with fireproof material to reduce the chances of accident and harm from a hot battery. The $100 Base Charging Stand is for the iPad Pro—it has magnets in the charging cradle to perfectly align the tablet with the Smart Connector, which means you can place your iPad Pro on the stand and it will automatically begin charging. The $35 Apple Watch Stand has one inside USB port—this one to charge the Apple watch— plus three external USB ports, so you can charge your other electronic devices in one location. The inside space holds the Apple Watch charging cord, as well as USB adapters, card readers, and other gadgets, to keep your tabletop neat and uncluttered. The $60 iPad Mini 4 Wireless Keyboard Case has a hinge designed to let you display the iPad in either portrait or landscape mode; the battery allows for up to 60 hours of use before recharging is required. While most Apple Watch charging stands try to differentiate themselves on design, the $20 Helix Dock (also available on Amazon ) goes instead for straightforward utility: It plugs directly into a wall outlet. You might not wow anybody with the elegant display, but you will get your watch charged. The $110 Lens Combo for iPhone 6s Plus includes the following lenses: fisheye, wide-angle, three telephoto—2X, 9X, and 12X—and a super macro lens. The package includes a lens pouch, mini tripod, and a cleaning cloth. The $52 Bamboo Docking Station for iPad includes four USB ports, making it possible to dock and charge all manner of devices—iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch—at the same time.

2016-05-03 13:30 Joel Mathis www.itnews.com

36 iPhone 7 Plus UK release date, specs & features rumours: A bigger battery and a rumoured headphone jack The iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus are not too old, but rumours are flooding in about Apple's next iPhones, presumably called the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus. We're expecting big things from the new phones including the possibility of dual-cameras and wireless charging. After the 21 March 2016 Apple event, it is clear that the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus will arrive in September of 2016. Read on to find out all of the latest iPhone 7 Plus rumours, including iPhone 7 Plus UK release date speculation and potential new features. (If you do want to keep tabs on what was launched at the March 21 event, head over to one of our iPhone SE and iPad Pro 9.7in. Here's also the latest on the Apple Watch 2 ) You might also like: Best smartphones 2016 and Best new phones you should be excited about. Updated 3 May 2016 with battery and headphone jack rumours. The iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus were unveiled on 9 September 2015 and were released shortly after, and prior to that the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus also launched on 9 September in 2014, so it's quite possible that the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus will launch on 9 September 2016. The only flaw in that theory is that the 9 September will fall on a Friday in 2016, and Apple tends to host its events on Tuesdays or Wednesdays, so a more likely suggestion would be 6 September or 13 September. We're expecting Apple to keep the pricing for its iPhones the same when it launches new models next year. For the past two iPhone releases, Apple has kept pricing the same, which would mean the iPhone 7 Plus will be priced at £619 for the 16GB model, £699 for the 64GB model and £789 for the 128GB model. There's also rumours that the iPhone 7 Plus might feature a 256GB SanDisk NAND flash chip, which might mean we could be getting more storage for less; where the 16GB model might be scrapped and the base price of £619 might be for the 64GB variant. However, Apple makes a premium on higher capacity storage models so keeping the 16GB model in order to tempt users to upgrade is certainly likely as a continued strategy. Update 3 May 2016: In light of all the headphone jack rumours, an image leak by French site Nowhereelse.fr shows a number of components, including the much-talked about headphone jack. Below are internal component images from Weibo and iFixit (iPhone 6s) - from the images, we can see there's a slight difference in the components, but yet the headphone jack remains present. The trusted KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, dubbed as one of the most reliable and well-known Apple insiders suggests that Apple will return to an iPhone 4/4s glass design in 2017. The reason this applies to iPhone 7 and 7 Plus rumours is that Apple will stick to its current metal design. Apple's iPhone cycle tends to follow a 'tick' and 'tock' sort of model, with the tick being the main iPhone update such as the iPhone 6, which generally looks quite different from the previous model, and then the secondary iPhone update such as the iPhone 6s, which looks almost identical to the iPhone 6 but has some big spec changes. That's why we think the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus will look quite different from the current iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus design. We think it'll still come in Silver, Gold, Space Grey and Rose Gold colour options, but we might see some other changes when it comes to the overall look and feel of the phone. Apple could well decide to bump the screen size up from 5.5in on the iPhone 6s Plus to 5.7in on the iPhone 7 Plus, with the smaller model bumping up from 4.7in to 5in, but rather than increasing the overall size of the phone itself, we expect Apple will aim to increase the screen- to-body ratio. This could be achieved by an edge-to-edge screen, perhaps, something that's been rumoured to be in the works at Apple for a while now and Apple has actually patented. Apple called the technology "Sidewall displays" and describes how parts of the display would be on the side of the phone a lot like the Galaxy Note Edge, S6 Edge and S6 Edge Plus. The iPhone 7 Plus may also be thinner thanks to a new headphone jack that's rumoured to be coming with the next iPhone. According to Apple Insider, Apple has patented a new, slimmer headphone jack technology called D Jack, which has a diameter of just 2mm to allow the iPhone to be thinner overall. This could also allow the iPhone 7 Plus to feature a dual speaker design. We might also see a complete removal of the headphone jack, where the audio output would be from the Lightning port or over Bluetooth. Apple might provide a set of wired headphones in the box which have a Lightning connector and sell a Lightning-to-3.5mm minijack as an option if you want to use conventional headphones. Apparently, Apple has registered the name AirPods, which could be a new wireless set of headphones for the new iPhone. The iPhone 7 Plus could be completely flush on both the front and back, removing the infamous camera bump present on the current iPhone flagship. The bump stops the iPhone from laying perfectly flat and also breaks up the 'clean' design aesthetic, something Apple holds dear. The iPhone 7 Plus could be waterproof, too, as Apple has recently patented waterproofing technology that doesn't compromise design. Instead, it coats all of the important components inside the phone to make it waterproof without requiring outer armour. There's more on the design front from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo , well known for revealing details of new iPhones who told Mac Rumours : "We expect the 2017 new iPhone model to adopt a structural design similar to that of iPhone 4/ 4s, meaning it will be equipped with glass on both the front and back sides, and a metal frame surrounded the edges. The difference is that the new model will likely come with a curved screen and curved glass casing, with other important features including a 5.8-inch AMOLED display, wireless charging, and more biometric recognitions (facial or iris). Given the curved design, the new model may look smaller than an existing 5.5-inch iPhone. " Although he's talking about the 2017 new iPhone this could still be the iPhone 7 since most of its time as the flagship phone will be spent in 2017 following a late-2016 launch. Update 3 May 2016: A user on Weibo leaked an image (see below) of the new battery capacity that will be found within the new iPhone 7 Plus. According to the image, the iPhone 7 will feature a 1735mAh battery, whilst its bigger brother the 7 Plus will have a 2810mAh capacity, both of which are slightly larger than the 1715 and 2750mAh batteries found on the 6s and 6s Plus respectively. The iPhone 6s Plus saw the introduction of an impressive new 12Mp iSight camera, up from 8Mp in the previous model. We think that the 12Mp camera will remain in the iPhone 7 Plus, as it's already an impressive snapper for a smartphone. However, it has been rumoured that the iPhone 7 Plus will feature dual-cameras , based on tech acquired in 2015 from LinX Imaging. This could follow in the footsteps of Huawei, which has put twin cameras on the P9. If true, you can expect improved noise reduction, indoor photos, low- light photos and 3D depth mapping. KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo told MacRumors he thinks both single- and dual-camera versions of the phone are in development, and that a 2-3x optical zoom function is likely to feature in the iPhone 7 Plus. Pictured below is an image render from Feld & Volk, a premium iPhone modification company. An area Apple might improve is screen resolution. At present, the iPhone 6s Plus offers 401ppi, but rivals such as Samsung and LG have with Quad- and Ultra-HD screens with pixel densities well above 500ppi, However, we suspect Apple will stick with 400ppi, which is plenty for sharp- looking images. There's only minor benefits to higher densities, and plenty of disadvantages such as the cost of manufacturing, higher battery drain and slower 3D performance (if running apps and games at the native resolution). We've already got the 3D Touch functionality in the iPhone 6s, which has opened up a whole new way of interacting with the iPhone, but it's possible that the display could become a Touch ID display too, which could sense your fingerprint and securely unlock the phone wherever you touch on a screen and therefore remove the need for the Home button. However, recent reports suggest that the Home button will make an appearance on the iPhone 7, but may be touch- sensitive like many Android smartphones, and not a physical button as it has been up until now. It's very likely that the processor will be improved, too, with a new A10 processor and M10 motion co-processor likely to make an appearance, and we could see a bump up from 2GB RAM to 3GB, although that seems less plausible as the iPhone 6 and earlier all had 1GB. There are some rumours stemming from Bloomberg that suggest the next iPhone will feature wireless charging, yet the truth is this is much more likely to come in 2017 with the iPhone 7s Plus. According to the site, " Apple is exploring cutting-edge technologies that would allow iPhones and iPads to be powered from further away than the charging mats used with current smartphones. " As for software, iOS 10 is expected, and this'll be shown off at Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June 2016 and could give us some iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus clues. Specs summarised: 2016-05-03 13:23 Jim Martin www.pcadvisor.co.uk

37 India has shot down Apple's plan to sell refurbished iPhones India reportedly has rejected Apple’s plan to sell refurbished iPhones in the country, a blow to the company’s hopes for growth there. The government turned down Apple’s application to import and sell the older, refreshed phones, Bloomberg reported , citing an unnamed official. Apple didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Apple looked to refurbished handsets as a way to attract more buyers in India. An earlier application was rejected last year by India’s Ministry of Environment. The company’s phone sales growth has been slowing in China, so it has been looking to India as its next big growth market. Apple had only three percent market share in India in the fourth quarter of last year, according to IDC. Samsung was the biggest phone seller, with 27 percent. The environmental regulator turned Apple down last year because it was worried older phones would soon be discarded and and create an e-waste problem. Competitors have charged that Apple is looking to dump phones from its handset trade-up program. Apple has said the refurbished handsets it would sell in India would be certified by the company and would get new serial numbers.

2016-05-03 13:13 Stephen Lawson www.itworld.com

38 Apple CEO Becomes TV Spin Doctor There's no doubt Apple is in damage control mode. After posting its first-ever decline in iPhone shipments and first-in-13-years decline in revenue, investors punished Apple's stock. Many have questioned whether or not Apple's best days are behind it. No need to fear, CEO Tim Cook is here, with lots of spin and a cheery grin. Cook sat down with CNBC's Mad Money host Jim Cramer Monday evening to tout the company's roadmap and assure investors that all is not lost. "We're fairly secretive," said Cook, "but I would tell you we're incredibly excited about things we're working on. " Cook made similar statements about a year ago, implying the back half of the year would reveal its best product roadmap. Instead, we got warmed-over iPhones and a larger iPad. "We've got great innovation in the pipeline," said Cook. "New iPhones that will incentivize you and other people that have iPhones today to upgrade to new iPhones. " Easy to say, harder to do. The company has long been locked in a tick-tock pattern of upgrading its phones. Major updates occur every other year, with modest spec bumps added in the odd years. This fall, Apple is expected to debut the iPhone 7 -- a device that desperately needs to be better than iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. Rumors regarding the device are all over the place. It's worth pointing out that, despite the success of the larger iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, many iPhone owners have stuck with their smaller iPhone 5s. It's these people Apple needs to convince to upgrade. So far, it hasn't. "We are going to give you things you can't live without that you just don't know you need today," teased Cook. "That has always been the objective of Apple. To do things that really enrich people's lives -- that you look back on and you wonder how did I live without this. " It's true, Apple used to do this. The original iPod and original iPhone are good examples of Apple's previous innovations that turned entire industries on their collective heads and sparked massive technological change. Investors want to see more of this Apple. What of the Apple Watch? Cook says the Watch's future is secure. "You'll see the Apple Watch getting better and better. We're still in learning mode," noted Cook. "If you look at iPod, iPod wasn't viewed as [an immediate] success, but today it's viewed as an overnight success. And so I think that in a few years we will look back and people will say, 'How could I have ever thought about not wearing this watch?' Because it's doing so much for you. And then it will all of a sudden be an overnight success. " [Is the iPhone the problem? Read iPhone Sales to Blame for Apple Earnings Tumble.] Apple recently told developers they must update their Watch apps so they run natively without the iPhone. Apple is not expected to update the hardware until the fall months. When asked if Apple's best days are behind it, Cook blanched. "I couldn't disagree more. " At least one former Apple employee shares Cook's view. As CEO, Cook is obligated to sell the company's products -- and its appeal as an investment vehicle. It's no coincidence he jumped at the opportunity to tease "great innovation in the pipeline. " We've heard that from Cook before. Will Apple truly deliver?

2016-05-03 13:06 Eric Zeman www.informationweek.com

39 SAP further commits to Francophone Africa Region by opening new office in Morocco As further evidence of its commitment to driving digital transformation on the African continent and the company’s expansion across focus territories, SAP Africa announced the official opening of its new office in Casablanca, Morocco. The office opening coincided with the 2016 SAP Africa Francophone Partner Forum event in Casablanca where approximately 100 SAP partners attended. The news follows the announcement in December 2015 of the opening of an SAP office in Luanda, Angola. The new office is located in Casablanca’s CasaNearShore Park and is headed up by Gilles Leprêtre as Managing Director for Francophone Africa. Leprêtre has been with SAP for ten years in various leadership capacities and has been in charge of the growth for this strategic region for two years. “Making the world run better and improving peoples’ lives through harnessing the power of economic and social digitization particularly resonates in Africa due to various challenges and opportunities,” commented Brett Parker, Managing Director of SAP Africa. “The Morocco SAP office opening comes at a time when we are actively expanding our reach across the region and bolstering our collaborative partnerships with like-minded businesses, partners and with government. This important stepping stone will allow SAP to more effectively execute on our vision and mission as well as support the French-speaking African ICT transformation agenda. SAP is incredibly optimistic about prospects in the region and looks forward to expanding its presence in the years to come.” The official opening of the new office in Morocco comes on the heels of the successful skills development and job creation programme SAP Africa conducted in 2015. SAP Skills for Africa is SAP Africa’s skills development and job creation initiative aimed at developing ICT and business skills in strategic locations. With growth and the scarcity of skills on the African continent top of mind, this programme – a first of its kind in the industry in Africa – offers selected students the opportunity to develop world-class skills, effectively giving them an opportunity to play a role in contributing towards Africa’s future economic growth and infrastructure development. After having completed the training, successful local students went on to internships and then jobs with SAP customers and partners in the region. As further validation of SAP’s commitment to spread digital literacy across Africa, SAP and partners launched Africa Code Week in 2015 across 17 African countries, including seven in French-speaking Africa. The hugely successful initiative that will be taking place again this year aims to teach software coding skills free of charge to Africa’s youth who represent the youngest population and fastest growing digital consumer market on the planet. Close to 88,000 children were trained across the continent last year, far exceeding the target of 20,000 and 35,000 of them were from Morocco which was also the leading participating country. As a ramp-up to this year’s Africa Code Week, a team of SAP Master Instructors led several Train-The-Trainers sessions on the Scratch (Level 2) programme for 600 computer science teachers from the Ministry of National Educational and Vocational Training in Morocco in early April. The Ministry’s collaboration and similar commitment towards spreading digital literacy across the country is key to the viral success of Africa Code Week in Morocco and crucial to the planned engagement of tens of thousands more young people this year from October 15-23, 2016 . “The timing of SAP’s most recent investment to the country and the region is opportune and highlights the prevailing positive investment climate. The Moroccan government clearly sees the value of ICT as a strategic enabler to promote innovation and ultimately drive job creation. The government also has a long-standing commitment to promoting innovative educational and technology-driven programs, like SAP Skills for Africa and Africa Code Week,” said the Minister of Education and Vocational Training Mr Rachid Benmokhtar. “SAP is one of the global innovators in ICT undertaking strategic efforts to ensure a well-trained, effective African ICT work force. Having a global company of SAP’s stature play a meaningful role in contributing towards driving transformation in many local businesses and stimulating efficiencies for the economy also means that other international organisations view Morocco as an attractive location for investment.”

2016-05-03 12:58 Ephraim Batambuze pctechmag.com

40 40 21% off LG Nexus 5X Unlocked Smartphone 32GB - Deal Alert Averaging 4 out of 5 stars on Amazon from over 480 people ( read reviews ), this LG Nexus 5X unlocked, multi-mode phone will work on all US carriers including AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint, as well as MVNO's (Mobile Virtual Network Operators) and most international carriers. It features Android 6.0 Marshmallow, a fingerprint sensor, new USB Type-C charger, and a powerful camera. Under its 5.2-inch display is a hexa-core Snapdragon 808 processor for world- class speed at an affordable price, which right now gets just a bit more affordable. With a list price of $429.99, you can save $80 now and buy it on Amazon for $349.99 .

2016-05-03 12:27 DealPost Team www.infoworld.com

41 Nokia and Ooredoo Qatar Sign Three-Year Network Expansion Agreement Nokia Corp. and Ooredoo Qatar have signed a three-year agreement under which Nokia will upgrade and expand Ooredoo’s existing mobile broadband network across the country to meet ever-growing subscriber demands. With one of the most vibrant economies in the Middle East, Qatar needs to meet rising data demands sparked by surging smartphone use. Under its Supernet initiative, one of the most significant network evolutions in the country’s history, Ooredoo Qatar is already using Nokia’s LTE-Advanced carrier aggregation technology to offer subscribers with compatible mobile devices up to 375 megabits-per-second speeds in busy areas of Doha, Qatar’s capital and most populous city. In a recent demonstration, the companies achieved peak data rates close to 600 Mbps. Under the new agreement, Nokia will deploy its leading 2G, 3G, 4G LTE, LTE-A radio and core network technologies and services expertise. This will allow Ooredoo Qatar to expand the Supernet service across the country and deliver the highest speeds and quality to a growing customer base. [Nokia]

2016-05-03 12:26 Nathan Ernest pctechmag.com

42 GitLab releases security fixes, Pants 1.0, and Sauce Labs integration for JIRA— news digest: May 3, 2016 GitLab is strongly recommending users upgrade to any of the newest versions for GitLab 8.2 through 8.7 GitLab Community Edition (CE) and Enterprise Edition (EE) because they contain security fixes. One of the security fixes is for a critical privilege escalation. GitLab said that during an internal code review, it discovered a critical security flaw in the “impersonate” feature of GitLab. It wrote that it was possible for any authenticated users (administrator or not) to log in as any other user. Developers can look at the full issue for more details. GitLab recommended developers upgrade to: Pants 1.0 release The Pants open-source project has seen its first major release, and Twitter is participating in the milestone. Pants is a tool for monorepo-style source repositories. Pants also provides better user experience with installation, allowing it to be set up with an empty pants.ini file. It also has stable public APIs and options with a clear deprecation policy and regular vetted stable releases from release branches. Pants was open-sourced in 2012 under the Apache 2.0 license, and currently Twitter is committed to developing it to improve its performance, add support for mobile, and to make it become a “best-in-class” build tool, wrote Matt Olsen, a software engineer for Twitter, in a blog post . Pants has more than 100 contributors, and has added support for languages like C/C++, Go, Java, JavaScript, Python, Scala, Thrift and more. There is also support for a rich plug-in API and fast builds. Sauce Labs integration for JIRA To allow development and testing teams to create tickets within Sauce Labs, the cloud-based platform announced its new integration with JIRA today. Sauce Labs’ new integration optimizes development processes for Continuous Integration and Continuous Deployment workflows, which will allow developers to write their software faster, according to the company . “Software development teams continue to look for ways to speed up their processes without compromising quality,” said Lubos Parobek, vice president of product for Sauce Labs. “In order to help address this challenge, Sauce Labs continues to extend our development ecosystem integrations and plug-ins with other key software build-chain tools.” The new integration for JIRA offers the ability to create tickets directly from the Sauce Labs interface, automatically upload test data and debugging tools to JIRA, attach a job detail link to a JIRA ticket, and more. WalkMe Apps released to help mobile developers As a way to address some of the challenges that mobile app developers face, WalkMe launched WalkMe Apps, a free solution for developers. WalkMe Apps allows developers to focus their full attention on developing software, and it provides user and customer engagement tools to help them boost experiences and improve app ratings. These tools are called “applets,” and they are standalone onboarding, user engagement and monetization components that can be codelessly integrating into any developer’s app. Using applets can accelerate the release cycle by negating the need to code new features and then resubmit the app to the App or Google Play store, according to the company. XL Deploy 5.5 new provisioning features XL Deploy 5.5 by XebiaLabs has new provisioning features that were introduced today, allowing the spin up of cloud infrastructure and deployment. This means it doesn’t matter where deployment is happening, and provisioning in the infrastructure can be the same as it was for team’s deployments. With XL Deploy, the un-deployment of applications can be linked to the tearing down of environments, helping control cloud costs, according to the company. Cloud provisioning with XL Deploy also allows developers to add capacity using both cloud and data center resources, which will be automatically created when needed. The new feature also takes the advantages of Xebia Labs’ deployment approach, and it applies it to the environment provisioning process, seamlessly adding an enterprise orchestration layer on top.

2016-05-03 12:19 Madison Moore sdtimes.com

43 NVIDIA Releases 365.10 WHQL Game Ready Driver With more game releases and open betas coming down the pipe this spring, driver developers are getting busy preparing our graphics cards for the new games. This time NVIDIA brings us a handful of fixes and a suite of game ready support updates. NVIDIA driver version number 365.10 is a continuation of the 364 driver branch. Included are several bug fixes, including one for when one daisy-chained monitors, FPS drops in games with the previous driver build, and SLI control panel issues under Windows 10. Also, Dark Souls III performance has been fixed under Windows 7, 8 and 8.1, as performance under that game was sometimes poor in earlier driver releases. Moving on to game ready support we have a few upcoming games. On the list we have Battleborn by Gearbox Software which is seeing release this week. Following along we have Forza Motor Sport 6: Apex by Turn 10, Overwatch by Blizzard and Paragon by Unreal Studios which all will have beta’s open this week. Anyone interested can download the updated drivers through GeForce Experience or on the NVIDIA driver download page .

2016-05-03 12:15 Daniel Williams www.anandtech.com

44 What’s on tap for Linux container technology in 2016 White hot interest in containers has been driven by cloud computing’s demand to simplify deployment, streamline time to production, and automatically deliver the resources an application needs. Linux containers provide that in a nice package: a simple tool for developing, testing and delivering an application to the end user. Containers are designed to make it easier and quicker for developers to create complete application operating environments. Gone is the painful validation process of traditional application deployments that require developers to identify the minimum system requirements needed to run the application. There are other important benefits. Linux containers package just about any type of server application to run everywhere – on your desktop, in a cloud, or anywhere Linux is available – regardless of kernel version or Linux distribution. Containers also can have a considerably smaller footprint than VMs, which means your systems can see higher densities and run more cost effectively with containers than with VMs on the same host. While containers are now established, debates remain. For example, enterprises will have to decide what private cloud infrastructure (and most importantly, what operating system) will run under container applications. In 2015 many proclaimed a thin operating system would win out, but a popular thin technology has yet to emerge. We predict that adoption of thin operating systems will take longer than expected to ramp up in the data center, making only modest headway in 2016. Another important hurdle to broad adoption of containers is portability. Linux containers’ “write- once, run anywhere” philosophy is essential for simplifying application development and deployment across a multi-cloud environment. In 2015 the Open Container Initiative, of which Oracle is a sponsor, gained broad industry support. Both LXC and Docker have become popular among all major Linux distributions for packaging and distributing cloud applications in Linux containers. Now we’re seeing the Open Container Initiative make strides towards common specifications for container portability across operating systems, hardware and clouds without dependency on any particular commercial vendor or project. Containers may be the answer for simplifying application deployment, but as this technology moves into wide enterprise use customers will raise the bar further. What enterprise workloads are currently suited for containers? Is it necessary for an application vendor to refactor their solution for container deployments, or will containers evolve to include things besides next generation applications developed specifically for containers? Or is it a combination of both? How will containers be managed? If there ever was concern about VM sprawl, the situation could be exponentially more challenging with containers. VM monitoring is not too hard. It's been around and people know how to do it. But most enterprises have not yet established processes for monitoring a system with containers. For example, with containers memory is shared and CPU cycles are shared, even disk space is potentially shared. How do you do metering and billing in such a world? How can IT management or a Line-of- Business organization have more visibility into what the DevOps groups are delivering in containers? How do you know the sources used to create the container are trusted sources? How can you protect against security vulnerabilities hidden within the container? How does identity management and access control work within the scope of a large container deployment? Are there expectations for providing auditing and compliance to meet standard security deliverables like we see with workloads deployed in VMs and on bare metal? How far can containers be scaled for large workloads? Google’s Kubernetes has been a popular choice for deploying containers in clusters. In 2015 Docker released its own Swarm clustering software which provides native clustering capabilities. Docker says that Swarm has been tested for up to one thousand (1,000) nodes and fifty thousand (50,000) containers. In 2016 container clustering will continue to make significant progress and we will begin to see whether containers can scale as an enterprise customer would expect. High availability will also be a significant challenge for containers. Container HA is fairly rudimentary today – mostly basic failover. There are other HA features that enterprises need. For instance, rolling patches are a key to maintaining uptime in the cloud. A single kernel patch can take a container farm with 100’s of containers offline for considerable time to update. When it comes to cloud computing, containers will be part of that story. More enterprise features will be needed to deliver a large and diverse portfolio of commercial enterprise software in containers, including management tools for automating scale on-demand, auditing content, verifying compliance, enforcing compliance, high availability, providing reporting and administrative visibility across form factors (physical servers, VM’s, containers). These are all elements that enterprise customers will need and are not widely addressed by software providers today. Ultimately, containers are a part of an IT solution, not separate islands of resources. And the world is not going to switch to containers overnight. An enterprise might have a multi-tier application consisting of a few Docker front ends or LXC front ends, a few middle tier VMs and a few backend physical database servers, along with a mix of physical and virtual appliances. Enterprises need to be able to run applications with networks, storage, and management and monitoring tools that span across bare metal, VMs, and LXC and Docker containers. And of course, containers may not be the only answer to cloud application deployment. New technologies such as hypervisor unikernels are being discussed as a potential deployment tool for microservices-based applications. This model has a much smaller footprint by eliminating the traditional operating system and very rapid boot times. These attributes can be valuable in highly distributed application environments. No doubt, containers are here to stay. Addressing enterprise needs will be key to rapid growth. 2016 looks to be a very interesting year indeed.

2016-05-03 12:12 Robert Shimp www.itworld.com

45 Apple stops tocking: It wants to escape an unsustainable pace The second version of the 12-inch MacBook was met with many cries of disappointment in Apple, since the company just revved its processor and a few system specs instead of thoroughly redesigning the USB-C-equipped laptop. Similarly, the iPhone SE appeared outside Apple’s phone release cycle and lacks a number in its name. A year after its introduction, pundits bury the Apple Watch, and wonder why a new version is likely six months away—nearly two years since Apple first revealed the Watch to the world. Apple is slowing down, and I think it’s a dandy change. Despite analysts’ insistence that Apple needs to come out with a revolutionary new product every year or so—and then decrying the Watch as one of them (ignoring an estimated first-year revenue of $6 billion), the company has nearly always focused on iteration, punctuated with major moves forward, only several years apart. Like many tech companies, Apple has been guided by a so-called “tick/tock” cycle. In the tick phase, a major change in form and nature appears, but the insides may rely on components that existed in previous hardware. In the tock phase, the hardware design is settled, but the internals bloom. Depending on the device, it’ll get a newer generation of processor, and upgrades to the memory, storage, cameras, and other elements. For the iPhone, Apple has been ticking on full-number years and tocking on the “S” years. But smartphones, tablets, and even laptops have matured. The need to tock so quickly after a tick doesn’t have the urgency of years past. Apple appears to be delaying and moving away from tocks altogether, to judge by recent products and the ostensible coming release plans. The iPhone SE is the first time that Apple has extended its tick/tock cycle by years—one could argue it ticked once and tocked twice! The SE is the successor to the 5s, mimicking its appearance so precisely, one assumes it’s being stamped out on the same production lines as the 5s. The 5s was a tock, adding Touch ID, a faster processor, and a two-LED flash. The SE picked up many of the tock features introduced with the 6s and 6s Plus, such as processor type and camera, but lacks some flagship elements and is priced as a minor refresh to the 5s, at $250 less than the 6s and $350 less than the 6s Plus. The lack of a number attached to the iPhone SE and it’s out-of-sync introduction with other iPhones has led many to suspect Apple will refresh the SE on a less-frequent basis, making it the good-but-not-great model that lags up to 2-and-a-half years behind features found on the flagship phones. The SE lets Apple release an iPhone 7 and 7 Plus in September and have five models (including the 6s and 6s Plus) that all at a minimum sport high-performance processors, 4K/12 MP cameras, and Apple Pay. While processors will continue to speed up, there’s only a few reasonable places left to grow, such as a multi-lens camera or optical zoom. Moving to a 20MP sensor is a reasonable direction, but it’s not a generational leap. Apple didn’t disclose sales for the SE in its quarterly earnings call, but Tim Cook admitted to being surprised by demand. A smaller phone using older components that has a high appeal, and for which sales don’t decline as consumers are aware that a new revision is coming? It could be a pattern for bigger phones, too. An aid to this potential slimmer set of refresh features is the switch from contract plans to 0- percent finance plans at all the U. S. carriers, coupled with Apple’s introduction of the iPhone Upgrade Plan last September (available as of Tuesday online as well as in stores). By letting customers pay off phones and then only pay a lower service plan fee to their carrier, it also changes the motivation to get a new phone on a two-year schedule. It can accelerate it for some people, who may be able to change out in 12 months (or immediately with T-Mobile), while encouraging others to get three or more years out of their current model. I bought a 12-inch MacBook to test it out, and loved it so much that I kept it. It’s my favorite laptop probably since the Duo 210. I realize I’m in the minority for whom the compromises in getting a Retina display into such a small form factor work. Despite having a couple dozen USB-C adapters, cables, docks, and batteries left over from reviews, I rarely plug anything in except the Apple-supplied power cable. However, for those who don’t find the tradeoffs valuable to themselves or to recommend to others, the MacBook’s first outing looked like a failure, even when folks were reminded of the short battery life and dearth of ports on the original MacBook Air. This may explain why there was such an outcry when Apple unveiled the specs for the 2016 edition of the MacBook. The processor got a nice bump across all models, making it more competitive in performance with the MacBook Air, even after that model’s recent CPU bump. I’m unhappy with the decision to not upgrade the inadequate 480p FaceTime camera for video calls, and think Apple should have had a 1TB drive upgrade option. Thunderbolt 3 would have been nice, too, but apparently the heat dissipation is too much for a fan-less laptop. But the changes are not out of line with improvements in introductions of new laptop or mobile models. Jason Snell wrote of the second model of the MacBook Air, back in late 2008: “On the outside, the new MacBook Air 1.86GHz is identical to the first generation of Apple’s lightweight laptops. But inside it’s quite different…” The MacBook Air and MacBook Pro arguably date back in the current design to 2008—or maybe 2012 for the MacBook Pro, if you count the Retina upgrade. It was a strange thing to hope for the big tick of a new case for the MacBook, when Apple has such a slow cycle for its other models. While the MacBook’s specs will probably take a bigger bump in future improvements, as it has room to grow, Apple has already set the pattern here. Apple rarely gives an advance look at hardware, but that’s what it did with the Watch in an extensive preview in September 2014. It shipped in limited quantities starting in April 2015. But that preview, coupled with the not-far-out-of-beta feel of watchOS 1 lead to speculation that Apple would hop on a yearly upgrade cycle. A year out, Apple’s tick-tock device remains resolutely silent. The release of watchOS 2 was a form of a tock, as it came about six months into the release cycle, but about a year from Apple’s unveiling. (Apple will stop allowing new non-native Watch apps, ones that rely on an iPhone and essentially push images to the Watch, to be added to the App Store on June 1.) Plausible rumors put a hardware refresh out about six months. That new version would have the tock of a cellular radio, removing the necessity of keeping it near an iPhone for many features to work. But it sounds strongly as if there will be no tick: The form factor will remain the same. Apple set an expectation several years ago for fast iteration of mobile hardware and both mobile and desktop operating systems. It stumbled in meeting its mark, and, to the relief of many of us users, slowed down the pace of change in iOS and OS X in the last cycle, firming up improvements and making minor, useful additions, instead of substantial interface, interaction, and under-the-hood modifications. The same appears to be settling into all its product lines. That’s good for consumers with mature products that incorporate the right state of the art at the right price. The Watch and desktop Macs are the only pieces in Apple’s line-up that feel lagging on hardware relative to software demands; Macs will catch up soon, and the Watch will follow. Slowing down this tick-tock cycle can be seen as a sign of weakness, especially when coupled with the latest quarter’s revenue and shipments year-over-year drop. But maturity doesn’t equate with weakness. It’s more likely part of Apple’s transition to finding ways to collect recurring service fees as it tries to keep the hands of time from spinning quite as fast.

2016-05-03 12:00 Glenn Fleishman www.itnews.com

46 Windows 10 nagware patch KB 3035583 back on Windows 7 PCs Hard to believe, but Microsoft just released a new version of KB 3035583 , the oft-maligned "Get Windows 10" installer. For the few Windows 7 customers who don't already know, KB 3035583 is the root cause of all of those "Get Windows 10" ads, most notably the one that flew across TV station KCCI's weather report last Wednesday, much to the chagrin of quick-thinking meteorologist Metinka Slater. We've been tracking the nagware here for more than a year. According to Net Applications, Windows 10 usage share jumped all of 1.2 percent in April. Gregg Keizer at Computerworld pegs Win10 to hit 20 percent of all Windows desktop usage worldwide by the middle of the year. The nagware onslaught has drawn near-universal condemnation. Microsoft persists. Perhaps the upgrade pace is too slow -- or Microsoft figures the crack of the upgrade whip too muted. As of noon on Tuesday, KB 3035583 appears as an unchecked, optional update on my test machines. If history is any guide, that's a precursor to turning it into a checked, important update. Time will tell. Neither the KB article nor Microsoft's official Windows Update list contains any mention of the patch. That will no doubt change at some point. The solution, of course, is to run GWX Control Panel , which thwarts KB 3035583's primary mission. I keep hoping Microsoft will give us more Win10 upgrade carrots and fewer sticks. In a time of Windows' diminishing influence (see Paul Thurrot's timely Can Google and Apple Pull the Plug on the PC Market? ) force-feeding Win10 certainly isn't a good way to win over the hearts and minds of recalcitrant Windows 7 owners. The "you will use Windows 10 or else" approach won't keep the wolves from the door.

2016-05-03 11:59 Woody Leonhard www.infoworld.com

47 Philips' new 43-inch monitor might make native 4K practical Philips is releasing the BDM4350UC in the United States and the UK today. This 43-inch 4K IPS display supersedes the company's BDM4065UC monitor, which was a little smaller and used a VA panel. Thanks to its relatively large size for a PC monitor, this display offers a relatively standard 103-PPI density—about the same as that of a 27" 2560x1440 display. That PPI figure might make the BDM4350UC a good choice for folks who want the information density of a 4K display without the eyestrain of running smaller 4K screens without a scaling factor. The BDM4350UC boasts 178-degree viewing angles both horizontally and vertically, and its 5ms GTG response time could be a nice improvement over the previous model's 8ms spec. The claimed 1200:1 contrast ratio isn't bad, either. Like the previous model, this monitor can reproduce 1.07 billion colors. Unlike the previous model, Philips says this display uses a flicker- free backlight. The BDM4350UC trades the mini DisplayPort input of its older sibling for another full-sized DisplayPort. All in all, this display has two DisplayPorts, two MHL-compatible HDMI ports, and a VGA connection. The monitor also features a four-port USB 3.0 hub. Philips' MultiView firmware enables two-device Picture-in-Picture, or the ability to view up to four devices simultaneously in Picture-by-Picture mode. 7-watt speakers and VESA mounts round out the feature list. This monitor has been available in certain regions for a couple of months, but it's only now making its debut in the Anglophone world. Amazon has it for $799 right now.

2016-05-03 11:44 by Zak techreport.com

48 Complete guide to Star Wars Battlefront, including DLC and offline story rumours: May the 4th be with all PC users as EA offers free Battlefront trial Star Wars Battlefront was one of the most anticipated games of 2015, boasting amazing graphics and hectic 40-person online gameplay as storm troopers, rebel alliance soldiers and possibly even Darth Vader himself. The game has been on sale for a while now, but more is yet to come. Here, we discuss UK pricing and availability for Star Wars Battlefront, and rumours about DLCs and a possible offline story mode. Plus, you can celebrate Star Wars Day this May 4th with a free trial of Star Wars Battlefront on PC. See next: Most anticipated games of 2016 So, how can you get your hands on the utterly brilliant Star Wars Battlefront? First things first, we should address the platforms it’s available on; PS4, Xbox One, and PC users can all purchase Star Wars Battlefront right now, although PS3, Xbox 360 and Wii U customers aren’t so lucky – the game isn’t available on any other platform, with no plans for support in the future. But if you’re one of the lucky ones that have a compatible console and hasn’t yet played the game, you’ll be happy to know that it’s substantially cheaper than when it was first released back in November 2015. Let’s start with those for Xbox One – if you’re looking to buy the standard edition, you’ll find it for £49.99 at GAME or slightly cheaper at £31.58 on Amazon. It’s a similar story for the PS4 too, as the standard edition will set you back £49.99 at GAME or even cheaper at £29.05 on Amazon . PC users can grab the standard edition on Origin for £49.99, but they'll find it cheaper over at Amazon at £29.97. If you're in the market for a new gaming PC, take a look here: Best gaming laptops and best gaming PCs. You'll also like: PS4 vs Xbox One comparison To celebrate Star Wars Day Electronic Arts is offering a four-hour (cumulative) trial of Star Wars Battlefront on PC, to be downloaded from Origin on 4 May. Those who already own Battlefront will receive 4444 in-game credits when they log in on May 4th, and there will be a new Hutt contract: " Jabba the Hutt has a new challenge waiting for all Star Wars Battlefront players on May the 4th! Spend 3500 to 8000 credits and complete bounties to unlock the powerful Bacta Bomb Star Card which provides a health boost to you and your allies," says EA. EA outlined its plans for Star Wars Battlefront DLC and expansion packs for 2016 (and beyond) back in January, and we will see four DLCs in 2016. We've already seen Outer Rim, which became available in March, and the next DLC will be Star Wars Battlefront Bespin, which will become available in June. " We’re taking players in and around Cloud City, with four new maps for all of our most popular modes. You’ll see AT-ATs in Cloud City, take to the skies in Fighter Squadron, and even spend time in a carbonite chamber. Of course, we’re also adding more blasters and Star Cards, a new game mode, and two new iconic characters we’re really excited about – Lando Calrissian and the cold-blooded bounty hunter, Dengar," writes EA, which confirms that over the coming months we'll see new in-game events, new Hutt contracts and more new content. So, what can you expect from Star Wars Battlefront in terms of gameplay? Developers EA DICE spent a lot of time focusing on the online gameplay, which, in our opinion is phenomenal. Players find themselves traversing planets from the original Star Wars trilogy including Hoth and Tattooine, along more recent environments including Jakku. How you navigate the world is down to the game type you choose – you can get around on foot as you’d imagine, but you’re also able to jump in either land-based (AT-AT’s) or air-based (TIE fighters) vehicles to keep gameplay interesting. All battles take place on planets whether air or ground based, so those hoping for all out space war may have to wait for No Man’s Sky to be released later on this year. With that being said, there are a number of different game modes that should keep you entertained for hours on end, as it did for us. The game lets players choose between the Rebels or Stormtroopers when in battle, although there aren’t any immediate benefits/drawbacks to either faction. That is until you start to use Heroes (Hero power-ups spawn randomly, not generated based on performance), where some may argue that the Dark Side offering is more powerful than that of the Jedi, featuring huge names including Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine. Online gameplay features up to 40 players in a single match, and there are 15 different maps to choose from between the different game modes. However as great as the online gameplay is, there’s an area that Star Wars Battlefront falls flat on its face – the offline gameplay. While the online gameplay is exciting and new, the offline gameplay seems a little stale – the game offers only training along with wave-based, AI- powered game modes that get pretty boring, pretty quickly. Considering there isn’t a lot of Jedi- focused gameplay online, we’d have expected some kind of story-based offline mode where players can play as a Jedi and have fun – but there isn’t. It seems we’re not the only ones to think this, as Star Wars star John Boyega recently took to Twitter to ask EA if the company had any plans to bring an offline story mode to the hugely popular Star Wars Battlefront. The star tweeted “ @EAStarWars Will fans get a full on offline story mode? It's more of an enjoyable way to learn controls.” And while EA must get tweets like this all the time, it’s not usually from the star of the movie the game is based upon. EA replied asking if Boyega had tried the offline missions, but it seems the star wants more: The EA UK account tweeted back “sounds like a date,” which suggests that Boyega will be visiting the UK HQ at some point soon. Let’s hope that he can get something made, although it has been suggested that campaigns are expensive and not as popular when compared to multiplayer content these days, which if true means that even if the star of Star Wars makes an appearance, we won’t be seeing it anytime soon.

2016-05-03 11:33 Lewis Painter www.pcadvisor.co.uk

49 Users describe pros and cons of hyperconverged storage products When evaluating hyperconverged infrastructure products, IT Central Station users most often examine their price, simplicity and ease of manageability, compared to more traditional storage systems. Four of the top hyperconverged infrastructure systems on the market are Nutanix, VMware Virtual SAN, FlexPod and HPE StoreVirtual, according to online reviews by enterprise users in the IT Central Station community. But what do enterprise users really think about these tools? Here, users give a shout out for some of their favorite features, but also give the vendors a little tough love. Editor's note: These reviews of select hyperconverged infrastructure systems come from the IT Central Station community. They are the opinions of the users and are based on their own experiences. To continue reading this article register now Learn More Existing Users Sign In

2016-05-03 11:22 IT Central www.computerworld.com

50 Report: HTC to finally launch Android Wear smartwatch in June A big hole in HTC’s product portfolio is an Android Wear smartwatch. Rumors have floated around about one for a while, but we now have a few indications this may getting closer to reality. According to the typically spot-on Evan Blass, the company’s first watch will launch in June. However, that’s a bit of a delay from original expectations that it would be out earlier in the year. FYI, this has been pushed to the week of June 6th. #htcwearable https://t.co/Ei1lT4aWoc Other details are still on the slim side, but there has been talk of a round 360x360 display, which is right in line with recent additions to the Wear lineup like the Huawei Watch. Most Android Wear watches have opted for the round look, though there are still a few choices out there with a square face. We don’t know if there will be one model for everyone or a diversified set of men’s and women’s watches as Motorola has done. The rumor of HTC getting involved in watchmaking goes back a ways. The company was listed as part of the original group of partners during the launch of Android Wear , but it’s only been rumors since then. A watch makes a lot of sense, so the alleged delay could be from HTC’s desire to craft a hit, or to ship the watch with Android N.

2016-05-03 11:22 Derek Walter www.itnews.com

51 65% off Holy Stone Drone Quadcopter with HD Camera - Deal Alert Amazon is currently featuring this 6-axis quadcopter from Holy Stone for $79.99 , which is $150 off its typical listing price of $229.99. It averages 4.5 stars out of 5 on Amazon from over 300 people ( read reviews ). The U818A features a 2MP HD video camera and one-button "return to home" mode. 6-axis flight control gives this unit a high level of stability. At 65% off, the current price-point might make it a good option for an introductory drone quadcopter. Learn more and explore buying options now on Amazon.

2016-05-03 11:16 DealPost Team www.itnews.com

52 AngularJS 2 reaches release candidate AngularJS 2, the much-awaited follow-up to the initial release of the JavaScript Web framework, has reached a release candidate stage, moving the technology closer to general availability. The upgrade to the Google-developed framework has been rewritten to support multiple renderers and is decoupled from the DOM. Microsoft's TypeScript is the language of choice for the rewrite, which also has focused on use of components over directives for page rendering. Google engineer Brad Green, who has worked on the project, said Angular 2 will have support for offline compilation. "This improves the first- time render performance of Angular 2 by about 2x and allows us to drop much of our framework size when you build for production," he said. Support for Google and Mozilla's Progressive Web Applications, which attempt to provide a better experience for Web apps, will be offered as well. "The core technique here is in using Service Workers to automatically install your app and data in the user's browser so it's already there when the user comes back or wants to use it when offline. We'll support this with instant starter apps through the Angular CLI," Green said. A new router in Angular 2 supports "lazy loading," added Green. "When users come to the first view of your application, we'll automatically only load the JavaScript modules that are required for that view. " The release candidate repackages Angular into individual packages of one per each feature area, according to a bulletin on the release candidate. "All of the packages are now distributed under the @angular npm scope. This changes how Angular is installed via npm and how you import the code. " The bulletin features instructions on installing Angular for a browser application and on importing symbols. Bug fixes and late-breaking changes are noted as well. Among the changes is one that involves use of context objects. "Before, a EmbeddedViewRef used to have methods for setting variables. Now, a user has to pass in a Version 2 already has been in use at organizations like NPR, CapitalOne, and The Weather Channel. Angular is billed as offering "HTML enhanced for Web apps. " Misko Hevery, a co- author of Angular, has said its use of dependency injection sets it apart from other frameworks. It even is being paired with enterprise Java via the AngularBeans framework.

2016-05-03 11:13 Paul Krill www.infoworld.com

53 BMC introduces MainView for Java environments, enabling a transaction engine for digital business BMC, the global leader in IT solutions for the digital enterprise, today announced MainView for Java Environments. This integrated systems management solution provides complete insight into how Java is consuming resources and affecting application performance on the modern mainframe. In the race to thrive as a digital business and to gain a competitive advantage, organizations are increasingly looking to Java for z/OS® to quickly develop applications. With the demand for instant service, always-available, high-performing applications, it is not surprising that 93 percent of mainframe organizations in a BMC survey said Java usage is growing or steady, and Java is the language of choice for writing new or rewriting existing mainframe applications. However, Java workloads can affect performance and availability on the mainframe, as they consume system resources without regard for the needs of other applications or services. An integrated management approach allows IT Operations a holistic view of the environment to quickly and easily discover Java Virtual Machines (JVMs) and to manage the effect of their resource consumption on application performance. “Java on the mainframe is being used to develop and deploy new applications faster and more economically to meet dynamically changing digital business needs and to take advantage of widely available programming skills,” according to Tim Grieser , program vice president, Enterprise System Management Software, IDC. “However since Java manages its own resources it can consume excessive amounts of processor time and memory resources leading to performance or availability problems if not proactively managed. BMC offers a solution in it’s MainView for Java Environments which monitors z/OS Java runtime environments and provides a consolidated view of all resources being consumed to help identify and manage performance issues before they impact end users.” Using BMC’s MainView for Java Environments solution, Java can be deployed and managed with confidence, helping to unlock Java’s potential on the mainframe. BMC’s MainView for Java Environments is an integrated performance management solution that discovers and monitors JVMs. It provides a single graphical console to quickly understand the Java applications impact on resources and its affect on the performance of other applications and transactions. The solution helps to improve application performance and ensures availability while reducing Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) and lowering Monthly License Charges (MLC) by monitoring zIIP offloading. All of which increases productivity, lowers costs and helps IT quickly respond to the demands of the business. “The digital economy is breathing new life into the mainframe platform with 80 percent of the world’s corporate data residing on mainframes and 91 percent of all new client-facing applications accessing a mainframe,” said Bill Miller , president of ZSolutions Optimization at BMC. “MainView for Java Environments is a testament to BMC’s investment in transforming the mainframe for digital business – enabling enterprises to manage the bigger, faster demands hitting the mainframe today – and preparing them for the unknown demands of tomorrow.” To aid in the identification of JVMs in the mainframe environment, BMC is providing a limited time trial of BMC’s MainView for Java Environments solution to existing MainView customers. The trial will allow enterprises to highlight the scope and magnitude of JVM instances and their significant impact on the performance and availability of other applications. For more information on MainView for Java Environments or to learn about the customer assessment trial, visit http://www.bmc.com/it-solutions/mainview-java.html .

2016-05-03 11:11 SD Times sdtimes.com

54 Tesla Details 'Bioweapon Defense Mode' For Air Filter Tesla Motors is known for designing cars with futuristic styling cues, impressive performance specs, and, of course, Ludicrous mode , but lesser known is the company's dedication to air filtration systems. The company is looking to change all that starting with a May 2 blog post that details its high- efficiency particulate arrestance (HEPA) filtration system, which is designed to strip the outside air of pollen, bacteria, and pollution before any of those enter the cabin. It also systematically scrubs the air inside the cabin to eliminate any trace of these particles. Tesla has previously put the air filtration to the test in real-world environments ranging from rush- hour California freeways, to smelly marshes, landfills, and cow pastures in the state's central valley, to major cities in China. Now the company is taking the testing process a step further by putting a Model X in an environment where Tesla could precisely control and carefully monitor atmospheric conditions. Not only was the Model X's HEPA system able to scrub the car clean in under two minutes -- allowing Tesla engineers to remove their gas masks while being surrounded by a polluted outdoor environment -- the system actually began to vacuum the air outside the car as well, reducing PM2.5 levels by 40%. [Read more about the Tesla Model 3 .] Inside the car, the HEPA filtration system was so effective that it reduced the level of pollution to such a level that it was rendered undetectable by Tesla's instruments. "In other words, Bioweapon Defense Mode is not a marketing statement, it is real. You can literally survive a military grade bio attack by sitting in your car," according to the blog post. "Moreover, it will also clean the air outside your car, making things better for those around you. " The blog post also noted Tesla plans to continue improvements in the micro-geometry and chemical passivation defenses in the primary and secondary filters, which are also replaceable. There was no mention of whether the company's recently announced Model 3 would come with the technology, but the filtration system is available for the Model S and Model X. Thanks to a recent tweet by company CEO Elon Musk , however, Tesla fans have found out the Model 3 will come with the optional Ludicrous mode, an upgrade that allows for superfast acceleration. The acceleration option is already available for the Model X and Model S. Tesla claims Ludicrous mode for the Model S decreases 0-60 mph time by 10%, to 2.8 seconds, and says the time to 155 mph is now 20% faster than the performance of a standard Model S. With a five-star safety rating, Tesla boasts the Model 3 will also be the safest car in its class. It features supercharging for long distance travel; it can seat up to five adults; and it boasts Autopilot safety features.

2016-05-03 11:05 Nathan Eddy www.informationweek.com

55 16 standout Android apps with fingerprint support With support for fingerprint sensors becoming a native part of Android as of the Marshmallow release -- and fingerprint sensors rapidly becoming standard fare in flagship phones as a result -- it's easy to get spoiled by the ease of unlocking something with a touch of your finger. The best part? That convenience doesn't have to be limited to your lock screen. The beauty of fingerprint support now being a native element of Android is that it's simple for developers to bring it into their own apps. And once you get used to skipping over a sign-in screen simply by pressing your fingie to your phone, well, it's hard to go back. There's just one problem: Even though developers have slowly but surely been getting on-board with fingerprint support in the months since Marshmallow's release, it isn't always easy to find apps that offer the function. (Hey, Google, could we get a searchable flag for that in the Play Store?) So since I'm constantly keeping my eyes open for appendage-ready options to use on my own phone, I thought I'd put together a list of some of the better fingerprint-friendly titles I've found. So crack those knuckles and get those frisky phalanges ready. Here we go: And there you have it. Download the apps that make sense for you, fire up their fingerprint functions, and get ready to finger your phone like you've never fingered it before. But do us all a favor and don't use that phrase to describe it, okay? It's weird. And vaguely unsettling. Sheesh. I can't take you anywhere, can I?

2016-05-03 11:04 JR Raphael www.computerworld.com

56 Deeplink unveils app assistant, AppWords Concierge As users’ personal and business lives become more mobile, one company believes they should be able to leverage more from the apps they have come to know and love. Deeplink , a mobile deep-linking provider of developer and app network solutions, has announced AppWords Concierge , an in-app assistant now available in private beta. Mobile deep linking provides developers with the ability to link to specific pages or functions within a native application. According to Deeplink, mobile searching has become a problem for users due to small search boxes, complex typing, and inadequate search results. The company decided to create AppWords Concierge to provide contextual awareness to mobile search and enhance a user’s overall in-app experience. (Related: Developers are well poised to take advantage of IoS ) “Mobile search is changing. Even the products that market their ability to search the inside of apps are not addressing the real issue, which is that a query-based search on mobile is no longer the primary paradigm for finding content,” said Noah Klausman, cofounder and head of business development at Deeplink. “What is proving to be extremely effective in mobile is preemptive search. Concierge gives every developer a preemptive search tool for their users.” Combined with artificial intelligence and a conversational UI, Concierge aims to keep users engaged while they search for other app content and actions, according to Klausman. With Concierge, users can refine, filter and surface their search results within the app. This will benefit both app developers and users by providing them with the ability to add and search for more links and tools relevant to the app. “For end users, search and discovery on mobile is done by and large by keyword input, which can be cumbersome,” explained Klausman. “Concierge solves that by being a preemptive search assistant, with one-tap answers. For developers, Concierge helps keep their users engaged while making more of their app searchable and discoverable.” While no official public release date has been set, the private beta is expected to last about three to five months. “We have tens of thousands of users on our existing platform, so we did a private beta in order to collect feedback from our existing customers and any new devs that want to leverage the tools.” Developers can get access to the private beta by integrating a placeholder SDK. More information is available here.

2016-05-03 11:00 Christina Mulligan sdtimes.com

57 NYC scowls at LTE-U in open letter The City of New York became the latest entity to weigh in on the subject of LTE-U, as an open letter from the mayor’s office to policymakers at the 3GPP standards body pushes for thorough protection for existing Wi-Fi. LTE-U, a carrier technology designed to take the load off existing networks by using the unlicensed frequency bands where Wi-Fi lives, has provoked widespread concerns about interference and disruption. The technology’s inventors, Qualcomm and Ericsson, and the carriers have insisted that LTE-U contains features that will enable it to co-exist peacefully with Wi-Fi, but many others, from the cable industry to Google and Microsoft, have expressed serious doubts. The letter, which is signed by Maya Wiley, counsel to the mayor, lists several municipal Wi- Fi implementations and the benefits they provide to New York City residents, warning that those benefits could be lost if LTE-U interferes with their signals. “Even a modest loss of coverage for a Wi-Fi hotspot, when multiplied and magnified over the scale of New York City, could impact millions of users daily and decrease the value of hundreds of millions of dollars of public and private investment,” Wiley wrote. “Likewise, any increase in latency could undermine the utility of the City’s investments for innovative voice and video applications.” Both sides of the debate are collaborating on testing protocols, under the aegis of the Wi-Fi Alliance, that will help resolve the concern’s around LTE-U’s ability to play nice with other signals. Wiley’s letter urges 3GPP – the body directly responsible for wireless standards used by the carriers – to follow suit and ensure that the airwaves are protected from harmful interference.

2016-05-03 10:57 Jon Gold www.computerworld.com

58 Quantum computers pose a huge threat to security, and the NIST wants your help It's no secret that quantum computers could render many of today's encryption methods useless, and now the U. S. National Institute of Standards and Technology wants the public to help it head off that threat. The federal agency recently published a report focusing on cryptography in a quantum world that outlines a long-term approach for avoiding the problem before it happens. "There has been a lot of research into quantum computers in recent years, and everyone from major computer companies to the government want their cryptographic algorithms to be what we call 'quantum resistant,'" said NIST mathematician Dustin Moody. "So if and when someone does build a large-scale quantum computer, we want to have algorithms in place that it can't crack. " Encryption often relies on the challenge of factoring large numbers to ensure security, but researchers at MIT and the University of Innsbruck in Austria recently demonstrated what they said is the first five-atom quantum computer capable of cracking such encryption schemes. Whereas traditional computers represent numbers as either 0s or 1s, quantum computing relies on atomic-scale quantum bits, or “qubits,” that can be simultaneously 0 and 1 -- a state known as superposition that promises huge gains in efficiency and performance. One recommendation in the NIST report is that organizations begin by focusing on "crypto agility," or the ability to rapidly switch out whatever algorithms they are using for new ones that are safer. Creating those safer algorithms is the longer-term goal. Toward that end, a key part of NIST's effort will be a competition in which members of the public will devise and test promising new cryptographic methods. A similar contest led to the development of the SHA-3 hash algorithm used for authenticating digital messages. The agency plans to launch the new competition in the next few months. "It will be a long process involving public vetting of quantum-resistant algorithms," Moody said. "And we're not expecting to have just one winner. " Several of today's security mechanisms could be cracked by a quantum computer, including public-key encryption and digital signatures, so multiple new alternatives will be required. Though any practical threat is still in the future, the NIST doesn't want to waste time. "Historically, it has taken a long time from deciding a cryptographic system is good until we actually get it out there as a disseminated standard in products on the market -- it can take 10 to 20 years," Moody said. "Companies have to respond to all the changes, so we feel it's important to start moving on this now. "

2016-05-03 10:40 Katherine Noyes www.infoworld.com

59 Alleged Kaby Lake CPU shows its face in SiSoft Sandra database Back in March, we reported on the demise of Intel’s long- held “ tick-tock ” product development strategy. For years, Intel has predictably released a line of CPUs with a new manufacturing process one year, and a line on the same process with a new architecture the next. This cadence is changing with the current 14-nm process node. Under the tick-tock schedule, we would have seen products made on a new process node—10-nm—this year. Instead, we are looking at an optimization of the 14-nm process, called "Kaby Lake. " Now we have purported benchmarks of a Kaby Lake processor, courtesy of an anonymous posting in the SiSoftware Sandra database. The leaked benchmark shows a four-core, eight-thread processor with 3.6GHz base and 4.2GHz Turbo clock speeds, along with 8MB of L3 cache. That base clock puts it about in the middle of the i7-6700 (3.4GHz) and i7-6700K (4.0GHz), and the 4.2GHz Turbo speed aligns with the i7-6700K. Even if this benchmark does actually represent a Kaby Lake processor, it is likely an engineering sample, so these numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. That said, these frequencies and cache numbers do seem to align with either a slightly more conservatively-clocked "Core i7- 7700K," or a "Core i7-7700" with a 200MHz bump to both its base and Turbo frequencies. The GPU specs in SiSoft’s database show a 24-execution-unit, 1.15GHz graphics processor on this mystery chip. Those specs look a lot like the HD 530 GPU in the i7-6700 and i7-6700K, which supports the argument that this is an i7-7700 chip. Sadly, Sandra doesn’t report anything about TDP on the chip, so we are missing a crucial part of the puzzle. Since Kaby Lake is an extra optimization on the 14-nm process node, a drop in TDP could make this a more attractive package than a mere 200MHz clock speed bump. On the other hand, if this turns out to be a K- series part, we could see a return to past K-series TDPs, at the cost of a few hundred MHz of base clock speed.

2016-05-03 10:27 by Robert techreport.com

60 60 Twitter’s Connect tab takes another shot at the 'who to follow' problem Trending accounts no longer have their own section, but are instead featured in a carousel at the top of the screen. Below that, there’s an option to connect your address book for finding people you know in the real world. Frankly, it’s a lot to take in. But at least each section explains who or what the set of recommendations is based on. By comparison, the old Find People section’s recommendations felt like they were coming out of nowhere.

2016-05-03 10:22 Jared Newman www.itnews.com

61 Trend Micro: 6 most popular homebrewed terrorist tools Terrorists are developing and distributing encryption tools that protect privacy of their communications, as well as other homegrown apps that include a news-feed compiler and DDoS attack software, according to a Trend Micro report. The tools have been made to give less tech- savvy members of terror groups the ability to use known technologies without having to trust or invest in commercial products that can perform the same functions, the report says. Some of the tools are still being updated, indicating an active development community among the terrorists. Here are the tools as identified by Trend Micro: Terrorists continue to develop other apps. For example, during Trend Micro’s study of terrorist tools, researchers ran across a rudimentary DDoS app that employs SYN floods. "While this application is not particularly advanced, it shows that there is active exploration into disruptive technology," the Trend Micro report says.

2016-05-03 10:14 Tim Greene www.infoworld.com

62 Elite 100: Past Winners Talk Strategy, Best Practices Cloud computing, demand for faster development cycles, the pressure of the consumerization of IT, the rise of big data and analytics, and IT working together with business were among the themes during an opening session at InformationWeek's Elite 100 Conference in Las Vegas Monday. The elite of the Elite 100 -- a handful of 2015 winners -- took the stage to share their strategies and best practices around these themes in an exclusive opening panel discussion moderated by conference leader Brian Gillooly and featuring Jim Rinaldi, CIO of Jet Propulsion Lab (JPL) (number 3 on 2015 Elite 100); Ger Purcell, SVP of IT at Avnet (number 5 in 2015); Ken Spangler, CIO of FedEx Ground & Freight (number 6 in 2015); Mike Restuccia, VP and CIO at Penn Medicine (number 9 in 2015); and Jeff Hamilton, SVP Business Technology at Pfizer (number 10 in 2015). Here's what these IT leaders had to say about some of the top issues facing IT today. "All the work we do is in partnership with the business," said Hamilton of Pfizer. One big cultural event Pfizer created was a Shark Tank - style competition to allow people within the company to present their ideas for the business. The competition attracted more than 100 ideas, and a few of those were chosen and funded by the business. In fact, one of those funded ideas was nominated for this year's Elite 100. [Find out more about InformationWeek's Elite 100. Read The Elite 100: Celebrating The People Who Make It Happen.] Avnet's Purcell said that his organization is pushing hard on digital transformation and the so- called third platform right now. For Avnet the third platform means cloud, social, mobile, and data analytics. The other big area is IoT. "We refer to it as edge to enterprise. We are managing data from the sensor to the enterprise. " Rinaldi of Jet Propulsion Lab said that his IT organization has been working to engage IT customers by offering innovation talks around IT. By its very nature, JPL has a lot of really smart users, Rinaldi said, and they often bring some of the best ideas that are eventually implemented by the IT organization. FedEx runs a customer-facing innovation group and a technology-facing innovation group. Each of these groups has become a specialist in aligning with their respective business segments, said Spangler. The organization also runs an internal conference "to bring our best and brightest together. " In February FedEx even ran its first enterprise-wide Hackathon. For Penn Medicine, an organization with roots going back 250 years, the goal is to innovate, but without breaking what is working today, Restuccia said. "We'll always have shadow IT," said Hamilton. "With the consumerization of IT, more and more folks outside IT are viewing themselves as technologists. " Hamilton's organization has turned that around to make IT "the go-to organization" within the company for technology, particularly since it's easier for the enterprise now to actually track rogue projects by looking at finance and other systems. It's harder for shadow IT to hide. What happens when a sponsor within the company wants a particular system, and then the end- users hate it? "IT has a role to play working with the sponsor," Rinaldi of JPL said. "I have a philosophical view that you work from the customer in, not the other way. You work with people to get input on what they want. " Avnet's Purcell said the company has introduced bimodal IT as a way to help users get what they need -- ease-of-use and better design. Pfizer has also created a couple of centers of excellence, Hamilton said. These include deeply skilled experts in particular domains, and that has helped in terms of developing speed and impact on the way the company develops solutions.

2016-05-03 10:10 Jessica Davis www.informationweek.com

63 4 projects ripe for a Rust rewrite Mozilla's Rust language has all the hallmarks of a winning software project. It has a quickly evolving toolchain , a supportive community , and an expanding roster of libraries. But above all, it has a mission: To provide the world with a safer, better-considered alternative to C and C++ for application- and system-level programming -- and to proactively prevent the next generation of software security disasters from happening. We're now seeing the first projects take the Rust plunge -- not only to benefit from the language's safety features, but for easier cross-platform porting of projects and to stimulate Rust's development. One of the first major projects associated with Rust aimed to create an HTML rendering engine - - Servo -- that would eventually replace Mozilla's rendering engine. Longer-term plans include making "a standalone Servo browser or embeddable library (e.g., for Android). " We're still a long way from a fully Rust-powered Firefox, but it seems to be in the cards. The GNU Coreutils command-line tools, created by the GNU project and found most commonly in Linux distributions, have been written mainly in C. This project seeks to aggregate them into a single GitHub-hosted repository and port them to Rust. The latter move isn't merely about taking advantage of Rust's safety features -- which seems vital given how many command-line Linux utilities are under-audited and at risk of being security hazards. It's also about taking advantage of the benefits of cross-platform portability. Rust provides "a good, platform-agnostic way of writing systems utils that are easy to compile anywhere," the project's documentation states. Rather than rewrite the project from scratch, the project is exploring the idea of rewriting the individual components that are most at risk, since Rust code interfaces readily with C. For inspiration, Tor's maintainers are looking to the Servo project for inspiration on how to mix Rust and C in the build process. Rewriting the entire Linux kernel in Rust would be a colossal undertaking, given how many millions of lines of code it contains. A more modest approach (and one that might have more immediate benefit) would be to rewrite individual kernel modules in Rust -- again, by leveraging Rust's ability to interface with C. Taesoo Kim of MIT provides an example project on GitHub for how to do this. Projects like this are not only useful for incrementally securing Linux, but also to improve Rust's interfaces with C. Macro definitions in C, for instance, can't currently be used by Rust's toolchain. If Rust is going to interoperate more closely with C, as a prelude to replacing it in some cases, it makes sense for Rust to interoperate more deeply with the C toolchain. That project will likely be as ambitious as anything already happening with Rust.

2016-05-03 10:08 Serdar Yegulalp www.infoworld.com

64 PwC’s CIO on the power of collaboration Like so many veterans of GE’s IT organization, Sigal Zarmi rotated through multiple leadership roles. She held six different C-level titles there before leaving to become vice chairman and network CIO at PwC, the $35.4 billion professional services powerhouse. Along the way, Zarmi learned countless executive leadership lessons, including the need to understand the underpinnings of her business units and to build trusting relationships. But during a short stint in London with GE, she learned perhaps the most valuable lesson of all: the power of collaboration. PWC's Sigal Zarmi. Back in 2001, in London, Zarmi assumed the role of transformation leader for GE’s European Equipment Finance division. Her charge: Lead a project to consolidate separate equipment leasing systems in each country into a single pan- European system. Hundreds of GE employees in Europe were assigned to the project, but the leadership team consisted of about 20 executives from different countries. And they had different opinions, objectives and requirements. The cultural differences were difficult to ignore. Employees from one country tended to be heavily process-oriented and acutely concerned about regulatory compliance, while others preferred to move faster, with more agility. Still, others sat somewhere in the middle, seeking speed while remaining methodical. On top of that, the levels of technological maturity varied from country to country — and within Zarmi’s team. “To me, it’s like putting people from Silicon Valley in a company very deeply rooted in its processes and saying, ‘Let’s do a project together,’” Zarmi says. “It’s not so much about where they’re from; it’s more about the background and diversity of the behaviors you see.” Collaboration practices also differed. Some members of the project leadership team wanted more one-on-one meetings with Zarmi, while others preferred to bring the entire team together to make decisions. To build consensus, Zarmi had to lead out front but also do critical work behind the scenes, all the while striving to embrace the many and varied concerns of her team. “Without really understanding and collaborating between the different cultures, we really wouldn’t have been able to run a successful project,” she says. Now, it wasn’t rocket science, or a case of finding detente among warring factions. But, as many IT executives have learned, managing complex multinational projects — complete with distinct cultural differences — can be a drastic departure from your typical system upgrade or software rollout. Early on, Zarmi realized the importance of bringing the team together. She reached out to every member and asked what was important to each of them. Everyone needed to have a say, Zarmi believed, and facilitating that would be the only way to drive agreement — whether or not each member got what he or she wanted. That involved a whole lot of listening, which Zarmi says is critical in all projects, but especially in that one. “Listen more than you talk, because you never know what you will find out,” she says. “Sometimes people just want to talk to get things off their chest, and then they’re OK with what you decide. Sometimes they just want to be heard.” She likens it to negotiation: Leaders must listen well, understand what’s important to other people, and get them to talk about what’s really non-negotiable to them, she says. That was the team-building aspect. At the same time, Zarmi had to build relationships with the business leadership teams in the different European countries. One reason for that was to ensure that, as Zarmi recalls, “we had the right people at the right level at the right meetings to make the right decisions.” To succeed, she needed the best mix of influencers in each country, and across each function in those countries. Finding that mix wasn’t easy. Zarmi couldn’t be in multiple places at one time, but she had to learn and understand the dynamics on the ground in each country. At times, she acknowledges, the cultural differences posed too many obstacles, and certain people had to be moved off of the project. But building relationships with leadership teams was critical for another reason: She had to make sure they would be supportive of the new system not just in IT, but on the business and functional sides as well. In the end, the project team succeeded, rolling out a new equipment listing system across Europe in nine months. The initiative saved $20 million for the ongoing operation, from a combination of process changes, system retirements and opportunity costs. Not long afterward, Zarmi was promoted to CIO of GE’s Financial Guaranty Insurance Company. She later went on to become chief operating officer of GE Energy Financial Services, CIO of GE Corporate Financial Services and, finally, CIO of GE Capital Americas. Zarmi is a big fan of cloud- and SaaS-based services, because of the simplicity they offer. To use those tools, you get a license and get started — in many cases, there’s no need for an IT leader to initiate a big change-management process. The European listing system project was far more complicated. In addition to navigating cultural differences and a broad geographic scope, Zarmi and her team also had to ensure that employees across the various countries used the system the same way, which meant that the change-management process would be crucial. Throw in the overlay of processes and behaviors, and that’s where it gets complex. The technology, as Zarmi says, was not the challenge. That’s something Zarmi has realized — and has experienced time and time again — during her almost 20 years in C-level positions. And it’s an important realization that she believes every current and aspiring CIO must embrace. “My job is to work with business leaders to help them and the users of the technology understand how much influence they have into the technology — and into the implementation as well,” she says. “That’s what I worry about: Putting a wonderful technology out there but not getting the right adoption or benefits.” Today, Zarmi leads PwC’s IT strategy and operations, overseeing more than 3,500 employees in 157 countries. As part of her ongoing transformation of the company’s IT organization, she focuses not only on digitalization and increased effectiveness, but also on collaborating more closely with clients, and on building more competitive offerings. And she emphasizes how technology will “reveal and illuminate the strong culture we have, and how important it is to embed our culture in the implementation of new technologies.” That, she says, has a lot to do with successful cross-geography solutions — and the lessons she learned during her experience at GE in London have paid dividends. “The actual lessons I learned there are very applicable today,” Zarmi says. “I’m glad I learned them a while ago, so that I can apply them in much more complex environment.”

2016-05-03 10:06 Brian Watson www.itnews.com

65 Forza Motorsport 6: Apex release date UK. Open beta announced for Windows 10 Last year was the 10th anniversary of the Forza series and Forza Motorsport 6 was released for the Xbox One. Now, for the first time, the racing game will be available on the PC, albeit only for those running Windows 10. See also: What to expect at E3 2016. The open beta will start on 5 May and anyone that wants to will be able to download and play the game from the Windows Store which you'll find in the Windows 10 start menu. Here's what Turn 10 recommends for the minimum and recommended specifications. As this is a DirectX 12 game, you'll need Windows 10, and you must be running build 1511 or later. This is the November 2015 update, so chances are you already have it. The download is almost 19GB, but you'll need 30GB of free space. According to Turn 10, Apex will deliver "a focused and curated single-player tour of Forza Motorsport’s best content, including authentic wheel-to-wheel action, unique automotive experiences, and constant rewards, all running on DirectX 12 at resolutions up to 4K". The Xbox One tops out at 1080p at 60fps, but Windows users with a high-end PC will be able to see Forza in Ultra High Definition with four times the detail available on the Xbox. One issue, though, is the 'single-player' aspect. Multiplayer will surely come later, we hope, but for now, Turn 10 says, "F orza Motorsport 6: Apex utilizes the cloud-based Drivatars of your Xbox Live Friends and the Xbox One community, as well as asynchronous leaderboards for comparing your Race Points, but the game will not feature online multiplayer or the livery design editor. However, in an early beta update, we will be adding a selection of curated livery designs from the Forza painting community to the car select flow. ". Unlike the Xbox version, which has 450 cars, Apex will offer 63 cars and six locations with 20 track configurations. So it's considerably more limited (hence the use of the word 'focused'). However, there's good news for BTCC fans: it looks like several of last year's cars are included, including the ebay BMW and the WIX Racing Mercedes. In addition to the career mode there will be Spotlight Series events, which are challenges that change all the time. There's a new Race Points system which will reward you for turning off the driving aids. Some of the updates promised over the summer will be:

2016-05-03 10:06 Jim Martin www.pcadvisor.co.uk

66 Maintenance In Two Words: Preventive And Predictive What does maintenance mean to you? If you asked me to define it in a few words, I would say maintenance is the action taken to keep something in working order by using a set of best practices. If you look up the word “maintenance” in a dictionary, you will find a similar definition: Oxford Dictionaries defines maintenance as “the process of keeping something in good condition,” and Collins Dictionary defines it as “the act of maintaining or the state of being maintained.” Most of my colleagues and the other people I have asked have stated that maintenance is “making repairs to prevent a failure from occurring.” Better, Faster Maintenance Is A Necessity Customers today demand continuous and fast access to information. Companies have come to understand that time is money and downtime is expensive, so preventing failures and service unavailability is essential to ensuring business reliability. However, even if you have a well- defined preventive plan, it’s still important to make sure you can respond to any unexpected unavailability in a short amount of time. However, what if the maintenance actions you take could be more than just preventive? What if you could predict when, where, and why your equipment will fail? Can you imagine the benefits? I can definitely think of some advantages, including the following: How Is All This Possible? In summary, information generates more information, so every device that is connected to a network leaves a trail of potential insights. The data that is collected from these devices can be processed through analytics tools to gain insights and provide the best action plan. This predictive maintenance process is detailed in the diagram below: This new cognitive era is changing the way support services are provided. It’s unacceptable to have a service provider that only fixes what breaks; the market demands that companies avoid failures altogether and have the right information at the right time. Time is money, and all businesses need to be prepared for changes. Check out the following links for some business use cases and to learn how to keep your systems running with predictive maintenance.

2016-05-03 10:00 Nelson Takumi www.informationweek.com

67 Could Android eventually reach 100 percent market share? Android has long held the lion's share of the smartphone market with estimates of 80% market share around the world. But could Google push Android up to 100% market share at some point? A writer at TechCrunch recently explored this possibility, and noted what might need to happen for Android to reach that level of adoption. Matt Heiman reports for Techcrunch: Android already commands over 80 percent of the mobile OS market share globally, and just under 60 percent in the US. But you wouldn't know it here in Silicon Valley -- almost everyone I know has an iPhone. As the consumer technology landscape evolves over the next five years however, there are a number of reasons to believe that Android, and the Google stack more broadly, could take an even greater share and become the platform of choice, even here. Loosening of the Apple ecosystem lock-in Gradual reduction of Android fragmentation Decoupling of phones and plans The emergence of Google as a desktop OS More at TechCrunch There are lots of different Android Wear watch faces to choose from, but which ones are the best in in terms of customization? A writer at Greenbelt has a helpful list of customizable watch faces for Android Wear. Derek Walter reports for Greenbot: By now you've probably heard the Android Wear motto: "Wear what you want. " While it's natural to have an aversion to marketing speak, this is one of those slogans that has a grain of truth to it, given how many Android Wear apps let you customize every facet of the watch face. If you've ever fancied yourself designing watch faces for Rolex, or just like how a smartwatch gives you this element of control, then it's time to get to designing. Android Wear still has some ways to go when it comes to helping you keep your phone in pocket more often, but it definitely wins when it comes to customization if you grab the right watch face. Pujie Black Watchmaker Premium Driver Watch Face Minimal and Elegant Skymaster More at Greenbot Lubuntu 16.04 LTS has been released , and Linux Scoop has a helpful video on YouTube that walks you through Lubuntu's new features. Linux Scoop reports on YouTube: Lubuntu 16.04 LTS was officially released as part of Ubuntu 16.04 LTS Official Flavors. This release ships with the latest build of LXDE Desktop Environment and powered by long-term suported of Linux kernel Series 4.4. Also get artwork improvements for both the desktop theme and the icons, various updates to most of the LXDE components, Support GNOME 3.18 packages, still using lubuntu software manager as default software manager, the removal of the lubuntu-extra-sessions component from the default install, and several bug fixes. More at YouTube

2016-05-03 09:57 Jim Lynch www.infoworld.com

68 Bowers & Wilkins is the trophy acquisition of a startup with high-end audio ambitions Ever heard of Eva Automation? Me neither. Until I got a press release from Bowers & Wilkins this morning reporting that the little-known Silicon Valley startup had acquired the renowned British manufacturer of high-end audio equipment. Eva’s management team, on the other hand, is well known in the upper echelons of the tech industry. CEO Gideon Yu’s resume includes a partnership at the venture-capital firm Khosla Ventures, Senior VP of Finance at Yahoo, CFO at YouTube, and then the same position at . More recently, he became a co-owner of the football team and led the team’s efforts in financing the construction of Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif, which hosted Super Bowl 50 in January. Bowers & Wilkins has long been in the upper crust of the high-end audio market, having designed the reference monitors used at Abbey Road Studios for the pros, and building its iconic Nautilus speaker for consumers with the deepest of pockets. More recently, the company expanded into the mid-range consumer market with its iconic Zeppelin speakers and a line of luxurious headphones and earbuds. B&W also designs car audio systems for BMW, Maserati, and Volvo. Beyond building streaming-audio products—using Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Apple’s AirPlay technology—B&W has never worked in the connected-home space. Bowers & Wilkins’ legendary Nautilus loudspeaker. As for Eva Automation, very little is known about the company. Bloomberg reported that Yu founded the company in 2014 after raising $20 million from a small group of backers, including Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang and YouTube co-founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen. The company name suggests that it’s working on audio/video products in the connected home, but it currently has no products of its own, or at least nothing that's been announced. Its website says the company is “reimagining the audio/video experience by making products that will change how people interact and think about the home.” Perhaps we’ll know more soon: The company has an opening for a director of public relations along with the usual slate of hardware and software engineers. Perhaps more importantly, Yu says Atkins will become CEO of the combined company, “maintaining a significant equity stake…and joining our board of directors, further aligning all of our interests.” We’re keenly interested to hear what’s next. In Yu’s letter, he writes, “We will have much, much more to announce when the time is right about our vision and our products. In the meantime, we will continue to work hard on developing a truly special, highly integrated, and easy to use home A/V experience that I know you’ll love.”

2016-05-03 09:53 Michael Brown www.itnews.com

69 Hefty Google Keyboard update brings one-handed mode, cursor control, other new tricks Google Keyboard just rolled out of the factory with a major overhaul. Version 5.0 brings a lot of smart features and design enhancements that could make it quicker to bang out a text message or drop in some numbers to a spreadsheet. One of the most useful changes is a fine cursor control: just tap and hold on the space bar and you can slide the cursor to where you want it to go. Suggestions are also smarter, as you can touch and drag away one that you don’t like to the trash. This can cut down on those typos that got saved into Google’s memory. A new one-handed mode and more control over suggestions are welcome additions. You’ll also find a dedicated nine-key layout, which is life-changing for typing in a string of numbers to a spreadsheet or online form. Type out numbers much faster with the new nine-key layout. Google Keyboard is also stepping up its predictive game, by enabling an option to share “snippets of what and how you type in Google apps to improve Google keyboard.” This is much like the way SwiftKey and other apps learn your behavior, but this can be disabled from the settings if you’d prefer. The update isn’t only about usability. You can now add in outlines for the keys if the full Material look is a little too much. There are also five different height sizes that you can select from in the settings. This is where you’ll also find other advanced functions to change the look and performance of the keyboard. Some design tweaks and more data-sharing options are part of the new Google Keyboard. The Material Light and Material Dark themes are still there for the choosing, but the old-school Holo options are gone. But you can add an outline for the individual keys, which does help some in providing a target for your fingers. Google Keyboard 5.0 is rolling out now in the Play Store. It’s also up on APK Mirror if you don’t want to wait.

2016-05-03 09:20 Derek Walter www.itnews.com

70 Warp Speed: Faster Development Cycles Are The New Normal Technology makes businesses faster, but people and processes can struggle to adapt. At the InformationWeek Elite 100 Conference in The Four Seasons Hotel in Las Vegas on Monday, executive editor Curtis Franklin Jr. led a discussion that explored the ways IT executives have orchestrated technology processes at their companies to keep up with customer demand while maintaining security and quality standards. Panelists David Guzman, CIO of H. D. Smith; Vivek Shaiva, CIO of La Quinta Inns; and Angela Tucci, general manager of agile management at CA Technologies, agreed that warp speed has become the new normal. "No matter how fast we are, we're too slow for the market," said Guzman, adding that his organization has reacted to that reality by breaking development tasks down into digestible chunks to focus on delivering new functionality every month. "It's extraordinary what we're able to deliver at that pace," he said. That's agile development , an alternative to the traditional iterative waterfall approach, and the panelists agreed it has become essential. "I don't believe you can do waterfall faster," said Tucci. "You have to rethink the way you do software. " She said the notion of warp speed describes a business metabolism rather than an external pace that must be kept. "The old style of operating doesn't work anymore," said Shaiva, who noted that, while IT has gotten to the point that it can scale rapidly, business teams are often the bottleneck. Making sure those teams have "skin in the game" gives a better outcome, he said. [See Agile Analytics: 11 Ways to Get There .] Guzman observed that flexibility goes beyond the IT organization. "To be truly agile, we've had to extend these concepts through our business," he said, noting that about 10% of his company is now trained in tasks normally associated with IT. For example, business leaders are involved in writing test scripts. But hyperspeed isn't necessarily a burden. All three panelists said they were energized by the pace of change. "It's a great time to be in the industry," said Tucci.

2016-05-03 09:06 Thomas Claburn www.informationweek.com

71 Dish Network's traveling technicians get into the iPhone repair business Dish Network is finding a new purpose for its technicians in the age of streaming video. With its new Smart Phone Repair program, Dish will send someone to your house or work to replace a broken iPhone screen or worn-out battery on site. The service is available seven days a week to anyone across the United States—whether they’re Dish TV subscribers or not—with same-day and next-day appointments. Repairs take 30 to 45 minutes. Each iPhone battery replacement costs $40, and screen repairs range from $130 to $150, depending on the model of iPhone. Dish also charges $35 for the service call itself, which can cover the repair of multiple phones. Dish says it’s open to corporate events as well, in case companies want to repair company iPhones on a large scale. Because this is Dish, there may be a TV upsell involved. The company notes that its technicians will gladly set up satellite service during their visit, and will help out with surround sound systems and Wi-Fi network setup as well. Although the service is iPhone-only for now, Dish plans to support additional smartphones in the future. Technicians will also sell accessories such as cases, screen protectors, and cables. Just keep in mind that any work performed by Dish technicians will void your warranty. And even if you’re not covered by AppleCare, Apple’s prices for screen repair are the same as Dish’s in many cases , so you may want to stick to the Apple Store if you’re still within your warranty period.

2016-05-03 09:01 Jared Newman www.itnews.com

72 Mavenlink offers a consulting service, because services bring protection This is interesting. Mavenlink is a project management and resource planning vendor that delivers a cloud-based tool for organizations looking to make their projects flow better. It, along with an ever-increasing number of companies, is pushing the "Go cloud, it gives you flexibility and agility and is much easier to get up and running with" mantra. So to hear that the company is today rolling out its own consulting service to help organizations gain the very efficiencies its tool promises to deliver is something else. Could this be a recognition of the fact that using these cloud tools isn't actually that easy? Or is it a response to a more macro-level environmental change? The company is today announcing the nattily monikered MavenOps, an "on-demand consulting service designed to help companies optimize and improve how they run their business. " The company, not one to err toward modesty, believes that this product is set to reinvent the traditional SaaS model. Mavenlink suggests that the majority of SaaS products involve steep upfront costs for a one-time implementation and no ongoing guidance after rollout. According to the company, this often leads to a gap in the customer success life cycle -- described by Gartner as the " trough of disillusionment " -- where customers are left to overcome barriers to optimization and adoption on their own. Hmmm, I'm in two minds about this. SaaS was meant to reinvent the perpetual merry-go-round of consulting services that traditionally came alongside legacy software installations. The promise, ever since a fresh-faced Marc Benioff launched Salesforce with its "no software" logo, was that users would be able to self-deploy and self-manage software. Now clearly that hasn't quite come to pass; Salesforce itself, after all, has a huge ecosystem of consulting partners that help customers roll out Salesforce's various products. But the fact is that initial deployments of SaaS products are actually pretty easy and generally don't (and shouldn't) require a legion of consulting personnel to implement. The idea that a SaaS vendor needs to set up a consulting arm itself to help with the alleged nightmare that is SaaS implementation is somewhat jarring. Anyway, as to what it offers, MavenOps is an on-demand service model that extends beyond go- live and into critical periods that, according to the release, "define the ultimate value companies are able to get out of business software. " In other words, MavenOps helps once the initial deployment is finished and the added-value stuff (that often seems elusive) needs to start flowing through. Mavenlink has created this team from, at least in part, past Accenture consultants. The consultants provide guidance, coaching and education. The specific value points that MavenOps is pushing are the adoption of best practices in business processes and data analysis to promote financial success, the achievement of desired business outcomes through expert guidance and consultation, the uncovering and capturing of critical business insights, and the acceleration of user adoption and value of Mavenlink (as opposed to more general SaaS products). "The truth is that thriving in today's business environment is harder than ever for a service provider, and there is a need for business transformation that goes well beyond what any piece of software can do," says Ray Grainger , Mavenlink co-founder and CEO. "The problems Mavenlink solves are incredibly complex. There really is no end in the relationship if we want to help our clients continue to perform and take their business challenges head on. We recognized this and developed a new approach to services that will help service providers thrive. " I'm not convinced. Not because I believe the hype that SaaS requires no professional services, but more because Mavenlink has a difficult job to do here. For one thing, it has to differentiate its own product from the on-premises offerings out there. The general way that SaaS vendors do that is by articulating the ease of use, reduced time to value, better economics and easier integration that SaaS products bring. But by introducing MavenOps, Mavenlink needs to start articulating the very opposite: that SaaS is hard and that consulting is needed to deliver value. I'll be interested to see how this plays out, but I suspect Mavenlink's move has more to do with a difficult economic climate and pressure to deliver financial results than with any customer-facing factors. One to watch, but I'm not sure they're onto a winner here.

2016-05-03 09:00 Ben Kepes www.computerworld.com

73 Exclusive: Sophos Sees 'Tremendous' Synchronized Security Growth, Launches New Tools Since officially laying out its synchronized security vision in the fall, Sophos has been seeing "tremendous" traction with its partners and is launching new tools to help partners accelerate that growth even further going forward. Sophos, based in Abingdon, England, launched its synchronized security strategy in November, bringing together the next-generation endpoint and XG firewall network security solutions under what it calls the Sophos Security Heartbeat. In doing that, the company said, it is able to improve security across a company's environment in real time, with improved context, faster detection and automated response. For the quarter that Sophos launched the solution, it saw 35 percent year-over-year growth in the number of partners that sell both UTM and endpoint, Kendra Krause, vice president of global channels, told CRN exclusively. [Related: CRN Exclusive: Sophos CEO On Knocking Out The Competition With Security Heartbeat ] "It's been tremendous," Krause said. "I think it's only going to keep growing. " On top of that, she said, the number of transactions partners did in Sophos’ FY16 has risen 21 percent compared with the same period the previous year. "Sophos is 100 percent committed to its channel-first strategy," Krause said. "We are that in everything we do. … It resonates throughout the company. … [Partners] like the program. They like our [synchronized security] strategy and they like our commitment to the channel. They're selling more because of that. " That's growth that Arizona-based partner Premier IT has felt in its business, said partner Karl Bickmore. He said not only have his operational costs gone down with the synchronized security push, but he has also been able to cross-sell more solutions than ever before, driving more revenue to his business. "It’s a really good story for us to tell when we're talking to a client," Bickmore said. As a result, Sophos is doubling down on the number of tools and programs it is offering for partners, the company announced at its Partner Connections Conference in Las Vegas this week. The first of those programs is a synchronized security accreditation program, under which partners can get certified on the endpoint, UTM and submit case studies to become a synchronized security accredited partner. Sophos also rolled out a redesigned partner portal and launched an opportunity manager tool to help partners gain visibility into opportunities for renewals, deal registration and cross-selling. The security vendor also rolled out a renewal assistance program, under which the company will help its partners with renewal sales so they can focus on more value-add transactions. Krause said the renewal assistance program has already been in trials with the Sophos Partner Advisory Council and seen "great success" so far.

2016-05-03 09:00 Sarah Kuranda www.crn.com

74 The IoT company behind the curtain Greenwave started out in energy looking at some challenges that existed among companies that were vying for energy solutions. The CEO and one of the founders of the company is Martin Manniche. Martin was the chair of the Human Network at Cisco and the CTO of Linksys. When this all started in 2008, IoT was a very different animal than it is now and it looked like a good opportunity. Because of funding, because of a lot of the opportunity around the world with regards to energy, it looked like a great space to get into. As the company began to grow we realized that we had a lot more expertise than just energy. We started to build a product that was a horizontal application for connectivity. I’ll tell you where that has evolved to in a second. We are today 250 employees. We are spread out around the world. We’ve got about 110 employees in Singapore, we’ve got 15 in Korea, we’ve got about 60 in Copenhagen and the rest are here in the U. S. with headquarters in Irvine, Calif. To continue reading this article register now Learn More Existing Users Sign In

2016-05-03 08:59 John Gallant www.computerworld.com

75 Nvidia and Samsung settle long-running patent litigation It's been well over two years since Nvidia tried to block all shipments of Samsung's Galaxy phones and tablets, claiming that these devices infringed on a number of Nvidia's patents. Now, it appears that the story has come to a close. According to Nvidia , the two companies have agreed to settle all pending litigation. The settlement agreement covers cases in a number of courts. Nvidia initially filed complaints against Samsung with the U. S. District Court in Delaware and the U. S. International Trade Commision (ITC). Shortly thereafter, however, Samsung filed a countersuit with the ITC and another in an eastern Virginia district court. Samsung's lawsuits claimed that Nvidia was the infringing party. Even further, Samsung accused Nvidia of false advertisement over its claim that the Tegra K1 was, at the time, the "world's fastest mobile processor. " Last year, news came out indicating that the lawsuits weren't going so well for Team Green. In June of 2015, Nvidia backed down from some of its claims in the ITC case, stating that it no longer claimed that Samsung was infringing on a couple of its patents. Things got worse for Nvidia in December when an ITC judge determined that not only was Samsung innocent of infringing on Nvidia's patents, but that Nvidia was the party guilty of infringement. At that time, Nvidia asked for the decision to be reviewed by a full panel of ITC judges. Yesterday's settlement decision suggests that the company was at least partially sucessful in the review process. The settlement agreement doesn't include any major cross-licensings of patents, nor any monetary judgments. Aside from licensing a couple of unspecified patents to each other, the two companies largely seem to be going their separate ways with no one the richer but their lawyers.

2016-05-03 08:46 by Eric techreport.com

76 25 Mother's Day gifts with geek appeal This isn’t a gadget-heavy list of Mother’s Day gift ideas. It’s a collection of gifts inspired by science, technology, engineering and math. The tech quotient is low, but the design bar is high. Each of these gifts shows how artists, craftspeople and industrial designers can put a geeky spin on the usual jewelry, flowers and accessories. FOR MORE IDEAS: Check out our Mother’s Day gift guides from 2015 , 2014 , 2013 and 2012 The BULBING Lamp isn’t quite what it appears to be at first glance. The lamp, made from an acrylic sheet, is surprisingly flat. The silhouette of a classic light bulb is engraved on the acrylic, creating the illusion of a round bulb. When the shape is inserted into the wood base, LED light travels through the engraved lines, lighting up the optical illusion. The BULBING Lamp was designed by Nir Chehanowski of Israeli design firm Studio Cheha ($120 at MoMA Store ). The inspiration for these Dendrite earrings ($30) is the branching growth of dendritic crystals and coral. To create the earrings, Etsy shop Nervous System photochemically etches stainless steel. Aim for out-of-this-world with the Jupiter thin cuff bracelet ($28 from Etsy shop BeautySpot). It’s made from a picture printed on acrylic and covered with a glossy resin. The cuff is oval-shaped and oxidized for an antique look. Inspire mom to travel lightly -- and brightly -- this spring with a handy wristlet that's just big enough for the essentials, including a phone. Pictured are two favorites: the perforated geometric Fret-T leather wristlet from Tory Burch ($225), and the striped Sydney zip-around wristlet ($65) from Fossil. Bake with all the elements, thanks to Etsy shop BoeTech. You can choose an individual cookie- cutter element ($6.50 for single cookie cutters ) or a collection such as the BaCON set , which includes 3D-printed cookie cutters for the elements barium, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen ($22 for the set). Make sure you check out BoeTech’s reminder about how dough spreads. Imagine four beakers from chemistry lab fused together, and you’ve got the 4-some bud vase ($9.95 from CB2). Each of the four handblown beakers holds a single stem. If you’re going to go for chocolate, go for quality. Antidote founder Red Thalhammer set out with a goal of "making a chocolate bar that feels more like a food rather than a sweet treat. " Choose from 12 flavors, made with a range of fruits, nuts, salts and spices. Individual bars , such as the ginger + panela , are $6.95. Sets and boxes are also available. The Orange Neural Network Puzzle is definitely a brainy puzzle. Available from Etsy shop Nervous System, it’s a laser-cut wood jigsaw puzzle made from a microscopic photograph of midbrain neurons (prices start at $30). The photograph was created by Tandis Vazin and David V. Schaffer at the Schaffer Lab, University of California, Berkeley. The Scirocco Necklace ($167 from MoMA Store) was designed by Mario Trimarchi, who was inspired by his childhood memories of playing cards that would swirl in the air from gusts of Sicilian wind. The dramatic necklace is made from mirror-polished stainless steel. Go old-school for mom with a notebook inspired by vintage textbook diagrams of pulleys, projectiles and other mechanical illustrations. Inside are alternating pages of lined paper and graph paper ($15 from Etsy shop CognitiveSurplus). Choose a special word or phrase to personalize this chic wrap bracelet for mom (prices start at $80). Designed by Martha Lytton Van Trees of Etsy shop UrbanJule , the bracelet is handmade from leather with a hand-cut sterling silver plate riveted to the leather wrap with bronze rivets. The metal clasp is magnetic. Retro kitchen towels from Etsy shop dirtsastudio give new meaning to the phrase "paper towel. " The 100% cotton towels are printed to look like yellow lined paper, white lined paper, graph paper and handwriting paper ($12-$14 per towel). There's not much geeky about a hammock, but it's still a great Mother's Day gift. Pictured is the Vivere double hammock with a steel stand ($129.97 from Amazon). Perfect for a mom who needs a break from technology. Designers Jessica Rosenkrantz and Jesse Louis-Rosenberg of Nervous System were inspired by the biomechanics of nature their Florescence collection, which simulates growing flora and fauna. The Pink Flora Cuff ($65 from MoMA Store), made from 3D-printed nylon, features a complex blend of micro ruffles and undulations. Cookies are a sweet way to remember mom, and these hand-decorated sugar cookies have just the right ingredients for a favorite scientist. One dozen cookies is $34 from Etsy site Baked. There are a slew of coloring books geared for grownups who want to relax, retreat and do something creative. Fantastic Cities ($9.24 on Amazon) has coloring sheets for global cities including New York, Istanbul, Tokyo and Rio, as well as intricate, fantasy architectural illustrations for "deeper meditative coloring adventures. " A small heart etched in acrylic tops off this concrete table lamp , which gets its light from hidden LEDs ($55.15 from Etsy shop SturlesiDesign). Ice cream delivered to mom's door? Sounds excellent. The Mother’s Day Collection from Jeni’s ($44) features three flavors (Brambleberry Crisp, Churro, and Lemon Buttermilk frozen yogurt) plus a Buttermint Chocolate Truffle sandwich. Mother's Day gifts that require cooking or cleaning in order to be used can be risky. But this is a worthwhile risk. The dragon cake pan ($24.99 from ThinkGeek) is about fun, not obligation. Hopefully. Make family game night more likely to happen with the Pixel backgammon set from Wolfum ($130). The pixel design is hand-printed on Baltic birth wood. Each kit includes two sets of checkers and two sets of dice. Sick of always having a smartphone within arm's reach, even at night? The low-tech vibe of the wooden Routare alarm clock ($65 from MoMA Store) is a welcome substitute for moms who want a little distance from their devices. Designer Mayuko Kuwata was inspired by the shape and colors of children's toy blocks. Love may be unmeasurable, but this cuff has its limits. The Wooden School Ruler cuff ($25) from Etsy shop Neurons Not Included is a printed aluminum bracelet, which can be adjusted to fit. If the ruler doesn’t measure up, there are plenty more science-inspired pieces on the shop’s site. For a geeky spin on traditional double-pearl-style earrings, the Lunar Orbit Earrings ($19.99 from ThinkGeek) combine spheres of howlite (for the moon) and sodalite (for earth). If mom is a fan of geometry, this set of three handcrafted Rampli Axo bowls ($85) might turn her head. The solid ash bowls have a printed Baltic birch inlay with a bold line pattern. The designer is Wolfum, in collaboration with furniture designer 100xbtr. Give a gift from the heart with an anatomically inspired necklace. The heart attack pendant is made from laser cut wood and an engraved metal plate ($20.84 from Etsy shop DieKatzeBrand).

2016-05-03 08:08 Ann Bednarz www.itworld.com

77 Solution Providers: How Well Are You Being Managed? The Elements Of Vendor Relationships As a solution provider, are you adding value to your customers' businesses? That’s a question your customers need to ask themselves, and that falls within their vendor management function, a Gartner analyst told a small gathering of information technology leaders from midsize enterprises Monday in Indianapolis. It's critical that the providers of IT products and services “are held accountable for meeting your needs,” said the analyst, Edward Weinstein. In a presentation before about a dozen technology leaders at the Midsize Enterprise Summit East -- sponsored by The Channel Company, parent company of IT Best of Breed -- Weinstein said strong vendor management will ensure that the organization is getting the desired value from working with solution providers. Weinstein outlined four key roles and responsibilities for vendor management. 2016-05-03 07:04 Senior Content www.crn.com

78 Recursive, but smart: WalkMe brings an app-like paradigm to app delivery WalkMe is a company that I've been following for a few years now. It offers a platform that allows application developers to create guides and instructions within those applications that help users learn how to maximize the benefit from those applications. Think of an old school instruction manual delivered within an application itself that is able to contextually react to a user's actions, and you pretty much get the gist. WalkMe is an excellent tool for SaaS vendors who want to maximize the chances that users "stick" to their product. So it is particularly interesting to see the company move to a seemingly different area, that of enabling mobile developers to more rapidly create their own applications. The idea of WalkMe's applet store is that it provides ready-made and easily integrated common components for them to use within their applications. Instead of having to build the particular pieces of functionality themselves, or having to integrate external components, these applets are curated, purpose-built and ready to go. WalkMe's initial applets are intended to cover some common pain points -- drive premium upgrades, handle monetization, boost user experience, reduce uninstalls and improve app ratings. Applets currently available cover on-boarding, user engagement and monetization components, and can be codelessly integrated into any app. WalkMe is promising to develop, support and update all of the applets as required. "We want to let developers focus on their strength by allowing them to utilize ours," says Dan Adika , co-founder and CEO of WalkMe. "As the global leader in digital engagement, we are channeling this expertise to help independent developers drive the next generation of disruptive and game-changing apps. Furthermore, we are allowing developers to enrich the ecosystem and create their own applets to share with the community of independent developers. " This is a move that is unexpected given WalkMe's approach, but still a logical move. As application developers need to move ever faster in order to beat the competition to market, they increasingly look to offload non-core activities -- this is the reason for the success of third-party developer components such as Twilio for communications and SendGrid for email. I do have some concerns about a degree of lock-in here, and wonder how well these applets work within the context of a developer using a mobile backend as a service (MBaaS) platform. That said, it is yet another tool to reduce developers' time to market, and from that perspective, is a useful addition to the development world.

2016-05-03 07:00 Ben Kepes www.computerworld.com

79 Windows 10 on pace to reach 20% share by June Windows 10 is on pace to power 20% of all Windows desktop systems by the end of June, or around the time Microsoft issues its next major upgrade, according to data published this week. Data from U. S.-based analytics vendor Net Applications pegged Windows 10's user share -- a proxy for the percentage of personal computers worldwide that ran the OS -- at 15.3% in April, a 1.2-percentage point increase from the month prior. Net Applications tallied unique visitors to clients' websites to come up with its measurements. The new operating system's growth last month was smaller than in January and March of this year, but larger than February's. Windows 10's adoption has consistently been stronger in the U. S. than the global average. (Data: StatCounter, Digital Analytics Program.) Windows 10 accounted for about 17.3% of all Windows ; the difference between its user share of all PCs and only those running a version of Windows stemmed from the fact that Windows ran 89% of all personal computers, not 100%. Using Net Applications' data for the last 12 months, Computerworld calculated that Windows 10's growth line should crack the 20% mark by the end of June, when it will power just over 300 million machines. Microsoft intends to release the year's major upgrade to Windows 10, dubbed "Anniversary Update," this summer. While it has not yet set a specific launch date, it will presumably ship the upgrade before the one-year point, or July 29. Windows 10 now powers approximately 259 million systems, according to Computerworld 's analysis using Net Applications' numbers and Microsoft's oft-cited claim that 1.5 billion machines run Windows. That would represent an increase of about 24 million in April, or less than 1 million each day. In late March, Microsoft claimed that 270 million customers ran Windows 10 at least once in the past month. However, the Redmond, Wash., company's number included tablets, smartphones, video game consoles and other devices that either run Windows 10 or a variant, while Net Applications' included only personal computers. Other data sources told a comparable tale. Irish analytics firm StatCounter put Windows 10 at 17.9% of all personal computers for April, a 1.4-percentage point gain. StatCounter measured global usage share -- more a metric for activity rather than users -- and although its estimate for Windows 10 was larger than Net Applications', their month-over-month rate of increase was similar (StatCounter's was 9%, Net Applications', 11%). In the U. S., Windows 10 continued to perform better than globally. According to the Digital Analytics Program (DAP) , Windows 10 accounted for 23.7% of all Windows PCs, an increase of 2.8 percentage points over March, for a month-over-month growth rate of 13%. DAP tracks visits to more than 4,000 websites on over 400 different domains maintained by U. S. government agencies, so its data is highly U. S.-centric. Most other editions of Windows stuck to long-established trends: Windows XP's global share of all Windows PCs slipped slightly to 12%, and Windows 7's user share dropped to 54% of all Windows machines. But the combined share of Windows 8 and 8.1 climbed to 15% in April, an unusual uptick that may be less a signal of a renaissance of those 2012-2013 operating systems and more an aberration in Net Applications' data tracking. Meanwhile, Net Applications claimed that Apple's OS X -- perhaps soon to be rebranded MacOS -- jumped to 9.6% of all personal computers worldwide, an unprecedented increase, while Windows fell under 90% for the first time to land at 88.8%. Both those numbers were questionable simply because they pointed to extraordinary one-month changes. The previous record for a one-month increase in OS X, for example, was just one-third the size that Net Applications asserted for April.

2016-05-03 06:44 Gregg Keizer www.computerworld.com

80 Why your outsourcers’ cost of living adjustments don’t work For years, most large outsourcing contracts have included standard provisions for annual pricing adjustments based on consumer price indices and other economic indicators. These cost of living adjustments are intended to normalize services fees with economic conditions over the life of long-term deals. The impact on pricing can be significant—in the millions of dollars for a large deal. A $50 million annual services contract with a 2.75 percent cost of living adjustment could mean a $1.375 million increase in annual fees. In theory, cost of living adjustments help service providers reduce attrition by ensuring that employee salaries keep up with market trends. Staff retention benefits providers and allows clients to avoid the disruption of employee turnover. That’s particularly important today as IT organizations look to outsourcing providers for high- demand emerging technology implementations such as data analytics or robotics. “The technology is changing so fast that workforce strategies and finding people with the right skill sets and experience in these areas is becoming an increasingly high priority,” says Michael Markos, managing director with outsourcing consultancy Alsbridge. “And in many cases, you have specific provider resources who acquire the operational intelligence needed to understand a customer’s unique environment. That value is very difficult to replace.” But while cost of living adjustments seem like a straightforward tactic to tackle the problem of talent retention for buyer and supplier, they often don’t work as intended. I many cases, only a fraction of the resulting price increase actually makes it into the pockets of provider employees. Instead, the provider account teams build the adjustments into their business plans and apply them to boost margins throughout the duration of the contract. “For example, what often happens is a key team member gets a raise and then leaves the firm for another position. That employee is then replaced by a lower cost resource, with the difference simply going to the provider’s bottom line,” says Markos. Another issue is determining the true effect of the cost of living increase and factoring in offshore and onshore resources moving on and off an account. The economic indicators on which these provisions are built can be esoteric. Recently, consumer price indices have been volatile; offshore indices have revealed a higher rate of inflation than their onshore counterparts, decreasing the benefits of labor arbitrage over time. “That has an impact on deal value,” Markos says. These three steps will help CIOs ensure take these cost of living adjustments have their intended effect of reducing attrition rates among service provider staff: If staff retention is the goal, IT leaders can create a contractual model and specific metrics aimed at ensuring that these increases are actually used to keep key members on the team. It’s easy to just tack on a 2.75 percent increase annually and be done with it, but it’s not always effective. Staff retention must become a part of the service level agreement structure. “It’s a bit of a challenge because managing outsourcing relationships is about managing services and, ideally, about managing outcomes,” says Markos. “But of course at some level it’s the people involved who deliver the services and the outcomes, so there needs to be some focus on keeping the right people in place and giving them an opportunity to grow.” IT service buyers can tie the cost of living contract terms more directly to increased compensation and benefits for those staffing their accounts. “It’s important that the incentives go beyond salary increases and include positive recognition, career growth opportunities, and a long-term career track — things that create an incentive for talented people to stay put,” says Markos. In some cases, a simple raise can actually be counterproductive; an increase in compensation can be a trigger to job hunt because it makes the candidate appear more valuable. IT leaders should also pay attention to the details of how increases are distributed. “The other key factor is to normalize for factors such as attrition and new people coming on so that you’re not giving a bonus to a new hire just coming onto the account,” says Markos. “And with automation increasingly being integrated into outsourced solutions, you want to avoid getting into a situation where you’re paying salary adjustments to robots.” This may not be clear unless the provider and client have had detailed conversations about the long-term objectives of the relationship are the strategic value the provider team will be delivering. “It requires an investment on both sides, and it’s not just an investment of money, but an investment of time to understand specifically how value is being delivered, who is delivering that value, and what’s important to the people delivering the value,” Markos says. Once both parties are in agreement, the client can identify the most valuable players on the team and create an incentive structure designed to keep them on board. “You might identify five key managers and five key technology experts you want to retain.” Markos says. “you build the incentive program to keep those key contributors on the account, and then measure how effective the program is.” If it works, both parties benefit from the retention of top talent. “Everybody talks about the importance of developing outsourcing relationships into strategic partnerships that deliver value and are a win-win for all parties,” says Markos. “This is a very specific and tactical way to address that strategic objective.” Providers should be open to these kinds of discussions and arrangements. “Providers spend a great deal of money on recruitment and retention, so ensuring that COLA increases are applied to keeping the team in place can be seen as an investment that delivers value,” Markos says. “The key is to take a long-term perspective rather than a short-term view.”

2016-05-03 06:36 Stephanie Overby www.itnews.com

81 10 best-paying companies in tech The modern business world runs on technology, which means companies need people to manage it. Getting a job in STEM is a great way to not only ensure job security, but also earn a six figure salary. Glassdoor -- a website that offers reviews, salaries and benefits information provided by employees on companies from all industries -- collects salary data on the biggest tech companies in the U. S. to determine the 10 highest paying tech companies. Using their self- reported data, Glassdoor calculated the average total compensation and median base salary for companies across every industry. These are the top 10 technology companies that report the highest average salaries. Juniper Networks is based in Sunnyvale, Calif., and its mission is to improve and reinvent network infrastructure with a focus on "simplicity, security, openness and scale. " Juniper states that it handles 4.5 billion social media updates daily on five of the most used networks, enables seven out of the eight world's largest stock exchanges and is responsible for securing over 85 percent of all U. S. smartphone traffic. According to reviews on Glassdoor, the company has a 3.7-star rating, 96 percent approve of CEO Rami Rahim, and 76 percent would recommend the company to a friend. Reviews mention a strong and comprehensive healthcare plan and the ability to work from home when needed. At Juniper Networks, the median total compensation is $157,000 per year and the median annual base salary is $147,000. Data from Glassdoor shows that staff engineers at Juniper Networks earn an average salary of $146,699, while technical support engineers average $111,483 per year. Google is a powerhouse in the tech world, and nearly anyone with Internet access has used a Google product at some point in time. The company has a 4.4 star rating out of over 5,000 reviews on Glassdoor and 98 percent say they approve of the CEO, Sundar Pichai, while 91 percent say they would recommend the company to a friend. And Google is more than just a search engine, the company has its hand in nearly every area of tech, and prides itself on staying as unconventional as possible albeit it's corporate status. Google states that it is built on "small, focused teams" with a "high-energy energy environment. " Employee benefits include free lunch and snacks, gym memberships, company cars, flexible time off, strong maternity and paternity leave and the ability to work from home, just to name a few. The median total annual compensation at Google is $153,750, while the median base salary is $123,331 per year. Glassdoor data shows that the average salary for a software engineer at Google is $127,047, while senior software engineers earn an average salary of $162,249 per year. Located in Palo Alto, Calif., VMware is a leader in cloud infrastructure and business mobility thanks to their proprietary virtualization technology. VMware promises to make IT more "fluid, instant and more secure," allowing IT departments to promote innovation at work and develop new tools quickly. VMware has a 3.8 rating on Glassdoor, while 85 percent approve of CEO Pat Gelsinger and 78 percent would recommend the company to a friend. Company benefits at VMware earned a 4.2-star rating, citing perks like a strong 401k matching program, a good work-life balance, a wealth of employee discounts on various items, unlimited vacation time and quality health insurance. VMware has a median total compensation of $152,133 per year and a median annual base salary of $130,000. Software engineers at VMware report an average salary of $110,737 on Glassdoor, while senior application developers report an average salary of $125,246 per year. Amazon Lab126 , headquartered in Sunnyvale, Calif.,is a business segment of Amazon that focuses on innovating around the development of consumer electronic devices, such as the Kindle. It was started in 2004 as a way to develop and improve products such as the Kindle Voyage, Amazon Fire TV and Kindle Fire HDX. The mission of Amazon Lab126 is to "make available in less than 60 seconds every book ever written, in any language, in print or out of print. " Also included in the mission is a dedication to creating a seamless user experience that integrates movies, TV shows, music, magazines, apps and games. The company has a 3-star rating on Glassdoor and 75 percent approve of CEO Jeff Bezos, but only 50 percent would recommend the company to a friend. For employees at Amazon Lab126, the median total compensation is $150,100 and the median base annual salary is $138,700. Software development engineers at Amazon Lab126 report an average salary of $108,621, according to Glassdoor, while senior software development engineers report a median salary of $153,961 per year. Located in Foster City, Calif., Guidewire is dedicated to helping property and casualty insurers adapt to the fast-paced change of technology with software. Guidewire's software provides predictive analytics for the P & C insurance industry to help increase speed-to-market, give agents more independence and quickly react to global catastrophes. The company has an impressive 4.6 rating on Glassdoor, and 95 percent of those that voted approve of CEO Marcus Ryu, while 93 percent would recommend the company to a friend. Benefits are pretty standard, including a 401k matching program, strong health insurance and the flexibility to work from home one day a week. At Guidewire, the median total compensation is $150,020, while the median base salary is $135,000 per year. Senior software engineers at Guidewire report an average yearly salary of $144,228 while the average salary for a QA engineer is $111,559. Cadence Design Systems , located in San Jose, Calif., works to develop cutting-edge electronic products whether its cameras, smartphones, tablets, gaming devices or cloud infrastructure. It has offices in 17 countries around the world. Cadence currently has a 4.0 rating on Glassdoor, and 97 percent say they approve of CEO Lip-Bu Tan, while 84 percent would be happy to recommend the company to a friend. Reviewers cite excellent healthcare, unlimited sick days and flexibility for a healthy work-life balance as some of the best benefits of working for Cadence. Cadence Design Systems has a median total compensation of $150,101 per year and a median annual base salary of $140,000. Principal product engineers at Cadence report an average annual salary of $132,485 per year, while software developers earn an average yearly salary of $98,824. Facebook , headquartered in Menlo Park, Calif., is currently the largest social network in the world. Founded in 2004, Facebook has become the premier way for people to stay connected and communicate. The company prides itself on the impact it has on its billions of users around the world and tries to focus on creating meaningful change. Facebook currently has a 4.5-star rating on Glassdoor, CEO has a 98 percent approval rating, and 92 percent say they would recommend the company to a friend. As a company, Facebook has always been dedicated to challenging social norms, which Zuckerberg made apparent when he set a precedent for Silicon Valley by taking two months of paternity leave after the birth of his daughter. Employees at Facebook earn an average total compensation of $150,000 per year, with a median base salary of $127,406 per year. Software engineers at Facebook report an average salary of $126,276 on Glassdoor, while the average salary for a data scientist is $134,247 per year. Based in San Francisco, Twitter quickly grew in popularity after it was founded in 2006, becoming one of the most used social network sites available. It's permeated social culture as a way to give everyone a voice, even if it's only in 140 characters. Twitter currently has a 4.0 rating on Glassdoor, while CEO Jack Dorsey has an 88 percent approval rating and 74 percent say they would recommend the company to a friend. Reviews note the generous maternity and paternity leave, flexible schedules and free lunch and snacks as some of the best employee benefits. At Twitter, the median total compensation is $150,000 per year, while the median base salary is $133,000 per year. The average salary for a software engineer at Twitter is $127,430, according to Glassdoor, while senior software engineers earn an average salary of $154,696 per year. Data scientists at Twitter report an average annual salary of $134,861 and data systems engineers report an average salary of $149,392 per year. Headquartered in Redwood City, Calif., Box is dedicated to helping big businesses become more agile, like startups. The company promises to help businesses in any industry become more flexible, productive and competitive. According to ratings on Glassdoor, 95 percent of employees at Box approve of the CEO, Aaron Levie, and 71 percent would recommend the company to a friend. Employee benefits at Box include flexible time off, free meals and snacks, wellness incentives, an employee stock purchase plan and fitness subsidy. Reviewers also noted the flexible maternity and paternity leave and a strong, competitive and comprehensive healthcare plan. Box has an average total compensation of $150,000 per year, with a median annual base salary of $133,000. At Box, software engineers earn an average salary of $129,299 according to Glassdoor's data, while senior software engineers earn an average of $159,307 per year. Walmart eCommmerce is a technology division of Walmart that focuses on the digital aspect of the company. They boast an open source and hybrid cloud technology that allows technology workers to code in any language. Walmart eCommerce prides itself on maintaining a startup- like culture, despite its parent company's corporate reputation. They look to hire engineers, web designers and data scientists from around the world who can create solutions to leverage the company's proprietary open source technology, whether it's in UX/UI, mobile, supply chain, merchandising, marketing, HR, finance, legal or customer service. Walmart eCommerce currently holds a 3.3-star rating on Glassdoor, and 76 percent say they approve of CEO, Neil M. Ashe, while only 52 percent would recommend the company to a friend. For employees at Walmart eCommerce, the average total compensation per year is $149,000, with a median annual base salary of $126,000. The average salary for a senior software engineer is $128,572 per year, while level three software engineers earn an average salary of $113,364.

2016-05-03 05:18 Sarah K www.computerworld.com

82 Think that printer in the corner isn’t a threat? Think again They sit off in the corner, some of them collecting dust. Yet, a printer is a legitimate attack surface. Many companies don't bother to update the firmware on older models, or don't include every model in a security audit (such as the one in the CEO's office everyone forgot about), or the organization assumes a hacker won't bother with an Epson or HP that is barely even connected to Wi-Fi. Interestingly enough, because a printer is so innocuous and seemingly harmless, that's the exact reason it poses a threat, according to the security analysts who talked to CSO about this issue. Sometimes, the best attack vector for an attacker is the one no one bothers to think about. However, a recent IDC survey found that 35 percent of all security breaches in offices were traced back to an unsecured printer or multi- function device, costing companies $133,800 each year. As with any vulnerability, a printer fits into that category of "fringe" devices you might not consider. Enterprise security tools protect networks and laptops; they often do not block access from a printer that is outdated and runs the original firmware that shipped with the product. The most serious threat has to do with an attacker gaining access to the network through the printer. Other issues include capturing every document sent to the printer, which could be a serious business intelligence compromise. Vickery said another recent incident involved sending a white supremacist document to thousands printers that did not block a specific port. Chris Vickery, a white hat hacker and Security Researcher at MacKeeper Arianna Valentini, a security researcher with IDC , said that apart from the actual hacks into the printer itself, another security concern has to do with documents left unattended. Many older models do not use any security related to only printing when someone enters a password at the device itself. Corporate users tend to print and forget the documents. This makes it all too easy for a thief to steal the documents, digitize them, and sell company secrets. Vickery says this problem arose partly due to neglect (printers sitting idle in a corner) and partly due to how the printer companies failed to protect the devices. He says one of the biggest innovations in printer security was in using password protections on printers by default (that is, the devices are shipped with passwords enabled). That doesn't help with the millions of older models that still rely on the default firmware that do not use passwords, however. Lawrence Pingree, a security researcher at Gartner , says printers pose one additional threat. An organization in the healthcare or finance sectors, where regulatory compliance is required, a printer is also subject to any inquiries -- it poses a compliance risk just as much as a laptop. The experts all said the printer security issue is not brand specific. There is a widespread problem of older printers from Canon, Xerox, HP, and many others that merely use the default firmware or don't use any password protection for print jobs, and yet are attached to corporate networks, either through a LAN connection or over Wi-Fi. Vickery did mention there have been reports of printer security issues with HP models, but that may have more to do with the popularity of that brand. As a result, HP has also stepped up their security, according to Pingree, mostly as a response to the potential for hacking. Vickery says there is a new vulnerability related to Ricoh printers. He says every Ricoh printer has a backdoor admin account. To use this account, you login as supervisor with no password. At this point, you can then change the main admin password. Once you have access to the admin account, you can then change the firmware and potentially install a Trojan firmware. It's too easy to suggest one ultimate security tip: Replace outdated printers with newer models that have protection -- which would be a nice boon for printer companies. Yet, the technology in recent models has advanced to the point where it is worth considering. Valentini says new innovations have come just in the past six months. For example, the latest HP PageWide models use a new tech called Sure Start that detects whether the printer is booting using the correct BIOS. An HP Whitelisting feature also checks to make sure the firmware has not been hacked. Also, Xerox introduced a new feature in March of 2016 that uses encryption for all printing and scanning. Another new feature automatically deletes print jobs at power up, which reduces the likelihood that a hacker could attack a printer that is storing old print jobs. "We expect to continue to see more product releases from printer manufactures and software vendors who are taking steps to better help organizations enable a secure print environment," says Valentini. Pingree adds, other than using some of these innovations, it's important to see a printer for what it is -- another server that is running an operating system and is open to attack. This means securing it just like any other endpoint and treating it as a vulnerability. He also said it is fairly easy to overlook a common problem; it's usually the IT admins who configure printers, and they might do so using their own credentials, potentially exposing their access privileges. An attacker could conceivably tap in and steal them. In the end, there are too many options for attack -- loading an unauthorized firmware, capturing data from print jobs, or even stealing forgotten docs in the print tray. It's important to address any possible scenarios, even if the printer then resumes collecting dust.

2016-05-03 04:33 John Brandon www.infoworld.com

83 83 Why you need DRM for your documents If you pay $1.99 to download an ebook for your Kindle, it’s protected by DRM that stops you sharing the contents, and if Amazon wants to, it can revoke the document so you can’t read it any more. Is your company’s current price list protected nearly as well? With information rights management (often known as enterprise DRM, short for digital rights management), you could make sure that price list was only shared with your customers, blocking them from sending it on to your competitors and automatically blocking it at the end of the quarter when you come out with new prices. Or you could share specifications with several vendors in your supply chain during a bidding process and then block everyone but the winning vendor from opening the document after the contract is finalized. You can make sure that contractors aren’t working from out of date plans by making the old plan expire when there’s an update. Tracking and visibility is useful for compliance as well as security; you could track how many people had opened the latest version of the employee handbook, or see that a document you’d shared with a small team was being actually read by hundreds of people. Rights management is a mature enterprise technology – versions of it have been in Windows Server since 2003, for example – but while Gartner analyst Mario de Boer notes that “EDRM is more popular than it ever was,” he also says “enterprise-wide deployments are still rare.” A recent survey by secure collaboration vendor Intralinks found that only 53 percent of enterprises classify information to align with the access controls that are supposed to be protecting it. That’s especially problematic during confidential but time-sensitive processes like mergers and acquisitions; if you’re worried about a deal falling through, it’s tempting to start mailing unprotected Excel files around rather than jumping through hoops to grant access correctly. That’s probably why one survey of executives involved in M&A by Ansarada (whose Secure Office service is designed for sharing documents during the M&A process) found that 71 percent had suffered data loss. And you don’t have to be the NSA to suffer from insider attacks; early this year U. K. media regulator Ofcom discovered that a former employee had downloaded six years’ worth of data about TV broadcasters before leaving, and promptly offered it to their new employer, a rival broadcaster. With rights management, Ofcom could have made those documents worthless because once the employee left, they would have lost their rights to open the documents – and they could have been blocked from printing them or copying the contents as well. New data privacy laws like the EU General Data Protection Regulation will make those kinds of losses even more expensive. “The traditional way of protecting data focuses on control,” says de Boer. “Control over networks (‘We have locked the data away in the data center’), control over devices (‘We have enabled AES-256 encryption on all mobiles and encrypted the full disks on Windows’), apps (‘Everyone uses our container solutions') and control over services (‘We only give authorized people access to the application').” Dan Plastina, who runs Microsoft’s rights management offerings, including Azure RMS, says that companies are beginning to realize that protecting the perimeter and devices is no longer enough and they need a data-centric approach. “You had a perimeter once, but over the years you’ve punched a lot of holes in that wall,” says Plastina. “Data is not being saved where you want it to be saved. Whether you like it or not, this is happening. What I see is that people are recognizing the problem is a lot bigger than they thought, and I think some organizations are at the point where they're realizing that identity and data are the things they need to focus, on as opposed to classic device management. Device management is not going away but the concept that data and identity need to be married together more aggressively is definite resonating.” He describes the core of rights management as “identity-bound data protection; you encrypt the file so that only the right person has access to it.” Some industries have already adopted rights management, particularly finance, automotive and manufacturing. “They’re people who either want or have to protect data,” says Plastina. “There are organizations that have a lot of IP and want to protect it, and then there’s PII and financial data inside banks. Some financial organizations we work with protect a lot of documents every day with rights management.” But rights management is important for a far broader range of industries, he maintains. “Your data is travelling to different repositories and stores. Data goes to the cloud, it’s given to partners; that content is clearly not within your control any more. This technology is at a point where people ought to be paying attention. The usage of data in their companies is absolutely past the limit; their data is all over the place and they have no idea.” The problem isn’t with the quality of the technology, and most organizations have mature identity management that will allow them to use rights management technology. “The most common challenge is not technical but cultural,” de Boer explains. “You should expect the changes in common workflows to be harder to plan for and accomplish than solving technical issues.” That means not being too ambitious as you start using rights management and avoiding both leaving too much up to users and locking down data too much. “Most successful deployments start small, with policies applied to the most sensitive repositories. Then monitor use, learn as you go, and detect deficiencies. Eventually, you can expand to more complex use cases.” There are some things that rights management will never be able to protect you from, like an employee snapping a photograph of their screen with a smartphone, but that’s not a technology issue; it’s a management problem (and at that point, the employee can’t claim that they shared the information accidentally). Typically, rights management deployment runs into two issues, says Plastina. “Either people left everything up to the users or they went crazy in terms of the breadth and said ‘I’m going to protect everything’.” Neither approach works well. “IT leaders don't have a good sense of what is sensitive or not,” he notes, so business leadership needs to be involved in deciding what to protect. You don’t need as many policies as you might think, either; policies for strictly confidential, confidential, internal and public data will cover most companies. He suggests starting by thinking about your most sensitive data and where it’s stored. “Not all of your data is sensitive. If 5 percent of your data is top secret, take that 5 percent and focus your energy on that. If you're in the candy bar business, then SAP is the bulk of your sensitive data; logistics, order information, inventory, financials.” That data is secure until you run a report and create a PDF or an Excel file and start mailing it around. “In that case, go purchase Halocore from SECUDE and focus on SAP and mark it company internal; all that data will be encrypted at birth and it can’t leak outside the company. That quickly starts to put a leash on your data.” The next step might be partitioning internal email; for example, messages and documents sent within the HR and legal teams. “Today the entire company’s worth of data is accessible to everyone in the company. If the very sensitive data is rights protected then that partitioning will enforce itself and IT will be notified that Dan in legal is trying to access documents from HR,” Plastina explains, “and someone would be able to take action.” He suggests a simple trick for getting teams to opt in to classifying and labelling their own content; “Turn on RMS; no-one will notice that it’s on. Then go to a department like HR or legal and send them an email marked as ‘Do Not Forward’ and tell them that they can’t forward it, and include a screenshot showing them how to do it.” It’s just human nature. “They're going to look at it, try to forward it, realize they can't - and start using it themselves. Now you have partitioned data in your organization.” You can’t rely on ad hoc classification, but being too restrictive is also counterproductive, Plastina notes. “Organizations will need to show some restraint. Start by going after email and SAP but with policies that are somewhat flexible so you keep productivity.” It’s also going to show you what the real workflow is in your business, which might not be what you think. Remember that rights management has to apply to executives, who will have to accept some changes to their workflow. “Given the recent large-scale data loss events in the news, it may not require as much effort as you think to obtain buy-in,” de Boers suggests. If you have a ‘do not forward’ policy for email sent by your senior leadership team, you might want to give executives the ability to unprotect messages and then protect them, so they can share them with their own leadership team. “If that executive loses as thumbnail of documents no-one would be able to open them,” points out Plastina, “but it doesn’t become so oppressive that the executive doesn’t want to do it and tries to get around it.” Microsoft is also working on improving the experience of automatically classifying and protecting documents inside Office, to be more like the data leakage protection features it already has, using the Secure Islands technology it recently purchased. As you type in a credit card number, Office will suggest that the document needs to be marked as confidential – but there will also be an option for the user working on the document to say that’s a mistake and change the classification back to internal (the way you can with Exchange data leakage protection today). The Office integration will be available as a private preview in the near future, and the Secure Islands tool is shipping now. Once you have data that’s labelled and rights managed, there are opportunities to get control beyond the usual file sharing and email. Microsoft recently bought Adallom; the technology is now called Cloud Application Security and Plastina suggests it will turn into a kind of data leakage protection for data going to cloud services. “It can sit in the network as proxy or squat on APIs, so it’s capable of working outside the classic productivity endpoint. Imagine a cloud access security broker capable of blocking the upload to Salesforce of something that’s secret.” Rights managed documents will be a key area for machine learning, both for tracking misuse and automatically classifying documents. Another Microsoft acquisition, Equivio, can do classification for legal documents today, and Plastina says Microsoft has plans to build on that. “You feed it a bunch of documents and tell it ‘go find more like this. Imagine an organization has a petabyte of data and they have users actively classify some content. Once you have say 100MB of well classified content, the concept is you could use Equivio to say ‘I know these are top secret M&A files, classified by label; now go find a bunch [of matching documents] with no tags and classify those in bulk’. If you have a petabyte of historical data you want that labelled; you can't just protect the new stuff or what’s being edited now.” If you’re looking for those advanced features, you’ll still want to start using rights management today, he points out. “The best approach is to focus on the basics: classify, label and protect. Start there, and once that's done monitoring and responding are a lot easier. There's no ability to monitor and respond if you have no signals.” De Boers agrees that you should be considering rights management now rather than later. “CIOs should plan for a data-centric approach to information protection, and EDRM takes a central position in such plans. All CIOs that value collaboration and that understand the inflexibility of infrastructure borders around islands of sensitive data should investigate EDRM.” Flexibility is key to adopting rights management. Secure Islands will help you find documents that need protecting, and turn protection off if it’s not needed.

2016-05-03 04:01 Mary Branscombe www.itnews.com

84 84 Appellate court ruling will make a lot more work for Web designers E-commerce leaders take note: If you want to force your customers to do anything via your terms and conditions, you need to give the T&C its own checkbox. So help me, that is the edict just handed down by the U. S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit. The specific ruling involved getting customers of TransUnion to waive their right to sue, but attorneys watching the case point out that it could apply to almost anything. Want customers to sign over their salary direct deposits to you? No problem, as long as it’s in your T&C and, critically, it has its very own checkbox. There are many who argue that arbitration is, generally, a far worse option for consumers than going to civil court. For one thing, the hearings are private and the decisions and transcripts are not publicly available. It’s that risk of public airing of bad practices that is behind so many civil court settlements. Second, the arbiters are private businesspeople. Whether arbiters, as a group, are more or less qualified to weigh these difficult decisions than appointed or elected judges is certainly debatable. But what is indisputable is that companies hire the arbiters. Although that may not consistently and directly deliver a favorable verdict, the reality is that arbiters who routinely rule against the company are not likely to get hired by companies very often. In short, the process of elimination means that the arbiter likely has a history of business-friendly rulings. In the court’s summary of the case, it described what Sgouros — a consumer who had sought to obtain a TransUnion credit report — did: “Sgouros proceeded to Step 3 by clicking on the ‘I Accept & Continue to Step 3’ button. Nowhere did this button require him first to click on the scroll box or to scroll down to view its complete contents, nor did it in any other way call his attention to any arbitration agreement.” The court further explained its thinking, applying various legal precedents to the current case, which truly does revolve around GUI functionality and button placement issues. “What cinches the case for Sgouros is the fact that TransUnion’s site actively misleads the customer. The block of bold text below the scroll box told the user that clicking on the box constituted his authorization for TransUnion to obtain his personal information. It says nothing about contractual terms. No reasonable person would think that hidden within that disclosure was also the message that the same click constituted acceptance of the Service Agreement.” The court’s remedy: There must be a separate area to click for the T&C itself. “A website might be able to bind users to a service agreement by placing the agreement, or a scroll box containing the agreement, or a clearly labeled hyperlink to the agreement, next to an ‘I Accept’ button that unambiguously pertains to that agreement,” the decision said. “The bottom line is that TransUnion, either deliberately or without adequate review, took a shortcut that caused it to forfeit rights it easily could have secured,” said David Goodman, an attorney with the law firm Greensfelder, Hemker & Gale. “Instead, they did it in a way that failed to provide adequate disclosure. If you want to bind somebody to a contract, you have to play fair and clearly display the contract terms. The more a company goes out of its way to make sure customers were given full opportunity to read the contact terms, the more likely the contract will pass legal muster.” From a designer’s perspective, the panel’s ruling says that designs must be more explicit in what the user is agreeing to. That is fine, but the regrettable fact is the very concept of this kind of click signifying a meaningful knowing waiver of being able to sue is ridiculous. If the intent of the court is to allow a consumer who wants to retain his/her right to sue in public courts to do so, requiring that companies add an extra click box isn’t going to do that. Alas, this ruling won’t help consumers who want to avoid arbitration. On the plus side, though, it will generate a ton of work for Web designers.

2016-05-03 04:00 Evan Schuman www.itnews.com

85 Solar shift: Falling costs make owning better than leasing The price of rooftop solar systems for residential and small business continues to drop precipitously, and consumers are increasingly choosing to buy their systems rather than lease them to reap the full financial benefits. Rooftop solar systems that used to cost as much as a luxury car five to 10 years ago now cost about the same as an economy car, or about $15,000 or $18,000 on average. And, the return on investment for a solar system is now estimated to be from three to five years, depending on government rebates and tax incentives and the region in which they're installed. In 2014, 72% of residential solar systems in the U. S. were owned by a third party, such as SolarCity , Vivant Solar and Sunrun , according to a report by GTM Research . That means most consumers leased their systems or were under a power-purchase agreement (PPA) with a solar provider. But by 2020, direct ownership of rooftop solar systems will surpass third-party ownership in the U. S. residential solar market, accounting for 54% of the forecasted 5.2gW (gigawatt) market, GTM's report stated. "Our data and others are showing that consumers are trending away from the leasing option in favor of owning their solar systems, either with a loan or with cash," said Vikram Aggarwal, CEO of solar system marketplace EnergySage . Ownership of solar systems is expected to pass leasing and power-purchase agreements (PPAs) by 2020. Founded in 2009, EnergySage is similar to Expedia or Kayak in that it's a free online service that allows users to input their information and retrieve standardized quotes for a service -- in this case, the installation of a rooftop solar system. EnergySage makes money from fees paid by solar suppliers and is part of a nascent industry that includes other, smaller players such as Geostellar Inc. "From our perspective, we don't care what the customer selects. We get the same revenue if you select a lease or PPA or take out a loan for the system," Aggarwal said. "We're agnostic toward your decision. " In 2015, 93% of EnergySage users chose to own their system, compared to the national average of 63%, according to Aggarwal. The U. S. residential market has grown in 15 of the last 16 quarters, largely due to financing solutions like leases and PPAs, according to GTM Research. Last year, residential solar was once again the fastest-growing sector in U. S. solar, with more than 2gW (gigawatts) installed for the first time ever and growing 66% over 2014. Ten years ago, the rooftop solar power industry got a tremendous kickstart through PPAs, which allowed a consumer to pay nothing for the installation and ongoing maintenance of a system while still reaping cost savings through lower energy bills. PPAs are typically 20-year contracts where the solar system provider covers the system costs but receives the federal or state renewable energy incentives and sells the power generated at a fixed rate back to the consumer. On average, a PPA agreement will save a consumer 30% of the per-kilowatt price charged by the solar system provider, which is lower than a standard utility rate. For example, SolarCity charges customers about 13 cents per kilowatt in Massachusetts, while the average utility rate is currently about 19.5 cents. While PPAs allow rates to rise over the term of a contract, those increases have typically been lower than those charged by utilities. Retail electricity prices are expected to continue to rise over the next few years, according to a report from Deutsche Bank, as they have in the U. S. every year since 2002. Retail electricity prices have steadily increased over the past 10 years and they're expected to continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Aggarwal argued that while signing a 20-year PPA may eliminate upfront installation costs, the solar system provider gets 80% of the financial benefits from the system. Even if consumers borrow money to pay for a solar system instead of buying one outright, they'll still reap 40% to 80% of the cost savings while paying off the loan, Aggarwal said. As retail electricity costs continue to rise, the cost of solar has plummeted. For example, solar panels saw steep price reductions from 2008 through 2012 and were a primary driver for cheaper installations. In 2008, solar modules cost a little more than $5 per watt of generating capacity. In 2012, they were below $1 per watt. Since 2012, however, module prices have remained relatively flat -- about 50 cents per watt of capacity -- and price declines for installed systems have been driven primarily by reductions in other hardware costs, such as inverters that transform a solar panel's direct current (DC) into usable alternating current (AC) electricity. Over the next few years, the industry is likely to see the final piece of cost reduction -- customer acquisition costs or "soft costs" like include sales and marketing. Soft costs are expected to drop by 50% over the next four years, according to Deutsche Bank. Taken together, tremendous drops in hard and soft costs has lowered the installation price for rooftop solar panels to about $3 to $4 per watt of installed capacity; the average installation today is 5kW (kilowatts, according to a report by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. That puts the cost of a typical system at between $15,000 and $20,000. The cost of solar systems has plummeted. The uptick in purchases has also spawned new financing model -- loans for solar systems. "The solar loan market has exploded," said GTM Research solar analyst Nicole Litvak. "Every...financier has introduced or is planning to introduce a loan, and an entirely separate group of pure-play loan providers has emerged. " Tyler Ogden, a solar analyst with Lux Research, said consumers are aware that the installation price for solar has fallen through the roof and see an opportunity to get all the financial benefits from installations, from tax incentives to free electricity. A typical solar system installed today can pay for itself in electricity savings in anywhere from a couple of years to 10 years -- with five years being the average ROI, Ogden said. There are, however, pros and cons to owning a solar system, Ogden said. For example, while owners get the full benefits, they also inherit full responsibility for maintenance. That doesn't mean consumers are without a safety net, as solar systems are typically warrantied to perform with up to 85% of their original efficiency for 25 years. After 25 years, they can still generate electricity, but at a rate typically far less than 85%, Ogden said. Additionally, more and more solar system installers and other third parties now offer supplemental warranties to cover items such as maintenance or damage repair. Solar provider Anaphase acquired Next Phase Solar , a provider of system operations and maintenance, last year with that in mind. Those warranties typically cost a few hundred dollars per year, according to Aggarwal. As the cost of solar systems continues to decline and their efficiency continues to rise, owning becomes more viable compared to leasing or signing a PPA, Aggarwal argued. Even if a consumer or small business decides to upgrade a system half way through its warrantied life in order to get more efficient solar panels, the cost would only be a few thousand dollars. And the more efficient panels would repay the owner as more energy is produced that can be sold back to a utility at commercial rates. While much of the solar installed today is under a lease or PPA, that doesn't mean the consumer can't get out of that contract. Many leases and PPAs have buyout clauses where, after a certain period of time -- say five to seven years -- the lessor can purchase their system from the installer at either their price or a fair market value, whichever is higher. For those who haven't yet leased a solar system, Aggarwal said it's critical to make sure any contract includes a transferrable warranty. That way, if a consumer decides to buy out the contract, the product warranty will be honored by the manufacturer. Even as the solar market experiences a boom, the tax incentives and government rebates that initially spurred it on have diminished. According to the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, rebates and other incentives have declined from $5 to $7 per watt at their peak 10 years ago to less than $1 per watt of installed solar power in most major markets. They'll continue to decline as adoption grows. As a result, purchasing a solar system in five years will likely bring with it fewer financial benefits. Even then, the system is still expected to deliver a 15% annual rate of return, meaning it would still save enough money to offset costs within five years.

2016-05-03 03:01 Lucas Mearian www.itnews.com

86 AngularBeans brings together Angular and Java for Web dev AngularBeans, a Web framework tying the AngularJS JavaScript framework to enterprise Java, will move forward with accommodations for the planned AngularJS 2 framework and multiple containers. Begun in January 2015, AngularBeans allows developers to use Google's AngularJS for front- end Web development with Java EE on the back end. The developer of AngularBeans, Bessem Hmidi, sees the project filling a need in the Java space for an alternative to JavaServer Faces Web UI technology, which has been around for more than a decade. According to Hmidi, Angular is the leading JavaScript single-page application framework, while Java EE 7 offers a lot of enterprise-level services but its presentation layer standard, JSF, is inadequate. Using Angular on the front end helps by including more state-ful clients and making stateless servers easier to scale. Servers use fewer resources to interact with browsers. Offering an abstraction level equal to or superior to that of the JSF Primefaces front-end framework, AngularBeans uses a single-page application approach, said Hmidi. "AngularBeans can be compared to Spring MVC plus Spring WebSocket frameworks [but] not Spring itself. " AngularBeans leverages CDI (Contexts and Dependency Injection) and also supports SockJS WebSocket emulation as well as a real-time event-driven publish-and-subscribe broadcasting system and event-driven file uploads. It handles HTTP methods calls and offers detailed control over server- and client-side data updates, according to documentation. The current stable release of AngularBeans is 1.0.2. Version 2, expected to be released in coming months, will run with both the existing Angular 1.x release as well as the upcoming Angular 2 upgrade , a rewrite of the framework featuring faster rendering and supporting multiple renderers. It will also work in any container, including the Spring Framework.

2016-05-03 03:00 Paul Krill www.itnews.com

87 MacScan 3 review: Easy-to-use software stomps out malware, tracking cookies Use commas to separate multiple email addresses Your message has been sent. There was an error emailing this page. By J. R. Bookwalter Macworld | May 3, 2016 3:00 AM PT When it comes to malware, Mac users have become somewhat spoiled, historically having little to fear from those nasty Trojan horses, spyware, and other malfeasants that create frequent headaches on Microsoft’s desktop operating system. But malware attacks are on the rise and OS X is no longer immune to such threats. According to a study from Bit9 and Carbon Black, 2015 was a banner year for malware on the Mac, with more than 1,400 unique samples collected and analyzed, a whopping five-fold increase over the previous five years combined. Whether targeting Java vulnerabilities, email, or just annoying users with adware, hackers are taking aim at a new generation of Mac users. It’s time for Apple fans to fight back and fortify their systems by combating these nuisances head-on, before they have a chance to do any damage. Malware and tracking cookies can again be a thing of the past, thanks to the easy-to-use MacScan 3. MacScan 3 has been designed to quickly identify and eradicate malware, spyware, Trojan horses, and tracking cookies from your system. Rewritten from the ground up for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and later, the software is well organized and simple to use. Malware Scan and Internet Clutter Cleanup options are grouped together on the home screen, along with with a comprehensive, up-to-the-minute library of known malware threats. Malware Scan offers four different options for scanning your system, depending upon how much time you want to devote to the process. The first is the new, faster Smart Scan engine, which goes to work in specific areas where security and privacy threats are known to hang out—a process that took about an hour on my mid-2012 MacBook Pro with Retina display. Any rogue malware discovered is first quarantined, offering users a chance to examine files prior to removing them. Because one size doesn’t fit all, MacScan 3 offers four different scanning methods, including the new, faster Smart Scan. If you want to be less thorough, Quick Scan limits its scope to the user’s Home folder, which reduces the scan time to under ten minutes. As the name implies, a Full Scan scours every inch of your hard drive, while Custom searches only specific files or folders of your choosing, which can also be dragged and dropped from the Finder. It’s worth noting MacScan taxes the processor while scans are in progress, often consuming more than 60 percent of available CPU. The Malware Info Library provides an exhaustive catalog of threats with the most serious offenders highlighted in bold. Click one and you’ll be presented with all known up-to-the-minute information about the selected topic, or users can jump directly to another by entering its name directly into the search field. Following a scan, MacScan 3 displays a list of all malware and tracking cookies discovered, with the option to eliminate them in one click. During testing for this review, I’m happy to report MacScan 3 found no malware on my system, although the software did turn up another scoundrel lurking just below the surface. Tracking cookies are harmless little bits of text advertisers leave behind when you visit a website. They’re not really a threat, but because they can be used to identify users (and in many cases customize web pages upon subsequent visits), privacy advocates consider them sinister enough to eradicate when possible. Browsers like Safari can be set up to block cookies entirely, but removing existing ones is a job for MacScan’s Internet Clutter Cleanup mode. Cookie Scan performs this task in a matter of seconds by limiting its search to known blacklisted tracking and Flash cookies. Like the malware section, there’s also Full and Custom scan options, should you want to dig deeper into cache files or browsing and download history as well. Malware and tracking cookies can again be a thing of the past, thanks to the easy-to-use MacScan 3. Because we’ve all got enough on our minds, MacScan 3 allows users to schedule individual Smart, Quick, Full, or Cookie scans for a specific time on each weekday, weekend, or day of the week that’s convenient for you. When not running, the software lives in the menu bar for quick access to scans, schedules, and activity logs. There’s really only one potential downside, and that’s the price: $50, which protects a single computer for one year. Considering SecureMac constantly (and automatically) updates malware definition and tracking cookie blacklists, it’s a fair price. The company also offers a free 30-day trial version from its website, along with a good discount on multi-year, multi-user licensing. You’ll have to quit out of MacScan 3 after each scan and cleaning is completed. MacScan 3 makes rooting out and eradicating malware or tracking cookies as easy as a few clicks of the mouse, but you’ll need to pay for more than one year at a time if you want the best deal. This story, "MacScan 3 review: Easy-to-use software stomps out malware, tracking cookies" was originally published by Macworld . J. R. Bookwalter — Contributor Start your new computer off right with solid security tools, productivity software, and other programs... Which graphics card is best for your money? We test over a dozen AMD and Nvidia GPUs to help find the... Got Apple Watch questions? Come on in. Mother's Day gifts inspired by science, technology, engineering and math With its latest distribution initiative, Amazon.com might achieve what the European Commission has... Want to support websites while blocking their ads? Flattr Plus hopes to make it easy.

2016-05-03 03:00 J.R www.itnews.com

Total 87 articles. Created at 2016-05-04 00:09