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Articles
377 articles, 2016-01-28 00:12
1
Black Box CEO: Our Sales Reps Missed The
Mark Again (3)
Black Box Corp.'s outgoing CEO
took the solution provider's
underperforming commercial sales
force to task for the second straight
quarter as he recapped the
company’s Q32016 numbers
Tuesday.
Michael McAndrew said the
Pittsburgh-based company's commercial services sales
force fell short of expectations again during the quarter,
which ended Dec. 31. Black Box reported a 12 percent
revenue shortfall, to $222.5 million over the same quarter
last year, marking Black Box’s fourth consecutive quarterly
slip.
"Our miss was primarily due to (the) commercial sales
business," McAndrew said, adding that the company has
not yet seen the payoffs from restructuring its sales force.
"Improved sales execution and cost management will
continue to be our top priorities for the near term.”.

[RELATED: Black Box CEO To Step Down Following Rough
Year ]
Because of the sales force's continued shortcomings,
McAndrew said, Black Box lowered its annual earnings
target from a range of $920 million to $930 million to a
range of $905 million to $910 million.
McAndrew said he plans to fix the issue with the sales force
by replacing another 10 percent of its roster, which will jack
up the percentage of employees the company will have
replaced since the beginning of 2015, from 20 to 30
percent, within the next quarter.
However, Black Box did see some bottom-line success
during the quarter, according to McAndrew, who said that
the company reached its Q3 profit guidance – despite lower
revenues - thanks to the higher-than anticipated gross
profit margin and the company's cost-containment efforts.
The company's cost-cutting actions increased net earnings
9 percent year over year, from $5.3 million to $5.7 million,
an improvement compared with the company's net loss of
$129.8 million in the second quarter.
However, he admitted that the company cannot bank on
"cutting its way back to success," and that Black Box needs
to "remain diligent" on improving its business goals,
specifically its commercial sales force.
Black Box generally met analysts' projections for the
quarter, announcing that it beat earnings-per-share
expectations of 36 cents by a penny. But it slightly missed

evenue projections of $225.63 million.
In December, McAndrew announced that he will leave after
the company appoints a successor. Black Box said it’s
conducting an external search with the help of an executive
search firm.
2016-01-27 21:34:54 Jimmy Sheridan
2
Microsoft to Recall Power Cables for Previous-
Gen Surface Pro Tablets (3)
Microsoft plans to recall power
cables for previous-generation
Surface Pro tablets. The cords can
overheat and pose fire hazard,
according to reports. While
Microsoft recalls millions of cables,
the company insists that only a very small number of them
can actually be dangerous.
Power cables of Surface Pro, Surface Pro 2 and Surface
Pro 3 are vulnerable to overheating and could pose a fire
hazard after they are sharply or repeatedly bent or tightly
wrapped, according to Microsoft. Microsoft did not name
the supplier of the power cords it shipped for about three
years. The potentially dangerous cables look like regular
power cords used with variety of notebook PSUs. Such
cables are not very bendable and, as it appears, can be
damaged. Fortunately, they are detachable and users, who
want to replace their cables now, can do so without waiting

for Microsoft.
On Wednesday the company confirmed to ZDNet that the
recall will be taking place , and will officially issue a
statement on the matter of Surface Pro power cables early
on Friday. The voluntary recall will be applied to all devices
sold before mid-July, 2015, worldwide. Eligible customers
wishing to get a replacement will have to order it via a
special web-site. Microsoft plans to advice customers to
stop using potentially dangerous power cords and to
dispose of them in accordance with local regulations.
Microsoft Surface Pro charger is on the left side of the
picture.
Microsoft’s Surface (non-Pro) slates as well as the latest
Surface Pro 4 tablets are not affected, the software giant
said, reports Channelnomics.eu.
The first-generation Surface Pro was introduced along with
the Windows 8 operating system in October, 2012. It
became available in early 2013 and was replaced by the
Surface Pro 2 later that year. The third-generation Surface
Pro hit the market in mid-2014. To date, Microsoft has sold
millions of its slates, which it positions as notebook
replacement tablets.
Many power cords should not be bent or wrapped too
tightly because they can be damaged this way. Some
companies try to use softer cables and/or equip their cables
with some form of cable management. Unfortunately,
power cords of Microsoft Surface Pro only come with a tiny

hook.
Keeping in mind that so far, there have been no reports
about overheating cables or PSUs of Microsoft’s Surface
Pro tablets, the cables should be generally safe to use.
Nonetheless, it is somewhat sad that Microsoft has not
discovered the potential issue earlier.
Update: Owners can get a new cord from Microsoft from
this link:
https://www.microsoft.com/surface/en-ca/support/warrantyservice-and-recovery/powercord
2016-01-27 21:39:22 Anton Shilov
3
EA won't have booth at E3 2016, briefing
scheduled for Sunday afternoon (3)
Breaking years of tradition,
publisher Electronic Arts has
announced that it will not have a
booth on the E3 2016 show floor
this year, and its briefing will take
place Sunday afternoon instead of
later in the week.
EA's new event is called EA Play. The briefing itself will take
place at Club Nokia at LA Live (right next door to the Los
Angeles Convention Center) on Sunday, June 12 at 1 PM
PST.

Though EA won't have its regular booth in the Los Angeles
Convention Center's South Hall, the FIFA and Battlefield
publisher will still host private meetings, a representative
told GameSpot.
"Our players are the driving force behind everything we do,"
EA said in a statement announcing EA Play.
EA has rented Club Nokia for June 12-14, during which
people can stop in to try out new games, take in "live
events," and purchase memorabilia, among other things. A
similar event will held at London's The Mermaid on June
12.
EA Play events, including the briefing, will also be streamed
live. GameSpot will have more details on EA Play 2016 as
they're made available.
E3 2016 officially runs June 14-16.
2016-01-27 21:32:42 GameSpot Staff GameSpot Staff by
4
Upgrade To 5.1 Surround For Under $200, Just
In Time For The Big Game (3)
If you need to upgrade your sound
system in time for the Super Bowl,
one of your favorite sound bars is
down to an all-time low price today
on Amazon for Prime members
only. And while the “bar” itself is great, what really makes
this system special is its included wireless subwoofer and

satellite speakers. That means you can experience true 5.1
surround sound at an incredibly cheap price, with no A/V
receiver required.
2016-01-27 21:28:34 Shep McAllister, Commerce Team
5
Chrome 48 for iOS brings massive speed and
stability improvements (3)
Version 48 of the Chrome browser
was released today. While this
release doesn't deserve much
fanfare for its desktop operating
system incarnations, it's a whole
'nother story in iOS. The new
version uses the same rendering
engine as recent versions of Safari
on iOS, and that's kind of a big
deal.
With the updated engine, Chrome on iOS gets a massive
speed boost (sometimes an order of magnitude faster , as
demonstrated by the Octane JavaScript benchmark), and it
should crash a lot less often. Google estimates that crashes
will be reduced 70% , due to browser and renderer process
separation.
Background tab management is improved, too. The
company says users will see 25% fewer page reloads when
switching to an old tab. Other improvements include
smoother and more responsive scrolling, and the ability to

search bookmarks directly in iOS' Spotlight.
If you're wondering why the situation was so bad before
today, here's a quick history lesson. Back in the day, if you
were an iOS developer and wanted to make a browser app,
you were pretty limited in your choices. Apple never allowed
third-party browser rendering engines on iOS (and possibly
never will), so developers had to wrap their browsers
around Safari's rendering engine. This meant integrating
with Apple's UIWebView API, which became outdated
around iOS 4.3 when the much-improved Nitro rendering
engine was released.
The problem is that Nitro initally wasn't available to thirdparty
developers at all. Even when Apple opened it up with
iOS 8's release (under the WKWebView API), it still had
some integration limitations that made it difficult for Google
to use it as Chrome's engine. Since then, Google has
worked with Apple to improve the situation, and the fruits of
that labor are now on offer to the world.
iOS users looking to try the new version can hit the iTunes
store to install or update Chrome.
2016-01-27 21:22:30 by Bruno Ferreira
6
iPhone 5se UK release date, specification and
size rumours: Apple expected to launch in
March 2016 (3)
Not everyone wants a big phone, and the latest rumours

point to Apple returning to a 4in
screen, the size used for the iPhone
5, 5S and 5C. AppleInsider says
that analyst Ming-Chi Kuo’s
predictions in the past have been
accurate and his latest is that there will be a smaller option
in Apple’s 2016 lineup to cater for the demand which still
exists for smaller phones.
The KGI analyst’s note suggests that mass production will
begin in the first half of the year. Further leaks and
speculation have suggested that the iPhone might be
launched in March 2016, which has left many puzzle about
its name. It’s unlikely that this is a leak from Apple, but
rather that Kuo has contacts in Apple’s supply chain. He
says Foxconn is the most likely to get the exclusive contract
to build the rumoured phone.
If the phone is indeed released in March 2016, it would not
make any logical sense for it to appear under the iPhone 7
tag as it is due for release in September 2016. This means
that if it were to be released in March 2016, we could see it
named under a different name. The current rumours
around the phone suggest it will be named as the iPhone
5se, and not as the rumours initially suggested as the
iPhone 6c, iPhone 7c, iPhone 5e nor even as the iPhone
7/6 Mini.
We find the name of the device to be a little odd, as we
would have expected it to fall under the iPhone 6 or 7
range, rather than the older iPhone 5 generation line. If the
rumours do end up being correct, then we will be a little

surprised by Apple's decision to keep the iPhone 5se - it will
definitely be the first iPhone with two characters after the
number.
If Apple does make a 4in iPhone, it’s pretty easy to guess
that it will have the similar specifications as the previous
iPhone models.
There is an image floating around the internet (see below),
which suggests a leaked photo of the iPhone 5se. We
cannot verify if this is the actual phone itself, but others
seem to believe that it's genuine.
With that said, with any rumour take it with a pinch of salt,
as earlier in 2016 a video of the iPhone 5se was
supposedly leaked and genuine, but then later turned out to
be fake.
On 27 January 2016, we were informed by Mobile Fun
of their Ringke Fusion case in Smoke Black and Crystal
View that's been listed on their site for £14.99. The
interesting part to note here is not the availability of the
cases, but rather the new 4in iPhone being named on
Mobile Fun as the iPhone 6c and not the presumed iPhone
5se. So far, no pictures are provided of the cases, so we
cannot get an inkling on the look of the iPhone.
2016-01-27 13:13:00 Christopher Minasians
7
Linaro touts go-to Linux-based software stack
for ARM servers (3)

While ARM processors don't lack for mobile software
development support, it's a different
story when it comes to servers.
Software and firmware tools for
ARM servers are fragmented, and
there's no single go-to package for
users to configure and get ARM servers up and running
easily.
Recognizing that challenge, standards organization Linaro
is pushing a new open-source software reference platform
that will provide easy access to firmware and common
software tools for easier integration of ARM servers in data
centers.
Linaro is a major player in the development of Linux and
Android software for ARM-based devices and servers. The
organization is handling the development of Android for
Google's Project Ara custom smartphone, and has adapted
the Chrome browser for mobile devices.
With the server reference platform, Linaro is trying to
standardize server software development among the varied
ARM platforms. That is similar to Intel-based servers,
where software can be installed without worrying about
compatibility with the underlying hardware.
The reference platform includes boot and firmware tools,
and software for cloud and distributed computing
deployments. The software stack includes OpenStack,
Hadoop and OpenJDK tools and can be incorporated in the

latest Debian and CentOS Linux distributions.
ARM servers are already recognized as a stable platform
for the LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP) stack, used
for serving Web applications.
Linaro will provide access to the software through its
partners in early 2016, the organization said. Versions of
the reference platform will be offered for storage and
networking appliances in the future.
ARM licenses processor designs to third parties like Apple,
Samsung, Nvidia and others. A handful of servers are
shipping today with ARM server chips from companies like
AMD, AppliedMicro and Cavium. Qualcomm has
announced an ARM server chip.
All the major ARM server chip makers are members of
Linaro. AMD is the only company with a major software
development program underway, working with Oracle on
the OpenJDK program for native Java support on ARM
processors. It is also driving the development of HSA
(Heterogeneous System Architecture) standards -- which
could replace OpenCL -- so software can be broken up to
run among different processing units in computing devices.
The server market today is ruled by Intel, but AMD has said
ARM could comprise 20 percent of the market by 2020.
2016-01-27 09:45:00 Agam Shah

8
The real reason Microsoft open sourced. NET
(3)
With its engineers involved in more
than 2,000 open source projects,
you’d have to agree that open
source has more than a foothold at
Microsoft these days. Most recently,
for example, the browser team
made the Chakra JavaScript engine that powers both Edge
and Internet Explorer open source, for a very practical
reason.
Node, the popular JavaScript runtime, currently works only
with Google’s V8 JavaScript engine. With Chakra now open
source, Microsoft can take the fork of Node that it created
to run on Chakra and contribute it back to the project –
which means developers who use Node will have the
choice of using it with Edge as well as with Chrome,
opening up a much bigger market for Microsoft’s browser
technology.
The shift in how enterprises want to do development
explains a lot about the open sourcing of. NET and ASP.
NET as well. Partly, it’s to get the community involved –
taking advantage of the ideas and expertise of developers
who embrace open source projects. Software companies
like Fog Creek and Xamarin that have written their own.
NET compilers have already replaced those with Microsoft’s
open source Roslyn. NET compiler.

Microsoft also wants to bring these technologies to Linux, in
large part because of Azure. Running a cloud platform
gives Microsoft an interest in Linux that goes far beyond the
open source contributions the Windows Server team has
been making to the Linux kernel so that distributions run will
on its Hyper-V hypervisor. As of September 2015, more
than 20 percent of the virtual machines running on Azure
IaaS were Linux, and Microsoft has even persuaded Red
Hat to support Azure – in addition to AWS – with its
CloudForms cloud management platform.
“As we pursue our vision of the fabric and the cloud
anywhere, that is as much a story about supporting Linux
workloads as it is Windows workloads,” says lead architect
for Windows Server, Jeffery Snover.
“Throughout our organization, each one of the teams now
have Linux teams within them,” says Snover. “We have
historically had the group in Windows Server doing Linux
support for Hyper-V and they have made fantastic strides
there; we have fantastic network support in Technical
Preview 4.” There’s already a Linux version of the
PowerShell Desired State Configuration tool, to make it
easier to manage Windows Server and Linux with the same
tools.
“And so too,” says Snover, “the. NET team is taking. NET
and making it available on Linux.”
That suits customers like the FiOS team at Verizon, which
is using Linux clusters for Docker containers deployed with
Mesos, to run. NET and ASP. NET 5. It makes sense that

Microsoft would rather keep Verizon as a customer at least
for its development platform and not just so they can sell
them tools like Visual Studio. In future, when Windows
Server 2016 brings support for Docker, containers and the
lighter-weight Nano Server option, Microsoft has hopes of
winning them back; that’s far more likely if they’ve stayed
with. NET, even on Linux.
The reasons customers like Verizon give Microsoft for
wanting. NET running in containers isn’t because they want
to move to Linux for its own sake, according to Snover, and
it leaves a definite opportunity for Windows Server.
“When you pull on that thread, what really motivated them
is the desire to have a really lightweight compute
environment, and the ability to stand up and restart and
scale things very, very agilely,” says Snover. “This was
something they were not able to achieve with a full
Windows Server stack and the full. NET stack. They will be
able to do that now, with Windows Server, thanks to Nano
Server and our container work.”
. NET itself is changing, as the recent name change for the
open source version (from. NET Core 5 and ASP. NET 5 to.
NET Core 1.0 and ASP. NET Core 1.0), underlines.. NET
Core doesn’t cover as much as the full. NET 4.6 framework
(it doesn’t have the server-side graphics libraries, for
instance). The same goes for ASP. NET 4.6 and 5 (which
has the Web API but not SignalR, VB or F# support yet).
The newer versions don’t completely replace the current
versions, although they’ll get the missing pieces in the
future. They’re also built in a new way, with faster releases

and more emphasis on moving forward than on avoiding
breaking changes.
That’s the same shift you’re seeing across Microsoft. Over
the last decade, building Azure has taught the company a
lot about the advantages of microservices for what would
otherwise be large, monolithic applications. The original
service front end managed resources like compute,
storage, networking and the core infrastructure
components – for the whole worldwide service – in a single
app. It was a large and complicated codebase, running in a
single data center, and it took up to a month to release an
update – after it was finished and tested – which meant it
was only updated once a quarter. Plus, the management
tools for all the different components were secured by a
single certificate.
Rewriting that as around 25 different microservices makes
it easier to develop, test and release new features. New
features can be “flighted” to a test system to see how they
perform, and releasing updates takes no more than three
days … even though the resource providers that manage
compute, storage and networking now run in the individual
data centre. That improves performance because there’s
far less latency when, for instance, the compute used in the
Azure data centre in Australia is managed by a resource
provider running in that same data center rather than in
Texas. Putting compute and data together isn’t just faster,
and easier to scale; it makes things more reliable, because
you’re not relying on the network between data centers for
management. Limiting each microservice to operating in its

own area improves security too.
These are the usual advantages of well-designed
microservices architectures, and Microsoft is trying to give
businesses an easy way to use them with Azure Service
Fabric. This is a. NET-based microservices platform
(running across a cluster of physical or virtual machines)
that it started building as Windows Fabric back in 2003.
Azure SQL Database was the first service built on it; now
Azure Document DB, Event Hubs, Cortana, Intune, Power
BI, Skype for Business, the Azure IoT Suite and all the
virtual machines in the Azure core infrastructure are built
with Service Fabric.
In the future, Service Fabric will also support Linux, Docker
or Java. Service Fabric is available on Azure today, and
you’ll be able to run it on your own servers (or hosted on
other cloud providers), as part of the Azure Stack technical
preview (which should be a finished product by the end of
2016).
Companies like Verizon might be ahead of the curve, but
for new applications designed to take advantage of cloud
technologies, containers, microservices and faster, more
nimble development is going to be key. “Everybody is after
the same thing,” Microsoft’s Snover says. “They want to be
able to develop their apps to be as small and as resource
efficient as possible. And associated with small comes
agile, secure and fast.”
This story, "The real reason Microsoft open sourced. NET"
was originally published by

CIO.
2016-01-27 05:18:00 Mary Branscombe
9 The Apple iPad Pro Review (2)
At this point it probably isn’t a secret
that tablet sales have leveled off,
and in some cases they have
declined. Pretty much anywhere
you care to look you’ll see evidence
that the tablet market just isn’t as
strong as it once was. It’s undeniable that touch-only tablets
have utility, but it seems that the broader market has been
rather lukewarm about tablets. I suspect at least part of the
problem here is that the rise of the phablet has supplanted
small tablets. Large tablets are nice to have, but almost feel
like a luxury good when they’re about as portable as an
ultrabook. While a compact laptop can’t easily be used
while standing, or any number of other situations where a
tablet is going to be better, a compact laptop can do pretty
much anything a touch-only tablet can. A laptop is also
going to be clearly superior for a significant number of
cases, such as typing or precise pointing.
As a result, large touch-only tablets feel like they’ve been
limited to home use as a computer away from the
computer. Tablets are great when you’re on the couch or in
bed, but once you get to this point there are some obvious
questions as to whether it makes sense to drop $500+ USD
on a tablet that seems to have relatively limited utility. The

Surface lineup has been showing signs of growth, but in
general the Surface is more of a mix between laptop and
tablet rather than a tablet. I would argue that given the OS
and overall design that the Surface and Surface Pro are
really more laptop than tablet, even if at the hardware level
the Surface Pro 4 and Surface 3 are basically tablets with
kickstands and keyboard covers.
If you’re guessing that this means Apple has had some
issues with growing sales of their iPad lineup, you’d be
right. From my first experiences with the iPad 3, I was
impressed with the improved user experience for things like
web browsing and other smartphone tasks, but I never
really felt like it made enough sense to get one for myself.
The iPad Air 2 was once again impressive and I felt like I
could recommend it to other people that wanted a tablet,
but I personally struggled to come up with a reason why I
would buy it.
This brings us to the iPad Pro. This is probably the first time
Apple has seriously deviated from traditional iPad launches,
putting together a tablet built for (limited) productivity and
content creation rather than just simple content
consumption, creating what's arguably the iPad answer to
the Surface Pro. To accomplish this, Apple has increased
the display size to something closer to that of a laptop, and
we see the addition of a stylus and a keyboard cover for
additional precision inputs. Of course, under the hood there
have been a lot of changes as well, so the usual spec sheet
can be found below to summarize those changes.
At a high level, the iPad Pro gains a larger display with a

higher resolution, more memory, a new SoC, and a larger
battery to compensate for the change in display size. In
addition to these changes, the iPad Pro also brings
noticeable changes to the speakers, with an increase to
four speakers which allow the iPad Pro to compensate for
device orientation when projecting stereo audio.
The most immediate change that you can see in the iPad
Pro is the sheer size. The 12.9” display of the iPad Pro
basically makes it feel like you’re carrying a laptop around. I
would argue that this doesn’t actually affect the portability of
the iPad Pro, but this is mostly because the iPad Air 2 was
something that I only carried in a backpack to begin with.
People carrying their tablets in a small bag, purse, or even
just in their hands will notice the difference, so the change
in size might be more or less noticeable depending upon
how you carry things around.
The increase in size does affect weight. After significant
use, I honestly don’t think the mass is a significant issue. It
does feel heavier than the iPad Air 2, but the mass
distribution is such that there isn’t a ton of battery hanging
out at the edges of the device where it’ll affect the moment
of inertia. This does raise the question of whether Apple
included enough battery for sufficient battery life, but that’s
a question best left for the rest of the review.
In terms of design, the iPad Pro is rather unremarkable if
you’ve ever seen an iPad Air before; it is for all intents and
purposes a bigger iPad Air. On the front, the display
dominates, with some bezels on the sides and top. The top
has the front-facing camera, and the bottom has the home

utton with TouchID.
Looking at the sides of the tablet, the top edge has the
power button and 3.5mm port, along with two of the four
speakers. The right edge has the volume buttons, and the
bottom edge has the Lightning port and the other two
speakers. The left edge is mostly empty, but contains the
Smart Connector for the Smart Keyboard and similar
accessories.
The back of the tablet is mostly unremarkable as well. For
the LTE model, an RF window is visible on the top of the
device to allow LTE and other connectivity to function. For
the WiFi variants, it looks like the bottom display bezel and
the bottom two speakers are the RF windows, so there
aren’t any visible areas that indicate where the WiFi
antennas are.
Overall, the iPad Pro feels like an iPad, with nothing all that
remarkable beyond its size which is carried well. I never
really noticed the mass or size of the iPad Pro even if it is
clearly larger and heavier than the iPad Air 2. I also didn’t
notice any issues with the back cover flexing, but given
enough pressure on the back cover pretty much any device
this large will see some screen distortion or bending. The
iPad Pro does technically regress in thickness compared to
the iPad Air 2, but I never noticed the difference in practice,
especially when the larger display is really what matters
more.
2016-01-27 21:39:10 Joshua Ho, Brandon Chester, Ryan Smith

10
Corsair and G. Skill Introduce 128 GB (8x16
GB) DDR4-3000 Memory Kits (2)
An average personal computer
nowadays is equipped with 8 GB or
less of DRAM, according to analysts
from DRAMeXchange. Due to the
requirements of Microsoft Windows
10 operating system, 8 GB may be
enough for general-purpose computing. But there are PCs,
particularly at the high-end desktop and workstation level,
which need a lot of memory either for software,
computation, RAM disks or even RAM caches to the point
where motherboard manufacturers are now including such
software in their bundles. To fulfill demand from owners of
high-end desktops, Corsair and G. Skill this month unveiled
their 128 GB quad-channel DDR4 memory kits consisting of
eight DRAM modules.
Corsair and G. Skill's 128 GB DDR4 memory kits are rated
to run at 3000 MT/s per pin data-rate (DDR4-3000) and are
subsequently designed for Intel's X99 platform where the
quad memory bus allows for up to 96 GB/s of bandwidth
with 4 or 8 DIMMs. These quad-channel kits consist of eight
16 GB unbuffered memory modules, which are based on 8
Gb DRAM chips made by Samsung using its 20 nm
fabrication process. The memory sticks fully support Intel
XMP 2.0 SPD profiles and can automatically set their clockrates
when installed into appropriate PCs.
Corsair’s Black Vengeance LPX 128 GB DDR4-3000

memory kit comes in with CL16 18-18-36 latency settings
as well as the higher specification 1.35 V voltage for DDR4.
The modules are equipped with black aluminum heatspreaders
to aid with cooling. Corsair also supplies their
Vengeance Airflow cooling system, a removable 40mm fan
cooling bracket, with the kit. Corsair’s Black Vengeance
LPX 128 GB DDR4-3000 kit costs $1174.99 without tax and
is currently available from the company’s online store with
the official name of CMK128GX4M8B3000C16.
Meanwhile G. Skill’s Ripjaws V 128 GB DDR4-3000 set of
DRAM modules for high-end desktop features surprisingly
low latencies of CL14 14-14-34, as well as the higher 1.35V
voltage. G. Skill’s Ripjaws V memory come with black or red
aluminum heat-spreaders, and we assume these kits also
come with extra fan cooling similar to G. Skill's other high
end kits. G. Skill’s Ripjaws V 128 GB DDR4 memory kit will
be priced at $999.99 when it becomes available later this
month under the SKU name F4-3000C16-16GVK.
It is noteworthy that despite of more aggressive timings and
potentially higher real-world performance, G. Skill’s 128 GB
DDR4 memory kit costs less than Corsair’s 128 GB DDR4
set of modules. The two companies are addressing a
relatively small segment of the market with their 128 GB
DRAM kits, hence, the competition between Corsair and G.
Skill is inevitable. The reason for the high price for both kits
comes down to binning - the ICs used for these are typically
sold by the IC manufacturer as a certain bin (e.g. DDR4-
2400 low voltage) and then they are individually tested by
the memory stick manufacturer to fit within certain

frequency ranges. At DDR4-3000 C14 for example, the
process of testing might only produce one memory kit per
10000 ICs tested (educated guess) - and then the modules
have to be tweaked to ensure they run together. We always
recommend buying a single kit for a PC, especially of high
speed memory, because the modules are designed to work
together, whereas two separate kits hold no guarantee,
especially if the secondary and tertiary sub-timings are
close to the grain (typically these are slightly loosened for
larger kits).
At present both Corsair and G. Skill market their 16 GB
DDR4-3000 memory modules as solutions for overclockers
because highest JEDEC data rate validated by Intel’s
Haswell-E processors is 2133 MT/s. As JEDEC’s DDR4
memory standard supports data-rates up to 3200 MT/s,
eventually we might see high-speed 16 GB+ memory sticks
becoming normal for workstations with memory speedlimited
workloads.
Source: Corsair, G. Skill
2016-01-27 21:39:16 Anton Shilov
11
CES 2016: ASRock Shows mini-STX 5x5 for
Business and Education (2)
Ever since Intel announced their
5x5 platform (that’s 5-inch by 5-
inch), we have had several
requests from users saying ‘when?’.

At the time of the announcement, it was difficult where Intel
was trying to place the platform – the goal seemed to show
something for embedded platforms that also had a
socketed processor. This would allow customers to choose
how much processing power they needed up to 91W if it is
built for it, or potentially upgrade later down the line. This is
compared to the NUC, which runs mobile processors in an
even smaller form factor. Despite the interest from endusers,
it has always come across as a non-consumer play.
ASRock’s showcase at CES pushes it further into that B2B
market with specific verticals in mind.
We learned that 5x5 now has an ‘official’ name in Mini-STX,
similar to mini-ITX which is 6.7-inch square. But on display
from ASRock were a singular motherboard, the H110M-
STX, and a prebuilt system called the H110M-STX Mini PC.
As the H110 name implies, this system is for Skylake
processors and built on the H110 chipset. The motherboard
uses a three-phase power delivery, rated at 65W, and
memory comes via two DDR4 SO-DIMM slots supporting
up to 32GB of DDR4-2133 (we wouldn’t really expect
anything higher than 2133 in this form factor anyway). The
socket area pushes right up against what would be the rear
IO panel because of space, and the ports here have a low
z-height to ensure cooler compatibility.
Storage comes via an M.2 2280 slot supporting SATA 6
Gbps – the specifications say it also has two SATA 6 Gbps
ports, but unless they’re available through a breakout cable
I can’t see the traditional way to connect these to a
motherboard. Network connectivity is through the Intel

I219-V NIC as well as an M.2 2230 slot for WiFi and BT.
Video output is designed to come through the processor
(so Intel HD Gen 9) and the rear IO has a VGA, HDMI and
DP port for use. There are two USB 3.0 ports on the back
as well as one on the front, two USB 2.0 headers, and a
custom USB-C header for the H110M-STX Mini-PC. Audio
comes via a Realtek ALC283 codec using the onboard
header. TPM 2.0 is also included.
As for the Mini-PC system ASRock showed, this is designed
specifically for this motherboard only and comes in at 1.92
liters (155 x 155 x 80 mm). It will be boxed with the Intel
stock fan, and come with a 2.5-inch drive bay as well as a
Kensington Lock. Separate SIs will have to decide what
CPUs, DRAM and WiFi modules to use, as well as the M.2
slot for storage. Power for the system is provided by a DC-
In port on the rear of the system, and given that the socket
is designed for up to 65W in this case, I’d imagine that the
power brick should be in the 90W range. It is also worth
noting that to use the VGA connector, there seems to be a
long cable from that odd port next to the DRAM to the VGA
connector on the rear.
We saw a few other 5x5 systems on display at CES,
although they all pretty much aim for the same business
crowd – either verticals such as education or digital
signage/gambling, which is essentially what a lot of NUCs
end up in. 5x5 is clearly a play for more performance,
attempting to reduce costs, but it seems Intel is letting its
partners get the first bite of the cherry – we did see a 5x5
from ECS , who plays a big part in Intel’s NUC production.

Then on the other side we have people like Zotac, who end
up doing their own custom designs anyway.
But for now, it seems ASRock is keeping this as a B2B play
and testing the water. We’ve not heard if this is going to be
worldwide or a specific market play, but as a result pricing
will be relative to the market and interest, meaning
interested parties should contact their local ASRock sales
offices.
Source: ASRock
2016-01-27 21:39:43 Ian Cutress
12
Samsung may match Apple with its own
phone upgrade program (2)
Samsung could join its archrival
Apple in offering consumers a way
to upgrade to a new phone every
year.
Samsung did not immediatly
respond to a request for comment.
With Apple's plan, you sign a 24-month agreement, but by
paying for the phone in 12 monthly installments you can
upgrade to the latest iPhone after a year. The benefit to
Apple is that the company is able to lock in buyers by
promising them a new phone every year. Customers get
more flexibility than available through traditional two-year
contracts, which force people to keep the same phone for a

longer period.
In the United States, all four major carriers now offer
installment plans either as an option or as your only choice.
Wireless operators are moving away from traditional twoyear
contracts and the subsidies that come with them,
instead requiring customers to pay full price for devices.
The new program would be a way for Samsung to compete
with US carriers to directly grab customers.
However, the trend may be spreading. South Korean
carriers are looking at installment or rental plans, the
Electronic Times said, saying that SK Telecom and LGowned
LG UPlus are preparing to launch such services.
( Via 9to5Google )
2016-01-27 21:31:13 Lance Whitney Lance Whitney by
13
Google wants to park drone-delivered goods
in your garage (2)
Drones could soon be delivering
packages to your doorstep, but
what about thieves?
Google may have a solution.
The increased interest in drone
deliveries underscores growing expectations for how
quickly purchases should arrive. Some already taking less
than an hour, but delivery drones could supposedly shave

off even more precious minutes.
Ensuring that parcels are delivered securely is another
drone-related challenge that tech and regulatory brains will
seek to solve in the coming years. Google's new patent
covers a system that uses infrared beacons on the
receptacle to connect with a drone in flight and guide it to
the delivery spot.
As with many patents, the idea could come to nothing but
offers a glimpse at what Google is working on.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for
comment.
2016-01-27 21:32:36 Katie Collins Katie Collins by
14
See Rise of the Tomb Raider PC version's
technical features in this video (2)
Just a day before Rise of the Tomb
Raider 's PC version is due to
launch, Crystal Dynamics and
Nvidia have released a new trailer
that showcases the actionadventure
game's new technical
features.
Some of these include ambient occlusion rendering,
dynamic foliage, anisotropic filtering across all surfaces,
hardware tesselation to enhance detail on uneven surfaces,
and a better level of detail overall -- provided your

computer is beefy enough. Check out the video below to
see some comparison shots.
Rise of the Tomb Raider launches for PC on January 28,
developed by Nixxes Software in partnership with Crystal
Dynamics. The recently released Baba Yaga: The Temple
of the Witch expansion will be ready for PC players to buy
right away.
Wondering if your PC can run Rise of the Tomb Raider?
You can see the PC requirements here .
The Xbox One and Xbox 360 versions, which together have
sold more than 1 million copies , arrived in November 2015.
A PlayStation 4 edition of the game is due to debut later this
year.
For more on Rise of the Tomb Raider, check out
GameSpot's review .
2016-01-27 21:32:38 GameSpot Staff GameSpot Staff by
15
Mozilla launches Firefox 44 with pop-up
notifications (2)
MOZILLA HAS taken the shutters off Firefox
44, offering a range of new features.
The headline arrival is the addition of push notifications,
already present and correct in Chromium-based browsers,
which allows pop-up notifications such as for new email
arrivals, bringing a more desktop like experience to web

apps.
This feature replaces the previous version which was less
sophisticated and actually involved leaving the browser
open. Now it's all based on background processes, so you
can get a notification even if you're doing something else.
This is just the highlight of several updates with less
glamorous but equally important additions, mostly on the
developer side.
There's a new warning page for insecure connections,
activation of H.264 where a system decoder is available,
and support for Brotli HTTPS compression just in time for
Google to launch its successor.
Fixes are, of course, flanked by the usual 'various security
fixes' vaguery, but there's also an end to the annoying bug
that caused the screensaver to keep running when playing
video in Vista and XP.
There's a whole bunch of stuff under 'developer tools'
which you can read up on here if you're a developer, but
other changes include the removal of on-screen keyboard
support for Windows 8 and 8.1, which never really worked.
It will, we are told, come back in another build though.
Several security measures have been implemented,
including stricter validation of web fonts and closer
compliance with web fonts for Linux.
Certain Equifax cyphers will no longer be trusted
automatically, and support for RC4 cyphers has been

withdrawn altogether. Windows builds will have an SHA-256
signing certificate to make them compliant with the will of
Satya Nadella.
Firefox continues to be hugely popular, especially with the
open source community, for its flexibility and adaptability.
This is the first big announcement from Mozilla since
November when the company said that it was doing well
despite no longer using Google as its default search
engine, and confirmed a temporary reprieve for Microsoft
Silverlight . µ
2016-01-27 21:27:42 www.theinquirer.net
16
Ofcom will let businesses ditch broadband
contracts if suffering slow speeds (2)
OFCOM HAS LAID down the law on internet
service providers (ISPs) and announced that businesses
will be able to leave their contract without a fee if speeds
fall below guaranteed levels.
As part of a new Ofcom code , UK ISPs will have to offer all
business customers the right to exit their contract without
penalty from 30 September 2016 if speeds fall below a
minimum guaranteed level, giving companies the same
level of protection recently bestowed on residential
broadband users.
The code, to which seven ISPs - BT Business, Virgin
Media, TalkTalk Business, KCOM, Daisy Communications,

XLN and Ze - have given the nod, also requires them to
give businesses clearer, more accurate information and
broadband speeds before they sign up to a contract, and to
manage customers' speed-related problems quickly and
effectively.
It applies to all businesses regardless of size, Ofcom said,
and to all standard business broadband services across all
technologies including ADSL, cable, fibre-to-the-cabinet,
fibre-to-the-premises, wireless and satellite.
Sharon White, Ofcom chief executive, said: “Ensuring
consumers get the best possible communications services
is Ofcom’s top priority. And that includes businesses getting
the broadband speeds they need. "
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB), which has long
called out the UK's broadband offerings as "not fit for
purpose" as many firms still struggle with speeds under
2Mbps, has welcomed Ofcom's move.
Mike Cherry, policy director at the FSB, said: "A
dependable broadband connection is now essential for
almost every aspect of modern business life. Everything
from driving online sales, customer relations and accessing
data held in the cloud relies on a stable broadband
connection. Yet small businesses' dissatisfaction with
broadband providers appears to be widespread and deeply
felt.
"The new Code of Practice announced by Ofcom is a timely
and well-targeted intervention in the business broadband

market. To plan effectively, firms need accurate information
on what speeds they can expect, and how much this will
vary. "
The launch of Ofcom's new code arrives days after MPs
renewed calls for the break up of BT and Openreach after a
report found that 5.7 million Brits do not receive the
minimum expected download speed of 10Mbps, while
others experience "no service at all". µ
2016-01-27 21:27:46 www.theinquirer.net
17
Microsoft tackles tech wang imbalance with
first Hack for Her Summit (2)
MAN HEAVY MICROSOFT offered a hand to
ladies looking to break into the technology industry by
staging a gender specific event called the Hack for Her
Summit.
This meant that chaps were not be allowed to roam (bad
luck Satya) as it was designed to nourish and support the
advance of women in technology.
Gender imbalance is a real problem in the tech industry
these days and is being tackled by firms in a variety of
ways. IBM has opted for patronisation of some kind , while
firms including Facebook regularly shine a light on the
imbalance in their workforces.
Microsoft has given it a bit of a go, but not had a huge
amount of success. The Hack for Her Summit was one part

of the Redmond effort, and came with a message that
what's good for lady technologists is good for the planet.
The event happened earlier this month and was a great
success, according to Microsoft lady Christina Chen, who is
the general manager of emerging devices experiences at
Redmond and got the blogging honours on this news.
"Just a couple of decades ago, we had relatively few
technology product choices; the focus of technology was
making things possible. Fast forward to today, and choices
are plentiful as well as ubiquitous. But we want products
and services that fit our lives," she wrote as she considered
the future at Redmond and stuff in general.
"So how do people create experiences that successfully fit
the lives of men and women alike? " The answer, at least
here, is to get women on board and that is what happened
at the recent summit.
"Microsoft hosted its inaugural Hack for Her Summit as a
part of our company's goals to increase awareness of
gender-inclusive product development," Chen added.
"Hack for Her is a Microsoft-led movement that brings
together people of diverse backgrounds, skills and
professions to create experiences that work well for women
and spawn new market opportunities as a result. "
Peggy Johnson, executive vice president of business
development at Microsoft, and executive sponsor of Hack
for Her, is glad to have been part of such a great thing.

"Building products for everyone starts with gender-inclusive
design. The biggest emerging market today isn't China or
India, it's women, who have $18tn of spending power," she
said. µ
2016-01-27 21:27:53 www.theinquirer.net
18
Full Speed Ahead: Cognizant Buys Top
Oracle Cloud Partner (2)
Cognizant Technology Solutions has acquired
a leading Oracle cloud channel partner, the solution
provider giant said Wednesday.
Cognizant -- No. 8 on CRN’s Solution Provider 500 list for
2015 -- said it bought privately held KBACE Technologies,
Nashua, N. H. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Cognizant, based in Teaneck, N. J., said KBACE has one of
the largest bases of Oracle cloud application customers.
Founded in 1998, the company was honored by Oracle for
three straight years from 2013 to 2015 as the vendor's
specialized partner in North America for implementation of
its human capital management applications.
[Related: Cognizant, HCL Named In Disney H-1B Visa
Worker Suits ]
The deal "strengthens and expands Cognizant's digital
capabilities as more clients move critical business
applications to cloud-based IT infrastructures to reduce
costs and complexity and improve business agility,”

Cognizant said in a statement on the acquisition.
Cognizant said it will retain KBACE's approximately 400
consultants and implementation experts.
Allen Shaheen, an executive vice president at Cognizant,
said in the statement that the deal will accelerate
Cognizant's cloud strategy and consulting services while
providing clients with access to "significant platform
expertise," pushing the company to the "forefront" of Oracle
cloud partners and technology consultants.
"KBACE consultants are some of the most talented and
experienced in the industry with many regarded as the
predominant subject-matter experts in their area," Shaheen
said.
In a statement on KBACE's website Wednesday, company
co-founder and President Mike Peterson said KBACE is
"thrilled" to become part of Cognizant and said the deal will
allow the company to continue to "grow and provide leading
solutions" within Cognizant's cloud practice.
Cognizant has been on a financial roll. For the third quarter
of last year, it reported a 23.5 percent year-over-year jump
in revenue to $3.19 billion, as well as an 11 percent
increase in net income, to $397.2 million. In that same
quarter, the company added about 1,300 jobs, bringing its
global head count to 219,300. CEO Francisco D'Souza said
he expected the company to add even more jobs.
Cognizant also raised its full-year guidance for 2015 with a
jump in revenue of at least 19.3 percent, to $12.24 billion,

over 2014. The company is scheduled to release its fourthquarter
numbers Feb. 8.
"As our mutual clients compete in the digital economy,
SaaS applications are the enabling technology foundation
for enterprises of all sizes," Peterson said in the Cognizant
statement. The acquisition also allows KBACE to "further
strengthen our relationship with Oracle to meet the needs
of current and prospective clients worldwide," he added.
2016-01-27 21:35:09 Rick Saia
19
Manage Your Instagram Filters to Only Show
the Ones You Use (2)
Most Instagram users have a few
go-to filters they like, and there’s
really no need to scroll through the
rest. If you’re a Hefe fan, you don’t
need Valencia to pop up every time
you post a photo of your lunch. Thankfully, it’s easy to
manage your filters to only show the ones you use.
2016-01-27 21:28:26 Kristin Wong
20
Apple's Safari Browser Is Crashing on
iPhones and OS X Due to Search Glitch
[Updated] (2)
Apple’s Safari for iOS and OS X is experiencing a glitch this
morning that’s causing the browser to crash for some users

2016-01-27 21:28:28 Andy Orin
when they search through the
address bar. The issue appears to
be related to search suggestions
that usually come from Apple’s
servers, which appear to be down.
21
This DIY LEGO Table Keeps the Kids
Entertained and Their Bricks Organized
(2)
Getting your kids to put away their
toys every time is nearly impossible,
and nothing is worse than stepping
on a stray LEGO brick. Make them
this LEGO play table to give them a
space to build with (and put away) their bricks.
2016-01-27 21:28:33 Heather Yamada-Hosley
22
Buy Laptops with at Least 50 Percent More
Battery Life Than You Think You'll Need
(2)
You probably already know that the
battery life rating for laptops,
tablets, and phones don’t often
match reality. Laptop Magazine
explains why and offers a sound

ule of thumb for buying your next laptop.
2016-01-27 21:28:36 Melanie Pinola
23
Newegg Daily Deals: HGST Deskstar NAS 6TB
HDD, Intel Core i5-6500, and More! (2)
The first time I'm featuring Schiit
from just one company, but it's all
great
NZXT's CAM 3.0 is a big leap
forward for system tools, and its full potential is yet to come
When we first looked at Samsung’s 950 Pro, we only had
the 256GB model for testing; it’s time to rectify that
omission and see what the additional capacity brings to the
party
2016-01-27 18:18:55 Maximum PC Staff
24
Final Fantasy XV UK release date rumours,
gameplay features & trailers: When is Final
Fantasy XV coming out? (2)
Find out everything you need to
know about the upcoming Final
Fantasy XV game for PS4 and Xbox
One, which looks like it could be the
most exciting of the series yet.
Here's everything we know so far about Final Fantasy XV,

including its rumoured release date, gameplay features and
UK price and pre-order information.
You'll also like: 26 games you should be most excited about
for 2016
Final Fantasy XV was actually first unveiled back in 2006,
and its lack of public development announcements since
then led to speculation that the game might not launch after
all. Rumours suggested that it had been cancelled.
However, during E3 2013, the developers showed off the
game once more, which had been renamed from Final
Fantasy Versus XIII to Final Fantasy XV. It was announced
that the game would be coming to PS4 and Xbox One, and
the first gameplay trailer for the game was released, which
you can watch below.
Then, lin 2014, Square Enix released a Final Fantasy XV
demo called Episode Duscae, designed to give players an
idea of what the game will be like to play. It's set during the
opening sequence of the game, and the free download
code comes with every day-one edition of Final Fantasy
Type-0HD, which arrived on 20 March 2015.
The release date for the full game is still not confirmed, but
pre-orders have begun. All we know for sure is that it will be
here before the end of 2016 - Final Fantasy 15
director Hajime Tabata has confirmed fans will be able to
play it before 2017.
The release date of Final Fantasy XV is so highly
anticipated that even it has a release date (or more

accurately, a release month). Yes, that's right, we know that
the release date of Final Fantasy XV will finally be revealed
in March.
In the Japanese magazine Famitsu in January, the game's
director Hajime Tabata said: "This year is the year we will
release Final Fantasy XV. Currently, we've decided on all of
its specifications and the beta version is under production
so we can shift into the debug phase. We'll show the real
XV during the release date announcement this March. "
We'll update this article once more information is known.
As mentioned, the game is actually available to pre-order
already, though we'd suggest waiting if you're hoping for a
collector's edition as it's likely one will arrive closer to the
final release date.
If you're not a collector, you can pre-order now from Game
(£47.99) , from Amazon (£54.99) and from some other
retailers too.
Also see: PS4 vs Xbox One
This instalment of Final Fantasy is an open world roleplaying
game that will appeal to lovers of Kingdom Hearts
thanks to its action-based battle system. Much of the
development was directed by Kingdom Hearts' Tetsuya
Nomura, but he left to work on Kingdom Hearts III in 2014.
There's a variety of different weapons available to use, too,
and you can drive a car or ride a chocobo to get around the
environment that is completely free to roam as you please.

There's also a day and night system that cycles throughout
gameplay. One in-game day is one hour of play time, and
players will need to sleep in a hotel or by camping in order
to maintain their combat strengths. The monsters you'll
encounter change depending on the in-game time of day,
and there's also a weather system.
The latest Final Fantasy 15 'Dawn' trailer comes from
Gamescom 2015:
2016-01-27 17:33:00 Ashleigh Allsopp
25
UMI Rome review: The latest smartphone in
UMI's budget line-up has premium appeal
(2)
By
Marie Brewis | 116 mins ago
See full specs
113.59 from EU warehouse; £85.19 plus import duty from
Chinese warehouse
The latest smartphone in UMI's budget line-up has
premium appeal - we review the UMI Rome. Also see: Best
budget smartphones 2016.
UMI phones were until recently available only from thirdparty
Chinese distributors such as Coolicool.com, which
supplied our UMI Rome for review. It offers the Rome from

its EU warehouse with free shipping at £113.59, or you can
take a gamble and buy the Rome from the Chinese
warehouse for £85.19. Beware that you may have to pay
import duty when shipping the UMI Rome from China,
however - read up on our advice on buying grey market
tech.
UMI phones are also now available in the UK via Amazon.
They usually cost a little more from Amazon , but at the
time of writing the Rome was on offer at £109.95 with free
UK delivery. See all budget phone reviews.
Out of the box we had an interesting first impression of the
UMI Rome. It was absolutely freezing cold - ice-cold to the
touch. We actually felt a bit sorry for the postie, because it
must have been nearing arctic conditions outside for the
pretty well-wrapped Rome to cause our fingers go numb.
The reason for it feeling so cold is the metal frame, which is
something that even now we can't say is a given for most
budget- or even mid-range smartphones. This is one
advantage of buying a Chinese phone - you get to ditch the
plasticky builds we see in most cheap UK phones for
something a lot tougher that at least looks premium. Also
see: Best phones 2016.
As we'll discover later in this review, the UMI Rome is very
much a mid-range phone sold at a budget price. As such
there are both highs and lows, the most obvious of which
are found in its design.
Our review sample came in a shiny Champagne Gold, but

the Rome is also available in black. The golden metal frame
is complemented with a glossy gold plastic rear, but on
closer inspection the bands scattered around the frame to
improve signal prevent it from sitting entirely flush. It spoils
what would otherwise been an appealing and premium
design, although we do appreciate the ability to remove this
cover and access the removable 2500mAh battery and
dual-SIM- and microSD slots.
Something else that spoils the design is the bizarrely placed
mic below the screen, randomly situated to the bottom right
of the Home button. It's not even central, which hurts our
OCD - but more importantly, why on earth is it there?
It's worth pointing out that the Home button is a touch
button and does not feature a built-in fingerprint scanner. If
we were reviewing a UK phone at this price the omission of
a fingerprint scanner would be expected, but we've been
spoiled by a run of cheap Chinese phones with fingerprint
scanners, and usually located in a more convenient rear
position. That the UMI Rome doesn't have one at all seems
odd.
It's most certainly not all bad, though. Out of the box we
thought the UMI to be a good-looking phone and, despite
being a rather large phablet at 153.8x77 and 177g, the
2.5D curved glass, rounded corners and tapered rear
edges allow the UMI to feel manageable even in a single
hand.
The Rome is just 7.9mm thick, which is thin for a phablet
and super-skinny for a £100 phone. The camera juts out a

little at the rear, but at least is positioned top-middle to
make it less likely to rock on a flat surface.
Something that's relatively rare among smartphones is the
front-facing flash (there's also a dual-LED flash at the
back). Taking selfies, conducting video chats and even just
checking your appearance can therefore be more effective
in low light, although it's a shame the selfie camera is rated
at only 2Mp. Again, even at this price we're becoming
accustomed to 5- or even 8Mp cameras.
Another plus point: speaker grilles facing out from the
bottom rather than the rear of the phone. The UMI also
features a 3.5mm headphone jack and supports FM radio
with a pair of earphones plugged in. Also see: Best
sounding phones 2016.
AMOLED is an unusual screen technology to find in the
UMI Rome, with the majority of phones using IPS or, if
they're really cheap, basic TFT LCDs. AMOLED is seen on
Samsung phones in the form of SuperAMOLED, and is
considered to be more energy efficient with no requirement
for a backlight. Contrast is unbeatable, viewing angles are
excellent, and colours are vivid.
The 5.5in display on the UMI Rome is a great choice, with a
thin black border edging the screen. Although it's 'only' HD
in resolution, with 1280x720 pixels, we found it to be plenty
clear. One complaint of AMOLED is that it can be less
visible in bright sunlight, and the UMI Rome's display could
be a tad brighter.

In general processing performance the UMI Rome is faster
than some of the UK budget phones you could also be
considering, such as Vodafone's Smart range or the Moto
E or Moto G. With general performance on par with the
two-year-old HTC One M8 , we'd say this is a budget
phone with mid-range performance.
In real-world use the UMI Rome is neither fast nor slow; it is
quite capable for everyday tasks. We found most apps
launched quickly, and the continuous controlling home
screens and app tray gave the perception that navigation
was perhaps faster than it was.
We ran the UMI Rome through our usual benchmarks to
find out exactly what its 1.3GHz MediaTek MTK6753 octacore
64-bit processor, ARM Mali-T720 GPU and 3GB of
RAM was capable of. You can compare this performance to
all the phones we've recently tested in our article What's
the fastest smartphone 2016.
We use Geekbench 3 and AnTuTu to measure overall
performance, and here the Rome recorded 2805 and
35,921 points respectively, making it a close match for the
similarly priced Bluboo X9. We also ran GFXBench
graphics tests, with the Rome scoring 4fps in Manhattan
and 9fps in T-Rex; and the JetStream web-browsing test,
where it managed 19.904 points.
In terms of storage you get 16GB onboard, which is more
than the 8GB you might expect at this price. There's also a
microSD card slot that will accept up to 64GB of additional
storage. Also see: How to add storage to Android.

UMI has fitted the Rome with a 2500mAh removable
battery that, for most users, should be good for a full day's
use (UMI claims you'll get 12.5 hours of 'on-screen' time, or
8.8 hours of 4G web browsing). However, if you need to
eke out every last bit of juice there's also an ultra power
saving mode. There's no support for fast- or wireless
charging, as you'd expect. See all smartphone reviews.
We mentioned earlier that a clear advantage of buying a
Chinese phone is the build quality in relation to the price.
The other advantage is that the vast majority of these
phones are dual-SIM. The UMI Rome is a dual-standby
model that accepts two Micro-SIM cards, allowing you to
more easily manage separate tariffs for work and play, or
for whatever reason you like. We explain the ins and outs of
dual-SIM in our best dual-SIM phones article.
The UMI Rome is also a 4G phone, and importantly it
supports all three 4G bands used by the UK's mobile
operators. You can learn how to check whether a phone is
supported by your network here.
Also on the connectivity specs sheet are dual-band
802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1 and GPS; missing are
NFC, OTG and an IR blaster. Also see: Best cheap 4G
phones 2016.
The UMI Rome is billed as featuring a 13Mp Sony IMX179
rear camera with dual-LED flash, and a super-selfie camera
with its own flash. The latter should be ideal for taking
selfies or conducting video chat in low light, but
unfortunately the camera is rated at only 2Mp and the flash

itself doesn't make a huge difference to performance. Also
see: Best Android phones 2016.
The front camera is actually an 8Mp model, which uses
software to boost to 13Mp. There is a dual-LED flash here,
which works better than the one at the front. All the usual
modes and options are present, including real-time filters.
You can see our test shots of the St Pancras Renaissance
Hotel below, first on auto mode and then with HDR. It was
an admittedly dull day, but we weren't overly enthused by
the Rome's photography capabilities. It'll do fine for the odd
snap when you don't have a camera to hand, but the image
is very soft in areas with a lot of detail missing. Also see:
Best phone camera 2016.
The majority of UMI phones we review are advertised with
support for Rootjoy, which lets you hook it up to a PC to
quickly back up contents and install custom ROMs. The
UMI Rome doesn't feature the Rootjoy branding, although it
is evidently from the preinstalled SuperSU app a rooted
phone. Also see: How to root Android.
Out of the box there are very few preinstalled apps,
although full Google Play access means you can install
what you wish. We like the continuously scrolling homeand
app tray screens, and the customisable Smart Wake
gestures are a neat addition, but this is otherwise a fairly
stock implementation of Android 5.1 Lollipop .
Read next: Best new phones coming in 2016 .
Follow Marie Brewis on Twitter.

You can hardly fault the UMI Rome at this price, but while it
offers mid-range performance at a budget price, you can
still get more for your money elsewhere. It has a mostly
pleasing design but, up close, shows some signs of costcutting.
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2016-01-27 17:30:00 Marie Brewis
26
This is how Google drones will deliver your
packages, and keep your pets safe (2)
A UAV from Google's own drone
effort, Project Wing. Image: Google
A patent granted to Google sheds
some light on how drones will
deliver packages to homes and
businesses.
Project Wing is Google's initiative aimed at making

deliveries via autonomous vehicles. Previously it has said it
aims to be making commercial deliveries by 2017. And
while a number of companies are already working on drone
deliveries, the patent, ' Automatic package delivery to a
delivery receptacle ', granted yesterday, notes that an
autonomous aerial vehicle may not, on its own, be enough
to make such a system work.
"Unmanned, aerial delivery devices may be problematic for
delivery to users" it said, noting: "For example, an aerial
delivery device that is powered by a rotor or an impeller
may be dangerous to pets, overhead powerlines, ceiling
fans or other features. "
A drone may also find it hard to spot a safe place to leave a
package or to understand detailed delivery instructions, the
patent said, while "conventional aerial delivery device
methods do not allow for safe, secure delivery of packages
to delivery locations".
Instead, the patent outlines a system where the delivery
drone is also in contact with a 'delivery device': the patent
shows a box on wheels with infrared emitters.
The idea is that the delivery device is told to expect a
package and will drive to the agreed pickup location -
perhaps the street outside a home, to wait for the drone to
arrive. When the drone is due to arrive the delivery device
switches on its IR beacons, which the drone detects and
uses to find its way to the delivery device, where it drops off
its package.

The 'delivery device' then transports the package to a
secure location like a garage, and tells the owner that the
package has arrived.
There are plenty of potential savings to be made by
retailers and distributors if they can get autonomous
deliveries right: the patent notes that the two largest
commercial delivery services operate 100,000 vehicles
between them for "last mile" delivery to homes and
business "each of which requires a human operator" while
the growth of online shopping will increase the demand for
deliveries, "hence the need for capacity and efficiency in
the last mile. "
2016-01-27 13:31:00 By Steve Ranger | January 27, 2016 -- 13:31 GMT
(13:31 GMT) | Topic: Innovation
27
VMware confirms layoffs, Google tackles app
monetization in new eBook, and Walmart’s
OneOps is now open source— news digest:
Jan. 27, 2016 (2)
In an earnings statement yesterday,
VMware confirmed layoffs of 800
employees as it prepares for the
Dell acquisition.
Last October, Dell announced it
was buying EMC, which owns 80% of VMware but operates
it as an independent company, which means it decides
when to make layoffs.

In addition to the restructuring, according to Jonathan
Chadwick, VMware’s CFO, COO and executive vice
president, has decided to leave the company. VMware has
appointed Zane Rowe as the company’s new CFO and
executive vice president. He will take over on March 1.
Also, VMware plans to reinvest the associated savings in
field, technical and support resources associated with
growth products, according to its statement.
Google tackles app monetization in new e-book
Google is releasing a new e-book designed to help app
developers think of new ways to monetize their apps.
The book, “The No-nonsense Guide to App Monetization,”
will provide an overview of app monetization, as well as
examples and tips to help developers get started.
According to the company, developers will learn seven
primary app monetization models and the pros and cons for
each one, as well as how to choose the right monetization
strategy and what to keep in mind when implementing it.
The book is available as a free download .
2016-01-27 13:10:51 Madison Moore View all posts by Madison Moore
28
Apple Mulls Subscription Services For News
App (2)
Apple may soon introduce subscription services to its News

application, according to a report in
Reuters, which would give
publishers more control over who
has access to certain types of
content.
Quoting two unnamed sources
familiar with the matter, the report says that Apple would
provide paywalls for publishers of premium content, such
as The Wall Street Journal or The New York Times.
The sources said publishers of restricted content, who can
so far offer their articles for free or provide a synopsis or
excerpt with a link to log in to the publisher's site, have
been frustrated by the lack of information Apple provides
about its readership.
"Ensuring subscription mechanisms in our off-platform
distribution partnerships is critical," Katie Vanneck-Smith,
chief customer officer of Dow Jones, which publishes the
WSJ, told Reuters.
Such a move would help Apple differentiate itself from
competing apps like Facebook's Instant Articles, which
doesn't offer its users access to subscriber-based articles.
Apple News collects all the stories users are interested in
reading from top news sources, based on topics the user is
most interested in. It combines the immersive design found
in print with the interactivity of digital media, presenting
articles that reflect the style of the publications they come
from.

Articles are optimized for both iPhone and iPad. Users can
share articles with others and save them to read offline.
Rival Microsoft recently debuted an app for iOS called
News Pro that is looking to challenge Apple News and other
similar apps.
Developed by the company's experimental app outfit, the
Microsoft Garage, News Pro lets users log in with a
Facebook or LinkedIn account and pick topics of interest,
like politics, finance, and technology, to get a selection of
algorithmically chosen articles.
While a number of major tech companies appear to be
investing a significant amount of time and effort to corner
the news application market, surveys suggest consumers
are less likely to turn to mobile devices for news than they
are for entertainment and social media purposes.
A June 2015 Nielsen analysis found that on average, US
smartphone users accessed 26.7 apps per month in the
fourth quarter of 2014 -- a number that has remained
relatively flat over the last two years.
[Read iOS 9.2.1 Gives Older iPhones a Performance Boost
.]
The report found that the emergence of the entertainment
categories is a contributor to the overall increase in app
usage. Not only has the entertainment category seen a
13% increase in unique audience year-over-year as of the
fourth quarter of 2014, but this audience is spending nearly
three hours more on apps over the same period -- a growth

ate of 26%.
Three Silicon Valley tech giants, Apple, Facebook, and
Google, account for the lion's share of app usage on
smartphones and tablets in the US, according to a
December report from Nielsen.
Facebook again took the lead as the top smartphone app
with more than 126.7 million average unique users each
month, while Google's YouTube app ranked second with
97.6 million average unique users each month.
Apple-made apps landed in the ninth and tenth spots in
Nielsen's yearly rankings, with Apple Music recording 54.5
million monthly users.
What have you done to advance the cause of Women in
IT? Submit your entry now for InformationWeek's Women in
IT Award. Full details and a submission form can be found
here.
2016-01-27 12:06:00 www.informationweek.com
29
Artificial Intelligence Pioneer Marvin Minsky
Dies (2)
Artificial intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky died Sunday
from a cerebral hemorrhage, closing a noteworthy career in
artificial intelligence that spanned more than five decades.
He was 88.
Minsky, a native New Yorker, cofounded the Artificial

Intelligence Laboratory (now the
Computer Science and Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory) at MIT in
1959, a year after he joined the
faculty at university's electrical
engineering and computer science
department, according to a
statement from the laboratory. That
laboratory emerged long before supercomputers came on
the scene in 1972.
With an ever-present curious streak, Minsky delved into
transforming computers into machines that could react with
human-like perception and intelligence. His goal was to
replicate the brain's function on a computer, which in turn
would help people learn about the human brain and higherlevels
of thinking.
Minsky's book The Society of Mind, which was published in
1985, was considered groundbreaking work regarding the
various mechanisms that interacted in intelligence and
thought. His last book, The Emotion Machine:
Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the
Future of the Human Mind, was published in 2006.
"Marvin Minsky helped create the vision of artificial
intelligence as we know it today," Daniela Rus, director of
the laboratory, said in a statement. "The challenges he
defined are still driving our quest for intelligent machines
and inspiring researchers to push the boundaries in
computer science. "

Minsky was also a founding member of MIT's Media Lab,
created in 1985 to explore a wide breadth of topics, from
treating neurological disorders with digital approaches to
advanced imaging technologies that can peer around
corners.
[See AI, Machine Learning Rising in the Enterprise .]
"Marvin talked in riddles that made perfect sense, were
always profound and often so funny that you would find
yourself laughing days later," Nicholas Negroponte,
cofounder of MIT's Media Lab and founder of the One
Laptop per Child Association , said in a statement. "His
genius was so self-evident that it defined 'awesome.'"
Minsky received the A. M. Turing Award in 1969 for his
work in artificial intelligence. That award is considered the
top honor in computer science. Others included the
Computer Pioneer Award from the IEEE Computer Society
and the Dan David Foundation Prize for the Future of Time
Dimension titled " Artificial Intelligence: The Digital Mind. "
He is survived by his wife, Dr. Gloria Rudisch Minsky, and
three children, Henry, Juliana, and Margaret.
Are you an IT Hero? Do you know someone who is? Submit
your entry now for InformationWeek's IT Hero Award. Full
details and a submission form can be found here.
2016-01-27 11:06:00 www.informationweek.com

30
After lackluster Apple report, all eyes turn to
Samsung (2)
Just how bad are conditions in the
smartphone market? We'll get a
better idea later Wednesday when
Samsung announces its latest
quarterly earnings.
Apple painted a pretty bleak picture for high-end
smartphones on Tuesday when it reported slow sales
growth and forecast its first drop in revenue in 13 years.
"We're seeing extreme conditions—unlike anything we've
experienced before—just about everywhere we look," Apple
CEO Tim Cook said on a conference call.
Samsung has already signaled it doesn't expect great
results. The smartphone market leader said earlier this
month that revenue will be essentially flat and analysts
expect a slide of 8.5 percent in net profit.
But that's the company as a whole. Its mobile division
reported a drop in profit in the July to September quarter
after it cut the price of the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge to help
boost sales. And like Apple, it's predicted a slowdown in
sales growth.
Samsung is locked in stiff competition with Apple on the
high end and that's unlikely to let up.
It has been pushing low- to mid-range handsets in

developing markets, but Apple's comments about
worldwide demand are worrying.
"Major markets including Brazil, Russia, Japan, Canada,
southeast Asia, Australia, Turkey, and the Eurozone have
been impacted by slowing economic growth, falling
commodity prices, and weakening prices," Cook said on
Tuesday.
Samsung executives are due to present the company's
fourth quarter and full year results in a presentation
scheduled for 4:30pm PST (12:30 GMT Thursday).
2016-01-27 10:44:00 Martyn Williams
31
With GPUOpen, AMD hopes gamers will get
more out of its Radeon GPUs (2)
AMD has revealed the details of its
GPUOpen project, through which it
hopes to carve a bigger niche for
itself in the crowded market for
graphics processors in x86
machines.
The company is being squeezed from above by Nvidia,
which dominates the high end of the GPU market, and from
below by Intel, which can leverage its larger share of the
x86 CPU market to sell its own integrated graphics
chipsets. While it can't do much about Intel, GPUOpen
could allow AMD's Radeon chips to score a few points off

Nvidia.
With GPUOpen, AMD is giving software developers the
code and specs they need to squeeze the most out of its
GPU chips by programming directly to its APIs rather than
graphics hardware abstraction layers such as DirectX or
OpenGL, which don't offer the same level of control over
specific processor features.
While AMD is showing developers a shortcut to better
performance, the path to improved profitability is a long and
circuitous one. It first requires programmers to take AMD
up on its offer, first announced in December , to use its new
APIs to optimize their code for its hardware. With those
tweaks, and without the overhead of the abstraction layer
for some functions, a Radeon GPU might perform better
than a more expensive rival. It's that promise -- that gamers
might get more bang for their buck by buying machines with
AMD's Radeon graphics chips inside -- that the company
hopes will make GPUOpen a source of profit.
This is not AMD's first offering intended to woo developers
away from the hardware-independent DirectX and OpenGL
APIs. The company abandoned the last one, Mantle, a year
ago , handing the code to OpenGL developer Khronos,
which used it as the basis of the specification for OpenGL
successor glNext, now known as Vulkan.
Opening the GPUOpen website for business on Tuesday,
AMD's senior manager of worldwide gaming engineering
Nicolas Thibieroz wrote that the first goal is "to provide
code and documentation allowing PC developers to exert

more control on the GPU ," including "many features not
exposed today in PC graphics APIs. "
That will help developers more economically code games
for both PCs and consoles, where they already have lowerlevel
access to the GPU, he wrote.
While GPUOpen' primary focus is on games and other CGI
applications, another big application area for GPUs is in
accelerating other computational tasks. AMD is also
targeting these through GPUOpen's "Professional
Compute" branch, offering optimized open-source drivers
and standards-based libraries for its chips.
The site already includes a bunch of application examples
and sample code, including HIP, a tool for converting code
from the Nvidia-backed CUDA parallel-computing API to
portable C++ that can then be compiled to run on Nvidia or
AMD GPUs. The HIP code is on Github , like much of
AMD's other GPUOpen code.
2016-01-27 07:49:00 Peter Sayer
32
Major telcos join Facebook's open hardware
push (2)
Big telcos including Verizon and
AT&T have joined a Facebook-led
project to build low-cost computing
hardware, posing a fresh challenge
for network vendors like Cisco and

Juniper.
The telcos have signed onto the Open Compute Project
(OCP), a non-profit set up by Facebook in which end-user
companies get together and design their own, no-frills
hardware including servers, network and storage gear.
The OCP members can include just the capabilities they
need in a product, free of the "gratuitous differentiation"
that bumps up prices in equipment from traditional vendors.
They enlist low-cost manufacturers in Asia to produce the
equipment.
The OCP has focused so far on cloud providers and large
enterprises, but telcos will now submit design specifications
for the powerful switches and other gear they use to run the
world's communications networks.
Besides Verizon and AT&T, other new members
announced Wednesday include Deutsche Telekom, Korea's
SK Telecom and Equinix.
"These service providers and others are in the midst of
huge transformation, and they're looking at all and every
type of open-source technology to help them with that,"
said Nav Chandler, a research analyst at IDC.
They face several challenges, he said. One is that
bandwidth needs are increasing 30% to 40% a year as
more video and data traffic swamps networks. Their
revenues aren't growing in step, so they need access to
lower-cost gear to build out their infrastructure.

Another challenge is that enterprises are moving more
workloads into public clouds run by Microsoft, Amazon and
Google. Those cloud providers are threatening the
managed network services that telcos provide to move data
reliably between corporate data centers.
To connect to the public clouds and keep providing those
managed services, telcos need to adopt the emerging
network technologies being used by those cutting-edge
cloud providers, including software-defined networking and
NFV, or network functions virtualization.
"They need to connect to these cloud data centers that are
outside their control, and they can't do that economically
with proprietary equipment from companies like Cisco,
Nokia and Juniper," Chandler said.
Joining OCP should help them keep their costs down by
making wider use of industry-standard hardware.
“AT&T will virtualize 75% of its network functions by 2020,
and to do that, we need to move to a model of
sophisticated software running on commodity hardware,”
Andre Fuetsch, senior vice president of architecture and
design at AT&T, said in a statement.
It's also about innovating faster. Gagan Puranik, director of
SDN/NFV architecture planning at Verizon, said the OCP's
collaborative model should help Verizon get new
technologies into production more quickly, including future
advances like 5G.
He expects Verizon to buy equipment from "a mix of

traditional and non-traditional" suppliers, he said.
Facebook has already developed a pair of powerful OCP
switches for cloud and enterprise use, and the new telco
equipment could add to the pressure on traditional vendors.
Those companies aren't standing still. Nokia, which just
bought Alcatel-Lucent, was among the new OCP members
announced on Wednesday, and says it will incorporate
OCP designs into future telco products.
Cisco noted that it's been a member of OCP since 2014.
"We don’t view it as a threat," spokesman David McCulloch
said via email. "Open standards, open source, and openness
initiatives are only becoming more important to Cisco.
"
The OCP equipment takes time to design and manufacture,
and it will need to be tested thoroughly for compatibility
before it can be dropped into a telco infrastructure.
Still, a move toward wider use of commodity hardware can't
be good for traditional vendors, and the cash-strapped
telcos are clearly looking for a way to cut costs.
2016-01-27 06:46:00 James Niccolai
33
'Mercenaries' Expansion For 'Galactic
Civilizations III' Introduces Two New
Factions, Soldiers For Hire (2)
Less than a year after the release of Galactic Civlizations III

, the team at Stardock
Entertainment is already working on
more content for its latest strategy
game with an expansion called
Mercenaries. In addition to a new
campaign, it will include the ability to recruit special units
and introduce two other factions.
As the name of the expansion suggests, you will be able to
hire mercenaries throughout the intergalactic bazaars in the
galaxy. These soldiers-for-hire are also a crucial part of the
expansion’s campaign, which centers on the Torians, one
of the two new factions. The aquatic-based species are
attempting to escape a life of slavery under the Drengin
Empire, and you must utilize mercenaries to aid the
Torians.
Both the Torians and the ancient warrior faction of the
Arceans will be playable in Mercenaries , and they'll come
with their own unique traits, technology trees and skills.
Mercenaries will come out next month on February 18 and
will cost $19.99. Stardock Entertainment is also working on
another free update at the same time as the release of the
expansion. Update version 1.6 will bring about various
changes such as improvements to the AI, visual upgrades
and more detailed results after each match.
Follow Rexly Peñaflorida II @Heirdeux. Follow us
@tomshardware , on Facebook and on Google+.
2016-01-27 00:00:00 Rexly Peñaflorida

34
Das Keyboard Division Zero Delivers X40 Pro
Keyboard And M50 Pro Mouse | HotHardware
(2)
It’s no secret that we’re fond of
products from Das Keyboard ;
we’ve given them favorable reviews
over the years due to their solid
construction and giving customers
the choice of switch types to suits their preferences.
However, the keyboards have also sometimes lacked
features that gamers would prefer including backlit keys
and macro support.
That is changing with the introduction of the Division Zero
brand, which is specifically aimed at PC gamers and the
burgeoning eSports arena. The first products to grace the
new Division Zero brand is the X40 Pro Gaming Mechanical
Keyboard. Starting with the keyboard housing itself, you’ll
find an anodized aluminum top panel which can be
switched out and replaced by the user if they desire a
different look down the road.
The X40 Pro also includes Das Keyboard-designed Alpha-
Zulu mechanical gaming switches, which have been
designed for “gaming-grade durability and speed” and have
a 1.7mm actuation point. As with previous Das Keyboard
products, gamers can choose from two different styles of
switches. The “clickier” Alpha-Zulu Tactile Switch and the
smoother “stealth-like” Alpha-Zulu Linear Switch.

Hitting on two areas that we have called attention to in the
past, the X40 Pro features red backlighting for the keys
(which Das Keyboard says is easier on the eyes) and five
programmable macro keys. Other features include full n-
key rollover and multi-key press support, a USB 2.0 passthrough,
and a generous 6.5-foot braided cable.
In addition to the X40 Pro, the M50 Pro Gaming Mouse is
also on deck with an ambidextrous design, premium
materials through (including metal components) and
onboard memory which can store six gaming profiles. The
M50 Pro also includes nine programmable macro buttons,
a 6400 DPI laser sensor, tilt scroll wheel and primary
buttons which are rates at 300 clicks per minute and a 20
million click lifecycle.
Both the Division Zero X40 Pro Gaming Mechanical
Keyboard and M50 Pro Gaming Mouse are available now
for $149 and $79 respectively.
2016-01-27 00:00:00 hothardware.com
35
Intel fills need for mobile speed with its new
Skylake, Xeon chips (2)
Intel has just started shipping some
of its fastest mobile chips to date,
meaning new powerful laptops
should soon be on the market.
The new chips include Core i7

Skylake processors, as well as mobile Xeon chips that are
headed for portable workstations used by engineers.
Intel shipped the first mobile Skylake chips last year, but
they were for mainstream and entry-level laptops. These
new chips, just added to Intel's price list , are aimed at the
high end.
The fastest of the bunch, at 2.8GHz, is the quad-core Core
i7-6970HQ, which has 8MB of cache and a list price of
$623. Other new Skylake parts include the Core i7-6870HQ
and i7-6770HQ.
The chips should be Intel's fastest for laptops until it
releases its next Extreme Edition gaming chip, which will
also be based on Skylake. Skylake processors are
manufactured using Intel's latest 14-nanometer process.
Last year, Intel launched two Xeon chips for mobile
workstations, used for CAD/CAM (computer-aided design
and manufacturing) applications. It's now adding three
more. At $1,207, the quad-core E3-1575M v5, for example,
runs at 3GHz and has 8MB of cache. That's Intel's secondmost
expensive mobile chip after the current Extreme
Edition gaming parts.
2016-01-25 14:49:00 Agam Shah
36
Intel's Skylake vPro chips will support
Windows 7 after all (2)
Business users alarmed by Microsoft's recent

announcement that new chips will not run on Windows 7
PCs need not fret. More than 100 business PCs coming
with Intel's new "Skylake" Core vPro processors will run
Windows 7, though the chips are tuned for Windows 10.
Microsoft last week said PCs with certain Intel Skylake and
next-generation "Kaby Lake" chips would support only
Windows 10. The goal was to push enterprises to upgrade
their PCs to the new OS. However, Microsoft is releasing a
list of Skylake PCs that support Windows 7.
The new "6th-generation" vPro chips, announced on
Tuesday, have features that let system administrators
remotely manage and secure PCs. Some features in the
new chips -- such as chip-level storage of biometric
authentication data -- will work only with Windows 10.
The PC market is slumping partly because businesses are
slow to upgrade PCs from Windows 7 to Windows 10,
according to IDC. Intel is maintaining support for Windows 7
considering enterprises are still using the old OS, though
the chips will aid in the transition to Windows 10, said Tom
Garrison, vice president and general manager of business
client products at Intel.
Windows 10 has new biometric authentication features so
users can log in to PCs through face or fingerprint
detection. With vPro, biometric authentication data is stored
in firmware at the chip layer, providing a higher level of
security than placing the information on a drive. The
authentication information stored inside the chip will extend
to other login methods such as iris detection.

The chip-layer firmware technology isn't foolproof, but it
provides an extra layer of protection, Garrison said.
Non-biometric data like PINs are scrambled and stored in
the graphics processor. Hackers can't easily access data in
the GPU, Garrison said
System administrators can remotely troubleshoot, repair
and manage PCs, and even wipe or lock down PCs if they
are stolen. Microsoft's System Center Configuration
Manager server software lets system administrators set
policies or deploy updates.
The Windows 10 OS also allows for better geotagging of
PCs, Garrison said. Policies can define the types of
applications users access and locations where PCs can be
used. For example, a doctor might be able to access a
medical record from within a hospital, but not from a cafe
outside.
Some vPro features don't rely on the OS. System
administrators can remotely access PCs prior to OS boots
to fix memory or hard drive problems.
The Skylake chips are about 35 percent faster than
comparable previous-generation vPro PC processors
based on the Broadwell architecture, according to Intel
benchmarks. For laptops, that benchmark assumes a
battery life of about eight hours.
HP, Dell, Lenovo, Asus and Acer will ship vPro laptops.
Garrison declined to comment on whether vPro chips will

e used in Apple Macs.
The vPro chips are also in Intel's thumb-size Compute
Stick, which can plug into an HDMI port to turn any display
into a PC. The Compute Sticks with vPro will ship next
month starting at $399.
2016-01-19 00:00:00 Agam Shah
37
Watch what you do with that big data, FTC
warns businesses (2)
If your company uses big data, be
aware: the FTC is watching, and it's
concerned.
For all its potential benefits, big
data can lead to discrimination and
worsen economic disparity, the Federal Trade Commission
warned in a new report that includes caveats and
guidelines for businesses. Entitled "Big Data: A Tool for
Inclusion or Exclusion? " the report stems from a 2014 FTC
workshop by the same name and incorporates the public
comments that followed.
Among the report's conclusions is that big data can benefit
under-served populations through better opportunities for
education, credit, health care and employment. On the flip
side, however, it can lead to reduced opportunities and the
targeting of vulnerable consumers for fraud and higher
prices.

Overall, big data can end up perpetuating existing
economic disparities or creating new ones, the FTC said.
“Big data’s role is growing in nearly every area of business,
affecting millions of consumers in concrete ways,” said
Edith Ramirez, chairwoman of the FTC. “Businesses must
ensure that their big data use does not lead to harmful
exclusion or discrimination.”
Toward that end, the FTC outlined some of the laws that
apply to the use of big data, including the Fair Credit
Reporting Act, the FTC Act and equal opportunity laws. It
also offered a range of questions for businesses to
consider when they examine whether their big data
programs comply with these laws.
Four key policy questions proposed in the report,
meanwhile, aim to help companies determine how best to
maximize the benefit of their use of big data while limiting
possible harms.
Last year, the FTC's Bureau of Consumer Protection
established the Office of Technology Research and
Investigation dedicated to understanding algorithmic
transparency and other related issues. This week at CES,
Ramirez also spoke out to urge companies to expand their
privacy efforts.
Market researcher Gartner predicts that the improper use
of big data analytics will cause half of all business ethics
violations by 2018.
The FTC's new report is available for download from the

FTC site.
The Equal Credit Opportunity Act has been a key tool in the
battle against algorithmic discrimination, said Rachel
Goodman, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties
Union's Racial Justice Program, in an email.
"Communities of color have long been victimized by credit
discrimination, alternately starved of credit or flooded with
predatory loans, depending on the era," Goodman
explained.
It will be just as crucial for combating what's known as
"digital redlining ," which is the newest form of credit
discrimination, she said.
Also important is that the report recognizes that predictive
analytics may lead companies to engage in discrimination
that violates civil rights laws, Goodman pointed out.
"While it rightly urges companies to be careful not to
discriminate, self-monitoring is not enough," Goodman said.
"We need systems for auditing the proprietary algorithms
that make crucial decisions about housing, credit and
employment, in order to ensure that they treat everyone
fairly. "
2016-01-07 00:00:00 Katherine Noyes
38
6 Popular Apps that can get you Great Deals
& Discounts on this New Year (2)

The number of shopping days until New Year are very less
and last minute shoppers head to
stores and shop online at very high
cost. App developers have created
some fun apps to help last minute
shoppers figure out huge discounts
and deals to grab on last minute. If you shop without the
latest bargain-hunting tools, you’re probably missing out on
hundreds or even thousands of money in discounts every
year.
Here’s a few apps of money-saving tools that all shoppers
should know on this New Year.
Voodoo – Voodoo helps you in getting best deals and
discounts in this New Year without any extra effort.. Voodoo
App, Digital assistant that integrates with all the shopping
apps on your device. Voodoo is here to change the way
you shop online. It is a digital assistant that with all the
shopping apps on your device. It will help you get the best
deals, compare prices & get coupons for online shopping.
While you continue to shop the regular way on your
favourite app.
Zopper – Zopper is offering discounts on tech accessories
as well as 10-20 % off on consumer durables. Other than
that there are other offers on different products.
Zopper.com is India’s largest hyper local mobile
marketplace featuring over 10,000+ offline retailers. Users
can buy from the comfort of their homes/offices and get the
product instantly from their nearby trusted stores.

Helpchat – Helpchat is providing Personal
Assistant during all the crazy pre-occupations in this New
Year party. Helpchat is a chat based personal assistant app
that helps you get more things done. The tasks could be
anything – from travel booking, holiday guidance, providing
shopping assistance, helping you find the best deals and
coupons, web check-in and even laundry.
PayTM- Paytm is India’s largest mobile payment &
commerce platform is offering huge cashback on this New
Year. With current user base of more than 100 million,
Paytm is on mission to bring half a billion Indians to main
stream of economy using mobile payment, commerce and
soon to be launched payment banking services.
Oxigen Wallet- In this New Year Oxigen Wallet is offering
gift card. Oxigen Wallet is India’s first Non Bank Mobile
Wallet app, approved by RBI, giving a chance to gift the
power of purchases to your loved ones with Gift Cards. You
can create Gift Cards of select partners of Oxigen Wallet.
Food Panda – This is the season of celebration and good
food reaches many a hearts! FoodPanda comes to rescue
with great discounts when hanging out with friends and
family. You can now order food delivery using the
FoodPanda app and get from hungry to full in the fastest,
easiest, and most delicious way possible. With access to
hundreds of top local restaurants in your area one may
browse the wide range of carefully selected restaurants on
the tablet or phone and easily order great food, including:
pizza, burgers, sushi, Thai, Italian and more.
2015-12-29 10:37:54 Anuj Sharma

39
Microsoft launches new OneDrive for
Business sync client, developer kit (2)
OneDrive for Business entered the
next stage of its evolution on
Wednesday when Microsoft
launched a series of updates that
are aimed at improving its cloud
storage and productivity service for
businesses and other large organizations.
First and most importantly, the company launched its nextgeneration
OneDrive for Business sync client Wednesday,
which should bring increased speed and reliability to the
experience of using Microsoft's enterprise cloud storage on
a computer. It's also compatible with Windows 7, 8.1 and
10, along with Mac OS versions 10.9 and later. The latter is
a major shift for OneDrive for Business, which previously
only offered a sync client on Windows.
With the release of this sync client, OneDrive for Business
is now using the same syncing code that powers the
consumer version of OneDrive. It's supposed to be faster
and more reliable, in addition to including new features like
the ability to selectively sync only certain files and folders
from Microsoft's cloud onto a local device.
That's good news in terms of the product's present
capabilities along with its capacity for future updates, since
improvements to Microsoft's consumer storage product can

filter out to business users. Unfortunately, it also means
that some organizations will have to hold off on deploying it,
or use it alongside the existing old sync client -- both things
that Microsoft supports at the moment.
That's because the new client doesn't support some of the
features that are built into the old one, most notably syncing
with SharePoint and OneDrive for Business at the same
time.
In addition, people who want to use OneDrive for Business
to enable real-time collaboration on documents in the Word
2016 client app will have to open any document they
collaborate on in either the applications File > Open menu
or through the OneDrive for Business web interface.
Double-clicking on a file from OneDrive for Business inside
the Windows File Explorer won't allow users to work on it
with other people in real time.
People who use Microsoft's iOS apps also have some new
features to look forward to. OneDrive for iOS will support
offline storage by the end of this year for use with both
Microsoft's consumer and business storage services,
following the company's launch of that feature on Android
earlier in 2015.
Office Lens for iOS users will now be able to save scanned
files directly to OneDrive for Business from inside the app,
with that capability coming to Android and Windows 10
Mobile in the first quarter of 2016.
Finally, developers also got some love with the new

OneDrive for Business API. It allows third-party apps to
programmatically get access to OneDrive for Business files
and do things like import files into the service, or export
them out of it.
The product improvements are a spot of good news for
users, coming on the same day that Microsoft revealed that
it would only offer unlimited cloud file storage to
organizations with a premium Office 365 subscription --
reneging on a promise it made last year.
2015-12-16 00:00:00 Blair Hanley Frank
40
Microsoft reneges on unlimited cloud
storage for some business users (2)
Microsoft reneged on its promise of
unlimited OneDrive for Business
storage for all organizations,
announcing Wednesday that only
premium Office 365 subscribers will
get access to limitless cloud
storage.
It's a decision that's similar to one that Microsoft made
regarding its consumer Office 365 product. According to
Seth Patton, a senior director of product marketing for
Office 365, Microsoft decided to go that way in order to
focus OneDrive on helping users be productive -- and avoid
acting as an online backup service.

"But it's a take back for some customers who we promised
unlimited for, and we recognize, again, that's disappointing
some customers," Patton said in an interview. "And it's a
tough business decision and I just want to make sure that
my empathy is clear on that. "
Organizations using Microsoft's Office 365 and Office 365
Government E3, E4 and E5 plans, along with Office 365
Education, OneDrive for Business Plan 2 and SharePoint
Online Plan 2 will still get access to unlimited storage.
Microsoft will begin rolling that out by upgrading all users on
those plans from 1 TB of storage to 5 TB of storage
between now and March.
For those people with eligible plans who need more than 5
TB of storage, they can contact Microsoft support to get
their capacity expanded.
Offering unlimited storage only to premium customers isn't
an unprecedented move among the company's competitors
in the online storage and collaboration space. Google does
the same thing with its Google Drive for Work offering, and
Box does the same thing for its enterprise storage service.
Microsoft's storage plan changes also come alongside a
number of product updates, including the launch of a new
sync client for Windows and Mac, the announcement of
upcoming support for offline storage on OneDrive for iOS
and new developer tools.
2015-12-16 00:00:00 Blair Hanley Frank

41
Kaspersky Lab Adds New Layer to Enterprise
Protection with Private Security Cloud
(2)
Kaspersky Lab announces – Kaspersky Private
Security Network. Using the network, Kaspersky Lab’s
products can receive real-time data about program and
website reputations, and provide companies with the fastest
possible protection from new threats, without exchanging
data with outside servers.
Kaspersky Security Network (KSN), Kaspersky Lab’s
distributed cloud infrastructure, has long been an effective
tool with which to address the latest cyberthreats. The
servers, which are strategically located in different
countries, process on-the-fly requests arriving from
Kaspersky Lab solutions installed on corporate and home
user computers. KSN currently helps to protect over
80,000,000 users each year.
Before a security solution receives the confirmation that a
tested file or a website is dangerous or innocuous, it first
needs to send information into the cloud. However, this is
not a viable choice for some business areas or in certain
countries, even if cyberthreat statistics need to be
uploaded. To accommodate these clients, Kaspersky Lab
has developed Kaspersky Private Security Network, a
private cloud which contains an internal copy of KSN,
incorporating all of its advantages. Databases are installed
on servers located within the corporate information
infrastructure. Up-to-date information about threats arrives

to these databases from KSN thanks to regular one-way
synchronization, meaning that no data whatsoever is sent
from the corporate network to the cloud.
Kaspersky Private Security Network, alongside with
Kaspersky Endpoint Security for Business, Kaspersky
Security for Virtualization, Kaspersky DDoS Protection etc.,
is part of Kaspersky Lab’s package of solutions designed to
provide enterprises with information security. These
products enable the client to create a comprehensive,
multi-layered protection system even in an environment of
limited access to external resources.
2015-12-08 11:58:53 Ashok Pandey
42
Overland Storage Snap Server XSR 40 review
(2)
Specifications
(as reviewed)
Chassis: 1U rack
CPU: 1.8GHz Intel Atom D525
Memory: 4GB DDR3
Storage: 4 x hot-swap SATA drive bays
Hard disks: 4 x 1TB Toshiba Enterprise SATA
Array support: Single/Dual DynamicRAID, RAID0, 1, 10, 5,

6
Network: 2 x Gigabit Ethernet
Other ports: 2 x USB3, 2 x USB2
Expansion: 1 x PCI-Express slot
Power: Internal fixed PSU
Management: Web browser
Software: GuardianOS 7.6
Warranty: Three year Overland Care Bronze
Download the app on Android or iOS devices to keep up to
date with cloud news, reviews, analysis and insight ...
Want to find out how to unleash innovation in your
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hotdesking, laser printing, connectivity, mobility, security or
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but enterprises in particular stand to gain so much…
Download our special report to find out how to successfully
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market...
2015-12-04 00:00:00 Dave Mitchell

43
Smart Cities can be a boon for Indian SMEs
(2)
The infrastructure in existing Indian
cities is crumbling under the
pressure of growing population,
leading to a slew of different issues
that impact every single urban
citizen. Building smart cities seems
to be the answer to tackling these issues, and hopefully, the
Indian Govt. will succeed in their ambitious plan of building
100 smart cities.
Building smart cities isn’t just the responsibility of govt., nor
is it the domain of large enterprises alone. The local small
and medium companies will have to play a key role in the
process, for they are the ones who clearly understand the
local needs and best poised to mobilize the required
resources. Any smart city will have both a physical and a
digital infrastructure, so companies that are proactive in
taking up this opportunity will be able to draw immense
value from it.
Future smart cities will rely on a sound technology
backbone, and in order to strengthen this backbone, the
govt. will have to open up the data generated from this
backbone to the public so that they could create innovative
solutions for the city’s (and their) benefit.
This is already being done in smart cities around the world.
Transport for London (TfL) for instance, shares its transport

data with business partners who develop cloud based
applications to help daily commuters. A classic Indian
parallel example is Indian railway reservation system, which
opened up its APIs through IRCTC to private companies
many years ago, so that they could offer online railway
ticket booking on their own websites. This completely
changed the way rail tickets were booked.
A similar thing will have to be done for all aspects of a city’s
infrastructure, be it the local transport and traffic
management, safety and surveillance, healthcare, waste
management, buildings, energy, to name a few.
Indian SMEs must therefore leverage this opportunity and
work with their local industry associations to approach the
govt. and speed up this process.
SMEs can create lots of innovative solutions to manage a
city’s infrastructure. This would not only help the govt. save
cost, but it will actually help generate employment, increase
the GDP, and make the infrastructure self-sustaining. Plus
of course, it will mean more business for the SMEs and
help create more ‘live-able’ cities.
There are lot of good global examples that Indian SMEs
can follow around smart city innovations. Our cover story
this time talks about some of them.
If you’re an SME that has already started on this journey
and built innovative technology based solutions for smart
cities, then please write to us. We’ll amplify your voice multifold
so that it’s heard.

2015-11-23 11:45:00 Anil Chopra
44
Windows Server 2016's latest beta brings first
look at Microsoft's new containers (2)
Microsoft launched the fourth
technical preview for the next
version of Windows Server on
Thursday, giving the public access
to its new Hyper-V Container
feature.
It's a powerful tool that gives developers access to the
flexibility and utility that comes with containerization while
also providing isolation that is typically found in traditional
virtual machines. One of the key tenets of that isolation is
that the Hyper-V Container has its own Windows Server
kernel that isn't shared with the host machine, unlike the
Windows Server containers that Microsoft also made
available in the beta versions of its upcoming server
software release.
Isolation like that is similar to what was already available
with traditional virtual machines, but Hyper-V containers
can also be set up using Docker tools and can use the
same packages that run inside Windows Server Containers.
The operating system running inside the container is also
optimized for use inside a container rather than a physical
machine, which affords some performance improvements
over a virtual machine.

It's the same technology that Microsoft uses to ensure that
applications running on its Azure cloud platform are isolated
from one another. Hyper-V Containers allow Microsoft to
run services like Azure Machine Learning without worrying
that workloads running on one Hyper-V container don't
reach outside their bounds and mess with either the host
machine or other applications running on it.
That isolation comes at a cost, though: Microsoft Azure
CTO Mark Russinovich said in a recent blog post that
Hyper-V Containers will be slower to start up than Windows
Server Containers and won't be as small as their lessisolating
counterpart.
Thursday's beta release also comes with a number of
improvements, like updates to the networking stack that
better support containers, and changes to Hyper-V that
provide an early beta of nested virtualization.
Microsoft plans to officially launch Windows Server 2016 in
the second half of next year. Its continued development of
the on-premises server product shows an interesting
component of its strategy. While Microsoft has been
pushing its Azure public cloud platform, company CEO
Satya Nadella has said that he sees on-premises Windows
servers as the edge of the company's cloud.
2015-11-19 00:00:00 Blair Hanley Frank
45
India gets its first premium cross-over, S-
CROSS (2)

Maruti Suzuki India Limited
presented India its first premium
cross-over, S-CROSS. The bold
cross-over looks, premium interiors
and rich features enable the S-
CROSS to stand out. It is offered in
two diesel engine options: DDiS 200 and DDiS 320. The
combination of massive torque, powerand superior ride and
handling is bound to delight customers. By offering power
and performance, and the comfort and refinement of a
sedan, S-CROSS creates the new category of “premium
cross-over” in India.
S-CROSS will be the first model to be retailed exclusively
through NEXA, the new automotive experience launched
recently.
S-CROSS comes with unique cross-over poise and design.
The S-CROSS design embodies the three key themes of
emotion, quality and aerodynamics. A characteristic and
bold crossover shape, dynamic and strong character lines,
emotionally appealing styling and several sophisticated
touches, all combine to create a highly distinctive look for
the S-CROSS. The characteristic Suzuki grille with the “S”
emblem, with HID (High Intensity Discharge) Projector
Headlamps lends a distinctive crossover flavour to the
design. The side body side cladding and skid plate
garnishes at the frontside and the rear, raised bonnet,
premium integrated roof rails accentuate the cross-over
looks of the S-Cross. The rear is as impressive as the front
with split type tail-lamps and the upright stance.

The rich, premium and spacious cabin makes the S-
CROSS distinctive. The plush dark interior colour scheme,
design language expressed through flowing surfaces and
liberal use of high quality surface finishes like silver
ornamentation add to the overall classy fit and finish of the
cabin. The equipment list in the interiors comprising multi
information display, t win dial instrument cluster features
blue lighting, while the rest of the controls sport a soothing
amber back-lighting. The navigation system, smart play
infotainment system, steering mounted controls and
abundant space for all passengers make travelling in the S-
CROSS a delight. Above all, several acoustic insulations
and absorption materials are effectively positioned around
the cabin and engine room to keep it quiet.
Under the hood are two engine options: DDiS 200 and
DDiS 320. Powered with Variable Geometry Turbocharger
(VGT) DDiS 200 & DDiS 320 ensures high performance.
Besides, VGT gives optimal forced induction by controlling
the flow of exhaust gases in accordance with the engine
speed, thereby helping to release high torque, low fuel
consumption and low emissions. The DDiS 200 generates
optimum power of 66 kW@4000rpm and delivers maximum
torque of 200 Nm @ 1750 rpm.
S-CROSS is built to be zippy on city roads and comfortable
on varied terrains. The high performance suspension,
enhanced handling cornering performance and stability,
together make S-CROSS a sheer thrill to drive.
Safety is first at S-CROSS with its Hi-Tensile Steel Body, all
wheel disc brakes with ABS, Front seat pre-tensioner and

force limiter. Dual air bags are standard across all variants.
From accident avoidance to occupant protection, the S-
CROSS leads the way.
2015-08-05 11:27:56 Ashok Pandey
46 OF BUGS AND VIRUSES
Vulnerability in IE 5.01 and IE 5.5
A vulnerability in IE 5.01 and IE 5.5
that arises from the way it handles
MIME (Multipurpose Internet Mail
Extensions) types could lead to a
malicious user running whatever
code he wants on your machine.
When you receive HTML e-mail, IE
opens it and any attachments with it using information
about MIME types carried in the MIME header (A MIME
type specifies what kind of attachment is coming with the e-
mail–an image or text). If it’s a video file, IE lets you view it
using the appropriate application. The threat arises from
attachments like EXEs, in which case it prompts you to
specify whether you want to open and execute the
attachment. The problem is that there are certain unusual
MIME types that IE handles incorrectly. So, if the malicious
user modifies the MIME header to one of these types and
sends you an executable attachment with the e-mail, IE will
open and execute it without prompting you. The same
scenario can arise if you visit a website on which such an e-
mail is posted and you’re prompted to open it. In both

cases, the malicious user will be able to run any code on
your machine and do whatever actions you have
permission to do on it.
Fixing it: A patch is available at
www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/download/critical/Q290108/defaul
The patch will work with IE 5.01 SP 1 and IE 5.5 SP 1.
There is already a fix for this problem in IE 5.01 SP 2. If
you’re using an older version of IE, upgrade to one of these
and then apply the patch.
VBS. VBSWG2. X@mm or VBS. Homepage
This worm spreads via e-mail, e-mailing itself to all the
recipients in your Outlook address book. The e-mail
message comes to you with the subject of ‘Homepage’, and
the message says, ‘Hi! You’ve got to see this page! It’s
really cool ;0)’, and the attachment is called ‘Homepage.
HTML.vbs’. The worm executes in the background when
you open the attachment. Before mass mailing itself, the
worm searches your e-mail for messages with the subject
Homepage and deletes all such messages if found. It mass
mails itself only once. It then randomly selects one of four
pornographic sites and opens it.
Removal: Update your anti-virus software and do a
complete scan of your system. Also, don’t open any e-mail
with the subject ‘Homepage’.
W32. Badtrans.13312@mm
This is a MAPI worm that comes via e-mail. The attachment
of this e-mail could have one of the following names: Pics.

ZIP.scr, images.pif, README. TXT.pif, New_ Napster_ Site.
DOC.scr, news_ doc.scr, hamster. ZIP.scr, YOU_
are_FAT!. TXT.pif, searchURL.scr, SETUP.pif, Card.pif,
Me_nude. AVI.pif, Sorry_about_ yesterday. DOC.pif,
s3msong. MP3. pif, docs.scr, Humor. TXT.pif, fun.pif. The
worm executes when you open the attachment. It drops a
Trojan Hkk32.exe in the \Windows folder and executes it.
This trojan send the IP address of your machine across the
Internet to the author and is also capable of capturing
information like credit card numbers and bank account
numbers. The author can also use the IP address of your
machine to capture information like usernames and
passwords. It then copies itself to the Windows folder as
inetd.exe, adds a run= line to win.ini, and displays a
message box that states, ‘File data corrupt: probably due to
bad data transmission or bad disk access’. The next time
you start or reboot your PC, the worm waits for five
minutes, and then finds all unread e-mail messages and
replies to them, mailing a copy of itself as an attachment.
Removal: Update your anti-virus software and run a scan of
all files. Delete any files that have the name of the worm.
Also, some of the removal instructions for this worm are
OS-specific. So visit the website of your anti-virus
software’s vendor for more details.
Compiled by Pragya Madan
2001-06-17 01:47:00 PCQ Bureau

47
AcerScan 620U
AcerScan has an optical
resolution of 600×1,200 dpi. The
quality of scanned output is pretty
good.
It has options for high quality or
high-speed scanning. It takes about
9-10
seconds to do a preview scan of an image. We scanned
from various media
using the default settings of the scanner300 dpi for color
photographs,
150/300dpi for grayscale images, and 300 dpi (minimum)
for line art
images.
The time taken depends on
whether youre scanning in high-quality or high-speed
modes. The final
scan for a postcard-size color image takes about 23
seconds in high quality.
For a full-page image, it takes more than a minute. In highspeed
mode

though, the time taken came down to just 48 seconds. We
printed the output
on a HP Deskjet 890C color inkjet printer. Interestingly,
there wasn​t too
much of a difference in the images that were scanned in
high speed and high
quality.
Grayscale mode scanning works
much fastertaking only about 20 seconds for a full size
image at 600 dpi.
The scanner comes with a good
software bundle. This includes Ulead Photo Express, which
makes it fast and
easy to modify images and create calendars, screensavers,
and greeting
cards. It also has TextBridge Classic OCR software from
Xerox that converts
text images into ASCII text files. A copier software is also
included.
Overall, the scanner gives
good quality output, and given the price and the software
bundle, it makes a

good choice for home or office. It comes with a one-year
warranty.
2000-04-01 01:08:00 PCQ Bureau
48 HomeLink Phoneline Network Card
As mobile devices become more deeply woven
into the fabric... Read more →
MP3 players are a thing of past, thanks to the... Read more
→
Smartphone industry has witnessed some of the biggest
changes in... Read more →
Yahoo Aviate Launcher Google Play store has countless
home replacement... Read more →
The last year ended on a controversial note with
Facebook... Read more →
Private vehicles will be allowed to run on the streets... Read
more →
The world of smartphones has several powerful apps to
be... Read more →
WhatsApp automatically backs up data on your phone or
SD... Read more →
The infrastructure in existing Indian cities is crumbling
under the... Read more →

2000-04-01 00:59:00 PCQ Bureau
49 Technology Tomorrow
Net-savvy Mars
In an amazing development, NASA has announced that it
would be deploying a
fleet of satellites around Mars, giving the planet its own
Internet. The
Martian “Local Area Network” would be extensively used in
research
projects on the red planet.
Mind-boggling Millipede
“We’re at the stage where if everything works out, the
potential is
huge, but we don’t know if it’ll work out”, was all that Mark
Lutwyche, an enthusiastic IBM researcher had to say about
a technology that,
in a few years, may lead to minute devices with 100 times
the density of
today’s hard drives. The Millipede system uses an array of
minute sensor

arms to read the pattern of indentations in a tiny square of
plastic, which
resembles one of the earliest storage media in computing–
punch cards.
Millipede technology could increase the density of data
storage by
unthinkable dimensions. The system can store 400 GB per
square inch. A
prototype, measuring 3 square mm, stores just under 1 GB
of data.
Intelligent mobile-phone
keypad
The increasing popularity of wireless application protocol
(WAP) services,
mobile e-mail, mobile micro-browsers, and short messaging
service (SMS) has
left mobile phone manufacturers craving for technological
developments which
could make cellphones more useful for these applications.
Now, they have
something to look forward to. Motorola’s Lexicus Division
recently
announced the general availability of its ITAP Intelligent

Keypad Entry
System. ITAP is an application that manufacturers can
install on mobile
phones and wireless devices to let end-users key in words
with the telephone’s
keypad, without needing the cumbersome multiple-key
pressing system that’s
currently used. On a typical mobile phone, to type in a
word, say
“GURU”, the user presses the “4” button once,
“8” twice, “7” twice and “8” twice again. ITAP
enables the user to type in “GURU” simply by pressing
“4878”. If the word appearing on the screen is not the
required
word, you can select some other combination out of a
customizable loaded
diction ary of over 40,000 words. ITAP has enough
potential to take
the field of mobile networking by storm. More information is
available at:
www.mot.com/MIMS/lexicus.
After Myst and Riven

It’s a well-known fact that Cyan Technologies’ Myst is the
best-selling
game ever. They followed it up with another mega-selling
game–Riven.
However, it’s now been nearly two years since Cyan has
come up with
anything. Ever wondered what they were up to? Well,
people at Cyan have been
busy writing novels–about the fantasy land D’ni which was
the focal
point in both Myst and Riven. If you remember, D’Ni was
referred to as
Dunny in Myst. These novels–three in number–tell the
stories preceding
Myst. The novels are so well researched that Cyan has
created a completely
new D’Ni script to make it appear original. Cyan is still
tightlipped
about a sequel to Riven, which was promised in the last
scenes of the game.
They are meanwhile, releasing Myst Millennium Edition,
which is essentially
Myst with enhanced graphics and sound and more

animation sequences. Watch
this space for further developments. Broadband through
satellite
Ever got irritated with the excruciatingly long delay between
action and
reaction when playing online? There’s a solution for it round
the corner–satellites
that would have two-way broadband services. Two-way
broadband Web-access isn’t
new. Both cable and DSL support this feature, but this is
the first time
that Web-access through satellites would support it.
MSN and Gilat Satellite are
among the companies who plan to go live by the year-end.
Whereas the
downstream access will reach speeds of 400 kbps,
upstream (information you
send to the Internet) speeds would be limited to 56 kbps.
The first truly
two-way broadband satellite Internet service won’t be
available until the
end of 2001. The service, produced by iSky, would offer 1.5

Mbps downstream
and 0.5-1.0 Mbps upstream access speeds. Other
companies in the fray include
Hughes, Astrolink and Teledesic. Hughes Electronics,
working in conjunction
with AOL, plans to introduce an interactive DirecTV/AOL TV
set-top box with
AOL Internet service. Speeds would be similar to the
MSN/Gilat service.
Hughes is also developing a two-way broadband satellite
service called
Spaceway, to be launched in 2003.
Astrolink’s two-way
broadband satellite service is scheduled to go live in 2003.
Service speeds
will vary but are expected to go as high as 226 Mbps
downstream and 20 Mbps
upstream. However, it’ll be far more expensive than the
other services,
with installation prices ranging from around $1,000 to
$8,000, plus monthly
fees.

Teledesic, in the meantime,
is targeting its two-way broadband satellite Internet service
for 2004. The
speeds could range from 64 Mbps downstream and 2 Mbps
upstream.
Convergence all the way…
Convergence is a hot
word today. Integration of the Internet and mobile
computing, and of various
services related to voice, data, and visual communications,
is assuming
realistic proportions. Carrying forward the trend of forming
companies which
provide seamless integration of such services to customers,
two of the
largest players in the US market recently unveiled plans to
merge into a
single company, which provides what they call an “All-
Distance
Carrier”.
The idea is quite simple. If
you have a number of independent players providing

services that can finally
be converged, you’ll have to deal with issues like
compatibility in
protocols, problems in switching, and above all–market
competition, when
you try to converge them. The solution is to form a single
service provider,
which combines together all these under a common
umbrella, and caters to the
needs of customers on the move. This means integrating
local, long distance,
and international calls, data, Internet, wireline and wireless
services.
MCI and Sprint, the number
two and the number three long-distance service providers
in the United
States, are carrying this idea forward through a possible
merger. Steps
taken under such a plan would include providing broadband
services to rural
areas, convenient service packages to infrequent callers,
etc. This scheme
of things could be of importance to Indian customers, since

it’s likely to
encourage mergers between players in the Indian market
as well, more so
after the handshake between AT&T and Time-Warner.
Network your home
You get to hear about it in science fiction, but the promise
of a home
strewn with intelligent appliancesall networked together
seamlessly
through a central home PC, has come a step closer to
reality with the
release of MediaWire. MediaWire is designed to solve the
problems of
distributing broadband multimedia content throughout the
home, while also
meeting the needs of the more casual user seeking to
network PCs and
peripherals. The technology uses the familiar RJ-45 (the
type that your
modem uses) connectors and is fully self-configuring.
Examples of products
that will be a part of this system are mid- to high-end
consumer electronics

devices, including DVD video and audio players, televisions,
and stereo
systems.
Developed by Avio Digital,
MediaWire is essentially a phone-line home network, which
would support both
high-quality categorized UTP wire (category 3 and category
5 phone wire) as
well as many types of existing in-wall phone wiring. When
used with
categorized wiring, the first-generation MediaWire chipset
delivers 100 Mbps
full duplex throughputmore bandwidth than 100BaseT
corporate networks and
up to 100 times faster than alternative home networking
solutions. The
bandwidth of this scheme enables a single telephone line to
simultaneously
multiplex 32 24-bit audio channels, eight MPEG-2 video
channels (6 Mbps
each), 16 digital phone or ISDN lines, and over 12 Mbps of
serial control or
TCP/IP data. MediaWire is designed to network devices

anywhere in the home
up to 33 meters apart, and is based on a logical ring
topology, which is
both synchronous and stream-based.
2000-04-01 00:55:00 PCQ Bureau
50
Das Keyboard launches Division Zero
gaming range
Das Keyboard has ditched its
traditional, understated designs in
favour of eye-catching camouflage
as it launches a new gaming line
dubbed Division Zero. Das
Keyboard, the company which
started with the creation of its
eponymous plain-black mechanical keyboard, is branching
out into more garish realms with the launch of the new
Division Zero Pro Gaming range.
The Das Keyboard family, which began with a completely
black model featuring no markings on its keycaps and
which gained an MX Red switch option back in 2013 , has
always been eye-catching yet relatively understated. At
least, until now: the Das Keyboard Division Zero range
does away with understatement in favour of pseudocamouflage
finishes with exposed screw heads and bright
red LEDs.

Interestingly, it also brings with it a switch away from
Cherry-brand switches. Instead, the Division Zero X40
Gaming Keyboard will feature Alpha-Zulu switches,
developed in-house by Das Keyboard, in either yellow or
olive variants - equivalent, roughly, to Cherry MX Browns
and Cherry MX Reds respectively but with an even 45g
actuation force and 4mm travel length. The keyboard
includes full N-key rollover, a swappable aluminium top
plate finished in 'space camo,' a two metre sleeved USB
cable, USB 2.0 pass-through, audio in and out ports, and
adjustable red backlighting.
The X40 is joined by the Division Zero M50 Gaming Mouse,
finished in black and red but lacking the 'space camo' of the
keyboard. Anyone who has shopped for a gaming mouse in
the last few years will find the specification list familiar:
128KB of on-board memory for storage of six profiles for
the nine macro buttons, a 6,400dpi laser-based fourthgeneration
sensor with adjustable resolution, and a 2.1
metre sleeved USB cable feature, along with a diecast
aluminium 'shoe' to the base and Teflon-coated glide pads.
For the mouse, Das Keyboard has opted not to develop inhouse
switches but has instead gone for off-the-shelf
Omron parts.
UK pricing and availability for the Division Zero family have
yet to be confirmed.
2 hours ago Published on 27th January 2016 by Gareth Halfacree

51
Malwarebytes launches Anti-Ransomware
beta
Malwarebytes has released the first
public beta build of its new Anti-
Ransomware software, for which it
makes bold claims of complete
efficacy. Security specialist
Malwarebytes has announce the
launch of a new software package
designed to stem the rising tide of ransomware,
unsurprisingly dubbed Malwarebytes Anti-Ransomware.
Ransomware attacks, where malware infests a system and
encrypts the files contained therein before demanding
payment in exchange for the decryption key, are not new ,
but they are becoming increasingly prevalent. Recently
we've also seen more targeted ransomware attacks, such
as the Synology-specific SynoLocker and the gamer-centric
TeslaCrypt. Malwarebytes, though, has had enough - and
its latest release is designed to stem the tide.
' Malwarebytes Anti-Ransomware monitors all activity in the
computer and identifies actions which are typical of
ransomware activity. It keeps track of all activity and, once it
has enough evidence to determine a certain process or
thread to be ransomware, blocks the infection and
quarantines the ransomware before it has a chance to
encrypt users' files, ' explained the company's vice
president of technology Pedro Bustamante of the
company's new software. ' During development

Malwarebytes Anti-Ransomware has blocked every single
ransomware variant we have thrown at it. We are extremely
satisfied with its results and are excited to bring this
technology to our user community for further testing. '
The company first announced the project in March last
year, but has only now released a public beta build for free
download. Naturally, given it's a beta, there are some bugs
- but the company is confident it protects against all known
Windows ransomware, and that it won't conflict with any
existing anti-virus or anti-malware packages.
2 hours ago Published on 27th January 2016 by Gareth Halfacree
52 Lenovo ShareIT proves a security nightmare
Lenovo's ShareIT file-sharing
software has been found to have
some seriously wrong-headed
ideas about security, such as a
hard-coded password of
'12345678'. Lenovo has been raked
over the coals by security
researchers once again, this time for a string of blunders in
its ShareIT software package.
Lenovo was rightly castigated in February last year for
installing man-in-the-middle software on its devices,
decrypting TSL-protected communications in order to insert
advertising - and, even worse, leaving the entire system
open to attack by installing a self-signed root certificate

whose private key was readily available. The company
promised to change its ways in March, but was back to its
old tricks in August as it saw its PC profits plunge.
This time around, at least the security issue is relatively
accidentally - albeit boneheaded. In an advisory posted by
Core Security , researchers have detailed how Lenovo's
software team made a string of schoolboy errors when
developing the bundled ShareIT file-sharing software for
the company's Windows and Android machines. Perhaps
the biggest of these gaffes relates to password usage: the
Wi-Fi network created by the software for sharing files from
a Windows machine is 'protected' by the hard-coded and
non-configurable shared key '12345678,' while the Android
version uses no password at all - leaving the network
entirely open for anyone within radio range to connect.
Once connected, interested parties don't have to put too
much effort into sniffing out the files on offer either.
Connecting to any ShareIT system with a simple web
browser will reveal a list of shared files, and while they're
not directly downloadable the files are transferred between
machines using no encryption - meaning anyone on the
network can simply passively sniff the traffic and capture
perfect copies of any transferred file.
Since the issues were reported to Lenovo in October of last
year, the company has worked to bring the software up to
snuff resulting in the release of an updated version this
week, claimed to resolve the flaws uncovered by Core
Security researchers. Anyone who makes use of ShareIT
on any Windows or Android system is recommended to

upgrade as soon as possible.
2 hours ago Published on 27th January 2016 by Gareth Halfacree
53
Intel and Tsinghua University to Co-Develop
Semi-Custom Solutions for Servers
At present, investors state that Intel
controls 98% of the server
processor market with its Xeon
CPUs , but the server market is
changing. Intel's acquisition of
Altera is telling - many companies
these days require chips with specific features and
functionality, and as a result Intel has been making strides
to add custom features to its processors. In an extension of
this, this month Intel agreed to jointly work with Tsinghua
University and Montage Technology to develop custom
server platforms for servers used in China.
Under the terms of the agreement, Tsinghua University will
develop a reconfigurable computing processor (RCP)
module, as well as system software, that will work with a
standard Intel Xeon CPU to add features that address
requirements for specific applications in various market
segments in Asia. The RCP will be made by outsourcing to
a maker of semiconductors and it is likely that the
government-controlled university may prefer to make the
chip in the country or through a subsidiary.
The computing solution proposed consists of an Intel Xeon

and a custom RCP, but will not be a multi-chipmodule
package designs like Intel’s Xeon processors with
integrated Altera FPGAs. Instead we are told it will involve a
different kind of packaging. Unfortunately, at present it is
unclear whether Intel’s Xeon and Tsinghua’s RCP will
communicate using known standards (such as the PCI
Express interface, QPI, or other), or a custom protocol.
Intel, TU and Montage did not disclose a lot of technical
details about their joint semi-custom solution for Chinese
datacenters, but re-configurability of processors implies that
the final product could address a broad range of market
segments. We postulated that the RCP is just another
name for an FPGA, although our sources were unable to
confirm this.
Intel will ensure that its chips work with RCPs, and will
supply CPU dies to Montage Technology which will market
the whole solution to interested parties. Montage plans to
sell the final product, which will consist of a standard Intel
Xeon CPU, a reconfigurable computing processor
developed by Tsinghua, as well as software, in 2017. There
is no information about specifications of the Xeon processor
lines that will be used, nor the capabilities of the RCP,
which still leaves the question of what range of CPUs are
being discussed, if it is sub-25W or 90W+.
The collaboration between Intel, Tsinghua University and
Montage is aimed to better address demands of Chinese
state-owned and other datacenters. Since China is one of
the world’s largest markets for servers, the importance of
jointly working with local companies is something that is

ecoming very important not only for Intel, but for all
developers of server CPUs, especially as news emerged
last year about how Intel and others can or cannot sell to
various entities. Intel has arrangements similar to this
already in place, such as the Rockchip engagement for
some smartphone-based SoCs to be made and sold by
Rockchip in Asia, as well as arrangements with Spreadtrum
(which is owned by Tsinghua Unigroup, to which Tsinghua
University has sole investment).
2016-01-27 21:39:03 Anton Shilov
54
CES 2016: MSI Gaming Notebooks and
Mobile Workstations
MSI has branched out into primarily
gaming focused systems, but they
also use the same gaming chassis
as workstation devices too. This
year at CES, MSI also launched a
very nice looking gaming tower,
which is very small but incredibly powerful.
First, MSI showed me their workstations. I have to admit;
I’ve often wondered why companies don’t leverage existing
gaming systems as the basis for workstations. A bit of extra
validation, and some different components, and the system
should be a pretty capable workstation. That’s exactly what
MSI has done. The have taken their GS60, GS72, and
GT72 gaming systems, and converted them to workstations
with optional Xeon processors and Quadro graphics.

The WS series is the slimmer models, and the WT model
has the most cooling capability, and carries the most
powerful graphics card of the trio, with the Quadro
M5000M, which is a 1536 CUDA Core, 8 GB, 100-Watt
card. The smaller WS series have the M2000M model,
which is a 640 CUDA core, 4 GB, 55-Watt professional
GPU. MSI has kept a lot of the same styling, including the
colored backlit keyboard, and other gaming touches. I
pointed out that they can’t compromise the keyboard like
they have on a workstation class device, because even on
the largest model the number pad and arrow keys overlap.
The rest of the gaming laptops were on display, but they
remain basically untouched at this point, other than the
refresh to Skylake. The GT80 Titan was being shown off
with the dual-GTX 980 desktop class cards on MXM
modules, which is a step up on the SLI GTX 980M cards
which were installed in our review unit. This is still a beast
of a notebook, and no other vendors have really stepped
up to compete against it quite yet, although there are a
couple of other 18.4-inch devices now.
Gallery: MSI Gaming Laptops
The one new gaming model was the GT72S Tobii, which
takes the basic GT72S and adds Tobii eye tracking to the
bottom of the panel. MSI was demoing the capabilities, but
their focus is gaming, which means the eye tracking could
be used to help navigate in a FPS. The demos looked
interesting, and if nothing else, the Tobii system is being
certified for use with Windows Hello to offer biometric login.

MSI also had an interesting AIO called the PRO 16 Flex,
which has a Braswell N3150 CPU behind a 15.6-inch
display. The interesting bit is that the AIO also features a
small battery, so it can be used unplugged for short periods
of time. This is an upgraded version of a previous model
which had a J1900 Celeron.
Gallery: MSI Pro 16 Flex
2016-01-27 21:39:04 Brett Howse
55
New GIGABYTE Server Motherboards Show
Xeon D Round 2
The Xeon D platform, as reviewed
by Johan back in June , put
together eight Broadwell cores, 24
PCIe 3.0 lanes, dual 10 Gbit
Ethernet and USB/SATA control all
into one SoC within a 45W TDP
design. It almost sounded too good
to be true (I’ve run some
benchmarks my side, to be in a
review later), as this is the only real way to get eight 14nm
cores into a single die. Even at 2 GHz, Johan’s piece
showed that the Xeon D based on Broadwell aims to fit
between the Xeon E3 and Xeon E5 in terms of performance
and power efficiency, and to quote Johan ‘Xeon D is
probably the most awesome product Intel has delivered in
years, even if it is slightly hidden away from the
mainstream’. There is interest both server side and NAS

side for this, and with the next wave of Xeon D parts being
introduced GIGABYTE Server is one of the first to
announce some new models.
Technically, the four motherboards being launched are a
single base design, but with either a different SoC or
different networking:
The image above is the top end MB10-DS3 model,
featuring the Xeon D-1541 processor with 8 cores, 16
threads, running at 2.1/2.7 GHz for base and turbo
frequencies. This is a mini-ITX board aimed at the typical
1U chassis, with four RDIMM/UDIMM DDR4 slots for up to
128 GB RDIMM support in ECC or non-ECC fashion. As
mentioned before, the differentiator on this model aside
from the SoC is the networking, and here we get dual Intel
I210-V gigabit Ethernet paired with dual Cortina CS4227
10GbE SFP+ LAN ports to either route teamed to an SFP+
switch or to different switches althogther.
The motherboard uses a single PCIe 3.0 x16 slot which can
be used for compute, and storage comes via five SATA 6
Gbps ports and another similar port that also supports
SATA DOM. With it being a server motherboard, the
onboard Aspeed AST2400 provides an IPMI interface for
management as well as a 2D acceleration video chip.
There are two extra fan headers on board, as well as a
USB 3.0 header and a TPM header.
The SoC here has a list price of $581 on its own, and given
that this is a server part I’m not too sure we will see these
set of boards actually up at retail, although I do know that

GIGABYTE Server is trying to push more product through
that distribution channel. Businesses interested in the
platform will have to enquire to their local GIGABYTE office
to find out more information on pricing and availability.
As part of the second wave of Xeon D processors, Intel
seems to be releasing a number of 35W and 45W models,
from four cores to eight cores (with Hyperthreading),
varying otherwise by speed and last level cache in-line with
core count. I imagine that as more of these trickle through
into the hands of OEMs, we will see more products through
2016.
Table of Xeon-D processors from ServeTheHome
2016-01-27 21:39:08 Ian Cutress
56
Supermicro Quietly Launches the C7Z170-
OCE: Multi-GPU focused with PLX8747 for
$300
One of the biggest changes to the
motherboard scene since the
release of Skylake is the distinct
lack of motherboards designed to
cater for more than two PCIe cards
using CPU-based lanes. Back in the era of the Z77 chipset,
I gathered four motherboards that had the PLX8747 PCIe
switch installed, allowing for >2 GPUs, and we really went to
town on the detail and benchmarking. But with Z170, the
use of the this chip has severely diminished for two

easons. Firstly, GPUs are getting powerful enough to drive
1440p gaming by themselves fairly easily, and secondly,
Avago bought PEX, the company that makes these
switches, and the price for them essentially doubled
overnight. As a result, only a few motherboards for Z170
will have them, such as the Z170-Gaming G1 we reviewed
at the end of last year, because of the consumer price
concerns and the market to which they are aimed. The
GIGABYTE model we reviewed was $500, and featured all
the bells and whistles such as Thunderbolt 3 – the
Supermicro motherboard announced last week with this
PLX chip is the C7Z170-OCE but slides in at $300.
This motherboard aims to be ‘green’ in more than just the
aesthetics. Supermicro’s value add to the community, and
the part that they aim to be the differentiating factor, is their
long standing role in the server space. They want to use
this reputation to promote their use of server grade
components on consumer platforms. This will come through
in their regular consumer motherboard segments (such as
the C7H170-M which we’ve nearly finished testing) and
their gaming motherboard line, which now has a name:
SuperO.
The C7Z170-OCE is aimed squarely at the three-GPU user
on Skylake. The PLX8747 chip splits the PCIe lanes into
x16/0/x16 or x16/x8/x8, leaving the chipset enough space
to add in an M.2 slot for up to PCIe 3.0 x4 bandwidth and
plenty of space on the bottom to make sure all the headers
can still be used when dual slot cards are in play. We have
tested the PLX8747 before, and found that the chip does

noticeably (sub-1%) reduce performance when in use. As
SuperMicro is still feeling its way around the consumer
motherboard space, we are seeing features that
enthusiasts are used to being promoted as positive points.
So for example this board also gets some buttons for preoverclock
modes in the top right, and promotes features
such as ‘SuperFlash’ which other motherboards have had
for almost half a decade. Nonetheless, the fact that these
exist now is still a plus.
Audio is provided by a Realtek ALC1150, and networking
via Intel I219-V and Intel I210-AT controllers. Due to the
use of dual Intel controllers, Supermicro lists teaming, fail
over and load balancing as features of this combination.
USB 3.1 is given on the rear in a Type-C configuration
through the ASMedia ASM1142 controller, although it
seems a little odd that only one port of this controller is
being used. There is another ASM1142 onboard near the
bottom, which is connected to a USB 3.0 header – the
motherboard is advertised as having a USB 3.1 (10 Gbps)
header, but this standard isn’t finalized so we are looking
into whether Supermicro is actually validating this header at
double the data rate than normal. (It turns out this header
will support two USB 3.0 or one USB 3.1, but it requires the
right connectors/ports which will not be included in the
bundle.)
On the software side, our upcoming C7H170-M review will
go into an interesting feature called SuperDoctor 5, which is
a pseudo server-like web interface for motherboard
features and monitoring.

At this point, the C7Z170-OCE will be the cheapest tri-PCIe
focused (both SLI and CrossFire) on the market for Skylake
at $300. Also anyone wanting to build a green machine will
love the aesthetic. I am told it should hit the shelves by the
end of January.
Source: Supermicro
2016-01-27 21:39:07 Ian Cutress
57 Logitech Formally Exits OEM Mouse Market
In a bit of news that is a sign of the
times, this week Logitech
announced that it had completed its
exit from the OEM mouse business.
The company no longer sells OEM
mice, which for a long time
accounted for a large portion of Logitech’s revenue. Instead
the company will continue to focus on new categories of
premium products for retail markets.
Logitech was among the first companies to mass-produce
computer mice back in the eighties. For decades, its mice
were supplied with PCs made by various manufacturers
and for a long time Logitech’s brand was synonymous to
pointing devices. In fact, Logitech’s U96 is among the
world’s most famous optical mice since it was bundled with
millions of PCs. However, a lot has changed for Logitech in
recent years. As sales of desktop PCs began to stagnate in
the mid-2000s and the competition intensified, OEM

margins dropped sharply. At some point, OEM business
ceased to make sense for Logitech: there was no growth
and profitability was minimal.
Last March the company announced plans to stop selling
OEM devices, and in December Logitech made its last-time
shipments, entirely depleting its inventory. Sales of OEM
hardware accounted for about 4.45% of the company’s
revenue in Q3 FY2016, which ended on December 31,
2015. Due to razor-thin margins, Logitech’s OEM business
was not exactly something that could be sold for a lot,
according to the company. Moreover, it did not make a lot
of sense for Logitech to sell it and license the brand to a
third party.
Logitech has been expanding its product portfolio for many
years now and while mice, trackballs and keyboards remain
three key types of products for the company, they no longer
account for the lion’s share of Logitech’s revenue. The
manufacturer recognizes gaming gear (which includes
mice, keyboards, speakers, headsets, controllers and other
devices), mobile speakers, video collaboration as well as
tablet and other accessories as its key growth categories of
products. Net sales of Logitech's growth category products
totaled $224.87 million in Q3 FY2016, net sales of
traditional devices totaled $368.87 million, whereas OEM
business brought only $26.512 million in revenue. The lack
of OEM mice in Logitech's portfolio will be offset by growing
sales of other products.
Ultimately even though Logitech stopped to sell cheap mice
to producers of PCs, Logitech remains one of the world’s

largest suppliers of pointing devices and keyboards, and
many premium personal computers still come equipped
with the company’s advanced keyboards and mice
designed for gamers. These days the company has also
taken on a more well-rounded portfolio, with significant
presences in speakers, PC headsets, webcams, remotes
and other devices.
2016-01-27 21:39:09 Anton Shilov
58
G-Technology Demonstrates G-SPEED
Shuttle XL Thunderbolt 2 DAS at CES
As part of every CES trip, I make it
a point to visit G-Technology and
see what they are introducing into
the DAS (direct attached storage)
market. This year, there were no
major announcements except for
the introduction of a Type-C interface for some of their
external hard drives. These are still USB 3.0 drives, as
there is not much to gain by moving to a USB 3.1 interface
for hard drives. However, it must be noted that these 2.5"
drives are 7200 RPM ones providing that extra bit of
performance compared to the 5400 RPM drives used by
most vendors. G-Technology expects the 1TB version to
have a MSRP of $130 when it launches in February.
Coming back to the more impressive part of my visit to the
suite, G-Technology showed the various features of the G-
SPEED Shuttle XL. This 8-bay hardware RAID solution

comes with two Thunderbolt 2 ports. The platform itself is
very similar to the G-SPEED Studio XL introduced by G-
Technology at IBC 2015 in September. This product also
has two ev Series Bay Adapters which enable support for
the G-DRIVE ev modules. These modules can easily be
swapped across different interface modules for use in
rugged environments, or just for portability, or even with
high-capacity arrays like the G-SPEED Studio / Shuttle XL.
The Shuttle XL can be oriented either vertically or
horizontally. In the horizontal configuration, it can even be
used as a stand for the notebook (to which it may connect).
G-Technology also has an adapter for a RED MINI-MAG so
that it can be read into the computer directly through the
Shuttle XL. A RED MINI-MAG and a G-DRIVE ev SSD are
shown connected to the Shuttle XL using the two ev Series
Bay Adapters in the above picture. The Shuttle XL also has
a custom-designed transportation case for portability
across different work locations.
Claimed transfer rates are around 1350 MBps. The disks
can be configured in RAID 0,1,5,6,10 and 50. The unit is
sold with enterprise-class hard drives with pricing ranging
from $3500 for 24TB to $8000 for 64TB. G-Technology
provides a 3-year warranty for the product.
We saw LaCie launch a 8-bay Thunderbolt 2 1U rackmount
unit, the 8big Rack Thunderbolt 2 a couple of years back. It
is interesting to see G-Technology have a 'portable' take on
the8-bay hardware RAID Thunderbolt 2 enclosure market.
From an end-user perspective, it is great to have both
choices and one can let the usage model dictate the

suitable solution.
2016-01-27 21:39:13 Ganesh T S
59
Hyper-Converged Infrastructure Developer
Gridstore Closes $19M Funding Round
All-flash hyper-converged infrastructure
technology developer Gridstore on Wednesday said it
closed a new funding round and beefed up its management
team.
The new funding round brings Gridstore an additional $19
million in capital to help it drive its market and product
growth and bring in new engineering talent, said George
Symons, CEO for the Mountain View, Calif.-based
company. That brings the total funding for the company to
$45.5 million.
For now, Gridstore is more focused on growing the
company, and less on quickly becoming cash-flow positive,
Symons told CRN.
[Related: Elastifile Raises $35M In B Round For Flash-
Optimized File, Block, Object Storage ]
Gridstore, which started as a developer of scale-out grid
storage software, now focuses exclusively on the hyperconverged
infrastructure market , Symons said. Its primary
solution is an appliance that combines the company's
software stack, which integrates storage, compute and
networking capabilities with a commodity 2U server and all-

flash storage, he said.
"We sell it as an appliance," he said. "We're a software
company, but we deliver the solution as an appliance. We
believe our channel partners and our customers don't want
to do the integration. "
Symons said Gridstore in 2015 saw its revenue grow 340
percent over 2014's, thanks to the introduction of its hyperconverged
appliance in the fourth quarter of 2014. He
declined to provide specific revenue numbers, but said
revenue for 2015 was in the $5 million to $10 million range.
Symons acknowledged that Gridstore is in a very
competitive hyper-converged infrastructure market, but said
his company is unique in its Microsoft-centric approach.
"We focus on the Microsoft Hyper-V space," he said. "Only
one other player is in this space: Nutanix. Others will come
in. But we were early. We went where others didn't go. "
Gridstore is also unique in that it uses RAID striping instead
of mirroring for data protection, resulting in half the storage
requirements of competitors, Symons said. The company
also runs its software stack on bare metal instead of in a
virtual machine for faster performance and lower latency
than its competitors, he said.
That focus on the Microsoft Hyper-V technology is what
turned one of Gridstore's channel partners into a fan.
2016-01-27 21:35:03 Joseph F. Kovar

60
CES 2016: Phison previews upcoming SSD
controllers
Phison may not be a household
name, but they're a major player in
the SSD market. Where Marvell's
SSD controllers are typically sold to
drive vendors who then pair them
with custom or third-party firmware, and SandForce and
Silicon Motion controllers are typically bundled with
firmware, Phison's controllers are mostly sold as part of a
turnkey drive platform that's ready to be put into a branded
case and put on store shelves. This business model has
made Phison the favorite supplier for new players in the
SSD market with no existing drive manufacturing
infrastructure, and for established brands that need to
update their product line but can't stomach the high R&D
costs of staying competitive with custom controllers or
firmware.
For 2016, the mainstay of Phison's controller lineup will
continue to be the PS3110-S10, which has been used in
drives sold by OCZ/Toshiba, Mushkin, Corsair, Zotac,
Patriot, Kingston, PNY and others, and paired with both
TLC and MLC NAND. Squeezing in below the S10 and
more or less displacing the S9 will be the new PS3111-S11
low-cost SATA controller with the option of operating as a
DRAM-less controller and providing only two NAND
channels but also the first Low Density Parity Correction
(LDPC) support from Phison. Thanks to SLC caching

support its peak performance numbers only suffer slightly
and its support of capacities up to 1TB should be sufficient
for this year's value SSDs, but don't expect the S11 to
sustain great performance on heavy workloads.
The much more exciting product is Phison's PCIe 3.0 x4
NVMe SSD controller, the PS5007-E7. The E7 controller is
very close to launch and we've already seen numerous
product announcements based on that platform. The E7 is
aiming to be the highest performance consumer SSD
controller and will be competing directly against Samsung's
950 Pro. The controller hardware has been finalized and
the firmware is in the last stages of performance
optimization. Phison plans to finalize the firmware in
February and drives should be on the shelves in March.
We've previously seen prototypes of the E7 controller from
G. Skill at Computex last year and from Mushkin at CES
2015. Since Computes the write performance specifications
have improved slightly: sequential write is up from
1400MB/s to 1500MB/s, and random write is up from 200k
IOPS to 250k IOPS. Sequential read and random read
speeds published by Phison match what G. Skill said at
Computex: 2600MB/s sequential read and 300k IOPS for
random read, though Phison notes their random
performance numbers as being burst performance. They
also are claiming a sustained random performance of 36k
IOPS, presumably referring to steady-state random writes.
Those numbers are all for planar MLC NAND, but the E7
controller also supports TLC and 3D NAND. Given the
imminent availability of 3D NAND, Phison is also able to

declare support for capacities up to 4 TB where G. Skill's
demo only promised up to 2TB.
Phison E7 drives will be available in a variety of form
factors. M.2-2280 has been the most popular choice for
client PCIe SSDs, but some E7-based drives will be opting
for the longer M.2-22110 size. This will provide room for 8
flash packages instead of 4, allowing for higher capacities
or cheaper NAND packaging by stacking fewer dies per
package. Most importantly, the larger M.2 card will make it
possible to populate all 8 channels on the E7 controller
while still using standard off the shelf flash packages. The
longer M.2 size won't be usable with as many
motherboards and will have even more trouble in the
notebook market, but many SSD vendors targeting the
enthusiast market are willing to make those compromises.
Several vendors will also be selling drives in a PCIe halfheight
half-length add-in card form factor. This relatively
spacious PCB allows for the highest capacities and better
passive cooling with or without a heatsink. Phison's
reference model also included power loss protection
capacitors on the card, though they won't be present on all
retail models—Patriot's Hellfire AIC didn't have the
capacitor bank populated. Phison also showed a 2.5" U.2
model, but we didn't encounter any vendors that were
showing off that option.
The add-in cards and U.2 drives may be more popular in
the enterprise market, which Phison is confident they can
break into. However, Phison teamed up with Kingston and
Liqid to demonstrate an add-in card that puts four M.2

drives under a heatsink and provides power loss protection
capacitors. This can allow for better density and utilization
of PCIe slots than a single-controller PCIe x4 add-in card
and drop-in compatibility for server platforms that don't
have U.2 backplanes, so even in the enterprise space M.2
might win out.
2016-01-27 21:39:23 Billy Tallis
61 ECS Goes Skylake with LIVA One
At CES 2016, ECS displayed their
consumer-focused as well as OEM
products to the press and business
customers. On the direct-toconsumer
side, ECS had some
100-series chipset boards on
display, but they were all ones that had been announced
before (like the Z170-Claymore ). However, my main
intention was to check out updates to the LIVA mini-PC
lineup and also get some information on the 5x5 form factor
that ECS had hinted at prior to the show.
In our Intel Compute Stick review, we had talked about the
efforts made by Intel to take advantage of a second screen
(such as a tablet or smartphone) when interacting with the
PC. ECS also had something similar for the LIVA series.
They have tied up with Insyde Tools to install necessary
support for ShareKanTan on the LIVA mini-PCs that come
with the OS pre-installed. In addition to the input options
provided by apps such as the Intel Remote Keyboard, this

app also allows for display of media on the PC in the
second screen.
ECS also took the opportunity at CES to show off their
latest addition to the LIVA lineup - the LIVA One. LIVA One
is a Skylake mini-PC, which uses a 35W TDP -T class
processor. Unlike other members of the LIVA family, this
one is larger (1L volume - 173mm x 176mm x 33mm) and
also actively cooled. The default configuration from ECS
utilizes a Core i3-6100T, a LGA processor. The end user
can actually upgrade the CPU after purchase, or install any
other CPU after buying a barebones configuration. Even
processors such as the Core i7-6700T can be used (as
long as the CPU is LGA1151 and has a TDP within 35W).
The LIVA One uses 2x DDR3L SO-DIMMs. It has a free
2.5" SATA drive slot and also a M.2 SSD slot (SATA
interface). The industrial design is stylish and functional,
with the front panel including a microSD slot and a USB 3.1
port (with rapid charging features). The default
configuration contains a 1x1 802.11ac / BT 4.0 WLAN card,
but that can be changed by the end user.
ECS has also used the same chassis design for a mini-PC
to target business users. This 'SF100' model will support
Windows 7 officially. It also supports vPro (thanks to the
Q170 chipset) and Intel SBA (Small Business Advantage)
technology. Unlike the LIVA One's DDR3L SO-DIMM slots,
the SF100 has the costlier DDR4 SO-DIMM slots that can
provide better RAM capacity and performance. It also has a
RS-232 port as well as a 2W in-built speaker. The SF100
also uses an Intel I219-LM GbE NIC.

Both the LIVA One and the SF100 can be augmented with
an optical drive or extra 2.5" bay using a special 'HD Drive
Bay' (shown in the top picture) that connects to the main
system via one of the rear USB 3.0 ports. The LIVA One will
be priced $168 for the barebones configuration and $450
for the pre-built default configuration. Pricing for the SF100
is not available yet.
Moving on to the mini-STX front (the official name for the
5x5 boards that we first uncovered at IDF 2015), ECS had
one of the first motherboards in this form factor on display.
The H110SU-02 (with the S standing for the mini-STX form
factor in ECS's nomenclature) is meant for SFF systems,
thanks to the low-profile heat sink from Silverstone. ECS
and Silverstone have tied up to offer consumers a one-stop
shop for those attempting to build a system based on the
H110SU-02 mSTX board. The gallery below shows some
shots of the motherboard with a low profile heatsink
installed.
The full details of the board are provided in the table below.
Pricing is not available yet.
On the whole, the consumer products from ECS on display
at CES point to where the desktop computing market is
headed. The market share for small form factor systems is
increasing even as the overall desktop PC market declines.
SFF systems are also turning out to be an attractive
proposition in the business PC market.
2016-01-27 21:39:40 Ganesh T S

62
Microsoft Will Not Support Upcoming
Processors Except On Windows 10
Microsoft has long been the bastion of
long term support for older platforms, so
today’s support news out of Redmond is
particularly surprising. Intel launched its 6
th generation Skylake cores back in
August, and support on Windows 7 has
been not as strong as Windows 10 right
out of the gate. It’s not terribly strange
that new features like Intel’s Speed Shift
will not be coming to Windows 7, but today Microsoft
announced that going forward, new processors will only be
supported on Windows 10. Skylake will only be supported
through devices on a supported list, and even those will
only have support until July 2017.
For the average consumer buying a new PC, this is not a
huge issue. Generally, consumers buy a PC and use the
operating system that it comes with. That is going to be
Windows 10. But the enterprise schedule is often much
more drawn out when it comes to desktop operating system
support. Windows XP was the most famous example of this,
with businesses clinging to it well past its best before date,
because Windows Vista and newer versions of the
operating system significantly changed the system rights
and driver models, rendering older programs incompatible.
The move to Windows 7 was very drawn out, so perhaps
Microsoft is trying to avoid this again in the future, but

moving an enterprise to a new desktop OS can bring a lot
of testing requirements, training, and back-end
infrastructure updates which are all non-trivial. Microsoft
has made its name in the enterprise by being generous
with support lifetimes, and I think what is most troubling
about today’s news is that Windows 7 has long-term
support until January 14, 2020, and Windows 8.1 until
January 10, 2023. News like this is going to catch a lot of
companies off-guard, since they would have been
expecting to have at least until 2020 to migrate off of
Windows 7, and many of these companies have just finally
moved to Windows 7 after a decade or more on XP.
To give just 18 months with these support policies is likely
not what companies want to hear. This doesn’t mean that
Windows 7 will be end of life in July 2017, but if you can’t
run it on new hardware, this is going to put a dent in device
sales too. If companies are not ready to move to Windows
10, they may have to stick with older hardware.
This does not just affect Intel based machines either.
According to the blog post by Terry Myerson, Windows 10
will be the only supported Windows platform for Kaby Lake
(Intel’s next gen 14 nm processors), Snapdragon 820
(Qualcomm), and Carrizo (AMD).
Going forward, as new silicon generations are introduced,
they will require the latest Windows platform at that time for
support. This enables us to focus on deep integration
between Windows and the silicon, while maintaining
maximum reliability and compatibility with previous
generations of platform and silicon. For example, Windows

10 will be the only supported Windows platform on Intel’s
upcoming “Kaby Lake” silicon, Qualcomm’s upcoming
“8996” silicon, and AMD’s upcoming “Bristol Ridge” silicon.
After July 2017, computers on the supported list that are
still running Windows 7 will still get security updates, but
any updates specific to that platform will not be released if it
risks the reliability of other Windows 7 or 8.1 platforms.
To me, the oddest part of the announcement is who it is
coming from. When Intel releases a new CPU, it is
generally the motherboard makers working with Intel who
provide the correct BIOS emulation modes and drivers for
older versions of Windows. It’s somewhat odd that
Microsoft is the one announcing this news rather than a
company like Intel or AMD stating they won’t be supporting
the older platform.
For those in the business world, this blog post may force
you to reconsider your upgrade plans, or at least your
hardware evergreen cycle. A full list of supported PCs for
the 18-month period is supposed to be released next week.
Source: Windows Blog
2016-01-27 21:39:41 Brett Howse
63
Interview with Ian Livingstone CBE: Gaming
in VR and Development in the UK
This week I decided last minute to attend PG Connects , a
trade show conference on mobile gaming, attended by

developers and business looking to
promote or sell their games and
services. As part of the conference,
several presentation tracks relating
to mobile gaming, such as
promotion, media interaction and
‘tales of the industry’ were included to help educate the
(mostly young) developers present. There were also a few
of the old guard in the UK games industry presenting, and I
jumped at the opportunity to speak to Ian Livingstone for a
quick fifteen minutes.
Ian Livingstone is a well-known figure, particularly in the
UK, for the many roles he has played in developing the
sector from starting with text and table-top based
imagination gaming right the way through to full on
graphical immersion.
- Ian started in 1975 by co-founding Games Workshop , the
miniature wargaming company that quickly spread as a
vestige for Dungeons & Dragons and Warhammer
enthusiasts to gain supplies to build battlefields, paint
figurines, or teach newcomers. As part of this, Games
Workshop brought the official original D&D to the UK.
- Ian is also the co-founder and co-writer of the Fighting
Fantasy series of RPG novels, part of the Choose Your
Own Adventure style of story-telling. This was the ‘to turn
left, go to page 72’ sort of dungeon crawlers that would
explain the narrative but still leave the important decisions
to the reader. I have fond memories of these books.

- On the videogame side, Ian is the former Executive
Chairman of Eidos Interactive , originally investing and
doing design work for publisher Domark before it was
acquired by Eidos. Part of Ian’s role involved securing the
popular Eidos franchises and IP such as Tomb Raider and
Hitman as the industry evolved. Eidos was acquired by
Square Enix in 2009, and since then Ian has been a
champion of the UK games industry. In 2011, he was
tasked by the UK government to produce a report reviewing
the UK video games industry, described as ‘a complete
bottom up review of the whole education system relating to
games’. Ian’s current interests, aside from promoting the
strength of UK gaming, involves investing in talent for the
gaming industry and the future.
- In recognition for his work, Ian was appointed an OBE and
CBE for services to the gaming industry, won the BAFTA
Interactive Special Award and Fellowship , a British
Inspiration Award and has an Honorary Doctorate of
Technology by the University of Abertay, Dundee. He
currently holds the role of Chairman at several gaming
companies (Playdemic, Midoki, Sumo-Digital, Playmob, and
Antstream), non-executive directorships (Creative
Industries Federation, Creative England, Young Rewired
State) as well as a GamesAid Trustee, an Executive
Advisory Board Member of Game City and Adviser to the
British Countil.
Ian Cutress: What are your thoughts on VR (Virtual
Reality)?
Ian Livingstone: Technology evolves in the gaming industry

like no other entertainment industry. There’s always a new
platform that comes along that gets people very excited
when it comes to leveraging their content to new areas,
new technologies and new audiences. Of course VR is
causing that excitement right now. We have seen in
previous years, and not too long ago, places like Facebook
became a great platform for commercial games and mobile
became an amazing platform for games people who didn’t
even think of themselves as gamers. It became a mass
market entertainment industry because of Apple coming
along with swipe technology and then everyone was able to
play a game. People were no longer intimidated by sixteen
button controllers which was the realm of console gamers.
So then video games become a mass market if it is intuitive
- if people don’t have to learn any particular rules or even
learn how to play. Therefore I would hope that VR, at the
starting point, is a mass market entertainment device in
allowing people to play intuitively.
Now clearly Mark (Zuckerburg) didn’t buy Oculus merely as
a games platform – he sees it as an immersive social
platform that will include games but it is going to be much
wider in scope. But from a games point of view it is a
fantastic opportunity yet again, allowing people to have
experiences they couldn’t have without it. My worry about it
is that it is going to be too much content on a device that is
going to be too expensive at launch.
IC: So your thoughts on $600 for Oculus ?
IL: It’s a lot. In many ways it is a peripheral, and peripherals
have never been hugely successful unless they became the

technology of the day. So a peripheral-based idea like
Guitar Hero – it was hugely successful and people were
prepared to pay a lot of money for a single trick device.
Clearly VR gives you the scope to play many games on the
device but in short term as far as developers are concerned
they are more likely to be getting revenue from the
hardware manufacturers rather than consumers as it is sort
of a strange launch point because of people being wary of
VR, not being used to having a device around their head for
more than five minutes when playing games, or motion
sickness due to any sort of acceleration that makes some
people feel a bit queasy. I think there’s a huge amount of
excitement, a huge amount of opportunity, but it’s not going
to be a slam dunk. I think there’s going to be a lot of people
who don’t succeed but there’s going to be some fantastic
success stories.
IC: When you say succeed; are you speaking more on
hardware of software?
IL: On the software side. I mean everyone seems to be
creating some sort of VR opportunity today and the
consumers can’t possibly digest it all. I’m just caveating the
excitement behind VR with a little bit of realism! This is quite
a change in games.
IC: What price would a headset have to be more widely
accepted?
IL: One of the issues is that you can buy a console for less!
IC: So does a VR headset have to be an integrated gaming

system on its own, or does it have to reduce down?
IL: I would think it has to reduce down to that $150 mark. At
$600 it can’t be a mass market proposition today. But as we
know, technology always starts off expensive – the early
adopters are going to buy it no matter what the price and
over time the market will sort out what price it should be in
order for it to be successful. But it many ways, hardware is
a tough business to be in. I mean Sega pulled out of
hardware, Nintendo has had its highs and its lows in
hardware. It’s a tough business, and by comparison
software is a lot easier.
IC: How many of the headsets have you tried personally?
Any favourites?
IL: I’ve tried three, but I don’t feel qualified to comment on
any in particular! I’ve enjoyed the experience if there’s no
acceleration involved because I do feel a little bit queasy.
Apart from games I have toured the Serengeti and climbed
a couple of mountains, and that has been fantastic. I’ve sat
in a cockpit of a plane too.
IC: Today in your talk you mentioned that the App Store
and Google Play were essentially the world’s largest shops
with the smallest shop windows, referring to the top lists
where everyone is trying to game the system. Is there
anything that could be done to improve it? Is this even a
problem?
IL: I think everyone is tired of seeing the same top ten!
Users want to know more, so the App Store has to give a

way for greater discoverability for great games that aren’t
being seen. That is easier said than done, and there isn’t a
single answer. But I know it would be welcomed by
consumers and creators alike.
IC: What makes the UK a good place to make games?
We’ve seen other regional industries dissolve but the UK is
still strong.
IL: We have a rich heritage of making games, and got off to
a flying start in the 1980s when kids were coding in schools
– plus we are a naturally creative nation with our film, our
fashion, our music, architecture, design, our publishing and
now of course our games industry. We have that ability to
create entertainment that resonates with global audiences
and most of our content is admired around the world. We
have that ability to create unique entertainment – it’s a
magic fairy dust that makes you come back time and time
again and we punch way above our weight in content
creation. So combine creativity with the early adoption of
technology and hey presto: video games!
IC: Are there any video games made in the UK that you feel
don’t get that ‘made in UK’ recognition?
IL: There are many cases of games that people would not
know have originated in the UK. Grand Theft Auto V,
developed in Scotland by Rockstar North, the incredible
and largest entertainment franchise in any medium and not
always known that it was developed in the UK. The success
of companies like Jagex with Runescape, or that originally
Tomb Raider was developed in the UK. Games like Football

Manager probably have been mostly acknowledged as
being from the UK! But companies like Creative Assembly
with their Total War series, or Moshi Monsters, CSR
Racing. There’s a huge list of content and new successes –
Batman from Rocksteady for example. The list is seemingly
endless, but most people assume that video games are
developed in the United States or Japan, so they don’t get
recognized as being from the UK, plus we’re not very good
at blowing our own trumpet! We don’t shout about our
successes. That’s why I always try to get the message out
to media, to parents and to investors that we are very good
at making games, it’s a great British success story, it’s a
proper job and it’s a real investment opportunity – so go for
it.
Ian Livingstone's TEDxZurich talk on 'The Power of Play'
IC: You’ve been working with the UK Government on a
number of projects for the gaming industry. Can you talk
about what you’ve done in this field in recent years?
IL: I’m delighted the way the UK Government is now very
supportive of the video games industry here. I’ve worked a
lot with Ed Vaizey, the Culture Minister, on a number of
projects. I was chair of the Computer Games Skills Council
for Creative Skillset for seven years and we mapped out
every university course with the word ‘games’ in them. Out
of the 144 courses, we only felt able to accredit ten of those
courses as being fit for purpose to earn the Creative Skillset
Kite at the time.
As an industry we’re struggling to find enough computer

programmers of a high enough quality for some of the
games in development. It was crazy that in the early days
we had so many young people unemployed and we were
so good at making games and programming that we had to
outsource production overseas. Also the fact that a lot of
our (UK) companies had to be bought out because they
couldn’t access finance because the investment community
didn’t understand the value of digital intellectual property or
the ability to scale great games very profitably and globally.
So the government tasked Alex Hope (the Managing
Director of Double Negative, a major UK video effects
studio) and I to write a review called Next Gen which was
published by Nesta and we made twenty recommendations
about education and additional education (for the skills
related to the gaming industry). We found that IT taught in
schools was largely a strange hybrid of office skills. Kids
were being bored to death with Word, PowerPoint and
Excel. Against all odds we were actually putting them off
technology while they ran their lives through social media,
using a phone as almost a part of their brain. Effectively
ICT was teaching kids how to read but not how to write.
They could use an application but not make an application.
They could play a game but not make a game. What we
wanted to do was turn them from consumers to creators of
technology, so our number one recommendation in Next
Gen was to put Computer Science as an essential discipline
on the national curriculum. Next Gen came out in 2011, and
the Department for Education at first said they weren’t
interested in our recommendations and that ICT was
perfectly fine. It might have been fine for what it was but it

was outdated, outmoded and absolutely no good for the
21st century skills required.
So we started the Next Gen Skills Coalition backed by
UKIE, the trade body association for UK Interactive
Entertainment, for campaigning and talks and being mad
campaigners for about four years when we finally got to
meet Michael Gove’s (the Education Minister at the time)
special advisors. Eric Schmidt (current Executive Chairman
of Alphabet, formerly Google) also referenced Next Gen in
his MacTaggart Lecture in 2011 as part of the Q&A. We
finally got to meet Michael Gove himself, and to his credit
he isn’t always Mr. Popular when it comes to further
education, but he did take on-board our recommendations
and said he would change the curriculum. 2014 saw the
new curriculum coming to English schools so now every
child can have the opportunity to learn how to code, and
more importantly how to think computationally, problem
solve and give them better skills for the 21 st century and
for jobs that don’t yet exist rather than training for jobs that
will no longer exist. So we’re getting from the passenger
seat to the driver seat in technology and hopefully the UK
might be able to create the next Google, Facebook or
Twitter, as well as its games.
There are a lot more university courses now accredited
aside from those initial ten, but the important thing was
changing the curriculum in schools, moving away from
entry level digital literacy to a much higher set of skills. Not
everyone is going to become a coder or a programmer but
they should understand how code works to be a true digital

citizen. You have to understand its place, so I think digital
literacy is as important as literacy and numeracy for the 21
st century and you could argue that computer science is the
new Latin because it underpins the digital world in the way
that Latin underpins the analogue world. So we have to
think about digital creativity and to make things interesting –
get kids to build an app, make a game, build a website, do
some robotics and to learn by doing in order to create.
I think games are also misunderstood as a medium. You
can park your prejudice against one or two titles and think
about what is happening when you play the game – you
problem solve, you learn intuitively, you’re in a fair and safe
environment, you’re almost incentivised to try again, you’re
not punished for your mistakes and it enables creativity.
Like Minecraft where you are building these wonderful 3D
architectural worlds like digital Lego and sharing them with
your friends. For me games are a wonderful learning tool,
and why can’t learning be fun and playful – there’s no
reason not to be.
The second thing with Ed Vaisey is that he did understand
the need for access to finance and helped bring about the
introduction of tax credits because film and TV have
already had that access and the games industry has never
had any help. There’s no BFI (British Film Institute) or Film
Council equivalent. There were certainly no tax incentives.
So now we’ve got production tax credits so we can build
games that would not ordinarily have been built from a
cultural sense or from an economic sense.
IC: When you see somebody that has a good idea for a

game or for content, what is the barrier to production
(talent, financial, etc.)?
IL: All of the above!
IC: Are there any current bottlenecks?
IL: The best thing to do is to make a game, learn from your
mistakes, and then make another game. Fail fast. There’s
no point in saying you had an idea for a game – having the
idea is very easy and we can all say that. You have to find
out if you’re up to doing it. But don’t be put off by failure –
failure is just success in progress. Angry Birds was Rovio’s
51st game, not their first game. So you have to have some
real passion and follow your heart. Hopefully one day you
will find an audience and find a way.
IC: What are your current projects?
IL: I’m currently applying to open a free school (a nonprofit,
state funded, but not run by the state, similar to an
academy, subject to the same rules as state schools). Its
aim is to be the flagship school on all the things I’ve been
campaigning for. So more creativity in the classroom, more
computer science, more computational thinking, more
project based work and more learning by doing to get
people creative in games as a cross disciplinary approach
to problem solving rather than rote learning of siloed
subjects. It will have greater engagement and greater
traction with kids because Generation Z is different. They
naturally collaborate, they naturally share, and collaboration
shouldn’t be seen as cheating because it’s what we do in

the workplace. So let’s work with that and bring the
workplace closer to the classroom and vice versa.
Many thanks to Ian for his time at PG Connects, and best of
luck in his future endeavours. Hopefully in a few years we
can loop back and get his opinion again on how the
industry is changing.
Ian Livingstone's Twitter: https://twitter.com/ian_livingstone
Next Gen Report:
http://www.nesta.org.uk/publications/next-gen
The Power of Play, Ian Livingstone's TEDxZurich talk:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=58P8JU5p_Z4
How British Video Games Became a Billion Pound Industry
(BBC): http://www.bbc.co.uk/timelines/zt23gk7
Eric Schmidt’s MacTaggart Lecture 2011:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hSzEFsfc9Ao
Creative Skillset: http://creativeskillset.org/
Free School Application:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-29550486
2016-01-27 21:29:49 Ian Cutress
64
D-Link Demonstrates Innovative Networking
Solutions at CES
D-Link had two major core networking announcements at

CES along with a host of updates
for their home automation product
line. There are a number of things
to discuss with respect to the core
networking announcements. So, I
will get the minor home automation
stuff out of the way first.
D-Link has been offering a set of home automation
products with unified cloud-based control using the mydlink
Home app. At CES, they announced the integration of the
IFTTT (If-this-then-that) service with the app, allowing more
customization in the home automation experience. It is
slated to appear in the free app later this quarter. IFTTT
integration has been a staple of many home automation
products (including the Belkin WeMo) for some time now.
So, it is good to see D-Link putting the effort to integrate
with IFTTT with their own cloud back-end.
The other home automation-related announcement was a
new product - a Wi-Fi based alarm detector. Simply put,
this device plugs into a wall outlet and connects via Wi-Fi to
the Internet. A microphone in the device is set to trigger an
alarm if the sound of a smoke alarm or carbon monoxide
alarm is heard. This allows legacy smoke and CO detectors
to become part of the smart home - definitely more cost
effective than installing completely new smoke alarms (like
what Nest suggests). D-Link indicated that, in the future, it
might also be able to make the microphones in their IP
cameras do the same job.
Moving on to the core networking announcements, we first

have the EXO series of routers. This series has two
members, the AC1750 DIR-869 and the AC1900 DIR-879.
Both have a 3x3 configuration in the 5GHz band for 1300
Mbps of theoretical bandwidth. However, the DIR-879 does
600 Mbps in the 2.4GHz band and the DIR-869 does 450
Mbps in the same. The DIR-869 will retail for $130 and the
DIR-879 will retail for $150 when they go on sale later this
quarter.
In order to achieve this lower price, D-Link has opted to not
integrate a USB port on either model. Both have a
hardware toggle switch to move between router and
extender modes. However, the devices do have highperformance
power amplifiers (1000mW). The interesting
aspect here is the core platform. While vendors such as
Amped Wireless have gone in for the integrated Qualcomm
Atheros 2x2 solution for their $130-price point router, D-
Link has moved to Realtek for the same. The SoC used is
the RTL8198C with a 620 MHz MIPS-based dual-core host
processor and 5 GbE ports integrated. The WLAN chips are
RTL8814AR for the 5GHz radio and RTL8194AR for the
2.4GHz radio.
The most innovative demonstration in D-Link's suite was
the Unified Home Wi-Fi Networking Kit with Adaptive
Roaming Technology (DKT-891). This is a router-extender
kit that will retail at $370when it launches in Q2. The DKT-
891 consists of two products - the DIR-891L, an AC4300 triband
MU-MIMO router, and the DAP-1655, an AC1300
gigabit Wi-Fi extender. The DIR-891L seems to be the first
tri-band 4x4 router based on a Qualcomm Atheros chipset.

With two 5GHz 4x4 radios, each band can support 1733
Mbps (for a total of 3466 Mbps). The 2.4 GHz band can
support 800 Mbps with the 256-QAM feature. This gives a
total bandwidth of 4266 Mbps, enabling classification as a
AC4300 class router. The DAP-1655 provides 867 Mbps in
the single 5GHz band and 450 Mbps in the 2.4GHz.
The Unified Home Wi-Fi Networking Kit with Adaptive
Roaming is based on Qualcomm's Wi-Fi S. O. N technology
( video ). At their CES suite, D-Link demonstrated 'Smart
Steering' - clients moving from the router to the extender
automatically (depending on which one was providing a
better signal). They also showed 'Dynamic Adaptation' -
clients moving inbetween the 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands for
load balancing purposes. All of this was done without any
end-user intervention. Even though the demonstration
looked market ready, it is likely that more 'interoperability'
testing will be needed. Getting 'Smart Steering' and
'Dynamic Adaptation' to work across multiple client
platforms will definitely be a challenge.
In addition to the above new announcements, D-Link also
showed their currently-shipping Broadcom-based Ultra
series of routers. the 3x3 DWA-192 USB 3.0 AC1900 WLAN
adapter and some IP cameras (including the Komfy switch
launched in November).
2016-01-27 21:39:44 Ganesh T S

65
Intel Launches Skylake vPro With Intel
Authenticate
Intel’s vPro technology has been
around for quite a while now, and
with every new processor
generation they seem to always
add more features under the vPro umbrella. For a
comprehensive look at what is existing now, check out the
vPro launch for Broadwell. With Skylake, Intel is trying to
tackle the challenge of securing computers, and the need
for complex passwords. Passwords are a big pain point in
the enterprise because people don’t like to make difficult
passwords, and sharing passwords can be a big problem.
Social engineering and more complex attack vectors can
render passwords the easiest way to get into a company’s
data.
Intel is launching Intel Authenticate today, and it will require
a 6 th generation Intel Core processor with vPro.
Authenticate will combine several factors of authentication
into a single login, which, in theory, should be easier for the
end user as well.
It works by combining “something you know”, which can be
a PIN or password, along with “something you have”, which
could be a smartphone, and “something you are”, which is
biometrics. Once you include many factors, the complexity
to lose all of them to the same person goes up quite a bit.
The “something you know” can therefore be much easier,
such as a PIN, or simple password, since that is not the

defining key to the system. IT will be able to choose from
multiple factors based on their own policy and preferences.
Once configured, the factors are captured, encrypted,
matched, and stored in hardware.
The user data never leaves the hardware, reducing the
footprint for attack, and removing the chance of accidental
misuse by employees. All of the authentication is then done
at the hardware level once the user has matched the stored
profile. The inclusion of biometrics, especially if they are
based on Intel’s RealSense 3D camera systems, also adds
in the possibility of having machines auto-lock when the
person steps away.
Overall, this is similar to Windows Hello, except with more
authentication factors and the resultant matching done on
the CPU. There are advantages to this method, but one of
the biggest disadvantages is that it will require Skylake
class hardware and newer, so you can’t deploy it to older
machines. Interestingly it is available on Windows 7, 8.1,
and 10, despite Windows 7 and Skylake having a rough
start together.
Intel Authenticate is available now for customers to preview.
Source: Intel
2016-01-27 21:39:47 Brett Howse
66
Silicon Motion at CES: 3D NAND support for
SM2246EN and roadmap update

2015 was a great year for SSD controller designer Silicon
Motion. Their SM2246EN controller
was at the heart of some of the best
mainstream and value SATA SSDs,
while their DRAM-less SM2246XT
and their TLC-compatible SM2256
each had several design wins for even more affordable
SSDs. At CES, Silicon Motion showed off their full range of
products and shared some of their plans to stay competitive
through 2016.
The most important development for the SSD market in
2016 will almost certainly be the availability of 3D NAND
from companies other than Samsung (who's been shipping
3D NAND since 2014 and will be rolling out their third
generation of it this year). Silicon Motion has updated their
firmware for the SM2246EN controller to support 3D MLC
NAND, and they showed off drives using 3D NAND flash
sourced from Intel, Micron, and Hynix. This demonstrates
that Silicon Motion is ready for the transition to 3D NAND
and that we can expect drives to be hitting the shelves as
soon as the flash itself is available in bulk on the open
market. It's also nice to have independent confirmation that
both IMFT and Hynix are on track with their 3D NAND
development. Conspicuously absent from the lineup was
3D NAND from the Toshiba and SanDisk joint venture. We
already expected them to be last to ship 3D NAND due to
their fab for it not being scheduled to begin mass
production until this year, so it's no surprise if they're
keeping things under wraps for a little longer.

To support 3D TLC NAND, Silicon Motion will be releasing a
SM2258 controller as the successor to SM2256, but this
new controller was not on display and we don't have
information on what other changes it may bring to the table.
SM2258 should be ready by the middle of the year, so it
shouldn't be too long before we have more details.
The last big update concerns the SM2260 PCIe SSD
controller. A launch date hasn't been announced, but we
were told to expect a more interesting demo at Flash
Memory Summit, suggesting it will be ready to ship in the
second half of 2016. The expected performance
specifications have changed slightly from what we last
heard in June 2015: sequential read speed is up from 2200
MB/s to 2400 MB/s while sequential write is down from
1100 MB/s to 1000 MB/s. Random read and write ratings
remain at 200K and 125K IOPS respectively. With the
exception of random write those numbers are a bit below
what Samsung advertises for the 950 Pro, but close
enough that SM2260-based drives can probably be
competitive by just undercutting Samsung's pricing by a
little bit. 3D NAND support has also been added to the
feature list, and NVMe version 1.2 will be supported. To
make use of the higher speeds of the PCIe 3.0 x4 interface,
the SM2260 uses a dual-core ARM processor instead of
the single-core ARC processor used by Silicon Motion's
SATA SSD controllers and the SM2260 has 8 NAND
interface channels compared to 4 channels for SM2246EN
and SM2256.
Silicon Motion still has no direct successor planned for the

DRAM-less SM2246XT controller but they confirmed that all
of their controllers could be used in a DRAM-less
configuration with appropriate firmware, so a DRAM-less
TLC SSD could be built using SM2256 if somebody thought
the cost savings were worth the firmware development
efforts. Silicon Motion was also showing off their current
lineup of solutions for USB flash drives including Type-C
and Lightning port support, as well as their eMMC and
single-package SSD products intended mainly for industrial,
automotive and other embedded applications.
2016-01-27 21:39:48 Billy Tallis
67
Zebra stripes as camouflage? Not so fast, Mr.
Hyena
Many wild animals have developed
special camouflage characteristics
to blend in with their surroundings.
Rattlesnakes look like pebbly soil.
Owls become one with the tree
branches on which they perch.
Zebra stripes meld with tall grasses
and trees. Oh wait. We may need to scratch that last one
from the list. A new study suggests zebra stripes aren't
about camouflage at all.
2016-01-27 21:31:14 Amanda Kooser Amanda Kooser by

68
Hate your cable company? Superfast,
wireless Internet is coming
Can your broadband connection be
faster, cheaper and wholly
wireless?
A startup called Starry thinks so and
intends to offer just that.
If Starry's promise of delivering a 1-gigabit connection, or
10 times the average home broadband speed, pans out, it
could shake up the broadband industry. For many, this
would be far faster than what they get from the cable or
phone companies. There was no word on how much the
service costs.
"Wired infrastructure is just difficult," Starry co-founder Chet
Kanojia said Wednesday at a press event in Manhattan. "It
should be wireless. "
The first major product from Starry will be the Starry
Station, a $350 Wi-Fi hub with a touchscreen that includes
monitors for your Internet connection and speed, parental
controls and the ability to support connected devices. The
hub will provide a Wi-Fi connection to your phones and
other devices and will support future devices in connected
homes.
2016-01-27 21:32:37 Ben Fox Rubin Ben Fox Rubin by

69
Disney's new Tron game confirmed for PS4,
Xbox One
In Tron Run/r, you create an avatar
and can customize it with "dozens"
of elements, including light cycles,
suits, and helmets. In all, the game
boasts more than 30 levels to zip
through, while a "Stream" mode
challenges players to make their
way through "harrowing" remixes of existing levels.
As you might have guessed, the game also supports
leaderboards so players can challenge their friends and the
world at large for top scores.
Disney product development director Chris Nicholls said in
a statement that the company's overarching goal was to
make a game that "remained authentic" to Tron's arcade
origins.
Tron Run/r features music from EDM legend Giorgio
Moroder and Raney Shockne. Remixes in the game were
written by artists including Autechre, Bibio, Darkstar,
Joywave, patten, and Plaid.
People attending PAX South this weekend in Texas or
ESPN's Winter X Games in Colorado can try the game
ahead of launch.
2016-01-27 21:32:39 GameSpot Staff GameSpot Staff by

70
app.
Plagued by Chrome crashes on your iPhone?
Google's got a fix
If you're like a lot of iPhone
customers who use Chrome,
there's one gripe at the top of your
list: crashes. Go to the wrong
website, and Google's browser
disappears from underneath your
fingertips, forcing you to restart the
"Our biggest criticism has been 'This app crashes a lot,'"
said Abdel Karim Mardini, the Google product manager
who leads work on Chrome for Apple's iOS-powered
devices, the iPad and iPhone. But Google's new Chrome
48, scheduled to arrive today, cuts crashes by 70 percent,
he said.
Performance and stability are key to Google's ability to
persuade you to use its browser on iPhones and iPads
instead of the built-in default, Apple's Safari. Most people
get things done on their phone with apps -- Instagram for
photo sharing, Kindle for reading books, Spotify for
streaming music, for example. Browsers, though, remain
essential for looking up information and for interacting with
companies whose apps you may not want to install.
For such a crucial product, the most used browser in the
world today according to analytics firm StatCounter, you'd
think Google programmers would be in firm control. For the

versions of Chrome that run on Windows computers, Macs,
and phones and tablets powered by Google's Android
operating system, they are. But on iPhones and iPads,
Google actually relies on Apple to supply a crucial core part
of Chrome -- against its preferences.
To understand why, bear with us for a moment for an
explanation of how a browser works.
When a browser loads a Web page, a core component
called the renderer digests the page's programming
instructions and arranges all the text, photos, buttons and
other elements on your screen. But under Apple's rules for
iOS devices, programmers are only allowed to use Apple's
renderer. When Google wants to fix a bug or support a new
Web technology, it has to wait for Apple to do so.
"The number one wish list would be to allow browsers to
ship their own rendering engine," Mardini said.
Google is constrained by Apple's choices, he said. "It
doesn't seem like browsers are as important to them as
they are to Google or to the mobile Web in general," and
Apple has "much more of a native app mindset," in which
phone users access online services through downloaded
programs instead of websites.
Apple didn't respond to a request for comment.
"Performance and stability are the two biggest wins,"
Mardini said. "Users will really feel it. "
2016-01-27 21:32:39 Stephen Shankland Stephen Shankland by

71
Not recycling is more immoral than watching
porn, say teens in study
Technically Incorrect offers a
slightly twisted take on the tech
that's taken over our lives.
One person's morality is the next
person's source of humor.
We all try to make sense of the world, and as we're growing
up, we realize that the way our elders made sense of the
world was often quite twisted.
Perhaps the one statistic that most shows how young
people's concerns have presumably altered over time is
this: 32 percent of young respondents said watching porn is
"usually or always wrong. " 56 percent said the same about
not recycling.
When push comes to love, young people seem rather more
concerned about whether their planet will survive than
whether they will be cast into hell for watching others
having sex.
There are more stimulating nuggets from this survey of
3,000 people, both young and older. (The full study will be
published in April.)
Almost half the young respondents said they encountered
porn at least once a week -- even on those rare occasions

when they weren't actually looking for it. More than half of
women under 25 said they seek out porn. (Among men
under 25, the number was 81 percent.)
The study also explains that one reason both teens and
older adults turn to porn is because it's less risky than
actual sex.
Morality, though, is a curious thing. While many people
might be more accepting of porn as a regular part of one's
psychological diet, there is less forgiveness when a man of
the cloth indulges.
Among adult Christians studied, 41 percent said pastors
should be fired or asked to resign if they're found to have
sneaked a peek at porn.
The personal guilt associated with porn seems to be rapidly
abating, however.
The researchers say that a small minority of adults feel guilt
about watching pleasures of the flesh. Teens are the most
likely to feel guilt, but these are still a small minority.
Practicing Christians are twice as likely to feel they're doing
something immoral.
The vast majority of these respondents said they watched
porn online. Perhaps that very ease -- and a certain social
liberalism among people in general -- has led to an
acceptance of the idea that porn is really just porn,
something to be enjoyed, rather than feared.
This research put it very openly: "People use porn for the

obvious: arousal. But also for boredom, curiosity and fun. "
So it's not too dissimilar to sex, then, is it?
2016-01-27 21:32:40 Chris Matyszczyk Chris Matyszczyk by
72
iPhone once again top phone in US and
China
Apple may have reported
essentially flat iPhone sales on
Tuesday, but the device is still hot
in the world's biggest markets,
according to a new report.
In the US, Apple's market share is
39 percent, according to Kantar's research. "Apple loyalty in
the US is at its highest since 2012, reinforcing the fact that
customer retention is not an issue," Kantar research chief
Carolina Milanesi said in a statement. And in urban China,
Apple took back its position as the most-sold smartphone
brand with a 27 percent market share and the top three
most popular models, added Tamsin Timpson, Kantar's
strategic insight director.
All of this means that the iPhone is again more popular than
phones from Samsung, LG, Motorola and other players in
the US, and is outselling phones from local vendors such as
Huawei and Xiaomi in China. So why are things so dour in
Apple's kingdom?
Tuesday's quarterly results from Apple actually saw iPhone

sales up ever so slightly from a year ago. Yet that was the
slowest growth since the company began selling the
phones in 2007. Worse, Apple predicted total company
revenue would slide next quarter and said that in the March
period, iPhone sales are in for their first slump ever.
In the US, Android's share of the market grew by 11.5
percent last quarter, while Apple's shrunk by 8.6 percent,
according to Kantar. In Japan, Android's slice rose by 6.1
percent, while Apple's declined by the same amount.
Throughout the European Five (France, Germany, Italy,
Spain, UK), Android's share was up by 5.4 percent, while
Apple's was down by 3.3 percent. Among the regions
tracked by Kantar, only China delivered, with a 5.6 percent
rise in the iPhone's market share.
Kantar pointed to specific reasons for Apple's poor
performance. The volume of people jumping ship from
Android to the iPhone dropped to 11 percent last quarter
from 13 percent for the same period in 2014, Milanese
said. Further, the "contribution that first-time smartphone
buyers make to Apple's overall sales numbers went from 20
percent to 11 percent over that same period," Milanese
added.
The US smartphone market also continues to become
saturated with fewer first-time buyers. As the number of
potential new buyers declines, Android offers a more
tempting environment with a wider-priced range of phones.
In contrast, the iPhone remains a premium-priced device.
2016-01-27 21:32:41 Lance Whitney Lance Whitney by

73 Apple's Tim Cook speaks: 6 juicy revelations
You'd think Apple CEO Tim Cook
would take a victory lap after his
company reported the most
profitable quarter in history, again.
Instead, Cook used terms like
"extreme conditions" and "bleak" to
describe the business environment.
The quarterly results, which saw iPhone sales tick up ever
so slightly from a year ago, are a testament to the
challenges that Cupertino, California-based Apple faces in
keeping the sales juggernaut humming. The quarter, which
ended in late December, is likewise a reflection that we may
finally be getting over smartphones, including the iPhone.
That's not all we learned. From virtual reality to a
staggering 1 billion active devices across the globe, here
are the six juiciest tidbits shared by Cook on Apple's
investor conference call.
Cook didn't mince words when talking about what Apple's
running into around the world.
"We're seeing extreme conditions, unlike anything we've
experienced before just about everywhere we look," Cook
said. He noted that key markets including Brazil, Canada
and Japan were hurt by the slowing economy, falling
commodity prices and weakening currencies.

That's a bigger deal because 66 percent of Apple's revenue
comes from outside the US, Cook said. In addition, he
blamed currency fluctuations for this quarter's weaker
revenue figure. The company posted revenue of $75.9
billion, but Cook said that if you took out the currency
exchange rate, it would have been $80.8 billion.
Apple's strongest market for the past year has been China,
but even that country is starting to see slowing sales thanks
to an economic downturn that have folks gun-shy about
buying a pricey iPhone.
Cook, however, noted that Apple posted its "best ever"
results from China, with revenue growing 14 percent from a
year ago. There's certainly a deceleration; its growth a year
ago was 99 percent. Sales growth in the fiscal fourth
quarter was 70 percent.
"We remain very confident about the long-term potential of
the China market and the large opportunities ahead of us,"
he said, "and we are maintaining our investment plans. "
"This is an unbelievable asset for us," he said.
Speaking of services, Cook mentioned that consumers
have spent billions of dollars in purchases through Apple
Pay, which lets you pay at the cash register with the wave
of your phone. Apple Music, meanwhile, has gained 10
million paying subscribers since the free trial ended.
With hardware sales potentially in decline, Apple will lean
more heavily on getting you to use its services as another

way to generate money.
"Because our customers are very satisfied and engaged,
they spend a lot of time on their devices and purchase
apps, content and other services," he said.
In a subtle reminder that Apple is still sitting prettier than its
rivals, Cook said he was "blown away" by the number of
consumers switching from Android devices to iPhones. He
added it was the highest level so far.
That's partly why Cook said that although iPhone sales will
decline in its fiscal second quarter, they likely won't fall as
much as people fear.
"I don't think it's a niche," he said. "It's really cool and has
some interesting applications. "
That is as close to a confirmation that Apple is working on a
VR product as we're going to get.
2016-01-27 21:32:43 Roger Cheng Roger Cheng by
74
iPhone 7 Plus may beckon with two rearfacing
cameras
Apple may create a version of the
iPhone 7 Plus with two rear-facing
camera lenses to offer and combine
wide-angle and telephoto shots,
according to an analyst.

Not all of this year's iPhones will receive the new
technology, according to Kuo. The 4.7-inch iPhone 7 would
stick with a single camera lens, and the 5.5-inch iPhone 7
Plus would come in both single-lens and dual-lens versions.
The dual-lens variant could make up as much as 35
percent of total iPhone 7 Plus shipments in 2016, according
to Kuo's crystal ball. The next-generation iPhones are
expected to launch in September per Apple's usual time
frame.
Apple did not immediately respond to CNET's request for
comment.
2016-01-27 21:32:44 Lance Whitney Lance Whitney by
75 Introducing the new League of Legends
Now that the season has started
and these anticipated features are
starting to unlock for players,
GameSpot sat down with several of
Riot's designers to learn more
about what changes and additions
League will be seeing this year.
What is the new League of Legends client?
Greg Street, the lead game designer for League of
Legends, explains why and how they intend to replace the
game's aging client with a new one.
How do parties and clubs, League's new social features,

work?
Greg Street discusses the new clubs and party features set
to hit League in a future update.
What is Dynamic Queue and what changes are happening
to Champion Select?
Alan Moore from Riot Games explains how the new
dynamic queue system in League of Legends lets you play
with more of your friends in ranked games.
How can players unlock new champions, skins and more
through the upcoming Hextech Crafting system?
Greg Street explains how Hextech Crafting is a new system
being introduced into League of Legends that will allow you
to unlock almost any champion or cosmetic item just by
playing the game.
Finally, who is Jhin, The Virtuoso, League's new upcoming
champion?
League of Legends champion designer August Browning
talks about his upcoming champion, Jhin, The Virtuoso.
Learn about Jhin's abilities, his gameplay, and what went
into creating him.
2016-01-27 21:32:45 GameSpot Staff GameSpot Staff by
76
Salesforce Adds 'Private Spaces' On Heroku
Platform

Salesforce is making "Private Spaces" on its Heroku
development platform generally
available after a trial that began last
September. The move on Jan. 26
brought an additional set of
development options to Salesforce
customers who may be looking to combine their online
CRM with more of their existing enterprise services.
Heroku is the independent development platform that
Salesforce acquired in 2010 for $212 million. The
acquisition was puzzling at the time, because Heroku had
no existing connection to Salesforce CRM or Salesforce's
in-house Force.com development platform. Instead of
running inside a Salesforce data center, Heroku ran then
and runs now on Amazon Web Services infrastructure.
But a strategy has slowly emerged where the ties between
the two platforms have steadily strengthened. Previously,
Salesforce customers could write applications on Heroku
that could link to data produced by Salesforce SaaS apps.
Then they could also tie in external Heroku services to work
in conjunction with Salesforce services.
Now they can build these combined operations so that they
run in a secure, trusted, and compliant manner, said Brian
Goldfarb, senior VP of the Salesforce App Cloud.
Private Spaces for Heroku Enterprise are similar to the
"private cloud" servers and virtual private data centers that
AWS and other cloud providers set up for customers who
want extra privacy and control inside multi-tenant systems.

Heroku Private Spaces are runtime environments for
workloads where the networking, routing, and network
control plane are dedicated to a single application, rather
than shared, Goldfarb explained in an interview.
In effect, adding the Private Spaces option to Heroku
Enterprise gives Salesforce customers platform-as-aservice
capabilities "for building instantly scalable apps with
the trust and control that CIOs need," Goldfarb wrote in a
blog post published Jan. 26. Working in Heroku Private
Spaces is equivalent to working behind the enterprise
firewall, he claimed.
Another blog post from Jan. 26 by Tim Lang, Heroku senior
product manager, explained that Private Spaces were a
Heroku environment redesigned from the ground up to
meet the requirements of sensitive applications. Developers
get to use the familiar development tools of the Heroku
environment, including Heroku containers known as
"dynos" and easily activated links between a Heroku
application and code running on Force.com. Unlike
Force.com, Heroku offers Ruby and a wide variety of
language choices, while the Salesforce platform relies
primarily on Apex, a proprietary language.
[Want to learn more about Salesforce's development with
Heroku? See Salesforce Beefs Up Heroku for Custom
Enterprise Apps .]
Heroku Private Spaces are still running in the Amazon
cloud, filled with multi-tenant servers, but the manner of
Private Spaces provisioning "ensures the strongest level of

isolation for applications, networking, and infrastructure
resources, in turn enabling production apps to meet
stringent security and trust requirements," Lang wrote.
Before Private Spaces were created, a Salesforce customer
using Heroku didn't have a choice regarding where to run a
sensitive application, such as one using the firm's customer
identification numbers and addresses. It ran in a multitenant
environment with shared networking and other
resources. Even though it functioned as expected, the
environment lacked the restrictions demanded by the credit
card industry's PCI requirements for using credit card
numbers, and by other regulations.
"In a Private Space, you run on a software-defined network
that only your application can use," Goldfarb said.
Private Spaces will join Salesforce Heroku's multi-tenant
shared environment, the Force.com proprietary
environment, and the Salesforce SaaS CRM services, as
another component of the Salesforce App Cloud and its
umbrella set of application services.
What have you done to advance the cause of Women in
IT? Submit your entry now for InformationWeek's Women in
IT Award. Full details and a submission form can be found
here.
1/27/2016 01:06 PM Connect Direc www.informationweek.com

77
VMware CIO Occupies Hot Seat Between Top
Management, Customers
Bask Iyer, the new CIO at VMware
, says his job lies at the intersection
of his firm's release of new products
and their adoption by customers. As
the CIO he's often called to vouch
for those products by citing the fact
that VMware itself is using them. He
also makes his staff responsible for
talking about how that's working out.
In some quarters, it's called "eating your own dog food," a
phrase popularized by Dave Cutler at Microsoft while
leading the Windows NT development team in 1991. Iyer
prefers saying, "drinking our own champagne. " He uses
VMware's vCloud and vSphere suites of products
throughout an IT operation that includes support for a large
body of software developers working on VMware products,
plus a 1,000-person IT staff.
Iyer has been in the job a scant nine months, but he was
ready to talk about his priorities during a visit to
InformationWeek Jan. 21. Iyer replaced former CIO Tony
Scott after Scott was tapped last February by the Obama
administration to become the next federal CIO in Chief.
(Scott is the third federal CIO. His predecessors were Vivek
Kundra and Steve VanRoekel.)
Iyer, a confident, gregarious figure, spoke freely despite the

fact that VMware may be facing staff cutbacks of 900
personnel in advance of the acquisition of EMC and
VMware by Dell, according to both Fortune and
Bloomberg in reports published Jan. 22, after Iyer's visit.
"Tony Scott is a customer of ours," Iyer pointed out. "I know
a lot of CIOs personally. We (the IT staff) can give feedback
on every product we make. " Iyer said he spends 30% of
his time meeting with customers, and "it brings more
credibility to VMware. "
Iyer has assumed a share of external relations as part of
his CIO job. He makes available the IT staff members
responsible for the operation of particular products, even
though "they're not dressed for it. " He's found "it doesn't
matter how they're dressed. Customers want to talk to the
people who run the cables and administer the servers. "
Iyer gets no sales commissions, and sometimes he gets
grief. "Customers will tell me what they don't like about the
product before they'll tell another VMware executive," he
noted, and he conveys that information back to the
development side of the house. But often, as a result of a
successful deal, he receives a bottle of wine from the
customer's account representative. "I've got a lot of bottles"
stored in the wine cellar, he said.
One thing the VMware IT staff can't help customers with is
the sometimes difficult implementation of OpenStack for
internal or private cloud operations. VMware produces its
own version, VMware Integrated OpenStack, and is a
contributor to the project's virtual networking component.

But it is not an implementer of OpenStack itself, even
though Iyer has experience with the task from an earlier
implementation he was involved in while CIO at Juniper
Networks. VMware will provide professional consulting
services to customers for an implementation, of course.
If you want to build an OpenStack cloud "yourself with
completely open source code, then you'll want to have a
super-duper team to do it," he advises.
[Want to see how VMware has moved beyond
virtualization? See VMware Value Lies in Modern Data
Center Management .]
One issue on which he has an instant rapport with other
CIOs is finding and retaining staff. "I'm in the Silicon Valley,
competing with everyone for valuable people. Every
company is competing for millennials, the younger
generation embedded in the smartphone and transitional,
digital economy. They want to use their own phones and
they want a quick response when they request a server for
a project. " Iyer said that rapid provisioning comes from
VMware's use of its own private cloud and its integration of
multiple phone models from its use of VMware AirWatch.
"Telling new hires, 'You will use this,' or, 'You will use that.'
That's not going to work," Iyer said. "It's a challenge, but I
look at it as very exciting. " The company offers five to ten
applications for mobile users and needs "30 by the end of
the year," said Iyer. Email and VMware's Socialcast, an
answer to Salesforce's Chatter application, are two of them.
A mobile app providing employees with a map of facilities,

particularly meeting room locations and navigation to get
there, is in demand, he noted.
"The data center (operations) and private cloud teams are
very small. We have to rely on highly automated
operations," he said. But he acknowledges that VMware
itself, while talking about the software-defined data center,
is still working on implementing one itself.
How much of VMware's data center operations are
virtualized or software-driven operations? "I'm struggling to
come up with a number," conceded Iyer. (Perhaps his short
tenure in the job was catching up with him during the
interview.) He noted that 60% of his staff is involved in
software development for the company, versus 40% for
operations.
VMware is implementing its own NSX virtual networking, but
it's "still a work in progress. " Solely because a virtual
networking approach is being implemented, "doesn't mean
all the hardware issues disappear. " On the contrary, the
hardware is still needed, and upgrades need to be installed,
as always. But with virtual networking, "the guy who
provisions a server can also do the networking," he said.
At VMware, the CIO "is viewed as the voice of the
customer," which is a special status that Iyer takes quite
seriously. But he's wary of spending any more of his time
on external relations. He has plenty of internal customers to
worry about.
"You can't forget what your operational day job is. You have

to earn your place at the table. "
1/27/2016 10:06 AM Connect Direc www.informationweek.com
78
Microsoft Open Sources Deep Learning, AI
Toolkit On GitHub
On Monday Microsoft joined its
peers, including Google, Facebook,
and Yahoo, in offering a deep
learning framework to support
artificial intelligence applications.
The company released its Computational Network Toolkit (
CNTK ) as an open source project on GitHub, thus
providing computer scientists and developers with another
option for building the deep learning networks that power
capabilities like speech and image recognition.
CNTK has been available to academic researchers since
last April under a more restrictive license .
There are already several dozen deep learning toolkits and
modules available. But the pace at which this technology is
appearing has quickened. According to artist and developer
Kyle McDonald, the average interval between deep learning
framework releases was 47 days in the 2010-2014 period.
Last year, he claimed in a tweet , that interval shrank to 22
days.
That may be because AI has become a major focus at
leading technology companies. In early 2015, Facebook

open sourced modules for the Torch deep learning toolkit.
Then in November, Google released TensorFlow. In
January this year, Baidu released Warp-CTC. Even Yahoo
joined in, releasing a dataset derived from the Yahoo News
Feed to fuel machine learning systems.
Microsoft attributes the surge in interest to the growing
number of researchers running machine learning
algorithms supported by deep neural networks -- systems
modelled on the processes in human brain. Microsoft says
that many researchers believe such systems can enhance
artificial intelligence applications.
The rapid improvements over the past few years in the
speech recognition capabilities of applications like Apple's
Siri and Google Translate, and in the image recognition
capabilities of Google Photos, suggest that belief is wellfounded.
As mobile and Internet-connected devices
proliferate, AI can be expected to become even more
important as a way to facilitate function without traditional
keyboard-based interaction.
But corporate interest in releasing such toolkits isn't entirely
altruistic. By making software used internally available as
open source code, these companies benefit from
contributions that improve their code. By encouraging
external research talent to become familiar with internal
toolsets, they make the path by which these people could
become employees a bit easier to traverse.
Xuedong Huang, Microsoft's chief speech scientist, extolled
the speed of CNTK in a blog post. "The CNTK toolkit is just

insanely more efficient than anything we have ever seen,"
he said.
CNTK can take advantage of the number-crunching power
GPUs on single computers (Windows or Linux) or
computing clusters.
TensorFlow can utilize distributed GPUs too, but only on
Linux machines. TensorFlow runs on OS X without CUDA
parallel GPU support ( perhaps not for long ). It also can be
run on Windows through Docker, which likewise limits GPU
usage. Windows support through Bazel appears to be
planned.
[See AI, Machine Learning Rising In The Enterprise .]
One disadvantage of CNTK is that it requires C++.
TensorFlow supports Python as well as C++. However,
Microsoft is planning to add support for Python and C#. It's
also developing an Azure cloud service, referred to as
Project Philly , that will provide the ability to run CNTK,
among other applications, across multiple virtual GPUs.
In a Facebook post expressing support for an assessment
of deep learning frameworks conducted by Microsoft
researcher Kenneth Tran, Yann LeCun, director of AI at
Facebook, contends that Torch has the fewest deficiencies
among deep learning frameworks. "Torch has an almost
perfect rating on all counts," he notes. "Theano and
TensorFlow lack speed, Tensorflow and Caffe lack
flexibility. "
Ultimately, however, these toolkits depend upon data, and

neither of the companies providing deep learning tools are
offering third-parties access to the massive datasets they
use to train their models. To use that data, start with a job
application.
What have you done to advance the cause of Women in
IT? Submit your entry now for InformationWeek's Women
In IT Award. Full details and a submission form can be
found here.
1/27/2016 09:06 AM Connect Direc www.informationweek.com
79
Galaxy S7 specs, release date, rumours and
price
IT MAY SEEM like not long has passed since
the Galaxy S6 first graced us with its presence
just months ago, but if speculation is to be
believed Samsung looks set to launch the
Galaxy S7 in just one month's time.
Rumours are pointing to an unveiling of the Galaxy S7 at
Mobile World Congress (MWC) in February, so it's no
surprise that rumours are starting to flood in thick and fast,
speculating about everything from the smartphone's screen
size, processing power and even its mooted retina
scanner.
We've rounded up everything we know about the Galaxy S7
so far, and will update this article when we hear more.
Release date

Much like the Galaxy S6 before it, the Samsung Galaxy S7
is widely expected to see a glitzy unveiling during
Barcelona's MWC, which this year takes place from 22-25
February .
According to Evleaks, the Galaxy S7 will go on sale in the
US on two weeks after its MWC unveiling on 11 March.
Starting to look like a Friday, March 11th Galaxy release in
the U. S.
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) January 22, 2016
Although Samsung has yet to confirm the release date,
Carphone Warehouse is already allowing customers to
register their interest in the phone. The the retailer says
that the handset will go up for pre-order "shortly after" its
likely MWC unveiling.
Price
Of course, we don't yet know how much the Samsung
Galaxy S7 will cost. If it's anything like the Galaxy S6, it's
likely to start at around £560 SIM-free.
It could be cheaper than last year's model, though. Analyst
Pan Jiutang said that Samsung is considering making this
year's Galaxy S7 models "10 percent cheaper" than the
Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge in a bid to undercut the iPhone 6S
and upcoming iPhone 7.
Rumours and specs
With a launch reportedly just one month away, speculation

about the Galaxy S7 is starting to flood the internet.
The handset will apparently look pretty similar to the Galaxy
S6, according to a report from Korea. In a bid to keep costs
low, Samsung will reportedly stick with the same metal and
glass design seen on this year's handset, and it'll be of a
similar size too, at 143x71x6.94mm, according to thirdparty
accessories leaked to GSMArena (below) .
A second model, set to arrive as the Galaxy S7 Edge, will
reportedly dwarf this model at 163x82x7.82mm.
Samsung might not be content with launching just two new
handsets. Evleaks said ( below ) that the firm could debut a
third during its MWC press conference, the Samsung
Galaxy S7 Edge+.
Honestly surprised by this (though it does explain a lot).
pic.twitter.com/B7fL41qShm
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) January 12, 2016
These three models will sport different screen sizes. The
Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge will have a 5.2in screen, according
to some, while others point to a smaller 5.1in offering. The
Galaxy S7 Edge+ will be the biggest of the three, probably
with a 5.7in display.
It's not yet known whether these screens will offer the same
QHD resolution as the Galaxy S6 , or whether the firm will
follow the Xperia Z5 and kit out the handset with 4K
displays.
These screens are reportedly set to come with technology

similar to the 3D Touch on the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus. A
leak on Chinese social network Weibo , and since backed
up by The Wall Street Journal , claims that Samsung will
use Synaptics' ClearForce technology in its next
smartphone that can register levels of force as well as
movement.
More rumours claim that the so-called Galaxy S7 could be
Samsung's first to come with a 'foldable' display. The firm is
reportedly testing a phone, codenamed Project V, that's on
track to be released in February.
The Galaxy S7 could also see an improvement in the
security department. Rumours claim that the smartphone
will offer Windows 10 -style iris scanning technology, similar
to that seen on Microsoft's Lumia 950 and 950 XL
handsets.
In terms of power, the Galaxy S7 is likely to feature
Qualcomm's Snapdragon 820 chip , which the firm has
reportedly optimised to prevent overheating. This chip,
according to Qualcomm , will deliver double the
performance with lower power consumption than the
Snapdragon 810 before it.
There was also talk that Samsung has bagged exclusivity
on the processor until April , hinting that rival manufacturers
won't be able to launch Snapdragon 820-powered phones.
However, Qualcomm dismissed this rumour at CES with the
launch of the Snapdragon 820-powered Letv Le Max Pro.
Samsung could release an Exynos variant of the

smartphone, which will reportedly come with 4GB RAM,
despite talk that the Galaxy S7 could up the ante with 6GB
of RAM. Weigh that been added to this rumour by leaked
benchmarking scores via AnTuTu , which show that the
Galaxy S7 packs Samsung's own Exynos 8890 processor.
The Galaxy S7 could also mark the reintroduction of the
microSD slot, according to a report at SamMobile .
As for the camera, Samsung has already given us a
glimpse at the sensor likely to feature on the Galaxy S7.
The firm showed off its new Britecell camera technology at
a conference in South Korea, claiming that the slimline
sensor packs more, smaller pixels for sharper and brighter
images. As 9to5Mac reported, this is thanks to the way the
sensor ditches green pixels in favour of white ones.
By allowing more light in, Samsung has been able to
decrease the pixel size from 1.12µm to 1µm, as speculation
had previously suggested .
However, there's also talk that Samsung might opt for a
Sony-made sensor over its own, after speculation claimed
that the Galaxy S7 could feature the same 23MP camera
seen on the Xperia Z5 line-up. VentureBeat has heard,
though, that the Galaxy S7 will sport a 12MP sensor, a
downgrade compared with the 16MP camera on the Galaxy
S6, coupled with an f/1.7 lens aperture.
Further speculation points to a USB Type-C port on the
Galaxy S7, similar to that seen on the OnePlus 2 , which
means it will ship with an iPhone-style reversible charging

cable.
We'll assume that the Galaxy S7 will feature Google's latest
Android 6.0 Marshmallow operating system ( below ), and
Samsung is likely to continue the trend to tone down the
TouchWiz user interface.
On the software side, Samsung reportedly plans to mimic
Apple's Live Photos, a feature that captures 1.5 seconds of
video before and after a picture is taken. Android Geeks
said that the firm is working on a Live Photos-like feature
that is supposed to debut on the Galaxy S7.
If it's anything like this year's launch event, also expect
Samsung to unveil a curved-screened sibling for the Galaxy
S7, probably called the Galaxy S7 Edge.
The Samsung Galaxy S7 is likely to be released in 32GB,
64GB and 128GB models. µ
2016-01-27 21:27:37 www.theinquirer.net
80
Google Chrome had an unchecked extension
that can spy on you
SECURITY TREE SHAKER Malwarebytes has
come out swinging with talk about a Google Chrome
extension that could be your new nightmare.
It wouldn't be a day of the week if one company wasn't
casting shade on the security precautions of another.
Today it is Malwarebytes and its target is Google and the

Chrome browser and its use of extensions. These things
combine to cause a problem, says Malwarebytes,
predictably.
"Chrome extensions are very much like Android Apps as
they require certain permissions (access to your contacts,
microphone, camera etc) and unfortunately more often
than not, they require more rights than they ought to have.
Additionally, a lot of people don't really understand what
those mean and will install these extensions and forget
about them," yells the firm in its alert blurt.
"This makes it an ideal situation for threat actors to
aggressively push bogus apps and use a little bit of social
engineering to coerce end users into downloading
malware-laden extensions. "
Threat actors being what they are some efforts have been
made to exploit the system and force Chrome users into a
security nightmare that looks like a real pain in the ass on
video.
"We recently came across a malvertising incident pushing a
site forcing us to install a Chrome extension called iCalc.
There was no clean way of closing the window and refusing
to install this program. As soon as the user moved the
mouse close to the address bar or near the close button,
an annoying dialog accompanied by a stern audio message
would pop up," added the firm.
"This extension had some tell-tale signs of being malicious
beyond its aggressive distribution method. Although it was

listed in the Chrome store, it had no screenshot information
or reviews. "
iCalc is an online calculator. Good luck to anyone who
downloaded the vanilla-looking extension, and our
commiserations. Malwarebytes reckons that the thing
stinks.
"A closer look at this app confirmed our suspicions. There
was little if nothing about any calculator in there but rather a
set of scripts to create a proxy and perform web request
interceptions. We noticed that it silently talked back to this
domain to retrieve additional commands and updates at
regular intervals," the company said.
Malwarebytes reckons that 1,000 people downloaded the
extension before it was officially removed from the Chrome
store.
The bad news is that the same malware strain quickly
made itself known again. The relatively positive news, at
least for us, is that now it has a focus on Russia and social
networking. Bad news for Google all round, particularly
when our most recent focus on Chrome was a positive one
about speed improvements.
Malwarebytes reckons that you ought to have a stock-take
of your extensions and delete any you do not recognise or
that don't look right. µ
2016-01-27 21:27:39 www.theinquirer.net

81
Canonical and Oracle partner to make cloud
adoption via Ubuntu even easier
CANONICAL and Oracle have announced a
joint venture aimed at speeding up cloud adoption.
The companies have made an agreement to provide
enterprises with greater flexibility in the way they develop
and deploy large-scale workloads on Oracle Cloud .
The move sees Ubuntu images available on the Oracle
Cloud Marketplace, so that customers can quickly get hold
of the software they need to make the cloud work for them.
Canonical has pledged to make images available on the
Marketplace within minutes of their general release.
The companies have worked together to ensure maximum
optimisation between Oracle Cloud and Ubuntu, with
Ubuntu recognised as a gold partner in the Oracle Partner
Network.
Udi Nachmany, head of certified public cloud at Canonical,
said: "Aside from the obvious cost savings inherent in open
source cloud development, one of the key benefits of using
official Ubuntu images is that customers use the same
operating system at scale in production as in development,
at no additional cost, which dramatically simplifies crosssubstrate
management, migration and re-engineering.
"Organisations may want to deploy their servers onpremises,
develop their own private cloud in-house, or use
the Oracle Cloud. Ubuntu offers this flexibility. "

In addition, Ubuntu users will be able to use the Advantage
Virtual Guest service to get support from any machine - real
or virtual - running on the cloud.
"Ubuntu Advantage Virtual Guest offers end users full
enterprise-grade support - whether on a virtual machine,
Docker-style or full-system container, public cloud, private
cloud or on-premise, LTS or interim version, and systems
management through Landscape," Nachmany said.
The companies believe that by offering certified images in a
"grab and go" format, enterprises can be assured that they
have the latest accreditations, security updates and, of
course, access to Canonical's support network.
Canonical claims to have the fastest security patch rate of
any Linux provider for added reassurance. µ
2016-01-27 21:27:41 www.theinquirer.net
82 Beware the 500Gbps denial-of-service attack
GOOD GRIEF. Distributed denial-of-service
(DDoS) attacks are putting on weight and breaking records,
according to numbers from watching firm Arbor Networks.
The Arbor Networks 11th Annual Worldwide Infrastructure
Security Report has a big whack of a warning for readers,
and a tale about an oversized 500Gbps DDoS beast in the
wild.
"A constantly evolving threat environment is an accepted

fact of life for survey respondents," said Arbor Networks
chief security technologist Darren Anstee.
"This report provides broad insight into the issues that
network operators around the world are grappling with on a
daily basis. Furthermore, the findings underscore that
technology is only part of the true story since security is a
human endeavor and there are skilled adversaries on both
sides.
"Thanks to the information provided by network operators
worldwide, we are able to offer insights into people and
processes, providing a much richer and more vibrant
picture of what is happening on the front lines. "
This is all well and good, but the detail is the thing here.
Arbor said that attackers are embracing DDoS attacks as a
show of strength and that this muscle flexing led to the
500Gbps attack.
"This year the top motivation was not hacktivism or
vandalism but criminals demonstrating attack capabilities,
something typically associated with cyber extortion
attempts," said the report.
"Attack size continues to grow. The largest attack reported
was 500Gbps, with others reporting attacks of 450Gbps,
425Gbps and 337Gbps. In 11 years of this survey, the
largest attack size has grown by more than 60 times. "
Akamai warned us in August about 240Mbps mega attacks
, but these things continually advance. We reported in
October that some companies out there get attacked on

average four and a half times a day. Let us spare a thought
for those poor bastards. µ
2016-01-27 21:27:51 www.theinquirer.net
83
5 things revealed in OpenSignal’s State of
Canada’s Mobile Networks report
According to OpenSignal , Canada
is becoming a land where 4G
networks are a ubiquitous part of
our digital lives. The wireless
coverage mapping company’s
recent report, State of Mobile Networks: Canada (January
2016) took the results from more than 15,600 Canadian
OpenSignal users, and examined the performance of
Canada’s Big 3 nationwide operators over a three month
period between September and November of last year.
Here are some of the key findings.
4G network performance is consistent among major
carriers
According to the OpenSignal report, Canada’s Big 3 —
Telus, Bell and Rogers — rank pretty much the same when
it comes to 4G network performance. The report reveals
that the carriers all averaged more than 17Mbps, which is
far above the global average of 12.6Mbps.
One possible reason for this, the report notes, is due to
network-sharing agreements — Telus and Bell share

towers and infrastructure across Canada, while Rogers has
struck similar deals with many regional operators like
Videotron in Quebec and MTS in Manitoba.
Carriers are focused on low latency while they gear up for
voice-over-LTE
Major carriers in Canada are currently working on
improving their networks for voice-over-LTE, according to
the report. Specifically, 4G latency measurements across
Canada are in line with global operators; carriers are
focused on network improvements to ensure lower latency,
in order to boost adoption of real-time communications
services like video conferencing and VoIP that require fast
reaction times, the report found.
Canada’s regional network providers are delivering strong
performance overall
According to OpenSignal, regional providers such as
Videotron and SaskTel delivered strong network
performance compared to the major carriers. While the
report is careful not to make direct comparisons, it noted
that Videotron and SaskTel both averaged LTE speeds
greater than 27Mbps in their respective provinces.
Videotron in particular, scored high for its 4G coverage in
Quebec, connecting its customers to an LTE signal 78 per
cent of the time.
High-availability networks are generally consistent across
the country
Canada has a vast, spread out population but the network

experience is typically the same, according to the report,
whether you are in Yellowknife, Vancouver, Halifax or
Toronto. Access to a 4G signal in Canada is an easy thing
to do most of the time, the report revealed, noting that
Rogers in particular won this category hands down,
supplying an LTE connection 80 per cent of the time.
Network speeds are evenly matched among Canada’s Big
3
OpenSignal also measured the average download speed
on each network on 3G connections. Tracked over a period
of three months in 2015 — September, October, and
November — it reveals that Canada’s Big 3 are evenly
matched: Bell ranked first at 3.97 Mbps, followed by Rogers
(3.12Mbps) and Telus (3.36Mbps)
When it comes to the network progress of Canada’s three
major operators, Canada currently has some of the highest
performing networks in the world and they only seem to be
improving, the report concluded.
Published: January 27th, 2016 Ryan Patrick
84
Focus on IoT – Gary Semplonius, VP of
business mobility at Bell
ITWC partnered with the City of
Toronto to co-host Technicity on
Dec. 3, 2015. The day brought
together leadership within the

organization of the city, Toronto’s technology leaders, and
influencers from elsewhere to discuss both the opportunity
and the challenges brought by the Internet of Things to
municipalities. We’re featuring a series of interviews we
conducted on that day here. You can watch the entire
playlist here.
After his keynote presentation at Technicity, Gary
Semplonius spoke with us about how the Internet of
Things (IoT) is being harnessed by municipalities to reduce
costs and improve services to residents. While citizen
expectations are rising about quality of life, challenges like
congested roads are negatively affecting their experiences.
With the right technology, cities can start to address the
problems and improve the lives of its residents. Plus, learn
what New York City plans to replace its cell phone booths
with.
Published: January 27th, 2016 Brian Jackson
85 BT Teams With Cisco for SD-WAN Service
The British telco is using Cisco's
iWAN technology as the foundation
for its new Connect Intelligence
IWAN managed service.
British telecommunications firm BT
Group is using technology from Cisco Systems to add
software-defined WAN to its list of managed services.
BT's Connect Intelligence IWAN is based on Cisco's iWAN,

the networking giant's software-defined WAN (SD-WAN)
product. The new service, which integrates the iWAN
offering into BT's Connect portfolio of network services, will
enable customers to improve network traffic performance
and gain better visibility into their applications without
needing more bandwidth, according to company officials.
Such capabilities are the promise of SD-WAN, a fastgrowing
market in which established networking vendors
like Cisco and a range of smaller companies are trying to
gain greater traction. Enterprise use of the cloud to deliver
applications and services is growing, and increasingly
mobile workers are demanding better wireless Internet
access. Service providers and businesses are looking to
SD-WAN as a solution, either as a complement to or
replacement of Multi-Protocol Label Switching (MPLS) or
other routes.
Gartner analysts predict that by the end of 2019, 30
percent of enterprises will use SD-WAN products in all of
their branches. Currently, fewer than 1 percent do. IHS
Infonetics noted in a report in November 2015 that the first
half of the year saw the SD-WAN space becoming more
established.
"The SD-WAN market is still small, but many startups and
traditional WAN optimization appliance vendors and
network vendors have jumped in," Cliff Grossner, research
director for data center, cloud and software-defined
networking (SDN) at IHS, said in a statement at the time.
BT's Connect Intelligence IWAN is part of a larger strategy

y the telco to expand the use of SDN and networkfunctions
virtualization (NFV) in its infrastructure, a
move that other carriers and service providers are
embracing.
"For years, we have … been adding 'intelligence' to the
network services we provide to our customers," Keith
Langridge, vice president of network services at BT Global
Services, said in a statement. "NFV and SDN are part of
that drive, and aim at making those services more dynamic
and automated. They pave the way for a new generation of
services that are quicker and easier to set up and change. "
Langridge called the new SD-WAN service an "important
new building block" in BT's network virtualization efforts,
adding that "it will help our customers all over the world
deal much more effectively with ever increasing bandwidth
and traffic optimization demands. "
The first version of the service will offer virtual private
network (VPN) capabilities across sites worldwide that use
different transport technologies, officials said. Customers
will be able to reduce costs by interconnecting remote sites
through multiple options—including MPLS VPNs, the
Internet and mobile devices—in a hybrid fashion and use
encryption technology when transferring data. In addition,
applications can automatically be routed via the best path in
this hybrid network, based on real-time analysis of network
performance.
Application performance also will be faster, which will mean
improved productivity and an improved user experience,

and the combination of increased application visibility and
analytics will give customers greater insights in the
performance of their applications and network. Plus, it will
mean enhanced monitoring and incident management
services by BT, officials said.
BT also will offer a fully managed IWAN service that will
include design, setup and configuration, as well as monthly
reports on network and application performance.
Cisco and BT have been selling the managed service to
customers around the world since December, and in the
near future customers with the right hardware will be able
to get a free 90-day trial of Connect Intelligence IWAN
service.
BT is not the only telco that is using Cisco's iWAN
technology in its infrastructures. Verizon also is leveraging
the product as part of its SDN and NFV efforts.
Cisco officials see a significant opportunity in SD-WAN,
even beyond its own iWAN product. The company earlier
this month was among the investors in the recent $27
million that SD-WAN vendor VeloCloud Networks raised. In
September 2015, Cisco issued its "SD-WAN Bill of Rights"
to help guide businesses in their decision-making.
By Posted 2016-01- Jeffrey Burt

86
Andrew Miller was accused of spending more
than $200,000 of corporate funds on
personal perks and falsifying documents to
cover up the scheme.
The former CEO of video
conferencing technology vendor
Polycom reportedly will pay a
$450,000 fine to settle a lawsuit
brought by federal regulators that accused him of using
company money for personal expenses and then covering
up the scheme by filing false documents.
According to a report in Reuters , Andrew Miller—who left
the company in 2013 after an investigation by an audit
committee of Polycom's board of directors found what it
called "certain irregularities in Mr. Miller's expense
submissions"—did not deny or admit to the charges against
him, according to papers filed last week in District Court in
California by the Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC).
In addition to the fine, Miller also agreed to not serve as an
officer at a publicly traded company for five years,
according to the report.
Miller came to Polycom in 2009 and was named CEO a
year later. According to the SEC, during his time with the
company, Miller used company funds to pay for personal
expenses, ranging from travel and entertainment to meals,
gifts and services, such as the $5,000 spent for plants and

a plant-watering service at his apartment, according to
regulators.
In all, Miller was accused of using more than $200,000 of
Polycom's corporate money for perks that weren't reported
to investors.
He attempted to hide the spending by falsifying business
documents, including expense reports, between 2010 and
July 2013, when he left Polycom. Polycom's board replaced
Miller with Peter Leav in December 2013.
Among the accusations levied against Miller was that his
actions violated regulations that required that he and
Polycom disclose such perks to investors. Polycom last
year agreed to pay a $750,000 fine to settle charges that
the SEC filed against the company, accusing it of having
inadequate internal controls and failing to inform investors
of Miller's personal perks. Like Miller, Polycom officials did
not deny or admit to the charges when the company
agreed to the fine.
Polycom executives announced Jan. 26 that fourth-quarter
2015 revenues came in at $316.8 million, a 9 percent
decrease from the same period a year earlier. Net income
was $32.1 million, a year-over-year drop of 4 percent.
2016-01-27 21:33:47 Jeffrey Burt
87
Intel, Qualcomm Intensify Focus on China's
Data Center Market

Intel and Qualcomm this month each unveiled partnerships
with Chinese entities that will open
the door wider to getting their data
center processors into the country's
market. Qualcomm is launching a
joint venture with a Chinese
province to build the company's upcoming data center
systems-on-a-chip (SoCs). A day later, Intel said it will work
with two entities to build data center offerings based on its
Xeon processors. Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst with
Moor Insights and Strategy, said: "This announcement
answers a lot of questions on how Intel will compete for
China's data center market in an environment where
Chinese companies want more control and a government
who wants more of a say around security. … The Chinese
server chip space is heating up for sure, and Intel has given
its rivals yet another thing to contend with. " Intel has had a
presence in China for three decades; Qualcomm for two.
Both have made significant moves in recent years to
expand their presence there. Others—from Dell to Hewlett
Packard Enterprise to OpenPower —are making a push
into the country. This slide show highlights some of the
recent efforts by Intel and Qualcomm.
2016-01-27 21:33:48 Jeffrey Burt
88
IT Pros See Salaries, Bonuses Continue to
Rise
Average salaries for tech professionals reached the six-

figure mark in seven markets for
the first time in the annual Dice
study.
Average technology salaries in the
U. S. saw the biggest year-overyear
leap ever, up 7.7 percent to
$96,370 annually, according to the annual salary survey by
Dice, a careers site for technology professionals.
The wage hikes paint a picture of an overall solid
environment for technology professionals with 62 percent of
workers earning higher salaries in 2015.
Almost half of respondents reported a salary increase as a
result of upward mobility at the same company, with 38
percent receiving a merit increase and 10 percent receiving
an internal promotion.
The second most common reason for a rise in salary was a
result of the professional changing employers (23 percent).
Bonuses and contract rates also rose from 2014, and tech
salaries in seven metro areas reached six-figures for the
first time since the survey began more than a decade ago.
Average salaries for tech professionals reached the sixfigure
mark in seven markets for the first time in the annual
study.
Already posting average salaries over $100,000, tech pros
in Silicon Valley were again the highest paid in the country.

Other top-earning markets spread from coast-to-coast and
included a not traditionally recognized tech city,
Minneapolis.
"The IT job market is very healthy, not only in Silicon Valley
but across the country," Bob Melk, president of Dice, told
eWEEK. "Average salaries for tech professionals reached
the six-figure mark in seven markets for the first time in our
annual study. These other top-earning markets include
New York, Los Angeles and Seattle as well as emerging
tech hubs like Minneapolis. "
The survey also indicated technology professionals are
becoming more satisfied with their pay, with 53 percent
noting satisfaction compared to 52 percent last year.
In addition, tech professionals’ confidence in job prospects
remained high with 67 percent claiming that they could find
a favorable new position--more than a third (39 percent)
said they intend to change employers in the upcoming year.
"While salary, bonuses and stock options are important,
we’ve conducted separate studies that show that perks like
unlimited vacation, flex-time and working remotely can help
attract top talent," Melk said. "Work-life balance is a priority
for many. We found that nearly half of tech employees say
they want more of a work-life balance, but that their current
job doesn’t allow it. "
Contract workers saw a 5 percent rise in hourly
compensation, with contractors earning $70.26 per hour,
with tech contractors working in industrial/chemical,

professional services, healthcare and utilities/energy
segments getting paid higher than overall tech contract
rates.
"We've seen a continual growth in the average salaries of
tech professionals since 2011. That trend will likely continue
into the foreseeable future, but as always, this depends on
the overall economy and the strength of local tech
markets," Melk said.
By Posted 2016-01- Nathan Eddy
89
Lexmark Launches Printers With Tablet-Like
Interface
The models featured in the new line
include the Lexmark CS700 Series
Printers, CX700 Series MFPs,
CS800 Series Printers and CX800
Series MFPs.
Lexmark announced the launch of next generation A4 color
lasers and smart multifunction printers (MFPs) featuring
seven models.
The models featured in the new line include the Lexmark
CS700 Series Printers, CX700 Series MFPs, CS800 Series
Printers and CX800 Series MFPs.
"Organizations are continuing to find ways to print fewer
documents and print for less, when the need arises. Our
new products help our customers achieve these goals in

several ways," Tim Speller, director of product marketing
for Lexmark, told eWEEK.
Speller explained the color quality and speed of Lexmark’s
new devices enable organizations to print materials in the
office that have traditionally been sent out to third-party
print shops. He said controlling the process in-house helps
businesses decrease costs, control the quality of the output
and manage the schedule of printing in a more efficient
way.
Secondly, the number of interventions with the device will
drastically decrease compared to prior generations, with
longer life components and higher toner capacity.
"This new technology generates significant savings driven
by fewer visits to the device to replace toner and imagining
components," Speller noted.
Third, Speller said the ability to leverage the device as a
point of multi-channel capture continues to improve,
pointing to the tablet-like interface, which enables users to
interact with the device in a way that is familiar to them and
very intuitive.
There are also integration points into Kofax Total Agility
(KTA) to allow ease of integrating the device into existing
KTA workflow applications.
"These features, in conjunction with higher scan capacity
and speeds allow workflow to happen at the point that
content enters an organization, saving them time and
money," Speller said.

Kofax Onboarding Agility is a smart process application
solution framework that reduces process complexity and
shortens processing time to improve the onboarding
experience for new customers.
"Today, remote monitoring and maintenance are easy
examples of how we leverage connected technology,"
Speller said. "We are also applying analytics to the
increasing amount of data available and stepping further
into predictive and preventative maintenance and of course
that data will influence future product design. "
The printers also feature a few optional extras, including
hole punch finishing and staple finishing.
"As a leader in the SmartMFP and process application
space we understand that as devices become smarter and
more connected that the need to efficiently facilitate the
transaction of data from machine to machine and between
people using them will increasingly become part of how
business is done," Speller said. "Lexmark will continue to
lead and evolve our technologies to support those needs. "
By Posted 2016-01- Nathan Eddy
90
Lockr Managed Key Service for Drupal,
WordPress Launches
Lockr, a hosted API and managed key service for Drupal is
out of beta and now also available for WordPress. Cellar
Door Media announced that Lockr , a key management

service for modern content
management systems, is now
available for Drupal and
WordPress.
Lockr enables developers, agencies
and site owners to better secure
Web transactions by protecting encryption and API keys
from organizations such as PayPal, MailChimp, FedEx,
Amazon S3 and others.
Cellar Door Media ranks encryption and key management
as key protections businesses require to operate today.
Many businesses underestimate the likelihood and
magnitude of a cyberattack, assuming that if they are not a
major brand, they are likely not a target.
Yet industry surveys show that upwards of 90 percent of
companies experience some form of security incident, with
nearly half involving the loss of sensitive data—and costs
for these attacks range from tens to hundreds of thousands
of dollars.
The company argues that broad use of security
technologies like SSL/HTTPS shows just how common it is
for sites of all sizes to deal with sensitive data, yet SSL
does nothing for security and protection of the actual
Website and customer database.
"Our clients all require the best security possible to protect
their brand, whether they be an innovative university like
Stanford or an online enterprise like eBay," explains Esten

Sesto, president of Project6 Design , a San Francisco bay
area graphic design firm, in a statement. "Websites are
particularly vulnerable, yet there's no easy or affordable
way for us to lock down things like API keys—and if a
hacker gets hold of the key for a third party mail service, for
example, they can send fraudulent mail from a company's
actual account. That's why we’re so excited about the
protection afforded by Lockr: it allows us to maintain the
integrity of these brands and leave everyone with peace of
mind that their keys are protected. "
By taking advantage of enterprise-grade key management
technology from Townsend Security , Lockr's offsite key
management provides security necessary to protect against
critical vulnerabilities and help sites meet PCI DSS, HIPAA
and other security requirements.
Lockr is available with hosting plans through Pantheon ,
with other leading service providers to be announced soon.
To make it as easy as possible for site owners to try, Lockr
is offering the management of the first API key for free, with
additional keys starting as low as $5 per month.
"SSL/TLS are commonplace today and necessary for
websites to securely receive user data, unfortunately that’s
only half the story," said Chris Teitzel, founder and CEO of
Cellar Door Media and creator of Lockr, in a statement.
"Once the website has the data, they are responsible to
protect it, yet many continue to leave their encryption and
API keys out in the open without a key management
system. Up until now encryption and API key management
was only affordable to large companies and enterprises.

We solved that by offering key management as a service,
allowing any site, regardless of size, to easily protect users,
data and their brand from hackers. "
Lockr can scale based on a website's needs, with plans
ranging from personal to enterprise. For businesses who
need to meet compliance requirements—PCI DSS, HIPAA,
FISMA, etc., Cellar Door Media offers Lockr for enterprise,
with dedicated instances of Townsend Security’s FIPS 140-
2 compliant Alliance Key Manager.
By Posted 2016-01- Darryl K. Taft
91
10 Apps to Defend Your Mac From Malware,
Cyber-Attacks
Security is obviously a concern on a
Mac. For that reason, a variety of
software vendors—from early-stage
startups to well-known corporate
giants—offer solutions designed to
protect Mac users from Internetbased
threats, local malware and even physical theft.
Indeed, a quick perusal of Apple's Mac App Store finds a
wealth of antivirus applications, virtual private networks
(VPNs) and firewalls. The best applications tend to be paid,
requiring customers to pay for the app either once or
annually, depending on the program they choose. But as
with anything in security, the expense is typically worth it—
that is, if the app works well. In this slide show, we take a
look at some of the more popular (and effective) apps that

are designed to handle troubles on the Mac. The apps are
all available now, and while some may be a bit expensive,
they all go a long way in capably safeguarding critical data
and protecting users against malicious threats. Read on to
learn more about some of the most highly respected
security apps for the Mac.
2016-01-27 21:33:51 Don Reisinger
92
Lenovo, SAP Partner to Bring HANA-Based
Cloud Offerings to China
The two vendors are expanding a
years-long alliance to develop cloud
solutions that will feature the inmemory
database on Lenovo
systems.
Lenovo and SAP are expanding their longstanding alliance
by partnering to develop cloud product offerings that will
bring the software maker's SAP HANA in-memory database
to the Chinese market.
Officials with the two tech vendors announced a multipronged
initiative that will bring together SAP HANA and
Lenovo's x86 servers to create cloud solutions for
businesses in China, a market that SAP yet to really break
into. The alliance calls for not only creating these cloud
offerings, but also jointly develop other products based on
HANA and Lenovo's data center systems and to work
together on go-to-market programs that will touch regions

throughout the world.
That will include demonstrating various solutions in
Lenovo's Enterprise Innovation Centers in Stuttgart,
Germany—SAP's home country—Morrisville, N. C., and in
Beijing, where the systems OEM will soon be opening a
new center.
The partnership, announced Jan. 26, will enable customers
to embrace the growing digital economy that is driven by
such trends as mobility, big data, security, hyperconnectivity
and the cloud, according to Tag Robertson,
SAP alliance and solution offerings manager at Lenovo.
"By combining SAP solutions with Lenovo enterprise data
center offerings, we will provide customers with technology
that can help them become agile digital enterprises,"
Robertson wrote in a post on the Lenovo blog site. "These
plans will focus on delivering next-generation technologies
—deployed by two industry leaders widely recognized for
mission-critical, trusted and reliable solutions—to
businesses of all sizes that will help them become agile
digital enterprises. "
Lenovo almost overnight became a significant player in the
global server market in 2014 when it bought IBM's x86
server business for $2.1 billion. The move not only put
Lenovo into the number-three spot among server vendors
worldwide, but also made the company even more
attractive to other tech vendors as a partner that could give
them a greater presence in the China market, particularly
as Chinese government officials have pushed businesses in

the country to buy products from Chinese vendors when
possible.
That fact probably was not lost on SAP, according to
Charles King, principal analyst with Pund-IT.
"This latest partnership expansion also underscores a point
that arose during the System x acquisition process—how
Lenovo's strong position in Asia could eventually enhance
its own and partners' fortunes in those markets, particularly
China," King wrote in a research note. "Lenovo's planned
Innovation Center in Beijing should provide a popular stage
for spotlighting its solutions, including those leveraging SAP
HANA. In fact, Lenovo's Innovation Center investment is
likely to deliver broadly positive returns for the company
and myriad partners, including SAP. "
Kevin Ichhpurani, executive vice president and head of
business development and global ecosystem for SAP, said
in a statement that the two companies "are bolstering the
development of innovative cloud solutions for customers in
China, and exploring new technologies based on SAP
HANA and Lenovo systems that will help address the needs
of the digital economy. "
The partnership between the two vendors extends even
before Lenovo bought IBM's Intel-based server business,
King wrote. Before the deal, IBM's System x servers helped
drive the evolution of HANA, thanks in part to IBM's eX
memory technologies.
"Since then, Lenovo has extended the innovative qualities

of System x offerings with its own X6 mission critical
solutions, its preferred platform for SAP HANA and other
big data and analytics technologies," the analyst wrote.
The alliance between Lenovo and SAP also can be seen
inside their own data centers. SAP's application
development environment and its HANA Enterprise Cloud
both run on Lenovo servers, according to SAP's Robertson.
In addition, SAP is Lenovo's preferred enterprise resources
planning (ERP) provider, and the system maker uses HANA
running on its x86 systems in a scale-out cluster that
Lenovo officials said is showing a 45-fold improvement in
reporting performance and a 50-times improvement in data
loading, he said.
Pund-IT's King applauded the expanded partnership
between Lenovo and SAP, saying that it "offers proof that
imaginative vendors can continue to grow and enhance
strategic partnerships years after they were originally
established. Things change, constantly and inevitably, and
the companies that succeed are those which fully embrace
the evolutionary process. In that way, Lenovo and SAP
reflect the value found in many other parts of the larger IT
industry which gains as much or more through incremental
progression as it does from breakthrough developments. "
By Posted 2016-01- Jeffrey Burt
93 Make Fluffy, Quick Frittatas in a Waffle Iron
Making frittatas is usually a two-step process: Cook on the

stove, then finish in the oven or
broiler. Skip a step and make a
unique frittata waffle in your
versatile waffle iron.
2016-01-27 21:28:17 Melanie Pinola
94
The Illusory Correlation: A Common Mental
Error That Leads to Misguided Thinking
We all use silly logic to help us
rationalize a confusing world. Take
full moons, for example. For
centuries people have been
blaming full moons for inexplicable
behaviors that coincided with them. But it’s an illusory
correlation—we fool ourselves into believing something
based on what stands out most in our memories.
2016-01-27 21:28:18 James Clear
95 These Are Your Four Favorite Wine Openers
You all poured out your
recommendations for best wine
bottle opener, and we detected a
heavy emphasis on double-hinged
corkscrews, with subtle notes of
rabbit lever opener, and just a hint of Ah-so. Check out all
of the nominees below, and don’t forget to vote for your

favorite at the end of the post.
2016-01-27 21:28:20 Shep McAllister, Commerce Team
96
Financial Independence Means Having the
Ability to Change Your Mind
When you plan your long-term
financial life, what does the end
goal look like? Do you have it all
planned out to a T? While you’re
planning, remember to include the
possibility you’ll change your mind.
2016-01-27 21:28:21 Eric Ravenscraft
97
One of Amazon's Most Popular Kitchen
Thermometers Is Just $8 Today
If you don’t have a good cooking
thermometer in your kitchen, this
one has a 4.5 star average on over
3500 reviews, and you can pick one
up for just $8. [ Chef Remi Cooking
Thermometer , $8 with code 8W6BY59J]
2016-01-27 21:28:22 Shep McAllister, Commerce Team

98
The Best Android Apps to Make Driving
Safer, Easier, and More Fun
The very last place you should
spend long amounts of time on your
phone is behind the wheel of a car.
Fortunately, plenty of apps are
designed to help you find
information and deal with distractions on the road safely.
2016-01-27 21:28:24 Eric Ravenscraft
99
Today's Best : 5.1 Surround Sound, Nixon
Watches, Kitchen Thermometer, and More
A complete 5.1 surround sound
system , a popular kitchen
thermometer , and Nixon watches
kick off today’s best deals.
Bookmark Kinja Deals and follow us
on Twitter to never miss a deal. Commerce Content is
independent of Editorial and Advertising, and if you buy
something through our posts, we may get a small share of
the sale. Click here to learn more.
For just $6 today, you can sip your drinks in style with a
four pack stainless steel drinking straws. I own a set of
these, and use one every day in my drinking glass, but
they’re also great when you’re entertaining and want to
class up the drinks you serve your guests. [ X-Chef

Stainless Steel Bend Replacement Metal Straws with
Cleaner Brush, Set of 4 , $6]
2016-01-27 21:28:33 Shep McAllister, Commerce Team
100
Challenge Your Idea of "Normal" To Boost
Your Financial Progress
There are folks who truly can’t
afford to make ends meet.
Sometimes, though, we say we
can’t “afford” things when the reality
is, we can, we just choose to spend
our money on other things. For many of us, the only thing
standing in the way of financial progress is our idea of
“normal.”
2016-01-27 21:28:30 Kristin Wong
101
Ask "Why? " Five Times to Get to the Root
of Any Problem
When a toddler asks “Why?”
incessantly, it can get annoying. But
maybe they’re just trying to teach
you something. The next time you
have a complex problem, ask
yourself “Why?” five times to get at the root of it.
2016-01-27 21:28:32 Eric Ravenscraft

102
All the Ways Credit Card Companies Try to
Screw You Over
It’s important to read the fine print
with just about everything—
especially credit cards. Credit card
companies use some pretty sneaky
tactics to get you to sign up. They
lure you with tempting offers that seem legit, but if you miss
one iota of fine print, you’re royally screwed. Here’s what to
watch out for, specifically, when you apply for a new credit
card.
2016-01-27 21:28:35 Kristin Wong
103
io9 A Bird Pees For 17 Seconds in the Full
Trailer For The Angry Birds Movie | Steamed
Darkest Dunge
io9 A Bird Pees For 17 Seconds in
the Full Trailer For The Angry Birds
Movie | Steamed Darkest Dungeon
: The Kotaku Review | Deadspin
Former NFL Player Tyler Sash Had
CTE When He Died At Age 27 |
Jezebel Rob Kardashian Must Hate
His Family So Much |
2016-01-27 21:28:37 Kinja!

104
New government plan to support cyber
security startups
The government has announced another plan
to support cyber security startups in a bid to grow the UK’s
cyber security market and cyber defence capabilities.
The £250,000 programme will offer help, advice and
support to develop products and services and bring them to
market.
The announcement comes two months after the chancellor,
George Osborne, promised a £1.9bn investment in cyber
security over the next five years and to “aggressively
defend” public services from cyber attacks.
Just over a year ago, government announced £4m funding
for a competition to help small and medium enterprises
(SMEs) develop ideas for countering cyber threats as part
of the drive to achieve £2bn in UK cyber exports by 2016.
The latest initiative is also part of the government’s wider
strategy to promote the UK cyber security industry, which
has grown 70% since 2013 and is worth an estimated
£17.6bn.
The programme will be run in partnership with cyber
security startup incubator Cyber London (Cylon) and
Centre for Secure Information Technologies (CSIT) at
Queen’s University Belfast.
Cylon runs a programme to support fledgling European

security companies. CSIT has one of the UK’s largest cyber
security research labs, has partnered with IT services firm
Infosys to develop intellectual property for combatting cyber
security threats, and is the UK’s national Innovation and
Knowledge Centre (IKC) for cyber security.
The programme is designed to increase the rate of cyber
security startup development in the UK by helping
entrepreneurs to develop, test and validate the commercial
viability of their ideas and transform them into businesses.
Funded by the government’s National Cyber Security
Programme , the early-stage accelerator programme will
support ideas that may currently struggle to win investment
funding because they are not fully developed.
“As technologies continue to evolve there will be an
increased demand for secure products and services, and
this new programme will ensure the best ideas from our
brightest minds can help keep the UK safe in cyberspace,”
said culture minister John Whittingdale at the joint UK/US
Global Cyber Security Innovation Summit in London.
2016-01-27 21:29:34 Security Editor
105
Apple warns of dip as it posts record
quarter
Apple has posted record revenue of $75.9bn
and record profits of $18.4bn for the past three months of
2015, but warns the next quarter will see the first year-on-

year revenue decline in 13 years.
Although last quarter revenue was up 1.7% and profit up
2.2% compared with the previous year, Apple expects next
quarter revenue of $50bn to $53bn, a year-on-year fall of
9% to 14%.
The forecast for the next quarter sent Apple stock down
more than 2.6% in after-hours trading, reports Betanews,
while Wired reports that the stock price fell by nearly 9% at
one point .
Commenting on the last quarter of 2015, Apple chief Tim
Cook said the record quarter was due to record sales of the
iPhone, Apple Watch, Apple TV and Apple Services.
For the third consecutive quarter, the company was silent
on how many Apple Watches it is selling, but said the last
quarter saw sales of 74.7 million iPhones, 16.1 million
iPads, and 5.3 million Macs.
In the past, Cook has cited “competitive reasons” for hiding
the actual number of Apple Watches sold, but in an
earnings call, he said the last quarter set a new quarterly
record for Apple Watch sales.
Despite a 63% increase in iPad sales compared with the
previous quarter, iPads sales fell 25% compared with the
same period the year before.
Cook also highlighted the fact that quarter saw Apple pass
the “major milestone” of having one billion active devices,
but some analysts said indications are that the iPhone

market has peaked.
2016-01-27 21:29:30 Security Editor
106 All-flash array roundup 2016: The big six
In all-flash storage 2015 was year of
consolidation, incremental improvement and price reduction
from the big six storage suppliers.
In a short space of time, the big six storage providers have
built out their flash product offerings into mature and
scalable platforms. The past few months has seen a focus
on price, with many suppliers – including the startups –
aiming for the magical $1/GB price point.
The all-flash market has become super-competitive, with
only Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) seeing revenue
growth over the past 12 months (at least according to IDC
), and an obvious race to the bottom on price ensuing as
3D and TLC NAND starts to be adopted.
All the incumbent suppliers (HDS, EMC, HPE, NetApp, IBM
and Dell) started the year with existing platforms that
underwent upgrades to features, capacity and
performance. The big six – except for NetApp – had settled
on a flash product strategy, with a mix of acquisition or inhouse
development.
The question we have to ask is where the market will
choose to compete next. Indications are that we’ll see a
focus on automation and systems, and matching of all-flash

platforms to specific workloads such as containers,
virtualisation and databases.
2016-01-27 21:29:32 Storage Editor
107
Average DDoS attacks fatal to most
businesses, report reveals
Average intensity distributed denial of service
(DDoS) attacks are now great enough to knock most
businesses offline, a report has revealed.
According to Arbor Networks’ annual Worldwide
Infrastructure Security Report , the largest attack reported
in the past year was 500 Gbps , representing a 60 times
increase in 11 years.
There were also reports of attacks of 450Gbps, 425Gbps
and 337Gbps, but these are fairly rare, said Gary
Sockrider, principal security technologist at Arbor Networks.
“What is significant is that the average of just under 2Gbps,
which we see across tens of thousands of attacks, is
enough to overwhelm most business internet connections,”
he told Computer Weekly.
Another significant change, he said, is that for the first time
in several years criminal activity has replaced hacktivism
and vandalism as the top motive for DDoS attacks.
DDoS attacks are being used mostly by cyber criminals to
demonstrate attack capabilities, mainly for extortion
purposes .

A growing number of businesses are also seeing DDoS
attacks being used as a distraction or smokescreen for
installing malware and stealing data .
2016-01-27 21:29:34 Security Editor
108
Gartner advises CDOs on how to overcome
resistance from IT
Gartner is advising the new breed of chief data
officer (CDO) to build political alliances of trust to
overcome the high levels of resistance they get from the IT
department.
Many CDOs , said the analyst firm, are fighting a war with
corporate IT over the control of information assets and their
governance .
The firm predicted that 90% of organisations will have a
chief data officer by 2019, and estimated 1,000 CDOs this
year.
“Business leaders are starting to grasp the huge potential
of digital business , and demanding a better return on their
organisations’ information assets and use of analytics,” said
Gartner research vice-president Mario Faria . “It’s a logical
step to create an executive position – the CDO – to handle
the many opportunities and responsibilities that arise from
industrial-scale collection and harnessing of data .
“The CDO’s role will raise expectations of better results

from an enterprise information management strategy, with
stakeholders wanting a clear idea of the exact mechanics of
making success a reality.”
The firm is pessimistic about the CDO’s chances,
estimating that only half will meet with success by the end
of 2019.
CDOs will struggle to get the budget and commitment from
the business they need to make their plans a success.
“This raises a political aspect to the role – building trust and
relationships in the organisation will be important to
achieving success,” said Faria.
Gartner is advising CDOs to “work tirelessly to build trust
with various business stakeholders, especially the CIO”.
CDOs should also educate senior colleagues about the role
that data and information play in overall business success ,
and “establish baselines on information governance and
data monetisation from which progress can be measured”.
Gartner is offering advice for what a successful CDO should
do in their first 100 days .
In a report on Computer Weekly’s sister US site
SearchBusinessAnalytics , John Bottega, former CDO at
Bank of America, was quoted saying the CIO and CDO
roles should be seen as complementary – the CDO should
be responsible for data strategies that bring business
benefit, while the CIO manages technology.
In an echo of the Gartner counsel, he said the CDO needs

to be a collaborative leader who can steer a political path in
the upper reaches of an organisation.
2016-01-27 21:29:36 Business Applications Editor
109
Defra minister Rory Stewart plugs data
analytics at IEA launch
Reading University officially launched its £13m
Institute for Environmental Analytics (IEA) on 26 January,
with Defra minister Rory Stewart speaking in support.
The institute’s chief executive officer Colin McKinnon
announced three new partners to join the 10 organisations
that signed up to (and co-funded) the IEA initiative in 2015:
engineering consultancy BMT Group, environmental
consultancy ERM, and Agrimetrics, another University of
Reading-based big datacentre.
Stewart, under secretary of state at the department for
environment, food and rural affairs (Defra), hailed the
“imagination of HEFCE [the Higher Education Funding
Council for England] in funding the institute”. HEFCE
provided £5.5m last year.
“Environmental data is at the heart of everything we do at
Defra, whether I’m looking someone in the eyes from
Leeds, and explaining why we are spending £42m on flood
defences as opposed to £140m, or whether I am discussing
with the Tanzanian government why lion reserves for
hunting should be allowed as part of a conservation

strategy.”
He added: “I am excited to be playing a small part in
launching and backing this initiative. I’d appeal to you to get
involved with Defra. We are putting our data sets out there.
It is only going to be any good if [the environmental science
community] makes use of it. Come back to us and fight with
us as necessary.
“We need to think very deeply about what we do with
government computer systems. How do we make sure we
are not signing up to 10-year contracts that mean while the
Irish are using Lidar data [Light Detection And Ranging] to
do their rural agency payments we can’t?”
He asked those attending the launch event to help with IT
skills in government. “If civil servants don’t really get how
this stuff works, it is no use us pontificating.”
But he also warned about the need to be aware of the limits
of data in the face of the physical reality of flooding.
The IEA is to act as an intermediary between scientific
expertise and industry. It is doing “pre-commercial R&D and
the development of proof-of-concept demonstrators”,
according to an institute statement.
It works across five sectors: agri-food, insurance, built
environment and infrastructure, logistics and transport, and
utilities.
McKinnon said: “We are proud to see the reality of the IEA
taking shape, with early project wins and most of the team

in place. Just last week we delivered our first training
course on utilising the free data being generated by the
new EU Copernicus satellite programme which was sold
out. We are in advanced discussions with further partners.
We have finished our first demonstrator for the insurance
sector. And we are working on two more, with seven or
eight others in the pipeline.”
David Bell vice-chancellor of the University of Reading,
said: “There is a long and distinguished history of
environmental and climate research at Reading. The IEA is
also designed to make a contribution to the development of
the UK’s skills base. There is a shortage of environmental
analytics skills and we will be offering training to make
commercial use of open data. ”
2016-01-27 21:29:42 Business Applications Editor
110
VMware to cut 800 jobs in cloud-focused
company restructure
VMware is to cut 800 jobs as part of
a company restructure to counter
the softening demand for its server
virtualisation software as it shifts focus to newer product
lines.
The virtualisation company’s outgoing CFO, Jonathan
Chadwick, confirmed the news during a conference call,
transcribed by Seeking Alpha , covering the details of its
fourth quarter 2015 financial results.

The final quarter of 2014 saw VMware post a 12% year-onyear
rise in revenue – in constant currency terms – to
$1.87bn, along with an 11% increase in licence revenue to
$825m.
The company’s full-year financials also saw it report a 12%
year-on-year rise in revenue – on a constant currency basis
– to $6.57bn.
The results were hailed by VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger as a
“solid finish” to 2015. However, to capitalise on the growth it
is seeing in its new product segments, the company is set
to undergo a period of reorganisation.
“We are restructuring approximately 800 jobs over the
course of the first half of 2016, and reinvesting the
associated savings in field, technical and support resources
associated with our growth products,” said Chadwick.
2016-01-27 21:29:44 Datacentre Editor
111
Nvidia 361.75 drivers support Thunderbolt 3
external graphics
Nvidia has just released version 361.75 of its
graphics drivers. Along with a handful of SLI profile
updates, there's a new feature out of left field. The
company has added beta support for external graphics
cards over Thunderbolt 3 connections.
This new feature is supported on all GeForce cards in the
900 series, as well as the GeForce Titan X, GTX 750, and

750 Ti models. Besides the Thunderbolt 3 goodness, Nvidia
added SLI profiles for Rise of the Tomb Raider , Tom
Clancy's The Division , and Metal Gear Solid V multiplayer.
The SLI profiles for Rainbow Six: Siege and Sébastien Loeb
Rally Evo were updated, too.
Players can download the 361.75 drivers for Windows 10
here , or check out the full release notes. Those still
hanging on to Windows 7 can click here instead.
2016-01-27 21:22:31 by Bruno Ferreira
112 ORWL: The First Physically Secure PC
Design Shift says it has created the first
physically secure PC -- the ORWL -- utilizing an encrypted
key and a password that the user must have in order to
access the computer.
Each PC comes with a unique encrypted key necessary to
unlock the computer, and there are never any duplicates of
the key manufactured.
ORWL is marketed as a “new category of desktop
computer.” The PC can only be utilized by a user within a
certain physical range. Once the user steps out of that
range, the device locks. If ORWL is tampered with, it will
immediately erase all of its data.
It can detect any tampering through its “active mesh,” which
checks the integrating of the track of the PC.

ORWL uses many of the secure technologies used in
banking, but it’s built for anyone working in health care,
finance, retail or accounting. The PC runs Windows and
Linux and comes with two USB ports and an HDMI port.
2016-01-27 21:34:57 Meghan Ottolini
113
Microsoft delivers Windows 10 Insider Build
14251 for PC testers
Microsoft is making available a new
Windows 10 "Redstone" preview
build to its Fast Ring Insiders today,
January 27.
Pay no attention to the huge jump
in build numbers with this one. The
most recent preview build was 11102; today's is 14251. As
Windows Insider chief Gabe Aul explained, Microsoft is
syncing its PC and mobile build numbers.
Under the covers, this new PC test build doesn't have
notable new features, as was true of the most recent three
preview builds for Windows 10 PC users. This build does
include a number of bug fixes, however, Aul said, including
bugs affecting PC games, third-party assistive technologies
and File Explorer.
This build does introduce a handful of known issues ,
including periodic app crashes. Others are detailed in
today's blog post.

Aul's post today also reiterates that Microsoft is still
planning to release Windows 10 Mobile as an upgrade to
existing Windows Phones "early this year. "
Additionally, Microsoft is "nearly ready" to start providing
new preview builds for Windows 10 Mobile, Aul said. The
first devices to get these will be phones that came
preloaded with Windows 10 Mobile: The Lumia 950, 950XL
and 550. Microsoft will "expand from there," Aul said, as
Microsoft starts making Windows 10 Mobile available on
certain existing Windows Phones.
2016-01-27 18:35:33 By Mary Jo Foley for All About Microsoft | January
27, 2016 -- 18:35 GMT (18:35 GMT) | Topic: Windows 10
114
Google says Cardboard virtual reality viewer
gaining traction
Google Cardboard, a simple viewer
for virtual reality content, has
gained traction in what could be
one of the more interesting
experiments in so-called immersive
experiences.
While Microsoft's HoloLens and Facebook's Oculus garner
a lot of attention and headlines, Google went simple with
virtual reality. After 19 months, Google said more than 5
million Cardboard viewers have shipped.
In a blog post , Google also said that there have been more
than 25 million installs of Cardboard apps on Google Play.

And YouTube has delivered more than 350,000 hours of
virtual reality videos.
Most of the traction in apps and content for Cardboard
came in October 2015 when Google created a morefriendly
SDK for developers and accelerated through the
end of the year. The Cardboard approach for Google is to
rely on Android developers, its installed base and
inexpensive players. Other virtual reality efforts require
more effort and money.
Overall, the ramp for virtual reality will be slow, but all the
technology giants have some kind of bet on the technology.
Google's Cardboard effort is the centerpiece of a broader
effort to bring virtual reality mass market--and ultimately
play in VR ads.
More:
2016-01-27 18:18:58 By Larry Dignan for Between the Lines | January
27, 2016 -- 18:18 GMT (18:18 GMT) | Topic: Virtual Reality
115
Salesforce Heroku Enterprise paves way for
increased platform convergence
Enterprise software: The big trends
and why they matter
The applications that run
businesses are undergoing
profound changes, although there's
also a lot of inertia in the system.

We examine some of the key trends — including cloud
adoption, mobility, consumerisation and business analytics
— that are shaping tomorrow's enterprise software
landscape.
2016-01-27 17:55:52 By Chris Kanaracus for Constellation Research |
January 27, 2016 -- 17:55 GMT (17:55 GMT) | Topic: Cloud
116
TYLT VU Pulse: First Pebble smartstrap
adds heart rate monitoring and wireless
charging
the industry.
Wearables: An emerging trend with
staying power
Wearable tech, from Google Glass
to Fitbit, Jawbone and other
devices, is garnering plenty of
attention. Here’s what lies ahead for
2016-01-27 17:01:00 By Matthew Miller for The Mobile Gadgeteer |
January 27, 2016 -- 17:01 GMT (17:01 GMT) | Topic: Mobility
117
AMD Polaris release date, price, and
specifications: AMD's 2016 Polaris graphics
chips will bring increased power- and
energy efficiency
2016 should see the arrival of two new generations of GPU
architecture. Nvidia has Pascal, which the company claims

could see a performance jump of
ten times that of its predecessor,
and to rival this AMD has
announced its own Polaris
architecture. Here's everything we
currently know about Polaris and what it has to offer those
considering a graphics card upgrade. We’ll update this
article as and when more details are released. If you’re
interested in Pascal then be sure to check out our Nvidia
Pascal release date, price, specifications feature.
See also: Best graphics cards 2016 and How to upgrade
your graphics card
At the moment AMD is saying ‘mid 2016’ for a release date,
but there are no product details available as yet. AMD will
surely follow in the footsteps of its previous generation, with
a wide range of graphics cards such as the Radeon R5
which is under £50 , up to more powerful beasts such as
the Radeon R9 Fury X which available on Amazon for a
little under £500. As cards are announced we’ll be sure to
let you know.
Polaris will use the FinFET manufacturing process,
meaning a shrink down to 14nm. This should bring a
marked improvement in power efficiency; something that is
seen to be a key feature of the Polaris range. As in current
high-end Radeon R9 cards, newer Polaris-based models
will feature the performance enhancing GCN (Graphics
Core Next) architecture, but this time utilising a 4th
generation design which boasts features such as a primitive
discard accelerator, hardware scheduler, instruction pre-

fetch, improved shader efficiency, and memory
compression.
Display technologies have also been given some attention,
with Polaris supporting capabilities for HDMI 2.0a,
DisplayPort 1.3, and 4K h.265 encode/decode.
There is some speculation around how memory will work,
as reports have stated that Polaris will incorporate both
GDDR5 and High Bandwidth Memory (HBM) products. This
led Anandtech to draw the conclusion that the GDDR5
cards would be the lower end, more cost-effective models,
with HBM reserved for more demanding use-cases. This
makes a good deal of sense, as would a similar theory
whereby AMD splits production of the Polaris range across
two different fabrication plants, utilising the 14nm process
for some and a 16nm for others. These theories, of course,
remain highly speculative, but hopefully there will be some
clearer definition as the release date draws nearer.
AMD did recently provide a live demonstration of a new
Polaris-based graphics card, where it faced off against an
Nvidia GeForce 950 variant, both seated in identical Core i7
systems running Star Wars Battlefront at 1080p on medium
settings. Throughout the demonstration the two cards were
hooked up to power meters, and the results were
interesting. While the Nvidia card returned a respectable
average performance/watt rating of 150w, the Polaris
clocked a very impressive 88w, illustrating the potential
energy efficiency that the next generation brings. It’s early
days of course, and we’ll only know the accuracy of these
figures when we can do some real world testing of our own,

ut so far AMD’s Polaris is shaping up very nicely indeed.
2016-01-27 16:17:00 Martyn Casserly
118
Here are some of the best headphones,
designed with sports in mind, available in
2016
We name some of the best sports
headphones you can buy in the UK
in 2016. Get the most for your
money with these headphones for
your smartphone or tablet,
including in-ear headphones, on-ear headphones and
Bluetooth-enabled headphones. See also: Best
headphones for kids.
The Trainer by Gibson headphones are the only on-ear
headphones included in this roundup, as many prefer inears
when exercising as traditionally, on-ears aren’t very
secure. The Trainer looks to be different, as it features
‘AeroFlex’ technology which, to you and us, is an extra
band that slides out from the main headband and sits at the
back of your head, providing enhanced stabilisation when
worn. The cups are weather sealed, meaning the
headphones should be protected against rain and sweat,
and Cooltouch technology dynamically responds to the
temperature of your skin to help you stay both comfortable
and dry.
The headphones are completely wireless thanks to

Bluetooth technology, and boast a 10-hour battery life. It
also features Safe Sound technology that can be activated
by the press of a button, allowing you to hear more of your
surroundings, as well as NightNav LED lighting to make
yourself more visible when exercising at night. Oh, and
they’re endorsed by Usain Bolt, too.
Price: £179.99 from Amazon
At £99.99 (launched at £199.99), the Jabra Sport Pulse
Wireless in-ear headphones look to offer something slightly
different to the standard headphone experience. As well as
offering wireless Bluetooth connectivity, the headphones
feature a built-in heart rate monitor, negating the need for a
smart strap over the chest (which similar products require).
This, along with your own built-in virtual trainer and
dedicated smartphone app provides users with a pair of
headphones that’ll put you through your paces.
All you need to do is select your workout before hand on
the app, and the headphones will provide live audio
feedback on both your BPM and HR Zone, while also
getting updates on your overall distance by using your
phone’s GPS. The data is all collected and digested, and is
available to view in-app after your workout – nice and easy.
If you’re interested, you can check out our full Jabra Sport
Pulse Wireless headphones review.
Price: £99.99 from Amazon
Veho’s ZS-2 in-ear headphones are the cheapest in our
roundup at only £9.99, making them ideal for those of us

that always seem to misplace our headphones. The in-ears
feature ear-hooks that should help the earbuds stay
securely in place during even the most vigorous workouts,
and the anti-flex cable should help avoid any tangled wires.
The IP64 rating of these headphones mean they’ll be
relatively protected from water, rain and sweat, although we
wouldn’t submerge them to test it out!
The ZS-2’s feature 10mm acoustic drivers but, due to the
price, the quality isn’t likely to be mind-blowing. However,
user reviews on Amazon suggest that if you get the right
fitting earbud tip (the headphones come with a few tips) the
audio quality is surprisingly decent.
Price: £9.99 from Amazon
Skullcandy’s Method headphones were also designed with
exercise in mind, and boasts some interesting features.
The first is a specially designed earbud that the company
claims is so comfortable and snug that “you’ll barely know
it’s there” and the accompanying Sticky Gels technology
should stop your headphones from falling out. The
company claims that the technology makes the
headphones “30% more secure” but we’re not quite sure
how they worked out that percentage…
Further to this, the Method headphones boast sweat
resistance, and is covered in a hydrophobic nano coating
that should protect the more sensitive components within
the headphones. The Method’s also feature ‘Supreme
Sound technology’ that should provide punchy bass, natural
vocals and precision highs, although we can’t confirm (or

deny) this but for £25, they look to be worth the risk.
Price: £24.99 from Amazon
Yurbud’s Inspire 300 in-ear headphones are some of the
more interesting sport headphones currently on the market,
namely because of the Twistlock technology. The company
claims that due to the unique design of the Yurbuds, they’ll
“never” fall out once locked in place – which is a pretty
impressive claim, and if true, makes them perfect for
sports. The headphones come with multiple caps to find the
perfect fit, and also include additional sets to provide a
decent level of noise cancellation.
If that wasn’t enough, the cable itself is made from Kevlar
(yes, the stuff used in body armour) which should make
them pretty durable. The headphones also boast JBL
Signature Sound technology, which should produce a
decent level of audio quality.
Price: £34.95 from Amazon
The Sennheiser PMX 685i in-ear headphones are actually
the lightest in their class at only 9g, making them ideal if
you’re looking for a lightweight pair of headphones. As you
can see from the photo, these are neckband headphones,
which will rest at the back of your head when worn, and
should provide some extra security when exercising – the
last thing you want is to constantly keep putting the
headphones back on, right?
The headphones feature a remote control and built-in
microphone for music control and taking calls, and they can

even be rinsed clean after an especially sweaty workout.
Sennheiser claims that the fit of the earbuds allows
background sounds to pass through, providing a greater
level of safety for those that exercise outdoors.
Price: £39.99 from Amazon
Bose’s SoundSport in-ear headphones are the most
expensive pair of in-ear headphones in our roundup, but in
our opinion, it has a good reason to be. Bose, as a
company, is known world-wide for its audio products and
the quality of level they produce, and we imagine the
SoundSports to be no different. The company describes the
audio as deep and clear, with crisp highs and natural
sounding lows, mainly thanks to its’ TriPort technology. It
also features Bose StayHear tips that’ll fit to the shape of
your ears, which should stop them from falling out.
The Bose SoundSport in-ear headphones are also sweat
and water resistant, making them ideal for exercising
outside. They also feature an inline microphone and remote
controls for controlling music and taking calls, and is
available to buy in one of five different colours.
Price: £114.95 from Amazon
Read next: 20 best headphones to buy in 2016
2016-01-27 16:11:00 Lewis Painter

119
How to get your information overload under
control in 100 days
If you don't have any plans to
appoint a Chief Data Office (CDO)
in your organisation it is about time
you started thinking about it. And if
Gartner is to be believed, you'd
better get onto it pretty quickly.
The analysts predict that by the end of 2019, 90 percent of
IT operations will have a CDO in place. The aim will be
simple, in theory at least: to make better use of the
company's information assets.
That's easy to say, but Gartner warns that it will be a lot
more difficult in practice. They believe that only 50 percent
of organisations will be able to achieve that goal within 100
days. The main issue will be the newness of the role - what
will a CDO do?
Gartner's Faria: "The success of a CDO will to a large
extent depend on his or her ability to lead the change. "
Gartner is keen to point out that it is not really difficult to
understand the issues. Most organisations will be aware
that they are sitting on a lot of information - just consider
the amount of data sitting in invoicing and the main other
accounting systems. Then there is all the information being
collected by the waves of CRM systems and the systems
that they spawn.

CDOs will have, "the difficult task of creating an information
strategy with relevant metrics that tie the activities of their
team to measurable business outcomes," the analysts
believe.
Organisations are beginning to grasp the huge potential of
digital business and the increasing demands for better use
of the information assets that organisatons have at their
disposal according to Gartner VP Mario Faria. "It's a logical
step to create an executive position - the CDO - to handle
the many opportunities and responsibilities that arise from
industrial-scale collection and harnessing of data," he said.
Gartner has six recommendations for new CDOs to help
them overcome common challenge:
Becoming a CDO: Here are the steps to anticipate but how
long it will take to work through will be down to the budding
CDO and the organisation.
Fario believes that it is also important that managers
account for the "soft skills" when adopting a CDO role. "The
success of a CDO will to a large extent depend on his or
her ability to lead the change as well as gain the
enthusiasm, support and resources of business leaders
and other key business units," he said.
Palo Alto CIO: What are smart cities?
FinFisher spyware linked to Indonesian government found
in Sydney: Report
Best practice advice for moving to the cloud

2016-01-27 15:38:00 By Colin Barker | January 27, 2016 -- 15:38 GMT
(15:38 GMT) | Topic: CXO
120
Windows 10 at six months: Ready for
primetime?
How long should you wait before
deploying Windows 10?
Ed Bott shares some Windows 10
migration advice.
Revealed! The crucial detail that
Windows 10 privacy critics are missing
Ladies and gentlemen, this is not "spying. " It's analytics.
2016-01-27 15:18:00 By Ed Bott for The Ed Bott Report | January 27,
2016 -- 15:18 GMT (15:18 GMT) | Topic: Windows 10
121
Street Fighter 5 UK release date, features,
price, screenshots and trailers: Street
Fighter V final beta opens this weekend
ahead of 16 Feb release
It’s time to dust off those special
moves, as Street Fighter is back
and with its UK release date
confirmed for just a few weeks
away. There are some familiar, and
rather surprising, characters to play, a revamped battle

system, and graphics powered by the latest Unreal 4
engine. We’ll tell you everything you need to know right
here and keep updating the news as it appears.
Street Fighter 5 release date: 16 February 2016.
Probably the most controversial aspect of the Street Fighter
V launch is that the game will be exclusive to the PS4 and
PC , with no plans for an Xbox One version at all. While this
will be a big disappointment for Xbox players, it does mean
that Capcom is able to offer cross-platform play across the
other two systems.
At the moment you can preorder the game on Amazon for
£42 (PS4) or £39.99 (PC), while on Steam the PC version is
priced at £44.99 but does have the added allure of that
beta access.
The final Street Fighter V beta runs 30-31 January 2016,
and you can enroll here. " Users can sign-up via the
PlayStation Store for a chance at being selected to
participate in the beta program. If you had access to
previous PS4 betas, you will automatically have access to
the final. There is no need to re-register," says Capcom.
Graphically Street Fighter V has toned down the cartoonish
aspects of its predecessor, with a more subtle colour
palette and beautifully animated backgrounds all powered
by the Unreal 4 engine.
The battle system has also seen some finessing, with
Capcom walking the tricky path of simplifying the control
system to make the game accessible for new players, while

etaining the variety that hardened players demand. To
achieve this Street Fighter V features newly devised
systems called V-Skill, V-Trigger, and V- Reversal. V-Skill
replaces Focus Attacks from Street Fighter IV, and
executes special moves that differ for each character, all of
which can be deployed at any time by pressing the medium
punch and kick buttons together. The other two options
require you to have filled up the new V-Gauge, which you
do by taking damage from other characters. V-Trigger
needs a fully charged V-Gauge, and instantly powers you
up to do more damage and use new moves; while the V-
Reversal is similar to Alpha Counters from Street Fighter IV
but only requires a half filled V-Gauge to activate. Not
everything has been changed though, and while Ultra
Combo attacks are now renamed as Critical Arts, the
principle of their use remains the same.
There have been some interesting choices made by
Capcom for this version, with a couple of returning heroes
gracing the screens.
There are the usual fan favourites:
Ryu
Chun Li
M Bison
Cammy
Plus a couple of old faces:

Charlie Nash , who has already been killed off on a couple
of occasions in previous games.
And Birdie , the chain wielding, lumbering Brit returns with
something of a paunch
More characters are set to be unveiled as the release
draws nearer. The game’s producer Yoshinori Ono also
recently teased a character reveal when a new stage in
Brazil was announced via a YouTube video. Speculation is
now rife that Blanka will be added to the roster, as he
originates from Brazil and Ono was surrounded by Blanka
figures and dressed in a Blanka costume by the end of the
video.
At Paris Games Week it was revealed that Dhalsim would
be the first true zoning character, and that six characters
would be added post-launch, bringing the total count up to
22 by the beginning of 2017. From then on one new
character will be released every two months.
2016-01-27 15:11:00 Martyn Casserly
122
Banks must move past PIN, OTP to ensure
mobile security
Asian banks need to stop using PINs and SMS-based
OTPs, which no longer provide adequate security and user
assurance, and start tapping biometrics to authenticate
mobile users.
In fact, the future of authentication resolves around

iometrics on smartphones and
banking apps must support the
technology, sooner rather than
later, urges Tony Chew, Citibank's
global head of cybersecurity
regulatory strategy.
Speaking at the EmTech Asia 2016 conference, Chew
expressed his frustration that most, if not all, banking apps
available today "lacked imagination and creativity",
providing little beyond basic functions.
He urged the need for the industry to undergo "a big
change", especially since surveys had revealed that 70
percent of consumers wanted better mobile banking
products, but were concerned about security. They lacked
sufficient trust and confidence that their information would
be protected, and did not trust merchants, Chew added.
Noting how "absurd" it was that banks today still relied on
passwords and PINs to manage user access, he said it was
"ridiculous" that SMS-based OTPs (one-time passwords)--
which he described as inconvenient--were commonly used
to authenticate transactions.
Previously director of technology risk supervision at the
Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), Chew further
noted that Singapore had among the world's safest and
soundest security systems, with zero or very low fraud
losses for online banking over several years.
However, he added, this system comprised two-factor

authentication based on a hardware token, issued to all
online bank users, which was not convenient to process
banking and payment services on smartphones.
With most consumers now turned to their smartphone to
communicate as well as access and share information
online, they would need to be able to do so confidently via
reliable security. This meant current measures such as
PINs and SMS OTPs would have to go.
Chew called for more innovation in the realm of mobile
banking, especially payments, and pointed to biometrics as
the way forward, specifically, facial and voice recognition.
As more tech vendors integrated support for biometrics in
their products, such as Microsoft with Windows 10 and
Intel's 3D RealSense Camera technology, he said the
technology should now be more easily enabled on
smartphones.
He also noted that biometrics offered much better security
than PINs and passwords in terms of authentication and
verification, tapping an individual's unique physiological and
behavioural traits to build the user authentication template.
Having monitored the progress of biometrics over the
years, he added the technology's accuracy and robustness
had improved significantly. "It is definitely superior and
better than the [security] Q&A [process], which is a
ridiculous form of authentication, as is SMS OTP," Chew
said, adding that he had seen biometrics technology tested
in the labs and was confident in its stability. "This isn't
science anymore. This is a business decision. "

He noted that USAA , a US bank which client base
comprised primarily military personnel, was among the first
to introduce three biometrics options via voice, face, and
fingerprint. "Why haven't banks in Asia followed suit? " he
said, pointing again to the lack of banking apps that used
biometrics, particularly, in this part of the world.
"The whole bank is now in your smartphone and, yet, we're
reluctant and slow in moving to incorporate all the banking
functions on the smartphone... PINs and passwords aren't
secured," Chew said.
The Singapore government, though, does recognise the
need to drive innovation, including in its financial sector.
According to Sopnendu Mohanty, chief fintech officer at the
country's central bank and financial services regulator MAS,
several "big" initiatives around fintech (financial tech) will be
unveiled this year, including efforts in building up the
necessary ecosystem and supporting policies.
Also a speaker at EmTech, Mohanty noted that the global
fintech industry was booming, attracting some US$13.7
billion in funding last year, up more than 45.83 percent over
the previous year.
To drive market growth in Singapore, he said MAS adopted
a regulatory and development approach, pushing out the
necessary policies, for instance, to support technology
development in this space. He added that other key factors,
including a robust infrastructure as the bedrock, would be
essential to help the market thrive.

He noted that banks were moving to an open architecture
that would allow them to easily connect to fintech products,
including non-financial technology, and facilitate the
integration of creative tools. A change in mindset and
culture also would be essential to drive the ecosystem and
transform the way people connect.
In addition, MAS should serve as a "one-stop shop" where
market players could go to as the centralised body for
policy and development issues, he said.
An experiential infrastructure also would have to be
established to encourage and provide a platform in which
banks and financial services providers could test out new
technology and tools with actual customers, within a
protected sandbox environment.
In this aspect, Mohanty revealed that MAS could soon
become the world's first financial services regulator to
provide guidelines on the development of new technology.
This would create a unique landscape in which polices and
regulations, for once, could keep pace and move ahead of
technology, he said.
All of these would need to be underpinned by key
technology components, namely, digital and mobile
payments, authentication and biometrics, blockchains and
distributed ledgers, cloud computing, big data and learning
machines, cybersecurity, advanced sensors , and APIs
(application programming interfaces).
Noting that payments accounted for 70 percent of the

fintech market, he said there was tremendous growth
potential and Singapore was investing significantly to
develop this space.
Mohanty further stressed that, contrary to "a myth that has
been going around", MAS firmly supported developments in
cloud computing and recognised its importance. He said
effort here would need to focus on ensuring the
infrastructure was more than sufficient to support the
financial sector.
Without APIs, however, none of these key technology
components would work, he said, noting that it was critical
that banks and fintech companies reengineered their
systems to be API-enabled.
2016-01-27 14:57:00 By Eileen Yu for By The Way | January 27, 2016 --
14:57 GMT (14:57 GMT) | Topic: Security
123 Survey: Are big data and IoT a big deal?
Big data and the Internet of Things
(IoT) are two rapidly growing
technological forces which have
often blended together amidst new
advances and possibilities. The
broad expanse of categories which
apply to both concepts can make
definitions difficult to pin down, but in a nutshell, big data is
a collection of information gleaned from various sources
which is then parsed to determine trends, opportunities and

statistical details, among other results which can benefit the
business or industry.
IoT describes internet-connected objects such as consumer
electronics, environmental sensors, security monitoring
equipment and wearable devices. These objects record
and/or transmit data which can then be used for a plethora
of purposes; alerting, monitoring, remote control
functionality and data analysis. The two concepts can easily
work hand-in-hand for mutual benefit.
The number of connected devices is growing fast, and
Tech Pro Research covered the topic last March in a Tech
Pro Research report which yielded some interesting results:
In this year's follow-up survey we will look at the same
concepts as well as progress made, or possible pitfalls, in
how IoT is being used to collect data, new benefits or
observations that have arisen and how the future of big
data and IoT is being shaped.
2016-01-27 14:28:00 By Scott Matteson | January 27, 2016 -- 14:28 GMT
(14:28 GMT) | Topic: Internet of Things
124 EMC's Q4 mixed, but Dell merger on track
Storage giant EMC, which is
prepping for a merger with Dell,
delivered fourth quarter results that
were mixed as demand slowed.
The company reported fourth
quarter earnings of $771 million, or

39 cents a share, on revenue of $7 billion, flat with a year
ago. Non-GAAP earnings were 65 cents a share. Earnings
were in line with Wall Street estimates, but revenue fell
short of analysts' $7.13 billion target.
Overall, EMC is doing what it has to do: Hold the fort ahead
of the Dell acquisition. For the year, EMC reported earnings
of $2 billion, or $1.01 a share, on revenue of $24.7 billion.
VMware to cut 800 jobs, swaps CFO, delivers solid Q4 |
Dell, EMC deal could bolster Microsoft vs. VMware | Dell
buys EMC for $67 billion: Will bigger be better? | Cloud shift
spurs enterprise tech mergers as customers hit pause
EMC CEO Joe Tucci said that the company navigated a
strong dollar, geopolitical turmoil and changing technology
trends well. Tucci also said that the Dell transaction
remains on track. EMC's VMware also delivered solid
results. VMware also brought on Zane Rowe, EMC's CFO,
to fill the same role.
On a conference call with analysts, Tucci recapped the Dell
deal:
Here's a look at EMC's growth by business. The information
infrastructure business was hampered by weak sales at
RSA, but storage also fell.
2016-01-27 14:25:22 By Larry Dignan for Between the Lines | January
27, 2016 -- 14:25 GMT (14:25 GMT) | Topic: Storage
125 Is The iPhone Finally Losing Its Mojo?

It finally happened. The long
upward arc of iPhone sales has
reached its zenith. Apple's fourth
quarter 2015 report shows flat sales
year-over-year, and the company
predicts a first-ever drop in
shipments for the first quarter of 2016. The numbers paint
an interesting story, but not the whole story.
Apple shipped 74.8 million iPhones during the last three
months of 2015. That's up just 300,000 units from the 74.5
million it shipped during the same period in 2014, when the
larger iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus made their debut.
Consumers were all too happy to lap up the more powerful
phones, which were a huge upgrade from the 2012 iPhone
5 and 2013 iPhone 5s.
Interest in the 2015 follow-up smartphones, the iPhone 6s
and iPhones 6s Plus, however, has waned, despite the
bonkers first-weekend sales of 13 million. Apple doesn't
break out sales of individual iPhone models, so we don't
have a clear picture of exactly what handsets are selling.
Most other phone makers would kill to have Apple's
numbers. Look at LG as an example. Its fourth quarter
results show it shipped 15.3 million phones during the last
three months of the year, and 59.7 million for the entirety of
2015. Apple shipped five times as many phones in the
same period. Apart from Samsung, which is still the world
leader in terms of volume, most other handset makers
shipped far fewer devices than LG. Moreover, Apple owns
the lion's share of profits from smartphone sales.

The iPhone accounted for $51 billion of Apple's $75 billion
in revenue for the fourth quarter, or about two-thirds of the
total. The company posted a record profit of $18.4 billion --
more than any other company ever. LG netted a profit of
$301 million for the fourth quarter. Apple's profits were 61
times higher than LG's.
Looking ahead, Apple predicts first-quarter revenues of
between $50 and $53 billion. Piper Jaffray analyst Gene
Munster said that he believes this equates to iPhone
shipments between 50 million and 52 million. Wall Street
expected Apple to predict first-quarter iPhone shipments of
55 million, so the disparity has investors reeling.
[Read iOS 9.2.1 Gives Older iPhones a Performance Boost
.]
Apple CEO Tim Cook would only admit that iPhone
shipments for the first quarter would be flat at best. He
blamed the company's performance on weird market
behavior and currency fluctuations. "We are seeing
extreme conditions unlike anything we have ever
experienced before," he said on a call with investors.
There is a silver lining. Cook noted that only half of all
current iPhone users are on the iPhone 6, 6 Plus, 6s, or 6s
Plus. The rest are still using the iPhone 5s or earlier. "This
indicates to me there's still a tremendous number of people
in the world who will buy smartphones, and we ought to be
able to win over our fair share of those," said Cook.
In the end, Apple is not immune to larger market conditions.

IDC recently said 2015 marked the first-ever single-digit
growth period for phone sales. The analyst organization
says it doesn't expect 2016 to be much better.
Are you an IT Hero? Do you know someone who is? Submit
your entry now for InformationWeek's IT Hero Award. Full
details and a submission form can be found here.
2016-01-27 14:06:00 www.informationweek.com
126
Vaio targets creative pros, business execs
with latest Z, S laptops
Vaio, the former laptop unit of Sony,
is expanding its efforts in the U. S.
as it courts business executives
with new versions of its Z 2-in-1
laptop and a workhorse S.
The laptop maker stopped by the
New York office of CBS Interactive to highlight its new
devices, which have been available in Japan. The latest Zs
come equipped with the latest Intel Core processors,
performance gains and a premium design that made Vaio
popular in the first place.
According to Ty Takayanagi, director of product marketing,
the high-end Z is a tablet-laptop combo that rhymes with
Microsoft's Surface, but has a rigid keyboard and a screen
that stays attached. By keeping the tablet attached to the
keyboard, Vaio gets around having to keep batteries in both

sides of the convertible.
For performance, the premium Z, which starts at $1,799,
has a 28 watt i7 or i5. To handle that power and preserve
battery life, the Z shrunk the motherboard inside to
accommodate fans and more battery. The Vaio laptops are
designed and manufactured in Japan and aimed at creative
pros as well as business execs. Vaio recently outlined its
Vaio Z Canvas.
Takayanagi explained that Vaio expects the Zs, one in
black and one in silver, to fare well with small businesses as
well as executives.
The black Z has a touch screen, a mica touch pad and
aluminum build. Vaio's high-end laptop has a bevy of nice
features and a stylus for notes and white board
annotations. The silver Z doesn't have a touch screen or a
tablet mode and starts at $1,499.
The next challenge is for Vaio to garner more distribution.
The company is rolling out its new laptops via the Microsoft
store and cutting deals with regional retailers in areas like
New York where the Vaio sells well. "We stayed small and
didn't approach large retailers," said Takayanagi. For
instance, the new Vaio devices won't be found at a retailer
like Best Buy. The biggest issue is that Vaio wouldn't be
able to handle a big demand spike with its current
manufacturing footprint.
Vaio is rounding out its launch with an S-series, which is a
workhorse laptop that's designed to take a beating and

withstand drops. The S laptop starts at $1,099 and is
available in early March. The Zs will appear in early
February.
2016-01-27 14:00:04 By Larry Dignan for Between the Lines | January
27, 2016 -- 14:00 GMT (14:00 GMT) | Topic: Laptops
127
Tech policy in campaign 2016: Where do
candidates stand on encryption?
If a smartphone vendor acquiesces
to anti-encryption laws, don't use
them
One of the only good things to
come out of governments wanting
encryption backdoors is that it will
allow the public to identify shady phone software creators in
order to avoid them.
Security and Privacy: New Challenges
As big data, the IoT, and social media spread their wings,
they bring new challenges to information security and user
privacy.
2016-01-27 13:26:45 By David Gewirtz for ZDNet Government | January
27, 2016 -- 13:26 GMT (13:26 GMT) | Topic: Security
128
Here's why Apple sells 16GB iPhones and
iPads (and why they're not going anywhere)

Apple's financials for Q1 16 are out, and while on the
surface it seems that Apple had a
very good quarter , the truth is that
iPhone sales appear to have
stalled, and iPad sales are in a
nosedive.
Now 75 million iPhone sales, and a further 16 million iPad
sales (plus a whole bunch of other stuff like Macs and
Apple Watches) means that Apple is far, far from doomed,
but it's also new territory for Apple. For the first time since
the iPhone was released in 2007 we're seeing a plateau,
and possible signs that iPhone sales are weakening.
But there's more to reading the financial data than looking
at unit sales. Another key figure is ASP, or average selling
price. This figure is simply the revenue divided by unit sales
for each product category. For the iPhone the ASP is $691,
and for the iPad it's $439.
Let's just focus on that figure for the iPhone for now. A
16GB iPhone 6s will set you back $649, so the higher ASP
suggests that Apple is shifting a lot of more expensive
iPhones (higher capacity devices, and the 6s Plus devices).
However, remember that offsetting this is the fact that
Apple is selling older devices, specifically the iPhone 6 and
5s, for significantly less than the price of the 16GB iPhone
6s.
It's a delicate balancing act, but the idea is for Apple to
keep that ASP as high as possible, while offering cheaper
devices for those who don't have deep pockets. You flush

folks who buy the 128GB iPhone 6s Plus handsets for $949
are helping shore up Apple's bottom line in the face of
those who pick up a cheap iPhone 5s.
Now a big complaint I hear from iPhone and iPad owners is
that they feel that 16GB of storage just isn't enough for
them. Well, in many ways that's by design, because Apple
ideally wants customers to buy higher-capacity devices.
This is exactly why iPhones and iPads don't have a micro
SD card slot that allows customers to bump up their storage
cheaply.
The problem with getting rid of the 16GB iPhone and iPad,
and replacing them with say a 32GB model, is that it would
remove the biggest incentive that customers have to give
Apple more of their money. That, in turn, would have a
negative effect on the iPhone's ASP (which has been
steadily increasing). And with iPhone sales having hit a
plateau, and revenues only up by 1 percent, keeping the
ASP up is important.
So, if you're hoping that the base iPhone model will see a
storage upgrade anytime soon, I think you're outta luck.
2016-01-27 12:52:56 By Adrian Kingsley-Hughes for Hardware 2.0 |
January 27, 2016 -- 12:52 GMT (12:52 GMT) | Topic: Apple
129
Create, execute comprehensive load tests
easier than ever with latest LoadComplete
by SmartBear
SmartBear Software , the leader in software quality tools for

the connected world, announced
LoadComplete 4.0 , the new and
improved version of its performance
and load testing tool for Web and
mobile assets. LoadComplete 4.0 is
packed with new features that allow
performance testers and QA
professionals to create comprehensive tests without
scripting, saving time and significantly increasing efficiency.
SmartBear has enhanced dynamic data correlation and
added visual programming, making it easier than ever to
create and execute load tests.
“Guaranteed application performance is essential for
organizations striving to deliver superior user experience
and increase customer satisfaction,” said Anand Sundaram
, Vice President of Performance Products at SmartBear.
“The focus of this version of LoadComplete is to reduce the
time it takes to create and execute load tests, increase
reusability and enhance the out of the box product
experience for testers.”
According to Gartner 1 , “Raised expectations for a highperformance
end-user experience drive the need for
development organizations to expand their quality focus to
include performance testing across the application life
cycle.” The report further stated, “Performance testing can
identify bottlenecks and provide the necessary information
to make changes in the application architecture to improve
performance and increase customer satisfaction.”
LoadComplete 4.0 includes improved capabilities to handle

session variables gracefully, ability to manually correlate
variables, pre-defined data correlation rules for popular
Web frameworks and technologies such as. NET, JSF and
Java and a wizard to automatically create regular
expressions. This drastically simplifies dynamic data
correlation and reduces the time spent fine tuning load
testing scripts.
With a heightened mandate on organizations to shorten
test cycles without comprising on application performance,
testing professionals are increasingly looking for ways to
reuse the work done in earlier stages of the test lifecycle.
LoadComplete 4.0 acknowledges this trend and allows for
users of SmartBear’s automated testing tool, TestComplete
, to convert their functional tests to load tests with just one
click. The plugin is readily available in TestComplete 11.2.
Creating comprehensive load tests with end user
transactions that mimic typical application flow is time
consuming and requires the use of conditional logic.
LoadComplete 4.0 provides a new and highly intuitive user
interface to help create such tests without programming.
Now testing professionals can drag and drop these controls
to create powerful and flexible tests with branches and
loops. These visual programming capabilities enable users
with limited programming skills to create advanced tests
effortlessly.
For more information on LoadComplete 4.0, visit:
https://smartbear.com/product/loadcomplete/whats-new/.
On Twitter, follow @LoadCompleteSB.
2016-01-27 10:59:26 SD Times Newswire View all posts by SD Times

Newswire
130
VoltDB adds geospatial query support to
industry’s most innovative fast data
platform
VoltDB , the only purpose-built database for
fast data applications, today announced the availability of
its newest release, VoltDB v6.0. The game-changing
combination of the world’s fastest operational database with
fast data ingest/export, now with geospatial support, meets
the needs of businesses bringing next-gen applications to
market.
VoltDB makes next-gen business applications smarter and
faster while simplifying system architecture to accelerate
time to value. These applications process hundreds of
thousands to millions of interactions with mobile subscribers
per second; determine when to make in-game offers to
MMPG (massively multiplayer playing game) players;
compute, track and display real-time, regulated pricing and
purchase data for broker-trader firms; serve the right ad, at
the right time, to the right consumer while managing adspend
budgets; and make decisions at millisecond speed
for utilities determining electric-grid supply allocation and
pricing. Applications powered by VoltDB are prevalent in the
mobile, media, Internet of Things (IoT), digital advertising
and financial verticals.
“Combining the exact location of a customer, employee or

asset with real-time intelligence provides organizations with
a competitive advantage. Businesses can deliver micropersonalized
offers that deepen customer relationships and
make operational decisions that maximize efficiency,” said
Jason Stamper, analyst, data management and analytics,
451 Research. “By combining geospatial with fast data,
VoltDB is enabling organizations to maximize the value of
real-time data streams that now include location, turning
insights into actions that drive business growth.”
Version 6.0 builds on VoltDB’s in-memory massively parallel
database architecture that scales transactions and analytics
linearly while maintaining data consistency and high
availability. Key new features include:
VoltDB Version 6.0 is the industry’s only fast data system to
provide a transactional low latency/high throughput
database to add immediate business value to today’s global
fast data applications. From transactional applications
requiring real-time responses and data consistency to
stream processing applications that require per-event
decisions, VoltDB v6.0 is the only platform that combines
ingestion, speed, robustness and strong consistency to
transform fast data applications with capabilities not
available with alternative technologies.
“Speed, relevance and location-awareness are imperative
to dominate mobile advertising,” said Dan Khasis, VP Data
and Analytics, Airpush. “Prior to v6.0, geospatial targeting
was a big mess because there was a lot of computational
overhead related to point-in-polygon evaluation. Because
ultra-low latency is so critical to us, we can now pursue new

initiatives and offer advertisers the ability to reach hundreds
of millions of our mobile users in really interesting and
unprecedented ways. In addition, the reduction in memory
utilization and compute cycles will permit us to further
reduce ad-serving costs by about 80 percent. With VoltDB,
we have instant visibility into critical metrics that help run
our business, and no longer encounter replication outages
like we used to with other OLTP vendors.”
“VoltDB enables enterprises to realize exceptional results
that simply aren’t achievable with other technologies,” said
Bruce Reading, president and CEO of VoltDB. “With VoltDB
v6.0, we have extended the capabilities of the industry’s
fastest in-memory operational database with geospatial
query support, cross datacenter replication and improved
import and export capabilities. We’ve partnered with global
organizations to transform their businesses with fast data
applications that are smarter, faster and more interactive.
Our customers count on us to provide the tools they need
to build applications that are correct, fast and simple,
enabling enterprises to quickly extract value from their realtime
data.”
For more information on the new features and
enhancements in the VoltDB Version 6.0 fast data platform,
please visit: https://voltdb.com/products/whatsnew
2016-01-27 10:56:58 SD Times Newswire View all posts by SD Times
Newswire

131
Mark Fields elected to IBM board of
directors
The IBM board of directors today elected Mark
Fields to the board effective March 1, 2016. Mr. Fields, 55,
is president and chief executive officer, Ford Motor
Company.
Ginni Rometty, IBM chairman, president and chief
executive officer, said: “We are pleased that Mark will be
joining the IBM board of directors. Mark led the highly
successful transformation of his company in a competitive
industry where technology has driven innovation. He is
leading Ford into a future where cars are not only vehicles,
but increasingly becoming mobile technology platforms. His
knowledge and insights in running a complex global
business will make a significant contribution to IBM.”
Mr. Fields joined Ford in 1989. In 2014, he became
president and chief executive officer and was elected to the
company’s board of directors, where he serves on the
board’s finance committee. Previously, he was chief
operating officer, a position to which he was named to in
2012. Prior to these positions, he was executive vice
president, Ford Motor Company, and president of Ford’s
Americas division. In this role, he led the development,
manufacturing, marketing and sales of Ford and Lincoln
vehicles in the United States, Canada, Mexico and South
America and was responsible for overseeing the
transformation of the company’s North American operations
and record profitability. Fields also previously led Ford’s

European operations, served as president and CEO,
Mazda Motor Corporation in Japan and was the managing
director of Ford Argentina earlier in his career. He holds an
economics degree from Rutgers University and an MBA
from Harvard.
Mrs. Rometty also said the company is grateful for the
service of two long-time board members, Alain J. P. Belda
and William R. Brody, who, due to retirement, will not stand
for re-election at the company’s April annual shareholders
meeting.
2016-01-27 10:53:30 SD Times Newswire View all posts by SD Times
Newswire
132
Branch Metrics raises $35 million as it
becomes the mobile industry standard for
deep linking
Branch Metrics, the deep linking solution for
app developers and marketers, today announced that it has
raised $35 million in Series B funding. New investor
Founders Fund led the round with participation from all
existing investors, including New Enterprise Associates
(NEA), Pejman Mar Ventures, Cowboy Ventures, Zach
Coelius , and Ben Narasin, and new investor Madrona
Venture Group. Branch will use this funding to further
accelerate the adoption of its deep linking technology and
to create the next generation of app and app content
discovery products unlocked by deep linking. Since its
founding, Branch has raised $53 million in venture funding.

During the last year, Branch has built deep linking
technology that major companies and mobile app
developers including Pinterest, Redfin, HotelTonight,
Buzzfeed, and Jet use to make app content more easily
shared and discovered. When clicked, deep links take
consumers directly to the correct content for an installed
app, and, if the app is not installed, will take them to the
right place even after a detour through an app store.
Without deep linking, consumers experience a start and
stop experience that discourages downloads and creates
barriers that reduce engagement and user retention. With
Branch, app developers double user engagement, reduce
acquisition costs by 30 percent, and obtain nearly double
the retention rate.
Branch enables app developers and marketers to move
away from expensive paid install campaigns to new, lower
cost marketing channels for mobile apps such as email,
SMS, and social marketing campaigns. With Branch,
marketers can create content campaigns that span all of
their channels and link directly to app content, allowing for
more effective campaigns and lower customer acquisition
costs.
“There is a good reason why people spend 85 percent 1 of
their time on mobile in apps — they offer superior user
experiences and unique content,” said Alex Austin , CEO
and co-founder of Branch. “However, the process of finding
these apps in overcrowded app stores and generic install
ads is painful for both consumers and app developers. We
plan to use this new funding to continue our efforts to

improve the app and app content discovery process.”
Powerful features like Deepview Content Previews, Content
Analytics, and Smart App Banners, when combined with its
best-in-class attribution and analytics, allow Branch to open
up traditional marketing channels to apps. This contentfocused
marketing and organic app discovery powered by
Branch deep links lets marketers incorporate their apps into
their traditional web campaigns.
“Branch has become the standard for linking in the mobile
ecosystem,” said Scott Nolan , partner at Founders Fund.
“For a company that is just over a year old, that is an
incredible achievement made possible by superior
technology and relentless execution. As the clear leader in
deep linking, Branch is perfectly positioned to help change
the way people discover apps.” As part of Branch’s
fundraising, Scott Nolan will join the board of directors.
Branch continues to experience extraordinary growth as its
deep linking technology is adopted by companies of all
sizes. Major milestones include:
Branch’s free deep linking, attribution, and analytics SDK is
used by thousands of apps to power their mobile growth
efforts. Visit Branch.io to learn how e-commerce apps like
Jet and Ticketmaster, digital content apps like Buzzfeed,
Fox Sports and We Heart It, travel and real estate apps like
HotelTonight, Home Away and Redfin, and social apps like
Pinterest, Dubsmash and Coffee Meets Bagel use deep
links.
2016-01-27 10:51:22 SD Times Newswire View all posts by SD Times

Newswire
133
iSheriff introduces complete cloud-based
security solution
iSheriff , a leading cloud security company,
today announced the release of iSheriff Complete , a
comprehensive cyber security platform designed to provide
360-degree protection of an organization’s devices and
communication channels. iSheriff Complete is the industry’s
first comprehensive cloud security platform that provides
fully-integrated endpoint, Web and email security, delivered
through a single Web-based management console with a
single set of enforceable security policies.
“In order to provide a secure network, a security manager
must be able to effectively see and control all
communications in and out of that network,” said John
Mutch , CEO, iSheriff. “iSheriff Complete provides superior
malware protection and complete control of Web, email and
endpoint vectors, providing the only integrated, cloudbased
security platform available today. We deliver
complete cyber security through the cloud, all controlled by
a single, easy to use interface. iSheriff Complete
implements security policies and schedules reports in
minutes, so our customers can get back to running their
business.”
As a cloud-based platform, iSheriff removes potential
malware and viruses before they ever reach our customers’

network via Web or email communications. The company
provides a “clean feed” to customers of their email and
Web traffic.
“iSheriff has efficiently put the important security channels
in one product,” said Benjamin Kroitoro , Managing Director
of LATAM Software, a security distributor in Latin America .
“Many of my customers are seeking effective security that
is easy to configure and effective. iSheriff exceeds the
need on both of those aspects.”
iSheriff Complete is available now. The comprehensive
cyber security platform includes:
Endpoint, Web & Email
Complete vector control and visibility is central to the power
of iSheriff’s platform. “Best of breed” point products do not
work together to create a security system as iSheriff does.
iSheriff Complete is designed to enforce common security
policies across vectors, as well as track users both on and
off the network.
Threat Detection Engine
Working 24/7/365 to stay ahead of the latest cyber threats
on a worldwide basis. The core of iSheriff’s security
operates around the globe, detecting new threats,
developing new signatures and propagating those in a
matter of seconds.
Active Response Console

The console is where it all happens. Designed to be easy to
use, iSheriff’s interface allows organizations to control their
entire cyber security system from one interface. Instantly
displays what threats are seen and what actions you have
taken. Policies come alive with iSheriff.
2016-01-27 10:48:46 SD Times Newswire View all posts by SD Times
Newswire
134 Is Spark replacing Hadoop?
The Apache Hadoop project took
off in enterprises over a fairly short
period of time. Four or five years
ago, Hadoop was just becoming a
“thing” for enterprise data
processing and experimentation. MapReduce was at the
heart of that thing, and Spark was still only a research
project at the University of California at Berkeley. Soon
after, though, if you were doing “Big Data,” you were using
Hadoop.
Spark wasn’t even an Apache project when Cloudera,
Hortonworks and MapR were already in full business swing
in 2013 with Hadoop offerings. Only two years ago did it
graduate to be a top-level project.
Today, Spark is a part of most Big Data conversations, as is
evidenced by how many vendors are offering integrations,
or are planning them in the near future. Large enterprises,
such as Toyota, Palantir, Netflix and Goldman Sachs, are

embracing the technology.
(Related: A detailed look at Spark 1.6 )
Is this uptake at the expense of Hadoop? That’s a larger
question, but to begin with, it’s become clear that Spark is
replacing MapReduce. Anand Venugopal, head of product
for StreamAnalytix at Impetus Technologies, said he
believes this is the case.
“The MapReduce computing paradigm is likely going to get
replaced by Spark as the distributed compute model overall
for any workload,” he said. “There’s one metric I use [when
deciding what to support], which is, what is the number of
customers that tell us ‘We don’t want to talk until you have
Spark?’ That same metric is used for any technology: Is
there a critical mass of customers who have a seriously
broad decision-making body in the enterprise customer that
has committed itself to a particular enterprise technology?”
He went on to state that this critical mass currently exists in
Spark, and that his company’s streaming analytics platform
is bringing support online in the first quarter of 2016.
Ajay Anand, vice president of products for Kyvos Insights,
said, “Most customers expect to see Spark support in the
road map, and we are definitely embracing it along with
Hadoop. From my perspective, we look at what is the
problem we’re looking to solve, and what is the right
technology that is mature enough to help us solve that
problem.”
2016-01-27 10:15:36 Alex Handy View all posts by Alex Handy

135
Taco Bell CMO on digital marketing's 7
paradoxes
PALM DESERT, Calif. — When
Taco Bell CMO Marisa Thalberg
took the stage this week at the
Interactive Advertising Bureau's
(IAB) Annual Leadership Meeting
she showed a graphic that depicts
the growing complexity and chaos of the modern marketing
technology landscape. More than 2,000 startups and
legacy providers currently vie for a piece of that market,
according to Terry Kawaji, founder and CEO of investment
bank Luma Partners, which created the graphic Thalberg
used in her presentation.
"I look at that [graphic], and I think there has never been a
more amazing or more horrendous time to be a marketer,"
she said. The "digital and social media revolution" forced
marketers to work on challenges and goals that often seem
at apparent odds, according to Thalberg.
"Why do [marketers] feel sometimes paralyzed or just
frustrated and confused? " Thalberg asked. "It's because
we are operating in a Pandora's box of paradoxes. "
The CMO then outlined seven paradoxes that she and
many of her colleagues in digital marketing face today.
Brands are told that they need to produce more content

and promote it in more places than ever before, according
to Thalberg. However, the majority of people say they "feel
bombarded by too much advertising and consider it out of
control. "
This means marketers must navigate an increasingly varied
media landscape, while producing appropriate content for
the specific channels they target, she said.
Brands increasingly become publishers when they create
offerings such as Taco Bell's "taco emoji gif generator," a
marketing initiative that resulted in the creation of a tacospecific
emoji, according to Thalberg. However, brands are
still advertisers, and their primary goals are to sell products
or services. "It's not one or the other, we're actually both
[publishers and advertisers]. "
Taco Bell and other global brands tell stories that must be
global, because they are shared throughout the world,
Thalberg says, but equally important local opportunities
also exist. Brands need to tell stories with local relevance
and global interest, according to Thalberg. Some
campaigns may serve both purposes, but marketers should
also specifically target local and global markets with
different types of content.
Campaigns are the traditional method that brands use to
tell their stories to the public, and they're just as relevant
today as they were in the past, according to Thalberg.
However, today's always-connected society also demands
that brands maintain constant, 24/7 communication with
their customers. "Ultimately, we need to tell more stories,

ut in the right ways and in the right places," Thalberg says
A familiar marketing paradox received a particularly vocal
response from the attendees of IAB's annual event.
"Marketing is art …," Thalberg said, pausing briefly so
audience members could help her complete the statement
in unison, "… and marketing is science. "
"Are we all right brain and left brain now? Maybe," she said.
However, while much of what catches consumer attention
in advertising can be attributed to artistic creativity — the
ads that make people laugh, cry or seek out more
information — the mechanics and means by which ads
reach consumers are increasingly scientific, according to
Thalberg.
Creating compelling ads can be tremendously expensive,
Thalberg said. "Great content creation can be elite, but
great content creation can also be democratic. "
The best ads aren't always the most expensive or
professional ads, she said, and amateur, cheaply made
videos and sketches can drive the same results as
multimillion-dollar media campaigns. Great content is not
exclusive to the "elite ruling class of high-end creative talent
and the marketers who have the pockets to afford it,"
Thalberg said.
Retail brands in fast-paced markets, such as Taco Bell,
must pursue both short- and long-term growth and loyalty
opportunities, according to Thalberg. "This is at the heart of
the issue for us as marketers," Thalberg said. "The only

way to win today is to recognize, … embrace and integrate
these paradoxes in our digitally driven world. "
This story, "Taco Bell CMO on digital marketing's 7
paradoxes" was originally published by
CIO.
2016-01-27 09:56:00 Matt Kapko
136
Hangouts 7.0 adds quick reply for more
rapid responses
Google’s Hangouts app for Android
finally has a feature that iPhone
users have long enjoyed: the ability
to bang out a quick reply to a
message right from the notification.
It’s one of several improvements that makes Google’s
instant messaging app more serviceable for everyday use.
There’s nothing you need to do in order to turn on quick
reply—you’ll see it the first time you get a new message
with the version 7.0 update.
Quick reply is a great way to fire off a message, but Google
would clearly prefer you use its new Messenger for SMS.
The other major change is one we’ve seen coming: there’s
now a prominent button pushing you to move to Google’s
Messenger app for SMS/MMS messages. Don’t be
surprised if in a future update you see Hangouts force you

to make the switch.
Another nice improvement is the ability to save a
conversation to the home screen. You’ll find this in the
overflow menu - just select the option and then you’ll be
able to jump directly into the conversation.
Pin a conversation to your home screen for quick access.
There are other Material Design touches throughout the
interface, so dig in and you’re bound to find other surprises.
It’s one of Google’s infamous slow rollouts, so you can get
the update from the Play Store when it goes live or grab the
APK.
This story, "Hangouts 7.0 adds quick reply for more rapid
responses" was originally published by
Greenbot .
2016-01-27 09:46:00 Derek Walter
137
Microsoft opens up co-authoring to thirdparty
file sharing vendors. Take that,
Google Docs
I remember half a dozen years ago
when I saw, for the first time, a
document being authored by
multiple people, in multiple
locations, simultaneously. What
Google Docs enabled was kind of

like rocket science, admittedly in a rather geeky way. All of
a sudden the traditional model of emailing files backwards
and forwards was replaced by something more like a real
world way of working. Of course, sometimes that ability gets
a little skewed and we've all probably seen crazy examples
of simultaneously created documents going wild. But for the
most part, it's awesome.
It's also one of the biggest differentiators between the other
file synchronization and sharing vendors and Google.
Because Google has its own document creation and filesharing
components, it can enable this sort of stuff. For a
Box or Dropbox , this isn't the case.
Until today. Microsoft is announcing the availability of coauthoring
for Office to a select group of vendors from within
its Cloud Storage Partner Program. This announcement will
be a big deal for businesses as they will now have a viable
alternative to Google Drive if they want real-time
collaboration. It will also be another blow to Google who
has lost the massive advantage it had against all-comers in
the cloud-based document creation world.
The importance of this cannot be underestimated. Microsoft
Office has over 1.2 billion users worldwide. Now it is fair to
say that many of those users are individuals and have no
need for co-authoring, but for a significant subset of them,
this move is important and opens up an entirely new line of
business opportunity for the anointed vendors -- Box,
Dropbox, Egnyte and Citrix Shapefile are all in the program
as of day one.

It also has to be said that there is a significant greenfield
opportunity here -- according to some studies, less than 10
percent of enterprise data is stored in a public cloud. What
this means for vendors that enable a hybrid cloud storage
approach (which, in this case, is Egnyte and Citrix) all of a
sudden they can offer co-authoring to customers who need
hybrid storage. And this is appealing to customers. Witness
one education institution's comment:
"Technology is always advancing the way we work, which
positively impacts our operational efficiency,” said Paul
Creed III, technology project director at Kent State
University. “Our Microsoft Office Online users can view,
create and collaborate on documents stored in the cloud
via Egnyte using the Microsoft or Egnyte Web interfaces.
The ability to use existing applications -- that are familiar
and part of everyday workflows -- in conjunction with our
Egnyte account has improved productivity in such a
seamless way, which allows our staff to focus on the task at
hand. "
It's also a big move for Microsoft that shows how the
company is continuing to mature and expand its
understanding of what working with competitors looks like.
A good perspective on this from one person inside the
industry:
“Gone are the days when a single company becomes a
one-stop shop for every possible solution. Businesses are
entertaining multiple technology offerings and selecting
best-of-breed solutions that work seamlessly together,” said
Isabelle Guis, chief strategy officer of Egnyte. “The

invitation from Microsoft to be part of this select group of
launch partners provides our customers choice -- validating
the prevalence of on-premises file storage and the need for
Egnyte’s unique hybrid offering. This announcement also
aligns well with our strategy to partner with industry leaders
like Microsoft to innovate in ways that serve our shared
customer base and create a richer end user experience. "
Happy days for these four file-sharing vendors and happy
days for all the potential customers out there.
2016-01-27 09:30:00 Ben Kepes
138
UpGuard offers a rating score of risk
preparedness
UpGuard analyzes data about the
state of corporate networks to
devise a single numerical score that
gives a quick sense of security risk,
a number that could be used by
insurance companies to set
premiums for cyber insurance.
The UpGuard platform includes a scanner that evaluates
exposure of publicly facing Web interfaces and determines
the risk of breaches. This is augmented by analysis of data
about the internal network from sources including existing
security platforms and software services via APIs or from
Windows Remote Management.

That is rolled up into a number – the Cybersecurity Threat
Assessment Report (CSTAR) – that capsulizes how
vulnerable a network is to attacks, the company says. In
addition to the number, the platform enables drilling down
into what weaknesses it has found so customers can take
remedial action.
Garrett Koehn, regional director for cyber-insurance
wholesaler CRC Insurance Services, says CSTAR could
represent a needed analysis. In insurance, well established
standards are used, say, to determine the level of fire risk
to a structure and to set premiums. “We really don’t have
anything like that,” he says about cyber insurance.
In addition, brokers work with their clients to manage their
risk, and CSTAR could help direct what steps they
recommend to improve risk profiles, he says. The score is a
measure of susceptibility to attack as opposed to a
measure of how severe the damage might be if an attack
succeeds.
Koehn says CRC is starting to rollout the platform now.
UpGuard’s platform was initially designed for mapping
networks against compliance standards and alert network
security pros of security exposures. The company has built
a new set of features on top that adds scrutiny of networks’
susceptibility to external attack.
This addition marks a change in focus that led the company
to change its name from ScriptRock, adopted when the
company formed in 2012, to UpGuard. UpGuard is also the

name of its platform, says Mike Baukes, co-CEO of the
company along with Alan Sharp.
The company fills a niche and doesn’t have a lot of
competition, says Rob Stroud, an analyst with Forrester
Research.
The score could be useful to CISOs and CSOs when they
have to report to their boards about how effectively they are
managing risk, Stroud says. “You’re trying to give
assurances your environment meets minimum standards,”
he says.
That’s a tough goal given that “minimum standards” is a
term for what is essentially a moving target that doesn’t
come with many specific requirements that should be met.
UpGuard is privately funded and based in Mountain View,
Calif.
This story, "UpGuard offers a rating score of risk
preparedness" was originally published by
Network World .
2016-01-27 09:21:00 Tim Greene
139
The ultra-secure Tails OS beloved by
Edward Snowden gets a major upgrade
Edward Snowden's favorite secure operating system just
got a major upgrade. Version 2.0 of the Amnesic Incognito

Live System, better known as Tails,
rolled out recently. Tails 2.0 brings
a new desktop environment,
sandboxing for services via the
always controversial systemd, and
a new build of the Tor Browser.
More importantly, Tails 2.0 makes it easier for new users to
try out the operating system thanks to a revamped
installation process. The new process begins in the
browser, with step-by-step instructions and a new Firefox
add-on that helps you verify the downloaded Tails ISO.
Tails 2.0
Listed at the top of the new features is the Gnome shell
desktop environment. Tails is using Gnome 3.14 in classic
mode to give it that Gnome 2.0-like feel. Previously, Tails
was using Gnome 3.4, an older version of Gnome 3 that
lacks the Gnome classic mode so many users love.
Tails 2.0 is based on Debian 8.0 (jessie) , the current stable
release, which came out last April. Along with Debian 8.0
comes the controversial systemd, an underlying init system
that I won't bother explaining here. Its critics call it a
monolithic piece of software that ignores the Unix-like
concept of small, interdependent utilities. If that sounds like
riveting stuff then check out our systemd primer from
October 2014.
Back to Tails 2.0, the new OS comes with Tor Browser 5.5,
which is based on Firefox 38.06. Firefox is already on

version 44, but software upgrades move far more
cautiously in security-focused systems like Tails.
Finally, the big feature that new users should be most
excited about is the new installation assistant that's
supposed to make it easier to get started. I haven't tried it
out yet so I can't say if it's that much better than previous
versions. If you've been scared off by Tails' complexity
before give the new installation assistant a whirl.
This story, "The ultra-secure Tails OS beloved by Edward
Snowden gets a major upgrade" was originally published by
PCWorld .
2016-01-27 09:16:00 Ian Paul
140
Microsoft hits a home run with this brilliant
iPhone app
I dissed the Cortana app for iOS.
Yet, I use Outlook for iOS as my
main email app on both the iPhone
and the iPad. Now, Microsoft has
made a news app called News Pro
that competes directly with
Flipboard, the News app from Apple, and countless other
readers.
So, is it any good?
Drum roll please....

The app does an amazing job of finding stories related to
your job, skills, and interests. It cuts out the fluff and makes
news reading easier.
It starts with an easy setup process. You can help the app
out by signing in with LinkedIn or Facebook. I chose
LinkedIn because I know that service has a much richer
biography for my skills and resume. I worked perfectly. The
app chose the buckets for “Freelance” and “Writing and
Editing” and immediately showed articles about what it
takes to launch a journalism school and some news about a
new fitness magazine.
I clicked on the Me icon and added a few more interests,
including “Creative Writing” (since I had a new interest in
short stories) and a few related to photography. When you
search for new categories, you can see a list of
organizations, skills, and products. It’s pretty slick, but more
importantly, it works. I found about a dozen articles that
interested me right away, which is far different from what
happens with more generic apps I use like Prismatic (which
doesn’t seem to exist anymore) which had too many
general categories and a splatter of thumbnails. As usual,
it’s all about the algorithms, and Microsoft--thanks to their
Microsoft Garage dev team --has nailed it.
The app is also speedy. With other readers, I have noticed
there is sometimes a weird pause as the app fetches news
or load images and text. With the News app, which is
installed by default on an iPhone or iPad, it seems to take
forever to scroll through the news feed as it reloads. News
Pro lets you drag up and release to fetch new stories,

placing one in a prime spot. Stories load quickly with a
properly-sized thumbnail.
Speaking of speedy -- there’s a mode in News Pro after you
select an article to read called Speedy that removes some
of the extra formatting and images. It helped me focus on a
story posted today on The Huffington Post about how to
consume books faster without the fluff. You can “like” an
article, which puts them all in that Me tab for later viewing. If
you comment, you can review what you said in the same
tab. The comment doesn’t not appear with the article,
though.
The search is handy. I like reading Gizmodo articles, and if
you search for “Gizmodo” in the app, it recognizes that you
mean the site and shows a link, which then creates a
channel. If you want to save that channel, you select the
checkbox. It couldn’t be easier.
I’m impressed with how Microsoft is developing these apps
for iOS, even if Cortana was such a mess. News Pro
reminds me of the Outlook app in that it makes every
feature seem like it was designed for people who don’t
have a ton of time to figure out weird settings and tabs and
are not engineers. News Pro has an intuitive flow that puts
the emphasis on finding stories and reading them. It puts
the interface in the background where it belongs. Nice job,
keep the good stuff coming!
2016-01-27 08:40:00 John Brandon

141
PayPal is the latest victim of Java
deserialization bugs in Web apps
PayPal has fixed a serious
vulnerability in its back-end
management system that could
have allowed attackers to execute
arbitrary commands on the server
and potentially install a backdoor.
The vulnerability is part of a class of bugs that stem from
Java object deserialization and which security researchers
have warned about a year ago.
In programming languages, serialization is the process of
converting data to a binary format for storing it or for
sending it over the network. Deserialization is the reverse of
that process.
Deserialization is not an issue in itself, but like most
processes that involve processing potentially untrusted
input, measures need to be taken to ensure that it is
performed safely. For example, an attacker could craft a
serialized object that includes a Java class that the
application accepts and which could be abused for
something malicious.
Security researchers Chris Frohoff and Gabriel Lawrence
gave a presentation about this type of attack at a security
conference a year ago. Then in November, researchers
from a company called FoxGlove Security published a

proof-of-concept exploit for a deserialization vulnerability in
a popular library called Apache Commons Collections that's
included by default on many Java application servers.
Security researchers warned at the time that thousands of
Java-based Web applications, including custom-made
enterprise ones, are likely vulnerable to this attack and said
that both good and bad hackers will likely start probing for
it.
Michael Stepankin, the bug bounty hunter who found the
recent vulnerability in the manager.paypal.com website, is
one such hacker. He was inspired by the research from
Frohoff, Lawrence and the FoxGlove researchers and even
used one of the tools they produced to build his attack
payload.
After determining that the PayPal site was vulnerable to
Java deserialization, Stepankin was able to exploit the flaw
in order to execute arbitrary commands on its underlying
Web server.
"Moreover, I could establish a back connection to my own
Internet server and, for example, upload and execute a
backdoor," he said in a blog post. "In result, I could get
access to production databases used by the
manager.paypal.com application. "
After he reported the issue to PayPal and it got fixed, the
company gave him a reward through its bug bounty
program, even though his report was marked as a
duplicate. It turns out that another security researcher

eported the same issue a few days earlier, proving that
people are currently scanning for this type of vulnerability.
Developers should make sure that they update the Apache
Commons Collections library used by their Java servers
and apps to at least versions 3.2.2 or 4.1, which address
this issue. However, it's likely that this type of vulnerability
exists in other libraries as well, waiting to be discovered.
2016-01-27 08:37:00 Lucian Constantin
142
FCC to take aim at outrageous cable-box
costs
Cable TV subscribers could get
some relief from expensive set-topbox
rental fees under a proposal
from federal regulators.
The proposal, from Federal
Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler,
would put traditional pay TV programming on a wider range
of devices and apps, the Wall Street Journal reports. For
instance, companies like Google and Roku could offer their
own boxes that integrate cable television with Internet
programming.
Not surprisingly, the cable industry strongly opposes this
plan, arguing that it would be difficult to implement and
could interfere with positioning deals, in which some
networks pay more to appear higher in the channel guide.

(The rental fees are also a huge boost to these companies’
bottom lines.)
“They say it’s just a box, [but] it’s allowing another company
to build an entirely different offering” from traditional cable
service, said Michael Powell, president of the National
Cable & Telecommunications Association. It’s unclear why
this would be a bad thing for consumers, but the industry
also raises privacy concerns, pointing out that a company
like Google could gain access to cable viewing data and
advertise against it.
The cable industry has its own proposal in which TV
providers would build their own apps and provide them as
downloads for third-party devices. In other words, providers
would maintain control over the cable experience, and draw
a clearer line between their content and streaming services.
Some cable providers, such as Time Warner Cable and
Charter , have already started offering streaming versions
of their service on Roku players and Xbox consoles.
This is hardly the first time the government has tried to
usher in cable-box alternatives. Third-party boxes such as
TiVo and SiliconDust’s HDHomerun Prime make use of
CableCard , a device that users can rent from their TV
provider. But for the most part, CableCard hasn’t been
widely adopted, nor has it helped bring down the cost of
cable boxes. In the late aughts, the cable industry proposed
an alternative called tru2way, and a couple years later an
alliance called AllVid (which also included TiVo and Google)
proposed its own hardware-based solution. Neither of those
efforts took off.

This story, "FCC to take aim at outrageous cable-box costs"
was originally published by
TechHive .
2016-01-27 08:15:00 Jared Newman
143
Chrome 48 rolls out, Data Saver extension
exits beta
Google released the first major
Chrome update of 2016 on
Wednesday, featuring the official
roll-out of a data-saving extension
for PCs. The search giant also
added a new way to manage
extensions that sounds like a nightmare for anyone using
more than 10.
Data Saver for Chrome.
For PC users, the most interesting part of the Chrome 48
release is the announcement that Google's Data Saver
extension is exiting beta. Data Saver uses the same
compression technology as Chrome for Android. It's a tool
for reducing bandwidth usage for anyone who frequently
uses a shared or metered connection.
We took a look at Data Saver last March when it first came
out. At its core, the extension remains pretty much the
same. Once you install it, Data Saver immediately begins

compressing data and reducing your bandwidth usage.
Click on the extension's icon to the right of the address bar,
and a simple graph shows how much you've saved. There's
also a checkbox to turn off the extension.
The interface is far more refined compared to the last time
we looked at Data Saver. The graph is more detailed and
easier to read, the data usage and savings numbers are
clearer, and there's a details page to see which sites are
using the most data.
Chrome 48 is also adding a new way to manage your
extensions. Starting with this version of the browser and
going forward, Chrome will show all extensions to the right
of the address bar. Google says it's doing this to make it
easier for users to see everything that's installed, and thus
query or remove anything they don't recognize.
This story, "Chrome 48 rolls out, Data Saver extension exits
beta" was originally published by
PCWorld .
2016-01-27 08:00:00 Ian Paul
144 Pentaho adds native Python integration
Aiming to better support machine learning and analytical
environments, Pentaho Labs yesterday announced that it
has developed a native integration for the Python language
through Pentaho Data Integration (PDI).

PDI is essentially a portable "data
machine" for ETL, which you can
deploy as a stand-alone Pentaho
cluster or inside a Hadoop cluster
through MapReduce or YARN. Will
Gorman, vice president of Pentaho
Labs at Hitachi subsidiary Pentaho, says the integration
means data scientists can now use of the most popular and
flexible open-source languages to increase productivity and
data governance while supporting predictive analytics and
machine learning. He says the integration will also make
data science and predictive modeling more accessible to
the developer community.
"Python is the environment that is growing the fastest from
a community perspective," Gorman says. "And a large
portion of teams are working with Python to build out
machine learning and analytical environments. "
Last year, CodeEval said its data showed that Python was
the most popular coding language for the fourth year
running, followed by Java, C++ and Javascript. And a study
commissioned by Ocado Technology that year found that
Python had become the most popular language taught in
primary schools , beating out French.
"As the field of data science continues to grow outside the
world of research and statisticians, it is important for our
team to arm developers with a wide range of programming
languages," Gorman says. "Python provides developers
another option for data science with a general purposes
language. With these languages, data scientists have the

ability to use the most appropriate language with increased
use of data preprocessing through PDI. "
Gorman also says that Python is the preferred language for
deep learning researchers, providing engineers in data
science the ability to more easily develop predictive models.
"Python is widely deployed by developers and engineers to
create statistical analytic workflows, particularly in areas
such as finance, oil and gas and physics," Matt Aslett,
research director, 451 Research , said in a statement
Tuesday. "We see Python as a primary language for
artificial intelligence engines and Pentaho's native
integration of Python will allow organizations to apply their
deep domain expertise and improve predictive analytics
and machine learning algorithms. "
PDI for Python is available for download in the Pentaho
Marketplace.
This story, "Pentaho adds native Python integration" was
originally published by
CIO .
2016-01-27 07:51:00 Thor Olavsrud
145
Ericsson has a 5G phone, and it weighs
150kg
If you're aching to get your hands on your first super-fast
5G phone, the good news is that Ericsson already has one.
The bad news is, it weighs 150kg.

For U. S. readers, that's about 330
pounds: Great for an NFL defensive
lineman , not so much for a
handset.
"We are running around with a big
bus with a very big mobile phone on
it," said Erik Dahlman, a senior expert in radio access
technologies at Ericsson, which is testing potential 5G
technologies near Stockholm. It's also experimenting with
the technology in Japan and other countries.
The phone is so big because it's full of new, experimental
components that haven't been miniaturized yet. It also has
a large battery, because bigger parts use more energy.
Turning that into a handset that fits in your pocket is a job
for later. The 5G base stations in the test, by the way, are
normal-sized, Dahlman said.
Last week, Ericsson announced that some people in
Stockholm and in Tallinn, Estonia, would get 5G services
starting in 2018 through Swedish carrier TeliaSonera. This
won't be a full-scale network or even official 5G (that's
coming in 2020), but it could help TeliaSonera develop
services that are only possible with the new technology.
They could include remote-control surgery and quick
messages between cars to make driving safer.
5G will make regular cell service as much as 100 times
faster, according to some proponents. It's also being tuned
for new uses like the Internet of Things. This means a lot of
new technologies are going into it, including much higher

frequencies than 4G networks use.
Carriers around the world are already vying for firsts in 5G.
SK Telecom says it will have 5G up and running at the 2018
Winter Olympics in South Korea, and Verizon plans trials
this year and wants to be the first U. S. carrier with a 5G
network.
TeliaSonera was on the cutting edge of 4G, too. In 2009, it
became the first carrier to roll out commercial LTE service ,
also with Ericsson's help. Getting to that point took a lot of
research, development -- and hauling power -- too.
"Our first 4G trial mobile was even bigger," Dahlman said.
2016-01-27 07:47:00 Stephen Lawson
146
What to look for in a Git management
system that won’t limit your DevOps
ambitions
DevOps adoption has exploded with
the changes in product
development lifecycles, but the
expansion has not been without
collateral damage for companies
using Git, the popular code
management system. Here are
some specific challenges Git poses
for DevOps and suggestions for
addressing those challenges.

But let’s start by giving Git its due. Git has become
ubiquitous for good reason. Developers love its flexibility,
speed, and ability to branch locally and in-place for juggling
lots of tasks. But things are a bit different when you stir in
DevOps, as we’ll see:
Second, Git doesn’t handle large binary assets well. Such
content can quickly bloat the size of a repository. Worse,
because some important Git functions require calculating
and/or recalculating content hash values, large binary
assets can cause unexpected and even pathological
slowdowns with certain commands while others execute
almost instantly.
Best Practices:
Organizations that practice component-based development
will also “enjoy” the additional complexity of handling
component versions. It’s one thing to stitch together many
repositories, but the burden of making sure you
subsequently consume only the correct component
versions in every case is potentially worse. Git’s ability to
define sub-repositories is interesting and can be useful in
simple cases, but it leaves a lot to be desired for
substantive projects, so use it with care (if at all).
Best Practices:
But this desire for simplicity is often at odds with DevOps’
need for scalable hosting. Shrinking continuous delivery
cycles, in conjunction with Git sprawl, can easily lead to
servers failing under the load. And Git management

systems vary widely in this regard, some offering only
single-server topology and others providing clustering and
even high availability. A robust DevOps pipeline requires
considering all of these factors as well as a plan to handle
disaster recovery.
Developers’ wishes may also contradict the need to secure
the intellectual property they create. Git’s design offers only
authentication, not authorization. That is, Git offers a
mechanism to ensure that the person committing is who he
or she claims to be, but it leaves the question of what that
person can do entirely to the file system. That’s great for
teams building open source software—unsurprising, given
that’s the task for which Git was designed—but it doesn’t
work so well for the enterprise.
You’ll want to consider how to shape your security
battlefield to accommodate all the necessary roles and
permissions. This is especially true if you’re relying on thirdparty
teams for outsourcing because it can be critical to
ensure that teams access only what they’re supposed to
see. Those in regulated industries should consider carefully
the ramifications of choosing Git in light of its ability to
destroy history.
Git hosting grows even more difficult for organizations
spanning the globe. Although Git’s protocol works well over
the Internet, the tendency toward Git sprawl more than
nullifies that advantage. Be sure your Git hosting solution
makes it easy to synchronize work across servers in
different locations around the world; anything else is just
setting up your DevOps team to fail.

Best Practices:
This story, "What to look for in a Git management system
that won’t limit your DevOps ambitions" was originally
published by
Network World .
2016-01-27 06:02:00 Christopher Hoover, Global Vice President of
Product Strategy, Perforce Software
147
Cybersecurity pros switch jobs for
challenging work, pay, and flexible hours
Cybersecurity pros are most likely
to leave to find more challenging
work, better pay, and more flexible
working hours, according to a
survey released this morning. Office
location also played an unexpected
role in employees' decision as well.
"This is one of the points that surprised me coming up in
conversation," said Javvad Malik, security advocate at
AlienVault , the author of the report.
When company offices were located in unpopular locations,
it was more difficult for employees to switch jobs, he said.
"I spoke to two multinational companies, and they said that
they preferred going to smaller cities or our-of-the-way
places," he said. "The local governments would encourage

them to stay up there, and they would get staff who would
be very loyal to them because they would have fewer
options. "
Of course, small town locations also make it difficult for
companies to recruit staff in the first place.
"What they typically tend to do is set up near a university,
where they could get some raw talent to train up," he said.
"They were aware that they would have trouble getting
experienced folks. "
According to the survey, 34 percent of cyber professionals
would leave for a different job if they could get more
challenging and exciting work. Better pay was in second
place at 23 percent, followed by flexible working conditions
at 17 percent.
Malik recommends that companies try to find ways to
provide more meaning, flexibility and growth opportunities
to employees in order to keep them longer.
"It's all about feeling valued, feeling that they're making a
valuable contribution to the company," he said.
For example, some companies are looking at automation to
reduce the routine aspects of the security job.
One manager hired a developer to come in to look at
workflow and create scripts to automate as many tasks as
possible for his employees.
"That ended up freeing a lot of time for them -- up to 30 or

40 percent," Malik said. "This was time that he could spend
allocating his team to more meaningful or interesting tasks,
or education. "
Other companies saw results from simply relaxing some of
the constraints their employees were under, he said.
"Allowing them to work from home one day a week, or
going to or speaking at conferences if they were previously
not allowed to do that -- that was the biggest boost to
morale," he said.
Attending conferences creates learning opportunities and
demonstrates that the company is supporting and investing
in those employees, he said.
What about the risk that employees will use the
conferences to network and find other jobs?
"It's the trust factor that is sometimes lacking in the larger
companies," he said. "If more companies do that, they'd
have a happier workforce. And if you don't let them go, and
they don't feel that they're being invested in, they're going
to leave anyway. "
This story, "Cybersecurity pros switch jobs for challenging
work, pay, and flexible hours " was originally published by
CSO.
2016-01-27 06:00:00 Maria Korolov

148
The next generation of storage disruption:
storage-class memory
Storage-class memory (SCM), also known as
persistent memory, may be the most disruptive storage
technology innovation of the next decade. It has the
potential to be even more disruptive than flash, both from a
performance perspective and with the way it will change
both storage and application architectures.
SCM is a new hybrid storage/memory tier with unique
characteristics. It’s not exactly memory, and it’s not exactly
storage. Physically, it connects to memory slots in a
motherboard, like traditional DRAM. While SCM is slightly
slower than DRAM, it is persistent, meaning that, like
traditional storage, its content is preserved during a power
cycle.
Compared to flash, SCM is orders of magnitude faster and,
just as critically, delivers these performance gains equally
on both read and write operations. It has another benefit
over flash as well – SCM tiers are significantly more
resilient, not suffering from the wear that flash falls victim
to.
Interestingly, SCM can be addressed at either the byte or
block level. This gives operating systems, software and
hypervisor developers significant flexibility regarding the
medium’s applications. For example, it’s conceivable that
operating systems will initially treat SCM as block storage
devices formatted by file systems and databases for

compatibility purposes. However, next-generation
applications may choose to access SCM directly via
memory-mapped files. Hypervisors can abstract and
present isolated SCM regions directly to different VMs as
either execution memory or a flash-like storage resource.
Consider for a moment how DRAM is used today. For
decades, applications have stored data temporarily in
DRAM – that is, volatile memory. At specific execution
points data structures were reformatted and placed into
512-byte blocks. They were then written (along with
metadata) to disks structured as either files systems or
databases for persistence. Built into that metadata was a
significant amount of information that protected against
failures and corruptions.
Now contrast that to how SCM will be used. Because SCM
is persistent, the content it stores remains in memory, not
just in the case of planned reboots, but also during
unplanned crashes and downtime. The medium is also
byte-addressable, eliminating the need to package data
into coherent 512-byte blocks. The combination of keeping
a memory structure “live” with byte-level granularity, while
eliminating the necessity of an intermediate copy, will
revolutionize application design.
It will be late 2016 before SCM technology is available to
organizations – and that will take place with an initial
implementation from Intel with its 3D XPoint technology. HP
and SanDisk have also announced a collaboration for SCM,
although it will likely become available in 2017 or later. As
with any new emerging technology, early SCM

implementation may only be appropriate for specific
industries and applications. The initial price point and
performance capabilities may appeal only to certain use
cases before reaching a more general audience.
As it reaches the mainstream, operating systems, software
and hypervisor developers may choose to integrate SCM
into legacy architectures at first, rather than re-writing
applications to provide all the benefits of the new
technology. This will, however, still provide a technology
that is both significantly faster and more resilient than flash,
as well as denser and less expensive than DRAM memory
technology. In-memory computing, HPC and server-side
caching may be some of the early adopters of SCM on the
application side, which help bring this new technology
broadly to the market.
This story, "The next generation of storage disruption:
storage-class memory" was originally published by
Network World .
2016-01-27 05:53:00 Scott Davis, chief technology officer, Infinio
149 10 best IT jobs in America
Anonymous career review and job
search site Glassdoor recently
released the 2016 edition of its
annual Best Jobs in America list
and, not surprising, nearly half of
the 25 jobs are in the IT industry.

So, if finding a new job is at the top of your 2016 to-do list,
check out the best of the best in IT careers, from
Glassdoor's user-generateddata on earning potential,
number of job openings and career opportunities.
It's been called " The sexiest job of the 21st century ," and
demand for data scientists isn't slowing down. Data
scientists are trained to gather, sort and analyze the
massive streams of data businesses gather from
customers, clients and their own employees and extract
insights from that data to help drive companies' direction. In
an increasingly customer-focused, data-driven business
landscape, it's clear that data scientists will remain in high
demand.
Job openings: 1,736
Median base salary: $116,840
A solutions architect is a specific, practical software
development role with a vague, nebulous title. Solutions
architects are tasked with taking customer and end-user
software requirements and designing a solution that
addresses those issues. Solutions architects often work
closely with a functional analyst who develops the software
solution requirements.
Job openings: 2,906
Median base salary: $119,500
A mobile developer creates applications and solutions for
mobile devices -- smartphones, tablets and other handheld

devices. The role has been in high demand for the last few
years, and that demand will only increase as businesses
move to a "mobile first" strategy that demands existing
applications be retrofitted to work on a mobile device or that
new applications be created and optimized for a mobile
device.
Job openings: 2,251
Median base salary: $90,000
[ Related stories: Data scientists have the hottest job in
America ]
A product manager researches, selects and manages the
process of new product development, usually for a
technology company. This role is critical for innovative
businesses trying to push new products to market; product
managers are like mini-CEOs , taking a product from the
executive idea stage and shepherding it through design,
development and release to the public.
Job openings: 6,607
Median base salary: $106,680
Software engineers are some of the most celebrated IT
professionals. These are the folks who actually build the
software and applications businesses and consumers use
every day. According to the Institute of Electrical and
Electronics Engineers (IEEE), software engineers apply the
principles of engineering to the creation of software --
building an intangible, instead of a tangible product.

Job openings: 49,270
Median base salary: $95,000
An analytics manager is responsible for designing,
configuring, implementing and maintaining technology
solutions for data analysis. It's a fairly new role, but demand
has grown alongside demand for data scientists and other
data capture and analysis roles.
Job openings: 982
Median base salary: $105,000
[ Related stories: 10 IT workplace predictions for 2016 ]
A software development manager , as the title suggests,
functions as a more technical project manager for software
development teams. They manage the schedules and tasks
of the teams under their leadership, and are often
responsible for recruiting and hiring new software
development talent. They work closely with the business
side of their organization to ensure requirements and
strategy goals are met.
Job openings: 1,199
Median base salary: $135,000
A software quality assurance (QA) manager is responsible
for making sure software meets or exceeds quality
standards and usability testing before it's released to the
public. QA managers also routinely test existing software to

make sure it's bug-free.
Job openings: 3,749
Median base salary: $85,000
User experience (UX) design is a rapidly growing field as
companies try to increase both end-user functionality and
customer brand loyalty. A UX designer ensures that
technology applications are both easy to use and deliver
great customer satisfaction; though the title's often
confused with a User Interface designer (UI), the two roles
focus on different aspects of technology creation.
Job openings: 863
Median base salary: $91,800
[ Related stories: 5 enterprise software predictions for 2016
]
A software architect is responsible for the high-level
decisions around software development , such as deciding
on design, implementing requirements - both needs and
wants - adhering to technical standards, coding practices,
and selecting appropriate tools and platforms. Software
architects work closely with software development teams to
manage aspects of the development process.
Job openings: 653
Median base salary: $130,000
2016-01-27 05:45:00 Sharon Florentine

150
Mac sales slide 3%, contribute smallest-ever
portion of total revenue
Apple yesterday said it sold 5.3
million Macs in the December
quarter, a 3% decline from the
same period the year before.
The year-over-year downturn in
Mac sales was the first since the third quarter of 2013, and
only the fourth overall since 2007. But it was a decline
nonetheless, a drop of about 200,000 systems.
Even so, Apple was able to keep the Mac sales fall-off
smaller than that of the PC industry overall. IDC recently
estimated the business as down 11% for the December
quarter, while rival Gartner tapped the contraction at 8%.
Global personal computer shipments have contracted for
four full years, according to both IDC and Gartner. During
that same stretch, Mac sales declined in four of the 16
quarters.
iPad sales dropped for the eighth straight quarter. The only
bright spot for Apple is that the decline has been less steep
than the increase during the tablet's heyday.
The Mac's latest quarter was also its fourth-largest ever,
behind only September 2015's record-setting 5.7 million,
and the third and fourth quarters of 2014, when Apple
unloaded 5.5 million Macs in each.

Revenue from Mac sales was about $6.7 billion, or $200
million less than the fourth quarter of 2014. Mac revenue
represented 8.9% of Apple's total of $75.9 billion; that was
the smallest slice ever for the personal computer segment.
It wasn't a surprise that the Mac was the shortest of the
three legs of Apple's hardware revenue stool: The fourth
quarter has become the iPad's biggest, and for one threemonth
span that was again the case. iPad unit sales may
have plunged 24.7% -- the largest year-over-year decline
ever -- but the tablet accounted for 9.3% of Apple's total
revenue for the quarter, scratching its way into the No. 2
spot, albeit way behind the iPhone.
iPad sales have contracted for the last eight consecutive
quarters, and in nine of the last 10.
As it has for several quarters as iPad sales continued to
shrink, Apple said little of the downturn, with Chief Financial
Officer Luca Maestri choosing instead to trumpet customer
satisfaction data on the tablet -- a tiresome diversion by this
point -- and ticking off wins where corporate customers
have adopted the iPad, particularly the larger, more
expensive iPad Pro.
During the conference call to go over the December
quarter's earnings, Wall Street analysts again passed on
asking questions about the iPad and its sales, or for that
matter, the Mac.
They had bigger fish to fry.
Apple sold about as many iPhones in the December quarter

as it did the year before (unit sales rose just 0.4%), the
slowest pace since the smartphone's 2007 debut. Because
the iPhone is the cornerstone of Apple's unprecedented
climb in revenue -- it accounted for 68% of the company's
total December quarter revenue -- the flat sales line
resurrected questions about Apple's overall growth.
2016-01-27 05:10:00 Gregg Keizer
151
No, Israel's power grid wasn't hacked, but
ransomware hit Israel's Electric Authority
Someone in Israel's Electricity
Authority , a government
department charged with providing
utility services , fell for a phishing
attack, opened an email and
thereby was infected with
ransomware which reportedly spread to other computers in
the network. Yet the department chose to take the
computers offline. Details are somewhat sketchy, but it
appears that the media heard “electric,” “paralyzed” and
“severe cyber attack” before reporting the Israeli power grid
was hacked and taken down.
There are over 10,000 cybersecurity professionals
attending Cybertech 2016 Conference in Tel Aviv. The
audience was supposedly thinning out during the final
Cybertech panel, according to Haaretz , but when Yuval
Steinitz , the Israeli Minister of National Infrastructure,
Energy and Water, started talking about the “severe cyber

attack” on Israel’s Electricity Authority, he had everyone’s
full attention. “Yesterday we identified one of the largest
cyber attacks that we have experienced,” Steinitz stated .
“The virus was already identified and the right software was
already prepared to neutralize it,” Steinitz said according to
the Times of Israel . “We had to paralyze many of the
computers of the Israeli Electricity Authority. We are
handling the situation and I hope that soon, this very
serious event will be over … but as of now, computer
systems are still not working as they should.”
“This is a fresh example of the sensitivity of infrastructure to
cyberattacks,” he added, “and the importance of preparing
ourselves in order to defend ourselves against such
attacks.”
Ynet reported that the malware was ransomware,
presumably sent by e-mail before spreading to other
computers on the network. Although neither the exact type
of encrypting ransomware, nor the extortion amount were
mentioned, Ynet claimed payment was demanded to unlock
the computers.
It’s not just the U. S. warning that a crippling cyber attack
could take down critical infrastructure and the power grid;
such warnings are issued across the world. In July, Israel’s
National Cyber Authority issued a warning “that the country
would be targeted by a massive cyber attack.” Government
agencies were reportedly told be alert for “any possible
scenario” and the warning applied to computer systems
and cell phones.

Three years ago, when a secret demonstration for senator
simulated a cyber attack on the power grid , the scenario
was that the attack took down New York City’s power grid
during a killer heat wave; Lawrence Ponemon, chairman of
the Ponemon Institute, predicted “literally thousands” of
people would have died. He added, “A cyber attack on
electrical grids that was sustained for three to four weeks
would be like returning to the dark ages.”
In the case of the “massive cyber attack” on Israel’s
Electricity Authority, the Jerusalem Post reported , “The
incident occurred during two consecutive days of recordbreaking
winter electricity consumption, with the Israel
Electric Corporation reporting a demand of 12,610
megawatts on Tuesday evening as temperatures dipped to
below-freezing levels.”
Steinitz, according to the Israel National News , added, “We
need cybertech to prevent such attacks. Cyber-attacks on
infrastructure can paralyze power stations and the whole
energy supply chain from natural gas, oil, petrol to water
systems and can additionally cause fatalities. Terrorists'
organizations such as Daesh [ISIS], Hezbollah, Hamas and
Al Qaeda have realized that they can cause enormous
damage by using cyber to attack nations. Cyber-attacks are
a great threat and I am certain that they will become a
major threat in the next decade.”
Hold the flipping phone though as Robert Lee, CEO of
Dragos Security, pointed out on the SANS Industrial Control
Systems security blog. It’s not Israel’s power grid that got

hit and taken offline, but the country’s Electric Authority
which is regulatory body with about 30 people. The “virus”
Steinitz referenced hit only the Israeli Electric Authority
network. “The ‘cyber attack’ was simply ransomware
delivered via phishing emails to the regulatory body's office
network and it appears in no way endangered any
infrastructure,” Lee wrote.
But what about Steinitz saying the computers were taken
offline? “Taking systems offline is not preferable,” Lee
wrote, “but the fact that systems were removed from the
network does not necessarily make the incident more
severe.”
Lee added:
There have so far been no outages reported or any such
impact of the “attack” quantified. It appears, only from what
has been reported so far, that the use of the term “cyber
attack” here is very liberal. Malware infections in industrial
control system (ICS) networks are not uncommon. Many of
these environments use traditional information technology
systems such as Windows operating systems to host
applications such as human machine interfaces (HMI) and
data historians. These types of systems are as vulnerable,
if not more so, than traditional information technology
systems and malware infections are not novel.
2016-01-27 04:48:00 Darlene Storm

152
So why didn't laptops and mobile phones
help to achieve flexible workplaces?
What is your role in creating a
flexible workplace? Most projects
described to me generally place
ICT in the ''enabler only" category,
and are not necessarily invited to
the planning and strategy table. I
think we can all agree that we'd
prefer to be "drivers" - but given this legacy dynamic for
most - how do we take that step?
The ability to technically enable flexible working has
improved radically in the last couple of years, with the
mainstream release of both enterprise and cloud based
web-conferencing tools. However the basic technical ability
to work flexibly has been around a lot longer - as at
minimum you could get away with a mobile telephone and
email.
So what's the difference? Why is it we are only now seeing
flexible working in the headlines? Why didn't we achieve it
with the rollout of laptops and mobile email? Well, the size
of the prize has become huge for an organisation that
successfully enables flexible working, but getting it right
requires new thinking. For ICT professionals, it's about
agitating for much closer collaboration with, and strategic
planning alongside an array of other business units.
From a human resources perspective, flexible working is

usually provisioned with some rigour. For example, flexible
working doesn't just mean working the hours that suit you
and when they suit you. Instead it works within various
structures and policies, and always with the committed
support of people managers. ICT needs to work at the
centre of this scenario - not on the edge, and not just there
to roll out the VPN or cloud solution at the end of the
planning process.
From an employee perspective, when implemented
properly, flexible working should mean several things:
you're trusted; you're valued; and you're responsible. That
means you're able to get work done in an effective manner
wherever you are, when that work needs to be done. There
is a huge and broad onus upon ICT to enable this.
From an employer perspective, flexible working should
deliver greater employee engagement. It should allow them
to create a stronger employee value proposition. This
means better talent, experience, and relevant skills are
available to the organisation. That talent, experience and
skills will grow exponentially and stay with them.
Overall flexible working should promote diversity across a
pool of loyal, hardworking staff who don't not need, or want
to go and work for someone else. They can move state,
move country, undergo major changes in their personal
lives, shift from full days to part days, and back again with
ease.
Is ubiquitous access to new technology and new ways of
collaborating remotely the only ingredient? No. In our

previous collaboration blogs, we have discussed the
imperative for cultural change. This change goes far
beyond rolling out technology or signing up for online
services - the focus must be on employee engagement. So
for ICT, taking the next step doesn't mean just agitating for
new technology - doing so leaves you at the "enabler only"
table.
In the technical industry we are very familiar with the term
'convergence' - and flexible working is all about
convergence, but on a grander scale. Convergence of your
core business agenda, your people and culture teams, as
well as your ICT and organisational change teams. It's the
teams that take this holistic approach, who will be rewarded
with a seat at the strategy and planning table.
Go to Telstra Exchange for more information.
2016-01-27 03:32:00 By Stuart Kirkby for Tech Exchange | January 27,
2016 -- 03:32 GMT (03:32 GMT) | Topic: Collaboration
153 2016’s 25 geekiest 25th anniversaries
There was quite a collection of new
technology and plain-old interesting
geeky stuff in 1991. Included were
the public debut of the World Wide
Web, the introduction of Linux and
the discovery of Otzi the Iceman.
There was the lithium-ion battery,
PGP encryption, Apple’s PowerBook, Terminator 2 and

more. When through, if you’d like to catch up on the first
nine installments of this series, check out 2015 , 2014 ,
2013 , 2012 , 2011 , 2010 , 2009 , 2008 and 2007.
Really? It’s been 25 years since everyone was scratching
their heads saying, “What the hell does ‘All your base are
belong to us’ mean?” No. It’s been 25 years since the
release of a Japanese video game called Zero Wing, from
which sprang the broken English phrase that became an
Internet meme about a decade later.
Since virtually every coffee shop, restaurant, pizza joint and
dentist’s office offers Internet access today – for free – it
may be difficult for the younger set to imagine a time when
that wasn’t the case. That wasn’t the case until Wayne
Gregori built the SFnet Coffeehouse Network and installed
25 terminals in coffee shops in and around San Francisco
in 1991. The service wasn’t free, as the machines were
coin-operated.
Linus Torvalds released the first Linux operating system
kernel on Oct. 5, 1991. On Oct. 6, 1991, Torvalds began
arguing with volunteer developers who would go on to
make Linux an open-source powerhouse and eventually a
household name. On Oct. 7, 1991, he gave a vendor the
finger.
This was the year that Sony began selling the first
commercial rechargeable lithium-ion battery, which would
go on to become ubiquitous in consumer electronics. They
would also sometimes catch fire, a problem that has
plagued the technology to some degree until this day, as

the makers of the Boeing 787 have learned.
The encryption software called PGP – for Pretty Good
Privacy – was developed and first distributed by Phil
Zimmermann in 1991. In the mid-1990s, Zimmerman faced
a three-year criminal investigation by the U. S. Customs
Service for allegedly violating the Arms Export Control Act
(encryption was considered a munition.) Twenty-five years
later computer scientists face no such concerns because
law enforcement and politicians have come to recognize
that the benefits of strong encryption outweigh any risks. …
Wait, what?
Though Apple had already produced a machine called the
Mac Portable, the PowerBook – released in three flavors in
October of 1991 – was the first worthy of being called
portable. From Wikipedia : “These machines caused a stir
in the industry with their compact dark grey cases, built-in
trackball, and the innovative positioning of the keyboard
which left room for palmrests on either side of the pointing
device.” They weren’t cheap: $2,500.
There are myriad milestones marking the development of
the Internet and the World Wide Web, with one occurring
on Aug. 6, 1991 when Tim Berners-Lee published a
summary of his pet project on the newsgroup alt.hypertext.
Trolls had to wait a bit more though because the World
Wide Web was not open to new users for another couple of
weeks.
On May 16, 1991, Bill Gates informed Microsoft employees
via a memo that the company's OS/2 partnership was over.

From a story in the New York Times : “Reflecting their
widening split with I. B. M., Microsoft executives said they
would no longer call a new operating system they are
working on OS/2 3.0. Rather, the new operating system will
be named Windows NT, standing for New Technology. And
Windows NT will not be able to run programs written for
OS/2, as had previously been planned.”
Having acquired Peter Norton Computing from Peter
Norton the year before, Symantec released Norton
AntiVirus 1.0 in 1991 for a suggested retail price of $129.
Early advertising featured Norton himself, arms folded,
wearing a surgical mask.
Starring Arnold Schwarzenegger and Linda Hamilton,
Terminator 2: Judgment Day was released on July 3, 1991.
From IMDb: “A cyborg, identical to the one who failed to kill
Sarah Connor, must now protect her young son, John
Connor, from a more advanced cyborg, made out of liquid
metal.”
One of seven Cessna families of corporate jet built by the
Wichita, Kan.,-based aircraft maker, the CitationJet’s first
flight was on April 29, 1991. It could be configured to fly
between three and nine passengers. The first production
model was delivered two years later.
Launched in 1989, NASA’s Galileo probe was foremost
concerned with the planet Jupiter, but in October of 1991 it
traveled past the asteroid Gaspra and took the first closeup
images of such a space rock.

John Bardeen, a physicist and electrical engineer, won the
Nobel Prize in Physics, along with William Shockley and
Walter Brattain, in 1956 for their invention of the transistor.
Bardeen also was the winner of that prize in 1972, making
him the only man to have done so twice. He died on Jan.
30, 1991.
Apple’s multimedia technology with a built-in media player
debuted 25 years ago. From Wikipedia : “Apple released
the first version of QuickTime on Dec. 2, 1991 as a
multimedia add-on for System Software 6 and later. The
lead developer of QuickTime, Bruce Leak, ran the first
public demonstration at the May 1991 Worldwide
Developers Conference, where he played Apple's famous
1984 TV commercial in a window at 320x240 pixel
resolution.”
Guido van Rossum, Python’s "Benevolent Dictator For Life,"
explains how it all started: “In December 1989, I was
looking for a ‘hobby’ programming project that would keep
me occupied during the week around Christmas. My office
(a government-run research lab in Amsterdam) would be
closed, but I had a home computer, and not much else on
my hands. I decided to write an interpreter for the new
scripting language I had been thinking about lately: a
descendant of ABC that would appeal to Unix/C hackers. I
chose Python as a working title for the project, being in a
slightly irreverent mood (and a big fan of Monty Python's
Flying Circus).”
Although its official name was the Television Decoder
Circuitry Act of 1990, it wasn't until Jan. 23, 1991 that

Congress passed legislation that gave the FCC authority to
require that television manufacturers incorporate
functionality to allow closed captioning by July 1, 1993.
From Max Visual Basic : “The core of Visual Basic was built
on the older BASIC language, which was a popular
programming language throughout the 1980s. Alan Cooper
had developed a drag-and-drop interface in the late-1980s,
Microsoft approached him and asked his company, Tripod,
to develop the concept into a form building application.
Tripod developed the project for Microsoft. It was called
Ruby and it did not include a programming language at all.
Microsoft decided to bundle it with the BASIC programming
language, creating Visual Basic.” It was declared legacy in
2008.
Already a hit in Japan, the Super Nintendo Entertainment
System (SNES) hit North American stores in 1991 and
would go on to be the best-selling game console of its time.
It remains popular among collectors.
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country was released on
Dec. 6, 1991. Never been a fan, so from IMDb : “On the
eve of retirement, Kirk and McCoy are charged with
assassinating the Klingon High Chancellor and imprisoned.
The Enterprise crew must help them escape to thwart a
conspiracy aimed at sabotaging the last best hope for
peace.”
A system for tracking and measuring the sale of music and
video products, Nielsen SoundScan became the basis of
the Billboard charts beginning with the magazine’s May 25,

1991 issue. The accuracy of SoundScan was credited by
some with helping to advance the alternative music scene
in the United States, as record labels were able to point to
this data to help convince radio stations to air the songs of
lesser known artists.
SMART Technologies, headquartered in Calgary, Alberta,
released its first SMART Board in 1991. The touch-enabled
interactive white board remains a staple in classrooms and
boardrooms.
A scientist and inventor who co-founded Polaroid, Edwin H.
Land’s Polaroid instant camera was introduced to the public
in 1948 and allowed for a photograph to be taken and
developed in under a minute. Land died on March 1, 1991
and he would have been heartened to know that 25 years
after his death instant photography is making a comeback.
From a 2015 article in Discover Magazine announcing that
scientist’s had mapped all of Otzi’s 61 tattoos: “In
September 1991, two tourists discovered (Otzi the
Iceman’s) remains nestled into a glacier in the Italian Alps.
Since then, researchers have rigorously analyzed the
Iceman to paint a picture of what life was like during the
start of the Bronze Age some 5,300 years ago. We now
know that he suffered from a variety of degenerative
ailments and ultimately died from an arrow wound to the
shoulder.”
The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, signed
into law by President George H. W. Bush, was supposed to
– among many other things – stop solicitors from calling

you once you told them to stop calling you. The legislation
authorized the FCC to create a national database of
numbers whose owners did not want to be called, period.
That database was not created until Congress passed
additional legislation in 2003.
We know it today as the automatic soap dispenser and
someone had to invent the first one. That someone was
Guey-Chaun Shiau, who was granted a patent for invention
on Feb. 5, 1991.
2016-01-27 03:17:00 Paul McNamara
154
Sprint taps Australian startup for
lockscreen ads to lower bills
Australian startup Unlockd has
signed a deal with Sprint Telecom
subsidiary Boost Mobile in the
United States, bringing its
advertising platform to over 9
million US customers.
The startup enables users to decrease their monthly phone
bills by $5, in return agreeing to have ads from Unlockd
partners displayed when they unlock their device. Some of
the companies that Unlockd has already partnered with on
advertising content include the streaming service Hulu,
coffee chain Starbucks, clothing company Levi's, and rideshare
app Lyft.

Boost Mobile and Unlockd have also partnered with Yahoo
and Twitter to integrate Yahoo's search bar into the unlock
screen, as well as offer Twitter users exclusive deals and
offers through its digital ad marketplace MoPub.
According to Doug Smith, director of Prepaid at Sprint
Telecom, Unlockd has developed a new revenue stream for
telecommunications providers, allowing telcos rather than
the media and content industry to capitalise on advertising
revenue for the first time.
"Providing Boost subscribers with options to reduce their
cost to communicate is in line with our goal of being the
value leader in prepaid," Smith said.
"Boost Dealz, built on the Unlockd solution, is an industryfirst,
completely optional opportunity for our customers to
earn value in exchange for learning about products and
services aligned with their interests. In addition, it delivers a
new revenue stream to our business while providing an
innovative avenue for advertisers and media publishers to
reach a highly targeted audience. "
Should Sprint decide to implement Unlockd on all of its
mobile services, the startup's reach would extend to 58
million customers in the US.
While Unlockd began in Melbourne, launching in October
last year with Lebara Mobile, it now has offices in London,
New York, and Seattle. It plans to be available in six
markets across the globe by the end of this year, with
Unlockd CEO and co-founder Matt Berriman saying the

company has already secured partnerships with telcos in
the United Kingdom, Asia, and Europe.
"Unlockd has solved one of the biggest problems facing the
global telecommunications industry, which is how to offer a
lower consumer price point while also stabilising or
increasing ARPU through new revenue streams," Berriman
said.
"Consumers have been crying out for new ways to pay for
skyrocketing smartphone usage, and Unlockd lets them
keep their phone bills down while delivering smart ads,
offers, and content that they find relevant and useful. "
Earlier on Tuesday, Sprint CFO Tarek Robbiati revealed
that the company is planning to cut operating costs by $2
billion in order to continue competing with rival telcos
Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile.
At the end of the fiscal third quarter, Sprint announced
revenues of $8.1 billion, down 10 percent or $836 million
year on year. It also announced cash and equivalents of
$2.17 billion, down 37 percent year on year from the $3.45
billion reported during the same period last year.
2016-01-27 00:28:18 By Corinne Reichert | January 27, 2016 -- 00:28
GMT (00:28 GMT) | Topic: Telcos
155
How networked printers could be used as
FTP servers by hackers
Infosecurity pros know that anything that connects to the

Internet can be a security risk
unless properly configured. This
week they were reminded of that
when a security researcher warned
that business laser printers with
hard drives have to be behind the corporate firewall or risk
being used as anonymous FTP servers for hackers.
In particular, he warned administrators with Hewlett-
Packard business printers to ensure port 9100 is plugged.
Administrators with other networked business printers in
their systems have to check the devices’ documentation to
see which port is used and has to be secured.
“There are a few free, open source pieces of software that
can be used to upload and interact with HP printer hard
drives over port 9100,” Chris Vickery said in the blog. “A
hacker can host malicious web pages and scripts on your
printer and link it to potential victims. Maybe he needs to
host an executable somewhere so it can later be served
through a wget request. These printers are wonderful
repositories. It doesn’t take much creativity to realize that
even highly illegal materials could be stored this way.”
In an interview with SecurityWeek Vickery said a search
with the Shodan search engine discovered 21,000
vulnerable HP printers on the Internet.
HP told the site its latest printers include security features
such as HP Sure Start BIOS protection, Run-time Intrusion
Detection and firmware whitelisting.

It also said the exposure can be prevented either by
disabling the PostScript PJL/PS filesystem commands
or using the more secure protocol IPPS (Internet Print
Protocol over HTTPS) instead of Port 9100.
For more advice see the HP Printing Security Best
Practices for HP LaserJet Enterprise Printers and HP Web
Jetadmin. HP provides the JetAdvantage Security Manager
for policy-based security management and WebJet Admin,
a free tool that provides web based configuration for HP
printers.
2016-01-27 00:00:00 Howard Solomon
156
Movidius, Google Team Up To Leverage
Deep Learning On Mobile Devices
Call it an evolution of spatial
computing and positional tracking,
sort of a next generation of what
Google’s Project Tango hopes to
accomplish. Or maybe it’s the next
step in the evolution of Deep
Learning. Really, it seems to be
both, but in any case, Movidius and Google are teaming up
to get the benefits of Deep Learning onto mobile devices.
What Movidius brings to the table is efficient visual
processing with the MA2450, its flagship Myriad 2 VPU.
Google is licensing both the hardware and software. Using
models borne of Google’s Deep Learning databases, the

Myriad 2 chip will ostensibly be able to leverage the
knowledge Deep Learning provides on-device, with no
Internet connection.
Details on exactly what devices will use this technology is
unclear; Movidius would not divulge any information on that
front when we spoke with the company, saying only that it
will be used on “next-gen” Google products. However, we
can infer quite a bit from what Remi El-Ouazzane, CEO of
Movidius, told us in an interview.
He described this new innovation as a next chapter in the
story of Google and Movidius, and he said specifically that
it’s a different chapter than Project Tango, although the two
are complementary.
That’s not hard to understand: Project Tango is designed to
offer spatial awareness and positional tracking, and we’re
seeing that technology about to come to market via Intel
and Lenovo. But if you’ve seen any of the Project Tango
demos, you know that there’s more work to be done.
For example, you can aim the camera of your Project
Tango phone at a couch, and it will intelligently (and
dynamically, in real-time) measure the couch’s dimensions.
With Deep Learning on board, though, the device can
“look” at the couch and understand that it is a couch, what
color the couch is, who probably makes the couch, and so
on.
That’s an example that doesn’t really do justice to the
power of Deep Learning, but you get the idea: Deep

Learning has to do with teaching machines to comprehend.
“Positional tracking matters, but the ability -- with high
accuracy -- to recognize and detect objects matters as
well,” said El-Ouazzane.
Movidius and Google to Bring Machine Intelligence from
Data Center to Devices
Data is such a fascinating beast. In recent years, more and
more of it has been moved to the cloud, and indeed, that
has allowed for technologies like Deep Learning to emerge.
We have these massive databases, and we’ve been able to
teach machines to leverage that data and learn.
However, that creates a problem, because it would seem
that unless you’re connected to the Internet (and therefore
can access those databases) and also have a
supercomputer to process everything, you miss out on what
Deep Learning offers.
The solution to that problem is already here, though, in the
form of neural networks. Basically, you can load a model
derived from a database onto a device, and that device can
use that neural network to understand what it “sees.” This
happens locally, on the device itself, and it would appear
that the Myriad 2 chip is sufficiently powerful and efficient to
handle it.
El-Ouazzane did not elaborate on how the device may take
its acquired data and send it back to Google so it could be
added to the database, but it must, somehow. Without that
exchange of information, neither the neural net at large nor

the model on-device could grow.
What we’re seeing here, to me, is a certain parity between
the importance of the device and the importance of the
cloud. They need each other. Therefore, Google and
Movidius need each other.
We do not yet have any timeline for when we might see this
technology on shipping devices, nor what sort of devices
exactly those will be (our best guess is a dev tablet followed
by a dev smartphone, just like Project Tango).
However, both key technologies -- Google’s machine
learning databases and Movidius’ Myriad 2 VPU and
software package -- already exist, so it’s likely that there’s
already a prototype device on a workbench somewhere
inside the halls of Google.
Seth Colaner is the News Director for Tom's Hardware.
Follow him on Twitter @SethColaner. Follow us on
Facebook , Google+ , RSS , Twitter and YouTube.
2016-01-27 00:00:00 Seth Colaner
157
Tails 2.0 Emerges With Major New Features,
Security Improvements
Tails 2.0 Applications Menu Tails, the operating system
Edward Snowden used to protect his identity online before
he blew the whistle on the NSA’s mass surveillance
programs, reached version 2.0, bringing some major new
improvements.

The biggest user-centric
improvement in Tails 2.0 is the
addition of the Gnome Shell
desktop environment in its Classic
Mode, which keeps the traditional
Applications, Places menu, and
windows list.
Under the good, Tails got a major upgrade as well. Tails
has always been based on Debian, one of the more stable
Linux distributions around, and Tails 2.0 was upgraded to
Debian 8.0, the latest stable version of Debian.
In terms of extra security, the new version will sandbox
many services so they are harder to exploit, and it will make
Tor launches and memory wipes on shutdown more robust.
Also, the code has been cleaned up of custom scripts.
Tails 2.0 Activities Tails 2.0 also includes the latest version
of the Tor Browser (5.5). Tor Browser 5.5 recently
introduced font fingerprinting protection, but due to an
oversight from the Tails team, that feature isn’t included in
Tails 2.0. However, it should arrive in a future update.
In the old Tails OS, the users could make it look like
Windows, but that capability doesn’t work well with Gnome
Shell right now. The team said it’s working on fixing that.
Tails 2.0 Installation Assistant The Tails team also
redesigned its download and installation instructions,
making it easier for more people to install Tails safely. For
instance, you can now automatically verify through a

special Firefox add-on if the build that you’re downloading
hasn’t been tampered with by a man-in-the-middle attacker.
There’s also a Tails installer package that allows users to
install Tails from their own Debian or Ubuntu operating
systems.
Those who have already been using Tails will have to install
Tails 2.0 from scratch, as all the new changes are making it
“impossible” to provide an automatic upgrade. The team
encouraged everyone to install the new version as soon as
possible, as it also brings numerous security fixes.
Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware.
You can follow him at @lucian_armasu.
Follow us on Facebook , Google+ , RSS , Twitter and
YouTube .
2016-01-27 00:00:00 Lucian Armasu
158
EpicGear's Morpha Mouse Sports RGB
Lighting, Removable Weights
EpicGear's new Morpha gaming
mouse has a couple interesting
features, including adjustable RGB
lighting and weights. Its 6400 DPI
sensor even has adjustability
beyond its sensitivity.
EpicGear from Taiwan is introducing a new mouse, the
Morpha. Like many new peripherals, this mouse is RGB-lit,

ut that’s not all there’s to it.
Starting with the basics, the mouse has a 6400 DPI optical
sensor that uses an infrared LED. It has a symmetrical
design, but with navigation buttons only on the left side and
an adjustable weight system. Switches include the standard
left and right buttons, navigation buttons, a clickable scroll
wheel and a DPI adjuster.
Here’s some interesting things, however: The DPI switcher
is lockable – if you hold it for three seconds, the DPI light
will flash, and after that you won’t be able to accidentally
change the DPI in-game during busy moments. To unlock,
just hold it for three seconds again.
Next to DPI adjustments, the sensor can also have its lift-off
distance customized, you can adjust the angle-snapping
strength, and it polls at 1000 Hz for ultra-quick responses.
The mouse’s scroll wheel, DPI level, and EG logo are all
RGB-lit, and they can be customized to any color through
the included software. The lighting also as an AFM mode
(Away-From-Mouse), which will make the lighting move
through the colors of the rainbow 20 seconds after you stop
using the mouse.
Additionally, the weight system has four slots that can be
filled with 5-gram weights, and you can load the weights
more in towards the front or the rear (see image above) to
achieve your optimal balance. Without any weights, the
mouse is 110 grams, and it measures 136.5 x 66.5 x 40
mm.

The mouse cable is braided and is 1.8 meters long, and it
has a gold-plated USB connector at the end.
We don’t have information about pricing and availability yet,
but we will let you know when EpicGear gets back to us.
Follow Niels Broekhuijsen @NBroekhuijsen. Follow us
@tomshardware , on Facebook and on Google+.
2016-01-27 00:00:00 Niels Broekhuijsen
159
Lo and Behold: Werner Herzog on why he
saw the internet as 'a whole new continent'
he needed to explore
Werner Herzog is a film director
who needs little introduction, at
least to anybody who knows films.
From the despair of Aguirre: The
Wrath of God , in which a band of
conquistadors try - and utterly fail -
to tame the Amazon and discover
El Dorado, to Grizzly Man , a punishing documentary about
one man's passion for fierce creatures outweighing his
survival instinct, Herzog has made a career of charting
journeys into the unknown.
Famous for not owning a mobile phone - he made his first
telephone call at the ripe old age of 17 - Herzog is a selfconfessed
beginner when it comes to the world of the
internet, and to connectivity.

Nevertheless, application and network performance
management firm NetScout, who you may remember is
currently in an unprecedented legal battle with analyst
house Gartner , decided to strike out with another IT
industry first and hire Herzog to create a documentary
about the internet called Lo and Behold: Reveries of a
Connected World .
Computing attended the premier at the Sundance Film
Festival in Utah this week, and discovered a film unafraid to
ask questions about the hyperconnected future we're
currently throwing ourselves headlong into.
From scientists at Stamford University who are building
football-playing robots they hope can replace human
players in years to come, to a group of people living
beneath America's largest telescope, who in order to allow
it to function have withdrawn from the world of electronic
communications altogether, the film asks more questions
than it answers, and does so through the filter of a selfconfessed
"curious man" who has been probing minds in a
career spanning 50 years.
"A very deep question, with no full answers"
Herzog considers the film to be only the beginning of a
dialogue that is set to continue. In this spirit, Computing sat
down with Herzog and NetScout CMO Jim McNiel to
discuss the film's message.
Herzog calls his film "a deep, conceptual look into the
phenomenon of the connected world".

"Because [the internet] is not just a technical device. [The
film is about] how we, as human beings, are in contact with
other human beings, and how this information, or teaching,
or memory, or social interaction, is being redefined, and
[asking] how do we respond as human beings to all these
things coming at us?
"And sometimes that's a very deep question with no full
answers from anyone," he says.
In the film Herzog, referencing Prussian war theorist Carl
von Clausewitz's question "Does war dream of itself? ",
asks whether the internet, in fact, dreams of itself also.
McNiel, who clearly sees Herzog's film as a mesmerising
adjunct to NetScout's "Guardians of the Connected World"
campaign , says working with Herzog has changed the way
he sees the internet.
"There's one thing that surprised me about this process,"
McNiel tells Computing .
"I'm a technology guy, and I've been in technology for
years, and I thought this was going to be a film about
technology, and the impact technology has on society.
"But it turns out it's not a film about technology at all - it's a
film about humanity. And that was the big surprise for me -
because really we are the creators of the connected world,
and it's created in our image: which is why it has viruses,
and failures and foibles, and why it commits crime. Because
it's a mirror of all of humanity. That was where the film took
me. "

For Herzog - perhaps harking back to the characters in
Aguirre: Wrath of God , cast adrift on a raft and left for dead
- having now experienced the internet, he can see it as
nothing more than a vast and alternately inspiring and
bewildering space. As research in cloud computing, the
Internet of Things, embeddables and advanced AI begin to
accelerate to levels way beyond our control, it's getting
easier to share his outlook.
"It's like seeing a new continent," he says.
"You can say, ‘Oh look, there's something there: ice flows
and cold water on a whole continent, Antarctica is
materialising. And you just take a few dogs and a sledge
and food and you start to explore. It's unknown terrain, and
for the next 10, 20, 30 or 50 years we'll continue to
navigate and move into very, very uncharted terrain.
"There's lots of terra incognita out there, and I'm really
fascinated - I like these voyages where you do not know
exactly where it's going to take you. It's not like tomorrow
I'm flying from Salt Lake City to Burbank and I know the
number of the plane and the arrival time, and I know the
airport at Burbank. This voyage into the unknown is
fascinating. And not just for me, of course. Many people are
much more internet-literate [than me], but there's so much
unknown terrain out there that is going to come at us and
we've no clue what is coming. "
"A computer is not going to make a film as good as mine"
Herzog has been scathing about AI's potential to mimic, or

certainly collaborate, with humanity. In the press
conference before our interview, he said a machine couldn't
make a film as good as his within "4,500 years".
The figure, of course, was plucked out of thin air, but after
what he saw making Lo and Behold , how can he be so
sure?
"Of course I'm sure," he snaps.
"The same way I'm sure that nobody among my film maker
colleagues could make a film on the internet as good as I
do. I just know it. When you're looking around here now,
you don't know what's going to happen in ten thousand
years, it's too vague. But there are certain things I know: a
computer is not going to make a film as good as mine. "
McNiel, however, says that when AI begins to move from
so-called general intelligence to super intelligence "there's
the possibility that something like that may happen".
"Look at the quality of entertainment that's consumed en
masse - can a computer produce that stuff? More than
likely," he smiles.
"But a computer will never create the kind of tragic humour
of Buster Keaton," Herzog chimes in.
"Forget about any capacity of computers - Buster Keaton
will never be paralleled by another human being, nor by a
computer. "
McNiel agrees, citing an ongoing project to create an AI

comedian : "It can write jokes, and you may laugh at a few
of them, but it's almost like they're being knocked together
by a 12 year old. They've just taken irony and opposition,
and they're trying to mathematically construct humour.
"There's the thing that's going to be always different: a
computer just follows a formula," he says.
"Snowden was right"
Herzog has interesting views on the data privacy debate
and the impact of whistleblower Edward Snowden's NSA
revelations.
"We do know all those flows of gigantic data can be tapped
into, and of course it's a question of public interest versus
privacy and of course the debate is not over.
"I always had the feeling that, yes, somebody was watching
what I'm doing," he says, adding that this inspired him to do
a little test in which he performed several Google searches
in the space of a week for Harley Davidson motorbikes he
didn't want.
"All of a sudden, I'm flooded by ads from Harley Davidson
repair shops, and with that I know that somebody, some
algorithm, knows what I'm trying to find," he says.
"I do not need Snowden [to know all that], but now we know
more precisely and more about the entire infrastructure.
But there is surveillance and we know that. "
Herzog, like many others, always sticks a piece of plastic

over any built-in laptop camera.
But did Snowden do the right thing by speaking out?
"I think so, I think so," replies Herzog.
"Although of course there's the question of national
security, but it's not really jeopardised by [speaking out
about this]. "
"There's never an excuse to let national government
jeopardise freedom," says McNiel.
"He did the right thing because he knew the government
was breaking the law. If they want to protect the people of
this country then do so by all means - I'm sure they had our
best interests at heart - but they need to go back and look
at the legislation. "
For Herzog, however, there's another glaring injustice here:
"I ask myself: the head of the NSA was in a congressional
hearing, and he lies to Congress - clearly he lies - and after
they've sworn him in. "
"Yeah, it's perjury," says McNiel.
"Perjury, yes," replies Herzog.
"But on a very high level. You just don't lie to Congress or a
Senate hearing. If you do that, before you even walk out of
the door there will be federal marshals who arrest you.
"So now I ask: has the NSA boss been taken in by
marshals? In which prison is he languishing? What sort of

trial has he had to stand? Did he answer in court? Who
arrested him? Tell me who arrested him. "
The answer, of course, is nobody. And that's perhaps one
of the only succinct and definite answers available as
Herzog continues to tussle with even starting to make
sense of the connected world, its effects on humanity, and
how it will continue to shape and grow either with our
guidance, or entirely on its own.
If and when Lo and Behold finds a distributor for
mainstream release, Computing highly recommends it. An
offbeat and utterly unique insight into a world we, in our
industry, are immersed in on a daily basis, it's an excellent
opportunity to begin some essential self-examination.
2016-01-27 00:00:00 www.computing.co.uk
160
UK SMBs could walk away from broadband
contracts without penalty thanks to new
Ofcom code
UK businesses are to get more
accurate information about the
broadband services they receive,
under new protections announced
by regulator Ofcom that will also
allow customers to walk away from
providers who fail to deliver what they promise.
UK broadband providers BT Business , Virgin Media,

TalkTalk Business, KCOM, Daisy Communications, XLN
and Zen - who together provide a service to around two
third of small and medium businesses (SMBs) - have all
signed up to a new code, which will mean that providers
have to give businesses clearer, more accurate and
transparent information on broadband speeds before they
sign up to a contract.
The regulator said it was concerned about a "speeds gap"
between what broadband customers believe they are
buying and the actual service delivered. It said that some
businesses - particularly in the SMB area - were confused
about how the actual speed of their broadband service
compared to the headline maximum speed used in
advertising. A fifth of SMBs (20 per cent) were not satisfied
that they were getting the speeds they had paid for.
"Too many [businesses] buy unsuitable broadband
packages because of confusing or insufficient sales
information, or are hampered by slow speeds after they've
signed on the dotted line," said Ofcom's chief executive
Sharon White.
"Where broadband companies fail to provide the speeds
they promise, we've made it easier for businesses to walk
away from their contracts without penalty. Providers have
also agreed to give clear and reliable speeds information
upfront so business customers can make more informed
decisions," she said.
The seven ISPs who have signed up to the code have
agreed to offer their customers the right to exit their

contract without penalty if speeds fall below the minimum
guaranteed level. They also have to make clear how they
manage internet traffic on their network and how this may
affect a customer's speed, and what the estimated speeds
the particular business will get if they sign up. Finally, they
will have to provide further detailed information on speeds
in writing to the customer after the sale.
The new code, dubbed Ofcom's Voluntary Business
Broadband Speeds Code of Practice, comes into effect
from 30 September 2016, in order to allow all providers to
put in place the requirements of the code into their working
processes.
It applies to all businesses regardless of size and to all
standard business broadband services regardless of which
technology is used - be it ADSL, FTTC, FTTH, cable,
wireless or satellite.
Ofcom said it would carry out ‘mystery shopping' to check if
ISPs are complying with both the letter and the ‘spirit' of the
code. It has called on all other ISPs who provide business
broadband to also sign up to the code.
2016-01-27 00:00:00 www.computing.co.uk
161
New Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Game
Coming This Summer
The rumors are true, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles fans. A
new game featuring your favorite crime-fighting Heroes in a

Half-Shell is coming your way later
this year.
Developed by Japanese Studio
PlatinumGames and published by
Activision, Teenage Mutant Ninja
Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan will challenge players to
protect New York City from "aliens, mutants, and the Foot
Clan," the companies announced Tuesday. The game is
slated to arrive this summer on PlayStation 4 , PlayStation
3, Xbox One , Xbox 360, and Windows PC via Steam.
The game will feature a single-player campaign as well as a
four-player online co-op. Each turtle has their own combat
style, and can be customized with a set of Ninjutsu moves,
combat items, and special bonuses.
Leonardo is the most well-founded of the bunch, with a
"medium-ranged reach and moderate attack speed,"
Platinum's Robert Cooper wrote in a Tuesday post on the
PlayStation blog. Raphael, meanwhile, is "a little bit slower,
but … a powerhouse," while Mikey has the speediest
attacks but a limited strike zone due to his nunchucks. Last
but not least, Donatello has the longest reach of the bunch,
thanks to his staff.
The game will also feature a number of iconic TMNT
enemies, like Shredder and his long-time accomplices
Bebop and Rockstead.
"But be prepared — defeating Bebop, Rocksteady,
Shredder, and other iconic bosses won't be easy," Platinum

and Activision said in a statement.
2016-01-27 00:00:00 By Angela Moscaritolo January 27, 2016 11:48am
EST 10 Comments
162 Oculus Teases VR Film 'Dear Angelica'
Animated moviemaking is getting a
whole lot more immersive, thanks to
Oculus.
At the Sundance Film Festival this
week, Oculus previewed a new
virtual reality movie headed to the Rift later this year, Dear
Angelica. Developed by Oculus Story Studio, the animated
film tells the tale of a teenage girl named Jessica who looks
back on the stories her mom told her as a child.
"As she recreates these vivid landscapes in her mind,
you're pulled into the magical and dreamlike worlds of her
memories," the Oculus team wrote in a Tuesday blog post.
"Everything in the film is rendered in real time. When you
move your gaze in VR, the scenes and characters come to
life around you. "'
To create the illustrative look of the film, the Story Studio
team built a new production tool, dubbed Quill, which lets
the film's illustrators "paint entire scenes in VR" using
Oculus Touch hand controllers.
"This technique frees artists from the traditional flat canvas
of pen and paper and lets them create directly in VR," the

team wrote.
Check out the video below to see this new VR illustration
technique in action.
Meanwhile, Oculus also this week announced a new VR
filmmaking education initiative.
The Story Studio team will hold a series of workshops
designed to "inspire and educate the next generation of VR
filmmakers" next month at New York University and the
University of Southern California. The workshops kick off
Feb. 13.
"The film community continues to push the boundaries of
what's possible in VR, from live-action documentaries and
films shot with 360 camera rigs, to the beginnings of
interactive cinema using Oculus Touch," the team wrote.
Another VR film that debuted at Sundance is the horrorthemed
Sisters from Otherworld Interactive.
2016-01-27 00:00:00 By Angela Moscaritolo January 27, 2016 10:52am
EST 10 Comments
163
Google Gets Romantic With Valentine's Day
Nexus Sale
Valentine's Day is fast approaching.
And what better way to say "I love
you" than with a discounted Nexus
6P or Nexus 5X?

Google is offering $50 off its smartphones and discounts on
related accessories.
The Nexus handsets arrived in the fall with Android 6.0
Marshmallow and a slew of premium features.
Satiate your sweetie's craving for a new phablet with
Huawei's all-metal, 5.7-inch 6P, with a Quad HD AMOLED
display, 64-bit processor, and USB-C port for fast charging.
Plus, a 12-megapixel rear camera and an 8-megapixel front
shooter with HDR let you capture shared adventures in 4K
video, slow motion, and burst mode. The phone also sports
the Nexus Imprint rear fingerprint sensor for uber-fast
recognition and "incredibly low false reject rate," according
to Google.
The 5X from LG, meanwhile, has the same hardware
features as its big brother​including a USB-C port, fingerprint
sensor, and new camerabehind a 5.2-inch HD LCD display.
And while there is nothing inherently romantic about a new
gadget, Google hopes to entice tech lovers with its steamy
rollbacks. Consumers can now pick up the 32GB Matte
Gold Nexus 6P for $449, or any 16GB Nexus 5X for $299
(though, as of press time, the ice blue color option was out
of stock).
But don't click that green checkout button just yet.
"We played matchmaker and created some dynamic duos
that will take your tech to a whole new level," the store
website said.
Buy any Nexus 6P and you'll receive a $50 credit toward

the purchase of a Huawei Watch ; the balance, however, is
applicable only in the Google Store and must be used by
Sept. 1.
All purchases come with 90 days of free Google Play Music
for new subscribers.
For more, check out these roundups of Unique Valentine's
Day Gifts and Valentine's Day Gift Ideas .
2016-01-27 00:00:00 By Stephanie Mlot January 27, 2016 10:12am EST
10 Comments
164
Alec Baldwin And Dan Marino Star in
Amazon's First Super Bowl Ad |
HotHardware
But now is the time it seems for
Amazon to go after low-hanging
fruit with its first Super Bowl
commercial, which will air on
February 7 th when the Carolina
Panthers go head-to-head with the Denver Broncos. Not
one to go off half-cocked, Amazon has enlisted some two
big stars for its commercial: actor Alec Baldwin and Hall of
Fame quarterback Dan Marino.
In the commercial, the two are brainstorming on what they’ll
need to throw a kickass Super Bowl party when Marino
suggests that they include a snack stadium. Obviously
unfamiliar with the term snack stadium, Baldwin calls on
Alexa to fill him in, to which she replies, “A stadium built

entirely of snacks.”
Enthused by Alexa’s response, Baldwin decided to rethink
their strategy as Amazon’s 30-second teaser concludes.
Alec Baldwin is a master at comedy and Marino plays off
him beautifully, so we’re eager to see what the full-length
commercial has to offer on game day.
In case you need a refresher, Alexa is the digital assistant
built within Amazon’s Echo Internet-connected speaker.
Echo started off with the ability to provide weather
information, sports scores, and play music among other
things. However, over the past year, its functionality has
expended greatly to transform it into an Internet of Things
(IoT) digital hub for your home.
And if we bring out our magic 8-ball, Amazon could use it
Super Bowl commercial as the launching point for its
rumored next generation, portable Echo speaker .
2016-01-27 00:00:00 hothardware.com
165
Google Trims $50 From Nexus 5X and 6P |
HotHardware
Chocolates and flowers are what
usually come to mind as gift ideas
for Valentine's Day, but Google has
something else you might love. Just
one week removed from
permanently slashing the price of its

Nexus 5X by $30 to $349, the sultan of search has issued
another price drop, this one $50 and presumably a
temporary one in celebration of the day for lovers and
romantics. It also applies to the gold-colored Nexus 6P
When you think about it, what says long-term relationship
more appropriately than a smartphone? It's a gift that can
take things to the next level, just be sure the recipient is
ready for such a commitment. Otherwise, it's a bit
stallkerish, as in, "Hey girl, you haven't been answering my
texts, is your phone broken? I barely know you, but here's a
new one. Check out the wallpaper—I Photoshopped a
picture of us together. "That's enough of that, things are
getting creepy. And let's be real, hardly anyone's going to
be gifting these things, they'll be taking advantage of the
price cut to upgrade their own handsets. And why not? Now
at $299 for the Nexus 5X (16GB), it's back at Black Friday
pricing, which is the lowest it's been since launch. Let's
refresh, shall we? The Nexus 5X sports a 5.2-inch Full HD
1080p (1920x1080) display protected with Corning Gorilla
Glass 3. Behind the scenes is a 64-bit Qualcomm
Snapdragon hexa-core processor clocked at 1.8GHz with
an Adreno 418 GPU and 2GB of LPDDR3 RAM. Sitting on
top of that foundation is a 5MP front-facing camera,
12.3MP rear-facing camera with IR laser-assisted
autofocus, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, NFC support,
GPS, 3.5mm stereo jack, and a 2,700 mAn battery (nonremovable).
It all comes lathered in Android 6.0
Marshmallow. If you want to go uptown with your phone
upgrade, the Nexus 6P in matte gold starts at $449 after
the price cut., plus you get a $50 credit towards the
purchase of a Huawei Watch. That's a heck of a deal for

what you get—a 5.7-inch WQHD AMOLED display
protected with Gorilla Glass 4, 64-bit Qualcomm
Snapdragon 810 (v2.1) octa-core processor clocked at
2GHz, Adreno 430 GPU, 3GB of LPDDR4 RAM, 32GB of
built-in storage, 8MP (front) and 12.3MP (rear) cameras,
802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, 3.5mm stereo jack, NFC and
GPS support, 3,450 mAh (non-removable) battery, and
Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Lovers, stalkers, and upgraders
interested in either of the above deals can go here
2016-01-27 00:00:00 hothardware.com
166
Microsoft Refunds $8,200 Xbox In-Game
Charges 17-Year-Old Son Racked Up |
HotHardware
A father in Canada is relieved that
Microsoft dismissed a bill his son
had racked up for in-game charges
on this Xbox system just before
Christmas. Had Microsoft decided
to let the charges stand, as it
initially did (more on that in a moment), he would have
owed his credit card company more than $8,200, a
tremendous sum that all went towards a $60 video game.
According to a local news report in Ottawa, his 17-year-old
son used his credit card to make in-game purchases for
one of the FIFA soccer games on his Xbox (it's not clear
which FIFA title or whether it was for the Xbox 360 or Xbox
One). The credit card was supposed to be used for

emergencies and to buy supplies for a convenience store
the family owns, but instead apparently ended up funding a
massive amount of in-game content. "It floored me. Literally
floored me, when I'd seen what I was being charged,"
Lance Perkins, father of the 17-year-old, told. "There will
never be another Xbox system—or any gaming system—in
my home. "Perkins received the surprise bill on December
23, just two days before Christmas. It was for $7,625.88.
After looking into it, he noticed previous charges related to
the Xbox, ones that bumped the total to $8,206.43.
According to Perkins, his son thought he had made a onetime
charge for the game and wasn't aware that he was
racking up a huge bill. It sounds a little suspect, and at first,
Microsoft said the charges would stand. There was also
nothing the credit card company could do about the bill,
unless Perkins wanted to charge his son with fraud.
Microsoft had a change of heart and removed the charges
after Perkins explained that his son was a minor.
2016-01-27 00:00:00 hothardware.com
167 Asus Chromebit review
Specifications
Processor Quad-core 1.8GHz
Rockchip RK3288C
RAM 2GB
Front USB ports 1x USB2

Rear USB ports None
Total storage 16GB eMMC
Graphics card Integrated ARM Mali-T764
Display None
Operating system Chrome OS
Warranty One-year RTB
Details asus.com
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2016-01-27 00:00:00 Alan Lu

168
Gov 'is not taking cybercrime seriously'
IT security experts have trashed
Home Office plans to recruit
volunteers to tackle cybercrime,
saying the government is not taking
the issue seriously enough.
Home Secretary Theresa May plans to bolster the police’s
efforts to battle digital crime by empowering police forces to
sign up IT workers as volunteers.
The proposal, aired again by the Home Office last week but
first revealed in a consultation document last year, would
allow room for volunteers to take on greater roles “as their
experience grows”.
But cybersecurity experts denounced the plans, saying the
government should hire specialists instead of volunteers if
police skills are not up to scratch.
Graham Cluley, an independent computer security analyst,
told IT Pro : “[It] doesn't sound like they're taking the
problem seriously to me. Cybercrime is on the rise, and
clearly the authorities need proper investment and
resources to tackle the growing problem.
“My concern would be that the authorities would be unable
or unwilling to pay the kind of salaries that would attract the
top talent - and so many talented individuals won't be
interested.”

IT security workers command a wage of between £50,000
and £57,000 in London, according to recruitment firm
Randstad Technologies.
But digital offences make up 44 per cent of total crime
according to ONS data released last October, which
showed that 3.8 million Britons were victims of a total 5.1
million incidents of online fraud, malware, or phishing
attacks in the previous 12 months.
Cluley said it is worth paying the price for experts who can
help.
“Until fighting cybercrime is seen as something which saves
the country money rather than costs us cash, I don't see
the situation getting any better,” he said.
Security firm Digital Guardian pointed out that the plan
overlooks a gap in expertise that already exists in
cybersecurity, a problem which has been recognised by
Chancellor George Osborne .
Thomas Fischer, principal threat researcher, said: " For
many years the infosecurity industry has faced a
recruitment drought. As a result, individuals that do meet
the required training standards are highly sought after
assets, likely to be in well-paid positions, with very little time
to do volunteer work on the side. "
However, the Home Office insisted it is committed to
tackling cybercrime, highlighting measures such as an £860
million investment in the National Cyber Security
Programme.

IT Pro understands that volunteers would look into minor
offences that stop police focusing on more serious crimes,
but security firm Malwarebytes said working alongside
police is different from grass-roots action against hackers.
Malware intelligence analyst Chris Boyd told IT Pro :
“Working with police in an official capacity is a whole new
ballgame, and there's not just the technical aspect to
consider - you could well be getting involved in cases where
there could be significant risk to yourself or others.
“One hopes the police would make them sign an equivalent
of an NDA before signing up.”
It is not clear whether the Home Office would meet other
costs, such as the price of equipment volunteers would
need to work on.
Boyd said: “If this is to be successful the volunteers need to
be supplied with standard-issue machines running the tools
they need to get the job done. We can't have work like this
done on someone's personal computer, especially if there's
a chance it could have been compromised beforehand.”
The government must also decide what security solutions
run on these machines before signing up volunteers, he
said.
The consultation in which the proposal was contained has
concluded, though the government has not given a timeline
for when police can begin recruiting volunteers.

The Home Office declined to comment.
2016-01-27 00:00:00 Joe Curtis
169
Cooler Master Announces Case Mod World
Series 2016
You need to register your project by
12th June 2016. Your project
cannot have started earlier than
Jan 1st 2015 last year. Cooler
Master has announced its 2016
Case Mod World Series - an
international modding event that
invites modders from around the world.
Up for grabs this year is a prize pool worth $30,000 along
with sponsors such as ASUS, Avexir, Dremel, Nvidia and
OCZ.
Generally regarded as the biggest modding competition of
its kind, it attracts modders of all ages and skillsets, with
dozens of projects being entered into one of several
categories.
Modding has exploded in recent years and is taking root in
every corner of the globe. The Case Mod World Series is
about fuelling that growth. It's about igniting the modding
spirit - the maker spirit - on the web and right in your
community, said Michelle Wu, Global Community Manager.
This year, we will be running local events to involve

modders everywhere. Together, with the generous support
of our sponsors, we hope to enable the modding
community the world over.
The format is similar to previous years with two modding
categories:
Tower Mod: Any Cooler Master case
Scratchbuild:
No limitation on case material
You can use an existing case made by a manufacturer so
long as there's no display of a manufacturers logo, the final
design is unrecognisable compared to the original case
The build must include at least one Cooler Master product
that's clearly identifiable.
To enter, you'll need to post your project in Cooler Master's
forum by June 12, 2016, and complete you public Modder
Profile (see more on the rules page. )
If you're registering an already-complete or in-progress
project, it cannot have been previously entered into a
Cooler Master contest and must have been started after
January 1st 2015 last year. You must also be able to post a
full work log including photos of the build process and final
PC.
Voting will come from the community and also Cooler
Master's panel of judges, who will award points based on
complexity, design, originality and overall look.

The winners will be announced on 28th June 2016. Head
over to the competition page to enter and for more
information.
2016-01-27 00:00:00 Published on 26th January 2016 by Antony Leather
170 Inmarsat IsatHub review
WPA2 encryption
3,000mAh battery pack
Specifications
Inmarsat satellite receiver
802.11n wireless AP
Mains battery charger and plug kit
Control App and Voice App for Android & iOS
Web browser management
1yr warranty
Carry bag
180 x 170 x 30mm (WDH)
900g
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but enterprises in particular stand to gain so much…
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2016-01-27 00:00:00 Dave Mitchell
171
Lenovo fixes hard-coded password in filesharing
utility
Lenovo has patched several
software flaws in a file-sharing
utility, which could allow attackers to
browse and make copies of files.
The flaws were found by Core
Security, which described in an advisory a lengthy back and
forth dialog with Lenovo starting in late October over the
problems.
The affected application is SHAREit , which is designed to
let people share files from Windows computers or Android
devices over a local LAN or through a Wi-Fi hotspot that's

created.
SHAREit is preloaded on Lenovo devices, including its
ThinkPad and IdeaPad notebooks and other mobile
devices. The vulnerable SHAREit versions are the Android
3.0.18_ww and Windows 2.5.1.1 packages, Core Security
said.
On Windows, the vulnerable version of SHAREit had a
hard-coded password that would allow anyone within range
to connect to the application. The password was
"12345678," and it couldn't be changed.
Incorporating a static password that can't be changed is
considered a poor security practice.
Core Security found three other issues with the Windows
version of SHAREit. A second software vulnerability could
allow an attacker to view the names of files accessible to
the SHAREit user, according to Lenovo's advisory.
Both the Windows and Android versions of SHAREit did not
use encryption when transferring files. Files were
transferred over HTTP, which means files are also
vulnerable to a man-in-the-middle attack.
On Android devices, SHAREit didn't even bother to have a
weak password for gaining access to its Wi-Fi hotspot: any
device within range could join it, Core said.
Lenovo has made several changes to SHAREit. The
updated version for Windows is 3.2.0 and 3.5.38_ww for
Android. Windows users should see a prompt to update the

next time the application is opened.
Both of the updated applications now have what Lenovo
terms as a "secure mode. " That mode asks SHAREit users
to create a unique password before sharing files,
preventing unauthorized devices from connecting. Secure
mode will also encrypt file transfers using AES 256-bit
encryption.
But users have to choose that mode, and Lenovo retains
an "easy" mode. It was unclear if the easy mode retains the
hard-coded password.
2016-01-27 00:00:00 Jeremy Kirk
172
How to make OneDrive your personal music
streaming service with the Groove app
OneDrive has an unsung feature
you’d be crazy not to use: Its
massive storage space can be
harnessed to upload your legacy
music collection—old MP3 files, not
to mention music trapped on CDs
and LPs. Add Microsoft’s new Groove app, and you’ve
made your own, personal streaming service to rival Spotify
and other competition.
Microsoft’s OneDrive is especially suited for storing music.
Windows users tend to have generous storage allotments
on OneDrive thanks to Microsoft’s various giveaways, not to

mention the ridiculous amount of storage Office 365
subscribers receive. Of all the various cloud storage
services you use, OneDrive probably has the most room to
spare for your collection.
Here’s how to set it up.
Getting started with OneDrive and Groove in Windows 10 is
pretty straightforward. All you have to do is get your music
into OneDrive. If you use OneDrive’s selective sync feature
to keep some of the folders stored in Microsoft’s cloud but
off of your hard drive, you’ll need to make sure your Music
folder is selected.
To do this, click the upward-pointing arrow in the system
tray (the far right of the taskbar) in Windows 10, right-click
the OneDrive icon, and select Settings. In the new window
that opens, select the Account tab, then click Choose
folders to open a second window listing all of your OneDrive
folders. Scroll down until you see the Music folder, check
the box next to it, and click OK.
If you don’t have a Music folder, you can create one in your
OneDrive folder and Groove will automatically use that—as
long as you call it “Music.”
Once that’s done, grab all the music saved to your PC and
drag it into your OneDrive Music folder. Depending on the
size of your music collection, it may take a while before all
your content gets uploaded to OneDrive.
Now, just open the Groove music player on your desktop
and your music collection will start to appear, or check out

your collection on any of your mobile devices with the
Groove app installed.
Windows 8.1 users can also use the OneDrive-Groove duo.
Windows 8 and Windows 7 users technically aren’t
supported, although I’d wager that if you can settle for the
Groove Web app you’d be able to access your music
collection stored in the cloud. That said, you should
probably experiment with a few tracks to make sure it works
before dumping your entire collection into OneDrive.
Although you may have tons of storage in OneDrive,
Microsoft limits you to 50,000 songs in the Music folder.
Still, that’s a good number of songs and comparable to
what services like Google Play Music offer.
The other thing you need to know is that Groove officially
plays back music files only in MP3, M4A, and WMA
unprotected formats. That said, I was able to get the few
FLAC files I have to play back on my Android device without
a problem.
Install the Groove player on all your other devices so you
can access your music collection wherever you go. If you
have any issues with Groove streaming, check out
Microsoft’s OneDrive-Groove help page for troubleshooting
tips.
2016-01-27 00:00:00 Ian Paul

173
Flash video is 'on life support,' but big sites
won’t let go
As a video format, Adobe Flash is
almost gone for good.
According to a report by
Encoding.com , Flash accounted for
just 6 percent of video output last
year, down 15 percent from 2014. Today, it’s mainly used
for legacy browsers, banner ads, and some specific edge
cases. “We expect to see the Flash video codec disappear
completely from our report with 24 months,” the report
says.
That sounds like great news for people who’ve dropped
Flash from their web browsers due to security concerns
and performance drawbacks. But for Encoding.com’s bold
prediction to pan out, several major streaming sites will
have to change their ways.
Hulu, for instance, continues to require Flash Player for its
desktop website. (The site actually encodes video in H.264,
but uses a Flash Video container for streaming.
Encoding.com CEO Greggory Heil said this type of scenario
still counts as use of Flash Video in its percentages.) Other
major streaming sites that still rely on Flash Player include
HBO Go, CBS, NBC, MLB. TV, Showtime, Pandora, and
Spotify.
The notion of major sites clinging to Flash video is more

than just anecdotal. For a story in Fast Company last
August, web technology metrics firm W3Techs told me that
Flash was still in use on roughly 10 percent of all websites,
but on roughly 15 percent of the top 1000 sites. It makes
sense that bigger sites would have a tougher time changing
their technologies.
Still, there has been some progress in moving away from
Flash Player. Last summer, Twitch switched to HTML5 for
its video player and HTTP Live Streaming for the underlying
stream last summer. Amazon rolled out an HTML5 web
video player around the same time. Netflix and YouTube
have offered HTML5 players for years.
It’s anybody’s guess when other big sites might follow the
trend. In the meantime, Flash’s decline will come largely
from the explosion of mobile devices, none of which
support Adobe’s aging video format or media player.
2016-01-27 00:00:00 Jared Newman
174
Google Docs, Sheets and Slides get better
mobile commenting
One of the key components of the
Google Apps productivity suite has
been the tech giant's focus on
providing collaboration tools so that
people can work on the same
document together, wherever they
happen to be. Those capabilities

got a group of upgrades on Wednesday across iOS,
Android and the Web.
First off, the Sheets and Slides apps for iOS and Android
have gained commenting functionality, meaning that users
can add their thoughts to spreadsheets and presentations
on the go (the Docs word processing app already
supported commenting).
Across all mobile platforms, users can now share files with
other people and loop them into a discussion just by
starting to type their name in a comment. If the mentioned
people don't yet have access to the file, Google will prompt
commenters to give them access, and then notify the
people mentioned that they've been included in a
conversation.
It's an easy and quick way to make sure that people are
involved in conversations going on inside a document, even
if they're not sitting down in front of Google Drive and
staring at the comments and changes that are going on.
For large, busy documents with a lot of people editing, it's a
useful feature.
On the Web, Google added a new feature to Docs that
gives users a button to instantly add a comment when they
select text. That way, it's easier for people to speak their
mind when contributing to a document without having to
move their cursor away from the text.
All of these updates are important improvements for
Google, since Drive's collaboration functionality is one of

the things that sets it apart as a product, especially at a
time when the company is gunning even harder for
customers using Microsoft's Office 365.
2016-01-27 00:00:00 Blair Hanley Frank
175
Windows 10 build 14251 fixes gaming bugs,
but the roadmap for older phones is unclear
Windows Insiders who skipped the
build 11102 of Windows 10
because of game-related bugs
finally have some good news: Build
14251, released today, fixes those.
What Microsoft hasn't fixed on, though, is a timetable for
deploying Windows 10 to older phones. For now, the
company says it's focusing on its recent flagship devices.
The substantial jump in build numbers from 11102 to 14251
also doesn’t signify a dramatic leap ahead in terms of
features or the quality of the code. It simply means that
Microsoft has now synchronized its preview build versions
with the mobile team, Microsoft vice president of the
engineering systems team, Gabe Aul, said in a blog post.
And it does shift the collection of features that Microsoft
added to the Xbox One Preview program —better visibility
into Parties, an improved Gamerscore Leaderboard, and
the like—to the Xbox Beta app within Windows 10.
(Note that all of this applies only to Windows Insiders, who

participate in its beta program. If you’re a vanilla Windows
10 user who’s not part of the Insider program, none of this
applies to you.)
Why this matters: Microsoft’s in a bit of a holding pattern at
present. Instead of rolling out new features, it’s busy
working on the shared OneCore platform underlying the
PC, mobile, Xbox, and HoloLens platforms. But the
company is also preparing to begin its next “Redstone”
cycle of Windows 10 features, which means teams will
begin checking in lots of new code. That means more code,
but also more bugs. Expect a faster pace of preview
releases.
According to AdDuplex, which released its January 2016
report on the state of the Windows 10 mobile market on
Tuesday night, about 77.1 percent of the world’s Windows
phones still run Windows Phone 8.1; 9.5 percent run
Windows 10 Mobile. And that isn’t expected to change
anytime soon.
Microsoft is overdue to begin shifting the installed base of
Windows 8.1 phones over to Windows 10. Aul said that
Insider builds would continue to focus on its flagship
devices like the Lumia 950 , Lumia 950XL, and Lumia 550
—while it works to make the Windows 10 Mobile upgrade
process as easy as possible for existing users.
“The team is working now by looking at data and reports
from Insiders who have upgraded their devices to preview
builds, and ensuring that we deliver a great upgrade
experience to customers,” Aul wrote. “We’re excited about

making the upgrade available, and will share new
information with you just as soon as we can on how the
rollout will happen.”
2016-01-27 00:00:00 Mark Hachman
176
'Doctor Who' is departing Netflix, at least in
the U. S.
Netflix users in the United States
will lose a binge-watching mainstay
this month with the departure of
Doctor Who.
On February 1, Netflix will lose all
eight modern seasons of the BBC-produced sci-fi series,
along with a collection of classic Doctor Who episodes
spanning 18 seasons. The disappearance only applies to
the U. S. version of Netflix, as the show will remain
available in the United Kingdom .
Last year, Doctor Who also appeared to be on its way out,
but Netflix later clarified that it had re-upped its content deal
with the BBC. This time it appears the Doctor isn’t coming
back.
That doesn’t mean the series is gone from streaming
services entirely. Hulu, which started carrying modern and
classic Doctor Who episodes last summer, continues to
offer them with a paid subscription. Individual episodes and
seasons are also available for purchase through on-

demand stores such as Amazon Instant Video and Apple
iTunes.
Other notable departures from Netflix this month include
The Hurt Locker , Rain Man , Terms of Endearment , Fletch
, and The Terminator. On the bright side, Netflix
subscribers can commence binge-watching the entire first
season of Breaking Bad spinoff Better Call Saul on
February 1.
Why this matters: Doctor Who has long been one of
Netflix’s most popular programs , at least according to thirdparty
metrics , and it's a great fit for the binge-watching
style that the service helped pioneer. Its departure
illustrates how Netflix is becoming more interested in
original series , and how competition among streaming
services can cause popular content to bounce around.
Netflix hasn’t ruled out getting the Time Lord back down the
road, but for now it’s Hulu’s turn to be the show’s main
purveyor in the U. S..
2016-01-27 00:00:00 Jared Newman
177
These electronics can monitor the brain,
then dissolve and vanish
From pacemakers to insulin pumps,
electronic implants are a powerful
medical tool, but they present their
own suite of risks — scarring,
rejection and sepsis among them.

Now a team of researchers has created a dissolving
electronic implant, sort of like a much more sophisticated
version of dissolving sutures. Sutures, however, can’t be
injected into a rat’s brain, and don’t come equipped with
temporary Wi-Fi.
The research team is calling the implantable chips
“bioresorbable.” These tiny chips are biodegradable in the
fluid environment of a living creature: They dissolve after a
few days. The chips are made of biologically inert materials
like silicon, or similar materials that won’t cause an immune
response or an overdose. In rats, the researchers
successfully implanted microchips that measured
temperature and pressure from inside the brain. That kind
of information is critical for monitoring swelling and
inflammation as patients recover from a brain injury or
surgery.
These dissolving implantable microchips are made out of
tiny, flexible piezoresistive sensors. Under mechanical
forces, the electrical resistance of the sensor body
changes, which allows them to function as reliable pressure
sensors. Piezoresistive sensors are also exquisitely
dependent on temperature, so they make sensitive
implantable thermometers. The sensor is connected to a
flake of silicon sufficient to parse and transmit the
information through molybdenum wires that run to a little
wireless transmitter module implanted below the skin. The
whole sensor chip is coated with silicon, magnesium (of
which we have an RDA, or Recommended Daily Allowance
of about eight of these chips per day) and a dissolvable

copolymer called PLGA that we’re already using in other
medical devices.
As a proof of concept, the chips stayed viable in various rat
body cavities and fluids including cerebrospinal fluid for
several days, while the rats ambled freely around their
habitats. Longevity of the implant is, in part, a function of
the thickness of the coating: the thicker the coating, the
longer the chip takes to dissolve. Researchers are hoping
to make versions of these bioresorbable implants that can
last for much longer — perhaps the whole duration of a
patient’s treatment.
Sensors of this sort have the potential to revolutionize
patient treatment. While we have medical technologies that
allow us to image what’s going on inside a body, our ability
to directly observe the internal organs is limited by many
factors. Microscopic sensors that can report shifts in
temperature and pressure could map the damaged areas
of a stroke victim’s brain far more accurately than any
technology we have today.
2016-01-27 00:00:00 By Jessica Hall on January 27, 2016 at 11:00 am
Comment
178
Living with Samsung Gear VR: A little
something for everyone
Don’t mistake Samsung’s Gear VR for a high-end gaming
device. It’s not. Instead, it offers some compelling, if brief,
virtual-reality experiences for techies and non-techies alike.

compelling.
Even those who are not impressed
by the latest first-person shooter,
intriguing VR experiences including
Disneyland, Nepal, and the Blue
Angels are likely to prove
The hardest part of getting the non-technical folks in your
household (if you have any) excited about the Gear VR will
be explaining to them how they get it to work without being
able to see what they’re seeing. In my case, after doing my
best to tee-up the “It’s a Small World” Disney experience
before handing the Gear VR off, I was chagrined that the
first thing it displayed was a warning about overheating. But
eventually, the Gear VR delivered and my family was
hooked.
Up front, I want to make it clear that the Gear VR is not a
classically great VR experience — although it is powered
using Oculus software. Images are somewhat grainy —
mostly because you are staring at your phone screen from
a couple inches away, through lenses that are essentially
magnifying glasses — and there can be some lag in fastmoving
applications.
But the Gear VR is not a $2,000 Oculus dev kit, or even a
$600 Oculus Rift attached to a high-end PC. It is a $100
headset coupled with a phone you already own (and it’s
definitely not worth buying a new Samsung phone to run
it!). Judged by that standard, it is pretty darn cool. For
many it will be the first way they experience VR, and
perhaps the only way for quite a while.

There are a growing number of applications, and even
more videos, for the Gear VR. It seems like the more
impressive they are, the more they crash. Or at least, that
has been my experience. JauntVR provides some amazing
360-degree experiences, but frequently caused the device
to hang, overheat, or go black. I’m sure that will improve
with time, or with more expensive devices like the Oculus
Rift, but it can be very frustrating in the meantime.
To understand what’s possible on the Gear VR, we need to
cover what it can and can’t do. It performs head tracking
using the sensors on your phone (for that matter,
essentially everything it does uses your phone’s
electronics). With my Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, the head
tracking was pretty impressive, responding quickly in
applications that didn’t add their own lag.
However, the Gear VR doesn’t have any positional tracking,
so moving around in a VR scene doesn’t actually move you
around. If you’re sitting in a fixed location, that’s probably
fine, as you can’t move anyway. Instead, there is a touchsensitive
area on the right side of the goggles that you
swipe in a direction to either navigate menus or move
around. It is not the simplest system to use, and
reminds me of the awkward swipe interface on Google
Glass. But if you can develop a good sense of where to
place your finger, it is usable. More serious gamers will
want to add a Bluetooth-connected gaming controller to
use.
The Gear VR can also use your phone’s camera (assuming

you have the Gear VR’s cover off) to let you view the world
in front of you. However, probably due to the limited power
of the phone, there don’t seem to be any applications that
do either object tracking, or any type of positional tracking
using the camera, like the new, but much more expensive
developer kit from Lumus and Infinity AR does.
Hollywood has begun moving into VR, starting with a
dedicated VR experience at the trendy Sundance Film
Festival. Gear VR owners can get the same experience for
themselves, as the videos have been loaded into
Samsung’s Milk VR library (although for some reason only
until February 12th). Similarly, startup Jaunt VR has
created some amazing 360-degree video experiences that
you can view after downloading the free Jaunt VR app from
the Oculus store. For family viewing, “It’s a Small World” is
a good introduction, while “Nepal” provides a more
dramatic adventure.
Next VR has been experimenting with live streaming
various sporting events. I watched (a recorded version) of
an NBA game, and wasn’t all that impressed. The 360
perspective puts you courtside, but because it doesn’t
zoom in to the play, often the players around the ball were
distant and blurry. I found the extreme sports experiences
(like Supercross) more compelling, as the action is the main
point of those experiences.
To see a glimpse of what the medium may become, GONE
is an interactive combination TV series and video game
made for VR. I had a hard time motivating myself to spin
around looking for clues in the forest, but it pushes the

oundaries of gaming and entertainment further than most
of the other available content.
Unfortunately, content discovery and management is sort of
a mess, split between the Oculus store, Samsung’s Milk VR
library, and other walled-garden content libraries created by
individual publishers. Some of these offer a search
capability — although searching for anything using a
Google touch pad is painful — while others don’t have any
search function at all. For VR to move beyond the bleeding
edge, this needs to change. Ironically, it is probably easier
to manage content for the inexpensive Google Cardboard
than for Gear VR, since Cardboard content comes in the
form of Android apps you can get from the Play store using
your phone UI.
VR content in general is certainly still suffering teething
pains. I found a couple issues that were consistent across
many of the available videos. The first is that some make
too much use of 360 — I guess just to show off. For
example, the U2 video has each performer appear at a
different compass point around you. That makes the video
hard to watch unless you’re sitting on a swivel chair, and
even then is likely to start making you dizzy.
The second issue is related, as once you’ve started to look
around (especially on the recommended swivel chair), it
can be hard to figure out where you “should” be looking to
follow the narrator. For example, as I “wandered through”
the Holy Land video, the narrator would helpfully point out
facts about one of the surrounding buildings. But I found
myself getting confused about which direction I needed to

look to see it.
Similarly, in Nepal, action might start to unfold in a direction
away from where I was looking, and require some
experimentation and rewinding to find it. Traditional film
directors address this issue by directing our attention
through camera position, zoom, and focus, but immersive
videos leave that all up to us. The result is certainly an
enhanced sense of place and presence, but not necessarily
a better ability to follow the story.
The Gear VR is well-designed, and it is fairly easy to clip
your phone into it. You do need to have one of the few
supported phone models (S6, S6 edge, Note 6, S6+ Edge),
though. There are several drawbacks to this constant
plugging and unplugging. First, you’ll probably need to
remove your phone case for it to fit. Second, if you
accidentally hit the power button while inserting your phone
— thus locking it — you’ll need to pull it back out again,
unlock it, and start over (I have had this happen to me a
lot).
It’s really easy to smudge the lenses in the Gear VR during
the process of inserting and unloading the phone, so I
found myself needing to wipe them fairly often. I used the
Gear VR with glasses, with contacts, and with no correction
(my eyes are only a couple diopters off normal). All three
worked pretty well, although of course each change
required tweaking the focus wheel. Of the three, I’d say
contacts worked best in my case. Headphones also add to
the experience, although they also add to the headache of
getting set up. Some experiences can be streamed (you’ll

need good bandwidth for this to work well), while others can
only be downloaded (typically gigabytes even for a
relatively short immersive video).
If you have the money and a compatible phone, in a word,
yes. Think about it. $100 is 6 tickets to a 3D movie. That’s
12 hours of virtual fun. At a minimum Gear VR is worth a
few hours of tinkering, and you can impress your friends for
at least 10 or 20 minutes each. Then there is the chance
that you’ll actually get hooked on one of the games (and
perhaps invest in a Bluetooth gamepad), and find endless
hours of entertainment. Or you might decide that a private
screening is the best way to watch your favorite movie on
your next airplane flight — I know I’m always a little
embarrassed when the R-rated scenes in one of my
favorite TV series suddenly shows up on my laptop when
I’m in an aisle seat and people are walking by. The same
goes for your dorm room or apartment, and Gear VR has a
cute Netflix app available.
It’s also not a long-term investment. If you love it, then you’ll
probably figure out a way to upgrade to the Oculus Rift, or
HTC Vive, and a powerful-enough computer to run one of
them. Even if you don’t love it, it’s likely a better one will
come along before the end of the year. So it’s best to think
of it as an entertainment expense, like a movie or ticket to
an amusement park. Of course, unlike with those, parking
is free, and you can make your own popcorn.
2016-01-27 00:00:00 By David Cardinal on January 27, 2016 at 9:28 am
Comment

179
DARPA devotes $60M to making an
implantable, wideband brain-computer
interface
Did you know that the stated
mission of DARPA is to prevent
technological surprise to the US,
but also to create technological
surprise to our enemies? The newest news from those
lovable, homicidal, acronym-happy wackos at DARPA is
that they want to build an implantable brain-to-computer
interface. Seriously, I dare you to wade more than one
Google search deep into researching any of the brainrelated
technology DARPA is working on.
The idea here is that DARPA wants a chip smaller than a
cubic centimeter — they characterize it as the volume of
two nickels, back to back — that will provide
“unprecedented signal resolution and data-transfer
bandwidth between the human brain and the digital world.”
Naturally, they’ve got an acronym for it: the Neural
Engineering System Design, or NESD. They want to implant
it in the human brain, and use it as an indwelling wideband
interface for data transmission — and they’ve earmarked
$60 million over four years for the purpose.
The resultant IP would be shared with the “industry
stakeholders” that would help build such an implant, whose
involvement DARPA is courting at a Proposer’s Day next
month. Once those meetings are had, the research grant
writing will start to flow, and we’ll have more information

about the specifics of the project and the device.
Currently, the best neural interfaces we have are used for
things like limb prosthetics, and they only use about a
hundred channels at a time — and those channels get
noisy, imprecise feeds because they’re many-to-one
aggregators, collecting signals from hundreds or thousands
of neurons per channel.
Prior art in the field of brain-computer interfaces, while
promising, is still young. The NESD project aims to create
an indwelling brain-to-computer interface, capable of data
transmission between the module and up to a million
individual neurons at a time. “The interface would serve as
a translator, converting between the electrochemical
language used by neurons in the brain and the ones and
zeros that constitute the language of information
technology,” according to DARPA’s press release.
Research like this represents an enormous leap forward,
and it will have to be profoundly multidisciplinary. Straight
out of the gate, NESD’s objective will require a good map of
the connectome, and an intimate understanding of how
neurons and their support cells do what they do. Implant
engineering like this requires low-power electronics,
materials science and mathematical modeling too. But
imagine a HUD utility that could pick up sensory input from
your brain, analyze it, and compare that information about
your environment to a much larger database in real-time —
like something you’d see on JARVIS’s resume. It’s even
possible that by integrating magnetic brain stimulation, we
could get remote I/O capabilities for the human mind.

Despite how shiny this looks, though — in light of the
PRISM sideshow (can you believe that was back in 2013?),
it boggles the mind to contemplate the security risks
introduced by a wetware interface between a computer —
any computer — and the human brain. I for one welcome
my new advertising and surveillance overlords. Who’s going
to get a chip put in their head made by the same governing
bodies that gave us warrantless wiretapping and MK-
ULTRA?
2016-01-27 00:00:00 By Jessica Hall on January 27, 2016 at 1:16 pm
Comment
180
Sony reorganizes PlayStation business,
establishes division as new company
File this one under “Didn’t see this
coming.” Today, Sony announced
that its transforming its PlayStation
business and creating a new LLC
(Limited Liability Corporation). The
new company is comprised of Sony
Computer Entertainment and Sony Network Entertainment
International. These two divisions cover Sony’s entire
PlayStation business, including R&D, game development
and publishing, and the PlayStation Network.
The new company will be known as Sony Interactive
Entertainment, and will begin operation on April 1, 2016
(and no, it’s not an April Fools’ joke).

“By integrating the strengths of PlayStation’s hardware,
software, content and network operations, SIE will become
an even stronger entity, with a clear objective to further
accelerate the growth of the PlayStation® business,” said
Andrew House, President and Global CEO of Sony
Computer Entertainment Inc. and Group Executive in
charge of Network Entertainment of Sony Corporation.
The new company’s structure is shown above. The news
blast Sony sent out over the wire includes an entire section
entitled “Background and Purpose behind Establishment of
SIE LLC.” Amusingly, it contains absolutely no explanation
whatsoever of why Sony is making this move now, or what
the company hopes to accomplish by combining these two
divisions into a subsidiary organization.
Some sites are reporting that Sony has spun off the
PlayStation business with this move. While that phrasing will
certainly grab attention, it doesn’t appear to be accurate.
The new Sony Interactive Entertainment company is
identified as an LLC, not an independent organization. That
means SIE will still contribute to Sony’s revenue and bottom
line.
These results are from Sony’s Q2 2015 results, reported in
October. Sony’s fiscal year Q3 2015 results will be released
in a few days, but for now, these figures will have to do.
They collectively show a company that’s still struggling to
maintain its revenue — and the PS4’s performance is a
critical component of that process.
It makes no sense for Sony to spin off the PS4 business

when that segment delivered 27% of its operating income
for the previous quarter. With that said, we’re scratching
our heads trying to come up with a reason for why Sony
would move to combine these divisions. Companies
sometimes reorganize and cut jobs simultaneously, as a
way of reducing overhead and headcount, but nothing in
Sony’s initial PR hinted at a motivation for this move. The
statement of intent for the new company boils down to “We
want lots of people to buy a PS4 and have a lot of fun with
it.” As mission statements go, that’s a pretty good one —
but isn’t that precisely what Sony does already?
The company will undoubtedly have more to say on
January 29, when it releases Q3 2015 earnings. We’ll
update you when we know more.
2016-01-27 00:00:00 By Joel Hruska on January 27, 2016 at 8:41 am
Comment
181
AMD launches GPUOpen, but some Linux
users remain skeptical
AMD has decided to embrace open
source in a big way. The company
has launched its GPUOpen site,
which is geared toward helping
developers provide the best
experiences for users on consoles
and PCs. GPUOpen will help developers get the most out of
the GPU with open source resources and tools.

Nicolas Thibieroz reports for the GPUOpen site:
GPUOpen is composed of two areas: Games & CGI for
game graphics and content creation (which is the area I am
involved with), and Professional Compute for highperformance
GPU computing in professional applications.
GPUOpen is based on three principles:
The first is to provide code and documentation allowing PC
developers to exert more control on the GPU. Current and
upcoming GCN architectures (such as Polaris) include
many features not exposed today in PC graphics APIs, and
GPUOpen aims to empower developers with ways to
leverage some of those features. In addition to generating
quality or performance advantages such access will also
enable easier porting from current-generation consoles
(XBox One and PlayStation 4) to the PC platform.
The second is a commitment to open source software. The
game and graphics development community is an active
hub of enthusiastic individuals who believe in the value of
sharing knowledge. Full and flexible access to the source of
tools, libraries and effects is a key pillar of the GPUOpen
philosophy. Only through open source access are
developers able to modify, optimize, fix, port and learn from
software. The goal? Encouraging innovation and the
development of amazing graphics techniques and
optimizations in PC games.
The third is a collaborative engagement with the developer
community. GPUOpen software is hosted on public source

code repositories such as GitHub as a way to enable
sharing and collaboration. Engineers from different
functions will also regularly write blog posts about various
GPU-related topics, game technologies or industry news.
More at GPUOpen
AMD's GPUOpen initiative caught the attention of Linux
redditors and they shared their thoughts about it. Some
redditors remained quite skeptical that AMD's efforts would
actually amount to something significant:
Nvidia wins out on power efficiency (only a small margin
when under heavy load) and has slightly fast base clock
speed.
The only way I would go for nvidia over amd right now is if I
wanted to buy a $1000 card and I never went over 1080p. "
More at Reddit
2016-01-27 00:00:00 Jim Lynch
182
Judge gives breathing room to 34,000
foreign workers
A U. S. judge is giving the
Department of Homeland Security
(DHS) an additional 90 days to get
its act together on the Optional
Practical Training (OPT) program.
There are approximately 34,000 foreign workers in the U.

S. employed under the Optional Practical Training STEM
(science, technology, engineering and math) extension. All
students are eligible to work on their student visa for 12
months; STEM students have the ability to work an
additional 17 months.
This STEM extension was challenged by the Washington
Alliance of Technology Workers, which sees the OPT
program as a back-door H-1B visa.
In August, U. S. District Court Judge Ellen Huvelle in
Washington agreed with WashTech, and ruled the U. S.
had erred by not seeking public comment prior to approving
the 17-month extension in 2008.
In a ruling last August, Huvelle set a deadline of Feb. 12 for
the U. S. to produce a remedy; if it failed to do so, OPT
workers faced the possibility of having to return home.
DHS released a new OPT rule extending the 17-month
STEM extension to 24 months. It sought public comments,
but it missed deadlines for adoption of a new regulation. It
blamed the large volume of comments, 50,500 in total,
received in response to the proposed regulation.
As a result, DHS asked the court for an extension until May
10, which Huvelle approved.
"The Court does not doubt that U. S. tech workers might
feel some adverse effect from a 90-day extension, but it
has not been provided with any reliable data to support this
proposition," wrote Huvelle, "and thus, it finds that the
balance of equities clearly weighs in favor of an extension. "

This story, "Judge gives breathing room to 34,000 foreign
workers" was originally published by
Computerworld.
2016-01-27 00:00:00 Patrick Thibodeau
183
Over 113 million health records breached in
2015 -- up 10-fold from 2014
One out of every three Americans
was affected by a healthcare record
breach last year, or more than 113
million people, up more than 10-fold
from 12.6 million in 2014, according
to a report released this morning by
Bitglass.
Types of breaches changed dramatically, as well. In 2014,
68 of breached medical records were due to lost or stolen
devices, but that percentage dropped to 2 percent last
year.
Instead, in 2015, 98 percent of lost records were due to
large-scale breaches.
"Lost and stolen devices have traditionally been the biggest
source or compromised medical records," said Rich
Campagna, vice president of products at Bitglass. "And
that's completely switched. "
One reason is that financial institutions have worked hard to

educe the value of stolen credit card numbers, he said, by
quickly canceling and re-issuing stolen cards. Healthcare
information, however, which includes insurance data,
addresses, Social Security numbers and birth dates,
continues to hold its value over time.
Meanwhile, healthcare organizations have locked down
their devices.
MORE ON CSO: Data breach numbers still high in 2015
There were a total of 140 breaches in 2014 due to loss or
theft, and that dropped to just 97 last year.
"Last year, a much higher percentage of devices have
shipped with encryption enabled," Campagna said.
Cyber attackers tended to use standard methods to
compromise healthcare organizations last year, he added,
using phishing to get employee credentials than leveraging
those credentials to get at the data itself.
"It's striking how run-of-the-mill these attacks have been,"
he said.
He recommended that companies train employees to spot
phishing attacks, keep an eye out for similar-looking
domains used to host spoofed corporate login or HR
screens, and introduce two-factor authentication for
suspicious logins.
"An employee logging in from a computer inside the
network, it might be a low-risk situation," he said. "But if an

employee is logging in from North Korea on an Android
device -- when they previously only used iPhones -- that
could be flagged. "
In fact, many healthcare organizations are missing the
opportunity to take advantage of two-factor authentication
systems that are already in place.
For example, 37 percent of healthcare organization were
using Google Apps or Office 365 in 2015, up from 8 percent
in 2014.
But only 5.2 percent were using the single sign-on feature
of these platforms, a basic security precaution.
"A lot of healthcare organizations are moving away from
on-premises applications to the cloud," Campagna said.
"That makes the other types of authentication techniques,
like multi-factor, much more important. It can be secure, but
only if the cloud applications are used in a secure fashion. "
This story, "Over 113 million health records breached in
2015 -- up 10-fold from 2014" was originally published by
CSO.
2016-01-27 00:00:00 Maria Korolov
184
Microsoft says odd behavior in Outlook
2010 calendar is a feature, not a bug
Two weeks ago I posted a story about KB 3114570 , the

straightforward.
Outlook 2010 patch that fixed the
botched KB 3114409 but introduced
(or re-introduced) some very odd
behavior. The patching details are
complicated -- see the story -- but
the new behavior is pretty
Poster Jon999_ in the Microsoft Answers forum describes it
succinctly:
After the [new KB 3114570] update is installed, Calendar
appointments that span midnight (ie, appointments that
start on one day before midnight and end the next day after
midnight) appear in Day and Week calendar views as if
they were all-day appointments, as a small bar at the top of
the day column instead of covering the appropriate hours.
Additionally, the end time of such appointments shows up
wrong (as 00:00, regardless of the actual end time) in all
views including Month view. Prior to this Update, such
appointments of
2016-01-27 00:00:00 Woody Leonhard
185
Flagship Lenovo Y700 17-inch Gaming
Laptop Just $1099, LG Nexus 5X With $20
Visa Card Under $300 And More |
HotHardware
Welcome back for the latest installment of HOT deals,
direct from our friends at TechBargains. On tap for you all

today, we have deals on a Lenovo
IdeaPad Y700 Intel Core i7-
6700HQ based gaming notebook, a
Dell S2716DG 27" 2560x1440
144Hz NVIDIA G-SYNC LED-backlit
Monitor, a BÖHM 60W Sound Bar,
and more. Full details for all of
today’s deals are available below. For more electronics
deals, visit the TechBargains site
2016-01-27 00:00:00 hothardware.com
186
Mechanical Keyboard Round Up With ASUS,
G. Skill, Aorus, And Logitech | HotHardware
In a broad sense, there are two
types of keyboards in this world—
those that use mechanical key
switches and those that don't. If that
sounds like something a keyboard
snob would say, so be it, this editor
stands guilty as charged, and
happily so. We can accept that not everyone will find just
cause to spend a premium on a mechanical plank, but one
thing we'll never concede is that even the best membrane
keyboards are on equal footing as those with mechanical
key switches. Stick bamboo under our fingernails (not
really) or subject us to a marathon of Matthew
McConaughey movies (dear God no!), such blasphemy will
never leave our lips.

Ah, but you probably know this already, hence why you're
here eager to see how the contenders in our second
roundup of mechanical keyboards stack up to one another.
We're fortunate to be at a point where there are many
options to choose from, and if you haven't done so already,
check out our first roundup featuring planks from Cooler
Master, Corsair, Razor, Rycos, and Thermaltake. We also
have independent evaluations of the Cougar 600K and Das
Keyboard 4 Pro available for your perusal.
This time around we've assembled a collection of
keyboards from four more manufacturers. They include the
AORUS Thunder K7, ASUS Strix Tactic Pro, G. Skill Ripjaws
KM780 RGB, and Logitech G910 Orion Spark.
These are all gaming keyboards and as such they each
share a few similar traits of interest to gamers, like LED
backlighting and dedicated macro keys. They're also each
uniquely designed, both in form and function, with different
comparative strengths and weaknesses. We'll get to them
all in just a moment, but first a quick rundown of each one's
specs and feature highlights.
2016-01-27 00:00:00 hothardware.com
187
Government launches cybersecurity startup
initiative
UK cybersecurity start-ups are set to receive support from a
new government scheme intended to drive innovation and
help protect the country's businesses from cyber attacks.

New companies offering
cybersecurity solutions will be
offered advice and support from the
Early Stage Accelerator
Programme, a £250,000 scheme
run in partnership by Cyber
London, Europe's first cybersecurity accelerator and
incubator space, and the Centre for Secure Information
Technologies (CSIT) at Queen's University Belfast.
The programme, which will open to applicants in March,
aims to speed up the rate at which cybersecurity start-ups
launch in the UK, as well as help entrepreneurs test the
commercial viability of ideas and products and provide a
space in which the early stage companies can collaborate.
Speaking at the joint UK/US Global Cyber Security
Innovation Summit, John Whittingdale, secretary of state for
culture, media and sport, said: "The UK's strong and
growing digital economy is changing the way we live and
work. As technologies continue to evolve there will be an
increased demand for secure products and services, and
this new programme will ensure the best ideas from our
brightest minds can help keep the UK safe in cyberspace. "
The project is being funded by the government's National
Cyber Security Programme, and aims to offer help to those
start-ups in their early stages of development that may find
it harder to gather investment elsewhere.
"CSIT and Cyber London are at the heart of the UK's
cybersecurity start-up ecosystem and together we bring a

strength of cyber capability, a track record of producing and
nurturing start-ups, and an ability to leverage significant
additional industry and innovation support partnerships
from across the globe," said Stephen Wray, commercial
director of CSIT.
Cyber London's Kirsten Connell added: "Naturally we're
very pleased that Cyber London and CSIT have been
selected to deliver the Cyber Security Early
Stage Accelerator Programme. We believe the UK is one of
the world's best places to build cybersecurity businesses,
and this programme will help to make it easier for
innovation to develop into commercial success. "
The scheme is part of a wider government strategy working
to promote the UK's cybersecurity industry, which has
grown 70 per cent since 2013 (to £17.6 billion). A new £1.9
billion investment into cybersecurity was announced late
last year, with Chancellor of the Exchequer George
Osborne warning of incoming "cyber warfare" from ISIS
against Britain.
2016-01-27 00:00:00 Caroline Preece
188
Safari search bug caused frustration for
users
Numerous reports have emerged that Apple’s Safari web
browser had been crashing when users attempted to carry
out web searches via its address bar.

Users of both the desktop version
and mobile version, which runs on
iPhone and iPad, appeared to be
affected, and some of them took to
social media to complain.
Firmware updates for Apple’s Mac and mobile devices have
recently been pushed out by the company, but those who
have not installed the latest update are also reported the
bug.
However, Apple told IT Pro that it has now fixed the issue
on iOS, but added that it is possible some users devices will
still experience issues if they do not clear their cache.
According to the BBC , Apple has also been fixed the issue
on OS X as well.
Apple did not share specifics about what was behind this
unusual bug or why it appeared to affect some users’
devices and not others.
The presumption – first stopped by The Verge – was that
the error was being caused when users used the ‘search
engine suggestion’ feature of the browser.
Disabling this feature in the browser’s preferences was
meant to stop it crashing. Another workaround was to use
the private browsing option.
This week, a web link (crashsafari.com) that knocks out
Safari when users visit it also surfaced and began to go
viral. The web link uses JavaScript to send the browser into

a loop causing it to collapse.
The malicious web link has reportedly had more detrimental
effects for iPhone and iPad users, than those viewing it on
Mac – where the software can be interrupted manually.
Some users claim their handsets have been reset or
rebooted as a result of visiting the malicious link via Safari.
Craig Young, Cybersecurity Researcher for Tripwire,
warned that their maybe as yet unforeseen security risks in
visiting the web link via iOS.
“The crashsafari.com site runs a script within the browser
that repeatedly adds entries to the browser’s history listing,”
said Young.
“It is unclear at this point what in the device's design is
allowing this to happen, but the possibility that this
technique can be used to install a malicious program
cannot be ruled out.
“Last year security researchers demonstrated how a
network packet or an SMS message could trigger an
iPhone or iPad to reboot but neither of these issues had
security implications beyond inconveniencing the user.
Generally speaking, any programming error capable of
triggering a reboot is a serious problem and may be
indicative of a security issue.”
2016-01-27 00:00:00 Aaron Lee

189
NZXT Launches New Manta Mini-ITX Case
The Manta is NZXTs first mini-ITX
case for quite a while NZXT has
launched the Manta - a mini-ITX
case with a curved design and
extensive water cooling support.
It's been a while since we've seen a
mini-ITX case from NZXT, and while the Manta sports a
slightly unoriginal internal design that's similar to other large
mini-ITX cases out there, it looks quite different externally.
There are no large forward-facing air vents - instead, NZXT
has opted for side vents in both the roof and front panel to
feed the numerous fan mounts inside. You get a pair of
120/140mm fan mounts in both these locations and NZXT
claims that each supports up to 280mm radiators such as
those included with its Kraken X61 AIO coolers potentially
making this one of the best mini-ITX cases for water
cooling.
You can see more in the original press release below:
NZXT presents Manta, its breakthrough ITX Case
Los Angeles, CA, January, 26th, 2016 – Softening the lines,
changing the game, putting everything out there for
everyone to see. NZXT takes ITX to a whole new level with
a revolutionary design and uncompromising quality.
Forged with groundbreaking manufacturing technologies,

Manta is the world’s first case equipped with curved,
structurally reinforced steel panels. Yielding double the
cable management space and unparalleled liquid cooling
support, this case sets a new standard for mini-ITX.
“NZXT strives to deliver meaningful innovation across every
product we are designing. Manta, our first ITX case,
provides an innovative and efficient answer to the ITX
equation for PC users who are looking for effortless and
superior build” says Johnny Hou, NZXT’s founder & CEO.
Quality: durable and elegant
Manta utilizes an innovative new manufacturing process to
create curved steel panels that offer a beautiful blend of
elegance and strength that is unmatched by traditional ITX
designs Echoing the smooth lines of an exotic sports car, it
is a case that is designed for flaunting and accordingly
equipped with the biggest window of any ITX case to date.
Innovation that matters
Leveraging its innovative curved design, Manta features
unparalleled interior space for an effortless build. Smart
interior layout and generous volume result in support for
the largest power supplies and graphics cards while still
offering an abundance of space for cable management and
organization.
Breakthrough performance
Another benefit of Manta’s roomy interior is its ample
natural airflow and expandability for water cooling. It’s the

first ITX case to support up to three radiators at once (2 x
280mm in the front and 1 x 120mm at the rear), making it a
top choice for premium builds and custom loops.
Manta is also fitted with all of NZXT’s award-winning
features such as rear I/O lighting, integrated PWM fan hub,
SSD display and PSU shroud. Combined with Manta’s
cutting-edge interior layout, building a PC system is as easy
as it gets.
Manta is available in Matte White/Black, Matte Black/Red,
and Matte Black with or without a windowed side panel.
Price: £99.99 +VAT / €139.99 +VAT
Availability: Shipping in mid-February
UK: 2/3
France: 2/7
Germany: 2/15
Scandinavia: 2/18
Iberia: 2/29
Benelux: 2/29
Russia: 2/29
Technical information
Specifications
Dimensions W: 245mm x H: 426mm x D: 450mm

Materials: Fully steel plated exterior, steel chassis
Total Weight: 7.2kg
Motherboard Support: Mini-ITX
External features: 2 x USB 3.0, 1 x Audio/Mic, I/O Panel
LED On/Off
Bays & expansion
Internal 3.5’’ - 2
Internal 2.5’’ - 3
PCI expansion slots - 2
Cooling
Front : 2 x 140mm/120mm (2 x 120mm included)
Top: 2 x 140mm/120mm
Rear: 1 x 120mm (included)
Clearance
CPU Cooler 160mm
GPU Clearance 363mm
PSU Length 363mm
2016-01-26 15:06:00 Published on 26th January 2016 by Antony Leather

190
Interview: Lyndsay Handler, MTN
Innovation Awards’ Outstanding Woman in
Innovation
Lyndsay Handler, the
Managing Director at Fenix
International was recognized at the
inaugural MTN Innovation Awards
as the “Outstanding Woman in
Innovation”. Lyndsay has won other awards and been
recognized for her work around East Africa. She’s very
passionate about her work, I found out when I scheduled a
meeting with her and she cancelled last minute because
she felt she needed to go to the field to give her sales team
a push as the year came to a close. And when we finally sat
down to chat, I could see the passion as she spoke about
touching over 300,000 people in 50,000 homes with
ReadyPay , and her life and times in East Africa:
Tell me about you, something I can’t find in a Google
search or on your LinkedIn profile.
I’m deeply passionate about 3 things:
How did you get into Fenix International?
In 2009 I moved to Western Kenya, I was living in a small
village outside Kakamega and my goal was to start a
business. I had worked for 5 years for Village Enterprise
helping entrepreneurs star businesses and I wanted to start
one of my own. I did lots of research and in the 1 st 2

months of living there, the neighbor to my left had a
kerosene fire and the whole house burnt to the ground.
About 4 weeks later, the house on the right burnt to the
ground and they lost their 1 year old daughter in the fire.
There’s friends of mine from Stanford who started solar
companies and I reached out to them and asked them why
these lights weren’t available here. They had offices in
several countries including Nairobi but they weren’t
reaching the rural communities. So I became passionate
about creating distribution and financing that enables these
people to afford this technology.
SO I was running this business in Kenya and I was
purchasing products from different companies, I purchased
a few units from Fenix and I really liked them and so I got to
know the founders and I had my first child. With my
business I was going to have to raise a lot of money or
have the opportunity to join Fenix. They had a great
technology, we already had a good relationship, I was here
on the ground so I joined in January 2012.
You’ve lived and worked in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.
How is it different in each of these countries?
They are all very different and unique in their own ways, but
equally there are a lot of similarities that do create an East
African community. I think you can build businesses that
operate in all three markets and a lot of things will translate
but you do need to know how to customize them for those
unique markets because each have some unique needs.

From a business stand point, you can create a Pan African
business but you just need to take into account a few
unique places.
But I will say that I love Uganda and my family and I see
ourselves staying here for a long time.
What are the highlights of your work in Uganda and with
ReadyPay specifically?
1 st is the customers. We’ve brought them an affordable,
quality home power system to 55,000 households, touching
over 300,000 lives for lights, phone charging, radio, TV and
we’re allowing them to create a credit score with us. We’re
giving loans to people who have never been in the financial
system, and banks won’t lend to them. I think that access to
finance is one of the keys to getting out of poverty, to
improving the quality of life, and getting out of poverty.
Do you have trouble with some customers not keeping up
with their payments? How do you deal with that?
We’re taking a risk, definitely there will be some people who
are unable to pay, for one reason or the other. When we
identify the customers who are having trouble keeping up
with payments we pay home visits and call regularly. Our
goal is to have a conversation with customers, and we have
a flexible policy, we don’t just swoop in and reposes if you
miss a payment. If they are being honest with us and are in
touch, we have ways to help them get back on track.
We have found that people who aren’t paying because of
either short term issues or long term issues. We work with

oth, for long term, we offer them the opportunity to return
the device, come back and pick it up again in the future
when they are ready to continue. We even give them the
chance to return it and get their deposit back if it’s in good
condition.
We also have a few who abuse our system, we deactivate
their units and we want to send a message to those who
are paying that there are advantages to paying on time, as
well as a message to those who are defaulting that they are
hurting their credit score so that it doesn’t make sense to
tamper with the product.
WE believe that instead of coming down with sticks, if you
create value for customers, they are less likely to default.
How do you distribute your product and ensure it reaches
those who need it the most in the rural communities?
We work with MTN dealers network so that they are
available around the country. We do technology well, we
partner with MTN that does distribution well, no need to
reinvent the wheel. We like to use data to inform our team,
so we are always analyzing our stock and sales patterns
and work with the distributors to get it to where it’s needed
more.
There’s also the Fenix sales team that manages a team of
ReadyPay Champions. These are commission based sales
agents. They go to the deepest parts of the rural
communities and identify people who need this product and
tell them about it. These champions are the ones who get

us to the customers in the rural areas, and we make sure
they make a livable wage from distributing ReadyPay.
Apart from distribution, what’s the nature of your
relationship with MTN?
We work with them to market the product. One of MTN’s
main goals is to bring Mobile Money to more people. When
they did research they realized that a number of people in
the rural areas didn’t have a lot of reason to use MTN
Mobile Money regularly. So providing them with solar
through ReadyPay gives them both a reason to keep using
it to enhance the quality of life and also to keep their
phones powered up. This helps MTN meet their objective
as we also meet ours which is to get our product to many
more households.
How is the government helping your business?
The government has allowed solar product to get into the
country VAT free. It’s very important that this legislation is
upheld, it makes sure customers can access this product in
a more affordable way. We hope they maintain that. In
Kenya it was taken away but they put it back because in a
period of 6 months very many people couldn’t afford these
products.
There’s a lot of discussion around legislation in the finances
sector. Legislation that supports mobile money inherently
supports companies like Mobile Money. I think fintech is
critical to opening access to capital for customers and
businesses in this market so the more the government can

support FinTech with legislation that enables innovative
financial services companies come in and work directly with
customers it wil open up a lot of capital in this market.
Congratulations upon winning the Outstanding Woman in
Innovation at the MTN Innovation Awards last year. What
words of advice would you give women who are looking up
to you and wondering how they can get where you are?
First of all, I never even at any moment that the fact that I’m
a woman would make it harder to succeed. I think the three
things that I would say are:
Identify mentors in leadership roles and develop a strong
relationship with them as you develop your career. Ask
them for advice, ask them for help when faced with difficult
leadership decisions and don’t be afraid to ask them to
connect you with other great mentors, partners or investors
as your business grows.
Work towards leadership roles in non-professional settings
as well, such as sports teams, debate teams or other
communities and groups. Leadership experience outside of
the office will build your confidence, will help you develop
key leadership skills, and will make you a better leader at
work.
Have confidence that women can do everything that men
do and focus on learning and delivering results at every
stage of your career.
What can we expect to see from Fenix International in the
near future?

We’re starting to offer new products including loans for
power upgrade, either more panels or batteries, you can
get a data enabled phone or an education loan for your
children if you have a good credit score. We pay it to the
school directly and they make payments on Mobile Money.
We are also testing cash loans. We really believe in life
changing products, so we want to be sure that whatever
product we deliver has a very big impact on our customers’
lives.
Random fact about you?
I love the sport of ultimate Frisbee, I played it seriously in
college and I now play with the Uganda National Frisbee
team and we went to world Championships in Dubai.
2016-01-26 12:57:11 Joshua Twinamasiko G
191
Sony targets IoT with acquisition of chip
company Altair
Sony has reached an agreement to
acquire chip company Altair
Semiconductor for $212 million in a
bid to strengthen its offering for the
Internet of Things market.
Altair, based in Israel, is a developer of modem chip
technology and software relating to the LTE (Long Term
Evolution) 4G cellular standard for mobile phones and data
terminals. Sony aims to combine Altair's work with its

sensing technologies such as GNSS (Global Navigation
Satellite System) and image sensors to develop new
cellular-connected, sensing devices.
Sony expects LTE, which is already used in data
communication for mobile phones, to play a key role in IoT
as more small devices or "things" are expected to be
equipped with cellular chipsets and access network
services that take advantage of cloud computing.
LTE is increasingly seen as a cellular technology that could
be relevant for IoT, and carriers are preparing to offer it.
Verizon announced last year the U. S. availability of
chipsets for IoT devices that can connect to its LTE network
at speeds up to 10Mbps.
Sony said in October it was acquiring Softkinetic Systems, a
developer in Brussels of range image sensor technology
that uses the time-of-flight (ToF) range method for arriving
at the distance of an object. Sony said it would use the
technology not only in the field of imaging but for broader
sensing-related applications as well.
Altair claims on its website that its chipset already powers
millions of LTE-connected devices worldwide. The
company's LTE chipsets provide varying speeds, standby
current of microamps to milliamps, and package sizes
ranging from small footprint modules to miniature, lowprofile
SiPs (system in package), the company said.
Sony expects to close the deal early next month. The
consumer electronics company has been increasingly

focusing on its components business, including a deal
announced in December to acquire Toshiba's CMOS image
sensors and memory controller fabrication facility in Oita
Prefecture in Japan. This transfer is planned to be
completed by March.
2016-01-26 04:05:00 John Ribeiro
192
Global public cloud market expected to hit
$204B in 2016
The worldwide market for public
cloud systems is projected to hit
$204 billion this year, a 16.5%
increase over the $175 billion
market in 2015, according to
analyst firm Gartner.
"The market for public cloud services is continuing to
demonstrate high rates of growth across all markets and
Gartner expects this to continue through 2017," said Sid
Nag, research director at Gartner, in a statement. "This
strong growth continues to reflect a shift away from legacy
IT services to cloud-based services, due to increased trend
of organizations pursuing a digital business strategy. "
Given that IT budgets are growing at a rated of 1% to 3%,
cloud services is one of the fastest growing segments of
IT,” said Zeus Kerravala, an analyst with ZK Research.
“Traditional packaged software is having about 3% growth,
so cloud is five times that. The cloud just greatly simplifies

IT but also enables businesses to move faster.”
While there’s solid growth showing across public cloud
services, Gartner noted that the highest growth this year is
coming from infrastructure as a service, or IaaS, which is
expected to have 38.4% growth in 2016. The analyst firm
forecasts that the IaaS market segment should reach $22.4
billion by the end of the year.
"IaaS continues to be the strongest-growing segment as
enterprises move away from data center build-outs and
move their infrastructure needs to the public cloud," Nag
said. "Certain market leaders have built a significant lead in
this segment, so providers should focus on creating
differentiation for success. "
Cloud application services, or SaaS, are also expected to
show an upswing with 20.3% year-over-year growth,
reaching $37.7 billion. Cloud management and security
services, with 24.7% growth, and cloud application
infrastructure services, known as PaaS, also is strong this
year with an expected 21.1% growth.
According to Kerravala, this kind of public cloud growth
should continue over the next five to seven years.
“I think we're still in the beginning of the cloud era,” he said.
“I think we're likely to continue to see companies shift their
strategies away from on-premise to the cloud. Lots of
companies fear the cloud because of security issues, but I
think those fears dissipate
and as more companies grow confidence, that will continue

to fuel the cloud market.”
2016-01-26 03:36:00 Sharon Gaudin
193 Best Deals: January 26
Because shopping for bargains on
new computer hardware can be a
considerably time consuming
endeavor, we regularly compile a
list of the best deals.
Shopping for new computer
hardware can be a considerably time consuming endeavor,
but it is something that we all need to do from time to time.
With the constantly changing prices and ever evolving state
of computer technology, it is easy to overlook deals that
could save you money on your new system. Looking
through the hundreds of deals available, we will endeavor
to pick out the best deals currently available, in order to
make your shopping experience a little easier.
EVGA B2 80 Plus Bronze 850 W PSU
Promo code:
EMCEFGK78
EVGA’s B2 PSUs have become well known among PC
enthusiasts for their solid performance, safety features, and
affordability. The PSU is rated at 80 Plus Bronze efficiency,
and uses a 130 mm double-ball bearing fan to keep the unit

cool. It also uses a complete modular design, which helps
to reduce clutter inside of your PC case. With promo code
EMCEFGK78, the PSU drops from $109.99 to $84.99. It is
also eligible for a mail-in-rebate reducing it to $64.99. Deal
ends 02/01/2016.
MORE: Best Power Supplies
MORE: All Power Supply Content
Toshiba 2 TB SATA-III HDD
Promo code:
ESCEFGK26
This HDD from Toshiba offers a large amount of storage
space for a relatively low price. it can hold up to 2 TB of
files, and thanks to the 7200 RPM drive speed and SATA-III
(6 Gbps) interface it provides decent performance. After a
general discount and promo code ESCEFGK26, the HDD
drops from $89.99 to $59.99, making it one of the least
expensive 2 TB drives on the market. Deal ends
01/29/2016.
MORE: All Storage Content
Lenovo Ideapad 100S 11.6” Notebook
Lenovo’s surprisingly useful Ideapad 100S uses an Intel
Atom Z3735F quad-core CPU clocked at 1.33 GHz
supported by 2 GB of DDR3. The system isn’t fast enough
for excessive multitasking or high-performance work, but it
does work well for web browsing and typing simple

documents on, and its light weight makes it easy to carry
around with you. During the sale, the notebook drops from
$199.99 to $149.99.
Related Content Hands On: Lenovo Ideapad 100S
MORE: All Notebook Content
G. Skill 64 GB MicroSDXC Card
Promo code: EMCEFGK42
If you are needing to expand the storage space of your
phone or tablet, this microSDXC offers a considerable
amount of storage space at a relatively low cost. With
promo code EMCEFGK42 and a general discount, the
microSDXC card drops from $28.99 to $13.99. Deal ends
02/01/2016.
MORE: Best Memory
MORE: All Memory Content
Gigabyte GA-Z170XP-SLI LGA 1151 Motherboard
This Z170 motherboard from Gigabyte offers several key
features that enthusiasts want, while maintaining a
relatively low price point. The board has three PCI-E x16
slots and supports up to a 3-way multi-GPU configuration. It
also has an M.2 Key M slot using with an PCI-E x4
connection for ultra-fast storage devices. During the sale
the motherboard drops from $145.99 to $115.99 after a
mail-in-rebate and general discount. Deal ends 02/01/2016.
MORE: Best Motherboards

MORE: All Motherboard Content
MORE: Hot Bargains @PurchDeals
Follow us on Facebook , Google+ , RSS , Twitter and
YouTube .
2016-01-26 00:00:00 Tom's Hardware News Team
194
CIO is subordinate to the rest of the board,
survey finds
Only a quarter of business decision
makers believe that the
"traditional" CIO currently owns the
majority of the main technology
budget, but only 15 per cent of
business decision makers think that
they should, a report by IT
hardware, software and services
provider Insight UK has found.
Insight UK commissioned Coleman Partners to conduct
research into The reinvention of the CIO. It did this by
interviewing 100 UK CIOs and 100 UK business directors.
It found that while six in 10 CIOs believed that should still
hold the majority of the IT budget , nearly a quarter (22 per
cent) of senior directors believe the majority of the
technology budget should sit with the board.
In a similar vein, over half (55 per cent) of the business

execs interviewed said they believed the traditional,
operational orientated CIO is now subordinate to other
members of the senior management team.
"[In other words] the ‘old school' CIO has less sway and
significance in the business than they did two years ago,
and such CIOs no longer always hold decision making
responsibility," the report reads.
Despite 77 per cent of executives acknowledging that the
CIO remains an integral part of the business, 55 per cent of
business directors said that the operational CIO is now in
some way lower than the rest of the C-suite when it comes
to his or her role within the boardroom, and 44 per cent felt
the CIO role was less important than it was two years ago.
However, Mike Guggemos, global CIO of Insight,
suggested that there had been a systematic shift in the role
of the CIO within the business - one that other decision
makers have failed to see just yet.
Insight UK advised "traditional" CIOs to look to regain the
ear and respect of other board members by asking their
peers on the board what they feel his or her strengths and
weaknesses are, and where he or she can add value.
Insight UK quoted a CIO as saying: "The CIO has had it too
easy for too long. The CIO was always responsible for the
‘how' rather than the ‘what': with the business - i.e. the rest
of board - dictating what should happen and the CIO would
be charged with ‘how'.
"Tomorrow's CIO must start being accountable for - and

taking ownership of - what the business does; not just how
it does it," Insight UK suggested.
2016-01-26 00:00:00 www.computing.co.uk
195
134 Dixons Carphone stores to go as
company mulls new '3-in-1' superstores
Dixons Carphone, the company
created by the merger of
electronics retailer Dixons and
mobile phone shop Carphone
Warehouse in August 2014, has
announced that it is to close 134 retail outlets as part of a
major restructuring process.
Dixons owns the PC World and Currys chains, and new "3-
in-1" retail stores will be created in which all three brands
have a presence. CEO Seb James told the BBC that the
move recognises the preferences of both consumers and
staff. He also said there will be no job losses as a result.
" We are very confident that the impact on sales and
colleague numbers will be neutral or better ", he said.
"When we build one beautiful, refitted new 3-in-1
superstore and we have one great Carphone Warehouse in
town... sales go up and also we end up usually needing
more colleagues to work on the shop floor. "
Dixons and Carphone Warehouse originally merged
because of commercial pressures from online retailers such

as Amazon. Since then high street competitors mobile
retailer Phones 4U and electronics and white goods store
Comet have both gone bust.
The combined company has done well, with shares up 42
per cent since the merger. Bloomberg reports that most of
that growth has come from the Carphone Warehouse side
of the business and that most of the outlets to be closed will
be Dixons or PC World shops.
The company had a particularly profitable Black Friday,
taking £140m in online sales as shoppers stayed away from
bricks-and-mortar stores having viewed the scenes of
carnage the previous year.
"Customers saw the scenes that were quite disruptive in
some supermarkets last year and decided, I'll play it safe
this year and just shop online," James said.
Dixons Carphone expects to record pre-tax profits of
£440m-£450m for the full financial year.
However, while the news has been presented in a positive
light by the company, investors have reacted nervously.
"Despite a five per cent jump in like-for-like revenue over
Christmas and the promise of slight better than expected
full year pre-tax profits, the news has been poorly received
by investors," said Connor Campbell, a senior market
analyst at Spreadex.
"Falling nearly 2.5 percent, the electricals retailer is one of
the day's worst performers, investors are hearing ‘closing

stores' and assuming bad news. "
This artice was amended to include the comment from
Spreadex.
2016-01-26 00:00:00 www.computing.co.uk
196
GCHQ looking for a CISO, chief data
scientist and deputy CTO
GCHQ, the UK's intelligence
agency, is on the hunt for several
new IT leaders to join its senior
technology leadership team.
The organisation has announced a
spate of new technology leadership
posts , including a chief information security officer (CISO),
a chief data scientist, a deputy CTO and a chief systems
engineer.
The CISO will be accountable for providing assurance that
the risks to all GCHQ's IT and electronic-based systems are
effectively managed. He or she will report directly to the
deputy senior information risk owner, and through to the
senior information risk owner.
According to the job advert, the CISO will "need to
understand both the business imperatives as well as having
a good appreciation of the vulnerabilities inherent in the
technologies used across the department".

"They will need to be able to translate between the
technical and information risk view (and language);
ensuring that key decision makers are fully aware of the
implications of any business decisions they need to make,"
the ad states.
GCHQ says that the CISO will work closely with the
departmental security officer, who is responsible for
personnel and physical security. The successful candidate
will also need to work with colleagues from across the
community in order to ensure GCHQ's information is
properly protected.
Meanwhile, the chief data scientist will be responsible for
ensuring GCHQ extracts the maximum benefit from the
data it holds. He or she will help to develop data science
skills within GCHQ and improve the way the organisation
uses business intelligence to run its business.
As part of the job, the post-holder will ensure that GCHQ
has the right number of data models to allow GCHQ data to
be understood and used in an agile way.
The deputy CTO will be accountable for GCHQ's
technology strategy, technical architecture and engineering
tradecraft. The deputy CTO will be technically credible,
GCHQ says, and will maintain at least 20 per cent of their
time doing hands-on technical work.
And finally, the chief systems engineer will be responsible
for GCHQ's current and future systems engineering
capabilities. They will be expected to take an active role in

the delivery of some of the more complex and demanding
systems engineering problems, GCHQ says.
GCHQ adds that the post requires a high level of skill in the
systems engineering discipline and experience of problem
solving and leadership at an enterprise level. The post will
include line management of the systems engineering
leadership community, the job ad states.
All four roles are for a fixed-term of three years, and are
offering a salary of between £65,000 and £90,000. The
closing date for all applications is 14 February.
Computing recently looked at which top senior IT jobs are
available to apply for right now.
2016-01-26 00:00:00 www.computing.co.uk
197 Video: How OpenStack doomed itself
OpenStack once held such
promise. But in his address to last
year's OpenStack Summit in
Vancouver, developer Andy
"termie" Smith, who, as he puts it,
"helped start this OpenStack thing,"
said that OpenStack is now done for. His session, shown
below and titled "OpenStack Is Doomed and It's All Your
Fault," describes a series of grave missteps.
For starters, OpenStack blew its stated mission to be
"simple to implement. " Creating and maintaining simplicity

is harder than it looks. Feature creep, temporary fixes
becoming permanent, and indecisiveness all conspired to
create difficulty, confusion, and general kludginess.
Then there's the problem of having so many stakeholders.
When multiple groups, each with their own (often opposing)
priorities, claims ownership of a codebase, internecine
conflict shortly follows -- not to mention the classic "too
many cooks in the kitchen" problem, which contributes
heavily to the aforementioned feature creep.
Ultimately, Smith traces a lot of OpenStack's problem to
that root of all evil: money, though not in a pie-in-the-sky
"everything should be free" way. OpenStack decided that
bringing large corporations on board would give it more
visibility -- which it did. But of course, doing so also
introduces corporate control to the picture. "OpenStack isn't
people," Smith says. "OpenStack is companies. " Therein
lies the trouble.
2016-01-26 00:00:00 Pete Babb
198
Will new accounting rule slow adoption of
cloud computing?
The Financial Accounting
Standards Board (FASB) changed a
rule in December that will make it
harder to capitalize the cost of
cloud setup and implementations
expenses, a change that may

encourage some enterprises to opt instead for traditional
on-premise software.
The FASB Accounting Standards Update to "Intangibles --
Goodwill and Other -- Internal-use Software (Subtopic 350-
40)" addresses "Customer's accounting for fees paid in a
cloud computing arrangement. " And while the update
didn't set out to address how to account for cloud migration
costs, the new rules, combined with the FASB's decision
"not to provide additional guidance on the accounting for
upfront costs," will mean enterprise shops can no longer
depreciate some fees involved in a cloud migration.
Hugo Vasquez, Deputy CIO and VP of Technology and
Services for AES, a Fortune 200 global power company,
said prior to the change his company was able to capitalize
the cost of a cloud migration project and write off that
investment over three years. "Now with the new rules, the
project itself cannot be capitalized," Vasquez says.
How big a deal is that? Vasquez says AES last year
migrated to Workday's cloud-based human resources tool.
"We were able to capitalize around $4.46 million to
implement the project, which went live at the beginning of
this month. Our integrator was Deloitte, and we capitalized
those costs and the labor of our own people, so we had an
incentive to move forward with a cloud solution. But today I
couldn't capitalize that $4.46 million. And that change is
resulting in a reduction in projects in our company to move
to a cloud computing model. "
Google, one of many companies that commented on the

suggested change before it went into effect Dec. 15,
agreed that the shift will dampen interest in cloud
computing services. In a comment letter to the FASB
submitted by Google, Director of Finance Amie Thuener
wrote : "We believe that the Proposed Standard could result
in a disincentive to purchase hosted cloud computing
arrangements if companies interpret the wording … to
mean that implementation costs should be expensed as
incurred" (versus capitalized and depreciated).
A host of other large companies, from Visa to Salesforce to
Groupon, also weighed in on different aspects of the rule
change, collectively suggesting, at the least, that more work
needs to be done on this specific issue, say nothing of the
larger question about how to account for cloud services
going forward.
The FASB Accounting Standards Update in question set out
to clarify the rules because "existing GAAP (generally
accepted accounting principals) does not include explicit
guidance about a customer's accounting fees paid in a
cloud computing arrangement. " (FASB sets the accounting
rules for public companies that the Securities and
Exchange Committee enforces.)
In essence the Update concludes that, if a cloud computing
arrangement includes a software license, then the
customer should "account for the software license element
of the arrangement consistent with the acquisition of other
software licenses. " Regarding the latter, a company with,
say, a $30 million license for an on-premise Oracle product,
may capitalize that as an asset and depreciate $10 million

per year over three years, recognizing that as an expense
on their income statement.
The Update continues: "If a cloud computing arrangement
does not include a software license, the customer should
account for the arrangement as a service contract. "
One of the perceived advantages of cloud computing is the
ability to shift from capital-intensive infrastructure/software
investments to a service subscription model paid out of the
operating budget, so in and of itself this guidance isn't too
surprising. But the Update goes on to say:
"Some stakeholders wanted the scope of this Update to be
expanded to address a customer's accounting for
implementation, set up, and other upfront costs that often
are incurred by customers entering into cloud computing
arrangements. The activities that entities perform in
conjunction with entering into a cloud computing
arrangement include training, creating or installing an
interface, reconfiguring existing systems, and capturing and
reformatting data. The board observed that to the extent a
cloud computing arrangement transfers a software license,
Subtopic 350-40 provides guidance on how to account for
costs such as those resulting from training, data capture,
and conversion activities.
"In deciding not to provide additional guidance on the
accounting for upfront costs incurred by customers entering
into cloud computing arrangements that do not transfer a
software license to a customer, the Board noted that initial
costs incurred in service arrangements are not unique to

cloud computing arrangements. Consequently, the scope of
that issue is much broader than the scope of this Update.
The Board decided that the scope of this Update should not
be expanded to address the range of implementation and
setup costs incurred by a customer in a cloud computing
arrangement. "
There is, however, disagreement in the comment letters
about whether a license is the proper litmus test for cloud
service accounting. In HP's comment letter, Senior Vice
President, Controller and Principal Accounting Officer Jeff
Ricci writes , "as a vendor, HP generally believes its
customer is paying for a hosted service, not the acquisition
of software or a software license. "
And if no license is involved, the new rules mean
companies can no longer capitalize upfront cloud project
costs.
Google urges the FASB to delve deeper on this core issue:
"We encourage the FASB to consider issuing explicit
guidance with respect to the accounting treatment of
implementation costs, as these costs can be significant,"
Thuener wrote. "We believe capitalizing the software
implementation costs and amortizing the corresponding
asset over its useful life better reflects the economics of the
transaction as expenses are recorded in a manner that
reflects the consumption of the economic benefit from the
software implementation costs, and therefore is more
helpful to readers of financial statements in the analysis of
assets and expenses. "

Even companies that agree with using the license model to
figure out how to account for cloud services want the FASB
to clarify its position on upfront costs given that the "costs
can be substantial. " James Hoffmesiter, Corporate
Controller for Visa, writes : "While we are supportive of the
FASB's proposal for how to evaluate the arrangement to
determine if it is a software license or a service contract, we
respectfully request that the FASB consider expanding the
proposed standard to include guidance on the accounting
for one-time set-up fees incurred by a customer under a
cloud computing arrangement. "
Visa goes on to add another wrinkle to the upfront cost
discussion. Instead of capitalizing those costs, Visa argues
that the "set-up/integration costs should be considered part
of the total service cost and recognized over the term of the
service agreement," because the set-up costs "provide a
future benefit to the customer in the form of continuous
connectivity to the service provider. "
The FASB more or less admitted there is more work to be
done when it determined the "scope of this Update should
not be expanded to address the range of implementation
and setup costs incurred by a customer," but some of the
companies that commented on the update are pushing for
a more fundamental review of cloud computing accounting,
and more specifically, the role of licenses in that
accounting.
Joseph Allanson, Chief Accounting Officer at
Salesforce.com, wrote : "We do not agree with the Board's
proposal that a cloud computing arrangement should be

accounted for as a service contract if the arrangement does
not include a software license. We believe that the delivery
mechanism, or the customer's ability to take possession of
the software, should not determine whether a software
element is present in a cloud computing arrangement as
the functionality of the underlying software is the same
regardless of whether the software is delivered via the
cloud or on-premise software license. We encourage the
board to develop an accounting framework that is based on
the economics rather than the form of the software
arrangements. "
Groupon's Chief Accounting Officer Brian Stevens also
called for a broader review : "We believe that accounting
guidance resulting in a more consistent presentation of
software costs, regardless of whether the purchaser elects
to maintain the underlying software on its own servers in an
on-premise arrangement or contracts to have it maintained
on a third party's servers in a cloud computing
arrangement, would reduce complexity for users of financial
statements by increasing comparability between
economically similar transactions. "
And in a comment letter filed with the FASB, Jay Buth, Vice
President, Controller and Chief Accounting Officer with
Northeast Utilities System, argues that "both [software]
licenses and cloud rights represent intangible assets, and
we believe that … these two economically similar types of
arrangements should be given similar accounting
treatment. We do not believe an entity's lack of ownership,
title or license to software should preclude capitalization. "

Vasquez of AES hopes the FASB reviews the decision soon
because it is "affecting our costs and our projects, which is
affecting our people, our morale. "
This story, "Will new accounting rule slow adoption of cloud
computing? " was originally published by
Network World.
2016-01-26 00:00:00 John Dix
199
DARPA funds a program so computers can
read thoughts
In the future, computers may be
able to read your thoughts through
a connection with the brain. DARPA
wants to create a device that could
help make that happen.
The device, which will be the size of two stacked nickels,
will translate information from a brain into digital signals for
use on a computer. The device is being developed as part
of a four-year, $60 million research program funded by
DARPA -- the Defense Advanced Research Projects
Agency, which operates under the aegis of the U. S.
Department of Defense.
The program, called Neural Engineering System Design
(NESD), is one of DARPA's many research programs that
aims to bring brain-like intelligence to computers. The
research program will cover neuroscience, low-power

chips, photonics and medical devices.
DARPA hopes its device will open a faster channel for the
brain and computer to communicate. The goal is to convert
sensory information like sights and sounds that are stored
in the brain to digital data -- or 1s and 0s -- more quickly
than possible today.
The equipment used today for brain signals to interface
with computers is extremely slow, much like
supercomputers "trying to talk to each other using an old
300-baud modem,” DARPA said in a statement.
Some equipment available to gather data from the brain
include EEG and MRI equipment. Neural headsets from
companies like Emotiv claim to track moods, stress levels
and movement. The devices have a limited set of channels
through which to interface with the brain.
DARPA hopes its new device will communicate with
neurons over millions of channels simultaneously. The
result will be clearer signals, and more signals will help to
better interpret data.
DARPA's programs sometime never materialize as
planned. But technologies emerging from the research
could help people with brain trauma or hearing or visual
disabilities.
2016-01-26 00:00:00 Agam Shah

200
No matter who wins in US vs. Microsoft, we
all lose
The battle of government reach into
data stored in overseas data
centers should be top of mind for IT
organizations. It has significant
implications for whether cloudstored
data can be protected, and
the battle so far suggests if either side completely wins, the
result would be unpleasant.
The U. S. Justice Department and Microsoft are waging a
war over whether federal prosecutors in the United States
can access email stored on servers in Ireland. The specific
issue is the feds’ demands for emails that belong to a
suspect in a narcotics investigation, but the big issue is
whether national governments can force a company to
provide access to user data stored in other countries.
The Justice Department requested the emails in December
2013. However, Microsoft refused that request. It stated
that U. S. authorities have no power to enforce a warrant
for data stored overseas.
In April 2014, a federal judge agreed with U. S. prosecutors
and ordered Microsoft to hand over the emails. Microsoft
again refused and was found in contempt; the Second U. S.
Circuit Court of Appeals has been asked to settle the case.
Oral arguments took place last September , and a ruling is
expected imminently.

These kinds of cases will accelerate as the government
tests the bounds of existing, often outdated laws and as
cloud providers try to protect what they see as their -- and
their customers' -- private data. After all, companies moving
to cloud may think twice about cloud adoption if any
government has access to its data on demand anywhere it
resides.
For example, as Microsoft argues, if the United States can
compel it to turn over data stored in Ireland, the Chinese
government could compel it to turn over data stored in the
United States. The unintended consequences of the U. S.
government's request are worrisome to contemplate. That's
why a full Justice Department win here is worrisome.
But a full win by Microsoft is also worrisome. I understand
the desire to deny access to everything, but the
government will fight that stance to the point of distraction.
Cloud providers and cloud users need clarity, not more
limbo.
I can’t help but think there is a compromise that can be had
here between the cloud providers and the government.
Although the government should not have access to data in
clouds on demand, there should be a defined process that
would allow the government access to some data when
specific criteria has been satisfied -- and the authorities in
the countries where the data resides are able to participate.
2016-01-26 00:00:00 David Linthicum

201
Are iPhone sales set for a record slump?
iPhone sales have experienced
their slowest ever growth this
quarter, Apple is expected to report
today.
During its latest earnings call, Apple
will reportedly announce a sales increase of just over one
per cent for its iPhone range, according to Reuters .
If true, this is the slowest growth rate the iPhone has
experienced since its launch, leading to speculation that the
bubble may have finally burst.
Many factors are behind the slowdown, according to
industry observers, who cite the economic downturn in
China as a major cause, the country being one of the
iPhone’s major markets.
The iPhone may also be approaching a point of diminishing
returns, thanks to plateaus in technological advancements.
Sales of previous iPhone generations continue to be strong,
indicating that consumers do not feel that Apple’s yearly
device refreshes provide enough improvements to justify an
upgrade.
Many are sticking with older models, or staying one model
behind the current cycle.
Some are going with biennial upgrades, and are planning to
move straight from the iPhone 6 to the forthcoming iPhone

7, skipping the 6s altogether.
The company also faces stiff competition from Asian rivals
like Samsung, which has now become a serious competitor
in the premium handset bracket.
Profit forecasts could be further dented by the news that
the main iPhone manufacturing centre, a Foxconn plant in
China, fell victim to fire this week.
There were no casualties, however, and a spokesperson
insisted that production would not be adversely affected.
The predicted downturn comes just a year after Apple
recorded record profit and revenue thanks to demand for
the iPhone 6 .
2016-01-26 00:00:00 Adam Shepherd
202
90% of enterprises will hire CDOs by 2019,
says Gartner
Chief data officers (CDOs) will exist
in 90 per cent of enterprises by the
end of 2019, Gartner has predicted.
The research firm said the desire to
use information in smarter ways will
fuel this “sharp rise” in CDOs, who
will supervise data use and inform business strategies
based on it.
“Business leaders are starting to grasp the huge potential

of digital business, and demanding a better return on their
organisations’ information assets and use of analytics,” said
Mario Faria, research vice president at Gartner.
“It’s a logical step to create an executive position – the CDO
– to handle the many opportunities and responsibilities that
arise from industrial-scale collection and harnessing of
data.”
Yahoo, CitiGroup and Barclays all have CDOs now, said
Gartner, while government departments have also been
quick to capitalise on this new executive position, with the
former chief of the Government Digital Service (GDS), Mike
Bracken, adding the CDO role to his responsibilities last
March before he left the organisaiton, and the NHS
appointed Geraint Lewis as its CDO in 2014.
However, Gartner also predicted that only half of CDOs will
be successful by the end of 2019, because of the structural
challenges they will face, among other obstacles.
Most CDOs will learn on the job because of the new nature
of the role, and will face the difficult task of creating an
information strategy with relevant metrics that tie the
activities of their team to measurable business outcomes.
Faria said: “With the explosion of datasets everywhere, an
important task is determining which information can add
business value, drive efficiency or improve risk
management.
“The CDO's role will raise expectations of better results
from an enterprise information management strategy, with

stakeholders wanting a clear idea of the exact mechanics of
making success a reality.”
To make the role work, Gartner has outlined six
recommendations for new CDOs, starting with forming an
enterprise information management strategy, then building
trust with the CIO, educating senior leaders about the
importance of data, establishing key indicators to measure
and tying these to business metrics, and lastly adopting
formal information asset measures.
Gartner will run a more in-depth CDO programme at the
Gartner Enterprise Information & Master Data Management
Summit 2016 , which takes place between 2-3 March in
London.
2016-01-26 00:00:00 Aaron Lee
203
Harvard University given $28m for AI
research
Harvard University has been
awarded $28m (£19m) to help it
discover why human brains are
better at processing information
than artificial intelligence.
The money was contributed by the Intelligence Advanced
Research Projects Activity (IARPA), with the end result of
hopefully making AI systems more advanced, operating like
human brains rather than machines.

The research will look in detail at the storage capacity of
human brains, which is assumed to be between 10 and 100
terabytes, although initial studies have suggested it could
be a lot more. Additionally, Harvard University will study the
functions of the human brain including digging deeper into
data analysis, pattern recognition and an ability to learn and
retain information.
The research into the brain's visual cortex will be run by
Harvard's John A. Paulson School of Engineering and
Applied Sciences (SEAS), Centre for Brain Studies (CBS)
and Department of Molecular and Cellular Biologies,
exposing how neurons in that particular area of the brain
can recognise objects, people and more on first sight,
rather than taking multiple goes to be able to recognise
something, as is the case for AI.
This is thought to be related to how neurons are connected
to each other and the researchers will be investigating into
how this could potentially be applied to computers, helping
them to interpret, analyse and learn information as quickly
as the human brain.
"The pattern-recognition and learning abilities of machines
still pale in comparison to even the simplest mammalian
brains," said Hanspeter Pfister, professor of computer
science at Harvard.
"The project is not only pushing the boundaries of brain
science, it is also pushing the boundaries of what is
possible in computer science. We will reconstruct neural
circuits at an unprecedented level from petabytes of

structural and functional data. It requires us to make new
advances in data management, high-performance
computing, computer vision and network analysis. "
2016-01-26 00:00:00 Clare Hopping
204
Fire engulfs Foxconn's iPhone production
factory
A fire has swept through a Foxconn
facility that produces parts for
iPhones, engulfing several floors of
the Zhengzhou building in flames.
The blaze is thought to have started
in the central air conditioning and ventilation ducts on the
roof of the building, but a representative of the company
told the Wall Street Journal that there were no casualties.
Despite the fact that the plant is the main iPhone facility, the
spokesperson also said there would be no impact on
production.
Foxconn is currently creating all the iPhone lines on sale
from Apple, from the iPhone 5s through to the iPhone 6s
and iPhone 6s Plus .
It is also thought Apple will launch at least two and
potentially three new iPhones this year, in the shape of the
iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus and iPhone 6c (also possibly called
the iPhone 7c or, according to the latest rumours, iPhone
5se). This will likely see Foxconn, as well as parts suppliers,

amp up production in the summer ahead of an autumn
launch.
No doubt, then, that Apple and its entire iPhone supply
chain will be relieved the incident does not seem to have
affected the factory floor.
This is not the first time Foxconn has suffered an incident of
this kind, however. The company's iPad 2 factory suffered
an explosion in May 2011, when dust caught fire in an air
duct, killing three and injuring 15. Four months later, in
September, another factory caught fire, although nobody
was reported injured.
Authorities are now investigating the cause of this most
recent fire.
Main image credit: Nadkachana, Wikimedia Commons
2016-01-26 00:00:00 Jane McCallion
205
WhatsApp will add encryption indicators so
you know your chats are safe
WhatsApp is adding indicators to
show users when end-to-end
encryption is being used to secure
their conversations.
Screenshots of the beta version of
an upcoming release, leaked on the Google Plus page of
developer Javier Santos , show the indicators in action.

The service already uses end-to-end encryption by default,
but will now proactively show users that their messages are
being protected.
It comes after Prime Minister David Cameron appeared to
suggest last year that secure messaging services could be
banned in the UK , and encrypted messaging services have
also been flagged as potential terrorist recruiting tools .
Additionally, the Investigatory Powers Bill would demand
that vendors give the government backdoors into their
encrypted services.
But while WhatsApp wants users to know they are not being
spied on, it has also included a tool to share users’ data
with its parent company, Facebook.
Users can check a box labelled “share my WhatsApp
account information with Facebook to improve my
Facebook experiences”.
It is currently unknown exactly what account information will
be shared, but based on the information Facebook mines
from its Messenger app, it is likely to be contact lists and
phone numbers, rather than chat histories.
The setting is also opt-in rather than opt-out, meaning it is
disabled by default.
After scrapping the semi-optional subscription charge
earlier this month, this is possibly one of the ways that
Facebook plans on monetising its acquisition.

Also on the cards for future updates are more sophisticated
document sharing tools and video calling functionality.
2016-01-26 00:00:00 Adam Shepherd
206 First Monkeys with Autism Created in China
Scientists in China say they used
genetic engineering to create
monkeys with a version of autism,
an achievement that could make it
easier to test treatments but that
raises thorny practical and ethical
questions over how useful such animal models will be.
Neuroscientist Zilong Qiu of the Shanghai Institutes for
Biological Sciences says his team has generated more than
a dozen monkeys with a genetic error that in human
children causes a rare syndrome whose symptoms include
mental retardation and autistic features, such as repetitive
speech and restricted interests.
Autism refers to any of a spectrum of intellectual and
behavioral disorders identified in about one in 68 children in
the U. S., and whose genetic underpinnings are starting to
be unraveled (see “ Solving the Autism Puzzle ”).
The altered monkeys displayed shared psychiatric
symptoms, including pacing in circles and interacting less
with other monkeys. They became stressed more easily
when researchers stared them in the eyes. The abnormal
monkeys would “grunt, coo, and scream” more often if

challenged in this way, according to Qiu’s team, and two
became “severely sick” in ways that “echoed” the problems
human children with the gene defect.
“The monkeys show very similar behavior [to] human
autism patients,” Qiu said during a conference call
organized by Nature , the journal that published the report
today. “We think it provides a very unique model.”
Years of studies with mice suffering from autism-like
disorders have provided disappointingly few leads on how
to solve the problem in people. But mice have very different
brains from our own. For instance, they lack a prefrontal
cortex, the brain area where some human psychiatric
disorders seem to be centered.
Qiu says that’s the reason his institute chose to create
autistic monkeys. He says scientists would now be able to
study what brain networks had been disrupted, as well as
try out treatments, such as deep-brain stimulation. Qiu says
his group would also attempt to reverse the symptoms it
created by erasing the genetic error in live animals. That
could be done using new genome-editing technologies,
such as CRISPR, he says.
Genetically altered monkeys have been reported
previously, including at least one animal in China with a
defect in an autism gene. However, Qiu’s report appears to
be the first time that researchers have generated enough
animals to observe stereotypical behavioral changes, says
Afonso Silva, a scientist who works with transgenic
monkeys at the National Institutes of Health.

Some scientists questioned whether the model developed
in China was close enough to autism to really shed any light
on human disease. “I think we need to be cautious calling
this a model … it does not quite accomplish that,” says
Huda Zoghbi, whose lab at the Baylor College of Medicine
discovered in 1999 that damage to the MECP2 gene
causes Rett syndrome, a form of autism affecting girls.
Although the monkeys exhibited common behaviors, like
repetitive circling in their cages, Zoghbi says these are not
the same as those displayed in human children. More
typical symptoms like seizures were absent, she said, while
the monkeys’ circling doesn’t have an analog in humans.
“For the sake of the field and the families it is important that
we study models that are constructed to genetically mimic
what happens in humans and that reproduce features of
the syndrome as closely as possible,” Zoghbi says. “It is
important that we hold [these] standards to nonhuman
primate models.”
The Shanghai team sought to copy a disorder that is
closely related to Rett syndrome, in which a person is born
with too many copies of the MECP2 gene. To do so, it used
a virus to insert copies of the human gene into monkey
eggs, just as they were fertilized. The eight monkeys ended
up with between one and seven extra copies of the gene.
Using any monkey in research, and especially creating
ones with psychiatric disorders, is a charged subject that
raises animal welfare questions. Even so, a small number
of centers in China, Japan, and the U. S. have recently

edoubled efforts to create monkeys with human gene
errors to see if they can cause psychiatric problems,
including versions of schizophrenia (see “ Shining a Light
on Madness ”). Breeding monkeys is extraordinarily
expensive and time-consuming, since they take two to four
years to reach maturity, depending on the species.
John Spiro, deputy scientific director of the Simons
Foundation Autism Research Initiative in New York, says he
believes scientific leaders remain divided over how helpful
primate models of autism will be. “There is a sentiment that
you are never going to generate enough animals to be able
to do the really important experiments,” he says. “But a lot
of people feel extraordinary strongly that rodents aren’t
good enough. I would say the smartest minds in the field
say we have got to do this.”
2016-01-25 11:00:00 By Antonio Regalado on January 25, 2016
207
Your Booming Facebook Friends List Isn't
As Helpful As You Might Think |
HotHardware
You may have hundreds or even
thousands of Facebook friends, but
chances are that the vast majority
of them would turn their backs on
you in a flash if you were truly in
need, or at least that's what a
recent study suggests. Research from Oxford University’s
Robin Dunbar, a professor of evolutionary psychology,

found that most people are terrible at maintaining
relationships with their Facebook friends. In addition, the
actual number of Facebook friends that a person can rely
on or have a true "emotional connection" with is similar in
number to the friends that you have in the real world faceto-face
interactions.
This should really shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone
reading this, as many Facebook “friends” are often
acquaintances at best. Dunbar’s research found the
average Facebook user had roughly 150 friends, and
careful analysis found that of those 150, only 14 would
express sympathy in the event of tragedy or a downturn in
one’s life. Even more telling is that you can only hope to
count on four of your Facebook friends for emotional
support during a crisis.
Dunbar also found that the way we organize our friends in
our online world closely mirrors that off the offline world. If
you think of your Facebook friends list as concentric circles,
the inner circle would consist of your five closest friends —
the ones that you can most depend on for physical and
emotional support in a time of need. From there, the circles
extend out to 15, 50 and 150 friends, with each layer
become less emotionally attached compared to the inner
circle, based on a lack of time to devote to maintaining the
relationships.
“This suggests that, as originally proposed by the social
brain hypothesis, there is a cognitive constraint on the size
of social networks that even the communication advantages
of online media are unable to overcome,” writes Dunbar. “In

practical terms, it may reflect the fact that real (as opposed
to casual) relationships require at least occasional face-toface
interaction to maintain them.”
So the next time you reach out to Facebook for comfort,
just remember that just a fraction of your friends will truly
become that digital shoulder that you need to lean on.
2016-01-25 00:00:00 hothardware.com
208
revealed.
Tech North chief steps down after only six
months in charge
The head of Tech North is set to
quit the organisation just six months
after it was first created, an official
blog post from Tech City UK has
"Having got the team off to a strong start, Claire Braithwaite
has decided to step down as head of Tech North," the
post read. "On behalf of the entire Tech City UK team, we
would like to take this opportunity to thank Claire for all her
fantastic work with Tech North. "
The organisation , which seeks to promote start-ups based
in seven cities around the north of England, has launched
the Northern Stars initiative to identify digital talent, a
Founders' Network to connect northern entrepreneurs, and
been involved with the Tech Nation Visa Scheme since it
formally launched in July 2015.

Braithwaite, whose appointment was first announced in
March last year, said: "I'm very proud to have been at the
forefront of the launch of Tech North, which is a vital
initiative to ensure the continuing development of the tech
ecosystem across the North of England. I will continue to
support both Tech North and the technology sector in the
North of England in my new role that I will announce details
of in the near future. "
The organisation is overseen by Tech City UK, a
government-backed quango with a remit to promote startups
across the UK, and which created Tech North to focus
on Hull, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle,
Sheffield, and Sunderland. However, the project was
publicly criticised by Labour MP Chukka Umunna, around
the time of its launch, who said the details fell short of
government rhetoric.
When it launched in October, the Tech Nation Visa Scheme
promised to bring more talent to the seven cities i n the
North of England. Under the revised rules, companies in
these areas can fast-track non-EU recruitment.
"As we wish Claire well in her future endeavours, we want
to take this opportunity to stress that Tech City UK's
support for Tech North remains completely unchanged by
Claire's departure," the post continued. "Tech North is a
crucial priority for us and the UK Government and we have
every faith that her awesome team will carry on the work so
effectively initiated by Claire. "
Tech North recently partnered with Liverpool Girl Geeks to

provide fully-funded coding courses to women free of
charge, alongside other workshops, demonstrations and
talks from industry leaders organised through the project.
2016-01-25 00:00:00 Caroline Preece
209
Cloud firms will leave UK if Snooper's
Charter is passed
The Snooper's Charter risks
removing billions of pounds from
the UK economy by effectively
forcing cloud and hosting
companies to leave, rather than
give in to demands to weaken encryption, it is claimed.
Speaking to Cloud Pro , Michael Ginsberg, CEO of cloudbased
encryption service Echoworx, said his company is
ready to abandon its two UK datacentres and migrate to
other facilities abroad should the Snooper's Charter,
formally known as the Investigatory Powers Bill, become
law.
The bill proposes that internet service providers keep a list
of websites their users visit for at least 12 months, and
demands that hosting providers leave 'backdoors' in their
encryption open for the government.
"If the [UK] government wants an encryption backdoor, we
can move to a jurisdiction that doesn't have encryption back
doors ... where this legislation doesn't exist," he said. "The

ad news for the UK is $15 billion a year in hosting
businesses and if my company can move out of the UK in a
snap, how many other companies can? "
Ginsberg added: "Apart from any moral problems about
snooping on its citizens and enterprises, there's some real
financial risk. It has already activated us so we can imagine
what larger hosting companies plans are [doing] in
anticipation of this legislation, and once that data moves it
won't come back. That's a real problem. "
To illustrate his point, Ginsberg gave the example of "one
of the largest commercial banks in Canada", which had all
its commercial credit card processing done in Minnesota.
"Within two months of the original 9/11 US Patriot Act
coming in, it was all back in Canada and it's never going to
return," he said.
Technical problems
Ginsberg also accused the UK government of not having
fully thought through the practical implications of the
requirements in the Investigatory Powers Bill - an
accusation that has been levelled before with regard to
data storage demands .
"As incredulous as it is to believe they're considering this, I
don't know if the practicalities of it are going to allow them
to enact it," said Ginsberg.
"We host a very large charity of yours here in the UK that
deals with sensitive personal data and if the government

comes to us and says 'We need a back door to your
encryption' and I say, of course, 'no', and we snap our
fingers and we're in Ireland or Romania - then what do they
do? Do they go to the charity? What can the charity do?
They're going to be asked to provide a backdoor and
they're incapable of doing that technically - it's not their
system, really. "
"So the charity will say they can't and is the government
going to say either use someone else's encryption, which
isn't safe, or they can't use encryption? I don't know that it
has followed the string of the logic of their own intent," he
added.
2016-01-25 00:00:00 Jane McCallion
210
Starbreeze Studios Opening Virtual Reality
Arcade In Los Angeles
It’s been said time and again, you
have to experience VR to
understand what the excitement is
about. Starbreeze, the creator of
the upcoming StarVR HMD , and
publisher of Payday 2 and the upcoming The Walking Dead
Game from Overkill, believes in this concept enough to
open up an arcade so that everyone can experience virtual
reality for themselves.
Starbreeze announced at the VRLA Expo that it will be
opening a virtual reality arcade, which it has named Project

StarCade. The company said you can expect to find
Overkill’s The Walking Dead VR experience and other
experiences that it is working on at StarCade later this year.
We don’t have any details about these other experiences
yet.
Starbreeze’s Project StarCade will be opening in the spring
or summer of this year in Los Angeles. The company did
not reveal the location, but Emmanuel Marquez, Starbreeze
CTO, said that the company “managed to secure a prime
location” for the arcade.
Starbreeze is building the arcade, and it will be using its
own hardware, but the company it is not limiting Project
StarCade to its own content. The company is welcoming
other studios to participate in StarCade with their own
experiences, if they wish. Marquez said Starbeeze is
creating its “own StarCade catalogue of experiences, but
we’re open to any content” that other developers would like
to have featured at Project StarCade.
Follow Kevin Carbotte @pumcypuhoy. Follow us on
Facebook , Google+ , RSS , Twitter and YouTube
2016-01-24 00:00:00 Kevin Carbotte
211
Samsung Opening VR Production Studio in
New York
Step one: Make virtual reality headset. Step two: Make
virtual reality experiences people can enjoy using said

headset. Step three: Sit back and
profit.
It's a simple version of what's likely
Samsung's plan, we'll admit, but it's
probably pretty close to the truth.
According to a new report from CNET , Samsung
executives appearing at this year's Sundance film festival
annonuced that the company is going to be opening up a
special studio in New York that will be tasked with creating
new virtual reality content. Said studio will be located in one
of Samsung's existing officesmaking it a lot easier for the
company to create and promote content in-house.
Unfortunately, Samsung neglected to tease any other
details about the studio, including the most important bit:
The specific content Samsung has in the works. Whatever
Samsung is thinking of, though, you can bet that it'll
probably be something that works great with the company's
Gear VR headset first and foremost. It's unclear if Samsung
will be optimizing (or launching) its content for other VR
headsets, too.
The move follows in the footsteps of rival Oculus VR, which
announced at last year's Sundance film festival that the
company was creating its own film production subsidiary,
Oculus Story Studio. The studio produced one five-minute
VR short for last year's Sundance, "Lost," and has since
been working on an animated short called Henry that will
launch once the Oculus Rift headset arrives in spring.
Oculus Story Studio has also released its Unreal Engine
project and assets for Henry in an effort to give other VR

content developers a few tips and suggestions about how
they might be able to shape their work for this new medium.
"Our mission at Story Studio is to 'Inspire and Educate,' and
a core part of that is to share our projects as we go along.
We're releasing this project so that you can learn from our
work and be inspired to tell your own stories. VR storytelling
is a lot of work, but it's not impossible, and our goal is to
demystify the process. Have at it," reads a blog post from
Oculus Story Studio.
2016-01-24 00:00:00 By David Murphy January 24, 2016 01:49pm EST
10 Comments
212
Twitter Chaos: Two VPs, one SVP, and Vine
GM Leave Company
Big Sunday shakeups are afoot
over at Twitter. According to
unnamed sources speaking to
Recode , three top executives at
the company are allegedly on the
way out: Katie Jacobs Stanton, Twitter's vice president of
global media; Kevil Weil, senior vice president of product;
and Alex Roetter, senior vice president of engineering. We
don't know the specific details behind each of the three
executives' supposed departures, but Recode notes that
twoWeil and Roetterare likely not so voluntary as Stanton's.
Twitter is allegedly going to announce the departures
tomorrow, concurrent with its announcement of a brandnew
CMO for the company. We don't yet know who that is,
nor have we heard rumors of who that might be, but the

person is said to be a fairly well-known executive from a
"big brand company," as Recode describes.
Also leaving is Vine general manager Jason Toff, who held
the position for two years after jumping over to Vine from
Twitter. He was previously Twitter's director of product
management.
"Huge thanks to @KatieS and @kevinweil, without whom
Twitter would never have come this far nor been this fun,"
tweeted Twitter investor Chris Sacca today.
The timing for these departures couldn't be stranger, as
Twitter is currently getting beaten in the stock marketjust
touching an all-time low of $15.48 this past week, which
was almost half the company's $26 offering price when it
went public in November of 2013. The drop has brought
with it the usual speculation that larger Silicon Valley sharks
might be looking to acquire the company, but we haven't
heard of any moves by some of companies supposedly
interested: Google, Microsoft, and Facebook, to name a
few.
As Recode notes, Twitter is also having a big executive
retreat in San Francisco this weekat this rate, they might
only need to borrow a few chairs.
We're curious to see what other staff changes Twitter has
in store, which it might announce tomorrow or might just
carry out over the next few months. It's also rumored that
Twitter will be shaking up its board as well, possibly adding
two new board members as early as this quarter.

Interim replacements are expected to fill both Stanton and
Weil's positions until new, permanent hires are found. We
don't yet know what will happen to Roetter's spot, or
whether Twitter might even do some more position
reshuffling as part of its upcoming announcement.
2016-01-24 00:00:00 By David Murphy January 24, 2016 04:09pm EST
10 Comments
213
Daimler CEO: Apple and Google Further
Along on Cars Than Anticipated
Apple is staying quiet about its
vehicle research and testing,
whereas you'll likely spot one of
Google's self-driving cars if you
spend enough time wandering
around Silicon Valley. While it's safe to assume that both
companies will, at some point, launch (or make public) their
plans for the road, what's unknown so far is just how good
their first official vehicle might be. These are, after all, two
companies that are not known for vehicle design and
manufacturingthough they do have the gravitas (and the
cash) to get just about any talent and build any production
process they want.
Dieter Zetsche, who chairs Daimler AG and runs Mercedes-
Benz, recently took a tour to Silicon Valley to meet with just
around 70 different companies. While it's not clear whether
he specifically booked meetings at Apple and Google, he
did come away from his trip with one big thought: Apple and

Google are further along on their cars than he had
previously thought.
"Our impression was that these companies can do more
and know more than we had previously assumed. At the
same time they have more respect for our achievements
than we thought," said Zetsche, in an interview with
German weekly Welt am Sonntag.
Zetsche didn't go into any additional details beyond that,
but the comment is noteworthy in itself given that Google is
still polishing its self-driving cars to recognize any and all
road hazardsand make the same normal decisions a
human might make on the road. Apple hasn't even
announced its car, teased its research, or offered up any
iota of official news that it's even working on a car (Silicon
Valley's worst-kept secret).
Zetsche also didn't mention any of the 70 or so companies
he met with during his trip, but it's likely that Daimler will
probably be working out some business deals as it, too,
works to position its car brands in the face of growing
competition from the industry's tech heavyweightsand, of
course, other car manufacturers.
"There were concrete talks. I will not say anything about the
content. It was not just about the fact that there is an
innovative spirit in the Valley. We know that already. We
wanted to see what drives it, and all the things that can be
created from it," Zetsche told Welt am Sonntag.
2016-01-24 00:00:00 By David Murphy January 24, 2016 03:09pm EST
10 Comments

214
Virtual Spaceships: First Look At CCP's
'EVE:Valkyrie' Multiplayer Alpha
CCP’s upcoming space dogfighting
game, EVE:Valkyrie will be one of
the games that launches with
Oculus’s Rift VR HMD later this year
(preordered Rifts include a copy.) If
you’ve been paying attention to the
development progress of the Rift
headset, then you’ve likely encountered EVE:Valkyrie on
some level already.
CCP was one of the first developers to back the Oculus Rift
Kickstarter campaign, and it quickly put together the EVR
tech demo using EVE Online assets. The company first
showed the demo to fans at Eve Fanfest in April of 2013,
and by August, the EVE: Valkyrie announcement trailer was
released.
Over the course of the past two and a half years, CCP has
shown the game in various stages of progress, but always
more or less the same demo; a single player experience
fighting against AI enemies that ends when you inevitably
meet an untimely death.
EVE:Valkyrie was originally slated for release in 2014, but
with the Oculus Rift unreleased, CCP kept working on the
game. During EVE Fanfest 2014 , CCP showed a pre-alpha
build of the game that showed a close representation of

what EVE:Valkyrie has since evolved into, but it was the
version shown at EVE Fanfest 2015 that really got people
excited. This is also when CCP first opened up signups for
the pre-alpha multiplayer test, though the company allowed
only a select few in.
In the fall of 2015, CCP announced that it was opening up
the alpha test signups, but it didn’t say when people would
be invited in. Slowly over the last couple months, the
company has invited a select bunch of people to play the
game, but this week it launched the actual alpha test and
sent invites to much larger group of players. CCP told us
that anyone with a system that meets the requirements,
and that owns an Oculus Rift DK2, should get access to the
game.
CCP is running the alpha test on North American and
European servers 24/7 for the duration of the test period.
The released build is limited to the multiplayer aspect of the
game, with the exception of the first training mission. CCP
left this in so that you can accustom yourself with flying and
shooting before jumping in to a live match, but the main
reason for the alpha is to stress test the servers and hash
out any bugs while playing against other people.
When you first fire up EVE:Valkyrie , you’ll find yourself
inside a very different kind of landing screen. It’s a perfect
match for a VR game, and it shows that CCP has really
been thinking about VR intelligently. If you look down, you’ll
notice that even in the menu, you are positioned in your
avatar. The pilot character is sitting down, going through
options on a tablet that appear as holograms in 3D in front

of you.
To access an item, you look directly at it, which is the
natural thing to do anyway, and a dialog box will pop up
displaying an A button symbol. Press the button, and you’ll
be transported to the new screen. All of the items appear in
3D space -- nothing is on a 2D plane. You’ll see 3D
representations of the ship you select floating in front of
you. The menu options float in space in front of the ship
hologram.
On the main menu screen, you’ll find the basic buttons,
such as Close, found by looking down to the left, and
Settings, which is down to the right. Pilot stats and Hangar
are located between Close and Settings. Starting in the
upper left side and leading to the right, you’ll find Training,
Squad, Chronicles, Combat, and Quartermaster. That may
seem like a lot of menu options, but there really aren’t that
many things to change.
In the Settings menu, you can change the graphics options
from Low, Medium, High, and Epic. My test system, an Intel
Core i5 4570k with 8 GB of DDR3-1600 RAM and an EVGA
GeForce GTX 970 SC (which basically matches Oculus’s
minimum specifications for a Rift), auto-detected the Epic
preset. There are no advanced settings to change, so we
don’t know what graphics options change between presets,
but it would appear the game can run on lesser hardware.
The Pilot page shows the lifetime stats of your profile. Here
you can see what your XP level is, how many kills, deaths,
and assists you’ve achieved, and your average kill to death,

as well as win-to-loss ratios. The page also lists how many
battles you’ve had, how many of those were won, and how
many were lost, and even the number of hours you’ve
played the game.
The Squad menu is where you set up a party of friends to
play with. You can only invite friends to be part of your
squad, though. The Quartermaster menu doesn’t have a lot
in it right now. Three options inside it simply say “Coming
Soon.” The only one that works is the Customize Fleet
section. Here you can apply skins and decals to your ships.
It takes silver credits to buy customizations, which are
earned by playing matches.
The Chronicles menu is where you’ll find the single player
mission in the final game, but in the alpha test none of
these missions are active. There are five missions listed,
which appear to be the same maps as the online game:
Shipyard, Necropolis, Forge, Cathedral and Convoy.
The Hangar menu is where you will find your available
ships. When you first start the game you are given a ship,
the Wraith. This ship’s stats are: Firepower, 25; Shield, 110;
Armor, 225; Speed, 200. The rest of the ships are locked to
new players. You have to earn XP points to unlock better
options. Once you’ve earned 18,000 XP, you’ll unlock the
Dominator and the Heavy Tree. The Accord and Support
Tree unlock at 52,000 XP, Assuage is available at 110,000
XP, and the final ship, the Aegis, unlocks at 173,000 XP.
During the alpha test, the first two ships can be unlocked,
but the rest aren’t available. I haven’t yet earned 18,000

XP, so I don’t know what the stats of them are. Those
details are hidden until you earn the ship.
You’ll want to start off with the training mission before
jumping into battle. I had the chance to try a new build of
the single player demo at CES this year, but even I felt like I
should brush up on my flight skills. The training mission has
you fly through a series of hoops (anyone remember Pilot
Wings 64?) to hone your maneuvering skills. Once you’ve
flown through the hoops, there are a few enemies to
practice your aim on.
Navigating a space ship in VR is pretty easy if you are used
to playing games in first person. It’s really a natural step
further into the immersion of the experience. To fly, you use
the joysticks on an Xbox controller. The left stick controls
the direction your ship's nose is pointing, and the right stick
will roll it. The A button is warp drive, the shoulder buttons
will aid with turning quickly, and the d-pad releases drones
in one of the two game modes.
Shooting your cannons is done with the right trigger, and
your left trigger controls the homing missiles. This is where
your head really comes into play. You need to look directly
at your target and follow it as you hold the trigger down.
This engages the target lock. If you don’t keep your gaze
on the enemy ship, the missiles won’t lock on, so you do
have to actively look around the canopy of your ship to play
the game effectively.
Looking around freely actually makes it easier to navigate.
If you really were a fighter pilot, then you’d be looking all

around anyway. That’s one of the reasons a real jet canopy
has such wide open views. Being able to look where your
opponent just darted off to is a major advantage for a game
like this.
After getting acquainted with the Wraith, I left the training
zone and entered the Combat menu. Here you can access
the squad menu again, and a new option, Launch Tubes.
The Launch Tubes didn’t do much when I looked at them,
but I suspect it will come in handy when you have several
ships unlocked. To me, it appears this is to be used as a
loadout setup. There are four tubes to fill, but with only one
ship, it doesn’t do much good.
There is a timer on the right that will be counting down if
you aren't inside one of the two menus in the screen. You
don’t have any control over when it will launch, and it often
starts seconds after getting into this screen. When the timer
hits zero, the battle will start. The game goes black, and the
sound stops completely at this point. It takes my computer
three or four seconds to load the next screen. I actually
thought it crashed the first time I did this, but it will
eventually load into the match.
In the new room you will find yourself sitting in, you’ll see
other player’s avatars around you in a round room. On
either side of you, you’ll see a hovering list of the players
from each team. Directly in front of you will be the ship
selection options. If you have more than one ship, you can
cycle through them from here. After a short timer counts
down, the screen will fade away, and when it comes back,
you’ll be sitting in the cockpit waiting to be fired out of the

launch tube. A few seconds later you’ll be in live combat.
Playing online against other players is very similar to the
single player experience I was shown earlier this month.
Real players are a little bit tougher to handle, but the
essence of the game is the same. In both situations, I found
the experience to be exhilarating, and the action gets
intense very quickly.
It takes some time to get used to the dogfighting
experience. Expect to die several times before you get your
first kill, but when you do, oh boy, the satisfaction! I’ve
played 10 matches and logged a little over an hour in the
game, so far, and I’m only just now starting to get the hang
of things. This is definitely a game you can pick up and
have some fun very quickly, but it will take many hours to
become a master.
The game reminds me a lot of Unreal Tournament the way
it plays. You and a team fight in a fast-paced death match
scenario against a competing team. When you die, which
you undoubtedly will do many times, you respawn a few
seconds later and join the fight again.
There are two different scenarios, but both of them are very
similar. You will either be playing straight death match,
where you just need to kill the enemy as much as possible.
Each team has a finite number of “clones” for respawn, and
when they are depleted, the other team wins. The second
scenario incorporates capturing key landmarks from the
other team. Rather than simply getting more kills, the
winning team has to capture items and fend off the enemy.

For each match, you will earn XP points. For a kill, you’ll get
100 points, and an assist earns you 50 points. I’ve never
successfully captured anything, so I’m not sure how many
points you get for capturing enemy property. Most matches
end with players earning less than 1,000 points, many
earning far less. It takes some effort to unlock those first
two ships at 18,000 XP. I can't imagine how long it would
take to unlock the Aegis.
You also earn silver credits for playing matches. These
credits come from the salvage that you collect while
fighting. Any time any enemy ship is destroyed, fragments
of “salvage” are left behind, and you earn silver for all the
debris you collect. It’s not hard to earn a few thousand
silver in a single match.
EVE:Valkyrie is turning out to be every bit the game I have
been hoping it would be. To me, this is the perfect
expression of what a VR game should be. There are few
other scenarios that fit as perfectly in VR as a space
combat game. The ability to look freely around your cockpit
and fly around in a full 360-degree spherical battle arena is
something that you just can’t get without virtual reality.
The game isn’t complete yet, but it’s clear that CCP is in the
final stages of development. This will be a popular title, and
not just because early adopters are getting the game for
free. If you have a Rift on order, you should be excited for
this game.
I look forward to spending time with the final build of
EVE:Valkyrie while using the retail version of the Rift. For

my test purposes, I only had access to a DK2, and now that
I’ve tried the final product (the CV1), it’s really hard to go
back.
Follow Kevin Carbotte @pumcypuhoy. Follow us on
Facebook , Google+ , RSS , Twitter and YouTube
2016-01-23 00:00:00 Kevin Carbotte
215
Atari announces 100-strong Atari Vault
game bundle
The company today known as Atari
is capitalising on the backcatalogue
that came with the name,
launching a 100-strong arcade
game collection on Steam. The
current owners of the Atari brand
have declared they will capitalise on
the company's back-catalogue with the launch of The Atari
Vault, a 100-strong collection of games, via the Steam
digital distribution platform.
Following major losses in the 1980s video game crash and
the infamous burying of since-exhumed excess inventory in
a New Mexico landfill, Atari has had a rough time of it. The
brand has changed hands a number of times over the
years, from Commodore founder Jack Tramiel taking it over
from Warner Communications to the rebranding of French
company Infogrames in 2000 before filing for bankruptcy
protection in 2013. To cut a long story short: the modern

company known as Atari has little if anything to do with the
company founded in 1971 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted
Dabney, but still retains the rights to the brand's impressive
back-catalogue.
The modern Atari has now announced a quick and easy
way to capitalise on said catalogue: the impending launch
of The Atari Vault, a 100-strong collection of games to be
released on Valve's Steam platform. Naturally, they're all
from the company's arcade glory days: titles confirmed for
inclusion in the bundle, developed by Code Mystics, include
Asteroids, Centipede, Missile Command, Tempest, and
Warlords. Changes made during the porting process
include support for Valve's Steam Controller, leaderboard
support, and online and local multiplayer options.
Atari has confirmed plans to release the bundle in the
spring, but has not yet provided pricing information.
2016-01-22 21:03:00 Published on 22nd January 2016 by Gareth
Halfacree
216
Amazon voucher code: Get £10 off at
Amazon today only with this code
Amazon is offering £10 off orders
over £50 today only (22 January) to
say thank you to its customers for
ranking Amazon number one in the
2016 UK Customer Satisfaction
Index. So if you've had your eye on something for a while

now, today's the day to buy it.
To take advantage of Amazon's offer, you'll need to place
your order before midnight tonight and enter the promo
code BIGTHANKS at checkout. The code can only be used
once per customer, so choose wisely.
You can find all of the terms and conditions here and start
shopping here .
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Amazon Prime?
If you're stuck for ideas, take a look at some of our group
tests, charts and round-ups for inspiration.
Best tablets | Best smartwatches | Best budget laptops |
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trackers | Which Fitbit is best to buy? | Best games
consoles
Best PS4 & Xbox One deals | Best Smart TV deals | Best
game deals
2016-01-22 09:13:00 Ashleigh Allsopp
217
Ultimate Ears launched disc shaped
waterproof bluetooth speaker UE Roll at
Rs.8495
Ultimate Ears continues to transform the way people

experience music, together, out in
the world. Today Ultimate Ears
announces UE ROLL , a powerful
disc shaped wireless Bluetooth
speaker that is ready for whatever,
wherever, whenever.
The 360-degree sounding speaker is loud and crisp with
delivers appreciable deep bass and provides 9 hours of
music playback. Whether you fasten it to your swimsuit
using its one of a kind attach-and-go bungee cord, or hook
it to your hiking gear while you backpack, UE Roll connects
to you, your friends and your music. It is waterproof and
life-resistant so you can dunk it, drop it or toss it anywhere.
Key Features
360-degree sound
UE Roll pumps out sound, in every direction, wherever you
go. Loud, crisp sound shouts through the air with deep
bass and incredible beats. This speaker brings big noise to
hidden beaches, cliff jumps and mountain climbs.
Always chooses dare
UE Roll is designed to be part of your ultra-mobile lifestyle.
It has a waterproof and life-resistant shell that’s forged from
the toughest, most premium materials. It’s also lightweight
and small with a nine-hour battery life and a 65-foot
wireless range, so you can take it anywhere.
Strap on. Turn up

Thanks to its attachable marine-grade bungee cord, you
can hook UE Roll to almost all your gear. Whether it’s using
the bungee to fasten it to your swimsuit while you surf or
hook it to your hiking gear while you backpack, UE Roll
connects to you, your friends and your music.
In control with the app
Download the free UE ROLL app for iOS or Android to
unlock an expanding set of cool features, including waking
up to your favorite music, remotely turning the speaker on,
and even doubling the sound by pairing it with other
Ultimate Ears speakers.
It’s awesome and getting even better via over the air
updated
UE Roll continuously gets better over time, just like UE
Boom. New updates are rolled out to the speakers
wirelessly through the app, so you can easily continue to
expand features, making each speaker even more
awesome with time, without any physical connectivity.
According to UE, the speaker is claimed to deliver 9 hours
of music playback which is pretty impressive considering
the size.
UE Roll is available in Volcano (Grey), Atmosphere
(Blue), Sugarplum (Pink/Purple), Sriracha (Orange) and is
backed by 2 years of warranty
2016-01-22 05:45:58 Anuj Sharma

218
Ruckus Unleashed review
Specifications
R500
Modem None
Wi-Fi standard 802.11ac
Stated speed 867Mbit/s
USB ports 0
Wall mountable Yes
Details www.ruckuswireless.co
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2016-01-22 00:00:00 Kat Orphanides
219
Smartwatch security threats: The sky isn’t
really falling
Security firms Kaspersky and
Wisekey are worried about the
amount of unprotected data shared
between smartphones and
wearables. Which leads me to ask,
just how insecure is your
smartwatch?
I'm not going to dismiss these security vendors concerns off
the bat, but I will throw a quick MRDA (Mandy Rice-Davies
Applies) into the conversation. After all, this is the same
industry that seems to think that anti-virus products on the
desktop are still somehow valid.
Let's agree that if wearables become a conduit for mobile
payments, and smartwatch technology will allow that across
most platforms soon enough, then obviously there's the
potential for cyber-theft.
Well, maybe.
Most of the emphasis has to be on the word 'potential',
which is very different to the word ‘likely’.
Not that there aren't questions to ask when we think

seriously about the smartwatch sector (something that’s
hard to do when they all look like Christmas cracker toys).
Those questions will grow in stature if more people start
wearing the things. Questions such as, can they be hacked,
is there the potential for malware or man-in-the-middle
attacks, and what happens to your data if your watch gets
stolen or is lost?
Sound familiar? They should do - we asked the same ones
when our phones started getting clever. For the most part,
we've answered them too.
And that’s the thing, wearables are paired with those
smartphones for which we have mostly sorted the data
security now. Which leaves us to ask, are smartwatches
even a threat at all?
Well, they are not just dumb terminals. They display
notifications from your smartphone, and notifications
contain valuable data, lots of it.
A smartwatch is a conduit to more data, in your pocket and
beyond, and that will eventually make them attractive to the
bad guys.
When Trend Micro tested smartwatches for hardware
protection, data connections and local data storage, it
found all of them had weaknesses that could be exploited.
All of them saved notification and calendar data locally,
making it possible for hackers to get it without the
smartphone being required.

When HP Fortify studied smartwatches for security, it also
found them lacking, particularly when it came to user
authentication and poor encryption of data in transit. Most
were vulnerable to attacks enabling man-in-the-middle
threats or using outdated, and therefore vulnerable,
protocols such as SSL 2.0.
Not that bad guys are targeting smartwatches just yet, as
far as we can tell. The attack surface is, quite literally, way
too small. Not enough users, not enough data, not enough
resources to install malware, not enough anything.
A lot of alleged smartwatch insecurities that the media
trumpet are hard to imagine outside of a lab environment.
Take a look at MoLe: Motion Leaks through Smartwatch
Sensors if you want a shining example.
But as the tech on your wrist gets more powerful, and the
apps more complex, threats will grow and emerge. Until
that is the case, there's not really much that is likely to be
done in terms of cyber-badness.
The whole wearables security sector right now reminds me
a lot of Chicken Little. The sky isn't falling, and getting too
squawky about smartwatches right now just serves to
distract from the real problem: securing your data in the
cloud and on your smartphone.
2016-01-22 00:00:00 Davey Winder
220 A Peek Inside a Dead Football Player’s Brain

The brain on the table once belonged to a pro football
player. It’s also much bigger than
average, so it may have been the
brain of a very big man—perhaps
he played lineman. Those are the
only things I know about it before
Ann McKee starts cutting it into pieces.
Several minutes later something else is becoming clear:
this brain is pretty messed up.
“I think this guy had CTE,” says McKee, a professor of
neurology and pathology at the Boston University School of
Medicine and director of neuropathology for the New
England Veterans Administration Medical Centers. She and
her colleagues will ultimately examine the brain’s tissue
down to the microscopic level to determine for sure whether
it was afflicted with the progressive neurodegenerative
disorder called chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE.
But she can already see telltale patterns of atrophy, or
shrinkage of the delicate tissue in several areas.
I’m part of a small audience watching as McKee proceeds
to slice this football player’s brain up like she might a loaf of
bread. As she goes along, she lays the slices on the table
and points out various signs of disease.
“It’s amazing what they do to their brains,” she says more
than once with a hint of exasperation. We’re in a lab on the
campus of a VA hospital just outside of Boston, where
McKee runs the nation’s leading brain bank studying the
effects of head trauma. In recent years this has become a

popular destination for the brains of pro football players,
usually donated shortly after death by family members who
want to help the researchers develop a better
understanding of CTE.
Many studies over the past decade and a half, including
prominent work from McKee’s group, have linked the
disease—whose outward signs include cognitive difficulties,
mood disorders, headaches, suicidal thoughts, and
aggressive behavior—to the type of repetitive head trauma
experienced by many football players and other athletes
who play contact sports (see “ Are Young Athletes Risking
Brain Damage? ”).
The brain I’m watching McKee calmly disassemble seems
to be telling an undeniable story about what football did to
it. Indeed, the whole body of evidence her group has
collected seems to tell an undeniable story. McKee and her
colleagues have found evidence of the disease in 88 of the
92 brains of former NFL players they’ve studied, and in 45
of 55 brains of former college players. But as striking as
they are, these numbers should be taken with a grain of
salt. As McKee acknowledges, it is a biased sample, since
in many cases the family donated the brain because they
already suspected a problem.
The numbers don’t tell us how common the disease is, and
they don’t even tell us much about the role of concussions.
When she first started studying CTE, McKee says she
thought concussions were “the key.” Now she and her
colleagues are finding that about 20 percent of the
individuals diagnosed with CTE suffered head trauma but

never had a documented concussion. There are also cases
in which the patient had a relatively large number of
recorded concussions and didn’t develop the disease.
In other words, the brains of deceased football players can
only tell us so much about how and why CTE arises. And
the questions they leave unanswered have sparked a
debate in the scientific community over the relationship
between exposure to head trauma, symptoms, and the
postmortem pathological findings. It’s not even clear if the
disorder, which can only be diagnosed postmortem, is
present in the general population of those who’ve
experienced head trauma, says Rebekah Mannix , an
emergency medicine physician at Boston Children’s
Hospital and the co-director of the brain injury center there,
as well as an assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard
Medical School. “It’s hard to make any kind of diagnostic
criteria based on a self-referred population,” says Mannix.
McKee says her data suggests that the duration of
exposure to repetitive head trauma—concussion-inducing
blows as well as smaller, “subconcussive” hits—is
correlating with the severity of the disease. Imperative, she
says, are studies that use accelerometers to track the head
impacts that individuals sustain, cumulatively, throughout
their lives. Ideally, such studies would also track things like
nutrition, neuropsychological performance, and other
measures of health, she says, and scientists could
eventually use that data to tease out important
relationships.
Unfortunately that means it may take decades to clear up

the debate over CTE, how and why it arises in individuals,
and what that means for football players. But my
experience at McKee’s lab convinced me that at least one
thing is undebatable: it’s amazing what they do to their
brains.
2016-01-22 00:00:00 By Mike Orcutt on January 22, 2016
221 John Romero releases new Doom level
John Romero has released a new
level for classic first-person shooter
Doom, some 21 years after he
designed his last. Seminal firstperson
shooter Doom has received
a new level from noted designer
John Romero, more than two
decades after the game was first released.
While far from the first game created by id Software - fans
of the company will doubtless remember the 1990
Commander Keen franchise, though the company's 3D
efforts began back in 1991 with Catacomb 3-D - Doom is
doubtless its most well-known effort. Using a clever engine
which vastly improved on the raycasting engine used for its
predecessor Wolfenstein 3D with additions like differing
height levels, full texture-mapping, and variable lighting
levels, Doom was the must-have game of 1994. Its impact
on gaming is undeniable: for years, any first-person shooter
was known as a 'Doom clone,' and to this day the game
has an active community of players and content creators.

Surprisingly, this community includes one of the most wellknown
level designers from the original release: John
Romero. Known for his brash style - highlighted perfectly
during the press campaign leading up to the launch of
Daikatana, Romero's first game outside id Software and a
commercial failure - Romero has been indulging his
nostalgia by designing another 'official' Doom level, more
than two decades after gamers got to know his first efforts.
Released in a terse Facebook update , the level is
Romero's first for 21 years. While most add-on levels for
Doom required the use of the registered version - enforced
by id in order to encourage paid registration of the freely
distributed shareware episode, Knee-Deep in the Dead -
Romero restricted himself to using only assets available in
the shareware release, allowing anyone to experience his
creation.
The WAD file can be downloaded now from Romero's
Dropbox account .
2016-01-22 00:00:00 Published on 18th January 2016 by Gareth
Halfacree
222
Symantec ditches reseller guilty of
scamming PC users
Symantec is terminating its partnership with a reseller that
stands accused of duping people into believing they were
infected by malware, before charging them hundreds of
dollars to ‘remove’ it.

product.
Silurian, which was a member of
the Symantec partner programme,
scammed unwitting users by
flagging up fake warnings on their
PCs that were designed to look like
Symantec’s Norton Antivirus
The alert, hosted on a now-defunct webpage called
quicklogin.us/norton, told users: “System Critically Infected.
If you are not able to click on this button, immediately
contact Support toll Free Helpline 1-855-637-1900.”
Senior security researcher Jérôme Segura at
Malwarebytes, the security firm that uncovered the fraud ,
said: “This screen is completely fake, but combined with an
alarming audio message playing in the background, it may
be enough to dupe some users.”
The security company phoned the number anyway to see
what happened.
A technician advised them to go to a website that would
allow him to take remote control of the computer, letting
him perform a diagnostic.
Segura said: “This process is a core part of the scam
because it allows crooks to tighten their hold on potential
victims. With remote access, scammers can literally do
whatever they want on the user’s machine including
stealing documents to installing (real) malware.”

The technician quickly pointed to Windows EventViewer,
the error reporting tool that tags applications with yellow
and red warning lights for problems that are generally
benign, but to an inexperienced user look worrying.
He then offered Norton Antivirus to the researchers at two
different price options – a one-off fix and installation for
$199, or a one-year warranty for $249.
The tool can be purchased for £14.99 online, giving users
one year of cover.
After discovering Silurian was a member of Symantec’s
partner programme, Malwarebytes raised the issue with
Symantec, which promised to take immediate action.
A Symantec spokeswoman told IT Pro that it is terminating
its reseller partnership with Silurian immediately.
She added: “While we can’t say conclusively who was
behind this particular scam, we can confirm that this
particular site has been taken down and that we are also in
the process of terminating our partner agreement with
Silurian.
“After identifying any abuse of the Norton or Symantec
brand, we pursue our rights and defend our intellectual
property, and where necessary will work with law
enforcement.”
Pictures courtesy of Malwarebytes
2016-01-22 00:00:00 Joe Curtis

223
GCHQ VoIP software can be used to
eavesdrop
The GCHQ has developed VoIP
encryption tools with a built-in
backdoor, allowing both authorities
and third parties to listen in on
conversations.
The backdoor is embedded into the MIKEY-SAKKE
encryption protocol and has a 'key escrow' built in, allowing
those with authority - whether an employer or government
agency - to access it if a warrant or request is made.
The backdoor was uncovered by Dr Steven Murdoch, a
security researcher from the University of London, who
wrote a blog about the potential snooping tool.
He explained that MIKEY-SAKKE has a monopoly over
other security protocols used by approved government
voice communications, meaning almost all software used
for communication is using the encryption, with the
enbedded backdoor. GCHQ can also insists the technology
is used in other products used by the public sector and
companies "operating critical national infrastructure".
"Although the words are never used in the specification,
MIKEY-SAKKE supports key escrow," Murdoch wrote. "That
is, if the network provider is served with a warrant or is
hacked into it is possible to recover responder private keys
and so decrypt past calls without the legitimate

communication partners being able to detect this
happening. "
He explained this is being marketed as a benefit to using
MIKEY-SAKKE rather than a bug, with documentation
issued by GCHQ advertising it means employers can listen
into voice communications when investigating into
misconduct trials.
“The Government should come to the realisation that the
inclusion of backdoors in encryption isn’t merely a
legislative or privacy mandate, however, it is technically
impossible to control the use of a backdoor in this way. "
Justin Harvey, chief security officer at Fidelis Cybersecurity
said.
"I liken the pro-backdoor encryption movement to
complaints about the weather; some people complain about
rain, snow or sunshine and wish it were otherwise, but in
the end, we can’t do anything about it. The same is true for
strong encryption.”
2016-01-22 00:00:00 Clare Hopping
224
Irish National Lottery plagued by DDoS
attack
The Irish National Lottery has been hit by a DDoS attack,
with hackers bringing down the website and ticket machines
on the day of the biggest draw for the last 18 months.
Criminals were able to knock operator Premier Lotteries

Ireland (PLI) offline for two hours on
Wednesday, meaning customers
trying to buy tickets for the €12
million (£9 million) were unable to
take part.
However, the organisers were
undeterred, despite missing out on probably thousands of
Euros of ticket sales and the midweek draw still went
ahead. No one went on to win the lottery.
“Indications are that this morning’s technical issues were as
a result of a DDoS attack affecting our communications
networks,” a statement from PLI said.
“The issues were resolved by the National Lottery’s DDoS
protection systems, limiting disruption and restoring all
operations within two hours. This incident is still under
investigation. However, we can confirm that at no point was
the National Lottery gaming system or player data affected.
"
Security commentators said it wasn't surprising a lottery
website was attacked, because they naturally see peaks of
traffic at certain times - especially when there's a much
larger jackpot than usual - which puts extra pressure on the
IT infrastructure behind such websites and systems
naturally.
Adding a DDoS attack on top, even if it's not serious, will
cause the site to crash much sooner than a website that
has been designed to deal with a high volume of requests

at all times.
However, John Graham-Cumming at DDoS-protection
company Cloudflare told the BBC the thing to note was the
machines used to issue lottery tickets were also affected,
meaning there was no way anyone could purchase a ticket
for the draw.
"They said you couldn't buy tickets from the ticket
machines, which is really interesting, it's not just the website
- it would be quite interesting to understand why that
happened," he said.
2016-01-22 00:00:00 Clare Hopping
225
World’s First Location-based App APUS
Discovery Launched
NEW DELHI, INDIA: APUS launcher
has launched APUS Discovery
which scans for the most popular
apps in the vicinity and
recommends apps as per user
preference.
The latest version of Discovery
enables user to search useful apps
in the immediate area through Pavo Engine technology that
combines location-based services and user preference
information.
The world’s first location-based app can also track most

popular games, videos, social apps in the vicinity. APUS
Discovery also provides app recommendations based on
users preferences, saving the user’s time in finding the
apps that suit their taste. For example, if you are a frequent
user of gaming apps, APUS Discovery will alert you more
frequently to gaming apps that are being used in your area.
APUS Discovery allows regular data and LBS (locationbased
service) updates in real time. APUS Discovery tracks
almost 3,000 new apps every day that include a high
volume of diversified apps that have practical use for users’
local areas.
2016-01-21 08:42:20 www.pcquest.com
226
Go Bold”.
LeEco Enters in India with Two Flagship
Smartphones -Le Max & Le1S
LeEco enters in Indian market with
its two smartphones, they call it the
superphone; Le Max & Le1S at a
very competitive price range. The
LeMax premium smartphone has
6.33-inch, 2K display and been
introduces with the slogan, “Go Big,
Le Max is backed by Qualcomm Snapdragon 810 octa-core
processor and 4GB DD-R4 RAM plus variants of 64GB or
128GB storage. it is equipped with 6-piece lens
21Megapixel rear camera with Sony’s IMX230 sensor and
Optical Image Stabilizer to deliver sharp picture and video

quality even in low light. The Dual tone flash has two
sources of light with different color temperatures ensuring
the user getting the best balance of light when clicking
pictures at any time of the day. The front camera with a
wide-angle 5P lens and F2.0 aperture allows people take
the best selfies and groupies. And a more user-friendly
design is when taking selfies, people can just touch the
fingerprint scanner at the back to capture photos or videos,
making a large phone of a 6.33 screen easier for life.
Le Max also boasts Hi-Fi audio with features like noise
reduction, lower surface noise, better frequency response
and higher power output capacity. LeEco has partnered
with AKG Acoustics, a world-class audio equipment
professional company in Europe, to develop the Le Hi-Fi
experience which delivers a powerful, undistorted sound
that music professionals have trusted for almost 70 years.
The full metal unibody design out of aircraft grade
aluminum makes the phone fashionable and sturdy, and Le
Max is also the world’s first full-floating glass, which is a
Sharp Screen exclusively for LeEco, and bezel-less design,
reaching an unmatched viewing experience.
Le Max will be available in 2 colors- shimmer gold with
128GB and titanium silver with 64GB of memory, which
would be available on Flipkart from 16th February. The Le
Max is sold for 32,999 and 36,999 Rupees for 64G and
128G respectively. LeEco also released a top-end variation
of Le Max at the event. Le Max Sapphire has the same
specs with Le Max except its display screen, which is a
6.33-inch sapphire. Not only expensive and looks elegant,

this sapphire screen is as hard as a diamond. For the
invitation-based Sapphire version of Le Max, the price will
be 69,999 Rupees.
LeEco’s another flagship device “ Le1S ”, which was
released in China in November, launched in India at an
attractive price 10,999 Rupees. The smartphone is
equipped with Helio X10 Turbo, 5.5-inch screen. 3 GB RAM
and 32 GB ROM. Le1S’ body has more screen ratio and
the 7.5mm thick Le1S weighs only 169 g.
Le1S boasts 13-megapixel rear and 5 MP front facing
camera. The rear camera is equipped with blue glass
infrared filter and ISOCELL – a technology that interprets
every single detail back to life, the camera could capture
the finest picture never a phone could make before.
Le1S has fingerprint recognition technology, which can
unlock the phone from any angle within 0.15s with 99.3%
accuracy, and the phone can maximally add 5 fingerprints.
Le1S also has the world’s first mirror-surfaced fingerprint
scanner which could be a gospel to appearance-loving
consumers.
The full-metal aircraft grade aluminum unibody makes the
phone scratch proof, for which competitors can hardly offer
the same level of resistance. Users can erase their worries
of having other hard or sharp objects in their pocket which
may scratch the phone.
A big outstanding and unique feature of Le1S is its type-C
port and fast charging technology. Different from traditional

charging ports, which may need users to fumble twice in
connecting correctly, type-C port is a two-way charging and
customers can charge either side up. And Le1S has its
unique fast-charging technology, ensuring plugging for 5
minutes in return for 3.5 hours of talk time.
The slim body and bezel-less industrial design makes Le1S
a great choice for business and entertainment and for
almost all age groups. The Le1S would be exclusively
available on Flipkart starting 2nd February, with first flash
sale on 2nd February starting 12 noon. The registration for
the same will start on 20th January 6 pm and will end on
2nd February at 11 am.
LeEco is building a network of 555 service stations in prime
locations around India, providing 24X7 multiple languages
services to customers. And the warranty policies are all
above the current industry standards.
2016-01-21 05:18:39 Ashok Pandey
227
You Wouldn't Believe that Too Many People
Still Use Terrible Passwords
Some things online can never
change like -- Terrible Passwords
by Humans.
When it's about various security
measures to be taken in order to protect your Internet
security, like installing a good anti-virus or running Linux on

your system doesn’t mean that your work gets over here,
and you are safe enough from online threats.
However, even after countless warnings, most people are
continuously using deadly-simple passwords, like
'123456' or 'password,' to safeguard their most sensitive
data.
Evidence suggests that weak passwords are as popular
now as they ever were, and the top 25 passwords of 2015
are very easy to guess.
Password management firm SplashData on Tuesday
released its annual " Worst Passwords List ". The 2015 list
almost resembled the 2014 list of the worst password, but
there are some interesting new entries, including the Star
Wars-inspired ' solo ,' and ' starwars.'
Hard to believe, but '123456' once again topped the list ,
just like last year, and again followed by the truly terrible
'password.'
Sport remains popular among online users as 'football' and
'baseball' are both on the top 10 list of worst passwords.
Top 25 Worst Passwords of 2015
SplashData analyzed over 2 Million leaked passwords in
2015, and the results are as follow:
123456 password 12345678 qwerty 123456789 football
1234567 baseball welcome 1234567890 abc123 111111
1qaz2wsx dragon master monkey letmein login princess

qwertyuiop solo passw0rd starwars "The longer passwords
are so simple as to make their extra length virtually
worthless as a security measure," says SplashData
The importance of online security around personal data has
increased due to the rise in data breaches and cyber
attacks over recent years.
Last year was the year of data breaches. According to an
estimate, around 480 Million personal data records were
leaked online, which included high-profile breaches at the
United States Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and
the extramarital affair site Ashley Madison.
So remember: "God helps those who help themselves,"
likewise nobody can secure you online unless and until you
are not willing to.
How to Create a Strong Password
Always create different passwords for different sites. So
that if one site is breached, your other online accounts on
other sites are secure from being hacked.
These are some useful tips that will help you make
password strength secure and easier to remember:
Use a combination of lowercase, uppercase, numbers, and
special characters of 8 characters long or more like
s9%w^8@t$i. Use short passphrases with special
characters separating to make it difficult for crackers and
could be easily remembered like cry%like@me (cry like
me). Avoid using the same combination of passwords for

different websites. If it is difficult for you to remember
different passwords for different websites, then use
Password Manager applications like RoboForm,
1Password, LastPass.
Stay Safe! Stay Secure!
2016-01-21 04:41:00 Wang Wei
228 Why 'data scientist' is this year's hottest job
It's notable enough that close to
half of the 25 "best jobs in America"
named by recruiting site Glassdoor
this week are tech-related, but even
more striking is the fact that "data
scientist" tops the list.
With more than 1,700 active job openings on the site earlier
this month and a median base salary of $116,840, data
scientist also garnered Glassdoor's top "job score" ranking
and "career opportunity" score.
Last year, data scientist ranked No. 9; occupying the top
spot then was physician assistant. This year's No. 11 spot,
meanwhile, goes to the related position of analytics
manager, which wasn't even on the list last year.
It's become painfully clear that data scientists and analytics
talent in general are in chronically short supply, even as
universities have begun establishing degree programs to
increase their ranks. Back in 2011 already, McKinsey

estimated that by 2018 the U. S. alone could face a
shortage of 1.5 million managers and analysts "with the
know-how to use the analysis of big data to make effective
decisions. "
The importance of data scientists is tied to two key issues,
said Charles King, principal analyst with Pund-IT. First is
the increasing desire among businesses to gain greater
value from their data.
That's related also to the rapidly growing prevalence of
analytics capabilities in a wide variety of enterprise
software.
Second is the fact that the vast majority of information that
businesses generate and collect is unstructured or semistructured
data "that can't be effectively analyzed with
traditional relational databases or tools," King said.
In fact, some estimates put that percentage as high as 80
percent, he noted.
"In essence, data scientists are trained to manage and
analyze large, often highly complex data sets, and to
develop the necessary tools for maximizing the benefits of
that information for their employers," he explained. "The job
is anything but simple and typically requires intensive
training. "
What, exactly, the data scientist role involves is a matter of
some debate, however.
"Some see the role as an architect of data platforms,

designing a workable environment for leveraging data,"
said Nik Rouda, a senior analyst with Enterprise Strategy
Group.
Others see it as "technical integration of different systems --
almost a data plumber," while yet another view regards the
role as "more a bridge between data analysis and the
business needs -- someone who is fluent in both worlds,"
Rouda explained.
However it's defined, "there just isn’t enough talent to meet
the demand," he added.
That's particularly true given that many of the tools data
scientists use today are rapidly evolving, meaning they're
both a bit unfamiliar and have rough edges.
"Data scientists are therefore held out as the hope for a
better future in big data," Rouda said, "even if their day jobs
are mostly planning, implementing or coding. "
2016-01-21 00:00:00 Katherine Noyes
229
Mad Catz’s E. S. Pro 1 Earbuds: Competitors
Only
When it comes to audio, Mad Catz
has a lengthy roster with its Tritton
headsets. But at CES, one of the
latest audio products from the
company was not a headset, but a
pair of gaming earbuds. Targeted

once again for the eSports player, the E. S. Pro 1 is
supposed to deliver the same gaming audio performance in
a smaller form factor.
The earbuds use 13.5 mm drivers and include a small
boom mic on the left earpiece. An in-line microphone is also
included next to the volume controls on the device’s cable.
The package also two additional pairs of earbud covers so
that it fits better in your ear. It uses the traditional 3.5 mm
jack for input, but split 3.5 mm jacks are included for
desktop PCs.
For CES, the company showed off the earbuds in use with
the shooter-based Nazi Zombie Army. The sound quality
from the E. S. Pro 1 is comparable to the Superhuman
Hearing feature included in some Turtle Beach headsets.
The highs are prominent, which allow you to hear footsteps,
a few ambient sounds and even the reloading of your
sniper rifle in more detail. However, there’s an apparent
lack of bass, which does remove some of the dramatic
effect when you fire a gun or hear an explosion.
Then again, the E. S. Pro 1 is targeted for the competitive
gamer. Instead of providing an immersive audio
experience, the earbuds offer the essential sound levels
that is best suited for gaming competitors in Counter Strike:
Global Offensive match or the Call of Duty World League.
In the professional scene, using sound to your advantage
can mean the difference between victory and defeat. The
E. S. Pro 1 isn’t for everyone even at the relatively low price
of $50, but if you’re desperately looking for some sort of
edge in competitive gameplay, these earbuds could do the

trick.
Follow Rexly Peñaflorida II @Heirdeux. Follow us
@tomshardware , on Facebook and on Google+.
2016-01-21 00:00:00 Rexly Peñaflorida
230
Defective Surface Pro Charger? You Can
Get A Free Replacement
Microsoft has been receiving
reports from some users of its
Surface Pro devices that the AC
power cords have been
overheating, causing failures and
minor injuries. Microsoft is now
offering its customers free AC power cords to replace the
defective units.
Microsoft said that not all owners of the Surface Pro will
need to get a replacement power cable. The overheating
issue only affects chargers that were sold with Surface Pro
devices between March 15 and July 15 last year. So far the
problem is also isolated to the United States and Canada.
If you bought a Surface Pro, Surface Pro 2 or Surface Pro 3
during this time, and your power cable isn’t overheating,
you probably want to go ahead and apply for the free
replacement anyway.
Straight out of the box, the defective power cables do not
overheat or function any differently than the non-defective

models. Over time, however, the wires inside of the cable
gradually wear down and can cause them to stop working
or to overheat. Something Microsoft changed in these
defective chargers makes them more susceptible to this
wearing, so you don’t need to be too concerned about the
replacement power cords having this issue.
You can visit Microsoft’s Surface website to find out if you
are eligible and to begin the replacement process.
Follow Michael Justin Allen Sexton @EmperorSunLao.
Follow us on Facebook , Google+ , RSS , Twitter and
YouTube.
2016-01-21 00:00:00 Michael Justin Allen Sexton
231
California Introduces Bill To Ban Strong
Encryption In Smartphones
California’s Assembly member, Jim
Cooper, introduced legislation to
ban smartphones that come with
strong encryption and can only be
encrypted by the owners of those
devices. The bill would fine the
sellers of the devices $2,500 per
unit if they receive law enforcement requests for decryption
and aren’t able to deliver. The bill would affect all iPhones
with iOS 8 and above, as well as many Android devices
(especially the ones that come installed with Android 6.0).

The bill would essentially legislate that the encryption for
these devices should be weaker than it is, to the point
where someone else, besides the owner of the phone, can
unlock the devices. This is a dangerous proposition,
especially in light of all the smartphone thefts that were
highlighted by law enforcement and state legislators, such
as the ones from California and New York, not too long
ago.
If the encryption of the devices becomes weaker, then
smartphone thieves won’t find it as difficult to unlock the
devices anymore.
The bill doesn’t seem to have come out of nowhere, either.
Just last week, the New York Senate introduced an almost
identical bill, which could mean some law enforcement
agency is trying to push this into law across the states.
FBI’s chief, James Comey, has made no secret of the fact
that he doesn’t like smartphones that can’t be decrypted,
and he even asked for backdoors in encryption throughout
the entirety of last year.
However, in New York’s case, its citizens can sign up on the
state's official website to express their approval or
disapproval of the new legislation by clicking on the Aye on
Nay buttons. As of now, California doesn’t have such a site,
which means that if you disagree with the bill, you’ll still
have to contact your local representatives in California
directly.
As device makers cannot cost-effectively build devices with
different features for each American state, if the law passes

in one or multiple states, it probably means this encryption
weakness will be enabled in all smartphones across the U.
S., and perhaps even globally. Some French politicians
tried to pass a similar law, but the amendment was rejected
as it would weaken security and trust in companies.
Lucian Armasu is a Contributing Writer for Tom's Hardware.
You can follow him at @lucian_armasu.
Follow us on Facebook , Google+ , RSS , Twitter and
YouTube .
2016-01-21 00:00:00 Lucian Armasu
232
Facebook Bolsters Immersive Video
Content With New Video Encoding
Technique, Releases Source Code
If you use Facebook, then you
would have noticed that the
company has added video sharing
to the social media website, which
has been getting very popular.
More recently, the company added the ability to share
immersive video content filmed in 360 degrees, as well as
video shot in VR. Facebook said these new formats of
video produce considerably larger file sizes, which is a big
problem for a company hosting millions of videos. To fix this
problem, Facebook Engineering worked on ways to render
immersive content much more efficiently, and today the
company is sharing those techniques.

Facebook said it adapted tools that have been used for
computer graphics and image processing for years, to bring
the same benefits to 360-degree video. The company
developed a technique to "remap equirectangular layouts to
cube maps," which it said had a dramatic effect reducing
file size and eliminating image distortion at the top and
bottom of the video. Facebook is calling this method
"Transform. "
Facebook Engineering explained the process in a video it
shared today on Facebook, but in essence, Transform
maps spherical video to six flat cube face sections. Each
section corresponds to a different part of the view, with one
section for the top, one for the bottom, and four to make up
the surroundings. Facebook said that by doing this, each
cube face has an undistorted view, which is what does
away with the warping normally found in 360-degree video.
Facebook Engineering said that these improvements work
great for 360-degree content, but streaming VR videos
required approaching the problem differently. Rather than
use the traditional cube mapping, Facebook Engineering
adapted the process with pyramid geometry. The company
said that by doing this, rather than having six equal sides
that are fully rendered, a pyramid has only one full
resolution side.
Facebook said there are 30 viewpoints to render with this
process, and it processes each video in five different
resolutions, so rather than encoding the video on the fly,
Facebook stores pre-generated video files on a server.
Clients have only their current view streamed at any given

time, rather than have the whole video file buffer in the
background. The company said this reduces the streaming
file size by as much as 80 percent.
Facebook is holding on to the pyramid maps code for now,
but the company released the source code for Transform
on GitHub and said it is “eager for people to adopt this tool,
and we can't wait to see how developers build on top of it.”
Follow Kevin Carbotte @pumcypuhoy. Follow us on
Facebook , Google+ , RSS , Twitter and YouTube
2016-01-21 00:00:00 Kevin Carbotte
233
Verizon vows to build the first 5G network
in the US
Verizon says it will have the first 5G
network in the U. S., a promise it
probably can't fulfill until 2020 but
will start working at this year.
5G is the next generation of cellular
technology after LTE and the subject of intense research
and development around the world. It's expected to
become an official standard in 2020, and some mobile
operators say they'll have it ready by then or even before.
NTT DoCoMo says it will have 5G running in time for the
2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, while SK Telecom claims
it will have a network in place for the 2018 Winter Olympics
in South Korea.

Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo made the
pledge Thursday on the company's fourth-quarter financial
results call. He also repeated the company's plans for socalled
5G trials this year.
Shammo didn't say what parts of the still-developing
technology will be tested in those trials, which will take
place in two "sandbox" facilities in San Francisco and
Waltham, Massachusetts. But he did give some hints at
what Verizon is thinking about for the future standard.
"It may not just be about mobility. It may be about other use
cases," he said. One of those is the Internet of Things,
which Verizon has already pegged as a focus of 5G. While
LTE was developed for fast connections to smartphones
and other mobile devices for people, 5G is also aimed at
sensors and other small devices that talk to each other in
slow trickles of data. IoT is a growth area for Verizon, which
reported $200 million in revenue for that segment in the
fourth quarter, up 18 percent from a year earlier.
Verizon also wants the U. S. Federal Communications
Commission to set rules that will be needed for 5G
deployment, Shammo said. Last year the agency started to
consider allowing higher frequencies than ever for 5G
networks. Those millimeter-wave bands are expected to
help 5G networks serve more connections in dense urban
areas.
Verizon was the first U. S. carrier with a large-scale 4G LTE
network, starting in 2010. The LTE network carried more
than 90 percent of its wireless traffic in the fourth quarter.

The company posted US$131.6 billion in consolidated
revenue for 2015, up 3.6 percent from 2014. It reported net
additions of 449,000 postpaid phones and 960,000 tablets
in the fourth quarter.
2016-01-21 00:00:00 Stephen Lawson
234 Enter the sandbox for email security
Hackers, attackers and
cybercriminals are no slouches
when it comes to staying on the
cutting edge of the tools of their
trade. The black hats that seek to
exploit our networks, applications and users are highly
adept at finding new ways to break into our systems.
The white hats that seek to defend us often lament that
hackers only need to be good at the job once to be a
success, whereas security pros need to be good every day.
We often cite the "arms race" or the Red Queen Effect
when talking about staying ahead of the creativity of the
hackers. Standing still for any length of time will not serve
you well in this game.
I recently gave a presentation to a select group of CIOs at
the Computing IT Leaders' Summit, in which I suggested
that anyone who hasn't taken a fresh look at their email
security infrastructure in the past 18 months is likely to be
behind the curve here. Given that rate of advancement of
threats to our email security, relying on your last upgrade "a

couple of years ago" means you're highly likely to be out of
date in terms of protection.
The best example of this, and probably the biggest threat to
email security right now, is the rise of the use of malicious
VBA macros to create weaponised attachments in email.
Hackers and cybercriminals are great experimenters and
know exactly what types of protections are used to defeat
their malware. They even download and run freely available
software trials of all the on-premises email security
applications to work out how to circumvent them. It is from
this "reverse engineering" that they've determined how to
avoid classic signature detection techniques that would look
for malicious code or traces of malware embedded in
attachments. And have graduated to using the embedded
macros in Office documents to do the dirty work for them.
The trap here is obvious; a weaponised attachment with a
malicious macro contains no "viral payload" and as such
becomes dangerous only when the malware is downloaded
by macro as the end user runs the attachment. Luckily
modern versions of Office applications disable macros by
default, but this doesn't stop administrators re-enabling the
functionality as a default, nor does it help the legions of
Office users who are running software that pre-dates the
feature.
Using VBA macros within Office document attachments is a
real demonstration of the ingenuity and dedication of
cybercriminals. It shows us why we shouldn't rely on
technology that hasn't been upgraded for a few years.

So what do we do? If classic signature-based detection is
ineffective, hackers are avoiding legacy secure email
gateway and desktop anti-virus protection and employees
are at risk from infecting themselves with seemingly
innocent looking Office files, what is the solution?
Network sandboxing isn't a new technology, it's one that's
been used in desktop antivirus for many years; Norman AS
brought the concept to the enterprise desktop a couple of
decades ago and it's been around on the network ever
since. Recently the sandbox has also been applied to the
SMTP secure email gateway, albeit with a latency
overhead. It's here that we can start to unpack the problem
of hidden macro code in attachments.
Without an email attachment sandbox, weaponised
attachments can pass straight through a classic secure
email gateway. After all, there's no malicious code in them
to trigger a signature detection. A lone URL within the
macro, obfuscated within that code and unique to that
attachment doesn't in itself pose a risk. Until the macro is
executed. This is where adding an SMTP gateway sandbox
to your security stack helps to defend and protect against
the macro threat.
Executing, exploding, detonating and other dramatic
phrases are how we describe what the sandbox does. In
short, it's simply running the attachment in an environment
that detects anomalies with its behaviour. For example, if a
sandbox is executing an Excel spreadsheet that a user has
been sent as an email attachment. And, when run the
macro calls out to a remote web server to download a ZIP

or executable file we can largely assume that's not normal
behaviour.
Now is the time to review the layers of protection you have
in place against weaponised attachments. Adding a
gateway sandbox is the latest advancement in security that
you need to consider in order to remain protected against
advanced threats.
Orlando Scott-Cowley is cyber security strategist at
Mimecast
2016-01-21 00:00:00 www.computing.co.uk
235
Cyber security pros say boards, CEOs and
CFOs don’t 'get' cyber security risk
Forty-five per cent of cyber security
professionals believe their board of
directors have a major gap in their
understanding of cyber risk, or don't
understand the risk at all, according
to research by recruitment firm
Harvey Nash, who interviewed
almost 200 senior cyber security professionals.
This should be a concern to businesses as over half (54
per cent) of boards are ultimately accountable for the cyber
strategy in their companies.
But it isn't just the board that has a limited understanding
according to many cyber security professionals - the senior

executive team have a limited understanding of the cyber
risk too; 29 per cent said that their CEO had a limited
understanding of cyber risk with some major knowledge
gaps.
Thirty-three per cent said the same for the chief operating
officer, 41 per cent for the chief financial officer, and 32 per
cent for the chief marketing officer.
While there were fewer cyber security pros who said that
CIOs and CTOs had a limited understanding of cyber risk
issues, the numbers were still perhaps a bit concerning
from an IT point of view - 16 per cent of cyber security pros
said their CIO had a limited understanding of cyber risk,
and 17 per cent said the same for their CTO.
But there was only a minimal amount of cyber security pros
who said that CIOs and CTOs had no understanding of
cyber risk whatsoever (one per cent and two per cent
respectively). The number grows for CEOs (four per cent),
COOs (five per cent) and CFOs (eight per cent), with CMOs
having the biggest proportion of cyber security
professionals suggesting they have no clue at all about
cyber risk (11 per cent).
As the number of data breaches in companies is constantly
rising, Computing questioned who would be to blame when
a company suffers from a data breach , with CIOs having
differing opinions on who is ultimately accountable.
2016-01-21 00:00:00 www.computing.co.uk

236
Big Auto Searches for Meaning Beyond
Selling Cars
The Ford Motor Company unveiled
its new Fusion sedan and powerful
F-150 Raptor pickup truck last week
at the 2016 Detroit auto show. But
shiny new sheet metal and roaring
engines were upstaged by the
company’s unveiling of a suite of so-called “mobility
services.” Those offerings include the shared use and
ownership of cars, parking reservations, multimodal routing,
small retail stores, and an iTunes-like app to provide
access to these services.
Ford’s announcement followed news from General Motors
a week earlier that it will invest $500 million in Lyft, the ondemand
ride-sharing service. On Monday, GM announced
that it would acquire the assets of Sidecar, a ride-sharing
business that shut down operations on December 31. In
fact, nearly every car company is developing a plan of
action to respond to the meteoric rise of Uber and Lyft—
and to avoid becoming strictly purveyors of mobility
hardware—formerly known as “cars” (see “ Toyota Wants
Its Cars to Expect the Unexpected ”).
“We’re at an inflection point where technology is making
things possible that weren’t possible before,” said Ken
Washington, Ford vice president of research and advanced
engineering, from the sidelines of the Detroit show. “Uber
showed the world that it can help people get where they

want to go.” The implication is that privately owned cars will
become less important over time.
In November, Gartner, a technology market research firm,
predicted that by 2020, 10 percent of today’s vehicle
owners in urban markets will replace vehicle ownership with
on-demand vehicle access. Thilo Koslowski, vice president
and automotive practice leader at Gartner, believes
companies like Uber and Lyft have an early-mover
advantage in the short-term—but in the long run car
companies could become legitimate players in mobility
services made possible through car connectivity. He says
their success won’t strictly be a matter of investment, but
developing a culture and mind-set that extends beyond
products.
Ford’s rollout of mobility services, mostly under the
“FordPass” brand name, resulted from 18 months of
evaluation into building an end-to-end customer experience
around the new offerings. FordPass, which launches in
April, will be free, whether or not users own a Ford vehicle.
FordHubs, the name for its storefront centers—which bear
resemblance to Tesla’s retail locations—will open later this
year in New York, San Francisco, London, and Shanghai.
In February, Ford plans to launch a shared-lease program
in Austin, Texas, that will allow up to six friends or
neighbors to share a single vehicle. And soon FordPass
members can speak directly to a human being, from a team
dubbed FordGuides, to book a space at a local parking
garage or receive other services.
GM is also focused on the metropolitan areas dominated by

Uber and Lyft. Julia Steyn is vice president of GM’s Urban
Active program, which she describes as a “startup within a
big company.” She points to a handful of GM pilot
programs, including a vanpooling effort on Google’s main
campus last year; a peer-to-peer carshare program called
CarUnity in Germany; and “Let’s Drive NYC,” which
provides the shared use of eight Chevrolet crossover SUVs
to residents of a 479-unit apartment building in Manhattan.
Big automakers have provided transportation services for
years, but the shift to a more service-oriented business
model has recently accelerated. The availability of a remote
human concierge via a car has been offered by GM, in its
OnStar program, for nearly two decades. Other car
companies, including Volkswagen and BMW, offer a similar
concierge service directly from the car, mostly with the goal
of providing roadside emergency services.
There is wide agreement that the shift to services will
require partnerships, like GM’s deal with Lyft. Ford is
partnering with ParkWhiz and FlightCar for parking
services. Ford also announced at CES in January that it’s
working with Amazon to integrate a Siri-like cloud-based
digital assistant into cars—so drivers can use voice
commands to access home automation systems for turning
on the porch light or opening a garage door as the vehicle
approaches (see “ Ford CEO Explains Why It’s Hard to
Build Self-Driving Cars ”).
Washington, Ford’s research chief, says services would
allow Ford to enter the $5.4 trillion market for mobility. But
exactly how it will generate revenue is not yet clear. “The

specific business model hasn’t been worked out,” he says.
The hope is that free services that address the annoyances
of transportation will lead to customer loyalty and eventually
more car sales.
BMW was early to market with mobility services such as car
sharing, parking reservations, routing and ticketing on
public transportation, and a recently announced partnership
with SmartThings, a home automation company that would
allow BMW drivers to remotely access door sensors,
thermostats, and home cameras.
Jose Guerrero, head product manager of electric vehicles,
high-performance models, and connected technology for
BMW of North America, said that its car-sharing program in
Munich—which offers everything from Minis to M
performance cars, is a way to get potential BMW buyers to
try out cars, perhaps years ahead of a purchase. He
expects these programs to generate revenue, but his more
pressing concern is creating services at the premium level
that many BMW owners expect.
When asked if BMW is interested in a shift from becoming
strictly a car company into a mobility company, Guerrero
used the opportunity to trot out its tagline: “No. At the end
of the day, we’re still the ultimate driving machine.”
2016-01-21 00:00:00 By Bradley Berman on January 21, 2016
237
Windows Phone can now work on
smartphones with Intel x86 chips

After years, the wait for Intel-based
Windows smartphones could be
coming to an end.
The Windows 10 Mobile OS --
popularly known as Windows Phone
-- can now run on x86 chips,
according to a Microsoft Web page. It's the first version of
Windows Phone to be compatible with x86.
The information on the website was confirmed by a
Microsoft spokeswoman as being accurate. Up to now,
Windows smartphones have only run on ARM-based chips
from Qualcomm.
Intel and Microsoft last year joined forces in an effort to get
device makers to bring Windows 10 to low-cost
smartphones and phablets that would run on the chipmaker's
Atom X3 chips.
Devices with Windows 10 Mobile can have screen sizes up
to 7 inches and a maximum resolution of 2560 x 1440
pixels.
Intel had said Atom X3 smartphones would be priced as low
as $75. But the current version of the chip is only 3G
capable, which may have caused mobile phone makers to
hesitate -- so far, no handset manufacturer has come out
with a Windows phone running on the Atom X3.
Faster Atom X3 chips with integrated LTE capabilities will
be in handsets this year, however.

Microsoft and Intel for years have wanted to build an
alliance in smartphones along the lines of the partnership
that made both companies successful in PCs. But Intel was
underwhelmed by the adoption of Windows Phone, which
was in just 31.3 million, or 2.2 percent, of the smartphones
that shipped worldwide in 2015, according to IDC.
Microsoft and Intel declined to provide further comment on
Windows 10 Mobile on x86 smartphones, or when handsets
would come to the market.
There are only a handful of Intel-based smartphones in the
market today, and they all run Android. Intel has in the past
said that it believes the adoption of Windows Phone will
grow, and that it wants to make its chips compatible with all
OSes.
2016-01-21 00:00:00 Agam Shah
238
TalkTalk hack: What to do if hackers have
your data
Jump to "What to do if you think you
have been affected"
21/01/2016: Customers are leaving
TalkTalk in their droves after the
mobile operator's data hack last
year, research from Kantar Worldpanel ComTech shows.
Seven per cent of TalkTalk's broadband base switched to a
different provider in the fourth quarter of 2015, Kantar's

figures show.
The research firm said there was "no doubt" that the
company lost potential customers as a result of its data
hack.
Almost a fifth of those leaving TalkTalk did so as a direct
result of poor reliability – a four per cent increase on the
previous quarter, when fewer than one per cent cited this
reason.
Imran Choudhary, consumer insight director at Kantar
Worldpanel, said: “TalkTalk continues to offer some of the
most attractive promotions across the home services
market and almost a third of its new customers did choose
it for this reason, but there can be no doubt that it lost
potential customers following the major data hack.
"If it’s to recover from recent events TalkTalk will need to
offer more than just good value.”
The telecoms firm’s systems were breached last October,
and 157,000 customers had their details stolen, which
included bank account numbers, sort codes, and dates of
birth.
The hack has already cost the company £35 million in oneoff
costs to resolve the immediate backlash related to
15,600 of those leaked bank details.
TalkTalk chief executive Dido Harding talked down the
long-term repercussions for the brand at the time, saying:
“Customers think we're doing the right things”.

BT benefitted from the exodus, with 12 per cent of its new
customers saying their primary reason for joining was
because they saw it as a trusted supplier. That figure was
twice the market average.
16/12/2015: Police recommended that TalkTalk stayed
quiet about attacks on its site while detectives carried out
their investigations and made arrests.
At a House of Commons Culture, Media and Sports
Committee , CEO Dido Harding told MPs that the cyber
attack was "one of the most difficult periods for the TalkTalk
board and for me personally".
"It was clear by lunchtime on Thursday (22 October) that
the sensible thing to do to protect my customers was to
warn all of them because I could help make them safer. I
could give them free credit monitoring, I could warn them
not to accept these scam calls," she told committee
members.
"For completely understandable reasons, the advice we
received that Thursday afternoon from the Metropolitan
Police was not to tell our customers. "
She said she opposed the idea of compensation
claims being valid and added she was “not aware of
anyone who has directly lost money as a direct
consequence of the attack. Any who have suffered a direct
financial loss should get in direct contact. We wish to deal
with on a case-by-case basis.”

Harding added that the Telecoms Ombudsman "is there to
adjudicate, and customers not getting fair redress from
their insurance company, bank, or telco, should go there.”
In reply to questions over who was responsible, Harding
said that no one individual in the firm was.
"It really does come back to the CEO and board. Was there
sufficient oversight in terms of the security policies, the
resourcing of the technology team to implement those
policies, and the knowledge and understanding of best
practice?
"It is a board level issue, not an individual issue below. "
25/11/2015: An 18-year-old boy was arrested in Llanelli,
Wales, over the TalkTalk data hack yesterday.
The teenager becomes the fifth person detained in relation
to the cybercrime incident and was arrested on suspicion of
blackmail, and taken into custody at a Dyfed Powys police
station.
The four others arrested – a 16-year-old boy from Norwich,
on suspicion of offences under the Computer Misuse Act, a
20-year-old man from Staffordshire, a 16-year-old boy from
Feltham and a 15-year-old from County Antrim, Ireland, all
subsequently bailed.
A total 157,000 customers had data stolen in October’s
cyber attack, TalkTalk has confirmed, with cybercriminals
making off with 21,000 bank account numbers and sort
codes, along with 28,000 obscured credit and debit card

details and 15,000 dates of birth.
20/11/2015: A law firm is considering legal action against
TalkTalk on behalf of customers whose data was lost in the
mobile operator's latest leak.
Hugh James law firm, based in Cardiff, told the Guardian it
has been approached by victims of the data breach and is
encouraging others to come forward to join a possible
group legal action against the company.
Partner Gwen Evans said: "Since the serious security
breach occurred last month, we have been approached by
a number of TalkTalk customers who are naturally
concerned about whether their personal data has been
accessed and misused.
“We are considering whether there is a case to take group
legal action against TalkTalk because it is highly likely that
the Data Protection Act 1998 will have been breached
during this time. "
A total 157,000 customers had personal data stolen in the
October attack, TalkTalk has confirmed.
16/11/2015: TalkTalk must "up their amateurish game"
regarding data security, according to the Open University's
technology expert.
Writing in the Guardian , professor of the public
understanding of technology, John Naughton, said the
mobile operator's board must take more responsibility for
customer security, saying that the company's failure to

encrypt users' data cannot be blamed solely on engineers.
"Companies like TalkTalk are up against professional
criminals," he wrote. "They, therefore, need to up their
amateurish game. If a company’s business requires it to
store customers’ sensitive information, then data security
has to be a board-level responsibility, up there with health
and safety and regulatory compliance. It is not just a matter
for techies and boffins. "
He added: "There have to be serious criminal and civil
penalties for carelessness, complacency or incompetence.
11/11/2015: TalkTalk's cyber attack will cost it between
£30 million and £35 million, it has admitted.
Despite just 160,000 customers losing personal data in last
month's hack, shares in the mobile operator have dropped
by a quarter since news of the incident went public.
But it blamed one-off costs like the loss of online sales for
the predicted dip in earnings, and CEO Dido Harding today
announced a string of free offers to customers who have
stayed with the firm as a way of thanking them.
Customers can choose a selection of free features,
including extra TV channels, a mobile SIM with free texts,
data and calls, and unlimited landline and mobile calls from
1 December.
Meanwhile, TalkTalk has announced a new bundle of
online and telephone security features, such as F-Secure's
anti-virus protection, web filter HomeSafe, and the ability to

lock cold callers.
Harding said: " TalkTalk takes the security of customers’
data extremely seriously and we are taking significant
further steps to ensure our systems are protected, as well
as writing to all our customers outlining what we are doing
to keep their data safe. “In recognition of the unavoidable
uncertainty, and because we know that doing what is right
for our customers will ensure the best possible outcome for
the company over the longer term, we are today
announcing the offer of a choice of free upgraded services
to all our customers. "
06/11/2015: Only 156,959 TalkTalk customers had any
personal data stolen in the hack on its systems, the mobile
network has claimed - far fewer than the 1.2 million
originally feared. Of those, roughly 10 per cent had their
bank account number and sort code stolen, about 5,000
fewer than stated last week.
"Ongoing forensic analysis of the site confirms that the
scale of the attack was much more limited than initially
suspected, and we can confirm only four per cent of
TalkTalk customers have any sensitive personal data at
risk. However, we continue to advise customers to be
vigilant, and to take all precautions possible to protect
themselves from scam phone calls and emails," the
company said in an updated statement.
TalkTalk said it has now contacted all customers whose
financial details were accessed and will be contacting all
other affected customers over the next few days.

The company also claimed that "the financial information
accessed cannot on its own lead to financial loss", however,
stories of defrauded customers abound, including one man
who was offered just £30 as a "goodwill gesture" after
£3,500 was stolen from his bank account in the wake of the
hack.
04/11/2015: Police have arrested a fourth person in
connection with the TalkTalk data hack, this time a 16-yearold
boy from Norwich.
The teenager was detained by police yesterday on
suspicion of offences under the Computer Misuse Act after
the National Crime Agency and the Met’s Cyber Crime Unit
obtained a warrant to search an address in the city.
The boy has been released on bail until late March 2016,
after a 20-year-old man was arrested in Staffordshire in
connection with the cybercrime incident, and bailed until
early March.
Two other boys – a 16-year-old from Feltham and a 15-
year-old from County Antrim, Northern Ireland – have also
been arrested and bailed in connection with the attack.
More than a million customers were affected by the hack,
TalkTalk has confirmed, while 21,000 bank account
numbers and sort codes were stolen.
03/11/2015: TalkTalk customer data is being sold on the
dark web for as little as 20p per record, according to
reports.

An L BC investigation claimed it found 2,500 customer
accounts on the dark web and used a sample of the data
from the criminals selling it to contact victims of the hack,
including a woman called Louisa Jenkins.
She told the Nick Ferrari Breakfast show: “I'm quite angry. It
feels like your details are never safe.”
The news comes days after a Sunday People investigation
that found a criminal calling himself Martian claimed to sell
TalkTalk data on a dark website called Alpha Bay for £1.62
a time, offering information in bulk.
02/11/2015: Hackers stole 1.2 million customers' email
addresses, names and phone numbers in the TalkTalk data
breach, the company has confirmed.
02/11/2015: A 20-year-old man has been arrested in
connection with the TalkTalk hacking scandal.
He was taken into custody by Staffordshire police on
suspicion of offences under the Computer Misuse Act and
is the third person held in connection with the case after
one 15-year-old boy from Northern Ireland and one 16-
year-old boy from west London were arrested and
subsequently bailed last week.
The 16-year-old has been bailed until a date as yet to be
revealed by police while the 15-year-old from Northern
Ireland is on bail until later this month.
30/10/2015: Police have arrested a second teenage boy in
connection with the TalkTalk hack, this time, a 16-year-old

from West London.
The boy was arrested on suspicion of Computer Misuse Act
offences, reports BBC News , but has since been bailed.
This follows the arrest of a 15-year-old boy from Northern
Ireland, who was arrested earlier in the week.
A property in Liverpool has also been searched, according
to the Metropolitan Police.
27/10/2015: TalkTalk has announced it will still charge
customers affected by the TalkTalk hack a fee if they want
to discontinue their service and cancel their contract.
However, it will waive termination charges if a customer can
prove they have had money stolen from their bank
accounts, although it denies this is a likely scenario
because neither bank details nor credit card information
was stolen in the attack.
"In the unlikely event that money is stolen from a
customer's bank account as a direct result of the cyberattack
[rather than as a result of any other information
given out by a customer], then as a gesture of goodwill, on
a case-by-case basis, we will waive termination fees," it
said in a statement.
Also this morning, the Police Service of Northern Ireland
revealed the 15-year-old arrested last night in County
Antrim in relation to the hack has been released on police
bail pending further enquiries.
However, Jonathan Craig, a member of the Policing Board

in Northern Ireland, told the Belfast Telegraph that should
the boy be found to be implicated in the attack it "raises
questions" for TalkTalk as to how a teenager from County
Antrim could have breached a major telecoms provider.
26/10/2015: Labour accused the government of chaos and
incompetence over its response to the TalkTalk data
breach today, as reports emerged of a 15-year-old boy's
arrest in connection with the attack.
Shadow minister for culture and the digital economy Chi
Onwurah questioned her Tory counterpart Ed Vaizey over
Whitehall’s data policy, claiming it has failed to keep up with
cybercriminals’ endeavour.
Speaking in the House of Commons today , Onwurah said:
“This government’s data policy is chaos illuminated by
occasional flashes of incompetence. Will the minister
acknowledge that all the innovation has come from the
criminals while the government sit on their hands, leaving it
to businesses and consumers to suffer the
consequences?”
Her comments came hours before Scotland Yard confirmed
a 15-year-old boy had been arrested on suspicion of
Computer Misuse Act offences.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland and the Met’s
cybercrime unit arrested the teenager in County Antrim at
4.20pm today and have taken him into custody.
The hack has led to victims’ bank accounts being emptied
by cybercriminals, with millions believed to have had their

personal details leaked after TalkTalk admitted it had not
encrypted customer data.
Vaizey failed to confirm whether or not police would receive
more resources to respond to the hacking case and its
victims after Onwurah questioned how the government
would help police.
Instead, he replied: “The police have extensive resources
with which to combat cybercrime, and we are the
government who set up the national cybercrime unit.
“We have invested more than £860 million in cyber-security
and we have a number of very effective schemes with
which to engage business.”
TalkTalk reported the breach to UK data watchdog the
Information Commissioner’s Office on Thursday, Vaizey
added, a day after the breach took place.
However, he refused to reveal how many customers
TalkTalk believe have been affected by the breach – it is
thought to be in the millions, but the figure remains
unconfirmed.
25/10/2015: TalkTalk has admitted it did not encrypt
customer data such as credit card details and telephone
numbers after hackers stole potentially millions of
customers’ information.
CEO Dido Harding told the Sunday Times today: "It wasn't
encrypted, nor are you legally required to encrypt it.

"We have complied with all of our legal obligations in terms
of storing of financial information. "
The mobile operator has four million users but has not
confirmed how many it believes were caught up in the data
breach it suffered earlier this week.
However, TalkTalk could face thousands of legal claims
from victims, with the total payout rising to around £20
million, according to insurance law firm BLM, including the
cost of replacing four million credit cards.
Partner and head of technology Tim Smith told the
Financial Times : “[It is] quite probable that customers will
sue for a breach of the Data Protection Act and a breach of
confidence and privacy rights.”
Meanwhile, an £80,000 ransom note received by Harding
from someone claiming responsibility for the hack included
a table of 400,000 TalkTalk customers who have recently
undergone credit checks with the company,
KrebsOnSecurity reported.
It comes after the Times claimed yesterday that victims’
bank accounts had been emptied by hackers, adding that
TalkTalk had ignored criticism of its online security a year
ago.
23/10/2015 3pm: TalkTalk’s CEO has received a ransom
note purportedly from the hackers responsible for a huge
data hack that could affect millions of customers.
Dido Harding told BBC News : “It is hard for me to give you

very much detail, but yes, we have been contacted by, I
don't know whether it is an individual or a group, purporting
to be the hacker.
"All I can say is that I had personally received a contact
from someone purporting - as I say I don't know whether
they are or are not - to be the hacker looking for money. "
The email will be examined by the Metropolitan Police,
which is investigating the hack.
It is not yet clear how many customers’ data has been lost
in the leak, but TalkTalk has four million users and the
information lost includes names, addresses, dates of birth,
telephone numbers and credit card details – not all of this
was encrypted.
The mobile operator lost the data in the middle of a
distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack, during which its
servers crashed under huge volumes of traffic.
It is believed hackers may have used the DDoS attack to
distract TalkTalk’s security team while they pinched the
data.
The mobile operator has recommended people change
their passwords as soon as its site goes back online, and
this latest breach is the third in 12 months to hit the
company.
What could happen to customers?
Christopher Boyd, malware intelligence analyst at

Malwarebytes, said hackers could target customers with
phishing attacks now they have their details.
“People should … be paying close attention to emails and
other communication which appear to be genuine at first
glance,” said Boyd.
“If those messages are asking for additional information,
service sign-ups or providing refund request attachments
they should think very carefully before proceeding, lest they
fall victim to a malware attack or yet another incident of
data theft. "
IT security company ESET warned that criminals will also
use the data to steal customers’ identities.
Security specialist Mark James said: “The data of all their
customers will almost certainly be used for potential identity
theft along with the obligatory attempts at financial access
with any current information they may have attained.
“There was ‘some partial’ encryption of credit card
numbers, we are led to believe, but businesses need to
understand that all our private data has a value, not just the
direct financial stuff.”
The consequences for TalkTalk
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has been
notified of the breach and will investigate it, potentially
leading to a fine of up to £500,000 for TalkTalk.
But Mahisha Rupan, senior associate at law firm Kemp

Little, said TalkTalk’s swift notification to customers of the
breach could mitigate any such penalty.
“The ICO is likely to take into account TalkTalk’s response
to the breach and its attempt to limit any losses incurred by
the customer,” said Rupan.
ESET’s James added that TalkTalk should bolster its
security following the attack, saying: “Companies should
implement proper use of cryptography, encrypting the
sensitive data and hashing the passwords in a
cryptographically sound way. We are forced to trust
companies with our data and so often that trust is lost
through no fault of our own.”
23/10/2015 10am: TalkTalk has confirmed that hackers
have once again infiltrated its website in what the company
has called a "sustained" cyber attack that took place on
Wednesday this week.
It is not known just how many of the firm's four million
customers have been affected but hackers are believed to
have been able to gain access to a wide range of sensitive
information including names, addresses, dates of birth,
email addresses, telephone numbers and other TalkTalkspecific
account data.
Perhaps more concerning for TalkTalk customers is the fact
that credit card or bank details have also been exposed as
the company confirmed that such information may be
among the data hackers had access to during the cyber
hack.

Yesterday, the comms giant announced that the
Metropolitan Police had launched a full criminal
investigation into the issue, in addition to issuing an apology
to customers, which started with the words no customer
wants to hear: "We're very sorry... "
"We are continuing to work with leading cyber crime
specialists and the Metropolitan Police to establish exactly
what happened and the extent of any information
accessed," TaklTalk's managing director (consumer) Tristia
Harrison said in a statement issued online.
TalkTalk said it had taken measures to secure the website
after the hack and that it constantly reviews its system
security to protect data and prevent subsequent attacks.
However, many users will take convincing as this is not the
first time TalkTalk has suffered a data breach. Back in
February this year (see story below), the company
confirmed hackers had stolen personal user information
and were targeting customers with scam phone calls.
"We would like to reassure you that we take any threat to
the security of our customers’ data very seriously,"
Harrison's statement continued.
"... Unfortunately, cyber criminals are becoming
increasingly sophisticated and attacks against companies
which do business online are becoming more frequent. "
The incident has been reported to the ICO and TalkTalk
has contained major banks to keep them on high alert for
suspicious activity on customer accounts. It has also

ecommended that customers monitor their own accounts
for any unauthorised or unusual activity and to also check
their credit reports held with the main agencies Call Credit,
Experian and Equifax.
TalkTalk has also addressed frequently asked questions
related to the attack online to help customers better
understand what has happened and how they might be
affected.
In response to the question 'Why were you targeted?' the
company has responded: "Unfortunately TalkTalk is by no
means an isolated incident. Barely a week goes by now
without cybercriminals using increasingly hostile and
sophisticated methods to target companies that do
business online. It’s not just companies like TalkTalk that
are being targeted, banks, retailers like Apple and even the
US Government have been victims. "
27/2/15: TalkTalk has confirmed hackers accessed its
systems and stole personal information about its
customers, resulting in some receiving follow-up phone
calls from scammers.
In a statement issued to IT Pro , TalkTalk confirmed a small
number of its four million customers had their account
names and numbers compromised.
"We are aware of a small but nonetheless significant,
number of customers who have been directly targeted by
these criminals and we have been supporting them
directly," the firm said in a statement.

"We want to reassure customers that no sensitive
information like bank account details has been illegally
accessed, and TalkTalk Business customers are not
affected. "
TalkTalk confirmed the Information Commissioner’s Office,
which is responsible for enforcing the Data Protection Act,
has been made aware of the breach.
The data theft came to light following an uptick in reports
from customers about receiving suspicious-sounding phone
calls from individuals claiming to work for TalkTalk at the
end of 2014, TalkTalk said in an email to customers.
“In a small number of cases, customers told us that the
criminals were quoting their TalkTalk account number, as
well as their phone number,” it states.
“Following further investigation into these reports, we have
not become aware that some of the information we have
about some customers – their name, home address, phone
number and TalkTalk account number – could have been
illegally accessed in violation of our security procedure.
“Please rest assured that your sensitive information of date
of birth, bank or credit card details have not been illegally
accessed,” it adds.
The email then goes on to reiterate that TalkTalk will never
take its customers banking details over the phone or ask
them to download any kind of software onto their
computers.

“Preventing all scam and nuisance calls is a high priority for
us. We are doing everything possible to prevent this from
happening again, and to protect you from all malicious and
nuisance calls.
“In some cases we are able to block certain callers,
including those from these criminal organisations, from
ringing customers on our network, if they’ve breached a
strict set of criteria.
“You can also block your number from receiving unsolicited
sales calls by registering with the Telephone Preference
Service,” the email concludes.
Advice from Wim Remes, Rapid7
"We often hear the question "What can users of a
compromised service do? " - If you suspect that personal
data is compromised, there are several steps you can take.
These are actually the same steps you should consider in
order to minimise the impact of a compromise:
This article was originally published on 27/02/15 and has
since been updated numerous times as new facts emerge,
most recently on 16/12/2015.
2016-01-21 00:00:00 Caroline Donnelly Maggie Holland Jane McCallion
Joe Curtis Clare Hopping Caroline Preece Christine Schauer Rene
Millman Aaron Lee
239
IBM has "long way to go" to halt revenue
decline

IBM is falling behind its competitors
in its traditionally strong areas of
software and hardware, with growth
in its analytics, cloud, mobilility,
security and social divisions failing
to stop revenue decline.
The company's end-of-year results for 2015 show that total
earnings were down 12 per cent year-on-year, with the
biggest losses in software, followed by an 11 per cent
decline in software and seven per cent fall in services
revenues. Hardware was not such a big blow for the
company, with revenues down one per cent for the last
quarter of 2015 to $2.4bn (£1.69bn).
IBM's strategic imperatives division, comprising cloud,
analytics and engagement, made for much more pleasing
reading, increasing 10 per cent year-on-year, or 16 per
cent when you take into account currency shifts.
Cloud revenues showed the most promising levels of
growth, increasing 43 per cent to $10.2bn (£7.2bn), with
cloud delivered as a service solutions raking in the most
cash for the company.
The reason its strategic growth areas were so successful
was because of a number of acquisitions to strengthen its
hold on cloud-based solutions, such as Meteorix,
AlchemyAPI , Cleversafe and SoftLayer , which have all
helped build its portfolio of clients and grow revenues.
"We continue to make significant progress in our

transformation to higher value. In 2015, our strategic
imperatives of cloud, analytics, mobile, social and security
grew 26 percent to $29 billion and now represent 35
percent of our total revenue," said Ginni Rometty, IBM
chairman, president and chief executive officer.
"We strengthened our existing portfolio while investing
aggressively in new opportunities like Watson Health,
Watson Internet of Things and hybrid cloud. As we
transform to a cognitive solutions and cloud platform
company, we are well positioned to continue delivering
greater value to our clients and returning capital to our
shareholders," Rometty added.
Nevertheless, analysts have been left unimpressed.
Peter Roe of TechMarketView said: "Guidance for 2016
does not inspire confidence, with an annual eps (earnings
per share) figure of US$13.50 being well below earlier
expectations. GTS (Global Technology Services) looks as if
it will lead better performance as cloud volumes grow,
particularly via Softlayer, but the outlook for margins is
unlikely to be very positive.
"Despite the growth in its strategic initiatives, the IBM reality
is revealed in the cautious revenue and earnings guidance.
The company is certainly making progress, but there is still
a long way to go. "
2016-01-21 00:00:00 Clare Hopping

240
Humble Firaxis Bundle goes live
The Humble Firaxis Bundle offers a
great deal for strategy fans, though
how many games in the pack they
won't already own is questionable.
Strategy fans rejoice: pay-whatyou-want
expert Humble Bundle
has put together a collection of Sid
Meier's finest works in the new Humble Firaxis Bundle.
Available for the next 13 days, the Humble Firaxis Bundle is
best thought of as a playable portfolio of the more recent
works of strategy supremo Sid Meier. The lowest tier,
available for payments of $1 or more, gets the buyer copies
of XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Sid Meier's Pirates!, Ace Patrol
and Pacific Skies, and the complete Civilization III. Those
who beat the average, currently hovering just below the
$10 mark, will also get the complete Civilization IV,
Civilization V, Starships, XCOM: Enemy Within, the Elite
Soldier and Slingshot packs for XCOM: Enemy Unknown,
and a voucher worth 10 per cent off Humble Bundle's new
subscription service with the promise of more games to
come.
The final tier, meanwhile, is available to those paying $15
or above and comes with Meier's latest title: Civilization:
Beyond Earth, plus the Exoplanets Map Pack to expand the
base game. Buyers will also have the option of buying the
Rising Tide downloadable content pack at a 33 per cent
discount over its normal selling price.

For strategy fans, the bundle will doubtless be tempting -
though it's hard to imagine a strategy fan who won't already
own a large percentage of the bundle's contents, and the
Steam redemption system used by Humble Bundle packs
each tier together and will not provide the option to gift
games already found in your Steam Library.
As always, a user-selectable percentage of the purchase
price goes to charity, with Action Against Hunger
International chosen as this bundle's recipient. More
information can be found on the official website.
2016-01-20 18:28:00 Published on 20th January 2016 by Gareth
Halfacree
241
AMD's 2015 results highlight continued
financial troubles
AMD's Lisu Su has painted a rosy
picture of her company's future,
even as it reports a massive $481
million loss for its latest financial
year. AMD has reported its lastquarter
earnings for its 2015
financial year, and they'll make
tough reading for anyone hoping that the company's
financial troubles may be easing.
The company's quarterly results showed a 10 per cent
sequential and 23 per cent year-on-year decline in
revenue, dropping to $958 million for the quarter thanks to

a seasonal dip in semi-custom chip sales and the impact of
the continuing slump in the traditional PC market. The
result: an operating loss of $49 million for the quarter, an
improvement on the quarter prior which had a $65 million
inventory write-down charge attached, with a welcome uptick
in profit margin of seven percentage points to a stillpoor
30 per cent.
Combined with the last three quarters for a full-year view,
AMD's troubles are placed in sharp focus: revenue of $3.99
billion is down 28 per cent year-on-year while poor profit
margins throughout 2015 led to a year-end total of just 27
per cent, down six points year-on-year. All told, those
figures have led to an operating loss of $481 million for the
year - a massive increase over the $155 million loss the
company made for its 2014 financial year.
Despite this, the company is still trying to paint a rosy
picture of its future. ' AMD closed 2015 with solid execution
fuelled by the second straight quarter of double-digit
percentage revenue growth in our Computing and Graphics
segment and record annual semi-custom unit shipments, '
crowed AMD president and chief executive Lisu Su of the
results. ' While 2015 was challenging from a financial
perspective, key R&D investments and a sharpened focus
on innovation position us well to deliver great products,
improved financial results and share gains in 2016. '
During the earnings call, Su revealed that the first
processors based around the new Zen architecture - which
the company hopes will reverse its fortunes before it runs
out of cash completely - will be hit the enthusiast market by

the end of the year, with server-centric parts due early
2017. It's no exaggeration to say that the company's future
rests on the success of Zen and the upcoming Polaris
graphics core family.
2016-01-20 11:25:00 Published on 20th January 2016 by Gareth
Halfacree
242
TSMC promises 10nm tape-out, outlines
5nm roadmap
TSMC has stated it will tape out its
first 10nm parts this quarter, and
plans to offer 7nm by 2018 and
EUV-based 5nm by 2020. Taiwan
Semiconductor, the fabrication outfit
better known as TSMC, has
confirmed that it plans to tape out
its first products based around a 10nm process within the
next few months and has a plan to transition to 7nm by
2018 and 5nm by 2020.
In the world of silicon semiconductors, process node is
king. Dropping the size of your components and
interconnects is the only way to follow Moore's Law, the
observation by Intel co-founder Gordon Moore that the
number of transistors on commercial semiconductors
roughly doubles every 18 months, without ending up with a
CPU the size of a basketball court. Moving to a smaller
process node means being able to cram more transistors
into the same space, while also bringing about

improvements in performance and power efficiency.
There's a limit, however. As you drop below 10nm, the laws
of physics begin to get in the way. Drop low enough below
5nm, and electrons start behaving as though the
components aren't there - which is ever so slightly awkward
when you're trying to build a working chip. Even before
these extremes are hit, smaller process nodes bring with
them increasingly difficult engineering challenges: Intel,
which is typically a node ahead of the competition, ran into
real problems in 2013 with its 14nm process node, and
recently warned that its 10nm node would be delayed for
much the same reason.
TSMC, though, reckons it has cracked 10nm. The company
has confirmed that it plans to tape out its first 10nm parts
within this quarter. If so, the company would have beaten
Intel to the punch, with the American company's own
delayed 10nm node not due for mass production until 2017.
Meanwhile, Samsung - one of the few semiconductor
companies next to Intel which still operates its own fabs -
has declared that volume production of its own 10nm
process node parts will begin before the end of the year.
TSMC has an aggressive roadmap, too: during its most
recent earnings call, co-chief executive Mark Liu explained
that his company's roadmap sees it beginning production of
7nm parts in 2018 and 5nm - which will require a switch to
extreme ultra-violet lithography (EUV), as the size of the
gaps in the lithographic masks becomes too small for other
forms of light to pass cleanly through - by 2020.
2016-01-20 02:26:00 Published on 19th January 2016 by Gareth

Halfacree
243
US releases Iranian Hacker as part of
Prisoner Exchange Program
The United States has freed 4
Iranian nationals ( including one
Hacker ) and reduced the
sentences of 3 others in exchange
for the release of 5 Americans
formerly held by Iran as part of a prisoner swap or Prisoner
Exchange Program.
The Iranian citizens released from the United States
custody through a side deal to the Iran nuclear agreement.
Iran released five Americans, including:
Washington Post reporter Jason Rezaian Former U. S.
Marine Amir Hekmati Student Matthew Trevithick Christian
pastor Saeed Abedini Pastor Nosratollah Khosravi-Roodsari
The United States pardoned seven Iranian nationals,
including:
Nader Modanlou Bahram Mechanic Khosrow Afqahi Arash
Ghahreman Touraj Faridi Nima Golestaneh (Hacker) Ali
Sabounchi "These individuals weren't charged with
terrorism or any violent offenses. They are civilians, and
their release is a one-time gesture to Iran given the unique
opportunity offered by this moment and the larger
circumstances at play," President Barack Obama said

Sunday. "And it reflects our willingness to engage with Iran
to advance our mutual interests, even as we ensure the
national security of the United States. "
Iranian Hacker Released by the United States
However, among the released Iranian nationals was the
hacker who attempted to steal military secrets from a U. S.
company.
Nima Golestaneh , a 30-year-old Iranian man, was
extradited to the United States from Turkey last year after
being suspected of a hacking attack against American
defense contractor Arrow Tech Associates .
In October 2012, Golestaneh successfully broke into the
servers of the Vermont-based aerodynamics company,
which builds ballistics prediction and testing software, and
then plundered its databases in an attempt to steal
software worth Millions of Dollars.
Federal investigators tracked Golestaneh down to Turkey
and then extradited to the U. S. last year to face trial on
charges of wire fraud, unauthorized access to computers
and money laundering.
However, Golestaneh was pardoned by the United States
and sent back to the Islamic Republic before being
sentenced.
It is believed that Golestaneh was part of Iranian
increasingly active hacking team that, according to
American officials, is targeting both United States

infrastructure and defense companies, as well as the email
systems of the Las Vegas Sands casino.
The prisoner swap comes just a few days after the Iran
captured and released 10 United States sailors in the
Persian Gulf.
2016-01-20 00:19:00 Wang Wei
244
Intel embeds multi-factor security on sixthgeneration
Core vPro CPUs
Most days, Intel Corp. is first and
foremost a chip maker, designing
and refining one of the core
ingredients of any computer. But
every now and then, the company comes out with a new
technology whose sole purpose seems to make life easier.
This week was one of those times.
Sixth generation Core vPro
Of course, it wouldn’t be an Intel announcement without
processors. From Santa Clara on Tuesday, the
vendor announced the 6th generation Intel Core vPro chip,
which, over a five-year-old system that the company said
businesses would be replacing, it has up to 2.5 times the
performance, three times the battery life, and a 30 times
increase in graphics performance.
But here is where Intel wants to make life easier.

Intel Authenticate
The company unveiled what it’s calling Intel Authenticate,
included in all of its sixth-gen chips, which provides
hardware-enabled multi-factor authentication.
“Employees want their machines ready for them to use,”
said Tom Garrison, vice-president and general manager for
the Intel Business Client division.
He explained that the feature allows anywhere between
one to three factors to be used to gain access to a PC.
These include biometrics, which for now is limited to a
fingerprint, a password or pin, and proximity sensors such
as Bluetooth from a smartphone. He said he envisioned the
technology to evolve in the future to include other methods
of authentication, such as facial features.
The technology works by storing a user’s credentials, as
well as the IT department’s policy “in hardware below the
software level.”
“This means it’s not vulnerable to the class of software
attacks that we tend to see today,” Garrison said.
Intel Unite
Two other solutions are coming from the company. Intel
Unite will be a software-based application that integrates
Skype for Business to make conferences and collaboration
easier.
Features include extended display capabilities to match its

vision of going wire-free, with new or existing displays and
projectors. There is proximity-based auto-disconnect for
those exiting meetings, and Intel has even promised better
real-time interaction. The solution, again, relies on the new
chips that it is bringing out, as well as OEMs that include
Acer, Asus and Logitech, but more details are expected in
the coming months.
Intel Small Business Advantage (SBA)
The software doesn’t stop there, however. Intel SBA will
give SMBs control over various routine tasks as well as
additional security measures. These include file sharing,
connectivity, security and maintenance update controls, as
well as chat, and other features such as USB blocker and
backup and restore.
“Our goal, our mission is to help enable workplace
transformation,” Garrison said.
2016-01-20 00:00:00 Dave Yin
245
Got data? This free tool will generate a
story to tell you what it means
Charts and graphs may be some of
the most commonly used tools for
bringing data sets to life, but
Narrative Science wants you to
consider another one: stories.
The company already helps enterprises put data-driven

stories to work through its flagship Quill natural language
generation platform, and on Wednesday it debuted a new
option in the form of an extension designed specifically for
users of visual analytics tools from business intelligence
software vendor Qlik.
Companies that use Qlik Sense data-visualization software
can now download the free Narratives for Qlik extension
and automatically create stories that explain what's most
interesting and important about their graphs and charts.
Narratives for Qlik automatically identifies what is most
relevant in a chart or graph and generates an
accompanying narrative. It also dynamically responds as
the user refines the analysis, Narrative Science says.
Insights are described in natural, easily understood
language, with personalization available to reflect the
desired level of story detail, composition, format and
language style.
"We've been talking in the business-intelligence world for
many years now about making your data tell a story," said
Seth Grimes, an analyst with IT consultancy Alta Plana.
"This does that. It turns your data into a story in words. "
That, in turn, can facilitate understanding of the data,
Grimes added.
"What we're talking about here is really a new twist on
reporting," he explained. "Instead of a bar chart or pie
chart, the software will generate in words what you'd see in
the picture. "

By offering a new access point for understanding data, the
tool could be particularly useful for people with visual
disabilities, or as a "crutch" for business users during
presentations, he suggested.
In short, "it's a mechanism for simplifying the interpretation
of data for a broad set of users," Grimes said. "I'm
expecting we'll see something similar from competitors. "
2016-01-20 00:00:00 Katherine Noyes
246
It Asda be a critical security flaw – ignored
by supermarket chain for two years
Supermarket chain Asda ignored a
critical security flaw for almost two
years after it had been notified by a
sharp-eyed user - and the company
has only promised to fix it after the
information security consultant who
uncovered it went public.
Furthermore, users have complained that the company,
owned by the American retail giant WalMart, has also
ignored complaints over a number of other minor security
flaws and sloppy website security practices.
Paul Moore claims that he informed the company in March
2014 of a security flaw that would enable an attacker to
hijack sessions and steal credit and debit card data. He was
promised a rapid fix, but the supermarket chain

subsequently ignored it.
" Back in March 2014, I contacted Asda to report several
security vulnerabilities and despite a fix promised 'in the
next few weeks', little appears to have changed ," he wrote
in a blog on Tuesday, finally making the security flaw public.
"After 677 days and several tweets along a similar vein, my
patience has finally run out. "
The website, he claims, carries cross-site request forgery
and cross-site scripting flaws that would enable an attacker
to hijack accounts, a process he demonstrates in a
YouTube video. The hijack can be executed without the
users even knowing anything is wrong - just by having a
website open with the malware payload in the same
browser. The exploit would also enable an attacker to gain
payment card and other details as the user enters them
into the Asda website.
Moore notes that in the time since he notified Asda of the
flaw, some 19 million transactions will have taken place.
Moore claims that while he is unaware of any exploits
targeting Asda taking place, he has been contacted by
people who suspect that it may have been used to steal
credit and debit card details to make fraudulent purchases.
Furthermore, while Asda asserts that it is secure and that it
very quickly fixed the security flaws shortly after he went
public, Moore notes that it was not the only sloppy and
insecure practice that the company was running.
"They don't enforce SSL/TLS during login and the entire

session is maintained over an insecure protocol," he says,
while others have noted the use of unencrypted HTTP to
file forms, such as job applications bearing personal
information.
"Despite a speedy response to my first email and a privacy
policy which suggests otherwise, Asda do not appear to be
overly concerned about the security of their customers," he
concluded.
2016-01-20 00:00:00 www.computing.co.uk
247
Using Patient Fingerprints to Break Down
Medical Record Silos
For the over 40 million people
served by the more than 300 health
systems working with startup
CrossChx , checking in for a
doctor’s appointment is much like
unlocking an iPhone. All you need is
your right index finger. Touch it
onto a fingerprint reader at the
check-in desk, and your identity is
verified. Your driver’s license can stay in your wallet.
As well as making doctor visits simpler and preventing
fraud, CrossChx’s founders say that its system can
eventually help free U. S. patient records from the
inefficiencies and errors imposed by the usually isolated
and often outdated IT systems of health-care providers.

Although the U. S. government has spent billions to
encourage uptake of electronic medical records, many of
the intended benefits have proved elusive. CrossChx says
that it has found that 14 percent of records have serious
identity errors, for example. And it is difficult for patients to
compile a complete medical record and get it to a new
provider, which can lead to unnecessary or ill-chosen tests
and treatments.
Sean Lane, CEO and cofounder of CrossChx, says that
using fingerprints to offer a strong, common identity system
for health providers provides a crucial piece of plumbing
needed to materialize the intended but missing benefits of
electronic health records.
“Identity is the foundation you need to build to make
portability and all these other grand ideas possible,” says
Lane. He hopes to see patients one day have a copy of
their own medical record inside a mobile app, and be able
to transfer it to a new provider instantly without having to fill
forms.
CrossChx is based in Columbus, Ohio, and has received
$20 million in investment funding, including from Khosla
Ventures, which is betting heavily that computing
technology will transform health care (see “ More Phones,
Fewer Doctors ”).
CrossChx doesn’t yet move patient medical records
between providers. But providers are using the startup’s
fingerprint ID and accompanying encryption software to
compare records between different health systems to

detect errors, without the actual data having to be
disclosed.
A person’s fingerprint generates a unique ID code that’s
used to find and compare records for the same person with
different providers. CrossChx’s encryption is designed such
that errors like typos in a person’s name or social security
number can be flagged without disclosing the real data,
allowing health providers to take action to fix missing
information. CrossChx doesn’t store images of patient
fingertips, only cryptographic codes generated from them
that make it nearly impossible to reconstruct a person’s
unique fingerprint.
Niam Yaraghi , a fellow at the Brookings Institution who
studies healthcare IT, says that CrossChx has made
impressive progress on a longtime problem for the U. S.
health system. “Providing a unique patient ID is a very
significant step forward, both medically and politically,” he
says. “It is an important step toward interoperability.”
Privacy concerns have blocked previous attempts on the
problem, Yaraghi says. And in 1999 Congress passed
legislation prohibiting the U. S. Department of Health and
Human Services from spending federal funds on
development of patient ID technology. Yaraghi says that the
need for better patient ID technology is now even more
acute, due to the fact that patient records are now
commonly stolen by hackers (see “ Hackers Are Homing In
On Hospitals ”).
Lane says that people are now much more comfortable

with using fingerprints to secure data thanks to the
technology appearing on smartphones. His plan is to add
more features to its ID plumbing system, gradually making
more and more possible with medical records.
The company has built a kind of “app store” where health
providers can buy software that works with medical records
secured by CrossChx’s encryption software, for example to
manage waiting times. Later this year, CrossChx plans to
release a mobile app for consumers where they can
compile a version of their health record on their phone.
Eventually, Lane says, that app will be capable of linking
into CrossChx technology for health providers, allowing
patients a way to control access to their own records.
However, despites CrossChx’s impressive start, Yaraghi at
Brookings says the company’s quest to fix America’s
blighted health records system won’t be easy. Signing up
300 providers is a good start, but not everyone is ready to
abandon the traditional worries that shared ID systems
pose privacy and legal risks, he says.
2016-01-20 00:00:00 By Tom Simonite on January 20, 2016
248
Memory that learns could help tomorrow's
intelligent computers
As researchers try to build more complex computers that
get closer to emulating the way the human brain works, one
of the areas of focus is memory.

Existing chips, hard disks and tape
drives are great at storing large
amounts of data, but a new breed
of memory chip called a memristor
could go a step further: helping the
artificial intelligence systems of
tomorrow actually understand the
data and make more use of it.
Memristors could help computers connect the dots to
identify diseases or help self-driving cars recognize objects
based on probabilities and associations. Memristors are
best used in machine-learning models to make predictions
based on patterns and trends culled from large stacks of
information, said Alex Nugent, CEO of Knowm.
Knowm is a New Mexico-based start-up and one of the
companies working on memristor technology.
Knowm's memristors are designed around human brains, in
which a synapse that connects two neurons gets stronger
the more often a signal is passed. Similarly, the learning
and retention of information on Knowm memristor circuits
are determined by data flow characteristics and the current.
Knowm doesn't yet have a fully functional memristor chip.
But it has introduced prototype test kits for researchers and
academics on which its memristor design can be emulated.
Knowm's test kit will include a chip with analog and digital
circuits, software packages and algorithms.
Knowm's current memristor is a "learning processor" that

works alongside CPUs, GPUs and other processors,
Nugent said.
The company is going up against some big competitors,
including HP.
HP plans to use them in a new type of computer called The
Machine. It believes memristors could potentially replace
both storage and memory in computers and is partnering
with SanDisk to make the components. SanDisk says
memristors could be 1,000 times faster and durable than
flash storage.
Nugent believes memristors will lead to new computers that
are better at learning and extracting intelligence from data
patterns. Machine-learning is possible on today's
computers, but it is not efficient and draws a lot of power,
Nugent said.
It could be many years until the first chips based on
Knowm's architecture appear in commercial products. The
startup is being funded through equity investment and
government grant programs, and will receive more equity
funding from an undisclosed partner in the coming months.
2016-01-20 00:00:00 Agam Shah
249
‘Worst passwords’ list 2015 topped by
123456
The most commonly used password of 2015 was '123456',
according to an annual list from security firm SplashData.

The company has been compiling a
list of the world's most common
passwords, and by extension the
"worst passwords", for five years,
reminding people that a poor
password leaves them more
exposed hacking or having their
personal details accessed.
SplashData's report was compiled from more than two
million leaked passwords during 2015. '123456' and
'password' have held onto the top two positions since the
first list in 2011.
Other passwords in the top 10 include 'qwerty', 'football'
and 'baseball'.
Last year, however, the top 25 most common passwords
also included 'starwars', as well as terms that could well be
related to the popular sci-fi series, which was a talking point
throughout 2015.
New terms in the 2015 list that bear relation to Star Wars
included: 'princess' (as in Princess Leia) and 'solo' (as in
Han Solo). Not to mention the returning term 'master' (as in
Jedi master).
Other passwords on the 2015 list that did not appear on the
2014 list included 'welcome', 'login' and 'passw0rd'. The
Force was not strong with these passwords, SplashData
quipped.

Having a strong password is not a guarantee of security.
2015 witnessed major hacks against TalkTalk , and
previously unknown sites like Ashley Madison. But it's not
just online account information at risk. A poor password on
a Wi-Fi router or your tablet computer could expose you to
data theft locally.
In the five years that SplashData has been compiling its list,
many of the passwords in the top 25 -- often basic
numerical strings '1234567890' -- have remained that
same.
In order to better protect themselves, the company
recommends that people use passwords or passphrases of
12 characters or more with mixed types of characters;
avoid using the same password over and over again on
different websites; and use a password manager to
organise, protect and generate random passwords.
Reflecting on this year's list, SplashData CEO, Morgan
Slain, said: "We have seen an effort by many people to be
more secure by adding characters to passwords, but if
these longer passwords are based on simple patterns they
will put you in just as much risk of having your identity
stolen by hackers. "
The full list of 2015's 25 most commonly used passwords is
below:
2016-01-20 00:00:00 Aaron Lee

250
BETT 2016: Education minister Nicky
Morgan to champion better use of pupil
data
The government will champion
better use of data in schools in
order to track pupils' progress,
Education Secretary Nicky Morgan
said today.
Such a move would also improve communication between
schools and the Department for Education (DfE), she told
delegates at the BETT show in London.
“It is too often difficult to get data out of education systems,"
Morgan said in her keynote speech. "Systems need to talk
to each other. "
To this end, the DfE plans to pilot common data standards
for school data sharing, with Morgan saying these systems
need to improve to support data collection and exchange.
While other speakers at the show promoted technology as
a way to let children remember fewer facts, or
recommended radical changes to traditional education in
favour of a computer-centric curriculum, the Education
Secretary took a differing view.
“We see technology as an aide and not a replacement for
excellent teaching,” she told delegates, adding that
technology would need to be “evidence-based and
outcome driven” in order to get government backing.

“Every young innovator should have access to the
technology they need,” Morgan continued. “All our children
should learn the benefits of technology.”
Contrary to others, Morgan saw “teachers as our most
valuable resource for the highest quality education" and the
government will focus on developing top talent to teach
computer science. These teachers would need to work with
employers to upskill people for the future.
While she said access to the internet and search engines
were “no substitute for knowledge”, Morgan did
promote the use of technology to cut down on paperwork.
“Online and computerised testing could minimise teacher
workload,” she said.
Picture courtesy of Number 10
2016-01-20 00:00:00 Rene Millman
251
Theresa May wants civilians to tackle
cybercrime
Home Secretary Theresa May
wants to sign up private citizens as
volunteers to help police tackle
digital crime, allowing forces to
identify IT specialists who have the
necessary expertise.
She said: “We want to help forces to create a more flexible

workforce, bring in new skills and free up officers' time to
focus on the jobs only they can carry out.
"At the same time, we want to encourage those with skills in
particular demand, such as those with specialist IT or
accountancy skills, to work alongside police officers to
investigate cyber or financial crime, and help officers and
staff fight crime more widely.”
However, the trade union Unison, which represents public
sector workers, accused May of trying to recruit citizens to
fill gaps in police forces affected by cuts.
A spokeswoman said in a statement: “The government is
clearly pinning its hopes on a volunteer army to plug the
huge gap left by the loss of so many dedicated and skilled
police staff.
“Volunteers cannot be deployed to tackle serious crime in
the middle of the night, and they are free to absent
themselves from the workplace at any time, because they
have no contract of employment. This makes volunteers
totally unsuitable for police forces that need to know they
can turn out staff in an emergency.”
In the proposals, the Home Office confirmed citizens could
play a greater role in crime investigations “as their
experience grows”.
But security firm Digital Guardian said the government's
plans overlook a gap in expertise that already exists in
cybersecurity, a problem which has been recognised by
Chancellor George Osborne .

Thomas Fischer, principal threat researcher, said: " The
announcement implies there are large quantities of trained
infosec personnel out there that are willing and able to help
for free, which simply isn’t the case. For many years the
infosecurity industry has faced a recruitment drought. As a
result, individuals that do meet the required training
standards are highly sought after assets, likely to be in wellpaid
positions, with very little time to do volunteer work on
the side. "
The plans were first revealed in a consultation document
released last September, but the government has not yet
said which of the proposals it will carry out.
There are around 16,000 volunteer police officers, called
Special Constables, in England and Wales.
2016-01-20 00:00:00 Joe Curtis
252 Government urged to switch to blockchains
issuing passports.
The UK's chief scientific adviser Sir
Mark Walport has suggested the
government should start using
blockchains to run many of its
monetary and security services,
including tax collection, benefits and
The tech, which is also used by digital currency Bitcoin,
would enable the government to be more secure when

managing money and highly confidential information.
Blockchains digitise the information in traditional ledgers
and are then shared by all the computers that access them
across a network, making records permanent rather than
only activated when the data is transferred. Private
blockchains can only be accessed by the systems granted
access and are therefore protected against malicious
tampering, making it a highly secure option for the
government.
The suggestion was made in a report, which examined how
blockchains can be used by a wide variety of government
services.
"Distributed ledger technologies have the potential to help
governments to collect taxes, deliver benefits, issue
passports, record land registries, assure the supply chain of
goods and generally ensure the integrity of government
records and services," the report said.
"In the NHS, the technology offers the potential to improve
health care by improving and authenticating the delivery of
services and by sharing records securely, according to
exact rules. "
As it stands, the way the government manages data -
especially related to secure transactions - it not protected
enough, Walport said. He added that using a centralised
system as is currently the case could cause many of the
services already digitised to fail.
The report suggested the government starts trialling digital

ledger technology to see whether it can be used effectively.
2016-01-20 00:00:00 Clare Hopping
253
Augmented Reality Study Projects Life-
Sized People into Other Rooms
Nothing beats talking to another
person face-to-face, but a group of
researchers are considering
whether a life-size projection of a
person who appears to be sitting
across from you in an actual chair might be a close second.
Room2Room, a project from Microsoft Research, does just
this: it uses Kinect depth cameras and digital projectors to
capture the image of a person in 3-D in one room and
project a life-sized version of that person in real time onto a
piece of furniture in another room, where someone else is
actually hanging out, and vice versa. Each person can then
see a digital image of the other with the correct perspective,
look at the other person from different viewpoints, and
interact accordingly, the researchers say.
A paper on the work will be presented at the Computer-
Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing
conference in San Francisco at the end of February.
Augmented reality—the idea of combining digital images
with real life—has been around for years, but it’s only
recently that the technology has started to catch on.
Microsoft is among the companies trying to popularize AR

y testing out its HoloLens headset, which it envisions as a
tool for work and play, and secretive Florida-based startup
Magic Leap is also working on a head-worn device that has
similar aims (see “Breakthrough Technologies 2015: Magic
Leap” ).
To make Room2Room work, the researchers took
advantage of an existing Microsoft Research augmentedreality
project called RoomAlive , which uses Kinect depthsensing
cameras and digital projectors to create a roomsized
augmented-reality gaming arena. Instead of setting
up just one room with this hardware, though, they set up
two similar ones so they could scan a person sitting in each
room and project him into the other one.
A video I was shown illustrates how it looks, with one man
sitting on a chair, while another man is projected into a
chair across from him (Room2Room places the projected
image of a person into an open space, like a chair if the
person is captured in a seated position).
In order to get a sense for how well people could
communicate this way, seven pairs of study participants
built three-dimensional shapes with blocks via augmented
reality. One person sat in front of a table in one room with
the actual blocks, while their partner sat in another, giving
instructions for what kind of shape to construct. Each
person was projected into the other’s room so they could
work together.
Researchers found that while putting this kind of puzzle
together took only about four minutes when people were

face to face, it took about seven minutes using the
augmented-reality system and nine via Skype video chat.
There are still plenty of other issues to solve before
something like Room2Room is likely to show up in
boardrooms or living rooms. While the depth-sensing and
projection hardware needed to make it work is widely
available, it’s bulky and can be a pain to set up. Also, it
doesn’t produce very high-resolution images, says
Tomislav Pejsa , who worked on Room2Room while an
intern at Microsoft Research and was the lead author of the
paper. The low resolution meant it could be hard to tell
where a projected person’s gaze was aimed.
Tobias Höllerer , a professor at the University of California,
Santa Barbara, who studies augmented reality, says the
resolution could easily be improved, and expects we will be
using systems similar to Room2Room in the coming years.
The growing popularity of virtual reality, spurred by the
upcoming release of some consumer-geared headsets
from companies like Oculus, could help push this kind of
augmented-reality technology along, too, he thinks.
“If you think about it, it took like 50, 60 years to get from the
first demos of video telephony to where we are with Skype
and everything else,” he says. “These are the beginnings of
more immersive conferencing.”
2016-01-19 00:00:00 By Rachel Metz on January 19, 2016

254
AMD's Zen chips coming first to high-end
desktops at end of 2016
AMD's highly anticipated Zen
processor architecture will first
come to high-end desktops like
gaming PCs at the end of this year.
The chip maker is in conversations
with PC makers to use Zen-based chips, code-named
Summit Ridge, said Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, during an
earnings call on Tuesday.
Early next year, Zen chips will be in servers. There's no
word on when Zen would be introduced in laptops.
AMD has high expectations for its Zen processors. The
company hopes to provide the best virtual reality and
gaming experience by combining Zen with its GPUs based
on the Polaris architecture, which will ship mid-year.
Looking into 2016 and beyond, Su was also confident that
AMD would gain share in the PC processor market, which is
dominated by Intel. AMD's Zen chips will likely square off
against Intel's current Skylake or next-generation Kaby
Lake chips.
AMD already offers FX chips with up to eight cores for
gamers, and Summit Ridge will likely be sold under that
brand. The desktop chips will have a high-core count and
support the latest DDR4 memory, AMD has said.

The gaming and home builder desktop market was once
strong for AMD, but it has lost ground to Intel, whose Core
chips that can be overclocked have been finding more
buyers.
Su characterized the Summit Ridge chips as a "re-entry"
into the high-performance desktop market. AMD has been
inconsistent in recent years in its release of chips for
gaming desktops.
A Zen-based CPU offers a performance uplift of 40 percent
per cycle than Excavator CPU cores, which are in current
chips code-named Carrizo, Su said.
The performance improvements are due to a number of
new technologies. A high-bandwidth caching system
improves internal throughput so memory, cache and CPUs
can communicate faster. The chips will be made using the
advanced 14-nanometer process, in which transistors will
be stacked, which should also bring improvements in
performance and power efficiency.
AMD's PC business has been performing poorly. Due to a
decline in PC shipments, revenue for AMD's Computing
and Graphics revenue -- which deals in PC and graphics
chips -- declined to US$470 million in the fourth quarter of
fiscal 2015 compared to $662 million in the same quarter a
year ago.
AMD reported a net loss of $79 million in the fourth quarter,
compared to a profit of $18 million in the same quarter a
year ago. The company reported revenue of $958 million,

declining from $1.24 billion.
2016-01-19 00:00:00 Agam Shah
255
Virtual reality meets 3D printing with HP's
Sprout Pro
HP is updating its innovative Sprout
PC, which attempts to blend the
real and digital worlds.
The Sprout Pro all-in-one desktop is
a souped up version of the original
Sprout and retains its two most distinctive features: a touchsensitive
mat that sits on the desk in front of the PC and an
arm that extends from above the monitor.
The mat is a large canvas on which real objects can be
scanned by a 3D camera in the arm. The arm also contains
a projector that displays images on the mat.
Real objects like a coffee cup can be scanned into Sprout,
after which a 3D representation of them is displayed on the
screen. The 3D models can be turned, reshaped, colored
or cropped via hand on the Touch Mat.
The images generated via Sprout Pro can be exported to
Autodesk’s Meshmixer or Microsoft’s 3D Builder software in
preparation for 3D printing. The images can be used for
computer-aided design, or exported to OBJ files for use in
games or VR worlds.

HP's Sprout Pro can be used for 3D image creation and
manipulation.
The Touch Mat could also replace a physical keyboard, and
users can type on a virtual keyboard projected on the
canvas. The Sprout Pro provides an easier and natural way
to digitize and manipulate images by hand.
The Sprout Pro is part of HP's strategy to bring virtual and
augmented reality to PCs and mobile devices. The
company's focus is on creation and manipulation of VR and
AR worlds that are shown in headsets. Also part of the
strategy is the 23.6-inch Zvr monitor, which allows users to
modify objects "in thin air" with a stylus-like pointer and 3D
glasses.
Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Nvidia are exploring ways
to blend virtual and real worlds in mainstream computing.
Sprout is in its early days, and HP is turning to students to
figure out interesting uses for the desktop. HP plans to put
Sprout Pro in hundreds of schools. The Sprout Pro will be
available next month starting at $2,199.
It has Intel's latest Core i7 processor code-named Skylake,
Nvidia GeForce GT 945A graphics processor, 1TB of
storage and 8GB of DDR4 memory (upgradeable to 16GB),
802.11ac Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0. It also has two USB 3.0
ports, an HDMI 1.4 slot and an Ethernet port.
2016-01-19 00:00:00 Agam Shah

256
Microsoft plans to donate $1 billion in
cloud services to nonprofits, researchers
afford them.
Microsoft plans to donate US$1
billion in cloud services over three
years to nongovernmental
organizations and researchers, in a
bid to provide access to these
services to communities that can't
The donation by Microsoft, the size of which has been
calculated at fair market value, could also bring long-term
business benefits, as it would help the company win over a
number of potential long-term users to its cloud platform.
Among the questions being asked at the World Economic
Forum at Davos, Switzerland is how to make the benefits of
cloud technology available universally rather than let only
wealthy societies have access to the data, intelligence,
analytics and insights that come from cloud computing,
wrote Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella in a blog post Tuesday
.
The new Microsoft Philanthropies arm of the company, set
up last month, will provide nonprofits with the full suite of
Microsoft cloud services, including Microsoft Azure, so that
NGOs can run applications and make use of computing and
storage power, CRM Online to manage relationships with
donors and beneficiaries, and the Enterprise Mobility Suite
to manage all of their devices, applications, and data.

Microsoft aims to address 70,000 NGOs through one or
more of its cloud offerings by the end of 2017 and will focus
on serving even more groups after that every year,
Microsoft President and Chief Legal Officer Brad Smith
wrote in a blog post. In 2016 alone, the company expects to
donate close to $350 million in cloud services to nonprofits,
according to Smith.
The other leg of the Microsoft program is the expansion by
50 percent of donations for its current Microsoft Azure for
Research program, which has so far provided free cloud
computing resources for over 600 research projects on six
continents. Microsoft is also planning to donate cloud
services combined with last-mile connectivity for
underserved communities around the world. The company
is focused on using TV white spaces, which are unused
portions of wireless spectrum in the frequency bands
generally used for television, for last-mile connectivity.
Microsoft has been pushing its cloud services around the
world, including setting up data centers in some countries
to meet local government requirements that data should be
stored locally.
Philanthropy efforts by tech companies have, however,
been viewed with skepticism, as they are seen as secretly
promoting business agendas. Facebook's Free Basics, a
program to provide select Internet services including
Facebook to users without data charges, has been
criticized in India as a way to promote the social networking
platform.

Microsoft's program to use TV white spaces for connectivity
has also been criticized by the Indian mobile industry, which
is demanding that the white spaces should be auctioned
rather than given free.
2016-01-19 00:00:00 John Ribeiro
257 WhatsApp is Now Free For Lifetime
Good News for WhatsApp users!
The widely popular messaging
service is going completely free.
And you'll be able to use WhatsApp
without paying a penny.
Old WhatsApp users might not be aware of this, but
WhatsApp introduced the subscription fees for its service a
few years ago, forcing new users to pay an annual 99 cents
(~$1) subscription fee after the first year.
However, WhatsApp announced Monday that the
Facebook-owned company is dropping its annual
subscription fee to make its service free to all users.
While announcing the plan today, WhatsApp's founder Jan
Koum stated that the annual subscription fee was still a
barrier to some users. "As we have grown, we have found
that this approach has not worked well," WhatsApp
admitted in a company blog post today. "Many WhatsApp
users do not have a debit or credit card number, and they
worried they'd lose access to their friends and family after

their first year. "
What will be WhatsApp's New Business Model?
WhatsApp categorically said the company won't be
replacing the subscription fee with third-party
advertisements like intrusive banner and interstitials, which
nowadays is a common practice used to make free
applications profitable.
Instead, the company said it will explore ways businesses
can use WhatsApp to connect with individuals, and will
introduce new ways for users to communicate with
businesses and organisations that will pay the company to
target relevant communications with customers.
For example:
A bank could use WhatsApp paid account to communicate
with its customers about recent transactions and necessary
fraud warnings. An airline could use WhatsApp paid
account to contact its passengers about a delayed
schedule or cancelled flight.
It is the same approach WhatsApp parent company
Facebook is using with its own Messenger application,
which in last month started allowing its users to book an
Uber cab directly through the Messenger app.
2016-01-18 04:11:00 Swati Khandelwal

258
FBI Has Named Hacker allegedly
responsible for The Fappening Leaks
Remember The Fappening
incident?
Took place in mid-2014, in the
incident, anonymous hackers
flooded the Internet with private nude photographs of major
celebrities, including Jennifer Lawrence , Kim Kardashian ,
Kate Upton and Kirsten Dunst.
The Fappening was the result of the hack of thousands of
Apple's iCloud accounts, including those belonging to
Hollywood actresses, models and major celebrities.
Main Culprit Behind The Fappening
However, now two years later, new court documents reveal
the name of the FBI’s top suspected hacker: Ed Majerczyk .
In October of 2014, the Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) raided the home of Ed Majerczyk, a Chicago man
believed to be the chief culprit behind a series of 2014
leaked celebrity nude photos that came to be known as '
The Fappening ' or ' Celebgate '.
The man allegedly suspected of illegally accessing iCloud
accounts from his home in Chicago. Also, the FBI found
some sexual photographs lifted from Jennifer Lawrence,
among his alleged social engineering exploits, according to
court documents obtained by Gawker.

Here's How The Fappening Happened
Majerczyk's name came up after the federal agents raided
the Chicago home of Emilio Herrera , who was alleged to
have breached thousands of Apple's iCloud accounts,
including more than 100 celebrity victims .
The court documents [ PDF ] show Majerczyk inevitably
gained access to victim's iCloud accounts after posing as
an " Apple Technical Assistant " employee, resulting in the
stealing of the nude photos of very famous actresses and
subsequently leaking them to the Internet. "The FBI says
Majerczyk, through a series of bogus email accounts like
'appleprivacysecurity@gmail.com' created a phishing
dragnet that duped very famous victims into providing him
with their passwords through some pretty elementary
tricks…," Gawker reported.
How Did Jennifer Lawrence Hack?
Lawrence – who called the leak a " sex crime " – lost
access to her iCloud account and then received a fake
support email from appleprivacysecurity@gmail.com. The
message reads as follows: "Your Apple ID was used to
login into iCloud from an unrecognized device on
Wednesday, August 20th, 2014. Operating System: iOS 5.4
Location: Moscow, Russia (IP=95.108.142.138) If this was
you please disregard this message. If this wasn't you for
your protection, we recommend you change your password
immediately. In order to make sure it is you changing the
password, we have given you a one-time passcode,
0184737, to use when resetting your password at

http://applesecurity.serveuser.com/. We apologize for the
inconvenience and any concerns about your privacy. Apple
Privacy Protection. "
Lawrence then forwarded the phishing email to her
assistant that could have given the hacker full access to her
iCloud account.
The court documents show that Majerczyk used the
combination of deceptive web domains and fake security
warnings appear as if they originated from Apple in order to
gain access to other Hollywood stars iCloud accounts .
According to the FBI, Majerczyk breached 330 unique
iCloud accounts from his home a total of over 600 times in
2014. And once breached, Majerczyk downloaded the
entirety of a victim's iPhone camera roll and uploaded it on
4chan.
A report by the Sun-Times notes that the overwhelming
majority of the victim's iCloud accounts accessed by
Majerczyk were from outside of Illinois.
The FBI investigation is ongoing. So let's wait and watch
what comes next.
2016-01-18 01:53:00 Swati Khandelwal
259
Big data is an antitrust issue too, says
European Commissioner
Europe's top antitrust authority is on the lookout for

companies using big data to stifle
competition, although it hasn't
spotted any problems yet,
according to Competition
Commissioner Margrethe Vestager.
It's good news when companies
use data to cut costs and offer better service, the European
Commission's competition chief said at the DLD conference
in Munich on Sunday.
"But if just a few companies control the data you need to
satisfy customers and cut costs, that could give them the
power to drive their rivals out of the market. And with less
competition, there's a risk that there won't be enough
incentive for companies to keep using big data to serve
customers better," she said.
When vetting merger proposals, the amount of data that
companies control, and the availability of other sources of
comparable information, are key concerns for the
Commission,
The issue came up in two merger cases, Vestager said:
Google's 2007 purchase of DoubleClick and Facebook's
acquisition of WhatsApp two years ago.
But despite Google's size and the insight that DoubleClick
gave it into the effectiveness and reach of banner
advertising, "In the particular circumstances of those cases
there was no serious cause for concern, because even
after those mergers other companies would have access to
many sources of useful data," she said.

While the Commission hasn't opposed Google's
acquisitions, it has objected to the way the company
promotes its own services in search results, and is
investigating the way it bundles its own services and apps
with its Android operating system.
Control over data doesn't just allow companies to squeeze
existing rivals out: It can also allow them to block new
entrants.
"We have to make sure new ideas have a fair chance,"
Vestager said. "Powerful companies mustn't abuse their
power to stop new ideas having a chance of success. "
Big data is a corporate asset like any other, though, and
shouldn't require special antitrust regulation. "We don't
need a whole new competition rulebook for the big data
world. Just as we didn't need one for a world of fax
machines, or credit cards, or personal computers,"
Vestager said.
Likewise, she said, the Commission isn't going to intervene
just because a business is based on data.
"If a company’s use of data is so bad for competition that it
outweighs the benefits, we may have to step in to restore a
level playing field. But we shouldn’t take action just because
a company holds a lot of data. After all, data doesn't
automatically equal power," she said.
Companies such as Google and Facebook are able to
compile their vast collections of data about us because we

give it to them, using it as currency to pay for an otherwise
free service.
But, said Vestager, "This new currency brings its own
challenges. It isn't always easy to know what it’s worth. The
exchange rate between data and services isn't reported on
the news, so it can be hard to decide how much data to
give up. "
Once consumers have paid the price for these free
services, they start to worry about what companies will do
with their personal data, and whether they will take good
care of it.
Barely a quarter of people trust online businesses to protect
their personal information, Vestager said, but she
dismissed suggestions that market forces could, or should,
fix this.
"I don't think we need to look to competition enforcement to
fix privacy problems," she said, pointing to the
Commission's recent rewriting of data protection law as the
solution.
But, she said, "That doesn't mean I will ignore genuine
competition issues just because they have a link to data. "
2016-01-18 00:00:00 Peter Sayer
260 Microsoft Lumia 950XL review
Specifications

Processor Octa-core 2.0GHz Qualcomm
Snapdragon 810
Screen size 5.7in
Wireless data 3G, 4G
Size 152x78x8.1mm
Weight 165g
Screen resolution 2,560x1,440
Rear camera 20 megapixels
Storage 32GB (29.1GB)
Operating system Windows 10
Warranty One year RTB
Details www.microsoft.com
Part code RM-1085
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2016-01-18 00:00:00 Alan Lu
261
Advantech industrial serial-to-Internet
gateways wide open to unauthorized
access
Internet-connected industrial
devices could be accessible to
anyone, with no password, thanks
to a coding error by a gateway
manufacturer.
Taiwanese firm Advantech patched
the firmware in some of its serial-to-IP gateway devices in
October to remove a hard-coded SSH (Secure Shell) key
that would have allowed unauthorized access by remote
attackers.
But it overlooked an even bigger problem: Any password
will unlock the gateways, which are used to connect legacy
serial devices to TCP/IP and cellular networks in industrial
environments around the world.
Researchers from security firm Rapid7 discovered the
vulnerability in the revised firmware, version 1.98, released
for the Advantech EKI-1322 Internet protocol (IP) gateway

which can connect serial and Ethernet devices to a cellular
network.
The firmware contains an open-source SSH server called
Dropbear that has been heavily modified. As a result of
these modifications, it no longer enforces authentication,
allowing any user to connect to it with any public key and
password, the Rapid7 researchers said in an advisory.
In addition, there might be another backdoor account built
in with a hard-coded password, separate from the
previously found and removed SSH key, the researchers
said.
The new issue was fixed in version 2.00 of the firmware for
EKI-1322, released on Dec. 30. Users are advised to
update to this version as soon as possible.
Even though only the EKI-1322 firmware was tested, the
Rapid7 researchers believe that the same authentication
bypass flaw might exist in all other Advantech EKI serial-to-
IP gateways.
Advantech advertises such products as a simple way to
bring remote management and data accessibility to
thousands of industrial devices that cannot natively connect
to TCP/IP networks.
However, vulnerabilities like this one highlight the risks of
connecting such sensitive equipment to the Internet and the
importance of strong network segmentation policies in
industrial environments.
2016-01-18 00:00:00 Lucian Constantin

262
Hyatt hackers hit payment processing
systems, scooped cards used at 250
locations
Hackers managed to compromise
payment cards used at 250 Hyatt
Hotels locations in around 50
countries after infecting the
company's payment processing
systems with malware.
Hyatt announced the data breach back in December and
launched an investigation. On Thursday, it published the full
list of affected locations and the time interval during which
the payment cards were exposed: Aug 13. to Dec. 8.
Most of the potentially compromised cards were used at
restaurants in the affected locations, but a small
percentage were used at spas, golf shops, parking
systems, front desks and sales offices.
The malware installed on the company's computers was
designed to capture payment card details like cardholder
names, card numbers, expiration dates and verification
codes when passed from the affected locations to the
payment processing systems.
The company is in the process of sending
notification letters to customers for whom it has physical
mailing addresses and via email to others. Affected

customers will be offered a one-year subscription to identity
and fraud protection services provided by US-based CSID
for free.
Hyatt has worked with third-party cybersecurity experts to
close the security breach and take additional measures so
that it doesn't happen again.
The company is the latest in a long string of organizations
whose payment systems were infected with malware in
recent years. Other companies from the hospitality industry
that suffered similar breaches include Hilton Worldwide,
Mandarin Oriental and Starwood Hotels & Resorts
Worldwide.
2016-01-15 15:48:00 Lucian Constantin
263
Bitcoin is a failed experiment, says major
Bitcoin developer
Fissures in the Bitcoin community
appear to be turning to chasms,
with one prominent developer
abandoning the cryptocurrency for
good.
Mike Hearn, a longtime developer who often speaks about
Bitcoin to the press and in presentations, wrote on Medium
that he’s sold all his coins and will no longer participate in
development.
“What was meant to be a new, decentralised form of money

that lacked ‘systemically important institutions’ and ‘too big
to fail’ has become something even worse: a system
completely controlled by just a handful of people,” Hearn
wrote. “Worse still, the network is on the brink of technical
collapse. The mechanisms that should have prevented this
outcome have broken down, and as a result there’s no
longer much reason to think Bitcoin can actually be better
than the existing financial system.”
Why this matters : Bitcoin’s proponents have long hoped
that it would revolutionize the world’s financial system ,
breaking down geographic barriers and allowing users to
conduct transactions anonymously. But lately, the effort has
been set back by drama and infighting among its
developers. Hearn’s summary of the state of Bitcoin is well
worth reading , though it’s worth noting that he’s not an
unbiased source.
Keep in mind that Hearn himself has played a central role in
the recent controversy. Last August, Hearn and Gavin
Andresen, chief scientist at the Bitcoin Foundation, created
a forked version of the cryptocurrency called Bitcoin XT.
The goal of Bitcoin XT is to expand the size of the “blocks”
that process transactions, allowing for speedier purchases
and increasing Bitcoin’s mainstream appeal.
Hearn has argued that a small number of miners—largely
concentrated in China—were preventing an expansion in
Bitcoin’s block size due to selfish reasons, and Bitcoin XT
would effectively serve as a vote for larger blocks.
However, some in the Bitcoin community saw XT as little
more than a coup, and that the split was bad for the

currency as a whole.
In any case, Hearn notes how the atmosphere turned ugly
after Bitcoin XT’s creation. Bitcoin forum moderators began
banning any mention of XT, and moved to delist the Bitcoin
wallet service Coinbase from Bitcoin.org for backing the
fork. Bitcoin XT users have also suffered massive denial-ofservice
attacks, Hearn says.
Today, Bitcoin XT accounts for 9.4 percent of Bitcoin
nodes, according to a site that tracks it. That’s down from
14 percent soon after the fork launched. It seems the bad
blood surrounding the fork, combined with the community’s
inability to improve the core version of Bitcoin, has led
Hearn to give up.
“Previous crises, like the bankruptcy of Mt Gox, were all to
do with the services and companies that sprung up around
the ecosystem,” Hearn wrote. “But this one is different: it is
a crisis of the core system, the block chain itself.”
2016-01-15 15:40:00 Jared Newman
264
Amazon Prime price slashed 25% this
weekend to celebrate Golden Globe win
This weekend Amazon is
celebrating its Golden Globe wins
for the series Mozart in the Jungle
with a price drop on an annual
Prime membership. Starting at 9

p.m. Pacific on Friday and lasting until 11:59 p.m. local time
on Sunday, Amazon is selling an annual Prime subscription
for $73—a $26 dollar price cut. Amazon raised the regular
price of Prime subscriptions from $79 to $99 in early 2014.
This is the second time Amazon has dropped the price for
Prime memberships in recent months. In September,
Amazon dropped the price of Prime to $67 after taking
home five Emmys for Transparent during the 67th Emmy
Awards. Similarly, the 2016 Golden Globes were the 73rd
annual celebration of the awards show.
The story behind the story: There’s nothing Amazon loves
more than grabbing new Prime subscribers. People who
sign up for free shipping tend to shop more on Amazon and
use Amazon’s online services, which is a big win for the
online retailer.
In addition to shipping deals, Amazon keeps tacking on
subscriber benefits to Prime, with the most recent one
being 20 percent off new game titles —as long as you don’t
mind physical discs rather than digital downloads. On top of
that, there’s free music and video streaming, an e-book
lending library, unlimited photo storage, and early peeks at
upcoming sales.
If you’ve been thinking about getting an Amazon Prime
membership there probably won’t be a better time in 2016.
Amazon didn’t get any Oscar nominations, and even if the
company did and won it’s the 88th Oscars anyway, which
means it would be a mere $11 price drop if Amazon
continued its discount pricing scheme. If you want to sign-

up this weekend head to amazon.com/MozartPrime during
the price cut window.
During the same time as Amazon is offering the cheap
Prime price, the retailer is allowing free streaming of
seasons one and two of Mozart in the Jungle for everyone
—not just Prime subscribers.
2016-01-15 14:45:00 Ian Paul
265
OpenSSH patches information leak that
could expose private SSH keys
If you're connecting to servers over the secure
shell (SSH) protocol using an OpenSSH client, you should
update it immediately. The latest version patches a flaw
that could allow rogue or compromised servers to read
users' private authentication keys.
The vulnerability stems from an experimental feature
known as roaming that allows SSH connections to be
resumed. This feature has been enabled by default in
OpenSSH clients since version 5.4, released in March
2010, but is not present in the OpenSSH server
implementation. As a result only clients are affected.
The vulnerability allows a server to read information from a
connecting client's memory, including its private keys. It has
been fixed in OpenSSH 7.1p2, released Thursday .
One possible mitigation is to add the undocumented
configuration option "UseRoaming no" to the global

ssh_config file.
Due to the way SSH works, where the server's identity is
cryptographically checked by the client before
authentication, man-in-the-middle attackers cannot exploit
this vulnerability.
This means that an attacker would either have to convince
a user to connect to a rogue server or to compromise a
legitimate SSH server and then steal its users' private
authentication keys. The latter scenario is a more likely,
according to researchers from security firm Qualys who
found the vulnerability.
SSH allows authentication based on public-key
cryptography and, in fact, this is the most secure and
preferred option. The client first generates a private and
public key pair. The public key is shared with the server and
the private key is only stored on the client and used to
prove the user's identity.
The theft of users' private SSH keys through this
vulnerability could give attackers persistent access to
servers compromised through other means. Even if the
initial entry points used by the hackers were to be identified
and fixed, they would still have SSH keys to log in as
legitimate users.
In addition, some people reuse their SSH keys across
multiple servers, just as some people reuse their
passwords across multiple websites. This means that the
compromise of a user's SSH key could put more than one

server at risk.
"This information leak may have already been exploited in
the wild by sophisticated attackers, and high-profile sites or
users may need to regenerate their SSH keys accordingly,"
the Qualys researchers said in an advisory .
2016-01-15 14:13:00 Lucian Constantin
266
Intel is rebuilding itself on three pillars—
and the PC isn't one of them
Intel isn’t really a PC company any
more.
No, the company hasn’t stopped
making PC processors. But Intel
chief executive Brian Krzanich said
Thursday that Intel has three key areas of growth: the data
center, the Internet of Things, and its emerging memory
business.
Intel reported net income of $3.6 billion from the fourth
quarter, down 1 percent from the same period in the prior
year. Revenue was $14.9 billion, up 1 percent from the
same period. As has been the case, Intel’s Client
Computing Group, which houses its PC processors, was
responsible for the bulk of the revenue: $8.8 billion, though
that was down 1 percent compared to a year ago. Data
Center Group revenue climbed 5 percent to $4.3 billion. IoT
revenue was $625 million, up 6 percent.

Still, a slight decline in the PC processor business, when
measured against a generally no-good, very bad year for
PCs , was a bright spot. It’s just that Intel doesn’t apparently
regard it as a noteworthy business: “This business provides
a foundation of IP and a source of cash flow, but it is not
the sole driver of our growth,” Krzanich said of the PC.
What this means: Krzanich’s positioning is somewhat
unexpected; for years the server and enterprise processor
business was the stable, high-margin portion of Intel that
allowed Intel to fund exploratory businesses like IoT. With
AMD’s server business stalled until it can release its Zen
processor, does Intel see an opportunity to snap up AMD’s
remaining market share? Attention is also turning to 3D
XPoint, the fascinating memory technology that Intel and
Micron unveiled last year. Unfortunately, Krzanich didn’t
reveal a launch date or further details for 3D XPoint.
As the data center, IoT, and memory grow within Intel, the
company will depend less and less on the PC, and suffer
less if and when the market continues to decline. Already,
those three businesses generated nearly 40 percent of
Intel’s revenue and 60 percent of Intel’s operating profits,
Krzanich said. Intel was also fortunate in that it reported
record revenue in high-end Core i7 and its “K” gaming
processors, helping the average price of its chip platforms
to increase by 5 percent.
Intel also completed its acquisition of Altera, the
programmable logic company it agreed to acquire for $16.7
billion. Krzanich said that it will begin combining
programmable logic and Xeon cores into modules it will use

to create custom chips for customers—a tactic that rival
AMD has also employed, but using hardwired designs. Intel
bought enterprise networking company Avago in 2014 and
hopes to expand that business as well, executives said.
Not all the businesses Intel acquires generate direct
revenue; Wind River contributed to Intel’s software
business, which recorded a rather paltry $543 million of
revenue. Intel said only that its Security Group (aka
McAfee) revenue was flat—code that it’s not large enough
that the government can force it to report revenue.
But Altera, Wind River, McAfee, Avago, and others are
pulled in to enrich Intel’s core products, surround them with
additional logic and services, and make them “sticky” in a
way usually associated with software. In this, AMD simply
lacks the resources to directly compete; it usually chooses
a partnership approach where it can, and has hitched its
wagon to the PC.
But anyone who has listened to a Krzanich keynote at CES
or even the Intel Developer Forum knows that he sees the
embedded Curie processor and the Internet of Things as
the future of the company. My belief for the past year or so
is that sensors have replaced users as the engines of the
data that power Intel’s processors, and the processors
Krzanich cares about aren’t the kind that are built into PCs,
but wearables, drones, and dashboards. PCs may still
power Intel’s bottom line, but there’s the very real sense
that the company finds them... well, boring.
2016-01-15 13:43:00 Mark Hachman

267
Researcher finds fault in Apple's
Gatekeeper patch
Apple hasn't completely fixed a
weakness in Gatekeeper, its
security technology that blocks
harmful applications from being
installed.
Patrick Wardle, director of research with the company
Synack , said in an interview he reverse-engineered a
patch Apple released in October and found it wasn't quite
the fix he expected.
Wardle found he could still bypass Gatekeeper and install
malware. He's going public with his latest findings on
Sunday at the Shmoocon security conference , which starts
Friday in Washington, D. C.
"Releasing a patch claiming it is fixed kind of doesn't solve
the problem," Wardle said. "Users will think they're secure
when they're not. "
Wardle, who has studied OS X extensively, found the
original bug that Apple patched, CVE-2015-7024.
When a user downloads an application, Gatekeeper checks
if it has a digital signature and blocks those that don't have
one approved by Apple.
Wardle found that Gatekeeper only verifies the initial

executable that the user double-clicks on. So Wardle found
some other code signed by Apple that, when run, will look
for other unsigned and malicious executables in the same
directory.
"The problem is that Gatekeeper does not verify that
second component," he said.
When he studied Apple's patch, he found that the company
had simply blacklisted the Apple-signed code that Wardle
had used in his proof-of-concept code. Essentially, the
company blacklisted some of its own files.
Apple officials told him that they'd blocked his targeted
attack, but Wardle said he pointed out he could simply use
different executables to get around the patch.
He said the company has indicated it is working on a more
effective patch but he decided to go public anyway since
users are still at risk.
The weakness can also be used in a man-in-the-middle
attack, especially when software makers do not deliver their
installers over SSL/TLS (Secure Sockets Layer/Transport
Layer Security).
In a demonstration video, Wardle showed how he could
inject malicious code into one application, a Kaspersky
antivirus software package, that is not delivered over SSL.
"We're back to square one," he said.
Surprisingly, Wardle found early last year that many

security software makers still don't use SSL to deliver their
installers. "These guys are supposed to be security
professionals," he said.
That means an advanced attacker with network access
wouldn't have trouble conducting a man-in-the-middle
attack and replicating Wardle's attack.
At Shmoocon, Wardle will release a tool called Ostiarius --
the Latin word for Gatekeeper -- that he says accomplishes
what Apple should have done the first time around to fix
Gatekeeper.
It monitors all the new processes created in OS X's kernel.
If a process isn't digitally signed and comes from a
executable that was downloaded from the Internet, it is
stopped.
"It's kind of a global approach," Wardle said. "It doesn't care
if the executable was run by the user or if an attacker was
abusing some signed code to kick that off. "
Ostiarius will be posted on Wardle's website , which has a
collection of OS X security tools that he's developed.
2016-01-15 13:00:00 Jeremy Kirk
268 IBM to tackle fraud with Iris Analytics
IBM is going to apply machine learning to fraud busting with
Iris Analytics.
While that makes it sound as though it will be using Watson

AI systems to identify fraudsters by
gazing deep into their eyes, this is
really about its acquisition of a
German software firm called Iris
Analytics.
Iris monitors banking transactions and uses machine
learning to spot previously unknown patterns of fraudulent
transactions in real time. The system can work alone or in
conjunction with human analysts, according to IBM
With only one bank in six equipped with real-time fraud
detection systems, and even those taking a month or more
to learn to stop new attacks once they are identified, IBM
sees a big market for integrating systems like that of Iris
with its existing antifraud products.
This is far from IBM's first move into the antifraud market.
In September 2013, it bought Israeli antifraud specialist
Trusteer , which specialized in monitoring financial services
and provided a browser protection plugin for online
banking.
Early the following year it rolled out a real-time fraud
detection tools, Counter Fraud Management Software,
building on its previous acquisitions of Cognos, SPPS, i2
and FileNet.
IBM hopes that the new "cognitive computing" approach
taken by Iris will allow it to speed up and scale up its fraud
detection systems -- while also allowing customers to
respond more rapidly by lowering the number of false

positives that must be investigated.
The acquisition will bring it a number of existing Iris clients
in the payment and banking industry, including the French
Interbank payment card processing network e-rsb operated
by Stet. According to IBM, Iris adds around 5 milliseconds
to the processing time for e-rsb transactions. That's a small
addition to the hundreds of milliseconds the network takes
to process each of the 750 transactions it handles per
second, according to the e-rsb website.
It's not just big banks or their payment processors that are
looking to machine learning to reduce fraud: smaller banks
are buying such services too. For example, the Orrstown
community bank in Pennsylvania built its fraud detection
system using Splunk and the Prelert behavioral analytics
package.
With the introduction of Chip and PIN shifting the liability for
fraud, and future payment systems likely to cause similar
disruptions, its more important than ever to make a quick
decision about whether a payment is suspicious or safe to
accept, according to Iris.
2016-01-15 12:34:00 Peter Sayer
269
Xiaomi misses handset shipment goal, hit
by dependence on slowing Chinese market
Xiaomi said Friday it shipped over 70 million smartphones
in 2015, short of an ambitious target it had announced last

year, amid growing competition and
high dependence on the Chinese
market.
The Chinese company had forecast
last year that it would sell at least
80 million phones during the year. It had sold 34.7 million
handsets during the first half of the year.
Growth in smartphone sales is slowing down in China
because of saturation of the market, said Anshul Gupta,
research director at Gartner. Xiaomi is also facing stiff
competition from other players who have copied the
company's strategy based on online sales, content and
exclusive apps, he added.
Research firm Canalys said in October that Huawei had
overtaken Xiaomi as China’s top smart phone vendor in the
third quarter of last year. Xiaomi fell to second place after
its shipments shrank year on year. Xiaomi is under
tremendous pressure to keep growing as an international
player as it slows down in its key home market, the
research firm added.
About 90 percent of Xiaomi's sales have come from China,
said Neil Shah, research director at Counterpoint Research.
The company, which had acquired a star status because of
its meteoric growth and aggressive publicity campaigns,
has tried to reduce its dependence on the Chinese market,
selling in other markets such as India, Indonesia and the
Philippines.

But other than in China and India, its performance in
markets it has entered has been lackluster, Shah said.
Even in India, it is not among the top five as it faces
competition from established local and foreign brands who
have been quick to match Xiaomi's online sales strategy, he
added.
Xiaomi offers an app ecosystem, which has proven to be
attractive in China where the Google Play store is banned,
but this has not helped the company in India and other
markets where Google Play is available, Shah said.
The company has delayed its expansion in the U. S. and
Europe largely because of concerns about intellectual
property litigation and license fees in those countries, which
will add to cost, Gupta said. In India, for example, the
company ran into a patent dispute with Ericsson shortly
after its entry into the market.
"China protects a lot of these companies and they know
that once they step out of China, the lawyers of their rivals
will be waiting," Shah said.
Hugo Barra, vice president of Xiaomi's global division, said
early last year that the company was building up a patent
war chest as well as taking licenses around the world
ahead of a global launch. Xiaomi recently signed a licensing
agreement with Qualcomm on 3G and 4G patents.
2016-01-15 11:30:00 John Ribeiro

270
‘Consumers Oblivious of Mandatory Need
for Pharmacy Prescription’
Founded in May 2013 by Arvind Yadav
and Anil Asnani and later joined hands by
Puneet Kapoor, the online pharmacy
shop, BigChemist’s, main idea is to offer
trouble-free solutions to those people who
require medicines online in India. Online
medicine is a very new sector in the
Indian SME belt and is witnessing countless challenges.
Puneet Kapoor clarified the overall picture in detail and
provided his outlook about the business priorities of Indian
pharmaceutical SMEs.
Bone of contention
Availability of a valid prescription with the order is required
and many people are not aware of this. One of the most
common consumer reactions about prescription is that they
have been buying their medicines from the local chemist
without such requirement for years. The availability of
product visibility across distribution chain is another
challenge that is faced. Nonstandard naming conventions
followed in the industry add-up to a lot of effort for sourcing
and servicing the order. Data cleansing and standardisation
across value chain is another big challenge.
“Cost is one of the biggest challenges for implementing
integrated solutions to manage POS, book keeping and
inventory. This creates an entry barrier to compete against

the branded format and large players in the market. ”
Dealing with the Obstacles
“Our journey so far has been exciting and challenging; as
we have had more than 5.5 lakh visitors to our site with
over twenty five thousand registered customers.” says
Kapoor. “Our focus from the last two years has been to
study closely the healthcare space, understand the key
pain points in supply and demand areas, study how the
local pharmacies operate, their scope for profitability and
revenue increase,” he adds. The team at BigChemist
understands this space by offering huge opportunities with
a current market size of over USD 15 billion in the
pharmacy market, with a double digit growth rate. They are
also focused on developing their B2C platform and
currently their efforts are on to develop a dedicated mobile
app (expected to be launched around mid-January) and a
B2B platform for supply and demand forecasting fulfillment
(expected to be rolled-out in the next one year all over
India).
Government Rolled Out Policies
The government has formed a Drugs Consultative
Committee which has formed a dedicated sub-committee to
look into the viability of e-pharmacy business model and
come up with a draft regulatory policy for adoption for the
e-pharmacies to operate.
Level of IT Usage in MSMEs
All the big brands can easily spend in IT and take

advantage of the integration, but most of the small and
medium pharmacies still work on island systems and are
unable to leverage the potential. Even most of the small
manufacturing companies do not provide bar coded
deliveries. This increases the inefficiency and work in the
entire value chain. There are multiple points of manual
entry for batch number, expiry, manufacturing date, etc.,
which are very important for the compliance to regulations.
The unavailability of simple digitisation of prescription
system adds to the complex situation. Ordering, re-ordering
and expiry management is mostly manual and very costly.
All this eats into the profitability of these pharmacies.
Initially, healthcare e-commerce companies will have to
invest in systems to address the key challenges and enable
IT in their eco-system. What is lacking is the affordability of
these systems and a common platform to achieve this. IT
will truly be the key differentiator and success factor in
Indian e-healthcare.
Challenges for Implementing ICT
Cost is one of the biggest challenges for implementing
integrated solutions to manage POS, book keeping and
inventory. This creates an entry barrier to compete against
the branded format and large players in the market. This
also creates gap in being compliant to all the regulatory
requirements. There is a huge manpower cost involved for
operational efficiency and business profitability. This
eventually creates a barrier to growth and leads to stagnant
business.

The Roadmap on IT Usage
“We are working towards creating a Digital organisation and
extend that to the entire eco system we would operate in.
This will be done in small incremental steps over a period of
3-5 Years,” affirms Kapoor.
The small scale online pharmaceutical companies are
working aggressively to create a thriving eco-system under
the BigChemist brand. The company is in-process to bring
technology that will change the landscape in the healthcare
sector and is also planning to create an ecosystem of
managed partner pharmacies by investing in them through
an integrated market place intelligent Point-of-sale systems
helping them being fully compliant to regulation, do
effective inventory management, supplement their income
sources and improving their and our profitability.
“We plan to leverage the “e” of e-commerce by
implementing an industry wide integrated business
resource planning solution in our eco system by covering
ourselves, manufacturers, suppliers, distributors and
pharmacies. This eco system of B2B and B2C will help us
achieve profitability in the Indian SMEs, while delivering
quality and yet affordable healthcare,” says Kapoor. For
marketing and campaigns BigChemist is working to create
a paperless method of execution leveraging various
proprietary cloud based solutions.
“Finally, we are in process to offer service integrated
platform services of our partners such as consultation,
diagnostics; digital patient records safe, scheduling, loved

one’s notifications as small but unique services which
differentiate us by making difference in their daily life,”
concludes Kapoor.
2016-01-15 10:43:48 Nijhum Rudra
271
Spectral Clustering Using WEKA for Big
data Analysis
– Magesh Kasthuri, Senior
Technical Consultant-Java-
Technology Practices Group, Wipro & Dr B. Thangaraju,
Talent Transformation, Wipro Technologies
Big data refers data sets which are very large and complex,
both in structured and unstructured in nature and
characterised by the three Vs – volume, velocity and
variety. So, it has a challenge to collect, store, filter with
reliable data, search for a specific information, analyse the
data for our requirement and present the result in easily
understandable format. Data Mining is the process of
analysing the existing data from different perspectives for a
given problem and come out with suggestion or solution for
our requirement. This may help to increase our revenue or
help cost cutting or show future direction for potential
growth of our business. Data mining is the exercise of
analysing the collected data to produce new information.
The conventional data analysis methods are incompetent in
most of the cases. Since the volume is high in Data mining
analysis, clustering is one of the key processes where we
group the data for predictive analysis. Spectral clustering is

one such type of clustering where the group collected can
be easily represented in a connected tree of data which has
relation in all directions.
Big data and lead generation
In Data mining world, Lead generation is a data searching
technique which is used to collect relevant customer
information (leads), one of the examples for this techniques
is contextual advertising. You might have noticed as soon
as you open google site to search something, it displays
unique advertisement or sponsored link along with search
results. This sponsored link is typically based on search
text, user logged in (ex: Google user), location, browser to
name a few. This type of preparing customised
advertisement and sponsored links is called as Contextual
advertisement and this technique is an example for Lead
generation. It is an easy and painless way of attracting
people/users and cultivating prospective customers out of
them.
Lead nurturing
Once the leads are gathered from a suitable data collection
algorithm also called as lead nurturing technique, we have
the raw leads ready to be processed and distributed to
advertisers. They can be processed manually or using data
mining tools like WEKA – Waikato Environment for
Knowledge Analysis. It is a machine learning open source
software written in Java with user friendly visualisation tools
and algorithms for data analysis and predictive modeling. It
is developed by machine learning group at University of

Waikato, New Zealand
(http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/ml/weka/bigdata.html).
Data mining applications
Applications of data mining include prediction of the
effectiveness of procedures, tests and result analysis and
discovery of relationships among historical and current data
to predict the trend of data flow/growth. These databases
normally have huge amounts of information about user and
their data/history/responses. Data mining techniques
employed on these databases find relationships, helping
the study of progression and providing predictive results. In
this article, we will discuss a case study to show how Data
Mining helps to classify and analysis of huge data with
supervised learning techniques.
There are various steps involved in big data analysis
starting from data collection, data cleansing, classification
and up to pattern evaluation and trend report generation.
Data mining and retail industry
Predictive analytics and market basket analysis (MBA) are
some examples of the extent and effectiveness with which
retailers today are resorting to data-driven strategies to
increase profits. Retailers today have access to enormous
quantities of customer data and access to powerful
statistical techniques and software to derive actionable
information. We have taken data mining process in retail
industries to improvise marketing strategy and find effective
solution for expanding the business.

Spectral Clustering
Spectral clustering is a graph theoretic technique for metric
modification such that it gives much more global notion of
similarity between data points as compared to other
clustering methods such as k-means. It is the most popular
data mining technique for big data analysis particularly in
the field of social computing and later introduced in various
other fields like medical science, customer relationship
management (CRM), retail stores, manufacturing and
health care. Clustering nodes in a graph is a useful general
technique in data mining of large network data sets.
We can understand this with an example of Facebook. In
Facebook, we used to get suggested friends and
suggested post which is typically based on clustered
information from a user. This clustered information is based
on location, age, school/college and friends link which is
used to gather (mining related data) suggested friends or
suggested posts depending on the predictive analysis
WEKA is a landmark system in the history of the data
mining and machine learning research communities. WEKA
toolkit has gained widespread adoption. Weka is open
source and freely available. It is also platform-independent.
There are various Spectral clustering classifiers in WEKA
like KMeans, ZeroR which can be selected for different
variants of predictive results and clustering information.
Data mining using WEKA is the process of analysing data
from different perspectives and summarising it into useful
information. The non-trivial process of identifying valid,

novel, potentially useful, and eventually understandable
patterns in data is called Knowledge discovery.
WEKA tool accepts data in terms of records. This is
evaluated and approved for actual data set processing or
for further run of provisional training data set preparation.
WEKA accepts ARFF file format of input data which can be
prepared using WEKA itself.
Data Collection in WEKA
The ARFF is (Attribute-Relation File Format) an ASCII text
file, which defines a list of occurrences sharing a set of
attributes (http://www.cs.waikato.ac.nz/ml/weka/arff.html).
Also, WEKA provides export/import tool which can be used
to convert data from other formats like MS-Excel, database
formats, text files into ARFF file formats, which can then be
used in WEKA for classification and attribute evaluation.
Once the data is fed and classified in WEKA, we can get
Clustered representation.
Data mining and marketing analysis
One may infer following business improvement ideas for
the marketing team to ideate the trends and improvise the
market reach to customer.
Data collection methodology
Data collection can be done in various methods, one of the
methods is to identify data source openly available in
online, which are collected for various experimental

purpose. There are various data mining related study sites
like Techtarget, which is one of the largest lead-gen
providers in IT industry. It has as many as 41 inter
websites, which publishes contents freely to the users.
Registered users can freely browse and download
interested articles from this site. Techtarget collects
relevant data from user which is later sold to advertisers
based on the interest (lead nurturing). It provides real-time
big data for data analysis by collecting from various forums
like technical, musical, social, cultural and historical
interests. It also offers data mining reports using spectral
clustering and analytics processing to gather customer
information based on regional and cultural backgrounds.
Studying such reports and results shows that there is a
tremendous growth that the clustered algorithm are
appropriate for any data mining process when scaling and
data classification are diversified and less in control.
Conclusion
Data mining involves in clustered information gathered as
‘raw data’ from customers from various forums like social
networking, trends in browsing pages, trends in search or
pages visited. Analysing such raw clusters of data which is
huge in volume not only involves various analytics algorithm
or techniques but also involves in filtering various required
preference set which makes the base of data analysis.
Clustering algorithms helps in such a condition where we
focus on our analysis area and collect required subset of
volumes of data gathered from Lead generation and
process them to filter the preference set and produce the

equired results in terms of reports, diagrams, trend
analysis and statistical data points.
2016-01-15 07:21:22 PCQ Bureau
272
Amazon has registered to provide ocean
freight services
A Chinese subsidiary of Amazon.com has
registered to provide ocean freight services, a move that
could help cut costs for Chinese companies looking to
move products to U. S. markets, as well as give the retailer
greater control over end-to-end delivery.
A listing of "Ocean Transportation Intermediaries" by the U.
S. Federal Maritime Commission states that a business
named Beijing Century Joyo Courier Service Co. Ltd, with
the trade names Amazon China, Amazon. CN and Amazon
Global Logistics China, was registered to provide ocean
freight services.
Amazon said in 2004 in a regulatory filing it had entered
into a definitive agreement to acquire Joyo.com, a British
Virgin Islands company, which operates the joyo.com and
joyo.com.cn websites in cooperation with Chinese
subsidiaries and affiliates. The Joyo.com websites are the
largest online retailers of books, music and videos in China,
Amazon said at the time.
The listing on FMC, first noticed by Flexport, a logistics firm
in San Francisco, could pave the way for Amazon to offer

ocean freight services for other companies , particularly to
Chinese companies, wrote Ryan Petersen, CEO of Flexport
in a blog post.
Amazon offers a Fulfillment by Amazon service which offers
to "pick, pack, ship, and provide customer service" for
sellers' products. By offering ocean freight services, FBA
could make it easier for its customers to move goods into
the company’s logistics network, according to Petersen.
"Amazon China can provide freight forwarding services to
Chinese companies looking to move products directly into
FBA warehouses, or perhaps even by cross-docking the
goods for direct injection into Amazon’s courier network,"
Petersen wrote.
Amazon could also use automation to further cut down
costs in the ocean freight services business, which now has
labor as a key cost, Petersen said. "At the same time,
fulfilling products directly from China to consumers in the U.
S. will cut handling costs at U. S. warehouses," he added.
Amazon did not immediately comment.
The company has been investing in higher control of endto-end
delivery, including planning to use drones to deliver
parcels to customers, and hiring independent contractors to
deliver packages through Amazon Flex , a program it has
launched in some parts of the U. S. There have also been
reports recently that the company is planning to lease jets
to carry cargo and is also planning to acquire the 75
percent stake it still doesn't own in a French package-

delivery company Colis Privé.
2016-01-15 06:28:00 John Ribeiro
273
The U. S. plan for a public-safety network
could be a windfall for a big carrier
A public-safety network across the
U. S. that could speed up disaster
response may also lead to a big
payoff for a mobile carrier.
The FirstNet network, set to go live
in some areas next year, is intended to unify a crazy quilt of
wireless systems for police, firefighters and emergency
medical teams. If all goes as planned, it will ensure the
agencies can communicate even during disasters and can
reach each other to coordinate efforts.
FirstNet will bring U. S. first responders into the modern
age by replacing many legacy radio systems with an LTE
network. The project began in the wake of the terror attacks
on Sept. 11, 2001, because of concerns that public safety
wireless networks were too weak and fragmented for
agencies to respond to major events. In addition to being a
shared system, the network will bring broadband to public
safety for things like transmitting video from a disaster site.
"The most important benefit for citizens is that first
responders will have access to a dedicated network with
ample capacity during times of crisis and large scale

events," said Anna Gomez, an attorney at Wiley Rein who
oversaw the formation of FirstNet as an official at the
National Telecommunications and Information
Administration.
At the heart of the program is a fat 20MHz of radio
spectrum, available nationwide, in a band where mobile
operators have spent billions for other frequencies. A
commercial mobile operator with a winning proposal could
give average consumers access to the network, too,
making it a potentially lucrative add-on for a big carrier.
The First Responder Network Authority, the agency
charged with organizing the system, released its request for
proposals this week. By the end of the year, it plans to
approve a single bid for the whole project, including building
and running the network and developing an ecosystem of
devices and apps for it. Whatever group of companies wins
will be expected to do its first deployments next year and
finish the rollout within five years.
A national mobile operator like AT&T or Verizon Wireless
would only be one part of a winning team, which would also
need smaller rural carriers and satellite companies for
coverage in thinly populated areas. Also, whoever runs the
network will have to pay the government an annual fee that
will rise over the course of a 25-year contract.
But the payoff for a carrier could be big. Rather than buying
the spectrum license at auction as is usual, the winning
team will collect about $6.5 billion in public funds.

The spectrum on offer is the same size block as many
carriers have used for full-scale LTE networks, and it's in
the 700MHz band that big U. S. carriers already use for
LTE. It's likely there will be spare capacity for regular cell
services most of the time: FirstNet estimates about 5 million
to 13 million public-safety users nationwide. Even though
they'll have priority on the network, that's a small fraction of
the number of people that a typical national network can
serve.
At least one carrier is interested.
"The timing of the spectrum, the position of the spectrum,
the customer opportunity that comes with it, it's a rare
event, so we're going to pursue it aggressively," said John
Donovan, AT&T's senior executive vice president for
technology and network operations, said last week at a Citi
financial analyst conference.
There are a lot of good reasons for carriers to get excited
about FirstNet, said analyst Lynnette Luna of Current
Analysis. One is that they can start using frequencies as
soon as the contract is awarded. By contrast, spectrum
they'd buy in the Federal Communications Commission's
upcoming incentive auction of TV channels probably won't
be available until 2020, she said.
But there could be downsides to taking on the FirstNet
project, Luna said.
For one thing, state and territories are allowed to opt out
and build their own networks, though few are likely to take

on that burden, she said.
However, the $6.5 billion in funding won't cover the cost of
a full national network, and a winning carrier will have to
build in mechanisms to make sure public safety users
always get priority, Luna said.
2016-01-15 00:00:00 Stephen Lawson
274
Microsoft will cut some Azure compute
prices
Good news for businesses using
Microsoft's Azure cloud platform:
their infrastructure bills may be
shrinking come February.
Microsoft announced that it will be
permanently reducing the prices for its Dv2 compute
instances by up to 17 percent next month, depending on
the type of instance and what it's being used for. Users will
see the greatest savings if they're running higher
performance Linux instances -- up to 17 percent lower
prices than they've been paying previously. Windows
instance discounts top out at a 13 percent reduction
compared to current prices.
Right now, the exact details of the discount are a little bit
vague, but Microsoft says that it will publish full pricing
details in February when they go into effect. Dv2 instances
are designed for applications that require more compute

power and temporary disk performance than Microsoft's A
series instances.
They're the successor to Azure's D-series VMs, and come
with processors that are 35 percent faster than their
predecessors. Greater speed also corresponds to a higher
price, but these discounts will make Dv2-series instances
more price competitive with their predecessors. That's good
news for price-conscious users, who may be more inclined
to reach for the higher-performance instances now that
they'll be cheaper.
The price changes come after Amazon earlier this week
introduced scheduled compute instances, which let users
pick out a particular time for their workloads to run on a
regular basis, and get discounts based on when they
decide to use the system. It's a system that's designed to
help businesses that need computing power for routine
tasks at non-peak times get a discount.
Microsoft's announcement builds on the company's
longstanding history of reducing prices for Azure in keeping
with Amazon's price cuts in order to remain competitive.
Odds are we'll see several more of these cuts in the coming
year as the companies continue to duel to try and pick up
new users and get existing users to expand their usage of
the cloud.
2016-01-15 00:00:00 Blair Hanley Frank

275
Microsoft integrates Skype with Slack to
simplify team video calls
Slack may be the darling of the
group communication market right
now, but there's one thing it's
missing: voice and video calling.
Microsoft is aiming to patch that up
with a new integration between Skype and the popular
messaging service.
The imaginatively-named Skype integration for Slack
creates a new command that lets people type "/skype" into
a channel or private chat and have Microsoft's conferencing
service automatically generate a link that will launch a call
for participants in the conversation. Everyone in the
channel will get a notification letting them know that there's
a call going on.
Links generated with the integration can be launched with
the Skype mobile and desktop apps, or opened on the
desktop web with or without a Skype account. It's currently
available in beta for any team that has an open integration
slot in their Slack instance.
What's interesting about this move is that Microsoft already
has a workplace communication product designed to get
teams working together called Skype for Business
(previously known as Lync). But Slack is a rising star in the
workplace collaboration market , so it makes sense for
Microsoft to try and link its products to a market leader in

order to maintain their relevance.
It will be interesting to see what happens to the integration
in the future. Last year, Slack acquired Screenhero to help
the company build out future voice and video chat features
for its product, though they haven't materialized yet.
The launch comes during a big week for Skype overall. On
Monday, Microsoft announced free video conferencing for
users of all of its mobile apps, to go along with the same
capability on desktop. On Wednesday, an update to
Outlook allowed users to create video conference links
inside calendar events with a tap, and this integration adds
another way for people to easily summon Skype.
2016-01-14 19:09:00 Blair Hanley Frank
276
Gionee M5 Lite smartphone with 3GB RAM
launched at Rs 12,999
Gionee Smartphones announced
the launch of its latest entrant in the
Marathon portfolio of devices.
Building on the omnipresent
strategy, the phone is going to be
available at all the leading retail
outlets and snapdeal in the online space. The main
highlight of the device is battery. It is backed by 4000 mAh
Li- Po battery, and the M5 Lite has a standby time 450 hr
and a 32.7 hr of talk time.

The device is inbuilt with a smart power consumption
system especially under Extreme mode; it can provide a
talk time of 3 hours and standby time of upto 32 hours even
if there is only 5% of power left. The M5 Lite can be
charged comparatively faster and is also capable of reverse
charging thus double up as a power bank, thereby it can be
used as a power bank to charge spare cell phones at the
same time.
The dual slim Marathan M5 lite smartphone packs a 8MP
Rear camera and 5MP Front camera, to ensure you enjoy
superior pictures. Gionee M5 Lite contributes to a display
configuration of 12.7 cm (5.0) HD IPS display with Asahi
Dragontrail Glass protection with capacitive multitouch 5
points, an internal memory capacity of 32GB ROM + 3GB
RAM with the memory card expandable up to 128GB.
While being a power packed device, Gionee has focused in
designing the device to meet the ever increasing
entertainment needs of the Indian consumer on the move.
The device has an ultra-slim structure of dimensions
8.5mm thick and outer rim of 4.75mm, metallic unibody,
narrow bezel and premium finishing that adds to its style
quotient.
Marathon M5 Lite runs on the advanced Amigo 3.1, based
on Android 5.1 and a specially designed Music Player. The
Marathon M5 Lite is equipped with some of the exciting
features like Chameleon, Pic-note, face beauty and DTS
Sound.
2016-01-14 12:57:13 Anuj Sharma

277
Intex unveils most affordable 4G-enabled
smartphone - Cloud 4G Smart @ INR 4,999
Intex Technologies launches the
most affordable 4G-enables
handset, Cloud 4G Smart at an
attractive price of only INR 4,999.
The smartphone features a 5-inch
TFT (854 x 480) display and is
powered with a 1.5GHz Quad Core
and 1GB RAM chipset for a smooth performance and
boasts of seamless Android OS Lollipop 5.1. The
smartphone sports a sleek design giving the handset a
classy feel coupled with feather-like weight of 156 grams.
The device is powered with a 2000mAh Li-Ion battery
providing a talk-time of 4-6 hours along with a standby time
of up to 150 hours. The device has a hybrid SIM-Slot
allowing 2 SIMs or 1 SIM + 1 SD Card simultaneously.
For the amateur photographers and selfie lovers, Cloud 4G
Smart comes with a brilliant 5MP rear camera with LED
Flash to capture vivid images effortlessly and a 2MP front
camera to click beautiful selfies with various modes even in
low light.
The camera has slow motion feature and the volume UP
and Down key works as a shutter key to take photographs
making it no longer uncomfortable for the user while
clicking a picture or tap the screen.

The affordable 4G smartphone has an in-built 8GB ROM
with an expandable memory of up to 32GB. Additionally, it
has Matrabhasha service that will enable communication in
21 regional languages including Hindi. It also features other
pre-loaded apps such as FOTA, Intex Service, Follo,
OPERA MINI, Clean Master, Newshunt, Myntra, Chaatz etc.
Cloud 4G Smart will be available in two premium colors –
Black and White + Champagne.
2016-01-14 10:16:14 Ashok Pandey
278
550/-
Quantum's Wireless Mouse: 253WJ offering
Long Battery Life
QHMPL, under the brand ‘Quantum
Hi-Tech’ announces Wireless
Mouse 253WJ with the natural
curves and soft rubber grips that
support your hand, enhancing your
computing experience only at Rs.
With 2.4 GHz Radio Frequency technology, the 253WJ
Wireless Optical Mouse provides you with wireless
convenience and the freedom of a smooth connection for
up to 10mtrs without tangled cables. The smooth and
precise tracking brings in an ultimate navigation
experience.
The 600/1600 –DPI optical sensor improves speed,
accuracy and reliability without the hassle of a clogged

mouse ball. Its advanced optical tracking ensures smoother
cursor control and easy text selection also adapting to the
speed which can be adjusted as per the needs of the users.
Work, play, connect and create without worry as 253WJ
guarantees more than a month of battery life for normal
usage with the auto-sleep feature, you can automatically
maximize your battery life when not in use.
The advanced optical sensor keeps the mouse precisely on
point and allows you to work on most surfaces, such as
glass, wood, marble, and leather surfaces without the need
of a mouse pad. The Metal mesh design 253WJ is
compatible to most of the devices which includes Laptops,
Desktops etc.
Available in two variant colors Shiny Black & Classy White
it’s time to detangle your Worries with Quantum Wireless
Mouse.
2016-01-14 08:59:46 Ashok Pandey
279
Hunting a Zero-Day: Kaspersky Lab
Discovered a Dangerous Vulnerability in a
Web Technology
Kaspersky Lab has discovered a
zero-day vulnerability in Silverlight,
a web technology used to display
multimedia content. The
vulnerability would allow an attacker to gain full access to a
compromised computer and execute malicious code to

steal secret information and perform other illegal actions.
The vulnerability (CVE-2016-0034) was fixed in the
latestPatch Tuesday update issued by Microsoft on January
12, 2016. The discovery was the result of an investigation
that started over five months ago from an article published
byArs Technica.
In the summer of 2015 a story about the hacker attack
against the Hacking Team company (a known “legal
spyware” developer) hit the news. One of the articles about
the topic, published in Ars Technica, mentioned leaked
correspondence allegedly between Hacking Team
representatives and Vitaliy Toropov, an independent
exploit-writer. Among other things, the article mentioned the
correspondence in which Toropov tried to sell a particularly
interesting zero-day to Hacking Team: a four-year old and
still unpatched exploit in the Microsoft Silverlight
technology. This piece of information piqued the interest of
Kaspersky Lab researchers.
There was no additional information about the exploit in the
article, so researchers started their investigation using the
name of the seller. They quickly found that a user who
named himself Vitaliy Toropov was a very active contributor
to Open Source Vulnerability Database (OSVDB), a place
where anyone can post information about vulnerabilities. By
analyzing his public profile on OSVBD.org, Kaspersky Lab
researchers discovered that in 2013, Toropov had
published a proof-of-concept (POC) which described a bug
in the Silverlight technology. The POC covered an old
vulnerability that was known and currently patched.

However, it also contained additional details which gave
Kaspersky Lab researchers a hint about how the author of
the exploit tends to write code.
During the analysis performed by Kaspersky Lab experts
some unique strings in the code really stood out. Using this
information they created several detection rules for
Kaspersky Lab protection technologies: once a user, who
agreed to share threat data with the Kaspersky Security
Network (KSN), encountered malicious software that
demonstrated the behavior covered by those special
detection rules, the system would flag the file as highly
suspicious and a notification would be sent to the company
for analysis. The assumption behind this tactic was simple:
if Toropov tried to sell a zero-day exploit to Hacking Team,
it was highly probable that he did the same with other
spyware vendors. As a result of this activity, other cyber
espionage campaigns could be actively using it in the wild
to target and infect unsuspecting victims.
The assumption was correct. Several months after
implementation of the special detection rules, a Kaspersky
Lab customer was targeted in an attack that used a
suspicious file with the characteristics we were looking for.
Several hours after that, someone (possibly a victim of the
attacks) from Laos uploaded a file with the same
characteristics to a multiscanner service. Kaspersky Lab
experts analyzed the attack to discover that it was actually
exploiting an unknown bug in the Silverlight technology.
The information about the bug was promptly reported to
Microsoft for validation.

“Although we don’t know if the exploit we discovered is in
fact the one that was mentioned in the Ars Technica article,
we have strong reasons to believe it is indeed the same.
Comparing the analysis of this file with the previous work of
Vitaliy Toropov makes us think that the author of the
recently discovered exploit, and the author of POCs
published on OSVDB in the name of Toropov, is the same
person. At the same time we do not completely exclude the
possibility that we found yet another zero-day exploit in
Silverlight. Overall, this research helped to make
cyberspace a little safer by discovering a new zero-day and
responsibly disclosing it. We encourage all users of
Microsoft products to update their systems as soon as
possible to patch this vulnerability,” said Costin Raiu,
Director of the Global Research and Analysis Team at
Kaspersky Lab.
Kaspersky Lab products detect the CVE-2016-0034 exploit
with the following detection name: HEUR:Exploit. MSIL.
Agent.gen.
2016-01-14 08:20:23 Ashok Pandey
280
5 Tools That Let You Post on Social Media
Automatically
Social media can be so frustrating
because you don’t have enough
time to complete all the tasks. It can
also be quite repetitive. So why
don’t you automate the repetitive

tasks?
The social media tools are maturing and getting more
useful and there is more automation that is available. Here
are 5 time-saving social media automation tools:
1. Hootsuite
With more than 10 million active users Hootsuite is currently
the number one ranked social media automation platform.
This tool has been pegged as “one of the best tools out
there for managing your social media presence” by the Wall
Street Journal. Perhaps the biggest benefit of using
Hootsuite is that you can get started using this app for free.
Key Features:
– Connect to 35 of your social media accounts.
– Integrates with RSS feeds and your blog.
– Monitor conversations and mentions of your business
from your dashboard.
– Integrate and manage your Hootsuite account from
your WordPress blog.
2. Aweber
Aweber is an email marketing tool with some essential
automation tasks built in. When someone signs up to your
email list you can set up one or a series of automated e-
mails that goes to your new subscriber. You can pre-build
all your email templates and have them all ready to go. This

automation is an essential component of email marketing.
3. Bufferapp
With the Bufferapp, you can easily pre-schedule content
and post to your active social media channels. When you
want to catch up on your blog posts read them using
Feebly and then share them out on Buffer. The buffer will
take any posts that you have scheduled and place them in
a queue and send them out based on the next time slots
that you have preconfigured.
Key Features:
– Supports multiple Twitter, Facebook and Linked In
profiles
– Download and use Google Chrome, Firefox and Safari
browser extensions to share content right from the web to
your social profiles.
4. Social Oomph
It is an additional free social media automation tool that you
can use to manage and streamline your social media
marketing efforts. Social Oomph has been around since
2008 and is a powerhouse social marketing app that you
should definitely check out.
Key Features:
– Free management of up to 5 Twitter accounts;
unlimited use of Facebook and LinkedIn accounts

– Auto-follow back feature included
– View re-tweets & mentions from your dash-boar.
5. Twitterfeed
It allows you to “feed your blog to Twitter” and other social
media platforms. I wouldn’t necessarily consider this
application a social media marketing one, but it definitely
helps automate the task of sharing your content and best of
all it’s absolutely FREE to use.
Key Features:
– Feeds content from your blog to Twitter, Facebook, and
LinkedIn.
– You can add content from other RSS feeds to your
social media channels.
2016-01-14 06:23:00 Zishan Ahmed
281 It’s Digitize India Before Digital India!
The full potential of a Digital India
can only be realized when all
information is made available
anytime, anywhere, to anyone, and
on any device. Sadly, this is still a
distant reality as a lot of information
in most organizations continues to
lie in silos, and a major chunk of it is
still on paper.

Information digitization should therefore be one of the prerequisites
to digital transformation for most organizations,
including (and especially) the Govt. It’s an area that doesn’t
usually get much visibility in media, but that doesn’t
undermine its importance.
Organizations must digitize their records, not only to reduce
paper, but to ensure smooth flow of information. This is
easier said than done, since you’re dealing with huge
volumes of information. It requires careful planning, a
robust process right from scanning a document to
processing it and making it available where required. Here
are 5 key things to do to lead a successful digitization
journey:
1. Understand your Key Motivators
In order to frame a digitization strategy, it’s critical to first
assess and identify your key motivators. Is it to provide
easy access to data and information? Or do you need to
simply lower your process costs, like manpower resources
that manage your paper based processes, cost of paper
itself, etc.? Another motivation could be to empower your
customers with access to documents on their own, like an
insurance company providing customer policy documents
online or a govt. department providing citizen information
like ITRs, land records, etc. online.
2. Define Your Digitization Priorities
Next step is to define the digitization priorities for your
organization. Do you need a document management

system to handle the deluge of documents? Or do you
need a workflow automation system for a particular
business process? You could also look at digitization to
improve customer communication and quality of customer
service.
3. Understand What to Digitize
What to digitize comes next, and determines the entire
digitization process. An IT/ITeS company for instance,
would need to digitize service records, purchase orders and
contracts. A retail organization on the other hand might
have huge inventory records, vendor payables, and
customer service records. The BFSI segment on the other
hand needs to digitize new customer acquisition forms,
claims processing, and customer service records to name a
few. Education institutes would have answer sheets from
test papers, student and staff records, or academia
transcripts; while manufacturing companies would have
accounts payable, engineering change notices,
manufacturing records, or ordering and fulfillment records.
The Indian govt. has a whole deluge of paper based
documents to digitize, be it citizen records, land records,
administrative records, Legal and court records, etc.
4. Select your Hardware
It’s after all this that selection of hardware and software
kicks in. In hardware, the most critical component is a
document scanner (which is different from a routine flatbed
scanner). Here, you could opt for a large, centrally-placed
scanner and send all documents to it for digitization, like in

an insurance company. Or, you could look at separate
scanners for each department or a dealer/distributor
network. A large automotive organization for instance,
could issue document scanners to its dealers to digitize all
their paper based documents from sale, service, inventory,
etc.
Besides scanners, you also the right amount of storage,
since you’ll be dealing with large volumes of digitized data.
Security is also critical here to ensure that the digitized
information does not fall into the wrong hands.
5. Choose your Software
Choice of software depends upon the process you’re
automating and how you want the information to flow, the
level of tagging to be done for each document, whether
OCR is required or not, and which of your enterprise
applications need to be integrated to it. Accuracy of
digitized data is another area of concern and should be
looked at carefully.
There are enough digitization successful cases out there
whose RoI speaks for itself, and since everything is going
digital, why should documents remain on paper? It’s time to
transform.
Wish you a great new year ahead!
2016-01-14 05:15:56 Anil Chopra

282
How Small Businesses Can Benefit by
Going Online
According to a recent survey
conducted by GoDaddy and
RedShift of 500 very small business
owners on their Internet readiness,
40% of the respondents felt that
they didn’t need a website because
their business was too small to warrant one. Another 19%
felt that it was too complex to setup their own website.
What was encouraging however, was that 75% of the
respondents were aware of the Internet and its benefits and
did plan to go for a website in the next 2 years. They felt
they would lose out if they didn’t.
We interacted with Rajiv Sodhi, MD, GoDaddy India and
Australia, to explore this trend and other survey findings
further and understand how Indian SMEs stand to benefit
by going online.
It was a global survey, out of which 500 respondents were
from India, mostly very small businesses with 5 employees
or less and having less than 100 customers. Here are some
more findings, on which SMEs are going online first, what
they plan to do, and the benefits gained.
Some SMEs who went online saw an increase in their
business by more than 10%. We wondered how much of
this was contributed by the Internet, and how much was

organic. Rajiv felt that the business came not simply by
going online, but also by the marketing done to draw
search engine traffic. The Internet opens a new sales
channel to get discovered much faster and start showing in
more conversations. In fact, Rajiv felt that with online
presence, the customer has already seen your
product/offerings and compared them against competition.
“This takes the discussion away from the price, and toward
your product’s value proposition”, he added.
Not all SMEs are moving quickly to the Internet. According
to Rajiv, financial services, pharma, healthcare, hospitality,
an education, are some segments that are very IT
favorable. They’re also exports centric, so IT and Internet
penetration is faster. Hence they’re the first to go online.
Sectors like agrarian, manufacturing, Artesian, locals, are
trailing behind. Among the fast adopting SMEs also, it’s
primarily the professional services businesses that are the
fastest.
Out of the SMEs going online, over 30% felt that they will
get into e-com. This is interesting considering that most of
them are very small businesses, with 5 people or less.
They’re at the first stage and saying that if they build a
website in a year’s time, then they’ll also get into E-com in
two years.
“Keeping this trend in mind, we launched our e-commerce
online store in India. It’s very simple, user-friendly, allows
unlimited products to be put up, and comes at an affordable

price of just Rs. 999/month”, added Sodhi.
The store allows SMEs to offer various payment options to
their customers—credit card, debit card, net banking, and
even wallets. “SMBs are used to making payments online
by cash, cheque, etc. and are not used to taking cuts in it.
Every Rupee matters to them, which is why we partnered
with CCAVenue to provide the lowest cost to come online.
There’s zero setup fee, zero signup fee, and the
transaction rates are lowest in the industry, to the tune of
1.8%”, said Sodhi. Moreover, Sodhi also said that they’re
seeing a big surge in the use of mobile wallets, as more
and more people are getting used to paying from their
mobiles. “There are in fact, more mobile wallet users than
credit card users”, he added.
Considering that a majority of online transactions today
follow the CoD (cash on delivery) model, we did wonder
whether GoDaddy’s new e-com platform facilitated this as
well. To this, Rajiv said that their approach in India has
been to go with partners, hence the CCAvenue partnership.
In case of CoD, while it’s possible for SMEs to offer the
service, but for now, they’ll have to setup their own
infrastructure for it.
Another interesting survey finding, is that 54% of the SMEs
are looking for somebody to help them build their website.
“India’s a ‘do-it-for-me’ economy and our company has
care centers and a partner network in every nook and
corner of the country to tackle this concern. We started our
care centers with 3000 calls per month, and now handle the
same number of calls per day! Moreover, we provide

support in the local language spoken in each region”, said
Rajiv.
Setting up a website is not enough. In fact, it’s the first step.
Here’s some advice from Rajiv on what SMEs need to do
after going online in order to succeed:
Get Discovered on Search Engines: Most SMEs would
know their products and value proposition well, so they
have to get their content right and make themselves visible
on search engines. Getting discovered on the Internet is
extremely important, considering that there’s so much
competition. SMEs also need professional help to start
Internet based marketing, and do things like send out email
offers, etc.
Attract Buyers on Social Media: It’s not possible to build
web presence without social media presence today. They
work hand in hand. You have to identify the keywords that
attract business for you, and then throw some money at
them. It’s not an easy job to find your attracters, but the
good thing about the Internet is that you don’t have to have
big budgets. You can run an ad campaign for thousands of
Rupees and then monitor and measure it.
Use the Right Tools for Discovery : SMEs will also need
tools for search engine discovery, email marketing, etc.
where you can setup your customers, contact list,
templates, content and you can start sending your offers.
As small businesses may not have a marketing resource to
do all this, they’ll need a partner’s help. In fact, tie-ups can
be performance based, where you can pay based on the

outcome.
Hire Marketing Resources and Professionals: Manpower is
the biggest challenge for any business in their core area.
Trying to hire somebody for Internet can become
overwhelming very quickly for small businesses. The ecosystem
however, is maturing very rapidly to offer the right
manpower to outsource to.
Find the Right Partners: Most people in this trade
understand that they’re working with a customer very
young, and some of the partners themselves would be very
small. So they’ll actually go hand-in-hand and grow with
their SME customers. They understand that the moment
they deliver good performance, they can unlock more
investments. “The increment-ality of this is an advantage,
so SMBs don’t have to do a huge outlay of budgets to test
Internet marketing”, added Rajiv.
2016-01-14 05:13:37 Anil Chopra
283 Hope in a Glove for Parkinson’s Patients
When he was a 24-year-old medical
student living in London, Faii Ong
was assigned to care for a 103-
year-old patient who suffered from
Parkinson’s, the progressive
neurological condition that affects a
person’s ease of movement. After
watching her struggle to eat a bowl

of soup, Ong asked another nurse what more could be
done to help the woman. “There’s nothing,” he was grimly
told.
Ong, now 26, didn’t accept the answer. He began to search
for a solution that might offset the tremulous symptoms of
Parkinson’s, a disease that affects one in 500 people, not
through drugs but physics. After evaluating the use of
elastic bands, weights, springs, hydraulics, and even soft
robotics, Ong settled on a simpler solution, one that he
recognized from childhood toys. “Mechanical gyroscopes
are like spinning tops: they always try to stay upright by
conserving angular momentum,” he explains. “My idea was
to use gyroscopes to instantaneously and proportionally
resist a person’s hand movement, thereby dampening any
tremors in the wearer’s hand.”
Together with a number of other students from Imperial
College London, Ong worked in the university’s prototyping
laboratory to run numerous tests. An early prototype of a
device, called GyroGlove, proved his instinct correct.
Patients report that wearing the GyroGlove, which Ong
believes to be the first wearable treatment solution for hand
tremors, is like plunging your hand into thick syrup, where
movement is free but simultaneously slowed. In benchtop
tests, the team found the glove reduces tremors by up to
90 percent.
GyroGlove’s design is simple. It uses a miniature,
dynamically adjustable gyroscope, which sits on the back of
the hand, within a plastic casing attached to the glove’s
material. When the device is switched on, the battery-

powered gyroscope whirs to life. Its orientation is adjusted
by a precession hinge and turntable, both controlled by a
small circuit board, thereby pushing back against the
wearer’s movements as the gyroscope tries to right itself.
While the initial prototypes of the device still require
refinements to size and noise, Alison McGregor, professor
of musculoskeletal biodynamics at Imperial College, who
has been a mentor to the team, says the device “holds
great promise and could have a significant impact on users’
quality of life.” Helen Matthews of the Cure Parkinson’s
Trust agrees: “GyroGlove will make everyday tasks such as
using a computer, writing, cooking, and driving possible for
sufferers,” she says.
In 2014, Ong’s company, GyroGear, made it to the finals of
OneStart, the world’s largest biotech business competition.
Last year the team was named inaugural champion of the F
Factor, the European Union’s largest tech challenge, which
was founded by X Factor music mogul Simon Cowell in an
effort to discover and support a new generation of
technology entrepreneurs. The £10,000 prize money has
provided the bulk of funding for the GyroGlove’s
development and operation costs.
Challenges, nevertheless, must be solved before the glove
will be commercially available. “Gyroscopes must be
balanced properly according to the speeds at which they
are operating,” explains Ong. “Simple as they are, being
able to spin them silently and reliably at thousands of RPM
is another key challenge.”

While Ong and the team have yet to set an exact launch
date and cost for the glove, they hope to launch in the U. K.
before September at a price between £400 to £600 ($550
to $850). Beyond that, Ong has plans to address other
tremors elsewhere in the body, such as the legs. He also
believes that the device could be used in professional
contexts where the wearer requires a steady hand, such as
surgery, photography, and even sports.
Among Parkinson’s sufferers, the device has generated a
significant amount of hope, according to Sarah Webb,
founder of the South London Younger Parkinson’s Network.
“People with Parkinson’s take a cocktail of drugs daily,
which over time won’t be so effective,” she says. “The
GyroGlove is an exciting and a completely different
concept: something we can wear, something we can feel
the benefits of immediately and something which will make
our lives easier and allow us to get on with our daily lives.”
2016-01-14 00:00:00 By Simon Parkin on January 14, 2016
284
Video consumption behavior - India v/s
Developed markets
Vuclip, the leading premium mobile
video on demand (VOD) service for
emerging markets, today released
its Global Video Insights Report for
the year 2015, comparing
developing markets such as India
with developed markets in terms video consumption

ehaviour of users. The insights are a result of a
comprehensive online survey of 4600 users across six
developing (India, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, UAE and
Philippines) and four developed (USA, UK, Singapore and
Australia) markets.
The survey insights fall under the four broad categories of
OTT VOD service features that viewers consider important,
device preference, types of video content consumed and
video consumption behavior in terms of preference to
stream or download.
Key Insights
OTT VOD Service Features that Viewers Consider
Important:
Device Preference for Video Consumption:
Type of Video Content Consumed Across Devices:
Video Consumption Behavior:
Methodology
The data for preparing the Vuclip Global Video Insights
2015 report was collected by conducting a comprehensive
online survey of 4600 users across six developing (India,
Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, UAE and Philippines) and
four developed (USA, UK, Singapore and Australia) nations.
The participants for this study comprised of 18-35 years old
smartphone internet users who viewed videos on their
smartphones at least once a month. Additionally,

geographic representation from different parts of each
country was ensured for adequate coverage. Users were
provided multiple-choice questions and had the option to
opt out. No incentives were provided for responding.
2016-01-13 08:42:54 Anuj Sharma
285
Samsung to make Qualcomm's Snapdragon
820 chips
Samsung Electronics will be making
Qualcomm's upcoming Snapdragon
820 mobile processors, refueling
speculation that the chips could find
their way into the South Korean
giant's premium smartphones, thus
winning back lost business.
The chip-maker said Thursday it had begun mass
production of logic chips utilizing its 14-nanometer LPP
(Low-Power Plus) process, which is used to make its own
Exynos 8 Octa processor. It added that the Qualcomm
Snapdragon 820 processor also uses the 14nm LPP
process and is expected to be in devices in the first half of
this year.
Samsung declined to comment on whether the Snapdragon
processor would also be designed into Samsung's phones
including the upcoming Galaxy S7. Leaks of the device,
rumored to be announced at the Mobile World Congress in
Barcelona next month, have suggested that it could use the

Snapdragon 820.
Qualcomm said it has always used a variety of fab suppliers
and will continue to do so. "Our decision to choose a
specific process technology is based on its ability to meet
our design goals for performance, power efficiency and
yield," a Qualcomm spokeswoman wrote via email.
A chip fabrication deal may not necessarily translate into
Samsung using the Qualcomm chips in the Galaxy S7, said
Patrick Moorhead, president and principal analyst at Moor
Insights & Strategy. Samsung runs their businesses in a
very disconnected fashion, with its mobile and
semiconductor businesses very separate, wrote Moorhead
in an email. "Therefore, I don't believe that the fact the 820
is built by Samsung increases its chances of being in the
SGS7," he added.
Qualcomm lost business from Samsung as the smartphone
vendor decided to use its in-house Exynos processor rather
than the Snapdragon 810 chip in its flagship Samsung
Galaxy S6 and S6 edge smartphones. Qualcomm said in
April last year that it did not expect an immediate shift in its
share of components in Samsung's premium devices and
cut its revenue guidance for 2015.
But a shift could come because the 820 offers better
performance than the Exynos. "I do believe Samsung must
use the 820 to be more competitive with Apple. 820 hits
performance per watt levels Exynos just can't hit,"
Moorhead said.

Smartphones and other devices built around chips made
with the new process can also be expected to be more
power-efficient and faster. Samsung claimed that its new
14nm LPP process delivers up to 15 percent higher speed
and 15 percent less power consumption over the previous
14nm LPE (Low-Power Early) process through
improvements in transistor structure and process
optimization. Samsung announced in the first quarter of last
year its Exynos 7 Octa processor built on the 14nm LPE
process.
2016-01-13 00:00:00 John Ribeiro
286
Big Pharma Doubles Down on CRISPR for
New Drugs
Can the powerful gene-editing tool
CRISPR help cure diseases? Drug
companies are racing to find out.
A recently announced $300 million
joint venture between Bayer AG
and startup CRISPR Therapeutics
—to develop new drugs for blood
disorders, blindness, and congenital
heart disease—is just the latest indication that the
pharmaceutical industry is eager to find and develop new
cures using CRISPR. But it’s far too early to grasp the full
potential for CRISPR-based therapeutics, and much of the
near-term focus will be on developing ways to deliver the
gene-editing system to specific targets in the body.

CRISPR Therapeutics is one of three high-profile startups—
the others being Editas Medicine and Intellia Therapeutics
—aiming to use CRISPR to engineer new cures. All three
are collaborating with or have garnered investments from
larger drug-making companies, and the dealings over the
past year have revealed broad disease areas where
drugmakers see opportunities for applying the new tool.
In the near-term, CRISPR is attractive for use in
experimental therapies for certain genetic diseases or
cancers. These therapies entail removing cells from the
body, modifying their DNA, and reintroducing them. But all
three companies are also intent on developing technologies
for delivering CRISPR to cells in the body without having to
remove them—a substantially more complicated challenge
which if met would open the door to a much broader range
of potential therapies.
One major objective of Bayer’s joint venture with CRISPR
Therapeutics will be to develop new delivery technologies
which will be “critical” to future drugs meant to target cells
inside the body, says Rodger Novak, CEO of CRISPR
Therapeutics. It’s not a small challenge. To work, the drug
first has to find the right organ or tissue. Once it’s there it
must deliver the payload into the right cells in a safe way.
“The ultimate need” of any of the players trying to make
CRISPR drugs is for technologies that can increase
CRISPR’s specificity, so that it edits only the target DNA
sequence, says Axel Bouchon, head of Bayer’s newly
launched LifeScience Center, who will lead the joint

venture. The basis of CRISPR technology is a biological
system some bacteria use to remove unwanted viral DNA
sequences (see “ Genome Surgery ”). One of the
molecules that locates and cuts the DNA has evolved to be
somewhat nonspecific so it can be flexible enough to
address a range of different viruses, says Bouchon.
That’s not a problem for some applications involving
engineering cells outside the body, or ex vivo , says
Bouchon. “If you want to go in vivo you have to make sure
that it is highly specific” to the targeted sequence, he says.
He says Bayer holds proprietary technology as well as the
in-house expertise needed to achieve that specificity.
Once the system is specific enough, there could be several
ways to get it into the right cells, such as by using viral
vectors or nanoparticles. Delivering it to the right tissue
might be as simple as licensing a syringe for injecting into
the eyeball, or a stent for delivering the drug to the heart,
says Bouchon. But none of the players trying to make
CRISPR drugs have yet been able tackle all three
challenges—delivering the drug to the tissue, the cells, and
ultimately to the target sequence with the necessary
specificity, he says.
Bayer is a leader in treating certain genetic diseases of the
blood, including the clotting disorder hemophilia, and
Bouchon says the shortest route to developing a CRISPR
drug may be in the treatment of a portion of those diseases
that could be treated ex vivo. Treating the other disorders
will require delivering a drug to cells in the liver, but that
requires a “huge step,” says Bouchon.

Treating genetic eye disorders is another attractive nearterm
application because the eye is less susceptible to
immune reactions, and because some methods for injection
into the eye are well established (see “ CRISPR Gene
Editing to be Tested on People by 2017, Says Editas ”). A
CRISPR-based drug for congenital heart disease,
meanwhile, is a “moonshot” idea, says Bouchon. Delivering
CRISPR to the right cells in the heart, or in other similarly
complex organ systems, presents challenges that will likely
take more than a decade to solve, cautions Novak.
Indeed, though the technology “will be game-changing for
medicine,” says Novak, “these are really early days.”
2016-01-13 00:00:00 By Mike Orcutt on January 13, 2016
287
'Ridiculous' Bug in Popular Antivirus Allows
Hackers to Steal all Your Passwords
If you have installed Trend Micro's
Antivirus on your Windows
computer, then Beware.
Your computer can be remotely
hijacked, or infected with any malware by even through a
website – Thanks to a critical vulnerability in Trend Micro
Security Software.
The Popular antivirus maker and security firm Trend Micro
has released an emergency patch to fix critical flaws in its
anti-virus product that allow hackers to execute arbitrary

commands remotely as well as steal your saved password
from Password Manager built into its AntiVirus program.
The password management tool that comes bundled with
its main antivirus is used to store passwords by users and
works exactly like any other password manager application.
Even Websites Can Hack Into Your Computer
Google's Project Zero security researcher, Tavis Ormandy,
discovered the remote code execution flaw in Trend Micro
Antivirus Password Manager component, allowing hackers
to steal users’ passwords.
In short, once compromised, all your accounts passwords
are gone.
Technically, The Password Manager component within the
Antivirus suite works by starting a Node.js server on the
local computer, by default, every time the main antivirus
starts.
When analyzed the Password Manager component,
Ormandy found that the Node.js server leaves a number of
HTTP RPC ports used for handling API requests open to
the world.
Available at " http://localhost:49155/api/ ," hackers could
craft malicious links that, when clicked by a user with Trend
Micro antivirus installed, would allow them to execute
arbitrary code on the local computer with zero user
interaction.
In short, an attacker could easily remotely download

malicious code and execute it on your machine, even
without your knowledge.
Besides this, Ormandy also found that the Trend Micro
Password Manager also exposes over 70 APIs through this
same Node.js server.
More? Trend Micro Uses Self-Signed SSL Certificate
Just like Lenovo’s Superfish and Dell’s eDellRoot , Trend
Micro also adds a self-signed security certificate to its
user’s certificate store, so that its users will not see any
HTTPS errors.
Ormandy said, “ this thing is ridiculous. ”
Trend Micro installs a self-signed HTTPS certificate that
can intercept encrypted traffic for every website a user
visits.
Ormandy reported the issue to Trend Micro's team and
helped them create a patch for it, which is now available to
address the remote-code execution flaw. SO, Trend Micro
users are advised to update their software as soon as
possible.
2016-01-12 06:30:00 Mohit Kumar
288
Microsoft offers developers free tools for its
R programming language software
Microsoft is giving developers and students a

free crack at its new server software for the R programming
language.
In a post to the company's Machine Learning blog ,
Microsoft Corporate Vice President Joseph Sirosh
announced the new Microsoft R Server for Developers,
which offers a free version of the software to members of
the company's developer program. The software will give
developers a test bed to work with an enterprise-grade
version of the popular data analysis language before rolling
it out into production.
The launch comes alongside Microsoft's rebranding of
Revolution R Enterprise to Microsoft R Server, after its
acquisition of Revolution Analytics last year. The server
software can be used to analyze large sets of data on
Linux, Hadoop and Teradata systems. The developer
edition contains all of the features of its mass-market
sibling, but can only be used for development and testing
purposes.
The benefit to using Microsoft R Server is that it comes with
a support commitment so companies that need help can
get it, along with improvements like the ability to process
data in chunks or in parallel. That's important to businesses
using R for mission-critical applications.
Students and teachers who are part of Microsoft's
DreamSpark program will also be able to download and use
Microsoft R Server for free.
R Server will also be making the jump to the company's

Azure cloud platform as a supported virtual machine type in
the future, so developers can run it on Azure without a
whole lot of setup work.
All of this is part of Microsoft's continuing ambitions to drive
businesses forward using big data tools, artificial
intelligence and predictive analytics. The company has
invested heavily over the past several years in building out
capabilities for companies to reap more insights from the
data that they have, in the hopes that will help power its
business going forward.
2016-01-12 00:00:00 Blair Hanley Frank
289
Parents Turn to Prozac to Treat Down
Syndrome
When Southwest Airlines pilot Paul
Watson lands in a new city, he often
strikes out to visit the labs of local
scientists studying Down syndrome.
He likes to stay current because his
14-year-old son, Nathan, has the
condition.
And Watson can take some credit
for one idea spreading among parents: that the drug
fluoxetine, also known as Prozac, might actually treat Down
syndrome.
After reading about studies on mice that found positive

effects from treatment with the blockbuster antidepressant,
Watson got a prescription for his son, who has been taking
the drug for three years. “Nathan is doing pretty well
cognitively,” says Watson, who lives in Georgia.
He’s not the only child being given the drug. Parent activists
say there are at least 200 children with Down syndrome in
the U. S. who are receiving fluoxetine in an attempt to boost
their brainpower, and the same is happening overseas. “I
know at least 30 people in my circle of friends who have
their kids on Prozac,” says Lara Font, who lives near
Houston and started her six-year-old son, Parker, on
fluoxetine when he was 15 months old.
There’s no cure for Down syndrome and no drug treatment.
That’s frustrating to parents. But no one can say if Prozac is
working because, so far, research has focused on mice, not
humans, and there hasn’t been any clinical trial of the
drug’s effectiveness in Down syndrome. Few
pharmaceutical companies study any treatments for the
disorder.
Through Watson’s advocacy, that is about to change. At the
end of this month, doctors at the University of Texas
Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas plan to start
enrolling 21 pregnant women whose fetuses have been
diagnosed with Down syndrome. Fourteen will be chosen at
random to take fluoxetine and the others will get a placebo.
After birth, the children will keep taking the pills until they
are two years old, and they’ll be evaluated regularly after
they’re born via developmental skills assessments and MRI

imaging. The study is the first organized trial of fluoxetine to
treat Down syndrome and one of the few studies of any
drug to treat the condition.
“Other parents whose kids are taking Prozac also feel that
their kids are performing ahead of their peers with Down
syndrome,” says Watson. “But we don’t really know. That’s
why we want a drug trial. We wanted to legitimize it with a
formal study.”
The big question is whether Prozac somehow can steer the
development of the brain, which in people with Down
syndrome is characterized by fewer neurons, a smaller
overall size, and lower-than-usual IQ. Down syndrome, also
called trisomy 21, is caused by an extra copy of
chromosome 21.
The pilot study won’t be large enough to fully answer that
question, in part because children with Down syndrome are
born with wide differences in cognitive symptoms. But if
results are promising, the study might expand to other
hospitals, says Carol Tamminga, chair of the psychiatry
department at UT Southwestern and head of the study.
Tamminga has a personal interest; she had a sister with
Down syndrome who died in her twenties. “Her IQ was
perhaps 30,” says Tamminga. A drug that could “help that
even moderately” would be a significant advance, she says.
Prozac hit the market in the mid-1980s and became an
instant commercial success. Many pregnant women
already take the drug if they’re depressed, although it is not
without its concerns. Some studies have associated the

drug with a small risk of serious lung and heart problems,
premature birth, and an increased risk of autism. But others
have found no increase in major birth defects.
The idea of administering fluoxetine to treat Down
syndrome started to gain currency among parents about 10
years ago after some early laboratory research on animals
showed promising results.
Since then, there’s been more evidence the drug could
help, particularly a 2014 study, reported in the journal
Brain, by Italian researcher Renata Bartesaghi. When she
gave fluoxetine to mice whose pups have a rodent version
of Down syndrome, the animals were born with a normal
number of neurons.
“We counted the number of cells in every single part of the
brain in the pups,” says Bartesaghi. “In every part we
examined, the number of neurons was normal.”
Watson says he was already giving Nathan fluoxetine when
he saw the journal article and sent it to Matt Byerly, a
psychiatry professor at UT Southwestern, to pitch the idea
of an organized study on kids that could prove whether his
decision was the right one.
Byerly, who recently moved to the University of Montana
but is still involved in the trial, says when he reviewed what
was known about Prozac’s effects on animals he found that
seven of eight studies on Down syndrome mouse models
had showed benefits from fluoxetine. But Byerly felt the
science demanded a prenatal study, not one in children,

whose brains are further developed.
“What I found is that there are significant effects evident in
the brain by the end of the second trimester and certainly
by birth,” says Byerly. “I felt that to take advantage of what
fluoxetine could potentially do, we needed to intervene
before these changes occur.”
Treating fetuses with any drug is unusual. As a result, says
Byerly, the UT study has 14 co-investigators, about three
times the usual number, including prenatal specialists and
pharmacologists who will monitor what’s happening. In Italy,
Bartesaghi says her own request to test the effect of
fluoxetine on pregnant women was rejected by an Italian
ethics committee, although she is currently testing the drug
in some children with Down syndrome.
Fluoxetine works by increasing the availability of serotonin,
a neurotransmitter, which plays a role in mood but also in
regulating the formation of neurons in the developing brain.
By increasing serotonin levels during pregnancy,
Bartesaghi and Byerly think, infants with Down syndrome
could be born with brains closer to normal.
Other researchers, such as Diana Bianchi of Tufts
University Medical School, are hesitant to administer
fluoxetine to pregnant women who aren’t depressed, but
have also started to search for other drugs that might treat
Down syndrome (see “ A Change of Mind ”).
But Byerly thinks the safety profile of the antidepressant is
so well studied that there’s not significant risk. “Why not test

it?” he says.
Hundreds of parents have already reached the same
conclusion. And a few, like Dominika Kuchta, have even
taken the drug during pregnancy. Kuchta, a Polish citizen
who lives in the United Kingdom, says she took Prozac in
2014 while pregnant with her son, Tomasz, and after
learning from a prenatal test that he’d be born with Down
syndrome.
Tomasz, now 21 months, has low muscle tone, which is
typical of kids with Down syndrome, but at 18 months he
could say “dog,” “apple,” and “bear.”
“He knows that a spoon is for eating, that a hat goes on a
head, that a cat goes meow,” says Kuchta, who spends
hours teaching him phonics and showing him flash cards.
Until the results of UT Southwestern’s study are in,
however, Kuchta will have no way of knowing if fluoxetine
helped.
“It’s important to know if it’s due to pharmacology or me
teaching him,” she says. “My gut feeling is that it is a mix.”
2016-01-12 00:00:00 By Bonnie Rochman on January 12, 2016
290
Tableau opens the doors to its first
European data center
Users of Tableau's cloud software for business analytics
can now choose whether to store their data in North
America or Europe thanks to a new data center the

company has opened in Ireland.
Announced Tuesday, the new
facility is Tableau's first data center
in the European Union and is now
available to both new and existing
users of Tableau Online.
Customers that already use the service will be given the
option of migrating their data to the Dublin-based site,
Tableau said.
The new data center is ISO27001 certified and backed by a
disaster-recovery facility in Munich, Germany.
Roughly half of the 3,000 or so customers using Tableau
Online are located outside the U. S., Tableau said. The
company claims to have more than 35,000 customers in
150 countries.
“With the opening of our European data center, we are
responding to a desire from customers to choose where
they host their data,” said James Eiloart, vice president of
Tableau’s European operations.
The death of the Safe Harbor agreement in October
created a sudden and pressing need for local European
storage, and cloud-services providers have been racing
ever since to set up their own EU storage options.
Dropbox, for instance, announced in December its plans to
set up EU infrastructure this year. Amazon, Microsoft and
NetSuite have taken similar steps.
2016-01-12 00:00:00 Katherine Noyes

291 Startups Club Announces Demo Day 2016
NEW DELHI, INDIA: Startups Club ,
a premier destination for early
stage startups, today announced
the kick-off of their year-long event,
Demo Day 2016 in Bangalore.
Demo Day 2016 will take place
across 10 cities and provide early stage startups with the
opportunity to attend boot camps, meet investors, secure
funding and win prize money.
The 4th edition of Demo Day will be hosted in Bangalore,
Chennai, Hyderabad, Coimbatore, Mumbai, Delhi, Pune,
Kochi, Ahmedabad and Vizag. Each city will have local
startups presenting their ideas and one winner from each
city will win prize money of Rs.1 lac. These top 10 winners
will then participate in the Chennai finale in December
2016, where they will present their ideas to a prestigious
panel of Investors, Mentors & Entrepreneurs. The national
winner will be awarded with Grand Finale Prize of Rs.5 lacs
plus many tools as support system.
Indian startups are attracting more funding in early stages
than ever before. In the first nine months of 2015, around
$1.4 billion in early stage investments—the highest ever for
the country—has been pumped into startups, according to
data from Venture Intelligence, a research firm. Last year,
304 deals saw a total funding of $1.2 billion.

“Demo Day is a platform for a cherry-picked set of startups
to pitch to a set of investors to possibly raise funds. Demo
Day 2016 promises to be bigger and better, covering 10
cities across India, with over 1500 attendees across
locations and participation from around 100 startups. We
are confident that early-stage startups will leverage the
platform to take their ideas to a larger audience and create
a compelling value proposition,” said Salma Moosa, Core
Organizer, Startups Club.
A pan-India hunt for startups, Demo Day simplifies the
process of meeting with investors one on one, to pitch
ideas directly, get validated and get funded. For
participants it is a platform for sharing ideas, networking
with industry veterans and reaching potential Seed and
Angel investors. Visitors can listen to the thought leaders of
the ecosystem, network with entrepreneurs and observe
the trends in the startups world. More information on
Startups Club Demo Day 2016 is available at
http://startupsclub.org/demoday/
2016-01-11 09:08:36 www.pcquest.com
292
Apple App Store Registers Record
Download this Holiday Season
NEW DELHI, INDIA: Apple today announced that customers
around the world made this holiday season the biggest ever
for the App Store, setting new records during the weeks of
Christmas and New Year’s.

In the two weeks ending January 3,
customers spent over US$1.1 billion
on apps and in-app purchases,
setting back-to-back weekly records
for traffic and purchases. January
1, 2016 marked the biggest day in
App Store history with customers
spending over US$144 million. It
broke the previous single-da y
record set just a week earlier on Christmas Day.
“The App Store had a holiday season for the record books.
We are excited that our customers downloaded and
enjoyed so many incredible apps for iPhone, iPad, Mac,
Apple Watch and Apple TV, spending over US$20 billion on
the App Store last year alone,” said Philip Schiller, Apple’s
senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing. “We’re
grateful to all the developers who have created the most
innovative and exciting apps in the world for our customers.
We can’t wait for what’s to come in 2016.”
Worldwide, the App Store has brought in nearly US$40
billion for developers since 2008, with over one-third
generated in the last year alone. Largely as a result of the
App Store’s success, Apple is now responsible for creating
and supporting 1.9 million jobs in the U. S. alone. Nearly
three-quarters of those jobs — over 1.4 million — are
attributable to the community of app creators, software
engineers and entrepreneurs building apps for iOS, as well
as non-IT jobs supported directly and indirectly through the
app economy.

Apple has previously reported that the iOS app economy
has created 1.2 million jobs in Europe and 1.4 million jobs
in China.
Gaming, Social Networking and Entertainment were among
the year’s most popular App Store categories across Apple
products, with customers challenging themselves to
Minecraft: Pocket Edition, Trivia Crack and Heads Up!, and
staying in touch with friends and family using Facebook
Messenger, WeChat and Snapchat. Games and
subscription apps dominated this year’s top grossing titles
including Clash of Clans, Monster Strike, Game of War –
Fire Age and Fantasy Westward Journey, as well as Netflix,
Hulu and Match.
2016-01-08 09:07:49 www.pcquest.com
293
Google-Lenovo Project Tango will hit
shelves 'this summer'
Google and Lenovo have finally
announced a release date for
Project Tango - sort of.
The partnership, which was
announced this week at CES 2016
in Las Vegas, will bring 3D location technology like new
indoor tracking and augmented reality features, to the
budget smartphone.
Project Tango was first announced back in 2014, when

Google sent out 200 prototype devices to developers. The
device was tipped to reach the market in 2015 as a 7in
tablet created in partnership with LG.
However, for reasons unknown, that version of Tango
never appeared, instead re-emerging in this 6in, Lenovomade
form.
"We locked arms with Google to bring out a consumer
device based on Tango," said Lenovo VP, Jeff Meredith.
"We are extremely proud of where we are at this stage of
the effort. We don't want this to be a niche technology," he
added.
The device, which exclusively uses imagery and mapping
for location, not GPS or other sensors, to work out its
position in relation to its environment, will be powered by
Qualcomm Snapdragon processors, with the software
developed by Google (presumably involving a version of
Android as an operating system, although this hasn't been
confirmed) and the rest of the hardware and distribution
taken care of by Lenovo.
The device will, according to the announcement by Google
and Lenovo, cost less than $500 (£343) before tax and be
released in the US this summer.
Unfortunately for those living elsewhere, there is no release
date or estimated price for other regions as yet.
2016-01-08 00:00:00 Jane McCallion

294
The Dubious Promise of Bioenergy Plus
Carbon Capture
While many scientists and climate
change activists hailed December’s
Paris agreement as a historic step
forward for international efforts to
limit global warming, the landmark
accord rests on a highly dubious
assumption: to achieve the goal of
limiting the rise in global average
temperature to less than 2 °C
(much less the more ambitious goal of 1.5 °C), we don’t
just need to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide to
essentially zero by the end of this century. We also must
remove from the atmosphere huge amounts of carbon
dioxide that have already been emitted (see “Paris Climate
Agreement Rests on Shaky Technological Foundations” ).
Doing so will involve “negative emissions technologies”—
systems that capture carbon dioxide and store it, usually
deep underground. Such technologies are theoretical at
best, but they are considered critical for achieving the Paris
goals. Of the 116 scenarios reviewed by the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to achieve
stabilization of carbon in the atmosphere at between 430
and 480 parts per million (the level considered necessary
for a maximum 2 °C rise in temperature), 101 involve some
form of negative emissions.
There are basically two ways to eliminate carbon from the

atmosphere. One is to capture it from the air. Technologies
to do so are still in their infancy and, even if they do prove
practical, are likely decades away from deployment—far too
late to achieve the goals of the Paris agreement (see
“Materials Could Capture CO2 and Make It Useful” ). The
other is to rely on plants to capture the carbon dioxide, then
burn the plants to generate power (or refine them into liquid
fuels such as ethanol), and capture the resulting carbon
emissions. Known as “bioenergy plus carbon capture and
storage,” or BECCS, this cumbersome process is receiving
renewed attention in the wake of Paris. But there is no
guarantee that it will ever work.
Large amounts of biomass would be produced from fastgrowing
trees, switchgrass, agriculture waste, or other
sources. The biomass would then be turned into pellets for
burning in power plants—either on their own or as
additives. The resulting emissions would be separated
using carbon-capture technologies that have been proven
at small scale but have never been applied economically at
anything like commercial scale. Finally, the carbon dioxide
would be stored in deep-underground aquifers, presumably
permanently.
While each of these steps is technically feasible, neither
has proven to be successful at a large scale. Although
there are dozens of projects that use biomass, either alone
or in combination with other fuels such as coal, for
producing electricity, there are serious doubts about the
economic viability of the sector, the availability of biomass
supplies to support growth, and the life-cycle contribution of

such facilities to greenhouse gas emissions. Ambitious
projections for carbon capture and storage programs,
meanwhile, have proven unrealistic, and there is little
indication that such systems will become economically
viable in the foreseeable future.
What’s more, although the full BECCS process is often
touted as carbon-negative, there are several faulty
assumptions in that characterization.
The first is that sufficient amounts of biomass could be
produced to displace a significant percentage of fossil-fuel
produced electricity, and that producing those amounts
would be carbon-neutral. Advocates assert that because
plants capture carbon from the atmosphere, burning the
plants and releasing the carbon back into the atmosphere
does not result in a net gain. That is nominally true, but it
doesn’t account for the energy required for growing,
harvesting, processing, and transporting the biomass, and
it diverts land from other purposes, including food crops,
that will become more urgent as the human population
surges toward nine billion.
The most prominent BECCS project currently underway is
Archer Daniels Midland’s project at Decatur, Illinois. The
project has been years in development. “Permitting has
been a long and complex process,” says Scott McDonald,
the project manager. And it still awaits final approval from
the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency. Once it’s
complete, the captured carbon will not be stored
underground but used for enhanced oil recovery in nearby
wells. Studies have estimated that about a billion barrels of

esidual oil could be recovered in the Illinois basin using
carbon dioxide for enhanced oil recovery. In other words, a
technology advertised as carbon-negative would result in
the production of a billion new barrels of carbon-producing
fossil fuels—oil that would not otherwise be produced. That
is hardly a climate-friendly solution.
Already, some proposed BECCS projects have foundered
on these obstacles. In September, Drax, one of the largest
power companies in the U. K., pulled out of the White Rose
Carbon Capture Project , which would capture 90 percent
of the carbon emissions from a 428-megawatt plant that
burns coal and biomass. Drax has converted three of the
six coal-fired turbines at the site to burn biomass. The fate
of the carbon-capture project in the wake of Drax’s
departure is uncertain. The experience of “clean coal”
projects using carbon capture and storage, without
biomass, is similarly discouraging: FutureGen, a highly
touted CCS project in Illinois, was finally canceled in
February 2015 after multiple setbacks.
In short, BECCS represents the marriage of two
technologies, neither of which has proven to be viable on its
own. The technology’s “credibility as a climate change
mitigation option is unproven,” concluded a September
2014 study in Nature Climate Change led by Sabine Fuss,
a scientist at the Mercator Research Institute on Global
Commons and Climate Change in Berlin, “and its
widespread deployment in climate stabilization scenarios
might become a dangerous distraction.”
2016-01-08 00:00:00 By Richard Martin on January 8, 2016

295
Barracuda Introduces New Cloud Archiving
Service
NEW DELHI, INDIA: In order to
assist organisations with
compliance and efficiently address
eDiscovery requests, Barracuda today announced the
availability of the new Barracuda Cloud Archiving Service. It
also outlined its Microsoft Office 365 strategic initiative
designed to help organisations manage their businesses
more easily, securely, and efficiently when moving to, and
operating in, Office 365. The new cloud-based archiving
service supports the company’s Office 365 initiative and
when used in Microsoft Exchange, Office 365, or hybrid
environments compliance is easy to demonstrate.
Additionally, end users can have read only access to
search and retrieve email at any time from any device,
using a web or mobile interface via integration with
Microsoft Outlook on Windows, or with native applications
for MacOS, iOS, and Android.
“As organisations increasingly move to cloud environments,
the need to easily access and protect their email data does
not change. Barracuda has a rich history of providing
advanced technology to protect on-premises information for
many different organisations, and we continue to innovate
to help protect data no matter where it resides,” said Rod
Mathews, GM Data Protection, Barracuda.
Barracuda Cloud Archiving Service provides extensive

search and discovery capabilities outside of the operational
environment on a separate secure archive copy of the data.
Barracuda recommends this industry best practice to
ensure there is no conflict between data retention for
operational compliance and legal search and discovery
exercises. As a result, customers can demonstrate the
accuracy and completeness of data returned for each
search.
Developed with end user productivity in mind, Barracuda
Cloud Archiving Service includes integration with Microsoft
Outlook on Windows, and native applications for MacOS,
iOS, and Android, which allow for read only access to
search and retrieve email at any time from any device.
2016-01-07 09:57:36 www.pcquest.com
296
Ford CEO Explains Why It’s Hard to Build
Self-Driving Cars
Ford didn’t announce a deal with
Google to develop self-driving cars
at CES this week, as some had
expected. But the automaker did
reiterate its commitment to
developing autonomous vehicles,
as CEO Mark Fields announced a
new version of its self-driving test
car and said the company will ramp
up its fleet from 10 to 30 of them this year, letting the
company gather more information faster in hopes of

eventually getting to a point where it can sell such a car to
consumers.
Fields sat down with MIT Technology Review to discuss the
challenges Ford is facing in building autonomous cars, how
we’re likely to start using such vehicles, and the kinds of
social cues we’ll need to program for them to work in reallife
driving situations. And as for that Google deal, Fields
declined to comment, saying only that the company talks
privately with many companies.
Ford has been quieter than many other carmakers
regarding automated driving. Why have you been more
cautious about the technology?
We take autonomous driving very, very seriously. And we
want to make sure that when we talk about something that
we have a lot of experience under our belts to inform and to
allow us to speak intelligently around what our plans are
going forward. But obviously we’re here at CES this year to,
at the highest level, really send the message that we are
transforming the company from just an auto company to an
auto and mobility company, and thinking about it in this
more holistic way, through what we call Ford Smart
Mobility, and one of the elements is autonomous driving.
And that’s why we announced today our even bigger
commitment in tripling the [self-driving test] fleet.
What are some of the biggest lessons you’ve learned from
the previous driverless car models that were incorporated
into the new one?

First off, that there are a lot of different variables. When you
originally think you have all the bases covered, you realize
there are probably multitudes more that you need to cover.
Weather conditions, for example: when you look at some of
the capabilities of the cameras and the sonars and the
sensors, some have difficulty operating, for example, in
freezing rain or snow or inclement conditions, and we’ve
had to work through some of those things. And we’re still
working through them.
Yeah, some technologies key to autonomous-driving—such
as lidar laser scanners—seem to have difficulties in bad
weather. How are you trying to solve this?
The way we’re overcoming it is not only are we using lidar
sensors but we’re using cameras and sonar, etc., to be
able to compensate for, let’s say, inclement weather. So
you have—I won’t say redundant systems, but you have
systems that will give you a complete picture of things.
Will these problems be solvable in the near future?
I think they’ll be solvable. It’s going to take time. We’ve said
that we haven’t put a time frame on when we would be
introducing a fully autonomous vehicle, but we’ve said when
we do we want to make sure it works, it’s safe, and also it’s
accessible to everyone, and not just folks that can afford
luxury cars.
Beyond the few features we’ve seen thus far that bring a
measure of autonomy to cars, how do you expect
autonomous driving to roll out to the general public, both

from Ford and from others?
I think first off we would see fully autonomous vehicles
launching in defined areas that have been 3-D mapped.
And potentially launched with a service—transportation as a
service—in mind first. Passengers, a passenger kind of
ride-sharing service, those are some of the things we’re
thinking about right now.
Will there eventually be different degrees of autonomy for
different kinds of drivers and situations?
I think we’ll have varying degrees. I mean, our strategy is
twofold. One is to continue to offer great semi-autonomous
driving features. I mean, features we have in our vehicles
today where we lead in a lot of different segments, whether
it’s vehicles that keep you in your lane or help you parallel
or perpendicular park automatically, automatically brake,
those kind of things. We’re also, at the same time, having a
dedicated team working toward delivering a fully
autonomous vehicle, but in a defined area. Our view is
longer term that there will be fully autonomous vehicles
where the driver doesn’t have to be involved, but in the
near term obviously it’s going to be more semi-autonomous
features.
Autonomous vehicles so far refuse to break the law—even
when that may be the safest thing to do, like to avoid an
accident. How do we add that aspect of intelligence to
driverless cars?
We’re going to have to work at it. Let’s use the example of

when an autonomous vehicle comes to a crosswalk, and a
lot of times today when you’re trying to cross the street, if
there’s no light, if you’re the pedestrian, you want to look to
make sure the vehicle isn’t creeping forward. You want to
make eye contact. So I think we have to think through that.
Or let’s say you’re at a four-way stop. The rule is whoever
gets there first and stops can go. But as you know, people
don’t always follow the law. So one of the things is how
would we program into the vehicle that when you come to a
four-way stop that you can actually start creeping forward a
bit to signal to the other cars that you’re going through. I
think this is part of the development process we have in
front of us.
2016-01-07 00:00:00 By Rachel Metz on January 7, 2016
297
Letv Showcases Le 3D Helmet, LeMe
Bluetooth Headphones and Super Cycle
NEW DELHI, INDIA: Introducing
the Letv comprehensive ecosystem
in India, the company launched the
Le 3D Helmet and Super Cycle
along with the LeMe Bluetooth
Headphones, offering consumers
breakthrough technology at sustainable pricing. The
devices were launched by Dickson Lee, General Manager,
APAC Smart Device of Letv at an event in New Delhi today.
Designed to enhance users’ entertainment experience, the

Le 3D Helmet and the LeMe Bluetooth Headphones will
offer a unique video and audio experience to consumers.
The Super Cycle is not just a cycle; it’s an Internet-enabled
self-powered transport system, which will take fitness to
newer levels.
“With a content-based ecosystem integrated across
devices, Letv is committed to providing end-users with
devices which have superior performance at disruptive
pricing,” said Dickson Lee, General Manager, APAC Smart
Device, Letv.
Letv is likely to launch its globally successful flagship
Superphones in India soon.
2016-01-06 05:26:55 www.pcquest.com
298
Human-Animal Chimeras Are Gestating on
U. S. Research Farms
Braving a funding ban put in place
by America’s top health agency,
some U. S. research centers are
moving ahead with attempts to
grow human tissue inside pigs and
sheep with the goal of creating
hearts, livers, or other organs needed for transplants.
The effort to incubate organs in farm animals is ethically
charged because it involves adding human cells to animal
embryos in ways that could blur the line between species.

Last September, in a reversal of earlier policy, the National
Institutes of Health announced it would not support studies
involving such “human-animal chimeras” until it had
reviewed the scientific and social implications more closely.
The agency, in a statement, said it was worried about the
chance that animals’ “cognitive state” could be altered if
they ended up with human brain cells.
The NIH action was triggered after it learned that scientists
had begun such experiments with support from other
funding sources, including from California’s state stem-cell
agency. The human-animal mixtures are being created by
injecting human stem cells into days-old animal embryos,
then gestating these in female livestock.
Based on interviews with three teams, two in California and
one in Minnesota, MIT Technology Review estimates that
about 20 pregnancies of pig-human or sheep-human
chimeras have been established during the last 12 months
in the U. S., though so far no scientific paper describing the
work has been published, and none of the animals were
brought to term.
The extent of the research was disclosed in part during
presentations made at the NIH’s Maryland campus in
November at the agency’s request. One researcher, Juan
Carlos Izpisua Belmonte of the Salk Institute, showed
unpublished data on more than a dozen pig embryo
containing human cells. Another, from the University of
Minnesota, provided photographs of a 62-day-old pig fetus
in which the addition of human cells appeared to have

eversed a congenital eye defect.
The experiments rely on a cutting-edge fusion of
technologies, including recent breakthroughs in stem-cell
biology and gene-editing techniques. By modifying genes,
scientists can now easily change the DNA in pig or sheep
embryos so that they are genetically incapable of forming a
specific tissue. Then, by adding stem cells from a person,
they hope the human cells will take over the job of forming
the missing organ, which could then be harvested from the
animal for use in a transplant operation.
“We can make an animal without a heart. We have
engineered pigs that lack skeletal muscles and blood
vessels,” says Daniel Garry, a cardiologist who leads a
chimera project at the University of Minnesota. While such
pigs aren’t viable, they can develop properly if a few cells
are added from a normal pig embryo. Garry says he’s
already melded two pigs in this way and recently won a
$1.4 million grant from the U. S. Army, which funds some
biomedical research, to try to grow human hearts in swine.
Because chimeras could provide a new supply of organs for
needy patients and also lead to basic discoveries,
researchers including Garry say they intend to press
forward despite the NIH position. In November, he was one
of 11 authors who published a letter criticizing the agency
for creating “a threat to progress” that “casts a shadow of
negativity” on their work.
The worry is that the animals might turn out to be a little too
human for comfort, say ending up with human reproductive

cells, patches of people hair, or just higher intelligence. “We
are not near the island of Dr. Moreau, but science moves
fast,” NIH ethicist David Resnik said during the agency’s
November meeting. “The specter of an intelligent mouse
stuck in a laboratory somewhere screaming ‘I want to get
out’ would be very troubling to people.”
The chance of an animal gaining human consciousness is
probably slim; their brains are just too different, and much
smaller. Even so, as a precaution, researchers working with
farm-animal chimeras haven’t yet permitted any to be born,
but instead are collecting fetuses in order to gather
preliminary information about how great the contribution of
human cells is to the animals’ bodies.
Hiromitsu Nakauchi, a stem-cell biologist at Stanford
University, began trying to make human-sheep chimeras
this year. He says that so far the contribution by human
cells to the animals’ bodies appears to be relatively small.
“If the extent of human cells is 0.5 percent, it’s very unlikely
to get thinking pigs or standing sheep,” he says. “But if it’s
large, like 40 percent, then we’d have to do something
about that.”
Other kinds of human-animal chimeras are already widely
used in scientific research, including “humanized” mice
endowed with a human immune system. Such animals are
created by adding bits of liver and thymus from a human
fetus (collected after an abortion) to a mouse after it is
born.
The new line of research goes further because it involves

placing human cells into an animal embryo at the very
earliest stage, when it is a sphere of just a dozen cells in a
laboratory dish. This process, called “embryo
complementation,” is significant because the human cells
can multiply, specialize, and potentially contribute to any
part of the animal’s body as it develops.
In 2010, while working in Japan, Nakauchi used the embryo
complementation method to show he could generate mice
with a pancreas made entirely of rat cells. “If it works as it
does in rodents,” he says, “we should be able have a pig
with a human organ.”
Although Nakauchi was a star scientist, Japanese
regulators were slow to approve his idea for chimeras—a
“pig man” as critics put it—and by 2013 Nakauchi decided
to move to the U. S., where no federal law restricts the
creation of chimeras. Stanford was able to recruit him with
the help of a $6 million grant from the California Institute of
Regenerative Medicine, a state agency set up a decade
ago to bypass political interference from Washington.
While the NIH funding ban doesn’t affect Nakauchi, it has
put researchers under pressure to explain the purpose of
their work. “I want to show you some chimeras,” Nakauchi
said when I visited his laboratory at Stanford last month. He
opened the door to a small room containing incubators
where the chimeric embryos are stored. Because an early
embryo is almost invisible to the human eye, the room
houses special microscopes equipped with micro-needles
used to inject the human cells into them.

The type of human cells being added are called iPS cells,
made from skin or blood chemically reprogrammed into
more versatile stem cells using a Nobel Prize-winning
formula developed by one of Nakauchi’s Japanese
colleagues. Nakauchi says that as a matter of convenience,
most of the iPS cells his team has been placing into animal
embryos are made from his own blood, since recruiting
volunteers involves too much paperwork.
“We need a special consent if we’re injecting into animals,”
he says sheepishly. “So I try to use my own.”
The word chimera comes from the creature of Greek myth,
part lion, part goat, and part snake. Nakauchi says most
people at first imagine his chimeras are monsters, too. But
he says attitudes change if he can explain his proposal.
One reason is that if his iPS cells develop inside an animal,
the resulting tissue will actually be his, a kind of perfectly
matched replacement part. Desperately ill people on organ
waiting lists might someday order a chimera and wait less
than a year for their own custom organ to be ready. “I really
don’t see much risk to society,” he says.
Before that can happen, scientists will have to prove that
human cells can really multiply and contribute effectively to
the bodies of farm animals. That could be challenging
since, unlike rats and mice, which are fairly close
genetically, humans and pigs last shared an ancestor
nearly 90 million years ago.
To find out, researchers in 2014 decided to begin
impregnating farm animals with human-animal embryos,

says Pablo Ross, a veterinarian and developmental
biologist at the University of California, Davis, where some
of the animals are being housed. Ross says at Davis he
has transferred about six sets of pig-human embryos into
sows in collaboration with the Salk Institute and established
another eight or 10 pregnancies of sheep-human embryos
with Nakauchi. Another three dozen pig transfers have
taken place outside the U. S., he says.
These early efforts aren’t yet to make organs, says Ross,
but more “to determine the ideal conditions for generating
human-animal chimeras.” The studies at Davis began only
after a review by three different ethics committees, and
even then, he says, the university decided to be cautious
and limit the time the animals would be allowed to develop
to just 28 days (a pig is born in 114 days).
By then, the embryonic pig is only half an inch long, though
that’s developed enough to check if human cells are
contributing to its rudimentary organs.
“We don’t want to grow them to stages we don’t need to,
since that would be more controversial,” says Ross. “My
view is that the contribution of human cells is going to be
minimal, maybe 3 percent, maybe 5 percent. But what if
they contributed to 100 percent of the brain? What if the
embryo that develops is mostly human? It’s something that
we don’t expect, but no one has done this experiment, so
we can’t rule it out.”
2016-01-06 00:00:00 By Antonio Regalado on January 6, 2016

299
Panasonic to commercialize Facebook's
Blu-ray cold storage systems
A couple of years ago, Facebook
revealed it was using Blu-ray disks
as a cost-efficient way to archive
the billions of images that users
uploaded to its service. Now,
Panasonic has said it plans to
commercialize the technology for other businesses, and is
working on new disks that will hold a terabyte of data.
Panasonic is calling its product line "freeze-ray," because
it's used for a type of storage known as cold storage, where
large amounts of data need to be stored for long periods of
time and are rarely accessed.
When Facebook users upload photos, they're often viewed
frequently in the first week, so Facebook stores them on
solid state drives or spinning hard disks. But as time goes
on the images get viewed less and less. At a certain point,
Facebook dumps them onto high-capacity Blu ray discs,
where they might sit for years without being looked at.
Blu-ray discs were at risk of dying out as streaming services
like Netflix took over, but the interest from Facebook and
other vendors has kept the technology alive and is now
driving down costs. Facebook has said its Blu-ray system is
50 percent cheaper than using hard disk drives for cold
storage, and 80 percent more energy efficient.

At a press conference at CES Tuesday, Panasonic didn't
give many details about its plans, including release dates or
prices, but Yasu Enokido, president of its B2B division, said
the company hopes to make Blu-ray an "industry standard"
for cold storage. He praised Blu-ray for its "longevity,
immutability, backward compatibility, low power
consumption and tolerance to environmental changes. "
Facebook's first generation of systems used 100GB disks.
Later this year it expects to deploy 300GB disks, Panasonic
said, and the companies are working on 500GB and 1TB
disks. Hundreds or even thousands of disks can go in a
single system, giving petabytes of archival storage.
Panasonic worked with Facebook to design the freeze ray
systems, Enokido said. But Panasonic won't have the
market to itself. Rival Sony recently bought Optical Archive,
a Facebook spin-off company that's working on similar
technology. Also, Facebook planned to release its cold
storage designs through the Open Compute Project,
meaning other manufacturers can build similar products.
Still, with another big manufacturer like Panasonic on
board, Blu-ray seems to have a bright future for long-term
storage.
2016-01-05 00:00:00 James Niccolai
300
Battles Over Net Metering Cloud the Future
of Rooftop Solar

Solar power installer SolarCity, the country’s largest
provider of rooftop panels, has
exited the Nevada market in the
wake of the state’s rollback of the
net metering fees paid to residential
solar owners. The departure marks
an escalation in the war over net metering that is roiling the
industry.
One of the fastest-growing markets for residential solar,
Nevada is the first state to drastically revise its policies on
net metering—wherein owners of residential solar arrays
are compensated for the power they send onto the utility
power grid, usually at retail rates. All but a handful of states
have instituted net metering. Claiming that these fees
represent an unfair transfer of costs to the utilities and nonsolar
customers, utilities have mounted a well-funded
campaign to reduce or eliminate the payments. The
Nevada Public Utilities Commission concurred , calling on
utilities to cut the compensation for solar providers from
retail to wholesale rates.
Not surprisingly, the solar industry disagrees. Calling the
net metering decision “unethical, unprecedented, and
possibly unlawful,” SolarCity CEO Lyndon Rive predicted
that it will “destroy the rooftop solar industry in one of the
states with the most sunshine.”
The Nevada reversal came days after the U. S. Congress
voted to extend the investment tax credit for solar projects
(see “Tax Credit Extension Gives Solar Industry a New
Boom” ). GTM Research said the renewed tax credit will

add 25 gigawatts of new solar capacity over the next five
years, driven by $40 billion in new investment between now
and 2020.
Events in Nevada, though, could signal a major reshaping
of the economics of solar power for homeowners. The retail
rate of electricity in Nevada is 12.39 cents per kilowatt-hour;
the wholesale price for electricity in the region that includes
Nevada averaged around two cents per kilowatt-hour in
December. According to a report from Lawrence Berkeley
National Lab , the cost of a residential solar system has
fallen to around 25 to 30 cents per kilowatt-hour. With
federal and state subsidies and tax benefits, that figure
drops to 15 cents per kilowatt-hour or less. If the retail rate
for electricity from the grid (absent net metering fees) is
less than that, solar is a poor investment; if it’s more, solar
is a good investment.
Many studies have examined the costs and benefits of net
metering for both utilities and solar-owning customers, and
their conclusions vary widely. A study carried out for the
Nevada Public Utilities Commission found that net metering
for systems installed between 2004 and 2016 would
provide a benefit to non-solar owners of $36 million over
the life of the systems. Others, however, have calculated
that rooftop solar increases costs to the grid that surpass
the value of the power. Responding to the Nevada decision,
Severin Borenstein, a professor at the University of
California at Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, wrote that
“net metering is an inefficient and opaque way to support
the growth of low-greenhouse-gas technologies, and

should be replaced with more direct and transparent
subsidies.”
Challenges to existing net metering programs are
underway in most of the major markets for solar power,
including California, Arizona, and New York. Mississippi
recently announced a net metering policy that will pay
wholesale rates, not retail, for solar power produced by
homes and small businesses. Hawaii closed its program to
new solar owners in October. Many states are at or near
the limits established on total solar capacity allowed under
their net metering programs, meaning that new residential
installations will not be covered under the compensation
system. Nevada maxed out its 235-megawatt net-metering
program earlier in 2015, causing installer Vivint Solar to pull
out of the state.
Not all of these states will roll back their net metering fees,
though. New York, which has undertaken a major
restructuring of its electricity sector , actually suspended its
cap on solar photovoltaic systems covered by the state’s
net metering program in October. Also in October, New
Mexico regulators dismissed a proposal by El Paso Electric
to impose new fees on solar owners. Regulators in Arizona,
where the net metering debate has been sharpest, have
declined so far to modify its program as regulators seek a
compromise between utilities and solar advocates. And
regulators in California are proposing to leave current
compensation policies in place.
Ultimately, the resolution of the net metering wars could
come in the form of an open market for distributed energy

generation, where producers can trade directly with
consumers and prices are set by supply and demand,
paired with some form of minimum service charge for the
utility. Such systems have started to emerge in Germany
and elsewhere (see “Renewable Energy Trading Launched
in Germany” ).
2016-01-05 00:00:00 By Richard Martin on January 5, 2016
301
Amazon WorkMail can now be yours for $4
per user per month
After nearly a year in preview,
Amazon's WorkMail hosted email
and calendar service for enterprises
is now generally available for $4 per
user per month.
Along with 50GB of mailbox storage for each user, the
service includes features such as encryption of stored data,
message scanning for spam and virus protection, and
policies for controlling mobile devices.
Many of those features were outlined when the product was
first announced , but several new ones were added during
preview as well.
Of particular note is regional data control, which makes it
possible for companies to choose where they want to store
their mailboxes and data. In light of the recent death of the
Safe Harbor agreement, that could be especially important

for users in Europe.
A newly added migration tool, meanwhile, aims to make it
easier for enterprises to move their existing mailboxes over
to WorkMail. Companies that use WorkMail in conjunction
with Simple AD can generally be up and running on the new
service in 10 minutes or less, Amazon says.
WorkMail also now supports clients that run on OS X,
including Apple Mail and Outlook, and those that use the
Microsoft Exchange ActiveSync protocol, including iPhone,
iPad, Kindle Fire, Fire Phone, Android, Windows Phone and
BlackBerry 10. Companies can use it to create and book
resources such as meeting rooms and equipment as well.
WorkMail has achieved several key ISO certifications over
the past year, and email administrators can use AWS Key
Management Service (KMS) to create and manage the
keys that are used to encrypt data at rest.
Based on Amazon Web Services, WorkMail is now
generally available in three AWS regions: US East
(Northern Virginia), US West (Oregon) and Europe
(Ireland).
Looking ahead, Amazon is working on interoperability
support that will allow users of WorkMail to have a single
global address book. Also in the works is an email
journaling feature through which companies can use their
existing email archiving system to capture and preserve all
Amazon WorkMail communication.
2016-01-05 00:00:00 Katherine Noyes

302
How Drones May Avoid Collisions by
Sharing Knowledge
If the U. S. Federal Aviation
Administration allows the
widespread use of commercial
drones, the skies could soon buzz
with swarms of unmanned aerial
vehicles–especially in dense urban
cores. That means drones will be
tasked with autonomously avoiding
collisions, as their numbers will be
too high to rely on human air-traffic controllers at all times.
The Stanford Intelligent Systems Laboratory is just one
team of more than 130 working with NASA to solve how to
manage drone traffic. The traffic-management system,
which will be under development for the next few years, will
help drones communicate with each other and avoid
potential collisions.
“They’re going to be doing much more unusual missions
that will require them to fly in flight paths that are curvy,”
says Mykel Kochenderfer, director of the Stanford
laboratory. “Being robust to that uncertainty is very, very
important.”
A recent paper published by Kochenderfer and mechanical
engineering graduate student Hao Yi Ong describes a quick
decision process the traffic-management system can use to

eroute drones and avoid a collision. Their team ran more
than a million simulations for conflict situations for
anywhere between two and 10 drones. Drones were given
varying levels of information about the other drones in the
system and then were tested on their response time and
how often they ran into conflict.
The Stanford researchers found that drones could make
the quickest decisions when they were paired with the
closest other drone, and the two solely considered the
other’s behavior. The slowest response occurred when
drones considered their own surroundings and then fed
their results into a central system that sent decisions back
to the entire group. Decision time always increased as
more drones entered the simulation, but the system was
always able to make a decision on rerouting a drone within
50 milliseconds.
While drones feeding their data into a central decisionmaking
system was the slowest, it was also the safest.
Drones were the least likely to encounter conflict when they
fed data into a central system. Drones that received
location data about other drones and assumed they would
stay on the same path were the most likely to encounter
conflict.
The Stanford lab also works with autonomous cars and airtraffic
control for conventional planes. One of its projects,
which Kochenderfer developed in part with former
colleagues at MIT , involved using a small amount of
computing power to decide how a plane should avoid a
collision. Traditionally, collision avoidance has been guided

y nearly 2,000 pages of documents that detail every
possible scenario and how to react. Stanford and MIT ’s
solution is currently being standardized for use on all large
aircraft.
NASA plans to spend 2016 testing the drone-trafficmanagement
systems it has developed thus far at the
drone test sites set up across the U. S. by the FAA. Back in
November, a NASA team flew a drone at Moffett Field in
California while simulating conflicts with drones generated
on a computer, triggering an early version of the trafficmanagement
system to alert the drones about the potential
collisions. The FAA also tested similar systems developed
by drone software and services company Precision Hawk
(see “ FAA Will Test Drones’ Ability to Steer Themselves
Out of Trouble ”).
“To allow large-scale UAS [unmanned aircraft systems] with
a mix of beyond visual line of sight and within visual line of
sight, we need a system that consists of technologies to
manage airspace and capabilities on the UAS itself, rules of
the airspace, and procedures for managing contingencies
and emergencies,” says Parimal Kopardekar, who leads
NASA’s drone-traffic-control program.
Kochenderfer says the Stanford researchers have tested
their work in simulations, but have yet to see it operate with
real drones. Validating that it works in the air is one of the
final steps.
“This is one of the most exciting areas of aerospace right
now—the use of drones,” Kochenderfer says. “Many of the

applications they enable can lead to new economic models,
but the potential for saving lives and improving efficiency, I
think that’s really quite interesting.”
2016-01-04 14:04:00 By Signe Brewster on January 4, 2016
303
4 useful apps during odd/even rules in
Delhi/NCR
Private vehicles will be allowed to
run on the streets on alternate days
depending on whether their licence
plates end in even or odd numbers,
the government declared a day
after it faced criticism from the Delhi
high court over the city’s mounting
pollution problem.
The method, more commonly known as road space
rationing , is followed in various forms across the world,
though experts said implementation could prove to be a
major challenge as well over two million vehicles would
have to be kept off the roads every day.
There would be a lot of challenges considering the rule that
an individual would have to go through. We don’t have any
other choice, but there are some of mobile apps that can
help you in this situation.
Below are some of the best apps that you can utilise during
odd/even rules

Voodoo: Voodoo app will help Delhi in odd/ even formula
where Voodoo helps you in tracking surge on different cab
applications. Know the availability of the cheapest and the
nearest cabs available to you, across all apps & book with
one click. Why waste time opening all the cab service apps
to check the availability?
Helpchat: Helpchat is your very own personal assistance
messaging platform that you can use to ask any queries
related to odd/even rules. You can also utilise the app to
book cab from any of the taxi aggregators.
Uberpool: U berpool could be useful for carpooling service
while travelling in the city. It helps commuters to share a
ride and split the cost with another person who happens to
be requesting a ride along a similar route. Riders can save
up to 50 per cent, while adding only a few minutes of time
per trip. With the lower prices, people can move past car
ownership, as taking Uber becomes less expensive than
using and maintaining a personal vehicle.
FrndiNeed : A socially enabled app that helps in utilising
your geo-location to make every day travel smoother, safer
and economically viable. Pronounced as “Friend-in-Need”,
this app lets you find your nearby friend and ask them for
Lift, Poke them for instant plans or even Plan a Meet Up.
Users can also use other features including Packing
Planner and press the SOS tab for help in urgent situations.
You just need to a Request a lift from within the network of
FrndiNeed. All you need to do is locate your friend and call
or text asking for lift. After your friend accepts your request,
the app would help you with route to reach your friend.

2015-12-31 06:51:09 Anuj Sharma
304 The Ideal Fuel
On a sunny day on the campus of
the University of California,
Berkeley, the peaceful rustling of
eucalyptus trees belies the furious
chemical activity happening inside
every single leaf. Through
photosynthesis, leaves use the
energy in sunlight to turn water and
carbon dioxide into substances that
plants need, emitting only oxygen in the process. In a
nearby lab, chemist Peidong Yang is building an artificial
system that does the same, using arrays of nanowires
coupled with engineered bacteria. If something like this is
ever scaled up, it would churn out a better version of the
fuels we use today—one that does not add to the total
amount of carbon dioxide in the air.
Photosynthesis has been very difficult to imitate in the lab.
In the 1970s, researchers at the University of Tokyo
showed for the first time that a solar-powered device could
do what plants do in the first step of photosynthesis: split
water into hydrogen and oxygen. After an initial burst of
activity, the field stalled. But it has been reborn in several
labs thanks to a renewed focus on the energy problem and
climate change—and because of the emergence of new
technologies.

Yang’s lab is improving on a basic design that was
developed in the 1970s at the National Renewable Energy
Laboratory. It has two light-sensitive electrodes coated with
a catalyst—Yang is using nickel, which is inexpensive—that
together split water into oxygen and hydrogen. In the
original setup, the electrodes were flat, but Yang instead
uses arrays of nanowires made from silicon and other
semiconductors. Because the nanowires have 100 times
the surface area of flat electrodes that could fit into the
same space, they can hold more of the catalyst, greatly
boosting the efficiency of the reaction.
However, splitting water is the easy half of photosynthesis.
Plants go further, using the hydrogen from water in
reactions that turn carbon from the air into complex
molecules. Yang wants to do this too. After all, our planes
and cars don’t run on hydrogen; they need gasoline and
other chemically complex fuels.
To catalyze that part of the process, Yang relies on another
technology that wasn’t around in the ’70s. He and
colleagues have shown that genetically engineered bacteria
nestled amid the nanowires function as “living catalysts.”
They take up the hydrogen split from the water and
combine it with carbon dioxide to make methane and other
hydrocarbons that are needed for fuels or plastics. The
bugs do this with natural enzymes that carry out a series of
reactions chemists have not yet been able to master with
synthetic catalysts.
Yang’s system currently matches the efficiency of
photosynthesis, storing under 1 percent of the energy

captured from sunlight in the form of chemical bonds.
That’s not bad for a proof-of-concept demonstration, but
making it more efficient and thus cost-effective will be
essential.
Yang hopes to eventually switch to synthetic catalysts
instead of bacteria, which are tricky to keep alive. But fully
eliminating the bugs might not be necessary, given the
urgent need for clean fuels. “If it has to be a hybrid
approach, that’s okay,” he says.
2015-12-22 00:05:00 By Katherine Bourzac | Photographs by RC Rivera
on December 22, 2015
305 The Energy Startup Conundrum
An inventor of a storage technology
tries to outlast a brutal stretch for
new energy companies.
Danielle Fong has a clever way to
widen the use of renewable power:
take the electricity produced by,
say, a wind farm and use it to
compress air in carbon-fiber tanks.
When the wind quiets down, use the compressed air to
drive an electric generator, eliminating the intermittency
that consigns wind farms to a small role on the grid. The
concept isn’t new, but it has been limited because air heats
up as it is compressed, making it difficult to store. Fong
figured out that spraying water into the compressor to cool

the air makes it possible to store so much energy that it
could be cheaper than using batteries. In 2009, she
cofounded a company called LightSail Energy that has
raised $70 million from the likes of Bill Gates and Peter
Thiel , but it still is only on the verge of key demonstration
projects. Fong, 28, spoke to MIT Technology Review ’s
executive editor, Brian Bergstein, about the challenges of
commercializing energy technologies.
You’re planning to begin pilot tests in 2016. Why is it taking
this long to scale up your technology from the lab?
We thought that we would be out in the market about twice
as fast. We were going to cut some corners by converting
an off-the-shelf natural-gas compressor. Ultimately, we
decided that would be too much of a compromise. In early
2012 we decided to switch and just go directly to the
product that we would ultimately want.
Part of it is there’s a lot more to do than we expected. Part
of it is it’s difficult to find financing, although we have raised
a decent amount.
Why hasn’t the money you’ve raised been enough?
It’s not actually a lot of money compared with how much it
takes to develop an engine, for example, or a compressor.
Say you’re a power plant company, and you’re trying to
make a better gas turbine. Even when you hit volume,
you’re going to be spending more than $100 million, maybe
a couple hundred million dollars. Who writes those checks?
There just aren’t that many. There used to be. Those times

are over. Now what you need to do is figure out how to get
to a commercial scale so that you can bring the unit cost
down without spending that kind of money.
Our answer to that, by the way, is our tanks. We have the
most advanced carbon-fiber tanks, we think, on the planet
for bulk storage of gases. We’re manufacturing and selling
the tanks, with a healthy profit, [to] the natural-gas industry.
And yet you still need to raise more money.
Our plan has us going profitable on less than $30 million
[of] additional capital. Technically, we wouldn’t need to raise
money after that, if all goes according to plan.
There were so many things when we started out that
people said, “This is impossible. If you spray water into an
air compressor, it’ll break. Will it transfer heat fast enough?
Can you separate the water from the air? Can you
compress and expand out of the same system? Can you
build all of this stuff?” We’ve done the impossible on, I think,
a reasonable budget.
Does it frustrate you that in other tech sectors, money is
very easy to come by?
I will admit a fair amount of frustration. There are a dozen
venture-funded apps to pick up your dry cleaning.
If we fail here, and it may well be the right solution, no one
is ever going to get funded to do it again.
It must seem both promising and daunting that the
opportunity is so huge.

We need energy storage in the terawatts. We’re talking
about getting to half a megawatt [with each of LightSail’s
storage machines]. That’s a factor of a million. That’s where
my head is at.
2015-12-22 00:05:00 www.technologyreview.com
306
NetApp to buy flash storage startup
SolidFire for $870M
NetApp is acquiring startup SolidFire for
US$870 million cash for a foothold in the fast-growing
market for scale-out flash storage.
SolidFire's all-flash systems will let enterprises take
advantage of the scale and cost advantages enjoyed by
Web-scale companies with distributed data-center
architectures, NetApp said. SolidFire, based in Boulder,
Colorado, makes all-flash systems that can scale out to as
much as 1.9 petabytes of capacity.
The deal is expected to close during NetApp's fiscal fourth
quarter, ending in April. The startup's CEO, Dave Wright,
will lead the SolidFire product team. SolidFire's products
ultimately will be integrated into NetApp's data fabric
strategy, allowing for data management across flash, disk
and cloud, the company said.
Like other enterprise storage companies, NetApp has been
under fire from cloud services and from software-defined
systems based on generic hardware. SolidFire is one of

several hot young companies focused on this kind of
technology, and other enterprise vendors including Cisco
Systems reportedly had considered acquiring the company.
NetApp already makes all-flash systems, including the
NetApp All Flash FAS line and EF Series. It will target
SolidFire's products at customers building next-generation
web-scale infrastructure based on so-called white-box
hardware.
Flash storage, while more expensive per bit than hard
disks, delivers data much faster while taking up less space
and power. Scale-out architectures like SolidFire's are
designed to give enterprises greater flexibility in building out
data centers and ultimately lowering their costs.
2015-12-21 00:00:00 Stephen Lawson
307
Improve Internet Performance by
Diversifying Your Cloud Portfolio
– Martin Ryan, VP & MD-APAC,
Dyn
Quality Internet Performance is
essential for the health and wellbeing
of your company. SMBs and
Fortune 500 alike are allocating an
ever increasing portion of their budgets toward
strengthening their web assets, cloud-based services,
content acceleration, and SaaS-based applications to keep
their customers’ Internet access fast, secure and

uninterrupted.
But the question is: does all this investment really translate
to better access to products and services for their endusers?
For many top financial, retail and social platforms,
the answer is a resounding “no.”
Between the time a potential customer enters a domain and
a page opens, a tremendous amount happens between the
business connection and the end user. Errors can occur
within the network, at the CDN or ISP level, or with a
customer connection. A Website can be slow for many
reasons as well, and most consumers—and companies, for
that matter—have little insight into the ‘how’ and ‘why’ of
their performance issues. Understanding these connections
—monitoring, controlling and optimizing these connections
—is the true test of internet performance. Here we list out
the key trends likely to impact cloud services in the near
future.
Pipeline failures, security threats, and network latencies
Whether your company is in a fast-growth stage or already
a mature market leader, all companies operating on the
Internet are global companies. Understanding the flow of
information and the level of connectivity of customers is no
longer a “nice to have” feature of your network intelligence.
It is crucial to have true insights into your network traffic.
Pipeline failures and outages can cause serious downtime
for your site and your customers. With the rise of wireless
access, it’s easy to think of the Internet as a ubiquitous

esource. But the Internet is made up of physical pipelines
that can affect the way your customers get to you. These
pipes can fail (outages), be slow (high latency), or be of
poor or inconsistent quality (packet loss). And, while your
site may be up and running smoothly, your customer’s
experience is still poor. There are on average 3,000
outages on the Internet around the world every day.
Mitigating for these risks to Internet performance should
always be on your radar.
Security threats are nothing new, but the risks they pose
are increasing in severity. Customers believing they are
connecting to your app can be hijacked (redirected)
through another network to another site where their data
can be compromised. While the majority of these hijacks
are simply clerical errors, a small percentage are malicious
and intended to harm your business. An example is the
Man-in-the-Middle (MiTM) attack, where data can be
collected along an Internet path before being connected to
its destination without the customer or the business
knowing until it’s too late. These hijacks happen so often
you may not realize you’ve been affected.
Latencies aren’t always major infrastructure or data traffic
issues. The device your customer is using to access the
web plays a major role in the quality of their connection.
Traditional desktop users connect via fiber, DSL, cable or
even dial-up. Even those with the most sophisticated
connection experience some slowdown because of the way
data flows through the Internet. Mobile users can
experience even higher latencies. In fact, according to an

FCC research report, a 4G connection had a latency
overhead of 600ms on new connections, a 3G connection
had a latency of over 2s on new connections, and even
existing open connections had a latency as high as 500ms.
While some of these issues may seem out of your control,
the resources available to help mitigate them are steadily
growing. Whether connectivity and performance issues
occur at the customer connection point or within the greater
network, your company is ultimately perceived as part of
the issue and could lose hard-won brand reputation and
market share. Only 12 percent of Internet users worldwide
are willing to wait for a website to load. Any interruption in
service can be very bad for business.
Teaming up with multiple cloud service providers
Since serving customers online is table stakes, preventing
issues that affect Internet Performance for companies in
the cloud is the key to long term success. The best
mitigation technique is to opt for not just one Cloud Service
Provider (CSP), but several.
Using a variety of CSPs gives your company access to
multiple cloud instances (locations), allowing you to meet
your customers in their different markets and leverage local
pathways to connect with them. Using an advanced DNS
solution with geo-location, you can control which cloud
instance serves which customers. This capability gives your
business more flexibility and value, allowing you to scale
with an always-on impression for customers. The ability to
access different pathways also comes in handy when there

are outages or slow load times—whether due to a traffic
routing problem or a malicious attack. Working with multiple
cloud providers will help you circumvent these issues by
rerouting traffic as quickly as possible to ensure minimal
interruption in your customer service.
Moreover, having multiple CSPs can help protect against
problems before they even occur. Deploying apps and
services to two (or more) cloud instances allows them to
back each other up, using a load balancing or failover DNS
architecture. This fail-safe, along with an ability to monitor
the availability, reachability and performance of your
selected cloud instances, can allow you to react quickly and
change routing issues arise.
The Bottom Line
Forrester has noted that we are in the “Age of the
Customer,” implying that businesses who survive—and
thrive—are the ones that best understand, accommodate
and serve the increasingly powerful and discerning
customer. With massive amounts of business being done
online, and the shift from face-to-face to Internet
transactions, every business needs to consider Internet
access from the customer’s perspective. The key is having
insight into Web performance across the customer channel,
both to and from your Web property.
The Internet is your competitive edge to use or lose. Taking
full advantage of multiple Cloud partnerships and spending
more time examining internet performance will give you the
flexibility and control to provide a consistent, quality

experience for each and every customer.
2015-12-18 11:44:24 PCQ Bureau
308
Microsoft pursues analytics ambitions with
acquisition of Metanautix
Microsoft has furthered its pursuit of
enterprise analytics with the
acquisition of Metanautix , a company that makes it
possible for businesses to pull together all their data and
gain insights into it.
Metanautix's product can pull information in from a variety
of private and public cloud data sources including traditional
data warehouses, NoSQL databases like Cassandra and
business systems like Salesforce. Once it's aggregated,
businesses can use SQL to query the resulting data
pipeline in order to glean insights from the information.
The terms of the deal weren't disclosed when it was
announced on Friday. Microsoft isn't saying much about its
plans for Metanautix's technology, though Corporate Vice
President Joseph Sirosh revealed that the company plans
to roll it into products like SQL Server and Cortana Analytics
Suite. More on that should be disclosed in the coming
months.
This deal is another step in Microsoft's strategy to offer
businesses powerful analytics, machine learning and
artificial intelligence capabilities to make them more

productive in an age of data proliferation. By providing
access to capabilities most companies couldn't develop on
their own, Microsoft has the potential to draw more users
into its public and private cloud ecosystems.
The company -- especially with Sirosh at the helm of the
Data Group -- is making a big bet that those intelligent
cloud capabilities will help it to draw customers away from
competitors like Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud
Platform.
2015-12-18 00:00:00 Blair Hanley Frank
309 Seagate Enhances Realstor Storage Arrays
Seagate Technology plc announced
enhancements to its AssuredSAN
RealStor (RealStor) family of hybrid
and all-flash storage arrays, enabling OEMs to provide
customers with greater options for cost-competitive, highperformance
midrange enterprise-class storage. Seagate
now has additional powerful features in the RealStor 6004
hybrid storage array, already the product family’s highest
performing solution.
Seagate’s RealStor product line (series 3000, 4000 and
6000) offers value, capacity and scalability. With a simple
user interface, real-time tiering and virtual snapshots, the
easy-to-manage arrays maximize capacity and
performance while keeping costs at a minimum. Built on
proven RAID technology with proven 99.999 percent

availability, they deliver exceptional performance tuned for
sequential workloads, ideal for high-performance
computing, telecommunications data capture, oil and gas
seismic data analysis, media streaming, video postproduction
and broadcasting. All of the arrays feature
RealStor – the next-gen, real-time storage operating
system – which uses intelligent autonomic tiering to
configure fast solid state drives (SSDs) and low-cost highdensity
drives (HDDs) to set a price/performance
benchmark for the midrange enterprise segment.
Enhancements to the RealStor family include the following:
Greater Data Center Performance, Increased Data Center
Versatility, and Powerful, Easy Disaster Recovery
In addition to enhancements across the product family,
Seagate has updated the RealStor 6004 hybrid storage
array, making it especially effective for general-purpose,
enterprise data center applications. Furthermore, with
RealSpan compatible across the product line, the powerful
RealStor 6004 can be used to drive data centers, while
replicating to lower cost arrays located off-site.
New updates and features to the RealStor 6004 include:
RealStor Operating System and Increased Performance.
2015-12-17 10:55:25 Ashok Pandey
310
Hitachi Data named Global Strategic Partner
of the year at Veritas Conference

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Hitachi Data Systems Corporation
(HDS), a wholly owned subsidiary of
Hitachi, Ltd. has been recognized at
the Veritas 2015 Asia Pacific and
Japan (APJ) Partner Awards as one
of its top-performing partners and
has been named the Global Strategic Partner of the Year –
Asia Pacific.
The Veritas APJ Partner Awards honor top-performing
partners who have demonstrated dedication for achieving
strong business growth and have positively contributed to
their customers, the partner community and Veritas.
HDS is a strong partner of Veritas, both in Asia Pacific and
globally. Both companies have established a track record of
working together to ensure customers can effectively
manage, protect and govern their data across its entire
lifecycle.
Tim Durant, Senior Director, Global ISV Alliances, HDS
said, “The first 12 months of our work with Veritas was one
of the most successful partnership launches we have had
globally. The success of our partnership gives us a great
foundation to expand the products and solutions we resell,
and explore ways to collaborate on new initiatives around
big data and Social Innovation.”
“At Veritas, we are focused on enabling our partners to
capitalize on the strength of our leading information
management solution portfolio to deliver value to our
customers while achieving profitable growth. This award

ecognizes HDS’ commitment to scale with Veritas in
leveraging joint assets in information availability and insight
to not only help customers unlock the value of their data,
but more importantly, harness the power of their
information to achieve positive business outcomes,” said
George Wong, APJ Channel Leader, Veritas.
With data doubling in size every two years and expected to
reach 44 zettabytes by 2020, enterprises need to adopt a
robust information management strategy to address their
data growth challenges. The partnership between HDS and
Veritas allows users to gain full insight into their data and
store it accordingly based on the industry requirements and
regulations, delivering unified data management strategy
while reducing data management costs and complexity.
2015-12-17 08:33:16 www.pcquest.com
311
Salesforce and Box join forces to put files
where employees need them
Box and Salesforce announced a
new partnership Wednesday aimed
at helping their joint customers get
work done more efficiently by
bringing documents from their cloud
storage and content management
solution into Salesforce.
Using a new connector that will launch in February, users
will be able to share Box files inside Salesforce, both from

the service's web interface and mobile applications. For
example, when commenting on a sales opportunity, users
will be able to browse the files that are available to them in
Box, and attach them to a message.
It's designed to be useful for collaborating on things like
sales slide decks and other materials, to make sure that
people are always up to date with the content they need.
All of the sharing permissions are still managed by Box, so
users will have to make sure that the people who they're
sharing files with through Salesforce are authorized to view
them in Box. However, once that's all set up, they should be
good to share.
According to Salesforce Senior Vice President Mike
Micucci, that decision was by design. Salesforce Files
Connect, the underlying system behind the integration, is
designed to keep the permissions for sharing and modifying
files tied to the systems that it's integrated with, which also
include Google Drive and Microsoft's OneDrive.
In addition to the file connection, Box also launched a set of
tools that let Salesforce developers use its storage system
as the file storage back end for their applications. The Box
SDK for Salesforce will let developers either access users'
existing Box files, or build an application using the Box
Platform to use the content management company's
content management capabilities to power an application
without requiring that users have their own Box
subscription.

That could be useful for companies that store key
documents in Box and power a customer-facing web portal
using Salesforce, or those firms that use Salesforce to
power an intranet.
Box CEO Aaron Levie sees this as a sign of things to come
in the enterprise software space. Rather than keep
business data in different silos, he sees a massive
opportunity for different cloud service providers to link their
systems together. It's still early for that yet, but he sees a
bright future in a few years.
"But I’m pretty confident that if you roll out two to three
years from now, you’re going to be able to have these
native, instant integrations between any of [the] best of
breed platforms that you’re using," Levie said.
Establishing those links would be useful for Box, since
making it easier to use files stored in the service will make
people more likely to keep using Box. Looking forward,
Levie said that users can expect to see even tighter
collaboration between Salesforce and his company to make
using the two products together even better.
2015-12-16 00:00:00 Blair Hanley Frank
312
This big-data startup wants to manage your
data lake in the cloud
Big data may offer companies a world of untold potential,
but realizing the benefits is typically no walk in the park.

That's why "big data as a service"
platforms have begun to emerge,
and it's also why Bigstep is taking a
like-minded approach to the
increasingly common data lake.
Launched last year, U. K.-based
Bigstep has been offering big data as a service through its
Full Metal Cloud platform, which already includes compute
instances, block storage and network components. Now,
the Full Metal Data Lake extends that platform to include
exabyte-scale storage for big-data workloads as well.
“Businesses today have access to infinite amounts of data
but no fast, easy or cost-effective way to make sense of it,”
said Flaviu Radulescu, Bigstep's CEO.
The Full Metal Data Lake aims to help companies get
actionable insights from their data in just a few clicks,
Radulescu said.
The Full Metal Data Lake can be used in stand-alone mode
for active data storage, or it can be integrated with onpremises
infrastructure; it can also be used with any
application or service in the Full Metal Cloud platform. The
service can be activated instantly, and requires no
configuration or minimum commitment, the company says.
All files are encrypted both in transit and at rest; data can
be imported or exported via encrypted tunnels or SSL
connections. The platform can accommodate both
structured and unstructured data , either continuously

streamed or imported in batches.
The Full Metal Data Lake is compatible with the Hadoop
Distributed File System and can be integrated with tools
including not just Hadoop but also Apache Spark, most
NoSQL databases -- including Couchbase, Cassandra and
Redis -- and products such as Elasticsearch, Solr, Qlik,
Tableau and R. It works out of the box with container
technologies such as Docker, Mesos and Kubernetes as
well.
The new data lake as a service is priced at £18 per month
for each terabyte of data, with no additional upload fees.
Bigstep has offices in the U. K. and Bucharest, with
infrastructure in the U. K. and Germany.
Research firm MarketsandMarkets expects the big-data-asa-service
market to grow from $1.8 billion this year to $7
billion in 2020.
Big data as a service offers a level of simplification and
abstraction "away from the underlying technical
complexities that even Hadoop in the cloud-type offerings
from AWS or Microsoft offers," said Brian Hopkins, a vice
president with Forrester Research.
Qubole, for example, is one provider that offers a service
tier that it manages in the cloud.
"You load your data into AWS's stores like S3 or Redshift,"
Hopkins explained. "They provide the connectors to that
data from their service tier. Then you access the data via
MapReduce, Spark, Hive, etc., through their service. "

Such vendors simplify the scaling and management of
service levels, security and metadata-management
aspects, he added.
Cazena is another contender, and it offers a data-lake-asa-service
product of its own, Hopkins pointed out.
Roughly 36 percent of enterprises are considering cloud
services for Hadoop, and 41 percent are mulling them for
Spark, said Nik Rouda, a senior analyst with Enterprise
Strategy Group, citing research his company has done.
Bigstep isn't the first vendor to offer cloud-based big data,
but it could be set apart by its strengths in security,
managed service and setting up hybrid environments, he
said.
2015-12-15 00:00:00 Katherine Noyes
313
Understanding MapReduce Programming
Model in Hadoop
– Narayana Murthy Pola, Sr. Project
Manager, DST India
Rapid digitization has increased the
generation and availability of data.
To harness the data we need to
store the (Big) data and process the (Big) data. Available
storage size and performance has increased while the
costs came down almost at the same pace the data has

grown. But Network bandwidth/data transfer rates could not
keep the same pace thus hindering the data processing
capabilities.
However, Distributed computing has tried to address the
large data processing (For example, processing weather
data, seismic information etc) even before Hadoop came
into existence. Grid computing community, SETI@Home
are some of the popular distributed computing initiatives
using PVM (Parallel Virtual Machine), MPI (Message
Processing Interface),( examples of some of the common
distributed computing frameworks) etc.
The approach in this programming model is to distribute the
work across cluster of machines (nodes) which access a
shared file system hosted by SAN.(Storage Area Network).
This works well for compute intensive jobs but quickly
becomes a problem when each node (machine) has to
access large datasets, owing to the limitations of network
bandwidth.
Also, the programmer has to explicitly (programmatically)
handle the mechanics of data flow, load balancing of
clusters, and extremely complicated task of coordinating
the processes in the distributed computation. SETI @
Home sends chunks of data and computing algorithms to
participating volunteer machines over the internet. These
machines are not verified and trusted thus risking exposure
of confidential data.
Thus the existing distributed computing frameworks and
modes are battling the complexities like

1. Network bandwidth limitations
2. Ease of programming
3. Data consistency
4. Fault tolerance
5. Cost
6. Scalability
Hadoop comes as an answer to the above distributed
programming complexities. It was developed by Doug
cutting based on Google’s Distributed File System (2003)
and the Map Reduce Programming paradigm introduced to
the world (by Google) in 2004.
The kernel of Hadoop consists of
1. Data Storage – Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS)
2. Data Processing engine : Map Reduce programming
paradigm
HDFS Architecture:
Hadoop Distributed File system is a Master Slave
architecture with a single name node and many data
nodes. Name node (Master) maintains the file system Meta
data. In general, Server class machine is used as
namenode.
Slave node contains actual contents of the file stored as

locks. In general, commodity hardware is used for data
nodes thus bringing down the cost of data storage
whenever data is ingested into Hadoop, it is split into fixed
sized blocks and are stored on data nodes. These data
blocks are replicated to nodes across the cluster for
redundancy with a default replicating factor of 3. This
ensures fault tolerance performance and reliability. Each
Slave node runs data node daemon (process) that controls
the access to data blocks and communicates with name
nodes. Data nodes periodically send the status (heartbeat)
to the name node. Data nodes can be added/deleted with
ease thus ensuring scalability Programmer is free from
allocation and distribution of data and cluster load
management.
Execution engine: The execution engine follows a Masterslave
architecture like the HDFS storage. There are two
types of daemons (processes in the background) that
control the job execution process. Job tracker (Master) coordinates
all the jobs run on the system. There will be only
one Job tracker for a cluster. In a typical scenario client
submits the job and data input splits based on the allocated
block size of the data. Job tracker then assigns a Job id
and a Map job for each of the input splits Job tracker tracks
the progress of each job (by the heart beats/status sent by
the task tracker) and schedules/re-schedules the tasks if
any of them fails.
Task trackers creates a new JVM for each of the tasks to
run. Task tracker sends periodically progress/status info
(heartbeats) of the jobs to the Job tracker.

Programming model: The programming model that runs in
the execution engine is called MapReduce. Map Reduce is
a linearly scalable programming model consisting of two
main phases/tasks, programmed by the developer. They
are Map tasks and Reduce tasks. In between the two
processes a subsidiary process of shuffle and sort runs
before the output of Map task is passed to Reducer task.
Mapper runs on one record at a time and Reducer
aggregates results from Mappers. They can be used on
any size of data thus helping Scalability
MapReduce tries to co-locate the data with the compute
node so data access is fast as it is local. This feature data
locality helps faster performance thus reducing/almost
eliminating the network transfer bottleneck.
The model facilitates task distribution across the nodes.
Before the output data from a Mapper is input to the
Reducer task. Map Reduce breaks down everything to keyvalue
pairs and may sound very restrictive programming
paradigm. However, many algorithms ranging from image
analysis to graph-based problems, to complex machine
learning algorithms are written using MaP reduce
paradigm.
A typical flow of Map Reduce’s Hello world program i.e.
Word count can be depicted as below.
Some of the examples which readers can try are 1. Log
analysis – There is a collection of number of documents
with an occurrence of a particular term. Readers can write
a simple algorithm to count the occurrence of a particular

term.
Log Analysis: Calculate the total up time of a server from
the log data emitted every minute over a seven-day period.
Map Reduce programs can be written in Java. Hadoop
provides APIs (Hadoop Streaming) to write map reduce
programs in Python, Ruby and other scripting languages as
well. Hadoop Streaming supports any programming
language that can read standard input and writes to
standard output. Hadoop pipes is the API to interfaces C++.
They use sockets as the channel for task tracker to
communicate with the C++ Map Reduce functions. Thus,
any programmer can easily slip into Map Reduce
Programming model and get Hadoop work for them.
2015-12-08 10:58:15 PCQ Bureau
314
To Make Them Realise the True RoI, SMEs
Need to be Engaged
The six-city HP BusinessNow
Express solutions tour, which kicked
off in Pune in July and subsequently
marched through industry-rich cities
of Mumbai, Nashik, and
Aurangabad, received a befitting
farewell in the geographical center of India, Nagpur.
The BusinessNow Express tour was designed keeping in
mind the needs of SMEs, with next-business day delivery of

IT products. It was well-received at all locations, with the
local industry bodies and associations sending their
members to check out the IT products and solutions on
display.
The SMEs in Nagpur were overwhelmed with the pace of
innovation in IT technologies and were pleased to learn
about the new solutions being offered at different price
points, based on their needs. With greater pressure from
competition (domestic and abroad), there’s a need to
reduce costs, improve productivity, and communicate
faster. IT therefore becomes essential to bring this level of
agility. So whether it’s the owner of a small iron forging
company who ships his produce to different parts of India
or a plastics goods manufacturer, or even a pharma
producer, everyone needs the most efficient and costeffective
solutions that suit their business needs, regardless
of the price they command.
So the interest to know about the latest in tech is very much
there, and such bus tours only help technology experts
from PCQuest and HP to reach out on the ground to the
SMEs and get first-hand experience about their IT
awareness, requirements and future aspirations.
Fun, Excitement, and Learning…
The BusinessNow Express tour gave more than one reason
for SMEs to come and visit the bus. Purchase advice by
PCQuest experts was of course one key reason, while on
the spot contests, and contests over Radio Mirchi were
other key highlights. Finally, the last big highlight was a tech

makeover contest where one winner is to get Rs. 2 Lakhs
worth of PCs and printers, and one lucky winner in each city
is to get an HP Stream 8 tablet.
2015-12-08 10:47:25 Adeesh Sharma
315
Edimax Announces Enterprise-Grade Wi-Fi
Networking Solutions 'Edimax Pro'
Edimax Technology introduces
business Wi-Fi Networking
Solutions – Edimax Pro, designed
for modern mainstream businesses.
The Edimax Pro series is a range of
Wi-Fi solutions for modern
businesses to ensure seamless connectivity for Wi-Fi
devices to support growing Mobility, IT and video demands.
Features:
Edimax Pro series includes AP(Access Point) controller,
CAP (Ceiling-mount Access Point), WAP (Wall-mount), OAP
(Outdoor), IAP (In-wall), PoE+ smart managed switches,
wireless series starts from N300, AC1200, AC1750,
AC2600, AC4300, accessories like PoE injectors, splitters,
extenders and others. Edimax provides the pre and postsale
service for their customers.
2015-12-08 07:00:32 Ashok Pandey

316
SAP's bold new goal: making precision
medicine a reality
After more than 40 years of
focusing primarily on software for
large businesses, SAP is taking a
bold step in a new direction:
precision medicine.
Targeting healthcare organizations, life sciences
companies and research institutions, the German software
giant on Tuesday rolled out SAP Foundation for Health, a
brand-new platform based on its Hana in-memory engine
that's aimed at helping such organizations uncover insights
from patient data in real time.
"Our strategy is very simple but very ambitious," said
Dinesh Vandayar, vice president of personalized medicine
for SAP. "Our vision is to create a health network enabling
personalized medicine. "
SAP also unveiled SAP Medical Research Insights, the first
accompanying application, with a focus on clinical
researchers and life sciences companies.
SAP isn't the first enterprise software company to dip its
toes into the healthcare waters recently: Just a few months
ago, Salesforce also made a foray into the market.
But SAP has a particularly personal motivation: company
CEO Bill McDermott lost an eye this summer in a freak
accident. Though work on the new initiative had begun long

eforehand, it gained new prominence among SAP's
priorities following that event, Vandayar said.
"Since the accident, his renewed focus on this is at another
level," he explained. "It's really driven us to focus more on
this area. He absolutely believes SAP can play a bigger role
in improving patient outcomes. "
SAP is also not entirely new to the healthcare world, noted
Greg McStravick, the company's global head of database
and technology.
"SAP grew up automating core business processes, but we
are not neophytes in healthcare," McStravick told an
audience Tuesday at an SAP Spotlight event in New York
introducing the new initiative.
More than seven thousand healthcare providers in 88
countries already use SAP's existing applications to
automate their business processes, he added.
Still, there's clearly an unmet need for tailored technology.
"If you look at the market today and the entities that support
medicine, there is really very limited exchange of data,"
Vandayar said.
That lack of sharing can have a direct effect on patient
outcomes, he added, citing an example in which a
successful drug for leukemia was later found to cause
major heart problems in the children who took it.
"Today there is virtually no exchange of information even

within a single entity let alone across them," he said. "Our
vision is to provide a common platform and data model so
that this exchange of information happens more easily. "
The new SAP Foundation for Health platform is designed to
offer a flexible and extensible clinical data warehouse
model along with industry-focused data integration
management and real-time analytics capable of handling
both structured and unstructured data.
Life sciences companies and healthcare organizations can
use it to develop and target new drugs, devices and
services as well as to match patients with trials, the
company said.
One of the industry-specific modifications that had to be
made to SAP's existing Hana technology arose from the
fact that Hana's natural language processing engine
couldn't initially support medical terminology.
SAP built a new ontology model for medicine to make that
work, Vandayar said, along with a common data model for
clinical data and genomics.
"We believe this common data model is crucial," he
explained. "If you don't get the data in the right format, it's
hard to get any insights. "
That problem will only get worse as the volumes of genomic
and lifestyle data increase in the coming years thanks to
falling sensor costs and the rise of the Internet of Things.
SAP provides full transparency into the data and gives

users complete control over how it is used, processed and
reported, it said.
The new SAP Medical Research Insights app, meanwhile,
aims to help researchers integrate clinical, genomic and
lifestyle data and then analyze it easily. They can slice and
dice data, view it in timeline format and drill down to the
level of a single patient, Vandayar said.
SAP's new technology has already been in testing for
several months at numerous organizations, he added:
"Some of the customers we spoke to claim that we do in a
matter of minutes what used to take them several weeks or
months. "
Healthcare is one of the last industries to be digitized,
largely because of regulatory issues and the particulars of
the data, said Carlos Bustamante, a professor of genetics
and biomedical data science at the Stanford School of
Medicine, which has worked with SAP on genomic data
analysis.
"Particularly in this country, electronic health records have
basically been shoe-horned on top of billing -- they began
essentially as a way to streamline the reimbursement
process," explained Bustamante in an interview at the SAP
event.
Yet the potential is enormous, he said.
"From Stanford's point of view, we think there are large
questions to be answered at the intersection of complex
data and analytics," Bustamante said, citing the example of

population health in particular.
The challenges, however, may be equally considerable,
including regulation, privacy, data security and societal
implications.
"The digital revolution is a double-edged sword,"
Bustamante said. "Just because I can measure every
aspect of your every muscle twitch, does that mean I
should? "
If it's possible for a healthcare provider to predict a patient's
stroke, it's almost a moral obligation for them to do so, he
said, but the downside -- increasingly invasive monitoring
that could lead toward a "nanny state" -- may also be
significant.
"Where do we draw the line? " he said. "It's a question we
all have to think about. I think we're only beginning to
comprehend what the societal impacts are. "
2015-12-08 00:00:00 Katherine Noyes
317
HPE's Synergy is a new type of
'composable' infrastructure
Hewlett Packard Enterprise has
developed a new type of
"composable' hardware that it
claims will cut data center costs and
slash the time it takes to spin up
new applications.

Called HPE Synergy, it combines storage, compute and
network equipment in one chassis, along with management
software that can quickly configure the hardware
automatically to provide just the resources needed to run
an application, HPE said.
"HPE Synergy's unique built-in software intelligence, auto
discovery capabilities and fluid resource pools enable
customers to instantly boot up infrastructure ready to run
physical, virtual and containerized applications," the
company said.
Industry analysts who saw an early version of the product
said they were largely impressed. But a lot depends on
HPE's ability to communicate the benefits to potential
customers and deliver on the functionality it's promising. It
says Synergy will ship in the second quarter of next year,
and it won't release pricing until then.
Five racks of HPE Synergy servers
The basic hardware is a frame 10 rack units high (17.5
inches) that can be ordered with various amounts of
compute and storage. The frame also houses appliances
that run the management software, including Synergy
Composer and Synergy Image Streamer. Four frames can
be stacked in a rack, and several racks can be lashed
together.
Much of what's new lies in the software, which provides the
smarts to discover and assemble the pools of compute and
storage. Detailed configurations for particular applications

are saved as templates and deployed through Composer.
When a template is launched, it configures the hardware
programmatically, without human intervention, according to
HPE, reducing the chance for errors and speeding up the
process. The management software can also store OS
images and apply them when a server is configured,
automating that process as well.
If a template for a configuration doesn’t exist, HPE
developed a “unified API” that handles functions like the
BIOS configuration, storage provisioning and other tasks to
set up the hardware. If a dev ops team wants to start
testing a new app, the unified API lets them type a single
line of code to configure the system they need, according to
HPE. That allows developers to work more quickly and
prevents IT from being the bottleneck, the company says.
Richard Fichera, a principal analyst at Forrester Research,
said Synergy should greatly reduce the time it takes IT
departments to provision new systems.
"It solves a lot of the fundamental problems in provisioning
the physical layer, for what is increasingly a dynamic
infrastructure world," said Fichera, who was director of HP's
blade systems strategy before joining Forrester five years
ago.
The idea of a composable infrastructure isn't new, said
Gartner analyst Paul Delory, noting that Cisco uses the
term to describe its UCS M Series servers. But HPE
appears closest to delivering on its potential, he said -- with
the caveat that Synergy is still months from release. "I think

what they've done is innovative," he said.
HPE is aiming the product initially at large enterprises that
want the flexibility of a cloud infrastructure but don't want to
move applications in the cloud, perhaps for security or
compliance reasons. It's eyeing big companies in areas like
finance, healthcare and insurance as good candidates.
Synergy is the next step in the evolution of converged
systems , in which customers buy a preconfigured,
virtualized infrastructure. But converged systems are limited
by the physical hardware in the box, says Paul Durzan,
HPE vice president for Infrastructure Management and
Orchestration Software.
“When you buy your resources, you’re buying a physical
boundary. So if you run out of storage but not compute, you
have to buy another box,” he said. Synergy solves the
problem of stranded resources, Durzan says, because
unlike converged systems, there are no fixed ratios of
storage to compute; with Synergy, all capacity can be used,
even if that means tapping storage modules two racks over.
The systems can still be virtualized, and HPE says it's
working with VMware, Microsoft, Puppet, Ansible and Chef
to provide access to the Synergy API through their
virtualization and automation tools.
"With Chef, for instance, you take these configuration
templates and you essentially serve it up as a library into
Chef," Durzan said.
Synergy could enable companies to streamline purchase

processes, Fichera said, because they'll no longer need to
order new hardware against specific application or capacity
requirements; Synergy provides them greater flexibility to
configure systems after they're installed.
It's a stepping stone on the way to a more fully composable
system, which might allow individual processors and
memory chips to be programatically assembled. That
capability is limited today by Intel's Xeon server processors,
but when high-speed silicon photonic interconnects become
a reality, servers may eventually become disaggregated
down to the individual chip level, said IDC analyst Jed
Scaramella.
Customers are interested in the concept of composable
systems, he said, though many don't know the name. He
thinks Synergy will appeal initially to blade server
customers, of which HPE has a lot. "Then they can go after
Cisco and UCS," he said.
"There will be some education barriers," Fichera said, "but
this is not a technology that people need to be convinced is
good for them. "
2015-12-01 00:00:00 James Niccolai
318
VMware CIO: 'I've worked for a lot of evil
people in my career'
When you're the CIO of a company that sells to CIOs,
you've got to figure there's a good chance you're going to

e asked to do more than just keep
the servers running.
"If you ask my CEO, he'll say,
'You're the voice of customers,'"
said Bask Iyer, who was hired in
March as CIO and senior vice
president at VMware. "'You use these products,' he'll say;
'Tell us if we're building the right products for the market.'"
Only much further down on CEO Pat Gelsinger's list -- after
forging customer relationships and helping to build
revenue, for example -- would be operations: "And oh by
the way, make sure everything works," Iyer quipped.
Iyer's own list is a bit different.
"You can't be the voice of the customer if your email
doesn't work," he said. "There's basic blocking and tackling
you just have to do, and the more I run operations well at a
good cost, the more time I can spend on revenue
generation. "
Increasingly, Iyer plays a key role in proving the merit of his
company's technology offerings by demonstrating to
prospective customers how they're used internally. It's not a
sales role, he stresses, but rather almost more of an
educational one.
"I can't be a salesperson -- I have to be a practitioner first,"
he said. "People want to learn from us. "
That's an unfamiliar expectation for many in IT, but Iyer is

equipped with more than 25 years of experience. Before
joining VMware, he was CIO at Juniper Networks, where his
responsibilities included key services around business
transformation, global business services and workplace
services. Further back, he served as CIO and e-commerce
leader at GlaxoSmithKline Beecham.
Now eight months into his job at VMware, Iyer's top priority
is what he calls "VMware on VMware," or the practice of
"drinking your own champagne" and showcasing how the
company's products work internally.
Facilitating collaboration is another thing he's focusing on,
as is the major transformation currently under way in
VMware's back-end systems.
"We've grown at an exponential rate and are now at a
stage where we need to set up for new business models to
support the next generation of growth," he said. A case in
point: "We sell licenses, but a lot of our customers are now
asking for subscriptions," he explained. "We're getting to
the guts of our processes and making sure they're
improving. "
There are other significant shifts taking place in VMware's
market as well. The rise of container technologies such as
Docker, for example, is viewed by many as a threat to
virtualization, which is VMware's bread and butter.
Iyer, however, isn't worried. "I have been through so many
hype cycles," he said.
Iyer has asked IT staff to try out container technology

internally, and they've liked it, he said.
It's "another tool to add to your arsenal," he said, but "I
believe VMware and containers are better together. To
manage the containers, you need the management
software VMware has delivered for years. "
Another potential change on the horizon is Dell's proposed
$67 billion acquisition of EMC, which owns a controlling
stake in VMware.
"As a customer, I was relieved to hear that they're going to
keep VMware independent," Iyer said. "It helps other CIOs
manage a complex, multivendor environment, and that's
what I have too. "
From a business perspective, the affiliation with Dell could
also help VMware get access to new potential customers.
"EMC helped us, and now we'll have bigger reach," he said.
"It could open more doors and give us more scale. "
Whether the deal ultimately goes through remains to be
seen, but in the meantime, Iyer has his hands full. At the
moment, finding the right talent is one of his biggest
challenges.
"I'd rather have two of the right people than 200" of the
wrong ones, he said. "But how do you get them, when
everyone else seems to want them too? "
Talent has become a critical differentiator in IT, and money
is only one part of what it takes to attract the right people,

he believes. Rather, the best employees want to work for
good people and good companies, he said, pointing to the
VMware Foundation as a key piece of the company's
efforts in that direction.
"I've worked for a lot of evil and bad people in my career,"
Iyer said, "but I was young and figured it was part of
learning. "
Today, millennials have different expectations.
"They want more than 'do no evil' -- they want to work for
companies that do good," he said. "I talk a lot about
changing the world. It isn't just about making money. "
There are countless other challenges facing companies
today as well, of course, but Iyer urges CIOs to remember
that their domain is now at the center of it all.
"IT is the biggest enabler for all corporations," he explained.
"CIOs are the custodian of that, and it's a big responsibility.
You need to be creative and open, and drive the change. "
It's also important to enable through collaboration rather
than focusing on control, he said: "You're the person who
enables everybody in the whole company, from the janitor
to the CEO. "
Finally, it's essential to stay fresh and open-minded, Iyer
said.
In IT, each generation of innovators has a tendency to
stand in the way of the next generation of products, he

explained. For example, "mainframe people won't adopt
midrange, PC people won't adopt mobile," he said. "You
become dogmatic. "
In the hopes of avoiding that tendency in himself, Iyer tries
to learn from younger generations through a sort of reverse
mentoring. "The best way I've found is to talk to the next
generation of folks about how they use their mobile
devices, what they think about Uber and Facebook," he
said.
"There are days when I feel like I've seen it all before," Iyer
said. "You have to find a way to unlearn a lot of the things
you've learned. "
2015-11-20 00:00:00 Katherine Noyes
319
Smartphone Buying Guide: Essential
Things to Check Before Buying
Looking for a smartphone, but still
have a few doubts? In this
comprehensive smartphone buying
guide, we provide the most
commonly asked questions before
buying a smartphone, and their
answers.
Ideal Screen Size
Today smartphones having a bigger screen is a key trend,
and yes it helps in all respects—whether playing games,

watching videos, typing messages, video chats or using
social sites. We can categorize the display size in three
formats:
• Small Screen (Between 3 to 4.4 inches)
The main reason to love a small-screen smartphone is for
its compact design. It is easy to carry in pocket and you
won’t have to stretch your thumb to reach anything. Apple
iPhone 5S, Samsung Galaxy Star Pro, BlackBerry Z10 etc
fall under this format.
• Medium Screen (4.5 to 5.4 Inches)
This has become the smartphone sweet spot, with devices
such as the iPhone 6, HTC One M9, Galaxy S6, etc. Budget
phones like Lenovo A6000 Plus, Redmi 2, Micromax
Canvas Xpress 2 are also a part of this frame. Most phones
are fairly comfortable to use with one hand in this category,
depending on the button placement.
• Large Screen/Phablet (5.5 Inches or More)
Smartphones with display of 5.5 inches or more, such as
the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus and LG G4, and the 5.7-inch
Galaxy Note 4, are often called phablets because they are
tablet-like in size. These are more likely to be used as twohanded
devices, but there are lots of people who prefer
larger displays for watching videos, reading eBooks and
even running two apps side by side.
Right Screen Resolution—qHD, HD or Full HD?

The best way to judge a smartphone’s screen is to look at it
from different viewing angles for changes in color, and also
in varying lighting conditions to ensure visibility. Make sure
that the smartphone you’re shopping for, has a display
that’s bright enough so that it can be read under direct
sunlight.
Buy a Full HD (1080p) display if you’re buying a device
larger than five inches. On the other hand, HD (720p)
screens work well for devices up to five inches in size. On
smaller devices, load a web page to see if the text is crisp,
and can be read without any strain to your eyes.
Display Quality
Super AMOLED screens are best when it comes to
displaying vibrant colors. LCD screens with IPS technology
come next, while we suggest to avoid TFT LCDs.
Phone Design
If you care about build quality and aesthetics, look for a
unibody design, which you’ll find on the iPhone 6, Galaxy
S6, Oppo R7 Lite or HTC One M9. The S6’s glass-andmetal
design is particularly attractive, especially the S6
Edge with its dual curved display.
Besides the build quality and styling of the phone, one
major issue is that the phone should fit in hand with a good
grip so that slipping and dropping damage can be avoided.
Many phones such as Samsung Galaxy S6 Egde, Xolo
Black etc have shiny slippery back while phones such as

OnePlus 2, Intex Aqua Trend etc have rubberized and
matte finish at the back which gives a good grip.
The standard plastic backs don’t feel as premium as the
ones with metal looks. If you’re looking for a more personal
design, check out the Moto X, which you can customize
online with all sorts of colors and finishes, including wood.
The Moto G,LG G4, OnePlus 2 offers back covers in
different styles, including leather and wood, while the Oppo
R7 Lite has the metallic finish that gives it’s a premium look.
Camera Quality
We are now in that era of smartphone evolution that every
user wants two-side cameras with good image quality.
More and more smartphones have cameras with 8,12 or 16
megapixels, but don’t go by numbers alone. Instead, pay
attention to image quality, aperture, speed and features.
So, if you’re looking for a good camera phone, don’t go
blindly for the idea that more megapixels will give you better
pictures. Instead, look for phones that boast of good
camera optics. Remember, a high-resolution camera with a
low-quality lens will only give you low-quality pictures in high
resolution. For example, The iPhone 6 has an 8-MP
sensor, but it captures relatively large pixels and accurate
colors than smartphones with 16 MP camera.
You should be able to get a decent shot indoors without
using the flash. A larger aperture allows for this. For
instance, the Galaxy S6 has an f/1.9 aperture and the LG
G4 is rated for f/1.8, while the iPhone 6 is f/2.2. A lower
number means a larger aperture, which typically translates

to better low-light performance.
As far as camera features, look for optical image
stabilization to reduce blur and improve low-light
performance. Smartphone makers are also paying more
attention to front-camera quality, as evidenced by such
models as the HTC Desire Eye.
Camera sensors for better low-light photography come with
an LED flash. Nowadays smartphone comes with dual tone
LED flashlight for good low light images, some smartphone
have front LED flashlight.
Good photos are a result of adequate megapixels, good
lens and sensor technology, as well as high-end processor
chipsets. The smartphones like OnePlus 2,Nokia Lumia
1520, the Apple iPhones, Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge, LG
G4, Honor 6 Plus, ZTE Nubia Z9 Mini, Sony Xperia Z3 and
Xiaomi Mi 4i have a good camera.
How much RAM?
We have received many queries where users are ticked off
by the slowness of the device. Particularly by operations,
we mean the speed of opening an app. Having more RAM
gives you freedom for switching between apps or frequently
used app. More RAM results into better multitasking. All
RAMs are not created equally. They all have their own
speed in terms of the rate at which they can take in and
take out data from other components such as CPU and
Storage. The speed of RAM is measured in terms of MHz
generally and they are classified as LP DDR1

2015-11-19 10:59:52 Swaraj Sourabh
320
STK luanches rugged ‘Neptune Power Bank’
for Travellers
STK Accessories launches – the
‘Neptune Power Bank’. The rugged
power bank is multi-functional, and
offers comes with the protective,
polymer coating. It is waterproof
(IP67), shock resistant and
dustproof making it a traveller’s dream. Even though most
extreme hikers seldom have network reception in isolated
terrains, this portable power bank comes in handy in such
conditions due to its in-built features like the SOS beacon.
It also has Infrared pointer and the torch at the top of the
device. Both can be useful in all your SOS situations. The
smart-enabled, rugged portable power bank is powered by
a 5200mAh battery and comes with an USB output of 5.0V
1.0A.
The Power Bank is engineered with practicality and
convenience in mind and also includes a smart LED charge
indicator that displays the amount of charge left in the
power bank. The Neptune has the seven hours charging
time and available at Rs 3,999.
2015-11-16 11:15:27 Ashok Pandey

321
Installing NTOPNG — A Web-Based Network
Traffic Analysis Tool
You can use this tool to monitor
various protocols, traffic variants,
and bandwidth across multiple time
frames. It is based on libpcap and it
has been written in a portable way
in order to virtually run on every
Unix platform, MacOSX and on
Win32 as well.
Here is the step by step installation guide for Ntopng for
Ubuntu 14.04 server.
STEP 1. First of all add Ntopng repo in your Ubuntu repo
list. Create ntop.list file by running the command:
sudo nano/etc/apt/sources.list.d/ntop.list
Then add this line:
deb http://www.nmon.net/apt-stable/12.04/ x64/
deb http://www.nmon.net/apt-stable/12.04/ all/
STEP 2: Run the given command to add the key and then
run update:
wget -qO – http://www.nmon.net/apt-stable/ntop.key | sudo
apt-key add –
sudo apt-get update

STEP 3: Now install Ntopng and its dependencies.
sudo apt-get install libpcap -dev libglib2.0-dev libgeoip -dev
redis -server libxml2-dev libnl1
sudo apt-get install ntopng pfring nprobe ntopng -data
n2disk nbox
STEP 4: Ntopng is installed and now it’s time to create
ntopng configuration file.
sudo nano /etc/ntopng/ntopng.conf
After running the above command copy all these lines into
ntopng configuration file.
# /etc/ntopng/ntopng.conf
# The configuration file is similar to the command line, with
the exception that an equal
# sign ‘=’ must be used between key and value. Example: -
i=p1p2 or –interface=p1p2 For
# options with no value (e.g. -v) the equal is also
necessary. Example: “-v=” must be used.
# -G|–pid-path
# Specifies the path where the PID (process ID) is saved.
#
-G=/var/tmp/ntopng.pid

# -e|–daemon
# This parameter causes ntop to become a daemon, i.e. a
task which runs in the background
# without connection to a specific terminal. To use ntop
other than as a casual monitoring
# tool, you probably will want to use this option.
#
-e=
# -i|–interface
# Specifies the network interface or collector endpoint to be
used by ntopng for network
# monitoring. On Unix you can specify both the interface
name (e.g. lo) or the numeric
# interface id as shown by ntopng -h. On Windows you
must use the interface number instead.
# Note that you can specify -i multiple times in order to
instruct ntopng to create multi-
# ple interfaces.
#
-i=1
# -w|–http-port

# Sets the HTTP port of the embedded web server.
#
-w=3000
# -m|–local-networks
# ntopng determines the ip addresses and netmasks for
each active interface. Any traffic on
# those networks is considered local. This parameter allows
the user to define additional
# networks and subnetworks whose traffic is also
considered local in ntopng reports. All
# other hosts are considered remote. If not specified the
default is set to 192.168.1.0/24.
# Commas separate multiple network values. Both netmask
and CIDR notation may be used,
# even mixed together, for instance
“131.114.21.0/24,10.0.0.0/255.0.0.0”.
#
-m=192.168.1.0/24
# -n|–dns-mode
# Sets the DNS address resolution mode: 0 – Decode DNS
responses and resolve only local

# (-m) numeric IPs 1 – Decode DNS responses and resolve
all numeric IPs 2 – Decode DNS
# responses and don’t resolve numeric IPs 3 – Don’t
decode DNS responses and don’t resolve
#
-n=1
# -S|–sticky-hosts
# ntopng periodically purges idle hosts. With this option you
can modify this behaviour by
# telling ntopng not to purge the hosts specified by -S. This
parameter requires an argu-
# ment that can be “all” (Keep all hosts in memory), “local”
(Keep only local hosts),
# “remote” (Keep only remote hosts), “none” (Flush hosts
when idle).
#
-S=
# -d|–data-dir
# Specifies the data directory (it must be writable). Default
directory is./data
#

-d=/var/tmp/ntopng
# -q|–disable-autologout
# Disable web interface logout for inactivity.
#
-q=
STEP5: You can also download ntopng from their website
and install it manually by using the following command if
you don’t want to add its repo.
$ tar xzf ntopng-1.0.tar.gz -C ~
$ cd ~/ntopng-1.0/
$ ./configure
$ make geoip
$ make
STEP 6: We also need to create ntopng .start file by using
the command:
sudo nano /etc/ntopng/ntopng.start
Once you created ntopng .start file then add the following
lines
–local-networks “192.168.0.0/24”
## give your local IP Ranges here.

–interface 1
STEP 7: To see all available interfaces and options, use the
ntopng -h option:
sudo ntopng-h
STEP 8. Start Ntopng and redis server daemon.
sudo service redis -server start
sudo service ntopng start
STEP 9. Now you can test your ntopng application by typing
http://yourserver.name:3000. You will see ntopng login
page.
STEP 10: For the first time, your deafult credentials are
user ‘admin’ and password ‘admin’. Once you login , you
will see the dashboard with a glance of real traffic on your
network.
STEP 11: Click on the Host option to see the traffic and
details of all the active hosts on your network.
STEP 12: You also get the graphical representation of
traffic flow, hosts, ports, and applications and can monitor
your network bandwidth consumption in a graphical way.
2015-11-16 06:19:27 Raj Kumar Maurya
322
Rigid software licensing options are
frustrating today’s enterprise users

Gemalto announced the publication
of its State of Software Monetization
report. Survey results reveal that
enterprise software customer
demands are evolving and software
vendors and intelligent device
manufacturers need to adopt
flexible and adaptable licensing and packaging techniques
in order to meet these needs and generate more revenue
opportunities.
“The way that software is consumed is changing – whether
users only want certain features, to use it on the device of
their choice, or only want to pay for what they use,” said
Shlomo Weiss, Senior Vice President, Software
Monetization at Gemalto. “Independent software vendors
(ISVs) have to keep up with the changing demands of their
customers. We see that piracy, reverse engineering, and
deliberate and unintentional misuse are all still monetization
concerns for ISVs. However, now more than ever,
delivering software in ways that customers want to
consume it is critical for creating a user experience that
sells.”
Expectations from ISVs are high
The research reveals that the vast majority of respondents
(85%) think software vendors need to constantly adapt to
evolving market needs. More specifically, 83% of enterprise
respondents said that flexible software packaging and
accessibility across multiple devices are extremely
important to them. In addition, four out of five respondents

elieve that software needs to be future-proof to be
successful.
ISVs face software monetization challenges
ISVs – including intelligent device manufacturers – are still
finding monetizing their software challenging, especially
including back office tasks and licensing enforcement. Only
one in ten ISVs reported no licensing operations
challenges. Top back office issues included:
· Cost of renewing and managing licenses (87%);
· Time spent renewing and managing licenses (83%);
· Time and cost spent on non-product-related development
(82%); and
· Limited visibility into how products are being used (68%).
Enterprise software users are frustrated
Enterprise software consumers expressed their frustration
with traditional, rigid software licensing, packaging and
delivery options. They are increasingly looking for online
software delivery, metered usage and device-agnostic
licensing. Only 10% of enterprise respondents claimed that
their organization is not experiencing challenges with their
software licenses. Among the remaining respondents, top
licensing challenges included inflexible license agreements,
long customer on-boarding and lost licensing keys. Top
software license preferences included:
· Enterprise licenses (59%);

· Site licenses (45%); and
· Concurrent-user licenses (40%).
Licensing compliance remains a concern
Compliance – whether intentional or unintentional – is still a
primary concern among ISVs. Four-fifths of ISV
respondents worry about unlicensed software use, up from
about three-quarters in 2012. Among unlicensed software
usage, ISV respondents said that their top concerns were:
· Competitive theft of intellectual property (59%);
· Intentional licensing agreement violations (56%); and
· Software piracy (48%)
At the same time, almost half of enterprise respondents
admit to being non-compliant with a software agreement.
When asked about how ISVs could improve their services:
· 80% think software vendors could provide more clarity
around processes/audits; and
· 72% think software vendors could improve usage
tracking/audits.
Commercial software monetization solutions are worth
implementing
Of the enterprise users who had implemented a
commercial software monetization solution, two-thirds were
up and running in less than six months.

Demographics of the state of software monetization report
The State of Software Monetization Report includes the
opinions of 600 enterprise software users and 180
independent software vendors (ISVs) about the needs and
challenges related to software licensing and packaging.
Gemalto worked closely with technology market research
specialists at Vanson Bourne to develop and conduct the
survey, which targeted ISVs with at least 10 employees and
enterprise organizations with 500 or more employees from
DACH (Germany, Austria and Switzerland), France, Japan,
U. K. and the U. S.
2015-11-13 05:56:56 Ashok Pandey
323
Capture Beautiful Moments With Portronics
Pen Stick
Portronics launches world’s
smallest Selfie Stick – Pen Stick,
which can literally come into your
pocket or purse.
Portronics Pen Stick has been
designed with highly advanced and compact features. The
Pen Stick has been built with Aluminium and Plastic Selfie
Stick. The Pen Stick measures 12.5 cm when folded and is
expandable up to 75 cm, making not only easy to carry on
the go but extremely adaptable for composing shots. This
unique feature allows clicking of pictures much easier and
without needing the help of strangers to click your precious

moments.
The Pen Stick functions without battery system which
makes it convenient to work anytime, anywhere. It comes
with simple wire connection that plugs into the
smartphone’s headphone jack to replicate the volume
control shutter-release feature on both iOS and Android
devices.
The solid grip of the adjustable sprung phone bracket
makes it convenient for any cell phone measuring between
5 cm and 8.5 cm easy to hold. The bracket is rotatable to a
full 360 degrees and tilt between 180.
This Selfie Stick is available at a price of Rs. 599.
2015-11-10 08:24:48 Ashok Pandey
324
hike launches special Diwali gift for users;
introduces Coupons on hike with offers
from over 100 brands
Hike Messenger, the biggest local
messaging app in India today
announced a special Diwali gift for
it’s 70 million users. It comes a
welcome news to those users also
who run short on storage for
installing various apps on phone. hike has integrated major
brands into one.
The company has launched Coupons with exclusive

discount coupons from over 100 top brands like Amazon,
eBay, Jabong, AskMeBazaar, Domino’s, Pizza Hut etc.
Coupons on hike will allow users to buy and gift items and
order from their favorite restaurants with exclusive deals
customised only for hike users.
Coupons on hike has been launched in an easy and simple
user friendly interface. To use coupons, users can simply
open Hike Messenger, tap on the ‘Coupons’ chat on the
home screen to browse through discount coupons from
several brands. To redeem, users can simply tap on ‘Get
coupon code ’ to generate the code and redeem it on the
brand’s mobile site, website or app.
The company also recently announced that it has over 70
Million users (making hike the largest Indian messaging
app) spending over 140 minutes per week on hike. The
company is envisioning and expanding the instant
messaging landscape by offering its users much more than
simple messaging through partnerships and integrations.
These services include News and Cricket Scores apart from
Coupons.
2015-11-06 07:37:10 Anuj Sharma
325
Toyota to make $1B artificial intelligence,
robotics R&D push in US
Toyota plans a major push into artificial intelligence and
robotics technology research and will invest US$1 billion
over the next five years to establish a Silicon Valley

esearch and development center
to pursue those goals.
The Toyota Research Institute
will be led by Gill Pratt, who recently
joined Toyota from DARPA where
he ran the Robotics Challenge, an
event that promoted work on robots that can work with
humans.
"The goal of the Toyota Research Institute is to bridge the
gap between fundamental research and product
development, particularly of life saving and life improving
technologies," said Pratt at a Tokyo news conference on
Thursday.
Gill Pratt, executive technical advisor at Toyota, speaks at a
Tokyo news conference on Nov. 6, 2015.
It will be established in January and be based close to
Stanford University and have a second campus near MIT
near Boston. Over the next few years, it will grow to
around 200 scientists and engineers.
Initial research at the center will focus on the way people
and machines can work together, particularly in the area of
mobility, he said.
When it opens, it will have three goals in the areas of
safety, accessibility and robotics.
In safety, the goal will be to make driving safer and prevent
car accidents, no matter what the driver does. In the area

of accessibility, it will seek to help everyone benefit from the
mobility of cars, regardless of demographics or physical
condition. And in robotics, it will work on technology that
can improve the quality of life of all people, in particular
seniors.
It will work alongside two research centers Toyota is
establishing with Stanford University and MIT. The car
maker is investing an additional $50 million in those under
an agreement announced in September.
The goals are lofty but they aren't new areas of research
for the company. Like many large Japanese companies,
Toyota engages in fundamental research into technology
that may not become products for years.
The work is low profile, but occasionally it makes headlines.
In 2009 for example, Toyota showed off a brain-machine
interface system that allowed a person in a motorized
wheelchair to control it with just their minds.
Toyota already faces competition in some of these
research areas from the likes of Google, which has been
working on autonomous car technology for several years
and already has prototype cars driving on public streets
near its Silicon Valley headquarters.
But in Tokyo on Friday, Pratt said he wasn't worried about
the head start that Google has.
"It is possible at the beginning of a car race that you may
not be in the best position," he said. "It may be that other
drivers are saying a whole lot about what there position is

and everyone may expect that a particular car will win.
But if the race is very long, who knows who will win? "
"The problem of adding safety and accessibility to cars is
extremely difficult and the truth is, we are only at the
beginning of this race," he said. "
2015-11-05 00:00:00 Martyn Williams
326
OneDrive dumps unlimited storage, slashes
free storage amount by two-thirds
Microsoft announced late Monday that it would
no longer provide unlimited OneDrive storage to Office 365
home subscribers and that it’s slashing the amount of free
OneDrive storage it provides by a whopping two-thirds.
The reason for ditching the unlimited storage, Microsoft
said in a blog post , is that “a small number of users” really
went for it by backing up multiple PCs, entire movie
collections, and DVR recordings to OneDrive. Microsoft
says these users’ excessive storage usage amounted to
14,000 times the average. Unlimited OneDrive storage for
Office 365 subscribers rolled out just over a year ago in late
October 2014.
Microsoft says it wants to stop “focusing on extreme backup
scenarios” in OneDrive, and turn its attention to “high-value
productivity and collaboration experiences that benefit the
majority of OneDrive users.” Given the corresponding
storage slashes in the lower-cost and free OneDrive tiers,

though, the excuse feels like a somewhat offensive PRspeak
attempt to cast blame on users rather than saying
something along the lines of “we messed up by offering too
much too cheaply,” or “we offered you tons of free storage
to lure you into OneDrive, and we’re taking it away now that
you’re firmly settled in our cloud.”
Microsoft is reducing all OneDrive storage limits to 1TB for
Office 365 Home, Personal, and University subscribers.
While the new limit goes into effect, current users will have
time to pull their data out of Microsoft’s cloud. Office 365
subscribers have “at least” 12 months to get their data in
excess of 1TB out of OneDrive.
Anyone who only wanted Office 365 for the limitless
OneDrive storage can ask for a pro-rated refund for the
remainder of their yearly subscription.
Office 365 subscribers aren’t the only people getting cuts in
their storage limits. Starting in 2016, free users will only
receive 5GB of free storage, down from 15GB. Microsoft is
also discontinuing the 15GB camera roll storage bonus that
allowed mobile users to upload their pictures to OneDrive.
Like the free tier, the camera roll will stop in early 2016.
As with Office 365 subscribers, anyone on the free tier
and/or using the camera roll will have “at least” 12 months
to pull their data out of OneDrive and get below the new
limit.
Microsoft is also doing away with the 100GB and 200GB
OneDrive paid plans priced at $1.99 and $3.99 per month

espectively. Instead, it will roll out 50GB of storage for
$1.99 per month in early 2016. Anyone needing more
storage than that can get 1TB and Office 365 Personal for
$6.99 per month.
Dropbox and Google Drive charge $9.99 per month for 1TB
of storage.
This story, "OneDrive dumps unlimited storage, slashes
free storage amount by two-thirds" was originally published
by
PCWorld .
2015-11-03 00:00:00 Ian Paul
327
Xen's highly critical virtual machine escape
flaw gets a fix
The Xen Project fixed several
vulnerabilities in its popular
virtualization software, including
one that could allow potential
attackers to break out of a virtual
machine and gain control over the
host system.
Vulnerabilities that break the isolation layer between virtual
machines are the most serious type for a hypervisor like
Xen, whose main goal is to allow running multiple VMs on
the same hardware in a secure manner.

The Xen patches released Thursday fix a total of nine
vulnerabilities, but the privilege escalation one identified as
CVE-2015-7835 is the most serious one.
It stems not from a traditional programming error, but from
a logic flaw in how Xen implements memory virtualization
for PV (paravirtualized) VMs. PV is a technique that enables
virtualization on CPUs that don't support hardware-assisted
virtualization.
As such, the flaw can only be exploited by malicious
administrators of PV guests and only on x86 systems, the
Xen Project said in an advisory. Xen versions 3.4 and
higher are vulnerable.
The vulnerability, which has existed for 7 years, is "probably
the worst we have seen affecting the Xen hypervisor, ever,"
the security team of the Qubes OS Project said in its own
advisory. Qubes OS relies on Xen to compartmentalize
different tasks performed by users for increased security.
"It is really shocking that such a bug has been lurking in the
core of the hypervisor for so many years," the Qubes
security team said. "In our opinion the Xen project should
rethink their coding guidelines and try to come up with
practices and perhaps additional mechanisms that would
not let similar flaws to plague the hypervisor ever again
(assert-like mechanisms perhaps?). Otherwise the whole
project makes no sense, at least to those who would like to
use Xen for security-sensitive work. "
2015-10-30 00:00:00 Lucian Constantin

328
Twitter Introduces Brand Hub to Help
Advertisers Understand More about their
Brands
Every day, millions of people Tweet
about brands. Each Tweet has the
potential to give advertisers new
insights to better understand what
customers, prospects, and
influencers are saying, thinking, and
feeling about their brand. To date, marketers haven’t been
able to gather these valuable insights in one place.
Today Twitter is excited to announce Twitter Brand Hub,
the newest addition to our suite of analytics tools.
Brand Hub helps advertisers quickly understand their
brand’s share of conversation, key audiences, and trends
about their brand’s conversation. This 360-degree, realtime
view gives the brand the opportunity to learn, take
action and see the impact of their initiatives on Twitter.
With Brand Hub, you’ll see insights about your brand in a
number of key areas:
Twitter developed TrueVoice, a new metric only available
within Brand Hub to help advertisers track their share of
conversation in real time. Share of conversation empowers
marketers to learn more about the conversation happening
about their brand on Twitter — in fact, research has shown
that Tweets that mention brands have been linked to a

direct increase in sales.
Twitter determine your brand’s TrueVoice by first analyzing
Tweets about your brand and those about your
competitors. Then, identify what percentage of these
impressions your brand owns. As consumers see ads about
your brand and your competitors on TV, display, and social
channels, they send Tweets which are then counted in real
time through TrueVoice.
The audience view displays high-level insights about the
people actively talking about your brand on Twitter,
including details about their gender, location, income levels,
occupation types, and other key demographic attributes. It
also highlights key influencers Tweeting about your brand.
These details are derived from Twitter data and Twitter
Official Partners, and are shown in aggregate to provide
you with actionable insights while keeping individual user
information private.
This report helps in understanding how people are
discussing your brand on Twitter. You can see how many
impressions your brand received over time, how many
Tweets mentioned your brand or product, along with the
top phrases mentioned in conjunction with your brand. You
can also see breakouts on key topics such as brand loyalty,
purchase intent, and more. If yours is a larger company
with sub-brands, you can further segment your data by
product or sub-brand.
2015-10-29 06:17:41 Anuj Sharma

329
Need SDN control but don’t want to
upgrade your Cisco switches? VMware
wants to talk
This is a good time to have this
discussion because VMworld just
passed and comparing this one to
the show last year is a good way to
highlight how much progress has
happened.
Last year we had about 150 paying
customers. This year we have more
than 750 customers
and every main stage presenter at the show was a major
customer of NSX. I think we had 25 NSX customers
presenting. For example, DirectTV said the number one
pay-per-view event in history -- the Manny Pacquiao fight --
was done on NSX. Tribune Media said it moved 140 apps
onto NSX in under five months. There was this massive
amount of gravity around production deployments, around
use.
We also used the show to announce a new version of the
product, NSX 6.2, which is the culmination of a year’s worth
of production experience. In early technology cycles you’re
selling to the innovator crowd and you focus a lot on
features and differentiation. But once you start getting
traction you focus on things like how to make it easy to
operate, easy to debug. So 6.2 was well received.

Then we previewed two significant technology futures. One
of them we actually demoed -- NSX connecting
containerized workloads running in seven data centers,
including AWS on three continents, with complete NSX
security. This is the notion of NSX as the fabric that
provides connectivity and security across all of your
endpoints.
The second tech preview was around security. One of the
biggest use case drivers for NSX is security. I’d say maybe
40% of our customers adopt it because of security. Initially
that meant you could push firewalling into the data center
for east-west traffic, which is great. Now wepreviewed the
idea of doing encryption within the data center. So imagine
you spin up a workload, you click a checkbox and then all
the communication is encrypted. So even if there is an
insider that has access to the physical switch, like a SPAN
port, they still can’t make sense of the traffic.
We’ve got dozens of customers running in production that
aren’t vSphere customers. We still underlie two of the
largest OpenStack clouds in the world, which have nothing
to do with VMware. We continue to aggressively fund opensource
efforts like Open vSwitch and Neutron because my
personal goal is to change networking, which is
independent of the hypervisor. I want to touch every
endpoint possible. I want to touch hardware endpoints, I
want to touch KVM endpoints, I want to touch Hyper-V, I
want to touch ESX. It’s our goal to be independent of the
hypervisor. Of course sales are going to align with our sales
motion, but that’s just the reality of being in a big company

and having an existing go-to-market engine.
There are three use cases: Automation is probably the
most common at about 40%. And by that I mean
automating the provisioning and configuration of
networking, reducing the time it takes to do something to
zero. Security is close at about 40%, and the third one is
application continuity, which basically means the ability to
keep an application available if it moves between data
centers. This is for high availability and disaster recovery
use cases. On the main stage at the show we had a
customer called Global Speech Networks, which is the
largest call center cloud in Australia, and they use NSX for
all three use cases. That’s actually very common.
SDN has become so many things over the years. I
remember 10 years ago when I started doing the work that
basically became SDN, another student and I were playing
around with the idea of moving more functionality into
software to get better guarantees. I didn’t have any
preconceived notions, I just thought there would be
massive disruption, and now we’re seeing that industry
transformation. You can see the impact in the way people
are using SDN, the evolution of the use cases. We are
seeing change in the hardware and we are seeing change
in the supply chain. Architectural transformations take time,
but I do think it’s happening.
That is a fair comment. I think it’s a very complicated issue
and we should look at all of the things that are going on to
understand the actual dynamics.

In order for white box to happen you have to decouple
features from the hardware. If you look at a modern data
center, especially ones that use NSX, the hardware just
provides capacity. You move functionality from the
hardware into a software layer. Now you can build out the
hardware however you want because you don’t need
special purpose features, you just need capacity.
Salesforce, Facebook, Yahoo, that’s how all of those guys
built their data centers.
Once that happens, you decouple the purchasing decision
of the hardware and that allows the hardware ecosystem to
evolve the right way, whereas in the past it was unnatural
because every time you needed a new feature you had to
do a refresh cycle. I try to avoid predicting what’s going to
happen to that hardware refresh cycle. I don’t know what
that looks like. I know things are going to be way cheaper,
and that definitely seems to be happening if you look at 10-
gig price cutting. The number of new players and chaos
and energy in 10-gig data center is phenomenal.
So I do think there’s been disruption. There is this basic
need to adjust and I don’t think anybody knows what it’s
going to look like in two or three years, but I would say that
independent of who provides the hardware switching, it’s
basically going to follow a horizontal model, meaning a
relatively low margin model.
The reason it’s not very prevalent today is less about white
box as an architectural model and more about companies
wanting a reputable vendor to stand behind their
investments, wanting a support contract, wanting to know

that if they pick up the phone someone is going to answer.
To date it’s been startups pushing the idea, and they’re not
built to provide these types of services. But HP just
announced [an open source network operating system for
data center switches], so now it starts to become very
credible. We have to wait for this evolution in the industry. I
don’t know if white box is the right option. If a customer
asks if they should do it I would say that is something
they’ve got to figure out for themselves. I think the most
important thing for them is to preserve optionality. Just
decouple your features from your hardware. Then you can
buy your hardware from Cisco, from Arista, from Brocade,
or do white box. Do what’s best for you, but preserve that
optionality and never get in the position where, to add new
features, you’ve got to buy new hardware.
I’ll give you my favorite example. There is so much Cisco
Nexus 5000 and Nexus 7000 gear out there and these
customers were told this architecture was going to last for
the next 10 years. Now Cisco is coming back and saying,
“Actually you need to do a rip and replace and put in the
Nexus 9000 to get ACI [Cisco’s SDN kit].
This is a perfect opportunity for NSX. It’s fantastic because
we go to these customers and say, “Listen, you have the
5K, the 7K, we can provide you a tremendous amount of
functionality in software, things that ACI can’t even do
today, and you can protect your hardware investment for as
long as you want. When you have a refresh cycle, do
whatever you want. Go with the newest version of Cisco or
not. It’s up to you.”

We’re finding rich, rich opportunities in the massive installed
base of this gear. Again, Cisco makes great hardware
forwarding packets. They do it as well as anybody, and
better than most. And it’s not like customers are running out
of bandwidth. The reason they’re being told to upgrade is
because of features which naturally should be in software.
That’s the great thing about NSX. It doesn’t require direct
hardware compatibility. It’s all done in software on the
hypervisor at the edge. I mean, 70% percent of our
deployments are on 5Ks and 7Ks. NSX just treats the
physical network as a back plane to pass packets. It could
be IP over InfiniBand for all I care. As long as it has IP
connectivity, we do everything on the edge in a distributed
fashion. We can do things like L2, L3, load balancing,
firewalling, all the mobility, all the security policy, all that
stuff in a distributed fashion at the edge without affecting
performance, and you can build your physical network how
you want. That’s why if a customer has a Cisco 5K or 7K
today I think they should seriously consider looking at NSX
because the cost avoidance is material dollars.
I’ve been saying for a long time that I don’t think OpenFlow
has any business in the data center, and I wrote the first
version of OpenFlow. It is much more suitable for what
Google did in the WAN, where routing decisions are
actually meaningful and you can do dynamic routing. I think
it belongs in the WAN and in the campus. Google’s is
dealing with the WAN. HP has been focused on the
campus. In the data center there is so much bandwidth and
there is such low latency that basically everybody just builds

L3 ECMP fabrics. So you don’t use OpenFlow to control the
switches. In the data center your L3 network just passes
packets and everything that is a feature is implemented in
software in the hypervisor.
If someone has an existing 5K, 7K, brownfield deployment
and is already running vSphere, we say buy NSX and install
it, then on a per application basis, turn it on, put it on a
virtual network, give it some firewall, give it a load balancer.
So they can incrementally benefit. There’s no rip and
replace. There’s no controlling the switches. They
incrementally deploy it.
I think one of the reasons we’re getting so much adoption is
exactly this reason. There’s no change to the hardware or
the configuration. They just install bits in the hypervisor and
that’s how it works.
But listen, ACI will add value for managing your physical
assets, for sure. You can manage security and port groups
on physical assets, it’s got good visibility in the fabric
management. But when it comes to dealing with
virtualization in the virtual edges and, in particular, vSphere,
there is no supported integration.
So there is no reason customers can’t use both, and in fact
many do. I know of three. The three ACI customers I know
that are pretty serious about ACI use NSX as well. NSX
provides things that ACI can’t, like fully distributed
firewalling in the hypervisor, distributed load balancing,
integration into vCenter, integration into vSphere, and then
ACI is being used to manage the physical assets.

As always happens in early markets, everybody is trying to
figure out what they’re going to target, what their niche is.
Over time we’re finding that in the virtual environment NSX
is the right approach. ACI is great for physical fabric
management and the two coexist actually quite naturally.
I think you’ll always have two different control planes; one
that manages connectivity and another that does all of the
services on top. I do think the two companies can do better
integration for operations, and certainly this is a discussion
we’re interested in having with Cisco.
2015-10-27 00:00:00 John Dix
330
Here's why Western Digital is buying
SanDisk
Western Digital (WD) today
announced that it's buying fellow
data storage vendor SanDisk in a
cash and stock deal worth about
$19 billion.
The move comes as the IT industry is evolving rapidly as
companies look for ways to embrace trends such as
wearables, the Internet of Things and the cloud. The result
has been a recent wave of mergers and acquisitions and
investment activity in the data storage market.
WD's purchase of SanDisk comes on the heals of the data
storage market's biggest-ever acquisition, Dell's purchase

of EMC for $67 billion. That deal was announced just last
week. In addition, storage semi-conductor maker PMC-
Sierra has receive multiple takeover bids, and China's
Tsinghua-owned Unisplendour has agreed to buy 15% of
WD for $3.78 billion.
WD, a company steeped mostly in hard disk drive (HDD)
technology, faces an evolution in IT that is driving
companies to address a changing set of requirements for
both client and enterprise end customers.
Enterprises no longer rely solely on tape drives for backups
and hard drives for primary data, but must also deal with
the higher speed requirements of applications such as
online transaction processing and big data analytics.
Today, solid-state drives (SSDs) are a critical component of
multi-tiered storage infrastructures where flash memory
devices sits just under DRAM as top-tier storage.
In addition to enterprise products, both WD and SanDisk
are California-based companies heavily involved in different
segments of the consumer data storage market, with WD
offering desktop NAS drives and SanDisk a leading provider
of flash-based thumb drives and memory expansion cards.
Earlier this year, SanDisk, also known for internal SSDs for
desktops and laptops, announced its first line-up of pocketsized,
high-capacity external drives.
WD's buyout of SanDisk mainly gives the company an
instant foothold in the global, non-volatile NAND flash
memory market, according to Jeff Janukowicz, research

vice president at IDC.
WD itself noted in its news announcement about the deal
that the combination will "enable it to vertically integrate into
NAND, securing long-term access to solid state technology
at lower cost. "
SanDisk, which has 27 years of experience in the NAND
flash memory marketplace, recently announced a deal with
leading flash maker Toshiba to manufacture the world's
densest 3D NAND -- a 48-layer, 32GB chip that offers twice
the capacity of the next densest memory.
3D NAND represents the most advanced memory product
to date, achieving far greater capacites at lower productiion
costs by stacking layers of NAND flash cells atop one
another like microscopic skyscrapers.
All major producers of flash products have announced their
own versions of 3D NAND, some denser than others. Intel
announced yesterday that it will convert its fabrication
facility in Dalian, China from making processor chips to
making 3D-NAND flash chips.
Intel also plans to invest up to $5.5 billion in its 3D NAND
project. The Dalian fab plant is scheduled to begin
producing memory chips in the second half of 2016.
In its acquisition announcement, WD singled out the 15-
year partnership between SanDisk and Toshiba, stating
that it expects that relationship to be "ongoing. "
"The [joint venture] provides stable NAND supply at scale

through a time-tested business model and extends across
NVM technologies such as 3D NAND," WD said.
While the WD and SanDisk data storage product portfolios
do overlap slightly in that both companies sell enterprise
SAS-based and PCIe-based SSDs, in general the buyout
will increase the addressable market and provide revenue
diversification for WD across multiple technologies and
market segments, Janukowicz said.
Gregory Wong, an analyst with Forward Insights, said the
deal allows WD to enter the consumer SSD and enterprise
SATA SSD market.
"WD wants [SanDisk] for the access to the flash. Their PC
HDD business is declining due to the weak PC market but
also because SSDs are encroaching that space," Wong
said. "Without access to NAND flash at cost, it would've
been difficult for them to participate in that space and also
would've increasingly been difficult to compete with NAND
players in the enterprise space. "
The NAND flash market grew rapidly over the past decade,
but in the past few years, it has consolidated and growth
has slowed because it can't support the many players.
Because there's little product overlap, the WD-SanDisk
merger doesn't really add much in the form of market
consolidation, Wong said.
"With this transaction, Western Digital will double its
addressable market and expand its participation in highergrowth
segments," Wong said.

WD said that Steve Milligan will continue to serve as CEO of
the combined company, which will remain headquartered in
Irvine, Calif.
This story, "Here's why Western Digital is buying SanDisk"
was originally published by
Computerworld .
2015-10-21 00:00:00 Lucas Mearian
331
Storage giants are getting bigger, but prices
will stay small
Hard-drive giant Western Digital's planned
acquisition of SanDisk is just the latest of several deals that
could reduce the number of companies making storage
gear. Will this trend eliminate choices and let manufacturers
raise prices?
No, according to analyst Jim Handy of Objective Analysis.
Buying hard drives and flash won't get harder or more
expensive, precisely because selling them will remain a cutthroat
business for the foreseeable future, he said.
The proposed US$19 billion buyout, expected to close in
the third quarter of next year, came less than two weeks
after another big storage-related deal in which Dell plans to
buy EMC for $67 billion. Storage silicon maker PMC-Sierra
is still weighing multiple offers. And Western Digital has
already helped to drive consolidation by buying Hitachi GST

in 2011.
But Western Digital isn't buying SanDisk to become a
bigger, more efficient maker of HDDs (hard disk drives).
Instead, it wants SanDisk's core flash storage business to
complement its own spinning disks. The three big suppliers
of hard drives -- Western, Seagate and Toshiba -- will still
be standing if the deal goes through.
Despite fast-growing demand for solid-state storage for
some applications, hard disks aren't going away. Far from
it, as cloud service providers like Amazon and Google try to
keep up with the exploding amounts of data their customers
need. HDDs offer the best mix of speed and cost for storing
much of that information. While SSDs are replacing some
enterprise HDDs, high-capacity hard drives in PCs and
online storage are not threatened by flash, Handy says.
And the disk and flash businesses are going to keep
punishing sellers while rewarding buyers, according to
Handy. That's because both are largely commodity
products that require huge investments in manufacturing
capacity.
Once vendors have poured all that money into tooling for a
particular product, they each have an interest in getting as
many units as possible out of those investments. And
despite overall demand for storage growing more than 40
percent per year, manufacturers are building out the
capacity to feed that demand well in advance.
That leaves just one way for each to move the maximum

number of HDDs or SSDs: Steal market share from rivals.
Each cuts prices or keeps them low to win those sales, and
buyers win, Handy said. In other words, competition still
works.
Dell's acquisition of EMC will give storage makers one less
big customer they can win over, but that won't reshape the
business, either. "There's still a very broad field of people
buying hard drives," Handy said. That includes PC makers,
server vendors, telecom equipment manufacturers, and
companies like Facebook that build their own systems. "For
any two of those companies to merge is not going to make
that big of a difference. "
2015-10-21 00:00:00 Stephen Lawson
332
Amazon's case for running containers in its
cloud
Like many vendors across the cloud computing
and hosting market, Amazon Web Services is evolving its
platform in an attempt to convince customers that its cloud
is the best place to run application containers.
At the company’s re:Invent conference in Las Vegas earlier
this month the company rolled out a series of incremental
advancements to its container management platform, and
showcased customers who are using the company’s cloud
to run applications in Docker containers. And it seems that
Amazon’s biggest argument for running containers in its
cloud is that by doing so customers get all the benefits of

using the cloud in general.
Deepak Singh - the man heading up AWS’s container
strategy - says AWS has grown to become the kingpin of
the public cloud market because it provides elastic, ondemand
virtual machines and storage; it allows
organizations to be agile in how they use infrastructure.
Containers, he says, bring the same agility to the
application layer. “The reason we hear customers using
containers is the ease of writing custom applications,” he
explains. What customers don’t want though, he says, is to
have to manage the underlying infrastructure needed to run
those containers. And that’s what AWS provides with its
EC2 Container Service (ECS), he contends.
But using AWS’s ECS means that any applications running
on ECS will be hosted in AWS’s cloud. For some customers
that’s fine, says Scott Johnston, vice president of product at
Docker – one of the primary companies behind application
containers. Other customers may not want to go all in on
AWS’s cloud though. For these customers AWS allows
other third-party container management tools, like those
from Docker, to run atop AWS’s cloud. In this approach,
customers can run the same container management
platform in AWS’s cloud as they run on their own
infrastructure. AWS’s ECS platform, Johnson says, is
primarily for customers who are willing to commit to being
all in on AWS.
Singh, the AWS’s container chief, says one of the leading
benefits of using ECS is that customers have access to all

of the other features AWS offers. Customers can integrate
their applications running in ECS with AWS’s databases,
load balancers, auto-scaling tools, and many other
services.
AWS’s container platform is a cloud-based service that
manages clusters of containers, allowing users to launch,
stop and control containers with API calls. It works via an
agent, which sits on any of AWS’s virtual machines (named
Elastic Compute Cloud or EC2 instances) in Amazon’s
cloud. When the agent is installed on the EC2 instance, it
will manage spinning up the containers, monitoring them
and right-sizing them, among other functions.
Amazon has built a specific Linux OS for the containers,
named the ECS-Optimized Linux Amazon Machine Image
(AMI). But customers could also choose to use a variety of
other container-optimized OSs from various ISVs, such as
CoreOS’s, which Singh said is a popular choice for
customers. There’s no additional cost for ECS – customers
just pay for their EC2 instances ECS runs on.
At re:Invent, AWS announced new features such as being
able to host registries of Docker containers – which are
groups of containers that are bundled together to make up
an application. AWS also made its container platform faulttolerant
by expanding support for running ECS across
multiple availability zones. And it added support for
developers to control ECS through a command line
interface.
Amazon isn’t the only company with a container

management platform though. Google and Microsoft,
perhaps AWS’s biggest competitors, each have platforms
for running containers in their clouds. Microsoft supports
both Docker containers and Windows-specific containers it
has developed.
451 Group analyst Donnie Berkholz says the cloud has
turned into an attractive place to run containers. “Container
services are one example of a higher-level service, where
it's trivial to run a single container but very complex to run
containers at scale in production,” he says. Cloud providers
ease that, but at the cost of potential lock-in. As the market
matures, Berkholz expects to see more advanced onpremises
container management platforms, like those from
Red Hat, Docker and other startups, such as Rancher
Labs, Weave and many others.
At re:Invent AWS showcased customers who are already
all-in on using containers in AWS, such as Remind. The
startup has developed a platform to help teachers stay in
touch with students and parents in an effort to lower the
drop-out rate in schools. Thirty million users are on the
platform – which is hosted in AWS – and half of schools in
the country have at least one teacher using it, the company
says.
Remind gets very busy in back to school season. This
school year the company saw 400,000 new users signing
up each day in stretches of August; it went from handling
50 million messages per month last year to 200 million
messages this year.

Jason Fischl is the company’s vice president of engineering
who has chosen to use application containers and AWS’s
cloud in a big way. “We wanted to use Docker containers
because they allow us to make deployments easier and get
good resource utilization,” Fischl said on stage at the AWS
re:Invent keynote. Remind uses 36 instances of ECS to
manage about 245 application containers that make up the
company's app.
Perhaps the biggest reason ECS was a natural fit for
Remind is that the company was already a big user of
Amazon’s cloud. Remind uses elastic load balancers and
auto-scaling functions to distribute traffic when handling
spikes in user activity; ECS integrates directly with those
services. It spins up new virtual machines when they’re
needed and spins them down when they’re not. By using
containers, developers can package and launch their own
applications while they’re coding them, without waiting for
an operations team to provision the necessary
infrastructure. By using Amazon’s ECS, Remind didn’t have
to build a platform for managing clusters of containers, it
got to use the one Amazon supplies.
This story, "Amazon's case for running containers in its
cloud " was originally published by
Network World .
2015-10-21 00:00:00 Brandon Butler

333
Panasonic Toughpad FZ-Y1:The World’s
First 20” 4k Tablet PC now available in India
Equipped with the latest 5 th
generation Intel Core vPro
processor, 8 GB RAM, and multiple
input ports, the FZ-Y1 has been
engineered to elevate business
operations into ultra high-definition.
For professionals in fields where visual clarity and
collaboration are essential, it features a brilliant and
immersive 230 pixel-per-inch IPS alpha LCD touchscreen
with a 15:10 aspect ratio and wide viewing angles.
Packaged in a 12.5 mm slim and 2.41 kg light body, the
stylish, lightweight glass fiber chassis can be easily
converted into desktop mode with the cradle accessory.
Panasonic’s flagship rugged durability is ensured by the
toughened, scratch resistant glass, which can withstand
drop resistance up to 76 cm. The Windows 8.1 Pro
operating system ensures high performance, security, and
an intuitive touch experience, including multiple window
viewing. This new range of Toughpads is priced at Rs. 2.4
Lacs.
With the tablet market in India almost doubling year-onyear,
higher levels of data consumption have had a direct
impact on the convenience of larger screen sizes. With a
range of powerful new enhancements such as the crystal
clear 4K display monitor and high-level form factor,
Panasonic has delivered its largest, slimmest, and most

versatile tablet till date. Smoothly integrated into existing IT
infrastructures and designed to streamline the total cost of
ownership for businesses, the new device is poised to
transform professional infrastructure across the broadcast,
healthcare, architecture, banking, enterprise, and retail
industries.
2015-10-19 08:31:57 Anuj Sharma
334 How to Install SugarCRM in Ubuntu
download and use.
SugarCRM is a web-based
customer relationship management
software. It’s available in multiple
versions. SugarCRM community
edition is freely available for
Follow these simple steps to install
STEP1: Install Apache2, Mysql, Php5.
STEP2: Install PHP modules by using below commands:
$sudo apt-get install libapache2-mod-php5 libapache2-
mod-perl2
$sudo apt-get install php5-cli php5-common php5-curl
php5-dev php5-gd php5-imap php5-ldap
$sudo apt-get install php5-mhash php5-mysql php5-odbc
curl libwww-perl imagemagick

STEP3: Here, we will create the Database for SugarCRm
as “sugarcrm_db” and username for database
“sugarcrm_db”.
$sudo mysql -uroot -p
mysql> CREATE DATABASE sugarcrm_db;
mysql> CREATE USER sugarcrm_db@localhost;
mysql> SET PASSWORD FOR sugarcrm_db@localhost=
PASSWORD(“sugarcrm_db”);
mysql> GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON sugarcrm_db.* TO
sugarcrm_db@localhost; IDENTIFIED BY ‘sugarcrm_db’;
mysql> FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
mysql> exit
STEP4: Now, download the SugerCRM package and copy
in /tmp folder.
$cd /tmp
$sudo
wget
http://dl.sugarforge.org/sugarcrm/1SugarCE6.5.0/SugarCE6.5.0/S
6.5.18.zip
STEP5: Here we will extract the SugarCRM and copy the
sugercrm folder in /var/www/.
$cd /tmp
$sudo unzip SugarCE-6.5.18.zip

$mv SugarCE-Full-6.5.18 sugercrm
$mv sugercrm /var/www/
STEP6: Assign proper permission to sugercrm folder
$sudo chown -R www-data /var/
www/sugercrm
$sudo chmod -R 755 /var/
www/sugercrm
STEP7: Edit the php.ini.
$sudo vim /etc/php5/apache2/php.ini
and change according to below
Change
;memory_limit = 16M
to
memory_limit = 50M
Change
;upload_max_filesize = 2M
to
upload_max_filesize = 10M

Restart web server using the following command
$sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 restart
STEP8: Create Vhost file for SugarCRM.
$cd /etc/apache2/sites-available
$vim sugarcrm.conf
STEP 9: Enable the vhost and restart the apache2
servevice:
$sudo a2ensite /etc/apache2/sitesavailable/sugercrm.conf
$sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 reload
STEP 10: Configure SugarCRM via GUI mode:
1) Open CRM URL in browser http://192.168.5.204/.
2) Check and click next to proceed.
3) Enter SugarCRM database name and password and
click Next.
4) Now enter the Admin username and password. It will
be used to access admin panel of SugerCRM.
5) Click Next three times consecutively and accept all
terms and conditions. Now, the Sugar CRM has been
installed in ubuntu 14.04 LTS.
2015-10-19 07:33:55 Raj Kumar Maurya

335 BT Group may give OpenStack the boot
OpenStack has gained
considerable popularity over the
years for its open-source cloud
platform, but this week it looks like
one major user is seriously
considering dropping the
technology in favor of a proprietary alternative.
U. K.-based telecom giant BT Group said it will switch to a
different option for delivering virtual enterprise services,
according to a Wednesday report in Light Reading, unless
OpenStack can address its concerns regarding six key
areas: virtual network functions, service chain modification,
scalability, security, backward compatibility and what's
known as "start-up storms" when numerous nodes all come
online at the same time.
"If these six issues are not addressed, we will not use
OpenStack for virtual enterprise," Peter Willis, BT's chief
researcher for data networks, said at the SDN & Openflow
World Congress going on this week in Germany, according
to the report.
Reached for confirmation, BT provided an e-mailed
statement: "BT will continue working closely with Openstack
stakeholders and drive together to improve the software
tools available. BT works closely and collaborates across
the industry from chip vendors to open source projects and

it makes technical and economic sense to continue to reuse
Openstack while addressing challenges ahead. "
The OpenStack Foundation has not worked directly with
BT, but it has invited Willis and his team to an upcoming
OpenStack Summit in Tokyo, said Lauren Sell, OpenStack's
vice president of marketing and community services.
"We’ll be working on the roadmap for future OpenStack
software releases and spending a lot of time on NFV," she
said.
NFV, or network functions virtualization, is an initiative to
replace much of the specialized hardware that now delivers
network services with virtualized technology instead.
"Getting feedback from the operator community into the
development roadmap is extremely valuable," Sell added.
NFV is still a young movement, but AT&T, Comcast,
Deutsche Telekom, NTT, SKT and Telefonica are among
the carriers working in the open-source community
alongside technology providers like Cisco Systems,
Ericsson, Huawei and Red Hat to support NFV
requirements, she said.
"This is sort of an open-source software check on
OpenStack," said Jay Lyman, a research manager with 451
Research.
Although many issues have already been resolved
collaboratively by the community, "there is still plenty of
work to do," Lyman said.

OpenStack is "still a very complex, multi-component IaaS
software," he added. "It is still often difficult to implement,
and it requires a good deal of experience and expertise. "
Meanwhile, although a growing number of large enterprises
are implementing OpenStack, alternatives from cloud
providers like Amazon, Microsoft and Google are getting
better, he said.
"There will continue to be pressure on the OpenStack
community to scratch the right itches and respond to end
users," Lyman said.
It's an expansive project, IDC analyst Al Hilwa said.
"Ensuring that all stakeholders get their needs met is a
governance and R&D challenge. "
While proprietary solutions may offer an approach that suits
a specific implementation better or sooner than OpenStack
can, "OpenStack is the only solution of its kind with such a
high level of community traction," Hilwa said.
2015-10-14 00:00:00 Katherine Noyes
336
Is Qualcomm creating a 24-core datacentre
processor?
Qualcomm, best known for making the processors used in
the vast majority of Android and Windows Phone devices, is
allegedly working on a 24-core 64-bit server chip.
The datacentre-bound processor is based on a version of

the same ARM architecture
underlying
Qualcomm's
smartphone processors - a
significant development given that
server processors are usually
based on the x86 architecture or
long-standing proprietary RISC designs, such as Oracle’s
Sparc.
Meanwhile, the final version of Qualcomm’s server
processor will allegedly have even more cores and can be
used in multiprocessor servers. Making processors
destined for the datacentre is a significant departure for a
company best known for its mobile processors and wireless
communication chips.
Allegedly due for release in early 2016, Qualcomm’s
unnamed server processor may beat AMD’s delayed
Opteron A1100 to market.
The A1100 is AMD’s first ARM-based processor and was
originally due to be on sale now, but is currently only
available as part of a developer’s kit. There’s no word about
operating system support, but Ubuntu and FreeBSD,
among others, are already available for other ARM-based
processors.
Given their novelty, few businesses are known to use ARM
server processors in their datacentres. PayPal is apparently
one of them, using ARM-based processors from British
company Applied Micro.
2015-10-14 00:00:00 Alan Lu

337 What Dell buying EMC means for VMware
With Dell acquiring EMC for a
record $67 billion, it raises the
question: What does this all mean
for VMware and its customers?
Officially, Dell says VMware will
remain an independent publicly traded company. The
wrinkle is that EMC owns 83% of VMware’s stock; and Dell
is acquiring EMC.
Forrester analyst Glenn O’Donnell says he expects the
impact of the merger on VMware customers to be minimal.
“You can basically look at this as some musical chairs at
the high end,” he says. But other analysts say there could
be significant opportunities for Dell to combine its hardware
with VMware’s software.
In a conference call discussing the deal, VMware CEO Pat
Gelsinger made it sound like business as usual. He spoke
of the “substantial leverage” the merger will create for all
the companies involved.
But there was a larger point in making that statement:
Gelsginer said VMware is still committed to working with
other vendors; VMware will not be turning into just a Dell
reseller.
Chairman and CEO Michael Dell seemed to support that
idea. “Our industry has a long history of companies

collaborating and also competing against each other.
Certainly that will continue here.”
Simon Robinson, an analyst at the 451 Research Group
says there is no doubt Dell will explore ways to cross-sell
VMware and Dell products, but he says it would be wise to
let VMware remain independent. “The first question many
VMware customers will ask is whether this will mean they
are somehow locked in to Dell,” Robinson says. “Keeping
VMware at arms length was the best thing EMC did, and
Dell should do the same.”
There could be tantalizing opportunities for Dell to see its
hardware in major growth markets where VMware
operates. These include cloud computing, converged
infrastructure and software defined networking.
Over the past two years VMware has developed software
called EVO to manage converged infrastructure
environments – these are systems that offer a combined
management platform for compute, network and storage in
a single hardware appliance. In the past, VMware has
allowed any hardware vendor to run the software, so long
as certain technical specifications are met. Dell could push
for it to be a primary hardware supplier for EVO though.
Wikibon analyst Brian Gracely says the combined EMC/Dell
company could pressure customers into exploring
alternative hardware options. “In the near-term (e.g.
immediate refresh cycles), it doesn't impact customers,”
Gracely says, because the deal isn’t expected to close until
mid 2016. “Mid to long-term, (this merger) could impact

(VMware customers’) underlying hardware buys.” One
interesting angle to watch here is that Dell is a major
partner of Nutanix, another converged infrastructure
vendor. Dell could be double-dipping in this market if it
keeps that relationship going.
Cloud computing is another major area that could be
impacted by this merger. Because of VMware’s strength in
the compute virtualization market, it is turning into an
important vendor in building private cloud management
software – with a product named vCenter. Perhaps there
could be combined hardware/software offerings in this
market too.
Constellation Research analyst Holger Mueller wonders
what will happen on the public cloud side though. Dell
scrapped its plans to build a public cloud a few years ago,
deciding instead to specialize in helping customers manage
multiple clouds (Dell bought the company Enstratius, which
it turned into Dell Cloud Manager).
Meanwhile, VMware has built its vCloud Air public cloud.
The question becomes: Will Dell support VMware building
out its vCloudAir public cloud, or will Dell push VMware to
embrace its multi-cloud management toolset?
“The key will be that the new Dell can play on both sides of
the spectrum - on premises and selling to cloud providers,
something that VMware was very good at,” Mueller says.
“But the question ultimately is can Dell create its own
(public) cloud infrastructure?”

O’Donnell, the Forrester analyst, says Dell could look to
expand its role in the networking market thanks to the
merger. VMware’s NSX product is one of the leading
software defined networking products – although it still trails
Cisco’s offering. “This merger could help position Dell much
more strongly in the networking space,” he says.
All of these potential combinations of Dell and VMware will
have to be worked out carefully. VMware will want to
balance its independence; Dell may want to integrate its
hardware products into VMware sales. “In terms of what
VMware customers will get from the Dell ownership, I think
that the opportunity for Dell is to vastly simplify the whole
infrastructure/IT procurement and management process,”
says Robinson. “Some customers are going to buy into
that, but not all of them.”
This story, "What Dell buying EMC means for VMware "
was originally published by
Network World .
2015-10-13 00:00:00 Brandon Butler
338
VMware brings Michigan to Europe to boost
virtual networking
VMware is taking Michigan to Europe as it works to make
networking as secure in the hybrid cloud as it can be in a
private datacenter.
At its VMworld Europe conference, it unveiled new features

clouds using vSphere.
and tools to make it easier to roll
applications out to its unified hybrid
cloud platform, expanding the
range of management functions
available on its public cloud, vCloud
Air, which can be linked with private
The company also previewed a new technology, Project
Michigan, that can deploy a secure enterprise gateway
across vCloud Air offerings, including Disaster Recovery
and Dedicated Cloud services. It will support VM migration
and network and policy extension with low downtime
through Hybrid Cloud Manager. It can be used to spin up
thousands of virtual machines with secure connectivity on
demand, it said.
VMware upgraded the tool service providers use to deliver
the vCloud Air public cloud infrastructure. The release of
vCloud Director 8 helps the 4,000 service providers in the
vCloud Air Network link their offering with customers'
private clouds with new hybrid cloud orchestration
capabilities. Version 8 now supports vSphere 6 and
VMware NSX 6.1.4, and adds OAuth support for identity
sources, among other enhancements.
A new tool, Monitoring Insight, offers service providers a
number of analytics tools to maximise use of cloud
infrastructure while tracking the whether customers are
getting the necessary level of performance. Another,
Enhanced identity Access Management, can extend onpremise
identity services into the vCloud Air public cloud

with support for single signon and unified governance and
role management.
VMware is also preparing for the general availability of
Google Cloud DNS to make it easy to use Google's Anycast
DNS servers when hosting their email servers or webfacing
applications on vCloud Air. It will allow control of DNS
services hosted by Google via a REST API, through the
Developer's Console or from the command line.
Containerized applications are also coming to vCloud Air,
as VMware is adding support for vSphere Integrated
Containers , whic can be controlled by orchestration tools
from several VMware partners. The move helps answer the
question of how VMware will deal with the challenge
containers present to traditional virtual machine thinking.
VMware is also looking at networking. With the general
availability of the vCloud NFV platform and a new
accreditation program, VMware hopes more of its service
provider partners will speed up their roll-out of network
function virtualization, too. VMware says its NFV platform
now supports 40 virtual network functions from 30 different
vendors, and the accreditation program will allow others to
certify that their virtualized network functions are VMwarecompatible.
VMware recently updated its implementation of
OpenStack , while the new version of vCloud Director
improves support for NFV too, the company said.
2015-10-13 00:00:00 Peter Sayer

339
Four questions about the Dell-EMC merger
Dell dropped a bomb on the
enterprise IT market Monday by
announcing plans to buy storage
giant EMC for a whopping US$67
billion. The deal raises many
questions; here are four of them.
Assuming it goes ahead, the deal will make Dell one of the
world's largest IT vendors, just behind IBM and Microsoft,
but Dell will still have little to offer in the fast-growing area of
cloud services. Oracle, IBM and Hewlett-Packard are all
building out cloud offerings with varying degrees of
success, but it's not something Dell has focused on, and
buying EMC won't change that. How much that matters is
an open question.
“This deal makes Dell a far stronger player in the traditional
sense of IT technology vendors. The problem is, the future
belongs to non-traditional players,” says Glenn O’Donnell, a
research director at Forrester.
Most large companies are using some combination of
public and private clouds, and Dell needs to show it can be
a go-to provider for those organizations. But that doesn’t
mean it needs to operate its own cloud, and going head to
head with Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure would
be a costly mistake, O’Donnell said.
Instead, Dell can provide the converged infrastructure for
building on-premises private clouds, then offer middleware

that connects those systems to services like Azure and
AWS. EMC owns around 80 percent of VMware, which sells
that type of software, and Dell has Boomi and other cloud
integration products.
Dell also sells hardware to the companies building cloud
services, something CEO Michael Dell highlighted on a
conference call Monday.
Crawford Del Prete, chief research officer at IDC, doesn't
think Dell needs a cloud service today, either -- though he
predicts it will need to revisit that strategy over time.
That would mean spending heavily on new data centers or
another acquisition, neither of which are likely to be top of
mind right now for Michael Dell.
EMC joined with Cisco and VMware six years ago to form a
company called VCE , which sells converged infrastructure
systems that combine compute, network and storage in
preconfigured blocks.
Dell and EMC said that partnership will continue. “Our VCE
business, when connected to Dell’s products and services,
will grow faster and have a much larger impact on the
industry than either one of us could individually,” EMC's
CEO Joe Tucci said in a blog post .
But the EMC deal opens the door for Dell to sell more of its
own servers and network gear into those converged
systems, and O’Donnell was pessimistic. “The VCE effort is
dead, in my opinion,” he said. Cisco has already scaled
back its investment , he noted, and he expects Michael Dell

to reduce EMC's involvement too.
He estimates that VCE does about $1 billion in sales
annually; it hasn't grown more, he thinks, because VCE is a
partnership rather than a "real company," making
customers wary. “Dell now has an opportunity to create a
truly unified equivalent, and to do it better,” he said.
Del Prete sees a more pragmatic path from Dell. It can’t
match what Cisco brings to VCE in terms of network
equipment, he said, so he doesn’t see any big changes in
the near term.
“I would expect Dell to try to capture more value from those
deals, but Michael is a savvy guy, he knows that to have
the best-in-class networking and that he needs to work with
Cisco," he said.
Even if the VCE partnership continues, Cisco is looking at a
very different competitive landscape moving forward, and
that will spark internal discussion about its long-term
strategy.
“I don’t see anything imminent, but they need to think hard
about who they partner with and about potential mergers
moving forward,” said Del Prete.
“Converged is the order of the day, which means Cisco has
to think about how they build those systems and who they
partner with, because EMC is not the same company it was
last night,” he said.
As for HP, it would have dwarfed a combined Dell-EMC, but

it chose to split into two companies on Nov. 1, and HP
Enterprise will now be a smaller entity. CEO Meg Whitman
put a positive spin on the news, telling employees in a
memo that Dell will be paying $2.5 billion in interest alone to
complete the deal, according to reports .
But the deal only increases the pressure on HP to show it
can grow its own business.
"This deal probably accelerates HP Enterprise's timetable
for meaningful acquisitions, because the music's going to a
faster beat now," said IDC's Del Prete.
Analyst Rob Enderle, who's been critical of the HP split, was
far less sanguine. "If this goes through, HP is totally hosed,"
he said in a blog post. "Dell would appear as a far more
complete vendor than HP, and with HP’s crippling layoffs its
customers will quickly be looking for enterprise class
alternatives. "
Some cuts are inevitable, but perhaps not as many as
you’d think in a deal this size.
“There are certainly some cost synergies, we’re not going
to tell you there aren’t, but there are other companies in the
industry that are much better at reducing headcount,"
Michael Dell said, a bit sarcastically, on Monday's
conference call. He was likely thinking of HP, which has
already cut 55,000 jobs and will now eliminate as many as
30,000 more. A big difference with Dell is that it's a private
company, so it's not under as much pressure as HP to cut
costs.

In addition, Dell needs EMC's salesforce to make the
transaction work. Dell plays mainly in the mid-market, and it
wants EMC to help it sell products to larger customers. Dell
also hopes that it's own sales team can bring some EMC
products to smaller customers than it sells to today.
“This deal succeeds or not based on Dell’s ability to
leverage and capture value from that EMC salesforce.
They’re best of breed in the industry,” said IDC's Del Prete.
So when he hears talk about ‘cost synergies,” he doesn’t
see that affecting the sales teams, but rather back office
functions like human resources. And that could help keep
the job cuts lower.
2015-10-12 00:00:00 James Niccolai
340
Where to start with containers and
microservices
Containers get a lot of headlines and it’s clear
why. For the daily lives of developers, containers are
revolutionary. Much in the same way that interpreted
languages enable greater productivity than compiled ones,
containers save developers precious time by allowing them
to create a functional environment in seconds instead of
tens of minutes with virtual machines. Reducing that cycle
time lets developers spend more time coding and less time
waiting for something to happen.
Architecturally, the microservices that containers more

easily enable are equally groundbreaking. The ability to
break a problem into smaller pieces is always beneficial in
unexpected ways, and containers offer a way of doing that
on a scale not possible before.
However, in an enterprise IT ecosystem, it’s rarely all about
developer productivity. Similarly, architectural efficiency,
while nice to have, is not always a top priority either. For
large IT organizations with lots of brownfield applications
and established operational processes, going all in on
containers is not as quick and easy as it is for a born-onthe-cloud
company with no legacy issues to deal with.
That doesn’t mean that containers don’t have a place in
modernizing a huge IT shop. In fact, enterprise IT has seen
this movie at least twice before, with two technologies that
caused tectonic shifts, and found that mixed architectures
were the way to bring in significant change at a pace that
reduced risk. Those technologies were Java and
virtualization.
Enterprise IT is typically focused on cost savings, and as
such it’s loath to change. If you were a developer in a big IT
shop in the early ’90s, the dominant language was C++.
Client-server was slowly replacing the monolithic application
to better take advantage of networking, and the big
challenge of the day was writing your code in such a way
that it could run on any flavor of Unix. That last task wasn’t
easy because the base operating system varied among
HP-UX, AIX, and other Unix variants with myriad different
libraries. It was common to have elaborate branching in
make files and header files so that the code would compile

correctly for each target operating system.
Enter Java. This technology removed from developers the
responsibility of understanding the complexity of each
operating system and instead put that complexity in the
Java virtual machine. Developers compiled their code into
Java byte code, which got interpreted by JVMs written to
translate those commands into OS-specific library calls.
It’s hard to overstate how revolutionary that idea was or the
impact it would have on developer productivity. The
problem was, this was an era of bare-metal servers, and
operations pros scoffed at the idea of introducing a layer of
abstraction at runtime simply to improve the lives of
developers. An application would live much more of its life
in production than it would in development, so why cater to
developer productivity? Eventually, Java would free
developers to look at larger issues, including the servicesoriented
architecture improvements Java promised to bring,
but not yet.
Amazingly, IT had a very similar argument when
virtualization became available around 10 years after Java.
Before VMs, applications ran on bare-metal servers that
were sized to handle estimated peaks that often didn’t
materialize. However, there were bigger penalties imposed
on the IT staff for guessing wrong on the low side of
capacity needs (like getting fired) than there were for
guessing high (hardware sat around underutilized).
Then IT budgets got tight after the dot-com-bubble years,
and IT management noticed all these bare-metal servers

sitting around running at 25 percent capacity or typically
much less. “Why not run multiple applications on the same
physical hardware so we can save costs?” they would ask.
Well, when Application A is running on the same bare-metal
server as Application B and experiences a memory leak,
suddenly Application B suffers performance issues -- not
because it was doing anything wrong but because it was
colocated with a noisy neighbor. If only there were a
technology that allowed applications to share the same
hardware, but with some sort of boundary that could reduce
the noisy-neighbor phenomenon, then utilization could be
improved.
Enter virtualization. This technology solved this problem,
but like Java before it, it introduced a level of abstraction
between the application and the hardware that made
operations pros wince. Like Java, virtualization helped
developer productivity when a VM could be made available
in minutes instead of waiting weeks or months for new
physical hardware. Like Java, virtualization was initially a
hard sell despite obvious benefits -- in this case, the ability
to automate the creation of VMs to replicate environments
or create more capacity to meet unexpected changes in
demand.
How did Java and virtualization eventually break through?
The adoption problem for both was solved through mixed
architectures. As a compromise, it was common for ops
pros to allow a Web tier to run entirely in Java but have the
physical load balancers under their control and run
databases on bare metal hardware. Eventually, after

understanding the huge flexibility that a Java-based model
gave even them, ops pros relented on other layers of the
architecture, and service-oriented architecture became a
reality in most shops.
When virtualization came along, the same mixed
architecture pattern emerged. First, development and test
workloads became virtualized. Then, like Java before it,
virtualization became attractive for Web tiers because users
could rapidly add resources to what was typically the
bottleneck at times of high demand. That solved operations’
pressing problem on the Web layer but still allowed those
same databases and load balancers to stay protected.
Container adoption is following a similar paradigm in
enterprise IT today. Ops pros need not start with container
technology by deploying a three-tier Web application on a
single VM running all three tiers within containers. Instead,
they can begin with a first step of running the Web farm on
a single VM with multiple containers and letting those
containers communicate with existing load balancing and
database farms. That gives operations a way to get
comfortable with this container revolution we are now
experiencing and to begin experimenting with deploying,
scaling, and evolving microservices.
Microservices means different things to different ops pros.
A good definition comes from noted software development
evangelist Martin Fowler :
The business capabilities and automation that
microservices unlock represent the real payoff for

containers, which are the vehicle for those independently
deployable pieces. While the short-term productivity gains
containers bring individual developers are nice, the longterm
productivity improvements they promise to
organizations are huge. Containers enable groups of teams
to more rapidly create iterations to business problems by
piecing together a set of smaller services.
In conclusion, the mixed architecture approach gets
everyone involved with containers at a pace they are
comfortable with. This paradigm has proven successful at
least twice in the past: first with Java, then with
virtualization. In mixed architectures, abstraction between
the physical hardware and the applications gives us
enormous flexibility, so there is no need to rehash old
arguments about developer productivity priorities relative to
other concerns or to fret over performance penalties. Mixed
architectures allow an organization set its own pace -- and
set itself up for the big microservices payoff sooner rather
than later.
This story, "Where to start with containers and
microservices" was originally published by
InfoWorld .
2015-10-06 00:00:00 Pete Johnson
341
18 companies launched by former Cisco
people

Numerous tech companies have been founded over the
years by former Cisco big shots and
lower-level employees, with many a
venture capitalist no doubt attracted
by these entrepreneurs’ Cisco
pedigrees. Some of the companies
have gone on to be successful on
their own, others were acquired, and others just failed.
Here’s a look at some of these companies (listed
alphabetically).
Agito was founded in 2006 by Pejman Roshan, a former
Cisco IT staffer who shifted into product management in the
company’s Wireless Business Unit; and Tim Olson, a Cisco
wireless software architect. The company developed
software to ease roaming between WiFi and cellular
networks, and was acquired by ShoreTel in 2010.
Founded by Cisco collaboration engineer Joe Smyth and
led by ex-Cisco mate Barry O’Sullivan, Altocloud makes
predictive unified communications products that analyze
traffic and suggest the best mode for interaction: voice,
video, chat, etc. The company began operations in 2013.
Arista was founded by Andy Bechtolsheim, Kenneth Duda
and David Cheriton, founders and engineers at Ethernet
switch start-up Granite Systems, which was acquired by
Cisco in 1996. Jayshree Ullal, an ex-Cisco data center
executive, serves as CEO at Arista, which makes data
center switches based on merchant silicon and modular OS
software. The company’s been successful, going public in
2014. So successful, in fact, that it’s being sued by Cisco

and founder Cheriton.
Avi was founded in 2012 by CEO Umesh Mahajan, who
previously was vice president and general manager of a $2
billion data center switching unit at Cisco, and before that
led the software team at Cisco SAN spin-in Andiamo. The
company makes a virtual application delivery controller
designed to boost the performance of enterprise
applications accessed via the cloud and mobile devices.
Blue Jeans Network was founded in 2009 to simplify
videoconferencing. Its Cisco pedigree includes co-founder
Krish Ramakrishnan, a former general manager for Cisco’s
Server Virtualization business.
Bracket was founded in 2011 by Jason Lango (pictured),
Tom Gillis (pictured) and Keith Valory, all former executives
in Cisco’s Security Technology Group. Bracket is looking to
make the public cloud more appealing for security-sensitive
enterprises.
Embrane was an SDN startup founded by in 2009 by
former Cisco executives Dante Malagrinò and Marco Di
Benedetto, who were involved with Cisco’s NX-OS data
center operating systems and overall data center strategy.
Embrane’s Heleos product is a distributed software platform
for virtualizing Layer 4-7 services like load balancing,
firewalling, VPNs and the like. Cisco acquired Embrane last
year.
Infinite io is a storage startup co-founded by CEO Mark
Cree, who previously led Cisco into the storage networking

market with its acquisition of NuSpeed in 2000. Infinite io is
looking to help customers exploit the cloud by using
metadata-informed policies to inexpensively store inactive
data and ease access to frequently used data.
Latamkey specializes in helping tech companies expand
their business in Latin America. It was founded by Jaime
Valles and Osvaldo Bianchi, both with past international
leadership positions at Cisco. Valles served as president of
Cisco’s Asia Pacific Japan and Greater China operations,
and president of Latin America operations. Bianchi
managed sales to carriers, channels and operations in
Latin America for Cisco.
Monterey made optical wavelength routers back when
everyone was pumping up optical companies and their
stocks just before the dot - com bubble. Monterey was
founded in 1997 by H. Michael Zadikian, a former Cisco
enterprise product manager, and Cisco acquired the
company in 1999 for $500 million. Monterey’s Wavelength
Router, which Cisco renamed the ONS 15900, was met by
tepid demand from service providers and Cisco killed the
product in 2001.
The stealthy 11-month-old company is developing data
center and cloud software, and is seeking programmers
with cloud computing, virtualization, distributed systems,
distributed operating systems and kernels, distributed
databases, containers, and OpenStack expertise. Its
founder is Brett Galloway, who spent seven years at Cisco
running the wireless networks business unit. Galloway was
CEO of Airespace, a WLAN company Cisco acquired in

2005 as part of the foundation of its own leading WLAN
business.
Nodeprime is developing a hyper-scale data center
management platform that the company claims is “100%
vendor agnostic.” One of its founders is CEO James
Malachowski, who spent about four years at Cisco as a
systems engineer in various disciplines, including data
center consolidation and virtualization.
Pexip was formed after Cisco fought for and then acquired
videoconferencing leader Tandberg in 2010. Tandberg
executives and Pexip founders Simen Teighe and Hakon
Dahle left Cisco two years later to build a unified
communications platform for bandwidth efficient distributed
videoconferencing.
PLUMgrid is another SDN startup that develops software
for creating virtual domains that replicate the physical
network infrastructure in a programmable environment
without requiring changes to existing hardware. It was
founded by former Cisco engineers Awais Nemat, Pere
Monclus and Sushil Singh, who helped develop the
company’s Catalyst 6500 and Nexus 7000 switches.
PLUMgrid recently named former Cisco executive Larry
Lang as its CEO.
Shasta Networks made subscriber management services
routers for content delivery networks. It was founded by
former Cisco executives Anthony Alles, Arthur Lin and Tom
Daly, and by Cascade Communications Founder Wu-Fu
Chen. Shasta was acquired by Nortel in 1999, and Nortel

sold the Shasta assets to Ericsson in 2010 as it shuttered
its business.
One of the four founders of SocketPlane is Madhu
Venogopal , who spent about 81/2 years at Cisco as the
senior technical lead for SDN and network virtualization.
SocketPlane helped usher in container-based DevOpsdefined
networking , and was acquired by software
container leader Docker early this year.
Viptela makes software-defined WAN (SD-WAN) products
designed to simplify the configuration, operation and
management of branch router WANs. It was founded in
2012 by Khalid Raza, who managed a team of senior Cisco
network architects during a 17-year tenure, and IOS
software and desktop switching specialist Amir Khan.
Brand spanking new, ZingBox is working on software that
guards Internet-of-Things (IoT) devices from Internet
threats. The software is designed to allow routers and
gateways to detect when IoT devices are behaving
abnormally. Two of the company’s three founders are May
Wang, who spent 14 years at Cisco as principal architect in
the office of the CTO; and Xu Zou , a former senior
software engineer for high end routing at Cisco.
2015-10-05 00:00:00 Jim Duffy
342 Cisco, Juniper, Brocade to virtualize AT&T
Cisco , Juniper Networks and Brocade are intent on
granting customer AT&T’s wishes.

They have been lined up to develop
virtualized interpretations of their
respective routers for AT&T’s SDN
CPE project. AT&T plans to run the
routers as virtualized network
functions (VNF) on bare metal
hardware running at AT&T operating system and software
control stack.
The VNF CPE is a component of AT&T’s larger SDN/NFV
project known as Network on Demand, or Domain 2.0. The
carrier is narrowing suppliers to a select group that can
meet its SDN/NFV operational and service needs.
Cisco will focus VNF development on its Integrated Service
Routers with “advanced virtualization capabilities,” a
spokesperson said. Juniper will work on “a software-based
appliance, designed to AT&T's specifications, which
enables customers to run multiple virtual functions on one
device.”
Brocade, which is already supplying an SDN controller to
AT&T, will develop cloud-based access routing for the
carrier’s Managed Internet Service. It means customers
won't need to buy additional routers at their locations, AT&T
said.
The products overall are intended to give customers more
control by allowing them to quickly update network
functions without having to buy new hardware, AT&T said.
In addition to business service routing, AT&T is looking at a

few CPE opportunities with SDN and VNFs. They include
virtualized IP PBX, and optical transport and access.
Reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers and virtualized
optical line termination for fiber-to-the-home deployments
based on Gigabit Passive Optical Networks are prime
targets, the carrier noted.
This story, "Cisco, Juniper, Brocade to virtualize AT&T" was
originally published by
Network World .
2015-09-30 00:00:00 Jim Duffy
343
The 25 most powerful enterprise networking
companies
It’s the 25 companies that have the
biggest effects on how U. S.-based
enterprise networks operate.
They’re a diverse bunch – some
make switches, others chips. Some
are big carriers, others are big fish
in little ponds. And plenty aren’t,
technically speaking, networking companies at all.
Nevertheless, these are our picks for the biggest
influencers on the network.
To be clear, these ratings are subjective and in alphabetical
order only – broadly speaking, we wanted to list companies
that fell into one of three main groups: Up-and-comers with

good technology, incumbents with big install bases, and
companies that don’t necessarily do networking per se, but
nevertheless have a major effect on enterprise networks.
The list is based on discussions with a group of industry
analysts and on our own institutional expertise. Enjoy.
A 2014 IPO helped A10 raise more than $187 million,
enabling the application delivery controller company to
continue making inroads into U. S. markets. A10 has begun
to focus heavily on security in recent months, and added a
new aGalaxy 3.0 version in August that customers can use
to manage A10’s enterprise DDoS protection gear in
addition to its ADCs.
No longer just a content delivery network, Akamai is now a
key part of the Web at large, serving between 15% and
30% of all the world’s Web traffic, according to Reuters.
The company is also a major DDoS defense provider and
stands to become even more important as businesses do
more and more of their computing over the Internet.
You know that whole cloud thing that all the cool kids – and
non-cool kids – are talking about? Yeah, Amazon is
something of a big deal there. Your connection to all the
workloads you’ve got running on AWS is likely a central
concern, so like it or not, Amazon is a massive influence on
your network.
Unless you’re using massive amounts of AirPorts in a role
they were not meant to fulfill, Apple probably isn’t a vendor
you deal with directly in your daily networking activities. But
the company will continue to be a headache as long as

people keep buying iPhones and iPads. Which, obviously,
they will – but Apple has begun to make more direct moves
in the direction of enterprise IT, with MDM features baked
into the latest version of iOS , not to mention partnerships
with the likes of IBM and Cisco.
Aggressively targeting both high-end data center
infrastructure and more limited deployments, Arista is
competing – successfully, no less – with Cisco itself, in the
wake of a 2014 IPO. The company is the standard-bearer
of the platform-agnostic, whitebox hardware revolution
sweeping through the networking sector, and should
continue to see its 9.3% share of the software-driven cloud
market expand, according to analysts’ estimates provided
to Barron’s.
AT&T is in the midst of a $14 billion three-year plan to
expand and overhaul its network. With the company’s Next
plan – which offers accelerated device upgrades to mobile
subscribers – fueling even more rapid smartphone growth,
the influx of personal devices into the enterprise could
speed up as well. More to the point, AT&T is the biggest
enterprise wireline ISP in the country, with about 42% of the
sector, according to Telco 2.0.
Broadcom was bought up by Avago Technologies – a
former HP division and itself a formidable silicon company –
in May 2015 for a whopping $37 billion, but the combined
company will be named Broadcom, Ltd. It’s easy to see why
– Broadcom likes to boast that 99% of the world’s Internet
traffic goes through at least one of the company’s chips.
Whether that’s strictly true or not, Broadcom is a hugely

important manufacturer of semiconductors for networking
hardware.
Avaya, which claims to work with 95% of the Fortune 500,
has come a long way since the days when you probably
knew it primarily as the company that makes your desk
phone. It’s a major player in the unified communications
marketplace, battling with Cisco and Microsoft for
supremacy, and has evolved to embrace SDN, with
products that extend software-defined networking from the
data center to the edge and branches.
Brocade’s a data center networking stalwart, and has
broadened its influence by becoming a major contributor to
OpenDaylight, the open-source SDN controller project, and
incorporating it into its own product line. The company’s
long-standing SAN business is also still going strong,
underlined by the recent release of a new analytics
monitoring platform for easier management.
The world’s top enterprise firewall company – 23% market
share, according to Gartner – isn’t exactly someone we
could leave off this list, even if it’s being pushed hard by
Palo Alto at the summit. Still, Check Point remains at the
security forefront, making discoveries like that of the
BrainTest Android malware.
There’s really not that much to say here, is there? The 800-
pound gorilla of networking hasn’t been without its crosses
to bear of late – malware problems , construction issues
and so on – but it’s inarguably the single most powerful
company in enterprise networking, hands-down, boasting

massive install bases across several major product
categories. This summer saw the company appoint new
CEO Chuck Robbins, who talked up Cisco’s plans for
distributed infrastructure, analytics and security
improvements.
While Citrix is probably best known for its virtual desktop
products, the company has fingers in a lot of networking
pies. NetScaler is the “clear no. 2 ADC player,” according to
a Gartner Magic Quadrant report, and XenMobile also
ranked as a leader in the analysis firm’s most recent
enterprise mobility management report. Citrix’s latest
financial reports show the company’s enterprise and
service provider profits on the rise in the second quarter of
this year, up more than $30 million to a total of $167 million.
Since going private in 2013, the outlook for Dell has been
largely positive – the company has shifted its focus from the
loss-making PC business toward services, networking and
software. Dell’s been among those at the forefront of the
whitebox hardware movement, and its latest offerings have
been well-reviewed by the experts.
F5 is the king of its own specific hill, the ADC market, and
it’s been that way for years – Gartner has been putting the
company on top of the ADC heap since 2005, and F5
continues to be generally recognized as the best in the
business.
While it’s not a new company, having been founded in
2004, FireEye has only recently begun to grab headlines –
it’s partnering with huge companies like Visa, booking
increased sales, and has helped clean up after some of the

iggest data breaches in recent memory, according to a
report from the Wall Street Journal.
Even though Google creates its own hardware and
software for internal use, you’re probably not going to be
using its boxes or running its code anytime soon. However,
as the de facto gateway to the Internet for vast numbers of
users, and increasingly enthusiastic provider of a growing
range of cloud services, you’re definitely going to be
dealing with their data. Google Drive now boasts a million
paying organizational clients, the company said this month.
HP’s acquisition of Aruba in May 2015 for $2.7 billion,
essentially, put the latter company in charge of the former’s
networking division, combining HP’s strengths in wired
campus networking gear, to say nothing of its SDN and
cloud portfolios, with Aruba’s widely admired wireless tech.
The result is a combined entity that might even make Cisco
a little nervous, particularly later this year, when the
company splits off from the PC and printer divisions to
become the more focused HP Enterprise.
The third-biggest server vendor in the world, even after
selling off its x86 server business to Lenovo, isn’t at the
center of the network these days. But IBM’s prominence
around the edges of the cloud – Cloud Orchestrator,
developerWorks, SoftLayer and so on – means that it’s still
a major influencer. The company announced plans, earlier
this year, to spend $4 billion on cloud, mobile and analytics
– and that it expected to recoup 10 times that from the
investment.

You could say we’re stretching a point here – Juniper is
arguably a bigger carrier player than strictly an enterprise
one – but it’s really a major player by almost any standard,
teaming up with Aerohive for wireless expertise and
maintaining its position as the third-biggest Ethernet switch
vendor in the world, according to IDC.
While the growth in endpoints is mostly elsewhere, a huge
proportion of the world’s end-user computing is still done on
Microsoft machines. Couple that with growth in major cloud
services like Office365 – according to identity management
service Okta, O365 is the most-used cloud app to date,
surpassing even Salesforce – and Microsoft still has some
serious network effects.
Sitting atop the network performance management heap is
NetScout, makers of the nGeniousONE NPM appliance.
Like most of the specialists on the list, however, NetScout
wants to broaden its horizons in this increasingly modular,
automated networking environment, and the company has
acquired DDoS protection vendor Arbor Networks,
communications support provider Tektronix and parts of
competitor Fluke Networks from Danaher Corporation in a
$2.3 billion deal finalized this summer. NetScout’s avowed
intent is to expand its offerings, in an attempt to replicate its
success in large-scale network performance management.
The challenger to Check Point’s champion, although some
would say it’s the other way around – in any case, Palo Alto
is either the No. 2 or No. 1 enterprise firewall company in
the market right now, depending on whom you ask, and
Seeking Alpha reports that its consumer base has grown by

more than a third during the course of 2015.
Like F5, Riverbed is the king of its particular hill – in this
case, WAN optimization. And although Riverbed continues
to try and branch (get it) out, in the wake of a 2014 goprivate
deal, the company’s core business remains WAN
optimization, for which it’s been recognized as a Gartner
Magic Quadrant leader for eight straight years. The
company “rebooted, reorganized and refocused,” Paul
O’Farrell (SVP and General Manager of the SteelHead and
SteelFusion business unit) told Network World recently, and
its diversification saw it showing off APM solutions –
provided in part by its 2012 acquisition of Opnet
Technologies – at this year’s VMworld conference.
While it lags behind rival AT&T in terms of enterprise ISP
market share in the U. S., it doesn’t lag by much – and by
partnering with Cisco to offer an advanced new softwaredefined
WAN service, Verizon could well be on its way to
reversing the trend.
One of the companies most at the heart of the cloud
revolution, VMware is still a central player in present-day
enterprise computing. The virtualization pioneer’s
management capabilities and diversified product offerings
mean that you’ll be dealing with its effects on the network
for some time to come. The company talked up its more
than 700 customers for the NSX network virtualization
platform at the latest VMworld conference.
2015-09-24 00:00:00 Jon Gold

344
Microsoft Edge Browser Replaces IE
Developed under the codename
Project Spartan, Microsoft’s new
web browser is called Edge and will
replace Internet Explorer in
Windows 10. Microsoft’s new
browser is a Windows App, rather than a traditional desktop
application. It has morphed into more simplified version of
IE, sports the borderless frames and minimalist aesthetic
design.
Microsoft Edge is light on resources and is designed using
EdgeHTML layout engine that removes support for legacy
technologies such as ActiveX in favor of extensions and
integration with other Microsoft services and is
interoperable with other modern browsers. There’s also
integration with Cortana to provide additional information –
for example, when you’re on a web page for a restaurant,
Cortana will make a booking and display information such
as opening time. The new browser will be the default
browser for PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphones running
Windows 10.
Cortana
Windows 10’s voice assistant seems to be present
everywhere, and Edge is no exception in this regard. When
you are on a webpage for which directions are required—
say you’re on a hotel or a restaurant’s webpage—Cortana
surfaces in her blue circle in the browser toolbar giving

elevant information. You can also right-click on selected
text to have Cortana find info about the selection.
New-Tab Page
The new-tab page still shows top sites like IE, but now also
pops app suggestions, weather, sports scores, and video
suggestions. The page doesn’t show an address bar, but
you can type a URL into its search box that will take you to
the desired web page.
Reading Mode
This feature has been available in other browsers
(particularly in Apple’s Safari) but is now landing to
Microsoft’s new browser. This re-structures the web page
eliminating advertisements, menus and other distractions
aside from the main text and images, sidebars into an easy
to read layout.
Reading List
It is a way of temporarily bookmarking a page without
adding it to your favorites. The Reading List links are shown
with large pictures taken from the content along with large
clear headlines, making it really easy to quickly scan
through and find the link you want.
Page Annotations
Not present in rivals like Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome,
and Apple Safari, this feature lets you mark up web pages
with a highlighter or drawing tool and then share them as

an image file in email or social apps.
Edge vs Chrome vs Internet Explorer
We ran benchmarks on the latest versions of Edge, Internet
Explorer and Google Chrome, in order to see which was
quickest. Test bed comprised of Intel Pentium Processor
clocked at 2.41Ghz, 8GB RAM, SSD storage.
All the benchmarks ran a predefined list of tasks to
measure the browser’s efficiency in completing a
predefined list of tasks. Typical test tasks include rendering
and animation, DOM transformations, string operations,
mathematical calculations, sorting algorithms, graphic
performance tests and memory instructions.
Browsermark indicated that Edge was a little quicker than
IE, but was still well behind Chrome and Firefox. In Octane
also Edge was level up with Chrome and Firefox, and easily
outrunning IE (scoring lowest). SunSpider measures core
JavaScript performance on tasks relevant to the current
and near future use of JavaScript in the real world, such as
encryption and text manipulation. Here also Edge topped
the list completing the whole test in just 325.8 miliseconds.
However, Edge scored last in Peacekeeper. Thus in
general, Edge seems to be a bit quicker than Internet
Explorer.
We also did testing on system real estate that a browser
uses. To perform this, we fire up five tabs in each browser
with the same sites in each. The homepage includes
Youtube.com, mashable.com, facebook.com, ibnlive.com

and cnet.com. We then used the Task Manager to total up
the memory usage of all the processes used and CPU
usage. In this test the edge browser seemed to be memory
hungry.
Final thoughts
It’s early days obviously and we think it’s not going to be a
issue on laptops or desktops but while running on tablets
and phones as well, the browser needs to maintain a much
smaller presence than this as they are limited to resources.
2015-09-17 09:11:21 Anuj Sharma
345
8 Trends That Will Change How You Think
About Cloud Computing
Shailendra Ravi, Senior Director,
Emerging Markets, EMC India
Center of Excellence
Cloud computing, also called “the
third wave of information
technology”, has significantly facilitated the way people do
business. It is therefore an ideal solution for both large and
small companies. According to IDC, small businesses that
are using cloud computing are 1.7 times more likely to have
over 10 percent revenue growth as compared to similar
sized companies in general. In the global adoption of cloud
computing, India has led with a growth rate of 32 percent in
2014.

It’s an exciting area with new developments and
innovations happening every day. Given its relevance, Here
are seven key trends taking place in cloud computing today
that every business should be aware of to really use cloud
computing to its full potential:
1. Private Only Clouds are giving way to Hybrid Cloud s
According to an EMC survey, 31% of Indian IT decision
makers have already created a hybrid cloud, and moving
forward, we’ll see continued fall of private cloud-only
implementations. Public clouds will be paired with private
clouds to form hybrid or multi-clouds, which provide
enterprises with more cost efficiency and scalability. Hybrid
Cloud adoption will bring about best way of optimizing
costs, bringing the efficiencies in the IT organization
through self-service & automation and delivering service
with the highest elasticity, agility and, offering the
economical transparency for its end users. It brings the
best of private and public clouds together, minus the
disadvantages. The technology is therefore relevant and
useful across sectors and market segments.
2. Software Driven and Open Sourced
An important criterion of reassurance is the development of
open cloud APIs and standards that allow for the portability
and control of data and cloud-deployed applications,
providing business with the necessary flexibility to tailor
solutions to their short and long-term goals.
Open APIs and standards help create an open market and

foster innovation and differentiation within the cloud space.
The ability of companies to assess individual vendors on
merits like availability and performance gives them the
flexibility they need to be confident of cloud investment. The
opening of the cloud also enables the development of
federated cloud environments. Companies can select from
the available vendors to build interoperable multi-cloud
environments, choosing the components that are
customized to suit their requirements.
Software-Defined Cloud Computing is an approach for
automating the process of optimal cloud configuration by
extending virtualization concept to all resources in a data
center. It enables easy reconfiguration and adaptation of
physical resources in a cloud infrastructure, to better
accommodate the demand on QoS through software that
can describe and manage various aspects comprising the
cloud environment that can automatically deliver and
manage all of your enterprise applications, no matter where
they reside, from one, unified platform.
3. Cloud and DevOps empower both users and developers
Cloud agility would also allow for Dev/Test and production
environments to be treated similarly, thus reducing the
speed and deployment time of traditional application
development. The silos today separating the labs from
production environments could be transformed into mere
logical boundaries that could be crossed with fewer errors
and delays; software would be developed and tested in
environments virtually identical to production. With the rise
of DevOps for automating application development and

deployment to the cloud, both users and developers could
benefit
4. Cloud marketplaces
Provides customers with access to software applications
and services that are built on, integrate with or complement
the cloud provider’s offerings. A marketplace typically
provides customers with native cloud applications and
approved apps created by third-party developers.
Applications from third-party developers not only help the
cloud provider fill niche gaps in its portfolio and meet the
needs of more customers, but they also provide the
customer with peace of mind by knowing that all purchases
from the vendor’s marketplace will integrate with each other
smoothly.
They empower applications to orchestrate custom-made
conglomerations of cloud compute, storage, and
networking infrastructure strengthens the position of cloud
vendors when companies are balancing the benefits of
cloud deployments and traditional colocation or in-house
infrastructure provisioning. Cloud marketplaces augment
the existing benefits of the cloud – on-demand pricing that
lowers capital expenditure, fast deployments that allow
businesses to remain agile, reactive scaling both up and
down, and flexible APIs that allow for the automation of
infrastructure orchestration. The cloud marketplace layer
enhances the value of the cloud by providing centralized
control for an increasingly differentiated set of vendors.
5. “Single Pane of Glass” – Unified Monitoring

An era in which enterprises distribute increasingly critical IT
assets and applications across multiple environments is
being ushered in. These changes are rendering legacy
monitoring tools virtually useless. In today’s emerging
environments, monitoring and service level management
grow both more challenging— and more critical to success.
In order to affordably and effectively address today’s
monitoring challenges, organizations need a monitoring
solution architecture that not only scales but has the ability
to monitor the legacy and the new environments. It should
not only have the ability to monitor both on premise and offpremise
environments, but should bring with it the resiliency
to monitor both component and communication failures.
Last, but not the least, it must be easy to deploy.
6. Cloud operating models – Beyond cost reduction to
structural change
Cloud-enabled services are the next wave transforming
how businesses capitalize on information technology, and
that in turn drives the next evolution in the processes, roles,
skills, and structure of IT organizations—the evolution to IT
as a Service (ITaaS). Today’s CIOs must exercise
extraordinary leadership to make the transition and unleash
new business value.
What corporations don’t have yet or are in the process of
developing, are the skills, organizational structure, and
processes to realize this promise. Technology always
advances faster than the ability of businesses to adopt it
and use it in new ways. The new IT organization will center

on the processes and the skills associated with the services
like:
Service Management
Provider management—Information management
Architecture
Business innovation
Business enablement
Above all a robust IT governance enables the migration to
cloud-based services to proceed purposefully, enables IT to
do its new work with excellence, and allows the business to
maximize the value of its information and technology
assets.
7. Cloud computing and Machine Learning
Machine learning systems were too costly and too complex
for most enterprises in the past. The cloud is changing all
that. The trend today is machine learning, which is a form
of artificial intelligence that uses algorithms to learn from
data. These systems build models from incoming
transactional data, and then find patterns in that data to
make predictions. These predictions can be as simple as
providing a recommendation to a retail shopper on an e-
commerce website or as complex as determining if a brand
of automobile should be retired.
8. Cloud, a key enabler or IoT or “Internet of People and
Things”

Startups are leveraging new and emerging cloud
technology, such as containers, as a path for incremental
growth to scale up and scale down based on the needs of
the application be it in the areas of Storage, data analytics
services, Internet of things (IoT) etc…
It is predicted that by 2020, an estimated 50 billion devices
around the globe will be connected to the Internet. Perhaps
a third of them will be computers, smartphones, tablets,
and TVs. The remaining two-thirds will be other kinds of
“things”: sensors, actuators, and newly invented intelligent
devices that monitor, control, analyze, and optimize our
world.
Internet of things or internet of people and things allow
enable bidirectional interactions not only between people
and things but between things. Consider the range of
interconnected systems, products, and services the IoT will
enable, from simple monitoring of home temperature and
security to the “quantified self” Viz., the tracking of personal
health, diet, and exercise metrics etc…, to fully networked
factories and hospitals, to automated cities aka “Smart
Cities” that respond to the movements and interests of
thousands of people at once.
A key enabler to this opportunity will be operating through a
federated cloud and business data lakes.
These new trends are redefining the way enterprises do
business. It is now understood that Cloud computing is
expected to help in economic advantages, speed, agility,

flexibility, infinite elasticity and innovation. The
developments in this space will increase efficiency and
productivity while unearthing new opportunities for
organizations.
The question most enterprises will have to answer is how to
build value in this new world? That will depend on the type
of business that enterprises operate in, the capabilities that
enterprises can develop for tomorrow, and, most of all,
enterprises ability to understand the meaning of this new
technology and its application in this new continuum.
2015-09-14 10:43:19 www.pcquest.com
346
MakeMyTrip launches train-booking app in
5 vernacular languages
MakeMyTrip.com launched trainbooking
app that supports search and
booking in 6 languages. The company
has launched India’s first vernacular rail
booking app in five languages (besides
English) – Hindi, Tamil, Telugu,
Malyalam and Gujarati. MakeMyTrip is
the only OTA in India to offer this
service. This follows its
vernacularization efforts that began last year with India’s
first flight-booking service in Hindi on mobile. The flightbooking
service will also be extended to other vernacular
languages such as Gujarati, Telugu, Tamil and Malayalam
this year.

Customized content, in language of preference, is the nextstep
towards creating customer-delight through
Technology. Continuing with mobile-first approach, these
features on the mobile app to reach out to a large majority
of travelers for whom mobile now the preferred device to
search, plan and book travel. Additionally, they
have introduced features that provide more value and
benefit to customers, such as return-booking facility which
is currently not available on any mobile-app.
Rail-booking trends from non-metros (on MakeMyTrip):
The app is available for download at http://bit.ly/1gJorhv
2015-08-21 05:22:38 Anuj Sharma
347
Book: Software Quality Assurance, Testing
and Metrics
-By Prof K K Aggarwal, former Vice
Chancellor, GGS Indraprastha University,
Delhi
I had an interesting opportunity to go
through the Book “ Software Quality
Assurance, Testing and Metrics” by Dr
Anirban Basu. I had met Dr Basu in some
conferences on the Subject and was
aware of his research interests in the area. Even then, I
was very pleasantly surprised in the scope of subject
coverage while reading the book. The book, by and large

covers the subject of Software Quality Assurance quite in
depth. More importantly, the focus is on Industry Practices,
which is invariably missing even amongst most teachers,
what to talk of students. Industry Practices have been
seamlessly integrated with academic models and nicely
illustrated with the help of examples to bring home the
concept.
Review questions at the end of each chapter have been
very carefully chosen and will surely help the reader.
Similar is the case with objective type questions and
Multiple choice questions for each chapter at the end of the
book. The utility of the book will further increase if the
author can include the topics of Software Costing &
Software Reliability – as it is impossible to delink these
parameters from any realistic Software Quality Assurance
study. May be the author can consider it in the next edition
after testing the hypothesis on a larger sample of the
readers.
The contents of the book will be extremely useful to the
software practitioners, particularly in their early careers in
addition to the students in the disciplines of Computer
Science, Computer Engineering and Computer Applications
at undergraduate & postgraduate degree levels. I once
again complement the author and wish him success in his
future endeavors also.
2015-08-18 07:16:39 Adeesh Sharma

348
NETGEAR brings AirCard 785- A 4G LTE
Mobile Wi-Fi Hotspot
Netgear has launched AirCard 785,
a 4G LTE mobile hotspot that
connects up to 15 laptops, tablets,
smartphones, digital cameras,
gaming consoles, or other Wi-Fi-enabled devices can
connect on-the-go to the built-in 802.11b/g/n wireless
access point and share a single mobile broadband
connection.
The AirCard 785 Mobile Hotspot with 4G LTE is ideal for
vacationers, remote users and mobile workers. Travelers
can access the web for information and entertainment while
on the road and away from home. Remote Users can
access to super-fast 4G LTE & 3G connections to the
Internet, even if you don‘t have access to DSL or cable.
The AirCard 785 Mobile Hotspot will provide phone support
free 90 days from purchase.
Netgear 4G LTE product highlights include:
• Super-fast 4G LTE & 3G speeds anywhere.
• Unlocked to networks worldwide.
• Share connection with up to 15 Wi-Fi devices.
• Up to 10 hours battery life.
• Phone support free 90 days from purchase

• 2 years warranty
The AirCard 785 mobile hotspot with 4G LTE is ideal for
parents, students, travelers, renters, telecommuters, small
business entrepreneurs, temporary work sites, and
seasonal and mobile homes where access to fixed
broadband infrastructure may be limited.
Subhodeep Bhattacharya, Regional Director, India &
SAARC, NETGEAR said “The new innovative products at
NETGEAR emphasize our commitment to offer customers
the most innovative and broadest range of connectivity
products, so that no matter where you live, you can find the
right option. And with the launch of AirCard 785 Mobile
Hotspot, we have succeeded in providing our esteemed
customers to connect more devices to the Internet to make
their life easier and more enjoyable”.
AirCard 785 is available at Rs.17,000 at Netgear’s
authorized distributors in India.
2015-08-11 10:38:41 Swaraj Sourabh
349
Refurbished Sony Xperia C by GreenDust:
As good as a new one with quite a price
difference
A latest report by International Research firm Strategy
Analytics says that India is fast becoming the next major
growth wave in terms of smartphone sales and will soon
overtake the US to become the world’s second largest

smartphone market by 2017. The
reports also suggest that the
smartphone sales will touch a figure
of 174 million units, which is quite
impressive.
Considering the huge figures of
smartphone units, it’s not hard to understand that why the
market for used smartphones (factory seconds and used
ones) is also one of the biggest. This has resulted in the
formation of e-commerce portals such as OLX, Quikr, etc.
whose bread and butter is the reselling of these electronic
devices. However, these digital portals just offer a place to
sellers and buyers and can’t be trusted whole heartedly.
Moreover there are scenarios where some buyers end with
refurbished products from these e-commerce sites as well
as dealers at the price of a new one without even knowing.
Having said that, Hitendra Chaturvedi, an engineer from IIT
Roorkee came out with Greendust.com, which is basically
an online platform that sources the products from the
organizations with minor defects due to the manufacturing
process or as a return from buyers with some minor
damages. Greendust then check the products, repairs them
and sell them online at prices worth considering. The
company told us that it has a 50 point quality inspection
process, which is followed thoroughly for every device it
sells to its customers.
The e-commerce platform has tied up with various
manufacturers such as Sony, Motorola, Xiaomi, Apple and
e-commerce platforms such as Flipkart and Snapdeal. The

company source the surplus units directly from the
organizations and make them ready for the consumers.
Most of the products are less than three months old.
But what about the after sale support and the warranty? A
product is not just a hardware piece, the after sale support
is equally important and when asked about such things,
Greendust told us that if a product turns out to be nonfunctional
over the first week, then GreenDust will service it
just like a new product and if not fixed, then the customer
will get a replacement or a complete refund of the price
he/she paid.
All these things sound quite appealing and to validate such,
we got a product- Sony Xperia C from GreenDust. We
reviewed the smartphone as any other product in our labs
and are quite pleased with the results.
As you can see in the pictures, the smartphone is as good
as a new one. There is no sign of any wear and tear and all
the hardware parts such as volume rockers, the rear plastic
panel, USB port, ear-piece, speaker unit etc. are fully
functional.
We used the smartphone for over a week and did not
encounter any issues. It works absolutely fine.
There’s a minor scratch at the top right edge, which can be
seen on a very closer look and is hard to find in the
pictures. This small nick is easy to ignore against the deal
the smartphone comes at. It is priced at Rs. 7,777. Flipkart
and other e-commerce sites are selling the same at Rs.

12,000.
So, if you are planning to buy a second hand product from
OLX, Quiker or directly from your neighbour, check out
GreenDust.com first as you might get a good deal.
2015-08-04 05:28:59 Rohit Arora
350
HP's 2015 line up of Windows PCs are
designed for the Windows 10 and easy to
upgrade
HP announced that its currently
shipping portfolio of Windowsbased
PCs are expected to be able
to upgrade to Windows 10. When it
designed its 2015 products, HP
planned its entire 2015 portfolio to
be Windows 10 ready. While HP will update the 2015
products to Windows 10 after it ships, HP PCs currently
shipping with Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 are expected to
upgrade to Windows 10. To make this an excellent
experience, HP is working with both hardware component
suppliers and Microsoft to have full coverage for drivers for
Windows 10.
Windows 10-Enabled Devices
Some examples of HP’s broad PC portfolio available for
purchase today that are able to take advantage of Windows
10 features include: (3)

2015-07-31 09:29:41 Anuj Sharma
351
Sony to brings the World’s Slimmest
X9000C series LED TV in India later this year
With a thinness of just 4.9mm,
X9000C series comes with excellent
picture quality, colors and sound
thereby giving customers an
improved and enhanced TV viewing
experience. Sony’s BRAVIA 4K LED
boasts of the new 4K Processor X1- with advanced clarity,
color accuracy and contrast. With the advanced 4K X-
Reality PRO up-scaling algorithm technology, this television
analyzes and upscale to 4K resolution, providing the best
image quality, regardless of the image source. 4K
Processor X1 diversifies the range of content, including
current-generation HD and 4K broadcast content which is
distributed in a number of video compression formats. This
technology also boasts of new spec “HEVC” and “VP9”
which can receive 4K distribution services and YouTube in
4K.
With the TRILUMINOS Display, colors come alive on the
screen with the most accurate reproduction of shades of
red, green and aqua blue. The dynamic color correction
ensures colors are as consistent and accurate as possible.
Customers can experience amazing picture quality with the
critically-acclaimed X-tended Dynamic Range contrast
enhancement providing peak brightness of LED as well as

deeper blacks.
For the first time, Sony will have an exclusive assortment of
android apps like Serial Abtak and Notify BRAVIA. The
series is supported by Google’s latest Android TV
Operating System, making it easy to stream videos,
function as a gaming device and provide enhanced
features like Voice Search, Google Cast and a wide variety
of games & apps from Google Play Store. With access to
Google Play, customers can enjoy what they like to do on a
smartphone or tablet, from their television.
Customers can now cherish lifelike audio with ClearAudio+
to augment their TV viewing experience. The unique
feature fine-tunes TV sound for an immersive and enriching
surround-sound experience. Customers can experience
music, dialogue and surround effects with greater clarity
and separation. Thanks to DSEE HX, any low- quality,
compressed audio source or Internet videos, can be upscaled
to near High Resolution for a wonderful listening
experience.
The new range of TV’s are expected to arrive in September
and the pricing has not been disclosed yet.
2015-07-24 08:21:28 Anuj Sharma
352
Paragon NTFS Mac 14 Preview Delivers Full
Read and Write Access to NTFS-formatted
Drives on El Capitan

Paragon Software Group, the technology leader in data
security and data management
solutions released the Paragon
NTFS for Mac 14 Preview. The
Preview is available for immediate
download, without registration, to all
Mac enthusiasts testing Apple’s OS X El Capitan Preview.
All users who purchased NTFS for Mac 12 will get a free
upgrade to Paragon NTFS for Mac 14 when the
commercial version is released.
To ensure a higher level of security, the new release by
Apple delivers a new protection feature. System Integrity
Protection prevents modifications to certain system files,
folders and processes. This protects components on disk
and at run-time, only allowing system binaries to be
modified by the system installer and software updates.
Code injection and runtime attachments to system binaries
are no longer allowed. It is fully compatible with Apple’s new
security policy ensuring fast, hassle-free and safe access to
NTFS partitions from the new Mac OS X 10.11 El Capitan
Preview.
Once the program is installed, the user can get started right
away: conveniently navigate contents and read, edit, copy
or create files and folders. The program guarantees
advanced support of NTFS file systems and provides fast
and transparent read/write access to any NTFS partition
under OS X 10.11 Preview.
Key functions:
2015-07-17 09:01:56 Anuj Sharma

353 Innovative IoT Start-Ups
Here are some innovative startup
companies in India that are
currently paving the way for IoT to
become a reality Here are some interesting IoT innovations
– Ashwin Meshram, CEO, Sqy! Rewards
Countries all over the world are adopting this new approach
and this will result in a number of new start ups that will
take over the market like a storm. This new era in
technology shall give rise to a number of job opportunities
and entrepreneurs. Here are some interesting IoT
innovations:
CarIQ is a new IoT start up that makes your car smarter
with devices that record data from your car like mileage and
speed, driving patterns, etc. It also lets you compare these
stats with your friends, people around you or people with
the same car.
TeeWe allows you to connect all your content to the TV
through a single device that has a Wi-fi connection, be it
your smart phone or laptop. The TeeWe also turns your
phone into a smart remote control therefore making it
perfectly user friendly.
SenseGiz offers tiny sensor chips that you can attach to
any of your personal belongings in order to track them. This
helps majorly in case you lose a lot of stuff. It is user

friendly and can be attached to any surface for instance,
your phone, wallet or keys.
LifePlot is a portable electrocardiography diagnosis tool.
This product is a medical monitoring device which records
data of basic medical diagnosis and provides solutions.
This device is connected to the internet at all times and
provides instant diagnosis for common medical issues.
IoT is going to be one of the most influential trends in
technology and will surely up the stakes for markets all over
the world. The IoT protocol shall be adopted on a wide
scale in the near future therefore, bringing on a new era in
the world saga.
2015-07-10 04:40:42 www.pcquest.com
354 5 Best JavaScript Frameworks
As the web is evolving, fast new
technologies arise, and old
methodologies quickly become
irrelevant. Thus selecting the right
framework for your project will have
a huge effect on both your ability to deliver on time, and
your ability to preserve and sustain your code in the future.
Whether you want to do web development or you’ve been
following web development over the past few years, you
must have noticed that JavaScript frameworks are
significant and an increasingly popular way to build web
applications. Although there are many frameworks out

there, five of them stand out: Backbone, AngularJS, Ember,
Knockout, and CanJS.
Importance of Framework Size
Page load times are essential for the success of your web
site. Users are not bound to exhibit much patience when it
comes to the speed of browsing so it is preferred to do
everything possible to make your application load as fast as
possible in many situations if you want to retain the user.
Two important aspects to look at when considering the
impact of the framework on the loading time of your
application are framework size and the time it requires for
the framework to bootstrap.
Javascript frameworks are usually served minified and
gzipped. However, merely looking at the framework is not
enough. Backbone.js, despite being the smallest (only
6.5kb), requires both Underscore.js (5kb) and jQuery
(32kb) or Zepto (9.1kb)templates, and so you will probably
be required to add some third party plug-ins to the mix.
AngularJS
Commonly referred to as Angular in software development,
it is an open-source web application framework maintained
by Google and by a community of individual developers and
corporations. It aims to address the challenges
encountered in developing single-page applications. It is
designed to simplify both the development and the testing
of such applications by providing a framework for client-side
model–view–controller (MVC) architecture. Angular works

in a wide range of use cases from small projects to
enterprise applications.
Why AngularJS?
One of the most notable feature of this framework is twoway
binding. The framework adapts and extends traditional
HTML to present dynamic content through two-way databinding
that allows for the automatic synchronization of
models and views. In Angular, both the Model and the View
can update the data, thus the “two-way” descriptor. This
form of data binding allows for a reduction in the amount of
code required to create dynamic views. Angular lets you
classify your application building blocks into several types:
Controllers, Directives, Services and Views (templates).
These are later turned into modules and are dependent
upon each other. Each type of building block has a different
role. Views do the UI, controllers processes the logic behind
the UI, services take care of communication with the
backend , while directives make it easy to create reusable
components and allows you to extend HTML vocabulary for
your application. The resulting environment is expressive,
readable, and quick to develop.
Backbone. JS
Backbone is known for being lightweight and has only
dependency Underscore.js. It is designed for developing
single-page web applications, and for keeping various
parts of web applications (e.g. multiple clients and the
server) synchronized. Backbone.js gives framework to web
applications by providing models with key-value binding and

custom events, collections with a rich API of enumerable
functions, views with declarative event handling, and
connects it all to your existing API over a RESTful JSON
interface.
Why Backbone. JS?
Backbone is an incredibly small library for the amount of
functionality and structure it gives you. It is essentially MVC
for the client and allows you to make your code modular. It
provides an event-driven communication between views
and models and lets you attach event listeners to any
attribute of a model, thereby giving you effective control
over what you change in the view. The backbone.js events
are developed on top of regular DOM events making the
mechanism very versatile and extensible. With one line of
code, for example, you can introduce a publish/subscribe
pattern to backbone that ties all of your views together.
CanJS is another framework for designing web
applications that provides a lightweight inheritance system,
observable objects and values, and a powerful MVC
architecture core with live-bound templates, among other
resources.
Why CanJS?
CanJS is flexible and can work across shared libraries. With
its basic functionality it can be extended with plugins to
handle things like setters, serialization/deserialization,
jQuery plugin generation, validations, calling super methods
thus helps in making 3rd party plugin development easy.

Using templated event binding, CanJS controls can listen to
events on objects other than their element preventing
memory leak.
Ember.js
It is a client-side JavaScript web application framework and
allows developers to create scalable single-page
applications by incorporating common idioms and best
practices into a framework that provides a rich object
model, and automatically-updating templates powered by
HTMLBars.
Why Ember.js?
It favors convention over configuration which implies that
instead of writing a pile of code, Ember can automatically
understand much of the configuration itself, such as
automatically inferring the name of the route and the
controller when defining a router resource. Unlike
AngularJS and Backbone.js Ember can automatically create
the controller for your resource if you don’t define one
yourself. Also pretty much everything you need to create a
web app including a template library, routing, and plenty of
other things that are intended is built-in which makes the
developers free from writing routine code and allows them
to focus on the bigger problems that are unique to their
project. It also provides support for developing against
mock API and testing.
Knockout.js
It is an open source, standalone JavaScript implementation

of the MVVM pattern with templates. Knockout features
Declarative bindings, Automatic UI refresh, Dependency
tracking and Templating.
Why Knockout.js?
It lets you scale up in complexity without worrying about
inconsistencies. Just represent your items as a JavaScript
array, and then use a foreach binding to transform this
array into a TABLE or set of DIVs. Whenever the array
changes, the UI automatically changes to match and you
don’t have to figure out how to inject new TRs or where to
inject them. The rest of the UI stays in sync. It is not itself
dependent on jQuery, but you can use jQuery at the same
time if you want things like animated transitions. It is
extensible and lets you implement custom behaviors as
new declarative bindings for easy reuse in just a few lines
of code. These features streamline and simplify the
specification of complex relationships between view
components, which in turn make the display more
responsive and the user experience richer. Since it uses
pure JavaScript, it decreases the size of server responses
and client/server traffic in general thereby speeding up our
apps.
Final thoughts
Backbone doesn’t provide UI binding, however is really
good job at reusable, components but loses when it comes
to Routing. Ember on the other hand keeps things clean
and simple by introducing naming conventions. However,
the approach of extending HTML with custom syntax, the

easy-to-use data binding features combined with the power
of plug-ins and a clear routing mechanism makes Angular
preferred choice for web developers and works well works
well both for quick prototyping projects and large-scale
applications.
2015-06-30 09:41:08 Anuj Sharma
355
Yahoo's first ever Mobile Developer Meet
held in India
At Yahoo’s first-ever Mobile
Developer Meetups in India, held in
Gurgaon and Bangalore this week,
over 350 app developers gathered
to know more about the state of the
app nation in India – insights into
apps and their usage, emerging growth categories and
device adoption trends.
The Flurry team from Yahoo presented on the State of the
App Nation in India – an analysis backed by data gleaned
from over 700,000 apps and 1.8 billion devices from across
the world, and the 42,000 apps and 82 million devices from
India, that use Flurry.
The trends (see more detailed insights from Flurry below)
show Asia and India leading the phablet revolution. The
phablet is the fastest growing mobile device globally, with
growth in India outpacing growth in the US – 38% of user
sessions in India are on phablets vs 21% in the US, as

measured by Flurry.
India is also remarkable as a market for the diversification
of apps, when it comes to usage. App use is shifting from
entertainment to more functional categories that are
utilitarian and enhance productivity – personalization and
news & reading are currently the fastest growing app
categories in India.
The move from e-commerce to m-commerce is
accelerating – with Indians engaging with their mobile
shopping apps almost round the clock. In a quirky
difference, unlike other Asian markets, mealtimes are a ‘no
mobile shopping’ time for Indian users.
Gaming remains one of the most engaged categories.
Users in India love action and arcade games, mirroring the
trend across Asia, though we outpace the US and Asia in
our love for casual games like Subway Surfers and Temple
Run.
At the meetups, developers were introduced to the Yahoo
Mobile Developer Suite, which is a set of tools designed to
help them measure, advertise, monetize and improve their
mobile apps. The suite includes five key offerings, Flurry
Analytics with Explorer, Flurry Pulse, Yahoo App Publishing,
Yahoo Search in Apps, and Yahoo App Marketing. It is
powered by technology and data from Yahoo and Flurry.
A panel discussion at the Bangalore meetup explored ways
for app developers to grow mobile audiences. Titled Mobile
Growth Hacking, it saw participation from panelists Alok

Kejriwal, CEO and Co-Founder of Games2win; John Paul,
CEO Plackal; Saran Chatterjee, Business and Product
Leader (Formerly with Flipkart and Yahoo) and Ravi Vyas –
Head Customer Development & Marketing at Moengage.
Key Insights and Trends from Flurry: State of the App
Nation in India
(All data as measured by Flurry YoY, May 2014 – 2015)
India’s app usage grew 131% YoY, outpacing growth in
Asia and globally. The Asian app usage grew 77% during
the same period.
Asia and India are leading the phablet revolution:
Diversification of apps: App categories seeing the fastest
growth in India
The top 3 app growth categories in India are
personalization (such as Android launchers like Aviate and
Hola), followed by News & Reading and Photography.
Asia and India are driving shift from e-commerce to m-
commerce
Gaming remains one of the most engaged categories in
Asia and India
App users in Asia spend 25% of their total app time on
Gaming apps
2015-06-29 09:20:00 Rohit Arora

356
Good news for fitness freaks as Fitbit
enters Indian market with its health
products
Fitbit, Inc., the leader in the
connected health and fitness
market, today announced it is
launching in India, with availability
through Amazon.in of its full line of
top-selling activity and sleeptracking
products (Fitbit Surge,
Fitbit Charge HR, Fitbit Charge,
Fitbit Flex, Fitbit One, Fitbit Zip and
Aria Wi-Fi Smart Scale).
The Fitbit platform empowers people with information,
offering a fun and engaging experience, providing insights
and guidance for users to get the most out of their devices
and help them reach their health and fitness goals.
These are the various products with specifications:
Fitbit Charge:
A high-performance activity and sleep wristband that
delivers all-day activity tracking, real-time fitness stats and
Caller ID right on the wrist for people who want to step up
their everyday activities to improve their overall health
Bright OLED screen displays all day stats including steps
taken, distance traveled, calories burned, floors climbed,
and the time

Exercise Mode records workouts with the press of a button
and provides real-time exercise stats on the display, as well
as detailed exercise summaries on the Fitbit dashboard
Automatic sleep detection monitors sleep quality; also
features a silent, vibrating alarm
Caller ID helps users stay connected to incoming calls;
wristband vibrates and shows caller’s name or number
when paired with smartphone that is nearby
High-quality , water-resistant, comfortable textured design
with a secure clasp and a battery life of 7-10 days to track
an entire week with just one charge
Fitbit Charge HR:
An advanced fitness tracker that delivers PurePulse
continuous wrist-based heart rate tracking, all-day activity
tracking, Caller ID and automatic sleep detection for active
consumers looking to push their fitness further. Fitbit
Charge HR includes all the great benefits of Fitbit Charge ,
plus :
Fitbit’s proprietary PurePulse optical heart rate technology ,
delivers continuous , automatic wrist-based heart rate
tracking all-day (not just when you wake up) and during
workouts without an uncomfortable chest strap
Heart rate help s users maintain workout intensity;
maximize workouts with heart rates zones; track resting
heart rate; and monitor all-day calorie-burn

All-day insights into overall heart health including resting
heart rate and heart rate trends, alongside stats like steps,
distance, floors climbed, calories and active minutes
Up to 5 days of battery life – Charge HR is specially
designed with battery efficient technology, so users can
spend more time tracking and less time charging. A Fitness
Super Watch that combines popular features like GPS,
PurePulse continuous wrist-based heart rate tracking, all
day fitness tracking with smartwatch functionality in one
device for people dedicated to reaching their peak
performance
Fitness Surge:
Built-in GPS delivers stats like real-time pace and distance
along with elevation on device; seamlessly syncs with
mobile devices to show route history, speed, elevation and
workout summaries, leading to smarter training
Use multiple sport mode to record running, biking, cross
training and cardio workouts and view detailed summaries
of exercises completed – including heart rate and calories
burned – empowering active consumers to effortlessly track
and better understand their performance during their
workouts
Advanced eight-sensor technology with GPS, 3-axis
accelerometers, 3-axis gyroscope, digital compass, optical
heart rate tracker, altimeter, ambient light sensor and a
touchscreen
Combination of desirable smartwatch features including

customizable watch faces, Caller ID, text alerts and mobile
music control, with backlit LCD touchscreen display for easy
viewing and navigation through real-time stats, workout
apps and alarms
Up to 7 days battery life to track everything from the work
week to a full marathon on one charge
The Fitbit family of trackers also includes Fitbit Flex, Fitbit
One, Fitbit Zip and the Fitbit Aria Wi-Fi Smart Scale to help
everyday users make every step count with everyday
activities to improve their overall health and fitness:
Fitbit Flex : A stylish activity and sleep-tracking wristband
that offers a slim, minimalistic design for people that are
goal-oriented and want more flexibility in accessorizing;
tracks steps taken, distance traveled, calories burned,
active minutes and sleep; 5 days of battery life
Fitbit One : An advanced clip-based activity and sleep
tracker that tracks steps taken, distance traveled, calories
burned, floors climbed and sleep; 10-14 days battery life
Fitbit Zip : A fun, simple clip-based activity tracker that
tracks steps taken, distance traveled and calories burned;
up to 6 months of battery life
Aria Wi-Fi Smart Scale : A high-end performance scale that
tracks weight, BMI and body fat percentage over time;
wirelessly syncs stats with online graphs and mobile tools
that provide a long-term overview of progress
Pricing & Availability

The full-line of Fitbit products are available now for preorder
nationwide on Amazon.in at www.amazon.in/fitbit or
through the Amazon Shopping App for Android, iOS and
Windows.
2015-06-24 09:52:13 Rohit Arora
357
BenQ XL2430T & XL2730Z: Monitors for
gaming enthusiasts and professional gamer
BenQ launched flagship gaming
monitors, the 27-inch QHD/AMD
Freesync XL2730Z and 24-inch
XL2430T with widescreen full-HD
displays.
Designed to deliver high performance to gaming
enthusiasts and professional gamers, both the monitors
pack a wide range of features such as 144Hz Refresh Rate,
Auto Game Mode (FPS/RTS/MOBA), Motion Blur
Reduction, 1ms GTG Response Time and Gaming Refresh
Rate Optimization Management delivering gamers with
immaculate movement & quick gaming.
The monitors are bundled with gaming-focused solutions
tailored to bring out the best performance. The all new
BenQ XL2430T gaming monitor is available across India at
an MRP of Rs. 36,000 while XL2730Z is available at a retail
price of Rs. 50,000. Both the monitors are bundled with
Steelseries Fnatic rival mouse, Steelseries Fnatic QCK and
Asphalt edition mouse pad worth Rs. 8000. The bundled

offer will be available for the first 100 units of both the
monitors. The monitors will be available on the leading
gaming retailers and e-commerce portals including-
Flipkart, Amazon and Snapdeal.
2015-06-17 11:05:36 Anuj Sharma
358
AMD unveiled the next gen. Radeon graphic
cards
AMD today unveiled its nextgeneration
AMD Radeon graphics
cards at a live webcast held in Los
Angeles and broadcast to
thousands of gamers around the
world, joined by industry giants Microsoft, EA and Oculus.
AMD said that the next-generation graphics cards mark a
technology turning point in PC gaming, bringing super high
resolutions, exceptional VR experiences, smoother game
play, support for new, advanced APIs like DirectX 12 and
Vulkan, and groundbreaking form factors to gamers
everywhere through a top-to-bottom line of GPUs that fit
virtually every need and budget.
AMD has introduced a series of graphic cards. These
include- Radeon R9 Fury series graphics, Radeon R9 300
series graphics cards, Radeon R7 300 series graphics
cards. According to AMD, the specification of the graphic
cards are:

Radeon R9 Fury series graphics
The AMD Radeon R9 Fury X GPU is the definitive VR
solution, designed to deliver exceptional performance in the
most demanding VR games and applications, while
benefitting from AMD LiquidVR technology to enable the
most comfortable VR experience and compatibility across a
wide range of head-mounted displays.
The AMD Radeon R9 Fury X GPU boasts 4096-bit highbandwidth
memory interface that not only meets but
exceeds the extreme performance requirements for the
most demanding 4K games for stunning performance in 4K
resolutions
With AMD FreeSync technology, and is ready for the future
with support for next-generation multi-threaded APIs
including DirectX 12, OpenGL 4.5, Vulkan and AMD’s
Mantle.
The compact design of AMD Radeon R9 Fury X GPU
opens the door for new and exciting PC form factors, with
more design flexibility for modders, DIYers and System
Integrators than ever before.
The AMD Innovation Lab’s recently unveiled Project
Quantum prototype PC illustrates the point, making use of
Radeon R9 Fury X GPUs to reinvent desktop computing for
the VR era, enabling form factors never imagined before.
The AMD Radeon R9 Fury X, which is the world’s first
HBM-powered graphics card (previously code named “Fiji”),
is scheduled for availability starting June 24th.

The AMD Radeon R9 Fury, with both liquid- and air-cooled
options, is slated for availability starting July 14th.
The deceptively small (6” in length), category-creating AMD
Radeon R9 Nano is scheduled to follow in Q3 2015. AMD
also plans to bring to market this fall a flagship Radeon
Fury product for very smooth 4K gaming and VR that is
based on two “Fiji” GPUs.
Radeon R9 300 series graphics cards
The DNA of 4K gaming – AMD Radeon R9 300 series
GPUs deliver stunningly powerful graphics for unparalleled
4K gaming experiences in their class.
Supporting the latest gaming technologies including Virtual
Super Resolution (VSR) for quality that rivals 4K, even on a
1080p display, AMD CrossFire multi-GPU technology, and
next-generation APIs including DirectX 12, OpenGL 4.5,
and Vulkan, Radeon R9 300 series GPUs are the perfect
gaming solution for beyond HD.5,6
Making the virtual world real – AMD Radeon R9 300 series
GPUs are designed for VR, taking advantage of AMD
LiquidVR technology to deliver a comfortable, low-latency
VR experience that harnesses multiple GPUs to drive the
highest possible frame rates.
Smooth, tear-free gaming – AMD Radeon R9 300 series
GPUs harness AMD FreeSync technology to help eliminate
tearing and stuttering in single screen gaming, or using in
multi-display Eyefinity configurations.12

Radeon R7 300 series graphics cards
AMD Radeon R7 300 series GPUs are the optimal choice
for online gaming and eSports competitors, effortlessly
delivering greater than 60 fps gaming performance at
1080p or 1440p, ultra-settings, in popular online games.
AMD Radeon R7 300 series GPUs are optimized for nextgeneration
APIs including DirectX 12, OpenGL4.5 and
Vulkan for the most advanced gaming experiences
possible.
Gamers can benefit from the latest features and
performance improvements in AMD Catalyst drivers, oneclick
game optimizations in the AMD Gaming Evolved client,
and rest easy knowing their GPU is ready for Microsoft
Windows 10.
2015-06-17 09:16:25 Rohit Arora
359
Xerox’s Color Press 1000i pops silver and
gold inks
Xerox, a technology and document
management company has launched its’ marquee digital
press – Color Press 1000i.
Now offered in true Pantone metallic gold or silver specialty
dry inks, the Color 1000i Press gives print companies a
creative, competitive advantage. With increased
automation, the device keeps print environments at peak
performance levels. The 1000idevice includes an optional

specialty dry ink station that enhances documents with
metallic gold or silver dry inks or applies spot or flood
creative effects with clear dry ink. The 1000i can migrate
lucrative foil stamping applications, such as invitations,
certificates and business cards, to short-run, high-value
digital production. Multi-pass printing with clear ink adds an
extra textural/dimensional feel and the pop of the silver and
gold inks.
“Xerox is the first in the industry to offer metallic gold or
silver dry ink at rated speed. With this new device and our
existing portfolio of digital presses we will storm the digital
printing market and further consolidate our market share,”
said Balaji Rajagopalan, Executive Director, Technology,
Channels & International Distributor Operations, Xerox
India.
Apart from launching Color Press 1000i, Xerox has also
launched the Xerox C60 with FFPS DFE based on the
Microsoft Windows platform.
2015-06-15 11:03:35 Rashi Varshney
360
Canon launches World’s highest resolution
full-frame DSLR cameras
Canon India Pvt. Ltd. revolutionizes
the digital imaging industry with the
introduction of World’s highest
resolution full frame DSLR cameras
– EOS 5DS and EOS 5DSR today.

The ultra-high resolution of these cameras allow for largeformat
printing and extensive cropping capability while
maintaining fantastic image quality.
The company also introduced the XC10 4K Professional
Video Camera that features a compact, lightweight and
versatile design for convenient 4K/Full HD video shooting
and 12 Megapixel digital still photography.
About EOS 5DS and EOS 5DSR
5DS and EOS 5DSR – two flagship EOS cameras are
equipped with a 50.6-megapixel 35mm, full-frame CMOS
sensor processors, making them the highest resolution
DSLR cameras in Canon’s extensive range. The EOS 5DS
R features cancellation of its Optical Low Pass Filter (LPF)
effect. This allows the camera to take full advantage of the
extremely high resolution sensor and capture very fine
levels of detail and texture. The tradeoff is the potential
appearance of Moire patterns while shooting. This makes
the EOS 5DS R suitable for commercial and studio
photography where the shooting environment is controlled
and extremely high resolution is needed for massive prints.
The EOS 5DS features a functional LPF, just like other
DSLR cameras in the Canon lineup. This dynamic duo have
been developed specifically for those users who need to
capture even the finest level of detail, especially studio,
commercial and advertising photographers. Additionally
consumers who are passionate about landscape
photography will also greatly benefit from the dramatically
higher resolution.

With a 50.6-megapixel 35mm full-frame CMOS sensor, the
EOS 5DSR and EOS 5DS have by far the highest resolution
in Canon’s history of EOS cameras. Both cameras
incorporate technologies to enhance image resolution with
minimal side-effects.
To complement the high resolution sensors, the EOS 5DS
and EOS 5DS R feature a new “Fine Detail” Picture Mode
that allows configuring the sharpness level, thereby
allowing for even more fine detail capture. This is especially
important for commercial, product and advertising
photography where fine textures of materials are
represented with the highest possible level of detail and
resolution.
To handle the ultrahigh pixel count, Canon has introduced
a new cam-motor driven mirror mechanism to minimize
mirror vibrations that occur and cause image shake.
The EOS 5DS and EOS 5DS R also feature a brand new
150,000-dot RGB+IR Metering and automatic exposure
system. This newly developed metering system ensures
proper exposure and accurate colour tones even in the
most challenging lighting conditions.
Both EOS 5DS and EOS 5DS R feature the latest dual
DIGIC 6 image processors, allowing for a maximum
continuous shooting speed of 5.0fps, at a full resolution of
50.6 megapixels.
About XC10
The Canon XC10 4K Professional Video Camera features a

compact, lightweight and versatile design for convenient 4K
video shooting and 12 Megapixel digital still photography.
The XC10 can satisfy a broad range of video and still
production needs. This product is intended to satisfy the
needs of multiple genres from wedding videographers,
documentary and small filmmakers, to news gathering
agencies, offering a cost-effective and high performance 4K
solution. It also appeals to the needs of cross media
professionals in that it can also capture 12 Megapixel still
images. Another unique point about this product is its ability
to extract 8 megapixel still images in-camera from recorded
4K footage – absolutely essential for those to whom each
moment of footage could be a critical capture.
The XC10 Professional Video Camera’s 4K imaging system
is purpose-built of proprietary components, including a
Genuine Canon 10x Wide-Angle Zoom Lens with 2x Digital
Tele-converter and Optical Image Stabilization. Employing
a special Canon compact optical system, the lens offers a
zoom ratio of 27.3-273mm for movies and 24.1-241mm for
photos. And the new DIGIC DV5 signal processor that
provides the image-processing power and speed to deliver
high image quality, performance and innovative new
features like the Canon XF-AVC codec for 4K and HD
recording.
EOS 5DS, EOS 5DSR and XC10 4K Professional Video
Camera will be available at all Canon Image Squares for
EOS 5DS – INR 2,52,995
EOS 5DSR – INR 2,65,995

XC10 – INR 1,70,000
Canon also reveals Connect Station CS100 that lets you
store, show and share clicked images and videos easily.
However, there is no update about the price and availability
of the product.
2015-06-09 11:40:16 Ashok Pandey
361
Atul boosts efficiency with ‘mobSales’ ERP
on Mobile Devices
Gujarat-based Atul Ltd, member of
Lalbhai Group is one of the oldest
business houses of India, with
interests mainly in textiles and
chemicals. Incepted in 1947, Atul
has a turnover in excess of Rs 2307
crores (FY 2013-14) and is one of Asia’s largest integrated
chemical manufacturing complexes which is spread over
1400 acres of land.
The company procures more than 28000 materials from
over 8700 Vendors every year to produce and sell 4000
assorted product SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) across its 7
business verticals at 3 manufacturing locations. Atul caters
to about 5600 customers which are serviced by 33 Stock
Depots in India and through 5 foreign subsidiaries globally.
Availability of seamless information at all stages of business
became a mandate at Atul decision making as well as
attaining functional and operational efficiency.

The Challenges
Despite having the complete conventional ERP and MIS
reporting in place along with BI dashboards, the business
agility of Atul needed an impetus through provision of sales
order information and sales booking to take the
organization to the next level of efficiency.
The prevailing ERP definitely provided the means of
carrying out transactions seamlessly through its modular
functions, but still is had a scope of improvement with
factors that could significantly enhance the business
efficiency like— update of outstanding / overdue payments
from customers while interacting with the customer. This
information was available at the back-office or on the laptop
client available with the Sales Managers. But, the company
needed to connect & derive the same. A mobile solution
was the need of the hour as it would be more handy &
flexible.
The Implementation
Atul IT realized that the ERP application on mobile devices
can enhance business capabilities and insights. After
massive R&D on how to achieve desired IT infrastructure,
the IT team’s approach for integrating a mobile Application
along with their back-end Oracle EBS system, began with
acquiring a cloud Server with open-source components.
Once the Cloud server was set and functioning, the IT team
developed and published the cross-platform mobile
application on all platforms including Windows, iOS and
Android.

The Results
Due to the deployments, the company managed to save Rs
16.20 crore on TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) with delivery
of equivalent Data Warehouse solution & functional
efficiency as that of ‘Oracle BI Enterprise Edition’
implementation. Instantaneous ‘Sales Order Booking’
happened as a result, instead of a time lag of a business
day.
2015-06-09 04:49:25 Rashi Varshney
362
Bangaluru manages law and order with FIR
kiosk
Increasing mobility and connectivity
is not only changing consumer
habits or enterprise processes, but
it is significantly impacting
everything around us. Now even
the government departments are
recognizing the increasing benefits of emerging
technologies to better serve the people
– Preeti Gaur
Digitalization is transforming industries and processes of all
sectors of the economy. Banagaluru Police has taken one
such initiative to provide a kiosk for remote filing of FIRs. In
order to enable citizens to register cases freely and provide
the police department a realistic view of the crime rates in

the city, the Bangaluru Police in a first ever-live deployment
in India launched a Remote Expert Government Services’
(REGS) to help citizens file a First Information Report (FIR)
remotely, irrespective of the location of the jurisdiction
where the offence has occurred in the city. India’s first
Remote Expert Government Services’ Police FIR kiosk will
allow law enforcement formalities to be carried out from a
remote location.
Equipped with Cisco TelePresence system with HD video
and high-quality audio, a touch screen display with a virtual
keyboard, the kiosk allows citizens to launch a live
collaboration session with a designated police officer based
at the Traffic Management Centre – the technology nerve
center of Bengaluru traffic police. The complainant can
sign, print and scan documents virtually as part of the
experience. They will also get an opportunity to review the
complaint with an expert, thus ensuring that the FIR filed is
error free. Once the FIR is filed, the citizen will receive a
printed copy of the FIR as an instant acknowledgement.
The Kiosk is accessible 24×7, from which citizens may
interact face-to-face with a remote investigation officer to
expedite the entire process of filing an FIR. This kiosk
serves as the central location for FIRs related to 105 law &
order police stations and 42 traffic police stations of the city.
A citizen need not necessarily visit the police stations to
lodge an FIR. Through this kiosk, citizens of Bengaluru,
including ladies and youngsters will be able to register
cases freely without any hesitation. It will also provide BCP
a more realistic view of the crime rates in the city.

Filing the FIR remotely irrespective of the jurisdiction where
the crime has occurred showcases how technology can
transform the lives of citizens by delivering optimized
administration, an efficient law & order system, improved
quality of life for citizens and greater economic, social and
environmental sustainability. “This initiative will help in our
efforts to build strong and sustainable police-citizen
relations. It will encourage people to report crime and real
time reporting will help police take swift action. Based on
the feedback from the citizens in Bengaluru, we will
evaluate and set up similar kiosks in the other parts of the
state,” said Shri Lalrokhuma Pachuau, IPS, Director
General & Inspector General of Police, Karnataka State.
BCP has leveraged technology to tackle law and
enforcement issues in the city since 2007. Using video
survelliance and analytics technology, the rate of fatal
accidents have come down by 19% in the last four years
(595 in 2014) and the city has witnessed a 30% decrease in
total road accidents from 6024 in 2011 to 4191 in 2014, in
addition to improving the traffic enforcement and
management system in the city.
BTP was the first to introduce the Blackberry based system,
e-challan, for traffic violation and also Automated
Fingerprint Identification System (AFIS). The B-TRAC which
is a technology driven project for Traffic Management is
also first of its kind in the country.
Based upon the success of the solution, the BCP intends to
roll out the kiosks in other parts of Bengaluru. Such
collaboration between government departments and

technology enterprises is an appreciable effort towards
building smart cities where technology and applications can
be used to enhance the public’s experience and is a great
example of public-private partnership to develop new
solutions to address some of the city’s greatest challenges.
2015-06-08 05:41:44 Preeti Gaur
363 10 Free Full Games to enjoy summer!
Being bore in this summer!
Don’t worry we have some exciting
strategic and racing games for you
that will kill your boredom.
Sun City is the city of the future, but
the rising crime rate makes this
place dangerous for living. Extremists block roads, criminals
crash cars and hackers override the city’s automatic traffic
control.
DOWNLOAD
City Racing: Easy gameplay makes those sharp turns,
bends, and sudden obstacles a walk in the park. Earn
money bonuses on your journey so you can buy new
upgrades for your car.
DOWNLOAD
Star Racing: It is car racing looks like in the future: shooting
stars, arcing comets, nebulas and a group of neon racers

leaving their rubber-mark on the twisting and turning track.
DOWNLOAD
Toy Defense 2
Experience the life of a true soldier in Toy Defense 2. This
action-strategy game is packed with more levels, amazing
new features, big selection of fighting units for each world
and more battle action than ever.
DOWNLOAD
Royal Defence
The castle needs a hero to stop a monstrous invasion in
Royal Defense, an entertaining fantasy challenge for the
entire family.
DOWNLOAD
Supercars Racing
Enjoy dizzying races on the world’s most varied and exotic
racetracks. Challenge the most desperate and ruthless
racers on the planet and become the undisputed champion
DOWNLOAD
Equipped with the ultimate and most advanced
governmental weapon called ‘Thunder Master III’, you are
the last resort, only you can stop them… Fire and Forget is
a shooting game featuring an amazing flying ‘tank’ equiped
with 2 deadly weapons.

DOWNLOAD
Farmscapes
Earn money by selling fresh veggies, juicy fruits, eggs,
flowers and honey from his old farm to the townspeople,
and spend it on restoring the landholding back to its
grandeur and beauty.
DOWNLOAD
Every motocross bike is a different, with varying speeds,
acceleration and handling power. Finish styling your bike by
choosing a radical color scheme. Now it’s time to rev that
engine and race!
DOWNLOAD
Open Karts
An international Kart driver game with your ultimate goal
being to progress through 3 different championships and
classes, in order to win the definitive 250cc championship !
DOWNLOAD
2015-06-04 08:45:05 Raj Kumar Maurya
364
Videocon brings a 7" tablet with 3,000 mAh
battery at Rs. 4,900
Videocon Mobiles Phones Division today introduced
VA81M; an affordable tablet that runs on Android KitKat

4.4 and offers features a 7-Inch
WSVGA screen to watch videos,
online content and games. The
Dual-Sim tablet is priced at Rs
4900, which makes it a valid option
if you are looking for an affordable
multimedia device with calling
functionality.
It is backed by a 3000 mAh battery and also features 3G
network connectivity. Videocon has integrated a 2 MP rear
and a VGA front camera for selfies and video calling. The
Videocon VA81M tablet comes packaged with a 1.3 GHz
Dual Core processor coupled with 512MB RAM for
multitasking. This is not the best configuration, however the
tablet can be used for basic tasks such as browsing,
playing HD videos, social networking, etc.
There is 4GB internal storage, which is expandable up to
32 GB via microSD card. So you can store a lot of pictures,
music and applications from the Google Play store. The
VA81M tablet integrates connectivity options such as Wi-Fi,
Dual SIM support, Voice Calling, Video Calling, A-GPS
Navigation, Bluetooth.
You can also check the specifications of the tablet in the
picture:
2015-06-02 10:28:11 Rohit Arora

365
IBM Introduces Behavior-Based Predictive
Analytics By Industry
IBM today announced 20 new
industry-specific solutions with prebuilt
predictive analytics capabilities
that will make it easier and faster
for organizations across industries
like retail, banking,
telecommunications, insurance and
others, to uncover and act on critical business insights.
To ensure these solutions address the most critical
business requirements in each industry and to optimize the
accuracy of the predictive insights, IBM is working with
clients and partners across various industries who are
innovators in the use of advanced analytics, such as Urban
Outfitters, National Grid, Deloitte, Bolsa de Santiago,
Interactive Data Managed Solutions, and Bendigo and
Adelaide Bank, among others.
The new solutions draw on IBM’s vast industry and
analytics expertise from over 50,000 client engagements.
Each solution includes pre-built predictive analytic modeling
patterns and interfaces for focused industry use cases, as
well as data preparation capabilities to manage unique data
and streamline collection and preparation of data for
analytics. With interactive and role-specific dashboards,
business users can share predictive insights across teams
and organizations that can give them a deeper
understanding of their customers, assets and operations to

help them make better decisions and act with greater
speed and fewer resources.
These solutions will help these sectors in the following
ways:
Retailers understand the potential overall revenue impact of
individual products and product lines to make smarter
decisions about what products to carry and how to best
promote them.
Banks use customer spending patterns to predict financial
and life events and deliver more relevant offers.
Wealth management firms understand behaviors
associated with higher profit clients to determine who they
should target and how to drive increased activity.
Oil & gas companies reduce high costs associated with
inspections and maintenance of submersible pumps to
predict outages before they occur and optimize production.
Media & entertainment companies better understand their
audience and viewing behaviors to deliver advertisers
higher value micro-segment targeting capabilities.
The new analytics solutions from IBM provide out-of-thebox
integration with IBM Customer Engagement solutions,
enabling the insights to be used to drive what offers are
sent to customers and what is displayed when they visit the
website. IBM Maximo Asset Management has also been
pre-integrated, providing enhanced capabilities for work
management, job plans, work order tracking, service

equests and reporting. As potential equipment failures are
identified, work orders can be generated automatically.
Consultants from IBM Global Business Services can help
clients implement and tailor the solutions to fit their needs
and broader strategy.
For more information on IBM’s Industry Analytics Solutions,
you can visit: http://www.ibm.com/analytics/us/en/industry/
2015-05-29 10:55:55 Rohit Arora
366
How to fix the text string bug that is
crashing Apple iPhones
Advice Ask PCQ How-Tos Mobile
Apps News & Launches Security
smartphones Smartphones &
Tablets How to fix the text string
bug that is crashing Apple iPhones
comments
by Rohit Arora May 28, 2015 0
Apple users are facing a critical issue from last three days
as a string of text is crashing their iPhones. This particular
bug is causing the messages application crash
automatically after which their iPhone restarts in a loop. We
dig in to find out what is it actually and how can you fix your
iPhone from being in an unresponsive state.
-This bug was first revealed by a Reddit user on Tuesday,
in which he mentioned that the text message is a specific

string of Arabic and English characters which when
received from an iPhone user can crash the message
application.
-Now if your iPhone is locked, and you receive this
message, your iMessage application will crash and your
iPhone will reboot.
Apple fan site MacRumors said that the malicious code will
crash any iPhone running the latest iOS 8.3 operating
system.
-The particular message will be send by an iPhone to an
iPhone user, so you are not going to receive it randomly
unless until an iphone user wants to crash your phone.
-According to AppleInsider, it’s not the Arabic characters
that are crashing the iPhones; it’s the method how iOS tries
to handle the full text string. The site also quoted that the
Unicode characters that attempt to render and display the
string chew up too many resources when your phone is
locked and the notification of the message appears.
-To further test the issue, AppleInsider sent the same text
string during a normal iMessage conversation, and found
out that the iPhone did not crash or reboot. It suggests that
the bug lies in the iOS’s notifications process and not within
the iMessage app.
So, it becomes clear that your iPhone will crash when it
will be locked and will receive that specific series of unicode
characters.

How to fix it?
-Ask the person who sent you the malicious text message
send another message. This new message will surpass the
older message string thus cancelling out the initial strand of
the malicious code.
-Or, if that can’t be done, you can ask Siri to send yourself
a message which will do the same.
So these small steps can solve your problem till the time
Apple releases an official fix.
2015-05-28 10:59:05 Rohit Arora
367
Microsoft and Intel collaborated to bring
NuPC, a palm sized computer at Rs. 18,999
In a joint collaboration with
the global semiconductor
distributor WPG Holdings, Microsoft
India and Intel India today launched
NuPC, a palm sized computer that
combines affordability with a number of customization. The
small sized computer comes in a variety of configurations
and is powered by the Intel Core i3 and Celeron
processors. Both of the variants are also armed with
Windows 8.1 and bing.
The configurations and variants are priced at:
For Intel Core i3 processor – 2GB memory 500 GB storage

at Rs. 29,999.00 and 4GB memory 1 terabyte at Rs.
32,999.00
For Intel Celeron processor – 2GB memory 500 GB storage
at Rs. 18,999.00 and 4GB memory 1 terabyte at Rs.
21,999.00
The NuPC is based on the Intel NUC which is a fully
functioning palm sized PC. It can be used in kiosks or for
digital signage displays and other spaces in which a regular
sized computer is unable to fit. The NuPC takes up a
roughly 4×4-inch footprint on a desk (117x112mm and
35mm thick), and manages to pack a configuration,
allowing it to be used effectively for everyday office tasks
and multimedia.
Microsoft and Intel collaborated to bring NuPC, a palm
sized computer at Rs. 18,999
2015-05-27 12:15:22 Rohit Arora
368
Indusface Suggests Quick Tips to Mitigate
Increasing DDoS Attacks
Indusface suggests some useful
tips that can help mitigate the risk of
a Distributed Denial of Service
(DDoS) attack. As the number of
application layer attacks continues
to increase, there is a pressing
need for chief security professionals to not only detect but

also proactively prepare for such attacks.
Mr Venkatesh Sundar, CTO at Indusface explains, “A
distributed denial of service is an attack where multiple
compromised or hired systems are used to target a single
system, but the intensity or the threat of the attack may
have repercussions so severe that it might tarnish a brand
beyond repair.”
Industry research on DDoS attacks shows that more than
60% companies do not have dedicated mitigation tools to
deal with such threats. DDoS attacks can eat huge chunks
of the bandwidth, processing speed, and memory to slow
down or disrupt services. According to recent findings by
the international internet analytic company Neustar:
DDoS attacks can last from days to months depending on
the negotiations. In fact, these attacks are easy to execute
and don’t cost much for the hacker.
“Anyone can purchase a custom-coded DDoS module and
launch it on any desired web application. In fact, a basic
DDoS attack will not cost more than a few hundred dollars.
The motives may range from severe competition to politics,
terrorism, war diversion techniques cloaking some other
hacking attempt and so on,” adds Mr Sundar.
Here are some quick tips to proactively mitigate DDoS
attacks
What techniques are used to mitigate app DDoS attacks?
Depending on the kind of attack, there are several

techniques that can be employed to prevent the outage.
However, a very large part of preventing DDoS is
monitoring the traffic continuously and consistently. This
way, companies get proactive actionable data on attack
and can formulate better
prevention policies before it gets severe. And that’s exactly
why automated tools can never provide benefits that an
expert-backed tool can.
How does web application firewall helps prevent app
DDoS?
Web application firewall filters Layer 7 traffic directly and
feeds data directly to security experts who can recognize
malicious chunks of traffic trying to bring your services
down. After which they apply rules and policies to block
such attacks based on bot signatures, malicious IPs,
bandwidth stealing, and so on.
Can you do it on your own?
If you are up for hiring and training security professionals
with Layer 7 experience, mitigating DDoS in-house is
possible. However, with huge costs and diversion from core
business activity, most global players seek to outsource
complete AppSec including DDoS mitigation to people who
can monitor traffic 24 × 7 and take immediate
countermeasures.
Is there an absolute security solution?
When it comes to DDoS security, there is no silver bullet

technology that can solve every problem. With multiple
attack vectors, on-going attack techniques, and zero-day
vulnerabilities, automated technology alone is bound to fail.
It cannot protect against all threats while also ensuring
legitimate traffic doesn’t suffer. That is where the human
experience and decision-making skills come in. Continuous
expert monitoring with actionable insights is the most lethal
combination of DDoS security that can prepare
organizations with a proactive defense strategy.
2015-05-21 10:21:46 Ashok Pandey
369
Govt. of Maharashtra's Mobile App for
differently-abled
Directorate of Information Technology, Govt.
of Maharashtra has emerged as one of the
leading state in IT infrastructure and
eGovernance projects. The department is
leading various government departments in
Maharashtra, for creating a better IT
infrastructure and user-friendly citizen
services. Evidently, DIT is prudently
implementing advanced solutions from ICT
and state-of-the-art e-governance projects to improve the
quality of life in the state’s towns and villages of
Maharashtra.
With exceptional IT Infrastructure and skillful human
resources, Maharashtra has emerged as a leader in
utilizing its IT skills for better governance. Maharashtra is

one of the first states in e-readiness, especially when it
comes to use of new technological systems in both urban
and rural areas, Maharashtra arguably fares better than
many other Indian states. The government of Maharashtra
has also been leveraging social media platform in a big way
to deliver citizen centric services, and bring about change in
the lives of its citizen.
Challenges faced
As per census 2011 data the differently-abled people
constitute 2.21% of India’s population, which can contribute
immensely to the nation’s growth. To achieve this it is
important to provide adequate support system, and
enabling tools to provide them a level playing field.
‘ Accessible Places’, a mobile app from Directorate of
Information Technology Government of Maharashtra,
provides a crowd sourcing platform where people can find
and contribute information regarding disabled friendly
places in Maharashtra. The aim is to have a rich database
of places with disable friendly facilities, which can be
accessed by the differently abled people. The database will
further encourage, institutions, businesses and organization
to take note and provide such facility and improve on the
present facilities.
The Implementation
The government’s directorate of information technology
launched a mobile phone application called Accessible
Places, where users can locate disabled-friendly places in

the state.
Accessible Places is a crowd sourcing application wherein
people can fin d disables friendly places in Maharashtra.
They can also contribute by adding new plac es from the
convenience of their phones. Application developed has
been published on And roid store as a beta version.
Feedback and application testing has been sought from a
company dedicated for disability tools and testing to
achieve accessibility on the mobile apps.
Leveraging Google Maps, the app, which is still in early
stages of development, categorizes places based on
services such as banks, ATMs, libraries, hospitals, schools,
parking, heritage sites, metro stations, railway stations,
restaurants and parks.
Users can search for a location by selecting the type of
service and the application shows all the places in that
category on the map which accommodates the special
needs of people.
Users can also add photos of places while adding
information to make it more user-friendly.
While implementation, the state identified several issues
through feedback, like, application has a button to add
location if user wish by crowdsource mechanism. But, issue
reported was how visually impaired citizen can add places
he/she wish too. The problem was tackled by develop
team. Long press on the centre of the smartphone can add
location placeholder where user can report places. Also,

user search option not optimised, GUI is complex. User
interaction is eased with all data record in the application
populated in first place. Users can latter filter records based
on infrastructure categories.
The Result
The results of any mobile app can be gauged via its user’s
feedback. The app has received rating of 3.8 on Google
Play store. This project primarily aims at bringing paradigm
shift in thinking of the society at large. This paradigm shift
primarily tries to remove indifference and sympathy with
inclusion and support, to ensure that differently-abled
citizens are at par with populace.
This project will help create awareness about friendly
places for our differently-abled citizens. The success of the
project will lie in the database, which once becomes fully
populated will make a huge impact on the lives of
differently-abled citizens. Government of Maharashtra is
looking ahead for a proactive indulgence with all the
departments and institutions to ensure that the requisite
facilities are created for the differently-abled citizens and
the same are reflected in this application. In near future the
application will be armed with enabling features like voice
commands and navigation place reader.
2015-05-13 11:12:58 Rashi Varshney

370
Videocon Tel. extends all ISD calls to
earthquake-hit Nepal @ local call rates for
the next 2 days
Videocon Telecom has extended all
ISD calls to earthquake-hit Nepal at
local call rates for the next 2 days.
As an intense earthquake left
behind a trail of death and
devastation in Nepal, telco has taken this move to help
affected people and support the relief work from India.
Videocon Telecom shall charge all ISD made from its
network to Nepal at local calling rate of 90p/min against the
ISD rate of Rs 9.2 per min. The special tariffs shall be
applicable for the next 48 hours starting from today till end
of day of April 28th 2015 as a gesture to enable callers
from India to reach out to their friends and family in the
earthquake affected areas in Nepal.
Mr. Arvind Bali, Director & CEO, Videocon
Telecommunications Ltd. said that the step is aimed at
enabling customers to connect with their near and dear
ones in Nepal, which is facing life crisis. And Depending
upon the situation, the company will be extending the
services to support disaster relief efforts from India.
2015-04-27 10:43:49 Rohit Arora

371
Configuring Windows Deployment Services
over a LAN
Windows Deployment Services is
the updated and redesigned
version of Remote Installation
Services (RIS). It enables you to
deploy Windows operating systems over the network
You need to have Windows Server 2008 or Windows
Server 2003 SP2 to deploy the WDS server. Also, make
sure your Active Directory and DNS are up and running.
DHCP server should be authorized by Active Directory on
your network. Linux DHCP servers do not need to be
authorized by AD. On the client side you need NICs to be
PXE compliant (almost all network adapters that are
available for several years now are PXE compliant).
Step1: First install WDS service. For this Go to roles and
add this service. Next click Start, then Administrative Tools,
and then click on Windows Deployment Services.
Step 2: Right-click the server, and then click on Configure
Server and follow the instructions.
Step3: When the configuration is completed the yellow
mark on server is cleared. Now that you have configured
the server, you will need to add images. Here you have to
give at least two images: one boot image and the other for
installation before you are able to boot WDS Server
services.

Step 4: To add the Install image
In the Windows Deployment Services MMC snap-in, rightclick
on the Install Images node, and then click Add Install
Image.
1. Specify a name for the image group, and then click Next.
2. Browse to select the default install image (Install.wim),
which is located in the \Sources folder of the product DVD,
and then click Open. Repeat this procedure to add any
additional install images.
Step 5: To add boot image
1. Browse to choose the default boot image (Boot.wim) on
the product DVD which is located in the \Sources folder.
Click Open and then click Next.
2. After the above process completes, right click on the
image you just added and select “Create Capture Boot
Image”.
3. If you want to change any server configuration right click
on server and click on properties.
Step 6: To install an operating system on client side
Go to BIOS of the client computer and enable PXE booting
and set the boot order network first. Restart your computer
and press F12 to boot and select network boot. Follow the
instructions. Once it boots, it will show the Windows
Deployment Service wizard from where you can easily
install the boot image.

2015-03-24 11:27:26 Raj Kumar Maurya
372
Backing Up Files from an Unbootable
System
Windows Installer Disk is nifty tool
that lets you back up files from your
computer that refuses to boot up
Whenever your Windows system
does not boot or crashes then you
do not have to pull out the hard drive or use any Linux Live
CD to recover your data. You can use a Windows installer
disk to quickly backup your files. What’s more you can use
a Windows 7 disk to back up files from a Windows 8 system
or vice versa.
Step1: Boot From a Windows Installer Disk
First, insert a Windows installer disk (or a USB drive with
the Windows installer on it) onto your computer and restart
your computer. If you are not able to boot, then you need to
change the boot settings in your computer BIOS.
Step2: At startup select Repair Your Computer option which
you will see at the bottom-left corner of the window, with
both Windows 7 and Windows 8 installer disks.
Step 3: If you are using a Windows 8 installer disk, select
Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Command Prompt.
Step 4: If you are using a Windows 7 installer disk, select

Restore your computer using a system image you created
option and click on Next. When it unable to recover then it
shows two option retry and cancle, press cancel
You will see the System Recovery Options window – click
Command Prompt to launch a Command Prompt window.
Step 5: When Command Prompt opens, type notepad and
press Enter to launch a Notepad window. Click File and
select Open in the Notepad window.
Step 6: Here, we want to open Windows Explorer. So,
ensure you select the ALL Files option at the bottom of
Windows and the click on My Computer. Then you will have
all drives on your system including external drives and you
will be able to copy paste your selected files on any drive.
Do not double-click any files as the Notepad will try to open
them, and possibly freeze. If the Notepad freezes go back
to command prompt and type taskmgr. This will launch
Task Manager and kill the Notepad process and open it
again from CMD. Once copying of files is done, shut down
your computer and perform a clean install.
2015-03-24 09:29:50 Raj Kumar Maurya
373
End of life security fears ‘fuel mass
migration from Windows Server 2003’
Security fears are prompting IT departments to migrate
away from Windows Server 2003 ahead of end of life this
summer, according to a report.

Around 85 per cent of IT
professionals cited security
concerns as the main factor behind
upgrading their server operating
systems, followed by 72 per cent
worried about software
incompatibility.
End of life for Server 2003 will strike on July 14, and means
Microsoft will issue no new software upgrades or bug
patches for the OS.
The figures, from management software firm Spicework’s
special report, The Great IT Upgrade, suggest that 48 per
cent of 1,300 respondents are currently migrating, with 15
per cent already on another OS.
Nigel Hickey, an infrastructure administrator at National
Specialty Alloys, was one respondent of the survey.
He said: “My job is to make sure our workplace remains
secure, up-to-date, and risk-free.
“Running an unsupported OS without available patches,
along with the possibility of zero-day threats targeted at
those systems, just doesn’t jive with the way I like to run my
network.”
Despite expiration coming up fast, it’s unlikely users will be
caught out like they were with Windows XP last April .
In fact, while 26 per cent of respondents admitted they
haven’t yet started migrating, they are currently planning

how to do it.
Two-thirds of respondents revealed they will upgrade to
Microsoft’s latest and greaters server OS – Server 2012 –
citing ease of management and simply wanting to move to
the newest version as reasons why.
Nearly three-quarters of respondents told Spiceworks they
will take the opportunity to virtualise their server
environment, compared to 16 per cent planning to buy
server software for existing hardware.
Sanjay Castelino, VP of Marketing at Spiceworks, said:
“This migration will impact millions of IT professionals and
nearly every technology segment including hardware,
software, cloud, mobile and services.
“IT professionals are taking steps to migrate prior to the
end of life deadline and technology companies who can
offer a clear, elegant migration path have a multi-billion
dollar opportunity to help IT departments transition
effectively.”
2015-03-18 00:00:00 Joe Curtis
374
Lenovo ThinkServer RD550 review -
Bringing the fight to Dell & HP
Specifications
Chassis: 1U rack

CPU: 2 x 2.6GHz E5-2690 v3 Xeon
(12-core)
Memory: 256GB 2,133MHz DDR4
(max 768GB)
Storage: 2 x 240GB Intel S3500
SSD, 5 x 300GB Toshiba SAS 15K SFF (max 14)
RAID: Lenovo AnyRAID 720ix 12Gbps SAS/1GB read
cache
Array support: RAID0, 1, 10, 5, 6, 50, 60
Expansion: 3 x PCI-e
Network: 4 x Gigabit AnyFabric (max 2)
Power: 2 x 750W hot-plug PSUs
Management: Lenovo TSM with Gigabit port
Warranty: 3yrs on site NBD
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2015-02-17 00:00:00 Dave Mitchell
375 Hybrids: Set to Rule the World in 2015
With the advancement in
computing technology, the
boundary between laptops and
tablets is getting blurred. This is
quite
evident with the launch of various 2-
in-1 devices this year which are
easy on pocket and offer
full desktop computing functionality.
These 2-in-1 devices are little more than traditional tablets
as they come with detachable keyboards that make them
work like a full laptop when required and can be easily
carried in detachable mode.
These sleek and portable devices with their versatile
adaptability to different situations make them a perfect
choice for students and professionals. The hybrids
launched this year such as iBall Slide WQ149 Windows
tablet (Rs. 24,999), Notion Ink Cain 2in1, ASUS

Transformer Pad TF103 tablet, Lenovo Yoga Tablet 2, etc.
werevery well received by consumers.
Content adaptability for 2-in-1 devices in 2015
The problem with hybrid devices is the display of content as
all applications have to be configured according to
their mode of usage. And this is the reason why tablets
and 2-in-1s based on Windows 8 are not doing well in
market as compared to Android or iOS based devices.
That’s why the final version of Microsoft’s Windows 10 will
come with “Continumm”, a feature that will make Windows
10 ready
for all touch and non-touch devices. This will
definitely increase the market share of Windows 10 based
devices in the coming year.
New processors to power up the 2-in-1 devices
The hybrid devices in 2015 will be powered by
new processors that will be based on 14nm
manufacturing technology as compared to the 22nm which
is used currently. Intel is working on its new Core M
processor series that will be targeted on detachable 2-in-
1s, ultrabooks, convertible 2-in-1s and tablets with various
screen sizes ranging from 10.1, 11.6, 12.5 and 13.3-inches.
Tablet sales will surpass PCs in 2015
The market observed a shipment of 294 units of tablet in
2014 and it is expected that the figures will rise to

321 million units by the end of next year. The impact of
this rise of shipments will be directly seen on the sales
of desktops and laptops. Samsung is expected to
introduce the new “Galaxy Note 10.1” with Snapdragon 805
CPU
and the latest Android 5.0 Lollypop. And we can also
see some foldable tablets from the Korean giant as the
foldable screen technology is going to be the next
interesting step in smart devices.
Sony will also bring its Lollypop based premium tablet “Z4
Tablet pro” with a screen size of 12.2 inch in the first
quarter of 2015.
Chinese tech giant Xiaomi is also expected to bring
its much anticipated Mi Tab in the first quarter of next
year that will definitely spark up the competition because
of its high end specs at an aggressive price point.
Surprisingly Nokia has made a comeback with its first
Android
based tablet “N1”and is expected to increase its portfolio in
the coming year. After the huge success of its
smartphones, Motorola is expected to bring a 7-inch
Android tablet. Some other manufacturers such as
Blackberry, HTC, Toshiba, Jolla, LG and Foxconn will also
introduce tablets in various screen sizes.
2015-02-04 08:30:42 Rohit Arora

376
Canon Powershot SX600 HS Camera Review
The Canon PowerShot SX600 HS is not only
compact in size also packs loads of features. With 16 MP
sensor and 18X zoom lens, it is one of the perfect choices
for the beginners. The camera sports built-in Wi-Fi with
NFC and can tag images with GPS data from your phone.
Compact form factor: The pocket-sized camera is
completely compact and easy to carry. With 103.8 x 61 x
26mm dimensions, this small and lightweight camera has
control buttons at the rear, and power and shutter release
button on the top. Zoom controller button is wrapped
around the shutter release button and flash release button
is placed on the left side panel. The USB / AV out and a
mini HDMI connector is placed on the right panel that
allows you to transfer images and videos from the camera
to your PC, or you can connect HDMI to play them over the
PC and other supported devices directly. At the rear, it
boasts a 3-inch LCD screen and control buttons. A threeway
mode switch- Hybrid auto, creative shot and program
is placed on the top-right side and below that, a four-way
controller with centrally mounted Func Set button. On the
bottom-right of the SX600 HS, battery and SD card slot is
covered with hinged door. The camera also sports Wi-Fi
connectivity to share clicked images and videos wirelessly.
Petite device with easy operation: The petite camera offers
freedom to capture images in different light conditions
easily. The three-position switch allows to select required
mode to click excellent images. The Hybrid Auto mode not

only captures images but shoots a 4-second video as well.
Switching to Creative Shot mode allows you to capture six
images in a burst where the first photo is unmodified and
the rest five are customized by the camera with different
color effects and aspect ratios. The third ‘Auto’ mode
selects picture automatically or you can choose the desired
one manually.
Lens quality: The SX600HS produces pleasing images with
crisp and fine details though noise and chromatic
aberration visible in the images. The lens has ISO setting
range between ISO 100 and ISO 3200 in Auto mode or one
can move to Program mode to select these settings
manually. It produces sharp images with its 18X zoom lens
that achieves a maximum wide-angle focal length
equivalent to 25mm. Capturing macro shots is possible with
a distance of 5 cm, but there are other cameras in this
range that offer only 1 cm distance macro shot. It makes
capturing videos and images easy in low light with the flash
that can manage about 3.5 m of range. In addition, it offers
several effect modes including Vivid, Neutral, Sepia, Black
& White, Positive Film, Lighter Skin Tone, Darker Skin
Tone, Vivid Blue/Green/Red or Custom Color. It packs a
Lithium-Ion battery that can last up to 170+ shots with flash
and 240+ without it with one full charge. This is decent, but
the last thing you want when you’re shooting outdoors is for
the battery to run out on you. So, it’s better to buy a spare
battery.
2014-07-11 11:32:00 Ashok Pandey

377
Best Runner-Up SME Project: Centre Point
College's iON Campus Mgmt Solution
This small education institute in Nagpur has
digitized its entire administrative and academic activities
using TCS’s iON cloud based solution to have better control
over students & academic activities
Late M D Gandhe Memorial Society’s Centre Point College
imparts education in field of commerce, management & IT.
Various programs include graduate programs in B. Com,
BBA, BCCA, BCA and post graduate programs in MCM and
PGDCCA operations. Student strength is over 1500 and the
faculty has 34 members. The institute wanted to build a
good reputation as a progressive college in Nagpur. They
needed an efficient system to track all aspects of student
life cycle and reduce manual effort for administrative
activities. Plus, various departments —accounts & finance,
university compliance, human resource, academics,
infrastructure, were working stand-alone without any
integration leading to a lot of duplication of work. The
transparency in reporting was not there as management
had no access to the departmental working. They were
exposed to statutory compliance risk as there were
repeated errors in reporting.
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The Implementation
The college in collaboration with Tata Consultancy Services
implemented a full fledged, cloud based, Campus
Management Solution comprising of following modules:
– Campus Management Solution: This involves student
admission, fee collection, promotion, separation, time-table,
examination & grading, lesson planning, feedback,
scholarship, etc.
– Payroll: Complete module to process monthly payroll,
generate pay-slips, capture internal—external savings,
generate Form 16.
– Human Resource Management System:Complete module
to facilitate employee recruitment, Employee personal
information, Leaves management, separation etc.
– Finance & Accounting: The module is fully integrated with
CMS, Payroll, HRMS to maintain books of accounts of the
organization .
– SELF Service: Self Service for students, employees,
faculties and parents to view and transact.
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Plus, there was a platform called Professional Virtual
Community (PVC) for students, faculties, industry experts,
academicians, etc to come together and discuss. PVC
solution helps organizations foster the exchange and

growth of knowledge as every member interacts with other
members in a virtual community. Educational institutes can
use the solution to create virtual knowledge communities
for students using the collaboration enablers like:
Blogposts, Bytes, Debates, Q&A, Wiki, Media etc.
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The Benefits
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The implementation has helped the institute in reducing
manual effort for administrative activities including library
management, HR, leave and attendance management, and
automated payroll. This has led to standardization of
operations across various administrative units and
reduction in the overall administrative costs. To summarize,
better control over academic activities (eg, student

attendance, analysis of student scores etc) and lower cost
due to automation of administrative activities are the major
benefits.
The USP of this project
The project very specifically removes the need to hire any
technically competent professional to design, develop,
implement and maintain the solution. We also did not have
to invest on any servers etc as TCS offered a cloud based
hosted solution. All these activities are being taken care of
by TCS, so now we can concentrate on solution usage.
Plus, there is no need for us to take any data backups,
which is very crucial in any digitization process.
2012-07-04 10:40:00 PCQ Bureau
Total 377 articles. Generated at 2016-01-28 00:12