Gregarius » BetaNews.Com » novembre 12, 2015

BetaNews.Com (16 non lus)

Creating the DevOps environment that'll give you an edge over the competition

Publié: novembre 12, 2015, 11:13pm CET par Martin Cooper

At a time when the speed of application development is vital to commercial success, the DevOps methodology -- based on communication, collaboration, integration and automation -- has become one of the biggest IT moves around.

However, it’s more than just a business philosophy; to do it right requires genuine infrastructure investment and development.

The increased availability of virtualized and cloud infrastructure is bringing agile development to organizations of all shapes and sizes. As you might expect, this means traditional large-scale organizations are bringing development and operations teams together to get more agility in their businesses, and ultimately develop projects in shorter timeframes.

With this in mind, what do these businesses need to consider to ensure they’ve got a DevOps environment that will give them the edge they need over the competition?

Say Goodbye to Disastrous Long-Term Projects

Modern organizations have moved away from traditional project management methodologies. With traditional ‘waterfall’ development methods, projects are started from scratch with a lifecycle of months, or even years. Agile development methods create very short cycles of two weeks or less.

This is a complete contrast to the traditional, often disastrous projects often seen in the public sector, with months-long plans to simply build a new website. It’s OK to make mistakes, just have the agility and momentum to pick up the pieces and move forward.

Of course, imitation is the strongest form of flattery, but these larger businesses do need to act like smaller, more nimble companies in their style of thinking to stay ahead of the curve and be truly software-defined. This means that these companies need higher levels of automation to be able to keep their operations teams small, and spend more time with customers.

Consider How Automated You Really Are

In evaluating this, first and foremost businesses need to seriously consider how automated their infrastructure is. They may be surprised to discover they can automate all elements on a storage array at the same time, rather than managing their infrastructure in silos. This frees up precious time and resources and offers previously unrealized agility.

It isn’t enough to simply have this automated infrastructure in place, however. Organizations have to use it effectively, scale development to their unique growth requirements, and instigate a DevOps-oriented culture that sits comfortably with staff. Ultimately, the aim for everybody involved in this process across the business is customer satisfaction. To achieve this, a cultural change must be reached, with barriers between teams removed and a collective desire to implement an internal process improvement instigated.

Pick Up PaaS

Organizations should also learn to combine a DevOps culture with other agile approaches like Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS), rather than treat them separately. In doing so, they will find that DevOps actually functions as a solid foundation for a fully-functioning PaaS by combining its absolute control with this type of platform’s high levels of productivity.

These approaches can unite an organization’s developer and IT support teams. By combining forces under a common cause, teams will have a stronger chance of securing management’s support for funding new tools, hiring new staff and improving efficiency throughout the business.

Get Ready For the Start of Something New

A DevOps approach alone cannot save an organization, but is a model for making IT and developer teams more successful by speeding up application development and delivering competitive advantages as a result.

This approach isn’t right for everyone, but neither can it be ignored. If you plan to be involved in the future of IT, the simple reality is that you need to be involved in DevOps.

Two years ago, this was a concept, but the clear reality is that this has moved from the drawing board and into the boardroom. The task now is to ensure that it’s taken seriously throughout the organization.

Martin Cooper, Technical Director, SolidFire International.

Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

Photo Credit: bleakstar/Shutterstock
There will be 20.8 billion Internet of Things devices by 2020

Publié: novembre 12, 2015, 5:50pm CET par Sead Fadilpašić

It is being predicted that the ever-growing market of the Internet of Things will support total services spending of $235 billion (£155bn) in 2016. At the same time, the number of connected devices will grow 30 percent year-on-year, reaching 6.4 billion units globally.

But the growth won’t stop there. As a matter of fact, it will speed up, reaching 20.8 billion units by 2020. According to a Gartner report, the professional category will dominate. In it, businesses contract with external providers in order to design, install and operate IoT systems.

Still, consumer and connectivity services will grow at a higher pace.

"IoT services are the real driver of value in IoT, and increasing attention is being focused on new services by end-user organizations and vendors", said Jim Tully, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner.

"Aside from connected cars, consumer uses will continue to account for the greatest number of connected things, while enterprise will account for the largest spending", Tully said, pointing out that Gartner estimates that four billion connected things will be in use in the consumer sector in 2016, and will reach 13.5 billion in 2020.

In terms of hardware spending, according to Gartner, consumer applications will amount to $546 billion (£360bn) in 2016, while the use of connected things in the enterprise will drive $868 billion (£572bn) in 2016.

When it comes to enterprise, Gartner looks at two classes: generic / cross-industry devices used in multiple industries and vertical-specific devices, seen in particular industries.

"Connected things for specialized use are currently the largest category, however, this is quickly changing with the increased use of generic devices", Tully says. "By 2020, cross-industry devices will dominate the number of connected things used in the enterprise".

Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

Image Credit: Ahmetov_Ruslan / Shutterstock
How to download Windows 10 with the November Update and create your own installation media

Publié: novembre 12, 2015, 5:03pm CET par Wayne Williams

Microsoft pushed out its first major Windows 10 update earlier today, but if you’re not currently seeing it, be patient. These things take a while to make their way to all users.

If you’ve been holding off upgrading a Windows 7 or 8.x PC, waiting for the November Update (aka Threshold 2) to arrive, now is the time to take action. The easiest way to upgrade is by using Microsoft’s free media creation tool which now offers Build 10586 (which is the current version you’ll get after installing the November Update).

To get started, go here, and choose the download tool you need -- there are 32 and 64-bit versions available.

Save and run the file. You’ll be offered two choices. You can upgrade the PC you’re on to Windows 10 or create installation media for another PC.

If you select the latter option, you can choose to write the installation media to either a USB flash drive or ISO file for burning to DVD later.

Windows 10 is several gigabytes in size, so will take a while to complete depending on the speed of your internet connection.

Image Credit: Andresr/Shutterstock
Box launches its official Windows 10 app

Publié: novembre 12, 2015, 4:24pm CET par Alan Buckingham

Using Microsoft's latest operating system and looking for cloud storage? There isn't a shortage of options out there and you can use whichever appeals to you. However, if you're looking for a dedicated app for Windows 10 then Box could be the direction you want to head in.

The service is announcing its app for Windows 10. It has been a partner of Microsoft for a while and claims that it sees things headed in the right direction under the new management.

"Under Satya Nadella, Microsoft has pushed boldly into a cloud-first, mobile-first world, opening up its platforms to integrate with best-of-breed tools (like Box) and improve the experience for their customers", states Box's Aaron Levie.

Box cites the rapid adoption of Windows 10 using the numbers 110 million consumer devices and 8 million business devices, both figures provided by Microsoft. It also states the ease with which developers can build apps for computers, tablets and phones.

The company points out that "Our app integrates with the Windows file picker so users can work in an Office file such as Word, PowerPoint, or Excel and have those changes saved directly back to Box without ever leaving Office. You can work on Office files right from the app and stay up to date on changes with the newly enhanced notification center".

The service claims that this is only one aspect of how it is working with Microsoft and that the partnership will continue with more announcements on the way.
Microsoft releases first major update for Windows 10 -- here's what's new (and better)

Publié: novembre 12, 2015, 4:02pm CET par Wayne Williams

Windows 10 users have been eagerly awaiting the arrival of Threshold 2, or the November Update to give it its official name, for a while. Well, today that wait is over. Windows Insiders on the Fast and Slow rings received the update previously in the form of Build 10586, but now it's automatically being pushed to everyone.

This is a huge update, packed with new features, improvements and of course bug fixes. If updates weren't already mandatory I'd be telling you to go update your copy of Windows 10 right now (you can of course hurry things along by going to Settings > Update & Security and clicking/tapping on Check for updates.) With so much to cover, I'll keep the intro here to a minimum and crack on with talking about all the cool new stuff.

Windows 10 Activation

When installing Windows 10, or upgrading an existing operating system, you can now use a Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 key to activate it. Previously, those keys wouldn't work -- your valid Windows license had to be converted into one that worked with Windows 10, and the entitlement was stored in the cloud to allow for a clean install.

Cosmetic and Personalization Changes

Users can now add a fourth column of medium-sized tiles to the Start menu, which is a great new addition. To enable this go to Settings > Personalization > Start and select Show more tiles. There used to be a limit of 512 tiles on Start but that has now been increased to a whopping 2048.

The context menu in Start has changed too. Right-click there and you'll see a nice dark menu. Right-clicking the taskbar also shows a dark context menu, which might fool you into thinking that Microsoft has managed to fix the menu inconsistencies that were to be found throughout Windows 10 originally (there were no fewer than four different context menu styles), but no. Right-click a blank area of the desktop, and you'll see a white menu. Still, we're getting there slowly. Maybe when Redstone (the next big update) arrives there will finally be a unified style throughout. Don't bet on it though.

The update also lets you change the default color scheme for the Start menu and other elements. Go to Settings > Personalization > Colors and turn on the toggle next to Show color on Start, taskbar, action center and title bar. This tweak makes title bars really stand out, and I'm a big fan.

You'll also now see app suggestions in Start, and clicking a recommendation will open it in the Store, ready for you to download. If you're not keen on this idea, you can turn off recommendations by going to Settings > Personalization > Start and toggling Occasionally show suggestions in Start.

Microsoft Edge Improvements

Edge remains very poor when compared to rival browsers such as Firefox and Chrome. There’s still no support for extensions (that’s likely to come in the Redstone update in 2016), which is pretty pathetic, and changing the default search engine and downloads location is still ridiculously difficult, but there are some decent improvements in this update. Performance and security have been improved for starters. You can now cast video, pictures, and audio content from Microsoft Edge to any Miracast and DLNA enabled device on your network, and there’s a new Tab Preview feature which shows a thumbnail of the website when you hover your mouse over an open tab. Favorites and Reading List synchronization has been added, and HTML5 and CSS3 support has been improved.

SEE ALSO: Windows 10's growth is very slow -- Windows 7 and 8.x users reluctant to switch

Cortana Improvements

Cortana can keep better track of leisure activities, reminding you in advance about movies and other events you’ve booked. She is now able to intelligently understand your hand written notes too. Open up a PDF in Microsoft Edge, select some text, and right-click and you’ll be able to ask Cortana to look up information about it. If you have a Windows 10 Phone you'll be able to use Cortana to send a text from your desktop. You'll also see any missed calls.

New, and Improved Apps

Skype messaging, calling and video capabilities are now baked into Windows 10 through the Messaging, Phone and Skype video universal Windows apps. Sway, Microsoft’s new presentation creator, is also included by default.

The Xbox app has been updated to make it easier to find and add Facebook friends. You can view friends’ activity in real time, and compare their progress in games. Voiceover recording has been added to the Game DVR recorder. The Photos app now has a folder view, and Groove, Mail and Calendar, Store, and Maps apps have also all been updated. As a side note, new apps and games should download from the Store more reliably now.

Install Apps Elsewhere

If, like me, you don't tend to install programs (or keep personal data) on your system drive, you'll be pleased to hear that Windows 10 now lets you install apps on another drive. Go to Settings > System > Storage and change the location.

Better Memory Management

If your PC starts running out of memory, Windows 10 will now compress unused pages instead of writing them to disk. This reduces the amount of memory used per process, allowing Windows to hold more applications in RAM.

SEE ALSO: Master Windows 10 with these new 'How To' videos from Microsoft

Lock screen improvements

Windows Spotlight uses Bing images to brighten up the lock screen. It was previously only available in Windows 10 Home, but now Pro users have it too. To enable it, go to Settings > Personalization > Lock screen, and select Windows spotlight in the Background drop down box. Find out more here.

That's not the only change to the lock screen. Another setting that was previously only available on Home, 'Get fun facts, tricks and more on your lock screen' is now available in Pro. Toggle it on under Settings > Personalization > Lock screen. This isn't available if Spotlight is activated.

There's a lot of general tweaking that's gone on in the new update. If you don't like Windows 10, then nothing here will change your mind, but if you're already on the new OS, you'll likely appreciate the improvements. There's still a long way to go until it's as polished as it should be, but at least Microsoft is heading in the right direction. Roll on Redstone...

Image Credit: Syda Productions / Shutterstock
Vormetric adds encryption and access control capabilities for Docker

Publié: novembre 12, 2015, 4:01pm CET par Ian Barker

Businesses are turning to encryption as a means of meeting compliance and data storage requirements and to guard against breaches and data loss.

But with the rapid evolution of enterprise IT data may be stored in a variety of environments in-house, in the cloud, which presents new security challenges.

Enterprise security company Vormetric is announcing an expansion of its Data Security Platform, with new capabilities that expand protection for sensitive data within datacenter, cloud, big data and application environments.

The latest platform offers encryption and access control capabilities for Docker, Hadoop, NoSQL and SQL as well as enhanced automation capabilities. It enables advanced protection against data breaches, while also helping organizations to meet strict compliance and regulatory requirements.

"The many advances in functionality and features added to the Vormetric Data Security Platform will help our customers deploy more easily, as well as protect data more completely, in more environments, and with minimal business impact," says Vice President of Product Management for Vormetric, Derek Tumulak. "We believe that Vormetric's rapid implementation and support of new environments and use cases gives our customers great investment protection, empowering them to safely adopt new technologies and platforms without having to disrupt operations or implement costly new security infrastructure sets".

New features include protection for data at rest in Docker containers. The solution's encryption, access controls, and security intelligence logs can now be used to safeguard and control container images and backups, ensuring that they only run in authorized environments.

It allows easier deployment of database field-level encryption by ensuring that the encrypted data size matches the existing database field size, avoiding database schema changes. Extension of data security access controls for Hadoop allows a higher level of security and policy-based isolation within Hadoop environments, delivering granular per-user or per-group access policies to encrypted files or folders within the Hadoop Distributed File System (HDFS) namespace.

The new capabilities will be available in the first quarter of 2016, you can find out more on the Vormetric blog.

Image Credit: Maksim Kabakou / Shutterstock
Apple will create 1,000 new jobs in Ireland

Publié: novembre 12, 2015, 3:44pm CET par Barclay Ballard

Apple is set to announce the expansion of its Irish subsidiary, creating up to 1,000 new jobs in the area. Company CEO Tim Cook reveal the plans to staff at the firm’s Hollyhill facility in Cork.

The expansion had been expected, with more that €120 million (£8.5 million) invested in the Cork plant since 2012 and it seems that Apple’s enthusiasm for the country has not been dented by recent controversies surrounding the amount of tax it pays.

In the five years leading up to 2014, Apple paid tax of just 2.5 percent on its profits, far less than Ireland’s 12.5 percent rate, with many accusing the country of going easy on the technology giant in exchange for new jobs.

Ireland’s head of government Enda Kenny believes that the developments in Cork will provide a huge boost for the local area.

"Apple’s plans for new facilities at their Cork campus that can house a further 1,000 jobs is a very welcome boost of confidence in Cork and the south west region", he said. "It is also a welcome sign of broadening regional recovery. These new jobs come on top of 1,000 additional jobs already created at Apple in the past 12 months, which brought the workforce in Ireland to over 5,000 in 2015".

The Cork plant already employs in excess of 5,000 members of staff, focusing on both manufacture and sales support, making Apple one of the biggest employers in the south of the country. It is believed that the expansion will focus on extending the plant into an area of land currently used as a traveler halting site.

In addition, Apple is set to open a new data center in Galway, at a cost of €850 million (£600 million), which will create further job opportunities for IT professionals.

Published under license from ITProPortal.com, a Net Communities Ltd Publication. All rights reserved.

Photo Credit: Shutterstock/Andrey Bayda
Predictive analytics help guide the sales process

Publié: novembre 12, 2015, 3:00pm CET par Ian Barker

Sales teams are often saddled with outdated analytics and reporting which means that they lack a clear understanding of what's needed to drive the sales process forward.

Smart sales specialist TAS Group is launching a new Sales Performance Manager as part of its Dealmaker platform, which is aimed at helping sales leaders and their teams manage every aspect of their sales pipeline and performance with built-in knowledge and insights to help guide their decisions.

"Dealmaker Sales Performance Manager is exactly what sales leaders need to cut out ambiguity and take real, substantial steps forward," says Donal Daly, CEO of The TAS Group. "Our software is informed by 30 years of experience and over 200 enterprise customers who are drawing billions of dollars of revenue every month. These insights go beyond analytics; they offer total visibility into the pipeline with all of that industry expertise for context. We wanted our customers to have accurate forecasts and explosive pipelines. With Dealmaker Sales Performance Manager, we’re giving them the understanding and guidance they need to get them".

Dealmaker Sales Performance Manager is built natively on the Salesforce platform. Key features include a specially developed system of key performance indicators (KPIs) for measuring sales success, plus real-time visibility into a sales organization’s current state, so teams can constantly access a complete, accurate understanding of their performance.

Informed pipeline management allows teams to create a strategy, tailored to each sales team’s specific needs and challenges. This also allows for instant performance reviews, highlighting the challenges and successes and illustrating best practices for even better results in the coming quarter.

Sales Performance Manager is available on any internet-connected mobile device, meaning actionable intelligence and sales tools are available at any time. More details can be found on the TAS Group website.

Image Credit: Syda Productions / Shutterstock
My Family Tree 5 now available

Publié: novembre 12, 2015, 2:58pm CET par Mike Williams

Chronoplex Software has released a major new version of its free genealogy tool, My Family Tree 5.

Tree building is simpler than ever, with a new Relationships view making it easy to browse and edit an individual’s relationships from one place.

Shared events such as marriages may be viewed and updated from the Facts view.

Smarter merging means you’re now able to confirm or reject possible item matches.

The Multimedia view brings improved management of photos, attachments and videos, including the ability to tag items to citations, facts and sources.

There’s a new Kinship report to show how everyone in a tree is related to a chosen person.

Multipage charts may now be printed to a single PDF (at last).

There are a range of smaller but significant improvements scattered around, like the ability to add a variety of witnesses to events, while a new mini map viewer means even the largest of charts can be navigated with ease.

Put it all together and My Family Tree 5 is a great package for Windows XP and later, especially as it’s still free for personal use (don’t ask us why).

If you’re not happy with something else -- or you’re currently making do with Ancestry’s website -- then go download it immediately, see what you’ve been missing.
The price of de-anonymization -- FBI paid $1m to Carnegie Mellon to crack Tor

Publié: novembre 12, 2015, 2:02pm CET par Mark Wilson

Tor has long been thought of as offering a level of privacy, security and anonymity that enables people to do whatever they want online; it also facilitates access to the so-called Dark Web. Despite this, law enforcement agencies were able to crack Tor and identify a Silk Road 2.0 user. Now it seems that the FBI was helped out by researchers at Carnegie Mellon University.

It was previously known that the FBI tracked down Brian Richard Farrrell using information from a "university-based research institute". The Tor Project itself believes that the FBI paid researchers at the university at least $1 million to attack the network and gather data from Tor relays that could be analyzed and used to identify users' IP addresses.

The project says that it is unlikely that the FBI would be able to have obtained a valid warrant to conduct such an attack as it appears to have amounted to NSA-style dredging; rather than targeting individuals, the attack was used to seek out anyone who might be involved in illegal activity. The well-publicized attack last year used techniques that were remarkably similar to those presented by Carnegie Mellon's Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) at the Black Hat hacking conference. Interestingly, the paper has since been pulled from the Back Hat website (the Wayback Machine, however, still provides access to a cached version).

Tor is understandably upset that the FBI could pay to crack the network, and decries the attacks:

Such action is a violation of our trust and basic guidelines for ethical research. We strongly support independent research on our software and network, but this attack crosses the crucial line between research and endangering innocent users.

This attack also sets a troubling precedent: Civil liberties are under attack if law enforcement believes it can circumvent the rules of evidence by outsourcing police work to universities. If academia uses "research" as a stalking horse for privacy invasion, the entire enterprise of security research will fall into disrepute. Legitimate privacy researchers study many online systems, including social networks -- If this kind of FBI attack by university proxy is accepted, no one will have meaningful 4th Amendment protections online and everyone is at risk.

Cryptographer Matthew Green says:

A spokesperson for CMU didn't exactly deny the allegations, but demanded better evidence and stated that he wasn't aware of any payment. No doubt we'll learn more in the coming weeks as more documents become public.

The Tor Project is quick to point out that it is not opposed to the idea of law enforcement agencies conducting investigations through Tor, but says that it should be done in an ethical fashion without infringing upon the privacy of innocent users.

Photo credit: ruskpp / Shutterstock
Built-in safety measures create a false sense of security

Publié: novembre 12, 2015, 1:06pm CET par Ian Barker

It's increasingly common for hardware manufacturers and software developers to build in various security measures to protect users.

However, a new survey by cloud encryption company Alertsec reveals that these standard security precautions may be creating a false sense of security for PC and mobile users.

The Alertsec SMB 2015 Encryption Study, carried out among 1,255 small-to-medium businesses reveals that 68 percent believe auto-saved passwords are not secure. Nearly half (48 percent) believe never logging out of user profiles decreases security. Over one in five SMB executives (23 percent) believe lock down -- when functionality of the system is restricted -- is not secure, while 16 percent believe that locking out systems following multiple failed password attempts is also insecure.

"The real problem is the false sense of security these 'security precautions' create," says Ebba Blitz, President of Alertsec. "Computer manufacturers and software vendors offer a variety of built-in solutions that seem to protect you, but they are no match for the run-of-the-mill cybercriminal. That's why encryption is so important. Losing data could cause a problem of catastrophic proportions for any individual and any company".

87 percent of those surveyed say they fear data breaches. When pressed further most cited physical security fears, with 40 percent of respondents saying they fear leaving their laptop in the car and consequently having their identity stolen, 37 percent fear having their laptop stolen while working at a coffee shop, 30 percent fear burglars breaking into their homes and obtaining online banking information and 27 percent worry about having their laptop stolen at airport security and having their cloud storage and photo files breached.

Perhaps no surprise then that 68 percent say the problems they have seen at work have made them encrypt their personal computers. An impressive 90 percent say that work computers should be encrypted, followed by smartphones (61 percent), personal computers (58 percent) and tablets (55 percent).

More about how encryption can be used to secure devices is available on the Alertsec website.

Image Credit: Sergey Nivens / Shutterstock
Uncover hidden PC activity with Mft2Csv

Publié: novembre 12, 2015, 12:17pm CET par Mike Williams

Wondering what other users might be doing on your PC? Checking browser or application histories might give you some clues, and monitoring software can also help.

But the simplest route is probably to build a file timeline, something which shows you when files were created or modified on your PC.

You could do this in a basic form with Explorer. Just browse to a user folder, or some other key area, click the "Date modified" column, and run a search.

Browsing the list will show you documents, logs, temporary files and plenty of other clues about how -- and when -- your system was being used.

A smart user might clear their tracks, of course, deleting key files to hide exactly what they’re doing.

But if you really want to dig deep, the open source Mft2Csv can produce a timeline which also includes deleted files, to uncover activity going back weeks, months, maybe even years.

The program works by parsing the Master File Table (MFT), the NTFS index used to store every detail of your files: name, location, size, attributes, dates and much, much more.

Mft2Csv has a vast number of options, but if you simply want to scan your main system drive then fortunately they can all be ignored. Launch it, make sure your volume is displayed, and hit Start Processing (or use Mft2Csv /volume:c: from the command line).

The scan and export process can take a very long time, maybe an hour or more, but that’s just because there’s so much to do (our test PC’s CSV was 615MB).

When it’s finished, the completed CSV displays an entry for every file, along with all the related NTFS information.

Most of this is too low-level and technical for even expert users to care about, but there’s the file name, size, attributes, creation, access and modified times, and more (there’s an explanation of some fields here).

Now all you have to do is sort your CSV by the CTime field (Creation Time) and the list becomes a timeline, showing which files were created, and when. As this includes deleted files you may find you’ve got activity records stretching back years.

You could also use your CSV viewer’s Search function to locate files by name, again even if they’ve been deleted.

Mft2Csv isn’t a program you’ll use every day -- the parsing process just takes too long -- but if you ever need some real low-level forensics it’s hard to beat.
Exynos 8 Octa 8890 is Samsung's answer to Snapdragon 820

Publié: novembre 12, 2015, 12:10pm CET par Mihaita Bamburic

It looks like Samsung will continue to use its own Exynos chipsets in its next premium Android devices, as it has just announced a new flagship mobile processor. Called Exynos 8 Octa 8890, it is Samsung's answer to Qualcomm's mighty Snapdragon 820.

Samsung says that Exynos 8 Octa 8890 will go into production by the end of the year, so it is very likely that it will be used in Galaxy S6's successor -- likely called Galaxy S7 -- which will probably debut in the first quarter of 2016. Let's take a look and see what Exynos 8 Octa 8890 brings to the table.

Samsung is using the 14nm FinFET manufacturing technology for Exynos 8 Octa 8890, which is also used in Snapdragon 820's case, and making use of its first custom 64-bit ARMv8 CPU architecture and also 4G LTE modem (referred to as Rel12 Cat.12/13).

The CPU, as the name of the processor suggests, is an octa-core design, which promises a performance boost of up to 30 percent and a 10 percent increase in energy efficiency over Samsung's previous effort, Exynos 7 Octa. There's support for heterogeneous multi-processing, which, among other things, makes it possible to have all eight cores fired up at the same time. Inside the CPU, there are four custom cores and four ARM Cortex-A53 cores.

In terms of graphics, Samsung has equipped Exynos 8 Octa 8890 with the latest GPU from ARM, called Mali T880. There are no performance claims for this component, but you can expect a notable performance increase over the GPU inside Exynos 7 Octa.

On the modem side, what you need to know is that Exynos 8 Octa 8890 enables download speeds of up to 600 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 150 Mbps. That is over 4G LTE networks, and matches the performance claimed by Qualcomm for its Snapdragon 820. Samsung's processor supports carrier aggregation, which is what makes those super fast download speeds possible.

At this point it is too early to tell whether it is any faster or slower than Snapdragon 820, but we can expect to see benchmark results popping out soon after it enters production. With their predecessors, it was Samsung's offering which came out on top.
Time to ditch your phone -- Android Wear now has cellular support

Publié: novembre 12, 2015, 12:00pm CET par Mark Wilson

Not long ago LG announced the LG Watch Urbane 2nd Edition -- the first Android Wear smartwatch that offers LTE/3G connectivity. Now Google has officially announced Android Wear's cellular support.

Breaking down one of the barriers to wearable adoption -- the previous reliance on smartphones for a lot of functionality -- the arrival of cellular support means your smartwatch can be used to make and receive calls even when you don’t have your phone with you.

Cellular support means that smartwatches can now successfully evolve into something more than just glorified fitness trackers. It may take a little while for apps that take advantage of data access to filter through, but with the capability now available it is only a matter of time before there is an Android Wear app explosion. Now when you go for a run, you can leave your phone at home, and still be able to check text messages when you stop to catch your breath.

Product Manager for Android Wear, Peter Ludwig says:

No more worrying about Bluetooth or Wi-Fi -- your watch will automatically switch to a cellular connection when you're out of range. As long as your watch and phone are connected to a cellular network, you'll be able to use your watch to send and receive messages, track fitness, get answers from Google, and run your favorite apps. And yes, you'll even be able to make and take calls right from your watch, for when your hands are full, or your phone is elsewhere.

The LG Watch Urbane 2nd Edition may be the first cellular-enabled Android Wear device to hit the market, but it's certainly not going to be the last.
Companies vulnerable to cyber attack as defenses lag behind threats

Publié: novembre 12, 2015, 11:39am CET par Ian Barker

Security solutions are lagging behind and failing to provide protection or detection levels adequate to protect against today's security threats.

This is according to a new survey from security and compliance solutions company Promisec. The results point to increased security gaps and vulnerabilities in spite of widespread fear of security breaches.

The survey spoke to over 150 IT decision makers and 74 percent said traditional anti-virus defenses no longer address advanced targeted threats, with only 26 percent believing they will play a vital role in the future. This compares to 58 percent and 19 percent respectively, in last year’s survey, which illustrates a continued trend away from traditional anti-virus defenses.

Yet despite this recognition and the fact that 73 percent of respondents say endpoints are most vulnerable to attack, fewer companies today (32 percent) say they have advanced endpoint security protections in place, down from 39 percent last year.

"Results from our survey indicate that for many companies, endpoints remain highly vulnerable to a cyber-attack as threat levels continue to rise," says Dan Ross, CEO of Promisec. "We continue to see new breed of more complex and sophisticated threats, where traditional blocking and prevention mechanisms, such as firewall, anti-virus and anti-malware software, are no longer enough to keep our networks safe. Companies need to aggressively fortify their endpoint security infrastructure as a critical part of their total security portfolio in order to keep pace with the rapid evolution of today’s most severe threats".

The survey also finds that 82 percent of IT professionals are either 'highly' or 'moderately' concerned about a potential security breach in the next year but only 31 percent say they are 'well prepared' for a cyber-attack.

You can read more about the survey on the Promisec blog and there's a summary of the findings in the infographic below.

Image Credit: underverse /Shutterstock
Microsoft and ConsenSys will offer blockchain technology to financial institutions

Publié: novembre 12, 2015, 11:24am CET par Sead Fadilpašić

Microsoft has partnered up with Brooklyn-based blockchain start-up ConsenSys to bring the technology to financial institutions.

Blockchain is the technology that underpins Bitcoin. It is essentially a vast, decentralized ledger that registers every transaction anonymously, and because the ledger is public, it makes blockchain tamper-proof and ideal for financial clients.

Blockchain could also underpin other data exchanges and some companies are building personal blockchains that extend the functionality beyond Bitcoin, UK’s Business Insider says in a report.

Other companies are now building their own blockchains that provide additional features to the original bitcoin one, including Ethereum who’s built a fully programmable blockchain, now used by Microsoft for the blockchain platform launched Tuesday.

The platform will be available to banks and insurance companies that are already using Microsoft’s cloud-based Azure platform. Microsoft said four large global financial institutions had already signed up to the service.

"Working with our customers that wanted to start playing around with blockchain technology, the major pain point that we kept hearing from them was that it was just too hard to get started, and too expensive", Microsoft’s director of tech strategy for financial services, Marley Gray, told Reuters on the sidelines of Ethereum’s "DevCon" conference in London.

Gray described the platform as providing a "fail fast, fail cheap" model for firms: they can experiment with the cloud-based technology using templates provided by Microsoft without having to build their own systems.

"We bet the entire farm on the cloud, pretty much", said Gray.

This seems to be a pretty logical move, knowing Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella’s plan to shift the company towards the cloud.

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