Gregarius » BetaNews.Com » mars 15, 2016

BetaNews.Com (19 non lus)

It is time to prioritize security for Internet of Things and wearables

Publié: mars 15, 2016, 8:27pm CET par Nazar Tymoshyk

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We are on the cusp of a totally connected world. The Internet of Things is no longer an emerging trend, it has arrived. If you want evidence -- real evidence rather than the speculation of industry analysts -- then take a look at the $1.4 billion Cisco reputedly put on the table at the start of February to acquire IoT platform provider Jasper Technologies.

Jasper, founded in 2004, came about as a result of an epiphany that CEO and founder Jahangir Mohammed had when, after seeing a warning light on his car dashboard, he needed to spend several hours finding a mechanic to diagnose a problem that a connected car could have done in seconds. Just 16 years later, in-car connectivity of some sort is expected as standard in most new cars.

IoT is not the preserve of the automotive industry. At SoftServe we’re observing a huge growth in the volume of connected devices and wearables. The challenge here is that there are a frighteningly large number of start-ups entering the marketplace who have little or no knowledge of security.

The likes of Jasper, which has a strong heritage working with mobile network operators, and Tesla, whose founder Elon Musk experienced security challenges at the sharp end with PayPal, do not fall into that category. But not everyone in the game is as robust as Jasper or Tesla!

A further complication to the story is that IoT devices and software needs to integrate with existing legacy infrastructure. Security runs the risk of becoming an afterthought in the great IoT land-grab. But as we’ve seen from the dramatic rise of IoT, a lot can happen in a short amount of time. Building in backwards compatibility and future proofing products as much as possible is absolutely vital when it comes to security.

The chain of custody for IoT security is complex and includes everyone from service providers, to end-users and regulators. But at the head of the chain are the firms making the hardware or software that drives the connectivity. Whether you are making a smart meter or a wearable tracking device, or a piece of software that sits on another device, you need to build in security from the get go, and it needs to be watertight.

There are plenty of examples out there right now where security is far from watertight. There are scare stories about baby monitors being taken over by malicious hackers, there are stories about cars being hacked and disabled whilst out on the road. But these are the tip of the ice berg.

When everything is connected the opportunities for data to be siphoned off will increase exponentially. If you tell your house to turn off the heating because you’re not home, you’re potentially telling the world exactly the same, even something as mundane as a printer ordering and paying for new ink because it ‘knows’ it is running low, could be hacked into ordering and paying for anything else on the Internet for someone else. The potential for inventive cybercrime in the IoT/wearable space is limited only by the imagination of the criminals.

We help our clients by establishing a process called a Secure Development Lifecycle, where we define the roadmap of how to design and build in security to a product from the very beginning, as well as how to assure that components will be secured for five or even 10 years.

According to the Global State of Information Security Survey 2015, about 70 percent of connected IoT devices lack fundamental security safeguards. In 2016, it is expected that IoT security challenges will continue to evolve as one of the top priorities in the industry.

We’re going to see even more smart gadgets -- wearables, healthcare devices, sensors, and connected cars -- all with their own vulnerabilities, launched over the course of the next year. We’re also going to see more stories in the press about devices being hacked. If you’re entering the IoT space don’t let those stories be about your company.

Nazar Tymoshyk, security consultant lead, Research & Development at SoftServe

Photo credit: jijomathaidesigners / Shutterstock

Google Search gains funding and trending info for Sanders, Trump, Clinton, Cruz, Rubio, Kasich

Publié: mars 15, 2016, 5:59pm CET par Brian Fagioli

campaign

Happy Tuesday, dear BetaNews readers! While the day prior to Wednesday is usually a drag, today is an exception. Why? There are plenty of primaries today, including the coveted Florida. If you are interested in American politics, today should be very exciting. The outcome of today's voting could cause some candidates to drop from the race.

If you are still undecided on a candidate, don't worry -- it is smart not to rush important decisions. Luckily, in these modern times, there are plenty of resources about the candidates, including the venerable Google Search. Today, that search engine is getting a politics-focused update, delivering campaign funding and trending info for all of the remaining candidates -- Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and John Kasich.

"Finding information on campaign funding can be difficult, if not seemingly impossible. Today, working with one of the most respected data sources in the industry, the Center for Responsive Politics, we’re making presidential campaign finance information easy to access and understand, right from Google Search. So when you search for Donald Trump or Clinton campaign finance, you’ll see a snapshot of their campaigns’ finance breakdown and be able to dig into interesting insights, like the percentage of funds coming from SuperPACs versus individual donations, or which industries have donated the most to a given candidate", says Jacob Schonberg and Payal Patel, Product Managers, Google.

Schonberg and Patel further explain, "We’re also taking candidate search trends information and making it available directly in search. So when you search for a given candidate you can see how others have searched for them and their opponents over time".

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These are important tools for users, as they can provide useful decision-making information. Campaign financing in particular can show you the type of companies and special-interest groups that are funding a candidate. If you are a detractor of the groups funding a candidate, you might want to think twice about that person. With that said, candidates aren't legally beholden to their contributors.

Will you leverage Google Search in deciding on a candidate? Tell me in the comments.

Photo credit: Joe Seer / Shutterstock

Limiting encryption affects security and competitiveness

Publié: mars 15, 2016, 5:56pm CET par Alasdair Gilchrist

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The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a nonpartisan research and educational institute and policy think tank, today became the latest to come out and urge the US government not to limit the commercial use of encryption.

In its new report, entitled Unlocking Encryption: Information Security and the Rule of Law, co-author Alan McQuinn -- an ITIF research assistant -- argued that restricting encryption for use by law abiding citizens and businesses would reduce overall security and be ineffective at keeping encryption out of the hands of terrorists.

Furthermore, the report reveals that restricting encryption would instead lead to:

Decreased security. Encryption, is essential for the broader digital economy and society.
Decreased US competitiveness. The US tech sector is already losing global market share and this trend will be exacerbated if the U.S. government imposes restrictions on commercial encryption.

"The most prominent voices in the encryption debate argue that we can have strong information security without sacrificing national security, or vice versa. But they are wrong. This is all about tradeoffs", said Daniel Castro, ITIF vice president and the report’s lead author. "We can't possibly know how much terrorism we might prevent by weakening encryption, but we can be sure that the economic and social costs of less secure information technology would be enormous. Today's global economy is built on information technology. Rather than knocking holes in it, the government should be doing everything it can to fortify our digital infrastructure".

The ITIF urges the U.S. government to instead of restricting encryption to rebuild trust and strengthen data security at home; provide law enforcement with new tools to uphold the law, establish clear rules for government hacking and pursue a pro-cybersecurity foreign policy agenda.

Photo credit: Maksim Kabakou / Shutterstock

Razer unveils faster, more affordable Blade gaming laptop

Publié: mars 15, 2016, 5:37pm CET par Mihăiță Bamburic

New Razer Blade

Razer has announced the new Blade gaming laptop, which features improved specs and a lower price compared to the previous generation. The device will ship in April, with pre-orders starting today at the company's online store.

The new Blade ships with a sixth-generation quad-core Intel Core i7 processor, Nvidia GeForce GTX 970M graphics with 6 GB of VRAM, 16 GB of RAM, 256 GB or 512 GB of PCIe SSD storage, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac, and a 14-inch IGZO touch-display with a resolution of 3,200 by 1,800, as the main highlights.

"We’ve improved nearly every aspect of the 14-inch laptop, from CPU and GPU performance to system memory and port selection. Chroma technology unlocks an unprecedented, immersive experience on a gaming laptop", says Razer's co-founder and CEO Min-Liang Tan. "We are getting much more aggressive as far as price point, but that hasn’t come at a cost to the performance or design of the Razer Blade".

There will be two new Blade gaming laptops, one with a 256 GB SSD and the other with 512 GB of storage. The former model costs $1,999, while for the latter customers will have to spend $2,199. High-end hardware does not come cheap, especially when it is offered in such a portable package.

The laptop measures 13.6 x 9.3 x 0.7 in (345 x 235 x 17.9 mm) and weighs 4.25 lbs (1.93 kg). For comparison, a 15.4-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display has roughly the same size and weight, but it offers far less impressive hardware specifications considering the cost -- it also starts at $1,999, but the dedicated graphics option is only available in the $2,499 model.

On top of what I already mentioned, the new Blade also features a programmable and illuminated keyboard -- with RGB backlight, Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) port, three USB 3.0 ports, HDMI 1.4b port, and a built-in 70Wh battery. The device has a "CNC-milled aircraft grade aluminum chassis" to house its components. It ships with Windows 10 64-bit.

Razer has also introduced a software development kit to allow developers to integrate Chrome lighting effects in their games, a feature which it says is already available in Call of Duty, Dota 2, Overwatch, and Blade and Soul.

HERE abandons Windows 10

Publié: mars 15, 2016, 5:02pm CET par Mihăiță Bamburic

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HERE just dealt a huge blow to Windows 10, announcing that it will remove all of its apps for the new operating system from Store on March 29. The news comes before the start of the Windows 10 Mobile rollout, which Microsoft has already delayed a couple of times.

HERE is one of the most important Windows developers, providing the best and the most popular navigation apps for smartphones running the tiled OS. Offerings like Drive and Maps have shipped on nearly all Windows Phones, and are used by the vast majority of users.

"In the last few months, we made the HERE apps compatible with Windows 10 by using a workaround that will no longer be effective after June 30, 2016", says HERE's Pino Bonetti. "To continue offering the HERE apps for Windows 10 would require us to redevelop the apps from the ground up, a scenario that led to the business decision to remove our apps from the Windows 10 store".

HERE likely cannot justify the cost to develop the new apps because Windows 10 Mobile has a limited potential for growth. Windows Phone's market share in the last quarter of 2015 was just over one percent, which, when put into context, makes it look irrelevant. (Windows 10 has more users, but navigation apps are heavily used only on smartphones which is why Windows 10 Mobile's share matters more.)

Android and iOS have a combined market share of over 90 percent, and HERE has released apps for both platforms. There is no word on how many users it has on Android and iOS, but at least there is lots of room to grow considering that there are billions of Android and iOS users across the globe.

HERE is taking a less radical approach when it comes to its Windows Phone 8 apps, for which development will continue, but in a limited fashion. The company says that any updates to come will only address important bugs. The older tiled OS will continue to be supported because HERE apps are an integral part of its user experience.

What's more, HERE has also revealed that it will also stop updating the maps developed just for Windows Phone, so its users will not see any new roads, speed limits, points of interest and other such things after March 29.

HERE is not the only developer to abandon Windows phones, but it is the most important one so far. After its apps are gone, Windows 10 users will likely switch to Microsoft's offerings, but it remains to be seen whether they will be happy with them. Either way, the Windows 10 Mobile rollout will not be off to a great start.

Photo credit: Mikkel Bigandt / Shutterstock

BetterWorks expands its business suite with performance development and strategic planning

Publié: mars 15, 2016, 4:43pm CET par Ian Barker

sales business analytics

Enterprises thrive on being able to set and manage goals. BetterWorks software provides the tools to do this and the company is now expanding its offering by adding performance development and strategic planning modules to its operational suite.

This means it now provides a comprehensive business operating platform combining planning, strategic execution and people development across a single system.

"The modern workforce is demanding a more frequent, open and collaborative solution to workplace operations," says Kris Duggan, CEO of BetterWorks. "We believe the future of work requires a business operating system that connects the dots between operationalizing the business and developing its employees".

The performance development module enables frequent, lightweight, two-way conversations between managers and their employees. Performance conversations can be built around the employee’s goals and top work priorities. Over the coming quarters, BetterWorks will roll out additional 360-feedback tools focused on individual work as well as contributions to company values.

Strategic planning via the Plans module lets users create multi-period views of goals to support agile, long term operational planning, and turn strategy into an actionable plan. This allows organizations to break annual plans into sizable, quarterly goals, update and communicate strategy as priorities of the company shift and allocate resources and planning more effectively.

"When asked to identify the single greatest challenge to executing their company’s strategy, 30 percent cite failure to coordinate across units, making that a close second to failure to align (40 percent)," says Donald Sull, Researcher at MIT. "Aligning on strategic objectives is crucial for businesses striving for operational excellence. BetterWorks Plans will help organizations overcome one of their most difficult challenges: connecting strategy with execution".

Both new modules are available now for an additional monthly fee, visit the BetterWorks website for more information.

Image Credit: Syda Productions / Shutterstock

Selectively extract images from PDFs with PdfTrick

Publié: mars 15, 2016, 4:18pm CET par Mike Williams

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PdfTrick is a free open-source tool for selectively extracting images from PDF documents.

Yes: selectively. Unlike most of the competition, PdfTrick doesn’t dump hundreds of files in a folder -- it only saves the images you actually need.

The program requires Java 1.8, but as long as you’ve got that already it’s very convenient to use: simply download, unzip and run the single executable.

Importing is as easy as dragging and dropping one or more PDFs into the left-hand sidebar. Their page thumbnails are displayed for browsing.

Scroll through the pages, click on anything interesting (a single page only, no multi-selection allowed) and PdfTrick generates thumbnails for every image on that page.

Select one or more of these images, click "GET IMG", choose your destination folder, and the images are extracted and saved to a subfolder with a name based on the date and time (PdfTrick_dd-mm-yyyy_hh.mm.ss\img_1.jpg, PdfTrick_dd-mm-yyyy_hh.mm.ss\img_2.jpg etc).

This isn’t a very helpful naming convention. File names like "img_x.jpg" don’t tell you where they came from, date and time subfolders aren’t exactly informative either. We’d have preferred something based on the PDF document name, along the lines of Name.p5.i3.jpg for image 3 on page 5 of Name.pdf, for example.

Still, if you only need to extract a few images from a PDF then that probably won’t matter very much, and overall PdfTrick’s selective approach to image extraction may save you a little time.

PdfTrick is an open source application for Windows and Mac.

Registration-as-a-service makes for easier customer authentication

Publié: mars 15, 2016, 3:23pm CET par Ian Barker

ID verification

With so much choice available online, if a business doesn't deliver on meeting customer expectations then it's likely to lose out. One of the main challenges in keeping customers happy is delivering effective authentication while maintaining security.

Identity management company Gigya is releasing a new registration-as-a-service (RaaS) offering to enable enterprises to more effectively authenticate consumers with consistent cross-device experiences.

The system provides a flexible set of REST APIs that support the integration of end-to-end user registration systems across web properties, mobile applications and connected devices. These are complete with identity validation, progressive profiling and responsive design. The new features allow businesses to minimize development and maintenance costs, build fully-customized registration forms and maximize conversion rates.

"Great customer experience has become the new market requirement for growing acquisition rates and expanding relationships, with customer identity and access management (CIAM) technologies at the core," says Troy Abraham, Gigya's SVP of Global Services. "With the ultimate goal of enabling our clients to exceed their end-users' expectations, the GigyaWorks program has been created to help global enterprises capture, manage and leverage customer data while educating them around key market trends and processes every step of the way".

Capabilities of Gigya's RaaS include risk-based authentication (RBA) which takes account of a combination of IP address and device-based information. Using this enterprises can implement additional layers of identity validation when certain anomalies occur. For example, if a user logs in from a different country.

It includes password-less mobile authentication using one-time codes sent via SMS, eliminating the need to remember username and password combinations. It's designed to work and look good on any mobile application or connected device. An upgraded UI builder allows brands to easily edit registration screens using a simple drag-and-drop interface, as well as giving them the ability to simulate how registration flows will look on different devices with the click of a button.

More information about RaaS is available on the Gigya website.

Image Credit: Kirill Wright / Shutterstock

Opera 36 targets Microsoft Edge users and introduces major UI improvements

Publié: mars 15, 2016, 3:17pm CET par Nick Peers

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Opera Software has unveiled Opera 36 FINAL, a major new release of its desktop web browser for Windows, Mac and Linux PCs. The latest build firmly targets users of Windows 10, with Opera claiming that "surfing with this platform [Opera] can be much better than the one offered by its default browser, Microsoft Edge".

To that end, version 36 has redesigned its UI to more closely resemble modern apps found in the Microsoft Store, while Opera is keen to stress it’s better integrated native Windows 10 features than other rival browsers.

Opera 36 debuts with a refreshed start page, optimized for widescreen displays. Its navigation panel has been moved over to the left-hand side of the screen to provide more horizontal space, while users can now easily switch themes or change language settings for news via a button in the top right-hand corner of the window.

The Windows build implements a new color scheme that changes across the app to match with the system style. Users must navigate to Settings > Browser to enable this scheme by ticking "Show system color on top bar" under "User Interface".

The app has also added the same fullscreen icon found in other store apps to heighten its modern app-like credentials.

Opera 36 also promises improvements for touch input -- tapping the Opera menu button, for example, produces a menu with larger buttons to make it easier to use. It also increases the size of toolbar items and context menus when touch is used.

Opera is keen to highlight the fact the browser now boasts a similar UI to Edge while retaining advantages found in other browsers – such as support for extensions. Indeed, it goes further to claim superiority over rival browsers through better integration of native features such as notifications.

Opera 36 FINAL is available now as a freeware download for Windows, Mac and 64-bit Linux users, with the Android version due imminently -- the beta recently debuted a new tab switcher, web apps discoverability and support for Web Bluetooth, but it’s unlikely all (if any) of these features will be pushed to the final release. Also available are Opera Mini for Android 15.0 and Opera Mini for iOS 13.0.

Smartsheet delivers greater visibility into collaborative projects

Publié: mars 15, 2016, 2:00pm CET par Ian Barker

Enabling efficient collaboration on projects is key to success in business and there are many platforms to enable it. But it can sometimes be hard to fully understand what's happening inside a particular task.

One of the leading collaboration platforms, Smartsheet is addressing this by launching Sights, a new product that delivers visibility into the work being done within Smartsheet environments.

By putting important information in front of the right audiences at the right times, Sights aims to deliver positive business impact by enhancing organizational speed and performance. Its ease of use and flexibility enables users to configure the product themselves, and gives teams the ability to customize how they visualize and derive insight from their work.

"Sights is a game-changer for our customers, giving them the power to amplify the value of the important work they’re doing on our platform," says Mark Mader, president and CEO of Smartsheet. "The valuable insights they derive from Sights go well beyond a surface-level look at productivity -- they enable individuals and teams to work smarter and make smarter decisions, driving enhanced organizational speed and performance".

Features of Sights include a drag and drop layout that makes it simple for any Smartsheet user to create a Sight by selecting widgets and dragging them into position. Sight widgets display data sources in visual styles including metrics, rich text, lists, grids and more. The look can be customized too using colors, fonts, sizing and text.

Sights can include any information held in Smartsheet plus links to information outside the package, so it can deliver a complete view of projects and processes. Sharing permissions can be set specific to each Sight so only the right set of viewers see it, and only people with administrative rights can change it.

More information on Sights is available on the Smartsheet website.

Photo Credit: nmedia/Shutterstock

New cloud tool links big data to business intelligence

Publié: mars 15, 2016, 1:14pm CET par Ian Barker

Big data magnifier

Big data can provide a useful source of insights for business analysis. But providing access to it can mean significant IT effort and the use of expensive, off-the-shelf solutions.

Altiscale the big data as a service specialist is launching a new Insight Cloud self-service analytics solution to provide a bridge between big data and business users.

It aims to simplify the connection between big data and the end user, as well as bypassing the need for costly, proprietary solutions. Altiscale Insight Cloud should make it faster and easier for business analysts to benefit from the rich, detailed data held in the Hadoop data lake.

Using a converged architecture, it eliminates the need for a separate relational data store for aggregated data. This reduces the cost and management burden on the organization, while allowing easier scalability from tens of terabytes up to petabytes. The converged architecture also minimizes data movement and replication across environments.

"Our enterprise customers first wanted to have a powerful, affordable solution to solve their Big Data challenge, which we provided with the Altiscale Data Cloud," says Raymie Stata, CEO and founder, Altiscale. "Today we are introducing the Altiscale Insight Cloud, which solves the challenge of bringing Big Data to a broader range of users, so that enterprises can quickly develop new offerings, better target customers, and respond to shifting market or operational conditions. It's a faster and easier way to get from Big Data infrastructure to insights that drive real business value".

Insight Cloud will be on display at the Strata+Hadoop World conference from March 29-31 in San Jose, or you can find out more on the Altiscale website.

Image Credit: Tashatuvango / Shutterstock

Qualcomm Snapdragon SoC vulnerability could compromise IoT security

Publié: mars 15, 2016, 1:13pm CET par Mark Wilson

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One of the greatest concerns surrounding the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) is its security, and it seems that some people's worst fears have just been realized. Security experts at Trend Micro have discovered a vulnerability in Qualcomm Snapdragon-produced SoC (system on a chip) devices.

In fact, it is the same vulnerability that cropped up earlier in the month, affecting Nexus 5, Nexus 6, Nexus 6P and Samsung Galaxy Note Edge Android handsets. This in itself is concerning as these are devices that are no longer in line for security updates, but more concerning is the fact that the same chips are used in IoT devices. The vulnerability makes it possible for an attacker to gain root access to the hardware, and this is worrying in a world of inter-connected devices.

In the interests of trying to contain the problem, Trend Micro has not revealed full details of the vulnerability but is using the issue to highlight a serious problem not just for handset owners but also for adopters of the IoT. The lack of updates available for the affected phones illustrate perfectly just how a security issue discovered in another connected device using the same chip -- a fridge, a home heating system, a car -- could be left vulnerable in exactly the same way.

Trend Micro's Noah Gamer writes:

A large portion of the population already doesn't see the point of updating their systems, and this only pertains to the few Internet-connected devices in their homes. An IoT future, where almost every device in the home will have a connection, is only going to compound this problem further. Add in the fact that some of these devices will be designed to be cheap and 'essentially disposable' and it's easy to see why many people worry about the security of the IoT. SoCs like the ones developed by Snapdragon are already making their rounds in IoT devices including certain wearables. If the industry can't find a way to effectively patch these vulnerabilities, there could be massive repercussions.

Gamer highlights some recent examples of hacked connected devices including a Barbie doll that could be used as a surveillance device, and a pacemaker that could be used to kill the person it was inside. Hacking a smartphone by exploiting a vulnerability is one thing, but as the IoT infiltrates further and deeper into our lives, the long arm of attackers could reach even further and have even more disastrous consequences.

Updates -- and a reliable system for delivering them -- are what's needed, says Trend Micro:

If the IoT is going to be as widespread as many experts predict, there needs to be some sort of system in place ensuring these devices are safe for public use. Security updates are an absolute necessity these days, and users of these connected devices need to know what they're dealing with.

Photo credit: Chesky / Shutterstock

Google Maps tries to make it easier to get around with new feature

Publié: mars 15, 2016, 12:48pm CET par Alan Buckingham

google-maps-travel

Remember the days when we went everywhere with either a printed map or none at all? That's not the case these days as we almost universally have maps at our fingertips. Leading the way in this market is Google, which powers many mobile devices, though it's far from the only option.

Now the search giant is rolling out an update that it hopes will improve getting around town. This comes in the form of a dedicated tab aimed at commuting in the fastest way possible.

Wondering how to get from point A to point B? This tweak is designed to tell you the best method, be it walking, public transit, a service such as Uber or simply calling a taxi.

"In addition to our existing global ride service partner Uber, with this update we're adding new providers across five countries: 99Taxis in Brazil, Ola Cabs in India, Hailo in the UK and Spain, mytaxi in Germany and Spain, and Gett in the UK", says Holger Flier of Google.

This means you will no longer need to access separate apps to search for options. Google claims that if you have an app installed then it will pull the data from it into the new tab and give you all of the data, including travel time, estimated pick-up time and more.

"When it makes sense, we’ll also show ride service availability when viewing the map in walking and transit directions, and multiple ride services options for each provider -- where they exist".

This will begin rolling out over the next few days for Android users. iOS folks will have to wait, but Google promises it will come to you as well.

Access your clipboard from any PC or Mac with 1Clipboard

Publié: mars 15, 2016, 12:16pm CET par Mike Williams

1Clipboard-741x1024 1Clipboard is a free tool which enables sharing your clipboard contents with other PCs or Macs. The developer says that Android and iOS apps are "coming soon".

The program works by synchronizing your clipboard contents via Google Drive. This keeps 1Clipboard relatively simple and straightforward internally, but does mean you’ll need to sign in with a Google account wherever you want to use it.

Setup was simple and straightforward on our test PC. The only obvious change was a new icon in our system tray, although on closer inspection we found 1Clipboard had added four new background processes requiring 90MB of RAM.

Carry on using your system as normal and the program intercepts all copy operations for text and images (not files).

Go to another computer running a synced copy of 1Clipboard, launch it (Ctrl+Alt+V or Cmd+V by default), and a list of everything copied to the clipboard appears.

If you’re using the program on multiple systems, this could be a very long list, but you do at least get a search tool and some basic filtering to help you find whatever you need.

Select an item from the 1Clipboard list, it’s copied to the local clipboard, and you’re free to paste it wherever you like.

If you’re concerned about privacy, there’s an option to pause syncing, giving you a chance to use the clipboard for items you don’t want everyone else to see.

Alternatively, 1Clipboard can just be used as a local clipboard manager, with no syncing at all.

1Clipboard is a fairly basic clipboard manager right now, but that’s no surprise for version 0.14, and even now the program seems reliable and easy to use. We’ll be interested to see how it develops.

1Clipboard is a free application for Windows 7 and later, and OS X 10.8 and later.

SIOS updates its machine learning solution for virtual environments

Publié: mars 15, 2016, 11:17am CET par Ian Barker

SIOS iQ screengrab

Since the launch of its machine learning tool for IT analytics last year, SIOS Technology Corp has released regular updates to help maximize the availability and efficiency of virtualized environments.

New features in SIOS iQ 3.5 deliver greater accuracy and precision in capacity utilization and performance analysis for VMware environments. It also includes dashboard enhancements for improved usability and a 'graphical topological impact' view to enable faster identification and resolution of issues.

"Legacy monitoring tools provide data about individual objects, such as CPU or capacity utilization). When a performance problem arises they leave IT staff to compare data points to make educated guesses about both the root cause and potential solution," says Jerry Melnick, president and CEO of SIOS. "SIOS iQ not only eliminates this guesswork by precisely identifying the cause, it recommends specific steps to resolve it".

Key features of the latest release are capacity forecasting analysis, this allows SIOS iQ to understand capacity utilization pattern and forecast how many days remain before data stores run out of free space. This allows enterprises to optimize infrastructure without risking costly emergencies. It can be used with the existing SIOS iQ Snapshot Waste analysis feature to optimize storage and maintain a predictable budget.

In addition enhanced root cause analysis adds symptom analytics and graphically describes the topology of the impacted objects, visually displaying the infrastructure issue to the user. It can provide a deep understanding of issues by employing advanced topological behavior analysis to get to the root cause of performance issues without the need to manually analyze data logs or compile and compare charts.

SIOS iQ 3.5 is available now, more information and a free trial is available on the company's website.

70 percent of UK tech businesses oppose a Brexit

Publié: mars 15, 2016, 10:31am CET par Anthony Spadafora

As the UK considers leaving the EU, tech businesses have weighed in on whether or not they are in favor of such a move in a new survey conducted by techUK.

70 percent of its members are in favor of the UK remaining within the EU while 15 percent want the UK to leave. The remaining 15 per cent of techUK’s members were undecided on the issue.

To collect its information, techUK surveyed 277 business leaders in technology of which 75 percent were SMEs. However, the organization found that both large and small businesses were in favor of the UK remaining within the EU. Of those that supported the decision to stay, many believe that EU membership makes the UK appear much more attractive to foreign investment.

Seventy-six percent also think that it allows companies to negotiate better deals on trading relationships with other companies within the EU. Many participants also believe that EU membership helps make the UK more competitive on a global scale.

A vote to leave could be devastating to the UK -- according to the companies that supported remaining within the EU -- and would create risk and higher levels of uncertainty for their businesses. They also believe that such a move would take away a great deal of the UK’s influence in regard to the issues that concern their businesses.

Fifteen percent of companies that are in favor of leaving believe that doing so would give the UK a greater degree of flexibility in the global economy and allow it to secure better deals in its relationships with other countries. Regulations imposed by the EU are the main drawback that they see as a hurdle if the UK decides to remain within the EU.

Even if the UK does decide to leave the EU on 23 June, most of the companies surveyed by techUK will continue to work closely with their customers and suppliers located within the EU. As such, they would still need to comply with EU regulations and the UK's exit from the EU would leave them at a great disadvantage.

Photo Credit: JMiks/Shutterstock

Did Amazon have a security breach? Probably not

Publié: mars 15, 2016, 3:11am CET par Alan Buckingham

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We've grown accustomed to security breaches, from Target to Home Depot and pretty much everywhere in between. It seems like daily news lately, but sometimes it seems companies are so hush-mouth that we just don't know. It's obviously in their best interest to not let word get out – bad for business, and all.

Today a story surfaced about Amazon sending some customers emails requesting that they reset their passwords. The message itself is a bit cryptic, so it's hard to say what really happened. There is also the (slim) possibility it was a scam. We say slim because there are no links to click on, the message seems legit and a carbon copy of one sent by the company before.

Given the content, it seems nothing is amiss with the retail giant. The email simply explains that "As part of our routine monitoring, we discovered a list of email address and password sets posted online". Yes, that's bad enough, but given the propensity for customers to use the same password on multiple services, it becomes much worse.

The Digital Reader points out that "It's not clear whether Amazon found another security issue, the same one cropped up again, if Amazon is simply recycling the email text whenever they want you to reset your password, or if some scammer copied that earlier email for a new phishing attempt".

There are some obvious things here – don't respond to the email, visit Amazon online by entering the URL and proceeding from there, if you have concerns.

BetaNews has contacted Amazon, but so far have not received any statement. For the moment we'll consider what was said in the message and say that changing the password can't hurt, providing you do so through the actual site. If anything changes then we'll let you know.

Photo credit: Ken Wolter / Shutterstock

Western Digital releases affordable WD PiDrive 314GB HDD for Raspberry Pi

Publié: mars 15, 2016, 2:16am CET par Brian Fagioli

The Raspberry Pi line of computers are so much fun. By utilizing an OS-loaded memory card, it is easy to get started, making it a great project for young technology enthusiasts.

But what if you prefer a larger mechanical hard disk drive to an SD card? Sure, you can leverage a USB variant, but they typically aren't designed for the Raspberry Pi. Today, Western Digital announces a Raspberry Pi-focused HDD, called the WD PiDrive 314GB. Yes, as you can probably guess from the name, the low-power drive features 314 gigabytes.

"The WD PiDrive 314GB device is based on Western Digital's proven, high-volume 500GB platform with design changes made specifically for Raspberry Pi. Customizations made to the drive's magnetic recording and electrical system operating set-points align with Raspberry Pi's USB data and power design to reduce the electrical power load of the hard drive on Raspberry Pi, while still maintaining sufficient performance to deliver maximum USB data transfer rate. Platform design flexibility and the manufacturing tuning process enabled WDLabs to create this specialized product for Raspberry Pi efficiently without compromising quality and reliability", says Western Digital.

The company further says, "WDLabs and the author of BerryBoot, a highly regarded, well-established and free software solution that simplifies the loading of multiple software applications, have created a special version of BerryBoot for WD PiDrive device customers, which includes software applications featuring the use of mass-storage devices with Raspberry Pi. Many operating systems and software applications can be stored on the WD PiDrive HDD, taking full advantage of the 314GB of storage. Upon system boot-up, the OS can be selected from the BerryBoot menu and launched with a couple of mouse clicks".

While this all sounds cool, it is the price that makes it particularly intriguing. Western Digital quotes a price of $45.81, but the drive is getting a Pi Day-inspired discount of 31.4 percent, which brings it to a super-low $31.42. It is not clear how long the discount will last, so you should definitely act fast. Grab one here for the Raspberry Pi Model B+, 2 Model B, and 3.

Will you buy the WD PiDrive 314GB for your Raspberry Pi? Tell me in the comments.

Google now accepting applications for open source Summer of Code 2016

Publié: mars 15, 2016, 1:48am CET par Brian Fagioli

If you are a college student, you probably look forward to the summer as a relaxing time away from learning. Yeah, I get it -- school can be very stressful, but sleeping late and vegetating won't result in meaningful growth.

Instead of wasting your summer, why not learn about open source? If that sounds boring, then maybe it isn't for you. However, if you are excited by the possibility of working on an open source project like Fedora, KDE, LibreOffice or VLC, then you should sign up for Google's Summer of Code 2016.

"For twelve years running, GSoC gives participants a chance to work on an open source software project entirely online. Students, who receive a stipend for their successful contributions, are paired with mentors who can help address technical questions and concerns throughout the program. Former GSoC participants have told us that the real-world experience they’ve gained during the program has not only sharpened their technical skills, but has also boosted their confidence, broadened their professional network and enhanced their resumes", says Mary Radomile, Google Open Source team.

Radomile further says, "students who are interested can submit proposals on the program site now through Friday, March 25 at 19:00 UTC. The first step is to review the 180 open source projects and find project ideas that appeal to you. Since spots are limited, we recommend a strong project proposal to help increase your chances of selection. Our Student Manual provides lots of helpful advice to get you started on choosing an organization and crafting a great application".

Would you or someone you know be interested in participating? If so, you can go here to learn more. While the 25th of March is not imminent, it will be here before you know it. Remember the old adage of the early bird gets the worm -- show some moxie and sign up quickly. Do not wait until the last minute.

Will you sign up? Tell me in the comments.