Новости за 21.12.2015

Microsoft has done so much to undo its negative image from years past that the "Get Windows 10" program seems like such an unusual aberration. It's beyond pushy, and I cannot recall Microsoft ever trying so hard to force a product on consumers, least of all an operating system.

Cortana for Android users are expressing their frustration after Microsoft turned off the app's "Hey Cortana" voice activation feature on Sunday. 

The data center is transforming -- modernizing to meet business demand as technologies such as software-defined architecture, cloud and virtualization take hold. This modernization is also being driven by CIOs and IT executives taking a hard look at their computing needs and asking whether they want to own and/or operate data centers any longer, industry experts say.

In November 2014, access to the video streams of 73,011 unsecured security cameras were available on a site that provided a Peeping Tom paradise for voyeurs and creepers. At that time, there were 11,046 unsecured security cameras in the U.S. Now there is roughly half that amount, but the U.S. is still number one by having more insecure security cameras than any other nation in the world.

The Internet Storm Center has upgraded its warning about the corruption of Juniper ScreenOS firewalls to yellow, which means it’s imperative to patch them today, literally, given that details on how to exploit the flaws has been published and that it’s a holiday week when applying firewall patches can be easily overlooked.

Google is considering banning certificates signed with the SHA-1 cryptographic function in Google Chrome starting Jul. 1. This follows similar announcements from Mozilla and Microsoft over the past two months.

Building a popular messaging app is a tough business, and Talko is getting out of it. The collaboration and voice chat app company announced Monday that it has sold to Microsoft, which will be rolling its technology and team members into Skype. 

Keeping the ball rolling

Image by Thinkstock

Apple had a tremendous 2015. Not only did it make more money in 2015 than ever before, it set a new iPhone sales record and managed to introduce a number of new products, with the Apple Watch and the fourth-gen Apple TV being the two most notable examples.

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Every year, it seems, the threats posed by cybercriminals evolve into new and more dangerous forms while security organizations struggle to keep up.

CSC

Jim Houghton, Chief Technology Officer for the Americas Region, CSC

With the end of 2015 imminent, Ubuntu appears to have fallen far short of the 200 million user goal it set back in 2011.

Many consumers are already using mobile devices to interact with their homes, according to Adobe.

Juniper revised the list of ScreenOS versions that contain a backdoor allowing attackers to bypass authentication and gain administrative access to NetScreen enterprise firewall devices.

The end of one calendar year always inspires prognostication about the next. I’m not going to go so far as to make any specific predictions about networking for 2016, but there is one networking topic that should at least be on your radar for 2016: IPv6. I’m also not going to proclaim 2016 as “The Year of IPv6” or anything like that (arguably, that has already happened), but I will say that this should be the year that you start to take IPv6 seriously if you haven’t already.

Few people seem to be paying attention, but for me, the scariest tech story of 2015 wasn't any of the many giant hacks afflicting big retailers, shadow IT, the impending doom of many of our favorite tech companies, cockeyed drone delivery schemes, or even the use of social media by terrorists.

Drawing the battle lines

While 2014’s greatest tech achievements were largely about steady iteration to existing products, this year’s highlights bring a greater sense of urgency. It seems every company in tech has suddenly awoken to the rapid expansion the next few years will bring, and is now trying to mark as much territory as possible. Here are the best, most successful examples of how that shook out in 2015.

The Raspberry Pi was created as an educational platform but has become one of the most popular embedded systems platforms on earth with a full copy of Linux and a rabid community of DIY-minded developers. That combination alone makes the Raspberry Pi a natural fit for hacking together enterprise IT applications and devices. Add in its low cost and the ready availability of open source solutions, and you can quickly see how previously expensive systems and devices are suddenly within reach of IT... Читать дальше...

Two occupations long associated with innovation -- electrical and electronics engineering -- has stopped growing, according to the U.S. government.

Ready, set, disrupt!

If an overarching conclusion can be drawn from the results of Computerworld's Forecast survey of 182 IT professionals, it's that 2016 is shaping up to be the year of IT as a change agent.

Wishing

Image by Kitty Terwolbeck

Information Security is one of the fastest-growing and most dynamic fields in technology, due to the increasing sophistication of attacks and the interesting new challenges facing InfoSec professionals. As we approach 2016, several security experts provided their InfoSec Wish List for the new year. Some experts wish for the cyber equivalent of world peace, while others are just hoping for their digital Red Ryder air rifle.

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Mix the terms “software” and “customer service” in the same sentence, and many individuals on the other end of a phone call might wonder what they ever did to you. 

More than half (56%) of IT pros will be on-call or working during the holidays to troubleshoot tech problems, according to network management vendor Ipswitch. Past experience shows it’s necessary: among 378 IT pros surveyed, 38% say they’ve experienced a major network outage during a holiday break.

Apple has agreed to pay Ericsson royalties on the wireless devices it sells in settlement of a long-standing patent dispute.

Tough to choose

With so many great products on the market, it’s hard to pick the best ones. So we asked our experts, Network World’s independent product reviewers and bloggers to list their favorite products of 2015. What we got back was a list that covers the full spectrum of the networking world, with a little entertainment and gaming thrown in.

There was certainly no shortage of new tech products in 2015. Many of them were predictable and/or long anticipated, like Google’s update of the Nexus phone line or the introduction of the long-rumored Apple Watch.