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Amazon, Microsoft, IBM and the cloud gang Summary: Comparing the largest cloud players on the block gets a bit convoluted the way tech vendors are compiling their financials. Here's a crack at playing the cloud revenue face-off game. Amazon's disclosure of its Amazon Web Services financials fills in a big piece of the cloud financial picture that revolves around a bevy of tech giants all claiming to be the biggest as-a-service kid on the block. Unfortunately, it's difficult to declare a winner since every cloud player has its own math. So much for standards kids. But given I can't really resist an apples and oranges cloud face-off I'm going to give this a shot. For our purposes, we'll look at the four biggest hyperscale cloud providers. Amazon, Google, Microsoft and IBM. We'll toss in some over-the-top cloud players such as Salesforce, which is a bit hard to ignore, with Oracle, which also breaks out its various as-a-service cloud efforts nicely

Google Fiber is forcing its rivals into offering cheaper, faster service Summary: When Google comes to town, it's bad news for its rivals but good news for consumers. Good news for Charlotte, NC! Google, the search engine you often go to during the day, has sufficiently scared your existing internet service enough into giving your faster speeds at no extra cost. It's the latest trend-setting move by the search giant, which aims to upend the rural internet-providing monopolies that are often the sole providers in one area. And not by offering a better overall service. Just announcing its way into the market is enough. Time Warner Cable announced last week it would launch  its next-generation "Maxx" television and broadband service  in the North Carolina city, hot on the heels of rivals Google Fiber and AT&T's Gigapower service arriving in town. That means hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses will now have internet speeds up to &q

Might Microsoft buy HERE maps (this time) if Nokia sells it? Summary: Nokia may be shopping its HERE mapping division around, according to a Bloomberg report. If the price is right, might Microsoft be among the potential buyers? Bloomberg is reporting this week that   Nokia Oyj is looking to sell its HERE mapping uni t. The report claims that the Finnish equipment maker wants to sell HERE to focus on its wireless-networking business and improve its debt rating. Among those to whom Nokia is said by Bloomberg to have reached out are Uber, a "group of German carmakers," and private-equity firms. Not on Bloomberg's short list: Microsoft. (Or Apple or Google, for that matter.) Of those three, Microsoft might seem like the obvious potential buyer, given Microsoft already bought a big chunk of Nokia's business (the handset division, plus various services and patents) last year. Microsoft also ended up laying off about half of the Nokia employees that it acqu

TrueCrypt audit shows no evidence of NSA backdoors Summary: But there's no lifeline in sight for the now defunct open-source encryption project, which barred developers from taking the remains and forging something from its ashes. Good news and bad news for TrueCrypt fans. After a thorough public audit, the open-source full disk encryption software found no backdoors or unfixable vulnerabilities that could kill the project flat. The bad news is that it's still likely not coming back any time soon. TrueCrypt called it quits last year unexpectedly, saying that it "may contain unfixed security issues" and that the software "is not secure." Its developers directed users to more readily available alternatives like Microsoft's BitLocker (which was later  found to have been cracked by the CIA ). The software had glowing recommendations from security experts, as well as whistleblower Edward Snowden. But the mystery surrounding the project&

The programs with the most security vulnerabilities in 2014 were not the ones you think Summary: Google Chrome, Oracle Solaris and Gentoo Linux all beat Microsoft's Internet Explorer in having the most vulnerabilities last year, according to Secunia, while IBM software took 40 percent of the Top 20 places. Secunia recorded 15,435 software vulnerabilities in 3,870 applications during 2014, according to its annual  Vulnerability Review 2015 , released this week. This represented an 18 percent increase in vulnerabilities and a 22 percent increase in programs compared with 2013. But if you asked people to name the programs with the most vulnerabilites, they probably wouldn't get them right... unless they'd read an earlier Secunia report. Google Chrome headed the list with 504 vulnerabilities, followed by Oracle Solaris (483), Gentoo Linux (350) and Microsoft's Internet Explorer (289). Apple's Mac OS X placed 13th with 147 vulnerabilities, with Microsoft'

Samsung Business launched to tap into IoT, enterprise market Summary: The company's new, dedicated brand will bring together Internet of Things devices and enterprise users. Samsung has launched Samsung Business, an umbrella brand which will further the development of an enterprise-based Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem. On Monday, the South Korean electronics giant announced the  creation of Samsung Business , a dedicated brand which unifies the firm's end-to-end business portfolio. In a keynote at CeBIT 2015 in Hannover, Germany, President and Chief Marketing Officer of Samsung Electronics Won-Pyo Hong said the new brand will bring together services including Samsung's KNOX security platform and Samsung SMART Signage solutions, as part of the company's plans to delve further into the corporate market and offer enterprise-ready technological solutions to clients. Samsung Business  has launched with six "experimental" zones, ranging across

HP launches hyperscale Cloudline servers, aims for white box market Summary: HP launched a family of servers with minimalist designs as a result of its partnership with Foxconn. Hewlett-Packard on Tuesday launched a new set of servers designed for hyperscale cloud providers, who prefer white box gear. The server family, called Cloudline, is the result of a joint venture with Hon Hai's Foxconn. CEO Meg Whitman alluded to the Foxconn partnership during HP's first quarter earnings conference call. Whitman said that HP is looking to partner and play in the market for servers from original design manufacturers. So-called ODM servers are moving up the market share charts. Previously:  Do server vendors have an answer for the white box trend? HP announced Cloudline at the Open Compute Summit. What HP is trying to do is thread the needle between offering ODM servers and surrounding them with support and scale. Cloudline is also an acknowledgement that enterprises may u

No reboot patching comes to Linux 4.0 Summary: With the new Linux 4.0 kernel, you'll need to reboot Linux less often than ever. With  Linux 4.0 , you may never need to reboot your operating system again. Using Linux means never having to reboot.  -- SUSE One reason to love Linux on your servers or in your data-center is that you so seldom needed to reboot it. True, critical patches require a reboot, but you could go months without rebooting. Now, with the latest changes to the Linux kernel you may be able to go years between reboots. This is actually a feature that was available in Linux in 2009 thanks to a program called  Ksplice . This program compares the original and patched kernels and then uses a customized kernel module to patch the new code into the running kernel. Each Ksplice-enabled kernel comes with a special set of flags for each function that will be patched. The  Ksplice process  then watches for a moment when the code for the function being patched

Microsoft Garage incubator delivers new Windows Phone, Android productivity apps Summary: Microsoft has made a handful of new, free experimental productivity apps for Windows Phone and Android available for download from its Garage incubator. In October 2014, Microsoft announced that the Microsoft Garage was morphing from an internal hacking lab to  an incubator for lightweight, consumer-focused app s for Android, iOS and Windows devices. On February 25, Microsoft made available  a handful of new experimental Garage apps , several of which are more business-centric and productivity-focused. Among  the new, free Garage apps, ready for testers to download : DevSpace , available on Windows Phone, helps Visual Studio Online developers work and manage their projects more efficiently. Join Conference , available on Windows Phone, makes it easier to dial into conference calls with just one button or one voice command. Keyboard for Excel , available on Android, replace

Apple granted VR headset patent Summary: The US Patent Office has granted Apple a patent for a virtual-reality headset designed to accommodate an iPhone for its display, much like Google's Cardboard or Samsung's Gear VR headset. Apple has been granted a patent by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) for a virtual-reality (VR) headset designed to accommodate an iPhone as its display. The device, entitled "Head-mounted display apparatus for retaining a portable electronic device with display" in the patent documents, which were first mentioned by  Apple Insider , is described as a head-mounted display system that can be physically coupled with a handheld portable electronic device. The patent -- US Patent No 8,957,835 -- was filed with the USPTO by Apple in September 2008, and granted on February 17, 2015.The device, according to the patent documents, is: "A head-mounted device that is worn on a user's head and configured to integrat