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Red Hat opens up Ceph storage to other cloud leaders

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Summary:   Red Hat is opening up Ceph's open-source, object and block cloud program leadership to other leading companies such as Canonical and SUSE. Red Hat' s Ceph is a popular software-defined object and file cloud storage stack. While the code is open source, Red Hat has directed the project's strategic direction. At the Toyko OpenStack Summit , Red Hat announced its Ceph-based software-defined storage technology's formal collaboration is now in the hands of the newly formed Ceph Advisory Board. Specifically, "the advisory board launches with the goal of expanding and enhancing community participation and collaboration for the Ceph project, working closely with the community's technical and user committees." Besides Red Hat, the Ceph Advisory Board includes members from Canonical , CERN , Cisco , Fujitsu , Intel , SanDisk , and SUSE . In short, Ceph is no longer just a Red Hat ...

Microsoft's Bing search business finally is profitable

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Summary:   Microsoft's search business has turned the corner and is finally profitable, and generated $1 billion in revenues during the company's first quarter of 2016.It's been a long, long time in coming, but Microsoft's Bing is officially no longer a bottomless money pit. During its first quarter fiscal 2016 earnings call, Microsoft announced that Bing had finally achieved profitability. Search contributed more than $1 billion to Microsoft's first quarter for fiscal 2016, said Chief Financial Officer Amy Hood during the company's October 22 earnings call. For the past few months, Microsoft execs had been saying to expect Bing to break even some time during the company's fiscal 2016. Microsoft officials told analysts back in 2013 that Microsoft could see the light at the end of the Bing datacenter-building tunnel. Microsoft has been working to streamline its search and advertising business business for months. Earl...

SingPost buys US e-commerce player for $168M

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Summary:   Postal service operator purchases a 96.3 percent stake in TradeGlobal Holdings, as it looks to beef up its e-commerce logistics network globally. Singapore Post (SingPost) says it has purchased a majority stake in US e-commerce player, TradeGlobal Holdings, forking out US$168.6 million (S$234.2 million) in the deal as it looks to beef up its online capabilities. The postal service operator's wholly-owned subsidiary, TG Acquisition, had bought out 96.3 percent of TradeGlobal, which itself was owned by private equity firm, Breagal Sagemount, SingPost said in a statement Thursday. TradeGlobal provides a range of services that support online retail and e-commerce websites, including website development, content management, analytics, global fulfilment, and logistics. The deal would enable SingPost's customers across Asia-Pacific to expand their business into the US, while TradeGloba...

More chipmakers to join AMD with heterogeneous designs

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Summary:   AMD is the only chipmaker to have released a processor based on the Heterogeneous Systems Architecture. But this week MediaTek, Imagination and ARM announced that they plan to adopt HSA, which should lead to more efficient systems and more powerful apps. Chipmaker AMD is finally about to get some company in the HSA (Heterogeneous Systems Architecture) club. At the Linley Processor Conference this week, the HSA Foundation announced that other HSA products are 'imminent' including chips from MediaTek, and technology from IP providers Imagination and ARM. Most chips already shift certain tasks from the CPU to other processing engines that can handle them more efficiently. But every chip designer takes its own approach to heterogeneous computing. That makes it tough to develop hardware and software to take advantage of all the different types of cores in a modern system-on-chip (SoC). The purpose of...

Juniper rolls out Unite architecture to bolster networking, firewall lineup

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Juniper said Unite is designed as an agile and secure network architecture for enterprises looking for quick cloud deployments and management via a single platform. Juniper Networks on Tuesday rolled out a series of networking tools aimed at easing adoption of cloud computing. On the architecture side, the networking firm unveiled Unite , a platform based the Junos operating system software. Unite includes new and existing Juniper products, including the EX9200 line of switches, the Junos Space Network Director management system, as well as integrated third party products from Juniper's Open Converged Framework. Unite allows for private clouds to interconnect to public cloud infrastructures in a hybrid environment. Juniper said Unite is designed as an agile and secure network architecture for enterprises looking for quick cloud deployments and management via a single platform. On the firewall side , Juniper added two new SRX gateways to ...

Foxconn, Apple consider investment in Sharp LCD display business

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Summary:   Foxconn has proposed the buyout, which would give Sharp the chance to offload a failing unit. Foxconn may acquire Sharp's LCD business as the manufacturer moves into electronics. As reported by Asian publication Nikkei on Monday , manufacturer Foxconn, also known as Hon Hai, is considering the purchase of Sharp's liquid crystal display (LCD) business. According to sources familiar with the matter, the Taiwanese manufacturer and Sharp have been in talks since last summer, and would involve a majority stake investment by Foxconn -- together with investment by Apple. In addition, Foxconn hopes to secure the Japanese electronic giant's 38 percent stake in Sakai Display Products. Founded in 2009, SDP is a joint venture run by Sharp and SIO International Holdings Limited, an investment firm fully owned by Foxconn chairman Terry Gou. The company develops LCD panels suitable for large screens. ...

Microsoft delivers new Windows 10 Mobile test build, updated Photos app

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Summary:   Microsoft has released Windows 10 Mobile Build 10536, its first new Windows 10 Mobile test build in over a month, to Fast Ring testers.Microsoft rolled out a new test version, Build 10536, of Windows 10 Mobile late in the day (East Coast time) on September 14. This is the first new Windows 10 Mobile test build from Microsoft since August 12, when Microsoft delivered test build 10512. Microsoft had hoped to push the new build to Windows Phone testers on the Fast Ring at the end of last week, but some glitches held up the rollout. Despite the decision to delay the new build, a couple of hundred Windows Insiders outside Microsoft still got the updated Windows 10 Mobile test build in advertently over the weekend. Today's Windows 10 Mobile build includes the re-addition of the Insider Hub; fixes to mobile hotspot functionality; fixes to two-factor authentication and quiet hours; and repairs to pinch and zoom in Maps, among other featu...

Apple's iPhone Upgrade Program was the company's most disruptive news

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Summary:   Apple found yet another way to cut carriers out of the equation with its iPhone Upgrade Program. It can be cheaper than carrier installment plans and gives Apple more of the customer relationship. Earlier today, after Apple introduced its new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, I took a look at the "should you upgrade?" question. Current owners of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are probably better served by sticking with what they have. But I also noted that Apple has a  new iPhone Upgrade Program  that's worth the look. And it may be even more disruptive than the technologies found in the company's next iPhones. At this point, all of the four major U.S. carriers have installment plans available for handsets. That's because we're moving away from subsidized hardware and two-year phone contracts. Apple mentioned this, mainly because it can't really keep showing the price of iPhones at $199, $299 and $399 when most people aren't buying phon...

Google breaks out new Street View app for iOS and Android

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Summary:   The new Street View app offers users a window into the world through 360 degree photos. Google has released a standalone Street View app, updating the version on Android and bringing the app to iOS for the first time. The new app brings Google's Street View offerings into line across both iOS and Android. In the two apps, users can flick through Street View 'collections' as well as user-created photo spheres that are displayed in cards at the bottom of the screen. Collections are grouped into themes such as Animals and Wildlife, Oceans, or particular countries. Selecting a collection displays where they're located on Google Maps in the top half of the display. The app also lets users take 360-degree panoramas from an Android phone or an iPhone and publish them to Street View, or alternatively add images from one-shot 360-degree cameras like Ricoh's Theta S. The app also contains a private gallery where ...

BitTorrent tracker blocks Windows 10 users

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BitTorrent tracker blocks Windows 10 users Summary:   If you use BitTorrent a lot, you may want to re-think moving to Windows 10.  BitTorrent sites are starting to block Windows 10 users.Windows 10 is quickly gaining fans. Some of them, however, are growing distrustful of Windows 10's privacy settings. Some BitTorrent sites don't trust Windows 10 at all. So, at least one BitTorrent tracker, iTS, has blocked Windows 10 users from accessing torrents from their site. Others are considering banning Windows 10 users. In a YouTube video, iTS proclaimed that " Windows 10 is nothing more than a spy tool that will keep track of every action, email, conversation, video, picture, or anything else that you do on your computer." iTS based its position largely on Microsoft's new unified services and privacy agreements , specifically the clause which states that, "We may automatically check your version of the software and download sof...