Xpertfeed

Western Digital is going after big and fast data workloads. Western Digital expanded its data center portfolio to include an object storage system, new all-flash arrays and hybrid platforms. Here's a look at the Ultrastar system The company, which has expanded its enterprise focus via acquisitions, rolled out the following as it looks to enable big data and analytics workloads. Active Scale 5.3 Object Storage System. The system, which is Western Digital's ActiveScale P100 and X100 systems, is designed for petabytes of unstructured data. Additions include the ability to ingest and manage mixed file and object use cases. Integration with Amazon Web Services, more storage density and support for Docker containers were also added. IntelliFlash NVMe Flash Arrays via Western Digital's N Series of systems. The N Series systems can scale from 19TB to 1.3PB of solid-state storage. The systems are available later this year. Ultrastar Serv60+8 Hybrid Storage Server Pl...

Microsoft is buying one of the AI companies in which it has invested: Bonsai, a deep reinforcement platform for enterprise/industrial applications. After buying  GitHub ,   four gaming companies   and an   educational video-discussion vendor , Redmond purchased on June 20 another artificial intelligence (AI) vendor. Microsoft officials announced the company had  signed an agreement to acquire Bonsai. Bonsai , based in Berkeley, Calif., is one of the companies that Microsoft's Ventures unit (now known as M12) had invested.Bonsai officials describe the company as delivering "the world's first deep reinforcement learning platform for the enterprise." Bonsai officials said the company has been integrating machine-learning and developer tools from Microsoft, Uber, Google and Apple to build its software and services to  build AI for industrial applications , according to Bonsai's web site. (Cue Microsoft's "intelligent edge"campaign.) ...

The low-code environment is targeted at IT departments that don't have the budget for custom apps. Google on Thursday is bringing App Maker, its developer tool for G Suite, into general availability . App Maker is a low-code environment for developers who can use to build custom business apps. It launched in beta in late 2016. As it moves into GA, App Maker is also getting a couple of updates: First, G Suite administrators will have visibility over these custom apps, including oversight of owners, usage metrics and OAuth permissions. Admins will also be able to prevent apps from running without their approval. Additionally, for customers who also have a Google Cloud Platform (GCP) account, App Maker is offering built-in support for Cloud SQL. It also supports a "Bring Your Own Database" model so customers can connect to their own database using the JDBC API or a REST API. App Maker also enables developers to connect their apps to data and services from Gmail, C...

GitHub competitors have picked up thousands of new developers but in relative terms the numbers are small.   Rivals of now Microsoft-owned code host GitHub are touting gains from developers who aren't happy with the acquisition and what it could mean.GitLab and Atlassian's BitBucket are both playing up to negative reactions towards the acquisition and uncertainty among developers about the future. Both sites say developers are migrating in larger numbers to their respective sites. GitLab said yesterday it had imported over 100,000 repositories from GitHub since news of the deal was confirmed on Monday.Microsoft said it is paying $7.5bn in stock for GitHub as part of an effort to win developers and give a boost to Azure and the other developer tools it offers. Despite losing some developers, these numbers migrating are minuscule compared with the 85 million repositories on GitHub. BitBucket also claims to have seen a noticeable spike in GitHub migrations sin...

It's feverishly hyped and often misunderstood, but blockchain technology is on track to become a major source of disruption across media and entertainment. Blockchain, best known as the technology behind Bitcoin , is a secure, encrypted database architecture that logs and links all transactions on a tamper-proof ledger distributed among multiple parties. In effect, a blockchain creates an immutable golden record of time-stamped transactions related to any product that can be bought and sold. In the context of buying music, news, and other digital content, the promise of blockchain is to provide decentralized control, trust, and transparency when transacting virtual property. For the creators of digital content and virtual property, this means enforceable copyrights, transparency around royalty payments, and payments made securely without an intermediary. In the music and news media industries in particular, the blockchain could be key to rights management, procuring ...

Summary: There are no shortage out there of power banks for iPhone and Android devices, but Ugreen introduces a portable charger for GoPro Hero 5/6 owners. GoPro cameras are great fun and capable of capturing some amazing shots, but I do find that they burn through batteries at quite a rate. While you can charge a GoPro direct from a power bank, you can't use the GoPro as a camera while it's charging the internal battery. But accessories maker Ugreen has come out with a power bank that can be used to recharge GoPro batteries directly without going through the camera. The  Ugreen 10,000mAh portable battery charger  not only features the regular USB-A 5.1V/2.4A port, but also has a slot that can take a single GoPro Hero 5/6 battery for recharging. The 10,000mAh battery pack has enough power for the following: iPhone X: 2.7 times iPhone 8: 4 times Samsung Galaxy S8: 2.4 times iPad mini 4/Nintendo Switch: 1.4 times GoPro Hero 5/6battery: 6 times The power ...

Summary: Welcome to the future transparency of today as quantum computers reveal all currently encrypted secrets -- a viable scenario within just a few years. Quantum computers will be able to instantly break the encryption of sensitive data protected by today's strongest security, warns the head of IBM Research. This could happen in a little more than five years because of advances in quantum computer technologies. "Anyone that wants to make sure that their data is protected for longer than 10 years should move to alternate forms of encryption now," said Arvind Krishna, director of  IBM Research . Krishna was speaking at a meeting of The Churchill Club in San Francisco on a panel (above, second from right) discussing quantum computers in business. The panel, which included Kam Moler, a professor of Physics at Stanford University, as well as Bob Stolte, a managing director at JPMorgan, was moderated by journalist Martin Giles (first from left). Quantum compute...

Summary:Microsoft patches two flaws that are already under attack, among the 67 bugs in May's Patch Tuesday update. Microsoft's Patch Tuesday update addresses a critical flaw in the Windows VBScript engine that attackers are using to compromise Windows machines through Internet Explorer. The patch follows an alarm by researchers at Qihoo 360 Core Security in April that well-resourced hackers were using a then suspected IE zero-day flaw to infect Windows PCs on a "global scale". The IE attack, dubbed 'Double Kill', was delivered via Office documents that open a malicious webpage in the background. In  an advisory  crediting Qihoo 360 Core Security researchers and Kaspersky Lab malware analysts for discovering a critical bug tagged as CVE-2018-8174, Microsoft details a remote code execution flaw residing not in Internet Explorer but the Windows VBScript engine. However, it also explains the bug can be exploited through Internet Explorer. Micros...

Summary: Microsoft wants to banish '​inconvenient, insecure, and expensive' passwords. So what's going to replace them? Microsoft wants to banish the use of passwords to log into Windows devices, and has showcased some of the new technologies it wants to use to make this happen. "Nobody likes passwords. They are  inconvenient, insecure, and expensive . In fact, we dislike them so much that we've been busy at work trying to create a world without them -- a world without passwords," said Karanbir Singh, principal program manager for enterprise and security at Microsoft, in a blog post. Singh said the goal was to make it possible for end users to never deal with a password in their day-to-day lives, and to provide instead user credentials that cannot be cracked, breached, or phished. For Microsoft, multi-factor authentication and biometrics is seen as a good replacement for passwords -- using a physical key, and/or your face or fingerprint to log ...

Summary: Windows Phone users will lose support for their native Microsoft Teams, Yammer, and Skype for Business apps as of next month. Late last week, Microsoft quietly acknowledged that it will  drop support for the Windows Phone apps for Teams, Yammer, and Skype for Business . This fact isn't surprising to anyone who has been watching what's been going on with Windows Phone over the past few years, but the suddenness of Microsoft's declaration may catch some by surprise. (And based on tweets and emails I am getting, it did.) As of May 20, 2018, Microsoft will no longer make these apps available for download from the Microsoft Store and will no longer support them. The Skype for Business and Yammer apps "may continue to work, but we can't provide any guarantees," said officials in a Microsoft support article. "These apps will no longer receive updates or support." At the same time, the Microsoft Teams app for Windows Phone "will...