Microsoft is committing the same sin today that it did with the launch of the Xbox One: The focus of a game console shouldn’t be about the platform, but the Compare the first images shown off at Microsoft’s press conference, and then at Sony’s. Microsoft launched its new Xbox One S console in the first few seconds, while Sony (following a long introduction by an in-house orchestra) led off with an extended clip from the new To its credit, I don’t think Microsoft necessarily set out to make the Xbox One the focus of its E3 presentation. But by the end of it, we weren’t talking about games like the creepily dystopian
Networking has undergone radical changes in the past few years, and two startup launches this week show the revolution isn’t over yet. Barefoot Networks is making what it calls a fully programmable switch platform. It came out of stealth mode on Tuesday, the same day 128 Technology emerged claiming a new approach to routing. Both say they’re rethinking principles that haven’t changed since the 1990s. Now is a good time to shake up networking, because IT itself is changing shape, says Nemertes Research analyst John Burke. “Everybody pretty much wants and needs their IT services to work continuously and scalably,” Burke said. Enterprises need shorter communication delays, a way to scale networks up or down without months of preparation, and a distributed architecture to prevent breakdowns from one hardware failure. It’s happening because many enterprise applications just can’t stop working without dire consequences.
Russian hackers managed to breach the computer network of the Democratic National Committee and stole opposition research on Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump. The hackers had access to email and chat traffic as far back as last summer, the Washington Post The hackers belong to two separate groups that have been linked to the Russian government, according to security firm Crowdstrike, which was hired to mitigate the data breach.
Is a virtual reality headset a platform or a peripheral? It’s an ideological war that’s tearing apart the once-unified VR community, with no end in sight. On one side, you’ve got Oculus saying “We’re a platform.” On the other, HTC, Valve, Razer, Leap Motion, and others are essentially saying “It’s a fancy monitor.” Here’s the key difference: If every VR headset is a
Beginning with the Windows 10 Anniversary Update (and the corresponding update on the Xbox One), games that consumers buy in the Xbox Store or Windows Store will feature cross-platform play: If you buy a copy for a Windows 10 PC, you’ll receive a digital version for the Xbox One, or vice versa. Saved games will be accessible on both platforms, and you’ll be able to pick up where you left off on either platform.
Rejecting challenges by ISPs and broadband trade groups, an appeals court has upheld the U.S. Federal Communications Commission’s controversial net neutrality rules, passed in 2015. The legal wrangling will likely continue for years, however, and may go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Meanwhile, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, in an opinion issued Tuesday, ruled that the FCC had the authority to reclassify broadband as a common-carrier telecom service to provide a foundation for net neutrality rules that prohibit broadband providers from selectively blocking or slowing Internet traffic. Past court rulings have given agencies the authority to change their minds, like the FCC did when it re-regulated broadband, Judges David Tatel and Sri Srinivasan wrote in an
Google Now might be ironing a fresh set of clothes and heading out to work. That sure seems like the inspiration for Google Springboard, an integrated search and digital assistant the company announced on its But the similarity to
After months of slowly rolling out information, Sony has finally announced the final crucial details you need to know about the Sony announced pricing back in March and reiterated it during E3. The headset as a
What’s funny is how deeply
Attackers are infecting computers with a new ransomware program called RAA that’s written entirely in JavaScript and locks users’ files by using strong encryption. Most malware programs for Windows are written in compiled programming languages like C or C++ and take the form of portable executable files such as .exe or .dll. Others use command-line scripting such as Windows batch or PowerShell. It’s rare to see client-side malware written in Web-based languages such as JavaScript, which are primarily intended to be interpreted by browsers. Yet the Windows Script Host, a service built into Windows, can natively execute .js and other scripting files out of the box.
Apple and Cisco Systems have fleshed out their plans to make iOS devices work better in enterprises and said the new capabilities will arrive in the fall. Voice calls on Cisco’s Spark collaboration app will act like regular phone calls, IT departments will be able to give Cisco apps priority on iOS devices, and iPhone calls will run over corporate networks. These are some of the ways the two companies’ technologies will mesh in enterprises. Cisco
This isn’t the place for baby steps into hardcore hardware. No, you have to go In Episode 2 of
