Cisco will spend $141 million buying Cariden, a company that sells network planning and optimization software to ISPs. However, Cariden is also building out an SDN strategy and product portfolio that its service provider customers are already using today. Read more »
Syria, which is engaged in a citizen revolt, has been cut off from the Internet according to several reports. This tactic isn’t all that difficult implement and is becoming more common, making the need for new open source technologies for wireless communications necessary. Read more »
The web has thoroughly infiltrated the political process, much like TV did in the 1960s. A series of posts on how the Obama team managed to analyze data, format its emails and now, build a fundraising API are showing how much web savvy and infrastructure matters. Read more »
Not all fiber optic cable is created equal, and miles of older fiber deployed in Japan aren’t able to keep up with the latests electronics. This is why a test that delivered 8Tbps of bandwidth across DSF fiber in Japan is s big deal. Read more »
Data from the Internet Society’s Global Internet User Survey shows that we’re contradictory when it comes to our feelings and actions taken online. This won’t come as a surprise to most, but we think the Internet is a source of good, yet we don’t trust it. Read more »
If your application’s infrastructure is based in the cloud, then monitoring that infrastructure requires a cloud-based product as well. But monitoring the performance of cloud-based apps and the clouds they are hosted on requires a lot of data. Terabytes of it. Read more »
We’ve been talking about connected homes and the internet of things for at least a decade, but why is there so much suddenly happening in the connected device space? Smartphones, access to cheap off-the-shelf technology and open software platforms have sparked the change. Read more »
Update: Sources at Google are denying that the search giant has purchased Wi-Fi hotspot company ICOA, while executives at ICOA are also telling news outlets that a release announcing the deal is false. Read more »
The networking is becoming the bottleneck in scale out data centers. Kotura thinks that fiber is the answer, so it’s offering a transceiver that starts at 100 gigabits per second and can scale up to deliver a terabit per second between servers. Read more »
For those friend sof yours who are always knee-deep in robotics or waiting for their Raspberry Pi mini-computer to ship, we’ve consulted with a few experts and come up with some fun kits and toys that might make their holidays. See if anything strikes your fancy. Read more »
LG’s Smart Thinq connected appliances were all the rage last year at CES and just last week the hit stores in South Korea. The connected fridge is coming soon to the U.S. either next month or in the first quarter of next year. Read more »
Japanese youth are choosing LTE over fiber to the home connections, which has forced NTT to drop prices for its wireline service. Will the possibility of that kind of cost cutting inspire applications developers to build must-have services for wireline too? Read more »
Using data to improve patient health or deliver better care is a huge goal of the medical industry, but with so many players it’s hard to know how to bring a wide-scale data pilot to the healthcare industry. Here’s what Aetna is doing. Read more »
Formula 1 racing has returned to America with last weekend’s race in Austin, Texas. And with it came a jumbo jet packed full of 160 tons of IT and broadcasting equipment and F1′s amazing traveling IT staff. Learn more about the tech powering the sport. Read more »
Intel’s CEO Paul Otellini will step down in May. So far no successor has been named, but the transition in leadership will occur as the entire chip industry deals with a transition from high performance general purpose computing to more special-purpose, efficient chips. Read more »
Bringing the maker ethos to toys is a popular effort among hackers and startups, and with ATOMS Express, a Boulder entrepreneur hopes to make DIY toys a reality for younger children and anyone else without programming skills. A Kickstarter campaign could lead to products by June. Read more »
If you want a mobile hotspot that will last all day, the MiFi Liberate is the device for you. Although it has some puzzling features, this is a device I wouldn’t mind toting around with me in case I need a connection on the go. Read more »
If you take a 3D printer, fill it with hydrogel, add a few cardiac rat cells and a novel design, you’d get this University of Illinois bio-bot, a self-propelled robot that is about a quarter of an inch long and may be the future of engineering. Read more »
After four years, broadband caps are common in the U.S., but so far no agency is watching to make sure those caps are implemented fairly. So what happens when an internet user claims his ISP’s data usage numbers don’t match his own? Read more »
Facebook’s North Carolina data center has a PUE of 1.07, lower than the PUE in Prineville, Ore. — a more temperate climate. Facebook has posted a blog with the details of how the N.C. facility has done without A/C even on a 100-degree day last summer Read more »
A big brain computer tracks Twitter’s global heartbeat during the 2012 elections and Hurricane Sandy in a research project created by two Illinois academics proving that real-time analysis of unstructured data is possible if you only have enough cores, cache and networking I/O. Read more »
Texas Instruments will join the slew of chipmakers using cell-phone cores in servers. But it has two twists with its KeyStone architecture — integrated 10 gigabit Ethernet networking and TI’s digital signal processing cores to aid in performing complex math. Read more »
Big Switch Networks has come a long way since it launched in June of 2011, and two big announcements today showcasing its ecosystem and its newly launched products are signs that its going on the offensive in the software-defined networking space. Read more »
In the near term companies are eking more performance out of chips without using too much power by using co-processors taking a cue from the supercomputer industry. In the long term, though making faster and more efficient chips will take place at the subatomic scale. Read more »
The quest for faster storage continues, with Everspin releasing samples of its magnetic random access memory that it hopes to use to usurp DRAM. MRAM chips are only available in 64 Mb and are expensive, but Everspin says it can scale up. Read more »
Google Fiber offers a gigabit to Kansas City residents for $70, but the key word is residents. Businesses aren’t getting service. So a few startups have banded together to rent and buy homes slated to get fiber so they can experience the joys of a gigabit. Read more »
AT&T’s news yesterday that it wanted to shut down its circuit switched network is a big moment in telecommunications — and could be a big deal to consumers, even if they have already ditched their landlines. Here’s why it matters. Read more »
Does your data center compost? This question may become more relevant if an Open Compute Foundation project that’s sponsored by Facebook ends up a success. The goal is to build a biodegradable server chassis to replace existing steel enclosures. Read more »
People love platforms as a service because they are easy so Heroku’s new Fork tool that allows you to copy your database with one click should be a nice feature for users who want to play with their data without making a costly mistake. Read more »
Diablo Technologies is an Ottawa-based startup that has brought flash memory even closer to the processor — making applications run even faster. It has built chip technology as well as software and has raised $28 million to bring the technology to market. Read more »
AT&T will invest $14 billion in its networks as it tries to maximize the use of LTE in combination with small cells. By the end of 2014, the carrier expects to blanket 300 million people with this approach, which includes more than 1,000 distributed antenna systems. Read more »
The other shoe has dropped on the copper telephone network with AT&T pledging $14 billion in new network investment in wireless and wireline networks with nary a dime or commitment for the old copper telephone network or DSL lines. Instead Ma Bell recommends LTE. Read more »
Joyent has named a new CEO and announced the altest generation of its infrastructure as a service software. The moves are in preparation for a big play in the coming months as the company looks to build the right computing platform for data and cloud applications. Read more »
MIPS Technologies has sold it’s business to Imagination, the graphics IP company, while selling more than 500 of its remaining patents to a consortium led by ARM Holdings, a onetime rival. The deals are an example of the huge shifts taking place in the semiconductor world. Read more »
Will Apple replace the Intel processors in its Macbooks with ARM-based chips? In the last week new processor designs from ARM as well as Apple’s desire to merge the iOS and OS X experience have driven a new cycle of rumors. Here’s why they make sense. Read more »
Designing a store that’s not about selling products, but is instead about delighting and engaging with the customer may be the future of retail if George Blankenship of Tesla Motors has his way. Blankenship shares his retail vision honed at Apple and at Tesla. Read more »
The presidential election will have big impacts on our nation’s tax policies and spending plans over the next four years, but who wins or loses will also play a role in telecommunications policies that will affect every individual on their cell phone and their land lines. Read more »
As the computer revolution has morphed into today’s web, design has a more important seat at the table. Not only is the web visual, but the data generated and the loss of hierarchy enabled by the web has created leadership challenges that good design can solve. Read more »
