VMware preparing data loss prevention features for vShield
At the upcoming VMworld conference, VMware plans to highlight new data-loss prevention capabilities in an updated version of its virtual system security product, vShield.
In vShield 5, VMware is adding a way to do data discovery to find out whether sensitive data, such as that for healthcare, payment card or sensitive financial information, is being held in the VMware virtual-machine environment being scanned. But more DLP functions, such as blocking data leaks in transit, won't be in this release, which is expected out the third quarter. VMworld 2011 takes place the last week of August in Las Vegas. Read more...
AMD sitting out smartphone market
Advanced Micro Devices is not immediately chasing the market for smartphones as it does not align with the company's strength in technologies like graphics, an executive said on Monday.
Smartphones are constrained on battery, pixels, and screen space, and AMD has other areas it can focus on in order to grow, said Rick Bergman, senior vice president and general manager for AMD's product group during the Pacific Crest Securities Technology Leadership Forum in Vail, Colorado. The company sees an opportunity to apply its graphics and chip technologies to tablets, where customers are demanding better video and battery life. Read more...
BBM used by London rioters? BlackBerry maker RIM responds
After two days of rioting in London in which youths reportedly used BBM, the instant-messaging service for BlackBerry devices, to help organise their attacks, Blackberry maker RIM has confirmed it is working with the authorities.
Patrick Spence, the company's managing director of its global sales and regional marketing, said in a statement: "We feel for those impacted by this weekend's riots in London. We have engaged with the authorities to assist in any way we can. Read more...
Apple sued over Mac OS X ‘quick boot’
A lawsuit has accused Apple of violating a patent describing a means of "quickly booting a computer system".
Late last week, an outfit calling itself Operating Systems Solutions filed suit in the Middle District of Florida, claiming that Apple infringes its patent with Mac OS X. As pointed out by Patently Apple, the patent in question – RE840,092 – was originally granted to LG Electronics.
The patent describes a method for quickly booting a personal computer system using information that was previously saved to hard disk. This information includes data from memory and the status of devices attached to the system, and it hinges on a POST routine. Read more...
Lightning strike in Dublin downs Amazon, Microsoft clouds
A lightning strike in Dublin on Sunday caused a power failure in data centers belonging to Amazon and Microsoft, causing the companies' cloud services to go offline.
lightning struck a transformer, sparking an explosion and fire which caused the power outage at 10:41 AM PDT, according to preliminary information, Amazon wrote on its Service Health Dashboard. Under normal circumstances, backup generators would seamlessly kick in, but the explosion also managed to knock out some of those generators.
By 1:56 PM PDT, power to the majority of network devices had been restored, allowing Amazon to focus on bringing EC2 (Elastic Compute Cloud) instances and EBS (Elastic Block Storage) volumes back online. But progress was slower than expected, Amazon said a couple of hours later. Read more...
Facebook use linked to teen psych disorders
Using Facebook and other social networks can have some significant negative effects on teenagers and young adults, says a California State University researcher.
Actually, using sites like Facebook can be linked to some serious psychological disorders, like narcissism for teenagers, and antisocial behaviors, mania and aggressive tendencies with young adults, says Dr. Larry Rosen, professor of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills.
Rosen presented his findings, which he pointed out are new and not yet ready for publication, at an American Psychological Association conference in Washington, D.C. last week. Read more...
Syrian hackers retaliate, deface Anonymous’ social network
A Syrian hacker group retaliated today by vandalizing AnonPlus, Anonymous' social network site.
After the hacking gang Anonymous took credit for defacing Syria's Ministry of Defense website, a Syrian group today retaliated by posting gruesome photos on Anonymous' embryonic social network.
The defacement of AnonPlus -- the site Anonymous set up last month when it was booted off Google+ -- did not include the name of the group responsible.
The University of Toronto's Citizen Lab, based at the Munk School of Global Affairs, however, credited the AnonPlus defacement to the "Syrian Electronic Army" in a message posted to Twitter.
Lawsuit aimed at Apple’s Mac OS may be Android battle by proxy, says expert
A patent lawsuit aimed at Apple could be the latest shot in the ongoing battle between that company and Google's Android mobile operating system, a patent expert said today.
In a filing with a federal court in Florida, OSS (Operating Systems Solutions) claimed that Apple's Mac OS X operating system and its Mac personal computers infringe on a patent that describes a "method for fast booting a computer system."
The lawsuit, which was first reported by the Patently Apple blog, is notable because it was originally assigned to LG Electronics, the South Korean company that makes smartphones and tablets powered by Google's Android. Read more...
IBM, NCSA abandon petascale supercomputer project
Citing unforeseen complexities and greater-than-anticipated costs, IBM and the University of Illinois' NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications) have abandoned plans to build a petaflop-speed supercomputer, the two organizations said Monday.
As of Aug. 6, IBM had terminated its four-year 2008 "Blue Waters" contract, estimated at about $208 million, to developed a supercomputer. IBM had been expected to deliver the first version of the system within the next year or so.
"The innovative technology that IBM ultimately developed was more complex and required significantly increased financial and technical support by IBM beyond its original expectations," the joint statement read. "NCSA and IBM worked closely on various proposals to retain IBM's participation in the project but could not come to a mutually agreed-on plan concerning the path forward." Read more...
Defcon: The lesson of Anonymous? Corporate security is weak
Anonymous has run up quite a score against corporations, governments and law enforcement agencies, but for all these warnings corporate executives are turning their heads from the real problem -- their network security is terrible, a panel of experts concluded at Defcon.
The particularly high profile attack against security firm HBGary by the hacker collective earlier this year caught the attention of C-level executives for a few weeks, but then they relaxed, says krypt3ia, a panel member, a security blogger and longtime infosec practitioner.
The executives could have redoubled efforts to better defend their networks, but that's not what's happening. Rather than invest in better security, they're looking to hedge the economic impact if they do get hacked, he says. Read more...