Cisco debuts 'private cloud' controller

Cisco shops can finally run a slew of branch office WLANs without having to put a controller at each site.

The company announced the Flex 7500 Series Cloud Controller at Interop last week, which centralizes control and management functions in the "private cloud" data center but allows for distributed data forwarding in local branch APs.

Connections and inter-AP fast-roaming capabilities stay up if there's a WAN failure between the branch site and the controller, and users can also authenticate locally, according to Greg Beach, director of product management in Cisco's wireless networking business unit.

The architecture alleviates the high cost associated with having a controller in every site in enterprises that are highly distributed, such as retail organizations.

However, the control and management functions are inaccessible if the WAN is unavailable. Cisco wireless VP and general manager Ray Smets said at the show that "retailers want CleanAir," Cisco's well-received spectrum analysis capabilities for identifying and mitigating sources of interference. "To get CleanAir, they need a controller. And they want that controller in the data center."

In other words, while a WAN failure would not impact local connectivity and data forwarding, continued operation of the bells-and-whistles RF management features such as CleanAir remain dependent on a live WAN.

Sony Takes Down PlayStation Network PassWord Reset

Sony has once again taken down its PlayStation Network login and password reset pages to block a serious security vulnerability following reports of yet another external hack targeting user accounts.

The vulnerability, first reported by U.K.-based gaming news blog Nyleveia.com, occurs in the way that the password reset form is implemented , which contains a glitch that fails to properly verify tokens. Hackers can subsequently launch an attack exploiting the vulnerability only by knowing users' date of birth and e-mail addresses in order to access their PlayStation Network accounts.

Sony issued a statement following the news of the latest hack, alerting users that PlayStation Network login and password reset pages were offline, but denying that an external hack was involved.

"We temporarily took down the PSN and Qriocity password reset page. Contrary to some reports, there was no hack involved. In the process of resetting of passwords there was a URL exploit that we have subsequently fixed," according to a Sony blog post. "Consumers who haven't reset their passwords for PSN are still encouraged to do so directly on their PS3. Otherwise, they can continue to do so via the Web site as soon as we bring that site back up."

Facebook, Twitter Drain Business Productivity: Survey

The proliferation of collaboration and social tools designed to increase productivity is actually costing businesses millions of dollars per year in lost productivity, according to a survey of more than 500 employees in U.S. businesses of all sizes conducted by online market research firm uSamp (United Sample) and commissioned by social email software provider harmon.ie.

Nearly 60 percent of work interruptions now involve either using tools like email, social networks, text messaging and IM, or switching windows among disparate standalone tools and applications. In fact, 45 percent of employees work only 15 minutes or less without getting interrupted, and 53 percent waste at least one hour a day due to all types of distractions, the report found. 

That hour per day translates into $10,375 of wasted productivity per person annually, assuming an average salary of $30 per hour. That is more than the average U.S. driver will spend this year to own and maintain a car, the report noted. For businesses with 1,000 employees, the cost of employee interruptions exceeds $10 million per year.

While traditional activities such as phone calls, talking with coworkers, and ad hoc meetings account for 43 percent of work interruptions today, the lion’s share of distractions are now electronically based. Users reported getting sidetracked in email processing (23 percent), switching windows to complete tasks (10 percent), personal online activities such as Facebook (9 percent), instant messaging (6 percent), text messaging (5 percent) and Web search (3 percent).

The report also found multiple devices on the desktop contribute to the problem, with 65 percent of respondents reporting that they utilize up to three additional monitors and/or mobile devices simultaneously with their main computer screen as they work.

Google rolls out social search in 19 languages

Google boosted its social search efforts on Thursday by disclosing plans to make it available to users outside the U.S. in 19 languages in the coming week.

The move capitalizes on the global popularity of social media and its increasing impact on search, and follows on the news of increased integrationbetween Facebook and Microsoft's Bing search engine earlier this week.

Social Search will add more languages later, Google said in a blog post.

A social search feature available in the U.S. now that will also make its debut abroad later is Google's +1 button and data, which is designed to let Google search users recommend results and share that feedback with others. It is similar to Facebook's "Like" button.

Google, whose search engine is by far the most popular in the world, finds itself at a disadvantage in social search, due to the tight partnership between social-networking powerhouse Facebook and Microsoft.

To access Google's Social Search, users have to be logged into their Google account, and they have to link the account to the social media services from Google and other providers that they want Google to factor into their query resolutions.

Social search services like the ones from Google and Microsoft's Bing match posts made by a user's social media contacts that are relevant to the query terms entered for a particular search.

The idea is that this type of input from friends and acquaintances can carry important weight when people are looking for advice and help in making a decision.

While the Bing-Facebook connection is clearly an advantage for Microsoft at this point, it's quite possible that Google will at some point strike its own deal with Facebook.

Microsoft readies 'Austin,' an Azure-hosted event-processing service

Microsoft is continuing to move some of its SQL Server capabilities to the cloud and turn them into services.

The latest to join the coming SQL Azure services line-up — alongside the already announced (but still undelivered) SQL Azure Reporting Services— is complex-event processing. The cloud version of this capability is known as codename “Austin,” according to a couple of new Microsoft blog posts this week.

Austin will be the service version of the StreamInsight complex-event-processing capabilities that are in SQL Server today. Complex event processing “enables real time insight into vast volumes of streaming data,” according to Microsoft’s explanation, which is distinct from, but related to, business intelligence, which “enables analytics and insight into a set of existing data to inform future decision making.”

Austin is being released in private Community Technology Preview (CTP) form now, but will be available as a public CTP, available from the SQL Azure Labs Site, in the second half of the year, the Softies told attendees of the TechEd 2011 conference this week. Microsoft isn’t sharing publicly a release target for the final version of Austin.

By hosting StreamInsight on the Windows Azure platform, Microsoft will allow customers and partners “to build event-driven applications where the analysis of the events is performed in the cloud,” explained Zane Adam, a Microsoft General Manager of  Azure and Middleware, in a May 15 blog post.

Google moves fast to plug Android Wi-Fi data leaks

Google today confirmed that it's starting to roll out a server-side patch for a security vulnerability in most Android phones that could let hackers snatch important credentials at public Wi-Fi hotspots.

"Today we're starting to roll out a fix which addresses a potential security flaw that could, under certain circumstances, allow a third party access to data available in Calendar and Contacts," said a Google spokesman in an emailed statement. "This fix requires no action from users and will roll out globally over the next few days."

Computerworld blogger JR Raphael was the first to break the news of Google's move to fix the flaw.

Google will apparently apply a fix on its servers since it does not need to issue an over-the-air update to Android phones.

Experts applauded Google's fast reaction.

"It's impressive how quickly Google fixed this," said Kevin Mahaffey, chief technology officer and a co-founder of San Francisco-based mobile security firm Lookout. "Google's security team, especially on Android, is very, very quick to deal with issues."

Mike Paquette, the chief strategy officer for Hudson, Mass.-based Top Layer Security, agreed.

"The Google team talks about how they breathe security in and out, and this is a good example," said Paquette, who called the speed with which Google addressed the issue "pretty good."

Microsoft: One in 14 downloads is malicious

The next time a website says to download new software to view a movie or fix a problem, think twice. There's a pretty good chance that the program is malicious.

In fact, about one out of every 14 programs downloaded by Windows users turns out to be malicious, Microsoft said Tuesday. And even though Microsoft has a feature in its Internet Explorer browser designed to steer users away from unknown and potentially untrustworthy software, about 5 percent of users ignore the warnings and download malicious Trojan horse programs anyway.

So increasingly, instead of hacking the browsers themselves, the bad guys try to hack the people using them. It's called social engineering, and it's a big problem these days. "The attackers have figured out that it's not that hard to get users to download Trojans," said Alex Stamos, a founding partner with Isec Partners, a security consultancy that's often called in to clean up the mess after companies have been hacked.

Social engineering is how the Koobface virus spreads on Facebook. Users get a message from a friend telling them to go and view a video. When they click on the link, they're then told that they need to download some sort of video playing software in order to watch. That software is actually a malicious program.

Avaya launches biz solutions for SMBs

Avaya, a provider of business collaboration systems, software and services, on Wednesday unveiled Avaya IP Office 7.0 that helps drive improved savings, user experiences, and collaboration for a new generation of entrepreneurs, and Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs).The company also unveiled customer and partner support for Avaya IP Office 7.0, said a press release.

The New Avaya IP Office 7.0 completes the integration of Nortel Enterprise Solutions’ (NES) IP and digital phones into the IP Office platform. This integration enables NES users to gain Avaya IP Office’s collaboration capabilities, and can drive 40 to 60 per cent in savings for NES customers by enabling them to retain existing phones when upgrading to Avaya IP Office.

This upgrade can be accelerated and simplified by a new Data Migration Tool that lets partners transfer all of a business’ existing data to their new systems, maintaining productivity without business interruption, the release claimed.

The solution also delivers an expanded portfolio of devices for multimedia collaboration, including sophisticated new color touch-screen desktop phones that let users scroll through contacts or manage visual voicemail at the touch of a finger.

Additionally, new conference phones offer patented wide-band audio, call recording via SD card, and fast USB connectivity to a laptop for temporary set-ups. This expanded portfolio also offers a range of video capabilities, including HD videoconferencing from a desktop PC softphone, with no added equipment necessary

SAP goes after Oracle's database with ASE

SAP will finish porting its ERP (enterprise resource planning) application to the Sybase Adaptive Server Enterprise (ASE) database later this year, giving customers now running Oracle and other platforms a lower-cost alternative, the company announced Tuesday during the Sapphire conference in Orlando.

Sybase ASE has only a fraction of the database market share held by Oracle, IBM and Microsoft, but it is widely used by financial institutions. SAP noted this in its announcement, saying its ERP customers will now get to use the same database "that powers Wall Street."

Future versions of SAP ERP will be "certified out-of-the-box" with Sybase ASE releases, SAP said. In addition, Sybase ASE's life cycle will be "fully synchronized with SAP maintenance policies to simplify release and deployment planning for customers."

The combination of ASE and SAP's business software will mean customers can deal with a single company "focused on efficient business operations and on providing attractive licensing and maintenance terms and conditions," SAP said.

It was not immediately clear how much customers could save buying Sybase compared to Oracle, although such estimates are hard to pinpoint, given the heavy discounting off list price that often occurs in software contract negotiations.

SAP launching in-memory computing cloud

SAP is opening up a cloud-based platform for its HANA (High-Performance Analytic Appliance) in-memory computing technology, enabling partners to develop applications that take advantage of its capabilities, the company announced Wednesday.

"We believe the future of the cloud is in fact an in-memory cloud," said CTO and executive board member Vishal Sikka, during a keynote address. The HANA application cloud is now in "pre-beta," he added. Other details, including a general availability date, weren't immediately available.

In-memory computing holds data in RAM instead of being read from disks, providing a performance boost. HANA, which SAP launched last year, can tap data from both SAP and other sources, and the company has also started rolling out a series of specialized applications aimed at specific business problems.

HANA is now available in appliance form. Hardware from Hewlett-Packard, Dell and IBM, among others, has been certified to run HANA, Sikka said.

While SAP intends HANA boxes to be attached to its own ERP (enterprise resource planning) and CRM (customer relationship management) software, pulling in information for analysis, customers are already using it to traverse the "open waters of non-SAP data," Sikka said.

HANA is giving Bosch and Siemens real-time information about product sales, allowed them to "quickly adjust manufacturing and distribution strategies, giving [it] an advantage against competitors," the company said in a statement.

Lenovo is running HANA alongside SAP's CRM (customer relationship management) software, giving it the ability to "analyze orders by customer, region or product," improving its ability to forecast sales and helping it roll out new products faster, the company said.

Intel pledges to rejuvenate the PC

While much of the innovation these days seems to be happening in smartphones and tablets, Intel says big improvements lie ahead for the trusty PC.

In the next two years, mainstream laptops will get thinner and lighter, run all day on a single battery charge, have touchscreens, get instant-on capabilities and run multiple OSes, all without compromising performance, CEO Paul Otellini said at the company's financial analyst day on Tuesday.

"This is not just about evolving the PC. This is about reinventing the PC into a much more consumer electronics-like device," Otellini said.

Some of the developments are probably being driven by tablets and smartphones -- particularly Apple's iPhone and iPad -- as people become accustomed to computers that start instantly at the press of a button.

While Intel hurries to develop chips that are better suited to smaller devices, it still maintains that PCs will play a central role. "People want to create, and we still look at tablet PCs more as sort of consuming devices," said Dadi Perlmutter, joint head of the Intel Architecture Group.

Intel didn't talk about any specific PCs in the pipeline, but Otellini said the changes will come with "Windows 8, Windows 9 and beyond."

SAP teams up with Amazon Web Services to deliver on-demand software

SAP has teamed up with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to offer customers a wide portfolio of its on-demand enterprise software, including the SAP BusinessObjects and Rapid Deployment applications.

The announcement was made on Wednesday at SAP's Sapphire Now event in Orlando. Customers will be able to access a large range of business software from the AWS cloud, including business intelligence, CRM, analytics, risk management and master data management.

Customers will be able to use the AWS pay-per-use model, as well as Amazon's customer support offerings.

SAP said that it has fully tested and benchmarked the underlying AWS resources and certified them with similar standards applied to servers and virtual platforms.

"Today's announcement underscores SAP's continued commitment to innovations in cloud computing, offering a flexible, choice-driven model where customers can select the best option for them when it comes to deploying our business applications and business analytics solutions," said Sanjay Poonen, SAP Global Solutions president.

PlayStation Network Log-Ins Down After Reported Password Exploit

Sony's PlayStation woes continued Wednesday, with a reported password exploit prompting the company to temporarily disable PlayStation Network sign-ins.

"The server is currently down for maintenance," reads a notice onPlayStation.com when users click sign-in. "We apologize for the inconvenience. Please try again later."

The glitch affects PlayStation.com, PlayStation forums, PlayStation Blog, Qriocity.com, Music Unlimited via the web client, and all PlayStation game title Web sites, according to a post on the European PlayStation forums.

"Unfortunately this also means that those who are still trying to change their password ... via Playstation.com or Qriocity.com will be unable to do so for the time being. This is due to essential maintenance and at present it is unclear how long this will take," a Sony moderator wrote. "In the meantime you will still be able to sign into PSN via your PlayStation 3 and PSP devices to connect to game services and view Trophy/Friends information."

What happened? According to Eurogamer, Sony's PlayStation Network password system has a flaw that allows a hacker to change your password armed only with your PSN account email address and date of birth.

Wednesday's downtime also comes the day after Verizon announced that the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, known as the PlayStation Phone, will be available on May 26 for $199.99.

Microsoft Launches Java SDK for Team Foundation Server

As part of its batch of developer-related announcements at the TechEd 2011 conference here, Microsoft announced a new Java software development kit for its Team Foundation Server product.

The Team Foundation Server SDK for Java includes documentation, samples and redistributable components to help developers create  software products that integrate with Microsoft Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010.

In a May 16 blog post on the SDK, Brian Harry, a Microsoft technical fellow and product unit manager for TFS, said, “Now you will be able to extend TFS using Java just as easily as you can with .NET.  This is going to enable teams using Team Explorer Everywhere to fully customize their development environment – in Eclipse or outside.  Further, we have a few 3rd party ISVs that are in the process of adding TFS support to their software offerings using our new SDK.  Their feedback has been great in helping make sure we have a solid and easy-to-use SDK.  Stay tuned in the coming weeks and months for news of these new partners.”

The TFS SDK for Java includes the following:

• A redistributable JAR file containing the TFS API’s. This is a the same Java code that is used by Team Explorer Everywhere in the TFS plug-in for Eclipse and the Cross-platform command line client.  It provides access to version control, work item tracking, build and other functionality in TFS from your own Java based application.   We ship this as a single JAR file containing all the code and Java dependencies to make is easy to include in your own applications.

• The native code libraries used by the TFS API. We have a small amount of JNI code in the API to handle functionality that is not natively supported in Java on all the platforms that we support (such as access to Kerberos for authentication, or integrating with Keychain on the Mac).  We are making this native code available, also redistributable and compiled for Windows (x86, x64), Mac (Universal), Linux(x86, x64, ppc), HP-UX (ia64_32, pa_risc), Solaris(sparc, x86, x64) and AIX (ppc).

• Full API documentation in Javadoc format. This is the same code documentation used by our developers, written by our developers.

• Code Samples. The team are very aware that getting started with this large code base can be quite a challenge, therefore they have put together a bunch of sample code to try and get you started. 

Sony CEO admits fault in strategy

Sony Corp Chief Executive Officer Howard Stringer said the hacker attack that crippled its online entertainment service and exposed more than 100 million customer accounts was a hiccup in the company’s Internet strategy.

“Nobody’s system is 100 per cent secure,” Stringer, 69, said in a phone interview almost a month after the shutdown of the online entertainment services. “This is a hiccup in the road to a network future.”

The attack has undermined Stringer’s plan to lure customers by linking Sony’s televisions, mobile devices and computers to its entertainment content through the Internet. Stringer, who apologised for the breach earlier this month, said he doesn’t have estimates for how the hacking attack will affect earnings, scheduled for May 26.

“Investors are waiting to see more information on the financial impact of the incident,” said Yuji Fujimori, a Tokyo- based analyst at Barclays Plc. “Sony, being a victim of the attack, hasn’t been able to disclose much about the investigation.”

Sony hired three security firms to investigate the attack and is working with law enforcement officials after criticism it was too slow to inform consumers about the breach.

Microsoft software satisfaction rating hits record high

Americans are more enamored than ever with Microsoft's software, according to a national customer satisfaction survey released today.

Microsoft scored a record 79 points in the newest poll conducted by American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), a consumer survey started by the University of Michigan.

The three-point increase over 2009's results -- representing a 7% gain -- put Microsoft's rating at its highest level since ACSI began quizzing Americans about the quality of computer software in 2006.

And it shows that Microsoft's put the Vista debacle behind it, said David VanAmburg, the ACSI's director.

But VanAmburg cautioned against reading too much into Microsoft's record score. "While this is good news for Microsoft, its rate of improvement is about the same as the industry as a whole," said VanAmburg.

ACSI's "Other" category for software, which includes products made by any vendor except Microsoft, climbed two points to 79, an increase of 5%. That category's rating was also a record.

Xerox and Cisco to Form Alliance to Deliver Cloud Services

Xerox Corporation (NYSE: XRX) and Cisco announced today that they intend to form an alliance to simplify IT management by delivering cloud-based services and technology solutions that combine network intelligence and print.

The alliance plans to bring Xerox's market-leading managed print and cloud IT outsourcing (ITO) services to customers over Cisco's intelligent network infrastructure. Both companies will arm channel partners with solutions that help businesses extend their existing IT investments to improve performance and reduce cost.

Through this alliance, Xerox and Cisco plan to make IT applications more accessible and improve efficiency for the workforce with solutions, such as mobile printing – the ability to print from any device, anytime, anywhere. 

"This relationship puts Xerox and Cisco at the center of a simplified, connected infrastructure – bringing together networking, printing and cloud services," said Ursula Burns, chairman and CEO, Xerox. "Together we're helping businesses transition to the cloud in ways that best suit their operations, and add the services needed to enhance security and productivity for employees."

Access Facebook on handsets without GPRS!

Indian telecom major Bharti Airtel has partnered Singapore-based software applications developer U2opia Mobileto launch an application for mobile phones that will allow users to access Facebook on all kind of handsets without paying data connectivity charges. Airtel customers can update their Facebook status through this USSD service free of cost whereas Re 1 per day will be applicable for accessing the full-feature application. Airtel users can dial *325# and *fbk# for non-qwerty mobile handsets to access the app.

U2opia is using Unstructured Supplementary Data (USSD) technology which is used by telecom players to send alerts to their users informing them about their balance at the end of call or for sending miss call alerts. "It is like SMS and hence, the load on the network is negligible. We have built some commands through which a user can receive alerts on activity happening on his wall as well post an update,” Sumesh Menon, co-founder and CEO, U2Opia Mobile has said.

"In the Indian market scenario, where the penetration of smart phones is relatively low and the use of internet on mobiles is primarily limited to key cities, many users are excluded from accessing their Facebook accounts via mobile phones. We look forward to bringing millions of Facebook users in India closer to their love for social networking by allowing them to access it anytime, anywhere on their Airtel-powered mobile phones," Joshi added " Shireesh Joshi, director, marketing, mobile services, Airtel has said.

“At Facebook, we are always exploring ways to enable people to easily connect and share with friends on Facebook wherever they are, whenever they want. This innovative USSD-based Facebook access service that will be offered by Airtel is another affordable and easy way for people to stay connected with their friends and family through Facebook," ,” Henri Moissinac, head, Mobile Business, Facebook had said.

Intel says 'Medfield' smartphone coming early next year

Intel on Tuesday showed a prototype smartphone based on its low-power Medfield processor and said Intel-based phones from "major players" would be in the market next year.

Intel has struggled to get its chips into smartphones and tablets, markets that are dominated today by processor designs from Intel's U.K. rival ARM Holdings.

Intel had been working closely with Nokia to develop phones based on its Meego operating system, but Nokia pulled out of the partnership to focus on Windows phones instead.

"That was, in hindsight, perhaps the wrong partner to have picked," Intel CEO Paul Otellini said at the company's investor conference Tuesday, in perhaps the biggest understatement of the day.

Intel has taken the reference designs it created with Nokia and is shopping them around to other manufacturers, Otellini said. "We plan to have Medfield phones in the market early next year," he said.

The device Intel showed on stage looked much like an iPhone. It was running a version of Google's Android OS and displaying high-definition video. The company also has reference designs for 7-inch and 10-inch Medfield tablets.

Intel will release an updated, dual-core Medfield chip later next year, also made on a 32-nanometer manufacturing process, Perlmutter said. But he argued that more cores don't necessarily make a better chip.

Intel's more competitive phone and tablet chips won't appear until 2013 and 2014, when the company expects to introduce new 22-nanometer and 14-nanometer manufacturing processes. The figure refers to the smallest features etched into the chips, and smaller transistors use less power.