That's the gist of a plea issued this week by New York attorney general Eric T. Schneiderman, who's written to the CEOs of Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung, urging them to "help crack down on cell phone theft" by making it more difficult for thieves to wipe stolen devices' memory and resell the devices.

"This is a multi-billion dollar industry that produces some of the most popular and technologically advanced consumer electronic products in the world," said Schneiderman in a statement. "Surely we can work together to find solutions that lead to a reduction in violent street crime targeting consumers."

Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung -- plus Motorola, which is owned by Google -- control 90% of the U.S. smartphone market. All four except Google build some type of recovery capabilities into their devices. For Android, there are add-ons available in the Google Play online store.

Such partitions have been considered an ideal ever since workers began bringing their own smartphones into the office, but with many vendors already touting similar technologies of their own, it's not certain that VMware will gain traction in the crowded mobile enterprise management market.

VMware Horizon Mobile is available immediately for the LG Intuition and the Motorola RAZR M. New units will come ready to deploy the Android guest OS, but users who have previously purchased either phone can gain access as well. VMware plans to add support for additional models throughout the year.

IT managers once enjoyed uniform device deployments in which all employees were issued a pre-approved, easily managed device, such as a BlackBerry smartphone. As the bring-your-own device (BYOD) movement flooded the workplace with user-owned iPhones and Android models, however, IT staffers have been challenged to keep the devices secure while also respecting privacy concerns. Due to this tension, analysts have characterized the ability to isolate business data from personal data as the "holy grail" of mobile endpoint management.

When it comes to scale out, EMC was quick to recognize the shifting technology landscape by scooping up Isilon more than two years ago. While Isilon supplied the base technology, quickly becoming the most popular scale-out systems in the market, this year's EMC World demonstrates the EMC influence coming through in a big way. The company is introducing a new version of the OS, oneFS; breaking out of the traditional scale-out usage silos; and positioning modular storage systems such as Isilon to be key components in a new era of software-defined storage and big-data applications. As such, the big news about Isilon at this year's EMC World has nothing to do with new hardware and is all about adding new software features.

As we outlined in this Network Computing column detailing EMC's major software-defined storage product, ViPR, Isilon arrays can be full participants in virtualized, heterogenous storage pools that can include everything from high-performance VMAX and VNX arrays to Atmos private cloud object stores. But it's now clear that Isilon is inheriting other strands of EMC's enterprise DNA as several features of the upgraded oneFS are atypical for scale-out systems.

Sure, big iron like Arista's 7500E Data Center Switch, Broadcom's massively integrated Trident II switch chip, and EMC's high-performance and exceedingly scalable VMAX and VNX arrays still generate plenty of crowds and headlines, but the real focus of development resources, R&D dollars and executive attention is on software. If not eating the world, software is definitely encompassing a greater and greater share of it.

Nowhere was this more apparent than at EMC World, and nothing drove home the point with greater force and clarity than EMC CEO Joe Tucci's admission -- nay, proud affirmation -- of the fact that the storage goliath that rose to dominate its industry on the strength of its powerful and burly hardware now devotes the vast majority of its development resources on software. In response to a question at a media briefing on the effect of hardware commodification and the attendant proliferation of white box storage systems on the company's business, Tucci stated that at most, EMC has a mere 500 engineers developing hardware, out of 12,000 total. Indeed, Tucci claimed the company embraces commodity hardware wherever it can, citing as supporting evidence the fact that EMC makes only one custom ASIC. Chiming in, EMC COO David Goulden reinforced the point, saying, "Our value is in the integration and the packaging." Goulden left unsaid the implication that building a VNX array is easy; making it operate like a VNX array isn't.

"Huawei has no connection to the cybersecurity issues the U.S. has encountered in the past, current and future," Huawei CEO Ren Zhengfei, 68, told local reporters -- through an interpreter -- while on a visit to New Zealand this week, according to news reports.

Since founding the company 26 years ago, Ren had previously refused to conduct media interviews. But during his visit this week to New Zealand, he agreed to meet with reporters from four of the country's news outlets.

In response to reporters' questions, Ren dismissed allegations that his employees might be colluding with state security services, instead likening the relationship between his company and the Chinese government to that between New Zealand companies and their government, reported Fairfax Media in New Zealand. Furthermore, he said he was confident that his employees would be free to refuse any request from a Chinese intelligence service to spy on a foreign entity.

In a keynote speech at Interop, Facebook VP of hardware design and supply chain Frank Frankovsky reviewed two years of progress at expanding the scope of the project, which now includes open designs for server racks and cold storage designs based on how Facebook handles your old photos.

These designs are geared for very high performance and scalability, but also for energy efficiency. The industry average is that a data center will consume about 1.9 times as much electrical power as actually makes it to a server delivering compute services because of waste in the process, including electrical conversions and air conditioning demands. By minimizing the need for conversions and eliminating air conditioning, Facebook has been able to reduce that factor to about 1.07, Frankovsky said, which translates into an operational cost savings of about 38 percent. The design also reduced the capital expense budget by 24 percent.

Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that this Ursa Major at Facebook is the founder of the Open Compute Project and has ended up as chairman of the Open Compute Foundation's board of directors. He's the de facto leader of the world's first open-source hardware project.

His official title at Facebook is VP of hardware design and supply chain operations, which means he's responsible for ensuring that Facebook has all the hardware it needs when it needs it. That's no small order, and over the last several years it has forced a rethinking of what data center builders were doing.

Anyone who has been to Facebook's data center complex in Prineville, Ore., can see the first phase of Frankovsky's work. Server motherboards sit on open sleds that slide in and out of the server rack for easier maintenance; components are arranged in channels that allow continuous air flow down the rack. Temperatures are a little higher than expected in the data center because Facebook servers are designed to run at 85 degrees and Facebook doesn't use giant air conditioner chillers to cool the air. The result of revamped server and data center design is a facility that is 38% more efficient and 24% less expensive than predecessor data centers, said Frankovsky in a recent interview at Facebook offices in Menlo Park, Calif.

The Enstratius Cloud Management Platform interfaces to 23 specific cloud infrastructure offerings, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Windows Azure, Rackspace, Eucalyptus, HP Cloud, AT&T Synaptic Cloud, IBM SmartCloud, VMware vCloud Suite and OpenStack. The most recent addition was CloudCentral's Cloud Platform hosted in Australian data centers; it was added to the list May 3.

The Enstratius platform provides cloud suppliers with an employee self-service catalogue and design and management tools to help users create workloads and deploy them into a cloud environment. The platform is noted for the major cloud suppliers that it supports. Unlike competitors, it reaches deep into the ranks of secondary suppliers as well, such as GoGrid, Bluelock, Joyent, CloudScaling, CloudSigma and the Apache Software Foundation's CloudStack.

That means Dell can start to realize more of its ambition to be the link to and management agent between many cloud users and their service supplier. Dell can also start to integrate more of its recently acquired cloud technologies with those service suppliers, as well as be a large, data center-oriented supplier of servers and network switches.

The workshops, classes and sessions provide the information and case studies that tech leaders need to move forward, while the exhibit floor showcases the new products and technologies available to help them accomplish their goals. We highlight a few of those products in this slideshow.

The news arrived only hours after the company released data to tout its forthcoming Haswell chips' improved graphics power and energy management. The new processors have been widely linked to the sagging PC industry's chance for resurgence, and to Intel's continued dominance. But with Intel playing from behind on the mobile scene while also feeling pressure on its server business, Krzanich will face several challenges as he takes the reins.

In a statement, Krzanich emphasized Intel's desire to infiltrate the mobile market. "We have amazing assets, tremendous talent, and an unmatched legacy of innovation and execution," he said. "I look forward to working with our leadership team and employees worldwide to continue our proud legacy, while moving even faster into ultra-mobility, to lead Intel into the next era."

This focus on mobility is nothing new. Tablets and smartphones, most of which run on ARM processors, have cut deeply into the market for traditional PCs. Last fall, prior to the release of Windows 8, Intel representatives argued that thin form factors, low power consumption and robust graphics performance were prerequisites to the PC's resurgence, and that the company's Ultrabook line was intended to deliver precisely these qualities. The Ultrabooks that followed, however, have failed so far to reverse the declining sales of traditional computers, making Haswell one of several key factors -- Windows Blue, Microsoft's upcoming update to Windows 8, is another -- in the PC market's future.

The invitation directed me to call an 800 number, to agree to Google's unprecedentedly restrictive terms of service, and to choose a color: Charcoal, Tangerine, Shale, Cotton or Sky. For the fashion-challenged, that translates to black, orange, gray, white or light blue.

I opted for black because it goes with everything and it's less likely to attract attention, which appears to be difficult to avoid if you wear Glass in public.

The invitation asked me to choose between picking up Glass at a Google office in Mountain View, New York or Los Angeles, or having Glass shipped. As a resident of San Francisco, I opted to for the in-person pickup experience at Google's sprawling headquarters in Mountain View.

]]> On Friday, 10 months after signing up to join Google's Glass Explorer program at Google I/O 2012, I received my invitation to purchase and pick up Google Glass.

The invitation directed me to call an 800 number, to agree to Google's unprecedentedly restrictive terms of service, and to choose a color: Charcoal, Tangerine, Shale, Cotton or Sky. For the fashion-challenged, that translates to black, orange, gray, white or light blue.

I opted for black because it goes with everything and it's less likely to attract attention, which appears to be difficult to avoid if you wear Glass in public.

The invitation asked me to choose between picking up Glass at a Google office in Mountain View, New York or Los Angeles, or having Glass shipped. As a resident of San Francisco, I opted to for the in-person pickup experience at Google's sprawling headquarters in Mountain View.

]]> http://www.networkcomputing.com/quickview/google-glass-first-impressions/3190?wc=4 http://www.networkcomputing.com/quickview/google-glass-first-impressions/3190?wc=4 http://www.networkcomputing.com/quickview/cloud-computing?wc=4 Thu, 02 May 2013 09:19 EDT http://www.networkcomputing.com/next-generation-data-center/servers/brocade-announces-new-hardware-software/240154024 http://www.networkcomputing.com/next-generation-data-center/servers/brocade-announces-new-hardware-software/240154024 http://www.networkcomputing.com/next-generation-data-center/servers Wed, 01 May 2013 16:50 EDT Amazon Web Services officials touted their growing array of services and expanding customer base at an Amazon Summit 2013 in San Francisco Tuesday. Senior VP Andy Jassy sounded a familiar refrain: AWS has a high volume, low price mentality that leads to repeated service pricing reductions.

And Amazon unveiled a new AWS Global Certification program, similar to VMware, Microsoft and Novell certified training programs before it. AWS training for technical staff concludes with an independently verified exam. In AWS' case, there will be three certifications: a Solutions Architect, SysOps Administrator and Developer. Test center sponsor Kryterion will act as the verifier; it has testing centers in 100 countries.

But neither Jassy nor other Amazon officials addressed parent company Amazon.com's core financial position and whether it will be able to indefinitely sustain its breakneck pace of innovation and price cutting. It has long been a mystery to what extent AWS is an independent business unit of Amazon.com and whether it relies on cash flow from the parent company. The revenues it generates appear in the "other" column of Amazon.com's fiscal reporting.

Amazon Web Services generated $2.1 billion in revenues in 2012, according to an estimate by Ben Schacter, the Macquarie Capital analyst who is thought to have one of the strongest information pipelines into AWS. Those revenues will grow to $3.8 billion in 2013 and $6.2 billion in 2014, he has said in his reports on Amazon.

Terrell came to share her wisdom on managing tech talent, on a leadership panel that I moderated. She was joined by Kim Hammonds , CIO for The Boeing Company; Sheila Jordan, senior VP of communication and collaboration IT at Cisco Systems; Bridget A. Van Kralingen, IBM's senior VP of global business services; and David Behen, CIO for the state of Michigan.

Talent is not a "women's issue." Developing and managing talent is a top concern for every IT leader. CIOs tell me repeatedly of their struggles to find the right mix of people and then keep them from hopping to rivals. That's one reason that the Big 3 Detroit automakers -- GM, Ford and Chrysler -- sponsored this event and their CIOs participated, to discuss developing the next generation of talent.

As I looked out at the audience of about 500 people, at least two-thirds female, eager to help each other move their careers forward and encourage girls to study science and math, I felt inspired. Perhaps the panelists felt inspired too -- because they got unusually candid with this audience about the pressures and hurdles that women often experience in tech.

Currently, under the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), law enforcement agencies can subpoena any email that's been opened by a recipient or that's more than 180 days old; no warrant -- and accompanying requirement to first demonstrate probable cause -- required.

But the Leahy-Lee ECPA Amendments Act, approved Thursday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, would prohibit warrantless access to stored, online communications. "The bill would require law enforcement agents to obtain a warrant in order to gain access to the contents of email and of documents, pictures and other information stored in the cloud," said Greg Nojeim, senior counsel at the civil rights group Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), in a blog post.

According to the police charges, Flannery (aka "Aush0k") "attacked and defaced a government website" and accessed one or more sites without authorization.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) said his arrest resulted from a two-week investigation that commenced after a government website had been defaced. "This individual was operating from a position of trust who had access to sensitive information from clients including government agencies," said the AFP's manager of cybercrime operations commander, Glen McEwen, in a Wednesday press briefing. "The AFP believes this man's skill sets and access to this type of information presented a considerable risk for Australian society."]]>

According to the police charges, Flannery (aka "Aush0k") "attacked and defaced a government website" and accessed one or more sites without authorization.

The Australian Federal Police (AFP) said his arrest resulted from a two-week investigation that commenced after a government website had been defaced. "This individual was operating from a position of trust who had access to sensitive information from clients including government agencies," said the AFP's manager of cybercrime operations commander, Glen McEwen, in a Wednesday press briefing. "The AFP believes this man's skill sets and access to this type of information presented a considerable risk for Australian society."]]> http://www.networkcomputing.com/quickview/anonymous-australia-disavows-self-procla/3174?wc=4 http://www.networkcomputing.com/quickview/anonymous-australia-disavows-self-procla/3174?wc=4 http://www.networkcomputing.com/quickview/security?wc=4 Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:31 EDT