Connectivity & Cloud - Page 11

With many Americans wanting to get their grubby mitts on Google Fiber, there are going to be many simultaneously excited and disappointed with the news that Google is set to deliver its super-fast 1Gbps service to low-income properties.

Google will be rolling its Fiber service out to low-income housing in markets where it offers its Google Fiber service, including Atlanta, Durham, Nashville, and Kansas City. Best of all, it's going to be offered for, free. Yes, $0. Nothing. Nada. The Mountain View-based giant notes that households earning under $30,000 per year, roughly 26% of those have no Internet access at all.

A recent trial program pushed more than 90% of the residents in one public housing property sign up for Google Fiber. But offering up some free 1Gbps Internet for free, is going to be huge for the service, and those in low-income housing.

If you thought your current 4G speeds were good, they won't even begin to compare to what 5G will offer. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has agreed on the preliminary definitions of the future 5G standard, where the 12-member delegation decided on the new specification.

5G compliant networks will be capable of providing speeds of up to 20Gbps, or over 2GB/sec, which is 20x faster than the 1Gbps specification for 4G. This means that consumers will enjoy speeds of up to 1GB/sec on your smartphones, with the region being between 100MB/sec and 1GB/sec, which is insanity. This is a 10x to 100x increase in the speeds available on typical 4G networks.

This huge increase in speeds will usher in a new era of connectivity, allowing 4K resolution video streaming and beyond being more than capable from a 5G-capable smartphone. The final 5G standard will be confirmed in October, with the 193 ITU member countries all voting on the final spec. 5G should be tested in 2018 at the 2018 PyeongChang Winter Olympic Games.

Elon Musk has asked the Federal Communications Commission for permission for SpaceX to built a constellation of 4,000 satellites that would blast Internet to even the most remote regions of Earth.

The plan would see SpaceX turn into an Internet service provider, a company that would compete directly with giants like Verizon and Comcast. Musk teased the plan earlier this year during a SpaceX event, but he didn't formally ask the FCC's permission until just last month. SpaceX would use their Falcon 9 rocket to launch the satellites into orbit, and then start broadcasting Internet signals to various points around the planet.

SpaceX is requesting permission from the FCC to test out if their antenna technology is strong enough to blast signals to devices on Earth, and if their permission is granted, they could begin testing this out by next year. If the testing all goes to plan, SpaceX could be your ISP within the next five years.

Computex 2015 - GIGABYTE wants to evolve into a hardware company known for supporting the Internet of Things (IoT), and has introduced its GB-BXBT-3825 IoT gateway. The gateway has been designed to provide connectivity between legacy devices and intelligence IoT infrastructures.

The new system is powered by the Intel Atom E3825 processor, and is being promoted by GIGABYTE as "the idea building block for a fast development of intelligence vending machines." The GB-BXBT-3825 provides connectivity that bridges legacy equipment to the cloud, and hardware security root that provides trust, data encryption, and software protection.

The GIGABYTE GB-BXBT-3825 has the following specifications: GIGABYTE MZBAYAD motherboard, 1.33GHz Intel Atom E3825 CPU, 1x BGA 1170, 1x SO-DIMM slot supporting up to 8GB RAM, 1x GbE LAN port, Intel HD graphics, Realtek ALC283 audio, 1x SATA III 6 Gb/s port, and 1x 2.5" HDD/SSD internal bay.

Computex 2015 - There's no doubt that every company is racing to integrate USB 3.1 into everything they produce - laptops, cases, motherboards and accessories are all being announced with USB 3.1 support and ASUS is helping lead the charge.

As part of its Computex 2015 display, ASUS has shown off a myriad of USB 3.1 ready products and what you are about to learn about is the extensions and accessories line of products on offer.

Firstly is the USB 3.1 UPD panel and the USB 3.1 enclosure, with ASUS' UPD panel providing up to 100W of power as per USB Type-C limitations and the enclosure providing a USB 3.1 Type-A experience for all consumers.

Computex 2015 - Analogix always has something to impress me wherever we are, but it was their various demos and prototypes of USB Type-C products that had me impressed at Computex this year.

The company was showing off its new chips in the ANX7428, ANX7816+, ANX7418 and ANX7688 which provide DisplayPort, USB 3.0 and Power Delivery all over the same, tiny little cable. That tiny little cable we mentioned, is thanks to a tiny little chip, which is pictured above.

Analogix was showing off the Apple MacBook Air, which will see future cables using their technology to output to various other outputs or devices.

NVIDIA has just upgraded its GRID cloud gaming service, which is now capable of streaming gamers 1080p at 60FPS. NVIDIA took to its official blog to announce the "public release of a new SHIELD Hub beta".

This has allowed NVIDIA's GRID to become "the first game-streaming service that can instantly stream games at 1080p60". The beta is available now, but the official release will be arriving "near the end of May" according to NVIDIA. As for the games, there are over 35 games in the GRID library that support 1080p60. These games include Batman: Arkham Origins, Devil May Cry 4, and Dirt 3 Complete Edition.

NVIDIA has also announced that it has just turned on two new data centers, with one of them covering the southwestern United States. The other, will be covering gamers in Central Europe, and will go online later this month. This brings NVIDIA up to six data centers across the world, pumping out games over GRID to Shield devices in 20 countries.

Google wants to offer a wireless service to people in the United States, but it looks like their plans of unveiling this as a semi surprise have been popped.

A recent look at the firmware image for the Nexus 6 has teased that there will soon be a service that offers consumers the option of paying for only what they use, with the future service provided with a logo, and a temporary name: Project Fi. Android Police noticed an app called "Tycho" that housed numerous clues to Project Fi, with the app looking to provide the option of activating the service, but giving consumers additional options, too.

These options include putting the account on hole, resuming it, or closing it down completely, without needing the consumer to call a customer care number. Project Fi users can also port their own number to the service, or they can use their number from a separate Google Voice system, too.

Following in the footsteps of the National Football League (NFL) and Major League Baseball (MLB), it looks like the National Hockey League (NHL) wants to provide a wider variety of statistics to hockey fans.

The league is currently in the process of digitizing statistics that go back almost a century, hoping the effort will keep hardcore hockey fans more engaged. There was a belief that trying to collect hockey statistics is a bit more difficult, as the game is fast-moving and players are able to move onto and off the ice constantly, but the NHL wants to prove that isn't necessarily true.

The stats have been renamed and the NHL wants to deploy a new algorithm in time to collect data on every game during the 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs - with data related to home and road records, goals against, special team statistics, and other data collected and sorted.

Smart appliances connected to the Internet of Things (IoT) could help businesses cut energy consumption, yielding financial savings that can be used for other business ventures, supporters say. A growing number of connected sensors, which are dropping in price, provide more choices for business leaders when embracing smart technology.

Businesses can embrace smart tech that is able to provide additional details regarding energy consumption, where and when it is happening the most, and how to save money. New offerings provide minute-by-minute metering, a unique metric that holds great potential for the future.

"Energy costs for businesses, particularly small businesses, are always a big challenge - especially if that business is energy intensive," said Rob McNamara, executive director of SmartGrid GB, in a statement published by The Guardian. "So any technologies, products and services that can help them reduce their energy costs are typically going to be welcome. And things like smart metering, in particular, can provide them with tangible benefits."

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has big goals for his company's Internet.org campaign, designed to bring affordable, reliable Internet access to people across the world. Ideally, the organization will be able to shorten the technological gap of citizens, especially in developing nations where there are plenty of mobile users - but unreliable Internet access.

Zuckerberg launched Internet.org in 2013 and Facebook has largely worked behind-the-scenes with Samsung, Qualcomm, Ericsson and other corporate partners. A free mobile app has been released in a number of nations, giving users access to Facebook, Google Search, AccuWeather - creating opportunities for first-time users to benefit from connected services.

"Yeah, our team is in contact with them frequently, and I talk to a number of folks over there," said Zuckerberg, in an interview on Studio 1.0 on Bloomberg Television. "When we launched in Zambia, Google was actually one of the services that was in the Internet.org suite, and that's valuable. In addition to health services and education, jobs and different government services and communication tools, people need to be able to search and find information. And whether we work with Google or others on that in all of these other countries, I think that is an important thing. I'd love to work with Google. They are a great search product."

Well, my 100/40Mbps fiber connection has just become quite slow compared to what researchers over at the University of Oxford have been playing around with. These researchers have reached a new milestone in networking technology by reaching bi-directional speeds of 224 gigabits per second (Gbps) using light fidelity (Li-Fi).

Considering 100Gbps fiber optic core networks have only just come into play, achieving 224Gbps over an LED light bulb is simply amazing. This connection would be capable of downloading a gigantic 27GB/sec, capable of blowing through terabytes of data in seconds. This new technology is being worked on as a possible alternative to Wi-Fi, as Li-Fi uses the visible light spectrum to transfer data. When mixed with a high-speed fiber Internet connection, researchers believe that we could see speeds far higher than anything Wi-Fi has on offer.

This means that the future of Internet connectivity could be delivered through light, which doesn't pass through walls, to most areas. We could have light bulbs providing super-fast Internet connectivity, with one of the pioneers behind Li-Fi, Harold Haas, stating that the future of every LED lightbulb could be used as an ultra-fast alternative to Wi-Fi. During a TED Talk, Haas said about Li-Fi: "We have the infrastructure there. We can use them for communications. All we need to do is fit a small microchip to every potential illumination device and this would then combine two basic functionalities: illumination and wireless data transmission. In the future we will not only have 14 billion light bulbs, we may have 14 billion Li-Fi's deployed worldwide for a cleaner, greener and even a brighter future".

The Internet of Things (IoT) has great potential to be a truly disruptive infrastructure, with expectations of 20+ billion "Things" just around the corner. Consumers will enjoy smart technologies in their homes and in the workplace, opening up a large number of potential vulnerabilities that cybercriminals will exploit.

There is a mix of privacy and security concerns related to IoT products that must be addressed by manufacturers. Consumers were outraged when Samsung confirmed its smart HDTVs had the capability to listen in using the TV's built-in voice command features.

Meanwhile, cybersecurity experts are worried about hackers able to target smart technologies - especially newer products in which security may not have been a priority - that will complicate things long-term. IoT product vendors must keep in mind that consumers will be reckless with security, and it cannot be an optional feature.

Intel isn't sure what will happen with the booming Internet of Things (IoT) market, but the Silicon Valley company wants to make sure it is involved.

During CES last month, Intel unveiled the Curie chip designed for wearables and other connected technologies - which it hopes will be introduced in a variety of different future products. Intel predicts there will more than 800 million Web-connected homes over the next three years, and that number will only grow higher.

"What we see in that segment of the market, the Internet of Things, there's lots of innovation going on," said Stacy Smith, CFO of Intel, in a statement to CNET. "If anybody tells you they know who's going to be the winner three years from now, they're making it up, because nobody knows."

Security systems connected to the Internet of things (IoT) could create an unexpected back door that puts owners at risk, according to a new security report from Hewlett-Packard. Specifically, brute-force attacks can be especially helpful in breaking through security, with manufacturers neglecting to use lockout procedures after failed repeated login attempts.

In addition, there were security vulnerabilities found in user interfaces on mobile, desktop and cloud platforms utilized by home owners. HP didn't disclose which vendors it used in its IoT security system study, but this appears to be a major problem that must be addressed.

"The results were pretty startling," said Daniel Miessler, practice principal at HP Fortify, in a statement to eWeek. "The big finding was that 10 out of 10 systems could be brute-forced to extract usernames and passwords via the Internet."

There are plenty of opportunities for consumers and companies embracing the Internet of Things (IoT), but trying to secure connected things will be extremely difficult. Vendors must embrace continuous testing programs to verify their services are secure - and consumers will need to utilize available security protocols, while pushing for new securities in the future.

Regardless of potential privacy and security concerns, expect to see a number of new connected things in the coming years - with everything from smart energy meters to security, lighting and air conditioning expected to be connected. There will be over 28 billion things installed in households and apartments by 2020, according to IDC.

"IoT is a very fast moving space, and the pressure on companies to get new things to market almost invariably comes at the expense of proper security practices," said Casey Ellix, CEO of Bugcrowd cybersecurity firm, in a statement published by Forbes. "On top of this, many of the devices are built on top of open source libraries and components, which themselves have vulnerabilities which are discovered on a regular basis."

In a order to easily organize and store photos in your account, Microsoft has added an Albums feature for their OneDrive service - claimed by some as a move to compete with popular competitors including Dropbox and Google's storage options.

Released this Wednesday through a company blog post, this addition will feature capabilities mirroring Dropbox's Carousel photo gallery app and Google Drive's built-in albums feature. Available through the iOS app now, the company has stated they will add Android and Windows phone support "soon".

It's also claimed that next month will see an addition of automatic photo import features for Windows 7 and 8 users, as already seen with Android, iOS and Windows Phone versions as of last July. This new feature will see a camera imports folder added, becoming the location for all automatic imports from both PC's and mobile devices - changing it from the current "All photo's" folder.

The Internet of Things (IoT) captured a lot of headlines during the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier this month, and security will remain a major issue for early adopters. The idea that connected household items can access the Internet provides great opportunity for enhanced services - but provides cybercriminals an access point to compromise new products.

Cybersecurity companies are aware of the great potential of IoT and connected devices, but understand they must scramble to defend an entirely new ecosystem that seems poised to boom.

"If people are worried about Facebook and Google storing your data today, wait until you see what is coming with IoT in next 2-5 years," said Ed Montgomery, Marketing Manager at F-Secure, via Tweet.

The Internet of Things (IoT) may yield great potential to simplify lives, but there is growing concern that these connected devices could eventually begin to take over our lives. The use of artificial intelligence to help simply - and enhance - new products opens the door to human-like capabilities, but that has increased concern.

"When we're not being tracked, we're more free to experiment, to be our authentic selves, to read new things, to be different kinds of people," said Neil Richards, law professor at Washington University in St. Louis, in a statement published by the San Jose Mercury News. However, connected monitoring opens the door to "menaces our society's foundational commitments to intellectual diversity and eccentric individuality."

IoT-based technologies will continue to increase in popularity, as companies expand research and development efforts - but there are numerous concerns that must also be addressed.

There seems to be no question that the Internet of Things (IoT) will continue to be a major business, as more smart products enter the household. However, without industry cooperation from software designers and hardware makers, it could end up being a massive headache for everyone involved.

The number of IoT-related announcements at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) earlier this month should indicate where the market is quickly moving. If companies don't begin to work together on new standards, such as an open platform that is evenly distributed is necessary, then things may just become a nightmare.

"Companies may not care as much about overarching standards so long as the application will meet the needs they have today," said Andy Peebler, managing director of ecommerce and digital marketing at Acquity Group, in a statement to NBC News.