Tech Cloud

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Small team, big robot

If you haveever watched Power Rangers or Battle of the Planets and thought "that'll never happen", prepare to be amazed as boffins have created robots that you can get to team up when they touch to make a bigger bot.

In a paper published in Nature, the mini-bots are able to work independently, or can team up without the potential problem of a single "head bot" failure bringing down the whole network.

Basically, the bots can all be the leader or a drone. Proximity causes them to nominate a leader and team up in a variety of shapes and combos.

"Take moving on a very rocky terrain, for example," lead author Marco Dorigo, a research director at IRIDIA, the AI lab of the Brussels Free University told Popular Science. "One alone would get stuck, but attached to each other they become more stable and they can move on the rough terrain."

Of course, we're far more interested in how this technology can be utilised in the next series of Robot Wars and how loud Jonathan Pierce's voice will go when they Megazord up, but that's just us. This is real science.

  The point of the experiment isn't even the teaming robots as such - it's the idea of handing off control for the greater good. Or as we humans call it, teamwork.

And there's enough intelligence that if the lead bot is unable to perform satisfactorily, he can be "relieved of command".

In this case, the bots communicate over good ol' WiFi, but in the future, they could link over Bluetooth mesh.

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Global Cyberattack on Energy Sector

The hacker group known as "Dragonfly" is behind sophisticated wave of recent cyberattacks on the energy sectors of Europe and North America, Symantec reported Wednesday.

The attacks could provide the group with the means to severely disrupt energy operations on both continents.

Dragonfly launched a simililar campaign from 2011 to 2014, but it entered a quiet period in 2014 after Symantec and others exposed its activities.

The current campaign began in December 2015, Symantec noted.

The firm found strong indications of Dragonfly activity in the United States, Turkey and Switzerland, and traces of activity in places outside those areas.

The attackers have employed a number of methods to infect systems, including malicious emails, watering hole attacks and Trojanized software.   While the campaign itself is sophisticated, the tools and methods used by the attackers to penetrate the SCADA industrial control systems are not.

"What's interesting here is the relatively unsophisticated methods the hacking group has used," said Leigh-Anne Galloway, cybersecurity resilience lead for Positive Technologies.

"Usually with SCADA, the tactic of choice is to exploit zero-day vulnerabilities," she told TechNewsWorld. "In this case, though, they've chosen to go for the older but most-effective methods of phishing and watering holes to get in."

The Dragonfly hackers use their tools to collect credentials and perform reconnaissance on the systems they're attacking, noted Indegy's Tamir.

"Once they get that information and penetrate the systems themselves, manipulating the systems does not require any special tools," she said. "The systems are quite easy to manipulate once you're inside them."

"We are seeing the attackers increasingly 'live off the land' by using default system administration tools in order to penetrate systems, as well as reusing and modifying existing off-the-shelf malicious software," added Symantec's Chien.

Since discovering the latest activity, Symantec has briefed more than 100 energy sector and government organizations in the United States and Europe and made recommendations to them about coping with the attacks.

"The power grid penetration incidents are terrifying," said Varun Badhwar, CEO of RedLock.

"They really hit home the importance of having a solid cybersecurity strategy in place for organizations of all types," he told TechNewsWorld.

Attacks on industrial control systems have been increasing in recent times, according to a new report from IBM Security.

There were 2,788 attacks in 2016, up from 640 attacks in 2013, for instance. That trend appears to be continuing this year. Through July, IBM already had reported 2,522 attacks.

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Cloud tech and telecomunicating influencing workspace design

 Business culture has undergone a period of transformation during the last decade. Modern companies have challenged the value of rigid corporate culture, instead embracing the modern ethos that promotes productivity by involving itself in employee happiness.

Traditional 9 to 5 schedules have been replaced by flexible working hours, isolated cubicles have been converted into open plan workspaces and mandatory ultra formal attire is no longer necessary.

With change in office lifestyle has come change in workspace design. Designers are having to adjust and come up with innovative ideas to provide efficient furniture and layouts that meet modern needs.

Coffee culture and coworking has led to contemporary office design

Coworking has become the most popular trend of 21st century business culture. It involves a shared working environment where employees are not all employed by the same organisation. A recent survey discovered that there has been a 67% growth in the industry in the last ten years. Advances in technology that make telecommuting a viable option are largely behind the surge in coworking popularity.

One particular branch of the trend is the coffee shop inspired workspace. It’s evocative of trendy East London culture and part of the flat white economy phenomenon. Coffee shops have a long tradition of fuelling creativity. Incorporating them into office layouts is therefore designed to increase productivity, creativity and employee morale.

Coffee shop inspired spaces have a fairly casual approach, often furnished with comfortable sofas, shared desk space and open plan layouts.

Office design has become more environmentally friendly

Climate change and other issues regarding sustainability continue to make headlines around the world.

Businesses have taken preventive measures to boost their PR image by taking steps to protect the environment. For example, the SAP recruitment agency Eursap have announced that they will be planting a tree in The National Forest for every SAP Consultant they successfully place.

Greener workplaces are also much healthier environments for employees to work in. Absenteeism costs UK businesses an estimated £36 billion each year so many are enforcing green initiatives to protect the health of their staff.

Office designers such as Open Workspace Design specialise in creating eco-friendly plans, from thinking about the efficiency of lighting to minimising waste during any refurbishment. Many offices are also introducing house plants and living walls to improve air quality and avoid sick building syndrome.

Telecommuting means there is less need for desk space

The need for workspace has been reduced by the popularity of telecommuting. It’s a popular phenomenon - two-thirds of workers would jump at the chance of working from home while 36% of employees would shun a pay rise in favour of telecommuting.

Businesses have started to embrace telecommuting as a way of reducing the need for permanent office space. Not only can this improve job satisfaction for employees but the financial benefits can be huge for the company too. Now that office–to–residential permitted development rights have been made permanent, developers in the UK are free to turn offices into homes. With vacant property security companies like Oaksure Property Protection, they can heavily reduce expensive business rates too. This means that in cities like London, permanent office space could be harder to find and more expensive.

Having a culture of flexible office space and short-term lets can help companies avoid skyrocketing office costs and even grow business as written about by serviced office providers i2 Office.

Less need for storage units because of cloud-based technology

More and more businesses are taking advantage of cloud technology and mobile services. Work can be exchanged and collaborated on electronically via a third-party provider such as Google Drive or Microsoft’s OneDrive. The documents are not only shared in house but can also be shared with clients.

Behind-the-scenes interactions can be completed in the cloud too. Contractor accountant 3 Wise Bears has already taken its services online, with cloud-based accountancy software. This provides a separate space for all your accounting invoices and interactions.

The rise of cloud-based software has led to a decluttering of offices. With less need for paper copies of documents, businesses no longer need rows of storage units nor do they need large scale industry printers. This allows for businesses to get creative with their spaces and has led to an increase of minimalist or industrial workspace design.

However, companies that embrace cloud-based software need to be extra vigilant when disposing of the devices that used it. In their blog on data destruction, office clearance specialists Clearance Solutions say that even broken or unusable computers may have functioning hard drives that contain confidential information.

Hard drives can be extracted and put to use in other machines, so make sure old devices undergo thorough data destruction before they are disposed of.

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Alexa, Siri and more are vulnerable to 'silent' hacking -DolphinAttack

The researchers come from Zhejiang University, and the findings come from studies into the way that dolphins communicate without forming words like "alright mate?", or "watch out, there's a tuna fishing boat." Dolphins, in case you missed, them make a funny croaky, throaty, crickky noise, but still manage to get their message across.

They have called the attack method "DolphinAttack" and are boasting that it is effective against popular speech recognition systems including Siri, Google Now, Samsung S Voice, Huawei HiVoice, Cortana and Alexa. Pretty much all of them then.

Do not worry though, as the researchers have some recommendations on how to improve the situation at the hardware end.

"This paper aims at examining the feasibility of the attacks that are difficult to detect, and the paper is driven by the following key questions: Can voice commands be inaudible to human while still being audible to devices and intelligible to speech recognition systems? Can injecting a sequence of inaudible voice commands lead to unnoticed security breaches to the voice controllable systems? To answer these questions, we designed DolphinAttack" they write in their paper.

"By injecting a sequence of inaudible voice commands, we show a few proof-of-concept attacks, which include activating Siri to initiate a FaceTime call on iPhone, activating Google Now to switch the phone to the airplane mode, and even manipulating the navigation system in an Audi automobile. We propose hardware and software defense solutions," they add.

"We validate that it is feasible to detect DolphinAttack by classifying the audios using supported vector machine (SVM), and suggest to re-design voice controllable systems to be resilient to inaudible voice command attacks."

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Google and Apple step up the battle for mixed reality

It's time to get real. Or not.   GOOGLE AND APPLE are both touting their new mixed-reality (MR) strategy as a gateway to AR and VR adoption.

Mixed reality, as the name suggests, mixes the real world seen through a camera lens, with augmented elements. Pokemon Go represents a good example, but the next stages will see the idea taken much further.

 Google's new ARCore SDK (a move on from Project Tango) can be used on more phones because it does away with the need for depth perception.

Quoth Google, "We've been developing the fundamental technologies that power mobile AR over the last three years with Tango, and ARCore is built on that work. But, it works without any additional hardware, which means it can scale across the Android ecosystem. ARCore will run on millions of devices, starting today with the Pixel and Samsung's S8, running 7.0 Nougat and above.

"We're targeting 100 million devices at the end of the preview. We're working with manufacturers like Samsung, Huawei, LG, ASUS and others to make this possible with a consistent bar for quality and high performance."

Apple meanwhile has been demoing the first fruits of its ARkit for iOS, first mentioned back in July and currently showing titles including a Walking Dead mixed reality game, an augmentation of Ikea's products to see what they would look like in their homes. These will be amongst the launch titles when iOS11 leaves beta in the coming weeks, possibly with AR glasses in tow.

Microsoft isn't being left behind either, with companies like Acer already slashing the cost of helmets for mixed and augmented reality via Windows Holographic.

Long story short then, the battle to escape reality is on, with all of the major players as obsessed with it as they are about personal assistants.

Whether you love it, or think it's an utter waste of time dreamt up by people who clearly have nothing left for them in the real world (and of course that's a matter of opinion) it looks like VR/AR/MR will be the big talk beyond IFA, as we head on to CES

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Google I/O: Android 8.0, Assistant for iOS and what else to expect

We round up the likely announcements ahead of the keynote's 6pm kick off    TODAY IS LIKE CHRISTMAS for Android fans. At 6pm UK time, Google will host its annual I/O developer conference, which last year witnessed the unveiling of Android 7.0 'Nougat', Google Assistant, Google Home and Daydream VR.

We've rounded up everything you can expect from this year's keynote, and will be covering it live later today.

Android 8.0  Naturally, the next version of Android will be the star of the show during Google's I/O keynote. Dubbed Android 8.0, or 'O', we already know a fair bit about the upcoming release, with Google having released a developer preview back in March.

Google has said that Android O puts a "big priority" on improving battery life, with the upcoming release set to limit how much apps can do in the background. You can also expect easier-to-manage notifications, a picture-in-picture mode like than seen on Android TV and a handful of security improvements, including an update to Android WebView.

We might also find out what will be the official sweet-treat-themed name of Android O later on today. INQ's money is on 'opal fruits'.

Google Assistant for iOS  Rumour has it that Google will announce Assistant for iOS during its I/O keynote on Wednesday. While this won't have the deep integration seen on Android, users will be able to use it to access content in YouTube and other Google apps, according to a report at Bloomberg. However, the same report claims that it will only be available in the US at launch.

VR/AR With Google having launched its Daydream VR platform at last year's I/O, we'll likely be seeing some upgrades so its so-far limited offering, with the firm potentially set to announce its availability for more devices.

Google Tango, the firm's long talked-about augmented reality 3D-mapping tech, is also rumoured to be making an appearance.

Android Wear While we haven't heard many rumours, Android Wear 2.0 last year made its debut at Google I/O, so it's likely we'll be seeing the next version - presumably Android Wear 3.0 - during this year's keynote. However, with the latest version only just making its way onto smartwatches, it's likely the software will see too much of an overhaul this year.

Fuschia Last week, screenshots leaked of Google's mysterious Fuchsia operating system, which some suspect could arrive to replace both Android and Chrome. The OS, which has dumped Linux in favour of a new Google-developed microkernel called "Magenta", brings with it an overhauled card-based design and revamped multitasking, with Google describing it as as targeting "modern phones and modern personal computers with fast processors, non-trivial amounts of RAM with arbitrary peripherals doing open-ended computation."

While it unlikely will make its debut during this year's I/O keynote, Google might offer up a sneak peak at the open source OS.

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iPhone 8 release date, specs and price: Apple confirms 12 September launch event

Apple's 10th anniversary iPhone will launch in two weeks' time    iPhone 8 release date, specs and price: Apple confirms 12 September launch event This is the iPhone 8. Probably  

THE LONG AWAITED iPhone 8 is officially launching in two weeks' time.

The smartphone, tipped by some to arrive as the 'iPhone Edition' or 'iPhone X' will be Apple's 10th-anniversary smartphone and looks set to be the first to debut wireless charging tech, a curved AMOLED display and an unusual vertical dual rear-facing camera. If rumours are correct, the so-called 'Edition' will launch alongside the less-impressive iPhone 7S and 7S Plus.

We've rounded up everything we know about the iPhone 8 so far and will update this article as soon as we hear more. 

Release date The iPhone 8 will be officially unveiled on 12 September. Apple has sent out invites (below) to a launch event in its newly-built Steve Jobs Theatre on its new campus, where it's also expected to unveil the iPhone 7S and 7S Plus.

Despite the iPhone 8's imminent launch event, some reports claim that it might not be available to buy until the fourth quarter, and in limited quantities. A note by analyst Timothy Arcuri from Cowen and Company has added weight to this and claims that production could be delayed due to issues with its Touch ID sensor.

Another report suggests the iPhone 8 may not arrive until 2018. A research note from Deutsche Bank, picked up by Business Insider, claims the smartphone won't make it onto shelves this year due to supply chain issues and "technical challenges".

That said, Digitimes is reporting that mass production of the iPhone 8 is on schedule and that the smartphone will see release in October.

Price If it's anything like Apple's new MacBooks, next year's iPhone will be more expensive than this year's release, with some analysts claiming that the highest-spec model will be the first iPhone to cost more than $1,000.

A report at Forbes claims that pricing could start at an eye-watering $1,100 to $1,200, with Apple offering the handset in 128GB and 256GB configurations only.

Rumoured specs - 5.8in 2.5D OLED edge-to-edge display - New design with an 'all-glass' construction - 71x143x7.4mm - Wireless charging support - Apple A11 chip - Rear-facing Touch ID sensor - iOS 11 with improved Siri, P2P payments - Face-scanning technology - Vertical dual cameras on rear - Support for LTE speeds up to 450Mbps

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Nintendo must pay

NINTENDO HAS had the bounce taken from its mushroom after it was forced to pay $10m after losing a patent lawsuit over its motion controllers.

iLife was awarded $10 for violation of the accelerometer tech inside the Wii remotes that captured the hearts and wrists of gamers and non-gamers alike.

The Dallas court ruled in favour of iLife who had been using similar technology in the healthcare market. In a statement read by their lawyer it said

"Since 2013, Munck Wilson Mandala has represented iLife. Today's verdict is the result of our commitment to excellence and an outstanding team effort."

Their lawyer is Munck Wilson Mandala, in case you'd not guessed.

Nintendo has promised to fight back, stating:

"On Aug. 31, 2017, a jury in Texas found that certain Wii and Wii U video game systems and software bundles infringed a patent belonging to iLife Technologies Inc. related to detecting if a person has fallen down.

"The jury awarded iLife $10 million in damages. Nintendo disagrees with the decision, as Nintendo does not infringe iLife's patent and the patent is invalid. Nintendo looks forward to raising those issues with the district court and with the court of appeals."

Nintendo probably wants to watch itself, as $10m is a fraction of the $144m it was originally being sued for.

However, Nintendo does have one massive card to play. After a row with Philips in 2014, which it looked destined to lose, Nintendo signed a global patent license (GPL) agreement to stop all this legal nonsense.

Thing is - that was for gaming. This is a whole new.. erm… game. Whether the GPL extends to the healthcare sector is something for the next judge.

Lucky, lucky judge.

All of this is doing nothing to help Nintendo's otherwise successful comeback which has seen rave reviews for the Nintendo Switch, the company's hybrid big screen and portable device which succeeded the lacklustre Wii U.

This week, the company released Mario x Rabbids Kingdom Battle - a game which most fans have said would be better without either Mario or the Rabbids, depending on your allegiance.

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What is the key?

private cloud from rackspace.

get the agility, scalability and efficiency of the public cloud, with the greater levels of control and security of a single-tenant, dedicated environment. it can be hosted on-site at your own data center or at a service provider’s data center.

how private cloud helps your business agility

deliver features faster by providing your users with on-demand, self-service access to infrastructure.

security

get the enhanced security of dedicated, physically isolated network, compute and storage layers.

security

get the enhanced security of dedicated, physically isolated network, compute and storage layers.

performance

gain performance advantages over public cloud, with dedicated resources for your business.

use cases

choose a private cloud when security, control and performance are your top priority.

workloads and data with demanding security requirements mission-critical business applicationsaddressing compliance regulations

data sovereigntyapplications that require high performancedata center consolidation and extension

it-as-a-servicetest/dev environments and application developmentdisaster recovery

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Amazon....very soon.very nice cloud.unlimited

the cloud is nothing new to amazon. the online powerhouse rolled out its first-generation cloud service in march of 2011. while being one of the largest operations available, it failed to keep up with some of its main competitors. to compete, amazon has made some drastic changes,  and introduced an unlimited service which is now available

in the past, users could choose from several different pricing tiers in order to meet any space needs they had. however, this has changed and is now down to two tiers, which are both considered unlimited. consumers are left wondering, how do these new platforms stand up to the competition?for $11.99 a year, customers can load as many image files as they desire. however, other files, such as documents and videos, are limited to 5gb. for consumers who are already amazon prime members, this service is free.the unlimited everything plan allows users to store anything in the cloud. this service is not limited simply to photos; documents and movies are also savable. users pay $59.99 per year, which averages out to $4.99 a month, for the service. amazon prime members can upgrade to this service, but they have to pay the full rate—there is no discount.both plans come with a generous free-trial period of three months to ensure the service is worth the money.

there is more to come. follow cloudnews4.ml :d we are going to cloud.

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Cloud computing?

what is the cloud? where is the cloud? are we in the cloud now? these are all questions you’ve probably heard or even asked yourself. the term “cloud computing” is everywhere.in the simplest terms, cloud computing means storing and accessing data and programs over the internet instead of your computer’s hard drive. the cloud is just a metaphor for the internet. it goes back to the days of flowcharts and presentations that would represent the gigantic server-farm infrastructure of the internet as nothing but a puffy, white cumulus cloud, accepting connections and doling out information as it floats.

 what cloud computing is not about is your hard drive. when you store data on or run programs from the hard drive, that’s called local storage and computing. everything you need is physically close to you, which means accessing your data is fast and easy, for that one computer, or others on the local network. working off your hard drive is how the computer industry functioned for decades; some would argue it’s still superior to cloud computing, for reasons i’ll explain shortly.the cloud is also not about having a dedicated network attached storage (nas) hardware or server in residence. storing data on a home or office network does not count as utilizing the cloud. (however, some nas will let you remotely access things over the internet, and there’s at least one brand from western digital named “my cloud,” just to keep things confusing.)for it to be considered “cloud computing,” you need to access your data or your programs over the internet, or at the very least, have that data synced with other information over the web. in a big business, you may know all there is to know about what’s on the other side of the connection; as an individual user, you may never have any idea what kind of massive data processing is happening on the other end. the end result is the same: with an online connection, cloud computing can be done anywhere, anytime.consumer vs. businesslet’s be clear here. we’re talking about cloud computing as it impacts individual consumers—those of us who sit back at home or in small-to-medium offices and use the internet on a regular basis.there is an entirely different “cloud” when it comes to business. some businesses choose to implement software-as-a-service (saas), where the business subscribes to an application it accesses over the internet. (think salesforce.com.) there’s also platform-as-a-service (paas), where a business can create its own custom applications for use by all in the company. and don’t forget the mighty infrastructure-as-a-service (iaas), where players like amazon, microsoft, google, and rackspace provide a backbone that can be “rented out” by other companies. (for example, netflix provides services to you because it’s a customer of the cloud services at amazon.)of course, cloud computing is big business: the market generated $100 billion a year in 2012, which could be $127 billion by 2017 and $500 billion by 2020.common cloud examplesthe lines between local computing and cloud computing sometimes get very, very blurry. that’s because the cloud is part of almost everything on our computers these days. you can easily have a local piece of software (for instance, microsoft office 365) that utilizes a form of cloud computing for storage (microsoft onedrive).that said, microsoft also offers a set of web-based apps, office online, that are internet-only versions of word, excel, powerpoint, and onenote accessed via your web browser without installing anything. that makes them a version of cloud computing (web-based=cloud).

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Be careful...that addiction is real

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Which cloud? Where...what...

ok, you are using cloud. what? true. for example:

google drive: this is a pure cloud computing service, with all the storage found online so it can work with the cloud apps: google docs, google sheets, and google slides. drive is also available on more than just desktop computers; you can use it on tablets like the ipad or on smartphones, and there are separate apps for docs and sheets, as well. in fact, most of google’s services could be considered cloud computing: gmail, google calendar, google maps, and so on.apple icloud: apple’s cloud service is primarily used for online storage, backup, and synchronization of your mail, contacts, calendar, and more. all the data you need is available to you on your ios, mac os, or windows device (windows users have to install the icloud control panel). naturally, apple won’t be outdone by rivals: it offers cloud-based versions of its word processor (pages), spreadsheet (numbers), and presentations (keynote) for use by any icloud subscriber. icloud is also the place iphone users go to utilize the find my iphone feature that’s all important when the handset goes missing.

 amazon cloud drive: storage at the big retailer is mainly for music, preferably mp3s that you purchase from amazon, and images—if you have amazon prime, you get unlimited image storage. amazon cloud drive also holds anything you buy for the kindle. it’s essentially storage for anything digital you’d buy from amazon, baked into all its products and services.

hybrid services like box, dropbox, and sugarsync all say they work in the cloud because they store a synced version of your files online, but they also sync those files with local storage. synchronization is a cornerstone of the cloud computing experience, even if you do access the file locally.

likewise, it’s considered cloud computing if you have a community of people with separate devices that need the same data synced, be it for work collaboration projects or just to keep the family in sync. for more, check out the the best cloud storage and file-syncing services for 2016.cloud hardware

right now, the primary example of a device that is completely cloud-centric is the chromebook. these are laptops that have just enough local storage and power to run the chrome os, which essentially turns the google chrome web browser into an operating system. with a chromebook, most everything you do is online: apps, media, and storage are all in the cloud.

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Is Amazon cloud drive GOOD?

the cloud is nothing new to amazon. the online powerhouse rolled out its first-generation cloud service in march of 2011. while being one of the largest operations available, it failed to keep up with some of its main competitors. to compete, amazon has made some drastic changes,  and introduced an unlimited service which is now available

in the past, users could choose from several different pricing tiers in order to meet any space needs they had. however, this has changed and is now down to two tiers, which are both considered unlimited. consumers are left wondering, how do these new platforms stand up to the competition?for $11.99 a year, customers can load as many image files as they desire. however, other files, such as documents and videos, are limited to 5gb. for consumers who are already amazon prime members, this service is free.the unlimited everything plan allows users to store anything in the cloud. this service is not limited simply to photos; documents and movies are also savable. users pay $59.99 per year, which averages out to $4.99 a month, for the service. amazon prime members can upgrade to this service, but they have to pay the full rate—there is no discount.both plans come with a generous free-trial period of three months to ensure the service is worth the money.

when put up against its main competitors, amazon cloud drive unlimited seems like a good deal.• dropbox, arguably the most popular cloud storage company, offers only 2 gb of free storage. its cheapest plan is for 1 terabyte of data, which runs at $9.99 per month, or $119.88 per year.  • google drive does not have an unlimited plan but offers users 15 gb free with a monthly rate of 1 terabyte for $119.88 per year. • microsoft’s onedrive has 15 gb free for private users, with plans starting at $1.99 a month for 100 gb. however, microsoft also has an unlimited option for those who purchase an office 365 subscription directly from the manufacturer. this plan costs $69.99 per year. amazon is one of the only services offering a truly unlimited storage option. competitors dropbox and microsoft may have versions available, but they are typically expensive and are best left for enterprise-level clients. amazon’s plans are designed to be accessible to anyone who wants a cloud provider but has not chosen one yet.while it is nice to see a truly unlimited option that is very affordable, amazon cloud drive has left out many features. it is not a true backup solution; instead, it is more like an off-site hard drive. the user is required to work at keeping the files on the cloud up-to-date. there is no set-it-and-forget-it option for desktop users. mobile users can turn on auto-save, but this is for photos only—it does not work with videos or documents.additionally, while there is a desktop client, it is bulky and does not have the root folder that many consumers have come to expect. the interface has to be opened and logged into whenever a photo or document is to be uploaded to the cloud. this is an added step, which may turn potential clients off.

finally, not being able to view long videos, listen to music, or even view or edit a document is going to be a problem. not everyone wants to download a file before they are sure it is the one they are looking for.it is nice to see amazon stepping up and trying to get more private customers interested in using the cloud. the price simply cannot be beat. if amazon would add more features, it would be a much better option.

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Manage security services - for in the cloud security

the industry’s most popular option for guaranteeing system accessibility is used by companies globally to make sure the protection and efficiency of their own systems and to provide in-the-cloud managed security services. some cloud service providers provides network-wide facilities protection, statistic and traffic-monitoring. it consists of three elements that together provide an extensive solution, climbing with a support provider’s system and its client base.

• infrastructure security actively finds and reduces network-wide flaws

• visitors and redirecting models traffic from across the entire system, allowing providers to make informed company choices about routing, transportation, associates and customers

• managed services provides a scalable and cost-effective means for companies to provide ddos protection and other in-the-cloud protection solutions to their customers

outsourcing, particularly the freelancing of high-risk system protection tracking and risk minimization, offers businesses a strong list of company benefits:

• price benefits in many areas of functional and capital expenses

• enhanced efficiency of system sources, as in-the-cloud handled system solutions provide greater system stability and integrity

• higher levels of system protection, as significantly more sources are devoted to an enterprise’s needs

• skills in a complicated and never stand still domain

cloudit is the system of option for mssps and their clients who want to make sure protection to the primary and efficiency to the edge. “powered by cloudit” managed security services promotions are among the industries most powerful and present a strong supplement to the inner system protection abilities.

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Cloud use increases data security risk for health care organizations

the health care industry has robustly embraced cloud technology for sharing information—yet a large number of health care organizations are putting their patient data at risk by using numerous cloud-based apps that are not secure.

according to a recently released report by skyhigh networks, the average health care organization uses 928 cloud services. and only 7 percent of those services meet enterprise-ready requirements (as rated by skyhigh’s cloudtrust program), including data security and compliance with regulations such as hipaa.

the concept of cloud services has been increasingly used by people and businesses alike. it dates back to very old times, not necessarily something new, but at other times the expression of cloud computing was not yet used.

it’s hard to find any company today that does not even use a cloud service, coming from different vendors, such as microsoft, evernote, google, dropbox, amazon and many others. the uses of cloud services range from corporate and personal calendars, file storage and sharing, to complete systems, and so many others.

however, some recent news reports have pointed to flaws in cloud servers, such as violation of evernote passwords, for example, bringing a climate of mistrust and insecurity with these services. the information that the security of the services in the cloud offered by certain companies has not been enough scares the users.

what are the risks that cloud services can offer?

we’ll list the risks that cloud services can offer their users.

skyhigh networks, a cloud security and enablement company, has been publishing quarterly cloud adoption and risk reports covering all industries. its newest report, for the second quarter of 2015, is focused specifically on health care and is based on actual use of the cloud by more than 1.6 million health care workers.

kamal shah, vice president of products and marketing, says the number of nonenterprise-ready apps in use—which was about the same as across all sectors — was unexpected.

“the fact that it was in line with other industries was surprising, given the highly regulated nature of the health care industry,” he says.

the report comes on the heels of an fbi warning to u.s. companies about chinese hackers. some security experts have linked the anthem and recent office of personnel management attacks to the same chinese actors.

in both breaches, the cloud was used as a vector.

“the cloud is being increasingly used to exfiltrate data out of the organizations,” shah says. “that’s why having an understanding of cloud-use services is important, because you want to be able to identify those anomalies in behavior that are indicative of a security breach or insider threat.”

among skyhigh networks findings:•the number of apps in use is 10 times higher than what the it department is aware of.•nearly 80 percent of the organizations had behaviors that indicated the potential for insider threat—yet a survey in partnership with the cloud security alliance showed that only about a third of organizations were aware of insider threat last year.•almost 90 percent of health care organizations are exposed to compromised credentials, with 14 percent of employees having at least one compromised credential.•only 15 percent of the cloud apps in use support multifactor authentication and only 9 percent encrypt data at rest.•the average health care worker uses 26 cloud apps (two fewer than across all sectors) and the average organization uses 188 cloud collaboration services.•the average health care organization connects to 1,004 partners via the cloud and uploads 6.8 terabytes of data to the cloud.

perhaps not surprising, social-networking sites like facebook, twitter, pinterest, youtube and linkedin are the top five consumer-grade cloud services used by health care employees. also popular are dropbox, google drive, apple icloud, gmail, skype, instagram and spotify.

“a lot of the organizations don’t have controls that are appropriate for the health care industry,” shah says.

to be continued…