7 Big Problems with the Internet of Things

Reality is beginning to bite the Internet of Things (IoT). After months of enthusiastic discussion about  the opportunities it will provide and how much it will be worth, many of those looking to play in the IoT space are starting to look at the potential problems, including data management. 

Though everyone knows managing data will be a problem once the IoT is up and running at full scale, few have really considered the potential data storage problems.

The Problem With Data

Sure there have been hypothetical discussions around compliance, privacy or the kind of information that consumers will be happy to offer to businesses in exchange for better customer experiences. But there has been little discussion around the subject of where exactly enterprises plan to store the massive amounts of data that will be created.

Think about it. According to research from Gartner, there will be an estimated 26 billion units installed globally by 2020 with many more on the way in succeeding years as the price of processors drops. In the near future, it will be feasible to install a processor into just about everything.

Where is all the data provided by those processors going to be stored and what are the problems around them?

This is not just a brainteaser. It is a very practical and real problem. After all, if enterprises are to get the bountiful insights into customer activity like the IoT promises, they are also going to have to keep all that information somewhere while it is being analyzed.

In a recently published paper from Garter entitled The Impact of the Internet of Things on Data Centers, Gartner identifies the principal issues that are going to have to be resolved before enterprises can start to benefit from the IoT. Fabrizio Biscotti, research director at Gartner, summarized the problem as follows:

IoT deployments will generate large quantities of data that need to be processed and analyzed in real time. Processing large quantities of IoT data in real time will increase as a proportion of workloads of data centers, leaving providers facing new security, capacity and analytics challenges.”

Connecting Remote Assets

The problem lies in the nature of the IoT itself. It will connect remote devices and systems and provide a data stream between devices and decentralized management systems. The data or even the devices will be incorporated into existing organizational processes to provide information on the location, status, activity and functionality of those systems, as well as information about the people who own and operate them.

The amount and type of information differs than other sets of big data that comes from social media, for example, in the following ways:

• It tends to arrive as a steady stream and at a steady pace, although it can arrive in batches like test logs that can be processed and passed on straight away
• It comes in very large quantities and accumulates very fast
• The real value can only be uncovered using analytics
• It is rarely used for production purposes
• It is deleted very quickly, unless it is needed for compliance reasons

The IoT Data Challenge

The technologies to address the big data challenge already exist, like Hadoop or NoSQL, providing horizontal scalability, high capacity and parallel processing at prices that make them affordable and economical.

For the moment, though, IT departments in enterprises have not had to deal with IoT data as a unique dataset in its own right. For the moment at least, the first sets of what will make up IoT data are arriving in the storage layer in the same way other unstructured data does.

The result is that traditional storage architecture and management software can treat IoT data the same way as they treat other unstructured data.

However, this is all changing rapidly. With the development of wearables for consumers and the emerging use of smart machines the portion of IoT as a subset of big data will grow quickly forcing enterprises to think their infrastructure to enable scalability and to make them cost effective.

How IT Pros Can Become Great Developers

Today's red-hot job market for software developers is causing technology professionals from every corner of the IT department to think hard about brushing up on their coding skills and trying for developer jobs.

It makes sense. The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects the software developer job market to grow 22% from 2012 to 2022, which far outpaces the average for all occupations. In response to this bubble, and accelerated by advocacy for STEM education coming from everyone from the CEO of Facebook (code.org) to the commander in chief of the country, a number of online coding schools have sprung up on the Internet.

People are signing up for these courses with the hope that learning to code will lead to high-paying opportunities. But even for highly competent IT professionals, there is much more to being a good developer than knowing how to write a subroutine, avoid an infinite loop, or manage unhandled errors.

The changing role of IT in the company is driving a change in the role of the developer. Applications and data are now core to virtually every company's business model, rather than simply back-office tools designed to reduce costs and automate functions. In this world, strong technical skills are necessary but not sufficient.

A great developer is now someone who not only meets deadlines and writes good code but also makes business units happy. They have what some people might call soft skills. I think of them as must-have skills. These include an understanding of the company's business, strong communication skills, and the ability to build relationships and trust with the various stakeholders in an enterprise.

With developers now central to successful business execution, the difference between a good one and a great one can make a huge impact on a company. How can we take competent programmers to the next level?

The coding courses we really need
Developers need to be able to adapt and evolve at the speed of technology; a good developer is one with an open mind who readily takes on the challenge of investigating and leveraging new technologies and new approaches. Courses in JavaScript, Ruby, and Python are obviously the place to start for those new to coding.

But as the head of a business that needs to keep clients happy by offering staff that can solve business problems, not just technology problems, here is my list of courses I wish that online coding schools offered.

• Intro to Agile: The number of available agile jobs outnumber qualified candidates by nearly 5 to 1, according to one estimate. The agile approach is gaining rapid acceptance in the development community, and a growing number of startups, development shops, and Fortune 500 companies recognize that it is a good way to develop faster, better results. But the supply simply can't keep up with demand.


• Continuous Quality 101: Testing is no longer a finite, standalone task in the software development life cycle. Developers need to understand when and how to test their code (functional and nonfunctional) to speed time to delivery and improve user experience. Good testers have critical thinking, analytical, and investigative skills. They understand risk and have a sense of where bugs tend to hide, and they need to be good at collaborating with team members to fix them. The importance of testing skills is underrated.


• End-User Psychology: It can be hard for developers to think like end users, but this ability to empathize is vital to a successful application. Developers should be able to understand and appreciate the value an application brings to its users. Likewise, developers should consider cultural differences that may exist between different populations of users. The need to understand end-user behavior and preferences is escalating as mobility and the cloud continually extend application availability globally.


• When Coding Meets Bottom Line: Programmers who are viewed as "code jockeys" will not be able to make the contributions that companies need. To be a valuable partner in helping a company achieve its goals, developers need to be skilled in translating their understanding of how the company operates into ideas that will lead to new innovations and revenue.

Many IT professionals already possess the skills that make them good developers, putting them a step ahead of someone who's new to programming. Their years of experience in business should also give them a head start on skills like understanding the importance of the bottom line and communicating with stakeholders outside of IT.

But unless they're willing to add agile, end-user psychology, and a commitment to continuous quality to their course load, they may never go from good to great.

H-1B quota may be used up on Day 1

The demand for the US H-1B work visas for the coming year is expected to be so high that the quota of 65,000 is expected to be exhausted on the very first day they open for submission - April 1. 

Last year, the cap was reached in five days on April 5, which was substantially faster than that in the years immediately prior to that when demand for IT had slowed following the global recession of 2008-09. Now, with the American economy improving, unemployment rate dropping and IT demand recovering - partly on account of the need to invest in new technologies like cloud, mobility, and analytics - the requirement for foreign technology workers is rising fast. 

The H-1B is a non-immigrant visa that allows US employers to temporarily employ foreign workers. The American subsidiaries of Indian IT companies are the biggest users of this visa, accounting for more than half of the quota. They use the H-1B visa and the L1 visa to move Indian engineers for short periods to client sites for work that cannot be done offshore. 

"For 2014, we anticipate greater demand for H-1Bs than in 2013, and expect that the quota will be exhausted in less than seven days, perhaps even on April 1 itself-... To maximize your chance of securing an H-1B, it is critical to file the H-1B petition on April 1, 2014," says an advisory from law firm Ford & Harrison. 

Daniel Hanlon, principal at Hanlon Law Group, wrote in the Asian Journal, "With the US House of Representatives showing zero initiative towards overhauling the nation's immigration laws, it appears that H-1B visas for FY 2015 will run out on April 1, 2014, six months before the fiscal year even begins (in October)." 

The US government has been discussing for long an immigration bill that proposed to raise the H-1B cap from 65,000 to 115,000, and thereafter increase or decrease according to the demand. But that bill is still nowhere close to being adopted. 

Austin T Fragomen and Careen Shannon of the immigration law firm Fragomen noted in a blog: "Last year, USCIS (US Citizenship and Immigration Services) received approximately 124,000 petitions, including 104,000 cases filed against the standard cap of 65,000. Cases submitted against the standard cap had a 62.5% chance of being chosen for processing. Some 39,000 petitions — or more than 31% of total cap filings — did not win a quota number," they wrote. 

Ian Macdonald, immigration attorney in law firm Greenberg Traurig, wrote on online legal reckoner Lexology that he expected casualties this year to be higher, "with up to 40% to 45% of all H-1B petitions filed under this year's H-1B cap being rejected and returned to employers" . 

The USCIS stops accepting applications when it finds that the quota has been exceeded. And then it employs a lottery-based selection process to keep to the limit of 65,000. 

"Prudent employers are planning ahead by assessing their H-1B needs, gathering supporting documentation and preparing the necessary paperwork," said Fragomen and Shannon.

FirstRain to expand development team in India

US headquartered business analytics firm FirstRain plans to grow its operations in India by over 100% in the next two years. FirstRain will strengthen its Gurgaon office as an R&D hub and views its investment in its India facility and employees as a critical element to expand in the personal business analytics market. 

Penny Herscher, President & CEO, FirstRain said in a release: "The rapid growth of the India analytics market is leading to an expansion of the talent pool by over 30-40% each year. The FirstRain India team is a core part of developing, enhancing and maintaining our analytics platform. Many of FirstRain's technology patents are co-authored by engineers in our Gurgaon R&D center and in our headquarters at San Mateo, California."FirstRain's software powers Fortune 1000 companies such as Cisco, GE Capital and Flextronics. FirstRain supports iOS and Android smartphones and tablets and a Microsoft Windows Phone 8 release is imminent, the release added. 

Microsoft serves up SQL Server 2014

Software giant Microsoft has packed up its latest version of its SQL Server database, SQL Server 2014 and sent it to manufacturers.

This version's most important new feature is its built-in in-memory online transaction processing (OLTP) capability, which Microsoft has said can improve database performance up to 30 times. According to ZDNet the new software should be in the shops on April 1.

It is based around in-memory OLTP engine codenamed "Hekaton" is supposed to complement the in-memory data-warehousing and business-intelligence capabilities that are already under the bonnet of SQL.

In a normal database the assumption is that data lives on disk and is stored on disk pages but this creates a lot of overhead in accessing records. However when data lives totally in memory, it is possible to use much simpler data structures.

Hekatron

Hekaton's index data structures and storage structures are optimized on the basis that when a table is declared memory-optimized, all of its records live in memory, Microsoft said.

Hekaton has new concurrency-control mechanisms that mean it can be scaled, and it moves away from a partitioned approach via a multicore processor that's treated as a distributed system. What replaces it is a latch-free/lock-free design which avoids data corruption caused when multiple users try to modify a data structure concurrently.

SQL Server 2014 also was designed to back up to Windows Azure, enabling users to back up their on-premises data to the cloud at an instance-level for disaster-recovery purposes. Backups can be automatic or manual, and a backup can be restored to a Windows Azure Virtual Machine, if need be.

In Depth: Samsung Galaxy S6: what we want to see

Galaxy S6: what we want to see

It's never too early to speculate wildly about the next smartphone in Samsung's Galaxy S series. The Galaxy S5 was definitely a step up from the S4, but we can't shake the feeling that everyone's favourite South Korean manufacturer (sorry LG) is resting on its laurels.

Come on Samsung, market domination should be about more than outspending your rivals on advertising, get back in the game and kick it up a gear!

We don't have to strain our grey matter too much to dream up a wish list of improvements we'd like to see in the Galaxy S6, given the relatively muted response the current S5 met, so if you're reading this Samsung, please take note...

A better body

It would be fair to say that the dimpled back panel on the S5 wasn't universally well received. Everyone has been crying out for a new design in the Galaxy S series for a while now, but Samsung isn't listening.

An S6 with a metal unibody and a premium feel would be a potential crowd pleaser. If a redesign is on the cards, why not take it further and go for a new form factor? A new premium profile could refresh the range and make it feel special again.

A 2K display

No one is impressed by 1080p anymore, not when 4K TVs are in the shops and we've already heard that Samsung's working on 2K and 4K displays for smartphones. We wouldn't have been surprised to see a 2560x1440 pixel resolution on the S5, but it seems QHD displays are not ready for prime time just yet.

Anything less than a 2K display in the S6 will be a crushing disappointment. We're sick of all these fat pixels. Make them invisible to the naked eye - and make sure it doesn't hurt the battery while you're at it, Samsung.

Hey, we're not here to solve these issues - that's for your fancy R&D labs.

A 64-bit processor

Perhaps the lack of a 64-bit processor in the S5 was an acknowledgement that there aren't many advantages yet, or maybe it was a statement about not copying Apple.

In any case, regardless of benefits perceived and real, 64 is a bigger number than 32 so it must be better, and if our friend's iPhone has one, if you don't put one in the S6 we're not buying it.

While you're there, for heaven's sake add more RAM – 2GB is not enough to satisfy the modern day demands of multi-tasking, especially if you're going for a 64-bit chip.

A flexible design

Remember that Sky advert where the guy folds his phone out to tablet size? That would be a real slice of fried gold and we've heard Samsung has a folding prototype already. Failing that, a squidgy, bendy phone that can take all sorts of damage and return to its original shape unblemished would be nice.

Squeezy controls could bring a fresh tactile element to smartphone ownership. At the very least we expect flexibility to deliver greater durability and new potential shapes, but it has got to be better than the Samsung Galaxy Round.

A bigger battery

We can hold the sum total of humanity's achievements in one hand, accessing all of our scientific knowledge, and our greatest works of art, but only for a few hours at a time. Why are mobile phone batteries still so crap?

We need bigger batteries, more efficient power management, and faster wireless charging. The 2,800mAh battery in the S5 might be a slight step up from its predecessor, but it has an extra 0.1 of an inch of screen to power. You're treading water, Samsung. Free us from the daily charge.

An end to bloatware

No one wants a Samsung-branded app that does exactly the same thing as an existing Google app, only worse. We also expect a device listed as 16GB to have more than 10GB free. The days where Android was rough and ready and Touchwiz really added value are gone.

Stock Android is smooth and delicious, KitKat needs no embellishment. It's time to tone it down a little. By all means stick S Health on there as an optional extra, but please let us uninstall the S apps we don't want and ditch the superfluous doubles.

2013 saw creation of 20 per cent of all malware ever

2013 was a big year for cyber criminals, with 20 per cent of all malware ever created appearing throughout the year.

Cloud anti-malware firm Panda Security released a new report showing that 30 million new malware strains were released in 2013. That's an average rate of 82,000 per day.

The increasing popularity of Google's Android mobile operating system saw the creation of two million new Android malware threats last year.

Despite the huge boost in malware, the proportion of infected computers across the globe was very similar to 2012 levels at 31.53 per cent.

A gift horse

Trojans remain the top threat, accounting for 77.11 per cent of all malware. However, Panda noticed a marked resurgence of ransomware like the infamous CryptoLocker, which encrypts user files and demands payment for the decryption key.

Trojans caused 78.97 per cent of infections, followed by viruses at 6.89 per cent, and worms at 5.83 per cent.

China, Turkey and Ecuador saw the highest rates of infection at 54.03 per cent, 42.15 per cent and 40.35 per cent respectively. The lowest infection rates were in Sweden, Norway and Finland, at 20.28 per cent, 21.13 per cent, and 21.22 per cent respectively.

Panda predicts that the Internet of Things and Android devices will be the focal point of malware in 2014, with hundreds of thousands of new malware expected to enter circulation.

Sixty per cent of workforce want job change in next 6 months: Study

Nearly 60 per cent of workforce is looking to change their current job in next six months and about 58 per cent of them are seeking growth from the new assignment, according to a study. 

Moving up the corporate ladder and holding a leadership position matters to the workforce more than a hefty paycheck, said the study by RecruiteX. Various surveys, polls and discussions indicate that the workforce today seeks a good job profile/designation more than monetary benefits. Forty per cent of job seekers are not happy with their current role/profile as well as the organisation they are working for, nearly 20 per cent are happy with the organisation but not with the job/role and 12 per cent are not happy with the organisation but like their job, RecruiteX said. 

Over 60 per cent of these job seekers are searching for a new job through online job portals. The other preferred medium is referrals/word of mouth. The study revealed that nearly 58 per cent of the candidates are using mobile devices, which include laptops, tablets, smartphones to look for new jobs. 

"As soon as a professional gains around 3-4 years work experience, their priorities change. He/she is to get married or is already married. Owing to this, there is social and self generated pressure to be a team leader or manager. Thus, the professional looks for change, more for leadership positions than compensation," Genius Consultants Chairman & Managing Director R P Yadav said. 

As they aspire to get better job positions (promotion) in the new job, candidates are paying a lot of attention on brushing up their skill sets. Over 30 per cent of the workforce feel that having right skills is crucial to get the right job and to move up in the corporate hierarchy. Skills are deemed more important than educational qualifications and experience, though the respondents believe experience is the next most important thing. 

Srikanth Rengarajan, executive director & president, ManpowerGroup India, highlighted the skill sets required by India Inc. 

"Apart from the domain knowledge, to beat the competitive environment, communication skills, teamwork, problem solving skills, leadership, confidence and right business acumen would be much needed by the employers in future," he said. The growing aspiration of the workforce to hold leadership positions is acknowledged by the organisations, as well. Hence, up-skilling the existing workforce is one of the key focus areas of organisations in 2014, pointed out experts in the RecruiteX report. 

3 ways to revolutionize IT service management

By Courtney Bartlett

The update to the Benchmarks report for Forrester's Service Management & Automation (SMA) playbook is now live and with its publication marks a change in how we at Forrester - and CIO - should look at SMA. 

Past efforts in IT service management have brought some changes, but as our survey done in conjunction with itSMF USA indicates, not much has changed. Service management has focused too much on internal infrastructure and internal operations (IT), and while this is still important, the demands for technology to acquire and retain customers, which Forrester calls business technology (BT), must be addressed to leverage and apply technology to advance, not hinder or stifle the business we enable.

The world we support is progressing exponentially while ITSM is progressing linearly, arguably statically - please see the report for further evidence. Being linear is being human; the exponential comes from harnessing technology, and radically shifting our focus towards service management and automation topics essential to being partners with our business teams.

In lieu of data, here are three concepts from the report that promote a new way of thinking:

Psychology over technology. As we must first change the way we think before we can change the way we act, Forrester recommends ITSM professionals drop the "IT" from their name and add "automation" to reflect progress, not stasis. Psychological shifts drive technological change, and there's a new kind of social psychology forming, of humans interacting amidst technology, evolving faster than we're able to define it. With this change come opportunities service management professionals can harness by focusing on the human element. When we measure customer experience we're really quantifying human connection - how can we win, serve and retain customers with the help of, not because of, technology. The future will not so much be about the technology and the content you as an IT shop provide, but the psychology and the context behind it. Make it personal.

Agility over maturity. The question to ask ourselves is whether maturity assessments and their outcome measure or strive for the right thing? Maturity is an ideal end result, but in today's age of constant change, are end results what we should be striving for? Is "maturity" even attainable in the wake of constant flux? Or is the ability to respond to change a more apt measurement and focus? Forrester believes that agility, flexibility, adaptability are key areas to direct attention to when understanding and measuring the current state of key service management processes.

Fuel over framework. There's no denying that ITIL and other best practice frameworks impact the business positively in terms of productivity, cost savings, service quality and reputation. Now, we must build on this. No more ITIL for ITIL's sake - it's time to use it as the foundation it was intended to be, and think more strategically around the service design and transition areas. One key focus area is to standardize and simplify, so you can automate. While you automate and ensure quality and agility you can left-shift much of your attention towards innovation.
Do we know what the future will look like? No, we will never know for sure, but we can guess, and we can prepare for it.

I leave you with a quote from the Glass Menagerie; one that's stayed with me long after I saw the play during its brief stint here on Broadway because it reminded me of ITSM:

Amanda (to her son, Tom): You are the only young man that I know of who ignores the fact that the future becomes the present, the present the past, and the past turns into everlasting regret if you don't plan for it!

We cannot ignore the future and of its discomforts anymore by allowing our organizations to become glass menageries, static and fragile. Rather, we must be innovative and agile. The future is becoming the present at an ever-quickening pace. Revolution is nigh. Change is paramount - embrace it. Be bold. Be courageous. Or be disrupted, obsolete... and full of everlasting regret.

Yotaphone lands in the UK with not one, but two displays

The Yotaphone has arrived in the UK, but this is no ordinary smartphone. Not only does it sport a 4.3-inch display on its front, it also boasts an 4.3-inch e-Ink display on its rear.

Billed as the first "always-on" smartphone, the Yotaphone sports a relatively modest array of specs including a 1.7GHz dual-core processor, 2GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean, 13MP camera and a 1800mAh battery.

It's that black and white e-Ink display which is the main feature here, allowing you to read books comfortably while consuming very little power. Yota claims that the Yotaphone's battery life is 7 to 10 times better than rivals when reading books.

The e-ink display isn't touch sensitive though, with simple controls hidden below the screen in a bar which you can swipe across to turn pages, flick to the next news article or scroll through your new notifications.

Price and battery life

At £419 SIM-free, the Russian-built Yotaphone isn't exactly cheap and the company admits that with moderate to heavy use of the colour screen on the front the phone's battery won't last a whole day.

That said though, if you're more conservative with your usage then the Yotaphone can last more than a day, with notifications, news and updates popping up on the rear screen and using very little power.

As a sweetener, anyone who purchases the first-generation Yotaphone will be eligible for a discount on the second-gen Yotaphone which is expected to launch later this year.

The second generation sports a fully touchscreen e-Ink display, a better located rear camera, larger battery and more slender design.

Over 42 lakh Indian computers infected with botnet malware

Over 42 lakh computer systems, including mobile phones, were infected in India by June last year with 'botnet' malware being used for various kind of cyber crimes. 

As per the data shared by Indian Computer Emergency Response Team ( CERT) with other government departments, the botnet infected systems in the country was 25,915 in 2007 which peaked to about 65 lakh in 2012. 

The number of botnet infected system grew rapidly and reached over 60 per cent in first half of 2013. 

"The bot infected systems are under control of cyber criminals. The bots steal sensitive information such as online credentials, credit card numbers, email id and passwords etc which cause data loss and financial loss to victims," CERT-in said in on setting up botnet cleaning centre in the country. 

The term 'bot' is short for robot. Cyber criminals distribute malicious software that can turn a computer into a bot. These bots can be networked together as 'botnet' that can perform automated tasks over the Internet, without the owners of the devices coming to know about it.

Criminals use botnets to send out spam email messages, spread viruses, attack computers and servers, and commit other kinds of crime and fraud. It also slows down speed of infected computer or mobile phone. 

Cyber criminals use Internet to plant malicious software or programmes in a system. In India there are about about 210 million Internet connections which includes both mobile phones and computers.

Red Hat Announces Linux App Container Certification

Red Hat has announced a service that tests whether Enterprise Linux applications are correctly formatted to run in a containerized form.

Linux containers are a popular new mechanism for developers to package and move applications and their middleware. The self-contained units can be run without reconfiguration, as long as the host environment is container aware and container ready. Developers anticipate that they will allow workloads to move easily between different cloud services.

Containers provide some of the attributes of virtualization, but without the hypervisor. The application runs in a defined and isolated space on the server and can run alongside several other containerized applications. In addition to lacking a hypervisor, multiple containerized applications share one operating system on the host. With virtual machines, in comparison, each workload provides its own operating system and needs a hypervisor to pass the application's service calls through to the hardware.

Containers offer a more lightweight way to move workloads around. Linux container systems such as the open source Docker allow a developer to build up a layered set of software files that represent the application and all its dependencies. The container can be moved around as a single combined file, but Docker enforces the activation of the files in the proper order when the workload is launched. Thus the administrator's scripts that launch the base image of the application, the application server, the web server, and the interface to the database system will fire in the correct sequence in order to yield a running application.

Red Hat and Docker worked together to ensure that the upcoming release of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 7 and Red Hat's OpenShift PaaS platform are certified to run Linux containers. No date has been announced for RHEL 7; the beta version launched Dec. 11.

In addition, Red Hat's well-established application certification program, which certifies that an application will run smoothly under RHEL, can now inspect and certify an application slated to run under RHEL in a container.

For independent software vendors, enterprise cloud service builders, and cloud service providers that want to be sure containerized applications run in the manner intended, the certification process will tell them whether the container packaging has been done properly. RHEL 7 is available in its beta form on Amazon Web Services as an Amazon Machine Image, indicating Amazon's EC2 will be able to host certified applications. An AMI is Amazon's version of a Xen virtual machine.

In addition, Docker will be part of the next release of the OpenStack project's cloud software, so OpenStack clouds are another potential destination for certified, containerized workloads. HP Cloud and Rackspace Cloud are current OpenStack implementations.

Application owners who wish to deploy an application with a NoSQL system such as MongoDB will probably turn to MongoDB for those tools, Marty Wesley, senior principal product marketing manager for Red Hat container strategy, told us in an interview. Likewise, Red Hat certification tools are best for deploying RHEL containerized applications.

Wesley said that containerized applications also ease maintenance tasks. As a container system assembles the required parts, it can go to the original source, such as MongoDB, to determine whether an updated version is available.

Containerized applications resemble software appliances in which a bundle of parts has been configured to work together. But customers end up maintaining the appliances, adding patches as they're available or updating parts of the underlying system. Containers, in comparison, perform such maintenance automatically.

For applications that must remain secure, the container system will run Security Enhanced Linux, which prevents it from opening network ports or accessing files that haven't been explicitly authorized.

Containers can't perform all the functions of virtualization, but they do provide a more lightweight, lower-overhead isolation for applications. There's also a performance advantage in running an application's processes directly in the Linux kernel without the intercession of a hypervisor, Wesley said.

Containerized applications can also be pushed to geographically separate destinations much faster than virtual machines. Another plus: A container system adds tens of megabytes to the workload compared to a virtual machine, which includes 500 MB or more for the operating system.

It's too soon to announce which clouds will be geared up to run Red Hat-certified RHEL containers, but Wesley said some of the largest cloud providers will be announced soon. Given containers' potential to ease the maintenance burden and their ability to move workloads internally or to external service providers, "we see containers as having the potential to shift how IT is done."

Google Smartwatch: 5 Things Buyers Need to Know

Google Smartwatch: 5 Things Buyers Need to Know is a post by Cory Gunther from Gotta Be Mobile.

Today Google announced its plans to dive head first into the wearable and smartwatch market with a brand new platform called Android Wear. Bringing the company’s mobile OS to wearable devices and beyond.

Android Wear is the official name here, and we’re already starting to see plenty of movement in the smartwatch and wearable market from multiple manufacturers. In fact, we’ve already received announcements from LG and Motorola, not to mention rumors of HTC, Fossil, and others all coming later this year. Below we’ll go over everything we know so far, and a few important things buyers need to know about Android smartwatches powered by Google Now — or Android Wear.

What is Android Wear?

Android Wear is essentially the Android operating system for smaller screens. Google’s been working hard on a refined and minimalistic Android user interface that will work on small and low power devices. Wearables like the smartwatch, fitness bands, Google Glass, and other things we haven’t even thought of.

All the details are still slowly arriving this afternoon, as Google just unwrapped the details moments ago. However, it is clear that Android Wear and all the Google-powered smartwatches that are about to flood the market will have one thing in common, and that is Google Now. Using the power of Google Search with a beautiful card-style UI, Google Now offers tons of controls, mostly by the users voice. If you’ve ever used an Android device, or a smartphone like the Nexus 5, you know exactly what to expect.

Commands such as, “OK Google” instantly sets the watch (or wearable) into a listening mode where you can say various commands. How’s the weather, get directions, navigation, call mom, send a text message, open a web browser, play music with Google Music, set alerts, alarms or reminders, and tons of other useful features. All of this will be coming to wearables in a neat and easy to use layout, and here’s what to expect initially.

Above was a quick glance at the first Android Wear smartwatch. A test unit that will be going out to developers around the globe to help build apps, games, and content for our wearable devices. While this is only the beginning, and more features will be added at an alarming rate, here’s Google’s initial comments about what you can expect from Android Wear.

• Useful information when you need it most. Android Wear shows you info and suggestions you need, right when you need them. The wide variety of Android applications means you’ll receive the latest posts and updates from your favorite social apps, chats from your preferred messaging apps, notifications from shopping, news and photography apps, and more.
• Straight answers to spoken questions. Just say “Ok Google” to ask questions, like how many calories are in an avocado, what time your flight leaves, and the score of the game. Or say “Ok Google” to get stuff done, like calling a taxi, sending a text, making a restaurant reservation or setting an alarm.
• The ability to better monitor your health and fitness. Hit your exercise goals with reminders and fitness summaries from Android Wear. Your favorite fitness apps can give you real-time speed, distance and time information on your wrist for your run, cycle or walk.
• Your key to a multiscreen world. Android Wear lets you access and control other devices from your wrist. Just say “Ok Google” to fire up a music playlist on your phone, or cast your favorite movie to your TV. There’s a lot of possibilities here so we’re eager to see what developers build.

Developers can learn more and get started by going to developer.android.com/wear

Interface

As you can see above, the Android Wear interface will be a skinned version of Android. Using the power of Google Now this will be a card-style user interface controlled by your voice, and an array of swipes. The homescreen will essentially be Google Now. Which will then be controlled by swipes or using your voice. From here users can expect to do a magnitude of things.

Thanks to AndroidPolice for the GIF above, we’re getting a better idea of what to expect once these watches start arriving for consumers to purchase. Just like Android you see options to send emails, take notes, set reminds, see your calendar, make phone calls and more. This could bring the “smart” in smartwatch truly home for users to enjoy.

Health & Fitness

Smartwatches running Android Wear will be for more than just notifications, alerts, and using the power of Google Search. They’ll also be fitness bands and work wonders for health and wellness. Tapping into an array of sensors, heart rate monitors and more Android Wear will be aware of the users physical activities. Everything from counting calories, tracking miles ran or other fitness activities, and even sleep patterns like we’ve seen with many of the fitness bands released over the past few years.

Again, the details are still rather light, but it’s clear Google will be offering a wide array of options for fitness. Using accelerometers and heart rate monitors, and other sensors in our devices, watches, and smartphones, Android Wear will be the ultimate fitness companion. By default these devices will be timepieces with Google Now and Search front and center, have tons of notifications and alerts that are actionable, then use 3rd party apps and accessories to be a fitness tool.

Partners

This morning moments after Google announced the new Android Wear platform and UI, multiple company’s took the moment to announce they too, had smartwatches coming soon. The LG G Watch, which leaked last week, and the Motorola 360 have both been officially revealed this afternoon.

LG G Watch

Powered by Android Wear, the LG G Watch will be the company’s first smartwatch in partnership with Google. After having a great relationship and launching an LG Nexus 4, the Nexus 5, and the G Pad 8.3 Google Play Edition, LG and Google will now be working together on the first G Watch.

LG is keeping quiet on the specs, but mention they want this to be an entry-level developer friendly unit. Instead of offering fancy features, or a unique design, they’ll be using a base and stock Android Wear platform and unit to get these devices in the wild. LG did mention that users can interact with the G Watch without turning it on. Simply saying, “Ok Google” will initiate the always-on voice command features.

Exact pricing and details are still a mystery, but most likely we’ll be learning more in the next few months, and possibly see a release date arrive around the end of June during the annual Google I/O Developer Conference.

Moto 360: Timepiece First, Smartwatch Second

Without letting Google and LG have all the fun, Motorola also took the moment this afternoon to announce the all-new and coming soon Moto 360 Smartwatch. Motorola will be taking a completely different approach than LG. Instead, the Moto 360 will be built using the finest quality materials and metal around, and be a true timepiece.

Motorola wants its watch to be a stylish piece of jewelry that also happens to be extremely smart. No more cheap plastics here, the Moto 360 is a watch first, and a smartwatch second. Of course it will feature all the same functions and Android Wear features as many of the watches shown above, but will also have its own unique aspects.

Those aren’t the only ones we can expect either. According to Google we can expect partners to range from LG, HTC, Samsung, Motorola, to even watch aficionados Fossil. Here’s just a few of the launch partners already on board with Google and Android Wear.

So when can you get one? Google, Motorola, and even LG are being pretty quiet when it comes to a release date, but Motorola and LG both made a few statements that gives us a pretty good idea of when to expect Android Wear devices to hit store shelves.

Release Date

According to Motorola’s official announcement the Moto 360 Android Wear Smartwatch “will be available in a variety of styles globally in Summer 2014, starting in the US.” A few sources have also stated the LG G Watch will be available inside of Q2, meaning before the end of June.

Google I/O is a huge developer event where the company usually launches flagship products or devices like the Nexus 7 or Google Glass, and we could see Google officially release the first Android Wear smartwatch during the week of Google I/O, which is schedule for June 25-26th.

We can expect the LG G Watch to likely hit the market first, with the Moto 360 launching immediately after, especially if they want to hit that “globally in Summer 2014″ promise they’ve made this afternoon.

With a few months to go and the developer SDK being available starting today, we can expect tons of additional details, launch partners, apps, and games to all arrive later this summer with Android Wear. Get ready for the first few waves of the Google Smartwatch.

Cloak, an app to avoid friends

Tired of unwanted colleagues and friends who can spoil your date with your beloved if they find you nearby? Use this 'anti-social' app to avoid them. 

Called Cloak, the app uses data to create an 'anti-social network,' letting users easily avoid people they are less keen to meet. 

According to its developer Brian Moore and former Buzzfeed creative director Chris Baker, the app warns when acquaintances are nearby - and even alerts you if they come very close. 

How does it work? 

Photos of friends are displayed on a map relative to the user's location. The app then allows users to specify the contacts they really do not want to run into. 

"Cloak lets you know where all your friends and non-friends are at all times so you never have to run into that special someone," the developers were quoted as saying in a Washington Post report. 

"'Things like Twitter and Facebook are packed elevators where we are all crammed in together. I think anti-social stuff is on the rise," Baker was quoted as saying.

Spy on your lover with new smartphone software

Partners can now sit back, relax and let a new smartphone software do the monitoring of their beloved's everyday calls, texts and practically everything.

A company called mSpy has reportedly launched a software that allows a user to track a person's mobile activity.

According to the CNET, phones preloaded with the software are ideally aimed to help people monitor their loved ones, like parents trying to track their unruly teens.

However, mSpy founder, Andrei Shimanovich, stressed that it wasn't his business how people end up using the software.

The software's policy reads that the company absolutely does not endorse the use of its software for illegal purposes.

The report said that the mSpy does advocate notifying users of the device that they are being monitored and requires one to tick off a few boxes confirming that they have informed the monitored party and got the consent for the tracking tool.

Preloaded phones such as the HTC One, Nexus 5, Samsung Galaxy S4 and iPhone 5S, are available with the mSpy software, the report added.

Forget Likes, These Are the 3 Facebook Metrics to Watch

Marketers nowadays are data driven numbers people. I get it. I consider myself a numbers guy, too. That said, when it comes to Facebook, I think a lot of marketers have it all wrong. The Facebook metric marketers tend to focus on — a page’s Like count — does not matter as much as marketers and business owners think it does.

There are three other Facebook metrics that provide businesses with far more valuable insight:

1. Talking About This

The “talking about this” number, which you can find to the right of your page’s Like count , is broken down into two metrics: "people engaged" and "other page activity." People engaged is the number of unique visitors who liked, commented, shared or clicked on your posts. Other page activity is the number of page mentions, check-ins and posts by other people on your page.

Why “Talking About This” is Important

A whopping 93 percent of B2B marketers use content marketing, according to theContent Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs’ fourth annual content marketing report. With so many businesses investing in content marketing, a business’s Facebook page often becomes a main hub for sharing content.

If your business’ "talking about this" is low, it might be a sign the content being shared is not resonating well with your fanbase or that the language used in your posts isn’t effective at driving post engagement. Either way, you need to make changes.

Start testing fresh calls to action, alternating long and short posts, posts with and without an image, etc. The more testing you do, the better you will understand your fanbase and the type of content/posts they react to best.

How to Improve This Metric

First, find out what your page’s user engagement percentage is. To do this, divide your “talking about this” number by your page’s Like count. A good engagement percentage is 2 percent, but most bigger brands with more than 100,000 fans have closer to 1 percent.

Second, if your page’s engagement percentage is low, it might be time to tweak your content and posting strategies. Again, the best advice is to learn as much as you can from testing.

5 Tech Products Under $50 Everyone Should Own

I get asked quite a bit what my favorite tech products are. And because I have access to all the best stuff for testing as a tech journalist, sometimes my choices are a little beyond the reach of most consumers, such as a $4,000 UHD TV set or a $1,500 dSLR.

But when I look at the stuff I’ve actually paid money for, the items are definitely more reasonable price-wise. That doesn’t mean they’re any less valuable, though. In fact, they’re often the items I use every day and take wherever I go. And these are my top picks for tech products under $50 that everyone should own.

Digital Treasures

Backup battery charger

Anyone who owns a smartphone knows it can run through a battery in less than a day. So I carry a backup battery charger everywhere. TheDigital Treasures ChargeIt Universal 3600mAh Power Bank ($29.99 on Amazon) has built-in Lightning, microUSB and legacy 30-pin Apple device cables, so you won’t ever forget yours. And its 3600mAh battery provides plenty of backup power for even the most power-hungry cell phones.

Essence Rechargeable Electric ToothbrushSonicare

Electric toothbrush

Electric toothbrushes work better than manual ones. Not only does brushing with an electric toothbrush leave your teeth feeling cleaner, according to a report by The Cochrane Collaboration Oral Health Group, it also reduces plaque and the risk of contracting gingivitis, an early stage periodontal disease that affects 50 percent of adults.

Not just any electric toothbrush will do, though. Go for a model with a head that rotates and oscillates, like the Oral-B Professional Deep Sweep Triaction 1000 ($39.97 on Amazon) or a sonic model like the rechargeable Sonicare Essence Rechargeable Electric Toothbrush ($49.95 on Amazon)

Cloud-based file storage

Imagine losing every picture, every video, every memento of the important events in your life due to a fire, flood or theft. And why risk it when cloud-based storage options are so widely available and cheap? One of the best bargains is Google Drive, which is free for the first 15 GB of storage and $1.99 per month ($23.88 per year) for up to 100GB. (You can also get 1TB for $9.99 per month or $119.88 per year.) You can use it to sync files between all of your devices and access your files from anywhere. We even trust it at Techlicious to store and share all of our business files.

Hamilton Beach

Pod-based single serve coffee machine

Every minute counts during my morning rush, so I rely on a single-serve coffee machine to give me that initial jolt, with a minimal amount of effort. There are certainly fancier options out there than theHamilton Beach Stay or Go Personal Cup Pod Coffeemaker 49990Z ($29.99 on Amazon), but for $30, you can get a very good cup of coffee in no time. You can buy pre-made Senseo pods or make your own pods, filling them with your favorite coffee or tea. The coffeemaker is built to accommodate tall travel mugs and has a built-in stand for regular cups.

Slime

Instant tire repair 

Changing a flat tire is messy, difficult and can be downright dangerous. With just the push of a button, though, the Slime Safety Spair ($38.97 on Amazon) injects a special sealant into your tire, plugging punctures up to a quarter inch, and quickly re-inflating the tire with its built-in compressor. All in 7 minutes…er…flat. There’s also a safety light for night use making it an essential part of your car safety kit. The inflator can also be used to top off a low tire or inflate sports balls without injecting the repair sealant.