Microsoft will surprise in 2015

As the company seeks new ways to grow, it is likely to explore things once unthinkable for it

You may have noticed that I take a rather cynical view of Microsoft. But I think I am able to recognize when it does good things. As a matter of fact, I think the company made some smart moves in 2014, and it’s going to benefit from them in 2015.

One of those smart moves was to try to move beyond the fiasco that was Windows 8. Yes, Microsoft took its own sweet time in realizing just what a moronic blunder Windows 8.x’s Metro was, but it now is in the process of shoving that awkward interface into the background with Windows 10 (now in beta), bringing back the kind of windows, icon, menu and pointer (WIMP) interface that desktop users prefer.

True, the company needs to do much better in the quality assurance (QA) area. The blunders Microsoft has been making in Windows 10 are sort of understandable (it’s still beta, after all). I still don’t understand, though, how a change to Internet Explorer 11 can foul up an operating system update if, and only if, you have Office installed. No, what I find of much greater concern is an overall pattern of sloppy coding. An Exchange update that knocks out Outlook? Windows 7 patches that block other security patches? If Microsoft doesn’t make QA job number one on the desktop in 2015, Windows 10 may yet prove a flop.

It just may be, however, that Microsoft wouldn’t be that worried if Windows 10 didn’t take off.

I’m serious.

Look at what else Microsoft has been up to in 2014. Midyear, it released a version of Office for the iPad that was newer than the one on its own Surface devices. It followed that up by starting to bring Office to Android tablets. I’m a beta tester for this, and guess what. It’s not bad.

Of course, to fully make use of either one you’ll need an Office 365 subscription.

But wouldn’t that mean that Microsoft is turning from its old role as a purveyor of proprietary software into more of a service and cloud company? Yes, and I think that’s exactly what it’s up to.

This view is bolstered by taking a close look at Microsoft’s most recent quarter. Its Devices and Consumer revenue increased by a respectable 47%, but its Commercial group revenue rose only by 10%. But when you peer more closely at the Commercial group, you see that revenue for cloud computing software and services like Office 365, Azure and Dynamics CRM exploded upward by 128%.

No one ever accused Microsoft of being blind to growth opportunities, and that’s certainly what the cloud and related services look like to me.

OK, it’s not exactly a jolt to say that Microsoft is going to pay more attention to the cloud. But how about this for a surprise? It’s going to make nice with Linux. Don’t take it from me. This is what CEO Satya Nadella had to say this year: “I love Linux.”

Now, there’s a break with the past for you. But why would Nadella say that?

Again, it’s the cloud and services. Microsoft knows for a fact that businesses want Linux servers on their clouds, and so that’s what Microsoft is delivering via Azure.

I’m not saying we’re going to see a desktop release of something with a name like MS-Linux, but an MS-Linux for the cloud isn’t out of the question at all.

I really can see it.

I can also see 2015 being the year that Microsoft finally buries the hatchet with Red Hat, the leading enterprise server Linux distributor. On Azure, Microsoft already supports CoreOS, Oracle Linux, openSUSE, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and CentOS. But to really get Linux customers on board it needs to support Red Hat Enterprise Linux as well. And 2015 will be the year it happens.

Of course, Microsoft’s old proprietary ways would make MS-Linux on Azure a tough sell. The open-source crowd has never wanted anything to do with that Microsoft. That’s why it’s significant that Microsoft is getting more involved in open-source development.

Sure, there are limits it’s not about to cross. I mean, you’re never going to see Microsoft open-source Windows. (And I hate to think how the open-source community would react to the deplorable state of that code.) But Microsoft is opening newer products, such as Project Orleans for Halo and .Net for servers. That’s kind of amazing.

So the real story from Microsoft in 2015 won’t be Windows 10. Oh, it will get the headlines, some of them on stories that I’ll write. But the real news, the news that will change the bottom line, will be in clouds, services and open source.

That’s a big deal. What it means is that Microsoft 2015 will no longer be the company that Bill Gates made and Steve Ballmer almost ruined. It’s a whole new Microsoft, and I, for one, will be very interested in seeing how it all works out.

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11 Android tools for Web developers

Android mobile devices, while not typically thought of as places where development work gets done, can offer surprisingly useful apps to help developers get the job done

Web developer apps for your Android device
As Web developers, most of us love to stay connected to the Web. Now with the help of Android apps, developers can ply their craft on any mobile Android device. FTP, SSH, MySQL, code editors, plus much more are all at your fingertips. And while many of us wouldn't choose to use these tools throughout the whole workday, it's nice to know that they are there at the ready should you need to spring into action to save the proverbial day.

These apps are either altogether free or inexpensive and can save your skin should you find yourself cut off from a computer.

Hacker's Keyboard
This tool shows up on many mobile developer tool lists because many of the apps here work better with a traditional keyboard layout. For tasks like writing code, working with shell scripts or other command line tools, it's a big time saver and a must-have for the developer on the go.

Price: Free

ConnectBot SSH Client
Much like Putty for Windows, ConnectBot is a free open source app that allows users to connect to any Linux machine running an SSH client. This is a must-have for Linux administrators. Users can transfer files remotely and create remote telnet sessions. Pico and Vi to your heart's content.

Price: Free

AndFTP
Every Web developer needs to transfer files at some point. Maybe you want to upload pictures to your website from an event or grab data or a document on your Web server. It's no problem with AndFTP: You simply input your FTP settings, and you'll be transferring files in no time.

Price: Free

ES File Explorer File Manager
ES File Explorer provides users with an easy and intuitive way to browse through the files and folders on your Android device. The app makes renaming, deleting, or moving files and folders a snap. It provides Bluetooth sharing, Samba file-sharing via Wi-Fi, a baked in process/task killer, and built-in support for ZIP and RAR file types. It also offers cloud storage support for most major providers, such as Dropbox, Box.net, or Google Drive.

Price: Free

WebMaster's HTML Editor
This handy little HTML editor will make a great addition to your developer toolbox. It supports HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and PHP. While you may be tempted to save some money here, you should spring for the full version, which allows for full preview and code support. For those looking for a free option give 920 Text Editor a try. While not as feature-rich as Webmaster's, it consistently gets good reviews and has been around for a while.

Price: $4.99

VT View Source
Ever need to see the code behind that Web page you're working on? Of course you do. Desktop browsers all have "view source" baked in, but what about when you are on your tablet or smartphone? VT View Source provides support to view HTML, CSS, JavaScript, or XML sources from Web pages or remote files. It provides code highlighting, line numbers, and text wrapping to fit your devices screen. Simply type or paste the URL, or location of your file, and this app will lift the veil on your Web pages to reveal their mysteries.

Price: Free

kWS - Android Web Server Pro
It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that Android is capable of running a Web server -- it's a Linux based OS after all. kWS - Android Web Server Pro is capable of implementing a Web server running HTTP 1.0 with basic and digest authentication and can support most file types.

Price:
kWS - Android Web Server Pro Free
kWS - Android Web Server Pro $1.99

Open source CMS tools
The following apps are a part of the many open source content management systems that have become a staple of Web publishers around the globe. Using these tools, users can create, edit, delete, and update content as well as receive notifications. You can view stats, manage comments, and run your digital world, all from your Android device.

WordPress
Price: Free

Drupal Editor
Price: Free

Joooid! Joomla for Android
Price: Free

Vcrox MySQL Client

Web developers on-the-go can connect to their remote MySQL databases wherever they have cell access and insert, edit, and delete table rows until the cows come home. Export your data to work on the desktop. Support is available for English and Spanish language users.

Price: Free

SQLTool Pro Database Editor
Do you need to manage a MySQL, SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Sybase ASE, MariaDB, Derby, or Oracle database from your Android device? Well, SQLTool Pro Database Editor stands at the ready. It supports SSH tunneling to connect, control, query, and manage several types of databases.

Price: $3.99

Google's Mobile App Analytics
With Google's app, users can track website data to improve ROI, improve search engine rankings, and identify and analyze audience and traffic issues. Relevant data includes audience acquisition and behavior, technology details, and keywords.

Price: Free

We're always interested in how you get the job done. Please tell us what Web development tools you use on your Android device.

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Mobile is the next 'sea change' in recruiting

The way today's tech talent looks for work is changing. Prospective employees are using their mobile devices to connect with employers more than ever and this trend is expected to continue. Does your organization have a mobile recruiting strategy?

Successful recruiting is about making connections with candidates on their own terms -- if those terms include being able to search for and apply to open positions on their mobile device, you'd better have a mobile presence or candidates will pass you by.

"Remember how quickly Internet adoption took hold in the 1990s? Mobile technology adoption is on pace to far exceed those adoption rates," says Dan Finnigan, CEO of career networking and recruiting site Jobvite.
ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: How to lure tech talent with employee benefits, perks

"The majority of Internet usage is initiated via mobile for the first time ever. Mobile is a major sea change for all Internet behavior; any business that has an Internet component has to consider the impact of mobile and recruiting is no different," says Finnigan.

Jobvite's own research reveals that 55 percent of the 1,855 recruiters surveyed for their annual Social Recruiting Survey plan to use a mobile career site to support recruiting efforts, and of those that already have a mobile recruiting strategy in place, 14 percent are seeing reduced time-to-hire and 13 percent report finding higher-quality candidates.
Invest in a Mobile Recruiting Strategy

The first step to boosting your mobile recruiting strategy is making sure your first point of contact, a mobile recruiting site, is up to par. Your mobile interface is often the first thing candidates see, so it must be easy to navigate, clean and user friendly.

"Right now, mobile job sites are so ugly and clunky. Our clients who are head of the curve are already reaping the benefits of mobile recruiting technology, but there's going to have to be a widespread push for new, reconfigured career sites that are optimized for mobile or organizations will lose out," says Finnigan.

You also should make it simple for candidates to apply for positions using their mobile device, or to refer other qualified candidates. This is especially important for passive candidates who are currently employed and who may not be able to access recruiting sites on their desktop or laptop, but who access social networks on their mobile device.

"We've included a feature on our own mobile site that allows candidates to apply with either their Jobvite profile or their LinkedIn profile. Candidates can also take a picture of their resume and upload it. It's not difficult to add these tools, but they make a big difference for candidates," Finnigan says.
Leverage Mobile in Conjunction With Social Networks

Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others have become recruiting powerhouses. In fact, 70 percent of iPhone and Android users visit Facebook on their devices and more than 2 million jobs are listed on Facebook's Social Job Partnership application, according to this research cited by Forbes. LinkedIn, especially, is the ultimate mobile recruiting tool, and the social job connection site even has its own mobile recruiting playbook.

An whopping 93 percent of those surveyed in Jobvite's 2014 Social Recruiting Survey use or plan to use social media in their recruiting efforts. Why? According to respondents, leveraging social media improves candidate quality by 44 percent over using only traditional recruiting techniques like phone screenings and filtering resumes based solely on skills and experience.

That's because social media allows not just information about a candidate's experience and skills, but a better glimpse into their lifestyle, values and their cultural fit, which is crucial for companies looking not just to recruit and hire, but to also engage employees and improve retention rates.

The emphasis on cultural fit is a major reason recruiters are doubling down on social media as a tool -- the Jobvite survey revealed that 80 percent of recruiters are using social media to evaluate a candidate's potential culture match.

While mobile is a powerful recruiting and referral tool, personal contact is still the mainstay of any successful recruiting process, according to LinkedIn's mobile recruiting playbook. And candidates using mobile expect that recruiters are doing the same, so quick responses are critical to keeping talent interested and engaged once initial contact is made.

"Job applicants often expect immediate attention, especially if they are in high demand. Stay in touch with them through quick text messages, emails or phone calls. Make sure your recruiters have a smart phone that they can use anywhere," according to LinkedIn.
Make Sure Your Strategy is Flexible

Once you've started developing a mobile recruiting strategy, make sure you're maintaining the technology and shifting your strategy to account for market changes and the needs of talent, especially when hiring from Generation Y and Generation Z.

"Mobile is the dominant way that millennials communicate and operate, so we expect the way that companies find new talent will continue trending toward more social, and increasingly using mobile devices, as connections are made based on geo-location proximity, interests, passions, experiences, extended network and the like. Using mobile technology is more in line with how millennials will expect to experience their job searches and how recruiters should target prospects," says David Hirsch, managing partner of Metamorphic Ventures.
The Bottom-Line

A solid mobile recruiting strategy will help ensure your organization is best positioned to find and attract candidates on their own terms, and make the application process smoother and easier for both applicant and hiring company.

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The early, awkward days of "portable" computing

You kids today are spoiled by your modern-day razor-thin ultrabooks. Come take a look portable technology that required some muscle.

Sure, it's a bit unwieldy
In the first iteration of any technology, it's amazing that you can do it. When the first Motorola mobile phone hit the market, it seemed miraculous to make phone calls unconnceted to the grid; only later did it become clear how unwieldy that first phone was.

The same is true for PCs. Early "portable" computers would make you laugh, because of their size (large), price tag (high), capabilities (poor), or some combination of the three. But as you take this tour through the history of mobile computing, we urge you to remember the day when it was amazing that you could lug these things around at all.

DYSEAC, 1954
What makes a computer "portable"? Well, at minimum, you have to be able to move it from place to place. By that standard, just about any computer made today is more portable than the earliest computers of the 1940s and 1950s, built from hundreds of vacuum tubes installed into row after row of cabinets and taking up entire rooms. In this sense, DYSEAC, built by the National Bureau of Standards for the US Army Signal Corps, was a real breakthrough: it could be easily fit into a tractor trailer and driven from place to place.

IBM 5100, 1975
Decades later, IBM looked to make a similar leap down in size from the half-ton behemoths it sold. With the IBM 5100, Big Blue was able to compress a lot of power into a package that, at 55 pounds, was relatively tiny: amazingly, the computer was able to emulate a version of the APL programming language that would run on an S/360 mainframe. Reasoning that anyone who would be opting for the 5100 over a real mainframe would put portability at a premium, IBM emphasized the suitcase-sized unit's luggability and built a keyboard and tiny monitor directly into the all-in-one machine. Fully tricked out, the 5100 cost $19,975 -- the equivalent of more than $85,000 today.

Osborne 1, 1981
Six years later, Osborne Computer introduced the Osborne 1, with a similar look and footprint but a much less cutting edge level of technology. Company founder Adam Osborne himself said that "It is not the fastest microcomputer, it doesn't have huge amounts of disk storage space, and it is not especially expandable." But it used the mass-market CP/M operating system, and it was cheap ($1,795, the equivalent of $4,500 today), and, at 22 pounds, relatively easy to fit into a suitcase for lugging to wherever you might need a computer. Osborne published a magazine specifically for users, The Portable Companion, and the first issue featured an amazing picture of journalist David Kline with Afghan mujahideen admiring his Osborne 1.

GRiD Compass, 1982
The GRiD Compass was an Osborne contemporary; it was smaller -- at a scant 11 pounds, it's almost getting to the same order of magnitude of modern-day laptops. It also used a unique operating system and rugged but slow bubble memory, and cost $8,150 (more than $19,000 today). The combination of its tough construction and high price tag meant that its chief customer was the U.S. federal government: the Compass went into orbit on the Space Shuttle, and was rumored to be part of the presidential "nuclear football," which stored launch codes.

Compaq Portable, 1982
The Compaq Portable was roughly the same size (28 pounds) and form factor as the Osborne: barely portable, in other words, despite the name, though it did come with a nifty suitcase. What made it really special wasn't related to its portability: it was the first ever IBM clone of any sort, with reverse engineered BIOS and Microsoft's MS-DOS, making it the ancestor of every Windows laptop ever made. Its luggable design was an added bonus; it was popular enough that IBM had to answer with its own portable version, the IBM 5155 model 68.

Epson HX-20, 1983
Having read about what passed for portable computing in the early 1980s, you can now understand how shocking and revolutionary the Epson HX-20 was. At three and half pounds, its lighter than a modern-day 15-inch MacBook Pro, and at $795 (the equivalent of $1,800 today), it's cheaper, too.

What was the catch? While the other luggables we've seen had monochrome monitors on the order of 8 or 9 inches, the HX-20 sported a tiny LCD that could only show four lines of text, 20 characters wide. There was also very little software available for its proprietary OS, and the machine was distinctly underpowered.

Classic Mac form factor, 1984
Even as this spate of what we'd now recognize as the ancestors of modern notebook computers was being released, the idea of just what might make a computer count as "portable" was still in flux. For instance, nobody would've mistaken the original Macintosh for a laptop, with its near-cubical form factor -- but at 16.5 pounds, it was lighter than many computers specifically billed as portable. The case came with a built-in handle on top so you could carry it around your house or office, and, as this page from the original owner's manual demonstrates, custom-made carrying satchels were available.

Macintosh Portable, 1989/PowerBook 100, 1991
Five years later, Apple's first portable Mac looked like the early '80s dinosaurs we've already seen: huge, clunky, and awkwardly designed. The Portable was a bit lighter than its predecessors at 16 pounds, and of course ran a more modern OS, but at $6,500 ($12,000 in today's money) it was difficult to justify.

The truly amazing thing was that just two years later, Apple released the PowerBook 100 series. These machines started at a third the weight and a third the price of the Portable; more importantly, their design, with wrist rests and a trackball below the keyboard, set the standard for all laptops, Mac and PC, that followed. The modern portable era had arrived.

Apple Newton, 1993
Of course, around the same time the world was launching into a whole new world of portable computing: the PDA, direct ancestor to the modern-day smartphone. We leave you with this picture that shows how far we've come in the "handheld computing devices much smaller than personal computers" department: the orignal Apple Newton, that prophetic flop, seemed miraculously small at the time, and yet dwarfs the original iPhone. (Though with the advent of the huge iPhone 6 Plus, perhaps this is going full circle.)

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Ebola crisis brings out another sickness: Vile scammers

Volunteers who will be sent to Africa in the forthcoming days are taught how to work with patients infected with the Ebola virus during a training session.

Credit: Reuters
Phishing, false advertising, cybercrap pervade as Ebola fraud grows

Sadly we all knew it would happen, once the Ebola situation became international news, the contemptible fraud and scam artists would crawl out from under their rocks to exploit it.

They have not disappointed.
New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and others this week noted a number of scams in the works:

Consumer Reports published an article referencing a bogus e-mail solicitation offering a $29 “surplus protection kit” supposedly designed for emergency response teams and law enforcement agencies.

The Federal Trade Commission has warned that there are no FDA-approved medical treatments for Ebola and that consumers should file complaints with the FTC and the FDA if they encounter a fraud.

According to USA Today, at least three companies have been issued warnings by the Food and Drug Administration in the past month for selling bogus treatments, solutions, or therapies for Ebola. The FTC and FDA recently sent a warning letter to Natural Solutions Foundation, which sells supplements, putting it on notice that some of its claims around Ebola violate a number of federal laws.

According to a report in Daily Finance, the Better Business Bureau’s New York office has received complaints about fraudulent telephone solicitations involving a charity claiming to raise funds to help Ebola victims. There have also been reports of door-to-door frauds claiming to raise money for a Texas nurse who became infected with the disease.
Better Business Bureau is warning consumers about a variety of Ebola-related scams and problematic fundraisers that have emerged recently.
The AARP warned about online offers for an Ebola cure or special “natural” or “dietary” methods to alleviate or prevent symptoms; email scams with alarming messages like “Ebola update” or

“Ebola Pandemic” which may include links that release computer viruses; sales of “personal protection kits” at low prices to provide supposed “infection defense”; charity scams claiming to help victims or fight the disease; and potential stock investment frauds involving companies that say they are involved in the development of products that will prevent the spread of viral diseases like Ebola.

US-CERT reminded users to protect against email scams and cyber campaigns using the Ebola virus disease as a theme. Phishing emails may contain links that direct users to websites which collect personal information such as login credentials, or contain malicious attachments that can infect a system.

The FTC wrote that there are currently no FDA-approved vaccines or drugs to prevent or treat Ebola. “Although there are experimental Ebola vaccines and treatments under development, these are in the early stages of product development, have not yet been fully tested for safety or effectiveness, and the supply is very limited. There are no approved vaccines, drugs, or products specifically for Ebola available for purchase online or in stores. No dietary supplements can claim to prevent or cure Ebola, according to the supplements industry. If you’ve seen companies or products touting these claims, report them to the FTC and FDA.”

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Quality of Service explained: How routers with strong QoS make better home networks

The devices connected to your router battle for bandwidth like thirst-crazed beasts jostling for access to a receding watering hole. You can’t see the melee, but you can feel its impact. Without intervention, the strongest competitors—a BitTorrent download, for instance—will drink their fill, even if it’s not essential to their survival, while others—a VoIP call, a Netflix stream, or a YouTube video—are left to wither and die.

A router with good Quality of Service (QoS) technology can prevent such unequal distribution of a precious resource. You can dip only one straw into the Internet at a time, after all. QoS ensures that each client gets its chance for a sip, and it also takes each client’s specific needs into account. BitTorrent? Cool your jets. If one of your packets is dropped, it’ll be resent. You can run in the background. Netflix, VoIP, YouTube? Lag results in a bad user experience. Your data gets priority.

That’s a gross oversimplification, of course. Here’s a more in-depth explanation. QoS, also known as traffic shaping, assigns priority to each device and service operating on your network and controls the amount of bandwidth each is allowed to consume based on its mission. A file transfer, such as the aforementioned BitTorrent, is a fault-tolerant process. The client and the server exchange data to verify that all the bits are delivered. If any are lost in transit, they’ll be resent until the entire package has been delivered.

That can’t happen with a video or audio stream, a VoIP call, or an online gaming session. The client can’t ask the server to resend lost bits, because any interruption in the stream results in a glitch (or lag, in terms of game play). QoS recognizes the various types of traffic moving over your network and prioritizes it accordingly. File transfers will take longer while you’re watching a video or playing a game, but you'll be assured of a good user experience.
Traditional QoS

Different routers take different approaches to QoS. With some models, you simply identify the type of traffic you want to manage and then assign it a priority: High, medium, or low. With others, you can choose specific applications, or even identify the specific ports a service or application uses to reach the Internet. Yet another way is to assign priority to a specific device using its IP or MAC address.
Router Quality of Service QoS

Many older routers, such as this Netgear WNR2000 802.11n model, have predefined Quality of Service for a limited number of applications, but you must configure your own rules for anything the manufacturer didn’t think of.

Configuring QoS this way can be very cumbersome, requiring lots of knowledge of protocols, specific details about how your router operates, and networking in general. Some routers, for instance, depend on you to inform them of the maximum upload and download speeds your ISP supports. Enter the incorrect values, and your network might perform worse instead of better.

Fortunately, router manufacturers have made great strides in making QoS easier to configure. In some cases, it’s become entirely automatic.
Intelligent QoS

Some routers include the option of automated QoS handling. Most newer models support the Wi-Fi Multimedia (WMM) standard, for instance. WMM prioritizes network traffic in four categories, from highest to lowest: Voice, video, best effort (most traffic from apps other than voice and video), and background (print jobs, file downloads, and other traffic not sensitive to latency). WMM is good as far as it goes, but it ameliorates only wireless network contention. It does nothing to resolve the battle for bandwidth among wired network clients.

Better routers go further to cover both sides of the network. They automatically choose which traffic gets priority based upon assumptions—putting video and voice ahead of file downloads, for instance. The intelligence behind each vendor’s QoS functionality, however, varies according to the quality of the algorithm in use and the processor power available to run it.
Router Quality of Service QoS

Qualcomm's StreamBoost technolog enables the the D-Link DGL-5500 to display exactly what's consuming the majority of your network's bandwidth.

Right now, Qualcomm’s StreamBoost traffic-shaping technology seems to be the hot QoS ticket. StreamBoost, first announced in January, 2013, is based on technology originally developed by Bigfoot Networks. Bigfoot, a company that Qualcomm acquired in 2011, designed network-interface cards targeted at gamers, who are among the most latency-sensitive computer users in the world.

Qualcomm doesn’t manufacture routers, but the company does design and manufacture processors that go into high-end consumer routers such as Netgear’s Nighthawk X4 and D-Link’s DGL-5500 Gaming Router. While there’s no technological barrier to running StreamBoost on a Marvel or Broadcom processor, Qualcomm currently doesn’t license the firmware separate from its chips.

StreamBoost can distinguish between and prioritize latency-sensitive traffic (audio, video, gaming, and so on) over latency-insensitive traffic (downloads, file transfers, etc.), and it can adjust its allocation of bandwidth to various network activities to ensure all clients get a good experience. If several clients are streaming Netflix videos at the same time, for instance, it can automatically reduce one or more of those streams from 1080p quality to 720p quality to ensure all the sessions have enough bandwidth.

What’s more, StreamBoost can distinguish among the types of client devices and reduce the image quality streaming to a smartphone or tablet, because the degradation won’t be as noticeable on those small screens as it would be on a big-screen smart TV.
Router Quality of Service QoS

StreamBoost lets you assign priorities to client PCs, so you can preserve bandwidth for a smart TV at the expense of a PC used for BitTorrent downloads, for instance.

StreamBoost’s bandwidth graphs and tools provide better visibility and more precise tuning than other QoS tools I’ve seen. And if you opt in to participate, you’ll receive ongoing updates from Qualcomm’s database in the cloud so that your router can continually optimize its performance and learn how to handle new devices that come on the market. StreamBoost support alone won’t make a crappy router great, but it can make a difference.

Good Quality of Service is essential if you use your network to stream video, play online games, make VoIP and Skype calls, or watch YouTube (and if you don’t do any of those things, you wouldn’t have clicked on this story in the first place). The performance benefits you’ll realize might even save you from moving up to a pricier service tier with your ISP.

An 802.11ac router can deliver higher performance even with clients that are equipped with 802.11n adapters.
But there are other things you can do beyond traffic shaping. Perform a site survey using a tool such as Kismet to see which radio channels your neighbors are relying on, and configure your router to use something else. There are only three non-overlapping channels in the 2.4GHz frequency band: 1, 6, and 11. Use one of these if possible.

If you have a dual-band router that supports both the 2.4- and 5GHz frequency bands, use the less-crowded higher frequency for latency-sensitive traffic such as media streaming, and reserve 2.4GHz for things like downloads. There are many more non-overlapping channels at 5GHz, and the higher channels—150 and up—support more bandwidth than the lower channels.

Lastly, if you’re using an 802.11n (or older) router, consider moving up to a model based on the newer 802.11ac standard. Even if your clients are stuck with 802.11n adapters, you’ll still see a significant performance boost with an 802.11ac router.

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OS X Yosemite: Macworld's complete guide to Apple's new feature-packed OS

Apple’s latest OS X version, Yosemite, is ready for download, but simply installing the system is only the first step in a very interesting journey. Apple has made significant changes across OS X, improving the Safari browser, Notifications Center, Spotlight searching, and even how the desktop finds synergy with iOS devices.

It’s a potentially daunting collection of tweaks and additions, but we’re here to make your Yosemite education as painless as possible. Please join the Macworld staff as we walk you through our Yosemite primers—and if you don’t find the article you want, please make some suggestions in the comments below.
First, make sure your Mac plays nice with Yosemite

If you’re already happily running Mavericks (Mac OS X 10.9) on your machine, you’re good for a Yosemite upgrade. But if you want more information on which specific Macs are compatible, check out this guide. Hint: Apple confirmed that you’ll need at least 2GB of RAM and 8GB of free storage for the installation.

Yes, even in this day and age, there are still best practices for installing a new Apple OS. Our “How to install Mac OS X Yosemite” primer will walk you through everything from simple nerd wisdom (like updating apps and cautionary back-ups) to different strategies for installation itself.

On Retina optimizations and other visual tweaks
Yosemite has been built from the ground up to support Retina displays like the one deployed on the new iMac. As such, the new OS is chock-full of new visual optimizations, including a new font, translucency effects, and interface tweaks that advance the OS X design language. We explain everything in this brief of what you’ll encounter in the Yosemite design.
All about the Handoff between Yosemite and iOS

At its Thursday event, Apple touted new Continuity features that foster graceful synergy between our desktop and mobile experiences. Key to the scheme is Handoff, a feature that lets you launch an app on one device (say, your Mac), and then “hand off” that activity to another device (your iPhone or iPad). It’s enabled in Mail, Messages, Maps and a host of other apps, and you can read all about how it works here.

Get to know the new Safari
More so than any other built-in app, the Safari browser has probably changed the most in the update from Mavericks to Yosemite. It’s a much cleaner (albeit sparser) experience, and you can read all about the changes in “Get to know the new, slimmed-down Safari.”

The new Notification Center is so dramatically different (and improved), we encouraged Apple to honor it with a new name. Notifications are now driven by individual interactive widgets, both from Apple itself and third-party developers. In our detailed walk-through of the new Notification Center, we also delve into the now-obsolete Dashboard interface.
Spotlight searching expands its repertoire

Spotlight started as a relatively simple system search tool. Today, in Yosemite, it’s a full-fledged Internet crawler that can not only rifle through your OS, but also the web, Wikipedia, news headlines, maps, Bing, the App Store, iTunes, and even movie show times. We discuss all the new Spotlight features here.

OK, they don’t pack the same levels of glitz and glamour as the tweaks listed above, but changes to Mail, Messages, and Calendar will certainly influence your Yosemite experience. You can read about new features like Mail Drop, Markup, and Soundbites here.

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Why we live in an anti-tech age

Complex planning -- and true innovation -- is out of fashion, argues PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel

ORLANDO -- Though it seems as if we're surrounded by innovative products, services and technologies, there's a growing counter argument that we're living in a dismal era. Science is hated. Real technological progress has stalled. And what we call innovation today really isn't very innovative.

Peter Thiel, a co-founder of PayPal, billionaire investor and author, is among those challenging the notion of innovation and progress. Thiel, who earned undergraduate and law degrees at Stanford University, spoke at the Gartner Symposium/IT this week about why the march of progress seems to have stalled.

"We live in a financial, capitalistic age, we do not live in a scientific or technological age," said Thiel. "We live in a period were people generally dislike science and technology. Our culture dislikes it, our government dislikes it."

The easiest way to see "how hostile our society is to technology" is to look at Hollywood. Movies "all show technology that doesn't work, that ... kills people, that it is bad for the world," said Thiel.

Peter Thiel REUTERS/Yuri Gripas
Peter Thiel, entrepreneur and co-founder of PayPal.

He pointed to films like The Terminator, The Matrix, Avatar, Elysium and Gravity. The underlying message in Gravityis that "you never want to go into outer space," Thiel said.

The movie industry, he said, isn't to blame. It's simply reflecting and feeding a public bias against science.
Gartner 2014

Technology has a much different meaning today than it did in the 1950s or 1960s. During that period, it meant computers and rockets, underwater cities, new forms of energy and all sorts of supersonic airplanes. Since then, there "has been this narrowing" view that technology is mostly information technology, he said.

While advances today may be enough to dramatically improve business efficiencies and create great new companies, "it's not clear it's always enough to take our civilization to the next level," said Thiel.

His argument parallels one raised by the economist Robert Gordon, who in a 2012 paper for the National Bureau of Economic Research (download PDF), said there is an absence of the type of innovation that advances civilization in fundamental ways. True innovation is something like air conditioning, the combustion engine or the telephone.

In the last decade, argued Gordon, attention "has focused not on labor-saving innovation, but rather on a succession of entertainment and communication devices that do the same things as we could do before, but now in smaller and more convenient packages."

The problem may be partly the result of the process used to develop new technologies.

From Thiel's perspective, what's "sorely lacking is any sort of conviction. If you have conviction around getting certain things done, a very short list of things, that's how you really push for progress," whether in a corporation or government.

Using the government as an example, Thiel pointed to the Manhattan project, which built a nuclear bomb in 3.5 years, and the moon landing in the 1960s. "It was not a spray and pray approach," said Thiel of those government efforts, "it was complex coordination around a well-defined plan, which is very out of fashion."

Among those at the Gartner conference who heard Thiel talk was David Hanaman, co-founder and chief sales and marketing officer of C3i Inc., an IT services firm for life sciences. He said the analysis resonated.

"We've come out with a lot of cool technology, and it has made first-world lives maybe a little more superficially fun, but it hasn't fundamentally changed the human condition," said Hanaman.

Regarding the cultural aspects, Hanaman said that Thiel was probably also being critical about the way science is treated in policy arguments.

In environmental issues such as climate change, both sides will take the science that fits their opinion, said Hanaman, "as opposed to the more traditionally scientific way which is to really interpret the data on its merits."

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7 killer open source monitoring tools

Network and system monitoring is a broad category. There are solutions that monitor for the proper operation of servers, network gear, and applications, and there are solutions that track the performance of those systems and devices, providing trending and analysis. Some tools will sound alarms and notifications when problems are detected, while others will even trigger actions to run when alarms sound. Here is a collection of open source solutions that aim to provide some or all of these capabilities.

Cacti
Cacti is a very extensive performance graphing and trending tool that can be used to track just about any monitored metric that can be plotted on a graph. From disk utilization to fan speeds in a power supply, if it can be monitored, Cacti can track it -- and make that data quickly available.

Nagios
Nagios is the old guard of system and network monitoring. It is fast, reliable, and extremely customizable. Nagios can be a challenge for newcomers, but the rather complex configuration is also its strength, as it can be adapted to just about any monitoring task. What it may lack in looks it makes up for in power and reliability.

Icinga
Icinga is an offshoot of Nagios that is currently being rebuilt anew. It offers a thorough monitoring and alerting framework that’s designed to be as open and extensible as Nagios is, but with several different Web UI options. Icinga 1 is closely related to Nagios, while Icinga 2 is the rewrite. Both versions are currently supported, and Nagios users can migrate to Icinga 1 very easily.

NeDi
NeDi may not be as well known as some of the others, but it’s a great solution for tracking devices across a network. It continuously walks through a network infrastructure and catalogs devices, keeping track of everything it discovers. It can provide the current location of any device, as well as a history.

NeDi can be used to locate stolen or lost devices by alerting you if they reappear on the network. It can even display all known and discovered connections on a map, showing how every network interconnect is laid out, down to the physical port level.

Observium
Observium combines system and network monitoring with performance trending. It uses both static and auto discovery to identify servers and network devices, leverages a variety of monitoring methods, and can be configured to track just about any available metric. The Web UI is very clean, well thought out, and easy to navigate.

As shown, Observium can also display the physical location of monitored devices on a geographical map. Note too the heads-up panels showing active alarms and device counts.

Zabbix
Zabbix monitors servers and networks with an extensive array of tools. There are Zabbix agents for most operating systems, or you can use passive or external checks, including SNMP to monitor hosts and network devices. You'll also find extensive alerting and notification facilities, and a highly customizable Web UI that can be adapted to a variety of heads-up displays. In addition, Zabbix has specific tools that monitor Web application stacks and virtualization hypervisors.

Zabbix can also produce logical interconnection diagrams detailing how certain monitored objects are interconnected. These maps are customizable, and maps can be created for groups of monitored devices and hosts.

Ntop
Ntop is a packet sniffing tool with a slick Web UI that displays live data on network traffic passing by a monitoring interface. Instant data on network flows is available through an advanced live graphing function. Host data flows and host communication pair information is also available in real-time.

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Microsoft targets Apple, Samsung with cheaper flagship Lumia

Microsoft will use price in the next round of its battle against Apple and Samsung to grow market share and convince more users to jump on the Windows phone platform.

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This month the company will begin selling the Lumia 830, a fully featured smartphone that it believes stands up to Samsung’s Galaxy S5 and Apple’s iPhone 5S on technical specifications while being significantly cheaper, it said Thursday.

“We’re going to challenge Apple and Samsung and expose the premium they are charging for a phone,” said Chris Weber, corporate vice president of mobile device sales at Microsoft. He was speaking in Berlin on the sidelines of the IFA electronics show at Microsoft’s first major product launch since it completed the acquisition of Nokia.

The Lumia 830 will cost €330 (US$430), a hundred euros cheaper than the Samsung Galaxy S5 and a couple of hundred euros cheaper than the Apple iPhone.

“It’s the first affordable flagship,” said Weber.

Among its main features is a better camera than its predecessors’. It can quickly go from standby to shooting and also capture 4K video, which is video at four times the resolution of high definition. It will also come with the latest version of Cortana, Microsoft’s digital assistant, and a number of Microsoft productivity apps.

But will the lower price be enough?
Microsoft is still wrestling with an image that its smartphone ecosystem lags that of Apple and Google’s Android. The perception was gained soon after Windows 8 launched, when early buyers found many of the most popular mobile apps weren’t available on the new handsets.

“It’s an area where perception lags reality,” said Weber. “We’ve made a ton of progress.”

The executive conceded there’s “more work to be done,” but he said the company feels good about the 320,000 apps now available in its app store and the progress it’s making, which includes 500 new apps per week.

Annette Zimmermann, an analyst with Gartner, agreed with Weber’s assertion.

“They’ve done huge work,” she said. “There’s still a gap but the gap is smaller than people think.”

Zimmermann, who is based in Munich and covers consumer markets and technology, said the biggest weakness for Windows smartphones came in “longtail apps” like those for regional banks and airlines. But, she said, they are slowly appearing.

A major job for the company is in getting phones into the hands of people and turning around that negative image.

Many consumers make decisions on new phone purchases by researching online, paying attention to advertising and asking friends for their recommendations, said Zimmermann. That means a general decision is often made before they enter a store.

“The marketing is still lagging a bit, they need the right messaging,” she said.

Gartner estimates that Microsoft has a 3 percent share of the global smartphone market.

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Hot desking in paradise: 11 exotic coworking locations.

Remote working is increasingly becoming an option for workers, particularly those in the tech industry. However, with the ability to work remotely comes the ability to choose where to get your work done. Coworking spaces are an attractive alternative to working from home for many, offering the amenities of an office and the social benefits of working next to other people. These spaces are popping up in countries around the world, giving remote workers the chance to ply their trades for a few hours, days, weeks or even longer from almost anywhere. If you’re aching to see more of the world, while still getting work done, here are 11 coworking spaces in some of the more exotic locations around the globe.


WORK Saigon
Location: Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
Website: http://www.worksaigon.com/

Special features/amenities: Located in the city formerly known as Saigon, a small coworking space targeted to creatives. Also doubles as a cafe serving single-origin coffees and homemade goods such as breads, soups and cakes. Coworking residents get discounts on food and access to the courtyard swimming pool.

Costs: VND 2,000,000 ($94)/month for a guaranteed desk and locker; drop-ins can work for free with food or beverage purchase at cafe

Quote: “Ideal office away from my homebase in the US. Creative spirit and productive working environment... plus a killer passion fruit fizz and a pool!” Kyle Pfister

Jerusalem Startup Hub
Location: Jerusalem, Israel
Website: http://www.jerusalemstartuphub.com/

Special features/amenities: Located in one of the oldest cities in the world and one considered holy by Christians, Jews and Muslims. This startup incubator offers access to legal assistance, mentors, venture capital firms and angel investors, as well as desks on a daily, weekly or monthly basis for individual workers. Also provides personal lockers and unlimited beverages.

Costs: NIS 75 ($22)/day, NIS 350 ($100)/week, NIS 900 - 1,150 ($258 - $330)/month

Quote: “Great place !” Yossi Assayag

Hubud
Location: Bali, Indonesia
Website: http://www.hubud.org/

Special features/amenities: Located in Bali’s creative capital amid rice paddies and next to a monkey preserve. The interior space is made from sustainable materials including bamboo and recycled ironwood. Includes an organic cafe with smoothies, a granola station and gluten-free desserts.

Costs: Between $20 and $250/month, depending on level of access

Quotes: “I've worked in a shared environment before. But this one is the one of a kind….” Eric Tracz

“Awesome work space in Bali…. You'll often get a monkey visiting from across the road!” Max Bramwell

Urban Station
Location: Multiple branches in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Website: http://argentina.enjoyurbanstation.com/

Special features/amenities: Five current locations in Buenos Aires, offering lockers, laptop locks, ergonomic furniture and both American and European electrical connections. Also includes unlimited coffee services, including pastries, breads and fruits.

Costs: EUR 3 ($4)/hour, EUR 200 ($266)/month

Quotes: “Beautiful place ... with style .... very smart .... excellent lighting ... !!!” Nadia Toledo

“Very good place for business meetings, good weather, quiet, you can talk to. Good price, I totally recommend it.” Rodolfo Gómez

Enspiral Space
Location: Wellington, New Zealand
Website: http://www.enspiralspace.co.nz/

Special features/amenities: This coworking space which is dedicated to tech startups, non-profits and freelancers with an ethical/social focus, is located a few blocks Wellington’s Waterfront. The space offers a Lego room and afternoon tea every Tuesday at 4:00.

Costs: NZD 40 ($34)/day, NZD 375 ($316)/month (hot desk), NZD 450 ($380)/month (fixed desk)

Quote: “The room is open plan with a high ceiling and exposed timber. Bookshelves keep the space from being overwhelming, but it is very open. A range of people from small firms are permanently here, with some freelancers or those who come in a day a week. Things are never dull.” Josh Forde

Punspace
Location: Chiang Mai, Thailand
Website: http://www.punspace.com/

Special features/amenities: Located in NomadList’s best city for remote workers, and just minutes from the shops restaurants and bars of Chiang Mai’s Nimman neighborhood. Offers a Skype room as well as free coffee, tea, water and snacks.

Costs: THB 199 ($6)/day, THB 1,499 ($47)/week, THB 3,499 ($110)/month.

Quotes: “It’s a great working space with a mix of people from local Thai working on tech startups to people from all over the world….” Max

“Great place to work, filled great people, beers in the fridge. 3 key ingredients for any workplace.” Adam McIntyre

The Common Room
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
Website: http://www.the-common-room.co.za/en

Special features/amenities: Located in a northern suburb of Johannesburg, includes a quiet room with partitioned workspaces, as well an open work areas. Also features a room with a wood burning fireplace. All furniture is made from recycled shipping crates.

Costs: ZAR 50 ($5)/hour, ZAR 140 ($13)/day. Offers a wide variety of pricing plans for longer term access.

Quote: “Awesome spot for freelancers, start ups, entrepreneurs and pretty much anyone looking for a fun place to work !!!” Jo Coza

A_Space
Location: Manila, Philippines
Website: http://www.aspacemanila.com/

Special features/amenities: Located in Makati City, the financial center of the Philippine capital. The interior is filled with custom made designer furniture, including hanging chairs. Also offers vinyl record players, a small indoor garden, an at gallery and a snack bar.

Costs: PHP 100 ($2)/hour, PHP 1,000 ($23)/day

Quotes: “Cool vibe, perfect ambiance and atmosphere, plus, hanging chairs!” Sheryl Tan

“They had some free yoga sessions going on when we co-worked there. Good Internet. Good coffee.” Ari Bancale

“Best workplace I have ever been. Its not all work, its also FUN here!” Khaleen Catreina Yuxien Porras


Piloto 151
Location: San Juan, Puerto Rico
Website: http://www.piloto151.com/

Special features/amenities: Located in the historic Old San Juan district of the city, right next to City Hall with a view of the Plaza de Armas. Has lots of open space, including three outdoor patios and two lounges, and a fully equipped kitchen with free local coffee.

Costs: $14.99/day, $249/month (shared office), $349/month (personal workstation). Also offers 5 and 10-day passes ($59.99 and $99.99).

Quotes: “Piloto is a great space with a helpful staff. The area is open, modern, and comfortable.” Froilan Irizarry

“Best coworking space in Puerto Rico” Daniel Santiago

Mindpark
Location: Helsingborg, Sweden
Website: http://www.mindpark.se/kontor/

Special features/amenities: Located in an old factory in one of Sweden’s oldest cities, next to IKEA corporate headquarters. Interior designer Niklas Madsen gave the space and furnishings a unique design and feel. The facility also includes a hackerspace and a cafe which serves fair trade food and beverages.

Costs: SEK 1,800 - 2,500 ($263 - $366)/month for a desk, SEK 6,900 ($1,009)/month for an office

Quotes: “Cool rooms filled with students and entrepreneurs in a wonderful mix. One can get a meeting room for a day or a cup of coffee, go to a lecture on the stairs and invite a colleague to lunch.” Anders Larsson

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Adtran lays groundwork for superfast broadband over copper

Telecom equipment vendor Adtran has developed a technology that will make it easier for operators to roll out broadband speeds close to 500Mbps over copper lines.

The conventional wisdom is that copper is dying out and fiber is ascending. However, the cost of rolling out fiber is still too high for many operators, which instead want to upgrade their existing copper networks (and in some cases fiber simply can’t be installed). So there is still a need for technologies that can make use of copper networks and complement fiber.
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Adtran has developed what is calls FDV (Frequency Division Vectoring), which enhances the capabilities of two of these technologies—VDSL2 with vectoring and G.fast—by enabling them to better coexist over a single subscriber line, the company said.

VDSL2 with vectoring, which improves speeds by reducing noise and can deliver up to 150Mbps, is currently being rolled out by operators, while G.fast, which is capable of 500Mbps, is still under development.

The higher speeds are needed for applications such as 4K video streaming, IPTV, cloud-based storage and communication via HD video.

FDV will make it easier for operators to roll out G.fast once it’s ready and expand where it can be used, according to Adtran.

The first G.fast deployments will happen in the middle of 2015, a spokeswoman for Adtran said via email. The underlying standard is expected to be adopted by the end of the year. Once that happens, chip makers and equipment makers like Adtran can develop products for commercial deployments, she said.

The technology increases the bandwidth by using more spectrum. G.fast will use 106MHz of spectrum, which compares to the 17MHz or 30MHz used by VDSL2.

The development of G.fast is currently at a point where vendors are trying to show they are the best alternative for future upgrades. Recently, rival Alcatel-Lucent demonstrated a prototype technology called XG-Fast, which is capable of 1Gbps for upload and download traffic, as well as 10Gbps in download speeds when using two copper pairs, it said.

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10 things you need to know about Microsoft’s Surface Pro 3

Since the release of the first Surface nearly two years ago, Microsoft has been improving and revising its line of tablets. We tested a Surface Pro 3 that came with an Intel Core i5 processor, 8GB RAM, and 256 GB SSD. Microsoft also included a Type Cover -- the keyboard designed for this tablet that also serves as a protective cover, which is normally sold separately. Bottom line: The Surface Pro 3 is a beautifully designed machine that shows off the Windows 8.1 operating system. It’s billed as a tablet, but I found myself preferring to use it as a notebook, a nifty ultraportable one -- and doing so through the Windows desktop environment.

Form factor
The Surface Pro 3 is comprised of styles that complement one another. The flatness of its back is offset by sides that angle outward toward the display screen. Due to its size, which is close to that of 8.5-by-11-inch paper with a thickness of 0.36 inches, it’s safest to hold this tablet with both hands. The kickstand flips out initially to an endpoint of 22 degrees, but the two hinges will gradually and gently give, allowing you to turn them back to 150 degrees. This angle helps you use the tablet when you have it set on a table, without the Type Cover. Placing it on your lap, with the Type Cover attached, and using it as a notebook is doable and not uncomfortable.

Keyboard: Type Cover
The Type Cover, which is available in four colors, attaches tightly with magnets to the edge of only one side of the tablet. The keyboard’s palm rest surface is a tight and smooth-to-the-touch felt. The protective cover is a rougher but softer felt, like a high-quality billiard table. The touchpad is wider than the one on the first version. And while the original rested flat when opened; this one can be raised into an upward incline. I found that this elevated profile did make my typing better.

Software
The Surface Pro 3 uses the 64-bit version of Windows 8.1 Pro. This is, refreshingly, the “cleanest” Windows device (desktop, notebook or tablet) I’ve ever seen: It comes with several Windows Store apps owned by Microsoft, including Skype, but only one by a third-party: Flipboard. There are no third-party desktop applications. The only extraneous desktop application was Microsoft Office.

Display
The 12-inch, 2160-by-1440 pixel screen is color-calibrated, which aids in professional work where maintaining image fidelity is tantamount. To me, the colors looked somewhat dull. By default, the screen is set at a dim looking 50% brightness. I liked it better at 80% to 90%. Outdoors in sunlight, the display’s glass became so reflective that the screen was not viewable. When the tablet is held in portrait mode, its display’s aspect ratio is 2:3, which compares similarly to that of an 8.5-by-11-inch paper sheet. So the Surface Pro 3 can work well for previewing PDFs or scanned images of documents.

Performance
With an Intel Core i5 processor and 8GB of RAM, the tablet operated speedily with rarely a slowdown. I would purposely keep several tabs open in a web browser, while playing streaming music or video (at 1080p resolution), and jump between the Start Screen and desktop to launch applications or apps. The one notable time that the Surface Pro 3 became strained was when I updated Windows 8.1 through Windows Update. The upper-right of the tablet’s back (when the device is in its notebook orientation) began to feel warmer than usual to the touch, as the OS installed several updates onto itself. Things returned to normal after a required reboot to finish the installation process.

Digital pen: Surface Pen
The Surface Pro 3 comes with a digital pen, called the Surface Pen. You can use it to interact with Windows 8.1, as you would by tapping on the tablet’s touchscreen with your finger, but it was specially devised for the OneNote app. The Surface Pen has a button at its end that launches OneNote when you click it. Virtually doodling or writing with this digital pen on the Surface Pro 3 felt very much like doing so with an actual pen on paper. Even when I quickly swept its tip across the tablet’s display, OneNote kept up with my motions instantaneously to produce corresponding scribbles.

Sound
When set up as a notebook or held in landscape mode, the tablet’s speakers emanate sound through grills from the top edges of the bezel. The audio had a fullness, but lacked distinct and strong enough clarity in the high end. The volume range seemed narrow, but the loudness that these tiny speakers could put out was still impressive. When I listened through good-quality earbuds, the audio sustained clarity without any distortion at high volume settings.

The Surface Pro 3 has three mics: One in the bezel; two embedded in the back, which together are meant to capture sound in stereo. Using the Windows 8.1 default Sound Recorder app, the front mic recorded audio that sounded crisp and free of buzzing.

Camera
Both the front and rear cameras can capture images up to 5 megapixels. And, in general, I found they were equally capable of taking clear, in-focus shots under bright or sufficient light, whether indoors or outside. Colors appeared accurate and dynamic in such ideal situations.

The difference between them appeared to lie in how each handles focus: The rear camera couldn’t capture objects within about 22 inches in sharp focus. The front camera fared much better, focusing in at about 8 inches, as to be expected; this is the camera that will be transmitting your face when you’re video-chatting.

Battery
Microsoft lists the Surface Pro 3 being able to run for about 9 hours on a full charge. I managed to use it continuously as much as I could (letting it go to sleep when I took breaks) for almost 8 hours under its Windows 8.1 default settings. I browsed the web, captured audio and images, listened to music, ran desktop applications and Windows apps, and watched video. The Surface Pro 3’s power charger, which neatly sticks to the device with a magnetic connector, shines a bright white LED when it’s plugged into a wall outlet. But there’s no light on the tablet to indicate the charging status of its built-in battery. By my estimate, it took about 3 hours to completely recharge.

Specs
OS: Windows 8.1 Pro, 64-bit
DISPLAY: 12 inch, 2160-by-1440 pixel
SCREEN: Multi-touch touchscreen with digital pen support
UNDER THE HOOD: Intel Core i3, i5 or i7 chip, 4 or 8 GB RAM; 64, 128, 256 or 512 GB SSD
CAMERAS: 5 MP front camera; 5 MP rear
CONNECTIVITY: MicroSD slot, Mini DisplayPort, USB 3.0, Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi 802.11ac/802.11 a/b/g/n
BATTERY: Up to 9 hours
WEIGHT: 1.76 lbs
DIMENSIONS: 11.5” x 7.93” x 0.36”
PRICE: Starts at $799; Type Cover: $129.99

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Microsoft may drag out layoffs for a year

Long periods of uncertainty about who goes, who stays, can corrode a company's morale

Microsoft yesterday said it could take as long as a year to lay off the 18,000 workers who will be eventually shown the door, making for a long, drawn-out morale-busting process that was criticized by both labor experts and industry analysts.

"I'm definitely not a fan," Wes Miller, an analyst at Directions on Microsoft, said of the lengthy process.

"You owe it to your long-term Nokia and Microsoft employees to do it as quickly as possible," added Miller, who, like many of his colleagues the Kirkland, Wash.-based research firm, is a former Microsoft employee. "You also owe it to yourself to do it as cleanly and quickly as possible. The longer it drones on, the more randomized people get."

According to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (and an identical press release), Microsoft said it would "substantially complete" the layoffs by the end of this year, and that the process would be "fully completed" by June 30, 2015.

In its previous biggest layoff -- when it cut 5,800 jobs in 2009 -- Microsoft also took up to 18 months to finish the dismissals.

"They should have learned from 2009. Morale suffered," Miller said of the months of uncertainty when workers wondered whether they would be laid off.

Mini-Microsoft, an on-again, off-again blogger who is purportedly a current Microsoft employee, agreed with Miller in the first post to the website since former CEO Steve Ballmer announced his retirement nearly a year ago.

The 2009 layoff "was implemented so poorly, with constant worries and concerns and doubts about engaging in new ideas due to expectations those would be the easiest to trim during ongoing cut-backs," Mini-Microsoft wrote Thursday. "When was it over? When was the 'all clear' signal given?"

The blog went on to say, "If this truly drags on for a year: we need a new leader. This needs to be wrapped up by the end of July. 2014."

Comments on the blog expressed the hope that the ax would fall quickly. "When you take a [Band-Aid] off, you just grab hold and rip," wrote one person, voicing a sentiment echoed by dozens of anonymous commenters.

Other comments on the blog suggested that some layoffs had taken place immediately. It was impossible to verify the authenticity of those comments, however.

"Most of the follow-up emails I've seen suggest that it will be a quick process (C+E, OSG, Devices, etc.) for those in Redmond who should find out today if they are about to be axed," wrote another unidentified commenter. The writer was referring to Microsoft's Cloud and Enterprise, Operating Systems and Devices groups, which are led, respectively, by Scott Guthrie, Terry Myerson and former Nokia CEO Stephen Elop.

According to the state of Washington, Microsoft said it would eliminate 1,351 jobs in the state.
"I don't think it's a good thing to do," Wayne Cascio, a professor at the University of Colorado, Denver and an expert in human resources management -- specifically downsizing -- said in an interview about long layoffs. "It creates massive uncertainty and a big drop in productivity. People spend their work time on social networking and getting a resume up to date. And there's the very real risk that the company might lose the most valuable, and marketable, employees."

Anything company executives and managers can do to reduce uncertainty, which is the root cause of the disruption, is all to the good, Cascio added, for both those destined to receive a pink slip and those who will remain.

That uncertainty often leads to an often-overlooked phenomenon, said Cascio. "There's empirical research that has shown that a year after layoffs, the unanticipated turnover rate goes up," he said, explaining that, in such situations, many people who are spared the hatchet take the initiative and leave on their own for other jobs. "The larger the layoff, the more that rate goes up."

If a company normally has an annual turnover rate of 10%, it should expect a jump to 15% during the 12 months following a layoff, Cascio said.

Asked whether companies take that into account when they plan layoffs, Cascio said, "I don't even think they know about this."

Cascio acknowledged that in some instances a long layoff stretch can't be avoided. "Microsoft may not know how many to let go," he said. Other factors, including regulations in foreign countries where a company operates, can come into play as well.

He characterized the Microsoft layoff, which aimed to cut 14% of the company's workforce, as "large." Nationally, the average size of a layoff 10% to 11% of a company's workforce; anything over 20% is considered an "extreme" downsizing, Cascio said.

"People wonder what's going to happen, but they don't know," said Carolina Milanesi, chief of research and head of U.S. business for Kantar WorldPanel Comtech. "Am I invested in the company or not? Is the company invested in me or not? There's a need for more clarity about what will happen."

"It's important that companies reduce the uncertainty, not only for the people laid off, but for those who remain," said Cascio. "Those who are staying will be looking for signals on how those laid off are treated."

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5 key takeaways from Amazon’s big cloud day

Amazon challenges Box with file share services, attempts to woo mobile app developers

Amazon Web Services continued to push the IaaS market forward today by challenging established cloud players like Box and Dropbox with the company’s own document collaboration platform and rolling out new features to its public cloud focused on supporting mobile applications.

Here are the five biggest takeaways from Amazon’s Summit in New York City today:

Amazon’s cloud targets mobile applications
Amazon launched a number of new features to optimize its cloud for hosting mobile apps. The main new product is named Cognito and it provides shortcuts for mobile application developers. The idea is that there are a variety of core features that many mobile apps need that do not differentiate the app from others, says AWS VP of Mobile Marco Argneti. These include the ability to save user profiles and provide support across multiple devices, and save the state of the app when a user changes devices. Cognito provides these services so that app developers don’t have to build them, and it allows the developers to focus on the truly differentiated features of their app. The logon credentials integrate with Facebook, Google and Amazon usernames and passwords. Here’s a video describing the service from Amazon:

The move shows that in addition to being at the forefront of hosting startups and enterprise workloads, AWS wants to be the place to host mobile apps, too. It also shows Amazon turning into more of an application development platform as a service (PaaS) and Mobile Backend as a Service (MBaaS). Amazon isn’t alone though. Microsoft has a robust set of tools for hosting mobile applications as well. Time Warner Cable’s NaviSite rolled out new Enterprise Mobility Management tools this week for managing mobile workforces, which VMware is heavily invested.

Amazon launches document collaboration and file sharing business
Amazon announced Zocalo, a new file storage, sharing and synchronization platform based on its popular Simple Storage Service (S3). Think of it as Box or Google Drive, but in Amazon’s cloud and aimed at the enterprise market. Through a slick web interface, users can upload a variety of files -- documents, PDFs, slides, spreadsheets and photos, among others -- and synchronize them across devices that have a Zocalo client installed on them. Users can share documents and can also provide and solicit feedback.

Improvements in 10GbE technology, lower pricing, and improved performance make 10GbE for the mid-market
The move puts Amazon in direct competition with some darlings of the consumer cloud marketplace, like Box and DropBox and puts Amazon head to head with Google, again (those two companies compete on the IaaS cloud platform too). The move follows Amazon’s launch of Workspaces, a virtual desktop tool it debuted last year.

Amazon targets, and shows off, enterprise customers
Perhaps equally as important as the new products launched were the portions of the keynote where Amazon customers shared their experiences using the company’s platform. One perception the company is attempting to overcome is that it is focused on startups and developers, but not enterprise users. One way to get more enterprise customers is to show nervous potentially customers that their peers are using your platform.

Vogels outlined how startup Airbnb - which processes 150,000 stays per night on its site - has grown from using about 400 Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) servers a year ago to now more than 1,300. The company has a five-person IT team that manages it all in Amazon’s cloud. Siemens, which had $5.5 billion in sales last year, uses Amazon’s cloud to process HIPAA-complaint diagnostic images. Publishing company Conde Nast is selling its data center and servers because it’s moving into AWS’s cloud. It’s one thing to have enterprise customers using your cloud-based platform in some small test and development capacity; it’s another for them to be shutting down data centers in favor of using the public cloud.

Amazon eats its partners
Another new product the company launched today is named Logs for CloudWatch. Last year Amazon released CloudTrail, which is a stream of information customers can sign up for that reports every action that is made in a user’s account. That information alone is not extraordinarily valuable because it needs to be processed in a way that makes sense. A variety of third-party AWS partners have taken that data and made applications out of it that customers can use to track their cloud usage and find unusual behavior. Today, Amazon rolled out some of those features themselves.

The point here is that Amazon continues to develop features in its cloud, even if it has partnering companies who do the same thing. AWS has done this before; it made life difficult for companies that had built up cost optimization tools when it launched its own service that does the same thing named Trusted Advisor. It can be tough being an Amazon partner; the key for these vendors is staying ahead of Amazon’s fast innovation cycle.

More than 10,000 people registered to attend Amazon Web Service’s Summit in New York Today.
One of the most notable aspects of the day was the amount of interest it drew. AWS said that more than 10,000 people registered to attend the event, which included a keynote by CTO Werner Vogels and then breakout sessions throughout the afternoon. Thousands of others watched a live stream. The biggest takeaway of all is that the cloud is real, and a lot of people are interested in it.

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8 technologies that are on the way out -- and one that we'll never be rid of

In the blink of an eye, a technology that's on top today can be made obsolete by the next big thing. Six futurists predict which of today's common technologies are headed for the scrap heap, and what will replace them.

Soon-to-be-obsolete technologies
If "change is the only constant" applies anywhere, it's in the world of technology. One day you're proud of knowing how to set your VCR, and the next your DVR is recording shows you didn't even know were on. Few would have guessed in 1980 that vinyl records would be obsolete in 15 years; fewer still would have predicted that CDs would in turn be obsolete a mere 10 years after that.

We asked a panel of experts to peer into the future and identify some business and consumer technologies that are on their way out -- and what will replace them. Here are eight technologies they say we'll soon see the back of, plus one that it looks like we'll be stuck with forever.

So long, smartphone
You saw this one coming: "The smartphone screen will disappear altogether due to the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and wearable technology," predicts Ann Mack, director of trendspotting at marketing communications firm JWT Worldwide. Indeed, research firm IDC forecasts that shipments of wearable devices like smartwatches and smart glasses will surpass 19 million units in 2014, and that the global market will reach nearly 112 million units in 2018.

But today's wearables will themselves be swept aside by more sophisticated devices, according to Ian Campbell, CEO of Nucleus Research. "Next, the top button on my shirt is actually a computer interface to my cloud," he says. "Google Glass will end up a niche product like Segway."

ery personal tech
Why stop with just wearing our tech, when we can have it embedded into our bodies? From implanted RFID chips being used to unlock doors to bionic ears and eyes, pioneers are already exploring the potential of "transhumanism."

"In 20 years it'll be hard to tell where the person ends and the computer begins," says Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group. We'll see smarter prosthetics and military applications well before then, he adds, but it'll take a couple decades for embedded devices to become mainstream. "Health, religious and privacy concerns will slow its adoption."

Mo' betta mobile power
Batteries are ubiquitous in today's device-ridden, mobile world. But we're all familiar with their drawbacks: They're heavy, take a long time to charge and provide a toxic disposal challenge.

"Batteries will be replaced by supercapacitors [a.k.a. ultracapacitors], most likely, or fuel cells as more efficient ways to store and provide energy," says Enderle. Supercapacitors operate like regular capacitors but can store much more energy. They're expensive and don't (yet) hold as much energy per weight as standard batteries, but they charge almost instantly and can last through a million or more charge/discharge cycles.

"They'll be supplements within 5 years, and mass replacements should occur within 10 years," Enderle predicts. "The need is critical to many markets like consumer electronics, defense and automotive."

No more clicking or typing
Say goodbye to your mouse and keyboard. They will yield to "an intelligent interface that uses voice, gestures and other commands," says William Halal, Professor Emeritus of Management, Technology & Innovation at George Washington University. "Touch and other inputs may be included, of course. But the mouse and keyboard will likely be used only by techies and those doing serious computing, and the old GUI is likely to yield to these more natural interfaces."

But Enderle thinks there will be some resistance to this change. "We really don't like learning new ways of doing things," he says, "and something like this will likely be driven by the youth market. Ten years is the likely time frame, but it could take 20."

Devices that talk -- to each other
Traditional buttons and switches are already disappearing from our gadgets and appliances, with everything from clock radios to multiroom music systems now controlled by smartphone apps. Future IoT-connected devices will require less of even that kind of interaction.

"Devices will be connected but also self-diagnosing and correcting," says Campbell. "If there's a problem with the dishwasher, the repair person can remotely fix the issue without ever contacting me."

We're not ready psychologically or legally to turn over that control, cautions Enderle. "Liability concerns will keep most of this from happening until you can get localized artificial intelligence to monitor the equipment," he says. "Otherwise, there's too much chance for a hacker to burn down the house. This'll take more than 15 years."

Big data meets security
Traditionally, security measures have tended to be reactive: IT modified the company's firewall settings after an intrusion, and anti-malware vendors updated their threat definitions after a threat had been identified.

"This approach will be replaced by predictive security," which uses data mining and analysis to track and anticipate cyber threats, says Jai Menon, vice president and chief research officer with Dell's Research division. Tools such as OpenDNS' Umbrella Security Graph are already helping researchers get out in front of attacks as they're unfolding.

Soon, Menon says, "we will start to develop countermeasures in advance, based on the prediction of new exploits." That approach will apply not just to external threats, but also to identifying and shutting down insider threats, he adds.

Big-picture security
Access to corporate systems is usually determined by defined roles, such as administrator, business user or guest. But future systems will take into account not only a person's role but "the device they're using, the current threat level, the security of the location from which access is requested and so on," says Menon. "Heuristics will monitor patterns of use, and if a user begins to do things 'out of character,' it will set off alerts."

Campbell from Nucleus Research predicts that a persistent, personal identity will also be part of the new security framework. "People will have a single identity for school, personal, corporate, etc. You won't add a new user to the corporate network but rather authorize someone's identity."

Mix 'n' match software
Many IT departments still develop custom applications for their users, but Menon says the practice will become largely extinct as application programming interfaces and packaged software services proliferate: "Salesforce provides 200,000 APIs; ProgrammableWeb is currently tracking more than 11,000 APIs; Google and Bitnami and Amazon Web Services provide hundreds. If you can't find a service that does what you want, you probably aren't looking hard enough." Companies will need developers who are expert at orchestrating APIs and packaged services, he adds.

"Application development has always gotten more containerized and off-the-shelf," agrees Campbell. "Code gave way to procedures which led to modules and then DLLs... but you'll still need to be clever to arrange those building blocks into something useful."

Technology's cockroach
When it comes to email, JWT's Mack speaks for many when she says, "There has to be a better way."

The problem comes when you try to replace it. It's easy to imagine a messaging service in a wearable or embedded device, but what about sending attachments? What about archiving? If you design an electronic messaging system that can send files, address multiple recipients and establish a permanent record, you end up with something a lot like email.

"Email will live on forever," says Campbell. "I'm willing to call it the cockroach of software. We may hate it, but it will be around until the end of time."

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Amazon teases launch of mysterious device with 50-second video

Amazon took to social media and YouTube Wednesday with a cagey promotion for an upcoming launch event, setting off rampant Internet speculation that its long-rumored smartphone is about to be announced.

"Join Amazon's founder Jeff Bezos for our launch event," the company said on Twitter. The event will be June 18 in Seattle, which is where Amazon is based.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos will be at launch event

The tweet included a 50-second YouTube video showing people's reactions to some kind of device they are holding. The video never shows the actual device.

Amazon has been rumored to be working on a smartphone with retina-tracking technology to make some objects appear in 3-D without the use of special glasses.

Some of the remarks in the video suggest that the device could have 3-D technology.

"It moved with me," one person said. Others moved their bodies or heads while holding the device.

A separate Web page for requesting an invitation to the event shows a cropped image of a sleek, black rectangular device with the Amazon logo on it. Amazon customers, developers and journalists can fill out the form to request an invitation.

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John Chambers
CEO and chairman, Cisco
An 80% raise boosted John Chambers’ compensation above $21 million last year. In 2012, the Cisco CEO received $11.7 million. The biggest gains came in the form of stock awards valued at $15.2 million (compared to $7.3 million in 2012). Chambers also received a $4.7 million cash bonus, and his salary rose from $375,000 in 2012 to $1.1 million in 2013.

Alain Monié
CEO, Ingram Micro
Alain Monié’s compensation was fairly consistent from 2012 to 2013 -- with one $5 million exception. His total pay in 2013 included his $876,923 salary (compared to $840,501 a year earlier), $1.4 million bonus (down from $1.6 million), stock awards valued at $5 million (up from $4.5 million), and $23,813 in perks and other compensation (compared to $34,169 in 2012). The big difference is an additional grant of option awards, valued at $5 million. The year before, Ingram Micro didn’t grant any option awards to Monié.

Jerry Kennelly
CEO and chairman, Riverbed
A jump in stock awards drove up Jerry Kennelly’s 2013 compensation, which was valued at $12.8 million. A year earlier, Riverbed’s CEO received $8 million. Kennelly’s 2013 pay included his $750,000 salary (up from $650,000), $751,853 bonus (up from $568,399), and stock awards valued at $11.3 million (up from $6.8 million in 2012).

Sanjay Mehrotra
CEO and president, SanDisk
A 60% raise -- largely in the form of a cash bonus -- brought Sanjay Mehrotra’s total pay up to $10.6 million last year. In 2012, the chief exec and co-founder of flash storage maker SanDisk received $6.7 million. Mehrotra’s 2013 package included his $946,134 salary (up from $880,769); $3.1 million bonus (up from $661,500); stock awards valued at $3.2 million (up from $2.4 million); option awards valued at $3.3 million (up from $2.7 million); and $100,218 in perks and other compensation.

John McAdam
CEO and president, F5
Last year delivered a $3 million boost for John McAdam, CEO of application delivery specialist F5. His 2013 pay package, valued at $8.3 million, included his $817,636 salary, $897,196 bonus, and stock awards valued at $6.5 million (up from $3.8 million a year earlier). In 2012, McAdam received a $5.2 million pay package.

James Bidzos
CEO, president and chairman, Verisign
Verisign boosted James Bidzos’ pay by 46% last year, with the gains showing up primarily in his bonus and equity awards. In 2013, Bidzos received $8.5 million, which included his $752,885 salary, $957,750 bonus (up from $593,550), and equity awards valued at $6.8 million (up from $4.5 million in 2012). In 2012, his pay was $5.9 million.

Shantanu Narayen
CEO and president, Adobe
A 31% raise drove Shantanu Narayen’s compensation up to $15.7 million last year. A year earlier, he made $12 million. His total package included a $941,667 salary, $1.6 million bonus, and $19,211 in perks and other compensation. Narayen also received stock awards valued at $13.1 million. That’s where he made the biggest gains; a year earlier, his equity awards were valued at $9.7 million.