The Slow Mo Guys videoed a hard disk drive at 1,000 frames per second to show how it works and then they destroyed it.
Don’t try this at home!
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Mike Barton wrote on Wired’s Cloudline that there’s no doubting the cloud invasion. But the research firm Gartner (IT) believes the personal cloud will replace the PC as the center of our digital lives as soon as 2014.
Steve Kleynhans, research vice president at Gartner, said in a statement, “Major trends in client computing have shifted the market away from a focus on personal computers to a broader device perspective that includes smartphones, tablets, and other consumer devices.” He continues, “Emerging cloud services will become the glue that connects the web of devices that users choose to access during the different aspects of their daily life.”
In the article, Mr. Burton writes that Google plans a cloud-centered future with Google (GOOG) Play and Android mobile OS. But the personal computer will also not miss out on the cloud, as Microsoft (MSFT) and Apple (AAPL) are planning to weave the cloud into the next generation of their desktop operating systems, Windows 8, and OS X Mountain Lion.
But a cloud-happy future will not be as easy as that, because Gartner says, “it will require enterprises to fundamentally rethink how they deliver applications and services to users.” Gartner sees a number of factors are converging to make for a perfect personal cloud storm by 2014.
Megatrend No. 1: Consumerization— Gartner says what corporate IT has seen so far been a precursor to the major wave that is starting to take hold across all aspects of IT as several key factors come together:
Users are more technologically savvyMegatrend No. 2: Virtualization — Virtualization has improved flexibility and increased the options for how IT organizations can set up client environments.
Megatrend No. 3: “App-ification” — Apps change the way applications are designed, delivered, and consumed by users and it has a dramatic impact on all other aspects of the market.
Megatrend No. 4: The Ever-Available Self-Service Cloud – The cloud opens a whole new level of opportunity for self-servicing users. Every user can now have a scalable and nearly infinite set of resources available for whatever they need to do.
Megatrend No. 5: The Mobility Shift — Wherever and Whenever You Want Today, mobile devices combined with the cloud can fulfill most computing tasks, and any tradeoffs are outweighed in the minds of the user by the convenience and flexibility provided by the mobile devices.
Gartner’s Kleynhans said. “In this new world, the specifics of devices will become less important for the organization to worry about. Users will use a collection of devices, with the PC remaining one of many options, but no one device will be the primary hub. Rather, the personal cloud will take on that role. Access to the cloud and the content stored or shared in the cloud will be managed and secured, rather than solely focusing on the device itself.”
Wired says that former Microsoft chief software architect Ray Ozzie made the same point recently, “People argue about, ‘Are we in a post-PC world?’. Why are we arguing? Of course, we are in a post-PC world.” Ozzie reportedly told a conference, ”That doesn’t mean the PC dies; that just means that the scenarios that we use them in, we stop referring to them as PCs, we refer to them as other things.”
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Goodie for Gartner, they get paid for codifying the obvious. Consumers are moving to the personal cloud. DVDs vs.Netflix streams. Files on your hard drives vs. some distant data center run by Dropbox. Photo albums vs. Flickr. Books vs. Kindles and Nooks.
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Computer security company McAfee unveiled its Threat Predictions report (PDF), outlining the top cybersecurity threats organizations and individuals are likely to face in 2012. McAfee, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Intel (INTC), says that for the most part, 2012 looks like it will look like 2011 only worse, with many of the recent threats gaining momentum. Here are the predictions:
Industrial Attacks: Cyber-criminals will target Water, electricity, oil, and gas utilities. These are essential services to everyday lives, yet many industrial systems are not ready for cyber-attacks according to McAfee. Many of the environments where SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems are deployed don’t have stringent security practices. McAfee predicts attackers will leverage this lack of preparedness with greater frequency, if only for blackmail or extortion in 2012.
Legalized Spam: McAfee Labs says global spam volumes have declined in the past two years. However, legitimate advertisers are picking up where the spammers left off using the same spamming techniques, such as purchasing third-party email lists or databases from companies going out of business. McAfee Labs expects to see this “legal” spam and the technique known as “snowshoe spamming” continue to grow at a faster rate than illegal phishing and confidence scams.
Mobile Threats: 2011 has seen the largest levels in mobile malware history, McAfee Labs expects that continue in 2012. They expect mobile attackers to improve on their skill set and move toward mobile banking attacks. Techniques previously dedicated for online banking, such as stealing from victims while they are still logged on while making it seem that transactions are coming from the legitimate user, will now target mobile banking users. McAfee Labs expects attackers will bypass PCs and go straight after mobile banking apps, as more and more users handle their finances on mobile devices.
Embedded Hardware: Embedded systems are designed for a specific control function within a larger system, and are commonly used in automotive, medical devices, GPS devices, routers, digital cameras, and printers. McAfee Labs expects to see proofs-of-concept codes exploiting embedded systems to become more effective in 2012 and beyond. This will require malware that attacks at the hardware layer and will enable attacks to gain greater control and keep up long-term access to the system and its data. Sophisticated hackers will then have complete control over hardware.
Cyberwar: Countries are vulnerable due to massive dependence on computer systems and a cyber-defense that primarily defends only government and military networks. Many countries realize the crippling potential of cyber attacks against critical infrastructures, such as water, gas, and power, and how difficult it is to defend against them. McAfee Labs expects to see countries prove their cyberwar capabilities in 2012, to send a message.
Rogue Certificates: Organizations and individuals tend to trust digitally signed certificates, however, recent threats such as Stuxnet and Duqu used rogue certificates to evade detection. McAfee Labs expects to see the production and circulation of fake rogue certificates increase in 2012. Wide-scale targeting of certificate authorities and the broader use of fraudulent digital certificates will affect key infrastructure, secure browsing and transactions as well as host-based technologies such as whitelisting and application control.
Legislative Issues: DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions) is designed to protect a client computer from inadvertently communicating with a host as a result of a man-in-the-middle attack. Governing bodies around the globe are taking a greater interest in establishing “rules of the road” for Internet traffic, and McAfee Labs expects to see more and more instances where legislative issues hamper future solutions.
Hacktivism: McAfee Labs predicts that in 2012 digital disruptions like Anonymous will join forces with physical demonstrators and will target public figures such as politicians, industry leaders, judges, and law enforcement, more than ever before.
Virtual Currency: McAfee Labs expects cryptocurrency will be an attractive target for cybercriminals. to see threats evolve to steal money from unsuspecting victims or to spread malware.
Hardware Attacks: McAfee Labs expects to see more effort put into hardware and firmware exploits to create persistent malware in network cards, hard drives, and even system BIOS (Basic Input Output System). and their related real-world attacks through 2012.
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
The Royal Pingdom reports that Microsoft’s Windows 7 has just overtaken Windows XP as the top operating system in the US. The article cites stats from StatCounter that say as of April 7, Microsoft Windows 7 reached a 31.71% of share, while Windows XP held a 31.56% share.
On a global scale, StatCounter reports that Windows XP still enjoys a significant advantage of 16.1% over Windows 7.
The Business Insider noted that investor Roger McNamee a man who Bill Gates credited as a sounding board for his 1994 book “The Road Ahead” told CNBC that Microsoft’s Windows is a dying business.
I think Microsoft Windows, this is the cycle where it stops growing… The availability of iPads and smartphones is allowing corporations to trade down and eliminate the thousand dollars per year of supporting a Windows desktop. And this is the year where Windows has fallen below 50% of internet connected device down from 97% a few years ago.
Despite this, Mr. McNamee would still buy Microsoft (MSFT) because of the company’s strong position in an email.
When you’re a monopolist in an important category — and they are for sure a monopolist relative to email with Exchange — they’re going to be able to crank prices on Exchange. I actually think Microsoft is a buy.
Mr. McNamee is a smart guy who took an early huge stake in Facebook for Elevation Partners. However, the Business Insider thinks that Exchange as a replacement for the Microsoft Windows business is bizarre for a bunch of reasons:
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But Mr. Gates Sir, If I could just get my hands on Jobs, I’d…
Microsoft has had a long struggle to get Windows XP out of the enterprise, and with PC sales dipping the MSFT recovery will be harder thanks to the rise of the iPad. I would rather put my money on the Ballmer Boys to stage a spectacular comeback with Windows Phone Windows 8 than to turn Exchange into a cash cow like Windows.
What do you think?
Will Microsoft be able to continue its hold on the corporate desktop?
Can Exchange become the next great money-maker for MSFT?
Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
Apple is riding a wave of success now and is disrupting the mobile PC market for its competition. KPCB says that social networking will drive the mobile PC market for the rest of this decade. Facebook has 662 million users and Twitter has 253 million users which will continue to grow. TechEYE points out that mobile products now have more processing power, improved user interfaces, and lower prices meaning that there are now ten times more mobile devices globally than a decade ago.
TechEYE says that the link between social networking and mobile devices can be seen clearly in the Japanese market where a general rise in access to social networking sites has increased, while the number of people accessing them from a traditional PC has steadily decreased – 85 percent of users accessing sites from mobile devices in the last quarter of 2010.
Surging iPad shipments have propelled Apple (AAPL) to a 17.2% share of the global mobile PC market. ITnewsLink reports that this puts Apple at the top of the Q4’10 DisplaySearch market share ranking of worldwide mobile PC shipments. The preliminary results from the Quarterly Mobile PC Shipment and Forecast Report says Apple shipped more than 10.2 million notebook and tablet PCs combined. This was nearly a million more units than HP in Q4’10. ITnewsLink quotes Richard Shim, Senior Analyst at DisplaySearch on Apple’s success.
“While we anticipate increased competition in the tablet PC market later this year with the introduction of Android Honeycomb-based tablets, Apple’s iPad business is complementing a notebook line whose shipments widely exceed the industry average growth rate. Apple is currently benefiting from significant and comprehensive growth from both sectors of the mobile PC spectrum, notebooks and tablet PCs. Cannibalization seems limited at this point.”
The top five brands in the mobile PC market Q4’10 are:
The top five brands accounted for 65.4% of the total mobile PC market. In Q4’10, worldwide mobile PC shipments (including tablet PCs) reached 59.6 million units according to DisplaySearch.
The drive to keep up with the Jobs’s will cause supply chain disruptions for Apple’s mobile PC competition TechEYE says. DigiTimes reports that supplies of notebook components are running short, including CMOS image sensors, chassis, batteries, and LED’s. TechEYE sources report that touchpads are suffering the most serious shortage as a result of Apple hogging the supply from manufacturers such as Wintek and TPK. Reports are that Apple has reserved 60% of global touchpad production capacity. RIM (RIMM), Motorola (MMI), HP. HTC, Samsung, LG, and Dell now all have to fight it out for the remaining 40% of touchpads.
TechEYE predicts that panels will be like gold dust. Bob Raikes, Managing Director at Meko, The European Display Market Research specialist, told TechEye, “Touch technology also tended to limit the visual quality of the display … Then Apple’s iPhone started to use projected capacitive touch technology. which didn’t degrade the image and allowed a new level of user experience.”
In the last year, there has been a huge swing to use projected capacitive technology in high volume portable devices, and the supply chain has struggled to catch up. Chunghwa Picture Tubes is teaming up with Compal, one of the biggest manufacturers of laptops for multinationals, to piece together a business in touch panel glass. Compal recognizes that tablets are here to drain the world of its glass supplies and wants to capitalize.
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Looks like Steve Jobs is at it again. In the past, Apple bought up flash memory stores to secure an advantage for their iPod MP3 players. You have to imagine that the rest of the tablet field is none too pleased with Apple’s tactics.
What do you think?
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.
