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Take for instance a simple cost-cutting measure taken by many small businesses and SOHOs: using the pre-installed version of Microsoft Office that comes with many new PCs.  These are bundles aimed at consumers, so the Office that’s included is almost always Microsoft Office Home & Student Edition. It provides the needed functionality if you’re a mom and pop type of business or are self-employed; and is, of course, cheaper than buying the separate Microsoft Office Home & Business.

But beware.

“This distinction is significant, because the license agreement prohibits the Student or Academic version from being used in a commercial setting,” explained Keli Johnson Swan, an attorney at Scott & Scott LLP, in an article.

And that means that, under the Copyright Act, Microsoft as the software publisher can pursue copyright infringement claims against the business for failing to adhere to specific terms of the license agreements.

“Unfortunately, some businesses find out too late that this is a costly mistake that not only involves a penalty, but also requires the business to purchase the appropriate version in addition to the penalty,” Johnson Swan added.

And don’t think that a business can simply fly under the radar because it’s small. She noted that Microsoft (and its authorized copyright enforcement entity, the BSA/Software Alliance) tends to initiate software audits to ferret out and pursue copyright infringement claims.

“If a company is found to have improperly licensed software, Microsoft or the BSA will demand a penalty for the allegedly unauthorized use of the software, often up to three times the MSRP value of the product at issue,” she said.

And of course, Microsoft is not the only software publisher that offers academic or student versions of products that are less expensive. Autodesk for instance is offers student versions of its design software—all of which also contain commercial use restrictions.

“Ultimately, it is the consumer’s responsibility to ensure the proper license is purchased for the software installed, regardless of whether a software vendor, or even a representative of the software publisher itself, originally sold the products to the consumer,” Johnson Swan warned.

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When someone mentions a news agency, you probably imagine paper-strewn, open-floor offices, or swarms of reporters surrounding noteworthy people as they exit buildings and cars, or correspondents talking into video cameras outside barricades and inside studios filled with flat screens. But one thing you probably don’t think of is the software built to support these organizations and the technologies involved.

Like most industries today, the news is going digital—and that means transitioning from the age of newsprint to the age of online reporting. As a result, the Washington Post and many other organizations have developed their own content management systems to publish stories online. But, the Post is taking the age of digital news a step further by making itself a kind of tech company, in addition to a news source. That’s because it is now looking to license its software to some of the smaller newspapers already licensing and republishing news from the Post.

The move doesn’t come as a surprise to many, considering that the newspaper was bought by Amazon chief executive Jeff Bezos for $250 million last year. As the print industry continues to wane, the newspaper believes a software licensing business could help bolster its finances while further establishing itself as a tech savvy and relevant source.

“In the short and medium term, print provides the money until digital can become self-sustaining over time,” Steve Hills, Washington Post president, told the Financial Times. “In the very long term, the battle is all about digital. We’re taking that Jeff Bezos long view.”

The belief that newspapers should become more like technology companies is shared by others within the Post. Editor Martin Baron described the company as “more of a technology organization” since Bezos bought it last year, adding that Bezos “understands our technology needs to be at the forefront of what we do.”

Will software licensing be the financial foothold so many newspapers today are seeking as print publishing falls into obscurity? It’s too soon to tell, but the Postis making a strong case for the business model. 

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With this never-ending information stream and “need” for information comes the expectation of enterprise-grade capabilities, including 100-percent uptime, redundancy, resiliency and always-on availability. Remember the last time Twitter went down? Outages during the Academy Awards and SXSW (News – Alert) conference earlier this year come to mind. Communities were outraged.

A related need in social media for business is privacy and security. The debates aroundFacebook (News – Alert) and its privacy policy are good examples. But more fundamentally, as social tools are used more and more by businesses, concerns about protecting Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and the secrecy of content that may involve financial or medical advice are increasing.

The same enterprise-grade, always-on, privacy-oriented expectations for business social media are also true for the solutions that service and support business-oriented social media. Social media security pioneer Nexgate, in an effort to support the company’s rapid growth among Fortune 100 clientele, understands this. It’s the reason why Nexgate was interested in a backup cloud data encryption solution, leading the company to pioneer an innovative data recovery model powered by Porticor.

Founded in 2011, Nexgate provides a cloud-based solution that allows organizations to centrally discover, audit, and protect their presence and accounts on social media. Nexgate solves rising infrastructure brand protection and compliance challenges that organizations face, including preventing social account sprawl; stopping social account hacks and tampering; removing abusive, exploitative and offensive content; managing and controlling social media apps; and ensuring regulatory compliance and corporate governance. Nexgate is a pioneer of business-oriented social media, and addresses many of the concerns for an enterprise-grade service.

“Nexgate provides cloud-based security and compliance for social media,” said Rich Sutton, Nexgate CTO and VP of Engineering.  “Our target customers are enterprise organization concerned about brand protection and compliance for their social media accounts.”

Nexgate stores clients’ social content, including private information such as sensitive social communications, incidents related to data loss and compliance violations in social media, social access credentials, and credentials required to access the Nexgate apps. Like any good security company storing private data in the cloud, Nexgate uses data encryption as one mechanism of protection.

“Our customers are highly regulated companies, or any organization interested in security of their information,” said Sutton.  “Their vendors can’t be leaking their data, and they expect us to encrypt sensitive or regulated information stored in the cloud, and to meet certain cloud security standards.”

Prior to Porticor, Nexgate had a single cloud data encryption solution in place for years to protect customers’ data.  This particular solution keeps the cloud data encryption keys needed to decrypt the data.

“As security experts, we know the importance of avoiding any single point of failure for data encryption,” said Sutton.  “We decided that investing in a robust cloud encryption solution with built-in redundancy was critical for our high availability needs.”

Through industry contacts Sutton learned about how a cloud data encryption solution from Porticor could serve as a highly redundant solution with a hot standby in the new model built for disaster recovery they were creating. After thorough evaluation and integration testing in its environment, Nexgate installed Porticor in June.

Porticor’s Virtual Private Data system combines patented key management with data encryption to protect critical data in public, private and hybrid cloud environments. With homomorphic split-key encryption technology, Porticor is the only system that offers the convenience of cloud-based key management while safely entrusting the encryption keys with the customer.

“Porticor gives us a way to host our encryption keys on our own infrastructure, and takes security one step further by giving us assurance that I own my own key server,” said Sutton.  “Porticor is a rock-solid solution, and we are happy to integrate it into our highly available encryption stack.”

Nexgate’s installation mirrors a typical hot-standby, disaster recover deployment. But because of advantages delivered by Porticor – including enabling Nexgate to manage their encryption keys and to not be dependent on another vendor’s infrastructure for their uptime – Nexgate has flipped its redundant cloud data encryption deployment on its head. Now Porticor serves as Nexgate’s primary system under the master database, with the previous solution now serving as the backup.

“Porticor is purpose built for cloud, and has been rock solid and very reliable,” said Sutton.  “Since the Porticor solution is managed in our environment, I don’t have to worry about the process of software upgrading and patching.  Other solutions store the keys in their infrastructure and are sometimes unexpectedly shut down due to maintenance mistakes.  Porticor does not have this issue, and has shown no measureable impact on our disk throughput in the cloud.”

Nexgate uses an Amazon Web Services (News – Alert) (AWS) infrastructure, with plans for expansion on the near horizon. It is managed by just two part-time employees.

“Our data encryption solution needed to be cloud based and built for AWS,” said Sutton. “Porticor is installed in our own AWS virtual data store infrastructure, and that’s cool.  All I did was create an AWS access credential that connected Porticor to AWS, and downloaded the Porticor encryption agent in a couple of steps. I started the installation process knowing nothing about Porticor and it was deployed in a couple of hours. It is dead simple to set up and manage in a single UI.”

Now, Nexgate is better equipped to handle the social media security needs of its customers, and Porticor has opened doors wide open for new business opportunities. 

“Our new system has enabled us to sell to more enterprises with stricter requirements than before,” said Sutton.  “With redundancy we can rapidly fail over and tolerate outages, which makes us more resilient. Our solution has to be available all the time and Porticor is a key to that. Security and reliability are important in eyes of customers, and with Porticor we are better equipped to serve them as well as new prospects.”

According to Sutton, Nexgate’s new disaster recover model powered by Porticor has enabled the company to increase adoption by demonstrating the advantages of encrypting data in the cloud and managing the encryption keys securely.  Porticor is also less expensive than other solutions, he said.

“Experience taught us that we needed to solve the problem of database redundancy early on,” said Sutton.  “I can’t even begin to quantify that savings.  Porticor was up and ready to go, and it is now our primary encryption solution.”

According to Sutton, Nexgate is expanding globally with a multipoint data center in the coming months.  He plans to deploy Porticor’s virtual appliance to manage all of Nexgate’s AWS boxes from a single UI portal.

“Our infrastructure is going to get more complicated as we continue to expand,” he said.  “Porticor has been rock solid for us and will expand seamlessly as we grow.”

When recounting what he would do differently if he had to do it all over again, Sutton stated simply, “Based on what I know now, I would have chosen Porticor as our initial data encryption solution.”

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Korean Society for Internet Information (KSII) signs MOU with Information Technology Society, Nepal (ITSN) on July 14, 2014.

Both the pioneer IT organizations of Nepal and Korea signed this MOU on the  Himalaya Hotel, Kathmandu, Nepal during ongoing  “The 9th Asia Pacific International Conference(APC-IST 2014)” organized by KSII.

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The investment deal, which has not been finalized, would value the SpaceX in excess of $10 billion, sources described as familiar with the talks toldThe Information. Such a partnership would bolster both companies’ plans for providing low-cost Internet access to underserved regions of the globe

Representatives for Google and SpaceX did not respond to requests for comment.

Silicon Valley companies have been tinkering with ways to provide reliable Internet access to developing regions, while also possibly acquiring a lucrative new user base, without investing in expensive ground-based infrastructure. Facebook said in March it was exploring how to use “drones, satellites, and lasers to deliver the Internet to everyone,” while Google was reportedly planning to spend more than $1 billion to deploy hundreds of low-Earth orbit satellites.

Facebook was said to be interested in acquiring Titan Aerospace, the maker of a solar-powered high-altitude drone, as part of a plan to deploy 11,000 unmanned aerial vehicles over parts of the globe that lack Internet access. But Google upset those plans a bit when it acquired the New Mexico-based startuplast April for an undisclosed sum.

Titan’s 20-person team is said to be working closely with Google’s Project Loon, an initiative born out of Google’s in-house skunkworks facility Google X to deliver Internet via air balloon. Unveiled in 2013, the high-flying balloons are solar-powered, remote-controlled, and can navigate stratospheric winds 12 miles above the surface of the Earth — far higher than most planes travel. And, similar to the way satellite Internet works, the balloons can communicate with special antennas and receiver stations on the ground.

source:

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Orange, oblong and squat, the wheeled robots roll beneath shelves of goods, which they then lift and ferry around the warehouse, navigating by barcodes on the floor. Amazon is employing more than 15,000 of the robots, each of which weighs 320lbs and is able to carry as much as 750lbs, at 10 of its 109 global “fulfillment centers”.

The robots could be harbingers of a new era, vastly simplifying the jobs of Amazon’s human workers and coming in particularly handy during the hectic holiday shopping season. In unequipped warehouses, employees must trek through miles of stacks to shelve and pick goods. In warehouses with robots, machines now bring those goods to stations where people pack boxes for storage or shipping.

Amazon’s senior vice president for operations, Dave Clark, told reporters the robots cut one warehouse’s operating costs by 20%. He explained that with the robots, shelves can be stacked closer together and warehouses can hold more of the books, specialty keyboards, hot sauces, patio furniture and assorted esoterica that Amazon ships in massive quantities around the world.

Because “the majority of the aisles disappear”, as Clark put it, the robots significantly shorten the time it takes to deliver packages. In some instances, he said, Amazon can ship packages in as little as 13 minutes from a customer’s order. It previously took more than an hour for an employee to compete such a task alone, he said.

“It’s always faster to have inventory in one place … we’re dramatically more efficient than we were,” Clark said. A robot-boosted warehouse can ship as many as 700,000 items a day during peak periods.

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In 2012, Amazon bought the robotics company Kiva Systems for $775m, and began installing the robots and necessary equipment in California, Texas, Florida, New Jersey and Washington. Company filings made in June 2013 estimated that at one Florida warehouse, installation cost about $46m. Clark said the acquisition was “certainly proving out that it’s justified itself”.

The company also hopes to prevent the mistakes of the 2013 shopping season, when winter storms and a surge of orders swamped Amazon’s warehouses and delayed deliveries.

Clark insisted the machines would not threaten jobs at Amazon, which plans to hire 80,000 short-term employees for the holiday season. He told reporters increased efficiency meant growth, which increased hiring, and said he saw a “virtuous cycle”: “I see that cycle continuing for a long time … we continue to add employees, and no employee has been negatively impacted by Kiva coming on board.”

Some fulfillment center employees have complained of a brutal pace, which Kiva bots could mitigate substantially. In 2011, for instance, workers at a Pennsylvania warehouse described debilitating heat and distances, saying the company kept ambulances outside for employees who suffered heat stroke, exhaustion or collapse. (Amazon has since installed air conditioning.)

Critics also say mandatory overtime and temporary employment perpetuate the ills of long-term unemployment. Writing for the Guardian, former worker Nichole Gracely accused the company and its temp agency contractors of offering ruthless terms. But while labor disputes have increased in recent years, they have so far failed to produce results.

Robots could ease such pressures – or they could displace some jobs entirely. Nearly 2,000 artificial intelligence and economics experts agreed that machines will continue to displace work, but they were split as to whether this means more or fewer jobs, according to a report by Pew Research.

About 52% thought automation will create more jobs than it displaces – and a new economic boom will value “uniquely human capabilities”. The remaining 48% foresaw a future with growing unemployment and inequality, as only the most wealthy and educated people retain control over economic levers.

Similarly, an Oxford University study found that 47% of the US labor market is at risk of displacement by machines.

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The NSA used malware to track North Korean hackers as part of a program launched more than four years ago, The New York Times reported on Sunday, citing former US officials, computer experts and a newly released top secret document, (PDF), which was provided to Der Spiegel by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

“Spurred by concerns over North Korea’s maturing capabilities,” the spy agency penetrated North Korea’s networks in 2010 with help from South Korea and other American allies, the Times reported. A classified program evolved into an “ambitious effort” to place malware that could track the internal workers of computers and networks used by the North’s hackers — “a force that South Korea’s military recently said numbers roughly 6,000 people,” the Times reported.

Evidence gathered by what the Times referred to as the “early warning radar” of software reportedly played a role in President Barack Obama’s relatively quick decision to accuse Kim Jong-un’s government of ordering the attack on Sony — a move that raised some eyebrows in the security community.

Brian Hale, a spokesman for the director of national intelligence, said he could not speak to the Times report as it relates to the Sony hack. But he did confirm that the US intelligence community (USIC) is fully aware of North Korea’s many efforts in recent years to “probe and infiltrate US commercial networks and cyber infrastructure.

“The USIC has been tracking North Korean intrusions and phishing attacks on a routine basis. While no two situations are the same, it is our shared goal to prevent bad actors from exploiting, disrupting or damaging US commercial networks and cyber infrastructure, ” he said in a statement. “When it becomes clear that cyber criminals have the ability and intent to do damage, we work cooperatively to defend networks.”

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Foreign investors originally needed a Chinese partner to break into the online shopping market, and were only allowed to have a maximum of 55 percent stake.

The FTZ in Shanghai was launched in September 2013. Currently, the zone is home to more than 12,000 companies, including 1,677 foreign-funded firms. The Chinese e-retail market is lucrative, with 330 million online shoppers and a trade volume of 5.66 trillion yuan ($910 billion) in the first half of 2014.

This comes as a relief for non-Chinese e-commerce giants such as Amazon as they continue to struggle for traction in China against local online shopping titans such as JD.com Inc. and Alibaba. In return, this move of goodwill will likely promote China’s links towards retailers and consumers outside of the Mainland.

China is looking at further extending Shanghai’s Free Trade Zone arrangements into the city’s financial district, as well as three new trade zones in cities Guangdong, Fujian, and Tianjin.

Source: cnet.com

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