1sockchuck writes: There are more wired businesses than ever in towns and cities across America. That's why the data center industry is coming to smaller cities you may not think of as technology hubs. Industry executives say the convergence of cloud computing, Big Data and the Internet of Things will require data centers in many places outside the traditional "Big Six" markets (Northern Virginia, New York/New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Silicon Valley and Los Angeles). "We're seeing success in the Tier 2 markets," said Kevin Bostick of 365 Data Centers, which operates in markets like Buffalo, Nashville and Pittsburgh. "We feel very confident with our ability to grow in these markets, especially given what we've seen over the past six months." Commercial real estate brokers confirm the trend, citing strong interest in the Pacific Northwest (especially Portland).

citadrianne writes: Deep beneath the Antarctic ice sheet, sensors buried in a billion tons of ice—a cubic kilometer of frozen H2O—are searching for neutrinos. "We collect...one neutrino from the atmosphere every ~10 minutes that we sort of care about, and one neutrino per month that comes from an astrophysical sources that we care about a very great deal," researcher Nathan Whitehorn said. "Each particle interaction takes about 4 microseconds, so we have to sift through data to find the 50 microseconds a year of data we actually care about." Computing facilities manager Gonzalo Merino added, "If the filtered data from the Pole amounts to ~36TB/year, the processed data amounts to near 100TB/year." Because IceCube can't see satellites in geosynchronous orbit from the pole, internet coverage only lasts for six hours a day, Whitehorn explained. The raw data is stored on tape at the pole, and a 400-core cluster makes a first pass at the data to cut it down to around 100GB/day. A 4000-CPU dedicated local cluster crunches the numbers. Their storage system has to handle typical loads of "1-5GB/sec of sustained transfer levels, with thousands of connections in parallel," Merino explained.

Lucas123 writes: Seven of the world's top 10 smartphone vendors hail from China as does PC giant Lenovo, which is driving up the amount of NAND flash and DRAM the country consumes. This year alone, China is expected to purchase nearly 30% of the world's NAND flash and 21% of its DRAM, according to a report from TrendForce. Additionally, state-backed companies are trying to break into Western markets with SSDs. For example, Sage Microelectronics (SageMicro), a four-year-old company based in Hangzhou, China, plans to release an 8TB SSD next month that will be based on eMMC flash, and it said it will release a 10TB drive next year. Update: 10/16 15:11 GMT by T : Note this interesting highlight from the second story linked above: SageMicron is selling not just drives that emphasize capacity over speed, but also a feature that will do doubt appeal to government agencies or private citizens intent on replicating Mission Impossible-style data wiping. The company's "Smart Destruction" function "can be set to erase encryption keys, perform a drive erase or physically fry the memory chips with a pulse of high voltage ... [and] can be triggered using a digital timer, a mobile phone instruction, or by simply pressing a button. 'Yes, it actually smokes sometimes when you push the button,' [Sage U.S. sales director Troy Rutt] said. 'People like that.'"

derekmead writes: A coalition of 260 cybersecurity experts is taking advantage of a Federal Communications Commission (FCC) public comment period to push for open source Wi-Fi router firmware.

The cybersecurity experts asked the FCC on Wednesday to require router makers to open-source their firmware, or the basic software that controls its core functionality, as a condition for it being licensed for use in the US. The request comes amid a wider debate on how the FCC should ensure that Wi-Fi routers' wireless signals don't "go outside stated regulatory rules" and cause harmful interference to other devices like cordless phones, radar, and satellite dishes.

An anonymous reader writes: Plugging in random USB sticks in your computer has never been more dangerous, as a researcher who goes by the name Dark Purple has demonstrated his new device: USB Killer 2.0. When plugged into a computer, the deadly USB draws power from the device itself. With the help of a voltage converter the device's capacitors are charged to 220V, and it releases a negative electric surge into the USB port. This surge "fries" the USB port and, in the researcher's demonstration, the motherboard — perhaps not always after the first surge, but the malicious USB device repeats the process until no more power can be drawn.

Lucas123 writes: The Irvine Company, a Newport Beach-based real estate developer that is a dominant landlord in Orange County, plans to install Tesla commercial batteries in two dozen of its buildings around Irvine Spectrum and John Wayne Airport. The project is the first of its kind of that size. The batteries will charge during non-peak hours and distribute power to the buildings during peak hours, a process that's expected to save the developer up to 10% of its energy costs or about $1 million a year.

An anonymous reader writes: Apple has frequently been in the news for various patent battles, but it's usually against one of their competitors. This time, Apple is on the losing end, and they're losing to the University of Wisconsin-Madison. A jury found that the university's patent on improving processor efficiency (5,781,752) was valid, and Apple's A7, A8, and A8X chips infringed upon it. Those chips are found within recent iPhone and iPad models, which generated huge amounts of money. Because of the ruling, Apple could be liable for up to $826.4 million in damages, to be determined by later phases of the trial.

An anonymous reader writes: Telsa Motors has published a blog post saying that a pair of journalists from the Reno Gazette Journal trespassed on the grounds of the company's new Gigafactory and attacked security workers with their vehicle when confronted. "As the Tesla employee attempted to record the license plate number on the rear bumper, the driver put it in reverse and accelerated into the Tesla employee, knocking him over, causing him to sustain a blow to the left hip, an approximate 2" bleeding laceration to his right forearm, a 3" bleeding laceration to his upper arm, and scrapes on both palms." Officials from the Sheriff's Department arrived shortly after this happened and arrested one of the trespassers for felony assault. The RGJ has a story about the altercation as well, confirming there was an altercation, but also noting, "The newspaper's vehicle was damaged in the altercation. A rock had been used to shatter the driver's-side window and the driver's-side seat belt had been cut in half."

New submitter beda writes: Open hardware has got much attention with the advent of Raspberry Pi, Arduino and their respective clones. But most of the devices are focused either on tinkerers (Arduino) or most notably multimedia (Raspberry Pi). However, there is not much happening in other areas such as home routers where openness might help improve security and drive progress. Our company (non-profit) is trying to change this with Turris Omnia but we still wander if there is in fact demand for such devices. Is the market large enough and the area cool enough? Are there enough people who would value open hardware running open software even with a higher price tag? Any feedback would be most valued.

An anonymous reader writes with this report about just how easy it is to disrupt if not entirely kill modern consumer-grade networks -- not just Wi-Fi, but Bluetooth and Zigbee networks, too. Crucial to determining the likelihood of any given kind of attack, though, is how much it would cost the attacker to attempt. The bad news for network owners and users is that it doesn't cost much at all: "According to Mathy Vanhoef, a PhD student at KU Leuven (Belgium), it can easily be done by using a Wi-Fi $15 dongle bought off Amazon, a Raspberry Pi board, and an amplifier that will broaden the range of the attack to some 120 meters."

Zothecula contributes this excerpt from Gizmag that illustrates the latest chapter in the long history of denying equipment of military technology to the makers' adversaries: Two years ago, DARPA started developing self-destructing electronics as a way to prevent advanced military gear falling into the wrong hands. Now the agency is expanding on the idea with its Inbound, Controlled, Air-Releasable, Unrecoverable Systems (ICARUS) program, which is tasked with developing small, unmanned, single-use, unpowered air vehicles that can can be dropped from an aircraft to deliver supplies to isolated locations in the event of disasters, then evaporate into thin air once their job is done.

MikeChino writes: Your next house could snap together like a jigsaw puzzle without the use of any power tools. Clemson University students designed and built Indigo Pine, a carbon-neutral house that exists largely as a set of digital files that can be e-mailed to a wood shop anywhere in the world, CNC cut, and then assembled on-site in a matter of days. “Indigo Pine has global application,” says the Clemson team. “Because the house exists largely as a set of digital files, the plans can be sent anywhere in the world, constructed using local materials, adapted to the site, and influenced by local culture.”

An anonymous reader writes: Researchers in Germany have developed a method of writing data with ions and retrieving it with electrons that opens the path for atom-sized storage devices which are similar to structures found in the human brain. The Nanoelectronic group at Kiel University joined the Ruhr Universitat Bochum to seek alternatives to conventional memory technologies, which involve the displacement of electrons by applying voltage, but which promise little more advance in terms of capacity or form-factor. The new technique is based on electrical resistance using a solid ion conductor.

HughPickens.com writes: Matt Richtel reports that the push to make the state greener with electric cars is having an unintended side effect: It is making some people meaner. The bad moods stem from the challenges drivers face finding recharging spots for their battery-powered cars. Unlike gas stations, charging stations are not yet in great supply, and that has led to sharp-elbowed competition. According to Richtel, electric-vehicle owners are unplugging one another's cars, trading insults, and creating black markets and side deals to trade spots in corporate parking lots. The too-few-outlets problem is a familiar one in crowded cafes and airports, where people want to charge their phones or laptops. But the need can be more acute with cars — will their owners have enough juice to make it home? — and manners often go out the window. "Cars are getting unplugged while they are actively charging, and that's a problem," says Peter Graf. "Employees are calling and messaging each other, saying, 'I see you're fully charged, can you please move your car?'"

The problem is that installation of electric vehicle charging ports at some companies has not kept pace with soaring demand, creating thorny etiquette issues in the workplace. German software company SAP installed 16 electric vehicle charging ports in 2010 at its Palo Alto campus for the handful of employees who owned electric vehicles. Now there are far more electric cars than chargers. Sixty-one of the roughly 1,800 employees on the campus now drive a plug-in vehicle, overwhelming the 16 available chargers. And as demand for chargers exceeds supply, there have been notorious incidents of "charge rage." Companies are finding that they need one charging port for every two of their employees' electric vehicles. "If you don't maintain a 2-to-1 ratio, you are dead," said ChargePoint CEO Pat Romano. "Having two chargers and 20 electric cars is worse than having no chargers and 20 electric cars. If you are going to do this, you have to be willing to continue to scale it."

im_thatoneguy writes: After days of rumors, the NY Times is reporting that Dell will in fact be acquiring storage company (and VMWare parent) EMC in a record $67B deal being financed by a consortium of banks. Dell has confirmed the deal on their website.

Under the deal, Dell will pay $33.15 a share, which represents a premium even on top of EMC's current value, which had already jumped on initials rumors of a $50B acquisition last week. However, insiders say the deal won't be a straight forward cash buy-out of stock holders. Instead, EMC investors will receive about 70% in cash and the remainder in what's called a Tracking Stock, which will track the performance of just the VMWare Division within the new organization.

dcblogs writes: Gartner's near-future predictions include: Writers will be replaced. By 2018, 20% of all business content, one in five of the documents you read, will be authored by a machine. By 2018, 2 million employees will be required to wear health and fitness tracking devices as a condition of employment. This may seem Orwellian, but certain jobs require people to be fit, such as public safety workers. By 2020, smart agents will facilitate 40% of mobile interactions. This is based on the belief that the world is moving to a post-app era, where assistants such as Apple's Siri act as a type of universal interface.

An anonymous reader writes: A normal Arduino is easy to use and cheap, but it is a reasonably slow 8-bit processor with limited memory. Why do people use them? They are simple to use and set up. Hackaday shows how to take a cheap ($6) 32-bit CPU in a breadboard-friendly package, plug in a small number of parts (resistors, LEDs, and a cable), and use an online Arduino-like IDE to program it. The chip is way more powerful than an 8-bit Arduino and the code is comparable in complexity to an Arduino sketch that does the same thing. It's an easy way to get into embedded without having to suffer through 8-bit processors. And the new Arduinos also use 32-bit ARM, so that's an option too.

1sockchuck writes: At this week's AWS re:Invent conference, Amazon Web Services introduced new features and looked ahead to a future in which enterprise computing shifts to the cloud. But AWS also looked back at how a disaster reshaped its supply chain. In 2011, an unusually heavy monsoon season led to massive flooding in Thailand, which at the time manufactured nearly half of the world's supply of hard disk drives (HDDs). Prices soared and shortages developed, and Amazon's usual vendors were unable to deliver the volume the company sought to support its fast-growing cloud computing platform. "When a single flood hits half the manufacturing supply, and you don't have a direct relationship with suppliers, it turns out to be hard to get what you need," said AWS executive Jerry Hunter. So AWS executives jumped on a plane, flew to Thailand, and began building direct relationships that would support their shift to company-built hardware.

jones_supa writes: Linus Torvalds took the stage at LinuxCon Europe in Dublin, Ireland, and talked about a number of things, including security and the future for Linux on ARM hardware. There is nothing that will blow your mind, but there are a couple of interesting statements nonetheless. Chromebooks are slowly taking over the world, and a large number of those Chromebooks are powered by ARM processors. "I'm happy to see that ARM is making progress. One of these days, I will actually have a machine with ARM. They said it would be this year, but maybe it'll be next year. 2016 will be the year of the ARM laptop," said Linus excitedly. He also explained that one of the problems now is actually finding people to maintain Linux. It's not a glorious job, and it usually entails answering emails seven days a week. Finding someone with the proper set of skills and the time to do this job is difficult.

blueshift_1 writes: If you have 50TB of data that you'd like to put on the S3 cloud, Amazon is releasing Snowball. It's basically a large grey box full of hard drives that Amazon will mail to you. Simply upload your files and mail it back — they will upload it for you. For $200 + shipping, it's at a pretty reasonable price point if you're tired of hosting your data and want to try and push that to AWS. ("Never underestimate the bandwidth of a station wagon full of tapes hurtling down the highway." -Tanenbaum, Andrew S.)