Cisco Innovates to Provide More Nimble Network Security

At a special media event hosted by Cisco at the RSA Security conference in San Francisco this week, the company unveiled a new vision for network security. Cisco is deploying new security technologies adapted to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse and mobile network.

Between the BYOD trend, and the need to allow various partners, suppliers, contractors, and others to access the network in some limited capacity, businesses need finer control over access permissions. The problem is that most of the security tools available today do not provide enough control, so many organizations are being forced into a choice between security and productivity.

Cisco is providing tools that allow for productivity without compromising security.Speaking to the media, Chris Young, senior vice president for Cisco’s Security and Government group, explained that Cisco is equipped to meet the security needs of tomorrow by integrating security into the network fabric. Young also stressed that Cisco has a responsibility to incorporate security at the network level due to how much of the critical infrastructure of the nation is riding on Cisco equipment.

The devices used to connect and access information are more diverse, and the ways data is accessed and used may change, but one thing stays the same at the core: the network. Somehow or another, all of the information is still being passed over, on, and through network hardware.

Cisco’s own CSO, John Stewart, is also a Cisco customer in many respects, and needs tools to meet evolving security needs just like any other security admin. He said that what he needs from security tools is the ability to be highly nimble. He described scenarios where, whether the need is to allow an activity or device for a business need, or to block an activity or device for a security need, the overriding driver is to respond quickly. He needs security tools to be adaptable and agile.

To meet those needs, Cisco announced TrustSec 2.1 with some new features and functionality. New active scanning provides more accurate device identification to automatically determine what a device is so appropriate policies can be applied. Cisco also introduced new security group access technology features in its Identity Services Engine (ISE) platform that make it simpler to define and assign policies without having to exert so much manual effort to configure the network to enforce it.

In addition, Cisco unveiled a new line of ASA CX firewall appliances, which include the Cisco SecureX Framework for context-aware security. Cisco explained that many network security appliances can identify mobile or Web apps, but that often the controls are too blunt. For example, an organization may want to allow Facebook, but not FarmVille, or sharing video clips with friends.

Cisco is promising to provide very granular, context-sensitive control over what is acceptable. The ASA CX software provides visibility not just that iTunes is being used, but which devices are being used to connect to iTunes, and what types of content on iTunes is being accessed. Armed with that information policies can be built to block or allow activity at that level as well.

Instead of assigning access rights simply by group or even for an individual user, Cisco envisions granting access based on context and state. A user might have one set of access rights from the desktop PC at work, a different level of access when connecting over VPN from a home PC, and more limited rights when connecting from a smartphone or tablet over a public Wi-Fi network.

The demonstrations given by Cisco were impressive—but I always take such events with a grain of salt. How a product works in a managed scenario on stage, and how it works on your network in the real world are often too very different things. The new Cisco products are available starting today. Check them out and judge for yourself.

Samsung Series 7 Chronos: Pretty Without Breaking the Bank

If you’re looking to satisfy your craving for brushed-metal exteriors, look no further than the mesmerizing 14-inch Samsung Series 7 Chronos. The machine’s subtle minimalism and smooth curves may suggest a MacBook Pro wannabe, but it bears the comparison quite well.

The Series 7 Chronos is a very pretty machine. The cover, bezel, and wrist rest are adorned in gunmetal-gray brushed aluminum, and the keyboard deck and trackpad are free of unnecessary lines or buttons. Even the power button is stylish, with just the chrome-covered symbol raised up.

The system does have a couple of minor design flaws. First, the curved bottom of the computer is made of plastic, so there’s a thin line around the edge of the keyboard deck where the plastic meets the aluminum. And second, the backlit keyboard features two-tone keys with black tops and white edges, which allow for a lot of light to seep through. Another consideration: For a slim 14-inch machine, it’s surprisingly heavy (5.3 pounds with accessories), but on a positive note the entire machine feels rock-solid.

Our review model, priced at $1100, sports an Intel Core i5-2430M processor, 6GB of RAM, and a 750GB hard drive. It also comes with Bluetooth, a built-in webcam and microphone, and Wi-Fi, as well as switchable graphics (with a discrete AMD Radeon HD 6490M graphics card). Our test model ran the 64-bit version of Windows 7 Home Premium.

The Chronos’s performance was somewhat disappointing. In our WorldBench 6 benchmark test suite, the Chronos finished with a mark of 118, which is a few points lower than the average score posted by other all-purpose laptops we’ve tested recently–and several points lower than the 125 turned in by the much thinner Asus Zenbook UX31E. Chalk that up to the Chronos’s lack of a solid-state drive. The laptop’s battery life was a little better than average for its class, clocking in at around 6 hours.

Samsung arranged the Chronos’s ports in an array typical of a slim machine such as the MacBook Air or an Ultrabook, but of course the Chronos isn’t that slim. You get two USB ports (one 2.0 and one 3.0), an HDMI out, a mini DisplayPort, an ethernet port, a combination microphone/headphone jack, and a lock slot. Because the laptop curves underneath, the ethernet port is hinged to accommodate a full-size connector. Samsung also provides a four-in-one memory card reader, a slot-loading DVD-RW drive, and an included VGA adapter that plugs into the mini DisplayPort slot. For additional networking, the Chronos offers built-in Bluetooth 3.0 and Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n.

The Chronos comes with a 14-inch matte LCD screen, with a native resolution of 1600 by 900. Matte screens do a nice job of reducing glare, but they often cause images to look less crisp and to have softer edges. Nevertheless, images on the Chronos’s screen looked sharp enough, and color representation was good, though a little oversaturated at times. The screen was sufficiently bright for comfortable use in direct sunlight. Unfortunately, Samsung turns the auto-brightness setting on by default, which I found annoying because the sensor is extremely sensitive. Unless you’re working in extremely consistent lighting the screen will flicker often as it alters its brightness level.

Video looked and sounded merely okay on the Chronos. In my multimedia tests, the laptop streamed HD video seamlessly but with occasional artifacts (blockiness) in the clips, especially during dark scenes. In PCWorld’s Far Cry 2 graphics tests, the Chronos managed an acceptable frame rate of 37.8 frames per second (at low quality and 1024-by-768-pixel resolution), and a less-than-ideal frame rate of 22.1 fps (at high quality and 1024-by-768-pixel resolution).

The Chronos’s speakers are adequate for basic multimedia consumption, but I wouldn’t recommend them for audiophiles or DJs (even dorm-room DJs). The audio was acceptable, but the speakers had little bass, a tinge of tinniness, and a slightly muffled quality. The speakers’ maximum volume is fairly low.

Overall, the Samsung Series 7 Chronos is a very attractive machine. Unfortunately, looks can take you only so far, in laptops and in life. The Chronos is larger, heavier, and a worse performer than some Ultrabooks, but it’s a great budget-friendly choice for Windows users who lust after MacBook Pros.

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IBM’s Molecular Images May Help Nanoscale Circuits

IBM researchers for the first time have succeeded in imaging how charge is distributed inside a single molecule, which is a fundamental research breakthrough as scientists try to miniaturize circuitry to the nanometer scale.

IBM is studying molecular structures when put on artificial surfaces so functional molecules in the future can be used as switches or transistors, said Fabian Mohn, an IBM researcher. IBM used advanced microscopy tools and techniques to image how charge is redistributed and arranged when chemical bonds are formed between atoms and molecules on surfaces.

The research breakthrough is a step ahead in understanding, controlling and tweaking molecular structures in electrical devices, Mohn said. For example, there may be a molecule with desirable properties to separate photons into positive and negative charges in each direction, which could help solar cells more effectively convert light to electricity.

The breakthrough is also a step forward in understanding the efficiency of a molecular structure as a switch, diode or transistor, said Michael Crommie, a professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and a faculty researcher at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He was not involved in the IBM research.

“Some people think it’s interesting to use molecules as building blocks for electrical devices,” Crommie said. “One of the troubles is to figure out how to put molecules, and to do what we want them to do, on surfaces. Many people are working on this.”

IBM’s technique is a diagnostic tool that allows researchers to better characterize small structures, Crommie said. Molecules are assemblies of atoms in particular configurations connected by chemical bonds, and behave differently depending on the environment. Electrons hold the atoms together and give molecules all of their properties.

There are infinite ways molecular systems can behave, and researchers want to be able to predict molecular behavior on surfaces and tweak structures, Crommie said. For example, IBM’s tool could help researchers in Crommie’s lab create more effective graphene devices through modifications at an atomic level. Crommie wants to be able to modify the graphene by adding or removing charge, or see how graphene changes the behavior of a molecule.

IBM has been conducting its own research on graphene, last year showing a graphene transistor that can execute 155 billion cycles per second, which was about 50 percent faster than previous experimental transistors shown by the company’s researchers. Electron flow is considered to be faster on graphene transistors than conventional transistors, which enables faster data transfers between chips.

However questions remain on whether molecules are feasible as building blocks for semiconductors. It’s also hard to predict the ultimate outcome of IBM’s breakthrough, and years of research and experimentation are required to figure out whether molecular structures perform rationally in a synthetic environment, Crommie said.

“This is fundamental research. It’s not like they are optimizing a process that already exists. They are looking at new material combinations that are not being used in the industry. It’s not something that’s close to production,” Crommie said.

IBM’s Mohn said the next step could be to build on the technique further and to connect molecules, and also attach molecules to metal as they build nano-scale devices. The company’s ultimate goal is to advance the technology to build electronic devices, but only time will tell where the research goes.

“It’s like quantum computing. The idea is in principal it should be useful, but we are not there yet with direct applications,” Mohn said.

source: PCWorld - By Agam Shah, IDG News

Microsoft Likely to Limit Windows 8 Edition Selections

Microsoft will probably trim the number of Windows 8 editions it will sell later this year, but won’t mimic Apple’s online-only approach to OS upgrades, a retail sales analyst said last week.

In developed countries, including the U.S., Microsoft offers Windows 7 in four SKUs, or editions: Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate. All but Enterprise — available only to volume licensees such as major corporations — are sold to the general public.

Evidence uncovered by ZDNet blogger Stephen Chapman – who found a list of Windows 8 SKUs on a pair of Hewlett-Packard support documents — hints at just three editions of the upcoming OS: a generic “Windows 8,” Professional and Enterprise.

Missing from that list: Ultimate.

“There had been interest in Windows 7 Ultimate,” said Stephen Baker, an analyst with the NPD Group, but sales were skimpy and vastly outnumbered by Home Premium and Professional.

Baker expects that, if Microsoft does produce a Windows 8 Ultimate edition, it would be an OEM-only SKU. In other words, Microsoft would drop it from retail and offer it only to computer makers to pre-install on high-end PCs.

The two retail editions for Windows 8 will most likely be Home Premium — perhaps renamed — for consumers, and Professional for businesses or consumers who need to connect to their workplace network, said Baker.

Enterprise would remain as the upgrade SKU dealt to volume license customers.

Microsoft’s Pattern

Dropping Ultimate from the Windows 8 list would fit with Microsoft’s demotion of that edition in Windows 7. Three years ago and several months before Windows 7 launched, Microsoft confirmed that it was dropping the heavily-criticized “Ultimate Extras” from the version.

Microsoft first pitched Ultimate Extras in the Ultimate edition of Windows Vista, butbuyers blasted the company for a sluggish release pace of the add-ons that Extras had promised.

Windows 7 came in two other editions — Starter and Home Basic — but both were exiled to emerging markets as part of Microsoft’s strategy to offer lower-priced versions that could better compete with the rampant piracy in some countries. The company could retain those developing-markets-only SKUs for Windows 8.

Microsoft has not yet disclosed how many versions of Windows 8 for PCs it will sell, and today declined to share more information about its plans.

An announcement of the Windows 8 lineup could come next week. Microsoft will host a Windows 8 launch event in Barcelona, Spain, on Wednesday, Feb. 29, when it’s also expected to release the Consumer Preview .

Although Microsoft revealed the names of its Windows 7 SKUs in early February 2009, nearly nine months before launching the operating system in late October, the company is on a slower pace for Windows 8 than it used then. For example, Windows 8′s Consumer Preview will appear almost two months later than the early January 2009 ship date of Windows 7′s first public beta.

Upgrade Strategy

One thing Microsoft won’t do, said Baker, is follow Apple’s lead and sell Windows 8 upgrades only online. Last year, Apple sold OS X Lion almost exclusively through the Mac App Store, and recently said it would use the e-market later this year to distribute the Mountain Lion upgrade .

“The [Windows] ecosystem is very different from Apple’s, so no, I don’t think they would go to that extent,” said Baker.

Windows 8 will include Microsoft’s new Windows Store mart as the sole channel for Metro-style apps — and some traditional x86/64 Windows software — but the firm hasn’t said whether Windows 7 users will be able to access the store, and thus make it a destination for upgrade downloads.

With the new store’s emphasis on Metro apps, Baker doubted that Microsoft would use that channel to sell Windows 8 upgrades — people with access to the store would, by definition, already be using the operating system — but acknowledged that the e-store could be used to deliver future upgrades to Windows 8 users.

Instead, Baker said, Microsoft will continue to include brick-and-mortar retail stores in its delivery mix.

“Microsoft wants to be where the customers want to buy,” Baker said. “And the key card approach they used [with Office] cut a lot of the costs of being in stores.”

Microsoft sold some upgrades of Office 2010 at retail minus installation media, instead including a small credit card-sized piece of plastic — called “Product Key Cards” – that unlocked downloaded versions of the suite or added features to the OEM-preloaded Office Starter 2010.

Windows 8 upgrades could be sold using Product Key Cards to activate downloaded trials, or Microsoft could continue to sell electronic editions through its current e-store , where it now sells Windows 7.

Microsoft has not set definitive system requirements for Windows 8 upgrades — much less prices — but has indicated that the new OS will run on PCs now powered by either Vista or Windows 7.

source: PCWorld - By Gregg Keizer, Computerworld