Data centers are getting faster and more complicated. In order to enable the higher levels of network intelligence that is needed to keep up with these trends, without adding undue complexity, cPacket Networks has added a new feature set to its cVu product family. The company says that cVu enables unprecedented intelligence for traffic monitoring and aggregation switches, which significantly improves the efficiency of operations teams running data centers and sophisticated networks. The cVu family offers enhanced pervasive real-time network visibility, which includes granular performance monitoring, microburst auto-detection and filtering of network traffic based on complete packet-and-flow inspection or pattern matching anywhere inside the packet payload. An additional innovation involves utilizing the traffic-monitoring switch as a unified performance monitoring and “tool hub”.
Opera recently announced its new Opera 12 browser—code-named Wahoo—with a big “woo-hoo”! The folks at Opera say that the latest entry in the company's long line of desktop Web browsers “is both smarter and faster than its predecessors and introduces new features for both developers and consumers to play with”. Key new features include browser themes, a separate process for plugins for added stability, optimized network SSL code for added speed, an API that enables Web applications to use local hardware, paged media support, a new security badge system and language support for Arabic, Farsi, Urdu and Hebrew. Opera says that the paged media project has the potential to change the way browsers handle content, and camera support shows how Web applications can compete with native apps. Opera 12 runs on Linux, Mac OS and Windows.
If you are a home-brew electronics geek who hasn't tried Arduino yet, what the heck are you waiting for? Get yourself an open-source Arduino microcontroller board and pair it with Don Wilcher's new book Learn Electronics with Arduino. Arduino is inarguably changing the way people think about do-it-yourself tech innovation. Wilcher's book uses the discovery method, getting the reader building prototypes right away with solderless breadboards, basic components and scavenged electronic parts. Have some old blinky toys and gadgets lying around? Put them to work! Readers discover that there is no mystery behind how to design and build circuits, practical devices, cool gadgets and electronic toys. On the road to becoming electronics gurus, readers learn to build practical devices like a servo motor controller, a robotic arm, a sound effects generator, a music box and an electronic singing bird.
Industrial automation specialist Moxa recently announced availability of its new product ioLogik W5348-HSDPA-C, a C/C++ programmable 3G remote terminal unit (RTU) controller adapted for data acquisition and condition monitoring that leverages a Linux/GNU platform. This integrated 3G platform, which is designed for remote monitoring applications where wired communication devices are not available, combines cellular modem, I/O controller and data logger into one compact device. Moxa emphasizes the product's open, user-friendly SDKs, which reduce programming overhead in key areas, such as I/O control and condition monitoring, interoperability with SCADA/DB and improving smart communication controls, including cellular connection and SMS. The result, says Moxa, is that engineers can create imaginative, user-defined programs that integrate with localized domains, giving end users considerable additional value.
Huge need for your groundbreaking open-source app? Check. Vision for changing the world? Check. Development under way? Check. Participation by a talented group of collaborators? Inconvenient pause. Well don't worry, mate, because Ubuntu community manager, Jono Bacon, is here to help with the updated second edition of his book The Art of Community: Building the New Age of Participation. So that you don't have to re-invent the wheel, Bacon distills his own decade-long experience at Ubuntu as well as insights from numerous other successful community management leaders. Bacon explores how to recruit members to your own community, and motivate and manage them to become active participants. Bacon also offers insights on tapping your community as a reliable support network, a valuable source of new ideas and a powerful marketing force. This expanded edition adds content on using social-networking platforms, organizing summits and tracking progress toward goals. A few of the other numerous topics include collaboration techniques, tools and infrastructure, creating buzz, governance issues and managing outsized personalities.
Scientific inquiry will continue to advance exponentially as more solutions like BGI's EasyGenomics come on-line. EasyGenomics is a recently updated, cloud-based SaaS application that allows scientists to perform data-heavy “omics”-related research quickly, reliably and intuitively. BGI adds that EasyGenomics integrates various popular next-generation sequencing (NGS) analysis work flows including whole genome resequencing, exome resequencing, RNA-Seq, small RNA and de novo assembly, among others. The back-end technology includes large databases for storing vast datasets and a robust resource management engine that allows precise distribution of computational tasks, real-time task monitoring and prompt response to errors. Thanks to Aspera's integrated fast high-speed file transferring technology and Connect Server Data, transmission rates are 10–100 times faster than common methods, such as FTP. BGI is the world's largest genomics organization.
Bryan Lunduke gave us the official shout that Linux Tycoon—“the premier Linux Distro Building Simulator game in the universe”—has arrived at the coveted “One-Point-Oh” status. In this so-called “nerdiest simulation game ever conceived”, players simulate building and managing their own Linux distro...without actually building or managing their own Linux distro. Remove the actual work, bug fixing and programming parts, and wham-o!, you've got Linux Tycoon. Of course, Linux Tycoon runs on Linux, but Mac and Windows users also have the irresistible chance to simulate being a Linux user. Features in progress include Android, iOS and Maemo versions, as well as an on-line, multiplayer game, which is currently in limited beta. Linux Tycoon is DRM-free.
NGINX, the second-most-popular Web server for active sites on the Internet, recently released a version 1.2 milestone release with myriad improvements and enhancements. Functionality of the open-source, light-footprint NGINX (pronounced “engine x”) includes HTTP server, HTTP and mail reverse proxy, caching, load balancing, compression, request throttling, connection multiplexing and reuse, SSL offload and HTTP media streaming. Version 1.2 is a culmination of NGINX's annual development and extensive quality assurance cycle, led by the core engineering team and user community. Some of the 40 new features include reuse of keepalive connections to upstream servers, consolidation of multiple simultaneous requests to upstream servers, improved load balancing with synchronous health checks, HTTP byte-range limits, extended configuration for connection and request throttling, PCRE JIT optimized regular expressions and reduced memory consumption with long-lived and TLS/SSL connections, among others. Developer Nginx, Inc., says that NGINX now serves more than 25% of the top 1,000 Web sites, more than 10% of all Web sites on the Internet and 70 million Web sites overall.
