Lenovo-backed game console for China hit by delays

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The launch of a Lenovo-backed video game system for China is being delayed again in order to make improvements to the product, according to a spokesman with the company developing the console.

Beijing Eedoo Technology, which is funded by PC maker Lenovo, had originally planned on launching its iSec video game system this year, which was later rescheduled to early 2012. The company, however, has pushed back its launch date again to some time later in 2012, said Eedoo spokesman Victor Wang on Monday.

A source close to the situation however said on condition of anonymity that the launch of the product may be delayed further as the product was not found to be robust enough.

The delay may be a significant setback for Chinese consumers who do not have access to gaming systems like Nintendo’s Wii or Microsoft’s Xbox 360, and have to turn to the unorganized market to buy these devices.

“The product still needs work, and we want to invest more research and it development,” Wang said.

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Monitoring Virtual and Private Cloud Environments: Best Practices Presentation

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Andy Kicklighter just wrapped up a presentation, titled “Best Practices for Monitoring Private Cloud and Virtualization”, at the Gartner Data Center Summit in Las Vegas.

For many, the introduction of virtualization and private clouds in the enterprise conjures an image of a symphony, one that, with a little orchestration, performs superbly and in unison.

Mr. Kicklighter pointed out that in reality, practitioners who are tasked on a daily basis with ensuring reliable and responsive service levels, tend to have a very different view. Think a combination of whack-a-mole, herding cats, and throwing darts in the dark.

The reality is that the dense, dynamic nature of these environments can make monitoring challenging and expensive, and if done wrong, can put mission-critical business it services at risk. The good news is that for each of the problems these environments present, there are practical solutions.

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Crazy: 90 Percent of People Don’t Know How to Use CTRL+F

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This week, I talked with Dan Russell, a search anthropologist at Google, about the time he spends with random people studying how they search for stuff. One statistic blew my mind. 90 percent of people in their studies don’t know how to use CTRL/Command + F to find a word in a document or web page! I probably use that trick 20 times per day and yet the vast majority of people don’t use it at all.

“90 percent of the US Internet population does not know that. This is on a sample size of thousands,” Russell said. “I do these field studies and I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve sat in somebody’s house as they’ve read through a long document trying to find the result they’re looking for. At the end I’ll say to them, ‘Let me show one little trick here,’ and very often people will say, ‘I can’t believe I’ve been wasting my life!’”

I can’t believe people have been wasting their lives like this either! It makes me think that we need a new type of class in schools across the land immediately. Electronic literacy. Just like we learn to skim tables of content or look through an index or just skim chapter titles to find what we’re looking for, we need to teach people about this CTRL+F thing.

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US business takes lead in cyber threat risk awareness

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While businesses in the US are increasing their understanding of the growing threat of cyber crime, preparedness across the globe remains low, according to the latest Lloyd’s Risk Index.

A poll of 500 global business leaders by Lloyds of London revealed that, while malicious cyber attacks are ranked the 4th highest priority risk in North America, cyber crime is ranked only 14th out of 50 risks in Europe and 20th in the Asia-Pacific region.

The low ranking coincides with an estimate that only 10% of companies that could be affected by cyber crime have cover for the growing risk.

“It’s encouraging to see US businesses increasingly wake up to the threat of cyber crime, as it presents a major risk to businesses and governments,” said Richard Ward, chief executive of Lloyd’s of London.

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Preparing for the real costs of cloud computing

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The cloud is moving past the hype stage and starting to deliver tangible benefits, primarily increased flexibility and agility.

But moving to the cloud can also mean added costs, some of which are unexpected, according to IT executives whose organizations have implemented or are considering cloud services.

While these costs wouldn’t necessarily prevent companies from getting real business value out of cloud computing, they could have an impact on the overall cost-benefit analysis of cloud services.

Moving and Storing Data

It can cost tens of thousands of dollars per year to move large volumes of data to public cloud services and to store that data for long periods of time. Many companies might not be aware of the expenses involved.

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Big fish, little pond: Some IT execs go small, and love it

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As a CIO with an IT staff of exactly four, Steven Porter understands full well what it takes to do more with less.

His team at Touchstone Behavioral Health is tasked with stretching a shoestring IT budget to cover big enterprise initiatives like virtualization and VLANs while providing hands-on support to more than 200 users scattered across the state of Arizona.

“Some days I wonder what the hell I am doing here,” jokes Porter, 60, who’s been on board with Touchstone Behavioral, the provider of behavioral services to at-risk children in the state’s Medicare program, for more than five years.

Following a successful run as a television producer of live auto racing events and motorsports news programming, Porter leveraged his burgeoning interest in the Internet to land a job with an e-commerce developer in 1995. After he served a couple of subsequent dot-com stints, Touchstone Behavioral sought him out for the IT director’s spot.

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Cybercrime services expand

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While services such as anti-virus (AV) checkers, malware encryption and malware distribution have existed for several years, researchers are seeing more one-stop services appear.

In addition to infection services, at least one group is providing polymorphic encryption and anti-virus checking in a single package.

“Some malware services such as AV checking and encryption are becoming a commodity, driving cybercriminals to consolidate services to stay competitive and introduce new offerings,” said Amit Klein, chief technology officer at Trusteer.

The effectiveness of these services is proven by the fact that malware is poorly detected by AV software, he said.

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UK still in pre-cyber attack mode, says head of UK military cyber security

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The UK is still operating in pre-cyber attack mode, but that needs to change before it is hit by a major cyber attack, according to Jonathan Shaw, head of the defence cyber operations group at the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

The UK should learn from Estonia, hit by a wave of cyber attacks in 2007, which operates a virtual cyber defence system in post-attack mode that harnesses all cyber users, Shaw (pictured) told attendees of the Govnet Cyber Security 2011 conference in London.

“In reality all of us are already under cyber attack all the time, and just as we have done in the physical world, we need a national response,” Shaw said.

The UK can learn from Estonia, which takes the cyber threat seriously, while most UK organisations believe it does not involve them and do not realise how important it is, said Shaw.

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How to bulletproof your website

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‘Tis the season to begin ramping up online shopping activity, and for retailers that means doing all they can to ensure their websites are up, highly available and able to handle peak capacity. Looming in many IT managers’ minds is the cautionary tale of Target, whose website crashed twice this fall after it was inundated by an unprecedented number of online shoppers when the retailer began selling clothing and accessories from high-end Italian fashion company Missoni.

“We are working around the clock to ensure that our site is operating efficiently and delivering an exceptional guest experience that’s reflective of Target’s brand,” said a Target spokesperson in an email, but declined to give specifics on the measures the company has taken.

One company’s hardship is often another company’s gain, and those that face well-publicized failures tend to become de facto role models, retail industry watchers say. Take what happened to Best Buy in 2005: Its website experienced what some have called a catastrophic holiday failure and customers were unable to make online purchases. That same year, competitor Circuit City saw a huge spike in traffic, says Dave Karow, senior product manager of Web performance and testing at Keynote, a firm that monitors and tests mobile and Internet performance.

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AMD introduces branded memory modules for desktops

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Advanced Micro Devices’ first branded desktop system memory modules, called AMD Memory, will be available in North America through major retailers, the company said Monday.

By offering its own branded memory modules for desktops, AMD aims to “take the guesswork out of DRAM selection, providing an easy and straightforward experience when looking for the ideal match for gaming or multimedia PC needs”, it said in a statement.

AMD has been supplying and validating memory for AMD Radeon graphics cards for several years, and saw an opportunity to add system memory to its product line, AMD said.

The company did not immediately respond to requests for comment on whether it will offer branded memory modules for other kinds of computers besides desktops.

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