The Seagate Surveillance HDD, as those wags in marketing have named it, is the highest capacity of any specialist drive for security camera set-ups, and Seagate cites its main selling points as maximizing uptime while removing the need for excess support.

“Seagate has worked closely with the top surveillance manufacturers to evolve the features of our Surveillance HDD products and deliver a customized solution that has precisely matched market needs in this evolving space for the last 10 years,” said Matt Rutledge, Seagate’s senior vice president for client storage.

“With HD recordings now standard for surveillance applications, Seagate’s Surveillance HDD product line has been designed to support these extreme workloads with ease and is capable of a 180TB/year workload, three times that of a standard desktop drive.

“It also includes surveillance-optimized firmware to support up to 64 cameras and is the only product in the industry that can support surveillance solutions, from single-bay DVRs to large multi-bay NVR systems.”

The 3.5in drive is designed to run 24/7 and is able to capture 800 hours of high-definition video from up to 64 cameras simultaneously, making it ideal for shopping centers, urban areas, industrial complexes and anywhere else you need to feel simultaneously safe and violated. Its capacity will allow 6PB in a 42U rack.

Included in the deal is the Seagate Rescue Service, capable of restoring lost data in two weeks if circumstances permit, and sold with end users in mind for whom an IT support infrastructure is either non-existent or off-site. The service has a 90 percent success rate and is available as part of the drive cost for the first three years.

Seagate demonstrated the drive today at the China Public Security Expo. Where better than the home of civil liberty infringement to show off the new drive?

Earlier this year, Seagate announced a new co-venture with SSD manufacturer Micron, which will come as a huge relief after the recent merger announcement between WD and SanDisk.

Courtesy-http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/seagate-goes-8tb-for-surveillance.html

Google and Microsoft have reached a broad agreement on patent matters, with a legal settlement ending some 20 lawsuits between the companies in the U.S. and Germany. Financial terms weren’t disclosed, but the deal brings a laundry list of lawsuits to a close.

“Microsoft and Google are pleased to announce an agreement on patent issues,” they said in a joint statement. “As part of the agreement, the companies will dismiss all pending patent infringement litigation between them, including cases related to Motorola Mobility.”

They also agreed to collaborate on patent matters and work together “to benefit our customers.”

The suits that have been settled include those related to mobile phones, video encoding and Wi-Fi technologies. That doesn’t mean Microsoft has given up its campaign to collect royalties from Android device makers for the mobile operating system’s alleged infringement of Microsoft patents.

It’s not clear from the statement what patent matters the companies will be working on together in the future, but changes have already begun. The two companies agreed earlier this month to work together (alongside other firms like Netflix and Mozilla) on a royalty-free video codec.

It remains to be seen if the settlement will lead to more work between Microsoft and Google in other areas. A major sticking point for consumers has been the lack of a Google-made YouTube app for smartphones and tablets running Windows.

Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/microsoft-google-cease-fire-in-global-patent-deal.html

We say reportedly as we have not been able to contact Hilton ourselves and can rely only on reports. They are pretty solid reports, however, and they concern a problem at the company that happened between 21 April and 27 July.

Brian Krebs, of KrebsOnSecurity, started this off with a report about a payment card breach. Krebs said that he had heard about the breach from various sources, and that Visa – the card provider – has mailed potentially affected parties with a warning, and the news that it is the fault of a bricks and mortar company.

Visa did not name the company, but affected parties, or banks to be more precise, have uttered it to Krebs. Its name is Hilton.

“Sources at five different banks say they have now determined that the common point-of-purchase for cards included in that alert had only one commonality: they were all were used at Hilton properties, including the company’s flagship Hilton locations as well as Embassy Suites, Doubletree, Hampton Inn and Suites, and the upscale Waldorf Astoria Hotels & Resorts,” he wrote.

“It remains unclear how many Hilton properties may be affected by this apparent breach. Several sources in the financial industry told KrebsOnSecurity that the incident may date back to November 2014, and may still be ongoing.”

Krebs has a statement from the Hilton organisation in which the firm defended its security practices, and revealed that it is aware of the potential problem and is looking into it. This is a common theme among the breached, and should soon become part of mission statements.

“Hilton Worldwide is strongly committed to protecting our customers’ credit card information,” said the company in the statement to Krebs.

“We have many systems in place and work with some of the top experts in the field to address data security. Unfortunately the possibility of fraudulent credit card activity is all too common for every company in today’s marketplace. We take any potential issue very seriously, and we are looking into this matter.”

We have asked Visa and Hilton for their comments.

Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/was-the-hilton-hotel-chain-hacked-in-april.html

For the past seven years, a cyberespionage group operating out of Russia on the orders of Tsar Putin have been conducting a series of malware campaigns targeting governments, political think tanks and other organizations.

Researchers at F-Secure have been looking into the antics of an outfit called “the Dukes” which has been active since at least 2008. The group has evolved into a methodical developer of “zero-day” attacks, pulling together their own research with the published work of other security firms to provide a more detailed picture of the people behind a long-running family of malware.

The Dukes specialize in “smash and grab” attacks on networks, but have also used subtle, long-term intrusions that harvested massive amounts of data from their targets.

The group’s targets do include criminal organisations operating in the Russian Federation, which suggest there is some form of policing element to it. But they are mostly interested in Western governments and related organisations, such as government ministries and agencies, political think tanks and governmental subcontractors.

F-Secure team wrote. “Their targets have also included the governments of members of the Commonwealth of Independent States; Asian, African, and Middle Eastern governments; organisations associated with Chechen terrorism; and Russian speakers engaged in the illicit trade of controlled substances and drugs.”

The group was named after its earliest-detected malware, known as PinchDuke. Its targets were associated with the Chechen separatist movement. Later that year they were going after Western governments and organisations in search of information about the diplomatic activities of the United States and the NATO.

Most of the attacks used spear phishing emails as the means of injecting malware onto targeted systems, one of their attacks have spread malware through a malicious Tor exit node in Russia, targeting users of the anonymising network with malware injections into their downloads.

The targets have always followed Russian government interests. There are a number of Russian-language artifacts in some of the malware, including an error message in PinchDuke. GeminiDuke also used timestamps that were adjusted to match Moscow Standard time.

Before the beginning of the Ukraine crisis, the group began using a number of decoy documents in spear phishing attacks that were related to Ukraine. They included a letter undersigned by the First Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ukraine.

However, after the crisis happened the attacks dropped off suggesting that it was an intelligence gathering operation. It is also a big operation, which, if operating in Russia would most likely require state acknowledgement, if not outright support.

Sales are way up for little-known manufacturers that sell directly to big cloud companies like Google and Facebook, while the market for traditional external storage systems is shrinking, according to research company IDC.

Internet giants and service providers typically don’t use specialized storage platforms in their sprawling data centers. Instead, they buy vast amounts of capacity in the form of generic hardware that’s controlled by software. As users flock to cloud-based services, that’s a growing business.

Revenue for original design manufacturers that sell directly to hyperscale data-center operators grew by 25.8 percent to more than US$1 billion in the second quarter, according to the latest global IDC report on enterprise storage systems. Overall industry revenue rose just 2.1 percent from last year’s second quarter, reaching $8.8 billion.

These so-called ODMs are low-profile vendors, many of them based in Taiwan, that do a lot of their business manufacturing hardware that’s sold under better known brand names. Examples include Quanta Computer and Wistron.

General enterprises aren’t buying many systems from these vendors, but the trends at work in hyperscale deployments are growing across the industry. Increasingly, the platform of choice for storage is a standard x86 server dedicated to storing data, according to IDC analyst Eric Sheppard. Sales of server-based storage rose 10 percent in the quarter to reach $2.1 billion.

Traditional external systems like SANs (storage area networks) are still the biggest part of the enterprise storage business, logging $5.7 billion in revenue for the quarter. But sales in this segment were down 3.9 percent.

Overall demand for storage capacity continued to grow strongly, with 37 percent more capacity shipped in the quarter compared with a year earlier.

Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/aroundnet-category/enterprise-storage-needs-driving-cloud-sales-boom.html

Lenovo has unveiled it’s updated IdeaPad and IdeaCentre devices aimed at those looking to upgrade to Windows 10 systems, including a Skylake-powered Surface competitor.

Lenovo’s new line-up includes seven computers, comprising the IdeaCentre AIO 700 desktop PC, the IdeaPad Miix 700a 2-in-1 tablet hybrid, and five laptops: the IdeaPad 300 and 500 and their lighter cousins, the IdeaPad 100S, 300S and 500S.

Lenovo said that the new designs feature an option for Intel’s RealSense 3D cameras alongside Windows 10 for “never-before-seen PC performance” while “giving discerning shoppers multiple reasons to upgrade this holiday season”.

The Lenovo IdeaPad Miix 700 (above) sees the firm setting its sights squarely on Microsoft’s Surface, with the device sporting an integrated kickstand, optional keyboard cover and the same dual watchband hinges as seen on on the Yoga 3 Pro.

It also boasts a 12 inch Full HD+ 2160×1440 display, a 6th-generation Intel Core processor, up to 8GB of RAM, up to 256GB SSD and either Windows 10 Pro or Windows 10 Home.

The IdeaPad MIIX 700 starts at $699, and will be available sometime this year.

The Lenovo IdeaCentre AIO 700 desktop (below) is said to deliver up to double the power, screen resolution and memory capacity of the previous-generation, making it ideal for videos and gaming, Lenovo said.

The desktop has the latest Intel Core i7 processor, coupled with up to a 27in UHD 10-point multitouch display alongside JBL stereo speakers and discrete graphics.

“This all-in-one desktop is upgraded to up to twice the CPU performance, screen resolution and memory capacity of its three-year-old previous generation, offering music and movie buffs double the incentive to refresh their hardware this season,” the firm said.

There’s also a removable slip-off back panel providing flexibility for those wanting to upgrade or maintain the system. The IdeaCentre AIO 700 24in desktop starts at $1,099 and will be available in October.

Meanwhile, the new Lenovo IdeaPad 300 and 500 laptops are claimed to be 33 percent thinner than the same range three years ago. This doesn’t sound like much of a feat, but Lenovo promised that the devices will “take portability to the next level”, weighing 2.1kg for the 14in laptop and 2.3kg for the 15in.

They come with up to Nvidia GeForce 920 graphics, 1TB of storage and Dolby Advanced Audio. The IdeaPad 500 will be powered by the latest Intel 6th generation Core i7 processor with optional JBL speakers.

For those who want an even thinner and lighter laptop, the IdeaPad 100S, 300S and 500S are thinner and lighter than their IdeaPad 300 and 500 cousins, and much lighter than their comparably priced counterparts from three years ago. The IdeaPad 100S 14in laptop is 35 percent lighter, while the IdeaPad 500S 15in laptop is 20 percent lighter.

The IdeaPad laptop range will start from $179, going up to $499 depending on model, size and specifications, and will be available in October.

Source-http://www.thegurureview.net/computing-category/can-the-lenovo-ideapad-challenge-microsofts-surface-pro.html