Many businesses still use Windows Server 2003, even as Microsoft no longer supports the OS

If you’re running a Windows Server 2003 machine, you have a problem. Your already-vulnerable computer is now at severe risk of being hacked.

That’s due to the internet release earlier this month of a batch of updates that paint a bull’s-eye on computers running Windows Server 2003, according to security researchers.

“I can teach my mom how to use some of these exploits,” said Jake Williams, founder of Rendition Infosec, a security provider. “They are not very complicated at all.”

Experts are urging affected businesses to upgrade to the latest Windows OSes, which offer security patches that can address the threat.

But some, particularly those in manufacturing and healthcare, cannot because they rely on legacy software that won’t run on a modern operating system.

“It’s usually very costly to upgrade,” he said. “And again, the machine is working fine, but control has to be done through Windows Server 2003.”

There may be more than 500,000 Windows Server 2003 machines publicly exposed to the internet, according to Shodan, a search engine for devices. But Williams estimates there are many more vulnerable machines running behind company firewalls.

So, for those that can’t, here are some tips to keep your old Windows Server 2003 machine secure.

The danger

The spying tools include several Windows-based exploits, or hacking programs, that target the Windows Server Message Block (SMB) protocol, which is used for file-sharing purposes. The exploits work by remotely triggering the OS to execute code, which can be used to install other malware.

Network segmentation and monitoring

Companies saddled with older Windows Server machines can still protect themselves. Williams suggests they go beyond putting vulnerable servers behind a firewall, and use a tactic called network segmentation.

This can involve restricting access to your most critical servers, and ensuring only system admins can control them. “So instead of giving 20,000 people in a company access, you can cut that number down to 20,” Williams said.

Thus, if hackers ever do breach the firewall, they’ll have access to a smaller segment of the corporate network.

Network segmentation also doesn’t cost a lot of money. Enterprise internet routers often contain access control features that can limit which computers can talk to what, Williams said.

Businesses should also consider monitoring the vulnerable servers, or at least the ones carrying critical information. Any unusual data traffic moving through them is probably a sign they’ve been hacked, he said.

Weighing the risks

To keep malicious activity out of vulnerable systems, application whitelisting can also be used, said Jason Leitner, president of Below0Day, an IT security provider.

Whitelisting works by allowing only trusted applications to run on a computer. It’s the opposite approach of antivirus products, which essentially blacklists malicious programs based on known indicators.

Businesses can also create backups of any sensitive data stored in these machines. One malicious threat that’s been growing in recent years has been ransomware. It works by infecting a computer, and encrypting all the data inside. To free the machine, victims have to pay a ransom, usually in bitcoin.

However, even with these safeguards, the best solution to protecting a vulnerable Windows Server system is to upgrade, according to security experts.

Although it might be costly in the short term, the investment can help businesses avoid a disastrous data breach. Tiago Henriques, CEO of security firm BinaryEdge, encourages businesses to calculate which is higher: “The cost of buying the upgrade or the damage to their brand and their clients if they get hacked?”

By Michael Kan, source by ComputerWorld

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Enterprises that try to slow down Microsoft’s upgrade train by skipping one of the twice-yearly Windows 10 refreshes will have to hustle to stay in support, according to the company’s latest scheduling disclosures.

Corporate users of Windows 10 may have as little as two months to deploy a feature upgrade after passing on the one prior. Only if IT administrators are willing to roll out a consumer-quality version — one that Microsoft has not yet given the approved-for-business green light — will they have up to six months to upgrade employees’ PCs.

Those limitations come from Microsoft’s latest pledge to support any given Windows 10 feature upgrade for 18 months, and the company’s long-standing timeline on how it moves each upgrade from development to release, first to consumers and then to commercial customers.

To illustrate how Microsoft’s scheduling affects businesses — which must, sooner or later, adopt Windows 10 — we’ve illustrated Windows’ software-as-a-service calendar and the options enterprises have.

Feature upgrade timetable. Each feature upgrade goes through a several-step process that, in turn, generates the 18 months that Microsoft has promised to support with security patches and other bug fixes.

Each upgrade is numbered in Microsoft’s yymm format; 1703, for example. Once an upgrade is completed, Microsoft issues it to devices assigned to the Current Branch (CB), the release track adopted by virtually all consumer PCs. Over the next four months (shown in blue in the following figure), Microsoft feeds the upgrade to an increasing number of CB devices, monitors telemetry and feedback, and then quashes the inevitable bugs that users uncover. Think of CB as the upgrade’s shake-down cruise, taken before the real paying customers arrive.

Gregg Keizer/ IDGE

Only after a feature upgrade has run the consumers’ testing gauntlet does Microsoft certify it as business-ready. After four months on the CB, the theoretically-more-stable-and-more-reliable build is released to the Current Branch for Business (CBB), the most popular track for enterprise PCs. Yellow marks the CBB in Figure 1 above.

Microsoft supports just two upgrades on the CBB concurrently. This part of Windows 10’s support is important in understanding how the whole schedule plays out.

If N equals the current upgrade, say, 1703, then Microsoft will support N+1 (this year’s September release, labeled 1709) as well when the two are simultaneously on the CBB. That 12-month span would be February 2018, when 1709 reaches the CBB, through July 2018, when N+2, or next year’s March upgrade (1803) is promoted to the CBB.

Gregg Keizer/ IDGE

But Microsoft does not suddenly drop N, or 1703, from support as soon as N+2 makes the CBB. Instead, the company starts a 60-day-or-so countdown. Only at the end of those 60 days does it scratch N from the support list. N+1 then becomes N and N+2 morphs into N+1.

See Figure 2 for how this works; the 60-day grace period is in green.

That means for the months of August and September 2018, Microsoft will support 1703, 1709 and 1803.

Not surprisingly, the combination of Microsoft’s every-six-month upgrade delivery cadence, the four months an upgrade spends on CB, and the two-month grace period at the end all generate a support lifecycle of 18 months. Yes, Microsoft planned it that way.

Endless upgrading. Because of the timing of Windows 10 feature refreshes, businesses that adopt each will be upgrading every six months, assuming they deploy the builds at the same point in their CBB timelines.

Gregg Keizer/ IDGE

If the organization rolls out each upgrade at the beginning of the CBB, the tick-tock is a regular tempo. The company would deploy 1703 in August 2017, 1709 in February 2018, and 1803 in August 2018.

Figure 3 illustrates the cadence, with the red arrows showing the jumps from one build to the next.

There is some flexibility. Enterprises can increase the interval between upgrades, providing some flexibility; but there’s a limit to how far things will stretch and how long a refresh can be put off. In many ways, it’s a rob-Peter-to-pay-Paul deal.

For example, an organization that adopted 1703 as soon as it landed on the CBB (August) could stay on that version for 10 months by delaying the move to 1709 until early June 2018. But because of 1709’s hard support stop (coming in March 2019), the enterprise would be on 1709 for just seven months if it wanted to give itself, say, three months to upgrade to 1803.

Check out Figure 4 for how this would work.

Gregg Keizer/ IDGE

The maximum amount of time between upgrades — without skipping one — would be 14 months, but only by migrating at the last minute, as the grace period expires. However, that would leave just 6 months on the next version before another upgrade.

Rule of thumb: Assuming no version is skipped, the total length of support for two consecutive builds can be no more than 20 months. Extend support for the first, and support for the second shrinks.

Hustle-bustle to skip an upgrade. Organizations can skip a Windows 10 feature upgrade, but the price will be steep.

Microsoft’s schedule will give companies just two months — the grace period of the version upgrading from — to migrate. Figure 5 shows the small window, no pun intended, if the version being upgraded to, in this case 1803, has been certified as business-ready and thus planted on the CBB.

Gregg Keizer/ IDGE

The only way to expand that window would be to begin upgrading while 1803 was still being tested by consumer guinea pigs, still on the CB. Backing the migration into the half-way point of the CB, for instance, would give the organization about four months to finish the upgrade from 1703 to 1803.

Depending on when the company starts an upgrade, its PCs will remain on a version for 12 to 14 months.

By Gregg Keizer, source by ComputerWorld

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• CREATES BUSINESS UNITS TARGETED AT LARGEST, FASTEST GROWING MARKET SEGMENTS
• KIM STEVENSON, FORMER INTEL CIO, APPOINTED AS SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT AND GENERAL MANAGER
• THREE OTHER EXECUTIVES JOIN DATA CENTER SENIOR LEADERSHIP TEAM
• BUILDS END-TO-END GLOBAL DATA CENTER SALES FORCE FOR A MORE RESPONSIVE CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Research Triangle Park, N.C. March 23, 2017 — To further accelerate growth in its global data center business, Lenovo (HKSE: 992) today announced several organizational moves that strengthen its management team and advance the company’s drive to become the industry’s most trusted global data center partner, while serving the fastest expanding market segments and further improving the responsiveness of its customer support.  As part of this realignment, the company appointed Kim Stevenson, the former CIO of Intel, senior vice president and general manager, joining its Data Center Group’s senior management team along with three other executives named to new positions today.

The newly formed business units will lead Lenovo’s charge into five market segments: data center infrastructure; the software-defined data center; high-performance computing and artificial intelligence applications; “hyperscale” systems, and data center services. Each will be led by a general manager with responsibility for definition of offerings and go-to-market strategies in the segment, as well as responsibility for the entire business end-to-end.

Lenovo appointed Stevenson senior vice president and general manager leading its new Data Center Infrastructure (DCI) business segment, where she will oversee the company’s core data center products and solutions portfolio.  Most recently, she spent eight years at Intel leading that company’s Client, Internet of Things and System Architecture (CISA) Group and serving as Intel CIO for four years. Before Intel, she spent seven years at the former EDS holding a variety of positions including vice president of its Worldwide Communications, Media and Entertainment (CM&E) Industry Practice. She began her career at IBM.

In addition to Stevenson, three current Lenovo executives, all of whom who have been with the company for approximately one year, will assume new positions on the Data Center Group’s senior leadership team.  Laura Latrello, vice president and general manager, will continue in her role leading the data center services segment. Newly appointed business segment executive leaders will report directly to Kirk Skaugen, executive vice president & president, Data Center Group:

• Paul Ju, vice president and general manager, Hyperscale – Ju joined Lenovo in September 2016 and has deep experience in hyperscale systems and cloud computing through management positions with leading global technology and data center providers.

• Madhu Matta, vice president and general manager, High-Performance Computing & Artificial Intelligence – Matta joined Lenovo in November 2015 and brings deep experience in advanced computing technologies through executive assignments at leading server and storage companies.

• Radhika Krishnan, executive director and general manager, Software-Defined Data Center – Krishnan’s unit also includes networking technologies and telco solutions.  She joined Lenovo in February 2016 and has a deep background in advanced server, storage, networking and software-defined technologies.

Working to further its industry position as #1 in x86 server customer satisfaction for the past two years[1], Lenovo also made changes to significantly enhance its global data center sales force led by Roderick Lappin, senior vice president, Worldwide Sales & Marketing, Data Center Group.  These moves will make the company faster and more agile in addressing changing market conditions to deliver even more responsive support to data center customers, and ultimately accelerate Lenovo’s growth to build on its position as the number three global provider of x86 servers.

The post LENOVO STRENGTHENS DATA CENTER BUSINESS TO ACCELERATE GROWTH, ANNOUNCES NEW LEADERSHIP ROLES ON ITS MANAGEMENT TEAM appeared first on ICT News.

Taipei, Taiwan – VIVOTEK, the global leading IP surveillance solution provider, not only offers a wide range of H.265 surveillance products, it also aims to integrate and increase H.265 presence in partnership with the Solution Integration Alliance (SIA) partners worldwide. Today, VIVOTEK is proud to announce the existence of ten H.265 integration SIA partners, including: AxxonSoft, Genetec, Milestone, NUUO, Synology, and newly-added Cathexis, Digifort, Luxriot, Macroscop and Mirasys. Working closely with VIVOTEK’s SIA partners, customers will equip themselves with a comprehensive H.265 solution that meets the technical demands of all projects.

“As a leading IP surveillance solution provider, VIVOTEK forges alliances with innovative SIA partners to deliver the most advanced and up to date H.265 solutions,” says Shengfu Cheng, Director of Brand Business Research & Development Division, VIVOTEK Inc. “With our self-developed Smart Stream II and H.265 technology, customers can deploy the most efficient system, increasing the usage of storage and bandwidth, while optimizing the image quality of a specific area or object.” Cheng further states, “Working hand in hand with our partners maximizes user efficiency and capability, while expanding the global market with our outstanding partners, is a win-win for all of us.”

VIVOTEK offers comprehensive H.265 solutions to meet market demands. An impressive lineup of H.265 surveillance products includes our professional video management software (VMS), VAST and VAST 2, 6 different network video recorders (NVR) and 24 network camera models since 2015, with the release of more cameras scheduled for the near future. Combining H.265 and Smart Stream II technology creates the most efficient system, maximizing bandwidth and storage efficiency and reducing bandwidth and data storage demands by up to 80% relative to H.264 systems.

Source by Vivotek

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By Lucian Constantin, source by InfoWorld

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The post Oracle fixes Struts and Shadow Brokers exploits in huge patch release appeared first on ICT News.

Developers can easily access leading databases and developer tools as Docker containers to develop and deploy cloud-scale applications.

Oracle announced today that it is collaborating with Docker to release  its flagship databases, middleware and developer tools into the Docker Store marketplace via the Docker Certification Program. Together, Oracle and Docker enable developers to quickly build cloud-native applications using Docker Enterprise Edition as their container platform and Oracle’s databases and developer tools immediately available as Docker containers through the Docker Store.. The Docker Certification Program is a framework for partners to integrate and certify their technology to the Docker EE commercial platform.

Effective immediately, developers can now pull images of Oracle products in Docker and quickly start developing, testing and deploying modern enterprise applications. Solutions offered include Oracle Database, Oracle MySQL, Oracle Java 8 SE Runtime Environment, Oracle WebLogic Server, Oracle Coherence and Oracle Instant Client, which are now all available in the Docker Store as enterprise-ready containers.

As cloud computing continues to transform every business and industry, developers at global enterprises and emerging startups alike are increasingly leveraging container technologies to accelerate how they build modern Web, mobile and IoT applications. Because the need for new applications in the enterprise consistently outpaces development capabilities, modern developers need to be able to quickly develop, test and deploy their applications without worrying about their deployment environment. With the availability of Oracle in the Docker Store, developers are now free for the first time to deliver best in class secure, high-performance, and resilient applications in containers with confidence. Oracle is a long-time supporter of the Docker ecosystem with more than 100 images of Oracle products already available in the Docker Hub, including OpenJDK and Oracle Linux.

Developers can try these images immediately by downloading them on any public cloud or on-premises servers. With Oracle Cloud, developers can deploy these images on the cloud infrastructure of their choice: virtual, bare metal or managed containers. Developers can try the service and experience Oracle Cloud with $300 in free credits by visiting https://cloud.oracle.com/tryit.

“Docker is revolutionizing the way developers build and deploy modern applications, but mission-critical systems in the enterprise have been a holdout until now,” said Mark Cavage, Vice President of Software Development at Oracle. “Together with Docker, Oracle is bringing bedrock software to millions of developers enabling them to create enterprise-grade solutions that meet stringent security, performance and resiliency SLAs with the high level of productivity and low friction that they have come to expect from Dockerizing their application development stack.”

“Enterprises have relied on Oracle’s technology to power their businesses for decades and their databases and middleware tools are used by millions of developers around the world,” said Marianna Tessel, EVP Strategic Development at Docker. “With this new partnership, developers looking to use containers for their businesses can now access the world’s most popular databases and developer tools and leverage the performance and robustness of Oracle in their applications, all in just a few clicks.”

For more information, please visit https://developer.oracle.com/docker

Oracle Cloud

Oracle Cloud is the industry’s broadest and most integrated public cloud, offering a complete range of services across SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS. It supports new cloud environments, existing ones, and hybrid, and all workloads, developers, and data. The Oracle Cloud delivers nearly 1,000 SaaS applications and 50 enterprise-class PaaS and IaaS services to customers in more than 195 countries around the world and supports 55 billion transactions each day.

Source by Oracle

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Azure Functions, Logic Apps, Azure Stack, and .Net come together for the next stage of PaaS both in the cloud and on-premises

Microsoft’s adoption of serverless computing is a big piece of Azure maturing as a platform. There’s a lot going on here, as architectures and services evolve to take advantage of the unique capabilities of the cloud and we as users and developers migrate away from traditional server architectures.

Mark Russinovich, Microsoft’s CTO of Azure, has a distinct view on the evolution of cloud as a platform. “Infrastructure as a service [IaaS] is table stakes,” he said at an Azure Serverless computing event at Microsoft’s Redmond, Wash., headquarters last week, “Platform as a service [PaaS] is the next step, offering runtimes and developing on them, an API and an endpoint, where you consume services.” That’s where we are today, where we still define the resources we use when we build cloud applications.

Then comes serverless computing. “Serverless is the next generation of computing, the point of maximum value,” Russinovich said.

What he’s talking about is abstracting applications from the underlying servers, where code is event-driven and scales on demand, charged by the operation rather than by the resources used. As he said, “I don’t have to worry about the servers. The platform gives me the resources as I need them.” That’s the real definition of serverless computing: The servers and OS are still there, but as a user and a developer you don’t need to care about them.

Serverless computing is the next phase of virtualization

You can look at it as a logical evolution of virtualization. As the public cloud has matured, it’s gone from one relatively simple type of virtual machine and one specific type of underlying hardware to specialized servers that can support IaaS implementations for all kinds of use cases, such as high-performance computing servers with massive GPUs for parallel processing and for scientific computing working with numerical methods, or such as arrays of hundreds of tiny servers powering massive web presences.

That same underlying flexibility powers the current generation of PaaS, where applications and code run independently of the underlying hardware while still requiring you to know what the underlying servers can do. To get the most out of PaaS (that is, to get the right fit for your code), you still need to choose servers and storage.

With serverless computing, you can go a step further, concentrating on only the code you’re running, knowing that it’s ephemeral and you’re using it to process and route data from one source to another application. Microsoft’s serverless implementations have an explicit lifespan, so you don’t rely on them being persistent, only on them being there when you need them. If you try to use a specific instance outside that limited life, you get an error message because the application and its hosting container will be gone.

Three serverless computing models

Nir Mashkowski, principal group manager for Azure App Service, noted three usage patterns for Azure’s serverless offerings.

The first, and most common, pattern is what he calls “brownfield” implementations. They are put together by enterprises as part of an overall cloud application strategy, using Azure Functions and Logic Apps as an integration tool, linking old apps and new and on-premises systems and cloud.

The second pattern is greenfield implementations, which are typically the province of startups, using Azure Functions as part of a back-end platform—that is, as switches and routers moving data from one part of an application to another.

The third pattern is for internet of things applications. It is a combination of the two, using Azure Functions to handle signals from devices, triggering actions in response to specific inputs.

For enterprises wanting a quick on-ramp to serverless computing, Azure Functions’ closely related sibling Logic Apps is an intriguing alternative. Drawing on the same low-code foundations as the more business-focused Flow, it gives you a visual designer with support for conditional expressions and loops. (You can even can run the designer inside Visual Studio.)

Like Azure Functions, Logic Apps is event-triggered and can be used to coordinate a sequence of Azure functions. Wrapping serverless code in a workflow adds more control, especially if it’s used to apply conditions to a trigger—for example, launching one function if a trigger is at the low end of a range of values, another if it’s at the high end.

In the cloud and on-premises: Portable serverless computing

Russinovich described three organizations working with serverless computing:

• Accuweather uses it to handle its server logs, replicating them between datacenters and handing them off to analysis tools.
• Similarly, Plexure, a marketing company, uses it to handle feeds from point-of-sale systems, replacing a complex stack of tools with a workflow that drives information from one service to the next.
• At the other end of the scale, the Missing Children Society of Canada used Logic Apps to build a bot that could bring research about missing kids together from various sources, including social media, in a project that took a mere four days to deliver.

One of the more interesting aspects of both Azure Functions and Logic Apps is that they’re not limited to running purely in the cloud. Functions themselves can be developed and tested locally, with full support in Visual Studio, and both Azure Functions and Logic Apps will be supported by on-premises Azure Stack hybrid cloud systems.

Inside the Azure datacenters, its serverless options are all containerized for rapid deployment. That same model will come to your own servers, with Azure Functions able to run on any server, taking advantage of containers for rapid deployment.

Currently, Azure Functions is based on the full .Net Framework release, so there’s a minimum requirement of Windows Server Core as a host. But that’s going to change over the next few months with an open source release based on .Net Core and the upcoming .Net Standard 2.0 libraries. With those in hand, you’ll be able to run Azure Functions in containers based on Windows Server Nano, as well as on .Net Core running on Linux. You’ll be able to migrate code from on-premises to hybrid cloud and to the public cloud depending on the workload and on the billing model you choose.

Such a cross-platform serverless solution that runs locally and in the cloud starts looking very interesting, giving you the tools to build and test on-premises,then scale up to running on Azure (or even on Linux servers running on Amazon Web Services).

There’s a lot to be said for portability, and by working with REST and JSON as generic input and output bindings, Microsoft’s containerized serverless implementation appears to avoid the cloud lock-in of its AWS and Google competitors while still giving you direct links to Azure services.

By Simon Bisson, source by InfoWorld

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Samsung’s new Notebook 9 represents the culmination of an extensive research and development process. The product of Samsung’s hard work is a notebook that’s optimized to help users enjoy a more convenient and streamlined experience, and new levels of mobility.

Maximized for Mobility

With the Notebook 9, feeling is believing. That’s because it’s incredibly light. Weighing in at just 1.8 pounds**, the 13.3-inch Notebook 9 is recognized as one of the lightest notebook on the market today, making it effortless to carry and perfect for getting work done on the go.

To help users enjoy even greater levels of mobility, Samsung went to great lengths to ensure that the Notebook 9’s battery would be exceptionally versatile, and capable of charging via a variety of means. Hence, the new notebook’s ability to conveniently charge via both USB Type-C smartphone chargers as well as external battery packs that provide more than 10 watts of power.

Achieving such compatibility, which adds considerable convenience and ensures that Notebook 9 users are never far from a power source, was no simple feat.

To further boost users’ mobility, Samsung also optimized the Notebook 9’s battery with Adaptive Fast Charge technology (AFC), so you can power up fast and get to work faster. The 13.3-inch model’s battery lasts up to 7 hours on a single charge (the 15-inch model’s lasts 15), and fully charges in just 80 minutes. That means a quick 20-minute charge provides over two hours of power (or more than 3.5 hours for the 15-inch device)***.

A Balanced and Functional Design

When honing the Notebook 9’s aesthetic, Samsung envisioned a design that would complement the technology within the device rather than draw attention away from it. The color options, for instance – Crush White, Violet Blue and Light Titan – were selected because they exude elegance and aesthetic harmony. Thanks to this ‘neutral’ approach, the notebook looks balanced and is comfortable to use.

The Notebook 9’s design is also heavily informed by function. Rather than focusing on a design that looked thin and featured tapered edges, the team made sure that the notebook’s corners were soft and rounded. Seemingly small touches such as this make the Notebook 9 incredibly easy to grip and slip into a bag before heading out the door.

Strength Backed by Rocket Science

The Notebook 9 derives its lightness and strength from its single-shell structure and Samsung’s use of a newly developed magnesium compound. Incorporating this lightweight and sturdy material into the Notebook 9’s solid, single-shell design has allowed Samsung to create a notebook that’s not only seamless and incredibly strong, but also exceptionally thin and not prone to bend.

The development team managed to add further strength to the Notebook 9’s design by reinforcing its body through Micro Arc Oxidation (MAO) – a hardness-boosting surface treatment commonly used in the aerospace, aviation and defense industries.

The electrochemical process involves applying a thick, largely crystalline oxide coating to the notebook’s body that provides ample protection against corrosion, shocks and general wear and tear. Employing this ‘rocket science’ allowed Samsung to bolster the Notebook 9’s hardness while maintaining its market-leading lightness.

Streamlined for Productivity

PC and mobile technologies are vital in this digital age, which is why Samsung consistently strives to identify ways to leverage its leading experience with these technologies to create streamlined, integrated solutions. With this in mind, Samsung incorporated productivity-boosting software such as PC Message and PC Gallery****, which allow users to manage messages (SMS and MMS), videos and photos between their smartphone and Notebook 9 with a simple sync of the two devices.

In addition, the Notebook 9’s near edge-to-edge Samsung RealView Display makes snapped photos truly pop, with support for true-to-life colors, high brightness levels and a wide viewing angle. To offer users more freedom to take their work outside, Samsung also added an Outdoor Mode to the Notebook 9’s display settings, which provides clear visuals even in strong sunlight.

Tough security is essential no matter where you work, which is why the Notebook 9 also features a highly versatile fingerprint sensor. Featuring support for Windows Hello, this tool enables users to comfortably and securely sign in to their Notebook 9 with a single touch.

Enjoy a versatile and powerfully portable notebook experience with the new Notebook 9!

^* All functionality, features, specifications and other product information provided in this document including, but not limited to, the benefits, design, pricing, components, performance, availability, and capabilities of the product are subject to change without notice or obligation.

^** Weights vary depending on country or manufacturing process.

^*** Battery life is based on internal testing conducted by Samsung. Results may differ by usage pattern.

^**** These apps are compatible with devices running Android OS 7.0 and above.

Source by Samsung

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HP now makes an affordable Deskjet printer your grandma will love

Unlike Millennials, who are known for chasing the newest and most feature-rich consumer electronics, empty-nesters and seniors want different things from their tech.

With the American population aged 65 and older expected to double, there’s little doubt that Baby Boomers will be heading into their golden years with their smartphones in hand. But the ways in which this group uses their tech will change significantly as they get older.

It’s one of the reasons why HP designed a new DeskJet printer with wireless connectivity—but scraps a lot of other bells and whistles—to meet their needs for wireless printing from a smartphone or tablet, at an affordable price.

Today the company rolled out the DeskJet 2600 series, the company’s lowest-priced All-in-One printer with wireless and mobile connectivity. It can print, copy and scan and retails for about $50.

“The customer we are targeting doesn’t need 100-sheet inputs trays or really fast speeds, because they don’t do a ton of printing,” said Cari Dorsh, director, home consumer product management at HP. “They need convenience, ease-of-use and reliability in a low-cost device.”

No-compromise connectivity

With fewer cables, wireless printing offers flexibility in where a printer is placed and enables printing from mobile devices and PCs alike. But for consumers who don’t have broadband at home, HP embedded Wi-Fi Direct in the DeskJet 2600 ensures that users—or anyone who walks into the house—can still print from their smartphones or other mobile computing devices.

“We know that the whole market is moving toward wireless and customers want mobile,” Dorsh said. “Wi-Fi Direct enables multiple users to connect their smartphone or tablet directly to the all-in-one and easily print without accessing a network.”

Rethinking design

HP’s engineers were able to keep costs down by removing higher-end features, simplifying the device and making it easy to use out of the box.

There aren’t a lot of features to get confused about, Dorsh said, making it an ideal printer for empty nesters or in multi-generational households where grandparents reside with their school-age grandkids.

“We did a couple of things differently for this customer segment to better meet their needs,” she said. “For this customer, having wireless connectivity and mobile printing is more important than higher-end printer features.”

Those design tweaks included enlarging the control buttons and reducing the feature set on the control panel to make the printer’s capabilities easy to understand.

For people on a limited budget, HP offers a low-cost, subscription-based Instant Ink services that ensures ink is delivered automatically when supplies are running low, for a monthly fee that is as little as $2.99 per month.

Wireless setup was streamlined, too. All of it can be done via the HP All-in-One Remote smartphone app that walks through the process for a smoother user experience.

“We made the setup much easier for people who aren’t necessarily tech-savvy,” Dorsh said. “They get these forward-looking features and something everyone in the house can connect to without a lot of added cost or complexity.”

More specs for the HP DeskJet 2655 AiO can be found here. Global availability will roll out later this year.

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