The perfect example of this was back in the 90’s and early 2000’s when the traditional personal computer was making tremendous strides not only in chipsets, motherboards, memory and drives, but with the implementation of graphic cards that grew by leaps and bounds. Gaming was in its height and it was all about the experience you would receive as an end-user while playing your favorite graphic intensive game or looking at your favorite 3D models.

In today’s high tech industry, we are constantly striving for the perfect gaming session or that perfect Google Earth session where we can see our house from “outer space.” This user experience is now demanded in the virtualized desktop environment. In the age of virtual desktops where the traditional PC at the work place is slowly disappearing, the end goal is to have that perfect end-user experience that we had in the previous two decades, but on a machine that doesn’t exist physically before our eyes.

Virtual desktops have grown tremendously over the years and continue to lead the way in the technical field not only on the commercial side but the government side as well. There are several developments that are contributing to this growth and ensuring continued expansion.

One such protocol that enables this perfect virtualized end-user experience is Teradici’sPCoIP that works with VMware View. PCoIP technology allows all enterprise desktops, from task workers to power users, to be centrally located and managed in the data center, while providing the remote user with an exceptional user experience. The PCoIP protocol compresses, encrypts and encodes the entire computing experience at the data center and transmits it, ‘pixels only’, across any standard IP network to stateless PCoIP zero clients. Your data never leaves the data center.

The PCoIP protocol is implemented in silicon for hardware accelerated performance, and in software in VMware View. It supports high resolution, full frame rate 3D graphics and HD media, multiple large displays, full USB peripheral connectivity and high definition audio, all connected over the corporate local area network (LAN) or wide area network (WAN).

When tuned correctly, PCoIP allows for an exceptional end-user experience thus pushing forward the virtualized desktop infrastructure (VDI) implementation through the company or government agency. Once end-users see that they can watch many different formats of video, browse 3D data and view precision graphics, there is no turning back.

VDI is here to stay and will improve as the technology gets better. As the end-user experience advances, we will see more demand for this new form of computing and employees will be screaming for more. So, sit back and enjoy the next wave of computing with a PC that does not exist right in front of you.

In light of these pressures, we have partnered with leading technology manufactures such as Cisco Systems®, Dell®, EMC®, HP, McAfee®, NetApp® and VMware® to provide solutions that enable government agencies achieve their goals. These partner relationships are key to our success, which is why we are honored to be recognized by CRN as one of the 2012 Tech Elite 250.

The CRN 2012 Tech Elite 250 list represents an elite group of IT Solution Providers that have made a significant investment in training and education to earn the most technical certifications in the areas of data centers and infrastructure.

In compiling the list, CRN editors worked with the UBM Channel research group and a team of outside experts to define the most customer-beneficial technical certifications in the IT channel. These technical certifications have enabled solution providers to deliver premiere products, service and support to their North American customers.

To be included on this list is an honor and we remain committed to working with our partners to deliver best-of-breed technology solutions.

In this week’s edition: surgical robots that give us the creeps, a telecom company that has to compensate hacking victims and a new tech innovation that will enable people to avoid scrubbing behind their toilets, where hands were never meant to go.

The doctor-bot is in
The Economist reported earlier this month that a new robot-assisted surgery device, dubbed “the Raven,” is preparing to invade operating rooms. This is the first such device to use open-source software. The Raven was originally developed by the U.S. Army as a prototype for robotic surgery on battlefields. It comes with a price tag of $250,000, which is considered relatively inexpensive by robot standards.

While there are hurdles keeping it from use right now in operating rooms – regulators have not yet approved its use, and the company that holds patents on the current ruling robot surgeon, the da Vinci Surgical System, could file a legal challenge – there is a computer simulation of the Raven that is currently available.

Dutch telecom offers to compensate victims of e-mail hacking
Royal KPN NV, a leading Dutch telecommunications company, is offering compensation to subscribers affected by a days-long hacker attack this month that disrupted their e-mail services. More than 1,200 customers have applied for the compensation; KPN has rejected about 200 of the claims. The company also plans to form a cybersecurity unit and name a chief cybersecurity officer.

But can it do windows?
We’ve all seen the robot vacuum cleaners that propel themselves around obstacles, such as chairs and tables. The (U.K.) Register reports that iRobot, makers of the Roomba, have introduced a new device that operates around the throne. The iRobot Scooba 230 is designed to, among other things, clean the floor behind the toilet! The water-pumping, squeegee-wielding robot is tiny, about half the size of a new iPad, but unlike the device from Apple, still works when exposed to water.

eBay tackles data center consolidation – to boost analytics, among other things
Data Center Dynamics has an interesting report on eBay’s “Project Mercury,” the company’s new data center in Phoenix. The project was a part of the company’s larger data center consolidation project, but has another intended benefit – to provide the depth of resources needed to handle the volume of information the company has to process. The article notes that Project Mercury is using two 24-petabyte Hadoop data analytics clusters; between those and the data-warehouse expansion, eBay’s data capacity increased by 500 percent in just six months.

So THAT’S what they’re doing all day…
According to a recent article in InformationWeek, social networking applications, specifically Facebook, are the Web 2.0 applications most accessed by enterprise employees. The article cites a study by Zscaler ThreatLabZ (available for download HERE), which found that Facebook transactions were responsible for 43.8 percent of Web 2.0 application use. Gmail (15 percent), Twitter (6.63 percent) and YouTube (8.36 percent) followed closely behind Facebook.

Facebook’s numbers may seem dominant, but they did decline during the course of 2011. The site began the year at 60 percent and steadily declined to 43.8 percent in the fourth quarter. The report cites security issues at Facebook, but we blame the rollout of the terrible timeline profile layout.

Kara raises questions about the meaning of “life”
The video game studio Quantic Dream showed an intriguing video demo at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco recently, SingularityHub.com reported. The demo was intended to showcase the company’s prototype graphics engine, but “it also raises some thought-provoking and disturbing questions about what it means to create artificial life.” The video generates plenty of thoughts about what could be the next step in robotics – personal robots able to interact with people in human environments.

Web-anonymous no more?
Here’s a new term for IT people to learn: “linguistic stylometry.” Information Week reported that a team of researchers from UC Berkeley and Stanford University has created an algorithm to match anonymous writings, such as unsigned blog posts, against existing writing samples from known individuals.

The algorithm was able to successfully match anonymously-produced text to known individuals 20 percent of the time in a test run. Additonally, the algorithm included the correct person in a list of 20 possible writers 35 percent of the time.

The researchers consider the algorithm as one more tool for law enforcement investigators to use. While this has obvious applications for counterterrorism investigations, it could have commercial uses as well if leaks of information or anonymous complaints are targeting companies.

Is that a spy in your pocket?
According to the Los Angeles Times, a cybersecurity researcher has found a previously unidentified hole in smartphone browsers that could turn the devices into personal data spies.

Dmitri Alperovitch, the former McAfee Inc. researcher who identified a widespread Chinese cyber espionage program named Shady Rat, found the hole and used it to deliver China-based malware that “can commandeer the device, record its calls, pin point its location and access user texts and emails.”

A phone using Google’s Android OS ran the experiment, but Alperovitch says Apple’s iPhones have the same weakness.

RIM on the hot seat in India
The Wall Street Journal reported that Research in Motion says it “can’t access, or provide access to, emails sent through its BlackBerry corporate computer networks.” RIM made the statement after local media reported the Canadian company has installed servers in India to provide local security agencies the ability to monitor the service.

The Indian government is concerned that terrorists may use encrypted communications similar to that offered by RIM and other providers such as Skype, Yahoo! and Google, and has been pushing providers to allow monitoring of messages. The local news reports have stated that RIM installed servers in Mumbai to allow Indian security agencies direct interception of messages sent on its network.

Wearable cameras for law enforcement use cloud servers
The New York Times reported that Taser International is selling small video cameras to law enforcement agencies that store video footage on remote servers. The cameras attach to an officer’s glasses or uniform and record his/or her interactions in the field. Storing the videos in the cloud is a way to provide cost savings to law enforcement, and can cut down on problems with video evidence by improving storage, minimizing the loss or theft of evidence and even tampering with the video file.

Tax season prime time for phishing scams
As if April 15^th doesn’t already strike dread in many hearts, the Falmouth (MA) Police Department received a bulletin from the Homeland Security Department’s National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center warning of email phishing scams in advance of the tax filing deadline. The bulletin reminds law enforcement that scammers send messages claiming to be from the Internal Revenue Service or private-sector tax preparers, looking to elicit personal information or plant malware on recipients’ computers.

Apple’s privacy problems
We recently learned that the social network Path was accessing and uploading iPhone users’ contact lists without permission, causing a major backlash. It turns out that Path was not the only one as a number of other iOS apps (including some very popular ones) are doing the same thing. Now, members of Congress are up in arms about the privacy implications and Ars Technica reports that developers assert that the problem could be fixed by Apple itself. Apparently, Path used an API provided by Apple itself. However, by not first asking permission to collect and store the data, Path was in violation of Apple’s rules.

Acer cloud-based smartphone wins award
Now you can really have your head in the clouds! The Taipei Times reported that Acer’s first cloud computing-based smartphone won the International Forum (iF) design award in Munich, Germany. The CloudMobile smartphone will be introduced at the Mobile World Congress show in Barcelona at the end of this month. Details on price are not available, but the handset will be ultra-slim (less than 1 cm thick), include Dolby sound, a 4.3-inch display and run on Google’s Android 4.0 OS; it will be available for purchase in the third quarter of this year.

State legislators targeted by Anonymous
Closer to home, The Tennessean reported that the General Assembly and staff have been warned that Anonymous is planning cyber attacks against them because of legislation to evict Occupy Nashville protesters from the grounds of the state capitol.

Airplanes, air traffic control to swap data
We know texting while driving is a problem…but what about texting while flying? Avionics Intelligence reported that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has approved a new air traffic management communications technology, the Future Air Navigation System (FANS) 1/A over the global High Frequency Data Link (HFDL) network. This will enable pilots and air traffic controllers to exchange text and other data at long ranges by using high-frequency radio signals rather than VHF radio or satellite-based communications. ARINC Inc. of Annapolis, Md. is administering the HFDL network.

FBI, Scotland Yard call hacked by Anonymous
In a major embarrassment for two national law enforcement agencies, the Washington Post (and others) reported Feb. 3 that a call between Scotland Yard and FBI agents to discuss cyber crime investigations was hacked into by Anonymous. The hacking group released a recording of the call, as well as an email setting up the call containing the dial-in number and pass code. It does not appear the group penetrated either agency’s network, instead retrieving the information from a personal email account.

Google concerned about lawsuit’s impact on cloud computing
A record industry’s lawsuit against ReDigi, an online marketplace for reselling digital music files, could “create unintended uncertainties for the cloud computing industry,” according to a request to file a friend-of-the-court brief by Google. According to an Information Week article, the company is concerned because it offers cloud-based storage services, as does ReDigi and many other companies. Google’s request was denied and the lawsuit continues.

Swarms of nanocopters in our future?
Every once in a while, getting a glimpse of the future brings a smile – or a shudder. Case in point:

The Verge reported that the University of Pennsylvania, in collaboration with KMel Robotics, has created a nest of nano quadrocopters that can move in formation through three-dimensional patterns and avoid obstacles. In the video, you can see their agility (but if you don’t like wasps, the look and sound may be rather menacing).

More secure ATMs coming to a bank near you
The Wall Street Journal reported Jan. 26 that the leading manufacturers of automated-teller machines (ATMs) are developing prototype machines that will employ a variety of cybersecurity measures to provide greater protection both to customers and to the data collected during transactions. It’s an important problem to solve. According to the FBI,more money is stolen via data breaches than through “traditional” bank robberies., Additionally,  the WSJ article reports that ATM attacks are 10 times more lucrative.

Can you hear me now? No…
Halfway around the world, Reuters reports that a dispute between two telecom partners in India has led to a disruption in service to more than 1.7 million customers. Reliance Communications leases base stations to Etisalat DB (EDB), a joint venture between Etisalat of the United Arab Emirates and the DB Group of India, but has disconnected its tenant due to non-payment of fees. If the dispute is not resolved quickly, EDB could lose its customers to one of the other 14 mobile telecom providers in India.

Consolidated data centers could be cash cow for Midwest
The Omaha (Neb.) World-Herald is predicting that the trend toward data center consolidation will be a wind fall for Midwestern cities that are able to offer lower operating costs, plenty of available real estate and qualified workers. In addition, it’s not just federal data centers that are interested; banks and health care providers – two industries awash in data – also are looking into consolidating data centers while boosting their physical and cybersecurity.

Did you miss our latest posts?
If you missed the latest on our blog, here is a quick recap:

Where is your Biggest Threat? Look Inside the Enterprise
Telepresence – Keeping your Executives from Getting Stuck in the Cold
BYOD: The Pros and Cons of Bringing your Own Device

Beware flaming printers
According to CNET, hackers have begun exploiting security vulnerabilities in printers. These vulnerabilities have led to companies having their data stolen. The hackers have also been able to reprogram the printer’s programs, which can lead to additional data breaches and the printer overheating, which can be dangerous since it can cause the paper to smoke and turn brown.

The cloud is the limit
BusinessWeek is reporting that cloud technology has been paying significant dividends for the federal government. Steve VanRoekel, the US government’s chief information officer, was quoted as saying that the government is saving money, increasing operational efficiency and eliminating expensive legacy systems by moving to the cloud. If cloud computing can do that for the federal government, what could it do for your company?

iPadlocks
With tablet computers revolutionizing consumer technology, many companies are trying to find effective ways to implement them within the enterprise to increase efficiency and effectiveness. According to an article in NetworkWorld, padlock salesman, William Tway, has identified a use for his tablet computer that truly (and literally) takes a weight off his shoulders. Tway has exchanged his usual 30-pound sample case for his tablet, which houses a virtual array of his samples, an intricately-designed online catalog and a spreadsheet that keeps records of receipts and final reports. Now that’s a great example of technology lightening one’s workload.

Did you miss our latest posts?
If you missed the latest on our blog, here is a quick recap:

Different Clouds for Different Data. Click here to read.

Could your law firm be a target for hacktivists? Click here to read.

VTC helps companies charter a course to telework. Click here to read.

Real savings from going virtual. Click here to read.