Subterms
StackCommerce The following content is brought to you by ZDNet partners. If you buy a product featured here, we may earn an affiliate commission or other compensation. Are frustrated by website restrictions preventing you from accessing them, downloading content, converting files you need into files you can use, and more? Well, help is here. You’ll […] More
Image: Shutterstock Broadcom has put forward a $61 billion proposal made up of cash and stock that would see it control 88% of the shares in VMware, with the current shareholders retaining a 12% stake. Michael Dell, who owns 40% of VMware, and private equity firm Silver Lake which controls another 10%, are backing the […] More
Written by
Chris Duckett, APAC Editor
Chris Duckett
APAC Editor
Chris started his journalistic adventure in 2006 as the Editor of Builder AU after originally joining CBS as a programmer. After a Canadian sojourn, he returned in 2011 as the Editor of TechRepublic Australia, and is now the Australian Editor of ZDNet.
Full Bio
Image: Cole Bennetts/Bloomberg via Getty Images
On Monday afternoon, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) released a consultation paper on the proposed variation to the NBN Co Special Access Undertaking, which would codify NBN’s preferred pricing model of removing the loathed connectivity virtual circuit (CVC) capacity charge on plans of 100Mbps and faster. For 12Mbps, 25Mbps, 50Mbps plans, NBN is putting forward the same type of model it currently uses, where each plan has an allocation of CVC included — often around 6% of the marketed speed or lower — and would see excess capacity at AU$8 per 1Mbps per month to retailers. For plans at 100Mbps and above, a flat access fee each month is paid. While the flat price plans are set to increase at a rate of the consumer price index (CPI) plus 3% initially, and the greater of CPI or 3% later, which is higher than the pure CPI increases on the bundles, the ACCC believes excess usage charges will steer retailers towards the 100Mbps plan. “As a result of the retention of CVC charging for the bundled products less than 100Mbps and the CVC cost escalation mechanism built into the SAU proposal (along with allowable CPI+X adjustments), we observe that the costs to retailers of the 50Mbps product are expected to equal those of the 100Mbps product within only a few years and similarly for the 25Mbps product before the end of SAU term [in 2040],” the ACCC said in its consultation paper. “These dynamics indicate that … a narrowing of reasonably priced access products in the market that could be in turn damaging to the level of retail competition and result in the supply of retail products in the market at higher prices and at speeds in excess of end customer needs.” Citing the Bureau of Communications and Arts Research, the paper said it is forecast that median household speed requirement will be a mere 29Mbps in 2028, and only 0.1% of households will need speeds greater than 78Mbps, while retailers currently only promote 100Mbps plans are for “larger households” that make up 10% of the market. NBN is not helping the situation by predicting 13% annual increases in peak data demand while only making CVC increases at half of that level. “The retention of CVC charging may result in access cost escalation over time, as peak data demand continues to grow. It could also expose retailers and customers to cost increases due to demand shocks, such as those observed during COVID-19 lockdowns,” the ACCC said. “The cost escalation could occur because the CVC allowances for the bundles appear to be designed not to grow as fast as peak data demand.” Using NBN’s forecasts, the ACCC said the wholesale cost for an entry level plan would double by 2033 and shoot towards AU$104 per month in nominal terms by 2040. Along with having the technologies introduced by the Coalition government in 2013 brought under the SAU, the proposal seeks to separate NBN’s services into core and non-core — non-core is proposed to cover enterprise ethernet, business satellite, and satellite mobility services and would not be bound by the SAU. In an effort to recover its initial costs to build the network — stated at AU$38 billion in real terms or AU$44.5 billion in nominal terms — NBN is putting forward a revenue cap mechanism where it would not make enough money to recover costs for some years, but would begin to rein it all back in during later years. “The implication of this scenario is that the revenue cap would likely fail to act as a binding constraint on NBN Co or provide any basis for setting prices,” the ACCC said. “Under NBN Co’s proposal there remains no link between underlying costs and the price structure, price levels, or projected price paths. Further, NBN Co’s proposed pricing and proposed price paths do not appear to contain any direct link to current or future demand.” The ACCC is inviting submissions on its paper until July 8. Related Coverage More
Written by
Angelica Mari, Contributing Editor
Angelica Mari
Contributing Editor
Angelica Mari is a Brazil-based technology journalist. She started working at age 15 as a computer instructor and started writing professionally about technology two years later.
Full Bio
The Brazilian government has announced a partnership with Elon Musk’s company Starlink for the operation of satellites in the Amazon rainforest. The plan was announced on 20th May, during Musk’s visit to Brazil, where he met president Jair Bolsonaro and five ministers, as well as 10 local businessmen at a luxury hotel in the countryside of São Paulo.
At the end of the event, Bolsonaro and Communications minister Fabio Faria spoke briefly to the press, describing how Starlink satellites, which should go live over the Amazon in the coming months, could be helpful in terms of providing broadband to schools and monitoring fires and logging in the rainforest. Musk said on Twitter that Starlink would connect 19,000 schools in rural areas. In a press release, the Ministry of Communications replicated the contents of the tweet, adding that technical and specific investment details around the partnership will be “discussed at a later date, with the public and private sector stakeholders involved,” No contracts have been signed at the occasion. The partnership follows the February announcement from telecommunications agency Anatel that it had granted Starlink, a company owned by spaceflight firm SpaceX, the right to operate in Brazil, with exploitation rights running until 2027. The agency considered granting the rights until 2033 but shortened the time span of the authorization given the venture’s “pioneering nature” and “possible unforeseen impacts.”At the time of the Anatel announcement, the company said it had plans to put 4,408 satellites into orbit as part of its plans to build an interconnected satellite-based internet network. The company will not have the right to protection and cannot cause service interference with other satellite systems. Prior to the latest developments, Musk, SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell and minister Faria had met in November 2021 during a technical mission to the US to discuss the projects around connectivity and use of next-generation technology in the Amazon.Environmental issuesBolsonaro has been criticized for his administration’s handling of environmental matters in Brazil. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rose 64% between January and March 2022 compared to the same period a year ago, according to the national space agency Inpe. The head of state stressed that Musk’s visit to Brazil is a “milestone” for the country and that technology will show the “truth” about how the Amazon is preserved. “Of course, there are niches for fires and irregular deforestation. But the arrival of satellites will help us preserve [the rainforest]”, he said.”Now, we also need to develop that region, which is very rich in biodiversity and mineral wealth,” the president added. Bolsonaro offered the opportunity to exploit niobium reserves in Brazil to the billionaire, and noted studies are underway to add graphene to create a super battery. However, Brazil’s lithium reserve, which is the world’s seventh-largest, is more interesting to Musk since his company Tesla is shifting to lithium iron phosphate batteries for its electric vehicles. Elected through social networks in 2018, Bolsonaro described Musk as a freedom crusader and that the businessman’s intention to buy Twitter for $44 billion announced in April was a “breath of hope”.
Networking More
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
NASA scientists are trying to make sense of buggy system data the interstellar Voyager spacecraft is transmitting from about 20 light-hours away from Earth, some 45 years after it launched. Voyager 1 launched in September 1977 and is now the farthest spacecraft from Earth, traveling in space at about 14.5 billion miles (23.3 billion kilometers) away. It would take light about 20 hours to travel from the spacecraft.
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is investigating a glitch in the system data the interstellar explorer is collecting. Readouts from the probe’s attitude articulation and control system (AACS) “don’t reflect what’s actually happening onboard”, according to JPL.SEE: NASA’s Mars lander is running out of power. Here’s what happens nextEverything about the AACS suggests it is functioning normally, yet the telemetry data it’s sending back to Earth is “invalid”, producing what appears to be randomly generated data that doesn’t match any possible state the system could be in. The AACS controls the Voyager 1’s orientation and keeps its high-gain antenna trained on Earth for optimal data transmission. The spacecraft would be put into a functionally reduced ‘safe mode’ if Its onboard fault-protection systems had been triggered. Its signal remains strong but the data appears to be malformed, according to NASA JPL. NASA considers anomalies like this to be normal for a spacecraft of its age. “A mystery like this is sort of par for the course at this stage of the Voyager mission,” Suzanne Dodd, project manager for Voyager 1 and 2 at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, said in a statement. “The spacecraft are both almost 45 years old, which is far beyond what the mission planners anticipated. We’re also in interstellar space – a high-radiation environment that no spacecraft have flown in before. So there are some big challenges for the engineering team. But I think if there’s a way to solve this issue with the AACS, our team will find it.”Dodd said the team could just “adapt” to the glitch if they can’t identify the source of it. If the source is found, it could be fixed by a software update or via one of the spacecraft’s redundant hardware systems.SEE: NASA’s Mars helicopter just took these remarkable photos of the rover’s landing gearVoyager 1 was launched from Cape Canaveral after the Voyager 2 took off, but because of its faster route, it overtook its twin to fly by Jupiter in 1979 and then Saturn in 1980, according to NASA. It’s also gone further than Voyager 2, which is currently traveling about 12.1 billion miles from Earth.The Voyager 1 was the first human-made object to reach into interstellar space and in 1998 overtook NASA’s Pioneer 10 to become the most distant human-made object. It reached interstellar space in August 2012 and, among other things, takes measurements of the density of material in interstellar space. It will eventually exit the solar system but not for a long, long time.”If we define our solar system as the Sun and everything that primarily orbits the Sun, Voyager 1 will remain within the confines of the solar system until it emerges from the Oort cloud in another 14,000 to 28,000 years,” NASA notes. Both Voyagers carry a message on a gold-plated copper disc in case extraterrestrials find the spacecraft one day. It also includes a player and instructions describing how to play the content. The disc includes greetings in 55 languages and 90 minutes of mostly Western music.
Innovation More
Written by
Jack Wallen, Contributing Writer
Jack Wallen
Contributing Writer
Jack Wallen is what happens when a Gen Xer mind-melds with present-day snark. Jack is a seeker of truth and a writer of words with a quantum mechanical pencil and a disjointed beat of sound and soul.
Full Bio
on May 17, 2022
| Topic: VPN
Once upon a time, VPNs were pieces of technology that made it possible for you to work remotely and still have access to internal files and directories (as if you were local). VPNs of today serve a much different purpose. What modern VPNs do is mask your IP address and encrypt your data.This is absolutely crucial for some users and use cases. Consider you’re working on a public wireless network and you have to transmit sensitive data over a network and you’re not exactly certain how secure that network is. What do you do? Do you just go ahead and risk transmitting that data as you normally would?
Not if security and privacy are important. If that’s the case, a VPN will be your best friend. Why you should be using a VPNAs I said earlier, a VPN not only masks your location but also encrypts the data you send from your browser. That’s an important distinction, as the Opera VPN only works within the browser. This isn’t a global VPN that masks and encrypts all data leaving either a computer or mobile device. For that, you would have to make use of another service. But given the majority of users do the majority of their work within a browser, a built-in VPN is a great option. But why should you care about masking your IP address or location? This is simple — privacy. If someone intercepts unencrypted non-anonymized data from your computer or mobile device, they could locate you. When you use a VPN, your location can be masked to look like it’s in a completely different country. Couple that with the data encryption and the big question should be, “Why have you put off using a VPN for this long?”With that said, I want to show you how to use the Opera VPN on both the mobile and desktop versions. I’ll be demonstrating this on the Android and Linux versions of the browser, but the process should be similar, regardless of what platform you use.Using the VPN on Opera mobileLet’s first take a look at how to enable the VPN on Opera mobile. To do this, open Opera on your device. From the Opera main window (Figure 1), tap the profile icon at the bottom right of the display.The Opera mobile main window as seen on Android 12.In the resulting popup, tap the gear icon in the upper left corner. You should then see the listing for the VPN (Figure 2).The VPN is currently disabled.Tap the ON/OFF slider until it’s in the ON position. And now, everything you transmit from within the Opera browser is anonymized and encrypted.Using the VPN on Opera desktopTo enable the VPN on Opera desktop, you need to click the Opera icon in the top left corner and then click Settings. In the left navigation, click Privacy & security, where you’ll see the entry for Enable VPN (Figure 3).Enabling the VPN on Opera desktop running on Pop!_OS Linux.Click the ON/OFF slider until it’s in the ON position, which will place a small VPN icon to the left of the address bar (Figure 4).With the VPN icon showing, you know the VPN is on.Testing the VPN connectionThere’s a simple way to test if the VPN connection is working. First, turn off the VPN and go to whatismyipaddress.com. The results should not only show your current IP address, but also the location of your IP address. Next, turn on the VPN and go back to the same site. You should see both a different IP address and location. With the Opera VPN off, my connection was listed correctly. With the VPN on, my connection was listed in Colima Mexico. Success!And that’s all there is to using the Opera VPN on both the mobile and desktop versions. If you value your security and privacy, you should seriously consider making use of this feature. More
Written by
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes, Contributor
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes
Contributor
Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is an internationally published technology author who has devoted over two decades to helping users get the most from technology — whether that be by learning to program, building a PC from a pile of parts, or helping them get the most from their new MP3 player or digital camera. Adrian has authored/co-authored technical books on a variety of topics, ranging from programming to building and maintaining PCs.
Full Bio
AMD and Qualcomm have been in collaboration to optimize the FastConnect 6900 wireless connectivity for the Ryzen PRO line of processors aimed at business laptops.By using the 6GHz wireless band, FastConnect can improve video conferencing, reduce latency, and enhance connection reliability by using multiple Wi-Fi bands.
But FastConnect offers more. IT administrators can now leverage the AMD Manageability Processor and make use of FastConnect’s support for almost three dozen of the most widely used Open Standard-Based (DASH) profiles to carry out remote management on AMD commercial platforms.This is a fantastic built-in ready-to-use solution for enterprise customers where hybrid working is now a big part of what IT admins have to deal with.”Out-of-band Wi-Fi remote management is an important tool for enterprise IT managers to diagnose and fix issues, even when the operating system is not running,” said Jason Banta, CVP and General Manager, OEM Client Computing AMD. “AMD Ryzen PRO 6000 Series processors with Qualcomm FastConnect 6900 enable next-generation business laptops to have the processing and connectivity tools needed to perform in modern environments, offering professional-strength remote manageability for users in the new, hybrid workplace.”The first chips to offer FastConnect will be the AMD Ryzen PRO 6000 Series processors, and these will be found in systems such as the Lenovo ThinkPad Z Series and HP EliteBook 805 Series.Along with FastConnect, these chips bring with them the power, performance, and great battery life — the features that business laptop users need.”Our collaboration with AMD reflects Qualcomm Technologies’ commitment to the mobile computing space. By optimizing FastConnect 6900 for platforms powered by AMD Ryzen 6000 Series processors, we’re bringing secure Wi-Fi remote management to AMD enterprise customers,” said Dino Bekis, vice president and general manager, Mobile Compute and Connectivity, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “This represents the first step in our relationship to bring superior wireless connectivity to the AMD mobile computing roadmap.”
Processors More
Written by
Tiernan Ray, Contributing Writer
Tiernan Ray
Contributing Writer
Tiernan Ray has been covering technology and business for 27 years. He was most recently technology editor for Barron’s where he wrote daily market coverage for the Tech Trader blog and wrote the weekly print column of that name.
Full Bio
“For the first time, I am trying to say exactly what kinds of value are created by networks,” Bob Metcalfe, inventor of Ethernet, told a small group during a soiree on the sidelines of The Knowledge Graph conference. He predicts decentralized knowledge graphs, which marry knowledge graph databases with connectivity, will create new forms of value.
Arnold Safanova
When Bob Metcalfe was selling Ethernet to the world as a new networking technology in the 1980s at 3Com Corp., he had a clever sales pitch: You’ll get more value out of the product the more of it you buy.What was a cheeky pitch hid a deeper element of truth: Networks are more valuable the more things they connect. Later, Metcalfe refined what he was talking about, formulating what was called “Metcalfe’s Law.” The law says, The value of the network increases as the square of the number of entities taking part in the network, where entities could be computers, but also humans, as in the case of Facebook. The value is squared because that’s the number of connections that can be formed.
Things that get better in this way, said Metcalfe, have what he has christened “network effects,” a kind of centripetal force where more and more participants induce even more participation, in a virtuous cycle. Facebook shows that: The more people join, the more other people are inclined to join. Metcalfe is still refining his pitch for his Law and learning at the same time. “There are going to be all kinds of network effects in Web3,” said Metcalfe, during an informal gathering in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on the sidelines of The Knowledge Graph conference, a conference where enthusiasts of knowledge graphs share technology and techniques and best practices. “For the first time, I am trying to say exactly what kinds of value are created by networks,” Metcalfe told ZDNet at the Williamsburg event. “What I have learned today is that knowledge graphs can go a lot farther if they are decentralized,” said Metcalfe. “The key is the connectivity.”Earlier in the day, Metcalfe had given a talk at the KGC main stage, “Network Effects in Web3.” In the talk, Metcalfe explained that “networks are valuable,” in many ways. They offer value as “collecting data,” said Metcalfe, the ability to get data from many participants. There was also sharing value, sharing disk drives, say, or sharing files. Netflix, said Metcalfe, has “distribution value — they distribute content and it’s valuable.”There will be new forms of value creation, Metcalfe believes, based on startups that combine knowledge graphs with connectivity. The event in Williamsburg was hosted by one such startup, OriginTrail, which was founded in 2013, is officially headquartered in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and has offices in Gibraltar and the US. Metcalfe is an advisor to OriginTrail. Metcalfe, left, at the KGC conference Tuesday with OriginTrail general manager Juri Skornik, center, and CTO Branimir Rakic.
Arnold Safanova
OriginTrail is creating what it calls the first “decentralized” knowledge graph, a knowledge graph whose nodes can be networked.The basic idea is that while “Layer 1” technologies of blockchains authenticate items, the “Layer 2” technology of the OriginTrail’s Distributed knowledge Graph lets you query and interact with things that have been authenticated. Everything that is unique has a “Universal Asset Locator,” or UAL, an analog to Web URLs. The UALs are meant to be compliant with the W3C’s spec for “decentralized identifiers.” The form is just like an HTTP address, preceded by the identifier tag “dkg://”, for distributed knowledge graph, with the address of the particular item following. Transactions can happen as people “publish” things on the Internet with a unique UAL — through a simple “create” statement — that is then recorded by the decentralized knowledge graph of nodes, currently a couple thousand. Everything that is published is a unique asset, a digital twin, so that it can stand for real-world objects, such as sneakers or whiskey. It can be sold to another party, who “takes control of the state of that graph,” as Rakic explains, by giving the person the NFT that has the UAL.The nodes each have graph databases that have pieces of the collective graph, and they each function in a permissionless, peer-to-peer fashion that is analogous to how blockchains function. Similar to blockchains, those who run nodes to verify published things are rewarded by the people who publish the things.OriginTrail’s knowledge graph relies on multiple Layer 1 blockchains, but the company is soon going to introduce its own blockchain, running as a function of the Polkadot blockchain.As co-founder and CTO Branimir Rakic explained Wednesday during a technical presentation, “blockchains are not good databases.” Blockchains can be queried, but only in a limited fashion, said Rakic. What’s needed, maintains Rakic, is a “semantic network” on top of blockchains. That’s what the company proposes with its distributed knowledge graph. By combining Tim Berners-Lee’s notion of “The Semantic Web” with Web3, said Rakic, you’ll get “The Semantic Web3.” “I like where it’s going,” said Metcalfe of OriginTrail’s approach. “All this stuff — DeFi, DOAs, crypto — all the decentralized stuff of Web3, it’s all going in this direction of sharing value,” said Metcalfe. Metcalfe told the group at the Williamsburg soiree that decentralized knowledge graphs will make possible a kind of eternal springtime for artificial intelligence.”AI was invented in about 1968, when I was a graduate student,” he said. “And for years, AI would rise and then it would fall, and it fell because AI ran out of data,” explained Metcalfe, “AI relies on data.””Well, it’s not going to fall, it’s going to continue to rise, because the decentralized knowledge graphs are going to give AI more and more data.”Metcalfe, who for a decade served as a judge of the startup competition at SouthbySouthwest, was asked by ZDNet how he rates OriginTrail’s chances of success as a company. “The weakness of it is that it’s too complicated to explain” to ordinary mortals, said Metcalfe of the technology. The OriginTrail technology appears a bit like middleware, which is a category that only tends to excite a handful of people. “Yes, and I’m one of them,” said Metcalfe.Despite the complexity of the tech, “What they are doing is right in line with where things are going.” More importantly, he took on the advisor role because he’s learning from what the company is doing, educating himself on what new forms of value there will be.The Knowledge Graph Conference is in its fourth year, having begun life as a small affair in a ballroom at Columbia University in 2019. This year, after two years of virtual-only proceedings, the conference has blossomed into a sprawling hybrid event, with dozens of panels as well as live sessions at the Cornell Tech campus on Roosevelt Island in New York City. The program runs through May 6th.
ZDNet Recommends More
