In a blog post this week, Cisco revealed that the company will no longer be producing the Cius. The enterprise-focused tablet was released last year but never caught on with business consumers, who are increasingly opting for Apple's iPad, and other competitors to a lesser extent, as a mobile computing solution.
Apple is one of several parties in talks with Russia's Skolkovo technology park about possible research and development facilities there, according to local publication Izvestia. Other interested companies are said to include Google and Facebook; agreements are reportedly already in place for firms such as Microsoft, IBM, General Electric, and Cisco. Skolkovo's organizers are said to be aiming at making the park a Russian equivalent of Silicon Valley.
China's second biggest telecommunications gear maker ZTE was found to have sold embargoed US computer equipment to Iran. A Tuesday Reuters report claimed that documents show ZTE sold some computer gear as part of a $10.5 million supply contract to a unit that controls Iranian telecoms. The documents are dated June 30, 2011 and explain how Iran got sophisticated US hardware despite sanctions against such transactions.
AT&T's Cisco-made PS3 jailbreaking, has posted explorations that have shown it might be dangerously open. Connecting to the WAN Ethernet port lets users run with root-level privileges on the mini, virtual cell site's Linux OS without a password. Although data going out is routed to a specific AT&T connection, the full access means anyone can change the IP to somewhere else.
Cisco's Linksys badge unveiled a trio of new Smart Wi-Fi routers with updates both for software and the pure technology underneath. The EA4500, EA3500, and EA2700 all support apps that link into the Cisco Connect Cloud web portal to not just administer the router from outside the home network but control attached devices. Cisco has suggested home theater devices like TVs, and even home appliances, could be controlled as long as they're on the same router.
Apple leads US corporations in terms of cash reserves, notes Moody’s Investors Service’s Richard Lane. In all US corporations are said to hold about $1.2 trillion. Apple controls $97.6 billion; other tech companies in the top five include Microsoft with $51.7 billion, Cisco with $46.7 billion, and Google with $44.6 billion. Drugmaker Pfizer is fifth.
Google is already looking to sell the set-top box business it will get as part of the $12.5 billion buy of Motorola Mobility, the New York Post claimed. In August, during the announcement of the purchase, the plan was to make the business work under Google's tutelage. Cable operators have been slow to buy Motorola set-tops ever since the Google buy was announced.
The Wi-Fi Alliance has responded to word of security exploits in Wi-Fi Protected Setup with a statement alluding to a fix. It claimed to The Verge that its test routine and certification now made sure that Wi-Fi devices "effectively resist" brute, PIN code-based attacks. How that would resolve the gap, and whether or not a patch would be available for those devices that had already shipped, wasn't mentioned.
Industry association Wireless Broadband Alliance (WBA) revealed on Thursday that some of the biggest carriers in the world have successfully tested Next Generation Hotspots (NGH). Wi-Fi access to these hubs is much simpler, and the second half of 2012 will see more tests that involve more advanced features. The first commercial NGHs will be built over the course of the next 10 months.
Cisco has posted a formal appeal of the EU approval for Microsoft's acquisition of Skype. The networking giant accepted the merger on a basic level, but it wanted the European Commission to have imposed interoperability requirements. Making Microsoft adhere to standards would prevent it from trying to "control the future of video communications," Cisco said.
Cisco in a yearly state-of-affairs report on Tuesday showed both a rapid growth in data and aggressive predictions for the next four years. Mobile data use had grown 133 percent over the course of 2011, which it didn't see slowing down. As mobile viewers got more devices as well as faster connections, video use would become 70 percent of mobile data and lead to 18 times more data used per year in 2016, at 10.8 exabytes every month.
Cisco's Linksys badge brought out three new powerline networking kits for those who prefer or need mostly wired links. The PLEK400 one-port kit, PLSK400 four-port kit, and PLW400 wireless extender all run on the HomePlug standard and can reach up to 200Mbps. Linksys is vowing a small design that makes it practical to hook up other devices to the local wall outlet.
The IPv6 Internet addressing standard will get a more formal launch by its backers on June 6, which is being devoted World IPv6 Day. Seven global ISPs will back the new standard then, including AT&T, Comcast and Time Warner. Also onboard are heavily trafficked websites, including Facebook, Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft's Bing, as well as hardware makers Cisco and D-Link.
Cisco has stopped sales of its Umi video conferencing system Umi that has been price-dropped and re-branded for business use, SAI learned. While an official announcement to this effect hasn't been made by Cisco, a spokesperson confirmed to the source Cisco has stopped selling the system. When the system launched, it was expensive at $600 and included a 720p camera, controller and set-top box. In March, it was discounted to $400.
Eight metropolitan areas will soon be getting high-speed "middle-mile" networks. These are the backbones that feed the "last mile" that bring broadband services to customers and businesses. Last week, the city-owned DC Community Access Network (DC-CAN) lit up its 100-gigabit network in Washington, DC, while earlier this week, Verizon said it was upgrading seven cities in its FiOS backbone network to similar speeds.
Apple on Tuesday was reported as having had a lawsuit tossed in China over claims a small firm was violating the iPad trademark. The Shenzhen-area Southern Metropolis Daily said that the Intermediate People's Court dismissed the case against Proview Technology based on time to file. Proview had filed for the trademark in 2000, several years before work had even started on the iPad.
Cisco has plans to follow up its enterprise-oriented seven-inch Cius tablet with at least two potential successors, CNET learned. A larger and smaller version are due in the spring and fall of next year, respectively. The current tablet uses Android but is optimized for business use with a slew of security software. It also docks into phone stations for desk use.
Network gear maker Cisco and Swedish provider Telia at the DreamHack LAN event in Sweden yesterday tested their world record-setting 120Gbps Internet connection. All of the estimated 20,000 attendees were invited to test the connection, which runs the more than 186 miles between Stockholm and Jönköping. Previously, record speeds set at DreamHack were 20 gigabits.
VirnetX revealed on Monday that its latest lawsuit against Apple was being joined by a matching International Trade Commission dispute. The complaint touches on the same VPN-related patent used in the main lawsuit and which VirnetX has tried to wield against large parts of the technology industry. It hopes not just to ban future iPad, iPhone, iPod, and Mac sales but to stop all marketing and sales around whatever is currently in stores should it win.
AT&T has just introduced its latest U-verse TV accessory, the TV Wireless Receiver (PDF). Due on October 31, it will connect to the company's residential gateway and send broadcasts over Wi-Fi from the receiver to the TV. This lets customers put TV sets in rooms or other places, such as patios or backyards, where there are no TV outlets.
Innovatio IP Ventures, a company that owns a portfolio of patents reportedly tied to Wi-Fi technology, has began suing coffee shops, grocery stores, restaurants and hotels for allegedly infringing upon those patents. According to PatentExaminer, the company's strategy is to prey on ill-prepared franchises rather than parent companies and offering them the option of settling for between $2,300 and $5,000. Innovatio is represented by Niro, Haller & Niro, the firm associated with patent trolls from the time the term was coined.
Samsung ramped up the launch of four new smartphones under a previously hinted new naming scheme. The Galaxy W hits the new mid-range and runs on a 1.4GHz, single-core chip with a 3.7-inch display. It still as much of the modern TouchWiz interface on top of Android 2.3 and supports up to 14.4Mbps HSPA for reasonably fast 3G.
Cisco on Tuesday introduced its new Linksys WES610N 802.11n Wi-Fi dual-band entertainment bridge. The device will bring together any home theater device with an Ethernet port onto a home wireless network, be they set-top boxes, HDTVs or games consoles. It can offer speeds up to 300Mbps and has multiple antennas for greater range.
The Cisco Cius tablet that went on pre-order back in April will ship this summer, Verizon announced on Wednesday. The pro Android tablet will initially, however, only be available to Verizon's enterprise and government customers. It will be the Wi-Fi version of the slate, with no built-in 3G or 4G.
Cisco is reportedly preparing to reduce its workforce by approximately 14 percent, a move that may eliminate 10,000 positions. The company is said to be planning 7,000 layoffs by the end of August, while early-retirement incentives will be offered to another 3,000 employees, unnamed sources have told Bloomberg.
Cisco has launched a new app platform for its enterprise-centric Cius tablet. Its new AppHQ includes a relatively small collection of both free and paid apps. The new app ecosystem is also designed to allow companies to create private, custom branded application storefronts for employees to find publish and download applications for business use. The AppHQ platform is developer-friendly with a range of tools being made available for developers to create enterprise apps.
A tell-all document escaped on Friday night has detailed some of Time Warner Cable's plans to revamp its TW Cable TV iPad app and tweak its DVRs. The 2.0 version of the app would bring a full interactive guide as well as turn the iPad into a direct remote control for the set-top box, Engadget saw. Owners would get the option of remotely scheduling a DVR when it's available.
Cisco on Wednesday denied that it was planning to sell off Linksys. While it said it would cut the Flip line as part of its return to a "network-centric platform strategy," it told the Register that it wouldn't confirm or deny rumors. The company also didn't discuss talk that its WebEx web conferencing service was also up for grabs.
Cisco announced this week users who uploaded photos and videos to the company's FlipShare Web Service have 30 days from May 12 to back them up or face having them erased. Cisco discontinued the Flip brand in mid-April among fierce competition from cellphone cameras. Flip has posted a guide online on how users can back up their videos from FlipShare.
At the Business Innovation Forum in California on Wednesday, Verizon Wireless executive director of LTE didn't provide any direct reasons for the network's outage late in April. When pressed, Brian Higgins told the audience Verizon took steps to ensure the problem won't reoccur, but did not provide any details on why it happened or which of its vendors is to blame, ConnectedPlanet wrote on Wednesday. The company's 3G and LTE networks went out for 24 hours across the US.
Cisco both bolstered and faced setbacks its plans for tablets in the workforce with plans for an AT&T-native version of the Cius. The seven-inch Android tablet will come with HSPA+ 3G for AT&T's network but won't ship until the fall, several months after the basic version. The Cius can still handle video and voice calls both in "wired environments," using the phone dockm as well as over wireless.
The Cisco REN301 Residential Gateway Wi-Fi router has shown at the FCC undergoing compliance testing prior to its release. The device is a single-band router that supports 802.11 b/g/n and incorporates a color LCD display. It also includes capacitive touch buttons that allows the device to be set up and configured without the need to use a PC.
The WebM Project took a defensive measure on Monday with the creation of the WebM Community Cross-License. The approach will see 17 companies and groups give licenses to any WebM-related patents they have to other CCL members. Google, Matroska, and Xiph.org form the core but are joined by AMD, Cisco, Huawei, LG, Logitech, MIPS, Mozilla, Opera, Pantech, Quanta, Samsung, STMicro, TI, and Verisilicon.
Lenovo's plans for Android tablets beyond the Le Pad should take it into professional models based on a leaked presentation from Sunday. Called the ThinkPad Tablet, it would be the first known Lenovo slate with Android 3.0 and would make software customizations beyond just including the PC builder's already known Family UI interface. This is my next's copy of the slides showed "seamless integration" with corporate environments that would load up Cisco remote security tools, Computrace to find stolen tablets, as well as local security tools from McAfee and Symantec.
An image of the FlipLive, Cisco's latest camera in its now discontinued Flip range, has shown up online thanks to Gizmodo. The camera, which would have the ability to stream video to the cloud, would have been the company's most advanced product. Cisco announced it was exiting the portable digital video camera business the day before the FlipLive was supposed to be announced.
The US Supreme Court at a session on Monday will hear Microsoft call to change patent law in a way that could help both the Windows developer and many other technology firms fend off patent troll lawsuits. The motion will attempt to change a rule that requires a defending company provide absolute, definitive evidence that a patent is invalid in order to avoid a guilty verdict. Under Microsoft's proposal, courts could invalidate patents only by requiring that the majority of evidence supports rejecting the patent.
The Cius business tablet introduced last June is now available for pre-order, Cisco announced on Friday. The seven-inch, Android-powered tablet can be ordered through a Cisco field agent or or resllers. The tablets will begin shipping towards the end of April and throughout May.
Cisco was to have unveiled a first-of-its-kind livestreaming pocket camcorder before it killed the Flip brand, a new post-mortem scoop uncovered. Named the FlipLive, it would have not just connected to Wi-Fi but would have shared video in real-time. A product manager had briefed the New York Times that the new Flip would have allowed sharing a link through e-mail, Facebook, or Twitter that would take users directly to the streaming page.
Intel's plans to support Android 3.0 on x86 may include paying incentives to get developers onboard. The chip designer was said on Wednesday to be paying a $10 chip subsidy to "first-tier notebook vendors" if they make a tablet using an Intel processor. One of those spotted by Digitimes would include an unannounced Cisco tablet using the Atom Z670 (Oak Trail) that would bring Android 3.0 to enterprise users.
Cisco today axed its Flip camera division in a bid to bring the company back into shape. The company provided few details but said its new "network-centric platform strategy" meant the former Pure Digital group had to be closed. Those on the FlipShare service would be supported through a "transition plan," though Cisco didn't say what that was.
VirnetX is expanding the scope of lawsuits targeting several major technology corporations, according to an announcement. The company has won a new patent from the USPTO, Agile Network Protocol for Secure Communications Using Secure Domain Names, which it is amending to complaints in two separate suits. The first case lists Aastra, Apple, Cisco and NEC as defendants; the second is leveled against Mitel and Siemens.
Cisco today revamped the rest of its E-series routers and SE-series switches to match the design aesthetic of the E4200. The E1200 and E1500 make up the baseline and provide 300Mbps 802.11n Wi-Fi only on the 2.4GHz band along with four 100Mbps Ethernet ports. The E1500 adds a SpeedBoost function along with a third receiver and an external signal amp to get the signal faster.
Cisco has announced that its HDTV-based ūmi video conferencing system is now compatible with the company's range of TelePresence systems for businesses. The interoperability is claimed to enable businesses to take advantage of video communication for services such as distance learning, healthcare, and community services.
AT&T on Monday announced it will soon offer a set-top box equipped with Wi-Fi. The Cisco ISB7005 will be offered to U-Verse customers and has just gone through FCC testing. The device will have Wi-Fi but, rather than use it for local network sharing, will let users receive TV signals without the need to connect a co-axial cable.
For a fourth year in a row, Fortune has once again identified Apple as its Most Admired company in the world. Apple has an overall score of 8.16. "The company's blistering pace of new product releases has continued to set the bar high for tech companies across the board," Fortune writes.
Logitech Digital Home Group VP Ashish Arora gave clues at OTTCon on Tuesday that the promised Android Market for Google TV was coming soon. He vowed that it would not only come this year but that it should be available in the "very short term." The executive added that apps from the Market wouldn't be isolated widget apps and could link its own content to TV.
Several major US technology executives have been officially photographed with President Obama at a dinner meeting on Thursday night. As expected, three people on the guest list included Apple CEO Steve Jobs, Google's Eric Schmidt, and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Jobs and Zuckerberg were notably given the most prominent positions during the dinner, seated directly to the left and right of the President.
A variety of technology corporations are among those pressuring the US government to give them a preferential tax break, sources tell Fortune. Apple, Cisco, Pfizer and Duke Energy are specifically named as lobbying politicians for a tax "holiday" in regards to repatriated cash. Whereas the companies would normally be obligated to pay 35 percent, their goal is allegedly to pay just 5 percent.
Cisco Systems is planning on buying out Inlet Technologies for $95 million in an effort to bolster its streaming video abilities, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday. The deal would help users access video on handheld devices. The deal should be completed by the first half of the year and will integrate Inlet employees into Cisco's service provider video technology group.
An FCC filing published today has confirmed that Cisco is developing a Wi-Fi version of its Flip Video cameras. The M3260 has been tested using 802.11n Wi-Fi along with the requisite HDMI and USB connectors. The purpose of the wireless isn't clear, but it would likely be used to share video on a local network and possibly to upload video directly to YouTube or Facebook.
