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Science fiction writers have often mused about the merger of humans and machines. But while RoboCops and bionic superheroes aren’t likely to fight evil anytime soon, some exciting wearable smart technologies are already here. They may not match Tony Stark’s Iron Man suit, but they are enabling ordinary people to interact with the wider world — and the Internet of Everything (IoE) — in intriguing (and sometimes stylish!) ways.

So, if you think your smart device is generating and processing a lot of data today, get ready for an even closer connection with your personal technology in the near future. Wearables are infusing sensors into bands, watches, shoes, shirts, bras, glasses, earrings, necklaces, and helmets. And these technologies are ready to generate reams of data — as well as real-time insights — about the ways in which we live, play, learn, work, exercise, maintain health, you name it.

I expect wearables to be a core topic of conversation at the Internet of Things World Forum in Barcelona later this month. As a further evolution of IoT, IoE is all about connecting people, processes, data, and things in amazing new ways. And while we often hear about IoE’s potential to transform supply chains, factories, retailers, and assorted megaprojects, wearables are a good reminder that the people element of connecting the unconnected is paramount. Armed with these new technologies — and the ability to connect via the key pillars of IoE, such as cloud, mobility, video, and analytics —individuals will be able to monitor and quantify their lives like never before. Wearables add another dimension to the Quantified Self movement, which I covered in a previous blog.

Continue reading “Wearable Tech: At the Nexus of IoE, with a Sense of Style”



Authors

Joseph M. Bradley

Global Vice President

Digital & IoT Advanced Services

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At the GSMA Connected Women Event on October 10-11, I had the thrill of combining two of my favorite things – being in New York and speaking about women in technology. Both ignite a passion in me.

As a little girl, when hearing the question “What do you want to be when you grow up,” the answer “IT expert” rarely makes the top of the list. But maybe it’s time to plant the seeds of possibility in the minds of our daughters, nieces and women in our lives, especially with the IT job market perched on the brink of major growth. Continue reading “Technology Talent and the Growing Gap”



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Many Cisco customers with an interest in product security are aware of our security advisories and other publications issued by our Product Security Incident Response Team (PSIRT). That awareness is probably more acute than usual following the recent Cisco IOS Software Security Advisory Bundled Publication on September 25. But many may not be aware of the reasoning behind why, when, and how Cisco airs its “dirty laundry.”

Our primary reason for disclosing vulnerabilities is to ensure customers are able to accurately assess, mitigate, and remediate the risk our vulnerabilities may pose to the security of their networks.

In order to deliver on that promise, Cisco has has made some fundamental and formative decisions that we’ve carried forward since our first security advisory in June 1995.

Continue reading “A Culture of Transparency”



Authors

Clay Kossmeyer

Technical Manager

PSIRT US

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stuarttaylorI recently had the honor to speak at the Small Cells Forum in Dubai. One thing is certain: Wi-Fi and small cells are certainly important throughout the Middle East and Northern Africa.  Operators from throughout the region came together to learn how they could deploy small cells to meet their growing customer demands and improve their own bottom-line in the process.

I took away six key messages from the conference on the future of mobility in the Middle East:

  1. Small Cells Are the Next Big Thing: Operators from large countries like Saudi Arabia to smaller countries like Qatar all wanted to learn how they could use small cells to help them cope with the huge traffic that they are experiencing on their mobile networks and to  improve mobile coverage, especially indoors and in heavily congested areas.
  2. Small Cells Are Not an Add-On: SPs realize that future of mobile networks lies in a heterogeneous network (“HetNet”) world where licensed and unlicensed mobile networks coexist and complement each other.  With their unique strengths, Wi-Fi and licensed small cells are quickly becoming important components of an integrated access portfolio complementing the macro mobile access network.
  3. A New Continue reading “Small Cells are Big Things in the Middle East”


Authors

Stuart Taylor

Director

Service Provider Transformation Group

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April first falls on a Tuesday next year. The following Tuesday is Microsoft’s monthly security update. It will be the last monthly security update for the Windows XP operating system. About one third of the computers with Windows operating systems on the Internet today are still running Windows XP, an operating system almost 15 years old. After the April 2014 update, issues with Windows XP will no longer be patched; Windows XP users should have already migrated to a more current Windows version. So with that we present, David Netterman’s Top Ten Security Related Reasons Why You Should Upgrade Your Computer’s Old Operating System:
Continue reading “One Week After April First, It’s No Joke”



Authors

Lou Ronnau

Security Engineer

Security Intelligence Operations

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Big data seems to be everywhere these days. Everywhere you look there are new companies and technologies that promise to crunch up enormous databases and instantly extract from them knowledge and understanding.  Although that sounds impressive, it raises the question – how can that help me and my business? How does fitting an N degree polynomial to a CRM database help me grow my business?

At Cisco, we’ve taken a very practical approach to big data. We started by asking our customers: what do they want to know? What information would help our customers’ better manage their sites, optimize their operations and grow their business? We took those questions and built Connected Mobile Experiences (CMX) Analytics around them.

iStock retailWouldn’t a store manager want to know how many of his customers were new? Did that new marketing campaign launched last month really drive new visitors to the store? Or another example, let’s say the layout of the store was just changed, wouldn’t the manager want to know if it was effective? Did people spend more time in the store? How about better understanding your customer base?  Which web sites do my visitors visits? And of course retail isn’t the only segment that would like to know things. Wouldn’t an airport want to know how long people wait in the security line? Would a train station like to know how long before the train leaves people come into store?

Cisco’s CMX Analytics takes anonymous device location data gathered by the Cisco Mobility Services Engine (MSE), and leverages that data to provide clear, concise and relevant information.  In order to make the data easier to visualize, we have recently enhanced our user interface adding many features that help users immediately and intuitively grasp the data.  Our new dashboard enables every user to customize the views they wish to see and prioritize which data is meaningful to them. Our new Path engine enables customers to visualize how many people walk through the different paths in their venue. Our new reports can tell our customers everything from how many people are using their Wi-Fi to which floor people spend the most time in.  These are just a few examples of the many innovations pouring into out CMX Analytics platform. Continue reading “Three Flavors of CMX Analytics: Onsite, Online & Social”



Authors

Evyatar Ram

Product Manager

Enterprise Networking Group

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Video featuring Cisco employees sharing their experiences transitioning out of the military into the civilian workforce

Veterans Corporate Technology Day (VCTD) at Cisco Systems will take place this year on Thursday, November 7, 2013.  The day brings U.S. military personnel, spouses and caregivers to Cisco campuses and exposes them to available resources as they potentially transition to the civilian workforce.   Events will be hosted at the following locations:

  • Cisco San Antonio, Texas and Brook Army Medical Center (20 Vets)
  • Cisco Research Triangle Park, North Carolina  and Ft Bragg (100 Vets)
  • Cisco Englewood, Colorado and Ft Carson and local Air Force entities  (25 Vets)
  • Cisco San Jose, California (50 Vets)
  • Cisco Herndon, Virginia (100 Vets)

The multi-site event introduces mentorship programs and educational resources.  To register, Continue reading “Veterans Corporate Technology Day 2013”



Authors

Olivia Shen Green

No Longer at Cisco

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As our team has prepared for Educause 2013 this week, we have been talking a lot about technology in higher education and how it’s impacting colleges, universities, students and staff. Of course, robot soccer was not the first thing that came to mind, but it’s a great example of how different technologies are changing education forever.

Bowdoin College, which you may remember from last year’s #1 Most Connected College, is one of my favorite case studies because it points out that people have to TRUST technology for it to really be effective. Trust is a big word, really – I know I’m not the only person who is a little gun shy when I think about updating my phone to a new software version. So, when a professor has a class full of students and says “let’s all stream this video right now”, it’s important that it actually works – or professors risk losing student attention, losing time and facing maximum frustration levels.

Continue reading “Robot Soccer? Staying Connected at Bowdoin College”



Authors

Kerry Best

Marketing Manager

Public Sector Marketing

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By Rebecca Leach, Cisco Canada

It’s October again and that means a few things: the weather is starting to cool down; it’s almost time to carve pumpkins and it’s SMB Week/Month (depending on who you ask)! We’re kicking off SMB Week/Month with part one of a four-part blog series focusing on preparing small business owners for their next technology upgrade.

For part one, I thought we would start at the beginning of any business purchase, financing.

It’s quite common to see a small business’ big technology idea be restricted because of budget. Finding the right financing plan for your information technology (IT) project is critical because often, simple upgrades can provide the framework your business needs to reach its goals.

A good financing plan will allow you to align your IT assets with your business initiatives. It can help you adopt new technology that will increase profits in the long run and your immediate cash flow can be invested back into your company. Here are five tips on how to find the right financing plan for your small business:

Make a plan

Before looking at financing options, you must decide what technology you need to achieve your business objectives. While setting these goals, ensure you are being realistic in regards to your financial realities. If your budget is slim, allocate your resources to what you predict will be the most important and rewarding project. Once you have a plan you can browse your financing options while being educated and targeted, not wasting any of your – or your business’ – time.

Start with a flexible contract

In today’s fast-paced world it is important to ensure you are signing a contract that will allow you to stay current with technology innovations. By starting with a flexible contract you are able to control your IT investments when new business or technology is introduced. When starting a business, cash flow can be volatile so having a flexible payment plan in place can deter additional fees or unforeseen costs. In order to achieve this stability, choose a company that offers captive financing rates. And here’s another tip: some types of institutions are supported by their parent company, and not impacted by banks’ fluctuating rates.

Look for the ability to upgrade

The issue with purchasing IT hardware is that technology can become obsolete before you teach all of your employees how to use it. Having a contract that requires you pay off old hardware before purchasing new can severely affect a small business’ cash flow, so when evaluating financing plans look for companies that offer the ability to refresh the technology you have by replacing old hardware and software with newer versions. Some plans offer to purchase back your existing equipment before leasing you a new asset. It is also beneficial to investigate which plans include environmentally-friendly disposal of your old technology. These features are more commonly found in financing plans that come from the technology provider itself.

Request an adjustable lifecycle

Most technology has a suggested lifecycle, based on the optimal time to refresh your system and services. While these suggestions are usually accurate and timed to when new products are set to be released, it is still important to have the ability to refresh when you feel it is necessary. Your IT and business needs may not change on the same timeline as your technology. Unpredictable events can happen, so look for a product suite that will offer an adjustable lifecycle to fit the needs of your small business.

Decide what to finance

Lastly, it is important for you to dictate what you want to finance and what you are prepared to pay for upfront. Implementation, servicing and maintenance costs can all be incorporated into your financing plans, lowering the cost of ownership while giving you time to establish your business and optimize the return on investment (ROI) of your solution. Find a plan that allows you to bundle operating, maintenance, service solutions, technology migration, sales and leaseback services, depending on your needs.

To learn more about what Cisco offers SMB’s, visit our website.



Authors

Cindy Toy

Small Business Support Community Manager

eSupport