keyword: Internet

sap:-solid-annual-financial-statements,-moderate-goals-for-2021

SAP: Solid annual financial statements, moderate goals for 2021

Europe’s largest software manufacturer SAP ended a difficult year with a decent final quarter. Earnings before interest and taxes adjusted for special effects were between October and the end of December at EUR 2. 77 billion euros, around 3 percent below the previous year’s value, as SAP surprisingly did in Walldorf on Thursday on the basis of preliminary figures. However, that was significantly better than analysts estimated, because license sales in particular did not fall as sharply in the fourth quarter as feared in the Corona crisis. Total sales fell by 6 percent to 7 54 billion euros. SAP wants the complete financial report on 29. Submit January.

Outlook with moderate goals SAP already provides the outlook for the current year. The management around CEO Christian Klein had already warned in October of the consequences of the pandemic, which should weigh on demand until at least half of the year. SAP now expects that profits from the sale of software subscriptions and licenses 2020 will stagnate or increase by a maximum of 2 percent after adjusting for currency effects. Below this, SAP trusts the fast-growing software for use over the Internet, but growth from 13 to 18 percent to. The management plans adjusted operating profit of 7.8 to 8.2 billion euros – that would be a decrease of between one and 6 percent.

( olb)

more-than-500-brown-dwarfs:-3d-map-of-the-neighborhood-of-our-sun

More than 500 brown dwarfs: 3D map of the neighborhood of our sun

With the help of thousands of volunteers, a team of astronomers has created the most comprehensive 3D map of so-called brown dwarfs in the vicinity of the sun to date. You have now presented the map with 525 celestial bodies, including 38 newly discovered objects. According to the research results, the closer environment of our sun is also particularly diverse compared to other areas in the Milky Way, they explain. It is the latest scientific analysis based on the “Backyard Worlds: Planet 9” project, in which amateur researchers help evaluate astronomical recordings.

Search for stars on the internet “Backyard Worlds: Planet 9” was the beginning 2017 with a special website went online. Interested parties can watch thumb-cinema-like film sequences recorded by NASA’s Wise space telescope and search for moving objects on them. Human observers can play to their strengths here, because algorithms are overwhelmed by the many image artifacts. Anyone who finds something can mark it for examination by astronomers.

The brown dwarfs sought in this project are celestial bodies that are not massive enough to ignite a nuclear fusion, as in stars, but at the same time clearly more massive than (exo-) planets. Some aren’t even as hot as boiling water and might even have clouds of water. Especially with the finds of several of these particularly cold specimens, the project is making a significant contribution to closing previous gaps. Overall, the map covers an area with a radius of 65 light years.

In the end, the researchers and their helpers ran out of time because that NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope was shut down a year ago. Before that, it could be used again to determine the position of hundreds of the discovered brown dwarfs – as the basis for the 3D map now being presented. “Without the Citizen Scientists, we would not have been able to create such a complete compilation in such a short time,” explains Davy Kirkpatrick of the California Institute of Technology. They also found the coldest brown dwarf to date with temperatures below freezing point (of water). The scientists are now presenting the current status of their research in the specialist magazine The Astrophysical Journal Supplement, with many helpers from “Backyard Worlds: Planet 9” being listed as co-authors.

(mho)

20-years-of-wikipedia:-interview-with-encyclopedia-co-founder-jimmy-wales

20 years of Wikipedia: Interview with encyclopedia co-founder Jimmy Wales

Jimmy Wales is the face of Wikipedia. He co-founded the online encyclopedia 2001, headed up to 2006 the Wikimedia Foundation, the foundation behind Wikipedia, and has a seat on the foundation’s board of trustees to this day. c’t he answered questions about the origins of the platform, his role in the project and the future of Wikipedia.

c’t: In the year 2001 you had earned some money as a stock market trader and founded your first start-up: Bomis.com. How did you come up with the idea of ​​starting an online encyclopedia?

Jimmy Wales: I came into contact with the free software movement then. And I thought to myself: You could actually use this type of collaboration for anything. Writing an encyclopedia seemed like an obvious first choice to me.

c’t: Was there a special need for an online encyclopedia or was it just a matter of experimenting with the new form of collaboration?

Wales: Both were the case. It was pretty obvious at the time that an encyclopedia was needed on the internet. There have been millions of websites with specific knowledge, but often you are only looking for an abstract. There was a need for an overview of established knowledge.

c’t: In addition to the technical basis for Wikipedia, the decision to make the encyclopedia a non-profit project is also decisive for the character the Wikipedia. How did this come about?

Wales: Wikipedia is in many ways a child of the dot-com crash. It was not clear at the time whether any viable business model or investors could be found to further develop the project. Many of the volunteers were very much in favor of us developing Wikipedia as a non-profit organization. It immediately made sense to me: an encyclopedia is similar to an institution like a library or a school. The decision turned out to be very good for us. For one thing, we are still here today. On the other hand, a free and advertising-free Wikipedia is what comes closest to our original vision.

c’t: Would advertising funding have changed the character of Wikipedia?

Wales: Possibly. How you make your money has a huge impact on organizations – whether it’s a company or a non-profit organization. The incentives for tackling certain problems are shifting. People only donate to Wikipedia when they feel the project is making a meaningful impact on their lives. If we had relied on strategies like clickbait headlines or deliberately provocative content, this would not be the case.

c’t: There were a lot of commercial challengers. Did any of these bother you?

Wales: Not really. We were very successful very early on. I’ve looked at a few projects that have been labeled in the press as possible Wikipedia killers. I realized very quickly that they didn’t have the potential of Wikipedia. For example, Microsoft Encarta allowed users to change their posts at some point. I thought: This is definitely an interesting change of course. So I signed up and tried it out. However, once I sent off a change, I got feedback that within a week someone would look at my change and decide if my work would be accepted. It was clear to me: This is no competition for Wikipedia. It won’t really be fun for anyone to wait a whole week for a change.

But since we never had commercial ambitions at Wikipedia, we were able to approach the work relatively relaxed. We were just a couple of geeks having fun. If people like it – great. If we hadn’t liked it, we would still have had fun.

c’t: Many of the geeks who enjoyed Wikipedia came from Germany .

Wales: We had a strong community in Germany right from the start. A lot of people developed a real passion for the project. Not just when writing articles, but also with the developers who advanced our software. The German community also helped us structurally. A German Wikipedian once told me a joke: What do you call two Germans? A club. What do you call three Germans? A club with problems. (laughs) So the community in Germany really wanted to create an organization. And what was created here at the time became a model for all local associations that have been founded around the world since then.

c’t: You once compared your role in the Wikipedia community with that english queen. Is that still like that?

Wales: I think it’s still like this: I have a certain role in the community – but I don’t really have any power. I try to remind people of the values ​​on which Wikipedia is based. When there is a dispute in the community, I try not to get involved too much. But sometimes I do speak up.

Recently there was an example. There were two candidates for political office in the United States. We had an article about the incumbent but not one about her challenger. I asked why that is. It turned out: there was no targeted decision against the challenger. The fact that her article was deleted was the result of a whole series of decisions, for example about the relevance criteria of Wikipedia. It looked like a bug to me. It should be the goal of an encyclopedia that voters can find out about the candidate of one of the major parties for an important political office. But my role is not just to make the decision or to change the rules – I just made people aware of it.

c’t: For many people who are new to Wikipedia want, it is frustrating that they cannot understand the decisions. How would you describe the decision-making process?

Wales: (laughs) Even for people who have been involved in Wikipedia for a long time, this is sometimes frustrating. It is a very complex process, with many traditions. Sometimes the rules are written down, sometimes not. Much of it works on a social level. Some people have acquired a high status with their work, which makes it easier for them to enforce certain decisions than others who are new – especially if they are quick-tempered.

c’t: One The primary goal of the Wikimedia Foundation was to make Wikipedia big in developing countries. But a success like that in Germany is still missing. Why is this?

Wales: There are a number of reasons. Where there are problems with financing education and generally available Internet access, Wikipedia has a harder time. My view is that we as Wikimedia should invest more money in these countries. Of course, some of the pilot projects will fail. But in my opinion this is extremely important for the mission of Wikipedia.

c’t: One of the newest sister projects of Wikipedia is Wikidata. In just a few years, it has brought together a billion factual statements.

Wales: I am fascinated by Wikidata. I think the project has great potential. We know that many services such as voice assistance systems are based on a treasure trove of data that is proprietary. Google, Apple and Amazon control all of this knowledge. I see that as a problem. In contrast, Wikidata is completely open. My hope is that there will be many developers who know what to do with this treasure trove of data.

c’t: Companies like Google, Apple and Amazon love Wikidata and some of them already use the database quite extensively. Is that what you want?

Wales: I think it’s like open source software. People can use it if they can find a use for it.

c’t: A new project is trying to generate readable articles from Wikidata’s data repository. Is this the future of Wikipedia? Can you imagine articles being written by artificial intelligence rather than humans?

Wales: I think there is still a long way to go. For example, a lot of people are very impressed with the texts that are created using the GPT-3 AI model. But the reality is: Even if the lyrics sound plausible, many of the results are pure nonsense. On the other hand, I see many uses for AI technology. Programs could search Wikipedia for statements that seem to contradict each other. But these results should then be checked by a person.

Significantly more complex applications would also be possible, for example to check whether an article has a certain bias or really reflects what is in the linked source stands. Of course, this is not a program that you can hack together in C ++ in five minutes. If the result has an acceptable success rate, then using AI for Wikipedia could make a lot of sense.

folder 3 / 2021 In c’t 3 / 2021 we tested WiFi routers. We wanted to know what advantages Fritzbox & Co. with Wi-Fi 6 bring over the previous models. How you can secure your communication reliably and without loss of comfort, we explain in a major focus. Many users are currently working from home and have to share the management with their family members – a new tariff and short contract periods could help. We also tested fast SSDs, inexpensive 5G smartphones and much more. You can read these and other topics in c’t 3 / 2021. The output is from 15. 1. 2021 available in the Heise shop and at the well-stocked newspaper kiosk.

(jo) 2021

zte-axon-20-5g-–-the-first-with-a-rear-screen-camera

ZTE Axon 20 5G – The first with a rear-screen camera


Tweakers uses cookies Tweakers is part of DPG Media. Our sites and apps use cookies, JavaScript and similar technology to provide you with an optimal user experience, among other things. It also allows us to record and analyze the behavior of visitors and add this information to visitor profiles.

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oracle's-software-top-man-wim-coekaerts:-linux-is-my-hobby

Oracle's software top man Wim Coekaerts: Linux is my hobby


Tweakers uses cookies Tweakers is part of DPG Media. Our sites and apps use cookies, JavaScript and similar technology to provide you with an optimal user experience, among other things. It also allows us to record and analyze the behavior of visitors and add this information to visitor profiles.

Cookies can be used to show advertisements on Tweakers and to recommend articles that match your interests. Third parties can also track your internet behavior, as is the case with embedded videos from YouTube.

Cookies can also be used to display relevant advertisements on third party sites. More information about this can be found at tweakers.net/cookies.

To view pages on Tweakers, you must accept cookies by clicking on ‘Yes, I accept cookies’.

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file-sharing:-us-provider-has-to-pay-the-music-industry-$-1-billion

File sharing: US provider has to pay the music industry $ 1 billion

The US Internet provider Cox Communications has to pay one billion US dollars (currently 150 million euros) to 57 record companies and music publishers. Customers of the ISP have in the years 2013 and 2014 10. 017 Pieces of music copied via file sharing networks. Because Cox has not cut off these customers from the Internet despite complaints from the rights holders, the company now has to answer for the copyright infringements of its customers as a contributor from a recent ruling by the US federal district court for eastern Virginia. At first, jurors had Cox Communications ending 2019 to almost 100. 000 Fined dollars per piece of music, which multiplied by 10. 017 makes exactly one billion dollars. The law even stipulates the maximum amount 150. 000 Dollars per infringement.

Too late is expensive Thereupon Cox requested a reduction in the total amount: some of the pieces of music were derived from one another, for example in the form of remixes or shorter variants. Therefore the same amount should not be estimated for all pieces. But that, according to the court, should have been brought up by Cox in the jury trial. Now it is too late for that.

The provider still has the option of an appeal to the Federal Court of Appeal for the fourth federal judicial district. The procedure is called Sony Music et al v. Cox Communications et al and has been serving in the U.S. Federal District Court for Eastern Virginia since 2018 under ref. 1: 18 – cv – 00950 pending.

Decision of the jury in December 2019 Rejection of the reduction (ds)

20-years-of-wikipedia:-bulwark-against-fake-news

20 years of Wikipedia: bulwark against fake news

From today’s perspective, Wikipedia always seems to have belonged to the Internet. It goes without saying, especially for younger people, to get all possible information about Goethe, hypotenuses and the Basic Law for homework there. And yet – Wikipedia is actually a late development of the first dotcom boom.

The concept of the “wiki” was already six years old old when Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on 15. January 2001 started Wikipedia; with everything that was needed: a web server, a database and some PHP.

A crazy experiment Nobody knows exactly which articles were the first in the new encyclopedia or who the first authors were – only a few screenshots have survived. After all, you can leaf through the contents of Wikipedia in a nostalgic edition of 2001. In the early days, the project received relatively little public attention: The first dotcom crash had weakened the feverish curiosity of the first few online years.

The first news ticker articles followed: about the 100000. Wikipedia article in the English edition, den 20000. Article in the German Wikipedia, the first cooperation with a search engine provider and the first appeal for donations. Wikipedia had not only established itself as a serious project, but also set the course for the first time, which justified the later rise. A series of articles appeared on Telepolis on the dance of the brains in the young Wiki scene, penned by Erik Möller, who later became one of the leading collaborators of the Wikimedia Foundation. Concepts like the “neutral user point of view” of the Wikipedia articles became known to a wider public.

internet-of-things:-hivemq-4.5-rewrites-kafka

Internet of Things: HiveMQ 4.5 rewrites Kafka

The German company HiveMQ has released version 4.5 of the MQTT broker of the same name. A major focus for the release is on performance optimization. On the technical side, a Kafka-to-MQTT transformer and the expandable REST API are worth mentioning. The current version is an LTS release that will receive guaranteed support until January 2023, which the customer will then receive can extend an additional year.

According to the blog post on the publication, the performance improvements have an impact on larger installations in particular and should reduce the time during Entering and leaving a cluster and the replication of messages in the queue (Queued Messages) and retained messages (Retained Messages) concern. In addition, the memory requirement for specific scenarios should be significantly lower.

A transformer for Kafka In June 2020 HiveMQ released a connector for Apache Kafka. The open source software is often used in the Internet of Things due to its specialization in processing data streams. Version 4.4 of the MQTT broker had a customization API on board to transform data on the way from MQTT to Kafka.

At the 24. and 25. The building IoT will take place for the sixth time on March 1st. The organizers heise Developer, iX and dpunkt.verlag are hosting the developer conference as an online event for the first time this year. With its technical focus, the conference is aimed at IT professionals who create applications and products for the Internet of Things.

The call for proposals runs until 18. January.

With HiveMQ, developers can now go the other way around and convert content from Apache Kafka before the broker distributes it to the clients as an MQTT message. When enriching the data, you can integrate third-party systems into the transformation process. In this way, the broker can, among other things, distribute a Kafka data set with different MQTT topics to clients.

On the technical side, the extension of the REST API is also worth mentioning, which now enables an extension to include its own Tailor interfaces for specific use cases. In addition, the HiveMQ Kubernetes Operator introduced in version 4.4 offers a DNS (Domain Name System) extension with additional metrics. Among other things, it can be used to determine which DNS requests were successful and which failed. The extension can also show the cluster components found for a DNS resolution.

A beehive from Bavaria for MQTT HiveMQ is a Bavarian company operating under the name 2012 dc Square was born and has specialized in MQTT. 2019 it has adapted the company name to the central product: the HiveMQ broker. The latter has also been available in an open-source community edition since April 2019.

The acronym MQTT stands for Message Queuing Telemetry Transport, and the protocol widely used in the IoT (Internet of Things) relies on a publish / subscribe model in which the broker plays an essential role. MQTT clients subscribe to certain topics and thus become subscribers. Messages are also sent from an MQTT client, and the message contains information on the topic in addition to other information. The MQTT broker is responsible for distributing the published message to the other MQTT clients that have subscribed to the relevant topic.

The speedometer publishes 70 mph with the topic “speed”, which the Broker passes on to the subscribers of “speed”.

(Image: HiveMQ)

The MQTT broker HiveMQ has been April 2019 available in an open source version. In addition, the company offers a Professional Edition and an Enterprise Edition with additional functions that focus primarily on improved administration and use in clusters as well as extended security and monitoring features.

More details on HiveMQ 4.5 can be found in the blog post. HiveMQ is available as a ZIP archive on the download page. There you will also find instructions for use in Docker containers and on Amazon Web Services (AWS). The product page shows a comparison of the different editions with the respective functions.

(rme)

new-live-stream-allowed-on-rtlde.

New live stream allowed on RTL.de.

RTL is allowed to set up a new nationwide streaming service. The Lower Saxony State Media Authority (NLM), which is responsible for the Cologne private broadcaster, issued a corresponding approval. As the NLM announced on Tuesday, “RTL.de LIVE” will be broadcast via live stream on the Internet, including TV NOW, RTL.de, sport.de and the broadcaster’s social media channels. The private broadcaster wants to react to current major events. It is planned to report live. RTL had applied for admission in the fall.

An RTL spokeswoman announced that moving images were the core competence of the Channel, it makes sense to play it out as best as possible on all platforms. “We are interlinking streaming, linear TV and our digital journalistic platforms with our 700 journalists more and more,” explained the spokeswoman. At both ntv.de and RTL.de, the media group has been testing for some time “to provide our viewers and users with the best possible information and entertainment via specially produced live streams of news-relevant events (…).”

(mho)

russia-is-considering-banning-foreign-satellite-internets

Russia is considering banning foreign satellite internets

In Russia fines for access to the Internet via foreign providers could soon be threatened. A corresponding legislative proposal is being processed in the Parliament of the Russian Federation. It is justified with national security. Citizens could bypass Russian network monitoring via providers such as SpaceX and OneWeb.

The proposed law provides for fines of 10. 000 to 30.000 Rubles (converted approximately 111 to 335 Euro) for private individuals. Companies even face fines of 500. 000 up to one million rubles (5575 to 11.150 Euro). That comes from a report in the Russian edition of the magazine Popular Mechanics . However, for the time being, this would only be relevant in selected border regions. The near-earth satellites need a ground station in sufficient proximity to the end user.

Roskosmos sees SpaceX as a rival Through Use of western infrastructure such as SpaceX ‘Starlink or the recently launched satellites of the Indo-British OneWeb could bypass Russian telecommunications providers. This means that users are beyond the control of Russian authorities. Such internet access contradicts the security regulations of Russia. The EU is also planning its own satellite internet, the use of which would also be punishable.

Dmitri Olegowitsch Rogozin, head of the Russian space organization Roskosmos, sees SpaceX and thus also the Starlink satellite internet as a major rival. Rogozin has criticized both NASA and the US Department of Defense for subsidizing SpaceX through government contracts. However, SpaceX offers the USA rocket launches in return for less than other clients.

Roskosmos operates OneWeb, Sfera plans The draft law covers all foreign providers of satellite Internet. This also includes a Roskosmos customer: OneWeb uses Russian Soyuz rockets for the satellite launches. By the time commercial services commence at the end of the year, Roskosmos is expected to bring more than 500 more OneWeb satellites into low earth orbit. At the same time, Russia itself plans to introduce Internet access via satellite. However, the constellation “Sfera” (sphere) will only go into operation in a few years, possibly 2030. Many details are unknown. Sfera still has no official budget.

According to Vice Prime Minister Yuri Borissow, ten billion rubles (111 million euros) to 2022 released. The entire project could cost more than 16 billion euros. That would go beyond Russia’s budget. The Russian space agency currently receives only two billion euros annually.

(fds)

raspberry-pi-os-update-kills-flash

Raspberry Pi OS Update Kills Flash

(Image credit: Future)

The end has finally come for Adobe Flash on the Raspberry Pi. What once powered many memes and early Internet games is no more. With the latest update to Raspberry Pi OS, Adobe Flash has been removed from the official Raspberry Pi operating system but this brings about an issue of its own.

Adobe Flash was once the darling of the late 1990s and early 2000s web. Embedded games, interactive interfaces and full blown applications were built with Flash, but over time it became bloated, buggy and a security risk. The removal of Flash from Raspberry Pi OS has been on the cards for quite some time and with the January 11 update they have finally removed it. The removal of Flash does have one impact on Raspberry Pi OS. The popular Scratch 2 programming application will now no longer work as it relies upon Flash. So before you update your Raspberry Pi to the latest OS, ensure that your projects work with the Scratch online editor.

Looking through the release notes, the other changes to Raspberry Pi OS in this release are largely bug fixes for the new PulseAudio configurations introduced in the December 2020 update. There are a few fixes for the Chromium web browser, notably removal of artifacts in Google Maps 3D view.  An updated Linux Kernel, now 5.4.83 and updated Raspberry Pi firmware keeps your Pi securely up to date. 

Raspberry Pi OS is available from the Raspberry Pi website, where it can be downloaded as a disk image, or via the Raspberry Pi Imager tool.