Standards

Your source for the latest standards news and resources.

More energy-efficient Ethernet - without the standards-making fuss
May. 08, 2008
A student has come up with a method of making Ethernet switches more energy-efficient, a method that will work with current Ethernet switches using existing standards.

What 802.11n tech specs mean
May. 05, 2008
'We established in the last newsletter that you need multiple transmit and receive antennas working in parallel (a.k.a.

PacketHop unveils first commercial release of WLAN mesh standard
May. 01, 2008
PacketHop is releasing a software stack implementing the draft version of the IEEE 802.11s wireless-LAN mesh standard. Implemented by chipmakers and equipment makers, different WLAN devices will be able to find each ...

MIMO, antennas and streams - oh, my!
Apr. 30, 2008
802.11n's intimidating nomenclature contains such mysterious terms as MIMO, spatial streams and spatial multiplexing, which can quickly freeze a network manager's brain. What do these specs really mean in the context of ...

Security upgrades may not buy Hannaford full data protection
Apr. 28, 2008
Hannaford Bros.said last week that it expects to spend

The pending infiltration of Wi-Fi mesh
Apr. 28, 2008
Like the perpetual student, some extensions to the 802.11 wireless LAN standard seem as though they, too, will linger in an indefinite state of development. However, one of those dallying standards, 802.11s for mesh ...

Flash drive's quickness matches marketing hype
Apr. 25, 2008
Corsair claims its new 16GB high-performance

Broadcom touts lower power draw of 802.11n WLAN chip
Apr. 24, 2008
Chipmaker Broadcom has announced a new 802.11n chip that promises lower power demands and prices for enterprise-class wireless LAN access points.

PCI standards body moves ahead on payment-application cert
Apr. 16, 2008
PCI Security Standards Council releases list of certified payment applications under Payment Application Data Security Standard, while Council general manager Bub Russo describes upcoming standard efforts, and office- ...

PCI light glimmers at tunnel's end for retailers
Apr. 09, 2008
Retailers apparently are mixed in how seriously they take the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard, which contains some provisions for securing wireless data along with other mandates. While some retailers are ...

Judging if a USB download is really worth the security risk
Apr. 23, 2008
Some of the most sensitive digital data in London resides on the servers of the City of London Police--and a great deal of effort goes into making sure that it isn't downloaded onto portable devices and then lost or ...

Risk-management software gains Web, compliance tools
Apr. 22, 2008
Skybox Security Tuesday announced it plans to release an updated version of its Skybox View risk-management software.

Deciding When to Upgrade to 802.11n
Apr. 21, 2008
You can never have enough money or a fast-enough wireless connection. We can't help with the money part, but for Wi-Fi users, IEEE 802.11n-with its up to 300Mbps (megabits per second) burst speeds-is the answer.

Bull crams crypto chips into bootable USB hard disk drive
Apr. 18, 2008
Bull has a gadget for businesses worried about the security of data stored on laptops: a bootable, portable password-protected hard disk drive with an embedded cryptographic processor that protects data if the device is ...

Comcast, Pando call for pact on P2P rights
Apr. 16, 2008
Comcast and Pando Networks, a maker of peer-to-peer software, have kicked off a drive to create a

IBM lays claim to cheaper, faster memory
Apr. 11, 2008
IBM is developing a type of memory that it says could one day be faster and more reliable than today's hard drives and flash memory.

SanDisk warns of USB drive threat
Apr. 11, 2008
SanDisk has warned that IT managers are unaware of the extent to which unsecured flash drives are being brought into their organizations, backing this with a new study of corporate end-users and IT executives.

An open, free, distributed Web authentication service
Apr. 09, 2008
How many accounts do you have on the Internet? If you have as many as I do you'll probably have some tool for managing all of your logins. I use Siber Systems' RoboForm but it has one problem - it is PC-based which ...

10 security threats to watch for
Apr. 09, 2008
From virtual server exploitation to compromised Web sites and mobile Web browsers, a list to 10 security threats to be on the lookout for.

Chelsio 10 Gigabit adapter supports Microsoft TCP Chimney
Apr. 08, 2008
Chelsio Communications this week started shipping 10-Gigabit Ethernet adapters that have a TCP/IP offload engine, or TOE, and support for Microsoft TCP Chimney.

India rejects Office Open XML again
Mar. 21, 2008
A technical committee in India has rejected Microsoft's Office Open XML file format as a standard.

How OOXML vote could change all -- and nothing
Feb. 28, 2008
Next month, national standards bodies will vote for the second time on whether to adopt the Office Open XML (OOXML) document format as an international standard.

FCoE's 10Gbit/sec should be in your future
Apr. 05, 2008
It's highly likely that, if you follow the comings and goings of storage networking technology, then by now you've at least heard of the emerging Fibre Channel over Ethernet (FCoE) standard working its way through the ...

Wireless carriers crow about openness
Apr. 04, 2008
At the CTIA Wireless conference: from keynote speeches to demonstrations to press luncheons, executives from major wireless carriers touted the openness of their networks.

Vista desktop management software on tap
Apr. 03, 2008
SDM Software next week will ship a Web-based interface for Microsoft's group-policy feature to ease the desktop management and maintenance of Vista and other Windows operating systems.