At EMC World 2013, EMC (NYSE:EMC) announced that it is preparing the next version of its EMC® Isilon® OneFS® scale-out NAS operating system. Building on the successful late-2012 launch of OneFS 7.0 (“Mavericks”), the next version of Isilon’s industry-leading operating system will extend customers’ ability to harness the transformational power of Big Data. The new version will include data deduplication capabilities, audit and security features, as well as enhancements for object-oriented storage, Hadoop HDFS 2.0 and Syncplicity® enterprise file sharing. These new capabilities will enable enterprises to extend the unmatched scalability and efficiency of Isilon’s solutions to meet an ever-broadening range of next-generation cloud-based, Big Data analytics and mobile workflows and applications. The enterprise storage landscape is rapidly transforming as traditional IT requirements for data protection, security and performance combine with the challenges of managing large, rapidly growing file-based and unstructured “big data” environments. Isilon’s scale-out NAS solutions, long the standard for massively scalable, highly efficient storage that is simple to manage, will now incorporate the type of efficiency, compliance and security features that enterprises need to leverage the transformative power of big data while meeting essential large-scale corporate IT requirements. New Enterprise Customer Benefits in the Next Version of OneFS Improved storage efficiency – To support more demanding applications and workloads across the enterprise, the next version of IsilonOneFS will enable storage administrators to configure a simple set-and-forget block-level deduplication policy ranging from individual directories up through the complete storage pool.  By providing an automated way to drive yet greater levels of storage efficiency across datasets, organizations can further reduce operating costs while enhancing Isilon’s already industry-leading utilization levels. More»

As Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Samsung Electronics Co. develop smart watches and Google Inc. (GOOG) (GOOG) prepares to roll out Web-enabled eyewear, an ecosystem of software developers is springing up to lend a hand and reap the profits. The wearable-computer market may swell to $6 billion by 2016, according to Wellingborough, U.K.-based IMS Research. To tap into that early, companies like Evernote Corp. have already set up shop. At the Redwood City, California, headquarters of the note-taking software maker, about two dozen engineers work among a clutter of wireless watches, heart-rate monitors and Google’s computerized spectacles. “You can draw comparisons to successful technologies like the smartphone,” Evernote Chief Executive Officer Phil Libin said in an interview. “In the first two, three years, it was a niche product. I expect it to be the same sort of thing. It’s going to start becoming very profitable in three to five years. These are long-term investments.” More»

Barbara Walters, the first woman to co-anchor a network evening newscast, will retire in 2014 after one more year on ABC News and her talk show, “The View.” Walters will make the announcement today on “The View,” the daytime program she created in 1997, Walt Disney Co. (DIS)’s ABC said on its website. She will report and anchor for the news division and appear on “The View” until next summer. ABC plans to honor the groundbreaking newscaster with a career retrospective next May. Walters started at NBC’s “Today Show” in 1961 and rose to become co-anchor, with Harry Reasoner, of “ABC Evening News” in 1976. Walters has interviewed every U.S. president and first lady since Richard Nixon, ABC News said. Walters, 81, is a co-host of “The View,” where she will continue as executive producer. She will anchor ABC News specials over the next 12 months including a “20 Years of 10 Most Fascinating People” special in December and an Oscars special. More»

Eng. Atef Helmy, Egypt’s Information and Communication Technology ICT Minister, has asserted that Telecom Egypt’s experiments which are currently conducted to test mobile phone services are unofficial, pointing out that till now it hasn’t get to green light in order to launch the service. Helmy added that the Ministry doesn’t determine the deadline to launch the service, asserting that TE’s statements said it will begin the service in conjunction with Ramadan (holy Islamic month), and not the confirmation on the launching time. Helmy has emphasized that the Ministry and National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (NTRA) work with a timetable within the early of this year, Helmy has noted that the time of offering license specified in the second half of this year which associated with the finalizing of Detacon German services from the pricing process. More»

VODAFONE is set to call time on more than a decade of ever-increasing rewards for investors as the economic slump in Europe exacts a heavy toll. The mobile phone giant has increased payouts every year since 2000 and is expected to deliver a whopping £4.8bn in ordinary dividends for the financial year that ended in March. However, the turmoil in the eurozone means that Vittorio Colao, the chief executive, is unlikely to renew a long-standing pledge to keep raising the payout when he presents the annual results next week. Despite the dividend freeze, Vodafone is expected to retain its status as the most generous payer in the FTSE 100. Last year’s dividend is equivalent to the market value of ITV, the 64th biggest company in the FTSE. More»

Telecom Egypt, the country's monopoly fixed-line phone operator, (TE) (ETEL.CA) is preparing to test the first mobile call within the current week. Mohamed Al-Nawawi, Telecom Egypt CEO, said the launching date of TE’s mobile service was not officially set to the customers where there are still some points under discussions with the National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority (NTRA) on the draft license. More»

Sharp Corp, Japan's leading maker of liquid crystal displays, will rely on expanding supplies of small panels to Samsung Electronics Co while still shipping screens to rival Apple Inc, in a bid to raise factory output levels and remain viable, three sources said. In a midterm business plan it aims to release on Tuesday when it announces its latest earnings results, Sharp will set a goal of raising annual operating profit to $1.5 billion by March 2016 on revenue of $30 billion, the sources familiar with the plan told Reuters on condition they remained anonymous. More»

The Samsung Galaxy S4′s tagline — “The next big thing is here” – is a telling pitch. The Galaxy is the world’s second best-selling phone, behind the iPhone.  And the latest version unabashedly claims that bigger is better. But considering the S4 in a different light, maybe we shouldn’t think of it as a big phone. Maybe we should treat it like a very small tablet and leave our real tablet home. While narrower than Samsung’s Galaxy Note by about a half-inch, the S4 strongly evokes a miniature but very serviceable tablet. And since making calls is one of the things we seem to do least with our phones, marketing a connected device like the S4 as a very small tablet that also makes calls might not be a bad idea. As a “tablet,” the S4 delivers. Screen resolution is amazing.. It runs fast and smooth, which is not a given when you don’t own both the hardware and software. The S4 runs the latest version of Google’s Android mobile operating system, Jellybean 4.2. The S4 has a larger screen — 4.99 inches versus 4.8 for the S III. The case is narrower by .03 inches. But that push to increase screen size without increasing the footprint makes it a more sensitive device. The context menu and “back” below the screen are just too easily tapped inadvertently while merely holding the phone while doing a task, like typing. These buttons were vexing in another, smaller way as well: They light up whenever you touch the screen. More»

The Algerian government will seek a new valuation for VimpelCom's local mobile phone unit Djezzy before acquiring 51 percent of it, a government source told Reuters. "There will be a new valuation of Djezzy," the source, who asked not to be named, said on Thursday. Russia's VimpelCom acquired Djezzy as part of a $6 billion deal to buy the assets of Egyptian firm Orascom Telecom Holding (ORTE.CA). However, under pressure from the Algerian government to cede control of the unit - which was the most lucrative part of Orascom Telecom - VimpelCom agreed to sell it a 51 percent stake. The Algerian government had appointed law firm Shearman & Sterling LLP to advise it on the valuation of Djezzy. The source did not say what figure the law firm had produced, nor who would calculate the new valuation. The Algerian finance ministry declined to comment. VimpelCom did not immediately respond to email and telephone requests for comment. More»

One of the credit card processing companies whose security was breached in a $45 million global cyber heist was India's ElectraCard Services, according to two people familiar with the situation. ElectraCard Services processes prepaid travel cards for National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah PSC (RAKBANK), one of two Middle Eastern banks named by U.S. prosecutors on Thursday as victims of the heist, the people said. The prosecutors said an international criminal gang made two coordinated hits on cash machines around the world, withdrawing $5 million on December 21 last year and a further $40 million on February 19 this year. The gang was able to make big withdrawals after hacking into an Indian and a U.S. credit card processing company to raise the balances and withdrawal limits on MasterCard prepaid debit cards, the prosecutors said. They did not name the processing companies. A U.S. official and an employee of RAKBANK in Dubai both said the Indian card processor - used in the heist on December 21, 2012 - was ElectraCard Services, which is based in Pune, India. The two people spoke on condition of anonymity. Ramesh Mengawade, the CEO of ElectraCard Services and its parent firm, Opus Software Solutions, could not be reached through his executive assistant or through e-mail on Saturday. Calls to the mobile phone of another company official were not answered. An official at an external public relations firm that works with ElectraCard also said he had not been able to reach Mengawade on Saturday and did not have immediate comment. More»