VW-JAC Motor electric car venture approved by Chinese regulator

Germany's Volkswagen AG and Anhui Jianghuai Automobile Group (JAC Motor) have received approval from Chinese regulators to form a joint venture to make electric vehicles, the two automakers said on Monday.

The National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's top state planner, gave a green light to JAC and VW to build 100,000 pure battery electric vehicles annually in a project worth 5.1 billion yuan ($740 million), according to a JAC Motor stock exchange filing.

A VW spokesman confirmed the approval but said certain administrative procedures still needed to be completed for a joint venture contract to be signed with JAC Motor.

Google Is Getting Rid of Those Weird Android Emoji Blobs

Emojis

Google is finally getting rid of those default, blob-like emojis. 

The Verge reports that although Google tried to change the emojis for the Android N, it wasn’t good enough.

Now, the tech giant is completely recreating the emojis, and will feature them for the first time on the Android O.

Cisco Systems announces 1,100 more layoffs

Cisco Systems Inc. said Wednesday that it is laying off 1,100 more workers, deepening job losses at the internet gear maker battling declining revenue.

The new round of layoffs comes on top of the 5,500 jobs Cisco announced it was cutting in August. That amounted to about 7 percent of its workforce at the time.

Cisco sells routers, switches, software and services business and has seen its business hurt as more of its corporate customers rely on remote data centers for their computing needs instead of online networks maintained on their own premises.

What we currently know about the global cyberattack

The danger from a global cyberattack that spread to some 150 nations continues to fade, and that’s only some of the good news.

After two security researchers greatly slowed down that attack , which effectively held people’s documents, photos and other digital files hostage, hard-hit organizations such as the U.K.’s National Health Service seem to be bouncing back. 

While it’s a crude measure of the impact, it also appears that relatively few of those affected were desperate enough to actually pay the ransom demanded by the attackers.

Volkswagen CEO faces first probe over 'Dieselgate'

Volkswagen chief executive Matthias Mueller on Wednesday stood in the focus of an investigation into the world's largest carmaker's 'dieselgate' scandal for the first time, along with other key players at the firm.

Mueller and others "...are suspected of knowingly delaying telling shareholders about the financial consequences for Porsche SE of software manipulation in diesel vehicles by Volkswagen AG," prosecutors in southwestern city Stuttgart said in a statement.

Porsche SE, separate from VW subsidiary Porsche AG, is a holding company with a majority stake in Volkswagen, and is itself owned by the descendants of renowned VW Beetle inventor Ferdinand Porsche.

Top Tech firms makes 25 Highest Paying Companies in America for 2017

It may come as no surprise that tech and physician jobs pay six-figures, but for the average American job hunting, it may be even more important to know where they can work that pays highly. The good news — many companies are offering top dollar for skilled talent.

Glassdoor’s latest report reveals the 25 Highest Paying Companies in America for 2017. In addition to ramping up hiring, all of these companies are offering employees, on average, six-figure paychecks. This report is based on each company’s median total compensation, compiled by looking at salary reports at companies in which employees have anonymously and voluntarily shared both their base pay and other forms of compensation (i.e. commissions, tips, bonuses, etc.) over the past year*.

Microsoft launches Azure Database for MySQL and PostgreSQL

While Microsoft’s big Azure database news today is the launch of Cosmos DB, its new “planet-scale” distributed database service, there is a good chance that many developers will actually be more interested in a slightly smaller update to Azure’s database portfolio. 

At its Build developer conference, Microsoft today announced the launch of Azure Database for MySQL and PostgreSQL.

This, Microsoft says, is meant to ensure that developers can use their favorite databases on Azure. Until now, to use MySQL or PostgreSQL on Azure, they would have had to spin up virtual machines to run and operate those database systems themselves. 

Red Hat Drives Cloud Infrastructure Upgrades with Latest Version of Production-Ready OpenStack Platform

Red Hat the world's leading provider of open source solutions, today announced Red Hat OpenStack Platform 11, the latest version of Red Hat’s massively-scalable and agile cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS). 

Based on the OpenStack “Ocata” release, Red Hat OpenStack Platform 11 delivers enhanced support for upgrades with composable roles, new networking capabilities, and improved integration with Red Hat CloudForms for cloud management.

VMware Unveils IoT Management Solution to Help Customers Take Control of IoT

Photo Credit: VMware blog

VMware today unveiled VMware Pulse IoT Center, a secure, enterprise grade Internet of Things (IoT) infrastructure management solution that will enable information technology (IT) and operational technology (OT) teams to have complete control of their IoT infrastructure and things. 

The first solution in a new family of VMware IoT offerings, VMware Pulse™ IoT Center™ will help customers to more efficiently manage, operate, scale and protect their IoT projects from the edge to the cloud.

Gartner estimates that through 2020, 90 percent of IoT projects will use some form of IoT gateway. (1) Additionally, the worldwide installed base of IoT endpoints is expected to grow from 12.1 billion at the end of 2015 to more than 30 billion in 2020, according to IDC. (2) As IoT becomes prevalent in the enterprises, organizations need a simplified approach to manage, monitor and secure their infrastructure and data.

5G collaboration in lead up to 2018 Winter Games

Following an MoU that was signed in 2015, KT, Ericsson, and several other technology partners, are cooperating to build, test and optimize a 5G network in preparation for the 2018 Winter Games in PyeongChang. 

At an April 2017 meeting, KT and its partners agreed on steps to deploy and optimize a trial 5G network during 2017 including plans for joint technology development.

Additionally, Ericsson and KT conducted tests along the Incheon Airport Railway - a new high speed rail line linking the capital of Seoul with Incheon International Airport.

Ericsson and Etisalat conduct 5G trial with outdoor mobility

The trial demonstrated 5G capabilities in a real world environment over a live network, including tests on speed, latency and beam steering. 

The 5G trial system is using 800MHz of spectrum in the 15GHz band, demonstrating over 20 times greater performance than what is currently used in 4G networks. 

The trial also achieved an aggregate site throughput of more than 24Gbps a significant improvement over current 4G networks.

Games on Messenger Go Global with New Features and Games

Facebook has started to roll out Instant Games on Messenger more broadly for the 1.2 billion people who use Messenger every month. 

In addition, we’re also launching the new features that we exclusively previewed to developers at our annual F8 conference.

These include rich gameplay features, which allow developers to create unique and sophisticated experiences and Game bots to help game makers surface exciting features like new levels and rewards.

Huawei and Red Hat Signs Server OEM Agreement

Huawei and  Red Hat Signs Agreement Photo Credit: Huawei

Huawei signed an enterprise Linux OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) agreement with Red Hat, Inc., a provider of open source solutions, at Hannover Messe 2017. 

The agreement focuses on collaboration between Huawei and Red Hat to deliver advanced technology and service collaboration around Huawei servers and Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

The agreement announces Huawei as a Red Hat OEM partner, enabling customers to purchase a complete solution from Huawei along with services and support. 

The agreement signing continues Huawei’s collaboration with Red Hat. Red Hat plans to offer solutions backed by technical service for Huawei servers, including Huawei's rack, blade, and high-density servers, as well as the KunLun Mission Critical Servers.

Huawei and Simyo Win MVNO Awards at MVNO World Congress 2017

Huawei and Simyo receives MVNO Awards Photo Credit: Huawei

Huawei’s BSS Cloud solution won ‘Best Solution Provider’ award at MVNO World Congress 2017. Simyo, with the help of Huawei BSS Cloud solution for its innovative business transformation, won ‘Most Innovative MVNO’ award as well.

The ‘Best Solution Provider’ award is granted to MVNE who has a significant impact in facilitating the development of the MVNO market by working with MVNOs in order to support MVNO services.
The ‘Most Innovative MVNO’ award is granted to these virtual operators that they have genuinely introduced innovation in the MVNO market.

Winning these two awards indicates the compliment within the industry of this successful cooperation between Huawei BSS Cloud and Simyo. Huawei BSS Cloud provided Simyo a cloud-based digital operation platform.