networking

On March 19, day one of Microsoft's annual Convergence conference, company officials shed more light on how Yammer's enterprise social-networking technology will be integrated into Office 365 and SharePoint in the coming year-plus.

Microsoft officials originally shared a road map regarding this integration in November. But today, officials provided more dates and more details around the integration of Yammer feeds into SharePoint.

Last fall, Microsoft officials said in the "immediate future" Yammer and SharePoint would be unified via a single ID/sign-on, shared document-management capabilities and feed aggregation. In the longer term, the Softies said, the … Read more

Belkin announced today that it has completed the acquisition of Linksys from Cisco.

The privately held networking vendor unveiled its interest in Linsys in late January, and now the deal is complete. This means Linksys' technologies, including its routers and the Smart Wi-Fi portfolio and services, will be managed and maintained by Belkin, but as a separate brand and product portfolio.

This also means that Cisco Connect Cloud, with which users can manage and control control home networks powered by a Smart Wi-Fi router via the Internet, will also be branded without Cisco in its name.

Cisco bought Linksys back … Read more

Looking more and more like a local search and reviews site, Foursquare is launching a few brand new features with its Android update today.

The central new feature is popular places recommendations.

"When you're in a new city or neighborhood, Foursquare will show you popular places, sites, and must-see attractions," Foursquare wrote in a blog post today. "When you're on your home turf, we'll tell what spots are 'new and notable' -- places that have recently opened in your area."

This feature pops up in Android devices as soon as users open the … Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif.--The value at stake for the "Internet of Everything" is $14.4 trillion that businesses and customers can capture in the next decade, according to Cisco.

In other terms, Cisco is projecting that the Internet of Everything has the potential to grow global corporate profits by 21 percent in aggregate by 2022.

"The opportunity here -- and the challenge -- is the next level of scale," said Rob Lloyd, president of sales and development at Cisco, while speaking at Cisco's second annual Editors Conference at the company's Silicon Valley headquarters here … Read more

For those who like watching their favorite flicks over and over again, AMC Networks has launched a movie-streaming service, Yeah, that runs new bonus material alongside cult classic movies.

AMC, which launched the pay-per-view service at South by Southwest Interactive today, is jumping into a crowded, and competitive, video-streaming market. Big players like Amazon and Netflix fight for fresh content constantly. Meanwhile, content producers stream their shows directly, as with HBO Go, or cut deals with other established streaming services.

But Yeah has decided to go in another direction: older movies with established fan bases. General Manager Lisa Judson said … Read more

Integrating Facebook into other applications has been the focus of developers in recent years. RockMelt for Mac attempts to combine a Web browser with Facebook, but privacy concerns and poor functionality make this a problematic application.

Available as freeware, the program downloads quickly. Installation is another story, however. Initially, you are prompted to enter Facebook log-in information before the program begins. Once it's entered, the next setup dialog box presents troublesome privacy concerns. Essentially, RockMelt for Mac seeks authorization to control almost all of the user's Facebook features and permissions. This lack of user control is concerning for … Read more

Pinterest has launched a new Web analytics tool for site owners who want to see how well their pages are performing on the social network.

The tool, dubbed Pinterest Web Analytics, is available to companies with a verified Web site on the social network. The analytics provide detailed information on how many people have pinned something from their site, seen pins from their pages, or visited their site from the social network. The analytics also show repinned items, most clocked, and most recent pins.

Getting verified on Pinterest isn't a long process. Site owners who have a Pinterest profile … Read more

Myanmar is one of the most closed off and least-connected countries in the world -- but with a newly opening government, this is rapidly changing.

Cisco announced today that it is setting up two technology training centers in the Southeast Asian country, according to USAID. The centers, dubbed Networking Academies, will be aimed at teaching residents tech skills.

This announcement comes after Cisco executives joined USAID, Google, HP, Intel, and Microsoft in a tech delegation visit to the country.

"We knew that in order for everyone in the country to benefit from a digital economy and for the government … Read more

The folks at Twitter announced Monday that the standalone TweetDeck apps for mobile will no longer be supported after May of this year. While Twitter says that it is putting more resources toward the Web version (which can easily be used on the desktop), there are surely plenty of people who are upset that their beloved mobile clients are going away.

For those of you looking for an alternative to TweetDeck, here are a few mobile apps that should prove adequate for your tweeting purposes.

Tweetbot ($2.99) is an extremely popular Twitter client for good … Read more