Good morning, Data Sheet readers. Expect plenty of security news this week, as researchers and cyber defenders converge at the RSA conference in San Francisco. As I write this, there’s already one significant development: Raytheon is moving in a big way to apply its military expertise to protecting corporate computing assets. Plus, a PayPal exec is talking up novel ways to kill off passwords, with a nod to science fiction, and Hewlett-Packard is planning a bigger push into 3D printing. Read on to get your Monday started.
TOP OF MIND
Raytheon’s latest mission: tackling cybersecurity. The company plans a new initiative to protect banks and retailers, and it’s putting almost $1.9 billion into software company Websense to solidify the effort. The move is actually a long time in coming. Raytheon has made at least 14 related acquisitions since 2007.
TRENDING
IBM raises eyebrows with China venture. The tech giant found a creative way to get around onerous security regulations that make it tough for foreign companies to sell servers and software to Chinese banks. It’s licensing intellectual property to a local supplier, Teamsun, and helping it build domestic alternatives.
“People do feel angry about what appears to be an accommodation with the Chinese,” one analyst told The New York Times. “And you have to kind of expect that, particularly at a time when you have the whole U.S. government ginned up to push the Chinese on this.”
Symantec still pursuing split, rather than sale of Veritas. “For shareholders, it’s tax free, which is a huge advantage for them,” CEO Michael Brown told Reuters. The company published its initial guidance for the two companies late Friday. The unencumbered Veritas business could see revenue growth of 4% to 7% in FY 2016.
Is SunGard seeking a buyer? The financial software company is exploring strategic options that could include an initial public offering, reports Re/code, citing unnamed sources. SunGard spun out a division devoted to disaster recovery and backup services (SunGard Availability Services) in April 2014.
Your next password might be edible. If you think fingerprint recognition or iris scanners are innovative, you should check out this presentation—dubbed “Kill All Passwords”—from PayPal executive Jonathan Leblanc. Futuristic approaches could include heartbeat detection (every one is unique) or implants that verify identity.
Nokia hasn’t given up on mobile phones. The company could get back into the market by early next year, according to sources cited by Re/code. Nokia’s arrangement with Microsoft, which bought the original business in 2013, prohibits it from selling Nokia-branded products until the end of 2015.
ALSO WORTH SHARING
Cloud customer service startup snags $50 million. The latest financial round for Zendesk rival Freshdesk is led by Tiger Global. It now counts more than 40,000 customers including 3M, Cisco, Honda, Pearson, and Sony Pictures.
Fashion faux pas. Target’s e-commerce team learns painful lesson after its site is overwhelmed during Lilly Pulitzer clothing line launch.
Here’s the culprit behind Bloomberg’s hours-long financial terminal outage last Friday: faulty equipment.
Funding up to fight YouTube. Vessel, an online-video business created by former Hulu CEO Jason Kilar, has raised another $57.5 million as part of a Series B round led by Institutional Venture Partners. That brings its total to $134.5 million.
HP’s new 3-D printing footprint. After testing the market with rebranded equipment made by another manufacturer, eWeek reports that the company is planning its own line—to be released by the end of 2016. Ironically, that revelation comes amid news that one of the better-known companies in this market, MakerBot, has cut 20% of its workforce.
800 million active monthly users and counting. If mobile messaging service WhatsApp keeps growing at the same pace, it should easily reach the 1 billion threshold by yearend.
Google Wallet now offers something unique. Unlike other mobile payment services, funds are stashed in FDIC-insured banks, reports Yahoo Finance.
How does that person really feel about your advertisement? British company RealEyes is one of several software ventures developing webcam technology to track emotional responses to online videos. It just got another funding infusion from the European Commission, which seems odd considering ongoing concerns in Europe over personal data collection for marketing purposes.
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MY FORTUNE BOOKMARKS
What to know for this year’s RSA cybersecurity conference by Robert Hackett
Twitter files a “tweetstorm” of trademark applications by Kia Kokalitcheva
Inside a startup accelerator demo day: Techstars New York by Erin Griffith
Coin, the universal credit card, finally ships by Leena Rao
Nvidia could be the next thing in gaming. Here’s why. By John Gaudiosi
Moore’s Law turns 50, but will it soon cease to exist? by Supratik Guha
ONE MORE THING
Would you sign away your privacy for a better life insurance rate? John Hancock policyholders can now earn discounts for sharing their Fitbit metrics.
MARK YOUR CALENDAR
Forrester’s Forum for Technology Leaders: Win in the age of the customer. (April 27 - 28; Orlando, Fla.)
MicrosoftIgnite: Business tech extravaganza. (May 4 – 8; Chicago)
NetSuite SuiteWorld: Cloud ERP strategy. (May 4 – 7; San Jose, California)
EMC World: Data strategy. (May 4 - 7; Las Vegas)
SAPPHIRE NOW: The SAP universe. (May 5 – 7; Orlando, Florida)
Gartner Digital Marketing Conference: Reach your destination faster. (May 5 – 7; San Diego)
Cornerstone Convergence: Connect, collaborate. (May 11 - 13; Los Angeles)
Cloud Foundry Summit: Open source development. (May 11 - 12; Santa Clara, California)
Annual Global Technology, Media and Telecom Conference: JP Morgan’s 43rd invite-only event. (May 18 - 20; Boston)
Signal: The modern communications conference. (May 19 - 20; San Francisco)
MuleSoft Connect: Tie together apps, data and devices. (May 27 - 29; San Francisco)
MongoDB World: Scale the universe. (June 1 - 2; New York)
HP Discover: Trends and technologies. (June 2 - 4; Las Vegas)
Apple Worldwide Developers Conference: Future of iOS and OS X. (June 8 - 12; San Francisco)
Hadoop Summit San Jose: Mainstreaming adoption. (June 9 - 11; San Jose, California)
Red Hat Summit: Energize your enterprise. (June 23 - 26; Boston)
LinuxCon North America: All about open source. (Aug. 17 - 19; Seattle)
VMworld: The virtualization ecosystem. (Aug. 30 – Sept. 3, 2015; San Francisco)
Dreamforce: The Salesforce community. (Sept. 15 - 18; San Francisco)
Workday Rising: Meet and share. (Sept. 28 - Oct. 1; Las Vegas)
HP Engage: Big data, big engagement. (Oct. 4 - 6; San Diego)
Gartner Symposium ITxpo: CIOs and senior IT executives. (Oct. 4 - 8; Orlando, Florida)
Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing: World's largest gather of women technologists. (Oct. 14 - 16; Houston)
Oracle OpenWorld: Customer and partner conference. (Oct. 25 - 29; San Francisco)
