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Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides made major updates to its iPhone and iPad apps Monday that could potentially replace Microsoft’s Office 365 subscription service.

With the updates, Google’s Slides app (Google’s answer to PowerPoint) is available as a separate app for devices running on the iOS platform. Until now, it was accessible only through the Google Drive on iOS. Google Drive is Google's online file storage tool.

Google Docs and Sheets (Google’s answers to Word and Excel, respectively) already had standalone apps on iOS, but they can now open, create, and edit native Microsoft Office files on any iOS device. Before these updates, you couldn’t directly create or edit Microsoft Office files through Google Docs or Sheets on devices like the iPhone or iPad. 

These are all part of the updates that were announced in June, when Google made the same updates to all Android devices first. 

Google wrote on its official Enterprise Blog on Monday:

Now you can use the Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides apps on your iPad or iPhone and all other devices (your Chromebook, laptop, Android phone or tablet), to complete the same tasks — online or offline. In addition, you can open, create and edit native Microsoft Office files with the Google Docs suite on iOS.

Monday's updates could become a major threat to Microsoft’s Office 365 service, which requires a paid subscription. Although not as polished as Microsoft’s product, Google Apps can now run some of the basic and most frequently used functions that are available on Office 365 — all for free. 

Google pointed out that nearly 80% of Office licenses are “only lightly used,” and most employees use Office only “for a handful of minutes a day or not at all.”

If true, that means most employees would not feel much of a difference by using the slightly less sophisticated Google Apps products.

However, Microsoft's Office 365 business is doing pretty well. It has 5.6 million subscribers, and one million of those were added last quarter alone.

Google still has a long way to go. According to VentureBeat, Google Docs is No. 7 among productivity apps in the U.S. on iOS, while Microsoft Word for iPad is No. 1 among productivity apps and No. 13 overall.

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Orbitz shares were down as much as 5% on Tuesday after an announcement that American Airlines had pulled its fares from Orbitz websites, with US Airways set to do the same effective Sept. 1. 

Here's the full announcement from American:

FORT WORTH, Texas, Aug. 26, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- American Airlines has withdrawn its fares from consumer websites powered by Orbitz, effective immediately. American Airlines Group has notified Orbitz it also will withdraw US Airways fares on Sept. 1, 2014. Corporate clients that use Orbitz for Business to book travel are not affected by this change.

"We have worked tirelessly with Orbitz to reach a deal with the economics that allow us to keep costs low and compete with low-cost carriers," said Scott Kirby, President – American Airlines. "While our fares are no longer on Orbitz, there are a multitude of other options available for our customers, including brick and mortar agencies, online travel agencies, and our own websites."

American expects these changes will have minimal disruptions for its customers. Customers can continue to purchase tickets and all options for travel on American and US Airways through aa.com and usairways.com. American and US Airways fares are also available through reservations agents and other travel agencies.

Tickets already purchased through Orbitz websites remain valid for travel, but changes to reservations must be made through each airline's reservations department.

This chart shows the drop in shares of Orbitz following the headlines. 

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Google’s next Nexus handset — allegedly called Nexus X, not Nexus 6 — will reportedly launch to the public running Google's next big mobile update, Android L, according to the phone's alleged benchmarks posted by TKTechNews (via BGR's Chris Smith).

Thing is, the alleged benchmarks don't list Android L. The "Nexus X from Google" is running “Android 5.0.”

Google has never confirmed the major changes coming in Android L as “Android 5.0,” but if these images and benchmarks are indeed legitimate, Android will finally move from Android 4.x, which has existed since Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich first arrived in October 2011. You can learn more about Android L, especially its new Material Design, here.

A separate report said Google will eventually rename Android L, which means Android 5.0 could be named “Lemon Meringue Pie.”

As for the phone's AnTuTu benchmarks, which are the most popular benchmarks used to test all aspects of Android devices, we might see the Nexus X release with a 2.7 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 processor, 3 GB of RAM, a 13-megapixel camera, a 2K display, and 32 GB of storage standard. 

According to previous reports from Phone Arena and TKTechNews, the Nexus X may feature a 5.7-inch or 6.3-inch screen to house that 2K display, and the phone may start shipping around October starting at a whopping $499 with a two-year contract.

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The makers of GoPro, a tiny and light portable camera, have released a new product just for dogs: A harness that holds two cameras to record things from your canine’s perspective.

The GoPro Fetch is a kit that comes with a dog harness, a camera tether, and software needed to set it up on any model of GoPro. It’s your job to provide the pooch and the GoPro camera. Here's a video that explains how the product works, which we've also broken out into screenshots. 

GoPro says that the device is capable of mounting onto your dog’s back, so you can capture shots of your dog running, jumping and of course, playing fetch. Here's an action shot:

The strap also allows a GoPro to hang from the chest, where you can view shots of your dog’s front paws. The chest mount is removable, too.

The pack includes easily adjustable straps to fit dogs of all sizes, from 15 up to 120 pounds. 

GoPro says the harness is comfortable and won't prevent your dog from from enjoying activities like running, swimming or playing Frisbee. 

Although you’ll need to fork out $59.99 to buy the Fetch, it may be worth your investment if you want to see what your pet gets up to when you’re at work. 

SEE ALSO: See what other amazing things you can record with a GoPro camera

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BlackBerry's  square-shaped smartphone isn't expected to launch until September, but a new set of photos provides the most in-depth preview we've seen yet.

Czech blog Smartmania (via Phone Arena) has posted a handful of new photos that show the Passport's keyboard, high-res screen, and how it compares in size to previous BlackBerry phones.

Here's a look at what it's like to read an article using the Passport. BlackBerry has been touting its square-shaped display as an advantage for avid readers, claiming that the wider screen offers more screen space.

Notice how much larger the Passport is compared to the company's standard rectangular smartphones.

 

Even though it's bigger and more angular than your average phone, Smartmania's Ruslan Botsyurko claims it slides into the pocket with ease. 

The Passport's keyboard is going to be a big deal. It functions as a touchpad, too, which means you can just swipe to choose numbers and characters when you're typing.

 

Although the design is boxy, it looks like the Passport's back features a slight curve.

 

The SD card slot and SIM card sit right next to the camera.  

Here's a glimpse of what BlackBerry's user interface looks like on the Passport. There are virtually no side bezels around the screen, although the top bezel is a bit chunky.

 

BlackBerry took the wraps off its Passport phone back in June, and early reviews have been positive since then. CrackBerry previously said the Passport's screen "is of such an elegance, it even made the most diehard iPhone user smile."

Still, BlackBerry has a long way to go if it wants to catch up with Android and iOS — the two platforms that currently dominate the smartphone space. In the last quarter of 2013, the IDC said BlackBerry only accounted for 0.3% of the smartphone market share. It's unclear if a device like the Passport will be enough to change that. 

SEE ALSO: BlackBerry: Square Phones Are Better Than Rectangular Phones Like The iPhone

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Google updated two of its Google Apps for iOS on Monday while also adding a third new title. Docs and Sheets get the updates that the Android versions gained in June: The ability to open Microsoft Office docs and spreadsheets. Google Slides is new for iOS, […]

Google Docs, Sheets and Slides for iPhone, iPad updated with Office compatibility originally published by Gigaom, © copyright 2014.

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College students have created a nail polish that may help protect the lives of college partiers everywhere.

The polish — called "Undercover Colors" — will change shades if it becomes exposed to a drugged drink.

Walk away from your drink at a party? Look away from your solo cup for a second? Simply dip your finger in the liquid. If the polish changes colors, you'll know not to keep sipping.

The polish was developed by college students Tyler Confrey-Maloney, Stephen Gray, Ankesh Madan and Tasso Von Windheim, who met studying at North Carolina State University.

The Daily Mail reports the team believes "while date rape drugs are often used to facilitate sexual assault, very little science exists for their detection." The main goal of the Undercolor Colors developers is to invent the technology that will help empower women to protect themselves from "this heinous and quietly pervasive crime."

The four are raising money for a better prototype of Undercover Colors through a donations page.

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Hackers have revealed 42 security holes in Secret, the popular anonymous sharing app with the tagline "Speak freely," since February.

Reporter Kevin Poulsen revealed the startlingly high number in a Wired piece in which Secret CEO David Byttow acknowledged that the app doesn't guarantee that users are completely anonymous at all times.

In February, Byttow and his team instituted a way for hackers to submit bugs or security issues, and 38 people have helped close 42 bugs. We don't how many of those holes involved allowing a hacker to find out who posted which secrets, but the site does say that "issues that may threaten an individual's anonymity are taken most seriously."

In his piece, Poulsen highlights a recently fixed hack that would let a user find out all the secrets that someone shared on the app:

Secret pulls in information from your contact list, so you see posts from only your friends or from friends of friends. If you delete your real contact list, make a bunch of dummy Secret accounts, add the email addresses you used to make them to your blank contact list, then added someone's real email address to your contact list, the only real posts you'd see from "friends" in your Secret feed would expose the poster. Viola: You know all that one friend's secrets. 

While the high number of discovered vulnerabilities might seem alarming to people who post lots of secrets that they hope will remain, well, secret, Byttow looks at it optimistically. 

"As hackers disclose these kinds of vulnerabilities through our HackerOne bounty, we just make more and more advancements," Byttow told Poulsen. "We’ve had zero public incidents with respect to security and privacy. Everything has come through our bounty program."

Well-known VC Hunter Walk makes a similar case:

Hate Secret & you see today's security hole as validation. Love Secret & it's proof they take your privacy seriously. #EyeOfBeholder

— Hunter Walk (@hunterwalk) August 22, 2014

SEE ALSO: Apple Hid Steve Jobs' Amazing Commencement Speech In Its Word Processor — Here's How To Find It

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Given the competition and the price curve that points to zero for online storage, Google is hoping to draw a crowd with Drive for Work.

Sandstorm's indie web app platform, which is currently crowdfunding, is picking up ports at an impressive rate. Earlier this week WordPress made an appearance, and now Apache (née Google) Wave has joined the party.

Remember Google’s Wave? Thanks to Sandstorm, it’s easy to start using again originally published by Gigaom, © copyright 2014.

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Walmart is practically giving away iPhones.

As part of a new sale, the retail giant is now selling the iPhone 5c on a two-year contract for just $0.97. The iPhone 5s is also getting a significant price cut to $79 down from $99 through Walmart.

Although the iPhone 5s only costs $20 less than Walmart's previous price, it's still much cheaper than what you'd get through the Apple Store.

Apple is still selling the entry level 16GB iPhone 5s for $199 on a two-year contract. Engadget was the first to spot the promotion on Walmart's website on Wednesday, reporting that the deal is valid for the next 90 days.

The discount applies as long as you sign up for a two-year contract with AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, or US Cellular.

Walmart's bargain comes just as Apple is expected to unveil its new iPhone on Sept. 9. Presumably called the iPhone 6, Apple's next smartphone is expected to come with a larger 4.7-inch screen that's sharper than the iPhone 5s', a new processor from Apple, and thinner design that resembles the iPad Air.

Rumors suggest that Apple may also release an even bigger 5.5-inch iPhone this year, but it's unclear if the two phones will launch at the same time.

It's possible Walmart is trying to clear out its inventory ahead of Apple's new iPhone launch, but we'll have to wait on the word from Apple to know for sure. 

SEE ALSO: Here's Everything We Know About The iPhone 6

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After becoming a top-seller of Chromebooks, Acer has set its sights on the Chromebox market, debuting a new Chrome OS desktop computer starting at $179.99. Two of the computer's four USB ports can charge a phone or tablet even when the Chromebox is powered down.

Move over, HP and Asus: Acer just jumped into the Chromebox market, too originally published by Gigaom, © copyright 2014.

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Video-chatting startup Rabbit quietly relaunched yesterday as a browser-based video chat application, after a short-lived run as a Mac desktop app in 2013.

The app is aimed at creating a completely new video-chatting experience that mimics the real-life experience of walking into a friend’s dorm room or hanging out at a party. What that translates to is the ability to video-chat with 10 friends at once, while sharing videos, games, documents, and movies simultaneously.

“We see it as a way to share experiences with people the way you would in real life. People watch TV together, people go to the movies together — we're trying to recreate that experience. We’re not trying to compete with the standard players in video chat,” Rabbit CEO Michael Temkin told Business Insider.

Rabbit users can watch Hulu or Netflix together, work on a GoogleDoc, or conduct large business meetings, complete with Powerpoints.

The app currently works with Google Chrome and Opera browsers and will be coming soon for Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Safari. A mobile app for iOS and Android is in the works for an early 2015 release.

Founded in 2012 by the founder of Acclaim Entertainment and others with extensive experience in video games and massively-multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), Rabbit’s mission is simple: “to bring people together.”

During the app’s original launch in 2013 as a Mac-exclusive, Rabbit was focused on creating chat-rooms featuring multiple conversations. Users could gather in public spaces, “Rooms,” based around a common event like a concert.

According to Temkin, users loved the concept, but it was difficult to get them to go through the “friction” to get on the app: namely an app download, required audio and video plug-ins, and sign ups.

The new Rabbit aims to remove all the barriers to use. The Rabbit engineering team rebuilt the app using WebRTC , a new type of video codec, so that there are no downloads or plugins. Starting a Rabbit chat is as simple as opening a browser and sharing a link with your friends. Signing up for an account is completely optional.

Users that sign up can be assigned their own room, complete with a sharing link that they or any one of their friends can go to at any time.

Rabbit’s no-brainer video chat and screen-sharing is useful, but it’s the company’s long-term plans where things get interesting. Rabbit is working on integrating its video-chat software with existing media organizations and social networks as kind of next-level version of commenting. Rabbit envisions a world where you read a story on The Washington Post’s website and, at the bottom of the article, join a Rabbit chat where readers are having a reasoned discussion on the topic.

While that may be optimistic (commenters are notoriously vicious), Rabbit is betting that face-to-face interactions will make people more civilized. Their goal is to have the type of application that convinces people to stay on pages longer, engage more, and drive video advertising views.

During Rabbit’s first launch in 2013, the company saw average chat times in the 70-90 minute range and average chat sizes of four people. If at some point in the future, Rabbit were able to achieve that in its integrations with existing media properties, Rabbit could quickly become the industry’s darling.

Rabbit experimented with the idea in 2013, when the site partnered with MTV and Intel to broadcast concerts by Korean pop-star Taeyang and UK electronic music duo Disclosure. During the concert, “audience-members” were able to watch the concert while having multiple conversations with other audience members via Rabbit. The event was a demonstration of what Rabbit could do when opened up to a large setting, hosting hundreds of people at the same time.

“In the beginning, people would tentatively join up with conversations, but by the end of it, we had large groups of people drinking and hanging out around the concert. It was giving people the opportunity to meet in the way they would in the real world,” says Temkin.

The Taeyang concert is an example of Rabbit’s conception of “Rooms,” part of the company’s future vision. According to Temkin, the goal is for Rabbit to have numerous public spaces where large groups of people could meet and interact around topics or content. By example. Temkin says that during the testing phase, Rabbit set up a room where random users could interact around a news channel. The response far outpaced their expectations, as they found users were happy to talk for hours with random people about current events.

For those that are thinking the obvious: that its difficult talking in a group of four, let alone dozens or hundreds of people at once. Temkin says that, in practice, such a situation is far more intuitive than one might guess. Users naturally break up into groups of people that they are interested in talking to and new entrants wander from conversation to conversation until they find one that interests them.

One of the most obvious questions with an app like Rabbit is streaming quality and internet speed. The company has designed the platform so users can have a “high-quality experience in a low-bandwidth setting,” says Temkin. To do that, Rabbit has made it so streaming is controlled on their servers, reducing the bandwidth necessary for the app to work well. When the internet is particularly bad, the app is designed to always maintain audio quality (which users have told them is most important), even when top video quality is unavailable.  Temkin maintains that he was able to conduct a meeting on Rabbit using notoriously bad GoGo WiFi. 

Though Rabbit has yet to do its Series A funding yet, the company raised $3.3 million in 2013 from Google Ventures, CrunchFund, Michael Birch, and others.

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For months, rumors have suggested that Google is working on a new brand for its mobile devices known as Android Silver.

Now, tech blog TKTechNews (via BGR) claims that Motorola may be making the first phone to launch under this brand.

Android Silver is said to be Google's attempt at making the Android platform seem more premium and unified like the iPhone, according to reports from The Information and Android Police. 

With Android Silver, Google would pay some of its partners to build phones just for the platform. Each phone would come with a near-stock version of Android, and customers would have 24-7 access to support via Google Hangouts. Google may add Android Silver kiosks to carrier stores to inform customers about the program, too. 

At the same time, rumors have suggested that Google and Motorola are teaming up to develop a smartphone known internally as Shamu. While previous reports said this may be the Nexus 6, newer rumors indicate this could be an Android Silver device called the Moto S. 

This purported Android Silver phone from Motorola is expected to come with a massive 5.9-inch screen with a resolution of 2,560x1,440, according to Phone Arena. 

Google has yet to make any announcements regarding Android Silver, but both Android Police and The Information have a strong track record when it comes to reporting on upcoming Google updates.

Last year Google took the wraps off its Nexus 5 in late October, so we may expect to see new hardware debut around the same time this year. 

SEE ALSO: 10 Beautiful Design Details In Google's New Android Software

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Several Microsoft Azure services -- virtual machines, cloud services, StorSimple, backup and site recovery -- were off line for hours Monday afternoon.

“Whoops,” says Microsoft Azure: cloud service goes down for many users originally published by Gigaom, © copyright 2014.

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An interactive map created by Twitter's head of data science shows the speed with which news about the unrest in Ferguson, Mo. spread across the world via the real-time social network

Watch as the news of violence in Ferguson spreads across the world via Twitter originally published by Gigaom, © copyright 2014.

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Apple has begun keeping some of its Chinese users' personal data in China, Reuters revealed yesterday. That's significant because it is the first tech company to store information in the notoriously snoop-happy country, thus raising concerns that the data might be looked at by authorities.

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Most of us can trace back the recent history of smartphones through a plethora of Androids, iPhones, and Blackberrys. Maybe you recall a nascent phone-PDA hybrid from Palm or Kyocera. But I bet you don't remember the IBM Simon, the world's first smartphone, which hit the streets 20 years ago today.

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From Alaska to the Andes, glaciers all over the world have been retreating for decades, as average global surface temperatures have increased. This loss of these glaciers is one of the most iconic manifestations of manmade global warming, but until now, no one had studied the obvious question: Just how much global glacier melt (referred to technically as "glacier mass loss") is global warming responsible for, and how much is from natural climate variability?

A new study, published Thursday in the journal Science Express, tackles that question, and comes to a profound — if not surprising— conclusion. The study found that manmade global warming, which is largely due to the burning of fossil fuels such as oil and coal for energy, is responsible for nearly 70% of global glacier mass loss between 1991 to 2010 Read more...

More about Climate Change, Science, Global Warming, Us World, and Us

The biggest takeaway from Cisco’s earnings Wednesday was its massive layoff plan that will roll out next quarter.

Up to 6,000 employees, or 8% of the global workforce, will lose their jobs as a result of this. It’ll be the largest lay off Cisco's had since 2011, when 6,500 jobs were cut.

Cisco’s CEO John Chambers didn’t specify where the cuts will come from during the company's earnings call Wednesday, but implied that a lot of it could happen in emerging markets, where sales are tanking.

“Some of our markets are slowing down, and unfortunately, you can’t move sales reps from one country to another with different language characteristics,” Chambers said during the call. 

The biggest hit region in sales last quarter were emerging markets. They collectively lost 9% last quarter, led by countries like China, which dropped 23% in sales. 

Chambers cited “significant slowdown in emerging markets” as a major factor that hurt Cisco’s performance last year. And it could get worse in the long term. “We’re not expecting any material rebound in emerging market conditions,” Chambers said.

He further elaborated when he told the New York Times that the job cuts would come from areas like, “sales people in one country that isn’t returning as much in revenue, or service people where the business is in a new language.”

The outlook for China is particularly worrisome. In each of the last four quarters, sales in China have dropped significantly. In November 2014, Cisco said orders from China fell 18%, followed by another 8% decline in the next quarter. It fell 8% again in the following quarter, and a massive 23% in its latest report.

Part of this decline could be attributed to last year’s NSA revelations that raised huge security concerns over U.S. tech services. As an unnamed former NSA official told VentureBeat in a recent article:

The constant stream of news about NSA’s activities has raised broader questions, particularly internationally, about the security of technologies coming from U.S. companies. This has been measurably hitting the bottom lines of companies like Cisco and Juniper and caused many companies to look to alternatives like Huawei.

Of course, this isn’t anything new. In fact, Chambers has addressed this issue several times in the past year. 

When asked about the drop in Chinese sales in December 2013, Chambers said, “I do think (the NSA revelation) is a factor in China.” In May 2014, in response to the alleged NSA spying programs, Chambers wrote the Obama Administration, “if these allegations are true, these actions will undermine confidence in our industry and in the ability of technology companies to deliver products globally.” 

Obviously, the NSA revelation isn’t the only reason for Cisco's job cuts. But there’s no question it’s having a huge impact on Cisco’s bottom line. Chambers said that, ultimately, it all comes down to market conditions.

“It (job cuts) is the most difficult decision we make as an operating committee, but the market waits for no one, and if we’re going to lead this market, we’re going to be decisive in it.”

We've reached out to Cisco multiple times for comment, and we'll update if we hear back.

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BlackBerry's upcoming Passport phone is noticeably larger and wider than your average smartphone, but there's also another strange feature that distinguishes it from the competition.

The Passport comes with a physical keyboard that actually doubles as a touchpad, meaning you can swipe across the keys to interact with the device.

Early reviews and first impressions of the phone mentioned this feature, but a new video from UK phone retailer Carphone Warehouse actually shows how it works.

BlackBerry blog Crackberry first spotted the video, which has since been taken down by Carphone Warehouse. 

It seems like you'll be able to type letters using the physical buttons, but you would insert characters like symbols and numbers by swiping across the keyboard like you would a touchscreen. 

It's unclear if this method will actually be more effective than typing on a standard touchscreen keyboard, but it's an interesting approach. 

Those who have had the chance to play with the Passport have also praised the phone for its high-resolution display. CrackBerry previously said that the Passport's screen "is of such an elegance, it even made the most diehard iPhone user smile." Based on what we can see from Carphone Warehouse's video, the display does appear to be crisp and colorful.

Although BlackBerry fans seem to love the Passport, it's unclear if the company's new oddly-shaped phone is enough to bring it back from its slump. In the last quarter of 2013, the IDC reported that BlackBerry only accounted for 0.3% of the global smartphone market share. 

During its quarterly earnings report in June, BlackBerry confirmed its plans to launch the Passport later this year. It's expected to debut in September. 

Check out the full video from Carphone Warehouse below. 

SEE ALSO: 8 Common Tech Myths You Should Stop Believing Today

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Networking giant Cisco Systems will embark on its fourth restructuring in as many years, saying Wednesday it will lay off as many as 6,000 people, amounting to about eight percent of its 74,000-strong work force. The cuts are the largest since it began a series of restructuring actions in 2011.

CFO Frank Calderone announced the layoff plan during a conference call with analysts. He said Cisco expects to take a restructuring charge of as much as $700 million, and as much as half of that will come during the quarter ending in October.

The news came after Cisco reported quarterly earnings that beat the estimates of analysts. Its per-share profit in the fourth quarter was 55 cents on $12.4 billion in sales. The results were better than the 53 cents on $12.1 billion in revenue that had been expected. Cisco shares fell by more than by 30 cents, or more than one percent, in after-hours trading after closing up slightly during the regular session.

For the full year, sales fell three percent to $47.1 billion, and earnings for the year were $2.06 per-share on a non-GAAP basis.

In a statement, CEO John Chambers sounded a positive tone: “I’m pleased with how we are transforming our company over the past several years and that journey continues. … We are focused on growth, innovation and talent, especially in the areas of security, data center, software, cloud and Internet of everything. Our strategy is sound, our financials are strong, and our market leadership is secure. We have the team in place to deliver and are uniquely positioned to help our customers solve their biggest business problems.”

News of the previously rumored layoffs was left for the conference call with analysts.

Update: Looking ahead, Chambers said Cisco expects sales in the first quarter of 2015 to be “flat to up one percent.” And business in international markets continues to be weak. Chambers said that business in emerging markets declined. Orders in what Cisco calls the “BRICM” countries — Brazil, Russia, India, China and Mexico — fell by double digits, and he said that the company doesn’t expect those markets to return to growth “for several quarters.” After those markets, orders in the next 15 largest countries declined by nine percent, he said. The main problem appeared to be in the service provider video market, where sales declined by 13 percent.

There was growth, but as has been the case for Cisco recently, it was in a sector that accounts for a relatively small part of Cisco’s overall business. The data center business grew by 30 percent to $772 million in the quarter, while the security business grew 29 percent to $447 million.

In the larger business segments, switching sales fell four percent to $3.7 billion, and routing fell seven percent to $1.9 billion. Service provider video fell 10 percent to about $1 billion. Services revenue grew five percent to $2.8 billion.

HP just refreshed its Chromebook 11 back in May but it was more of a downgrade than anything else. Now, an official data sheet says HP has a newer model that loses the ARM chip in favor of a power-efficient Intel Celeron.

Looks like HP’s next Chromebook 11 is dropping the ARM chip for an Intel Celeron originally published by Gigaom, © copyright 2014.

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Cisco CEO John Chambers had some disappointing things to say during his company's quarterly earnings conference call.

"Latin America declined 6% with ongoing pressures in some of the largest countries including a decline of 13% in our business in Brazil," said Chambers.

China got slammed with sales down 23% in the region.

As a global provider of networking systems, Cisco serves as a valuable bellwether of economic activity.

It's worth noting that Cisco's operations in China have more to do with industry-specific woes rather than broader economic trends.

"Cisco executives have publicly blamed the company's disappointing results, in part, on disclosures about surveillance activities by the National Security Agency, which they say worry Chinese customers," said CNBC's Mark Berniker and Josh Lipton.

Looking forward, Chambers warned he saw no material rebound in emerging market conditions.

"Unfortunately as we look out, we don't see emerging markets growth for several quarters," he said. "We believe it possibly could get worse."

Barron's Tiernan Ray, who was also listening to the call, noted that in the emerging markets "15 of the nations there collectively declining in order rate by 9%."

Once the world's most reliable source of growth, the emerging markets have run into all sorts of problems in recent years with growth slowing while inflation remains high.

SEE ALSO: Wall Street Stock Market Strategist Warns The Party's Over

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Networking giant has to slim down, reallocate resources in achieve its goal of becoming the "number 1 IT company," said CEO John Chambers.

Cisco plans to cut 8 percent, or 6,000, employees originally published by Gigaom, © copyright 2014.

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The engineers behind Siri are working on a new artificial intelligence system, but not at Apple.

Viv Labs, which includes members from team that made Siri before the company was bought by Apple, wants to make an "intelligent interface to everything."

But those engineers didn't exactly leave Apple on good terms, according to Wired's Steven Levy.

Levy says the creators of Siri were wooed into selling their company by Steve Jobs, who wanted to incorporate the now ubiquitous personal assistant into every iPhone.

But not everyone at Apple was as impassioned about what Siri could be as Jobs. This caused a rift between Apple executives and their new colleagues.

Within a few months of the iPhone's launch, two of the three minds behind Siri had left Apple. One Siri cofounder, Adam Cheyer, told Levy he probably would still be at Apple if Jobs were still living.

This dig at Apple reflects not only the respect Jobs had for what Siri could be, but also the challenges Cheyer and others faced while integrating into a massive tech company that didn't uniformly value Siri's technology.

In short, the Siri creators thought Jobs was the only person at Apple who had the vision to turn Siri into what they thought it could be. Instead, the Siri we have now is routinely criticized for not being as good as other digital assistants like Google Now and Microsoft's Cortana.

SEE ALSO: Apple Releases Disappointing Employee Diversity Numbers

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Polaroid has a new GoPro competitor called the Polaroid Cube, and you can pre-order the tiny camera today, according to Engadget.

The Polaroid Cube features a 124° wide-angled lens for capturing 1080p HD video, and the water resistant and shockproof housing means you can use the Cube just like you would a GoPro. There's even a magnet in the camera's base for attaching it to metal objects.

The Cube is tiny, just 35mm tall, and Polaroid has announced a host of mounting accessories from straps to tripods to waterproof helmet mounts that will be available later this month.

You can pre-order the Polaroid Cube starting at $100 over at Photojojo, or see what the Cube looks like in action below.

SEE ALSO: 14 Amazing Photos Shot With A GoPro Camera

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The internet giant is teaming up with IT network and communications provider NEC, among others, to establish a consortium for the purpose of building and deploying a Trans-Pacific cable system.

There's a shake-down coming to the $23 billion networking equipment market currently dominated by Cisco. On the one side is Cisco and its traditional competitors like Juniper Networks. On the other is an odd assortment of players including Cisco's close partner VMware, a string of startups and, most recently, Facebook.

In 2013, Kumar Srikantan left his role as vice president and general manager of Cisco's Enterprise Networking Group after 14 years to become CEO of one of the competing startups, Pluribus Networks.

The industry is fighting over something called "software-defined networking" (SDN) which is a new way to build corporate networks. With SDN, the fancy features included in high-end networking gear is moved to software running on a lower-cost computers. Companies still need network equipment but they need less of it, and less expensive varieties. Using SDN makes the network easier to change and manage and better for cloud computing data centers.

SDN has also been a hot market for VC investment because a whole bunch of SDN startups were acquired for huge sums of money, sometimes when their products were barely shipping.

"I've been around the block across Cisco in routing and switching. It was nice and was comfortable, but there was so much action going on in terms of software-defined architecture and the market. I was being approached by VCs for months," Srikantan tells Business Insider.

While no one believes that this new technology will wipe Cisco off the planet, it could eventually hurt the fat ~60% profit margin on network products that Cisco has enjoyed for years. Cisco isn't standing still. It developed its own SDN technology by funding a spin-in company called Insieme then purchasing it for $863 million. No doubt a lot of Cisco's customers will want that product.

But Facebook recently filed a big shot at Cisco by introducing a SDN switch of its own called "The Wedge." Facebook isn't selling the switch. It is giving the design away for free as part of its bigger open source hardware project called Open Compute Center.

Facebook's switch could prove the promise of SDN — that networks can be built using less expensive hardware.

Pluribus' Srikantan thinks Facebook has it right.

"There is no direct connection between Facebook's Wedge and our products at Pluribus, but the vision is the same," Srikantan says. "We took standard off-the-shelf components from Intel, from Broadcom, from others, and created a system that just puts it together. That's the promise of Facebook's OCP."

Pluribus has been around much longer than Facebook's Wedge, which means that Facebook has validated his company's approach, he says.

Srikantan has faith that Cisco will still do well in the SDN market. He says Cisco is a "very strong company" run by "very smart people."

But he thinks the old way of building networks — buying expensive pieces of hardware equipment from companies like Cisco or Pluribus — won't live on.

"You are seeing a shift, even in network operations staffs, trying to take advantage of this new stuff because this is the future," Srikantan says. He has staked his career on that belief.

Pluribus has gained some big marquee customers, too, like Airbus and CloudFlare. Cloudflare is another startup taking on Cisco by turning networking into a cloud service.

Meanwhile, Cisco says that its ready for the likes of Pluribus, Facebook and all the SDN players. A spokesperson previously told Business Insider that their competitor's tech "is loaded with hidden hard and operational costs" and that at Cisco, "we know this segment of the market (largest Internet players) very well. We intend to retain and grow these customers."

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Senator Chuck Schumer (D-New York) issued a statement Sunday calling for federal protections to guard consumers from a "privacy nightmare" that could be created by Fitbit and other wearable fitness trackers.

Specifically, Schumer said he was worried companies behind Fitbit and similar products could sell data from these devices to third parties. 

"Personal fitness bracelets and the data they collect on your health, sleep, and location, should be just that — personal. The fact that private health data — rich enough to identify the user’s gait — is being gathered by applications like Fitbit and can then be sold to third-parties without the user’s consent is a true privacy nightmare," Schumer said. 

Schumer's press release announcing his concerns about FitBit declared, in all capital letters: "WITHOUT THEIR KNOWLEDGE, FITBIT BRACELETS & SMARTPHONE APPS ARE TRACKING USER’S MOVEMENTS AND HEALTH DATA THAT COULD BE SOLD TO THIRD PARTIES." In his statement, the senator called on the Federal Trade Commission to require companies to notify consumers if their fitness and location data could be sold to third parties — and to allow users to opt out of these deals. 

"If companies of fitness devices have the ability to sell personal health data to insurers, employers and others, users should be alerted and given the opportunity to decline," Schumer said. "The FTC should require fitness devices and app companies to adopt new privacy measures that will help conceal the identity of individuals and develop policies to protect consumer information in the event of a security breach."

Schumer's press release noted the FTC "has openly voiced its concern about the selling of personal fitness data between companies, but has yet to take action to push application developers and other fitness monitoring companies to provide an opt-out opportunity." The press released also suggested that, without adequate protections, "users’ health information obtained via these trackers could be sold to insurers, mortgage lenders, or employers."

Update (8:31 p.m.): A Fitbit spokesperson said the company did not sell data to third parties and that it would like to "work with" Schumer.

"Fitbit does not sell user data. Our privacy policy prevents us from doing this. We are committed to our users' privacy and welcome the opportunity to work with Senator Schumer on this important issue," the spokesperson said. 

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