This week, we asked executive editor Dan Meyer what his top five stories of the week were.

He said, “These five stories all hit what are ongoing hot-button issues for the telecom, networking, cloud and cybersecurity ecosystems, which shows that industry players are targeting these concerns head on.”

As our telecom and networking editor, Meyer's expertise in these areas is invaluable. But can you imagine going to a dinner party with him and having him start the conversation with “So, have you heard the latest on Verizon's network slicing?” And in spite of yourself, you'd stay and listen because he makes it interesting even for nontechnical people.

So, without further ado, here are Dan's top five favorite stories of the week.

1. Nokia’s US fiber optic deal draws VP Kamala Harris

Nokia struck an agreement with Wisconsin-based equipment manufacturer Sanmina to produce fiber-optic broadband network equipment targeted specifically at the United States’ recently implemented Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) program. That agreement included a presentation that drew local officials and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris.

2. VMware Carbon Black adds container and K8s security into XDR

In a major move aimed at extending its Carbon Black extended detection and response (XDR) platform, VMware today introduced its new cloud-native detection and response (CNDR) capabilities to offer visibility and context into containers and Kubernetes environments.

“Containers and modern application frameworks are becoming more and more pervasive,” Jason Rolleston, VP and GM of VMware Carbon Black, told SDxCentral. The transformation has created a unique set of challenges for security operations center (SOC) teams, “because security people aren’t necessarily application developers.”

3. Cisco speeds up its XDR response time with automated ransomware recovery

Cisco unveiled a new ransomware recovery function designed to enhance the response capabilities in its extended detection and response (XDR) platform. The vendor taps Cohesity to automatically take snapshots and help restore business-critical data when signs of ransomware are detected.

Cisco’s XDR service aims to correlate and analyze native and third-party telemetry sources including endpoint, network, firewall, email, identity and domain name system (DNS) to deliver detection and response in “near real time.”

4. T-Mobile opens its 5G network slicing to developers

T-Mobile US opened up a network slicing beta program that allows developers to test their video calling applications on a slice of the carrier’s 5G standalone (SA) network. The move is the latest push by operators to unlock embedded 5G capabilities.

The program allows developers to sign up to test video-calling applications, which are considered a prime application for network slicing capabilities as they require a consistent and speedy uplink and downlink connection, low latency and reliability.

5. Dell partners with Nvidia, rolls out suite of products to simplify genAI

Generative AI (genAI) is the next digital transformation — and enterprises of all stripes are rushing to adopt the technology (or at least explore their options).

Tech giants are rushing to greet this shiny new marvel and gain market share, and Dell Technologies is no exception. The company today introduced Dell Generative AI Solutions in collaboration with Nvidia. The suite of new products aims to help enterprises with AI inferencing, strategy, implementation and scaling; support workloads locally on device; and provide training and other critical tools.