IT Executive news

• Amazon Web Services Tweaks Cloud Pricing Structure

  02-12-2014 23:59
  
  Amazon Web Services is providing more payment options for its cloud-based virtual machines, allowing users to lock in a price and pay either entirely upfront, or throughout the life of a one- or three-year contract.AWS has a variety of ways customers can pay for using its cloud-based virtual machines. The most common is an on-demand pricing model where customers enter credit card information and pay for virtual machines by the hour.For customers who plan to use the resources for a longer peri
  
  Read more

• Making the leap from philosophy major to citizen developer - ZDNet

  02-12-2014 23:57
  
  Making the leap from philosophy major to citizen developer
  ZDNet
  An IT executive at Power Solutions International created an app that replaced expense reporting spreadsheets for more than 150 employees. The CEO of LoyaltyGenerator, Inc., who has no formal development training, used his aPaaS solution to build and ...
  
  Read more

• FCC's Pai asks Netflix if it only wants net neutrality for itself

  02-12-2014 23:45
  
  Netflix is pushing for a level Internet playing field while apparently looking for ways to give its own video a fast lane, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai says.In a letter to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings on Tuesday, Pai questioned how Netflix could advocate strong net neutrality regulations while rebuffing an effort to develop open standards for video streaming. Work that Netflix reportedly may be doing on its own video delivery system might give it an advantage over other content providers, Pai wrote
  
  Read more

• FCC's Pai Ssks Netflix if It Only Wants Net Neutrality for Itself

  02-12-2014 23:45
  
  Netflix is pushing for a level Internet playing field while apparently looking for ways to give its own video a fast lane, FCC Commissioner Ajit Pai says.
  In a letter to Netflix CEO Reed Hastings on Tuesday, Pai questioned how Netflix could advocate strong net neutrality regulations while rebuffing an effort to develop open standards for video streaming. Work that Netflix reportedly may be doing on its own video delivery system might give it an advantage over other content providers, Pai wro
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Windows 10 could prompt upgrades of 600 million aging PCs

  02-12-2014 22:55
  
  Microsoft’s Windows 10 is still in testing, but hardware makers can’t wait for the day the OS replaces the controversial Windows 8.Millions of PCs are aging, and those who have resisted Windows 8 will likely upgrade to computers with Windows 10. The initial reception to a test version of Windows 10 has been positive, as it resolves many usability issues affecting Windows 8.There are about 600 million PCs that are four years or older, and those systems are ripe for upgrades, said Renee Jam
  
  Read more

• Conservative lawyers question need for patent troll legislation

  02-12-2014 22:50
  
  So-called patent trolls may not be as big of a problem as some advocates of U.S. patent reform make them out to be, some conservative patent experts say, in a split with many Republican lawmakers.Congress should step back and determine whether patent trolls are causing serious problems in the U.S. patent system before moving forward with patent reform legislation in 2015, said other speakers at a Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies patent reform discussion Tuesday.Congress is
  
  Read more

• Chromebooks Make the Grade Among School CIOs

  02-12-2014 22:49
  
  School system CIOs in the U.S. are embracing Chromebooks, delivering a tremendous lift to the platform. That's also its downside.Of the 1.5 million Chromebooks shipped in the U.S. in the third quarter of this year, 1.13 million -- or about 75% of all shipments -- went to schools and higher education institutions, according to IDC.In the year-ago quarter, Chromebook shipments in the U.S. were put at 628,000 by IDC."We do see continuous increases in volume shipments of Chromebooks, and that is
  
  Read more

• Microsoft delivers the talking Dynamics CRM update

  02-12-2014 22:45
  
  Dynamics customers can now get their hands on the suite’s latest update, which includes the ability to add the Cortana voice-command technology to the company’s CRM software.Users will be able to speak voice commands to the software by using the Cortana personal assistant, which only understands English. Some of the tasks that Cortana can handle include searching for contacts and activities, setting up meetings and creating records.Microsoft announced the CRM update in September and menti
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• IDG Contributor Network: Why Your Team in India Won't Say 'No'

  02-12-2014 22:45
  
  Last Thursday, I ran into the head of software development of a multinational engineering conglomerate based in Switzerland. Enjoying tasty espresso in a café, he commented on a piece I published earlier this year about major stumbling blocks when outsourcing to India. He wondered why it was so difficult for people from India to say no. He asked: "Is there remedy for yes culture?"
  I've been hearing this question for a long time now. Many years ago, when I was the relationship manager at the
  
  Read more

• Twitter Takes Small Steps to Finally Deal With its Harassment Problem

  02-12-2014 22:35
  Twitter is a real-time news platform, a social scene, and a forum for anonymous harassment and abuse. One of these things is not like the others, so the company is making changes to fix the process for reporting and blocking harassers.
  Twitter is rolling out streamlined in-app abuse reports.
  The new tools won’t make life easier for prominent Twitter users who experience a daily onslaught of abuse, but they simplify the process of reporting abusive tweets within the Twitter app and managing
  
  Read more

• Network Slowdowns Are the Biggest Issue for IT, Survey Shows

  02-12-2014 21:42
  
  The single most common issue faced by the IT pros surveyed recently by Kelton Research is network slowdowns or outages, which outstripped application performance problems, availability and even the dreaded “unanticipated change request.”The study, commissioned by IT performance analysis vendor TeamQuest, tracked the opinions of more than 400 IT management professionals who work at companies with 1,000 or more employees. The findings, which were released today, unsurprisingly centered on t
  
  Read more

• Quick Look: NASA Orion’s Critical Test Mission

  02-12-2014 21:34
  
  The missionOrion is the first spacecraft built for astronauts destined for deep space since the Apollo missions and ultimately it is destined for deep space travel -- but this week the spaceship went out for a short jaunt outside Earth. NASA says Orion’s unmanned test flight – slated for launch Thursday, is intended to test many of the riskiest elements of leaving Earth and returning home in the spacecraft including the jettison of the launch abort system; the separation of the Orion crew mo
  
  Read more

• Is Sprint's New Half-Off Deal a Desperation Move?

  02-12-2014 21:19
  
  Sprint donned its boxing gloves with an extravagant offer to cut monthly wireless rate plans in half for new customers who switch to Sprint from either Verizon Wireless or AT&T.The new "Cut Your Bill in Half" offer, which starts Friday, notably doesn't apply to T-Mobile customers. Sprint is clearly positioning itself to take back the "top value in wireless" crown from T-Mobile, which has dominated headlines for for more than a year with its new and unusual pricing and contract plans.Wheth
  
  Read more

• Whitelisting project helps industrial control systems owners find suspicious files

  02-12-2014 21:15
  
  Industrial control systems have been at the center of some scary security stories recently, but investigating malware infections in such environments is not easy because analysts often having a hard time telling suspicious and good files apart.Security researchers have identified two malware campaigns this year that targeted SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems—Havex and BlackEnergy. Such attacks are expected to grow in number, as new reports show that state-sponsored ha
  
  Read more

• iOS Trumps Android in Mobile Shopping. So What?

  02-12-2014 21:12
  
  Apple iPhone and iPad owners again put their stamp on holiday sales in the U.S. last week, accounting for the bulk of revenue booked from mobile devices, several analytics firms said.But the data those companies touted was, if not meaningless, certainly not revelatory, experts argued."It's well understood that iOS attracts more affluent consumers," said Ross Rubin, principal analyst at Reticle Research. "It would be more indicative of trends to see what percentage of their transactions they w
  
  Read more

• Parkinson's Disease Wearable Gets EU Patent

  02-12-2014 20:48
  
  Wearable devices that are being trialled by Parkinson's UK to improve symptom management for sufferers have been granted an EU patent, signalling a green light for the devices to enter the UK market in the near future.The Global Kinetics Corporation's (GCK) KinetiGraph device, worn on the wrist, records patients' movements and medication to assess dosage levels and their effectiveness.Charity Parkinson's UK announced that it would trial the wearables on hundreds of patients over the next 12 m
  
  Read more

• Intel, SwiftKey Upgrade Stephen Hawking's Communication Technology

  02-12-2014 20:08
  
  It seems incredible to believe that of all the people on the planet, Stephen Hawking’s communication system has never used the sort of predictive typing found in modern smartphones, or even a backspace key. Now it does, via a partnership between Intel and Swiftkey.Hawking, who suffers from an advanced stage of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (also known as ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease), communicates entirely through a text-based communication system controlled by his facial muscles. Up until
  
  Read more

• HP rolls data analysis tools into the cloud

  02-12-2014 19:55
  
  The pool of online data analysis services available for corporate users is about to grow larger, with HP set to offer two of its own, key products as hosted cloud services by early next year.The company’s high-performance columnar database, Vertica, will be available as a hosted offering starting early in 2015, as HP Vertica OnDemand.The company will also offer selected functions of its IDOL (Intelligent Data Operating Layer) text processing software as discrete services that can be embedde
  
  Read more

• No Ordinary Mobile Attack: The Regin Menace

  02-12-2014 19:44
  
  When you read about security attacks involving mobile network technology, typically they're incidents that target mobile devices used by consumers.All kinds of malware has been found over the years that targets iOS and Android. Isolate the malicious files, wait for antivirus software to acquire signatures a day or so after a zero-day is discovered, run it, reboot your device, you're all set.That's not what Regin is, oh no. Regin is the story of a global cyberattack mechanism on a massive scal
  
  Read more

• FIRST LOOK: Firefox 34

  02-12-2014 19:29
  
  Why, Hello thereThe fact that modern browsers update silently and often occasionally takes some of the savor out of a new release. Rapid releases mean new features are deployed in a dribble, rather than in bursts. With Firefox 34, however, Mozilla has bucked the trend, giving us a swath of new features to enjoy all at once. Have a look.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
  Read more

• Software Can Now Identify DNA From Viruses and Speed Up Diagnoses

  02-12-2014 19:08
  
  Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) announced this week that bioinformatics software it created can now identify DNA from fungi, bacteria, viruses and other pathogens, slashing the time it takes to diagnose some illnesses from weeks to hours.The software can also speed the analysis of cancerous tumor genetics for chemotherapy options and prognosis.The LANL's new version of its Sequedex software recognizes patterns in short DNA sequences and then associates those sequences with phylogeny --
  
  Read more

• How Apple’s New Patent Could Keep Your Phone’s Screen From Shattering

  02-12-2014 18:56
  
  We’ve all been there: Your iPhone slips from your grasp or jumps from your pocket, and instead of landing on its case-ensconced back, it hits the ground face first. The once pristine screen is now covered in hairline cracks.You can pay Apple out of pocket to replace the glass or turn to a third-party repair shop for a cheaper fix. Corning’s forthcoming Gorilla Glass 4 is designed to prevent smartphone screens from shattering on impact, though it won’t offer perfect protection from dam
  
  Read more

• BrandPost: BYOD + GPS = Threat Or Opportunity?

  02-12-2014 18:55
  
  If you’ve got a smartphone, you can’t help but notice a tiny little arrow, satellite dish, or teardrop icon at the top of your screen sometimes.It looks pretty innocuous, nestled as it is among the battery, Wi-Fi and cell strength doodads. In fact most of us don’t notice it’s even there—until we realize we’re running out of battery and go on a frantic hunt of which app have I left running? That’s because the icon says your GPS is on, quietly listening to the sky, gobbling up you
  
  Read more

• Sprint Tries to Poach AT&T and Verizon Subscribers With Half-Price Monthly Plans

  02-12-2014 18:32
  
  Sprint's trying hard to shake its underdog mobile carrier status, and its latest plan to snag subscribers is eye-catching. The company's Cut Your Bill in Half Event, which starts December 5 for a limited time, offers to halve the mobile device plans of AT&T or Verizon customers if they switch to Sprint. As the sale’s name suggests, Sprint says it will cut your cost for calls, text, and data in half. “For example, Verizon customers paying $140/month for four lines of service to share
  
  Read more

• Around the World With BYOD

  02-12-2014 18:20
  
  Unlike most technology trends, the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) phenomenon is tied closely to culture and norms. As a result, BYOD adoption varies widely country by country, as a recent Dell study on global workforce trends shows.Dell, Intel, TNS and Cascade Insights collectively interviewed 20 workforce experts in a dozen countries. The study found that more than half of employees globally are doing some form of BYOD, either on their own or under a company initiative. Yet some countries such
  
  Read more

• Iranian hackers compromised airlines, airports, critical infrastructure companies

  02-12-2014 18:05
  
  For the past two years, a team of Iranian hackers has compromised computers and networks belonging to over 50 organizations from 16 countries, including airlines, defense contractors, universities, military installations, hospitals, airports, telecommunications firms, government agencies, and energy and gas companies.The attacks have collectively been dubbed Operation Cleaver after a string found in various malware tools used by the hacker group, which is believed to operate primarily out of
  
  Read more

• BrandPost: Thanks Microsoft: Cyborg Licensing User-Based Windows OS Is Here

  02-12-2014 16:39
  Microsoft has embraced “by device” selling for their Windows desktop operating system since what feels like the beginning of time. But change has compounded over the past several years and truly transformed our computing experience. So much so that ordinary end-users (myself included) are lugging around a bagful of devices in order to stay connected at all times. We all want to work and play on devices that we choose to use—not to be hampered by things like file synchronization and comp
  
  Read more

• Apple's iPhone 6 may face patent dispute from Chinese vendor with look-alike device

  02-12-2014 16:05
  
  Few have probably heard about Digione, but one of the Chinese company’s latest products looks quite similar to the iPhone 6, and could potentially spark a patent dispute with Apple.The little-known Chinese smartphone maker revealed Monday it sent a letter to Apple in September, claiming that the iPhone 6 may infringe on a company-registered patent.The patent in question covers a mobile phone design that features an exterior look very similar to the iPhone 6’s. Digione’s subsidiary appli
  
  Read more

• With biggest update in two years, Pandora wants more of your feedback

  02-12-2014 15:25
  
  Do you hate the song Pandora just played for you? The music streaming service wants you to give it more feedback so it can play the songs you want to hear.Pandora has released a major update to its app for iOS and Android smartphones—the biggest update in two years, the company says. The interface gets a cleaner design, but more importantly Pandora is now nudging users to provide more feedback about stations and songs they like.It’s also added a new feature that lets users change their th
  
  Read more

• Making a Hash of Passwords

  02-12-2014 14:46
  
  Last week, I went to a project meeting so I could provide security insights as some consulting software developers updated us on the customer-facing application they’re building for us. But I was dumbfounded when they asked me, “How should we encrypt the passwords?” Will developers never learn? It could well be that the developers thought I would be impressed that they were thinking about security. After all, they wanted to encrypt the passwords their database would collect. I’m sorr
  
  Read more

• Report: Startup Promises to Catch 100% of Network Attacks with Unique Detection Technology

  02-12-2014 14:42
  
  Startup TrustPipe is announcing a security platform that categorizes network-based attacks and blocks them. The company claims that in two years of testing the software has never let attackers compromise the systems it has been protecting.As it emerges from three years of stealth mode TrustPipe is announcing – perhaps surprisingly – that its first version, called Trust XP, is written specifically for Windows XP, an operating system Microsoft stopped supporting last spring.But XP is still
  
  Read more

• HP sees HP-UX sticking around for 10 years

  02-12-2014 14:15
  
  Hewlett-Packard isn’t making bones about the fact that the Unix OS market is in decline, but the company believes its HP-UX has a long life ahead for customers using its fault-tolerant servers.The company has a road map for HP-UX into 2022, which could possibly expand into 2025, said Randy Meyer, vice president and general manager of Mission Critical Systems at HP’s Enterprise Server Business.“Clearly there are installed-base customers that want continuity of HP-UX,” Meyer said. “We
  
  Read more

• Why There’s No Open-Source Standard-Bearer for the Network

  02-12-2014 14:10
  
  Open-source software plays an increasingly prominent role in many areas of modern business IT – it’s in servers, databases and even the cloud. Vendors like Red Hat, Canonical and others have managed to graft open-source principles onto a profitable business model. The former company became the first open-source-centered business with $1 billion in annual revenue in 2012.So what about the network? Why isn’t there an open-source alternative there?Plenty of reasons, according to experts, i
  
  Read more

• IO splits in two, solving an identity crisis

  02-12-2014 14:05
  
  IO Data Centers is splitting into two companies as a way to attract investors and resolve a conflict that may have been holding back its business.IO has two main businesses today. One part sells collocation services from a network of data centers it operates. The other sells modular hardware and data center infrastructure management software that other companies use in their own data centers.Going forward, IO will focus on selling the collocation services, while a new company it’s forming,
  
  Read more

• Salesforce and Atlassian Team Up to Help Startups Give Back

  02-12-2014 14:01
  
  Cloud CRM provider Salesforce has long distinguished itself from other Silicon Valley heavyweights by refusing to move its corporate headquarters and offices from San Francisco itself, even as titans like Google, Facebook and Yahoo sprawl their offices all over the East Bay and the Peninsula that sits to the south.Yeah, rent is cheaper there, with San Francisco's legendarily horrible real estate market a major line item for any company trying to make it in the city. But Salesforce CEO Marc Be
  
  Read more

• Top 12 Laptop Bags for Pros on the Go

  02-12-2014 14:00
  
  Best Laptop Bags For Business TravelersImage by iStockphotoA laptop bag isn't the sexiest holiday gift, but as a practical present for that special geek in your life (or for yourself), it can be hard to beat. While there are plenty of basic black laptop messenger bags, rolling cases and backpacks, you can also find bags with both style and substance.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
  Read more

• The Best IT Resume Tips of 2014

  02-12-2014 13:53
  
  The Best IT Resume Tips of 2014Over the last year, our resume experts and career consultants have helped numerous IT professionals put their best foot forward. Here's a quick look at some of the top resume tips from 2014's IT Resume Makeover series.
  
  For a deeper dive on resume tips with expert commentary, please read,
  IT Resume Makeover: Top 11 Resume Tips From 2014.Clear Out the ClutterInstead of a "laundry list" of job responsibilities and daily tasks, focus your resume on how you've solved
  
  Read more

• 9 Ways to Keep Employees Motivated and Productive During the Holidays

  02-12-2014 13:38
  
  Keeping morale and productivity high during the holiday season (between Thanksgiving and just after New Year's) can be tough. The pull (and stress) of family and holiday shopping can cause workers to be distracted, or lose interest. As can going to work while their coworkers take vacation days.So what can employers and managers do to keep employees motivated and working toward year-end goals from late November through early January? Here are nine suggestions, provided by business owners and m
  
  Read more

• Why is it so Hard for Security Startups to Get Government Customers?

  02-12-2014 13:24
  
  It is often said that we learn more from our failures than from our successes.I was recently asked to share an ongoing technology problem in government that has frustrated me over the years and remains unresolved in most state/local government situations. Here’s the story I told about why it is so hard to bring in hot new technology (that is needed) from startup companies:Back in late January, 2014, a delegation of public and private sector technology leaders from Michigan visited Israel fo
  
  Read more

• IT Resume Makeover: Top 11 Tips From 2014

  02-12-2014 13:00
  
  1. Clear Out the ClutterTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
  Read more

• Cheapest tablets pose biggest security risks

  02-12-2014 13:00
  
  The super-cheap Android tablets everyone bought on Black Friday and Cyber Monday could pose problems for enterprises when they arrive at the workplace after the holidays."A lot of them are shipping with known vulnerabilities or open back doors," Andrew Blaich, lead security analyst at San Francisco, CA-based Bluebox Security, told CSO Online.The lowest-scoring device was the $49.99 Zeki, from Kohl's, which had USB debugging turned on by default; a security backdoor pre-installed; and four maj
  
  Read more

• Faster Ruby on Rails Rolls into the Station

  02-12-2014 12:00
  
  The Ruby on Rails Web development framework has plenty of rivals these days on the JavaScript front, but the framework keeps chugging along, with multiple upgrades on the horizon.Version 4.2, due this month, will feature debugging, HTML, and jobs framework improvements. The upgrade, which moved to a release candidate stage late last week, also sets the stage for Rails 5.0, the next major release of the 10-year-old framework. "The release of the first RC for the 4.2.0 series also marks the beg
  
  Read more

• China's booming smartphone growth starts to fizzle

  02-12-2014 11:35
  
  China’s appetite for smartphones is starting to reach its limit, with growth in the once booming market expected to reach single digit levels next year.The country ranks as the world biggest market for the devices, brought on by its giant population and scores of local vendors peddling cheap Android handsets. Demand in the market was so high that in 2013 smartphone shipments to the country were up 64 percent year over year, according to research firm IDC.But the growth has cooled down in 20
  
  Read more

• Thieves may regret stealing HP's Elitebook Folio 1020 laptops

  02-12-2014 06:20
  
  Thieves might regret stealing Hewlett-Packard’s ultrathin Elitebook Folio 1020 laptops, which have a feature that turns them into nothing more than paperweights in case of theft.A special feature in the Elitebook Folio 1020 is an “always on” capability so the laptop can be tracked even when it’s shut off, as with smartphones and tablets. If a laptop is lost or stolen, it can be tracked down to a specific location and data can be remotely wiped by a system administrator.HP is tailoring
  
  Read more

• Are HP's New EliteBooks Too Cool to be Corporate?

  02-12-2014 06:01
  
  HP's new EliteBook laptops may be corporate tools, but they've got some cool factor, too—whether it's the carbon-fiber-infused shell of one model, or the twistable display on another. Cool is good, because these EliteBooks face as much pressure as the mobile workforce they support. They have to perform, and they have to last.I'll be honest with you: I have a friend whose company went with HP for her sales team, and she hated those laptops. They kept failing. I recall her bitter words as I w
  
  Read more

• New point-of-sale malware on underground markets for $2,000

  02-12-2014 05:55
  
  A new kind of point-of-sale malware similar to that which struck Target is being sold in underground markets for US$2,000.The malware, LusyPOS, was found on VirusTotal, a website where people can submit malware samples to see if one of several dozen security applications detects it.It had also been advertised on an underground carding website, where people buy and sell stolen payment card data, said Brian Minick, vice president of the advanced security business of CBTS, a Cincinnati, Ohio-bas
  
  Read more

• Distribution Central chairman wins Executive of the Year - CRN Australia

  02-12-2014 04:09
  
  ARNnet
  Distribution Central chairman wins Executive of the Year
  CRN Australia
  Verykios himself won the IT Executive of the Year gong at last year's ceremony, held annually by CEO Magazine. This year he was nominated in the managing director category. The award comes after Distribution Central increased revenues by more than ...
  ARN Hall of Fame inductee, Scott Frew, further honouredARNnet
  
  all 2 news articles »
  
  Read more

• Intel Gives Google Glass a Needed Boost

  02-12-2014 03:21
  
  Just weeks after speculation surfaced that Google was abandoning Glass, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday that Intel Corp. is going to supply chips for the wearable device.If true, it's another sign of life for Google Glass."Presumably, Intel would not get involved if Glass was a dying product," said Scott Strawn, an analyst with IDC. "The really positive indication is if this comes along with an intention [by Intel] to invest and make new technologies that will solve a lot of the probl
  
  Read more

• How to Maintain Security in Continuous Deployment Environments

  02-12-2014 03:11
  
  DevOps at its heart leads to continual improvement in software through continuous deployment: develop, deploy, and repeat. But continuous deployment requires lots of changes to that software on a weekly or even daily basis. As you well know, change can be the enemy of security.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
  Read more

• 'Faking It' Executive Producer Talks The Crazy Midseason Finale - Mstarz

  02-12-2014 02:35
  
  Mstarz
  'Faking It' Executive Producer Talks The Crazy Midseason Finale
  Mstarz
  MTV's midseason finale for Faking It was pretty crazy. The executive producer is now breaking down exactly what happened in the season two midseason finale and explaining what all of the relationship drama meant. Like Us on Facebook ...
  
  Read more

Follow @ITExecutiveNews on Twitter!