IT Executive news

• Indigenization law pushes Russia's VimpelCom out of Zimbabwe

  03-12-2014 23:40
  
  Russia’s VimpelCom has invited bids from regional and international investors interested in buying its stake in mobile phone operator Telecel Zimbabwe.The winner of the bid to buy the 60 percent controlling stake in Telecel Zimbabwe is expected to be announced before the end of the month. The rest of the company is owned by a Zimbabwean consortium called the Empowerment Corporation.VimpelCom has already sold its businesses in war-torn Central African Republic and Burundi to South-Africa bas
  
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• Dell: For Windows Server 2003, the end is closer than you'd think

  03-12-2014 23:35
  
  Administrators who spent time this year retiring their last computers running Microsoft Windows XP might have another migration task ahead—Microsoft is set to retire its Windows Server 2003 operating system next July.The good news is that in many cases the necessity of a server software upgrade will also give organizations the opportunity to modernize overall architecture, said Michael Tweedle, Dell executive director of Windows management, during a discussion on the subject Wednesday in Ne
  
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• Akamai: Surge in Hackers Using Complex Crimeware to Drain Money From Online Bank Accounts

  03-12-2014 23:32
  
  There is an increase in use of complex crimeware that gathers the passwords of online customers at specific banks and automatically transfer funds out of their accounts, according to Akamai’s security group.
  The surge is being aided by a tool called Yummba webinject, which generates pop-ups – injects - during legitimate banking sessions that ask for usernames and passwords, says Akamai’s Prolexic Security Engineering & Response Team (PLXsert) in a threat advisory. The phony dialog
  
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• Security Executives Reveal Their Holiday Wish Lists

  03-12-2014 23:28
  
  Do you know any security executives who say they have everything they need to keep their organizations safe from threats? Chances are you don’t.
  Given the constantly evolving threat landscape, the emergence of new technology tools and skills and the growing importance of data protection, there’s always likely to be something executives need to help improve their organization’s security program.
  [ Raising awareness quickly: Holiday tips and tricks ]
  With the end of another year approach
  
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• Zendesk brings embedded customer service tools to mobile apps

  03-12-2014 23:10
  
  Zendesk sees customer service as a way for its users to distinguish themselves from competitors and now allows them to bring that customer service advantage to their mobile, game and Web apps.The company says a new feature, called Embeddables, will keep people in a mobile or Web app instead of having to exit the app and search for customer service contact information when a problem arises. By using the mobile SDK (software development kit) or Web widget, companies can embed features that allo
  
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• E-commerce becomes a force in African retail market

  03-12-2014 22:55
  
  E-commerce is poised to dominate African retail markets over the next five years, says the Africa CEO of Kaymu.com, one of the more successful online commerce sites in the region. While market watchers may not be quite as optimistic in their forecasts, no one disputes that e-commerce on the continent is starting to take root.Elias Schulze, the head of http://www.kaymu.com.ng/ sites in 16 countries across Africa, said e-commerce is now one of the key and arguably the leading enabler for growth
  
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• Intel and SMS Audio Pack a Heart Rate Monitor into BioSport Earbuds

  03-12-2014 22:36
  
  Intel and SMS Audio have teamed up for a pair of earbuds that monitor the user's heart rate, but the most interesting feature actually lies in the headphone jack.
  The SMS Audio BioSport measures heart rate through the user's ear canal, and feeds the data into third-party smartphone apps such as RunKeeper. Intel says the “ear-wing” design sits deep in the ear canal, continuously measuring heart rate and filtering out other types of noise.
  While the BioSport isn't the first set of earbuds
  
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• 'Agent Carter' Gets Two Hour Premiere With New TV Spot - The Fandom Post

  03-12-2014 22:33
  
  'Agent Carter' Gets Two Hour Premiere With New TV Spot
  The Fandom Post
  It's executive produced by Christopher Markus, Steve McFeely, Tara Butters, Michele Fazekas, Kevin Feige, Louis D'Esposito, Jeph Loeb. Agent Carter: It's 1946, and peace has dealt Peggy Carter a serious blow as she finds herself marginalized when the ...
  
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• Internet sales tax backers push for late-session action

  03-12-2014 22:30
  
  Backers of an Internet sales tax aren’t taking no for an answer, with supporters continuing to push the U.S. Congress to pass legislation this year.Groups and lawmakers in favor of a widespread online sales tax have stepped up pressure for Congress to pass a bill allowing states to collect sales tax from online retailers not located within their borders, despite opposition from Representative John Boehner, speaker of the House of Representatives.On Wednesday, supporters of an Internet sales
  
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• ARM technology in Apple's A7, A8 chips gets an upgrade

  03-12-2014 22:25
  
  The processor architecture behind Apple’s A7 and A8 chips is getting an incremental upgrade.ARM, whose processor designs are used in most mobile devices, is adding features to its ARMv8.1-A architecture that could improve the security and speed of chips.The new architecture is an upgrade from the existing ARMv8-A, which is in Apple’s A8 and also chips for Android devices.The impact of these changes will be felt more on larger systems than mobile devices, said David Brash, architecture pro
  
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• Google Says Bye Bye, CAPTCHAs, Well, Mostly

  03-12-2014 22:03
  
  Sick of typing those annoying, and barely readable, letters and numbers to prove to a website that you're not a robot or a spammer?
  You may be in luck.
  Google announced Wednesday that the company is trying to get rid of those annoying tasks – called CAPTCHAs, which is short for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.
  Instead of requiring that users fill in the letters and numbers shown in a distorted image, sites that use Google's reCAPTCHA service will
  
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• iPhone 6 Plus Boosts U.S. 'Phablet' Share, But the Smaller iPhone 6 is What Sells

  03-12-2014 22:02
  
  Apple's larger iPhone 6 Plus grabbed 41% of all U.S. sales of smartphones with screens 5.5-in. and larger during a recent three-month stretch, even though it was available -- and only in short supply -- for just six weeks.
  According to Kantar WorldPanel Comtech, which regularly polls consumers on a variety of topics, the 5.5-in. iPhone 6 Plus accounted for four-in-every-10 sales of so-called "phablets" in the three months that ended with October.
  "That tells me that there were lots of users
  
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• Stephen Hawking Says AI Could 'End Human Race'

  03-12-2014 21:33
  
  Barely a month after Elon Musk called artificial intelligence a threat to humanity, another voice – a much bigger voice in the scientific world – warned that the technology could end mankind.
  Stephen Hawking, the renowned physicist, cosmologist and author, in an interview with the BBC this week, said "the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race."
  The BBC noted that Hawking said the state of artificial intelligence (AI) today holds no threat, but
  
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• FTC: Online billing service deceptively collected medical records

  03-12-2014 21:05
  
  An online service allowing consumers to pay their medical bills failed to adequately inform them that it would also try to collect highly detailed medical information from their pharmacies, medical labs and insurance companies, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission said.The FTC has reached a proposed settlement with PaymentsMD, an Atlanta health billing company, and former CEO Michael Hughes requiring the company to destroy any medical information it collected related to its separate online medic
  
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• Intel Teams with Luxury Eyewear Brand Luxottica for Smartglass R&D

  03-12-2014 21:01
  
  Intel's continuing to push aggressively into the world of wearables. On Wednesday it signed a deal with Luxottica Group to develop smart eyewear in time for a product launch next year.
  Luxottica owns the license to many of the world’s luxury eyewear brands, including Armani, Burberry, Chanel, Coach, and Polo Ralph Lauren. According to Intel's press release, the partnership will “deliver smart, fashion-forward products that are meaningful and desirable to consumers.” 
  While Intel has
  
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• Need an Electronic Circuit? Just Load Paper and Hit Print

  03-12-2014 20:51
  
  Researchers have created highly conductive and durable silver nanowire ink that can be used to print durable electronic circuits on paper.
  The technology is being touted by the researchers at the University of Tennessee as a breakthrough in making inexpensive, flexible, disposable electronic sensors that can be used for a wide range of medical purposes, as well as an "electronic skin" that can act as touchpad sensors on robotics.
  Robots with electronic skin could, for example, go to a patien
  
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• Seven things to know about the dual-screen YotaPhone 2

  03-12-2014 20:45
  
  Yota Devices is more than any other smartphone vendor daring to be different with the dual-screen YotaPhone 2, which stands out with its electronic paper display that can be used to read and access apps.The second-generation smartphone was presented Wednesday at an event in London. Here’s a rundown of some of the key points we learned about the device:What can the two screens be used for?The YotaPhone 2 has two Gorilla Glass-protected screens; a regular 5-inch full HD screen on one side and
  
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• Accounting differences, not fraud, led to HP's Autonomy write-down, says Lynch

  03-12-2014 20:40
  
  Autonomy founder Mike Lynch says he has obtained a Hewlett-Packard document that shows how differences in accounting standards, not fraud on Autonomy’s part, are to blame for the debacle surrounding HP’s acquisition of the company.HP purchased Autonomy for US$11.1 billion in 2011. A year later HP announced an $8.8 billion write-down and attributed $5.5 billion of that loss to accounting fraud at Autonomy before the sale.Lynch made the claim about accounting standards Tuesday in a blog pos
  
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• IBM fixes serious flaw in Endpoint Manager for mobile device management

  03-12-2014 19:00
  
  A vulnerability in the IBM Endpoint Manager for mobile devices could allow attackers to execute malicious code on the servers used by companies to manage devices.The IBM Endpoint Manager Mobile Device Management (MDM) product provides companies with management, security and reporting functionality for mobile devices.Researchers from a German security firm called RedTeam Pentesting discovered that authentication cookies for several IBM Endpoint Manager components are protected with a hardcoded
  
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• State money from Salmon license plates not just for restoration projects - KATU

  03-12-2014 18:28
  
  State money from Salmon license plates not just for restoration projects
  KATU
  But it's executive director defends using use those funds to hire an additional program administrator. “We operate at about a 10% staff-to-grant ratio,” says Meta Loftsgaarden, “and we feel that it's important to have staff available as well, to make ...
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: P&G's Filippo Passerini Stands Out as Stellar Example of a Strategic CIO

  03-12-2014 18:21
  
  I didn't know what to expect when Procter & Gamble CIO Filippo Passerini agreed to be interviewed for my book, The Strategic CIO: Changing the Dynamics of the Business Enterprise. Passerini rose through the ranks at P&G to become not only CIO, but also president of the company's Global Business Services division. Given that P&G is an $84.2 billion consumer products company with almost 5 billion customers in 70 countries, managing one of its four main business units is of course
  
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• Google, Facebook's hunger for servers drives market

  03-12-2014 17:45
  
  The increasing need for real-time analytics has helped buoy server sales to enterprises in a weak global economy, but most of the growth during the third quarter came from Web giants that are building their own hardware.Uncertainty about the economy and budgetary caution have hung over the server market for a few years and so far, this year hasn’t been easy for the big server vendors. Server shipments grew year over year by just 1 percent and revenue by 1.7 percent in the third quarter, acc
  
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• Mozilla Toys with Firefox on iPhone After Years of Snubbing iOS

  03-12-2014 17:31
  
  A Mozilla manager yesterday said that the open-source developer would create a browser for Apple's iOS, the mobile operating system that powers the iPhone and iPad.
  "We need to be where our users are so we're going to get Firefox on iOS," said Lukas Blakk, the release manager for Firefox, in a Tuesday tweet.
  It wasn't clear whether Blakk was repeating a pledge made by another official at Mozilla or speaking on his own behalf. Blakk tweeted the comment from Mozlandia, a company-only conferenc
  
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• Psy's 'Gangnam Style' finally broke YouTube

  03-12-2014 16:52
  
  Long after becoming the first YouTube video to surpass 1 billion views, and mere months after becoming the first video to crack the 2 billion view barrier, Psy’s Gangnam Style has officially become the first video to break YouTube.Well, YouTube’s hit counter, at least.YouTube’s hit counter was programmed using a 32-bit integer, YouTube explained on Google+ this week, as the service never imagined a single video racking up more than the 2,147,483,647 views that the code maxes out at. Th
  
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• On the telly: Rae Sremmurd announce debut album, 'SremmLife', make TV debut - DIY Magazine

  03-12-2014 16:01
  
  DIY Magazine
  On the telly: Rae Sremmurd announce debut album, 'SremmLife', make TV debut
  DIY Magazine
  Their first full-length is out 6th January in the US via Ear Drummer / Interscope. It's executive produced by Mike WiLL Made It, and it's set to feature this year's big singles 'No Flex Zone' and 'No Type'. The album will be made available from 9th ...
  
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• Stephen Hawking Unveils Intel's Open Source Speech System

  03-12-2014 15:49
  
  Professor Stephen Hawking today demonstrated his new open source communication system designed for him by Intel.
  The Silicon Valley chip giant claims the system, dubbed ACAT (Assistive Context Aware Toolkit), can be adapted for the three million people worldwide who suffer from quadriplegia and motor neurone disease.
  The system was jointly designed by Intel and Hawking over the last three years to replace the scientist's existing communication system, with Hawking providing ongoing feedback
  
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• How (and Why) Facebook Excels at Data Center Efficiency

  03-12-2014 15:46
  
  Efficiency is a priority at the core of Facebook's capability to scale, according to Jason Taylor, the company's vice president of infrastructure. There are never more than five types of servers in use at any of Facebook's data centers, located in five different regions, and no servers or infrastructure sit dormant waiting for services to launch, Taylor told analysts yesterday at the Credit Suisse Technology Conference.Considering the volume of new data that Facebook processes every day — 9
  
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• Capriza drags and drops enterprise apps to a mobile-first world

  03-12-2014 15:30
  
  Capriza has long offered a drag-and-drop tool for porting Web apps from desktops to smartphones, and now is extending it to work with tablets.The growing popularity of smartphones and tablets has put pressure on CIOs to let users access existing apps from those devices. While Web technologies offer the promise of apps that work across different platforms, the user interface doesn’t always translate well between big laptop displays and small smartphone and tablet screens.To transform an app
  
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• Cover-up involving underage workers at Samsung supplier alleged by labor group

  03-12-2014 14:50
  
  The vocational school in Chengdu, China, offers courses in car repair, mechanics and electronics manufacturing, among others.But according to a labor protection group, the school is also at the center of a cover-up involving students illegally working at a factory that builds phones for Samsung Electronics.New York-based China Labor Watch believes it has proof of its claims, even as Samsung, the school and the factory have all disputed the allegations.On Wednesday an official at the Chengdu U
  
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• OpenDNS Reinforces Cloud Security With Ties to Check Point, ZeroFOX, Others

  03-12-2014 14:23
  
  OpenDNS has developed a partner API that lets security vendors connect their technologies to the OpenDNS cloud for enforcement, effectively extending protection to any device no matter where it connects to the Internet.
  
  OpenDNS CEO David Ulevitch
  
  The first two such partners are Check Point and ZeroFOX, and the company will announce another dozen or so partners over the next few months, says OpenDNS CEO David Ulevitch.
  + Also on Network World: How the cloud is changing the security game +T
  
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• Why It's Time to Start Using a Password Manager

  03-12-2014 14:00
  
  It's holiday shopping season, and it's time for me to nag you about security. You'll likely be shopping online a lot in the coming weeks, and many of the sites you visit will require passwords. None of us have solid-state memory inside of our heads (yet), so it's easy to be sloppy with passwords. Don't. Seriously. People get hacked all the time, and it's a major pain in the butt.Some simple advice: Use a password manager.Password managers are applications that store all of your passwords in e
  
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• Google Offers 5 Tips on How to Maximize Your Digital Workforce

  03-12-2014 14:00
  
  Google's recent "Work the Way You Live" whitepaper lays out the company's vision for workplace productivity and collaboration in the modern digital age. The company asks in the paper, "Why shouldn't work happen with the same speed and collaboration we enjoy in our private lives?" Today's consumers are constantly connected, checking their mobile phones 150 times per day on average and openly sharing everything on social media. They expect their employers to empower them with the same consumer-
  
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• Dropbox/Microsoft Lovefest Continues in Latest Android, iOS Updates

  03-12-2014 14:00
  
  The flirtation between Microsoft and Dropbox is getting serious. The latest Dropbox iOS and Android updates bring new Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint integration.Now you can tap a file name within the Dropbox app to preview it. In Preview mode, you see a new Edit icon. Tap the icon, and the file opens in the appropriate Office app, provided you have the app installed. When you make edits and save a file, and it automatically updates in the Dropbox folder.
  In early November, Microsoft
  
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• Qualcomm hopes to cure Wi-Fi rage with enterprise platform

  03-12-2014 13:50
  
  Using Wi-Fi networks in crowded environments can be a soul-destroying experience, but next-generation access points powered by Qualcomm chipsets will use a new antenna technology to ease the pain.Wi-Fi has become a victim of its own success, leaving busy networks simply unable to handle all the laptops, smartphones and tablets we use today.The problem is that access points or wireless routers use short time slots to communicate with only one user at a time, and as more users get connected net
  
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• What Does All That Healthcare Data Really Mean?

  03-12-2014 13:49
  
  Bringing more data into the public domain may be a critical step toward increasing transparency in the famously opaque healthcare sector, but raw data alone will only go so far, experts warn.At a conference on Monday at the Brookings Institution in Washington, industry and government officials cautioned that simply releasing data in bulk without context or meaningful comparative tools won't achieve the goals of lowering the costs of care, increasing operating efficiencies and, ultimately, imp
  
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• The Internet of Things to Bring a New Economic Boom

  03-12-2014 12:05
  
  The Internet of Things (IoT) may be more significant in reshaping the competitive landscape than the arrival of the Internet. Its productivity potential is so powerful it will deliver a new era of prosperity.
  That's the argument put forth by Michael Porter, an economist at the Harvard Business School and James Heppelmann, president and CEO of PTC, in a recent Harvard Business Review essay. PTC is a product design software firm that recently acquired machine-to-machine (M2M) firm Axeda Corp.
  
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• Phablet Deathmatch: Apple iPhone 6 Plus vs. Samsung Note 4

  03-12-2014 12:00
  
  Four years ago, Samsung created quite a stir with its original Galaxy Note, a supersized smartphone that many people found too big, but many others loved as a combo smartphone and tablet, giving rise to the "phablet" moniker. This fall, Apple jumped into the phablet fray with the iPhone 6 Plus as Samsung came out with its fourth iteration of the Note.
  Both are strong contenders, though they differ in where they shine. On the surface, they look pretty much the same, with nearly identical case
  
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• Dropbox Pursues Enterprises With New Business API

  03-12-2014 12:00
  
  Though it offers a business-tier plan, Dropbox has historically lacked a full-blown business platform on the order of Box and its APIs. That's about to change with the introduction of the Dropbox for Business API.
  The API is an attempt by Dropbox to leverage the massive user base it's built up both inside and outside of enterprises. The company is gambling that a sufficient number of companies haven't already made a commitment to a competitor.
  Dropbox's existing APIs allow the development of
  
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• Taking a Gander at the Security Landscape

  03-12-2014 11:00
  
  Looking around at how things are done at my new company, it’s pretty easy for me to find security problems lurking virtually everywhere.
  Trouble Ticket
  
  At Issue: Starting a new job where you’re in charge of security can be overwhelming — you see problems everywhere.
  Action Plan: Settle on the most important area of operations and take a look at what security improvements it needs first.
  
  For example, the first thing I noticed was that my proximity access badge was blank: no picture, n
  
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• US Senator Al Franken scrutinizes Lyft's privacy policies

  03-12-2014 09:05
  
  After quizzing Uber on its data collection practices, U.S. Senator Al Franken now wants rival Lyft to explain its privacy policies.The questions being raised about the handling of customer data by Uber and Lyft are the latest in a string of problems smartphone apps based ride-hailing companies face as their business model comes under criticism from traditional taxi companies and regulators.The Minnesota senator, who is also chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the L
  
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• Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed structureert data met OpenText

  03-12-2014 07:19
  De Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed gaat de OpenText Discovery Suite van OpenText, specialist in Enterprise Information Management (EIM) implementeren om niet-geïntegreerde, ongestructureerde en onbeheerde data automatisch te structureren. In totaal gaat het om het ordenen, classificeren en beschikbaar... lees meer
  
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• Enterprise wearables: binnenkort ook in Nederland?

  03-12-2014 07:19
  Er komen steeds meer wearables op de markt: slimme brillen, horloges, armbanden of schoenen. Al die wearables zijn tegenwoordig steeds vaker verbonden met het internet (Internet of Things). We dragen zo gezamenlijk bij aan de totstandkoming van de ‘networked economy’. Bij wearables draait het dan allemaal... lees meer
  
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• Channelpartners Brocade verwachten verschuiving naar SDN

  03-12-2014 07:19
  Meer dan de helft van de EMEA-partners en systems integrators van IT-dienstverlener Brocade denkt dat software-defined networking en network functions virtualisation (NFV) de komende twee jaar de belangrijke trends zijn. Daar duidt onderzoek in opdracht van Brocade op.
  
  54% van de respondenten in de EMEA-regio verwacht... lees meer
  
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• Australian court dismisses Apple 'App Store' trademark appeal

  03-12-2014 06:10
  
  Apple lost an appeal in Australia’s Federal Court on Wednesday over its bid for the “App Store” trademark.The company applied for the trademark in July 2008, but the application was rejected by the country’s Registrar of Trade Marks. It was also opposed by Microsoft.In his ruling, Federal Judge David Yates wrote that when Apple launched its store and applied for the trademark, it did not mean the company had “coined a new word” or gave the word “app” a changed meaning.“Apple
  
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• Showdown coming on Ethernet standard to serve faster Wi-Fi

  03-12-2014 03:40
  
  There’s a standard in the works for ethernet gear to feed faster Wi-Fi access points, but with rival industry groups pushing two different specifications, it might take a while to finish.Wi-Fi is getting fast enough that Gigabit ethernet can’t keep up with the most advanced access points, which use 802.11ac Wave 2 technology. Users could go to 10-Gigabit ethernet, but for most that would require installing more advanced cable. So the search is on for something in between that works on the
  
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• Meet the headhunter - The Daily Courier (subscription)

  03-12-2014 01:41
  
  The Daily Courier (subscription)
  Meet the headhunter
  The Daily Courier (subscription)
  Sean Casey, 35, of Excel Personnel, is the 14th nominee for the Kelowna Top Forty Under 40 program to be profiled in this newspaper. Nominations are being accepted at [email protected] until March 31. A special event honouring all 40 ...
  
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• Acclaimed chef makes the grade at new St. Charles restaurant - Chicago Daily Herald

  03-12-2014 00:53
  
  Acclaimed chef makes the grade at new St. Charles restaurant
  Chicago Daily Herald
  And though three restaurant tenants have drifted in and out of the same location in recent memory, Top Table, owned by Nate and Amanda Drafall, has a "secret weapon" that just may change the tide. It's executive chef, Josef Yurisich, comes with ...
  
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