IT Executive news

• Solar Demand Soars 16% This Year

  15-12-2014 23:02
  
  Demand for solar power grew 16% year-over-year in 2014, representing 44 billion watts (gigawatts) of capacity purchased during the year.
  At the same time, China, which in past years had flooded the market with solar panels, did not see growth as strong as had been expected. The growth was mainly due to healthy U.S. and Japanese markets, according to the report from EnergyTrend, a research division of TrendForce.
  Overall, supply and demand remained stable, according to EnergyTrend.
  "At the en
  
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• Want to Stay Anonymous? Don't Wear a Camera

  15-12-2014 22:04
  Next time you strap on a GoPro or other wearable camera, keep in mind that your movement pattern could someday be identified like a fingerprint.
  A recent study out of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem (via The Verge) found that wearable camera users generate a biometric movement pattern in the recording as they walk. A computer algorithm could then pick up on this pattern with just a few seconds of video.
  Much like a fingerprint, a single video alone couldn't reveal someone's identity. But
  
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• Uber Makes U-Turn After Upping Fares Near Sydney Hostage Crisis

  15-12-2014 22:02
  
  Taxi-app Uber is offering the public free journeys after it was criticised for upping the price of journeys around the area where hostages are currently being held in Sydney, Australia this morning.
  The Silicon Valley app, which allows passengers to book a taxi through their smartphone, increased fares by four times due to high demand in Sydney's central business district (CBD) following a hostage crisis in a cafe.
  The firm has faced criticism from Australian customers, including Michael Pau
  
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• Internet tax moratorium extended in US gov't spending package

  15-12-2014 21:55
  
  A one-year extension to a U.S moratorium on Internet access taxes was buried in a US$1.1 trillion government spending bill passed by the Senate on Saturday.The Internet Tax Freedom Act, which also prohibits states from enacting Internet-specific taxes like email or bandwidth taxes, passed the House of Representatives in July, meaning Senate action over the weekend was the last step before heading to President Barack Obama for his signature.This will be the fourth extension of the tax moratori
  
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• Startup rethinks databases for the real-time geospatial era

  15-12-2014 21:50
  
  Even though systems such as Hadoop and Spark can grapple with large amounts of data, their tools for analyzing and parsing this information efficiently and in real-time are still limited. A two-year old Seattle startup called SpaceCurve will release on Tuesday a new database system aimed to speed the process of analyzing location-oriented data as it is being generated.“We’re in a position to fuse spatial data that is very complex and difficult to work with,” said SpaceCurve CEO Dane Coy
  
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• T-Mobile Mystery News Slated for Tuesday Morning

  15-12-2014 21:21
  
  T-Mobile
  
  T-Mobile CEO John Legere will cozy up to Yahoo Tech's David Pogue during what the carrier is calling its Un-carrier 8.0 event on Tuesday -- a mystery webcast that promises to include some news and knowing Legere, probably some colorful language.
  The no-contract wireless carrier invites those interested in checking out the webcast to click here for the 10:0am EST event.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Microsoft gets allies to help tell US to back off on Irish search warrant

  15-12-2014 21:00
  
  The U.S. Department of Justice should back off its request for Microsoft to turn over a suspect’s digital documents stored on a server in Ireland, or be prepared for other governments demanding documents stored on U.S. servers, the company’s general counsel said.The DOJ’s ongoing search warrant for email and other documents stored at a Dublin server farm risks exposing U.S. records to foreign law enforcement agencies and foments distrust around the world in U.S. tech companies, Microsof
  
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• Mosaic Design Gets Assist From Robotics and Enterprise Software

  15-12-2014 21:00
  
  ArtaicImage by ShutterstockArtaic is a Boston-based startup that manufactures beautiful mosaic designs similar to those that have been produced throughout history. What’s different is that the company creates its art using technology and robots to produce thousands of patterns. Ted Acworth, Artaic’s founder and CEO, formed the company in 2007 after seeing a need for a faster, more efficient way to build mosaic designs, which historically has been a labor-intensive process.To read this articl
  
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• Apple-IBM Partnership Off to 'Impressive' Start

  15-12-2014 20:56
  
  Apple and IBM last week kicked off their five-month-old partnership with an "impressive" 10-pack of focused mobile business apps catering to sectors ranging from financial to law enforcement.
  "The three that I've seen were pretty impressive," said Van Baker, an analyst at Gartner. "They're very complex, with some drawing from three, four or more separate data sources."
  Apple and IBM, partners from 1991 through 2005 -- they had a falling out a decade ago when Apple switched its Macs to Intel
  
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• Riverbed Goes Private in $3.6 Billion Deal

  15-12-2014 20:14
  
  Riverbed Technology is the latest major tech company to bow out of public trading, announcing a $3.6 billion takeover by private equity firm Thoma Bravo on Monday. The price is the highest ever paid by Thoma Bravo, and works out to $21 for each share of Riverbed currently in circulation.
  The deal should close in early 2015, pending regulatory and shareholder approval. With those in hand, Riverbed would join a growing list of high-profile tech companies in going private, including Dell, BMC a
  
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• Is Ted Cruz Running For President...In 2008? - KQED

  15-12-2014 19:48
  
  Is Ted Cruz Running For President...In 2008?
  KQED
  Calling it "executive amnesty," Cruz insisted on resisting the bipartisan budget deal that would fund immigration operations through February (and the rest of the federal government through September). Never mind that Republican leaders of the House ...
  
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• 12 Most Eye-Popping VC Tech Deals of 2014

  15-12-2014 19:44
  
  While the three largest venture capital deals of the year in the technology industry went to consumer-focused startups, most of the other top investments went to companies building products that could reshape the enterprise IT landscape.
  Final numbers for the amount of venture capital money poured into startups in 2014 have not yet been tallied, but already experts say 2014 is going to blow away such investments in at least each of the last five years. Through September, $33 billion had alre
  
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• BT in talks to buy U.K. mobile carrier EE for US$19.5 billion

  15-12-2014 19:35
  
  BT Group has entered exclusive talks to buy U.K. mobile operator EE for 12.5 billion pounds (US$19.5 billion), a deal that would help the carrier offer bundles of mobile and fixed services.The talks don’t guarantee a deal will be reached, BT said in a press release on Monday. But they point toward BT choosing EE over O2, the mobile business it sold to Telefonica 10 years ago. BT and Telefonica had also been in talks last month.EE was formed through the merger of the T-Mobile and Orange mobi
  
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• After the Snowden Leaks, 700M Move to Avoid NSA Spying

  15-12-2014 19:22
  
  An international survey of Internet users has found that more than 39% have taken steps to protect their online privacy and security as a result of spying revelations by one-time NSA employee Edward Snowden.
  The survey, conducted by the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), found that 43% of Internet users now avoid certain websites and applications and 39% change their passwords regularly.
  The survey reached 23,376 Internet users in 24 countries and was conducted between Oc
  
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• First 'Agent Carter' Clip Arrives - The Fandom Post

  15-12-2014 18:33
  
  The Fandom Post
  First 'Agent Carter' Clip Arrives
  The Fandom Post
  It's executive produced by Christopher Markus, Steve McFeely, Tara Butters, Michele Fazekas, Kevin Feige, Louis D'Esposito, Jeph Loeb. Series concept: It's 1946, and peace has dealt Peggy Carter a serious blow as she finds herself marginalized when the ...
  
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• Android apps exploit permissions granted, French researchers find

  15-12-2014 18:10
  
  Android apps really do use those permissions they ask for to access users’ personal information: one online store records a phone’s location up to 10 times a minute, French researchers have found. The tools to manage such access are limited, and inadequate given how much information phones can gather.In a recent study, ten volunteers used Android phones that tracked app behavior using a monitoring app, Mobilitics, developed by the French National Institute for Informatics Research (INRIA)
  
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• Council slashes 2015 Oro budget by P1.72B - Sun.Star

  15-12-2014 17:59
  
  Council slashes 2015 Oro budget by P1.72B
  Sun.Star
  AFTER more than an hour of discussion, the majority members of the 17th City Council finally approved the executive budget for 2015 during its 64th regular session Monday, but slashed it by more than a billion pesos -- from the proposed amount of P3.8 ...
  
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• Holding masses of data, cybercriminals face new hurdles to cashing out

  15-12-2014 17:20
  
  After Sony Pictures Entertainment’s computer network was breached in late November, it appeared the hackers wanted to blackmail the company.“We’ve got great damage by Sony Pictures,” read an email sent to Sony executives. “The compensation for it, monetary compensation we want.”Apparently Sony Pictures didn’t give the hackers what they wanted, and gigabytes of data were posted online, including a spreadsheet of all of the company’s employees and their salaries.Though the Sony
  
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• 'Warning Shot': Sen. Warren On Fighting Banks, And Her Political Future - North Country Public Radio

  15-12-2014 17:05
  'Warning Shot': Sen. Warren On Fighting Banks, And Her Political Future
  North Country Public Radio
  Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. (right), a member of the Senate banking committee, and Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., ranking member of the House financial services committee, express their outrage to reporters that a $1.1 trillion spending bill that was ...
  
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• Is Ted Cruz Running For President...In 2008? - 90.5 WESA

  15-12-2014 17:04
  
  90.5 WESA
  Is Ted Cruz Running For President...In 2008?
  90.5 WESA
  Calling it "executive amnesty," Cruz insisted on resisting the bipartisan budget deal that would fund immigration operations through February (and the rest of the federal government through September). Never mind that Republican leaders of the House ...
  
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• Is Ted Cruz Running For President...In 2008? - KERA News

  15-12-2014 16:40
  
  KERA News
  Is Ted Cruz Running For President...In 2008?
  KERA News
  Calling it "executive amnesty," Cruz insisted on resisting the bipartisan budget deal that would fund immigration operations through February (and the rest of the federal government through September). Never mind that Republican leaders of the House ...
  
  and more »
  
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• Microsoft Mellows, Embraces Windows 10 Leaks

  15-12-2014 16:25
  
  Microsoft didn't seem bothered about another leak of Windows 10.
  "How could we be upset about lots of people wanting to try our new stuff?" tweeted Gabe Aul, the engineering general manager for Microsoft's operating system group in a reply to a comment applauding his company's "refreshing" attitude about leaks. "We'd prefer you stick to official builds though."
  Aul was referring to a new version of Windows 10, designated "Build 9901," that leaked to file-sharing websites over the weekend.
  H
  
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• Is Ted Cruz Running For President...In 2008? - NPR

  15-12-2014 16:24
  
  NPR
  Is Ted Cruz Running For President...In 2008?
  NPR
  Calling it "executive amnesty," Cruz insisted on resisting the bipartisan budget deal that would fund immigration operations through February (and the rest of the federal government through September). Never mind that Republican leaders of the House ...
  
  and more »
  
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• Dutch authority to Google: change privacy policy or else

  15-12-2014 16:20
  
  If Google doesn’t change how it handles users’ private data by the end of February, it may face fines of €15 million (about US$18.6 million), the Dutch Privacy Authority said Monday.Google’s current privacy policy breaches several provisions of the Dutch data protection act, the regulator found in an investigation in 2013. In particular, the probe showed that Google breaches the law when it combines data from different services like search queries, location data and videos watched.“
  
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• SolidWorks Talks About What’s Next in 3D Design

  15-12-2014 16:13
  
  Time to market is a key driver in many industries, and 3D design tools have helped tremendously by giving developers a better feel for what they are building. But that was only the start. For an update on this fast changing field, Network World Editor in Chief John Dix caught up with Aaron Kelly, VP of User Experience & Product Portfolio Management at SolidWorks, a division of Dassault Systems.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• ICANN: Data Breaches Not Due to New Top-Level Domains

  15-12-2014 15:30
  
  An ICANN spokesman dismissed accusations that the recent growth in the number of generic top-level domains has caused data breaches, on Thursday.
  There are now more than 700 top-level domains such as .meme, .guru and .blog. The number of TLDs has exploded only recently -- between 1985 and 2012, the number of TLDs grew slowly, from five to 22. And ICAAN -- the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers -- plans to allow more such domains in the future.
  According to critics, the recen
  
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• Apple, Xiaomi won big as Samsung's smartphone struggles continued in third quarter

  15-12-2014 15:20
  
  A successful iPhone 6 launch in the U.S. helped Apple increase its share of the smartphone market in the third quarter, but nemesis Samsung Electronics struggled, with upstart Chinese manufacturers nipping at its heels and growing ever stronger.Thanks to record sales in emerging markets and the popularity of Apple’s new iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, overall smartphones sales to end users grew 20.3 percent to reach 301 million units during the third quarter, market research company Gartner said in it
  
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• Carpooling, a European ride-share service, rolls in to America

  15-12-2014 15:00
  
  There’s a new ride-sharing app in town that actually lives up to its name.People in the U.S. can now download Carpooling, a mobile app that connects car owners going on trips with passengers looking for a ride. The free app, available in the Apple and Google Play stores, lets car owners post open seats for rides with a particular starting point and destination. Passengers can search for and book a seat within the app.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Booking.com proposes settling price parity antitrust cases across Europe

  15-12-2014 14:55
  
  Hotel reservation site Booking.com has offered to settle antitrust cases brought against it in Sweden, France and Italy, and on Monday antitrust authorities invited hotels to give their views on the settlement.Antitrust authorities in those countries targeted Booking.com because its contracts oblige hotels to offer it the same or better room prices as the hotels offer other distribution channels, online or offline.These so-called “parity clauses”, or best price deals, harm competition in
  
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• 11 Predictions for Security in 2015

  15-12-2014 14:38
  
  Predictions for 2015In the world of business, correctly seeing the future even a few months out can provide a leg up on the competition or, in the case of cybersecurity, on ever-present attackers. A missed guess can leave one scrambling to catch up.So, here are some predictions for 2015 on security from research firms Gartner and Forrester Research, and from Arthur W. Coviello Jr., executive chairman of RSA. (Read the full story.) To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click
  
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• Do You Know the Laws that Govern Personal Information in the Cloud?

  15-12-2014 14:33
  
  While the technological world increasingly renders geography meaningless, no one appears to have informed lawmakers of this fact. Data can move easily and seamlessly from Uruguay to Spain to the United States, but in doing so, three separate data privacy and protection regimes are implicated. As more companies, individuals and even governments place their data in the cloud, both customers and providers of cloud computing services must become acutely aware of the burgeoning laws and regulatio
  
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• Retailers Must Not Ignore Security Alerts, Court Says

  15-12-2014 14:23
  
  In what some security experts are calling a "game changer," a Minnesota federal court held Target liable earlier this month for data breach losses because the company had ignored its own security alerts.
  Target is based in Minnesota, but the Minnesota Plastic Card Security Act, which specifically allows banks that issue payment cards to sue breaching merchants, also covers any company that does business in that state, according to Karl Belgum, an attorney with Nixon Peabody LLP.
  The decision
  
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• 6 IT Workforce Predictions for 2015

  15-12-2014 14:18
  
  Every new year brings a unique set of challenges and opportunities for IT workers as existing technologies evolve and new technologies emerge. The first half of 2015 looks promising based on these six predictions from career experts.
  
  Prediction 1: Expect Hiring Explosion in Q1 and Q2
  
  The forecast for the first half of 2015 looks bright for IT workers. Eighty-seven percent of 2,400 CIOs surveyed by Robert Half Technology say they will add more staff, whether to fill vacant roles or new posit
  
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• How IBM’s Watson Could Change Your Business

  15-12-2014 14:06
  
  Early this year, IBM formed the Watson Group, investing $1 billion to commercialize the Watson cognitive computing technology that captured the public’s imagination in 2011 when it beat two former Jeopardy! champions at their own game. Watson is already solving some challenging problems in healthcare, finance and other professions, and the Watson Group is moving quickly to empower developers of every ilk with the tools needed to build Watson-fueled applications.To read this article in full
  
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• Apple vs. Samsung and the Road to Patent Sanity

  15-12-2014 13:34
  
  When Apple CEO Tim Cook unveiled the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in September, amid the “oohs” and “ahs,” some of us were thinking, “Wow, these stretched iPhones look a lot like Samsung’s Galaxy devices.”
  So it’s ironic that the two companies just resumed a years-long war over Samsung’s supposed copying of Apple’s products in a D.C. federal court. Apple claims that in the smartphone’s early days, Samsung’s device shapes and graphical icons too closely resembled the iPhone’s
  
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• Drone Management: The Next Frontier

  15-12-2014 13:30
  
  About a year ago, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos made a bold publicity move – he sat down for a 60 Minutes interview and showed off the company’s planned use of drones for same-day delivery to its customers.
  Those familiar with the reluctance surrounding drones in the U.S. knew that Bezos was being overly optimistic. Among many other obstacles to commercial drone use in the country, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been slow to permit widespread commercial use of drones in U.S. airsp
  
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• Death of Antivirus Software Greatly Exaggerated

  15-12-2014 13:00
  
  An executive at a company whose name is synonymous with antivirus software raised eyebrows earlier this year when he pronounced the death of that form of system protection. Nevertheless, while the effectiveness of that software may have waned over the years, security experts say the pronouncement by Symantec's senior vice president for information security Brian Dye was premature.
  Certainly the growth in sophistication of malware has made untenable the use of signature-based antivirus softwa
  
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• Silicon Dinner Table: Teaching Entrepreneurship Family Style

  15-12-2014 12:31
  
  Families highlighted in this article:
  Bob Lozano, founder of Appistry, Paylinx; sons Gabe Lozano of Lockerdome and Dominic Lozano of ContegixSusan Elliott, founder of SSE and daughter Elizabeth Niedringhaus, SSE's current presidentDeborah Estrin, Cornell professor and founder of Open mHealth; sister Judith Estrin, jLabs, Cisco, Network Computing Devices, 3ComRichard Becherer, business professor at the University of Tenn. and daughter Brooke Ross, founder of ElderNavTo read this article in full
  
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• Silicon Dinner Table: Teaching Eentrepreneurship Family Style

  15-12-2014 12:31
  
  Families highlighted in this article:
  
  Bob Lozano, founder of Appistry, Paylinx; sons Gabe Lozano of Lockerdome and Dominic Lozano of Contegix
  Susan Elliott, founder of SSE and daughter Elizabeth Niedringhaus, SSE's current president
  Deborah Estrin, Cornell professor and founder of Open mHealth; sister Judith Estrin, jLabs, Cisco, Network Computing Devices, 3Com
  Richard Becherer, business professor at the University of Tenn. and daughter Brooke Ross, founder of ElderNavTo read this article in f
  
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• Finding Critical Business Data -- Fast

  15-12-2014 12:30
  
  A lot of security processes failed during the breach of Target’s systems during last year’s holiday season, but one surprising revelation was that the retailer actually did receive security alerts about the malware in its system. Yet because the security team was bombarded with alerts — estimated at hundreds per day — it couldn’t adequately prioritize them.
  Both within the security field and in other areas, that’s a problem that a lot of companies face in the big data era: The to
  
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• A Terabyte on a Postage Stamp: RRAM Heads into Commercialization

  15-12-2014 12:22
  
  The makers of a new non-volatile RAM said the memory is ready to move from a prototype to a fabrication facility, where 1TB chips the size of a postage stamp will be produced and tested.
  Silicon Valley start-up Crossbar expects some of its 3D Restive RAM (3D RRAM) products to be out in 2016 as memory in wearable devices, with high-density storage devices like solid-state drives arriving within 18 months after that.
  RRAM starts out with an advantage over NAND flash, which has been approaching
  
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• UberPop will be banned in France from Jan. 1st

  15-12-2014 12:20
  
  Ride-sharing service UberPop will be banned in France from Jan. 1, a government official said Monday, as Paris taxi drivers blocked traffic around the capital in protest at a court decision Friday not to impose an emergency ban on the service.French taxi drivers are protesting that services such as Uber Technologies’ UberPop, which use mobile apps to put unlicensed drivers in contact with passengers for a fee, compete unfairly with strictly regulated taxi services. They had asked the Paris
  
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• The 10 Greatest and Goofiest Gadgets of 2014

  15-12-2014 12:00
  
  Gadgets of the yearWe look back at the tech products that were released for sale to the general public in 2014, and picked out the ones that left an impression. Being popular or top-selling wasn’t a deciding factor. Instead, trying to stand out from others, or introducing new ideas, even bad ideas, was.GOOFY: Nokia X (The Walking Dead)We never understood why Nokia was developing Android phones (without the official blessing of Google) while they were selling devices running Windows Phone, and
  
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• How to Secure Apple and Android Mobile Devices Using 802.1X

  15-12-2014 12:00
  
  When connecting to an enterprise-secured network with Android devices, users are prompted with many settings that could be confusing. When connecting with iOS devices—an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch—users are typically only prompted for their username and password. They can’t edit the advanced 802.1X settings on the device, but there are ways to get around this.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• In IT, beware of fad versus functional - The Enterprisers Project

  15-12-2014 10:16
  In IT, beware of fad versus functional
  The Enterprisers Project
  These days it is no longer sufficient to be a technologist that is simply putting bits and bytes together. Today it's all about how those bits and bytes add value. Defining how a new technology approach will add value is the role of an IT executive ...
  
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• Your #NPRUglySweaters: The Joy Of Knitwear We Ought Not Wear - North Country Public Radio

  15-12-2014 05:07
  North Country Public Radio
  Your #NPRUglySweaters: The Joy Of Knitwear We Ought Not Wear
  North Country Public Radio
  When it comes to the perfect holiday sweater, for many people, cheesy is good — tacky is better — and astonishingly ugly is best of all. The demand for ugly holiday sweaters has reached such a height that it's changed how businesses stock for the ...
  
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