IT Executive news

• Three ways enterprise software is changing

  19-12-2014 22:25
  
  Once upon a time, life in the enterprise IT shop was fairly simple, at least conceptually speaking.IT issued computers and laptops to employees, and maintained enterprise software, databases and servers that supported the company, which were mostly run in-house.These days, IT’s basic firmament is giving way to a more breathtaking geography that the IT pro must traverse, based on pay-as-you-go cloud computing, building applications and performing deep data analysis. Perhaps more fundamentall
  
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• BYOD Was a Tech Roller Coaster Ride in 2014

  19-12-2014 22:22
  
  For CIOs faced with Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) challenges, 2014 has been a roller-coaster ride -- one that probably made many sick to their stomachs.Of course, BYOD has been a nightmarish ride from the beginning, when employees empowered by cool consumer tech, namely iPads, iPhones and Android devices, wrested control from IT. Employees essentially demanded the right to use their devices and apps for work purposes.CIOs scurried to come up with solutions to safeguard corporate data on BYOD t
  
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• Support for security tech tops iSoc's Africa plan for 2015

  19-12-2014 22:20
  
  Security is rising to the top of the list of issues that the Internet Society (iSoc) is tackling in Africa, joining its efforts to develop infrastructure and promote an inclusive “bottom-up” governance model for the Web.“We are going to support the deployment of security technologies,” said Dawit Bekele, director of the iSoc African Bureau, in a webinar this week.ISoc is a nonprofit international organization that works to promote standards and inclusive Internet governance policies.
  
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• Twitter Parody of North Korea's Mouthpiece Not Afraid to Crow Over Sony's Capitulation

  19-12-2014 22:16
  
  North Korea seemingly wasted no time this week trumpeting Sony Pictures' decision to cancel the opening of The Interview, a comedy that portrayed an assassination plot against the country's dictator, Kim Jung-un.
  "Heroes force Japanese cinema bandits to bow before indomitable fist of Korean people," tweeted the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on Wednesday. "10,000 years of life to Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Un!" the tweet added.
  Just one problem: The DPRK News Service account is a parody. Th
  
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• Google May Launch a Native Android Auto, Making Your Car a Big Mobile Device

  19-12-2014 22:07
  
  Google may be planning to launch a version of Android Auto for vehicle infotainment centers -- also known as head units -- that will eliminate the need for a smartphone to be connected, giving native access to the Internet and mobile applications.
  Today, Apple's CarPlay, or open source standards such as MirrorLink or GENIVI, enable vehicle infotainment centers to mirror a version of a smartphone OS onto a vehicle's head unit, thereby enabling the driver to use specific applications, such as
  
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• Maximizing Microsoft's Azure for Dev, Test, and DevOps Scenarios

  19-12-2014 21:31
  
  Microsoft has had its Azure cloud services for years, however most enterprises really don’t know how Azure can help their organization. Much of it has to do with Microsoft having released Azure long ago with today’s perception of the service based on what Azure did years ago. It also doesn’t help that Azure does a LOT of different things, so for someone to get their arms around how Azure can help them is like roaming around aimlessly in a grocery store trying to figure out what to make
  
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• T-Mobile to pay $90M for unauthorized charges on customers' bills

  19-12-2014 21:30
  
  T-Mobile US will pay at least $90 million to settle a Federal Communications Commission suit that alleged it looked the other way while third parties charged T-Mobile subscribers for services they didn’t want.The settlement is the second largest ever for so-called “cramming,” following one that the FCC reached with AT&T in October. It came just two days after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau sued Sprint for the same practice.To read this article in full or to leave a comment
  
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• Obama promises response on Sony hack, says pulling movie was mistake

  19-12-2014 21:25
  
  President Obama believes Sony made a mistake in canceling release of “The Interview” following a major cyberattack and said the U.S. is prepared to respond to the attack, but he wouldn’t say when or how.“We cannot have a society in which some dictator someplace can start imposing censorship here in the United States,” he said.Obama’s strong words, at a scheduled year-end news conference at the White House, came just two hours after the FBI said it had determined North Korea was re
  
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• After FBI Blames North Korea for Sony Attack, Now What?

  19-12-2014 21:23
  
  The FBI today named the North Korean government as responsible for the cyber attack against Sony Pictures last month, saying its technical analysis points to the isolated, Communist country.
  But now what?
  "This could embolden future attackers," Johannes Ullrich, dean of research for the SANS Technology Institute and the head of SANS's Internet Storm Center security arm, said of Sony's withdrawal of its comedy, The Interview, earlier this week after threats were posted online by the alleged h
  
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• Buckle up IT: The Enterprise Needs You for Cloud Adoption

  19-12-2014 20:58
  
  For years, people in marketing or HR have been sneaking their apps and data onto the cloud, totally bypassing IT's approval or help.
  Buckle up, IT.
  Those days are coming to an end as more enterprises look into moving critical applications and information to the cloud. IT shops are being called in to corral all of those individual cloud projects, while moving critical data to the cloud, as well.
  "Central IT departments are absolutely going to be more involved with how enterprises use, or don
  
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• BrandPost: New Intel Platform Rich with Transformative Features

  19-12-2014 20:03
  
  When Intel launches a new family of processors, there is always a lot of attention paid to increases in core counts, gains in clocks speeds, and other CPU fundamentals. Those advances are, of course, extremely important to application owners and data center operators, but they are never the full story.With every rollout of a new CPU platform there is always a rich backstory filled with new features that will make a big difference in application performance, data center efficiency, security, a
  
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• We Can Learn From the Sony Hack

  19-12-2014 19:53
  
  Well that stinks, doesn’t it? Sony Pictures goes and scrubs the launch of a $44 million movie after being hacked, potentially by North Korea. Almost reads more like a James Bond plot than a news story, but there it is. And this time, it doesn’t seem likely that Bond, James Bond, is going to show up at the eleventh hour to save the day.
  Sure, Sony’s hands may well have been tied when a couple of major movie theater chains announced they wouldn’t be showing the movie. And I have no dou
  
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• Top 15 GPS Apps and Devices for Holiday Travel (and Beyond)

  19-12-2014 19:30
  
  Why You Need a GPS App or DeviceImage by ShutterstockEven when I’m driving around San Francisco, where I live, I often use a GPS navigation app. It’s not because the city’s layout is so perplexing; it’s because the better apps help me avoid traffic. So even if you know where you’re going this holiday season, you might still want to fire up a GPS app. But which one? And what about dedicated GPS devices? With so many navigation apps, is there any reason to own one? Navigate your way thro
  
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• Trojan program based on ZeuS targets 150 banks, can hijack webcams

  19-12-2014 19:25
  
  A new computer Trojan based on the infamous ZeuS banking malware is targeting users of over 150 banks and payment systems from around the world, security researchers warn.The new threat, dubbed Chthonic, is based on ZeusVM, a Trojan program discovered in February that is itself a modification of the much older ZeuS Trojan.“The Trojan is apparently an evolution of ZeusVM, although it has undergone a number of significant changes,” security researchers from antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab sa
  
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• In 2015, EU aims to sweep away old rules on data protection and copyright

  19-12-2014 19:20
  
  The European Commission is gearing up to solve some longstanding problems with outdated copyright and data protection laws and move ahead on new rules for roaming charges and net neutrality.During the past week, the Commission made public its work agenda for 2015, and high on the list is the ongoing effort to break down national barriers to create what it calls a digital single market.While there are many policy issues involved in building such a market, the Commission will focus on areas whe
  
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• Should IT execs lead the business? Or should business execs lead IT? - ZDNet

  19-12-2014 18:49
  
  ZDNet
  Should IT execs lead the business? Or should business execs lead IT?
  ZDNet
  Are information technology decisions being usurped by business-side managers? Or are IT managers increasingly being put in charge of business decisions? executives-usda-executives-cropped-2-agriculture-secretary-tom- Photo: USDA. Both scenarios ...
  
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• Microsoft Hits Windows Tech Support Scammers With Lawsuit

  19-12-2014 18:11
  
  Microsoft on Thursday sued two technical support companies, alleging that they infringed numerous Microsoft trademarks and practiced false advertising as they tricked consumers into paying for bogus help.
  The lawsuit was the first time Microsoft turned to the courts to try to stem the flood of tech support scams that swamp Windows users.
  "Defendants have utilized the Microsoft trademarks and service marks to enhance their credentials and confuse customers about their affiliation with Microso
  
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• FBI concludes North Korea 'responsible' for Sony hack

  19-12-2014 18:10
  
  North Korea was responsible for the devastating cyberattack on Sony Pictures, the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation said Friday after a two-week investigation.The attack on Sony occurred in late November and resulted in the theft of thousands of files that, after being leaked online, proved highly embarrassing for the company. Financial documents, legal and business agreements, confidential information on employees and, perhaps most embarrassing of all, the entire email boxes of several se
  
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• Instagram's Spam Purge Reveals High-Profile Accounts With Fake Followers

  19-12-2014 17:42
  
  Instagram made good on its promise to delete spam accounts that have plagued the service and other social networks like Twitter. Sounds like a positive move, right? Well, the sudden evaporation of millions of fake users is enraging Instagram fans who care about things like high follower counts.
  Millions of accounts vanished in the Great InstaPurge of 2014, also dubbed the “Instagram Rapture,” and the Instagrammers whose follower counts declined the most were the ones with the highest num
  
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• Intel Gives Chromebook Converts an Assist with 'Easy Migration' Tool

  19-12-2014 17:18
  
  Intel is trying to ease the transition to the cloud for anyone who picked up a Chromebook this season.
  The chipmaker has launched a free “Easy Migration” tool for Chromebooks with Intel processors inside. With a few clicks, users can move their contacts, files, photos, and bookmarks to a Google account, making them accessible through the web. The migration app is available for iOS, Android, and Windows, and if you don’t know what kind of processor your Chromebook is using, you can in
  
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• 10 Tech Developments That Made 2014 an Amazing Year

  19-12-2014 16:18
  
  2014 was an amazing year for technology. The PC came roaring back with a vengeance and education started to move to thin client devices. Artificial intelligence companies started to pop up more broadly and we started to see the scary potential for being up to our armpits in robots.   Let’s talk about some of the highs and lows as we approach year end.2014 was an amazing year for technology. The PC came roaring back with a vengeance and education started to move to thin client devices. Art
  
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• CIO interview: Mark Maddocks, Cambridge University Press - ComputerWeekly.com

  19-12-2014 16:09
  ComputerWeekly.com
  CIO interview: Mark Maddocks, Cambridge University Press
  ComputerWeekly.com
  Leading that process of technology-driven change is chief information officer Mark Maddocks, a media veteran with years of experience as a senior IT executive at sector giants such as the BBC, Sony and Reed Elsevier. “This is an industry going through ...
  
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• What we know about North Korea's cyberarmy

  19-12-2014 15:35
  
  The attack on Sony Pictures has put North Korea’s cyberwarfare program in the spotlight. Like most of the internal workings of the country, not much is known but snippets of information have come out over the years, often through defectors and intelligence leaks.Here’s a summary of what we know:The CyberunitsNorth Korea’s governing structure is split between the Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK) and the National Defense Commission (NDC).North Korea’s main cyberoperations run under the R
  
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• Cyberattack on German steel factory causes 'massive damage'

  19-12-2014 15:20
  
  A German steel factory suffered massive damage after hackers managed to access production networks, allowing them to tamper with the controls of a blast furnace, the government said in its annual IT security report.The report, published Wednesday by the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), revealed one of the rare instances in which a digital attack actually caused physical damage.The attack used spear phishing and sophisticated social engineering techniques to gain access to the fa
  
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• Blackberry reports falling revenue, but loss shrinks

  19-12-2014 14:00
  
  BlackBerry’s revenue continued its dive in the three months to Nov. 29, but on Friday the company reported a smaller loss than a year earlier.Revenue for the three months, BlackBerry’s third fiscal quarter, fell to US$793 million, compared to $916 million in the preceding three months and $1.19 billion a year earlier.The company reported a net loss of $148 million for its third fiscal quarter, compared to a loss of $207 million in its second. In its first quarter, however, it had reported
  
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• Major Chinese Smartphone Manufacturer Installed Backdoor on Up to 10 Million Devices

  19-12-2014 14:00
  
  Coolpad, the world's sixth largest smartphone manufacturer, installed a back door that allows the company to install applications, send alerts, and monitor communications without user knowledge or approval.
  According to Palo Alto Networks, which discovered the security flaw, the "CoolReaper" backdoor has been found on 24 Coolpad phone models sold in China, adding up to over 10 million devices.
  "The malware was deliberately pre-installed with the default operating system that comes with these
  
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• Microsoft helps boost Android, iOS app performance with offline access

  19-12-2014 13:35
  
  Microsoft wants to help Android, iOS and Windows apps run offline as well as online, offering a way to improve app responsiveness and functionality when network coverage is bad or non-existent.In an age of always-connected smartphones, it might seem there is no need for apps with offline access—but they still have several advantages, including better responsiveness and the ability to limit data charges by caching data on the device, according to Microsoft. The caching also lets applications
  
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• Casio's latest Exilim high-speed camera can sync with up to seven others

  19-12-2014 13:10
  
  If you want to really see how good or bad your golf swing is, Casio’s latest digital camera can control seven cameras shooting 60 images per second.Designed with the help of a baseball pitching machine maker, the Exilim EX100-Pro is designed for sports, business users and experimental researchers. But it can show anyone extremely high-speed action shots or video.Up to seven EX-100Pros can be linked via wireless LAN and controlled via an Android tablet running Casio’s SynchroShot app. That
  
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• 10 IT Roles to Target When Poaching Talent

  19-12-2014 13:00
  
  10 IT Roles to Target When Poaching TalentImage by ThinkStockThe boldest approach to recruiting is what John Sullivan, an internationally recognized HR thought leader, author, speaker and consultant calls a "hire-to-hurt," or H2H, a strategy which involves identifying and "… hiring in order to gain knowledge, best practices or new skills. The hire-to-hurt technique is used by aggressive firms to target and directly weaken a competitor," says Sullivan, by poaching their top performers. While a
  
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• Holiday Gift Guide 2014: Stocking Stuffers for $30 or Less

  19-12-2014 12:30
  
  Tech gifts for allOkay, it's getting close to the wire now -- the holidays are almost upon us, and there are still a bunch of unchecked names on your gift list. What to do?Don't panic. Just check out some of the suggestions in Part 3 of our holiday gift guide. We offer a range of fun and useful stocking stuffers for $30 and under that should satisfy any taste, including weather enthusiasts, do-it-yourselfers and science geeks (and, of course, anybody who carries around a mobile device).To read t
  
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• Holiday Gift Guide 2014

  19-12-2014 12:30
  
  Overwhelmed by another hectic holiday season? Not to worry: We're here to help, with great technology gift suggestions for a range of budgets and tastes.
  For those who love the great outdoors, we've got a rugged weatherproof speaker and a camera that takes 360-degree photos. For people who juggle multiple devices, there's a clever cable trapper, an elegant mobile tech organizer case and an array of gadgets to keep all their devices charged. For the kid in all of us, there's a build-it-yourse
  
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• Tech Face-off: Apple's Mac Pro vs the 5K Retina iMac

  19-12-2014 12:02
  
  There used to be a time when the gap between Apple products made choosing the right computer obvious and easy. The deliberate compartmentalization of prices and features clearly dictated which laptop or deskop machine was right, with minimal overlap between the categories.
  But as Apple expanded its line-up, and as technology became faster and more efficient, overlap became unavoidable. Nowadays, the line between consumer and professional hardware is blurrier than ever. With the arrival of th
  
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• The Best Gaming PCs and Hardware of 2014

  19-12-2014 12:00
  
  I can still remember the winter of 2008: It was dark times for PC gaming, and talk in the industry made it seemed as though the end was nigh. Today, I'd laugh with the lust of a Viking as I smashed insignificant hardware under my axe. 
  PC gaming, if you didn't know, is the place for gaming that matters. From indie gaming to free-to-play models and, of course, the centerpiece of PC gaming: the celebrated hardware. 
  To put out 2014 with a bang, I've rounded up the best gaming hardware PCWorl
  
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• Critical vulnerability in Git clients puts developers at risk

  19-12-2014 11:50
  
  A critical vulnerability in client software used to interact with Git, a distributed revision control system for managing source code repositories, allows attackers to execute rogue commands on computers used by developers.The flaw affects the official Git client as well as third-party clients and software based on the original Git code. The issue only affects implementations running on Windows and Mac OS X, not Linux, because their file systems are case-insensitive—NTFS and FAT for Windows
  
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• Hands-on with Sony's latest smartglasses

  19-12-2014 11:15
  
  If anyone could use a hit product right now, it’s Sony. But its latest smartglasses won’t win people over from Google Glass despite having a better display.The Japanese conglomerate is reeling from the massive hack of its U.S. film arm, and will put on a brave face at next month’s CES, where it plans to show off the head-mounted display.The Single-Lens Display Module announced this week is designed to attach to different kinds of eyewear and provide high-res color graphics in the corner
  
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• 2014 IT Outsourcing in Review: Grading Our Predictions

  19-12-2014 10:51
  
  Around this time last year, CIO.com and its outsourcing experts made some wide-ranging predictions for IT services. We said this would be the year that robots began taking over IT service jobs. (Not exactly.) We said that a new hybrid offshoring model would gain favor. (It did.) And we predicted the mass repatriation of work from third parties back onshore or in-house. (That didn't happen.)
  We revisited all of our prognostications from last year and found that this year a record number of fi
  
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• Boys and Girls Club gives gifts to children - Huntington Herald Dispatch

  19-12-2014 06:03
  
  Huntington Herald Dispatch
  Boys and Girls Club gives gifts to children
  Huntington Herald Dispatch
  "We do this every year and we feel obligated to do it," executive director Michael Patick said. "We assume that they don't have a Christmas so this can be their Christmas." Patick said children who attend the club most often were the first ones to pick ...
  
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• 'Agent Carter' Gets Second Poster - The Fandom Post

  19-12-2014 02:36
  
  The Fandom Post
  'Agent Carter' Gets Second Poster
  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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• Think North Korea hacked Sony? Think about this

  19-12-2014 01:55
  
  North Korea or not? There’s still a lot we don’t know about the attack on Sony Pictures and those behind it.After two weeks of investigations, anonymous government officials told some reporters and politicians on Wednesday that North Korea was behind the attacks. But on Thursday, U.S. officials resisted making the same allegations in public and didn’t release any evidence to back up the anonymous claims.North Korean involvement is certainly possible. After all, defectors have spoken abo
  
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• Uber temporarily suspends service in Portland

  19-12-2014 01:15
  
  Uber is suspending its service in Portland, Oregon, for the next three months while city regulators there work to reframe local laws around taxis and car hailing apps.“We are pausing pick-ups within Portland city limits for three months,” an Uber spokeswoman said Thursday via email. The company will continue operating in the larger Portland metro area, she said, which includes Beaverton and Hillsboro. Drop-offs from those areas would continue in Portland, she said.Pick-ups in Portland wil
  
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• Microsoft's Lumia Denim Release is Coming for Windows Phone

  19-12-2014 00:11
  Microsoft confirmed Thursday that it had begun rolling out its Lumia “Denim” update for WIndows Phone, officially bringing Windows Phone 8.1 Update 1 and improved camera functionality for supported devices.
  Microsoft is pushing Denim somewhat piecemeal across different geographies and phones, however, so some of the features may arrive on different phones at different times. And there's no official timetable to bring it to the United States—although it should arrive on American shores
  
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