IT Executive news

• Windows 10: The 10 Most Important New Consumer Preview Features

  21-01-2015 23:29
  The future of WindowsMicrosoft had a slew of exciting announcements up its sleeve at the Windows 10 event in Redmond, Wa., on Wednesday—and not all of them were actually directly related to Windows 10.From a new browser to powerful PC gaming improvements to Windows 10 for phones and even new hardware, these are all the major new features and products coming down the pipeline. And you won’t have to wait long to try them for yourself: The new Windows 10 Preview build will hit PCs next week and
  
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• Forget Windows 10 -- Here are the Four Most Important Words Microsoft Said Today

  21-01-2015 23:17
  
  Microsoft's wide-ranging announcements today about Windows 10 covered things as mundane as new customizations for the Windows 10 Start screen and as mind-blowing as a new computing holographic platform. It showed off a new browser code-named Spartan, promised a unified development platform for all Windows devices, displayed the Cortana digital assistant running on a PC, pointed to the future of Xbox and wowed the audience with its holographic computing platform. Microsoft executives even got
  
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• Hands-on: Microsoft's Massive Surface Hub Enables Big-Screen Collaboration

  21-01-2015 23:15
  
  Imagine a Surface tablet, exploded into something that dwarfs you as you stand beside it. Add in a pair of cameras, superb digital inking, and collaboration features. That’s the Microsoft Surface Hub, which I had the opportunity to demo at Wednesday’s Windows 10 event.
  Available in 55-inch and 84-inch screen sizes, the Surface Hub is a tool for collaboration, including working on documents and video conferencing. It’s designed to replicate the experience of a large group, working toget
  
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• Intel's wireless dock takes laptops closer to a wire-free life

  21-01-2015 22:55
  
  If the tangle of wires around laptop drives you crazy, Intel has developed a wireless dock that could eliminate a lot of those cords.Intel Wireless Docking uses a device that talks to a laptop over high-speed wireless and is linked to displays, printers, external hard drives and other peripherals via conventional cables.Connecting a laptop wirelessly to a peripheral is as easy as bringing it within communication range. For example, a laptop near the dock will automatically recognize a monitor
  
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• 2 Bodies Found in Search of Rubble After Annapolis Mansion Fire - NBC4 Washington

  21-01-2015 22:26
  
  NBC4 Washington
  2 Bodies Found in Search of Rubble After Annapolis Mansion Fire
  NBC4 Washington
  The $6.2 million home, which resembled a castle and overlooked the South River, was owned by IT executive and philanthropist Don Pyle, the chief operating officer of ScienceLogic, and his wife, Sandra. Davies has declined to identify the family members ...
  
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• Mozilla's added support for Oculus Rift a step in broader plans for VR

  21-01-2015 22:25
  
  Mozilla’s recent enhanced support for the Oculus Rift headset is just one step in its plans to more fully embrace virtual reality.Mozilla has added virtual reality support to experimental builds of Firefox that lets people use the Oculus Rift headset to explore 3D environments from inside their browser.Previously, developers who created programs for the virtual reality headset had to download a separate Firefox build that was designed primarily for virtual reality development. Since that ve
  
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• Microsoft Gets its Windows Mojo Back

  21-01-2015 22:16
  
  Microsoft today showed off more of its still-under-construction Windows 10, focusing on features like the voice-activated Cortana digital assistant and its "universal" app model that aims to put the same apps on PCs, tablets, smartphones and hybrid 2-in-1s.
  The company also announced that upgrades to Windows 10 will be free to all devices currently running Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 on PCs or tablets, or Windows 8.1 on Windows smartphones.
  "One of the key questions for today was 'Can they get
  
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• WhatsApp arrives on the desktop

  21-01-2015 22:10
  
  WhatsApp is now available for the Web, in a form that pairs the mobile version of the app to a user’s desktop computer.People can go to https://web.whatsapp.com in the Google Chrome browser to go to the WhatsApp Web client. A QR code will appear, which the user will scan with the WhatsApp mobile app on their phone to get started. The user’s phone needs to stay connected to the Internet for the client to work.At the moment, it works only on Chrome with the Android mobile app. For the iOS v
  
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• Uh Oh, Google, Here Comes Microsoft's HoloLens

  21-01-2015 22:02
  
  Less than a week after Google said that it would stop selling prototypes of its Glass wearable, Microsoft announced today that it's coming out with its own computerized headset.
  During Microsoft's much-anticipated Windows 10 event, the company said it is working on a what CEO Satya Nadella said will be the world's first holographic computing platform. Dubbed HoloLens, the wearable enables the user to view high-definition holograms with surround sound and understand voice commands and hand ge
  
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• Dropbox boosts mobile talent with CloudOn buy

  21-01-2015 21:40
  
  Dropbox on Tuesday added yet another young startup to its brain trust with the acquisition of Israeli mobile-productivity app maker CloudOn.Terms of the deal were not disclosed.The move also broadens Dropbox’s presence outside the U.S., where some 70 percent of its 300 million users are located, the company said. CloudOn’s engineers will form Dropbox’s first Israel office, which joins locations in San Francisco, Seattle, New York and Dublin.CloudOn has now stopped accepting new users fo
  
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• Microsoft shows early, sketchy build of 'Spartan' browser

  21-01-2015 21:25
  
  Windows 10 will feature a new browser with a minimalist interface and a new rendering engine, but there is one thing it very prominently lacks: the name Internet Explorer.Called Project Spartan during a demonstration at Wednesday’s Windows 10 event, the new browser was shown running on a PC, although it will also be available for mobile devices. The name is an important point, because it may signal that IE 12 as we know and perhaps not love it, may continue to appear in Windows 10 as a sepa
  
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• Amazon ditches Wallet mobile payment service

  21-01-2015 21:20
  
  Amazon has pulled the plug on its Wallet app, a service the company launched in beta six months ago to dip its toes into the burgeoning area of mobile payments.Amazon is removing the Wallet app from the Amazon and Google Play app stores Wednesday, it said. People will still be able to use cards they added to the app but their balances will no longer be updated in the wallet, so they’ll have to keep track some other way.“We’ve learned a great deal from the Amazon Wallet beta program and
  
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• Microsoft Leaps into 3D Computing with Windows Holographic and HoloLens

  21-01-2015 21:19
  
  "We're dreaming about holograms," said Alex Kipman of Microsoft, as he unveiled a new set of technologies that will bring 3D imaging and augmented reality to Windows. That's right: holograms—possibly the biggest surprise from Wednesday's the Windows 10 consumer preview unveiling.  Image: Melissa Riofrio
  
  Microsoft is building augmented reality into Windows using Windows Holographic and the Microsoft HoloLens, a headset for viewing 3D images.To read this article in full or to leave a co
  
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• Look to IT to drive revenue this year - Banking Exchange

  21-01-2015 21:18
  
  Look to IT to drive revenue this year
  Banking Exchange
  Across the senior IT executive respondents in Ovum's recent survey, 43% highlighted supporting revenue growth as one of the top three strategic priorities for 2015. Over the past years, many banks have neglected the back office to focus on creating a ...
  
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• IRS Warns of Downtime Risk as Congress Makes Cuts

  21-01-2015 21:16
  
  Successive budget cuts by Congress are forcing the Internal Revenue Service to delay system modernization and improve its ability to prevent fraud.
  The agency has also been hit with a hiring freeze, and appears to be hiring very few people in IT.
  A job search at the federal employment site USAJobs.gov, using the word "computer" produced one result for the IRS, but 54 for the Department of Agriculture, 43 for the Commerce Department, and 73 for the Department of Health and Human Services.
  The
  
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• Republican net neutrality proposal falls short, critics say

  21-01-2015 21:05
  
  A Republican net neutrality proposal in the U.S. Congress would not fully protect broadband customers because it would prohibit the Federal Communications Commission from enacting new rules against selectively blocking or throttling traffic, critics said Wednesday.The Republican draft legislation would kill the FCC’s ability to act on schemes that prioritize some traffic over others, witnesses told a congressional committee.The proposal “would strip the county’s expert communications ag
  
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• How to Get Started on the Tech Speaking Circuit

  21-01-2015 21:02
  
  People get into tech speaking for a lot of reasons. It could be for recognition, to build their personal brand, or to establish their thought leadership position in the market. Or, it might simply be part of the job.
  If you’ve been thinking of giving it a try, now is a great time to get rolling for the summer/fall conference season. Here’s what you need to know to get started.The proposal
  
  Conferences publish a set of proposal guidelines, typically on their web site. Make sure to follow
  
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• Zes datacentertrends om niet uit het oog te verliezen

  21-01-2015 20:52
  Terwijl cloud-services tot wasdom komen, neemt de behoefte aan integratie en convergentie toe. Virtualisatie leidt tot méér software en hardwarebeheer wordt meer en meer een specialisme. Daarnaast worden faciliteiten aan de rand van het netwerk steeds belangrijker, terwijl de druk op beveiliging van... lees meer
  
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• Kun je het IoT beveiligen?

  21-01-2015 20:52
  Door Jeroen Allebé – Nu het internet of things (IoT) het gesprek van de dag lijkt, staat het bij steeds meer bedrijven op de agenda. Volgens Gartner is het IoT “het netwerk van fysieke objecten waarin technologie is opgenomen om te communiceren en te interacteren met hun interne status of de externe... lees meer
  
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• Dropbox Acquires CloudOn to Strengthen Mobile Collaboration

  21-01-2015 20:48
  
  Dropbox continues to build its business away from sync-and-share cloud storage with the overnight acquisition of CloudOn, an Israeli startup that offers a "simple and beautiful" mobile document creation and editing tool, to quote Dropbox's marketing spin. 
  "We’re thrilled to continue building things that help people work better – and we’re proud and excited to join the Dropbox team to help people be more productive every day," wrote the CloudOn team in an annunciatory blog post. 
  The
  
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• Attackers are exploiting a zero-day vulnerability in Flash Player

  21-01-2015 20:25
  
  Attackers are using compromised websites to exploit a new and currently unpatched vulnerability in Flash Player, a malware researcher has reported.The new exploit was observed in drive-by-download attacks launched with an exploit kit called Angler, according to an independent researcher who uses the online alias Kafeine.Exploit kits are malicious Web applications that contain exploits for vulnerabilities in browsers and browser plug-ins such as Java, Flash Player, Adobe Reader and Silverlight
  
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• Windows 10 for Phones Will Act Like an Extension of Your PC

  21-01-2015 20:21
  
  Microsoft has given the first glimpse of Windows 10 on smartphones, including several ways that phone users can stay in sync with their PCs.
  Despite the new name, the fundamentals of the operating system are similar to Windows Phone 8.1. There’s a vertical list of Live Tiles on the Start screen along with a master app list, and the familiar “Action Center” for notifications still appears when you pull down from the top of the screen.
  In Windows 10, Microsoft is building on those featur
  
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• 6 Ways Big Data Could Damage Your Business

  21-01-2015 20:01
  
  The devil is in Big Data's detailsImage by Ludovic BertronThe prospect of knowing more about customers’ lives, habits, and desires than ever before is understandably exciting. But amid all the excitement, it should not be forgotten that few businesspeople—even C-level executives—truly understand what a revolutionary force Big Data is, or the disruptive threat it represents for businesses of all kinds.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• White House Uses Social Media to Amplify Obama's Big Speech

  21-01-2015 19:47
  
  The White House updated its social media efforts in an effort to control the messages coming out of the president's State of the Union address last night.
  By pulling key points from President Barack Obama's speech and highlighting them with supporting graphics and charts, videos and animated GIFs, the administration focused on tweeting, posting updates on Facebook and uploading photos on Instagram.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• So You Think You Know Windows

  21-01-2015 19:26
  
   
  
  
  To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Lenovo puts AMD chip in ThinkPad 11e laptop

  21-01-2015 19:15
  
  Most of Lenovo’s ThinkPad laptops come with Intel chips. While that remains the case, a new ThinkPad 11e model is also being offered with an optional Advanced Micro Devices chip.The new ThinkPad Yoga 11e can be a laptop or tablet, while the ThinkPad 11e laptops can resist liquid spills and absorb shock if dropped to the ground. The laptops are targeted at students, teachers and schools, but any consumer will be able to buy them from Lenovo’s website.Laptop makers are paying more attention
  
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• The Hottest 3D Printing Projects

  21-01-2015 19:15
  
  Hot stuffImage by REUTERS/Shannon StapletonIn the past few months a number of super cool 3D printing projects have hit the market. We’re talking about 3D printed cars for the masses and five-story buildings to name a couple interesting ventures. Take a look.Related: Wicked cool 3D printer creationsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Windows 10 to be free upgrade for many during its first year

  21-01-2015 19:05
  
  Four months after pitching Windows 10 to businesses, Microsoft is focusing on consumers at an event where CEO Satya Nadella and other officials are pledging that the new OS offers individuals significant advances over Windows 8, its problematic predecessor.“Today is a monumental day for Windows,” Terry Myerson, executive vice president of the Operating Systems group, said at Wednesday’s event, being held at Microsoft’s Redmond, Washington, headquarters and available vialive webcast.Th
  
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• Windows 10's New Features: Cortana on the PC, Continuum, and More

  21-01-2015 18:41
  
  It’s official, folks: Windows 10 is finally a mullet. After kicking off our original look at Windows 10 with a bevy of business-friendly features, Microsoft drew back the curtain on the operating system’s new consumer-focused features at an event on Wednesday, while simultaneously driving home a vision of an operating system designed to deliver a singular, cohesive experience across a myriad of device types.
  And yes, Cortana is coming to the PC.
  After Microsoft operating system chief Ter
  
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• Next Up for Microsoft: Close the App Gap

  21-01-2015 18:40
  
  While eyes will be on Microsoft's Redmond, Wash. campus today as it touts Windows 10 for consumers, its Build developer conference slated to start in three months will be just as important to the upgrade's future, analysts said today.
  At Build, which will run April 29-May 1 in San Francisco, Microsoft must make the case for Windows 10 to developers, who have largely shunned its separate mobile and touch-based app ecosystems in favor of Google's Android and Apple's iOS.
  "It will be critical h
  
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• Windows 10 Will be a Free Upgrade for Windows 7 and 8 Users

  21-01-2015 18:24
  It’s official, folks: Windows 10 will be a free upgrade for existing Windows users—at least for a limited time.
  Kicking off the consumer-focused Windows 10 event in Redmond on Tuesday, Microsoft operating system chief Terry Myerson announced that current users of Windows 7, Windows 8.1, and Windows Phone 8.1 will be able to upgrade to Windows 10 for free for one year after the operating system launches. Once you’ve claimed the upgrade, Microsoft will keep you updated for the supported
  
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• The Business Didn’t Ask for It

  21-01-2015 18:23
  
  Dr Pepper Snapple Group
  Dr. Pepper Snapple Group (DPS) is a $6B producer and distributor of beverage products. They sell much of their product through direct store delivery, which means that ever day, the sales force visits thousands of stores to take replenishment orders and pitch new products.DPS also has account teams who work at a national level with retailers to develop programs and promotions for in-store events.  Those programs have materials, collateral, displays, and pricing inform
  
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• Calls for ISPs to filter content could be illegal, EU council documents suggest

  21-01-2015 18:10
  
  Last week justice ministers from across the European Union called on ISPs to conduct voluntary censorship of online content—but documents in preparation for a meeting of telecoms ministers suggest such a move could be illegal.The documents, prepared by the Latvian presidency of the Council of the EU, note that calls to allow Internet service providers to block or filter content in the “public interest” as part of a proposed net neutrality law could violate privacy laws that protect the
  
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• 20 of the Worst Passwords

  21-01-2015 18:07
  
  123456Image by Daniel OinesIf the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden of Eden was password protected, this was probably it.PasswordImage by PEAKaBooVintageTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• TAG Heuer Working on an Apple Watch Rival After Criticizing Smartwatches

  21-01-2015 17:59
  
  After months of bashing Samsung, Sony, and Pebble’s “cheap, plastic-designed watches,” luxury watch maker TAG Heuer is developing its own smartwatch.
  Jean-Claude Biver, head of TAG Heuer parent company LVMH’s watch division, told Bloomberg that the upcoming Apple Watch is a huge threat to sub-$2,000 watches. So TAG Heuer will be working with Silicon Valley tech companies to create its new watch, which unlike its heritage products won’t be entirely made in Switzerland.To read this a
  
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• Who, what, where: January 21, 2015 - LifeHealthPro

  21-01-2015 16:59
  
  LifeHealthPro
  Who, what, where: January 21, 2015
  LifeHealthPro
  LTCG is pleased to announce that Rob Frederick, a highly experienced operations and IT executive in the insurance sector, will be joining its management team as Chief Operating Officer. Frederick comes to LTCG from Transamerica, one of the world's ...
  
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• Mouse Box Wants to Stuff a Full PC into a Mouse

  21-01-2015 16:29
  
  Forget the PC on a stick; a new concept called Mouse Box could take the next logical step by stuffing everything into a mouse.
  According to the Mouse Box website, the plan is to pack a standard-looking mouse with an ARM-based Cortex processor, 128 GB of flash storage, 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi, and dual USB 3.0 ports. The mouse would then output to a monitor via Micro-HDMI, and a wireless charging pad would double as the mouse pad, sending power to an optional battery. 
  
  
  
  
  
  It all sounds pretty
  
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• Acer Preps a Pair of Durable Chromebooks for Students

  21-01-2015 16:15
  
  Students are often hard on their computer hardware—jamming them into backpacks as they rush to class, or throwing their school bag in the corner when they get home. To help Chromebooks stand-up to the casual punishment that students can mete out, Acer is introducing two new Chromebooks for the education market in February.
  The Chromebook C740 and C910 have a number of special hardware features the company says will help the devices withstand punishment. Both laptops have reinforced covers
  
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• BrandPost: If You’re Not Asking These 3 Questions To Drive Your Enterprise Cloud Architecture Strategy, You’re Asking The Wrong Questions

  21-01-2015 15:58
  
  It seems like everywhere I look these days, there’s a new cloud technology solution promising to deliver all the benefits of hosting applications, data, platforms and even infrastructure in the cloud. Interest and demand for cloud-based solutions has never been higher, and the marketplace has responded with an abundance of solutions that offer every possible permutation of cloud computing architecture: public, private, hybrid, multi-tenant, single-tenant, SAAS (software as a service), PAAS
  
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• BlackBerry's Limited Edition Gold Passport Costs $900 (UPDATED)

  21-01-2015 15:51
  
  UPDATE: Just a few hours after BlackBerry listed its gold Passport for sale, it's now sold out.BlackBerry this morning hitched itself a ride on the golden phone train. The Canadian company showed off a special edition BlackBerry Passport with gold frets and a gold bezel, on its Inside BlackBerry blog. 
  Only 50 of these golden boys will be available, so if you're interested you should order yours post haste. The device, which appears to be exactly the same as the black, white and red Passport
  
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• BlackBerry's Limited Edition Gold Passport Costs $900

  21-01-2015 15:51
  
  BlackBerry this morning hitched itself a ride on the golden phone train. The Canadian company showed off a special edition BlackBerry Passport with gold frets and a gold bezel, on its Inside BlackBerry blog. 
  
  Only 50 of these golden boys will be available, so if you're interested you should order yours post haste. The device, which appears to be exactly the same as the black, white and red Passport devices — with the exception of the gold accents, limited edition engraving and leather re
  
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• Critical Java updates fix 19 vulnerabilities, disable SSL 3.0

  21-01-2015 15:25
  
  Oracle released new security updates for Java to fix 19 vulnerabilities and disable default support for SSL 3.0, an outdated version of the secure communications protocol that is vulnerable to attacks.The updates were part of Oracle’s quarterly Critical Patch Update, released Tuesday, which fixes 169 security issues across hundreds of products.Fourteen of the 19 vulnerabilities fixed in Java affect client deployments and can be exploited from Web pages through malicious Java applets or Java
  
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• Overstock to Take on Amazon With 'O Club' Streaming Video Service

  21-01-2015 15:01
  
  Neflix, Amazon, Hulu Plus, HBO, Dish. The list of companies that offer (or plan to offer) streaming media as an alternative to conventional cable and satellite TV continues to grow. The latest attendee at the cord-cutting party is Overstock, the giant discount online retailer, which plans to bring roughly 30,000 on-demand titles to the Web later this year and eventually launch a streaming service.
  Overstock's official announcement is short on details, so it's too soon to know if it will be a
  
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• 10 Cool Network and Computing Research Projects

  21-01-2015 14:48
  
  If you think the latest enterprise and consumer network and computer technologies rolling into your data center and being snuck into your offices by end users are advanced, wait until you see what's cooking in the labs at universities and tech companies. Much of well-funded research is aimed at security, simplifying use of current technology and figuring out how to more easily plow through mounds of big data. Here's at peek at 10 projects. 
  Idiot-proof Smartphone Charging
  Microsoft research
  
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• Apple wants to know more about your listening habits

  21-01-2015 14:45
  
  Apple, it seems, has acquired U.K. company Semetric and its Musicmetric analytics platform, which could allow Apple to keep better track of what people listen to.There is little doubt that Apple has plans to step up its music push following last year’s acquisition of the Beats headphone vendor and streaming music service for about US$3 billion. The acquisition of Semetric hints that Apple has larger plans for its future offerings, and associated services.Earlier this month Semetric changed
  
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• Chinese smartphone brands conquer more of the market in 2014

  21-01-2015 14:30
  
  2014 was a good year for Chinese smartphone brands, with vendors from the country catching up on Apple and stealing share from market leader Samsung Electronics.In total, Chinese brands shipped 453.4 million units last year, for almost 40 percent of all shipments during the year, research firm TrendForce said on Tuesday.And even as Samsung and Apple remained the two biggest handset vendors in the world, six Chinese brands were among the world’s top ten smartphone makers, TrendForce added.Th
  
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• Why IT Should be Skeptical of 'Facebook at Work'

  21-01-2015 14:00
  
  When Facebook burst onto the scene nearly 11 years ago, it was battling for a position in the new Internet medium called social networking. All it had to do was beat MySpace and a few other lesser-knowns at their own games, and it did so quickly and effectively.With Facebook at Work, a new version of the platform limited to internal corporate communications and released to a small group of partners last week, the company is trying to break into the close-knit, old boys club that is the enterp
  
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• 5 Key Challenges Facing the Industrial Internet of Things

  21-01-2015 13:59
  
  To many people, the phrase "Internet of Things" conjures images of consumer gadgets like wearable fitness monitors, Google Glass or maybe even self-driving cars. But some of the most exciting and practical applications are happening in the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT): smart agriculture, smart cities, smart factories and the smart grid.That said, the IIoT brings with it tremendous amounts of complexity. To tackle that complexity, organizations must overcome five key challenges, accord
  
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• The Upload: Your tech news briefing for Wednesday, January 21

  21-01-2015 13:40
  
  All eyes on RedmondIt’s Microsoft’s big day with a major news briefing planned at company headquarters on Wednesday. What to expect: a new preview of Windows 10, a PC version of the Cortana digital assistant, better integration between Windows on the desktop and mobile devices, at least one new web browser, and more.Ellison stepping out for Oracle launchLarry Ellison will make one of his first appearances since relinquishing the CEO position, to launch some new hardware systems at Oracle
  
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• Security Priorities Shifting to Preventing Breaches, Improving Internal Controls

  21-01-2015 13:00
  
  For the first time, companies are worried more about preventing a breach than on passing a compliance audit -- and are spending the money to prove it, according to a new global survey of IT and business managers.
  In fact, compliance was in fifth place as a driver of security spending, after preventing a breach, protecting intellectual property, protecting finances and other assets, and meeting customer requirements.
  One reason could be the series of high-profile breaches that have hit the ne
  
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