IT Executive news

• How News Corp's global IT push is uniting business units and 25,000 employees

  02-10-2015 22:01
  
  Embarking on a new IT project is a major undertaking no matter what your company's scope or size, but when you're News Corp -- with 10 business units and 25,000 employees around the globe -- it's not for the faint of heart.That, however, was exactly the challenge that faced Dominic Shine less than a year after he joined the media conglomerate as global CIO.Spurred by the company's split from 21st Century Fox back in 2013, Shine helped create a brand-new global enterprise IT strategy to take the
  
  Read more

• How News Corp is uniting 10 business units and 25,000 employees in a global IT push

  02-10-2015 22:01
  
  Embarking on a new IT project is a major undertaking no matter what your company's scope or size, but when you're News Corp -- with 10 business units and 25,000 employees around the globe -- it's not for the faint of heart.That, however, was exactly the challenge that faced Dominic Shine less than a year after he joined the media conglomerate as global CIO.Spurred by the company's split from 21st Century Fox back in 2013, Shine helped create a brand-new global enterprise IT strategy to take the
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: The centaurs of clinical decision support

  02-10-2015 21:41
  
  “The Machine is much, but it is not everything.”
  From E.M. Forster’s “The Machine Stops”
  Who would want a machine for a doctor?  No bedside manner.  None.  Zippo. Nada.But machines can be very good at accessing information. And, with no personal entanglements, they are focused on the duties to which they are assigned.  And they stay focused for…well, about as long as need be. Plug in a task and you can be pretty sure it will get done.The p
  
  Read more

• Microsoft, Tesla say software-defined batteries could mix and match power on the fly

  02-10-2015 20:26
  
  To maximize battery life, a team of researchers from Microsoft, Tesla, and others have proposed combining several different types of batteries inside a single device, and managed by the operating system itself. 
  Tests conducted by the researchers showed that mixing and matching batteries could improve the battery life of a wearable by about an hour. A two-in-one could see far better gains, however—up to a 22 percent improvement.
  Unlike a fundamental improvement in battery technology,
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Microsoft's browser upgrade decree proves disastrous for IE

  02-10-2015 20:25
  
  Microsoft's decision more than a year ago to require most Internet Explorer (IE) users to upgrade to the newest version appears to have had a disastrous impact on the browser's share, recently published data shows.
  In August 2014, Microsoft unexpectedly told most IE users that they had to be running IE11 by Jan. 12, 2016, about 15 weeks from now. After that date, Microsoft will support IE9 only on the little-used Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008; IE10 only on Windows Server 2012; and only
  
  Read more

• Spotify expects to have close to 100 million users by year’s end

  02-10-2015 20:02
  
  You might think Spotify would be feeling the heat from Apple’s entry into the crowded music-streaming market, but recent comments from a high-ranking Spotify executive suggest the Swedish company remains largely unaffected.
  In the early part of June, weeks ahead of Apple Music’s launch, Spotify announced that its subscriber base had soared to more than 20 million (twice as many as a year ago), while the overall number of users stood at a record 75 million (versus 35 million a year a
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: Agile innovations in data management

  02-10-2015 19:55
  
  A successful agile data warehouse can speed the delivery of information to organizations. Ideally, initial raw data can be delivered to analysts quickly, then integrated into a formal enterprise data warehouse (EDW) for more robust and broad reporting in ensuing development cycles.Many companies have run into challenges with making agile work. Data warehouse projects tend to be large and complex, with many inter-related parts. The business is not willing to wait years, or even months, to have da
  
  Read more

• Microsoft gives more weight to gaming plans with physics engine acquisition

  02-10-2015 19:51
  
  While much of Microsoft's pitch for Windows 10 has been focused on everyday consumers and business users, the company has also taken the opportunity to push its new operating system on another key demographic for the company: video game fans. Xbox chief Phil Spencer told an audience at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco earlier this year that the new OS is designed to be the best release for gamers. It's packed with features like a new Xbox app, the ability to record and share
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Nearly a million illegal tons of smog resulted from VW's diesel cars

  02-10-2015 19:30
  
  When you add up all the additional smog from 11 million diesel Volkswagens that cheated emissions tests over the past six years, you get 918,720 tons of extra nitrogen oxide (NOx) pollution.
  That's what used-car aggregation site Autolist came up with in an analysis, claiming VW's deceit has set air quality back for years.
  The additional pollution, coming from Volkswagens and Audis that used a "defeat device" to thwart emissions tests, is the equivalent of adding another 437 million cars to the
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: How to do software rationalization right

  02-10-2015 19:30
  
  From a high-level perspective IT budgets have two parts: maintenance and strategic initiatives. Maintenance tends to grow at the expense of strategic initiatives and, left unchecked, ultimately stifles innovation. In mid to large IT organizations, this has resulted in the emergence of Application Portfolio Management or APM. APM is a disciplined approach to aligning enterprise applications to maximize business value while minimizing lifecycle ownership costs.A lack of APM results in uncontrolled
  
  Read more

• Google for Work thriving by dumping the ‘enterprise’

  02-10-2015 19:23
  
  Google Enterprise became Google for Work a year ago. The company opted for the name change because “enterprise is old business,” says Amit Singh, president of the division at Google. Singh reflected on Google for Work’s accomplishments since the rebranding in a blog post.The switch wasn’t just about renaming Google’s business, Singh writes, but also what the division and products stand for. “We believe in a new way of working with collaboration at the core. A
  
  Read more

• Oculus Rift consumer price will be more than $350

  02-10-2015 19:15
  If you’ve already built an Oculus-ready PC and are wondering how much to budget for the Oculus Rift headset itself, the answer is likely north of $350.
  “We’re roughly in that ballpark … but it’s going to cost more than that,” Oculus Founder Palmer Luckey told Road to VR, when asked if the consumer version of Oculus would have a similar price tag to the company’s developer kits. The Oculus DK 2 kit cost $350, while the original TK 1 cost $300.To read th
  
  Read more

• 5G, Arctic gold rush excite global tech forum attendees

  02-10-2015 19:07
  
  Oulu, Finland -- The 24th Global Forum, an annual policy and strategy conference for technology leaders, was held this week in Oulu, a Nordic university town and research city about 100 miles from the Arctic Circle.
  Juha sipila
  Opened by Juha Sipilä, Finland’s current prime minister and a telecommunications engineer by training, the conference theme was “Digitalization: From Disruption to Sustainability.”
  + FROM LAST YEAR'S CONFERENCE:Global Forum: Innovation creates oppo
  
  Read more

• Patreon donor details apparently spilled after massive hack

  02-10-2015 17:59
  Crowdfunding site Patreon has become the latest victim of a data breach, though this one’s slightly more interesting than your garden variety hack.
  Patreon acknowledged the breach on September 30, saying that hackers gained access to names, email addresses, posts, and some shipping addresses, along with some billing addresses that added prior to 2014. The site also reported unauthorized access to encrypted passwords, social security numbers, and tax form information. Credit card data wasn
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: Fitbit is now HIPAA compliant—is your business?

  02-10-2015 17:42
  
  Fitbit’s recent announcement that it has achieved compliance with HIPAA—which protects patients’ health data—underscores the importance of HIPAA medical privacy concerns to an ever-widening circle of businesses. Still, many firms SHOULD be HIPAA-compliant, but aren’t, which puts them at risk for legal action. Could yours be one of them?The Fitbit news shows that HIPAA compliance is no longer limited to insurance companies, doctors’ offices and hospitals. 
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: Shades of Greynets: The Internet of Secure Things

  02-10-2015 17:33
  
  Everything old is new again. I just read an article about a Cloud Security Alliance project with the US Department of Homeland Security to create "software defined perimeter" tools to stop distributed denial of service attacks. The bigger potential may be to fight data breaches. Amazon continues to add to its ever richer suite of simple services like S3 and SES. Heroku has launched its "Private Spaces" server type which is not publicly accessible.To read this article in full or to leave a commen
  
  Read more

• You can finally buy an Apple Watch at Target this month

  02-10-2015 17:32
  
  Retail chains are gearing up for the holiday shopping bonanza by stocking all the gear you’ll want to gift your loved ones (or buy for yourself). That includes the Apple Watch, which came out in April but is only now starting to pop up on store shelves. Target is the latest to start selling Apple’s smartwatch, beginning Oct. 18 online and Oct. 25 in-store.
  The retailer will carry both 38mm and 42mm versions of the Sport and stainless steel models in various colors, including rose go
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: Who pays for cybercrime?

  02-10-2015 17:30
  
  Cybercrime is becoming such a common occurrence. Too many of us have to hear about and become familiar with the Deep Web sooner than I ever dreamed we would. I heard Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek – the presenters at Black Hat who hacked a 2014 Jeep Cherokee’s onboard computer sparking a massive vehicle recall – say that “everything is hackable.” And it is. If you think you’re safe then you’re likely next if you have anything of valuable personally or
  
  Read more

• Apple iOS 9 Wi-Fi Assist: Threat, Menace or Neither?

  02-10-2015 16:44
  
  The web has practically been clogged this week with posts providing tips about Apple's new iOS 9 mobile operating system: Good thing Apple added Wi-Fi Assist to make sure you're on the best connection possible to read all that stuff. Or maybe not.
  Many, including those in one university IT department and at least one carrier (Vodafone), have warned about the possibility that Wi-Fi Assist could jack up your data usage if it keeps kicking you over to 3G or 4G cellular when you're in a weak W
  
  Read more

• A viral vigilante may be keeping an eye on your home router

  02-10-2015 16:28
  
  An old virus affecting routers and other devices running Linux appears to be acting as a digital vigilante, protecting routers in the dark alleyways of the Internet from other malware infections.Researchers at Symantec first began tracking Linux.Wifatch on Jan. 12, describing it merely as a "Trojan that may open a back door on the compromised router" and adding a couple of pages of generic advice for removing it and keeping it from infecting other devicesThe company subsequently noted that anoth
  
  Read more

• This vigilante virus protects you against malware attacks, quotes Richard Stallman

  02-10-2015 16:24
  
  Forget about traditional PC malware:Infecting routersand other Internet-connected devices is the new hotness among malicious actors, given its effectiveness and relative ease. But there’s a new sort of malware swirling across the web—vigilante code that infiltrates your router and Internet of Things devices and then actually hardens them against traditional attacks, leaving helpful messages and homages to free software activist Richard Stallman in its wake.To read this article in fu
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: Amazon's dumb decision not to sell the Apple TV

  02-10-2015 16:12
  Even the largest, best known companies in the world sometimes do very stupid things. The latest example of this is Amazon, which has banned sales of the Apple TV and Google Chromecast.Currently you can search on Amazon and you will still see the Apple TV and Google Chromecast on the site. But that changes on Oct. 29 when all listings for both products will be removed from Amazon's online store.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
  Read more

• The dark side of early retirement

  02-10-2015 15:52
  
  It seems like every few weeks I see some 20-something just out of college asking for advice on how he (and, yes, it usually is a he) can retire at 35.   Watching the new movie, The Intern (something I recommend folks who want to retire early watch) reminded me of just how stupid this goal is. I had a cousin that effectively retired at 22. It cost him his marriage, career and self-respect. Now he mostly sleeps, gets drunk and is a burden on his family. Over the years I’ve watched
  
  Read more

• Sprint layoffs likely as part of cost-reduction plan

  02-10-2015 15:08
  
  Sprint will likely cut its 31,000-person workforce as part of up to $2.5 billion in cost reductions in the next six months, a company spokesman said Friday.
  "It's likely some jobs will be impacted by this [cost-cutting] process, but it's premature to talk about details," said Sprint spokesman David Tovar in a telephone interview on Friday.
  In addition to 31,000 workers, the company also employs about 30,000 contractor employees, he said.Sprint, with 57.7 million customers, fell to the nation's
  
  Read more

• Adblock for Chrome signs on to Eyeo's acceptable ads whitelist

  02-10-2015 14:49
  
  The maker of a competing ad-blocking browser extension has joined up with the new program created by Eyeo, owner of Adblock Plus, under which an independent board will decide which ads are acceptable to be placed on a whitelist.The AdBlock browser extension for Google's Chrome and Apple's Safari -- similarly named but independent of Eyeo's product -- claims 40 million users. Its developer  Michael Gundlach said Thursday that he had sold his company, as well.The move came about, he said, bec
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: 10 things enterprise software developers can learn from game designers

  02-10-2015 14:19
  
  Last week, I attended the Sustainable Performance Forum (SPF) in Chicago, among 500-plus environment, health & safety (EHS), sustainability, risk and IT professionals. Enablon, the event’s sponsor, spoke of the importance of of the user experience in working with their software.Enterprise software users interact with the system in different ways:casual users use the software occasionally to report incidents or complete tasks;
  “power-users” input the bulk of the information
  
  Read more

• Does Facebook even belong in the enterprise?

  02-10-2015 14:08
  
  The baby pictures keep popping up. Your neighbor obviously just got back from a duck-hunting trip. And, your sister just announced her wedding plans for next summer.Congratulations, you just spent 30 minutes on Facebook.As many executives grapple with how much the social network has become engrained in society – the site boasts 1.44B active users monthly – there’s a question about whether the brainchild of Mark Zuckerberg even belongs in the enterprise at all, even as the compa
  
  Read more

• 30 years a sysadmin

  02-10-2015 13:55
  
  Looking back after spending more than 30 years as a Unix systems administrator, I have to say that's it's been quite a ride.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: 10 3D Touch tips for the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus

  02-10-2015 13:35
  
  3D Touch will change how we use our iPhonesImage by Thinkstock3D Touch is one of the biggest changes to happen to mobile interfaces in quite a long time. It has the potential to significantly change how we use our iPhones each day. But since it’s so new it can be a little confusing for users.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
  Read more

• Q&A: The Martian author talks programming, getting to Mars

  02-10-2015 12:15
  
  The author of the book The Martian, which opens as a movie on Friday, said he doubts NASA will reach its goal of sending astronauts to Mars by the 2030s.
  But he definitely wouldn't be brave enough to go himself.
  The action-adventure movie stars Matt Damon as a U.S. astronaut who is left stranded on the Red Planet and must figure out how to survive until, and if, NASA returns to rescue him.[ Slideshow: 7 real NASA technologies in sci-fi movie The Martian ]
  The movie is based on the book with the
  
  Read more

• Facebook gives Android a kick in the byte code

  02-10-2015 12:00
  
  To improve the mobile performance of its social network, Facebook is enhancing Java bytecode on the Android platform with its Redex project, providing a pipeline for optimizing Android DEX (Dalvik Executable) files.
  In a blog post, Facebook engineers Marty Greenia, Bert Maher, and Shane Ney emphasized a responsibility to "keep things fast," particularly in developing areas where devices stay in the market longer. "Android is one of our biggest platforms, and it's also the mobile platform with t
  
  Read more

• EMV sets the stage for a better payment future

  02-10-2015 12:00
  
  Yesterday was the deadline. Finally, the United States is switching from the old-fashioned swiping method for credit card transactions to the more secure chip-based system scheme dubbed EMV (for Europay, MasterCard, and Visa, which together originated the technology).
  The chip is harder to counterfeit, and unlike magnetic stripes, it can't be easily read and duplicated, which is what credit-card counterfeiters have long done. In other countries, the chip is coupled with a PIN, so if someone ste
  
  Read more

• 12 'El Capitan' features that Apple totally ripped off from Windows

  02-10-2015 12:00
  This should all seem very familiarApple launched “OS X 10.11 El Capitan” on Wednesday, an alphanumerical/geographical mishmash that deliciously contradicts Apple’s self-proclaimed minimalism in seventeen characters.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
  Read more

• Digitalisering vraagt om herziening van bedrijfsnetwerk

  02-10-2015 10:07
  Een stabiel netwerk staat aan de basis van zakelijk succes, groei, efficiëntie en risicobeheer, is de weinig opvallende conclusie van Verizon in een nieuw rapport, waarvoor het Forrester Research onderzoek heeft laten doen.Bedrijfsnetwerken staan onder druk door intensiever dataverkeer en een groeiend aantal... lees meer
  
  Read more

• Breach at Experian may have exposed data on 15 million consumers linked to T-Mobile

  02-10-2015 02:45
  A data breach at credit bureau Experian may have exposed data from T-Mobile USA on about 15 million U.S. consumers.The data includes names, birth dates, addresses and Social Security numbers or other forms of identification like drivers' license numbers, the companies said Thursday. The people affected may not be current T-Mobile subscribers but applied for T-Mobile postpaid services or device financing from Sept. 1, 2013 to Sept. 16, 2015.There's no evidence so far that the data has been used i
  
  Read more

• Microsoft strikes a deal with Asus: We won't sue if you put Office on your Android devices

  02-10-2015 02:24
  
  Microsoft has apparently traded an agreement not to sue Asustek over its Android patents in exchange for an a deal that will put Office software on Android smartphones and tablets designed by Asus.
  About a day after Microsoft and Google buried the hatchet with their own patent agreement, Asus and Microsoft also made peace. In a statement on Thursday, the two companies said they’d expanded a previous patent licensing agreement between the two companies that covers Asus-made Andro
  
  Read more

• Office 2016 for Mac users lambaste Microsoft after upgrading to Apple's OS X El Capitan

  02-10-2015 02:23
  
  After Apple released the new OS X El Capitan on Wednesday, users streamed to a Microsoft support discussion forum to report that Office 2016 for Mac regularly crashed, crippling their productivity.
  "This is beyond the Pale. We basically can't use Office on our computers," wrote Watson Scott Swail today on the longest thread related to the crash problem.
  "I finalized the El Capitan upgrade this morning and since then I can't use my Mac with Office 2016 any longer ... Multiple random crashes from
  
  Read more

• Increasingly, U.S. IT workers are alleging discrimination

  02-10-2015 02:20
  
  Some U.S. IT workers who have been replaced with H-1B contractors are alleging discrimination and are going to court. They are doing so in increasing numbers.There are at least seven IT workers at Disney who are pursuing, or plan to pursue, federal and state discrimination administrative complaints over their layoffs. Another Disney worker, still employed by the firm, has filed a state administrative discrimination complaint in California. These complaints are a first step to litigation.Separate
  
  Read more

• Amazon launches managed Elasticsearch service

  02-10-2015 00:59
  
  While Amazon Web Services made a name for itself by providing raw computing power and data storage at rock-bottom prices, the company has been moving toward providing services that do more of the heavy lifting for developers and administrators in exchange for a higher price.Amazon Elasticsearch Service is a new product in that vein that's designed to make it easier for developers to implement the popular Elasticsearch open-source search and analytics engine that lives in the AWS cloud.
  
  Read more

• Profiling an insider

  02-10-2015 00:00
  
  Insider threatImage by ThinkstockSure there is always a disgruntled employee in the ranks, but you as a manager never jump to the immediate conclusion that this person is going to steal data from the company. But it does happen and recognizing the telltale signs will help stop the leakage before it is too late. Here are profiles of some of those employees.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
  Read more

Follow @ITExecutiveNews on Twitter!