IT Executive news

• IBM zeroes in on unstructured data with Cleversafe buy

  05-10-2015 22:39
  IBM will acquire object-based storage vendor Cleversafe in a move to bolster its cloud business unit with more flexibility and simplified management options in the hybrid cloud.Founded in 2004, Chicago-based Cleversafe offers large-scale content repository, backup, archive, collaboration and storage as a service. The acquisition aims in particular to help companies tackle growing volumes of unstructured data such as audio, video and images, IBM said Monday.Object storage such as what Cleversafe
  
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• Chinese hackers put iOS in the crosshairs with novel attack angles

  05-10-2015 22:28
  
  For almost a year, Chinese hackers have leveraged a novel one-two punch to compromise iOS devices, including non-jailbroken iPhones, then seed them with adware, a security company said today.
  The malware, dubbed "YiSpecter," was written in China by Chinese hackers, and what screen text was displayed was in Chinese, said Ryan Olson, director of the Unit 42 threat intelligence unit at Santa Clara, Calif.-based Palo Alto Networks, in an interview. The malware was distributed almost exclusively in
  
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• Google competition makes AT&T cut cost of gigabit service in some areas

  05-10-2015 22:11
  
  Why does AT&T charge $110 for its "GigaPower" Ethernet service in Chicago and only $70 in San Antonio? The company won't say, but I have a pretty good idea: competition.Cities in which Google offers its $70-a-month high speed Internet service enjoy AT&T's rival offering for about the same price. However, in cities where AT&T is the only option, or at least the only large provider, the company charges more.Competition and price gouging
  AT&T has every right to charge as much as it
  
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• Snapchat on pace to overtake Facebook for video supremacy

  05-10-2015 21:29
  
  Facebook and Snapchat are neck-and-neck in a race for the most daily video views, according to recent numbers from the two companies. The social media juggernaut and "disappearing" messaging app both say they receive more than 4 billion video views a day. However, Facebook has 10 times more daily users than Snapchat.Facebook slows, Snapchat grows
  Snapchat's video business is growing at least twice as fast as Facebook's number of video views. Facebook last provided an update on its daily video vi
  
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• Banks' use of big data to be scrutinzed by EU regulators

  05-10-2015 19:27
  Financial institutions in Europe may face tougher rules governing their use of big data thanks to a new investigation by financial regulators.Focusing on the "opportunities and challenges" associated with big data, the new investigation aims to determine whether new regulatory or supervisory measures are needed, according to a joint statement published Monday by the European Securities and Markets Authority, the European Banking Authority and the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Auth
  
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• Banks' use of big data to be scrutinized by EU regulators

  05-10-2015 19:27
  Financial institutions in Europe may face tougher rules governing their use of big data thanks to a new investigation by financial regulators.
  Focusing on the "opportunities and challenges" associated with big data, the new investigation aims to determine whether new regulatory or supervisory measures are needed, according to a joint statement published Monday by the European Securities and Markets Authority, the European Banking Authority and the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Au
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Porn Hub reveals the secret habits of iOS and Android users

  05-10-2015 19:16
  
  The iOS vs. Android wars have been raging all over the Internet for quite a long time now. But now the Porn Hub blog has introduced a whole new aspect to the mobile platform war between Google and Apple: the porn habits of iOS and Android users.
  I must admit that I didn't even know that Porn Hub had a blog, I bumped into the post about Android and iOS users via Engadget. But once I clicked through I found a somewhat hilarious but also quite interesting comparison of the habits of Android and iO
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Porn Hub reveals the habits of iOS and Android users

  05-10-2015 19:16
  
  The iOS vs. Android wars have been raging all over the Internet for quite a long time now. But now the Porn Hub blog has introduced a whole new aspect to the mobile platform war between Google and Apple: the porn habits of iOS and Android users.I must admit that I didn't even know that Porn Hub had a blog, I bumped into the post about Android and iOS users via Engadget. But once I clicked through I found a somewhat hilarious but also quite interesting comparison of the habits of Android and iOS
  
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• Black Friday 2015: Not too early to plot your tech buys

  05-10-2015 18:42
  
  Work up your gift list, bookmark your favorite shopping sites and if you're really hardcore, get your tent ready. Black Friday 2015 will be here before you know it and bargains on everything from the new iPhone 6S and 6S Plus smartphones to the latest smart watches, TVs, tablets and Windows 10 laptops will be there for the taking.
  A couple of Black Friday sites have beaten the rush and posted their buying guides and predictions. LOOK BACK: 20-Plus Eye-Popping 2014 Black Friday Tech DealsBF
  
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• The perils of single sign-on

  05-10-2015 18:35
  
  My company, like most, has been letting go of on-premise corporate applications in favor of cloud-based alternatives for quite a while now. Still, it wasn’t until last week that it really came home to me how thoroughly committed to the cloud we now are.
  The occasion for this eye-opener was a meeting with our CIO and his IT team, who were preparing to investigate single sign-on (SSO) for the company and wanted my input on requirements and vendor selection.Trouble TicketAt Issue: The compan
  
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• 4 ways to navigate Facebook’s new mobile profiles

  05-10-2015 18:33
  
  Facebook profiles have changed little since the social network launched Timeline in 2011, until now. Last week, Facebook announced a redesign of mobile profile pages that introduce looping profile videos, temporary profile pictures, new privacy controls and other design changes.Profile pages, though dwarfed by the popularity of news feed, still receive more than 4 billion views every day, the social network says. Coupled with the rise of video on the social network, Facebook says it was time for
  
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• IT budgets to jump 2 percent, still not enough, says Gartner

  05-10-2015 18:15
  
  IT budgets globally are due to grow by 2.2% next year, the largest jump in the last five years, according to Gartner's survey of nearly 3,000 CIOs globally. In the North America, the projection is 2.3%.
  The budgets of IT departments have been flat to negative for the last five years, according to Gartner's data. This persists despite the ever-increasing importance of technology for creating new products; this is true for firms in all industries.
  When asked whether a 2.2% budget increase in enou
  
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• Cloud services go mainstream in healthcare

  05-10-2015 16:14
  
  If you asked a CIO managing IT for a healthcare organization in 2012 how much of his software ran in the cloud, the percentages would have been low. That’s no longer the case as 2016 nears. Emboldened by agreements to adhere to federal guidelines for protecting personal healthcare information (PHI), hospitals are a turning to cloud computing to make their organizations more nimble. Healthcare CIOs, mirroring their counterparts in corporations, are taking the cloud mainstream.The difference
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Why business transformation programs fail

  05-10-2015 15:59
  
  "The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance" -Nathaniel Branden"Sometimes people ask me why business transformation programs fail. Many of them have searched the web, found the famous top 10 list and also a number of measures how to avoid them. What many people don’t realize is that these measures are very tactical. Like if I do this, then that won’t happen. Reality is different these days. Business transformation programs fail because of lack of aw
  
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• BrandPost: Disruption Hits Healthcare Market

  05-10-2015 15:15
  
  We have watched many industries suffer the significant disruption and disintermediation of new market forces and brash, young, well-funded upstarts who change the game. The casualties are all around us – the taxi industry, media and journalism, online hotel & travel bookings, online stock trading, and the list goes on.Key features of a disrupted market include: democratization of information, price transparency, the sharing economy and crowdsourcing and social media channels.These disr
  
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• SanDisk builds tougher flash for IoT devices

  05-10-2015 15:00
  
  Consumers rely on flash memory cards in phones, tablets and cameras every day. But put those same cards in security cams, cellular base stations or the electrical grid and you'll have a problem.Industrial devices need flash that can work harder and withstand more extreme temperatures than consumer gear, and they'll be operating out in the field years after a typical phone or camera card has been replaced. So SanDisk is introducing a line of components built for the Internet of Things.IoT is expe
  
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• Agreement reached on TPP trade deal, may affect some digital rights

  05-10-2015 14:52
  
  Twelve countries representing nearly 40 percent of the global economy have reached basic agreement on an expansive new trade deal called the Trans Pacific Partnership -- and the deal may have implications for some digital rights.Speaking on Monday evening, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he had confirmation from the country's envoy to the talks that an agreement was reached after six days of talks in Atlanta.The secretive talks, which are the latest in several rounds over the last five y
  
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• 14 ways to improve corporate wellness programs with wearables

  05-10-2015 14:00
  
  Many modern companies, large and small, are adopting employee wellness programs, which often include fitness challenges that take advantage of wearable technologies. These programs can help lower healthcare costs, reduce absenteeism and increase productivity, but they can also subject companies to legal challenges or otherwise backfire without proper implementation.At Fitbit's recent Captivate 2015 conference in San Francisco, experts from various industries shared tips, best practices and lesso
  
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• HP goes after Cisco, Arista with open source OS

  05-10-2015 13:45
  
  HP is spearheading multivendor development of an open source network operating system for data centers in an effort to address scale, dynamic operation and vendor independence.HP is banding together with three other hardware companies and a hypervisor vendor to launch the OpenSwitch Community, which will seek community-like participation in the development of a Linux-based OpenSwitch NOS. The other participants are Intel, Broadcom, Accton and VMware.Though the community lacks a pure operating sy
  
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• Windows 10: Adapt or die

  05-10-2015 13:38
  
  Windows 10's accelerated update and upgrade tempo requires enterprises to discard habits that accreted over decades, a painful change but one that can be managed, a Gartner analyst said today."There's a new velocity of the rate of change when you move to Windows 10," Steven Kleynhans, a Gartner analyst who tracks the Redmond, Wash. firm, said in an interview. "It's not optional. You have to get on board."In an interview, Kleynhans, who this week will host a Windows 10 session for CIOs at Gartner
  
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• Why aren’t you managing your Macs?

  05-10-2015 13:33
  
  Windows still owns the mainstream business PC market, but Apple’s decent toehold on the enterprise market – $25 billion annually, according to CEO Tim Cook – will only grow.You almost certainly already have Macs in your business, connecting to your network and downloading key business documents. You just don’t know how many of them there are, who is using them, what they’re doing with them or when they last got updated anti-virus software.Your office PCs are likely
  
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• Nissan's new concept car is a digital canvas

  05-10-2015 13:26
  
  Nissan's latest concept car will pass the digital cool test but it won't do much to stop distracted driving: the entire dashboard is one huge display on which drivers and passengers can post anything.The car, due to be unveiled at this month's Tokyo Motor Show, has the snappy name "Teatro for Dayz" and the display concept spreads throughout the entire car to include the seats and even displays on the outside of the vehicle.Nissan says it's designed for "digital natives," who are accustomed to us
  
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• 7 mobile development skills that mean higher pay

  05-10-2015 13:03
  
  Mobile development skills that mean higher payImage by ThinkstockAs more consumers turn to their smartphones to access the Internet, it's become increasingly important for businesses to execute a mobile strategy for online content. That means if you're well-versed in Web application development, you'll also want to build your mobile app development skills.According to research from Foote Partners, a research group and publisher of the IT Skills Demand and Pay Trends Report, noncertified IT skill
  
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• Hacked Opinions: The legalities of hacking – Morey Haber

  05-10-2015 13:00
  
  Morey Haber, from BeyondTrust talks about hacking regulation and legislation with CSO in a series of topical discussions with industry leaders and experts.Thinkstock
  Hacked Opinions is an ongoing series of Q&As with industry leaders and experts on a number of topics that impact the security community. The first set of discussions focused on disclosure and how pending regulation could impact it. Now, this second set of discussions will examine security research, security legislation, and the
  
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• 18 companies launched by former Cisco people

  05-10-2015 12:46
  
  Cisco pedigreesNumerous tech companies have been founded over the years by former Cisco big shots and lower-level employees, with many a venture capitalist no doubt attracted by these entrepreneurs’ Cisco pedigrees. Some of the companies have gone on to be successful on their own, others were acquired, and others just failed. Here’s a look at some of these companies (listed alphabetically).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Facebook, Eutelsat block-book satellite capacity to deliver Internet to Africa

  05-10-2015 12:41
  
  Facebook is buying its own satellite bandwidth to deliver free basic Internet services direct to Africans.
  Together with satellite operator Eutelsat, Facebook will buy up the entire broadband capacity of the AMOS-6 satellite when it enters service next year, with the goal of expanding Internet access in Africa.
  Through its Internet.org initiative, the social network is already helping connect millions of people in developing countries to the Internet. The recently renamed Free Basics by Faceboo
  
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• Hands-on with the VAIO Z Canvas: A quad-core Surface Pro 3 killer

  05-10-2015 12:30
  
  We don’t know what Microsoft will announce tomorrow in New York City at its Windows 10 devices event, but I’d bet a box of Cronuts there won’t be a tablet that outguns VAIO’s new Surface clone, the Canvas.
  Yes, VAIO, the former PC division of Sony that was cast from the mothership last year, is back with an impressive engineering feat: Stuffing a real quad-core CPU into a tablet formally named the Z Canvas.
  Why this matters: Although belittled initially, Microsoft’
  
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• 5 little-known Facebook tips and tricks to make your News Feed less frustrating

  05-10-2015 12:30
  The problem with social media is that it requires you to be social with other people, and other people can do things that dampen your enjoyment of, say, your Facebook feed. But there’s no need to let technology exacerbate interpersonal conflict, or vice-versa. Follow these tips to reduce your Facebook frustration and minimize the potential for messy social media drama.Tip #1: Lock down your privacy settingsYou may not be the kind of jerk who tags someone in a photo when they’re look
  
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• Security risks increase as cloud data centers change

  05-10-2015 12:19
  
  As the pace of technological change in cloud data centers speeds up, the list of endeavors in cloud data centers grows longer. A sampling of that list includes Internet of Things, innovation, big data, mobile and social access, and SDN/NFV.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• What we expect from Microsoft's massive device launch: new Surfaces, Lumias, and Band

  05-10-2015 12:00
  
  Hurricane Joaquin may be skipping New York City, but Microsoft's own maelstrom of hardware is still expected to hit October 6—most likely three new Lumia phones, an updated Surface Pro 4 tablet, and a new Microsoft Band.
  You’d be forgiven for thinking that Microsoft’s device business will steal the spotlight. But their success could arguably turn on something else: software.
  Somewhere within Redmond, Microsoft executives are making a choice: Do they show Microsoft’s new
  
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• Microsoft serves up Taco for cross-platform mobile dev

  05-10-2015 12:00
  
  Providing an assist to mobile developers, Microsoft is offering a set of utilities for Mac OS X and Windows users to build apps with the Apache Cordova platform.The company has released Tools for Apache Cordova CLI 1.0.0, or Taco, that enable developers to build with a set of platforms and plug-ins backed by Microsoft's Visual Studio product team. Apache Cordova features APIs enabling development of native mobile applications using HTML, JavaScript, and CSS.[ Digital Spotlight: Enterprise mobile
  
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• How to build an SMB network in 9 easy steps

  05-10-2015 12:00
  
  Small businesses typically lack full-time IT staff. Taking a self-proclaimed techie who serves another role in the business and assigning that person to provide network and tech support can be a great idea. I call these people the business’s resident tech, someone who can help with first-level support. An outside IT service provider can be called in to help when more complex support is required. Here are nine key steps in building a successful small business network.To read this article i
  
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• Are Apple and Facebook bad for democracy?

  05-10-2015 12:00
  
  We're trying to have a democracy here, and ideally an informed one.Nowadays, however, almost everyone is too distracted with their smartphones to muster the attention span to put up with reading a newspaper or news magazine delivered by a publisher, or even watching TV news.Instead, we get news through apps and on social networks. The biggest source of apps in the U.S. and the biggest social network are Apple's App Store and Facebook, respectively.This trend transfers the job of gatekeeper of wh
  
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• Organisaties met chief data officer presteren beter

  05-10-2015 11:40
  Ofschoon ze nog in de minderheid zijn, zijn er steeds meer grote bedrijven die chief data officers (CDO’s) in dienst nemen. Verwar ze niet met chief digital officers: ofschoon er enige overlap is tussen beide rollen gaat het hier echt om een functie gericht op het sturing geven aan en toezicht houden op de... lees meer
  
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• Recent court ruling may have nudged Google, Microsoft to settle patent disputes

  05-10-2015 08:08
  A few days before Microsoft and Google announced that they were dropping their patent disputes, a decision in an appeals court may have helped the two companies focus on a lasting compromise over their expensive lawsuits over smartphone and other patents.On Sept. 15, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit denied Motorola's appeal for a full-bench rehearing on its petition.The appeals court had earlier upheld an order of a district court in Seattle setting royalty rates for Motorola's st
  
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