IT Executive news

• Meet Project Orca, SAP's new, Hana-based analytics tool

  06-10-2015 23:52
  New analytics tools are popping up just about every day in the enterprise software arena, and on Tuesday, more details emerged on a brand-new offering from SAP.Dubbed "Project Orca," the software is a cloud-based offering from the ERP giant that's slated to arrive in the fourth quarter of this year, the company confirmed.Equipped with the new tool, business users will be able to easily sample, wrangle, combine and blend data and to quickly build and modify plans to take action, said Steve Lucas,
  
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• How Microsoft's Surface Book compares to Apple's MacBook: Let's play CPU detective

  06-10-2015 23:34
  
  Microsoft clearly had Apple’s MacBook and MacBook Pro in its sights when it designed its radical Surface Book. But was it marketing hype or was Microsoft really laying down legitimate smack when it said the Surface Book offers “twice” the performance of a comparable Mac?
  It very much depends on the hardware that’s inside the Surface Book. There’s not much public information on the exact parts inside the Surface Book—but we do know what Microsoft is claiming.L
  
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• Feds detail how healthcare industry should share medical info

  06-10-2015 23:32
  
  The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) today published a 10-year roadmap on how healthcare facilities and patients should be able to share medical information.
  The report came from HHS's Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC), and coordinates public and private sector efforts to advance the secure exchange of electronic health record (EHR) information across the U.S. The  goal is to improve healthcare.
  The plan defines efforts to improve
  
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• John McAfee, security software pioneer, talks to CSO about his bid for the White House

  06-10-2015 23:25
  
  It has been a whirlwind few years for John McAfee, the man noted for developing the first commercial anti-virus program. It was only a few years ago when rumors were frantically flying around in following an incredibly sensational story of McAfee as a murder suspect. With all of that seemingly behind him, he now turns his attention to taking up residency in the White House.
  McAfee, 70, who founded the McAfee security brand, which was later sold to Intel in 2010, recently filed papers as a candi
  
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• Can Microsoft's new phones save its mobile ambitions?

  06-10-2015 23:03
  
  When Microsoft devices chief Panos Panay announced the company's new Lumia smartphones Tuesday morning, he showed a boundless enthusiasm for the forthcoming devices.He also had a message: Give Windows smartphones a chance. The folks in Redmond aren't blind to the fact that the worldwide smartphone market is essentially a duopoly with Google and Apple running the show and more than 90 percent of all smartphones running those two companies' operating systems. That's why Panay pointed out the rapid
  
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• Digital Guardian buys Code Green to gain data-loss prevention tech

  06-10-2015 22:48
  
  Endpoint security vendor Digital Guardian has bought Code Green Networks, which makes data loss prevention appliances for businesses.
  The purchase gives Digital Guardian a DLP offering that, rolled in with the company’s existing products, will provide endpoint, network and cloud data protection overseen by a single console, the company says. This will enable applying policies that will be enforced regardless of where the data is located and regardless of who accessed it and with what devi
  
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• Cisco disrupts $60M ransomware biz

  06-10-2015 22:22
  
  Cisco this week says it disabled a distributor of the Angler ransomware exploit kit, a program that holds victim machines hostage via encryption.
  The catch disrupted a global ransomware operation that netted $60 million annually for the perpetrators, Cisco states in a blog post.
  +MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: Jane Austen lets the boogie man in: Cisco report+To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• CIOs must collaborate with a new ‘digital champion’ – the CEO

  06-10-2015 21:58
  
  It's well-established that some CIOs are ceding control of certain IT assets, as CMOs and other executives purchase technologies to accelerate growth. But CEOs running companies conducting digital transformations are also spending more on technology that drives innovation, according to new research from PwC. For CIOs, that means working with all of their fellow C-suite stakeholders to demonstrate their value to the business. Those who don’t risk marginalization. Click for larger image.To r
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: The twin engines that power business

  06-10-2015 20:48
  
  More than ever before, today’s environment is dictated by rapid changes in political, economic, social and technology factors. Not only are the number of drivers and the pace of change increasing, but the correlation and causation of these drivers are increasingly interlocked and sophisticated.The ability to thrive in today’s rapidly changing environment is weighing heavily corporate leadership, with 60 percent of CEOs surveyed in KPMG’s U.S. CEO Outlook 2015 expressing concern
  
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• First Look: Microsoft’s big new device announcements

  06-10-2015 20:46
  
  Microsoft on the moveMicrosoft didn’t wait long after Apple’s last raft of announcements to rekindle the old rivalry. Like Apple, Microsoft announced an updated pro-style tablet, digital stylus, and a pair of new smartphones, but it also went further than that, rolling out a new fitness wearable, showing off VR technology and even introducing a rival to the MacBook Pro. Have a look.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• The CIO as champion of change

  06-10-2015 20:12
  
  When technology is the business, how does the IT organization need to change?To my mind, this is one of the most critical questions facing CIOs today. From my last interview on the art of storytelling with JetBlue CIO Eash Sundaram, I knew he would have some answers. In the following interview, Sundaram talks about how shared metrics, a product management structure, and building a "development platform for everyone" is changing IT at the $6 billion airline.Martha Heller: With technology per
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: What to ask when renegotiating an outsourcing agreement

  06-10-2015 20:05
  
  The way enterprises address end-of-term outsourcing agreements has changed radically over the last few years. For most of the history of our industry, both buyers and providers took a “head-in-the-sand” approach to the end of the contract, hoping that, if they ignored it long enough, it would go away. But it never did.Renegotiating or re-competing an outsourcing agreement doesn’t excite the vast majority of people, but it is an inevitability that must be faced every few years.
  
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• No need to panic: European Commission upbeat about Safe Harbor ruling

  06-10-2015 19:59
  
  "Aside from taking an ax to the undersea fiber optic cables connecting Europe to the United States, it is hard to imagine a more disruptive action to trans-Atlantic digital commerce."That was the measured reaction of the Washington think tank the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation to the news that the Court of Justice of the European Union had torn up the Safe Harbor privacy protection agreement on the transfer of personal data from the EU to the U.S.But the European Commission see
  
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• Panasonic surpasses SolarCity with world's most efficient solar panel

  06-10-2015 19:57
  
  Panasonic's Eco Solutions division today announced the launch of what it is calling the most powerful photovoltaic panel in the world.
  The new prototype solar panel has a solar energy conversion efficiency of 22.5% on a commercial-sized prototype. The prototype was built using solar cells based on mass-production technology, Panasonic said.
  Last year, Panasonic announced it had achieved a photovoltaic cell efficiency rating of 25.6%.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please cli
  
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• Microsoft's 7 biggest new hardware reveals: Surface Book laptop, Windows 10 Lumias, and more

  06-10-2015 19:45
  Blending physical with digitalWow. Just…wow.Going into Microsoft’s massive device launch event on Tuesday, everyone knew that the focus would squarely fall on the intersection of physical and digital—new Microsoft devices that showcase everything possible with Windows 10. What we didn’t expect was just how convincingly Microsoft would manage to push its vision for convergence between hardware and software, or how damn sleek and sexy Microsoft’s in-house hardware wo
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Why are Android users switching to Apple's iPhone?

  06-10-2015 19:10
  With the release of larger iPhones and the Move to iOS app, Apple has made a concerted effort to get Android users to switch over to iOS devices. So far Apple's efforts seem to be bearing some...er...fruit as the company has increased its market share lately.But what is making Android users switch over to iOS? A recent thread on the Apple subreddit was chock full of interesting comments from former Android users who made the switch over to the iPhone.Here's a sampling of comments from that threa
  
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• Is simplicity the secret to social media success?

  06-10-2015 19:05
  
  Few social media services remain simple and focused for long. The original purpose or goals of social apps almost always give way to additional features designed to keep people engaged and attract new users. However, social networks that maintain the nucleus without scrambling to add unnecessary features can experience rapid and sustained growth.Instagram, Snapchat keep focus but expand reach
  Instagram and Snapchat both made numerous changes since they launched five years and four years ago, res
  
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• Rogue Wave buys PHP technology leader Zend

  06-10-2015 18:45
  
  Zend Technologies, a leading proponent of the PHP server-side Web development language, has been acquired by development tools vendor Rogue Wave Software, Zend CEO Andi Gutmans said in a blog today.
  The acquisition is expected to help accelerate the reach of Zend's technologies in large enterprises, Gutmans said in a LinkedIn post. "With this acquisition Rogue Wave broadens its reach into the huge PHP space powering over 50 percent of the Web."
  Gutmans will be joining Rogue Wave leadership
  
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• Machines will learn just like a child, says IBM CEO

  06-10-2015 18:43
  
  ORLANDO –Technology is shifting to intelligent machines with a capability to reason, said IBM Chairman and CEO Virginia Rometty. These machines won't replace humans, but will augment them. It is a technology that will transform business, she said.
  This technology is the basis of IBM's work on Watson, its cognitive or thinking system.
  Rometty, interviewed Tuesday by Gartner analysts at the research firm's Symposium ITxpo, said cognitive systems understand not only data, but unstructured da
  
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• Microsoft's Surface Book is the sleek, MacBook-beating laptop you've been begging for

  06-10-2015 18:14
  
  Well this came out of nowhere. After years of pleading from PC enthusiasts, Microsoft finally revealed an ultra-premium Surface laptop, dubbed Surface Book, at its hardware event on Tuesday—a portable PC designed to embrace Windows 10’s most cutting-edge features, and one that’s just oozing style. If the Surface Pro is a tablet that can replace your laptop, as Microsoft’s marketing crowed last year, does that make the Surface laptop a laptop that can replace your tablet
  
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• When it comes to security, trust but verify

  06-10-2015 17:59
  
  ORLANDO -- It's time to rethink a bunch of security truisms, Gartner analysts said at the company's annual Symposium/IT Expo here this week.
  The security rules companies have relied on for decades are ready for retirement. These include: Prevention is better than cure, humans are the weakest link, and access should be limited to just an employee needs to do his or her job. These old saws have been "exploded" by today's tech trends, said Tom Scholtz, Gartner research vice president.[ Get the lat
  
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• Researchers steal secret RSA encryption keys in Amazon’s cloud

  06-10-2015 17:40
  
  As thousands of cloud fanatics descend on Las Vegas this week for Amazon Web Service’s re:Invent conference, researchers in Massachusetts are raising new questions about the security of all multi-tenant cloud environments.
  A group of professors at Worcester Polytechnic Institute demonstrated in a recently published paper named “Seriously, get off my cloud! Cross-VM RSA Key Recovery in a Public Cloud,” a proof of concept hack of secret cryptography keys used in an AWS virtual m
  
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• Apple's new strategy for fighting off Android, retaining customers

  06-10-2015 17:38
  
  Apple's iPhone 6s announcement last month introduced a big incentive for iPhone owners to upgrade every year. The one-year upgrade plan is really a two-year installment purchase, financed at 0% interest by Apple with the option to upgrade to a new iPhone after 12 months. There's a catch, though – another 24-month installment purchase contract comes with the upgrade.
  The customer gets the newest iPhone every year, and in return Apple renews its customer for two years simply by notifying th
  
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• Microsoft's flagship Lumia 950 and 950XL will lead Windows 10 Mobile with premium specs

  06-10-2015 17:24
  
  For Windows enthusiasts, the wait for a flagship phone is finally over, with Microsoft announcing not one, but two Windows 10 Mobile handsets.
  At a press event on Tuesday, Microsoft confirmedmonths of leaks and rumorswith the Lumia 950 and Lumia 950 XL (previously codenamed Talkman and Cityman). They’re coming this November for $549 and $649, respectively.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• IBM launches cognitive computing consulting practice

  06-10-2015 17:00
  
  IBM today launched its latest strategic initiative: a 2,000-employee consulting unit devoted exclusively to business that builds on the cognitive computing capabilities of IBM Watson."Our work with clients across many industries shows that cognitive computing is the path to the next great set of possibilities for business," Bridget van Kralingen, senior vice president, IBM Global Business Services, said in a statement today. "Clients know they are collecting and analyzing more data than ever bef
  
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• Atlassian takes JIRA beyond the development world

  06-10-2015 17:00
  
  Atlassian's JIRA project-tracking tool has long been a popular choice among software developers, but on Tuesday the company showed it wants to reach a broader market by releasing three new editions tailored for different audiences.While JIRA Software retains the developer focus, promising agile best practices as defaults and deep integration with development tools, the other two extend beyond that original reach, which to date has placed the tool at about 35,000 companies, according to Atlassian
  
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• Windows 10 users back away from the Edge

  06-10-2015 15:59
  
  Microsoft's new Edge browser has been largely ignored by U.S. users of Windows 10, an online measurement company said Monday.
  Instead, Google's Chrome has shanghaied Windows 10's top browser spot.
  Although Edge -- the default browser bundled with Windows 10 -- got a temporary boost when the operating system launched in late July, its share of all browsers on the OS quickly slipped from an early peak of about 16% to its current 12%.
  According to San Francisco-based Quantcast, Chrome is the domin
  
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• Hottest products at AWS re:Invent 2015

  06-10-2015 14:00
  
  AWS re: Invent 2015Image by AmazonAmazon Web Service’s re:Invent conference is one of the premier public IaaS cloud computing conferences. Check out all the latest products and services vendors at this year’s show are announcing or displaying in Las Vegas.CloudHealthKey features: Visibility, optimization and governance for cost, availability, performance and security-from a consolidated dashboard. New: enhanced automations, per-resource performance policies, data center discovery for
  
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• Average business spends $15 million battling cybercrime

  06-10-2015 13:45
  
  The average U.S. company of 1,000 employees or more spends $15 million a year battling cybercrime, up 20 percent compared to last year, according to a report released today.
  Attacks involving malicious code, malware, viruses, worms, trojans and botnets accounted for 40 percent of this cost, followed by 16 percent for denial of services, 14 percent for phishing and social engineering, 12 percent for web-based attacks, 10 percent for malicious insiders and 7 percent for stolen devices.
  One of the
  
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• Doom or delight? Court ruling on Safe Harbor brings uncertainty to privacy dealings

  06-10-2015 13:36
  
  Privacy activists are overjoyed, but for businesses it's what one lobbyist described, only half jokingly, as "the doomsday scenario:" The transatlantic transfer of European Union citizens' personal data was thrown into a legal void Tuesday when the Court of Justice of the EU declared invalid the 15-year-old Safe Harbor agreement with the U.S. because it provided inadequate privacy protection.The ruling exposes businesses reliant on Safe Harbor to the threat of legal action. The fact that Eu
  
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• 5 things that Twitter's CEO needs to do now

  06-10-2015 13:14
  
  Jack Dorsey, co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, has become CEO of the social network once again. He has some big challenges ahead of him.
  "There's a lot of pressure on Twitter now," said Jeff Kagan, an independent industry analyst. "We think of Twitter as a way celebrities communicate with their fans, but it's much deeper than that. Twitter has strength in news, politics and world affairs. Whenever there is breaking news, we all turn to Twitter as one of the sources of information."To read t
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Book your PMO in for a service - before you run it into the ground

  06-10-2015 13:10
  
  Did you ever run a car into the ground? You didn't have the time or the money perhaps to get it serviced? It crept over the 12,000-mile service marker and every time you got behind the wheel you said,  "I must book it in!"12,000 miles became 13, 14 ... 15 ... 16 and then before you knew ... 20,000 miles had passed and one day you were flying down the fast lane when something blew. You had to take the car to the garage then, right?At this point, it costs much more to get it fixed than the se
  
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• HP and IBM rated top IT outsourcing service providers

  06-10-2015 13:06
  
  HP Outsourcing has the highest Net Promoter (NPS) score among IT service providers, according to a 2015 analysis of NPS scores among corporate technology vendors recently published by the Temkin Group.A company’s NPS is considered a measure of customer loyalty and has been proven by some to be a leading indicator of corporate growth. Customers are asked to rank the likelihood they would recommend a brand to a friend or colleague on a scale of 1-10. Those who answer 9 or 10 are considered p
  
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• When validation doesn’t rule

  06-10-2015 13:01
  
  Data-driven applications like CRM and ERP typically have a mechanism to validate data entries, in order to prevent entries that are out of bounds (such as negative inventories, customer counts in the billions, or pointers to nowhere).  A big system may have hundreds of them scattered across the UI landscape.  While these validation rules aren’t as universally enforced as true database constraints, they still irritate users because they prevent the record from being saved.  T
  
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• Security companies shouldn’t be this thin-skinned

  06-10-2015 13:00
  
  Security defenses are not merely about encryption, firewalls and antivirus software. Security deterrence goes beyond technology into the realm of psychology and perceptions. Make a target appear to be more secure and attackers will turn their attention elsewhere. What you say is important. 
  A case in point of a security company not understanding the power of perception is FireEye, which recently launched legal action against security research company ERNW. ERNW had issued an
  
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• 5 cutting-edge retail technology trends

  06-10-2015 12:53
  
  As retailers rev up for their busiest shopping season, they know some things never change: Holiday deal-seekers will race like mad through store aisles for the best Black Friday deals. Last-minute shoppers will wait until December 24 to make their purchases. Crowds will swarm stores the day after Christmas in a whirlwind of gift returns. The shopping experience itself, however, has undergone massive changes over the past two decades, especially as ecommerce has won over consumers and smartp
  
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• 7 agile certifications to take your career to the next level

  06-10-2015 12:47
  
  Agile certifications to take your career to the next levelImage by ThinkstockAgile has revolutionized the face of software development and project management, and has increased demand for IT professionals with understanding of the methodology and its many flavors - Lean, Scrum, Kanban and Scaled Agile, or SAFe, for the enterprise. A number certifications exist to benchmark and test your knowledge and competency with the framework. Here, CIO.com gathers seven top agile-focused certifications you
  
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• 5 tips for better enterprise security

  06-10-2015 12:30
  
  The recent spate of data breaches at major U.S. organizations has raised questions about how effective current security tools and approaches are when it comes to dealing with emerging threats.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Why is Akamai moving its entire IT infrastructure to the cloud?

  06-10-2015 12:24
  
  Orlando, Fla. --  Akamai Technologies is a content delivery network and cloud services provider, so you might think Akamai is totally cloud-based. But, of course, it has the same legacy systems -- HR, sales, marketing, databases – as any company founded in 1998.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Mobile security: iOS vs. Android vs. BlackBerry vs. Windows Phone

  06-10-2015 12:00
  
  Apple's iPhone and iPad long ago pushed out the BlackBerry as the corporate standard for mobile devices, in all but the highest-security environments. Earlier this year, Google -- whose Android platform reigns outside the corporate world -- got serious about mobile management with a new effort called Android for Work. And Samsung upped its the game with a new version of its Android security suite, Knox.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Worries mount over upcoming LTE-U deployments hurting Wi-Fi

  06-10-2015 11:38
  
  LTE-U is a technology developed by Qualcomm that lets a service provider broadcast and receive signals over unlicensed spectrum, which is usable by anybody – specifically, in this case, the spectrum used by Wi-Fi networks in both businesses and homes. By opening up this new spectrum, major U.S. wireless carriers hope to ease the load on the licensed frequencies they control and help their services keep up with demand.That demand for connectivity continues to grow on a scale that we’r
  
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• EU-US Safe Harbor agreement is invalid, court rules

  06-10-2015 10:28
  
  The Safe Harbor agreement on which many businesses rely for the transatlantic transfer of personal data is invalid, the Court of Justice of the European Union has ruled.
  EU law requires that companies exporting citizens' personal data do so only to countries providing a similar level of legal protection for that data. In the case of the U.S., the exchange of personal data is covered by the Safe Harbor Privacy Principles, which the European Commission ruled in July 2000 provide adequate protecti
  
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• Panasonic shows world's first Ultra HD Blu-ray player

  06-10-2015 10:14
  
  Panasonic will soon begin selling in Japan a Blu-ray Disc player compatible with 4K UltraHD discs, the first such player in the world.UltraHD, also called 4K, has four times the resolution than conventional high definition and is being promoted hard by major consumer electronics companies as a reason for people to upgrade their TVs.Martyn Williams Panasonic's DMR-UBZ1 Ultra HD 4K Blu-ray Disc player on show at Ceatec in Japan on Oct. 6, 2015.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, pl
  
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• Sharp's Robohon is both a cute robot and a smartphone

  06-10-2015 09:16
  
  From the country that brought you pretty much every crazy robot you've ever seen, Sharp on Tuesday showed off a prototype robot that doubles as a smartphone -- or is that a smartphone in the form of a robot? It's not entirely clear, but it is cute.The robot, called RoboHon (a mix of the words robot and phone), will go on sale in Japan in the first half of 2016. It stands just under 20 centimeters high and packs a camera, projector and, on its back, an LCD screen. Of course, there's also the mic,
  
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• Bijna 40 miljoen voor ICT-onderzoek en innovatie

  06-10-2015 08:41
  Omdat innovatie een belangrijke voorwaarde voor economische groei is en toepassing van ICT daarbij en steeds voornamer plaats inneemt, stelt de overheid de komende twee jaar bijna 40 miljoen euro beschikbaar voor ICT-onderzoek en innovatie.Het ministerie van Economische Zaken draagt 7 miljoen euro bij, TNO 12 miljoen... lees meer
  
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• Global civil rights groups coalition wants changes to Facebook's real-name policy

  06-10-2015 07:09
  
  Facebook holds that its requirement that people use their authentic identities in their accounts helps keep the social networking site safe from terrorists, cyberbullies and other criminals from hiding behind their profiles.But in a letter to the company on Monday, a large group of civil liberties organizations from across the world, have said that Facebook's system "disregards the circumstances of users in non-western countries, exposes its users to danger, disrespects the identities of its use
  
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• Why the software world needs a 'no-fly zone' for patents

  06-10-2015 06:00
  
  The software industry may be just as notable for its nasty legal battles as for its many useful products, but for the past 10 years, the Open Invention Network has been quietly working to change all that.Launched back in 2005, the OIN was formed by IBM, Novell, Philips, Red Hat and Sony to create a protected zone of patents around core Linux and open source software technologies -- functionality that's essential for open source projects and companies like OpenStack, Linux, Red Hat, SUSE, Android
  
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• As Microsoft focuses on mobile, Windows 10 will be key

  06-10-2015 02:08
  
  Windows 10 -- and the fate of Microsoft's smartphones -- will be front and center at the company's event Tuesday as the Redmond, Wash. developer highlights its focus on mobile with expected announcements of new Lumia smartphones, the next Surface Pro 2-in-1 device and an updated Microsoft Band smart wristband.
  The live event, held in New York, will be Webcast at 10 a.m. ET (7 a.m. PT).
  Windows 10, released in late July, will likely run on all the new devices, with cross-platform functions that
  
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