IT Executive news

• IDC predicts bad news for old-school IT as CEOs embrace digital transformation

  03-12-2015 22:56
  
  More and more CEOs are peppering their corporate strategy talks with two words: digital transformation. In fact, market-research firm IDC says “it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep track of all the CEO proclamations related to digital transformation.”To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• New Salesforce tool lets users have their way with external data

  03-12-2015 22:06
  
  Salesforce users have been able to access data in external apps ever since the release of the cloud vendor's Lightning Connect tool last year, but a new generation of the product announced on Thursday extends those ties considerably.
  Dubbed Salesforce Connect, the new offering lets employees not only access external data but also proactively manage it.
  Read/write capabilities in the new tool mean that Salesforce users can now create, read, update and delete records in various external sources i
  
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• Expect more meetings: Microsoft's new Outlook add-in makes it easier to set them up

  03-12-2015 21:50
  
  Scheduling meetings with multiple people can be a pain. Finding time between a maze of competing schedules is frustrating at best, and Microsoft is trying to make that a little bit easier with a new tool the company released Thursday. 
  FindTime is a tool from the Microsoft Garage that ties into Outlook and helps people set up meetings with anyone they need to get in touch with. Here’s how it works: Organizers write an email, launch the FindTime add-in from Outlook Online, Outlook 201
  
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• A fight brews over U.S. worker protections

  03-12-2015 21:29
  
  The U.S. worker protections in a federal rule allowing STEM grads to work on a student visa for up to three years is stirring controversy. Broadly, businesses want fewer restrictions as labor advocates seek more.
  The government, as part of its proposed Optional Practical Training (OPT) extension for STEM (science, technology, engineering, math) students, wants employers to attest -- in a sworn statement -- that they "will not terminate, lay off, or furlough any full or part-time, temporary or p
  
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• Why is your new product failing? Just ask Watson Analytics

  03-12-2015 20:37
  
  IBM's Watson has been pushing ever further into the business world in recent months, and now it's helping online merchants analyze performance and make better merchandising decisions.Commerce Insights, which IBM debuted earlier this year, now includes cognitive capabilities from Watson Analytics, giving merchants new insight into category and product performance, the company announced on Thursday.A store view in Commerce Insights overlays customer and performance data on top of the user's storef
  
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• Toshiba, Vaio, Fujitsu said to be considering laptop PC merger

  03-12-2015 20:31
  
  Toshiba, Fujitsu and Vaio are considering a merger of their laptop PC businesses, according to a Japanese media report.The three companies will begin specific discussions on the merger later this month with the aim of launching the company on April 1, when the new Japanese financial year begins, according to a report in Friday's Nikkei financial newspaper.Vaio was spun off from Sony in mid-2014 and will likely be the surviving entity, with Toshiba and Fujitsu merging their laptop businesses into
  
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• No more security fixes for older OpenSSL branches

  03-12-2015 20:00
  The OpenSSL Software Foundation has released new patches for the popular open-source cryptographic library, but for two of its older branches they will likely be the last security updates.This could spell trouble for some enterprise applications that bundle the 0.9.8 or 1.0.0 versions of OpenSSL and for older systems -- embedded devices in particular -- where updates are rare.OpenSSL 1.0.0t and 0.9.8zh, which were released Thursday, are expected to be the last updates because support for these t
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: CIOs must communicate, innovate and operate to drive value

  03-12-2015 19:58
  
  The impact of technology on businesses and their strategies has never been stronger than it is today. All CIOs and IT executives have to answer the questions of what their organizations need to do in order to be continually relevant to the business and how to build the capabilities that drive its performance.Whether you define the I in CIO as information, innovation, infrastructure, integration or any other term (and whether the role is internal to the business, cus
  
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• Congress joins battle against ticket bots

  03-12-2015 19:40
  
  Some members of Congress apparently think that by passing a law, they can beat ticket bots.
  The response of IT experts: Good luck with that.
  The intentions are the best, of course. Companion bills now pending in the House and Senate are aimed at stopping online ticket scalpers by banning the use of bots – software that can buy hundreds or even thousands of tickets or reservations before the average individual buyer even gets started.
  But a law isn’t going to stop the scalpers, accor
  
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• Kill all germs! You can wash this smartphone with soap

  03-12-2015 19:24
  
  Aiming to kill the thousands of germs that live on your smartphone and make some money from germophobes, Japan's Kyocera has developed a phone that can be washed with regular hand soap.The phone, which will go on sale on Dec. 11, can be washed with conventional foaming hand soap of the type found in many kitchens, according to the manufacturer.Of course, soap can be used to clean just about any smartphone currently on the market and waterproof phones are easier to clean, but many won't
  
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• Video: Tech leaders' boldest predictions for 2016

  03-12-2015 17:55
  
  Responses from Computerworld's survey of 182 CIOs and senior technologists.(computerworld.com)To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Ford software update puts a Siri button in millions of cars

  03-12-2015 17:27
  
  While Ford has yet to go all-in with Apple’s CarPlay in-dash system, it’s offering existing vehicles the next-best thing with Siri Eyes-Free.
  The automaker is rolling out a software update that adds Siri support to vehicles’ existing voice recognition buttons. The update, available in all second-generation Ford Sync (or MyFord Touch) vehicles from 2011 onward, is available through Ford’s website.
  Siri Eyes-Free is a three-year-old feature that lets users access a set of
  
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• Don't look for unicorns, build a data science team

  03-12-2015 17:14
  
  When it comes to big data, one thing seemingly everyone can agree on is that organizations face a shortfall of data science talent. After all, the ideal data scientists aren't just wunderkinds in advanced mathematics and statistics, they're creative, non-linear thinkers with excellent communication skills. In popular parlance they're unicorns — magical creatures that don't exist.Research firm McKinsey has predicted that by 2018, the U.S. alone may face a 50 percent to 60 percent gap betwee
  
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• New attack campaign against SMBs uses a botnet to deliver PoS malware

  03-12-2015 17:13
  A group of sophisticated attackers are repurposing penetration testing tools to break into the networks of small and medium-size businesses worldwide with the goal of infecting point-of-sale systems with malware.The new attack campaign started in September and has been dubbed operation Black Atlas by researchers from antivirus vendor Trend Micro. The attackers use a wide set of tools to scan the Internet and identify potential weak spots in the networks of various organizations, the researchers
  
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• Ronda Rousey, Taylor Swift, and Syrian refugees dominate Bing's top searches of 2015

  03-12-2015 16:56
  
  In just a little over four weeks we’ll welcome in 2016 and bid adieu to the year that was. That means it’s time for Microsoft and Google to share break out the top searches of the year and show what caught the world’s attention in 2015.
  First: Microsoft’s top Bing searches of 2015. Microsoft divvied up its search lists by celebrities, sports, and news to provide a more granular look at the information we collectively sought out in 2015.
  Here are some of the highlights.Sp
  
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• Marketing drives Facebook at Work deployment at Coldwell Banker

  03-12-2015 16:56
  
  Coldwell Banker is one of roughly 300 organizations that received early access to Facebook at Work, and it is the first U.S. real estate brokerage to use the new platform for workplace communication. The company began inviting agents and employees in its Southwest region, which includes branches in Southern California and Arizona, to join Facebook at Work in October. Coldwell Banker employees now crowdsource answers to colleagues' questions and requests on everything from recommendations fo
  
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• No, Christmas lights won't slow your Wi-Fi — but these gadgets will

  03-12-2015 16:36
  
  If you're thinking about shifting or taking down your Christmas lights because you heard such holiday decorations can slow down your Wi-Fi network, hold it right there. Lots of things cause Wi-Fi issues, but unless your home is absolutely swathed in Christmas lights, (think Griswold), holiday decorations are not one of them.Electrical appliances can interfere with Wi-Fi signals, but the amount of current running through decorative lighting is almost always too low to be troublesome — 
  
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• Windows 10 Mobile gets an end-of-life date, surrounded by mystery

  03-12-2015 16:30
  
  Microsoft has posted an end-of-life date for Windows 10 Mobile, though it raises more questions than it answers.
  According toMicrosoft’s support website, mainstream Windows 10 Mobile support will cease on January 9, 2018. However, the posting also says Microsoft will make extended support updates and security patches available for “a minimum of 24 months after the lifecycle start date” of November 16, 2015.
  Stranger still, the support site originally listed an end date of Janu
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: iOS gamers: Get Monument Valley free in the App Store

  03-12-2015 16:22
  
  Monument Valley is an absolutely gorgeous game for the iPhone and iPad. It won Apple's Game of the Year in 2014 and also Apple's Design Award in 2014, and now you can get the game for free in the iOS app store. There's no way of knowing how long it will be available for free, so grab it right now if you want it without having to pay the usual $4 price for it.Monument Valley looks like no other game for the iPad and iPhone, it truly has a design that is all its own. The architecture and graphics
  
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• Why one CIO hopes self-service analytics will make IT irrelevant

  03-12-2015 16:01
  
  Merck Animal Health is using cloud analytics software to gain insights into its supply chain, including such crucial data as whether its customers received their orders in a timely and complete fashion. Eventually, the company's IT department hopes to enable business users to manipulate the data themselves, says Dave Williams, CIO of the $3.6 billion Merck unit that makes animal vaccines and other pharmaceutical products. Until then, Williams will have to continue weeding out data quality errors
  
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• How to succeed in online B2B ecommerce

  03-12-2015 15:57
  
  In a report published this spring, Forrester forecast that B2B ecommerce in the United States would grow from $780 billion in 2015 to $1.13 trillion in 2020. While that is clearly good news for online B2Bs, just having an ecommerce presence is not enough to succeed. So what can B2B businesses do to gain customers and market share? Here are six suggestions from B2B pros.1. Know who you need to target. “Take the time to really understand who the decision maker is at the customer and how the
  
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• Encryption backdoors will make us all more vulnerable

  03-12-2015 15:11
  
  The author has written 29 technical books and is Managing Partner of Ascent Solutions, which provides marketing services to tech sector companies 
  In the aftermath of the Paris attacks, one of the memes being perpetuated by “security professionals” is that the terrorists used encrypted communications, enabling them to plan and coordinate their activities without raising suspicion among the intelligence community.
  Now there is a knee-jerk reaction among politicians in Washington
  
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• Andere industriële aanpak of doormodderen?

  03-12-2015 14:53
  Door Joost de Wit – Grotere uitvoeringsorganisaties hebben vrijwel allemaal te maken met een complex systeemlandschap. Deze legacy is zeer moeilijk te onderhouden, laat staan dat er veranderingen in door te voeren zijn. Het is tijd voor een nieuwe industriële aanpak, waarbij het metamodel enterprise business... lees meer
  
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• Zorg kantelt met wederzijds delen data tussen patiënt en arts

  03-12-2015 14:52
  Op CIODAY2015, 24 november gehouden in de Beurs van Berlage te Amsterdam, werd een aantal gasten uitgenodigd om op de bank met dagvoorzitter Joost Hoebink en René Steenvoorden van Rabobank te praten over uitdagingen en nieuwe mogelijkheden die technlogie biedt. Tijdens de tweede... lees meer
  
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• HP Spectre x2 review: A Surface clone for a lot less cash

  03-12-2015 14:48
  
  HP’s formula for its new Spectre x2 is pretty simple: Clone the look and feel of Microsoft’s popular Surface and sell at a price that heavily undercuts it. But the result is actually a lot more nuanced.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• CIODAY2015: Geloof in CIO en in technologie

  03-12-2015 14:44
  De impact van technologie op de business, op de economie en op de samenleving stond meer dan ooit centraal op CIODAY2015. Nu we de middeleeuwen van IT zonder onderliggende infrastructuur achter ons laten, hetgeen in de opening van het evenement werd belichaamd door twee monniken in donkere pij, is een nieuw tijdperk... lees meer
  
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• It's not just you: Azure Active Directory is down for Europe

  03-12-2015 14:17
  
  A configuration error in Microsoft's Azure Active Directory service is preventing customers from accessing a wide range of Microsoft services hosted in Europe, including Office 365 and Visual Studio Team Services.The most recent problems began around 9 a.m. UTC Thursday, and were still ongoing shortly after midday UTC, Microsoft reported on its Azure status page.However, they first showed up in Visual Studio Team Services on Wednesday, between 9.44 p.m. and 11.44 p.m. UTC, Microsoft said. Custom
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Learning how to say NO is healthy for you and your career

  03-12-2015 14:06
  
  If somebody asks me to do one more thing, I think I’ll just explode!!!If this sound like you, then you’re probably feeling overworked, unappreciated, and not in control of your time or priorities.Welcome to the club – many people don’t know how to “just say no” and find themselves constantly handling other peoples’ priorities while their own priorities never seem to get done.Even worse, while you’re helping other people get their priorities done, y
  
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• Eerste onderzoekscentrum voor kwantum-software in Nederland van start

  03-12-2015 14:05
  QuSoft, het eerste onderzoekscentrum voor kwantum-software, is een feit. Het centrum, een initiatief van CWI, UvA en VU en gevestigd op Amsterdam Science Park, gaat onderzoek doen dat complementair is aan dat van QuTech, het researchcentrum van TU Delft en TNO, dat zich richt op de ontwikkeling van... lees meer
  
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• Report: Scripting languages most vulnerable, mobile apps need better crypto

  03-12-2015 14:00
  
  According to an analysis of over 200,000 applications, PHP is the programming language with the most vulnerabilities, mobile apps suffer from cryptography problems, and developers are more likely to fix errors found with static instead of dynamic analysis.
  The report, by Boston-based security firm Veracode, was released this morning and is based on Veracode's assessment of more than a trillion lines of code for customers at large and small companies, commercial software suppliers, and open sour
  
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• Cisco SDN user plans OpenStack integration

  03-12-2015 14:00
  
  At last count, only 15% of the now 2,000 combined customers for Cisco System’s Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) and VMware’s NSX SDN products were using them in production mode.
  One such Cisco customer, cloud provider Key Information Systems of Agoura Hills, CA, is using ACI to provide cloud-enabled data center services to organizations in Southern California. KeyInfo is looking for ACI to provide it with multi-tenancy security, automated application-based network provisioni
  
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• Cisco extends SDN for VMware integration, Docker containers

  03-12-2015 14:00
  
  Cisco Systems this week rolled out new software releases for its Nexus 9000 switches and Application Centric Infrastructure (ACI) SDN that feature enhanced integration with VMware environments and support for Docker containers.The software is intended to further extend the capabilities of ACI into multivendor environments where a variety of hypervisors, cloud management platforms and workloads – physical, virtual or container-based – exist. Cisco now has 5,000 customers for its Nexus
  
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• BlackBerry PRIV review: A new standard for Android in enterprise?

  03-12-2015 14:00
  
  A month ago, BlackBerry released what could prove to be the most important smartphone in the Canadian company's storied history: the BlackBerry PRIV.PRIV is the first BlackBerry that doesn't run a version of the company's own OS. Instead, it runs Google's Android OS. It's a forward departure from what most of the world expects from BlackBerry today. It's aimed at the enterprise, and its productivity-focused users — but PRIV legitimately measures up to the most popular consumer devices. And
  
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• Why Electronic Health Records aren't more usable

  03-12-2015 13:01
  
  Federal government incentives worth about $30 billion have persuaded the majority of physicians and hospitals to adopt electronic health record (EHR) systems over the past few years. However, most physicians do not find EHRs easy to use. Physicians often have difficulty entering structured data in EHRs, especially during patient encounters. The records are hard to read because they're full of irrelevant boilerplates generated by the software and lack individualized information about the pat
  
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• Top 7 storage certifications for IT pros

  03-12-2015 12:52
  
  In-demand storage certificationsAn IT storage professional, who is typically an engineer or an architect, plans and deploys all kinds of storage for small to large organizations, whether it's on-premises storage area networks (SANs) or network-attached storage (NAS) appliances, or cloud-based storage as a service (STaaS) solutions. This person must also be deeply knowledgeable about networking infrastructures and all of the connections that must be made to ensure high availability for stored dat
  
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• Hosted bare metal emerges as alternative to IaaS cloud

  03-12-2015 12:31
  
  AppLovin is a 4-year old marketing platform that places advertisements in mobile apps. And it’s a data-intensive business to say the least.
  When AppLovin learns of an advertising opportunity in an app, the company has 100 milliseconds to decide if it will bid on the spot in a real-time auction. If it wins the bid, it consults a database storing billions of user preferences to serve an ad personalized to that user. AppLovin processes about 30 billion to 50 billion actions per day, all of w
  
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• IBM bets on big data and IoT with Weather Company acquisition

  03-12-2015 12:30
  
  After weeks of rumors of an impending deal, IBM has agreed to buy Weather.com and other digital assets from The Weather Company for its Watson IoT unit and its IoT Cloud platform.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• DDoS attacks are more than disruptions to service

  03-12-2015 12:29
  
  Distributed denial-of-service attacks have increased in complexity so that they are no longer just an annoyance causing a disruption in service. Criminals are using these attacks as a distraction while targeting sensitive data, leaving enterprises to pay for lost business and breach recovery.
  Any conversation that involved breaches this year included the statement, “It’s not if but when.” The expectation has become, as IDC’s Christina Richmond, program director, security
  
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• Infosec jobs: 5 Ways to score an ace recruiter

  03-12-2015 12:11
  
  With cyberattacks on the rise, infosec jobs are hotter than ever.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Bitbucket vs. GitHub: Which project host has the most?

  03-12-2015 12:00
  
  The question is not "Do I host my source code?" If you're a one-person shop, the answer should be yes. If you're a midsized consulting firm, the answer should be yes. If you're a huge distributed product company, the answer should be yes. You get the picture.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• 10 signs it's time to look for a new job

  03-12-2015 12:00
  
  10 signs layoffs are coming for your job nextImage by ClkerFreeVectorImages via pixabayThe signs are usually hiding in plain sight. Your boss doesn’t give you the time of day anymore. Large groups of people go out for lunch -- then never come back. The company stock takes a nosedive.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Vrouwen op de bank bij CIODAY

  03-12-2015 10:51
  Op CIODAY2015, 24 november gehouden in de Beurs van Berlage te Amsterdam, werd een aantal gasten uitgenodigd om op de bank met dagvoorzitter Joost Hoebink en René Steenvoorden van Rabobank over het tekort aan gekwalificeerde arbeidskrachten in de sector en andere uitdagingen van... lees meer
  
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• Tekort IT-specialisten probleem voor transformerende organisaties

  03-12-2015 09:18
  De IT-sector groeit dit en volgend jaar sneller dan de Nederlandse economie als geheel. Digitalisering is de drijvende kracht. De vraag naar ontwikkelaars, data-analisten en specialisten op het gebied van cloud en cyber-security kan het aanbod echter niet bijbenen en dat is schadelijk voor de sector en de economie als... lees meer
  
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• New legislation aims at stalling NSA reform

  03-12-2015 08:49
  A new bill introduced in the Senate aims to let the U.S. National Security Agency hold on for five years to phone records collected by the agency, while also making permanent some anti-terrorist provisions that have been criticized by civil rights groups.Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas, said Wednesday he would introduce the "Liberty Through Strength Act II" to require the federal government to hold on to the legacy phone metadata of Americans for five years and authorize its use f
  
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• Facebook will block Belgians without accounts from access to its content

  03-12-2015 05:52
  
  Facebook has outlined its plans to follow a court ruling in Belgium requiring it not to track people who do not have accounts on the social networking website.The company said it was giving the details ahead of the order being served on it by the Belgian Privacy Commission, which is expected later this week.Among the steps Facebook plans to take is to require people without Facebook accounts in Belgium to create accounts and log in to the social networking website before they can see its publicl
  
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• Encrypted messaging app Signal available for desktops

  03-12-2015 02:51
  
  The much-lauded encryption app Signal has launched a beta program for a desktop version of the app, which will run through Google's Chrome browser.Signal Desktop is Chrome app that will sync messages transmitted between it and an Android device, wrote Moxie Marlinspike, a cryptography expert who had helped develop Signal, in a blog post on Wednesday.The app comes from Open Whisper Systems, which developed Signal's predecessors, Redphone and TextSecure, which were two Android applications that en
  
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• Quantum dots could bridge gap between electronic and quantum computers

  03-12-2015 02:19
  
  An intriguing type of quantum computing is one step closer to practicality with the announcement today that experts at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Stanford University and the Technical University of Munich have managed to solve one of the technology’s major problems using common semiconductor materials.
  The idea behind quantum computing, in the broadest possible strokes, is to use the quantum state of a small particle to store information. The advantage is that each of these parti
  
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• United Airlines airport reps will now use an iPhone 6 Plus to print your boarding pass

  03-12-2015 02:18
  
  Flying United? Don’t be surprised if you see more iPhones during your next flight.
  United Airlines announced on Wednesday that its airport representatives will be equipped with an iPhone 6 Plus in an effort to “mobilize” customer service in the airline’s U.S. hubs. More than 6,000 service reps will be using an iPhone 6 Plus to print boarding passes and baggage tags from anywhere in the airport. These iPhone-wielding reps will also have instant access to real-time flight
  
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• WD ships world's first 10TB helium-filled hard drive

  03-12-2015 02:17
  
  Western Digital today announced the first 10TB hard disk drive (HDD) based on its HelioSeal Platform, which hermetically seals helium gas in the drive to decrease friction.
  The new 3.5-in. Ultrastar He10 HDD is based on WD's third-generation HelioSeal Platform, which also consumes less power per terabyte of capacity than any previous drive the company has shipped.
  Besides being filled with helium, the new HDD uses typical perpendicular magnetic recording (PMR) to fit 10TB of capacity on se
  
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• Things get messy at Yahoo as reports of sales and a reorg swirl

  03-12-2015 02:17
  
  After more than three years at the helm of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer has failed to create the "epic turnaround" that many had expected from the former Googler.
  As troubles continue to hound the company that has gone from being an Internet pioneer to a second-tier player, reports are circulating that Yahoo's board is considering selling off its core Internet business and and showing Mayer the door.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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