IT Executive news

• How to increase employee retention with ‘stay’ interviews

  21-12-2015 23:28
  
  High turnover hurts a company's bottom line, and it also ruins morale for the employees left behind. Since 2012, attrition has been a huge problem for IT companies, and finding ways to stem the tide is increasingly important as turnover rates continue to rise.
  Most companies use exit interviews to gather feedback about a resigning worker's reasons for leaving, hoping they can use that information to address culture, compensation or other issues that may motivate others to leave.
  But what if you
  
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• Salesforce backs new wind farm in 12-year renewable-energy deal

  21-12-2015 23:21
  
  A few months ago Salesforce committed to a goal of eventually powering its global operations entirely with renewable energy, and on Monday it took a key step in that direction by signing a 12-year agreement to back a brand-new wind farm in West Virginia.The farm is expected to become operational in December 2016. Once it does, the electricity generated under the agreement is expected to be 125,000 megawatt hours annually, which is more than Salesforce used in its data centers during all of fisca
  
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• NetApp to buy flash storage startup SolidFire for $870M

  21-12-2015 23:13
  NetApp is acquiring startup SolidFire for US$870 million cash for a foothold in the fast-growing market for scale-out flash storage.SolidFire's all-flash systems will let enterprises take advantage of the scale and cost advantages enjoyed by Web-scale companies with distributed data-center architectures, NetApp said. SolidFire, based in Boulder, Colorado, makes all-flash systems that can scale out to as much as 1.9 petabytes of capacity.The deal is expected to close during NetApp's fiscal fourth
  
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• 3 tips for successful 'stay' interviews

  21-12-2015 23:10
  
  A "stay interview" is similar in intent to its cousin, the exit interview: to gather feedback from employees about their experiences in the workplace, both positive and negative, to determine areas for improvement. There's one key difference, however -- timing. Stay interviews are performed much earlier in an employees' tenure to measure engagement and satisfaction, in the hopes of reducing the chance that talent will leave for better opportunities.To read this article in full or to leave a com
  
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• Battle over LTE in Wi-Fi bands may soon be resolved

  21-12-2015 22:36
  The fight over LTE networks using the same frequencies as Wi-Fi may be headed toward a peaceful resolution at last.Powerhouses of the wireless world that have clashed over LTE in unlicensed spectrum are now committed to creating tests for whether these new types of networks can coexist with Wi-Fi. Those tests may be ready to go in February.Powerful mobile vendors including Qualcomm and Ericsson are pushing gear that would let carriers put LTE signals on unlicensed channels now used by Wi-Fi. Car
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Pixel C review: This pixel perfect tablet lacks for software

  21-12-2015 22:08
  
  Tablets are interesting market. They are fine as consumption devices, but Apple, Microsoft, and Google all are botching it as a work device. And as far as I can tell, the problem lies in the software.
  I have, at various points,  owned the Samsung Galaxy 10.1, Nexus 7, Nexus 9, iPad Mini, iPad AIR 1 and 2. I recently bought the iPad Pro and gave my iPad AIR 2 to a friend. (And boy did I miss the iPad AIR; Pro is way too big to carry around the house comfortably.) I also  didn’t l
  
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• Oracle settles with the FTC over 'deceptive' Java security promises

  21-12-2015 22:04
  
  Security issues have long bedeviled users of Oracle's Java SE, and on Monday the FTC's efforts to address the problem finally came to fruition.Oracle has agreed to settle charges that it deceived consumers about the security provided by updates to its Java Standard Edition software, which is installed on some 850 million computers around the world, the Federal Trade Commission announced.“When a company’s software is on hundreds of millions of computers, it is vital that its statement
  
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• Astronauts lend a hand to space station’s robotic arm

  21-12-2015 21:58
  
  A robotic arm that works on the outside of the International Space Station got a hand today from two astronauts.
  Space station commander Scott Kelly and newly arrived flight engineer Tim Kopra spent a little over three hours on a spacewalk Monday morning to fix a stalled transporter that carries the robotic arm, used to grab onto docking space crafts and unload their cargo.
  Without today's fix, the Russian supply ship, named Progress, would not be able to dock with the space station as schedule
  
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• Facebook helps find fun events going on around you

  21-12-2015 21:50
  
  Want some help figuring out what to do tonight or this weekend?
  Maybe you should turn to someone, or something, that knows a lot about you, like who you hang out with, what you like to do, where you live and where you go.
  Facebook executives are hoping that's exactly what you'll want to do.
  The social networking company is testing an events service designed to help users find things to do around their location.
  Facebook said the new Event service is available only on the iPhone. With the servic
  
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• Microsoft disables Cortana for Android voice feature after user complaints

  21-12-2015 21:47
  
  Cortana for Android users are expressing their frustration after Microsoft turned off the app's "Hey Cortana" voice activation feature on Sunday. While reviewers are frustrated that they can't activate Microsoft's virtual assistant using just their voice, it seems that the feature's removal was actually done to mitigate a bug. According to Microsoft, when "Hey Cortana" was enabled, people were unable to use Android's systemwide voice-search feature.In other words, people who wanted to talk
  
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• Juniper NetScreen firewall should be patched now

  21-12-2015 21:17
  
  The Internet Storm Center has upgraded its warning about the corruption of Juniper ScreenOS firewalls to yellow, which means it’s imperative to patch them today, literally, given that details on how to exploit the flaws has been published and that it’s a holiday week when applying firewall patches can be easily overlooked.
  According to the ISC warning, the upgraded yellow warning was made because Juniper’s NetScreen firewalls are popular and that the “'backdoor’ pa
  
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• Google joins Mozilla, Microsoft in pushing for early SHA-1 crypto cutoff

  21-12-2015 20:55
  Google is considering banning certificates signed with the SHA-1 cryptographic function in Google Chrome starting Jul. 1. This follows similar announcements from Mozilla and Microsoft over the past two months.The browser vendors had previously decided to stop trusting SHA-1-signed certificates presented by HTTPS websites on Jan. 1, 2017, a year after certificate authorities are supposed to stop issuing new ones.However, due to recent research showing that SHA-1 is weaker than previously believed
  
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• Developers can unwrap Perl 6 on Christmas

  21-12-2015 20:47
  
  Perl 6 is due out on Christmas Day, bringing with it a new language that endeavors to be interoperable with its predecessor.
  The long-awaited sequel is slated to feature object-oriented programming with generics, functional programming primitives, parallelism, and optional and gradual typing. "Christmas is still the plan [for release], though of course in some cultures that lasts till January 6 or so," Perl founder Larry Wall said in an email late last week. "We're just trying to nail down as m
  
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• Microsoft buys communication startup Talko, will shutter service in 2016

  21-12-2015 20:20
  
  Building a popular messaging app is a tough business, and Talko is getting out of it. The collaboration and voice chat app company announced Monday that it has sold to Microsoft, which will be rolling its technology and team members into Skype. In a post to the company's blog, the Talko team said that success in the messaging app space for consumers is binary -- some companies are able to launch a wildly popular product that takes off with wide adoption, while others drift into obscuri
  
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• Botnet trafffic in 2015 - the invisible force that wants to eat the Internet

  21-12-2015 20:14
  
  It sounds counter-intuitive but a new analysis from Imperva's Incapsula division has confirmed one of the Internet's most surprising secrets: a large proportion of website traffic isn't generated by human beings.
  The firm's figures for 2015 (measured between July and October on websites using the firm's security) found that roughly half of all traffic was generated by automated bots, both good ones such as search engine spiders (19.5 percent) and bad ones such as spam engines and pricing scrape
  
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• Facebook's iOS app rolls out support for Apple Live Photos

  21-12-2015 20:12
  
  Third-party apps are finally integrating the animated Live Photos that can only be taken using the iPhone 6s.
  On Monday, Facebook began adding support for sharing and viewing Apple Live Photos inside its iOS app. According to TechCrunch, this integration is rolling out slowly, however, and most Facebook app users won’t be seeing it until early 2016. In the meantime, you can use these other apps to share Live Photos almost anywhere on the web, including Facebook.To read this article in ful
  
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• Cloud, virtualization take toll on data centers

  21-12-2015 19:34
  
  The data center is transforming -- modernizing to meet business demand as technologies such as software-defined architecture, cloud and virtualization take hold. This modernization is also being driven by CIOs and IT executives taking a hard look at their computing needs and asking whether they want to own and/or operate data centers any longer, industry experts say. Managing the transitionTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• LG’s robot vacuum gets cleaning instructions from your phone’s camera

  21-12-2015 19:20
  
  Robot vacuums with sophisticated mapping systems are everywhere these days, but the latest from LG is taking a more novel approach.
  Instead of relying solely on lasers or built-in cameras to figure out where to clean, the mechanically-named HOM-BOT Turbo+ links up with a companion smartphone app for instructions. Users can then point their phone camera at areas that need extra cleaning, and the HOM-BOT will head to that location.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click h
  
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• Wat niet weet, wat niet deert?

  21-12-2015 19:14
  Door Adam Bangle – Insider threats, advanced persistent threats, spear phishing: dreigingen waar chief information security officers ’s nachts wakker van liggen. Vroeger kon je deze aanmerken als malware, maar de nieuwe generatie aanvallen is moeilijker te detecteren. In het onderzoek Masters of... lees meer
  
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• Report: Facebook, YouTube and Apple Music are the most popular apps of 2015

  21-12-2015 19:14
  
  If you open Facebook and YouTube on your phone every month, you’re certainly not alone.
  Facebook is the most popular app of the year, according to a new Nielsen report, with over 126 million monthly users. Meanwhile Google’s suite of mobile apps—think YouTube, Google Maps and Gmail—have overtaken our smartphones, claiming five out of the top 10 spots in Nielsen’s list of the most popular apps of 2015. Google-owned YouTube is the second most-used app in the U.S. wit
  
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• The digital-transformation train has left the station -- is your company on board?

  21-12-2015 19:08
  
  It would be easy to dismiss the term "digital transformation" as just the latest in a long line of buzzwords seemingly conceived to cause stomach ulcers in the world's CIOs.That, however, would be a mistake. Though the concept has been floating around for several years already, 2015 was when it dug its heels into the business world and made it clear it's here to stay."This feels different from a hype wave for a few reasons," said Bob Parker, a group vice president with IDC.Most notably, digital-
  
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• 13 critical questions for Apple heading into 2016

  21-12-2015 19:00
  
  Keeping the ball rollingImage by ThinkstockApple had a tremendous 2015. Not only did it make more money in 2015 than ever before, it set a new iPhone sales record and managed to introduce a number of new products, with the Apple Watch and the fourth-gen Apple TV being the two most notable examples.But in the fast-moving world of technology, it’s not so much about what you’ve done, but what you will do in the future. That being the case, there are a number of issues and questions loom
  
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• Google Play Services 8.4 gives developers more detailed sharing features, game optimization tools

  21-12-2015 18:35
  
  Google has one final gift to Android developers before the end of the year: Google Play Services 8.4, which has several new tricks that might make you hang around and keep playing that game you’ve been grinding away on a little bit longer. As always, you can get the rundown in another wacky video from Google Developer Advocate Magnus Hyttsten.
  The impact on you: Many of the newest features for Android come not through Android updates, but Google Play Services. This bypasses Android&r
  
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• Cannibalism is good, and other things I learned from 60 Minutes' Apple report

  21-12-2015 18:17
  
  An inside look at Apple’s laboratories isn’t as rare as it once was. Over the past year, Apple has opened up its doors to Good Morning America, Backchannel and The New Yorker in a seeming effort to change its image as an ultra-secretive, inaccessible company ruled by the specter of an iron fist. Last night, 60 Minutes’ Charlie Rose was the latest journalist invited into the inner sanctum, and Apple practically rolled out the red carpet for him.
  But while Rose didn’t unco
  
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• As 2015 ends, Ubuntu Linux misses its 200 million user goal

  21-12-2015 18:12
  
  With the end of 2015 imminent, Ubuntu appears to have fallen far short of the 200 million user goal it set back in 2011.
  “[Our] goal is 200 million users of Ubuntu in four years,” Canonical CEO Mark Shuttleworth said at a developer summit in May 2011. “We’re not playing a game for developers’ hearts and minds—we’re playing a game for the world's hearts and minds, and to achieve that we’re going to have to play by a new set of rules.”
  As Linu
  
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• Survive your trip to grandma's house with your Android phone and these apps

  21-12-2015 18:00
  
  As much as you’ve tried to push it out of your mind, the annual Christmas journey to grandma’s house is almost here. Get ready for a couple of cozy days drinking instant coffee on the shag carpet while binge watching classic Christmas movies from the fifties.
  We’ve all been there. And yes, unfortunately, just zoning out watching videos or listening to music won’t be an option. There’s likely to be a firm ban on headphones, and of course the family homestead over th
  
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• Secrets of disruptive CIOs: Investing in tomorrow has little to do with 'keeping the lights on'

  21-12-2015 17:42
  
  CSC Jim Houghton, Chief Technology Officer for the Americas Region, CSCTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Vulkan, DirectX 12's more open rival, slips to 2016

  21-12-2015 17:35
  DirectX 12 isn’t the only graphics API seeing delays, as the Vulkan Working Group recently announced that the open-standard successor to OpenGL won’t hit its end of the year release target. Vulkan, which largely rose from AMD’s defunct Mantle API, was originally supposed to roll out before the end of 2015.
  Trying to put a good spin on bad news, the VWG added a bunch of information about how close Vulkan’s debut is. “We are in the home stretch and the release of Vul
  
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• 5 information security trends that will dominate 2016

  21-12-2015 17:24
  
  Every year, it seems, the threats posed by cybercriminals evolve into new and more dangerous forms while security organizations struggle to keep up.As 2015 draws to a close, we can expect the size, severity and complexity of cyber threats to continue increasing in 2016, says Steve Durbin, managing director the Information Security Forum (ISF), a nonprofit association that assesses security and risk management issues on behalf of its members."For me, 2016 is probably the year of cyber risk," Durb
  
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• Juniper updates list of backdoored enterprise firewall OS versions

  21-12-2015 17:15
  
  Juniper revised the list of ScreenOS versions that contain a backdoor allowing attackers to bypass authentication and gain administrative access to NetScreen enterprise firewall devices.
  The networking equipment manufacturer announced last week that it found, during an internal audit, two instances where rogue code was added to its ScreenOS operating system without authorization. The code could be used by attackers to gain privileged access to NetScreen firewall devices and to decrypt VPN conne
  
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• Error 451 is the new Ray Bradbury-inspired HTTP code for online censorship

  21-12-2015 15:44
  The web is full of cryptic status codes that your browser shows when it can’t connect to a website, such as 403 Forbidden or 404 Not Found. Now the Internet Engineering Steering Group is adding one more error code for your browser—but this time it will make it all too clear why you can’t see something.
  The IESG recently approved status code 451 that tells visitors they can’t see the requested content due to “legal obstacles,” which usually means government ce
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: 11 predictions for Linux in 2016

  21-12-2015 15:18
  
  Peer into the futureImage by Garry Knight/FlickrThe Linux world changed a lot in 2015. Perhaps the biggest change was at Microsoft, which turned from a foe into a lover of Linux. We saw the first Ubuntu Linux powered smartphone. Samsung launched a smartwatch running on Tizen Linux. In the enterprise, Linux and open source continued to become stronger with technologies like OpenStack, Docker, and Cloud Foundry. It has been an exciting year. To read this article in full or to leave a comment,
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Apple adds Star Wars radio station to iTunes and the Music app

  21-12-2015 15:08
  
  The new Star Wars movie "The Force Awakens" is doing big box office business around the world. And if you're a Star Wars fan, you'll love the fact that Apple has released a new Star Wars radio station that you can listen to in iTunes on your Mac, and in Apple's Music app on your iOS device.The Star Wars radio station offers soundtrack music from all of the films, plus sound effects as well. So you can listen to music such as "Landspeeder Search / Attack of the Sand People" from the very first St
  
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• Emtec Power Connect review: Great external battery, so-so storage performance

  21-12-2015 15:00
  Although recent iPhone models have grown in size, Apple has worked hard to maintain a slender appearance, often at the expense of battery life. As a result, an entire cottage industry has developed for external battery packs capable of charging devices while on the go—but at least one of them can do a few other tricks as well.Power in the pocketMeasuring 78 x 70 x 23 mm and weighing a hair over five ounces, the Emtec Power Connect U800 is a small, pocket-friendly block of dark grey plasti
  
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• Mohu BeBox review: An epic mashup of Bluetooth boombox and Android tablet

  21-12-2015 14:44
  
  Boomboxes were everywhere in the 1980s. Throw in eight D-cells and you had a portable, all-in-one stereo system with a single—or even a double—cassette deck and an AM/FM radio that could go anywhere around the house, in your back yard, or to the beach.
  The Boombox survived the transition to CD, but the MP3 and iPod era all but killed it. Mohu, the company that redefined the high-definition TV antenna, aims to resurrect it with the BeBox, a concoction leavened with an ARM processor,
  
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• How to use your Apple TV to have a merry, Siri Christmas

  21-12-2015 14:41
  
  With every holiday season comes a flurry of traditions. From the carols to the stockings, wreaths and Christmas trees, December 2015 looks a lot like it did 10, 20, even 50 years ago. That’s part of the joy of Christmas–remembering and reliving the delight of being a child.
  But just because we’re doing the same things doesn’t mean we can’t update them for our modern times. Even more than fruitcake and tinsel, our gadgets have taken center stage during the holidays
  
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• PhishMe report shows employees can become assets in anti-phishing battle

  21-12-2015 14:00
  
  A report released today by PhishMe based on the results of 8 million phishing simulations shows that employees can dramatically improve their ability to detect phishing emails with practice, and can be trained to forward them to security staff.
  While the average response rates to any particular phishing email is about 20 percent, employees who click on one phishing email are 67 percent more likely than average to click on another one, with a click rate of 35 percent.
  But their click rate falls
  
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• IT pros brace for lost devices, access problems, on-call holidays

  21-12-2015 14:00
  
  More than half (56%) of IT pros will be on-call or working during the holidays to troubleshoot tech problems, according to network management vendor Ipswitch. Past experience shows it’s necessary: among 378 IT pros surveyed, 38% say they’ve experienced a major network outage during a holiday break.
  Here are some additional findings from Ipswitch’s third annual "Happy Holidays?" survey: Days expected to be on-call or working• Christmas Eve: cited by 29%
  • Christm
  
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• 10 social media certifications for marketing pros

  21-12-2015 14:00
  
  Top social media certifications in 2016Image by ThinkstockSocial media savvy is now one of the most sought-after skills among certain types of employers. With demand for such skills both academic and other organizations have developed and enhanced specialized training and certification programs to help professionals boost their social know-how. The following 10 certification classes and programs are available from accredited universities and online learning institutions and range in price from $
  
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• Apple to pay Ericsson patent royalties on iPhones and iPads

  21-12-2015 13:47
  
  Apple has agreed to pay Ericsson royalties on the wireless devices it sells in settlement of a long-standing patent dispute.Ericsson owns patents that it considers essential to the implementation of a number of mobile communications standards, including GSM, the 3G standard UMTS and LTE, used in 4G networks. While it has licensing agreements with other manufacturers of devices operating on these networks, a deal with Apple expired at the start of this year.When negotiations to renew that deal br
  
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• 5 reasons a Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 can replace your laptop

  21-12-2015 13:19
  
  With the advent of tablet-notebook hybrid devices, Chromebooks and even the release of the iPad Pro, more people are turning away from traditional laptops for both work and fun. This is especially true for those who just need Internet access and some basic productivity apps to get work done. Tablets are the most natural shift when looking for something less powerful than a notebook but suited to business and personal use -- and the Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 is no exception.
  In fact, Samsung even mar
  
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• Play the holiday season away with these festive Android games

  21-12-2015 13:00
  
  Holiday funJust as the world around us is increasingly decked out in holiday cheer, so too are many of the games we play thanks to seasonal updates. If you love the sight of candy canes, trimmed trees, and Santa outfits, then you’ll probably get a kick out of these games, which infuse the spirit of winter and/or Christmas—or at least toss in some familiar sights.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: What kind of IT leader do you want to be?

  21-12-2015 13:00
  
  It's a great time of year to take stock of where you are and where you want to be, both as a person and as a the leader of an IT organization. The first one is up to you, since you know I think you are perfect just the way you are. As to the second one, you don't have to make a list, but at least think about as many of these items as you can before the end of year revelry is in full swing. I talked about what you want to do as an IT organization here, but this is more about you as a leader.I pul
  
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• Welcome to the ‘always-on’ IT department

  21-12-2015 12:59
  
  Mix the terms “software” and “customer service” in the same sentence, and many individuals on the other end of a phone call might wonder what they ever did to you. Still, on-call scheduling software is being used by a growing number of organizations. And it’s not just for frustrated external customers who want to vent at somebody … anybody. Many IT organizations are using the software to match up internal users with much-needed tech expertise in the IT d
  
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• Infosec's wish list for 2016

  21-12-2015 12:43
  
  WishingImage by Kitty TerwolbeckInformation Security is one of the fastest-growing and most dynamic fields in technology, due to the increasing sophistication of attacks and the interesting new challenges facing InfoSec professionals. As we approach 2016, several security experts provided their InfoSec Wish List for the new year. Some experts wish for the cyber equivalent of world peace, while others are just hoping for their digital Red Ryder air rifle.To read this article in full or to leave a
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: You’re going to be an IoT CIO. Welcome to revenue accountability

  21-12-2015 12:32
  
  Your marketing team just posted the favorite marketing message of the day: “[Insert company name] announces its new Internet of Things (IoT) [Insert solution name here].”  So you are now the CIO of a company that is “transforming into an IoT company.” What does this mean for you?The blogosphere and technical publications focus on IoT technologies from Big Data to the expanse of security concerns that come with a massive threat surface.  In the past you considere
  
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• 7 surprising tech gadgets of 2015

  21-12-2015 12:22
  
  There was certainly no shortage of new tech products in 2015. Many of them were predictable and/or long anticipated, like Google’s update of the Nexus phone line or the introduction of the long-rumored Apple Watch.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Forecast 2016: Essential data points for the tech year ahead

  21-12-2015 12:16
  
  Ready, set, disrupt!If an overarching conclusion can be drawn from the results of Computerworld's Forecast survey of 182 IT professionals, it's that 2016 is shaping up to be the year of IT as a change agent.IT is poised to move fully to the center of the business in 2016, as digital transformation becomes a top strategic priority. CIOs and their tech organizations are well positioned to drive that change, thanks to IT budget growth, head count increases and a pronounced shift toward strategic sp
  
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• This startup runs its app without servers or virtual machines

  21-12-2015 12:12
  
  The founders of Teletext.io, Marcel Panse and Sander Nagtegaal, are into quirky work rules. For example, when meetings at an earlier startup of theirs went too long, a rule was instituted that speakers must dance while they talk.
  Teletext.io, a content management as a service platform, has its own unusual rule: Its developers can’t use any servers or virtual machines.
  +MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: How Notre Dame is going all in using Amazon’s cloud | Video: 2015 in the cloud – a yea
  
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• What carmakers will reveal at CES

  21-12-2015 12:04
  
  Automakers at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January are expected to push software-defined vehicle technology, offering new human-machine interfaces (HMI), artificial intelligence and automated driving features.
  Virtual reality in the form of gesture recognition and heads up displays will also be prevalent at CES, according to several analysts from IHS Automotive, which held a web conference yesterday to talk about the event.AudiHere's the most surprising Google Earth view: The open roa
  
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