IT Executive news

• SanDisk reveals the world's thinnest 1TB SSD

  05-01-2016 23:36
  
  SanDisk today announced at CES the availability of the new SanDisk X400 SSD, what it is calling the world's thinnest 1TB M.2 form factor solid state drive (SSD).
  "It is the first single-sided 1TB SATA M.2 form factor with a mere 1.5mm height," the company said in a statement.SanDiskThe M.2 (gumstick) version of the X400 SSD.
  The previous M.2 form factor SSD from SanDisk -- the X300 -- was 2.23mm thick.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• New Samsung laptop boasts a big screen with less bulk

  05-01-2016 23:02
  
  Laptop buyers looking for an ultraportable Windows 10 laptop will soon be able to try out a new offering from Samsung that packs a big screen into a smaller package. The company added two new laptops to its Notebook 9 line of portable computers at its press conference on Tuesday, sporting slim Magnesium chassis and USB Type-C ports. These devices aren’t going to boil the ocean, but they’re super-light and easy to carry around, and would appear to be good competitors against
  
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• Samsung tries to fight Microsoft's Surface with new Galaxy TabPro S

  05-01-2016 23:00
  
  Samsung is making its first foray into Windows 10 tablets with the announcement of the new Galaxy TabPro S on Tuesday. It looks a lot like one of the company’s Android tablets, and features a thin, fan-less tablet powered by an Intel Core M processor. The TabPro S has both a front- and rear-facing camera, and can run the full version of Windows 10 Home or Windows 10 Pro. The world got an early glimpse of it earlier in the day on Tuesday after leaked images and specifications for the d
  
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• Samsung jumps on Windows 10 with light laptop, 2-in-1 device

  05-01-2016 23:00
  
  LAS VEGAS -- Samsung announced today that Windows 10 will run on its newest lightweight laptop and a new 2-in-1 tablet called the Galaxy TabPro S.
  With these announcements, Samsung has jumped on the Windows 10 bandwagon, but analysts aren't sure how well the South Korean vendor can compete against established laptop competitors in the same space.
  "It could be an interesting market for Samsung, but only if they make the right moves with technology, innovation and marketing," said Jack Gold, an a
  
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• BrandPost: Creating a Testing Center of Excellence

  05-01-2016 22:45
  
  Despite the complexity in our technology landscapes, and unforgiving expectations of employees, partners and customers alike, testing is often deprioritized. There’s no question how important it is—up to 40% of budget on major projects, amounts in the thousands or millions of dollars—goes toward testing. And yet for many companies it continues to be “un-addressed” and is often assumed to be covered by their project methodology.
  I write “many,” because s
  
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• From cars to supercomputers: Nvidia pushes ahead with new chips

  05-01-2016 22:41
  
  Self-driving cars, deep learning, easy parking: Nvidia's press conference at CES provided an interesting glimpse into how our future on the roads will look. Unlike previous years the press conference was light on technical details.But buried deep inside the hour-long presentation was a momentary glimpse into the company's latest integrated Tegra chip, which could have a significant impact on Nvidia's direction in supercomputing, entertainment and mobile products.Nvidia introduced the Drive PX 2,
  
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• Meet 'Galileo,' a new AI system from MIT that could help robots help us during disasters

  05-01-2016 22:24
  
  Computers can be taught to understand many things about the world, but when it comes to predicting what will happen when two objects collide, there's just nothing like real-world experience.That's where Galileo comes in. Developed by MIT's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL), the new computational model has proven to be just as accurate as humans are at predicting how real-world objects move and interact.Ultimately, it could help robots predict events in disaster situations
  
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• New SuperMHL 8K connector could be in PCs by 2018

  05-01-2016 22:05
  
  4K resolution is making watching movies and playing games on today's computers a more intense experience than ever before, but changes are coming. A new connector for TVs and monitors could allow laptops and desktops to connect to 8K displays as early as 2018.
  SuperMHL is a new connector technology that is being proposed by the MHL Consortium primarily for use in TVs, set-top boxes, DVD players, streaming sticks and gaming consoles. But device makers could put SuperMHL ports in laptops and desk
  
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• Panasonic to commercialize Facebook's Blu-ray cold storage systems

  05-01-2016 21:38
  
  A couple of years ago, Facebook revealed it was using Blu-ray disks as a cost-efficient way to archive the billions of images that users uploaded to its service. Now, Panasonic has said it plans to commercialize the technology for other businesses, and is working on new disks that will hold a terabyte of data.Panasonic is calling its product line "freeze-ray," because it's used for a type of storage known as cold storage, where large amounts of data need to be stored for long periods of time and
  
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• Twitter may expand 140-character limit

  05-01-2016 21:03
  
  Twitter may be getting ready to allow tweets with more than 140 characters. A lot more.
  Re/Code and other sites reported today that Twitter is working on a feature that will give users a 10,000-character limit. The social media company reportedly is looking to launch it by the end of the first quarter.
  The report also stated that Twitter would look much the same as it does now, with a maximum of 140 characters showing in a tweet.However, users would be able to click on something inside the twee
  
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• Audi to take high-speed, self-driving cars to California race track

  05-01-2016 20:53
  
  Audi plans to begin testing highly automated self-driving car technology at a California race track that's more used to hosting auto races.
  The German automaker said on Tuesday at CES that it plans to begin putting self-driving car technology through its paces at Thunderhill Raceway Park, a 3-mile, 15-turn course north of Sacramento.
  The tests are supposed to help the company understand how autonomous driving technology performs at high speeds, when vehicles are performing at the limits of
  
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• Apple expected to cut parts procurement on slow iPhone sales

  05-01-2016 20:36
  
  Asian electronic component makers are expecting Apple to cut procurement orders by about 30 percent in the current quarter due to weaker-than-expected sales of the new iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, according to a Japanese media report.The Nikkei newspaper said Apple had originally asked its suppliers to keep first quarter production at normal January-March levels, but inventory of the new phones has backed up in retail stores and Apple is cutting production.Apple could not be reached for comment and ty
  
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• Facebook intentionally crashed its Android app to test user loyalty, report says

  05-01-2016 20:27
  
  Maybe there’s something to that popular piece of Internet wisdom that if you’re not paying for a service, you’re the product.
  According to a report in The Information, that’s exactly how Facebook treated a group of its users by intentionally crashing the Android app (on a very small subset of users) to test whether or not they’d still use the social network.
  This specific incident actually happened several years ago, and was part of Facebook’s contingency pla
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: System 76 Oryx Pro review: A laptop for your desk

  05-01-2016 20:09
  
  In 2013 when I moved to the U.S. from Europe, I need a new laptop. My powerful desktop PC was on some ship due to arrive in 2-3 months. (Linux users will know how hard it can be to find a decent laptop that can run Linux without any issues.) I finally settled on a Macbook Pro that I have been using as my main laptop ever since.
  Late last year, right around Christmas, System76 loaned me a review unit of its Oryx Pro laptop. I wish I had found something like this back in 2013.Also on CIO.com:To r
  
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• China turns up antitrust heat on Microsoft

  05-01-2016 20:09
  
  In a cryptic statement, Chinese government regulators today demanded that Microsoft explain "major issues" in data authorities collected from the company last year during an antitrust investigation.
  It was the first time in more than a year that China's State Administration for Industry and Commerce (SAIC) hinted that its probe is continuing.
  "We're serious about complying with China's laws and committed to addressing the SAIC's questions and concerns," a Microsoft spokesperson said.
  China's in
  
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• Amazon WorkMail can now be yours for $4 per user per month

  05-01-2016 18:59
  
  After nearly a year in preview, Amazon's WorkMail hosted email and calendar service for enterprises is now generally available for $4 per user per month.Along with 50GB of mailbox storage for each user, the service includes features such as encryption of stored data, message scanning for spam and virus protection, and policies for controlling mobile devices.Many of those features were outlined when the product was first announced, but several new ones were added during preview as well.Of particu
  
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• Ford will triple its autonomous car test fleet

  05-01-2016 18:51
  
  Ford is planning to triple the number of cars it has on city streets and test tracks to research autonomous driving technology.
  The expansion will help the automaker accelerate its work on self-driving cars as it moves toward the goal of a mass-market auto featuring the technology.
  With the increase, the automaker will have around 30 Ford Fusion Hybrid cars running in California, Arizona and Michigan.
  "This gives us the auto industry's largest autonomous vehicle development fleet," said Raj Nai
  
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• What will the Internet of Things be when it grows up?

  05-01-2016 18:44
  
  What do you want to be when you grow up?It’s a question I often ask my three sons. My hope in that question is they may see the vast, and still undefined, potential that lies before them.Today, we might pose the same question to a myriad of technologies scattered across the landscape of innovation that is before us. In a world increasingly filled with connected objects – the ever-growing Internet of Things (IoT) – there is a tremendous amount of undefined potential in front of
  
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• AT&T working with Chicago, others on smart city tech

  05-01-2016 18:30
  
  LAS VEGAS -- AT&T is working with three major cities -- Atlanta, Chicago and Dallas -- on smart city innovations that incorporate Internet of Things technology from seven established
  vendors, the carrier announced Tuesday.
  The carrier also said it is developing a digital dashboard to help those cities and others gain a comprehensive look at power outages, water leaks, traffic and more, the carrier said. That dashboard, called a Smart City Network Operation Center, is expected to monitor tho
  
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• Microsoft is bringing Windows 10 and Office 365 to your car's dashboard

  05-01-2016 17:43
  While its competitors worry about who will power in-car entertainment solutions, Microsoft appears to be making a play to put the office in your dashboard.
  Microsoft announced partnerships with Volvo, Nissan, IAV, and Harman at CES on Tuesday, tying each to its various apps or services. Though perhaps slightly less well known, the partnerships Microsoft struck with IAV and Harman were the most significant. In the case of IAV, for example, the component maker said it would actually work with Mic
  
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• The pretty penny Google paid to recruit Diane Greene

  05-01-2016 17:41
  
  Late in 2015 with the company looking to increase its position in the public cloud computing market Google made a big bet by hiring VMware co-founder Diane Greene to head up its new push to attract enterprise buyers.
  +MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: The biggest cloud conferences of 2016 | This startup built its entire app without any servers + To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Seagate touts fastest desktop drive and slimmest 2TB backup drive

  05-01-2016 17:01
  
  Seagate and its LaCie subsidiary today announced at CES a new line of backup hard drives, in both desktop and mobile form factors, that sport up to 8TB of capacity.
  Seagate's new Backup Plus Ultra Slim is the company's thinnest mobile backup hard drive to date, offering either 1TB or 2TB of capacity in a 9.6mm (3/8-in) thick aluminum case. The drive uses a USB 3.0 (6Gbps) interface to connect to host computers.
  The Backup Plus Ultra Slim comes with 200GB of free Microsoft OneDrive cloud storage
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Disable Mac startup sound in OS X

  05-01-2016 17:01
  One of the the things that I dislike about my iMac is how it makes that loud, annoying sound when I first boot it up. You probably know the sound I'm talking about, it's not necessary for your Mac to boot up but Apple insists on having it play anyway. And if you've left the volume up on your Mac when you shut it down, the startup sound can be incredibly loud and irritating.Unfortunately, there's no way in the OS X interface to turn the sound off. For some unknown reason, Apple still hasn't provi
  
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• Samsung's rumored Surface clone leaks ahead of CES keynote

  05-01-2016 16:55
  It used to be that PC makers were chasing Apple, but now they’re chasing Microsoft—at least when it comes to the Surface tablet. We’ve already seen or heard about Surface imitators from Dell, HP, and Lenovo, and now it looks like Samsung is getting into the game.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• How robotic process automation threatens workers today

  05-01-2016 16:47
  
  IT professionals may or may not believe that robotic process automation (RPA) is a threat to their long-term livelihoods, but they’re not crazy about it might do to their near-term workloads.[ Related: IT pros don’t fear rise of the robots ]Derek Toone, managing director at outsourcing consultancy Alsbridge, reports seeing push-back from IT groups based not on a fear of job loss, but rather on the belief that RPA represents an additional, burdensome project that will stretch resource
  
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• Privacy rules spur Intralinks growth

  05-01-2016 16:34
  
  Intralinks launched in the late 1990s to help companies involved in corporate buyouts and mergers maintain control over critical, shared information during the deal-making process. Today, the company is applying its secure collaboration capabilities to a wide variety of new customers and use cases – from CMOs building marketing campaigns to pharmaceutical companies coordinating data for patients, physicians and regulators involved in major drug trials.You talked about this going beyond be
  
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• Hocus-pocus! The stupidity of cybersecurity predictions

  05-01-2016 16:00
  
  Every year, some publication asks me to come up with a list of my top 10 predictions for the security field, and every year I tell them they might as well just dust off an article I wrote a year earlier, with maybe a couple of buzzwords and a new technology added on. What you can generally expect in any given year is more of the same, with some slight variations.
  That doesn’t stop people from making predictions, though. Vendors and supposed experts can’t seem to control the urge, bu
  
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• Perceptive Devices designs a 'mouse' you can click with your smile

  05-01-2016 15:45
  
  Imagine a world where you literally would never need to touch your PC: You could use face recognition to log in, oral commands to quickly type, and eye tracking to move your cursor around the screen. But how would you mimic a mouse click? Perceptive Devices may have an answer, and is showing off the technology with a few rounds of Angry Birds: Space this week at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.
  The company has a set of prototype technologies in the works: An existing pair of smart gl
  
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• Shocker! Cape Cod cops discover iPhone stun gun

  05-01-2016 15:23
  
  A Cape Cod police department made what you might call a stunning discovery on New Year's Eve: A young intoxicated man illegally in possession of an electroshock device that looked an awful lot like an Apple iPhone.
  While rumors are piling up about what Apple might include in the iPhone 7 this year, weaponry is not among the scuttlebutt.Yarmouth MA police department
  Stunning new iPhone?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Don’t take that recruiter’s call!

  05-01-2016 15:23
  
  Lots of things seem to come in bunches: grapes, bananas, good news and bad news, to name just a bunch. Lately I’ve received a bunch of calls from technology executives who chose not to interview with one of my clients or didn’t answer my voice mails or emails or LinkedIn messages during a search I was conducting.When I asked them why they were contacting me, each of them confessed that s(he) had recently been let go by their employers, or were fretting that their job could be in jeop
  
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• How HP Inc. designed the Elitebook Folio G1 to compete with the MacBook Air

  05-01-2016 15:15
  
  For CES 2016, HP Inc. is looking to make a statement after the PC maker’s recent split from HP’s enterprise unit. On Tuesday, the company took the wraps off its upcoming ultraportable notebook, the HP EliteBook Folio G1: A new laptop designed to compete directly with the MacBook Air.
  In the Folio G1, HP looked to create “a device so sexy that a consumer wants to have it, but it has the security, durability that IT needs,” said Mike Nash, HP’s vice president of cust
  
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• AT&T finally joins modern wireless world, kills off contracts

  05-01-2016 15:01
  
  T-Mobile drove the first nail into the coffin of the two-year, subsidized wireless phone contract nearly three years ago, and AT&T is about to seal the lid shut. As of Friday, Jan. 8, the carrier will no longer sell phones at steeply discounted prices in return for two-year commitments.None of the U.S. "big four" carriers force customers to sign contracts, and despite the sticker shock that can come along with paying upwards of $600 for top-of-the-line phones, consumers are much better off t
  
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• Meet Ray, Misfit's super sleek new activity tracker

  05-01-2016 15:00
  
  Just months after releasing a second-gen version of its popular Shine activity tracker and then being acquired by Fossil, Misfit is aiming to take the spotlight at CES with a brand new fitness bracelet called Ray.
  Ray doesn’t look like any activity tracker you’ve seen before. The body is a 38mm long cylindrical piece of aluminum, which can be attached to a variety of Misfit bands in materials like leather and silicone, or Misfit’s paracord bracelet. You can attach the aluminum
  
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• HTC and Under Armour want to help you get healthy with the UA Healthbox

  05-01-2016 15:00
  
  Looking to get healthy this year? HTC and Under Armour have got you covered. The two companies just announced the Under Armour HealthBox at CES. It includes a trio of products you’ll need to get into shape, including a fitness band, a digital scale, and a strap-on heart rate monitor, all of which are manufactured by HTC.
  You might be wondering, “Is that the same fitness band that HTC announced in 2015 at Mobile World Congress?” It is, in fact, a reprise of the failed HTC Grip.
  
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• Comcast's Xfinity Home Security vulnerable, fail open flaw leaves homes exposed

  05-01-2016 14:42
  
  Researchers at Rapid7 have disclosed vulnerabilities in Comcast's Xfinity Home Security offerings. The flaws cause the system to falsely report that a home's windows and doors are closed and secured, even if they've been opened.
  Comcast's Xfinity Home Security system is one of the many next-generation alarm systems that are app controlled and promise to deliver real-time alerts and notifications to homeowners.
  However, researchers at Rapid7 have discovered flaws that would cause Comcast's syste
  
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• Google fixes dangerous rooting vulnerabilities in Android

  05-01-2016 14:36
  
  Google has fixed a new batch of vulnerabilities in Android that could allow hackers to take over devices remotely or through malicious applications.The company released over-the-air firmware updates for its Nexus devices Monday and will publish the patches to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) repository by Wednesday. Manufacturers that are Google partners received the fixes in advance on Dec. 7, and will release updates according to their own schedules.The new patches address six critical,
  
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• Ford wants its vehicles to talk to DJI drones and Amazon Echo

  05-01-2016 13:20
  
  Ford Motor is teaming with drone maker DJI to focus on drone-to-vehicle communications that can be used in emergency zones that are not accessible to ground vehicles, while also exploring technology that will link vehicles with Amazon Echo and smart home platform Wink.
  The automaker is also tripling to 30 this year its fleet of Fusion Hybrid autonomous research vehicles, using new low-cost Lidar sensors from Velodyne in California. The car will have fewer sensors - two from the usual four- as a
  
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• How to become a CISO

  05-01-2016 12:58
  How do executives deliver information security to their organizations? How did they develop the unique combination of technical understanding and leadership competency to lead cybersecurity departments? By chronicling the career journey of several cybersecurity executives, you will learn how they became executives and their approach to deliver security.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• 7 resolutions retail CIOs need to keep in 2016

  05-01-2016 12:54
  
  For retailers, technology, strategy and customer experience are now intertwined. Everything revolves around keeping up with consumer expectations for a seamless experience both online and offline, across channels and devices. Retailers are working hard to deliver all of that consistently — to avoid eroding their brand presence — but have run up against stubborn challenges, says Steven Skinner at consulting firm Cognizant. “If CIOs thought this Christmas was online on
  
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• Can enterprises keep mobile security threats from driving customers away?

  05-01-2016 12:39
  
  A 2015 mobile app survey from Bluebox Security supports the notion that most consumers would turn away from vendors if their mobile app is compromised and take their business elsewhere.The vast majority (80 percent) of consumers surveyed said that they would stop patronizing a company if its mobile app was compromised in a breach, say the Bluebox Mobile App Survey results. Participants in the 2015 survey include approximately 400 consumers and 300 developers.The vulnerabilities that lead to mobi
  
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• Review: Nuance Dragon for Windows offers strong voice recognition

  05-01-2016 12:30
  
  We're all getting more comfortable talking to devices these days, whether it means talking to Cortana, Google Now or Siri to check the weather forecast, asking Amazon Alexa which room your keys are in or telling Xbox to pause the video you're watching. But there's a voice dictation and control application that's been available for many years that is considerably more advanced.Nuance's latest Dragon voice recognition for Windows now comes in several packages. Dragon 13 Home ($100) is for simple p
  
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• ZigBee and Thread act to make their IoT smarts stack up

  05-01-2016 12:00
  Two pieces in the complicated puzzle of smart-home options will snap together later this year when the ZigBee Alliance starts certifying devices that use the Thread protocol for networking.
  The industry groups behind these two systems have agreed to work out how they can both be integrated into the same product: Thread for exchanging data packets with other devices and ZigBee for defining how applications work on the device. This should lead to ZigBee products that can talk to many more devices
  
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• HP to ship Spectre X360 with OLED screen

  05-01-2016 12:00
  
  It's suddenly raining laptops with OLED screens.HP on Tuesday said it will release a model of the popular Spectre X360 hybrid with an OLED display in the U.S. spring season, which starts in March. The announcement comes just two days after Lenovo announced the world's first OLED hybrid, the ThinkPad X1 Yoga.OLED screens typically show sharper images, are thinner and more power-efficient than conventional screens. The 13.3-inch OLED screen will have a 2560 x 1600-pixel resolution, and it will red
  
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• How Apple can take on Android from the inside

  05-01-2016 12:00
  
  It’s safe to say iOS will never have as wide of a reach as Android. While Apple is far and away the most successful handset maker and iOS 9 is slaughtering Marshmallow’s adoption rate (and Lollipop, for that matter), there are just too many Android phones out there for the iPhone to pose any kind of a threat to its dominance. The iPhone 6 may have attracted a healthy share of switchers, but the last time I checked, Android held something like 83 percent of the worldwide market share
  
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• Data convenience isn’t a crime, but treating it as one should be

  05-01-2016 12:00
  
  When a database of some 191 million voter records leaked just before New Year’s, the Internet freaked out over another massive data breach. Lost in the screaming was the fact that all of those millions of data points were already public information. The value to cyberthieves was solely a matter of convenience — a tidy pile of data all in one place. People, this is a problem. Speaking as someone who cares intensely about both data security and privacy, our tendency to react
  
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• Cloud adoption soars, but integration challenges remain

  05-01-2016 12:00
  
  The cloud has quickly become a mainstay in IT departments, with recent research from cloud solutions provider RightScale showing 93 percent of businesses using cloud technology in some form or another. But it's not all smooth sailing after the initial migration and integration - many businesses find that the second wave of cloud adoption is just as rough as the first.According to RightScale's 2015 State of the Cloud report, which surveyed 930 IT professionals about their current adoption and fut
  
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• A Batmobile, two drones and other sights from CES Day One

  05-01-2016 07:59
  
  A Batmobile, two drones and other sights from CES Day 1Image by Martyn WilliamsIt's time for the electronics industry to make its annual pilgrimage to the Nevada desert for the massive CES show. Thousands of great products, and a few questionable ones, will debut at the show. Here are a few picks from Monday.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Google tells court new Android versions with OpenJDK released last month

  05-01-2016 06:56
  
  Google has released on Dec. 24 new versions of its Android platform that are licensed for use under a free, open source license provided by Oracle as part of its OpenJDK project, according to its filing in a federal court in California.OpenJDK is an open source implementation of the Java Platform, Standard Edition. The court is looking into whether Google's use of Oracle's Java code in the Android mobile operating system can be seen as ‘fair use,’ which is a legal doctrine that permi
  
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• Nvidia to equip self-driving cars with water-cooled 'supercomputer'

  05-01-2016 05:15
  
  If Nvidia's new "supercomputer for cars" called Drive PX 2 works as promised, self-driving cars won't fall into a lot of trouble with the police.The water-cooled computer, introduced at CES on Monday, will go into a trunk and help self-driving cars better recognize signs, lanes and objects. The computer throws a lot of computational horsepower to process images based on which vehicles can analyze on-road situations and take action.For example, the Drive PX 2 can help cars slow down by recognizin
  
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• Lenovo's first action game coming this year

  05-01-2016 04:30
  
  Lenovo is stretching outside its comfort zone to try to please gamers by developing its first game ever, Game State, an action and role-playing game that will debut later this year.
  The 3D science-fiction game revolves around defending a tower. It is different from other games as its storyline and features are being crowdsourced, with gamers playing a role in defining gameplay, artwork and design.
  One wouldn't think of Lenovo as a game developer, like EA, Nintendo, Ubisoft or Telltale. But the
  
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