IT Executive news

• FBI Director entreats tech firms to release encrypted data used in crimes and terror

  09-02-2016 23:32
  
  FBI Director James Comey again implored tech companies on Tuesday to comply with court orders to reveal encrypted communications that law enforcement considers vital to solving heinous crimes and stopping terrorism.
  "We'd like a world where people are able to comply with court orders," Comey said in testimony before the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee. "It's not about us trying to get a back door, a term that confuses me, frankly. I don't want a door. I don't want a window. I don't want a sl
  
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• Carriers celebrate as Telecommunications Act of 1996 turns 20

  09-02-2016 22:35
  
  The winners in a broadband industry heavily shaped by the Telecommunications Act of 1996 celebrated publicly this week, as February 8 marked the 20-year anniversary of the law taking effect.
  The Act – a sweeping rewrite of America’s 60+ year old laws governing phone service, media ownership, and more – substantially deregulated the telecom and media industries, causing large-scale mergers and a much more centralized landscape.
  + ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Cisco boosts, broadens Ca
  
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• Gartner: Vendors hype cloud revenue to impress Wall Street

  09-02-2016 21:59
  
  Vendors in the cloud computing market hype up the revenues they earn from this emerging technology, making it difficult for customers to truly judge the strength of a vendor’s financial health and difficult to make comparisons between vendors, a report from Gartner finds.
  Analysts David Mitchell Smith and Ed Anderson say opaque reporting by vendors means customers should evaluate providers not based on earnings but on which offering best matches their use case.
  “Assessing vendor clo
  
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• Law firm searches for plaintiffs for class action suit against Apple over 'Error 53'

  09-02-2016 21:49
  
  A Seattle law firm considering a class action suit against Apple wants iPhone users whose devices have been crippled by "Error 53" to contact their office.
  The firm -- Pfau, Cochran, Vertetis, Amala (PCVA) -- said on its website that it is "investigating a potential class action lawsuit against Apple," and asked owners of iPhone 6, 6 Plus and their successors to fill out a form "if you have encountered 'Error 53.'"
  Attorneys planning on a class action lawsuit often publicize such pleas to locat
  
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• Samsung hopes Raspberry Pi can spread Tizen OS adoption

  09-02-2016 21:22
  
  Samsung sees the popular Raspberry Pi board as a way for a potentially large number of enthusiasts to develop products with Tizen OS.For that purpose, the company initiated a port of Tizen 3.0 OS to Raspberry Pi. It is now possible to create custom versions of the latest Tizen OS for the development board through tools provided by Linux-based collaboration projects.Tizen is being used in mobile devices, wearables, TVs and other products. Samsung hopes users will create Tizen-based IoT devices th
  
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• How Freddie Mac brought shadow business apps into the light

  09-02-2016 21:18
  
  LinkedIn Rob Lux, CIO of Freddie MacYour internal business partners decide the IT department is too slow. So they retreat to the shadows, hire their own development shops, and commission new applications. You are happily oblivious to this covert behavior until something goes wrong. Then it's your job to step in and scale, secure or save the applications. If only you had been involved from the start …To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Twitter gets an assist in taking on trolls and bullies

  09-02-2016 20:30
  
  Twitter is reaching out for help to curb abuse and harassment on its social network.
  The company is forming what it's dubbed the Twitter Trust & Safety Council, a group of safety advocates, academics and community groups focused on maintaining open dialogue on Twitter while preventing bullying and abuse.
  Taking on harrassment and bullying has been a challenge for Twitter.
  Just a year ago, Dick Costolo, who was CEO of Twitter at the time, said the company was struggling to take on harassing
  
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• 5G dreams in Barcelona: Cars, robots and VR games

  09-02-2016 20:27
  
  Robots, cars and virtual-reality headsets will turn heads at Mobile World Congress later this month, but the real star of these shows will be the still-nascent 5G standard.Practically every mobile vendor and service provider will have demonstrations -- or at least visions -- of what they think the next generation of mobile will be able to do. Showing off hoped-for features this year is part of the long run-up to the commercial launch of 5G in 2020, with a few people getting pre-standard forms of
  
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• Intel's Itanium to live an as HPE commits to new servers with the chip

  09-02-2016 20:22
  
  Intel's Itanium has an uncertain future, but Hewlett Packard Enterprise is committed to an upcoming chip, code-named Kittson, that is the next step in the venerable chip line. This could be good news for users who count on running apps on the chip family for some time to come.HPE will offer Kittson in new Integrity and Superdome servers, said Jeff Kyle, director of product management for enterprise servers at HPE.HPE didn't provide a specific release date for the servers. Itanium servers are on
  
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• Intel's Itanium to live on as HPE commits to new servers with the chip

  09-02-2016 20:21
  
  Intel's Itanium has an uncertain future, but Hewlett Packard Enterprise is committed to an upcoming chip, code-named Kittson, that is the next step in the venerable chip line. This could be good news for users who count on running apps on the chip family for some time to come.
  HPE will offer Kittson in new Integrity and Superdome servers, said Jeff Kyle, director of product management for enterprise servers at HPE.
  HPE didn't provide a specific release date for the servers. Itanium servers are
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Nvidia's Shield tablet K1: The best Android tablet you can get under $200

  09-02-2016 20:05
  
  I was recently in the market for a tablet for my young son. Much as it pains me to admit it, I didn't even consider Nvidia’s Shield tablet K1. I thought it was just another 8” Android tablet.
  Boy, I was wrong.The hardwareThe Shield tablet K1 has some impressive hardware under the hood. It is powered by a 2.2 GHz ARM Cortex A15 CPU. The graphics of the tablet are driven by Nvidia’s Tegra K1 192 core Kepler GPU. And all of this is supported by 2GB of RAM.
  The tablet comes with m
  
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• 7 rumored Apple products we can expect to see in 2016

  09-02-2016 20:03
  
  Tales from the rumor millApple’s share price may be at shockingly low levels these days, but the company is hardly on the decline. This past holiday quarter, for example, Apple posted the most profitable quarter in corporate history. And, not content to sit on its laurels, Apple is gearing up for an extremely busy 2016. Based on the plethora of Apple rumors out there, here’s a list of the products we can expect Apple to introduce this year.To read this article in full or to leave a c
  
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• How to convince the CFO of the budgetary security need

  09-02-2016 19:36
  
  It had been custom for organizations to think of cybersecurity in terms of an information technology (IT) problem best left to IT people to address and fix. However, as more prolific breaches were publicized exposing a variety of sensitive personal, financial, and intellectual property-related data, it became clear that this was a rather myopic view in today’s increasingly interconnected world.
  Also on CIO.com:Trends in CIO hiring: The road to the C-suite passes through operations
  IDC pred
  
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• VMware gives enterprises a BYOD boost with three new tools

  09-02-2016 19:27
  
  Enterprise mobility is often a tug-of-war between freedom-seeking employees and security-minded IT departments, but VMware aims to make those differences go away. The virtualization giant on Tuesday rolled out a brand-new platform along with two key updates it says will help keep everyone happy.Developed in part with the "bring your own device" trend in mind, Workspace One gives companies a single tool for delivering digital workspaces that aggregate all devices, applications and services while
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: How to assess soft skills in an IT candidate

  09-02-2016 19:27
  
  Unemployment in the IT sector remains very low. The demand for highly skilled technology professionals is strong, but as technology is increasingly integrated into the development of overall business strategy, so does the list of what employers are looking for in their team members. The desire for team members who have the soft skills to complement their technical skill has grown.Technology’s modernized role has translated to a rise in demand for IT professionals who can communicate effect
  
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• BlackBerry layoffs could take it a step closer to killing device biz

  09-02-2016 18:50
  
  On Friday, BlackBerry said it had cut 200 more jobs at its headquarters in Waterloo, Ontario, and in a satellite office in Sunrise, Fla. The company wouldn't validate other reports that the employees who lost their jobs worked within the company's handset manufacturing division, but if those rumors are accurate the move could represent another step from BlackBerry toward killing off its smartphone business to focus on the EMM side of things, where it's been investing heavily.BlackBerry continues
  
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• Microsoft skills: What's hot and what's not?

  09-02-2016 18:14
  
  It's a good time to be in IT. Job seekers have the advantage as employers struggle to hire tech talent in key areas such as cloud computing, mobility, security and data analytics. Companies are raising salaries and piling on the perks -- but not for every IT role.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Google adds warning to unencrypted emails

  09-02-2016 18:01
  Google has a pair of new security features that will warn users in cases when they should be cautious about revealing sensitive information over email.
  Users will be shown a small red unlocked padlock icon in the upper right-hand corner of a message to let them know that someone they're sending messages to or receiving email from doesn't support TLS encryption that would keep information from prying eyes in transit. 
  Odds are, the overwhelming majority of email that users see on a regular
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Making a meal out of Project Management

  09-02-2016 17:34
  
  Sometimes, as a Project Manager, you can feel that you are in the loneliest of places, up late at night sweating over a project that is running late, working long weekends when everyone else is at the game. You can feel like you are the only person on the planet facing your challenges.Although the problems you are trying to solve may be unique to your project, take small solace from the fact that somewhere else a PM is burning the midnight oil over their own.I’ve learned a lot through my w
  
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• Vier kwaliteiten voor transformatief leiderschap

  09-02-2016 16:56
  De rol die het bedrijfsleven speelt in de samenleving, en de verwachtingen over de rol die het zou moeten spelen, zijn de afgelopen jaren behoorlijk veranderd en daarmee ook de verwachtingen over CEO's. In opdracht van executive recruitment bureau Heidrick & Struggles ondervroeg The Saïd Business School... lees meer
  
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• Instagram finally lets you do the switcheroo between accounts

  09-02-2016 16:35
  Social media managers, and anyone else who juggles more than one Instagram account, are celebrating the small pleasure this week of now being able to switch between accounts without logging out first.
  Instagram this week announced account switching is now available, enabling the mobile photo sharing app to catch up to so many other social apps on this front.
  Those celebrating the news on social media frequently are using the word "finally" and confessing their inability to remember different pa
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: 3 ways to improve success with 'Big Bet' initiatives

  09-02-2016 16:26
  
  Every year, most major companies will reinvest a significant share of their earnings in building capabilities necessary for future success.  Often these investments take the shape of large, ‘Big Bet’ projects, which require millions of dollars, many people and multiple years to complete.  Too often, Big Bet projects begin with optimism, but end in disappointment or failure.  Recently for instance, Google’s parent company, Alphabet, reported that it had lost $3.6
  
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• Java-based Trojan was used to attack over 400,000 systems

  09-02-2016 15:50
  A cross-platform remote access Trojan that's being openly sold as a service to all types of attackers, from opportunistic cybercriminals to cyberespionage groups, has been used to attack more than 400,000 systems over the past three years.The RAT (Remote Access Tool/Trojan), which depending on the variant is known as Adwind, AlienSpy, Frutas, Unrecom, Sockrat, jRat or JSocket, is evidence of how successful the malware-as-a-service model can be for malware creators.Adwind is written in
  
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• HPE servers get new names to help users figure out what they can be used for

  09-02-2016 15:00
  
  If you're looking into buying servers from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, don't let a new naming convention throw you off.HPE's new Integrity MC990 X is the first in a line of many servers that will conform to a new naming convention to indicate the sort of workloads they tackle. The "MC" stands for "mission critical," and that moniker will make its way into more mid-range and high-end servers over time.The eight-socket server is a scale-up rack system crammed with lots of processors and memory to
  
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• Walgreens CIO starts with the customer and works backward

  09-02-2016 14:55
  
  Many CIOs talk enthusiastically about aligning IT with the business strategy, a challenge that shifts with market demands and the CEO's priorities. The objective, however, is much clearer for Walgreens Boots Alliance CIO Abhi Dhar, who in December added digital product management and innovation to his responsibilities.Dhar’s approach is to start the customer and work backwards. Having produced a mobile app used by 1 million consumers daily, he’s now testing Hadoop data processing sof
  
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• Millennials in emerging markets express career optimism

  09-02-2016 14:02
  
  It's accepted wisdom that millennials see the job market differently than previous generations. However, millennials themselves have different perspectives based on their nationality. Infosys polled 1,000 millennials -- ages 16 to 25 -- per country in Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, India, South Africa, the U.K. and the U.S.The consensus among this large group of young people is that while they understand technology will play a huge role in their careers, there is a large disparity be
  
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• Amazon Web Services goes gunning for gamers with free FPS framework

  09-02-2016 13:39
  
  Amazon Web Services is handing PC and console game developers new tools to encourage them to use its cloud services for their back-end server infrastructure.It also hopes the game engine, Lumberyard, will boost use of the video streaming service Twitch, which it bought for almost US$1 billion in 2014.Lumberyard is a cross-platform 3D game engine that developers can modify for use in their projects, with full access to the source code, for free.There are some hidden bonuses in Lumberyard. Like Cr
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: How to learn from failed project plans, and not repeat them

  09-02-2016 13:35
  
  Recent news states that the DeLorean sports car – that unique vehicle that stopped production in 1982, is set to re-emerge on the general public in 2017 with 5,000 new units. The DeLorean caught everyone's attention in 1985 as the time-traveling vehicle for Marty and Doc in the “Back to the Future” movie trilogy.Gone will be the extremely underpowered original 160hp V6 engine in favor of a more practical – for a sports car – 350-400 hp V6 engine.  Other than th
  
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• How to use Windows 10 backup and recovery features

  09-02-2016 13:34
  
  Although it sometimes takes a little digging to find them, Windows 10 still includes useful backup and restore capabilities. So while there are many good third-party backup utilities that work with Windows 10, some free and some fee-based, you don’t necessarily need to investigate or turn to such options. While many buyers of such solutions have voted with their checkbooks (or endorsed with their installs, in the case of free options), they’ve mostly done so because they want the add
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Will Apple port iMessage to Android?

  09-02-2016 13:10
  The release of Apple Music to Android may have been a harbinger of much greater things to come. Rumors are flying all over the place now that Apple may bring its encrypted iMessage software to the Android platform.Zack Whittaker reports for ZDNet:
  Apple could soon move more of its apps to Android, which could put encrypted messaging into the hands of the wider mainstream public. Chief executive Tim Cook reportedly told his staff at a company-wide event that Apple may soon bring other apps and se
  
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• Current p2p trends threatening enterprise security

  09-02-2016 12:44
  
  Security threats from peer to peer (p2p) communication are nothing new, but they are becoming more sophisticated. From ransomware and botnets, these threats are a global threat that continue to evolve in more sophisticated ways. If security teams aren’t looking for them, they may go undetected, which could be costly for the enterprise.
  The TrendLabs Security Intelligence blog has been talking about ransomware and CryptoLocker threats for the better part of this and the last decade. In his
  
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• The whiteboards of tomorrow: 3 interactive displays

  09-02-2016 12:30
  
  A company meeting is more than just one person talking to a group. It can also include PowerPoint presentations, videos and, very often, a whiteboard on which attendees can map out lists and create charts and notes.Sharp PN-C703B Aquos BoardTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Nationale supercomputer Cartesius krijgt flinke upgrade

  09-02-2016 12:03
  Dienstverlener voor de Nederlandse universitaire wereld SURFsara gaat dit jaar de capaciteit van de nationale supercomputer Cartesius uitbreiden. Het contract daarvoor is in december getekend met Atos, leverancier van Bull, het merk voor technologische producten en software van de dienstverlener.De Bull supercomputer... lees meer
  
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• Review: Amazon eases developers into IoT

  09-02-2016 12:00
  
  Companies like GE may think of the Internet of things in terms of aircraft engines, smart manufacturing, and hospital hygiene systems, but for many of us, the IoT “thing” is a much more prosaic device -- like a Raspberry Pi or an Arduino with off-the-shelf sensors attached. If you want to build cloud applications that talk to these sorts of devices, Amazon Web Services has a lot to offer, not only in terms of SDKs and back-end services, but also starter kits with step by step instru
  
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• How CPUs work: A closer look at exterior processor design

  09-02-2016 12:00
  What's outside counts, tooImage by Thomas RyanProcessors are at the heart of your computer. CPUs process millions of instructions every second so you can watch Netflix and playFallout 4. CPUs throttle their clockspeeds to save power, and boost them to help you open a new tab in Chrome. But have you had a chance to take a good look at one—a really good look?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Sandvik laat IT services integreren door Mindtree

  09-02-2016 11:17
  Sandvik, een ingenieursgroep gespecialiseerd in metaalbewerking, materialentechnologie, mijnbouw en de bouw, heeft een overeenkomst getekend met Mindtree voor intgratie van zijn IT services.De IT-dienstverlener gaat een geografische hub ontwerpen, opzetten en beheren om Sandvik’s wereldwijde operaties te... lees meer
  
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• U.S. government wants to sharply increase spending on cybersecurity

  09-02-2016 11:00
  
  President Barack Obama on Tuesday will propose a sharp increase in cybersecurity spending for next year's budget, to improve outdated government software and promote better online security for consumers.
  The plan calls for a $3.1 billion fund to replace outdated IT infrastructure; a new position of federal chief information security officer; a commission to study cybersecurity problems, and a program to recruit cybersecurity experts into government roles.
  The U.S has been working since 2009 to
  
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• Facebook faces restrictions in France on data transfer to US, tracking of users

  09-02-2016 07:26
  
  Peter Sayer Isabelle Falque-Pierrotin, chairwoman of the CNIL, at a press conference in Brussels on Feb. 3, 2016.The French data protection authority has ordered Facebook to stop some transfers of personal data of its users to the U.S. and to change the way it handles the data of users and non-users visiting its website.The order by the Commission Nationale de l’Informatique et des Libertés (CNIL), released late Monday, invokes an order in October last year by the Court of Justice o
  
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• Cisco boosts, broadens Catalyst switches

  09-02-2016 06:01
  
  Cisco this week unveiled key enhancements to its enterprise switches, including a 6Tbps supervisor engine expected for some time.
  The extensions to Cisco’s Catalyst 6800, 4500-E and 3650 lines are intended to address a range of requirements spanning campus backbones, wiring closets, and small office and retail locations. They are designed to boost performance for business applications, support Cisco’s most recent features and accommodate space constrained environments.To read this a
  
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• Microsoft's Azure Stack beta gets new services and DevOps tools

  09-02-2016 01:42
  
  People testing out the public beta of Microsoft's Azure Stack private cloud system have some new platform services and DevOps tools to play with less than two weeks after it initially launched. 
  Starting Monday, users can download a beta version of the Web Apps feature for Azure App Service that runs on Azure Stack and makes it easier for people to build websites on top of it. Users can also install new beta tools for running MySQL and SQL Server workloads on Azure Stack. The system alread
  
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• Firewatch review: Lots of smoke, but no spark

  09-02-2016 01:30
  
  It's 1989. Summer. Wyoming. Channeling your inner Kerouac, you've volunteered to spend the next few months in a small lookout tower in Shoshone National Park, watching for signs of wildfires. You've got your books. You've got your typewriter. You're alone with your thoughts.
  Or, at least, you would be alone were it not for Delilah—your supervisor, holed up in her own lookout tower a few miles north. Nothing more than a voice on a walkie-talkie, to you.Dharma bumsFirewatch is a first-perso
  
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• Sen. Blumenthal demands lifting of IT 'gag' order

  09-02-2016 01:28
  
  U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) is asking the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate the layoff and replacement of IT workers at a state energy utility.
  Approximately 200 IT workers at Northeast Utilities (now called Eversource Energy) lost their jobs in 2014. It happened after the firm brought in two India-based IT services firms. Some of the IT workers reported training foreign replacements. The IT firms, Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services, are major users of H-1B visa workers.
  T
  
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• 9 technologies that could cut demand for lawyers, lower legal fees

  09-02-2016 01:24
  
  Lawyers are embracing technology that makes them more efficient and less trapped in 100-hour work weeks but that also reduces the need for them in certain types of cases or turns their counsel into a commodity.
  These technologies and services include a Web platform that searches patents more quickly than lawyers can, an app to find flaws in contracts, low-cost access to ask legal questions and an arbitration network to keep from having to hire legal representation to go to small-claims court.
  A
  
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• It's official: Intel shuts down the cheap overclocking party by closing Skylake loophole

  09-02-2016 01:05
  The cheap overclocking party is over. An upcoming microcode update from Intel will close the door on a loophole that let users goose Skylake CPUs that weren't meant to be overclocked. 
  The company confirmed to PCWorld on Monday that an update would “align” the CPUs in question.
  ”Intel regularly issues updates for our processors which our partners voluntarily incorporate into their BIOS,” an Intel spokesman said. “The latest update provided to partners includes
  
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• Valentine's Day Gift Idea: Amazon Has Discounted Devices Through Feb 13

  09-02-2016 00:37
  
  The definition of "last minute shopping" has changed. Thanks to services like Amazon Prime, you can order a gift with as little as 2 days notice with no financial or marital consequence whatsoever. (wink wink: 30-day Prime trial located here)
  Amazon has discounted several devices and device bundles through February 13th, hoping to create an attractive option for all of you last-minute shopping fans.
  [If you're new to e-readers, take a minute to read: How to Choose the Right Amazon e-reader]To r
  
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• The 10 best tech ads from Super Bowl 50

  09-02-2016 00:30
  It's post-Super Bowl Monday and millions of you are probably reading this from home today recovering from Sunday night's festivities. We can't help you with that pounding headache or that regret over siding with Bing and betting on the Panthers–seriously, what were you thinking? But we can give you some entertainment with the best tech-themed ads from the Super Bowl.
  While you were reaching for one of the 1.3 billion chicken wings or a slice of the 4 million pizzas eaten on Super Bow
  
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