IT Executive news

• Qualcomm hopes a gradual approach to server market will pay dividends

  11-02-2016 23:55
  
  The ARM server market is a dangerous place to be: Right now there's virtually no money to be made. Some ARM server chip makers have quit or shut down, while others hold on to the hope that the market will some day be viable.Qualcomm, which was late entering the market for server chips based on the ARM architecture, has been patient. The company doesn't want to prematurely release server chips only to see them fail to catch on, said Derek Aberle, president of Qualcomm, during a speech at the comp
  
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• ENCRYPT Act co-sponsor learned tech ropes at Microsoft

  11-02-2016 23:29
  
  One of four congressional sponsors of the ENCRYPT Act of 2016, which would preempt state and local laws banning encryption on smartphones, cut her teeth in mobile communications for Microsoft.
  U.S. Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.) worked as vice president of mobile communications at Microsoft from 2004 to 2007. That was her second stint at Microsoft; her first was from 1989 to 1998 after receiving an MBA when she worked on Windows 95, email and embedded systems. In between, she helped start Drugsto
  
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• BrandPost: 5 Ways to Accelerate Your Digital Business Strategy

  11-02-2016 23:03
  
  As boundaries between the physical and virtual worlds continue to blur, every business today needs to be a digital business.  An effective digital business strategy leverages technology in all aspects of the business to create fundamentally new business models and end user experiences.  Becoming a digital business is not a one-time event but a continuous process of digitalization, transformation and re-transformation of the business processes as well as the enterprise applications use
  
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• Bedrijven pakken online personalisatie consument verkeerd aan

  11-02-2016 22:44
  Personalisatie kan de verkopen van diensten en producten voor consumenten opdrijven. Toch investeren bedrijven slechts matig in personalisatie-initiatieven waarvan consumenten zeggen dat het hun aankoopervaring verbetert. Terwijl pakweg zes op de tien bedrijven denken dat ze tot de voorhoede behoren, zouden ze... lees meer
  
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• VMware’s new management tools are hybrid, hybrid, hybrid

  11-02-2016 22:19
  
  VMware has been on a news blitz this week, announcing updates to many of its management products and one specific focus has been on enabling hybrid cloud computing.
  The company has a stronghold in its compute virtualization software based on vSphere, but as more enterprises use public cloud services, VMware is extending the support of its management tools to include off-premises resources. VMware hopes that any customer looking to use Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure or Google Cloud Platfor
  
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• Hertz cuts IT jobs as it shifts to IBM

  11-02-2016 22:06
  
  Hertz has warned around 230 IT workers that their jobs may be at risk as it expands its outsourcing work with IBM.
  The employees work at a Hertz technology center in Oklahoma City, Okla. The facility has the company's highest concentration of IT workers in the U.S. They were told this week.
  The outsourcing "will probably impact" other U.S. IT positions, said Bill Masterson, a Hertz spokesman.
  Asked if the total number of affected IT jobs will be larger, Masterson said: "We expect it to be large
  
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• Senate passes permanent ban on Internet access taxes

  11-02-2016 21:58
  The U.S. Senate has voted to permanently ban taxes on Internet access and other online services.The Permanent Internet Tax Freedom Act was included in a trade enforcement bill passed by senators in a 75-20 vote Thursday. The provision, passed by the House of Representatives last June, would permanently extend a 18-year moratorium on Internet-targeted taxes that expired in October. Congress had extended the moratorium several times since 1998, but supporters weren't able to pass a perma
  
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• Qualcomm's new LTE modem hits a gigabit and touches the future of mobile

  11-02-2016 21:22
  
  Qualcomm's next LTE modem can reach gigabit speeds, but that might not be the most important thing about it.The Snapdragon X16 LTE Modem, coming to devices in the second half of this year, is also the company's first chip for both major types of unlicensed LTE, the technology for putting cellular signals on frequencies like those used by Wi-Fi. And it has features to help phones take advantage of more frequency bands, as mobile operators combine them for higher performance over the coming years.
  
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• It's official: Older versions of IE are now at risk

  11-02-2016 21:07
  
  Microsoft this week made good on a 2014 promise and withheld security updates from users of older versions of the company's Internet Explorer (IE) browser.
  All Windows users still running IE7 or IE8, and those running IE9 on any other edition of Windows but Vista, as well as those using IE10 on anything but Windows Server 2012, did not receive the patches Microsoft distributed Tuesday to systems equipped with the newer IE11 or Edge browsers.
  As is its practice, Microsoft issued a single, cumula
  
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• Google execs defend tax deal to UK legislators

  11-02-2016 20:37
  
  Google executives defended the company's recent U.K. tax settlement before a hostile parliamentary committee on Thursday.Last month, Google announced that it had agreed what some have described as a "sweetheart" deal with Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs [HMRC], the U.K.'s tax authority, following an audit of its tax affairs dating back to 2005.The deal went down badly with Britons in the process of filing their taxes, and prompted Meg Hillier, chairwoman of Parliament's Public Accounts Committ
  
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• Project Kratos: AWS Lambda functionality, without Amazon lock-in

  11-02-2016 19:25
  
  Amazon AWS Lambda's premise is audacious: event-driven applications made of little more than pure functions in Python, Java, or Node.js.
  Iron.io, creator of a task-queuing platform that runs across multiple clouds, is preparing a similar platform that runs on any cloud or local architecture and uses Docker containers as the basic unit of the service.[ Download InfoWorld's special report: "Extending the reach of enterprise developers." | Keep up with hot topics in programming with InfoWorld's Ap
  
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• Obama wants more cybersecurity funding and a federal CISO

  11-02-2016 19:01
  
  Cybersecurity will be one of the Obama administration's chief technology priorities as it makes its case for an IT budget estimated at $89.9 billion for fiscal year 2017, a plan that officials say aims to boost hiring of security experts and better harmonize the efforts to protect digital systems across the federal government.Additionally, the White House issued an executive order establishing a commission to develop long-term recommendations on improving cybersecurity in the government and priv
  
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• Microsoft expands Windows 10 release notes, but experts want more, much more

  11-02-2016 18:29
  
  Microsoft yesterday touted new release notes, and a listing of past updates, for Windows 10, saying that it is providing the additional information customers had demanded.
  Experts agreed that the change is a good start, but want more than Microsoft has offered. "It's a step in the right direction," said Chris Goettl, program product manager for patch management vendor Shavlik. "It's great to see Microsoft react at all. But I don't think it's enough for what people were asking for."
  Microsoft sa
  
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• Now your phone can scan documents directly to the cloud with Box Capture

  11-02-2016 18:00
  
  Last fall, Box debuted its Capture app to let iPhone users upload photos directly to the cloud, and on Thursday the company added the most frequently requested feature ever since: document scanning.
  Previously, Box users had to manually scan and email attached documents to share them with other people. Now, users of Box Capture can scan a document with their iPhone's camera and then share and collaborate on it just as they would with any other document on Box.
  Users begin by selecting "scan mod
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Delete pictures or videos from the iOS Messages app

  11-02-2016 17:55
  Messages is one of my most used iOS apps, and I get a fair amount of photos and videos sent to me by friends and family. While I like to save the actual text messages I get, I don't always want to keep the photos and videos that often come with them.Thankfully, it's very easy to delete individual or multiple photos and videos, and I'll show you how to do it in this how-to.How to delete individual photos and videos in the iOS Messages appHere's how you can quickly delete individual photos and vid
  
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• This simple iOS feature would make the iPhone better

  11-02-2016 17:19
  
  No matter how hard I try, I simply cannot get used to the iPhone's lack of a home-screen specific orientation lock. The iOS "Portrait Orientation Lock" feature lets you completely lock your device orientation, so it doesn't rotate at all when you hold it horizontally (as detailed in this Macworld.com article, which reminded me of this particular pet peeve).However, once you enable the setting you have to manually turn it off if you want to use an app in landscape mode — unless that app wor
  
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• Twitter's timeline changes do little to solve core challenges

  11-02-2016 16:13
  
  Twitter is running out of time to turn its floundering business around. The company had a terrible quarter to close out 2015, and no reason exists to think its situation will change anytime soon. It lost 2 million monthly active users (MAU), including 1 million MAU in the United States, during the fourth quarter of 2015. And if the downward spiral continues, Twitter could celebrate its 10th birthday next month with fewer users than it had a year before. This notable loss of users comes at a
  
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• Schneier: terrorists will switch to more secure alternatives to avoid encryption backdoors

  11-02-2016 15:29
  
  A study shows that if the U.S. mandates backdoors to decrypt secret messages in order to help law enforcement, there would still be hundreds of alternative encryption products made outside the reach of U.S. law that terrorists and criminals could get their hands on.
  “Smart criminals and terrorists will easily be able to switch to more secure alternatives,” is the conclusion drawn by the study “A Worldwide Survey of Encryption Products”. The authors were Internet security
  
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• Indegy finds out when industrial controls go bad (think Stuxnet)

  11-02-2016 15:02
  
  Israeli startup Indegy monitors devices on industrial control networks to detect when their configurations have changed as a way to know when the machines are compromised, an attack vector exploited by the Stuxnet worm that took down Iranian nuclear centrifuges.
  The company makes an appliance that attaches to span ports on the switches that industrial control devices are connected to. It monitors the control layers of the devices and traffic they send over the network in order to discover chang
  
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• Study finds that anti-crypto laws won't work on an international stage

  11-02-2016 15:00
  
  In response to attempts to put restrictions on encryption technology, a new report surveys 546 encryption products in 54 countries outside the United States, out of 865 hardware and software products total.
  The report demonstrates that encryption technology is very international in nature and that it is impossible for local regulations to have any effect on it, said Bruce Schneier, a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University,
  "The cat is out of the bag," he sai
  
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• Critical VPN key exchange flaw exposes Cisco security appliances to remote hacking

  11-02-2016 14:25
  
  Cisco Systems patched a critical vulnerability that could allow remote attackers to take over Cisco Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA) firewalls configured as virtual private network servers by simply sending malformed network packets to them.
  For devices that are designed to protect private networks from Internet attacks, this is as bad as it gets. That's why Cisco rated the vulnerability with the maximum score of 10 in the Common Vulnerability Scoring System.
  The flaw is located in the Cisco A
  
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• Voter targeting becomes voter surveillance

  11-02-2016 14:20
  
  Political candidates have always done everything in their power to target voters. But in the current election cycle, with primary election season officially under way, technology is giving them a lot more power than before.
  It is at the point where privacy advocates are referring to it as “voter surveillance.”
  Bruce Schneier, author, blogger and CTO of Resilient Systems, wrote in his recent book “Data and Goliath” that voter surveillance data can cause “unique
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: The new enterprise analytics model

  11-02-2016 14:17
  
  I started designing and working in Centers of Excellence (COEs) over a decade ago. At that time they represented the evolution of the everyone-does-everything model of organizational design, aiming directly at duplicate work efforts, vague accountability and turf wars.I was particularly focused on the Analytics Center of Excellence, an organizational construct larger companies were forming to centralize key reporting, predictive and data skills. It was a shared service model relying on a&nb
  
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• 4 tips to move from Office 365 to Google for Work (or vice versa)

  11-02-2016 14:00
  
  Many CIOs and IT professionals have been conditioned to deliberate and wade through all potential negative consequences before making any sort of technology-related decision. This process often results in slow IT adoption, but thankfully the cloud is rapidly changing the dynamic. Cloud-based productivity suites such as Google for Work and Office 365 let technology leaders move faster, modernize their workforces and shift their efforts away from maintenance to focus on other IT projects. IT
  
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• How UCaaS will help enterprise workers collaborate

  11-02-2016 13:54
  
  Unified communications (UC) can play a major role in reducing enterprise conferencing, mobile and voice calling expenses, while improving productivity, efficiency and collaboration. But while audio and email are standard in today's workplace, many organizations are just scratching the surface of what can be done with UC.
  In a recent survey of 250 IT managers, unified communications solution provider West Unified Communications found that 68 percent of respondents use UC solutions beyond the typi
  
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• Qualcomm's new chips target low-cost smartphones with premium features

  11-02-2016 13:30
  
  Low-cost smartphones could be packed with premium features thanks to Qualcomm's new Snapdragon 425, 435 and 625 mobile chips.
  Users of handsets in the $99 to $399 price range will be able to get PC-class graphics, superfast LTE and high-resolution cameras in handsets as Qualcomm has moved advanced features from its high-end chips into the new chips.
  Smartphones with the new chips will be available in the second quarter, according to the company. Qualcomm chips power Android and Windows handsets
  
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• Qualcomm bringing LTE connectivity to wearables with new Wear platform

  11-02-2016 13:30
  
  Wearables today are overwhelmingly tethered to smartwatches. Qualcomm wants to change that by bringing LTE connectivity to wearables with its new Snapdragon Wear platform.
  With the Wear platform, Qualcomm wants to drive the development of sleek wearables like smartwatches, smartbands and smartglasses that offer long battery life. With Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and LTE, Qualcomm is enabling more ways for wearables to connect and transfer data over the Internet, other than using the smartphone as an inter
  
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• How to conquer the SQL Server 2005 migration challenge

  11-02-2016 12:59
  
  If you still have SQL Server 2005 anywhere in your firm, you now have four months to get a migration program going before Microsoft pulls the plug on support for the aging database. April 12 will be the last day any patches or fixes will be issued. The product will still work, it just won't be fixed if a new flaw or exploit is found. As we discussed when we outlined the challenges of migration, it's believed most enterprises have long since moved off the old database in favor of something n
  
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• Open source in the enterprise brings opportunities and challenges

  11-02-2016 12:53
  
  I’ve long been a believer in open source for the enterprise (indeed, my first book was called Succeeding with Open Source and was targeted at an enterprise audience). When I first encountered open source and grasped its characteristics, I was struck by an epiphany: once this was available, who was going to stick with the old way of doing things?And enterprises gradually made the shift that I expected – swapping out Sun Unix for some flavor of Linux, building new applications on MySQL
  
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• Which security products do enterprises expect too much from?

  11-02-2016 12:45
  
  Enterprises rely on some security products too much while counting on others too little. One product category that companies place too much faith in is encryption, which has vulnerabilities. The OpenSSL web encryption technology’s infamous Heartbleed vulnerability is one example.
  Enterprises should assess their information security stance in light of the vulnerabilities that have actually given attackers a foothold and lead to costly breaches, whether for their organization or for their p
  
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• House bill would prevent patchwork of state laws banning smartphone encryption

  11-02-2016 12:45
  
  Four bipartisan members of Congress introduced legislationthis week to preempt a potential patchwork of state and local government laws banning encryption on smartphones.
  The measure, called the ENCRYPT (Ensuring National Constitutional Rights for Your Private Telecommunications) Act of 2016,is intended to ensure a uniform national policy for encryption technology, according to a statement from the lawmakers.
  U.S. Rep. Ted W. Lieu (D-Calif.), joined Reps. Blake Farenthold (R-Texas), (Suzan DelB
  
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• Mobile apps get the crowdsourcing treatment

  11-02-2016 12:30
  
  When developing mobile enterprise applications, there are two basic options: Plan the process in advance in exquisite detail or listen to user feedback and iterate as you go. The latter approach, by all reports, can speed things up dramatically. But don't attempt it without a strong social media framework in place, experts say.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Free tax filing: How to e-file your 2015 tax returns for free

  11-02-2016 12:30
  
  By now, you’ve probably seen the TV ads trumpeting free online tax prep. It’s natural you’d be intrigued. After all, we fork over enough of our hard-earned income in this yearly ritual, it would be nice to save some shekels on e-filing. While there are a number of legitimate offers for free online tax prep and filing, you want to be aware of all the fine print that might turn a freebie into a paid service. Read on for tips on where to find the bargains—and how to avoid t
  
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• 8 more cool tools for devops success

  11-02-2016 12:00
  
  8 more cool tools for devops successImage by iStockphotoDevops has been gaining steam at organizations of all stripes thanks to its ability to bridge the gap between software development and operations -- and to smooth rifts between developers and systems administrators. These two groups have historically butted heads over software development, testing, and deploying the apps into production, but devops aims to save the day.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Facebook withdraws Free Basics from India after regulatory debacle

  11-02-2016 08:48
  
  Facebook has withdrawn Free Basics from India, days after the country's telecommunications regulator prohibited the differential pricing of data depending on the content or application that is being accessed.
  "Free Basics is no longer available to people in India," a Facebook spokesman wrote Thursday in an email.
  The Free Basics service, earlier known as Internet.org, was launched in India in February last year to provide free Internet access to India's poor. The free access was, however,
  
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• Stock-market jitters have rocked network spending, Cisco says

  11-02-2016 02:52
  
  The world's financial markets got off to such a rough start this year that some enterprises froze plans to upgrade their campus networks.
  After oil prices and stock markets around the globe plunged during the first trading days of the year, there was a slowdown in spending that hurt Cisco Systems results and colored its forecast for the current quarter, CEO Chuck Robbins said Wednesday.
  "You see customers say, 'I want to just wait, see what's going on,'" Robbins said on a conference call about
  
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• Microsoft adds conservative release 'ring' to Windows 10 beta program

  11-02-2016 02:28
  
  Microsoft today announced it is adding another update track -- or in its vocabulary, a new "ring" -- to its Windows 10 preview program for those who want to be on the cutting edge, but just by a sliver.
  "The Release Preview ring will focus on Insiders that want to stay on the Current Branch (currently builds based off of 10586), but continue to receive early access to updates, application updates, and driver updates," said Gabriel Aul, engineering general manager for Microsoft's operating syste
  
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• 6 things you should know about Twitter's timeline change

  11-02-2016 02:25
  
  OK, all you tweeters. You can relax now.
  After several days of Twitter users in an uproar over an online report that said the social network was about to change the way its users see their timeline, Twitter laid out its plans.
  Twitter will start using an algorithm that reorders how users see the tweets in their timeline. 
  Here's what you need to know about Twitter's announcement.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• SCO vs. IBM legal battle over Linux may – finally – be finished

  11-02-2016 02:24
  
  A breach-of-contract and copyright lawsuit filed nearly 13 years ago by a successor company to business Linux vendor Caldera International against IBM may be drawing to a close at last, after a U.S. District Court judge issued an order in favor of the latter company earlier this week.
  Judge David Nuffer said that all of SCO’s claims against IBM are dismissed, and that briefs for a final legal certification of the judgment would be due Feb. 26, with responses, if necessary, on March 11. Nu
  
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• SD-WAN: What it is and why you’ll use it one day

  11-02-2016 00:18
  
  Managing the Wide Area Network (WAN) for Redmond Inc., a supplier of industrial and commercial products – from salt that’s used to protect winter roadways to organic dairy products and health items – is an easier job today for the company’s technical project manager Aaron Gabrielson than it was a year ago.
  Redmond manages a phone system, point of sale and fax centrally out of headquarters in Heber City, Utah, which means each of Redmond’s 10 branch sites across the
  
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• 8 iPhone cases that make for a memorable Valentine's Day gift

  11-02-2016 00:13
  Nothing says "I love you" like finding the perfect iPhone case Does your loved one love his or her newest iPhone? Here are some top-notch cases that make for a Valentine’s Day gift he or she will remember but are still more affordable than an engagement ring.For exotic (and ethical) leather loversA leather case is always a good choice, but for a special occassion like Valentine’s Day, why not go a little more exotic? Ullu’s alligator leather SnapOn case ($449) for iPh
  
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• Android root malware widespread in third-party app stores

  11-02-2016 00:07
  
  Four third-party app stores for Android have apps with a malicious component that seeks root access to devices, according to Trend Micro.
  The security company found 1,163 Android application packages containing the malware, which it calls ANDROIDOS_ LIBSKIN.A, wrote Jordan Pan, a mobile threats analyst with Trend. The malware obtains root access to the phone, the highest level of access and privilege.
  The apps containing the component were downloaded across 169 countries between Jan. 29 an
  
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