IT Executive news

• IDG Contributor Network: Ubuntu on mobile: How Shuttleworth & team are forging ahead

  17-02-2016 22:32
  
  There hasn't been a lot of good news for Linux on Mobile, as of late. In November 2015, Jolla, experiencedfinancial trouble, laid off most of its staff, and stopped work on the Jolla tablet. Then in December, Mozilla said it was putting the brakes on Firefox OS.
  But Canonical is bucking the trend.
  A few weeks after announcing their first Ubuntu tablet, the company has just announced their most powerful Ubuntu phone to date. And the company is not showing any signs of slowing down its  mobi
  
  Read more

• IDG story roundup: Apple ordered to help unlock iPhone used by San Bernardino attacker

  17-02-2016 22:21
  
  The following are links to stories written by IDG publications and the IDG News Service about the FBI's attempt to force Apple to help it to hack into the iPhone 5c that was used by Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the people said to have been involved in an  attack in San Bernardino, California, on Dec. 2.
  Why the FBI's request to Apple will affect civil rights for a generation
  Apple's fight with the FBI could go all the way to the US Supreme Court
  Tim Cook says Apple will oppose court order ra
  
  Read more

• What you need to know about Outlook.com as Microsoft brings it out of preview

  17-02-2016 21:56
  
  Since May 2015, Microsoft’s revamped Outlook.com has remained in preview. That’s over as of Wednesday, and Microsoft has added some new plugin capabilities to go along with it. 
  Once known as Hotmail, Microsoft’s new Outlook.com is now built upon Office 365 technology, and the company has begun adding useful plugins on top of it—plus some fun, if impractical, GIFs from Giphy.com. These same plugins are also available to some users of the Outlook desktop apps, though
  
  Read more

• Dell to bring new hyperscale rack architecture to mid-range customers

  17-02-2016 21:56
  
  Dell is bringing the advantages of its enterprise-level hyperscale rack servers to a wider range of customers.At Mobile World Congress next week, Dell will show off its new DSS 9000 hyperscale rack architecture, a server technology that allows computing and storage resources to be decoupled. The new rack design, aimed at mid-sized to large businesses, is based on Intel's Rack Scale Architecture, which is meant to bring configuration flexibility and power efficiency to Web-scale tasks.The DSS 900
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Apple's fight with the FBI could go all the way to the US Supreme Court

  17-02-2016 21:28
  
  Apple may have taken on the fight of its life in standing up to the FBI, which is demanding that it help break into an iPhone used by one of the perpetrators in December's San Bernardino mass shooting. Apple has promised to fight a U.S. magistrate judge's order Tuesday requiring it to assist the FBI, and legal experts say the case could go all the way up to the Supreme Court.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
  Read more

• Preliminary data shows small Windows 10 gains after upgrade offered to older PCs

  17-02-2016 20:20
  
  Windows 10 usage has increased since Microsoft began serving the operating system as an automatic upgrade to PCs running Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, according to an analysis of data from two metrics sources.
  But the growth in Windows 10's usage share so far this month has been significantly less than late last year, when it soared, probably due to new PCs bought around the holidays and the increased use of Windows 10-powered devices when people were not at work.
  Two weeks ago, Microsoft confirmed
  
  Read more

• Why the FBI's request to Apple will affect civil rights for a generation

  17-02-2016 20:14
  
  On Tuesday, the United States District Court of California issued an order requiring Apple to assist the FBI in accessing a locked iPhone (PDF)—and not just any iPhone, but the iPhone 5c used by one of the San Bernardino shooters. The order is very clear: Build new firmware to enable the FBI to perform an unlimited, high speed brute force attack, and place that firmware on the device.
  Apple is not only fighting the request, but posted a public letter signed by Tim Cook and linked on Apple
  
  Read more

• Databricks debuts free community edition of cloud-based platform

  17-02-2016 20:11
  
  Databricks, a company founded by the creators of the Apache Spark cluster computing framework, announced the beta release of Databricks Community Edition at Spark Summit East in New York City today.Databricks Community Edition is a free version of the company's cloud-based big data platform, designed to provide users with access to a micro-cluster and a cluster manager and notebook environment. Databricks says the version is idea for developers, data scientists, data engineers and other IT pros
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Microsoft Azure continues open source love affair

  17-02-2016 19:52
  
  Microsoft has been aggressive in embracing open source technology on its Azure cloud platform, and that continued Wednesday with the launch of several new features powered by open source projects.Following its earlier announcement of a partnership with Red Hat, Microsoft added Red Hat Enterprise Linux versions 6.7 and 7.2 to the Azure Marketplace. That means developers who want to use the popular operating system now have an easy and Microsoft-approved path to get it running on Azure.A majority
  
  Read more

• New MIT tech could help robots and humans work together

  17-02-2016 19:42
  
  There's no shortage of warnings about robots taking over our jobs, but often overlooked is the potential for how robots and humans can work together.That's the focus of new research out of MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL), which has come up with a new model for how humans can communicate with robots more effectively.Essentially, it all boils down to protecting humans from information overload, because robots can be programmed to gather huge amounts of i
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: Red Hat Enterprise Linux is now available on Microsoft Azure

  17-02-2016 19:02
  
  2015 will be remembered as the year Microsoft started to embrace Linux. But while the Windows maker embraced SUSE and Canonical, it kept Red Hat, the king of Linux, at a distance.
  But not for too long.
  Microsoft themselves has said that more than 20% Azure virtual machines are Linux, adding that if customers are running RHEL, Microsoft has to offer what these customers want.
  So the biggest story of 2015 was the announcement that Microsoft would offer RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) on Azure. An
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: iPad Pro: I bought it and I love it!

  17-02-2016 18:29
  
  In the past I've barked about how I didn't need or want an iPad Pro. I thought I was content with my iPad Air 2 so I more or less wrote off the iPad Pro. Well I finally bought one, and I'm here to tell you that I couldn't have been more wrong about the iPad Pro.I just happened to be at the Apple Store and couldn't help myselfBut before I tell you why I was wrong about the iPad Pro, let me tell you how I ended up with one in the first place. A friend of mine expressed a desire to buy my iPad Air
  
  Read more

• Superman memory crystals could store data for billions of years

  17-02-2016 18:27
  
  Researchers at the University of Southampton have discovered a way to store data in five dimensions on nanostructure glass that can survive for billions of years.
  The scientists from the University's Optoelectronics Research Centre (ORC) have developed the write and read processes of five dimensional (5D) digital data through femtosecond laser writing, where they use short bursts of high intensity light to encode a quantum bit, (a qubit) through the polarization of a single photon.
  The sel
  
  Read more

• In India, a $4 smartphone for the masses

  17-02-2016 18:22
  
  Indian startup Ringing Bells has aroused curiosity by promising to launch a 251 rupees (US$4) smartphone, in the latest bid to take communications to the country's masses.The device has no pretensions. It has a 4-inch IPS display, a 3.2 megapixel rear camera, a 0.3 megapixel front camera and runs on a 1.3GHz quad-core processor with 1GB RAM and 8GB internal memory expandable up to 32GB with an SD card, according to the product website. The phones, which carry a warranty of one year, run Android
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: The CIO’s playbook for managing an SAP relationship

  17-02-2016 18:15
  
  My father was a second-generation plumber and he believed it was important for all of his children to learn the basics of the various trades.  I recall my first lesson coming from my experience painting.  I remember being very eager to engage and grabbed the roller. He laughed, and preceded to hand me a scraper, sheet of sand paper and a putty knife.  I quickly learned my place and came to understand a job well done begins with detailed preparation. My childhood painting less
  
  Read more

• IBM dangles $5 million prize for major breakthroughs using Watson

  17-02-2016 18:15
  
  IBM has been encouraging developers to build apps using its Watson artificial intelligence system, which it hopes will be a big moneymaker for the company in the future.On Wednesday it kicked off its latest push, pledging US$5 million in prizes for whoever makes the biggest breakthroughs using Watson by 2020.“We're inviting teams from around the world to develop and demonstrate how humans can collaborate with powerful cognitive A.I. technologies capable of solving some of the world's grand
  
  Read more

• Google's adjustable cloud infrastructure services leave beta

  17-02-2016 18:00
  
  Google has announced the general availability of Custom Machine Types for its Compute Engine infrastructure-as-a-service offering, giving developers a chance to design their own compute instances to meet particular performance requirements. The move is designed to let businesses save money by only paying for the compute capacity they need, rather than having to choose from instance types with fixed amounts of virtual CPU, memory and storage.With Custom Machine Types, developers can can buil
  
  Read more

• Big data gets a new open-source project: Apache Arrow

  17-02-2016 17:57
  Hadoop, Spark and Kafka have already had a defining influence on the world of big data, and now there's yet another Apache project with the potential to shape the landscape even further: Apache Arrow.
  The Apache Software Foundation on Wednesday launched Arrow as a top-level project designed to provide a high-performance data layer for columnar in-memory analytics across disparate systems.
  Based on code from the related Apache Drill project, Apache Arrow can bring benefits including performance
  
  Read more

• Instagram tightens security with 2-factor authentication

  17-02-2016 17:32
  
  Instagram will soon let users hack-proof their accounts with two-factor authentication, following the footsteps of other big social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
  With two-factor authentication, users receive a text message containing a one-time code whenever they try to login on a new device. Users must then enter that code along with their email and regular password. This helps prevent remote hacking attempts by requiring physical access to the phone where the text message is sent.
  Accor
  
  Read more

• Samsung's speedy 750 EVO leaps into the SSD price war

  17-02-2016 16:32
  
  Amidan industry-wide drop in solid state drive prices, Samsung is entering the fray with its new 750 EVO SSD line.
  Samsung’s new solid state drives are noteworthy for a few reasons. For one thing, they’re pretty cheap compared to the company’s previous efforts, with suggested prices of $55 for 120GB and $75 for 250GB. It’s likely those prices will fall even further once the drives spend some time on retail shelves.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, pleas
  
  Read more

• Apache Arrow aims to accelerate analytical workloads

  17-02-2016 16:00
  
  The lead developers of 13 major open source projects, along with the Project Management Committee (PMC) chairs of seven Apache Software Foundation projects, came together today to announce a new top-level Apache project that promises to dramatically improve the performance of analytical workloads.While most new Apache efforts spend several years gaining steam as Apache Incubator projects before they become fully fledged projects, the new Apache Arrow is hitting the ground running as a top-level
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: Canonical announces the most powerful Ubuntu phone yet

  17-02-2016 15:54
  
  Canonical, the company behind successful Linux based operating system Ubuntu, has announced a new smartphone: Meizu PRO 5. This the the fifth Ubuntu phone announced within the past 12 months. The company will be showcasing the phone at their Mobile World Congress booth.
  Meizu PRO 5 by far is the most powerful Ubuntu hardware. It’s a repurposed Meizu device that comes with Ubuntu instead of Android. The phone has a Samsung Exynos 7420 Octa-core processor supported by 3GB of RAM. Canonical&
  
  Read more

• Windows Phone 8.1 users will get Windows 10 this month, says Microsoft social account

  17-02-2016 15:49
  Hola! Microsoft Mexico may have leaked the official roll out date for Windows 10 Mobile upgrades. Responding to user questions, the official Microsoft Lumia Mexico Facebook page recently said upgrades would begin on Leap Day—February 29.
  Microsoft has yet to officially announce when Windows Phone 8.1 users will be able to upgrade to Windows 10 Mobile beyond this social media posting. The company was unavailable for comment at this writing.
  “Hello, the update to windows 10 will be av
  
  Read more

• Faux phishing scheme shows CIOs how hacks unfold

  17-02-2016 15:44
  
  Many CIOs have implemented software that dupes employees into clicking on links and attachments that simulate phishing scams, an increasingly common educational tool to warn workers about the dangers of suspicious email messages. Security software maker Bitglass has reversed the shenanigans by leaking faked Google Apps credentials on the Dark Web, a hacker's playground for trafficking in stolen data. Then it tracked the activity, watching the many ways in which hackers wreaked havoc with suppose
  
  Read more

• US Department of Defense will put Windows 10 on 4 million computers

  17-02-2016 15:00
  
  The U.S. Department of Defense is going to standardize 4 million computers on Windows 10, a significant endorsement for Microsoft's latest operating system.It marks the largest announced deployment of Windows 10 in an enterprise setting to date. The goal is to have all of the DoD's computers that are currently running older versions of Windows upgraded to Microsoft's new OS within a year.That's an incredibly fast timeline for an organization of the Defense Department's size, especially since Win
  
  Read more

• ‘Availability gap’ applicaties groeit

  17-02-2016 14:43
  Er bestaat een groot verschil tussen de behoeften van eindgebruikers en het vermogen van IT-afdelingen in het faciliteren van softwareoplossingen die de klok rond beschikbaar zijn. Het aantal downtime-incidenten en de duur hiervan ligt zelfs hoger dan in 2014. Daarop duidt onderzoek in opdracht van Veeam... lees meer
  
  Read more

• Arctic Wolf offers SIEM in cloud

  17-02-2016 14:40
  
  Arctic Wolf Networks is trying to address the problem many security techs have of receiving too many false-positive incident alerts to respond to effectively.
  The company is offering a security service made up of its home-grown SIEM in the cloud backed by security engineers who filter out the security-event noise and trigger alerts only when they come across incidents actually worth investigating further.
  The company is four years old but just last year started serving up its service – AW
  
  Read more

• AttackIQ tests networks for known weaknesses attackers exploit

  17-02-2016 14:26
  
  Startup AttackIQ can run attack scenarios against live networks to see whether the defenses customers think are in place are actually doing their job.
  The platform, called FireDrill, consists of an agent that is deployed on representative endpoints, and a server that stores attack scenarios and gathers data.
  The platform’s function is similar to that of another startup SafeBreach. Both companies differ from penetration testing in that they continuously test networks whereas a pen test giv
  
  Read more

• IBM launches new mainframe with focus on security

  17-02-2016 14:09
  
  A new IBM mainframe includes security hardware to encrypt data without slowing down transactions and can integrate with IBM security software to support secure hybrid-cloud services.
  Ravi Srinivasan, vice president of strategy and offering management for IBM Security
  Thanks to an encryption co-processor, the new IBM z13s mainframe offloads encryption and doubles the speed at which previous mainframes could perform transactions, making for faster completion times and lower per-transaction costs,
  
  Read more

• Report: Breaches responsible for increasing amount of collateral damage

  17-02-2016 13:40
  
  2015 was the "Year of Collateral Damage," according to a report released this morning by Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
  Attackers targeting companies or other organizations are not only affecting the lives of people who are customers or employees of those organizations, but also affect people who have no direct business relationships.
  Take, for example, the Office of Personnel Management breach, said Jewel Timpe, senior manager or research communications for Hewlett Packard Enterprise Security.
  In
  
  Read more

• Can marketing tech track the entire customer lifecycle?

  17-02-2016 13:33
  
  It’s old news that technology is the beating heart of today’s marketing. In fact, deep within the desktops, laptops and mobile devices of any enterprise marketing department you’ll find a complex technology stack of solutions. As Scott Brinker’s graphic on ChiefMartec shows, there’s an exploding landscape of thousands of companies vying for the CMO’s attention, in dozens of Martech categories from mobile and display to email, analytics, audience data and testi
  
  Read more

• 3 common cloud pitfalls IT should avoid

  17-02-2016 13:32
  
  It can be difficult these days to come up with sensible reasons why businesses shouldn't embrace cloud-based productivity tools such as Google for Work or Microsoft Office 365. The benefits of the cloud are many and expanding. However, a number of common pitfalls for IT professionals exist and can have lasting negative implications on any organization. 
  Here are three mistakes IT professionals making a switch to the cloud should avoid:1. Cloud means lots of support for staff Greg Meye
  
  Read more

• How to get a job in IT consulting

  17-02-2016 13:29
  
  Do you have cutting-edge IT skills? Are you well-versed in an industry that's hot, like healthcare or finance? Are you feeling underappreciated, and wouldn't mind being fussed over, courted and enticed? Then it might be time to think about pursuing a career in IT consulting.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: 3 reasons why your cybersecurity plan needs to be revised

  17-02-2016 13:26
  
  I wish I could tell you that if you have a cybersecurity plan then you’re covered.  But you are not.  Why?  Because the hackers and the black hats and the pursuers on the Dark Net and the Dark Web are one or more steps ahead of all of us all the time.  If they weren’t, then there would be no security breaches or identity thefts or deadly hacks. 
  With that said, here are three key reasons why your cybersecurity plan is outdated and needs to be revised.
  1. If
  
  Read more

• ERP software gets a makeover

  17-02-2016 13:26
  
  ERP software is known for providing valuable services to a variety of users. Finance relies on ERP to obtain reports and maintain compliance with regulations. Marketing and sales staff serve customers, pull reports and measure their performance based on ERP generated reports. Supply chain professionals, shipping and customer service units use ERP to serve customer needs. With hundreds or thousands of active users, even small improvements in ERP productivity and user experience add up over time.U
  
  Read more

• Can online training bridge the big data skills gap?

  17-02-2016 12:52
  
  The amount of data generated in the enterprise today is staggering and organizations continue to struggle to find the talent to collect, maintain and analyze it. In 2014, a study by Wanted Analytics found that demand for computer programmers with a background in data grew 337 percent, but that out of the 332,000 computer programmers in America, only 4 percent had the necessary skillsets. As a result, more companies are turning to online training to help employees get up to speed on the vital ski
  
  Read more

• NHL Hogeschool tekent opnieuw voor Ricoh

  17-02-2016 12:50
  NHL Hogeschool heeft na een Europese aanbesteding opnieuw gekozen voor Ricoh als partner voor printdiensten. De hogeschool met vestigingen in Leeuwarden, Groningen en Terschelling maakt al sinds 2009 gebruik van de dienstverlening van Ricoh.NHL Hogeschool wordt met de vernieuwde samenwerking niet alleen voorzien van... lees meer
  
  Read more

• Mizuho Financial Group tekent contract met Cognizant voor blockchain-oplossingen

  17-02-2016 12:25
  Eén van de grootste financiële instellingen ter wereld, Mizuho Financial Group, heeft een strategische overeenkomst met Cognizant gesloten voor ontwikkeling van een blockchain-oplossing om documenten bij alle bedrijfsonderdelen wereldwijd veilig te kunnen verwerken. De overeenkomst richt zich in eerste... lees meer
  
  Read more

• 'Unbreakable' security that wasn't: True tales of tech hubris

  17-02-2016 12:24
  
  The $30,000 lockImage by Library of CongressEighteenth century British engineer Joseph Bramah invented a lock that, he was sure, could never be picked. He was so sure that he offered 200 guineas (roughly $30,000 today) to anyone who could defeat it. Cris Thomas, a 21st-century strategist at Tenable Network Security, calls this one of the first bug bounties in history. The lock remained seemingly impregnable for more than 67 years, until an American locksmith named Alfred Charles Hobbs defeated i
  
  Read more

• Apple's software woes: Problems or progress?

  17-02-2016 12:20
  Twice over the past month I’ve had to erase and restore my iPhone. Both times were related to an attempted install of the iOS 9.3 Public Beta; instead of upgrading my phone with Night Shift, secure Notes, and better News, I got stuck in an endless Apple logo loop that required plugging into the dreaded iTunes and wiping my drive.
  My particular story might not be a common one, but I’m certainly not unique when it comes to Apple software issues. Some of the most notable Apple journali
  
  Read more

• People screw up; don’t make it worse

  17-02-2016 12:00
  
  If you want your staff to perform well, one of the most important things you need to focus on is how you respond when they don’t perform well, or when they make mistakes. Why? Because in addition to ability and drive, good performance requires that people be willing to take the personal risks inherent in accepting ambitious assignments.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
  Read more

• Functional languages: What they are, where they're going

  17-02-2016 12:00
  
  Even as some argue exactly what it is, functional programming keeps attracting developers. And three of the most popular functional languages -- Clojure, F#, and Scala -- are on tap for improvements.
  Functional programming has a core appeal for some developers, says Scala founder Martin Odersky: "The programmers in that segment like functional programming because it makes code clearer, better structured, and it prevents many classes of errors." But some argue that functional programming le
  
  Read more

• Couchbase 4.0 review: The Swiss Army knife of NoSQL

  17-02-2016 12:00
  
  Couchbase Server, similar to MongoDB and RethinkDB, is a document-oriented distributed database, but that description sells it a good deal short. Couchbase is what you get when a distributed key-value store and a document database join forces -- literally.Scaling, specialization, and spatial viewsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
  Read more

• Tim Cook says Apple will oppose court order rather than hack customers

  17-02-2016 11:25
  
  Apple's CEO Tim Cook has reacted sharply to a federal court order in the U.S. that would require the company to help the FBI search the contents of an iPhone 5c seized from Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the terrorists in the San Bernardino, California, attack on Dec. 2.The U.S. government "has demanded that Apple take an unprecedented step which threatens the security of our customers," Cook wrote in an open letter to customers posted on Apple's website on Wednesday. He added that the moment called
  
  Read more

• Top 10 tech companies for remote workers

  17-02-2016 10:00
  
  The number of telecommuting jobs has increased over the last year, according to FlexJobs, which cites a 36 percent increase in remote job postings on its site from 2014 to 2015. To compare, there was only a 26 percent increase from 2013 to 2014, according to the company.Why the big jump? Technology has enabled workers to get work done outside of the traditional office setting, and it's also allowed companies to open up hiring to other states or countries, because employees don't necessarily have
  
  Read more

• 'Locky' ransomware, which infects like Dridex, hits the unlucky

  17-02-2016 07:04
  
  A new flavor of ransomware, similar in its mode of attack to the notorious banking software Dridex, is causing havoc with some users.Victims are usually sent via email a Microsoft Word document purporting to be an invoice that requires a macro, or a small application that does some function.Macros are disabled by default by Microsoft due to the security dangers. Users who encounter a macro see a warning if a document contains one.If macros are enabled, the document will run the macro a
  
  Read more

• Apple ordered to assist in unlocking iPhone used by San Bernardino attacker

  17-02-2016 05:08
  
  Apple was ordered Tuesday by a federal judge in California to provide assistance to the FBI to search a locked iPhone 5c that was used by Syed Rizwan Farook, one of the terrorists said to have been involved in an  attack in San Bernardino, California, on Dec. 2.
  The government's request under a statute called the All Writs Act will likely give a boost to attempts by law enforcement to look for vendor-provided backdoors to encrypted devices and communications.  
  Apple is fighting
  
  Read more

• Craigslist fails to flag most scam rental ads, study finds

  17-02-2016 01:50
  
  Craigslist, the popular online listings service, has waged a long fight against scammers, but a new academic study suggests it's been losing the battle.
  The study focused on listings for housing rentals, and found that Craigslist failed to remove a majority of those that were fraudulent.
  The researchers analyzed two million ads over a five-month period in 2014 and determined that Craigslist had flagged and removed fewer than half the listings that likely weren't genuine.
  Looking for housing can
  
  Read more

• Bedtime stories for robots could teach them to be human

  17-02-2016 01:16
  
  Some people worry that someday a robot – or a collective of robots – will turn on humans and physically hurt or plot against us.
  The question, they say, is how can robots be taught morality?
  There's no user manual for good behavior. Or is there?
  Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology say that while there may not be one specific manual, robots might benefit by reading stories and books about successful ways to act in society.
  "The collected stories of different cultures t
  
  Read more

• Mattel remakes '60s ThingMaker toy as an easy-to-use $300 3D printer

  17-02-2016 01:13
  
  Mattel has reinvented its iconic ThingMaker at-home toy-making device, this time as a 3D printer that will cost just $300.
  Mattel unveiled its 3D printer at the New York Toy Fair taking place this week.
  Preorders for the ThingMaker 3D Printer began this week. The machine will be available Oct 15. (See Amazon.com pricing.)
  The original ThingMaker was limited by several dozen die-cast molds, into which a user would pour Mattel's Plastigoop thermoplastic or Gobble De-goop edible liquid, which
  
  Read more

Follow @ITExecutiveNews on Twitter!