IT Executive news

• Apple appeals order to unlock iPhone, saying it would 'violate the Constitution'

  25-02-2016 23:33
  
  Apple filed court papers on Thursday urging a judge to overturn her order requiring it to unlock an iPhone used by one of the shooters in the San Bernardino attacks.
  Forcing Apple to help unlock the phone would set a dangerous precedent that undermines security for all its customers and opens the door to invasive government surveillance, the company argued.
  "If Apple can be forced to write code in this case to bypass security features and create new accessibility, what is to stop the government
  
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• Former Disney IT worker to Congress: How can you allow this?

  25-02-2016 23:02
  
  At a congressional hearing today on the H-1B visa's impact on high-skilled workers, the first person to testify was Leo Perrero, a former Disney IT worker. He was overcome with emotion for parts of it, pausing to gather himself as he told the story of how he was replaced by a foreign visa holder.
  It was a hearing with an emotional punch.
  Perrero testified after Immigration Subcommittee Chairman Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) displayed a giant photo of small American flags, which were flown indoors by I
  
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• Electric cars of the future could charge batteries while driving, using Qualcomm tech

  25-02-2016 22:14
  
  Charging an electric car while driving may sound like a wild idea, but Qualcomm wants to bring that capability to automobiles.Qualcomm is developing what it calls "dynamic wireless charging" technology, so drivers won't have to worry about plugging in their cars. Just cruise the streets, enjoy the scenery, and recharge your car, all at the same time.In the future, there may be "charging elements in the highway, so as you drive over them, your car charges automatically," Derek Aberle, president o
  
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• Ruby on Rails-style development comes to Apple's Swift

  25-02-2016 21:54
  
  Apple's trendy Swift language is getting a Web framework inspired by the popular Ruby on Rails MVC framework.
  Open source Swifton, running on Mac OS X and Linux, is in an early stage of development. But it's already picking up traction, attractibg more than 1,200 stargazers on GitHub within a couple of days of its release this week, said Swifton's main developer, Saulius Grigaitis, founder and CTO of Ruby on Rails and Swift consulting firm Necolt.To read this article in full or to leave a comme
  
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• Apple appeals order to unlock iPhone, says it would "violate the Constitution"

  25-02-2016 21:52
  
  Apple filed court papers on Thursday urging a judge to overturn her order requiring it to unlock an iPhone used by one of the shooters in last December's San Bernardino attacks.Forcing it to help unlock the phone would set a dangerous precedent that would undermine security for all its customers and open the door to more invasive government requests in future, Apple argued."If Apple can be forced to write code in this case to bypass security features and create new accessibility, what is to stop
  
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• CoreOS CEO: Containers are just the beginning

  25-02-2016 21:20
  
  Containers are revolutionizing enterprise IT in much the way smartphones have transformed the world of consumer technology, but there's still much more to come.That's according to Alex Polvi, CEO of Linux server vendor CoreOS, which has set its sights on improving Internet security.Too many companies today operate their data centers as if on egg shells, because "any little change can break things," Polvi explained. That makes it hard to keep software updated and secure.In general, companies need
  
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• Microsoft strengthens security tools for Azure, Office 365

  25-02-2016 20:30
  
  Microsoft has enhanced the holistic agile security platform it touted last November with integrated insights obtained from the company's intelligent security graph and tighter collaboration with industry partners. The changes highlight Microsoft's current approach to enterprise security, which focuses on moving enterprises to cloud platforms to improve overall security.
  The company announced security features for its cloud offerings, including Microsoft Azure, Office 365, and SharePoint Online.
  
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• Microsoft adds new security enhancements to its cloud offerings

  25-02-2016 20:22
  
  Microsoft is adding a range of new security management and reporting features to its Office 365 and Azure cloud services as part of the company's holistic approach to enterprise security announced last year.In April, the company will release a new product called Microsoft Cloud App Security that will allow customers to gain better visibility, control and security for data hosted in cloud apps like Office 365, Box, SalesForce, ServiceNow and Ariba. The new product is based on technology from Adal
  
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• New GPU memory standards to supercharge graphics

  25-02-2016 19:41
  The explosion of interest in life-like games and virtual reality technology has made one thing clear: PCs and mobile devices will need better graphics.Companies like Nvidia, AMD and Intel are making radical changes to chip designs to facilitate better graphics. At the core of improvements are faster ways for GPUs to draw up and dispatch images to users.Chip makers are developing faster GPU architectures to achieve that goal. Another important element is faster memory, with new standards paving t
  
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• Nissan apologizes, shutters mobile app that left Leaf EV hackable

  25-02-2016 19:12
  
  Nissan has shut down a popular mobile app for its Leaf electric vehicle after security experts demonstrated they could use the app's insecure APIs to remotely control any vehicles' functions.
  "We apologize for the disappointment caused to our Nissan Leaf customers who have enjoyed the benefits of our mobile apps," Nissan wrote in an emailed reply to Computerworld. "However, the quality and seamless operation of our products is paramount."NissanThe Nissan Leaf and the remote app that allowed hac
  
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• FBI director: Apple encryption ruling could lead to more requests

  25-02-2016 18:49
  If a U.S. court grants the FBI's request for Apple to help it unlock a terrorism suspect's iPhone, the case will likely open the door to many similar law enforcement requests, the agency's director said Thursday.A ruling in favor of the FBI by a California judge "will be instructive for other courts," FBI Director James Comey said during a congressional hearing. A decision in the San Bernardino mass shooting case "will guide how other courts handle similar requests," he added.Lawmakers questione
  
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• Amazon Echo's 5 best new features

  25-02-2016 18:46
  
  Almost every Friday — and sometimes more frequently — I get an email from Amazon, with a subject line like, "New features have been recently added to Amazon Echo,"  the company's $180 smart-home virtual assistant and wireless speaker.
  I don't know of any other piece of tech hardware that receives so many new features so often. Seriously. Since Jan. 1, Amazon added at least 10 new features, or feature upgrades, to Echo at the rate of about one per week. (A full list of Amazon's&
  
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• Report: Apple's rushing to close iPhone hack opening after FBI decryption demand

  25-02-2016 17:32
  Apple reportedly wants to take itself out of the equation when it comes to decrypting data on a criminal suspect’s iOS device. Company engineers are working on a solution that would make it impossible for Apple to help law enforcement break into an iPhone and gain access to the encrypted data contained within, according to The New York Times.
  The report is yet another storyline to come out of the continuing saga of Apple’s battle with the Federal Bureau of Investigation over the iPh
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Privacy and operational alignment

  25-02-2016 17:20
  
  Standing in line at a restaurant a few weeks ago I overheard a teenager tell a friend about a parking ticket they had received. The teenager’s complaint was that they didn’t know they couldn’t park where they did. Whether they missed a no parking sign, were too close to a hydrant, or some other violation doesn’t really matter. As the old saying goes, ignorance of the law is no excuse.A few days later I was discussing privacy accountability and responsibilities with a clie
  
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• VMware SDN, cloud issues did not push Casado out

  25-02-2016 16:35
  
  Martin Casado’s decision to leave VMware was simply a desire to move on and not an indication of turbulence with company strategy, direction or product traction, observers say.
  Casado announced yesterday that he is leaving his post as executive vice president and general manager of VMware’s Networking and Security Business April 1 to become a general partner at venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz. Casado joined VMware in 2012 with its acquisition of Nicira, an SDN start-up Casa
  
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• Samsung's 256GB flash chips point to super-sized storage for future phones

  25-02-2016 15:58
  
  Your next phone might pack a whopping 256GB of onboard storage thanks to Samsung.
  The Korea-based electronics maker announced on Thursday that it’s now mass producing 256GB embedded flash memory chips for smartphones and other devices. The new memory chips are smaller than a microSD card and can pack up to 256GB thanks to Samsung’s cutting-edge V-Nand technology.
  Based on the Universal Flash Storage (UFS) 2.0 specification, the new memory is almost twice as fast as SATA-based solid
  
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• Report: 2016 phishing trends reveal new tricks, targets

  25-02-2016 15:39
  
  (Insider Story)
  
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• Comcast, U.S. telcos gave $88M to lawmakers in 2015

  25-02-2016 15:16
  
  It's no surprise that money buys political influence, but a recent report from Open Secrets, a non-partisan political research group, shows that Comcast and other cable, broadband, and wireless providers spent more than $88 million on lobbying in 2015. That sum is more than the similar spend of aerospace contractors, the real estate industry, and HMOs. And these U.S. telecommunications companies contributed heavily to the members of congress who regulate their industry. (Open Secrets i
  
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• Comcast, telcos spent $88M to influence lawmakers in 2015

  25-02-2016 15:16
  
  It's no surprise that money buys political influence, but a recent report from Open Secrets, a non-partisan political research group, shows that Comcast and other cable, broadband, and wireless providers spent more than $88 million on lobbying in 2015. That sum is more than the similar spend of aerospace contractors, the real estate industry, and HMOs. And these U.S. telecommunications companies contributed heavily to the members of congress who regulate their industry. (Open Secrets
  
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• IT Resume Makeover: How your older experience can get you hired

  25-02-2016 14:52
  
  Donald Burns has been editing and rewriting resumes long enough to know that one size does not fit all. Sometimes you need to break a few rules to get your best resume. According to Burns, founder of Executive Promotions LLC, when he saw George Brown's resume, he knew he would have to break the rule that says you should delete experience older than 10-15 years. Rather than erase Brown's experience, Burns went back 35 years to show how his career path from structural engineer to ERP manufacturing
  
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• CIOs share best practices for social media and collaboration

  25-02-2016 14:31
  
  It's not easy to pin down the business benefits of social media and collaboration tools, and the value of such platforms is often determined by how well companies can integrate them with core operations. Many of today's savvy CIOs are testing, and slowly embracing, social media as a mechanism for corporate collaboration, customer service or increased employee engagement.Additional reasons for CIOs to deploy social collaboration tools include the ability to foster an open corporate culture, distr
  
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• HP chief: Windows 10 hasn't driven the PC demand that the company was counting on

  25-02-2016 14:00
  
  Hewlett-Packard Chief Executive Dion Weisler told analysts Wednesday that he anticipated several difficult quarters ahead as HP tries to negotiate pricing its products low enough to compete with Asian suppliers, while pushing into more profitable product segments, such as 3D printing.
  One factor the company hoped it could depend upon—Windows 10—hasn’t delivered. There simply hasn’t been enough demand for Microsoft’s new OS to help HP weather a declining PC market,
  
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• Firms detect breaches sooner, but attackers have gotten nastier

  25-02-2016 14:00
  
  Firms are detecting breaches nearly 30 percent sooner than before, according to a new report from Mandiant, but attackers are also getting more aggressive in their methods by demanding millions for not releasing data, or erasing all systems around them as they go.
  Last year, it took an average of 146 days for a company to discover a breach, down from 205 in 2014 -- and 416 in 2011.
  This is based on enterprise customers who turn to Mandiant, a FireEye company, to investigate breaches after they
  
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• CIOs look to LinkedIn to recruit (and be recruited)

  25-02-2016 13:55
  
  Facing an IT talent shortage, CIOs are haunting college campuses, hiring interns, and poaching peers from rivals to staff their digital transformations. However, some CIOs are finding that good IT talent is a just a LinkedIn search away, while others use it to seek new career opportunities."It is a great forum for us to post our jobs outside of our own site or job boards," says Victor Fetter, CIO of LPL Financial. He says the company's talent acquisition team regularly lists open positions on th
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Day One 2 customer revolt opens the door for competitors

  25-02-2016 13:54
  If you've been following this blog, you know already that the new version of the Day One journaling app (Day One 2) has caused something of a customer revolt in the Mac and iOS App Stores. Many customers have been giving Day One 2 low star ratings and have posted angry reviews, decrying the lack of DropBox and iCloud syncing.All of this customer anger and dissatisfaction has opened the door for Day One's competitors, including the folks who develop the Momento journaling app. Momento currently o
  
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• Verizon charts a different cloud services path

  25-02-2016 13:52
  
  When running down the list of top cloud vendors, the name Verizon doesn't come up immediately, but the firm is looking to expand its particular brand of cloud services that complement main players like Amazon and Microsoft. It's also fending off rumors it's getting out of the cloud business. Late last year, the company denied reports it was looking to sell off its enterprise services business, which include cloud services and data centers. At the Wells Fargo Securities 2015 Technology, Medi
  
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• How IT can help users help themselves

  25-02-2016 13:29
  
  There isn't much that's more frustrating than a really bad search - you know what information you're looking for, you may even know, generally, where to go to look for it. But when your search returns incorrect or irrelevant results -- or, even worse; zero results -- well, it's enough to make you want to scream.Help yourselfMost users want to help themselves, and prefer to try to locate information or instructions they need on their own before calling in backup. IT departments are often the fall
  
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• IT service management, pink elephants and Martin Short

  25-02-2016 13:21
  
  There's been lots of talk about ITSM and ITIL lately, especially as perspectives on IT departments are shifting -- the C-level executives I talk to, tell me the IT department is no longer viewed as a cost center eating up business dollars for things like help desk, internal security, setting up new equipment and fixing email outages, but as a way to actually get more value out of technology and "drive greater strategic business value." What does that mean in plain English? I'm still figuring tha
  
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• Outdated payment terminals exempted by Mozilla from SHA-1 certificate ban

  25-02-2016 13:11
  Less than two months after a ban came into effect for new SSL/TLS certificates signed with the weak SHA-1 hashing algorithm, exemptions are already starting to take shape.Mozilla announced Wednesday that it will allow Symantec, which runs one of the world's largest certificate authorities, to issue nine new such certificates to a customer in order to accommodate over 10,000 payment terminals that haven't been upgraded in time.According to a discussion on the Mozilla security policy mailing list,
  
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• Ransomware rising

  25-02-2016 13:02
  
  Ransomware is a familiar plague in the online world – it has existed for more than 25 years and become increasingly common during the past decade.
  But, until recently, it has been aimed more at organizations or individual computers than devices. And that is changing. With the explosive growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) – estimates of how many connected devices will be in use by 2020 range all the way up to 200 billion – experts say it is about to get much more common at t
  
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• How a Pro model could change the iPhone

  25-02-2016 12:44
  
  Back in May 1998, Apple hyped an upcoming special event three words: Pro. Go. Whoa. After Steve Jobs had finished his keynote, it was clear what they meant: Pro was for the Power Macintosh G3, Go was for new PowerBooks, and Whoa appropriately captured the reaction to Apple’s newest computer, the iMac.
  It wasn’t just a clever marketing slogan. For the first time, Apple made a clear distinction between consumers and professionals. The Power Mac and iMac may have both used G3 processor
  
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• How BMC’s CEO plans to cut your IT costs by a third

  25-02-2016 12:00
  
  In 2013, venerable IT management vendor BMC Software went private, a move that CEO Bob Beauchamp says enabled the company to invest heavily in modernizing technology, fresh leadership and a new strategy aimed at helping customers advance their digital transformation initiatives. In this installment of the IDG CEO Interview Series, Beauchamp talked with Chief Content Officer John Gallant about how BMC’s Digital Enterprise Management plan can deliver ‘massive cost savings,’ make
  
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• Exclusive: Go inside a security operations center

  25-02-2016 12:00
  
  Walk into a security operations center (SOC) and the first impression you get is of an immense war room, with large screens across the entire front wall displaying a world map and endless rows of tabular data.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Data lakes: A better way to analyze customer data

  25-02-2016 12:00
  
  When The Weather Company wanted to up its game in the forecasting world, executives knew the answer was to analyze even more data. However, the company's data warehouse was too constricting; it accepted only structured data and required as long as six months to develop appropriate schemas.Lakes aren't about data perfectionTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Career boost: Break into data science

  25-02-2016 12:00
  
  Data science is rapidly becoming one of the hottest careers in IT. The field’s rise to prominence has been driven in part by the fact that its raw material -- structured and unstructured data -- is being produced at record levels. But it’s the ready availability of robust, low-cost data science tools, ranging from Microsoft Excel to Python to Hadoop, that has organizations of all sizes pursuing the kind of data analysis once reserved for Web giants like Google and Amazon.To read this
  
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• Foxconn to pay over $6B for a majority stake in Sharp

  25-02-2016 11:08
  Sharp has approved an offer from Hon Hai Precision Industry and related companies to acquire over 66 percent of the company’s voting stock, making the Taiwanese contract manufacturer the new parent of the venerable Japanese firm.
  The deal, which will bring to ailing Sharp funds for investment in newer technologies like OLED, will be done through the issue of new shares to Hon Hai and partner companies for 489 billion yen (US$4.4 billion). Hon Hai will also acquire shares held by lenders t
  
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• With few options, companies pay hush money to data thieves

  25-02-2016 11:00
  
  There's a disturbing new angle to cyberattacks that has become more common over the last year, and it is proving costly for organizations: extortion.Over the last year, companies have at times paid more than US$1 million in hush money to cyberattackers who have stolen their sensitive data and threatened to release it online, said Charles Carmakal, a vice president with Mandiant, the computer forensics unit of FireEye, in an interview on Wednesday."This is where a human adversary has deliber
  
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• Arizona county attorney to ditch iPhones over Apple dispute with FBI

  25-02-2016 04:56
  
  Apple’s refusal to help the FBI unlock an iPhone 5c used by one of the terrorists in the San Bernardino, California attack on Dec. 2 has prompted the Maricopa County attorney’s office in Arizona to ban providing new iPhones to its staff.“Apple’s refusal to cooperate with a legitimate law enforcement investigation to unlock a phone used by terrorists puts Apple on the side of terrorists instead of on the side of public safety,” Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomer
  
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• Tim Cook: The FBI wants us to write the software equivalent of cancer

  25-02-2016 03:22
  
  Tim Cook has said the U.S. government is requiring Apple to write "the software equivalent of cancer" by demanding that it help unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists.“What’s at stake here is, can the government compel Apple to write software that we believe would make hundreds of millions of customers vulnerable around the world -- including the U.S. -- and also trample civil liberties,” Cook said.He made his remarks in a 30-minute interview that aired o
  
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• Tim Cook: The FBI is asking us to write the software equivalent of cancer

  25-02-2016 03:22
  
  Tim Cook has said the U.S. government is requiring Apple to write "the software equivalent of cancer" by demanding that it help unlock an iPhone used by one of the San Bernardino terrorists.
  “What’s at stake here is, can the government compel Apple to write software that we believe would make hundreds of millions of customers vulnerable around the world -- including the U.S. -- and also trample civil liberties,” Cook said.
  He made his remarks in a 30-minute interview that aire
  
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• Say 'Ahh': The toothbrush will see you now

  25-02-2016 02:45
  
  Oral B's next toothbrushing system will have accelerometers, gyroscopes, a Bluetooth link to a smartphone app, and cloud storage. Have they left anything out?When the Oral-B Genius goes on sale in July, it will cost around $250. It brushes your teeth in much the same way as a $30 toothbrush from the same manufacturer - though it tries to make sure you haven’t missed a spot.It's a smart toothbrush -- so smart, in fact, that with the help of a smartphone app it watches while you brush and te
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Amdocs integrates Red Hat OpenStack into its Network Cloud Service Orchestrator

  25-02-2016 02:43
  
  Amdocs, a customer care, billing and order management software provider, has chosen Red Hat’s OpenStack to integrate with its Network Cloud Service Orchestrator (NSCO) product.
  NSCO helps communications service providers (CSPs) transition from physical networks to cloud service environments. It’s an open, vendor neutral solution that removes possible vendor lock while give users more control, flexibility and agility over their environment.
  Amdocs states that “NSCO creates and
  
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• Google gives a boost to mobile search speed

  25-02-2016 01:57
  
  When you do a search about a product you want to buy or look for recommendations for the best Asian dumplings in town, you don't want to wait long for a site to come up on your mobile device.
  You don't even want to wait three seconds.
  Starting today, Google is moving to make it faster for you.
  The search giant announced Wednesday that it will alert users in their search results page to corresponding webpages that have been optimized to run fast on smartphones and tablets.
  "Access to information
  
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• HP Inc's life as a standalone PC company gets off to a rocky start

  25-02-2016 01:56
  
  HP Inc. suffered through its first quarter as a standalone company by reporting lower net earnings and revenues from the same period a year ago, as virtually all facets of the company reported a decline.
  HP Inc. reported net earnings of $592 million, down 58 percent from the $1.4 billion in net earnings it reported a year ago. (Net earnings from continuing operations dropped 16 percent.) Net revenue also dropped 12 percent from a year ago to $12.2 billion.
  HP’s first quarter of fiscal 201
  
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• Lightning fast SD cards for 4K and 8K video are coming soon

  25-02-2016 00:59
  A new class of SD cards that can record and access 4K and 8K video much more quickly is on its way later this year for devices like cameras, smartphones and VR headsets.The SD cards use a new SD 5.0 standard that was announced Wednesday. They'll allow users to record and access multiple 4K video files simultaneously, while current SD cards can handle only one 4K file at a time.The cards have a special controller to handle the faster recording and extraction of 4K and 8K video, but the cards will
  
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