IT Executive news

• Home Depot will pay up to $19.5 million for massive 2014 data breach

  08-03-2016 22:53
  
  Home Depot has agreed to pay as much as $19.5 million to remedy the giant data breach it suffered in 2014, the company confirmed on Tuesday.Included in that figure is a reported $13 million to reimburse customers for their losses and $6.5 million to provide them with one and a half years of identity protection services.Home Depot was not required to admit any wrongdoing."We’re working to put the litigation behind us," spokesman Stephen Holmes said via email. "This was the most expeditious
  
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• Qualcomm server chips now available to ARM developers through cloud service

  08-03-2016 22:33
  
  Qualcomm's elusive server chips have been available only to top-tier cloud players, but now any developer will be able to work with them using a new cloud service.Linaro, a consortium of companies developing hardware and software for ARM-based devices, has launched a cloud service aimed at ARM developers. Developers looking to write and test server applications will have remote access to bare-metal ARM servers -- including systems with Qualcomm's upcoming 24-core server chip -- through the
  
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• FCC proposes Lifeline update to include affordable broadband, help close digital divide

  08-03-2016 22:31
  
  Federal officials are taking steps to help close the digital divide by updating the 30-year-old Lifeline program to help low-income Americans afford broadband as well as voice communications.
  Tom Wheeler, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, joined FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn on Tuesday in proposing the Lifeline update, which will come to a full commission vote on March 31.
  The two penned a blog entry on the FCC website. "Internet access has become a pre-requisite for full par
  
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• Nonprofit CIO seeks Amazon-like experience

  08-03-2016 22:12
  
  Identity management doesn't have the cachet of robots that automate mundane tasks, sensors that shuttle data between machines or analytics that ferret out insights. But as businesses increasingly rely on digital technologies for growth, ID management technologies are crucial for tracking consumer interactions with your brands online. It is, in fact, the digital handshake that grants customers passage into your website, making it possible to tailor content, make recommendations and offer other pe
  
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• Bill Gates on Reddit: What he thinks of VR, the presidency, and Microsoft's Linux push

  08-03-2016 21:54
  
  No, Michael Bloomberg is not running for president. And neither (surprise!) is Bill Gates. 
  Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates dropped by Reddit for his fourth “Ask Me Anything” session on Tuesday, a random collection of question posed to Gates by the Reddit community. Although there were no truly off-the-wall questions or answers, Gates was asked about two issues of the day: the U.S. presidential race, as well as his thoughts on Microsoft’s impending release of SQL Server o
  
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• Cisco security chief: How to beat back security system complexity

  08-03-2016 21:11
  
  Cisco has aggressively bought up security vendors and worked on integrating their software protections into existing Cisco gear, making for a simpler, more secure and flexible network, says Cisco’s security chief.
  David Goeckeler
  “The customers we talk to have an average of somewhere around 50 to 60 different vendors in their network to deliver their security posture,” says David Goeckeler, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco’s security business. “Wh
  
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• MIT's Eyebrowse lets users make their browsing history public

  08-03-2016 20:59
  
  MIT researchers have developed technology that lets people share their browsing history -- or just selected parts of it -- with friends and the general public.
  The new system, called Eyebrowse, gives researchers access to the same type of browsing data that big companies like Google and Facebook already collect.
  "There's global analytics," said David Karger, an MIT professor of electrical engineering who has worked on the team project since 2010. "Google has this interesting 50,000-foot view of
  
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• Mylan exec builds culture of leadership

  08-03-2016 20:31
  
  In December 2012, when Michael Smith arrived at Mylan, company leaders were plotting a new three-year strategy to fuel continued growth. The $9.8 billion generic pharmaceutical maker had already come a long way from its humble beginnings as a West Virginia-based drug distributor, but there was much more to come, including some aggressive M&A plans.
  But Smith knew the IT organization was not on the right footing to execute on the assertive strategy. He had to retool the team. He had to build
  
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• IDC sees gains for detachable, 2-in1 devices, credits Windows 10

  08-03-2016 20:23
  
  Detachable tablet devices -- better known as 2-in-1's -- have become the latest rage in computing.
  With a detachable, users can connect a tablet and keyboard to substitute for a laptop or use the tablet separately. Analyst firm IDC recently started calling the hybrid devices "detachables" after using the term "2-in-1's" for two years.
  The arrival of Windows 10 last July has helped drive the trend, IDC said Tuesday.
  Microsoft -- with its latest Surface Pro 4 -- and a slew of other vendors are of
  
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• Food poisoning in Las Vegas? Not if this machine-learning algorithm can help it

  08-03-2016 20:20
  
  Food poisoning can strike anywhere hygiene standards are lax, but researchers have developed a new app that uses machine learning to help minimize the number of people affected.
  One out of every six U.S. residents gets food poisoning each year, and when they do, many of them write about it on Twitter. That's where nEmesis comes in. Developed by computer-science researchers from the University of Rochester, the software uses natural language processing and artificial intelligence to identif
  
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• Facebook shows off air-to-ground laser progress

  08-03-2016 20:14
  
  A key part of Facebook's ambitious plan to deliver Internet connectivity via drone is an air-to-ground laser link that will connect the high-flying aircraft to the Internet, and on Tuesday, Facebook showed off important progress in that technology.
  The company's Connectivity Lab has developed a gimbal that will hang from the underbelly of the Facebook drone and keep the laser system connected to a ground station.
  Getting a reliable, high-bandwidth connection to a drone at 80,000 feet is not a t
  
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• LeMaker to release a Raspberry Pi-type board using AMD server chips

  08-03-2016 20:05
  
  Think of LeMaker's upcoming Cello development computer as a supercharged version of Raspberry Pi 3.The Cello is an uncased computer with all the components mashed onto a circuit board. It has the guts of a server and is well suited to run Web services and cloud applications.The computer, priced at $299 and shipping in the second quarter, was announced at the Linaro Connect conference in Bangkok this week.The Cello is a cheap way for developers to write and test software for ARM servers, which ar
  
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• French legislators want to compel companies to decrypt data, because terrorism

  08-03-2016 19:19
  
  Legislators in France are trying to make the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation jealous of its French counterparts.The poor old FBI has to rely on a loosely drafted law two centuries old in its effort to compel Apple to help it unlock data held in a dead terrorist's smartphone.In France, refusing to hand over encrypted information in terrorism cases could lead to a fine of €350,000 (US$385,000) and five years in prison, under proposed legislation.To read this article in full or to leave a
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Person-centric healthcare amplified by blockchain

  08-03-2016 19:17
  
  Individualized care is what we mean when we speak of “patient” or “health.” The world is afraid of individualism, and this is magnified in healthcare. Prevention, telemedicine and wellness each address healthcare at an arm’s length.  Person-centric and patient-centric care touches, you the individual. The symmetric democratization balances the knowledge-driven power of medicine as power shifts from the doctor to the patient. Personal health is about more than a
  
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• Windows 10 support comes to Via x86 chips

  08-03-2016 18:42
  
  Via Technologies, the third-place x86 chip maker and once a real threat to Intel and AMD in PCs, is still around, making new x86 chips and bringing Windows 10 support to existing processors.
  Via's profile has declined in recent years but the company's chips are still used in thin clients and ITX boards, and have a dedicated fan following.
  The company has added Windows 10 compatibility to its EPIA-P910 and EPIA-M920 Pico-ITX boards, which are motherboards with PC-grade components. The board
  
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• Privacy groups want rules for how ISPs can track their customers

  08-03-2016 17:41
  
  Some Internet service providers are building powerful tools to track customers, and the U.S. Federal Communications Commission needs to step in, privacy advocates say.Some privacy advocates are calling on the FCC to create new regulations that limit how ISPs can track their customers across the Internet. The agency could release a proposal for ISP privacy rules as soon as this month, FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler said last week.Some ISPs are deploying "invasive and ubiquitous" tracking practices
  
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• Review: Samsung Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 Edge -- the new phones to beat

  08-03-2016 17:35
  
  The Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge are beautifully well-executed smartphones, worthy flagships from one of the world's largest electronics manufacturers. The changes from last year's S6 lines are incremental, but the fixes and upgrades are in all the right places. Those small improvements make for two vastly better phones, which start at $650 (for the S7) and $750 (for the S7 Edge), depending on the carrier.
  Samsung, like its bête noire Apple, seems to be on a two-year schedule, with major
  
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• Google offers app to help companies assess their vendors' security

  08-03-2016 17:29
  
  Google has published an interactive questionnaire that companies can use to assess the security practices of their suppliers or to review and improve their own security programs.
  The Vendor Security Assessment Questionnaire (VSAQ) is a Web-based application and was released under an open-source license on GitHub. It contains a collection of questionnaires that Google itself uses to review multiple aspects of a vendor's security.
  The application has templates for Web application security, infras
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Don’t go to a chicken farmer for cordon bleu

  08-03-2016 17:00
  
  In the areas where CIOs are looking to use technology to build value for the business, aligning technology to the business needs and outcomes, speed becomes the new currency. The old way of managing IT doesn’t work. So talking to the procurement department about digital and IT as a Service is like talking to a chicken farmer about cordon bleu.Previously I blogged about speed being the new currency. The means we use technology to go faster to move us into a software-defined world and a cons
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Microsoft joins the Eclipse Foundation, open sources Team Explorer Everywhere

  08-03-2016 16:57
  
  Microsoft is going deeper into the open source world by joining the Eclipse Foundation, a non-profit organization that hosts several open source projects.
  As Shanku Niyogi, general manager, Developer Division at Microsoft wrote in a blog post, “Joining the Eclipse Foundation enables us to collaborate more closely with the Eclipse community, deliver a great set of tools and services for all development teams, and continuously improve our cloud services, SDKs and tools.”To read t
  
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• IoT makes security and privacy top challenges for wearables

  08-03-2016 16:51
  
  From fitness trackers to connected headwear for soldiers on the battlefield, wearable devices stand as one of the fastest-growing segments of the tech industry.[ Related: Consumers are buying millions and millions of wearable devices ]But with those always-on devices come a slew of considerations for policy makers, in particular the concern that device manufacturers aren't implementing appropriate security and privacy measures.Those worries got an airing at a recent House hearing, where industry
  
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• Amazon staffs up for virtual reality video push

  08-03-2016 16:34
  
  Amazon is dipping its toes into virtual reality as the company expands its video team.
  As spotted by UploadVR, a new Amazon job posting seeks “a talented Senior Software Development Manager to lead our Virtual Reality team,” whose task is to build VR experiences as part of Amazon Video.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Cisco acquires search company

  08-03-2016 16:23
  
  Cisco this week acquired privately-held Synata, a developer of search technology for collaboration tools.
  Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
  +MORE ON NETWORK WORLD: Cisco’s Greatest Hits, 2015+
  Synata’s software will help users of Cisco’s Spark business collaboration service search rooms and content within the service, Cisco says. Spark is a cloud-based service that enables users to message, meet, or call.
  Synata’s software allows users to search both on-premise and c
  
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• Microsoft goes after pirates who allegedly activated 'thousands of copies' of Windows, Office

  08-03-2016 16:18
  
  Microsoft has asked a federal judge permission to serve Comcast with a subpoena to identify alleged software pirates who have activated thousands of copies of Windows 7 and Office 2013 using stolen or abused codes, according to court filings.
  "For an unknown period of time -- but for at least the past three years -- the Infringing IP Address has been used to activate thousands of Microsoft product keys," Microsoft said in a March 4 motion to a Seattle federal court.
  Those keys had been stolen f
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: OwnCloud 9.0 released, brings full federation for easy file sharing

  08-03-2016 16:00
  
  OwnCloud, the fully open source file sync and storage platform, has hit version 9.0 today. This release comes with many improvements, most notably full federation, which allows users on different servers to share directories and files.
  Federation on ownCloud has been one of the most useful features for businesses and organizations alike, but until now there was one big limitation: Users needed to know the Federated Cloud Sharing ID (email address for file sharing) of another user to be able to
  
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• Codenvy teams with Microsoft to help developers work together

  08-03-2016 16:00
  
  Developers who want to collaborate more efficiently on coding projects have a new tool to work with, thanks to a partnership between Microsoft and Codenvy.
  The companies have teamed up to offer an extension to Microsoft’s Visual Studio Team Services that lets developers create a cloud-based workspace with the correct tools to work on a shared project. In an unexpected move, Microsoft also joined the Eclipse Foundation to support the project underpinning the integration.
  Codenvy users can
  
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• BrandPost: Disaster Recovery: Rules to Live By

  08-03-2016 15:57
  
  Disaster Recovery: Rules to Live ByFloods, hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, power outages, equipment failure, hackers, employee error, malicious insiders… the list of potential threats to an organization’s data and business continuity seemingly are endless.However, by following well-established disaster-recovery (DR) strategies for small businesses and medium-sized organizations, IT pros can effectively safeguard company data and keep their businesses running in the event of man-made
  
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• Pros and cons of using fitness trackers for corporate wellness

  08-03-2016 15:08
  
  Do corporate wellness programs really benefit employees, as well as their employers? They do if you believe the results of a new survey of 200 American CEOs commissioned by Fitbit Wellness, Fitbit's corporate fitness team. The CEOs who participated in the Fitbit survey represented companies with between 1,000 and 10,000 employees, and the research was conducted in late 2015.It's not surprising that a Fitbit survey uncovered many benefits of corporate wellness programs, but the survey also highli
  
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• HP puts laser printing on notice with proprietary ink in new office printers

  08-03-2016 15:00
  
  HP is bringing a proprietary form of ink to office printers, and you won't be able to buy cheaper cartridges for it from sites like eBay.
  New PageWide and OfficeJet Pro printers will use so-called pigment ink to provide faster, cheaper and higher-quality printing than laser cartridges.
  HP has so far reserved pigment ink for industrial printing but is now bringing it to office printers. The ink is based on a proprietary formula, and cartridges can be bought only from HP for a price of US$40
  
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• In pursuit of HIPAA, a new compliance gap arises

  08-03-2016 14:47
  
  Now that we’ve passed our PCI audit, we’re making another big compliance push, this time for HIPAA. We’re not in the health field, but the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act includes guidance and requirements related to the safeguarding of health-related data that can be useful for just about any company.Trouble TicketAt issue: Meeting the requirements for HIPAA compliance can make a lot of sense from a business standpoint, but it won’t be easy.
  Action p
  
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• MapR delivers support for containers, security

  08-03-2016 14:39
  
  MapR Technologies today announced the general availability of the MapR Converged Data Platform, which brings Hadoop together with Spark, Web-scale storage, NoSQL and streaming capabilities in a unified cluster, designed to support customers deploying real-time global data applications.The Converged Data Platform features security, data governance and performance features enhancements built to meet enterprise requirements, and adds support for containers, including persistent storage and integrat
  
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• Fitness apps moving up to the big leagues

  08-03-2016 14:13
  
  In February, sports equipment company ASICS acquired FitnessKeeper, which operates the Runkeeper app. The move might have raised eyebrows if it had been the first brand to do this, but it was the third in recent app acquisitions by sporting goods-related companies. In August of last year, Adidas acquired Runtastic, and in February of 2015, Under Armour acquired both Endomondo and MyFitnessPal (UA had already acquired MapMyFitness in 2013). To read this article in full or to leave a com
  
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• Seagate reveals world's fastest SSD

  08-03-2016 14:00
  
  Seagate today announced what it's calling the world's fastest enterprise-class, solid-state drive (SSD), one that can transfer data at rates up to 10 gigabytes per second (GBps), some 6GBps faster than its previously fastest SSD.
  While there were no specifics with regard to the SSD's read/write rates, capacities or pricing, the company did say the new drive meets the Open Compute Project (OCP) specifications. The OCP was launched in 2011 to allow the sharing of data center designs among IT vend
  
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• Hands-on: Polaris Office is a free Office alternative, but read the fine print

  08-03-2016 14:00
  
  Microsoft Office dominates the productivity space, with a combination of business intelligence, collaboration, and continually updating features. Polaris Office for the PC is for the person who doesn’t need any of that, and just wants to open a spreadsheet at home.
  Products like LibreOffice, the Zoho suite, and Polaris Office offer basic Office compatibility, forgoing the fancy features for a solid, generally free experience. But be warned: The version of Polaris Office released Tues
  
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• Aruba's new products improve wireless connections

  08-03-2016 14:00
  
  Aruba announced networking software and hardware today that include a new wireless access point that can support Skype for Business and Wi-Fi calling at speeds above 1 gigabit per second.
  The new Aruba 330 series Wave 2 access point runs on 802.11ac and can support speeds up to 1.7 Gbps -- the kind of speed needed for video collaboration and other latency-sensitive services.
  The 330 will sell for $1,695 when available in the second quarter. Aruba, a subsidiary of Hewlett Packard Enterprise, als
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Does the iPad need its own operating system?

  08-03-2016 13:49
  
  The iPad Pro has been marketed by Apple as a big leap in terms of using iOS for productivity. The company has touted the iPad Pro as a laptop replacement for some users, and has spared no expense in making sure that its customers are aware of the power of the iPad Pro.But is iOS itself holding back the potential of the iPad Pro and the rest of the iPad product line? Some users think that the iPad should get its own operating system that goes beyond what iOS offers and the separates the iPad from
  
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• How can CIOs stay relevant?

  08-03-2016 13:49
  
  What's the point of a CIO?It's a brutally frank question. But in a world where business units can sign up for "shadow IT" services in minutes to get anything from CRM to analytics to data storage to email, do organizations really need a C-level technology expert anymore?The good news for CIOs is that the answer is probably "yes." The bad news is that they are going to have to change and adapt if they want to have any chance of staying relevant.That's certainly the view of Jim Cole, a senior vice
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Why your transformation initiative will probably fail

  08-03-2016 13:40
  
  I recently heard a gifted speaker cite an article in Harvard Business Review that found 70 percent of transformational initiatives fail. I, for one, am not surprised. Back in the 90’s, I worked for a research and consulting firm that conducted a similar study on the success rates of large initiatives (many were ERP implementations, but we didn’t limit the scope to that) and found that two-thirds failed. I guess not much has changed in 20 years.Back then, we found the most common char
  
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• It's time to pump the brakes on IoT

  08-03-2016 13:00
  
  Are you feeling jealous because your home isn't as "smart" as your neighbor's house? Or do you think you're a techno-peasant because you don't know much about the Internet of Things (IoT)? If so, stop.Despite wildly exaggerated expectations and hype, the push to connect everything to the Internet, from your refrigerator to your garage door opener, is losing momentum amidst the realization that IoT is far from ready for prime time. "Consumers wonder, 'Why do I need this?'" says Elizabeth Cho
  
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• Reviewing incident response plans for data risk preparedness

  08-03-2016 12:38
  
  Incident response plan reviews are growing in importance with the rapidly increasing numbers and types of information security incidents that enterprises must face. The enterprise must approach these reviews with a view toward effective event response.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Multi-factor authentication goes mainstream

  08-03-2016 12:00
  
  Fingerprints, rather than passwords, are what more than a million financial services customers at USAA use to get online. Part of a trend toward multi-factor authentication (MFA), there is no stored list of passwords for hackers to steal.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• LambdaNative brings functional programming to IoT

  08-03-2016 12:00
  
  LambdaNative, a development environment bringing functional programming to mobile and embedded application development, is being primed for expansion to the Internet of things.
  The open source cross-platform environment was written in the Scheme language and enables sharing of modular code between applications. "LambdaNative is a software development kit that manages the details of delivering applications on diverse platforms, beyond the scope of the Scheme compiler itself," LambdaNative team l
  
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• Taking team-building into the digital era

  08-03-2016 11:29
  
  When staffing a department, hiring the right people is only part of the process. The next step is ensuring they remain engaged. According to a 2015 survey by Gallup of 7,273 adult workers, only 32 percent of workers are engaged in their jobs. But encouraging employees to stay engaged isn't easy, and most companies won't achieve team bonding with pre-designed exercises and work retreats. At least, that's the case, according to Jenny Gottstein, director of games at The Go Game, a company focused o
  
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• NYC and Los Angeles still lag in mobile network performance

  08-03-2016 06:02
  
  The nation's most populous metro areas -- New York and Los Angeles -- again finished below average in the latest test of mobile network performance for the largest 125 metro areas conducted by RootMetrics.
  New York, with 18.3 million people, finished 76th out of 125 in the second half of 2015, dropping from 74th in the first half of last year.Los Angeles dropped from 89th to 94th for the same two periods, RootMetrics announced today.
  Meanwhile, Atlanta and Chicago finished at the top in the ran
  
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• DOJ appeals New York court order in favor of Apple

  08-03-2016 05:27
  
  The U.S. Department of Justice has appealed an order by a court in New York that turned down its request that Apple should be compelled to extract data from the iPhone 5s of an alleged drug dealer.The case in New York is seen as having a bearing on another high-profile case in California where Apple is contesting an order that would require the company to assist the FBI, including by providing new software, in its attempts at cracking by brute force the passcode of an iPhone 5c running iOS 9. Th
  
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• 3D Robotics means business with its new enterprise drone system

  08-03-2016 02:57
  
  Drones are the bad boys of the Internet of Things. Instead of doing something useful at home or in a factory, it seems like they're usually out capturing amateur spy video. But that's starting to change.
  For example, the construction industry is starting to use unmanned aerial devices to keep an eye on things, partly because a lot of its work gets done in places that aren't yet safe or easy for people to get around in. Japanese construction gear maker Komatsu even has robotic bulldozers guided
  
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• Security, encryption experts: Congress is the answer to Apple v. FBI

  08-03-2016 01:52
  The world’s top security and encryption experts who spent time last week at RSA Conference 2016 trying to figure out how to keep devices and communications secure yet also enable criminal investigations came up with nothing except to punt the issue to the U.S. Congress.
  And Congress will take up the issue this week with Attorney General Loretta Lynch scheduled to testify to the Senate Judiciary Committee. The panel is looking into the Justice Department in general, but the topic is expect
  
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• First Mac ransomware had sights on encrypting backups, too

  08-03-2016 01:51
  
  The first known working ransomware aimed at Macs contained hints that the cybercriminals were working on a way to encrypt backups in an attempt to force payment, security researchers said today.
  Dubbed "KeRanger" by Palo Alto Networks, whose researchers discovered the malware on Friday, the attack code included a non-working "stub" function labeled "_encrypt_timemachine."
  "We believe that they had plans to finish [the function] at some point," said Ryan Olson, director of threat intelligence, U
  
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• Google patches remote execution flaws in Android

  08-03-2016 00:23
  
  Google has released 16 patches for Android, including one for a critical remote execution vulnerability in the operating system's mediaserver.The company's Nexus devices will receive an over-the-air update. Google's partners were notified no later than Feb. 1 of the fixes, giving them more than a month to prepare.The vulnerabilities in mediaserver could be exploited if malicious content is displayed or played on a device, such as an MMS, email, or if the browser plays some type of media, Google'
  
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