IT Executive news

• Quicken pilots hosted personal finance, dips toe in subscription waters

  13-04-2016 23:33
  
  Quicken last week started soliciting testers for a cloud-hosted edition of its namesake personal finance software.
  The newly-independent company -- sold to private equity firm H.I.G. Capital last month -- asked for volunteers to try out Hosted Quicken for Windows (HQW).
  HQW will kick off this month and run for a year, Quicken said.
  The hosted Quicken will not be a true cloud application. Instead, it will rely on Quicken 2016 for Windows running on servers at a data center maintained by Hudson,
  
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• Facebook open-sources developer tools for iOS

  13-04-2016 23:30
  
  Facebook’s annual F8 conference in San Francisco is geared toward developers, but the company’s biggest announcements so far have been way more focused on new stuff for Facebook’s users to dig into, like a camera that shoots 360-degree video, Messenger chatbots, and a Save to Facebook button for reading articles later. But the company also shared some developer news, like tools that make iOS apps easier to build.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click
  
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• Senators release official draft of federal encryption legislation

  13-04-2016 23:21
  
  The first proposed federal encryption legislation has been released, and had it been established law earlier this year Apple would have had to provide the help the FBI asked for in accessing encrypted data on the iPhone used by a terrorist in San Bernardino.
  The draft published by Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina and Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California calls for encryption vendors and others to obey court orders that command them to deliver intelligible versions of encrypted data or to provi
  
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• Why some CIOs are taking on customer advisory roles

  13-04-2016 23:06
  
  The days of CEOs keeping their CIOs at arm's length from customers are over, signaling a significant shift for an IT role that has evolved from managing data centers and back-office applications. Companies pressured to deploydigital technologies across their business lines are installing IT leaders in positions focused solely on engaging with customers.Stu Appley recently shed his CIO role at Shorenstein Realty Services to join commercial real estate giant CBRE in a customer-facing role. As mana
  
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• From freakout to slow burn, Zika has potential to impact business

  13-04-2016 22:21
  
  The arrival of the Zika virus in the U.S. is raising questions. Will it affect business travel? Will it hurt recruiting in affected regions? Does it pose supply chain problems? The answer may be yes to all those questions.
  Zika is spreading. The cases in the U.S., with the exception of Puerto Rico, are from people who were infected outside this country. There's an expectation that eventually the U.S. will see cases that are locally acquired, the result of a mosquito bite.
  For now, Zika is large
  
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• Mozilla explores radically different browser as Firefox leaks share

  13-04-2016 22:12
  
  Mozilla is trying to come up with a next-generation browser, but according to company executives, seems uncertain whether to retain the current Firefox technology or switch to something else, perhaps the same that powers Google's Chrome.
  Last week, Mark Mayo, the head of Mozilla's cloud services engineering team, revealed that a new project, dubbed Tofino, is exploring options for a radical revision of Firefox.
  "We're working on browser prototypes that look and feel almost nothing like the curr
  
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• Microsoft is boosting security through hardware in Windows 10 PCs, phones

  13-04-2016 22:11
  
  The burden of Microsoft's efforts to secure Windows 10 is now falling on PC, tablet, and smartphone makers.Microsoft is making a hardware-based security feature called TPM (Trusted Platform Module) 2.0 a minimum requirement on most Windows 10 devices. Starting July 28, the company will require device manufacturers shipping PCs, tablets and smartphones to include TPM 2.0.TPM has been available for years, mostly on business PCs. TPM 2.0 provides a hardware layer to safeguard user data by mana
  
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• BrandPost: CFO-CIO Collaboration: An Advanced Checklist

  13-04-2016 22:10
  
  In the past, the CIO and CFO rode parallel but separate journeys to boardroom influence. Now, with the growth of data analytics and cloud-enabled ERP systems, as well as significant cybersecurity concerns, neither can afford to constantly lock horns over ownership of data and technology decision-making. Instead, they require a collaborative partnership in which each complements the other for maximum future impact.That’s partly because of the shifting IT landscape, in which digital transfor
  
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• Facebook is bringing in the bots and AI

  13-04-2016 21:50
  
  SAN FRANCISCO -- Facebook isn’t worried about biting off more than it can chew and it’s making that abundantly clear here at F8 this week. During the span of an 85-minute keynote yesterday, company executives trotted on stage to discuss chat bots and artificial intelligence (AI) for business customer care, live video, virtual reality and a series of developer tool enhancements to bolster its mission of connecting people.
  Facebook is looking to simplify mundane and repeatable tasks f
  
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• This big-data startup combines AI with human savvy to help make sense of your data

  13-04-2016 21:37
  
  Turning data into insight is one of the top business challenges today, and it becomes especially tricky when the data in question is unstructured. Artificial intelligence has a mixed track record there, but a young startup aims to get better results by bringing humans back into the picture.Spare5 on Wednesday released a new platform that applies a combination of human insight and machine learning to help companies make sense of unstructured data, including images, video, social media content, an
  
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• Survey: Investment in identity management is booming

  13-04-2016 21:31
  
  Research firms Gartner and IDC are both forecasting global IT spending slumps in 2016, but identity and access management (IAM) may be a bright spot, according to a new survey from authentication and single sign-on provider SecureAuth, conducted by marketing research and consulting firm Decision Analyst.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Facebook's quest for Internet is coming back to Earth with two wireless projects

  13-04-2016 21:13
  
  Facebook’s quest to improve Internet access has come down to Earth with experimental wireless gear for cities and rural areas.At the company’s F8 conference on Wednesday, Facebook networking chief Jay Parikh introduced a super-high-frequency wireless backbone called Terragraph and a 96-antenna cellular base station named Aries. Facebook won’t sell these systems but wants to make the technologies available to others.The world’s biggest social networking company has as much
  
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• Cable industry players eye wireless expansion, say analysts

  13-04-2016 20:47
  
  Cable companies are already among the very biggest players in the wireless world, but analysts speaking at industry group CableLabs’ InformED Wireless event Wednesday in New York said that opportunities for further growth exist.
  Specifically, said Jonathan Chaplin of New Street Research, it’s a “matter of time” before the cable industry (presumably meaning either Comcast or TWC) moves more heavily into wireless, whether via an acquisition or some form of partnership with
  
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• Something strange just happened with North Korea's Internet

  13-04-2016 20:39
  
  Ever since North Korea directly connected to the Internet in 2010, there's been a lot of interest in how the world's most closed country maintains and uses the link.It connects a handful of Web sites in Pyongyang serving propaganda to the world and allows foreigners in the country largely unfiltered access to the Internet. It also provides monitored access to an unknown number of senior officials, scientists, and university students.Yet for everything we've learned, there's still a lot we don't
  
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• Facebook's Terragraph project aims to replace fiber with fast, low-cost Wi-Fi

  13-04-2016 20:30
  
  Facebook’s plan to connect the world to the Internet is ambitious. It also has many arms. There’s Aquila, the solar-powered plane that will beam Internet to the ground. Then there’s Project ARIES, a plan to extend connectivity to rural areas cheaper and faster, so people who live close to cities will be able to access the Internet. But Facebook’s newest project is on the ground. It’s called Terragraph, a low-cost, high-speed wireless network that will replace fiber
  
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• Watch out: Facebook has a VR selfie stick

  13-04-2016 20:10
  
  If there are two hot new tech trends that make their users look colossally dumb, they're virtual reality and selfie sticks. At its F8 developer conference today, Facebook showed how the two can be brought together in an unholy marriage.Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer showed off a demo using the Oculus Rift and its touch controller that let him share a VR space with someone at Facebook's campus. While there, they explored several 360-degree photos from London, before arriving in front of Big Ben.&nb
  
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• FBI reportedly bought exploit from hackers to access San Bernardino iPhone

  13-04-2016 20:10
  The FBI reportedly paid professional hackers a one-time fee for a previously unknown vulnerability that allowed the agency to unlock the iPhone of San Bernardino shooter.The exploit allowed the FBI to build a device capable of brute-forcing the iPhone's PIN without triggering a security measure that would have wiped all of its data, the Washington Post reported Tuesday, citing unnamed sources familiar with the matter.The hackers who provided the exploit to the FBI find software vulnerabilit
  
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• CIO April 2016 Digital Magazine: Wearables go to work

  13-04-2016 19:33
  
  Download the CIO April 2016 Digital Magazine.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: 4 steps to freshen up your image

  13-04-2016 18:33
  
  When was the last time you were asked to participate in a special project that had a lot of visibility?Do your colleagues always seem to be the ones chosen instead of you for those career-making assignments?Have you applied for positions in your company and been turned down?If you answered yes to any of the above, then maybe it's time for a career spring cleaning!The thrill is gone…
  When you've been in the same job for five years or more there is a risk of becoming stagnant in your IT car
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Ransomware: 'World War Business' and the post-modern CIO

  13-04-2016 18:27
  
  You can’t have failed to have heard about the recent outbreak of ransomware (software designed to block access to IT assets until a ransom is paid) that has hit medical care facilities in the US. In at least one case, Methodist Hospital in Henderson, Kentucky, a ransom is reported to have been paid. The hospital was forced to declare a state of emergency when patient files were locked, and ended up paying to have them unlocked. There are different claims about the amount paid, ranging from
  
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• Intel starts baking speedy FPGAs into chips

  13-04-2016 18:26
  With rivals Nvidia and AMD both offering graphics processors, Intel is now deploying screaming co-processors of its own in the form of FPGAs.FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays) are extremely fast chips that can be reprogrammed to do specific tasks. Intel last year acquired Altera for $16.7 billion as it started thinking beyond CPUs and stressing co-processors for demanding computing tasks.Intel recently started shipping server chips paired with FPGAs as part of a pilot program. The company is
  
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• Grim PC business shows no sign of recovery

  13-04-2016 18:22
  
  PC shipments plummeted in the first quarter, dropping 11.5% compared to the year before, researcher IDC said Monday.
  The impressively dismal decline was a poor opening for a year that IDC once believed would see the bottom of the PC industry's years-old trough. But just a month ago, IDC revised its forecast, saying that shipments in 2016 would fall by 5.4% from 2015.
  Rival market research vendor Gartner, which also issued its Q1 shipment numbers this week, pegged the drop-off at 9.6%, with the
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Game of stacks: Mirantis vs. Red Hat

  13-04-2016 18:20
  
  Mirantis and Red Hat were once very close partners. But the affair didn’t last long, and while Mirantis continued its journey as a pure play OpenStack vendor, Red Hat continued to strengthen its enterprise offerings by building their own stack.
  Mirantis has made some significant progress recently that positions it as an influential OpenStack player. Is the company making a dent in Red Hat’s empire?
  [ Also on CIO.com: The dirty dozen: 12 cloud security threats ]To read this article i
  
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• House panel moves to require warrants for stored data

  13-04-2016 18:13
  
  A U.S. House of Representatives committee has advanced a bill to give email and cloud-stored data new privacy protections from law enforcement searches.
  The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday voted 28-0 to approve an amended version of the Email Privacy Act, which would require law enforcement agencies to get court-ordered warrants to search email and other cloud-stored data that's more than six months old.
  Some privacy advocates and tech companies have been pushing Congress to update a 30-
  
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• Did NSA underestimate the insider threat?

  13-04-2016 18:00
  
  In this edition of the Irari Report, Ira Winkler and Araceli Treu Gomes continue their interview of Chris Inglis, former Deputy Director of NSA. In this segment, they focus on how an organization that is so aware of the insider threat can be compromised by a person like Edward Snowden.
  Inglis highlights how trust is critical to function, but verification must be implemented. This relies upon a stringent screening process, as you have to extend to trust to the people you hire. While Snowden was
  
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• 4 ways Chrome's Safe Browsing protects you from devious Internet dangers

  13-04-2016 17:34
  
  Despite working on self-driving cars, virtual reality, and other side projects, Google still makes most of its money from the web. That’s why the company pays so much attention to protecting users from malicious content online. In recent years, Google has beefed up its Safe Browsing initiative to protect Chrome users—as well as users of other browsers—from a wide array of devious online threats.
  If you’ve ever used Chrome you’ve likely seen this protection before,
  
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• The CSO identity management survival guide

  13-04-2016 16:54
  
  Identity management, as Gartner defines it, is the "security discipline that enables the right individuals to access the right resources at the right times for the right reasons." It sounds like a lofty ideal, but it is at once elemental and essential and, according to Gartner, is "a crucial undertaking for any enterprise."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Invisible analytics and the last mile in healthcare

  13-04-2016 16:13
  
  Last week, I had the opportunity to present at Predictive Analytics World in San Francisco. It’s an event that brings together advanced analytics professionals from different sectors to discuss best practices for developing and deploying predictive models. Along with my co-presenter Dr. Josh Liberman, Executive Director of Research, Development, and Dissemination at Sutter Health, a large health system in northern California, we explored the issue of advanced analytics for transitions in c
  
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• How to save your job from the intelligent robots

  13-04-2016 16:09
  
  Is an intelligent robot capable of taking over your job? New research implies the answer is probably yes — if not now, then very soon. Fortune magazine recently stated that “technological unemployment” is a significant factor in the rising number of working-age men who are without jobs.Geoff Colvin’s recent book, Humans Are Underrated, observes that robots, augmented by AI, continue to take over repetitive tasks in the workplace, many of which used to be considered beyond
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Nintendo’s Miitomo game for iOS is raking in the cash, but some gamers remain unimpressed

  13-04-2016 15:26
  When Nintendo first announced that it was going to start releasing games for iOS, many gamers rejoiced as thoughts of Donkey Kong, Mario Kart, Zelda and other top Nintendo games raced through their heads. But instead of releasing any of its top franchises, Nintendo went with a game called Miitomo.Miitomo is a social app that is free to download but offers in-app purchases. From a financial perspective Nintendo seems to have made a good decision, Miitomo is raking in $280,000 per week according t
  
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• Privacy regulators: Commission ‘could do better’ on Privacy Shield

  13-04-2016 15:25
  
  The Privacy Shield trans-Atlantic data transfer arrangement is better than its predecessor, Safe Harbor, but still not good enough, European Union data protection authorities said Wednesday.They want the European Commission improve the deal it has negotiated with U.S. authorities to ensure that EU citizens' personal information receives privacy protection equivalent to that of EU law when it is exported to the U.S.The authorities have been examining Privacy Shield since it was unveiled in Februa
  
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• EU privacy regulators: Commission ‘could do better’ on Privacy Shield

  13-04-2016 15:25
  
  The Privacy Shield trans-Atlantic data transfer arrangement is better than its predecessor, Safe Harbor, but still not good enough, European Union data protection authorities said Wednesday.
  They want the European Commission improve the deal it has negotiated with U.S. authorities to ensure that EU citizens' personal information receives privacy protection equivalent to that of EU law when it is exported to the U.S.
  The authorities have been examining Privacy Shield since it was unveiled in Feb
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: The 7 biggest problems online marketers will face in the next 5 years

  13-04-2016 14:08
  
  It’s an exciting time to be a marketer. Technologies are rolling out faster and faster, we have access to amounts of data previous generations couldn’t have possibly predicted, and we can communicate in some breathtaking ways with our customers. But for all these advancements and for all our potential to grow, we’re still going to face some major hurdles as we cross the threshold into the next era of communications and technology.Projecting paths of technological development is
  
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• New sensors help reduce supply chain risks

  13-04-2016 14:00
  
  Better sensors help companies reduce shipping risks and react faster to disruptions, but costs and deployment challenges are still slowing adoption.
  According to a Capgemini Consulting survey released last week of 337 executives from large global manufacturing and retail organizations, only 15 percent said that the majority of data from the extended supply chain is accessible to their organization. In five years, that number jumps to 54 percent.
  And 94 percent said that they see supply chain vi
  
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• Why data scientist is the hottest tech job in retail

  13-04-2016 13:48
  
  They have been called “unicorns,” because they are so hard to find. Their position has been called the “sexiest job of the 21th century.” They are data scientists, a job which – in a world where big data now permeates every industry and requires the right people to extract knowledge and insights – not surprisingly topped Glassdoor’s list for the 25 Best Jobs in America for 2016. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Power Shell is a powerful malware tool

  13-04-2016 13:34
  
  PowerShell used as a tool in compound malware attacks is becoming more common, with 38% of all attacks seen by IT security vendor CarbonBlack and its partners involving the native Windows scripting language.
  Ben Johnson
  Its use is so common in enterprises for legitimate purposes that most security devices and personnel don’t regard it as a threat, says Ben Johnson, the chief security strategist at CarbonBlack.
  That makes it all the more effective as a component of attacks. Its scripts can
  
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• Survey: Healthcare industry most targeted by cyberattackers

  13-04-2016 13:00
  
  According to a survey released this morning by 451 Research, 63 percent of health care industry respondents said they had experienced a breach, the highest of any industry vertical studied.
  But spending priorities were focused on perimeter defenses. According to the survey, network security was the top category for increased spending over the next 12 months, chosen by 49 percent of respondents. In addition, 78 percent rated network defenses as "very" or "extremely" effective at protecting sensi
  
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• Review: 4 mid-priced laptops that mean business

  13-04-2016 12:30
  
  Every day an army of business people heads out to offices, meetings and coffee shops, equipped with little more than a smartphone and a laptop. To get the job done, that laptop has to be secure enough to protect sensitive data, rugged enough to bounce around in a backpack, and with enough battery power and performance strength to get through a day of presentations, emails and online chats. All without busting the company budget.HP ProBook 450 G3To read this article in full or to leave a comment,
  
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• Hands on with NexDock, the laptop that isn't

  13-04-2016 12:30
  
  What’s sitting next to me isn’t a product that can you walk into an electronics store and buy—not yet, anyway. The NexDock, which looks like a laptop but isn’t, represents a possible future where phones become PCs.
  Instead, all of the available CPU power and app storage is provided by a mobile device, whether it be a Windows phone or tablet, an Android phone, a Raspberry Pi, or something similar. This “laptop” is more like an external monitor.
  Yes, it’s
  
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• Will companies trust their communications to A.I. chatbots?

  13-04-2016 12:00
  
  SAN FRANCISCO -- Facebook says chatbots will change the way businesses communicate with their customers, but will businesses want to put their user communications in the hands of artificial intelligence?"They're a powerful tool but they're also a big risk," said Brian Blau, an analyst with Gartner. "A.I. can be a very powerful technology. Businesses are going to have to understand how to harness that power. There are reasons to be worried about it. Because we're giving chatbots the power to act
  
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• Chief Risk Officers needed to battle rising corporate espionage

  13-04-2016 12:00
  
  A growing number of organizations are adding a new member to the C-suite—the chief risk officer (CRO)—and the rise of these executives is having a direct impact on the security programs at enterprises.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• 10 simple tools for building mobile apps fast

  13-04-2016 12:00
  
  No-code and low-code mobile dev toolsWhile the great debate rages on between the various mobile development camps -- the pure HTML5/JavaScript/CSS3 mobile Web faction, the native code purists, and the hybrid mobile app fans -- businesses still have to create and maintain mobile applications for their employees, business partners, and customers. The one conclusion that everyone seems to reach, eventually, is that there is no single panacea in this space. Each approach and toolset has its advantag
  
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• Go-to storage and disaster recovery products

  13-04-2016 11:00
  
  Drew Como credits his enterprise backup and recovery technology of choice – Veeam Availability Suite -- with helping his company to recover from a disastrous third-party software upgrade.
  “Once, we had a software vendor who assured us that an upgrade would be quick and easy, so we went ahead with it. In fact, it destroyed a key database,” says Como, who is senior manager of global datacenter platform services at Take-Two Interactive Software. “Everyone panicked, but I sa
  
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• Fave Raves: 29 tech pros share their favorite IT products

  13-04-2016 11:00
  
  IT favoritesWhen we asked IT pros about their favorite enterprise tech products, their picks included all kinds of hardware, software and cloud services. The common thread? Gear that saves time or money, increases IT agility or tightens security. Read on to find out what these 29 IT pros have to say, in their own words, about their tech favorites.SEE ALSO: 5 must-have network tools | Go-to storage and disaster recovery productsTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, pl
  
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• 5 must-have network tools

  13-04-2016 11:00
  
  Software-defined WAN promises a simplified, cost-effective way to manage multiple types of broadband Internet connections. While most enterprises today are only in the very early stages of piloting or implementing SD-WAN, Gartner predicts that by the end of 2019, 30% of enterprises will have deployed SD-WAN technology in their branches, up from less than 1% today. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• 6 highest-paying executive jobs in tech

  13-04-2016 10:48
  
  IT executive salaries on the riseImage by Thinkstock Technology workers are a hot commodity and that demand is reflected in the salary for these six high-level executive technology jobs, according to data collected by Mondo. Every year Mondo, a digital marketing and tech talent company, conducts an IT salary survey. This year it surveyed 3,000 workers in New York City, San Francisco, Washington DC, Philadelphia, Denver, Boston, Chicago and Dallas, revealing increases in the average salaries for
  
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• Intel's new hardware kits make it easier to build robots and drones

  13-04-2016 04:30
  Intel's keynotes can be fun, with robots parading on stage and drones zigzagging around the room. Now Intel's making new hardware to help enthusiasts join the fun by building robots and drones at home.The Robotic Development Kit and Aero Kit provide the necessary hardware and software tools to build robots and drones, respectively. The kits were announced at the ongoing Intel Developer Forum in Shenzhen, China.A major element of the developer boards is the RealSense 3D camera, which will ship wi
  
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• Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg predicts VR headsets will look like glasses in a decade

  13-04-2016 03:44
  When Facebook launched in 2004, CEO Mark Zuckerbeg couldn’t have imagined that his fledgling social network would one day build a solar-powered plane that would beam Internet connectivity to remote areas. That’s happening right now: It’s called Aquila, and it flies 60,000 feet above the ground for months at a time to connect the world. This plane is part of Zuckerberg’s vision for the next year. But he also has incredibly specific long-term goals, like this one: In 10 ye
  
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• On many IoT projects, IT shops get left behind

  13-04-2016 03:38
  
  IT departments are playing second fiddle to operations people as enterprises tune up for the Internet of Things.
  That’s one of the surprising findings from a survey of people involved in business IoT projects in the U.S. The survey, conducted last month by Technalysis Research, also revealed that monitoring employees is the No. 1 thing companies want to do with the widely hyped technology.
  IoT straddles IT and operational technology, two disciplines that for decades have lived side by sid
  
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• U.S. gets 236,000 H-1B petitions, a new record

  13-04-2016 03:32
  
  The U.S. received 236,000 H-1B petitions for 85,000 visas available under the program's visa caps, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) said Tuesday.
  The visas are being distributed via a lottery, which means only about one in every three petitions will be approved.
  The U.S. received 233,000 H-1B visa petitions last year, the previous record. The U.S. accepts visas on April 1 for the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1.
  If history is any guide, a majority of the demand for the visa
  
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