IT Executive news

• Next up in IoT: The Internet of shirts and shoes

  19-04-2016 23:58
  Some clothes already hang out on the Internet. Pharrell Williams’s hat has its own Twitter account, as does Mark Zuckerberg’s hoodie. Your clothes could be next to get online identities, though it won't make them famous.IoT startup Evrythng is teaming up with packaging company Avery Dennison to give apparel and footwear products unique identities in Evrythng’s software right when they’re manufactured.The companies have high hopes for the Janela Smart Products Platform, se
  
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• 9 new cloud features Amazon announced, and 1 it didn’t

  19-04-2016 23:06
  
  The AWS Summit in Chicago this week kicks off an international tour of dozens of Summits from New York to Tokyo this year, culminating with AWS re:Invent in December. At today’s conference Amazon Web Services GM of Product Strategy Matt Wood announced new features for the cloud platform.
  But one thing that was not officially discussed has been a rumored product that could give Amazon partner reason for concern.
  +MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: AWS Exec on competing with Google and Microsoft; the n
  
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• 70% off Pop-Tech Magnetic Cell Phone Dashboard Mount - Deal Alert

  19-04-2016 22:57
  
  The Pop-Tech magnetic dashboard mount is a very simple, minimalistically designed mount that uses a strong magnet instead of clips or cradles to hold your phone securely in place, even on bumpy roads. The unit works with most major cell phones, and thanks to a steel ball allows you to rotate your device 360 degrees to adapt to most surfaces and angles. It averages 5 out of 5 stars from over 90 reviewers (read reviews). With a list price of $39.99, the current 70% discount on Amazon put this unit
  
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• New AWS service helps companies to move their apps to the cloud

  19-04-2016 22:53
  
  A new Amazon cloud service announced Tuesday could help companies with legacy applications have an easier time taking the leap to the cloud. Amazon Web Services General Manager Matt Wood announced the new Application Discovery Service, which will allow companies to easily analyze legacy applications running on their data centers. It will help companies start the migration of their application data up to the cloud, and then work with one of Amazon's partners to get their applications running
  
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• Intel axes 12,000 jobs as it looks to break away from PCs

  19-04-2016 22:42
  Intel is cutting 12,000 jobs worldwide as the company restructures operations to diversify from PCs into growth areas of IoT and servers.The layoffs account for about 11 percent of employees worldwide. Intel is also consolidating work locations worldwide in a move the company hopes will save it US $750 million this year.Data center equipment will be Intel's growth area growing forward, generating a large part of Intel's profits and potentially making up for the declines in the PC market.Growth d
  
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• Intel's less of a PC company, shedding 12,000 workers as it moves into other businesses

  19-04-2016 22:39
  
  Intel is evolving from a PC company to one that serves the cloud and connected devices—and it’s losing 12,000 jobs as a result.
  News of impending layoffs usually accompanies a severe downturn, but that wasn’t really the case: Intel reported net income of $2.0 billion, flat compared to a year ago, as well a 7-percent bump in revenue to $13.7 billion. (Analysts, though, expected Intel to report $13.8 billion and profits of 47 cents per share, versus the 42 cents per share Intel
  
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• APIs abound, but challenges remain

  19-04-2016 22:15
  
  Businesses are now widely using application programming interfaces (APIs), but despite widespread use, a recent study has found most companies are struggling with challenges ranging from getting infrastructure in place to finding suppliers to simply setting strategy and objectives."APIs can add tremendous value to a business, but simply having them is not enough," says Rahim Bhatia, general manager, Developer Products, CA Technologies. "Like products, they have to be properly created, managed, m
  
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• Python devs can gain greater efficiency with Kite

  19-04-2016 21:58
  
  Kite, an artificial pair programmer application, helps developers increase efficiency and get up to speed on new libraries more quickly. Available in a limited release, it bridges the editor and the browser, offering useful information to developers.
  "As programmers today, we're working with not-so-smart tools, leaving us constantly searching for basic information," Kite CEO Adam Smith said. "This interrupts our flow, making us less happy and less effective." The problem is only getting worse,
  
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• BrandPost: Cognitive Analytics. Say What?

  19-04-2016 21:29
  
  Say “cognitive analytics” and you typically get two reactions. For some, it’s a new consulting buzzword that makes a simple thing sound complicated. For others, the feeling is, “Maybe companies somewhere are doing it, but we’re not and we’re never going to.”The first may be true. The second is likely not. Cognitive analytics are coming your way and there’s no doubt about it.Business professionals generally refer to cognitive analytics when talking
  
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• EFF sues to uncover government demands to decrypt communications

  19-04-2016 21:18
  
  The Electronic Frontier Foundation is suing the U.S. Department of Justice over its failure to disclose if Internet companies have been compelled to decrypt user data and communications.The EFF action targets applications to and decisions by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC), a Washington, D.C., based court that meets in secret to consider cases related to government surveillance and national security.The court's decisions are classified, and Internet companies are prohibited fr
  
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• HPE/Aruba reportedly eyeing IP of Rasa Networks

  19-04-2016 21:04
  
  HPE/Aruba is said to be planning to acquire the intellectual property of failing startup Rasa Networks within the next 2 to 4 weeks, according to sources close to the matter.
  The transaction could see between $5 million and $10 million change hands, the sources added, noting that it’s not a full buyout of the company, but merely a deal for Rasa’s IP and, potentially, one or two of the company’s data scientists.
  +ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Don’t buy into hybrid cloud headache
  
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• No lawyer? This online tool uses AI to review your contracts

  19-04-2016 20:59
  
  Business documents written in foreign languages are no longer the problem they once were thanks to technologies like Google Translate, but what about contracts written in legalese? That's where LawGeex hopes to help with an AI-based online tool.LawGeex offers what it calls the world's first contract review platform based on artificial intelligence. The goal, it says, is to help businesses and individuals "get a fair deal" before signing an agreement.Toward that end, it combines machine-learning
  
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• BrandPost: Data Protection and the Cloud in the New ‘Hybrid’ World

  19-04-2016 20:57
  
  As data continues to grow in volume and strategic value, businesses increasingly turn to the cloud to meet data storage and management needs. The reasons by now are well-known: Cloud services can provide unprecedented levels of flexibility and scalability while also saving on hardware and other costs related to on-premises solutions.But backing up and storing data in the cloud presents its own challenges, particularly to companies lacking large IT staffs. Data is typically a company’s grea
  
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• IDC’s guide to avoiding vendor lock-in

  19-04-2016 19:53
  
  "All too often, the vendors have the upper hand," says research and advisory firm IDC in a recent report. High switching costs or other "vendor control points," such as proprietary technology integrations or overly customized applications, can make it too much trouble for enterprise customers to discontinue using one vendor and switch to another.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Do Microsoft customers really need Software Assurance?

  19-04-2016 19:42
  
  Have you ever considered dropping Software Assurance (SA) on certain Microsoft products? If so, you’re not alone. More and more companies are using this tactic to reduce Microsoft costs – and drastically so. At 29 percent for desktop licenses and 25 percent for server products, SA fees constitute a large portion of most enterprises’ Microsoft spend. Eliminating SA on some products can often lead to savings of 20, 30 or 40 percent off of a customer’s annual SA spend.Howeve
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: New MacBook: Apple disappoints with 480p FaceTime camera

  19-04-2016 19:34
  I’ve been waiting quite a while for Apple to update its sleek 12-inch MacBook, and now an updated version is finally available. Apple has added new Skylake processors, a Rose Gold version, and even managed to squeeze another hour of battery life out of the MacBook.Benjamin Mayo reports for 9to5Mac:
  Apple has today released an update to the 12 inch Retina MacBook line, with new Skylake processors, overall better performance, and a new color: Rose Gold. The new internals have also allowed Ap
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Apple updates 12-inch MacBook, disappoints with 480p FaceTime camera

  19-04-2016 19:34
  I’ve been waiting quite a while for Apple to update its sleek 12-inch MacBook, and now an updated version is finally available. Apple has added new Skylake processors, a Rose Gold version, and even managed to squeeze another hour of battery life out of the MacBook.Benjamin Mayo reports for 9to5Mac:
  Apple has today released an update to the 12 inch Retina MacBook line, with new Skylake processors, overall better performance, and a new color: Rose Gold. The new internals have also allowed Ap
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Dell takes back the night in PCs

  19-04-2016 19:20
  
  Back in the old days, like a decade ago, everyone waited breathlessly for the quarterly PC market share statistics to come out. Fortunes were riding on it. Then Apple’s iPhone came out and upended the endpoint (Internet-access-device) business, and it’s been a while since most people cared much about PCs.But fortunes are still riding on the PC market, despite its continuing to shrink. According to Gartner and IDC, worldwide unit shipments dropped by double-digit percentages in 1Q16 t
  
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• Lawmakers call for middle ground on law enforcement access to encryption

  19-04-2016 19:06
  
  Technology vendors and law enforcement agencies need to look for a compromise that allows police to gain access to encrypted devices during criminal investigations, lawmakers say.Many tech vendors and privacy advocates have suggested there is no available compromise between strong security for device users and police access to encrypted communications. But members of a congressional committee on Tuesday pushed both sides in the ongoing encryption debate to look again for
  
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• Meet a handheld server with a 13-terabyte SSD

  19-04-2016 18:58
  
  Fixstars' Olive is like the Raspberry Pi of servers, but with a twist -- it packs 13TB of solid-state drive storage in a system that can be held in one hand.Olive could be viewed as a full-fledged computer crammed into a 2.5-inch SSD drive. The 13TB drive makes it one-of-a-kind in a market where compact computers are hungry for storage.Some unique features make the server better suited for businesses than homes. It is customizable, with an FPGA (field-programmable gate array), which can be repro
  
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• Viber joins WhatsApp and Apple with end-to-end message encryption

  19-04-2016 16:48
  
  Not wanting to be left behind in the pursuit of enhanced user security, Viber is adding end-to-end encryption (E2EE) following WhatsApp’s E2EE roll out earlier in April. Viber announced on Tuesday that E2EE would roll out to its users globally over the next two weeks. The new encryption will cover text, voice, and group chats, and will work across mobile and PC versions of Viber.Viber with end-to-end encryption.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Viber follows WhatsApp in adding end-to-end encryption to its messaging service

  19-04-2016 16:31
  
  Viber, a popular instant messaging and Voice-over-IP service provider with more than 700 million users, has implemented end-to-end encryption to protect its customers' communications against snooping.The move comes after Facebook-owned WhatsApp turned on full end-to-end encryption earlier this month, bringing secure and private instant messaging into the mainstream.The majority of IM apps have long encrypted the communications between users' devices and their own servers. However, in such a conf
  
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• Why Facebook wants rivals to build hardware

  19-04-2016 16:05
  
  In a move to advance its core business services, Facebook recently open-sourced more of its own research and development knowledgebase. Instead of developing and selling network infrastructure hardware or wireless connectivity systems, for example, Facebook opened up some of its biggest tech accomplishments and encouraged deep-pocketed competitors to produce related components and deliver services at scale.Facebook is essentially a hardware company that doesn't sell hardware (excluding Oculus),
  
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• When Locky strikes

  19-04-2016 16:05
  
  A friend of mine called me for advice yesterday. He had just gotten hit hard by ransomware.
  If you’ve been keeping up with the news lately, you’ve probably heard about the explosion of the ransomware strain known as Locky. Locky is a very aggressive type of malware that encrypts files on a victim’s computers and crawls through network shares that are accessible to the victim. It is typically delivered by macros inside of Microsoft Word documents sent through email. When recipi
  
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• 39% off Sennheiser RS120 On-Ear Wireless RF Headphones - Deal Alert

  19-04-2016 15:47
  
  Sennheiser, one of the world's leading manufacturers of headphones, microphones and wireless transmission systems, is currently offering their RS120 Wireless Heaphones at a 39% discount. With a regular price of $129, this unit can be purchased on Amazon now for just $78. The RS120 receives an average of 4 out of 5 stars from nearly 10,500 reviewers (read reviews).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• PepsiCo hires veteran CIO to refresh IT

  19-04-2016 15:20
  
  PepsiCo has hired as CIO Jody Davids, to replace Robert Dixon, who is retiring from the beverage company. PepsiCo spokesman Jay Cooney confirmed the change but declined to comment further, noting that Davids is just getting on board in her new role.PepsiCo's new CIO Jody Davids.Davids joined the company earlier this month from Canadian agriculture products concern Agrium, where she worked since April 2014. Agrium is now in the early stages of planning how it will outsource some of its IT resourc
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: iPhone 8: Good riddance to the iPhone’s aluminum casing!

  19-04-2016 14:51
  
  Apple will release the iPhone 7 in the fall, but attention has already shifted in the media to the iPhone 8. Rumors about the iPhone 8 possibly having a glass casing have been reported on many Apple sites, and if that happens it could be the biggest change to the iPhone's design in years.Joe Rossignol reports for MacRumors:
  KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has issued a new report that again predicts Apple will switch to non-aluminum casing, with glass being the most likely candidate, for the
  
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• CEO targeted by fraud twice a month

  19-04-2016 14:25
  
  Every couple of weeks or so, Tom Kemp's company gets hit by ever-more-sophisticated attempts to trick them out of large sums of money.
  It started two years ago, before business email compromise -- also known as CEO fraud -- became as widely-known as it is today.
  The email came in addressed directly to the company's controller, asking for a wire transfer of more than $350,000. The email seemed to come from the CFO and was part of a longer chain of emails between the CFO and the CEO discussing th
  
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• Mesosphere open sources DC/OS data center management platform

  19-04-2016 13:27
  
  Cloud computing startup Mesosphere has decided to open source its platform for managing data center resources, with the backing of over 60 tech companies, including Microsoft, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Cisco Systems.Derived from its Datacenter Operating System, a service that Mesosphere set out to build as an operating system for all servers in a data center as if they were a single pool of resources,  the open source DC/OS offers capabilities for container operations at scale and sing
  
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• Adobe on QuickTime: You're up the creek without a paddle

  19-04-2016 13:00
  
  After Apple cut and run on an insecure QuickTime, leaving millions of Windows users at risk, the fix seemed easy: uninstall it. But extrication of Apple’s long-criticized media player isn’t actually that easy for everyone.
  Why this matters: On Friday the Department of Homeland Security advised Windows users to remove QuickTime once it became clear that Apple had washed its hands of QuickTime for good, leaving two outstanding security holes in it. But, although Apple’s own
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: 5 project red lights to look out for

  19-04-2016 12:58
  
  Sometimes we can be smoothly managing one or more projects – at least smoothly in our mind – while red lights are flashing around us and we are not even aware. Customer concerns and project problems don't necessarily manifest themselves in very obvious manners, we have to look for signs.What I've accumulated here are five potential project red lights to be aware of and check into if you happen to see them begin to occur on any of your projects. They may be nothing, or they may be a s
  
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• 8 project management skills in high demand

  19-04-2016 12:57
  
  When you think of project managers, what skills come to mind? To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Companies high on virtualization despite fears of security breaches

  19-04-2016 12:13
  
  Companies are feeling more comfortable with the cloud, virtualization and even software defined data centers than ever before, despite their fears about security breaches, according to a study due out this month by technology companies HyTrust and Intel. While no one thinks security problems will go away, companies are willing to tolerate the risk in the name of agility, flexibility and lower costs.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Google to test innovative 3.5GHz wireless in Kansas City

  19-04-2016 12:01
  
  Google won approval last week to begin testing innovative 3.5 GHz wireless capabilities by using antennas on light poles and other structures in eight areas of Kansas City, Mo.
  It will be the first large-scale test of its kind in the nation, following a framework created by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) a year ago for the new Citizens Broadband Radio Service, which uses 3.5GHz spectrum and allows for dynamic spectrum sharing.
  The test could last up to 18 months and result in fast,
  
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• Raspberry Pi 3 review: The revolutionary $35 mini-PC cures its biggest headaches

  19-04-2016 12:00
  
  My, how deceiving looks can be.
  At first blush, the Raspberry Pi 3 Model B appears physically identical to the year-old Raspberry Pi 2 Model B: the same port selection, the same GPIO pin layout, the same basic board layout, et cetera. But don’t let that fool you! The leap to the Raspberry Pi 3 is just as significant as the prior upgrade, supercharging performance even further and eliminating what few lingering setup hassles remained in the Raspberry Pi formula, all while maintaining the s
  
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• Containers in Windows Server 2016: What you need to know

  19-04-2016 12:00
  
  In a story I wrote for Computerworld in January, which was a review of Windows Server 2016 Technical Preview 4, I mentioned Windows Server's new support for Hyper-V containersthat had been added to its support for Docker-style containers (present within the beta product since the previous beta milestone release).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• 19 open source GitHub projects for security pros

  19-04-2016 12:00
  
  When it comes to performing ongoing maintenance, stomping out crises, or scoping new projects, most administrators either execute tasks manually or write a script to automate the process. But the really smart ones look for a capable tool to do the job.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Palo Alto Networks working to share threat intelligence

  19-04-2016 11:54
  
  Palo Alto Networks is on board with industry-wide efforts to share threat intelligence and disseminate it so the collective knowledge businesses gather about threats can be quickly turned into defenses against new types of attacks.
  Its efforts include support for the new federal Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act that lifts some of the liability businesses are exposed to if they share data about security incidents. If the data inadvertently reveals personal information but was submitted in a
  
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• IT pros happy but open to new career opportunities

  19-04-2016 11:49
  
  Today's workplace landscape is in a state of flux. Workers are still adjusting to a new normal in which job tenure is shorter and the hunt for a new position never stops. The annual Job Seeker Nation study from recruiting and hiring services company Jobvite shows that while 74 percent of the survey respondents say they're satisfied with their current job, that same percentage say they're also open to new opportunities.Of the 2,305 U.S. workers surveyed online in early February, 38 percent of res
  
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• Microsoft cites new EU personal data rules in support of email dispute

  19-04-2016 08:53
  Microsoft has cited new European data protection rules in support of its claim that the U.S. government should use inter-governmental agreements rather than a warrant to force the technology company to provide emails stored in Ireland that are required for an investigation.The General Data Protection Regulation was adopted last week by the European Parliament with an aim to provide an unified data protection regime across member states. It was earlier adopted by the Council of the EU, and is to
  
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• Quantum computing, here we come: A qubit data bus may soon be possible

  19-04-2016 01:52
  
  Transporting information from one place to another is a key part of any computing platform, and now researchers have figured out a way to make it possible in the quantum world.To prove their point, they demonstrated what's known as perfect state transfer on a photonic qubit that's entangled with another qubit at a different location.In traditional computing, numbers are represented by either 0s or 1s. Quantum computing relies on atomic-scale quantum bits, or “qubits,” that can be sim
  
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• Federal cyber team tells Windows users to quit QuickTime

  19-04-2016 01:02
  
  The cyber readiness team that's part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has advised Windows users to uninstall Apple's QuickTime media player from their PCs.
  "Computers running QuickTime for Windows will continue to work after support ends," US-CERT wrote in an advisory published Thursday. "However, using unsupported software may increase the risks from viruses and other security threats. Potential negative consequences include loss of confidentiality, integrity, or availability of dat
  
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• Companies test the waters with Facebook chatbots

  19-04-2016 01:01
  
  When The Muppets Studio wanted Miss Piggy to be able to chat with her fans, executives there decided to connect her with a new Facebook Messenger chatbot.
  "We were very interested in creating an opportunity for Miss Piggy to connect with her fans in a very personal way," said Debbie McClellan, vice president of The Muppets Studio. "Messaging is a natural way for people (and internationally famous pigs) to communicate. Chatbots made it possible for Miss Piggy to engage in one-on-one conversation
  
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