IT Executive news

• A new app from SAP helps line managers keep track of their budgets

  16-05-2016 23:39
  
  It's not often easy for line-of-business managers to get a real-time view of their budgets and spending, but a new app from SAP aims to change that.Based on SAP's Hana Cloud Platform, the app pulls data from core financial reporting systems and makes it searchable, so that line managers can do ad hoc spend analyses and other on-the-fly calculations.Called SAP RealSpend, the app lets managers drill down and perform a fine-grained analysis of actual and future spending. It can also deliver re
  
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• Twitter is on the right track with this rumored change to its 140-character limit

  16-05-2016 23:29
  
  Twitter might be finally making a change everyone can get on board with: The ability to tweet links and photos that don’t count against your 140-character limit.
  Twitter has toyed with the idea of changing its famously limited format for years, but has only made changes to direct message length. According to Bloomberg, within the next two weeks Twitter is set to make the change, which would still allow just 140 characters but would no longer count images or links against that limit.To rea
  
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• Microsoft expands preview of Windows 10's new advanced threat service

  16-05-2016 22:08
  
  Microsoft today opened the preview of its Windows Defender Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) to all enterprise IT professionals after testing the service with an invite-only group of companies for the last several months.
  ATP, like similar services from security-centric vendors -- including Arbor Networks, FireEye and Symantec -- means to detect ongoing attacks on corporate networks, then follow up to investigate the attack or breach and provide response recommendations.
  Rather than serving stri
  
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• Nyansa launches Voyance Live, a public networking statistics portal

  16-05-2016 21:30
  
  IT analytics company Nyansa today rolled out a public web portal, offering anonymized data pulled from instances of its flagship Voyance product in operation around the world.
  The idea behind Voyance Live, according to CEO Abe Ankumah, is to provide insight into common enterprise network problems and suggest possible solutions to IT departments.
  +ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Software audits: How high tech plays hardball + Washington nudges Verizon, striking unions back to bargaining tableTo read this
  
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• Here's how one enterprise is using Google's cloud, along with many other providers

  16-05-2016 21:02
  
  Land O'Lakes picked Google to run the backend when it decided to launch a new application that connects a bunch of different cloud services to one another for the sake of improving farmers' decisions.It's something of a surprising choice for the decades-old company. Much of the company is built on Microsoft technology, said Teddy Bekele, the vice president of IT for Land O'Lakes's WinField division. While Microsoft's Azure cloud platform was in the running to host the new WinField Data Silo
  
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• Solar Impulse 2 eyes New York after landing in Oklahoma

  16-05-2016 20:12
  
  Solar Impulse 2 is one step closer to reaching its goal of becoming the first airplane to circumnavigate the world without using a single drop of fuel.
  On Thursday, it completed the 11th leg of its journey by landing at Tulsa International Airport around 11:15pm local time. Bertrand Piccard piloted the plane during the 18-hour trip and was greeted with a lot of excitement from Tulsa’s mayor and city residents.
  It was a stop that came as a surprise to many. The team initially planned on fl
  
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• An HTTPS hijacking click-fraud botnet infects almost 1 million computers

  16-05-2016 19:56
  Over the past two years, a group of cybercriminals has infected almost 1 million computers with malware that hijacks search results, even when they're served over encrypted HTTPS connections.The click-fraud botnet earns its creators money through Google's AdSense for Search program, according to researchers from security firm Bitdefender. The affiliate program, intended for website owners, allows them to place a Google-powered custom search engine on their websites to generate revenue
  
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• Microsoft makes final, aggressive Windows 10 upgrade push

  16-05-2016 19:21
  
  Microsoft has launched the final push in its nine-and-a-half-month upgrade offensive against consumers and businesses running Windows 7 and Windows 8.1.
  Last week, Microsoft switched the automatically-offered Windows 10 upgrade to a "Recommended" download that in turn scheduled the upgrade process unless the user interfered.
  "As we shared in October, Windows 10 will be offered as a 'Recommended' update for Windows 7 and 8.1 customers whose Windows Update settings are configured to accept 'Recom
  
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• Need e-commerce for your SMB? SAP has a cloud tool for you

  16-05-2016 19:14
  
  Enabling e-commerce capabilities isn't a trivial matter for companies small or large, but SAP has a new cloud tool it thinks will help SMBs in particular. Called SAP Anywhere, it's designed specifically for companies with 10 to 200 employees.SAP Anywhere aims to help small and midsize businesses build a website or online store, create marketing campaigns, sell products and take payments, manage inventory, and analyze business performance, all from a mobile phone or tablet."More than 28 million s
  
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• Where does IBM fit in the cloud market?

  16-05-2016 18:49
  
  Recently released reports from two investment research firms call into question just exactly where IBM fits in the cloud computing market.
  Deutsche Bank’s Markets Research team issued a note titled “Why IBM Won’t Catch AWS,” which argues that IBM’s focus on hybrid cloud computing puts the company in a different, and smaller, market than Amazon Web Services.
  Another report from UBS Global Research focused more broadly on the cloud computing market and said IBM shoul
  
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• BrandPost: Mobile ERP in the Cloud Empowers “Smart” Plant Floor Personnel

  16-05-2016 18:31
  
  In manufacturing, people are mobile. Materials, equipment, and products are mobile. Many manufacturing companies have already empowered operations personnel with iPads, laptops or other devices—but there’s a fundamental shift occurring in how mobile shop floor workers function.In a recent blog post by LNS Research, the author highlighted the fact that mobile operations personnel can be made “smarter”:“When operations personnel are made mobile—or even better, s
  
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• Oracle vs. Google, and the end of programming as we know it

  16-05-2016 18:27
  
  I thought we were done with Oracle’s frantic attempts to monetize its failed Sun purchase by suing profits out of Google’s use of Java in Android. I was wrong. In 2015, the Supreme Court upheld an idiotic decision by a U.S. Court of Appeals that Java’s application programming interface (API) was subject to copyright. So here we go again.
  In the first go-round between Oracle and Google, in 2012, a clueless jury found that Google had infringed Oracle’s copyright by copying
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Warren Buffett buys AAPL and gives Wall Street analysts the finger

  16-05-2016 18:01
  If you’ve been paying attention to Apple’s stock price recently, you know that it has dropped significantly. Even Carl Icahn sold his shares as the media inundated investors with reports about a decline in iPhone sales, trouble in China, etc.But there’s one very important and notable investor who is known for backing up the truck when he sees a stock that is undervalued, and that’s Warren Buffett. His company Berkshire Hathaway recently purchased one billion dollars worth
  
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• A huge fine for Google could come soon in EU antitrust investigation

  16-05-2016 17:39
  
  Google could face a record fine of up to €3 billion (US $3.4 billion) as soon as early next month as part of a six-year European Commission antitrust investigation into the company's search engine dominance, according to a news report.A fine in the European Commission's long-running investigation, launched in November 2010, is expected by summer, according to a report in The Telegraph, which cited anonymous sources. The $3.4 billion fine cited in the report would be less than the maxim
  
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• Microsoft is killing Project Spark, its ambitious cross-platform creation game

  16-05-2016 16:49
  We saw it coming last fall, and now the reality is here: Project Spark is dead. Microsoft removed its game-creation platform from the Windows Store and the Xbox Marketplace on Friday.
  Project Spark, which lets users create games with no coding experience necessary, went into “maintenance mode” in September. At that time, Microsoft stopped active development of the platform but continued to operate it as “a free incubation engine.” The company unlocked all previously
  
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• Save $185 on the Complete Web Developer Course - Deal Alert

  16-05-2016 16:10
  
  Learn how to build websites with the Complete Web Developer Course. With 236 lectures and 28 hours of content, this course is a steal at only $14.
  
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• 33% off Fire HD 6 Kids Edition Tablet - Deal Alert

  16-05-2016 15:36
  
  Amazon's Fire tablet comes in a well thought out kid's edition. If you're in the market for a kid-proof tablet that won't break the bank, this is one to consider at its currently discounted price of $99.99.  That's a $50 savings on its regular list price of $149.99.The Fire Kids Edition sports a 7" 1024 x 600 IPS display (wider viewing angle and higher quality colors). There is a 2MP rear-facing HD camera as well as a VGA front-facing camera for things like Skype. 8GB internal sto
  
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• 8 tips for marketing to millennials online

  16-05-2016 15:08
  
  More than 80 million millennials, people born between the early 1980s and 2000, currently live in the United States alone. And according to Accenture, these 30-somethings, 20-somethings and teens are spending some $600 billion annually. So how can your ecommerce business capture some of that billion-dollar millennial spend? And what is the best way to reach, or target, this highly social, highly mobile, digital generation?[ Related: 14 digital marketing mistakes to avoid ]To read this article in
  
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• Windows 10 post-upgrade cleanup tips

  16-05-2016 15:04
  
  At the end of July 2016, the free upgrade from Windows 7 and 8.1 to Windows 10 will come to an end. In the meantime, lots of users and admins may find themselves electing to exercise their upgrade options, rather than let them go unused.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Researchers crack new version of CryptXXX ransomware

  16-05-2016 14:41
  Researchers from Kaspersky Lab have developed a method of decrypting files affected with the latest version of CryptXXX, a malware program that combines ransomware and information-stealing capabilities.CryptXXX was first discovered in April by security researchers from Proofpoint. In addition to encrypting user files on local drives and network shares, the malware also steals saved log-in credentials from browsers, instant messaging applications, FTP clients and email clients. It then asks for a
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: We need Cloud Foundry for IoT

  16-05-2016 14:00
  
  The Enterprise IoT platform is beyond crowded these days. Telcos, enterprise software vendors, device manufacturers, and IoT startups are some of the groups trying to dominate the enterprise IoT platform space. From all these groups, the platform as a service (PaaS) providers seem to be gaining a lot of momentum among enterprise customers. Solutions like AWS IoT Hub, Azure IoT Suite or IBM IoT Foundation provide an extremely robust set of IoT capabilities for most enterprises. However, those pl
  
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• How to define the evolving role of data scientist

  16-05-2016 14:00
  
  In its recently released 25 Best Jobs in America for 2016 report, Glassdoor listed data scientist as number 1 career -- but it wasn't just top of the list for tech. It topped every industry. The report cites 1,736 openings in the field, a median base salary of $115,840 and an overall job score of 4.7 out of a total 5, which are all promising stats for this quickly growing career path. But the fast-paced growth for data science jobs has been met with a severe lack of qualified candidates.And busi
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Think you don’t have a social media governance problem? Neither did this football player

  16-05-2016 13:35
  
  So who has access to your social media accounts? It’s a question that many CIOs probably don’t ask themselves very much or at all. However, we just experienced one of the most highly publicized and bizarre social media gaffes during the 2016 NFL Draft. Someone might say this is simply an isolated incident in the sports world, but a strategic CIO, thinking about the long-term security of his or her company or organization, should be looking long and hard at this event and reading betw
  
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• Tim Cook’s visit to China may help build bridges with consumers, developers, local companies

  16-05-2016 13:14
  
  Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted on Monday from Beijing a photograph of himself and Didi Chuxing’s President Jean Lui catching a cab, showing off the company’s spanking new relationship with China’s largest ride-hailing firm.A US$1 billion investment in Didi, announced last week, could be the harbinger of a long-term relationship that some analysts speculate could lead to the U.S. company partnering with the ride-hailing company not only in providing software and services, but also d
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Why 'management by flying around' is necessary in a distributed world

  16-05-2016 13:00
  
  You may have heard about MBWA - management by walking around. The theory states that you will know what is happening in your organization if you get out of your office or away from your cubicle and witness firsthand how your people are doing their work. I expect you are doing this around your office already. If not, stop reading, stand up, go visit someone, then come back.My extension of MBWA is what I think of as MBFA - management by flying around. If you are managing a distributed organization
  
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• If managers aren't engaged, do you think workers are?

  16-05-2016 12:47
  
  Employee engagement is one of the most important key performance indicators businesses use to gauge success. But Gallup's most recent research shows that engagement's remained stagnant for the last few years. If organizations want to improve their competitive edge and attract elite talent, they have to make engagement a priority.
  Only 32 percent of U.S. workers were engaged in their jobs in 2015, according to Gallup, which has tracked engagement since the year 2000. Fifty percent of the 80,844 a
  
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• 7 reasons to gamify your cybersecurity strategy

  16-05-2016 12:36
  
  Game onImage by thinkstockData breaches continue to grow in number, size, severity and cost. With the increase in new security holes, vulnerabilities and attack vectors that need to be fixed, many businesses are turning to gamification to help employees adhere to cybersecurity best practices.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• EU’s data privacy regulations put the pressure on IT

  16-05-2016 12:30
  
  Most corporate acquisitions come with a fair share of complexities. But when Accuride acquired a majority stake in Italian truck wheel manufacturer Gianetti Ruote, the Indiana-based company never dreamed of the impact the deal would have on its IT activities. Since Accuride expanded into Europe late last year, its U.S. IT team has had to contend with everything from a stalled cloud strategy and decentralized systems to increases in hardware costs, licensing fees and IT head count.To read this a
  
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• When the bot is you

  16-05-2016 12:00
  
  Unless you're new to the planet, you know that soon you'll be chatting away with artificially intelligent bots.
  But the bot revolution will also usher in something strange: It will give us a bot to talk for us, as us. I call it a "me bot."
  A developer named Irene Chang (a.k.a. Irene Lion) created a "me bot" at the recent TechCrunch Disrupt hackathon in New York. The software is called the Chat Bot Club. It learns how you chat, then interacts with your friends as if it were you.
  Chang used IBM's
  
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• Google’s machine learning gains natural language understanding

  16-05-2016 12:00
  
  Google is promoting natural language understanding with the open-sourcing of SyntaxNet, a neural network framework, and Parsey McParseface, an advanced parser for English text.
  Implemented in Google's open source TensorFlow machine intelligence library and released this month, SyntaxNet provides the code needed to train natural language understanding (NLU) models on your data along with the Parsey McParseface parser for analyzing English text.[ The InfoWorld review roundup: AWS, Microsoft,
  
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• 7 deadly career mistakes developers make

  16-05-2016 12:00
  
  You'll find no shortage of career motivational phrases surrounding failure: Fail fast, failure builds character, the key to success is failure, mistakes make you grow, never be afraid to fail. But the idea of mistaking your way to the top of the software industry is probably unsound. Every developer will have their share of missteps in a career but why not learn from others’ experience -- and avoid the costliest errors?Mistake No. 6: Neglecting soft skillsTo read this article in full or to
  
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• 5 ways Microsoft has improved SharePoint security

  16-05-2016 11:00
  
  "Users will always find a way to get their job done. And if security gets in their way, they will find another, likely less secure, way to get their job done."To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Google aims to block Flash by default for Chrome users, except for 10 white-listed sites

  16-05-2016 07:07
  
  Google aims to make HTML5 the primary experience in Chrome by the fourth quarter of this year, except for a white-list of 10 sites that will run Adobe’s Flash Player.Under the plan revealed by Google, called “HTML5 by Default,” the Chrome browser will continue to ship with Adobe’s Flash Player, but its presence will not be advertised by default.If a website offers HTML5, that will be the default experience. For those sites that need Flash, a prompt will show up at the top
  
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