IT Executive news

• UPS, SAP to launch on-demand 3D printing service

  19-05-2016 23:21
  
  UPS and SAP have announced plans to launch a distributed, on-demand manufacturing network based on 3D printing that will be available through The UPS Store in more than 60 locations around the U.S.
  3D printed goods will also be available through UPS' Fast Radius on-demand production platform and its 3D printing factory in Louisville, KY.UPS3D printers on Fast Radius' (formerly CloudDDM) factory floors.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Why the CISO is the hardest tech role to fill

  19-05-2016 22:53
  
  Companies are under constant threat from cyberattacks and the situation is only getting worse with the rise of ransomware and whaling scams as a variant of phishing, according to recent cybersecurity reports. Yet the shortage of seasoned CISOs, inconsistent policies around compensation and a lack of proper metrics means some companies are under-investing in cybersecurity.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Dell's helping its own storage arrays see eye to eye

  19-05-2016 22:39
  
  Making storage systems work together can be a headache even if they’re both from the same vendor. Dell is taking some steps to ease that pain.New operating systems will help to bridge the gap between Dell’s Storage Center and EqualLogic PS arrays, giving administrators a single management interface and a way to replicate data between the two systems. Storage Center OS 7, announced Thursday, and PS 9.0 will roll out as free upgrades over the next few months.SCOS 7 also comes with othe
  
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• Has Google finally found enterprise religion?

  19-05-2016 22:34
  
  Google I/O can be mystifying to someone with an enterprise IT perspective. Google's two-hour keynote to its annual company developer outreach (and technology roadmap) event featured a new connected-home virtual assistant (think Amazon Echo), engaging new chat software and next-generation VR technology that should replace the one that's made of cardboard.
  Google has known for some time that the enterprise is where the money is. But the company has been institutionally ill-prepared to make that s
  
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• Google declares war on copy and paste

  19-05-2016 22:10
  
  Google’s ready to kick Control+C and Control+V to the curb – the company on Thursday announced new APIs and new enterprise partnerships today at its annual I/O developer conference, designed to simplify common workflows and make its Google Apps product line more competitive.
  The new partners include big business software names like Sage, Salesforce, and ProsperWorks, among others, and the new APIs allow for impressively complete integration with Google Apps, providing the potential
  
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• Team Smiles Wins the Innovation Category and takes Home the Grand Prize at the ServiceNow Knowledge16 Hackathon!

  19-05-2016 22:06
  
  It's been a whirlwind 48 hours for Team Smiles! After participating in an 8-hour developing competition Tuesday night and pitching the application on Wednesday, Team Smiles was announced the winner of the innovation category and the overall grand prize at this year's ServiceNow CreatorCon Hackathon!
  
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• Google Daydreams about VR, and enterprises take note

  19-05-2016 22:01
  
  MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- Google on Thursday took the wraps off its virtual reality strategy at its I/O developer conference and gave enterprises a look at what could be their next marketing or training tool.The company on Wednesday announced Daydream, a platform for high-quality mobile virtual reality. Set to be released this fall, Daydream is focused on creating VR experiences on Android devices, though Google noted that "over time" it will be used for a variety of devices.[ Related: Google I/O
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Building artificial intelligence models with Internet-of-Things data

  19-05-2016 22:00
  
  You might ask what the difference is between most artificial intelligence (AI) companies and SparkCognition. Here it is: while at other firms, humans build models; SparkCognition puts them together with algorithms. Rather than roughing out one model and then doing a bunch of testing, SparkCognition continually tests and fits models to data accumulating in real time, an architecture that allows it to deal with big data.But it's not primarily a big-data company. It's an AI company. Without foregon
  
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• 17% off Sphero Star Wars BB-8 Droid - Deal Alert

  19-05-2016 21:45
  
  Meet BB-8 - the app-enabled Droid that's as authentic as it is advanced. BB-8 has something unlike any other robot - an adaptive personality that changes as you play. Based on your interactions, BB-8 will show a range of expressions and even perk up when you give voice commands. Set it to patrol and watch your Droid explore autonomously, make up your own adventure and guide BB-8 yourself, or create and view holographic recordings. It currently averages 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon (read reviews)
  
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• Microsoft pledges to use more renewable energy in its data centers

  19-05-2016 21:12
  
  As more services move to the cloud, online giants are building more data centers to keep up. Every Netflix video we stream and every Uber ride we order goes through a massive compute farm somewhere.
  On Thursday, Microsoft said it will step up its commitment to reduce the impact its data centers have on the environment. That means using more wind, solar, and hydropower to generate electricity.
  “Across the tech sector, we need to recognize that data centers will rank by the middle of t
  
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• Google is bringing Android apps to Chromebooks

  19-05-2016 20:46
  
  Google's Play Store for Android will be coming to Chrome OS, the lightweight operating system that powers Chromebook laptops, the company announced Thursday.That means Chromebook users will be able to download and install apps made for Android onto their Chromebooks, expanding the base of applications available for those devices. Prevously, Chromebooks were able to run only applications built for Chrome.It's an important enhancement for Chrome OS, which Google has been touting as the perfect ope
  
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• Google's Daydream VR initiative: What it is, what it isn't

  19-05-2016 20:35
  
  Google is a big believer in virtual reality. It tried to get VR in front of as many people as possible with Cardboard, it’s spec for ultra low-cost headsets that use your phone to provide a pseudo-VR experience.
  This fall, with the release of Android N, Google will bring us Daydream. That’s the name for it’s VR initiative, and it’s a little complicated. Daydream is not just a VR headset made by Google. It’s not just an app. It’s an entire ecosystem that inclu
  
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• Federal judge rejects Mozilla's demand to see bug in Tor browser

  19-05-2016 20:35
  
  A federal judge earlier this week rejected a request by Mozilla that the U.S. government provide it with technical information about a vulnerability in the Tor browser, which is based on Mozilla's Firefox.
  Last week, Mozilla filed a motion with a federal court in Seattle asking U.S. District Judge Robert Bryan to force authorities to disclose the Tor browser vulnerability to Mozilla before revealing the bug to others, including the defendant in an ongoing case who was charged with visiting a ch
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Investing in professional relationships delivers a real ROI

  19-05-2016 20:30
  
  None of us achieve success alone, the world of work is probably the biggest team sport any of us will ever take part in, and yet, at times, it can feel like our coworkers are on the opposing team rather than playing on the same side and for the same company.
  I spent 15 successful years in the commercial finance industry, where the focus was entirely on business strategy, the bottom line. Numbers ruled the day. The mantra was “It’s not personal, it’s just business.” Howev
  
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• Uber to test self-driving cars in Pittsburgh

  19-05-2016 20:25
  
  Uber will begin real-world tests of self-driving car technology in the coming weeks, putting a custom Ford Fusion onto the streets of Pittsburgh.The car will drive around the city collecting mapping data and testing out its self-driving technology, Uber said in a blog post.Accurate mapping data is crucial for self-driving cars because the cars themselves don't have the ability and sophistication to figure out their precise location unaided. They scan the surroundings and match that to a preexist
  
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• Bing Concierge appears to be Microsoft's answer to Google's conversational Assistant

  19-05-2016 20:19
  
  If you were wondering what Microsoft’s response would be to the next-generation, conversational Google Assistant that debuted at Google I/O, a job posting may have revealed it: Bing Concierge.
  ZDNet’s Mary Jo Foley unearthed a job posting for what Microsoft calls the Bing Concierge Bot, a natural language agent that fulfills tasks on behalf of the user. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: How healthcare is handling a flood of advancements

  19-05-2016 20:00
  
  Today, we are seeing newer, more cutting-edge medical procedures and products. We are experiencing a changing world that calls for exponential advancement in health care. We are approaching a world where quantum computing with its parallel-computing capabilities will solve multiple healthcare problems simultaneously with greater calculation capacity. Meanwhile, IBM Watson is opening doors for machine learning to harness complex clinical data or “big data” to improve personal health a
  
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• This top-secret plane has been in space for a year, and we don't know why

  19-05-2016 19:51
  
  It has now been a year since the U.S. Air Force launched the mysterious X-37B into space, leaving many to wonder why it’s there.At first glance, the vehicle looks just like a mini Space Shuttle. But anyone who’s tried online dating will know, looks can be deceiving.The X-37B is part of a top-secret government program to develop reusable, unmanned spacecraft technologies and conduct experiments.The Air Force has already successfully completed three X-37B missions starting with the fir
  
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• Cisco patches high severity flaws in its Web Security Appliance

  19-05-2016 19:41
  
  Cisco Systems has fixed four denial-of-service vulnerabilities that attackers could exploit to cause Web Security Appliance devices to stop processing traffic correctly.
  The Cisco Web Security Appliance (WSA) is a line of security devices that inspect Web traffic going in and out of an organization in order to detect malware, prevent data leaks, and enforce Internet access policies for users and applications. The devices run an operating system called Cisco AsyncOS.
  One of the four DoS vulnerab
  
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• How to select ERP for the services industries

  19-05-2016 19:37
  
  Most ERP software was built first for manufacturers. But the services industries (including architecture, engineering, legal and advertising) have a different set of ERP needs, according to a buyer's guide prepared by Technology Evaluation Centers (TEC).To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: BQ Aquaris M10 Ubuntu Edition review: A rocky start to a new era

  19-05-2016 19:26
  
  Canonical is the only Linux company that’s still betting on the consumer space; competing against the likes of Microsoft, Google and Apple. To differentiate itself, Canonical came up with what it calls "convergence":  The vision is to run one code base across all devices. No separate iOS and Mac OS; no separate Android and ChromeOS. Just one Ubuntu to run on desktops, servers, IoT devices, mobile phones, tablets… you get the point.
  But an operating system, no matter how ambiti
  
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• Who's in your store right now? SAP's new data service can tell you

  19-05-2016 19:23
  
  Marketers can tap virtually limitless volumes of data about customers' online activities, but the offline world isn't nearly as forthcoming. That's where SAP aims to help.The company on Thursday unveiled a new service that offers demographic data in near real time about the people currently inside a store or at a particular venue or event. Called SAP Digital Consumer Insight, the service taps consumers' mobile data to deliver details on where they're coming from, their age groups and gender, and
  
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• Google I/O 2016: Google’s biggest announcements

  19-05-2016 19:21
  
  The biggest announcements from Google I/O 2016Wednesday marked the beginning of Google I/O, the search giant’s annual developer’s conference where we get a sneak peek at everything the company has been working on over the past few months.Per usual, a number wide-ranging and intriguing announcements were made during the Google I/O keynote, an event that included both compelling hardware and software developments.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• BrandPost: Cloudwashing: What it is and How to avoid it

  19-05-2016 18:58
  
  Cloudwashing is a term that defines the practice of taking legacy software and running it on a cloud instance, while calling it 'true cloud.' However, true cloud is multitenant software developed exclusively for and in the cloud, which provides version-less software and is a pure SaaS offering. There is no on-premise equivalent, and all customers are always current. True cloud-based applications do not require specific hardware; they scale to the needs of the business, not the other way around.H
  
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• Google: Hangouts won't go away despite the launch of new messaging apps

  19-05-2016 18:47
  
  Hangouts may not be a dead app walking after all.
  It sure seemed like the social app’s days were numbered after Google’s splashy rollout of Allo and Duo, its new fancy, AI-driven messaging and video chat apps. 
  But a Google spokesperson confirmed an earlier report that Hangouts is staying put in the company’s portfolio of mobile and desktop apps.
  “Hangouts will remain a standalone product,” the spokesperson told Greenbot.
  It’s all tied to the compan
  
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• Chromebooks surge past Macs in the U.S. for the first time

  19-05-2016 17:44
  
  It may have taken nearly five years, but it’s finally official: Chromebooks are no joke.
  More Google-powered laptops shipped than Macs in the U.S. during the first three months of 2016, IDC market analyst Linn Huang recently told The Verge. (Disclosure: IDC and PCWorld are both owned by International Data Group, but have no editorial ties.) This is the first time Chromebooks have out-shipped a competing PC platform.
  Chromebooks beating Macs may be a surprising statistic, but in reality, i
  
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• Why Windows Insiders are seeing Android notifications on their PCs

  19-05-2016 17:37
  
  Cortana’s deep link between Android phones and Windows 10 is starting to roll out to users on beta builds of Windows 10. Or at least, users who have access to an early beta build of Cortana—officially or otherwise.
  Users on Reddit say they are seeing the ability to receive and dismiss Android notifications on their Windows 10 PCs. Microsoft first tipped this feature in April during Build 2016.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• 60% of enterprise phones still vulnerable to QSEE exploit

  19-05-2016 17:06
  
  Most enterprise users with Android phones are still vulnerable to an exploit that allows attackers to get into their phone's Qualcomm Secure Executive Environment and completely take over the phone, up to and including modifying the phone's operating system, Duo Labs reported today.
  That's even though the patch came out in January, said Kyle Lady, research and development engineer at Duo Security's Duo Labs.
  Acccording to Duo's dataset of enterprise Android devices, 80 percent of enterprise pho
  
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• Behind the scenes at Google I/O 2016

  19-05-2016 16:10
  
  Google I/O 2016 kicks off in styleImage by Matt KapkoGoogle this week held its annual developer conference right next door to its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., at the massive, storied Shoreline Amphitheatre. More than 6,500 people attended the outdoor keynote address, which felt a bit like an early morning rave, complete with thundering bass, trippy imagery and ambient sound.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Google's mobile productivity apps bury Microsoft's

  19-05-2016 15:55
  
  Two years after Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella cut the cord between his firm's biggest money makers -- Office and Windows -- by introducing mobile productivity apps for Apple's iPhones and iPads, the Redmond, Wash. company remains far behind rival Google in the category, a researcher said today.
  According to data provided to Computerworld by SurveyMonkey Intelligence, the monthly-active users of Google's mobile productivity apps in April vastly outnumbered those for Microsoft's Office.
  "I was surp
  
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• How to convert sales leads into sales

  19-05-2016 15:29
  
  Getting a lead is one thing. Turning that lead into a sale is quite another. Indeed, while there are plenty of companies and software solutions that can help businesses drum up sales leads, they can’t close the deal for you. So to find out what organizations can, or should, do to convert leads into sales, we queried dozens of sales and marketing professionals. Here are their four top tips on how to successfully turn a prospect into a customer.[ Related: 7 ways small businesses can leverage
  
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• Google doubles down on the enterprise at I/O

  19-05-2016 15:20
  
  MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Google this week made a concerted effort to highlight its growing presence in enterprise at its annual Google I/O developer conference. The company announced new development APIs for its Sheets, Slides and Classroom apps. It also unveiled a major update to its backend-as-a-service platform Firebase, a custom chipset for machine learning, and an API partner ecosystem with Salesforce, SAP and others.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Google challenges French fine for not being forgetful enough

  19-05-2016 15:20
  
  Google is appealing a fine from the French data protection authority for failing to implement the so-called right to be forgotten as ordered.The Court of Justice of the European Union established the right to be forgotten, or delisted, in May 2014. The ruling allows people to ask search engines such as Google to hide certain links resulting from a search on their name.In a 2015 order, the French National Commission on Computing and Liberty (CNIL) took a very broad approach to how companies shoul
  
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• FCCs heavy-handed regulations splits party lines

  19-05-2016 15:17
  
  BOSTON -- In the waning months of the Obama administration, the divisions appear to be hardening at the nation's primary telecom regulator, and legislators are taking notice.Here at the annual expo hosted by NCTA, the cable industry's leading trade group, congressional staffers and commissioners at the FCC described a polarized agency that has been moving ahead with contentious initiatives on broadband pricing, Internet privacy, Net neutrality and other issues in the face of staunch opposition o
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: 7 tips for maximizing Twitter as a marketing and engagement tool

  19-05-2016 15:15
  
  Facebook may have the largest number of active users, but no platform is better at connecting brands and their followers in real time than Twitter. Unfortunately, very few marketers understand how to properly leverage Twitter. Sound familiar? Well, you need to revamp your approach and focus on engagement.Why Twitter matters
  The value of Twitter lies not only in its reach, but also in the strength of individual interactions on the platform. Consider the following statistics as curated by analytic
  
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• TeslaCrypt victims can now decrypt their files for free

  19-05-2016 15:08
  Victims of the widespread TeslaCrypt ransomware are in luck: Security researchers have created a tool that can decrypt files affected by recent versions of the malicious program.Surprisingly, the TeslaCrypt creators themselves helped the researchers.TeslaCrypt first appeared in early 2015 and stood out by targeting game-related user content, such as save files and custom maps, in addition to personal documents and pictures -- 185 different file extensions in total.The program had some moderate s
  
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• BrandPost: Five Productivity Tools Recommended by IT Pros

  19-05-2016 15:00
  
  We recently reached out to our customer base of IT professionals to better understand which tools they use and recommend for data protection and privacy. While we were at it, we also asked them about their preferred productivity tools, and learned a lot about how Acronis True Image customers stay focused and productive on the job and in their daily lives.Below are five top productivity tools favored by IT professionals, along with quotes from the customers who recommend them.1.  Note T
  
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• 98% off ITIL Foundation Training for IT Professionals - Deal Alert

  19-05-2016 14:55
  
  Beginning with an assessment of your current IT service offering, you’ll be ready to take the ITIL Foundation exam by course’s end.
  
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• CIO's guide to marketing automation software

  19-05-2016 14:47
  
  "We are moving more and more towards a place where one-to-one relationships are going to be more the norm, even at mass scale," said Andy Markowitz, general manager of GE's performance marketing lab during a panel discussion at CES 2016.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Representation is important, even in emojis

  19-05-2016 14:11
  
  Here's an embarrassing confession: I've had an iPhone for about, oh, the last eight years. But it wasn't until two months ago that I discovered the emoji keyboard on my iPhone's Messages app for the first time. Until I accidentally tabbed into it from the text keyboard, I truly thought people just memorized a whole bunch of keyboard shortcuts, like we all used to back in the AOL Instant Messenger chat days. Have you stopped laughing yet? How 'bout now? OK. I'll wait.
  What took me a significantly
  
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• Yes, wireless chargers draw power when not in use, but …

  19-05-2016 14:00
  
  Wireless power is one of the most interesting areas of development in the mobile market today, because the technology is so new, its potential is clear. Wireless charging is not only convenient, it can reduce wear and tear on ports and free up space to let hardware makers craft smaller and lighter devices, among other potential benefits. I keep a close eye on the world of wireless power, and during the past year or so I reviewed a number of wireless chargers and "fast charge" pads, and offe
  
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• How HR can bridge the tech inequality gap

  19-05-2016 13:57
  
  Implementing cutting-edge technology is a concept no longer relegated to IT departments. And HR is no exception. In fact, 92 percent of HR workers cited in a recent study are currently using some type of HR analytics system. However, there is still a growing gap between the early adopters, and the more traditional departments that are slower to change, according to Steffen Maier, co-founder of Impraise -- a company that provides real-time employee feedback for HR -- and Tom Haak, partner at Crun
  
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• SOURCE 2016: It's behavior, not names, that gives attackers away

  19-05-2016 13:40
  
  When it comes to Internet threats, the correct response to the Shakespearean question, “What’s in a name?” ought to be “Who cares?” according to Mike Banic.“The important thing is to look at what a threat is doing, not what it is,” he told an audience at SOURCE Boston 2016 this week, in a talk titled, “Understanding Attackers’ Use of Covert Communications.”“There seems to be a lot of pride in naming threats,” he said, &ldquo
  
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• No IoT without IPv6

  19-05-2016 13:00
  
  Do you think the Internet of Things (IoT) will be the Next Big Thing? It can’t be. Not until we get past the real Next Big Thing: IPv6.Without the extensive global adoption and successful deployment of IPv6 as the primary version of the Internet Protocol, the IoT won’t be possible. In fact, the future of the Internet itself is at stake. Here are the five reasons why:1. The IoT will need more IP addresses than IPv4 can provide.According to Gartner’s estimate, by 2020 there will
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: The best ad blockers for iOS devices?

  19-05-2016 13:00
  
  When Apple introduced ad blockers (content blockers) in the iOS App Store, there was a collective hissy fit by publishers and ad networks around the world. But Apple didn’t back off, and today ad blockers are some of the most widely used apps on iOS devices.But which iOS ad blockers are the best, and which ones are people actually using?I’ll share some thoughts below, but the topic came up in a thread on the Apple subreddit, and it was quite interesting to see which ad blockers Apple
  
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• Google Assistant makes it clear that Siri is seriously behind

  19-05-2016 12:42
  
  Google previewed its new voice assistant, the generically named Google Assistant, at its I/O developers conference on Wednesday, and while the assistant hasn’t actually launched yet, its features made Siri’s lack of functionality all the more obvious. Apple’s iOS assistant now lags so far behind not only Google, but Amazon’s Alexa, intelligent iOS apps like Hound, and new technology from Siri’s creators, that it’s unclear if Apple has any interest in catching
  
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• Top 10 ways to retain IT security talent

  19-05-2016 12:39
  
  (Insider Story)
  
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• Google expands APIs to import other apps' data

  19-05-2016 12:00
  
  Google this week began offering APIs to help the flow of data between users' apps and those Google offers.
  APIs introduced include Sheets, for programmatic access to features users can add to a Google Sheets spreadsheet, and Slides, for exporting business data from apps to provide content and visuals for Google Slides slide decks. The Classroom API, launched last year, has added coursework endpoints for developers to sync grades and assignment data between the Google Classroom tool and applicat
  
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• Google dives into the future with a focus on A.I.

  19-05-2016 12:00
  
  MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. -- With much of what Google announced during the first day of its I/O developer conference focused on helping users answer questions before they even think of them, artificial intelligence is proving critical for the company's strategy.
  "Google is betting the farm on artificial intelligence (A.I.)and they need to because Microsoft and Facebook aren't too far behind," said Patrick Moorhead, an analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy. "A.I. will determine the next-generati
  
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• Beyond Jenkins: 7 devops tools

  19-05-2016 12:00
  
  The need for speed in the software development cycle has given rise to a number of valuable automation tools for developers. Chief among these tools are those aimed at facilitating the continuous integration and continuous delivery of software projects. Through these CI/CD tools, development teams can keep software up-to-date and quickly put it into production.
  Jenkins is among the best-known CI/CD systems, and it is fast becoming the engine for devops, managing the dev side. A key benefit of J
  
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