IT Executive news

• After blaze, world’s largest solar power plant offline for up to three weeks

  26-05-2016 23:40
  
  A fire last Friday that shut down one of three massive concentrated solar power plants in the Mohave Desert was caused when mirrors that focus the sun's rays on a boiler tower instead locked up and set the tower ablaze.
  NRG, which manages the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Plant near the California-Nevada border, said the error was caused by software problems that occurred during regular maintenance.
  The San Bernardino County Fire Department said the fire lasted about 20 minutes and damaged
  
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• Juniper's new access switches add to its cloud-focused lineup

  26-05-2016 23:11
  
  Juniper Networks’ Unite architecture is living up to its name, bringing more enterprise network gear into its system for simplified management and scaling.The latest additions to the lineup are entry-level and midrange access switches that also include other features for ease of use.Unite, introduced last year for the EX9200 core switches and other Juniper and third-party components, is designed to help enterprises turn their own infrastructure into private clouds and link those to public
  
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• 20% off iDevices iGrill2 Bluetooth Grill Thermometer - Deal Alert

  26-05-2016 23:08
  
  The iGrill2, a Bluetooth Smart meat thermometer, aims to make grilling and smoking easier, more convenient, and smarter. The unit comes packaged with two probes, and can support up to four, making it possible to measure multiple areas at once with a min and max temp setting of -22 to 572-degrees fahrenheit. With a 150-foot range, the iGrill2 gives you the freedom to walk away and entertain your guests or watch the game while your grill or smoker cooks to perfection. It's compatible with iOS devi
  
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• Understanding how new solid state drive technologies can benefit the data center

  26-05-2016 22:55
  
  This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter’s approach.
  Solid state drives (SSDs) can help IT managers maximize storage efficiency in a rapidly evolving data center environment. New technologies such as Vertical NAND (V-NAND), Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe), and PCI Express (PCIe) help SSDs deliver high bandwidth and low latency, while hard disk drives (HDDs)
  
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• Google cleared of infringement in Oracle lawsuit over Java

  26-05-2016 22:07
  
  A jury in San Francisco on Thursday cleared Google of copyright infringement in a case brought by Oracle over Google’s use of Java in Android.
  The jury of eight women and two men took three days of deliberation to reach its verdict. Oracle was seeking up to $9 billion in damages, making it a huge victory for Google and its legal team.
  "Your work is done," Judge William Alsup told the jury after the verdict was read.
  Oracle's lawyers sat stoney faced after the verdict was read, b
  
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• Up to a dozen banks are reportedly investigating potential SWIFT breaches

  26-05-2016 22:00
  
  More banks have reportedly launched investigations into potential security breaches on their networks after hackers stole US$81 million from the Bangladesh central bank earlier this year through rogue SWIFT transfers.Security firm FireEye, which was hired to investigate the Bangladesh bank attack, was also called in to look for possible compromises at up to 12 additional banks, Bloomberg reported Thursday, citing an unnamed source familiar with the investigations.Most of the banks are from South
  
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• ACLU wants a piece of the Microsoft vs. U.S. data gag order lawsuit

  26-05-2016 21:42
  
  The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) today asked a federal judge to let it join Microsoft in suing the U.S. government over authorities' use of gag orders that prevent the technology firm from telling customers their data has been demanded, court filings showed.
  "A basic promise of our Constitution is that the government must notify you at some point when it searches or seizes your private information," said Alex Abdo, an ACLU senior staff attorney, in a statement Thursday. "The government
  
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• Euro agencies on encryption backdoors: Create 'decryption without weakening'

  26-05-2016 21:35
  
  The two major international security agencies in Europe agree that building backdoors into encryption platforms is not the best way to secure systems because of the collateral damage it would do to privacy and the security of communications.
  “While this would give investigators lawful access in the event of serious crimes or terrorist threats, it would also increase the attack surface for malicious abuse, which, consequently, would have much wider implications for society,” says a j
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Top emerging IT careers for recent college grads

  26-05-2016 21:20
  
  It’s the time of year when college seniors are graduating and entering the workforce. While some new graduates have very specific job plans upon graduation, others may have a more general idea of the type of role they desire. This can be particularly true with those who want to enter the information technology field. Some may have computer science degrees, while others may have a background in graphics and design, analytics or even math and statistics, but want to take advantage of the car
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Innovation and the Failure of Enterprise Architecture

  26-05-2016 21:17
  
  How did we get to this place where our products, processes, and systems resemble a Rube Goldberg-esque design? Who is responsible for the complexity in our environments? What is the role of EA? To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Multiple U.S. trials underway for shared 3.5GHz wireless spectrum

  26-05-2016 21:05
  
  Six technology companies, including Google, are working on trial projects in multiple U.S. cities to test out shared 3.5GHz spectrum wireless communications under an innovative model adopted recently by the Federal Communications Commission.
  The companies are working in an coalition that is tentatively being called the CBRS (Citizens Broadband Radio Service) Alliance, which borrows the CBRS terminology from the FCC. Some of the companies in the alliance have already demonstrated what they call
  
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• Apple could have trouble opening Apple Stores in India

  26-05-2016 21:00
  
  Just last week, a report claimed that Apple had plans to open four stores in India by the end of 2017.
  Not so fast, says India’s fiance ministry.
  Two government officials told the Wall Street Journal that the ministry has rejected another government panel’s recommendation that Apple shouldn’t have to comply with local sourcing rules.
  “We are sticking to the old policy,“ one of the officials told the WSJ. “We want local sourcing for job creation. You can&rsquo
  
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• Google goes after Microsoft, Tableau, and others with a new free analytics tool

  26-05-2016 20:52
  
  Google is doubling down on its commitment to the business analytics market with the launch of a new free data visualization tool. The company has launched Data Studio, a free version of the data visualization tool it introduced as part of an analytics suite it unveiled earlier this year. It includes a wide variety of data connectors to let customers visualize data from Google AdWords, Google Sheets, and other Google products.It also integrates with BigQuery, and the company plans to la
  
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• 'Black box' no more: This system can spot the bias in those algorithms

  26-05-2016 20:12
  
  Between recent controversies over Facebook's Trending Topics feature and the U.S. legal system's "risk assessment" scores in dealing with criminal defendants, there's probably never been broader interest in the mysterious algorithms that are making decisions about our lives.That mystery may not last much longer. Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University announced this week that they've developed a method to help uncover the biases that can be encoded in those decision-making tools.To read
  
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• BrandPost: Machine Learning, Machine Intelligence and Cognitive Computing: What Does All of this Have to do with Big Data?

  26-05-2016 19:50
  
  Another day and another story of how machines are going to take over the world. First computers started beating humans at chess, and even the more intellectually challenging game of Go has also fallen prey to computers, so what’s next? Is it the self-driving cars we see being tested? Are we really slated to be slaves to our robot overlords or is there a silver lining here, a future where machines are actually making our lives better by going beyond what we’ve initially programmed the
  
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• Microsoft eats another $1B as phone strategy shrinks to enterprise-only

  26-05-2016 19:12
  
  Microsoft's announcement yesterday that it would eat nearly $1 billion and lay off another 1,850 workers, three-quarters of them from its phone division, prompted analysts to call the company's consumer smartphone business dead, deceased, departed.
  They agreed that Microsoft's only remaining shot at phones is the enterprise, probably with a "Surface"-branded model that apes the Surface Pro as a design benchmark that struts Windows' capabilities.
  "They've discarded consumer," said Patrick Moorhe
  
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• Senators want warrant protections for US email stored overseas

  26-05-2016 19:01
  A new bill in Congress would require U.S. law enforcement agencies to obtain court-ordered warrants before demanding the emails of the country's residents when they are stored overseas.The International Communications Privacy Act, introduced Wednesday by three senators, would close a loophole that allows law enforcement agencies to request emails and other electronic documents without warrants. Congress has been working since 2010 to rework the 1986 Electronic Communications Priva
  
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• Celebrity hacker Guccifer's confession gives us all a lesson in security

  26-05-2016 18:49
  
  The activity of Romanian hacker Guccifer, who has admitted to compromising almost 100 email and social media accounts belonging to U.S. government officials, politicians and other high-profile individuals, is the latest proof that humans are the weakest link in computer security.Marcel Lehel Lazar, 44, is not a hacker in the technical sense of the word. He's a social engineer: a clever and persistent individual with a lot of patience who a Romanian prosecutor once described as "the obsessiv
  
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• IT wants (but struggles) to operationalize big data

  26-05-2016 18:39
  
  Big data leaders at large companies are confident their big data strategies are headed in the right direction, but most also feel that they're struggling to operationalize them, according to a new survey."Big data is not going away. It's increasing in momentum. People are starting to understand the different types of use cases and move things from prototyping into production," says Stephen Baker, CEO of Attivio, a company that helps customers catalog and leverage all the data at their disposal.
  
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• Linium Selected as Semifinalist for EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2016 New York Awards

  26-05-2016 18:01
  
  The spirit of entrepreneurship is alive and kicking in New York, and we couldn't be happer to be a part of it!  We’re thrilled to announce that Linium was recognized as a semifinalist in the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2016 New York Awards program.  As the world’s most prestigious business award for entrepreneurs, EY Entrepreneur Of The Year has been at the forefront of identifying game-changing business leaders and solutions for the past 30 years. 
  
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• CIO Quick Takes: How to make big data count

  26-05-2016 17:31
  
  A long time ago (or what seems like a long time ago), big data was big news. However, big isn't the adjective business and technology leaders search for these days when they discuss data. Data isn't a commodity to be stored for later, when you might need it. Data has become a science. Capturing and storing once unimaginable amounts of data is one thing — using it to predict behavior and outcomes is the fun part today.Big data isn't a big deal if you don't see a related payoff. To find
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Ansible 2.1 comes with Windows and Azure support

  26-05-2016 17:27
  
  Red Hat has announced the release of Ansible 2.1. One of the biggest features of the new release of the open source and agentless automation framework for DevOps is support for Microsoft Windows and Azure cloud.
  Tim Cramer, head of Ansible Engineering, Red Hat said in a statement, "By extending Ansible’s capabilities into Microsoft Windows and Azure environments and networking, our users can further expand their automation capabilities into their environment, helping to make their operati
  
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• Farewell, Nexus 9: HTC stops making Google's former flagship tablet

  26-05-2016 17:13
  
  It’s time to bid farewell to the Nexus 9.
  About a month after Google pulled it off the digital store shelves, manufacturer HTC confirmed it’s no longer manufacturing new Nexus 9 units. This leaves Google with the Pixel C as its flagship tablet, which is more akin to an iPad Pro or Microsoft Surface competitor than a traditional slate. 
  While the Nexus 9 was pitched as an iPad alternative, it never really took off on a wide scale, with HTC offering numerous fire sales that dropp
  
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• BrandPost: CIO Interview with Clark Golestani, EVP & CIO of Merck

  26-05-2016 17:10
  
  All companies need security, but pharmaceutical businesses have to protect both their proprietary information and their patients’ privacy. Merck EVP and CIO Clark Golestani gives a glimpse into how the global health care leader balances its needs with technology.What is your primary goal as CIO?I believe CIOs really need to have a triangle of focus: operations, strategy and opportunity.First, the CIO needs to ensure business operations are rock solid, from the applications to even beyond t
  
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• Google alums rollout Simility fraud-detection platform

  26-05-2016 16:29
  
  A team from Google’s fraud-detection group has started its own software as a service venture for spotting transaction fraud quickly based on rule sets and that also learns as it goes to improve its hit rate.
  Simility examines online transactions to identify indicators of foul play and assigns them risk scores from 0 to 1. Customers can use the information to shut down transactions it deems suspect.
  The Simility Fraud Prevention Platform service is available starting next week after a six-
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: AI and cognitive computing: how to distinguish the real value proposition

  26-05-2016 15:55
  
  Google has developed some awesome mobile applications that realize visual and audio recognition. Google just recently announced an open source Natural Language Understanding (NLU) system called SyntaxNet. This NLU system is built upon Google’s TensorFlow, an open source neural network framework. Google has been able to achieve an overall 90 percent accuracy rate with their system. This is quite an accomplishment from just ten years ago, where part of speech tagging consisted of simply ide
  
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• State Department argues against ‘cyber arms’ treaty

  26-05-2016 15:02
  
  Even as top U.S. diplomats press issues of cybersecurity and Internet freedom in virtually every top-level meeting with their foreign counterparts, it's too soon to begin contemplating a formal, multilateral treaty laying out parameters for digital rules of the road, according to a senior State Department official.That's in part because it remains early days in cyber-diplomacy, but also because the U.S. approach of framing Internet issues within the context of existing international law and push
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: What is the difference between privacy and security?

  26-05-2016 14:24
  
  One question that I am frequently asked is “what is the difference between privacy and security?” It sounds simple enough, but the response often gets complicated. Maybe an analogy will help.Privacy, security, and windows
  Consider a window in your home. It provides various functions for you. It allows you to look outside. It lets sunlight into your home. A window keeps weather outside. You can open a window to let in fresh air. In an emergency, you can use a window as an exit.A
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: The data says things are good for smaller IT service providers

  26-05-2016 14:00
  
  Many years ago, I had a client—a tough, salty engineer—who had risen to become Chief Operating Officer (COO) of a global Fortune 100 enterprise. He was widely feared by just about everyone. My first meeting with him was rough, and the CIO smiled when I briefed him on my session. He said most meetings with the COO went this way.But the experience wasn’t all for naught. While in the COO’s office, I noticed a large plaque on his bookshelf that read, “In God we trust. A
  
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• Can Google's virtual assistant find a home in enterprise?

  26-05-2016 14:00
  
  Last week at its annual Google I/O developer conference, the company announced Google Home, a voice assistant that's expected to be released later this year. During the event Google showed off Home features designed to automate everyday rituals and common domestic tasks. "We want users to have an ongoing, two-way dialogue with Google," CEO Sundar Pichai said during an I/O keynote address. "We think of this as building each user their own individual Google."
  [Related: Google doubles down on ente
  
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• IT career roadmap: Technology evangelist

  26-05-2016 13:44
  
  At one point in his life, Michael Sage was a monk living in a monastery. Nowadays, though, he practices a different kind of evangelism in his job as a chief evangelist at BlazeMeter, a software load and performance-testing company.
  You may have heard the term "evangelist," or even have such a role in your own company. The role is becoming increasingly important in a technology-driven economy where applications, software and Web platforms all compete for users' attention, says Michael Doonan, a p
  
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• Working Moms Equal Pay Day (another) wake-up call

  26-05-2016 13:28
  
  Women's Equal Pay Day was April 12, 2016. Equal Pay Day represents the approximate day in the current year to which women must work to equal what men earned in the previous year. But the situation's worse for working moms. Monday May 16, 2016 was working moms' Equal Pay Day -- the day in 2016 when working moms caught up to what men earned in 2015.
  Pay equality is a huge issue, even though in the IT industry, the pay gap is so small as to be almost non-existent. But in my opinion, all the pay equ
  
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• Setting up a workstation for a healthier you

  26-05-2016 13:24
  
  Health is wealth, says the old adage. Unfortunately, the age of digitalization means that more people than ever hunch over PCs from dawn to dusk. Many of them eventually suffer physical ailments such as lower back pain, neck pain, eye strain and even wrist pain that stems from poor postures or repetitive stress injuries (RSI).As a result, many people are now concerned about ergonomics and are becoming aware of the importance of a well-designed desk and work area. In addition, vendors are now off
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Outsourcing the slow speed with two-speed IT

  26-05-2016 13:20
  
  Many companies struggle to maintain proper support of their complex internal applications needed to run the business while embarking on a digital transformation at the same time. They struggle because the skills required to maintain stability of legacy apps are different than those needed to deliver new and rapidly changing customer-facing technical solutions. It’s technically impossible for one team to successfully carry out both at the same time. Faced with this challenge, IT departments
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Healthcare M&A: Are technology services firms consolidating fast enough ?

  26-05-2016 13:17
  
  The giant sucking sound you constantly hear nowadays is healthcare companies being swallowed up in an M&A frenzy.Healthcare is consolidating. Here are some facts:-- When the $ 37 billion Aetna/Humana deal and the $ 53 billion Anthem/Cigna deals are done, the payer market will see a trio of dominant players ( along with United Health ).  -- The provider market has seen significant M&A activity in the past couple of years. Deal value for 2015 was over $ 90 billionTo read this article
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Design thinking enlightened with mimicry

  26-05-2016 13:00
  
  Solved first by nature, efficient business designs may drive the next technological innovations. Mimicry can advance innovation through design thinking. When balancing the power of design with design thinking adding in living things can teach new innovation principles.Balancing the architect and scientistAccording to the Biomimicry Institute, “Biomimicry is an approach to innovation that seeks sustainable solutions to human challenges by emulating nature’s time-tested patterns and st
  
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• Afscheid nemen van leveranciers gaat organisaties steeds beter af

  26-05-2016 12:35
  Door Erik Beulen – De outsourcingsmarkt is volop in beweging en groeit nog steeds. Veel organisaties zijn al in hun derde generatie outsourcingscontract. Grote contracten staan op het punt van aflopen. Organisaties moeten beslissingen nemen over de verlenging van hun outsourcingscontracten. De tijd dat contracten... lees meer
  
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• Hands on: What's new and noteworthy with Android N

  26-05-2016 12:30
  
  With Google's I/O developers' conference behind us, it's time to start looking forward to what's next in the world of Android.
  The most prominent thing is Google's rapidly approaching Android release, currently known only as Android "N." (The company has yet to reveal the full name or version number.) While the software itself isn't expected to arrive until sometime this summer, we're getting an increasingly clear picture of the fresh features and improvements it'll provide.
  I've been using the
  
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• DoppioJVM brings JVM apps to the browser

  26-05-2016 12:00
  
  Expanding possibilities for using conventional programming languages on the Web, the DoppioJVM project brings JVM programs to the browser.
  Still just a beta-quality research project, open source DoppioJVM leverages the Doppio JavaScript runtime to run unmodified JVM programs in the browser, hooking up with Java APIs that interact with OS resources, said developer John Vilk, a student at the University of Massachusetts.[ The art of programming is changing rapidly. We help you navigate what's hot
  
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• 15 signs you’re doing agile wrong

  26-05-2016 12:00
  
  It’s easy to jump on a bandwagon and end up in a ditch. Nowhere is this maxim more evident than in agile development. Plenty of organizations jump into agile in pursuit of its advantages -- ease of embracing change, decreased cycle times, evolutionary architecture, and so on -- only to find their best agile practitioners leaving the company, and the uneasy remainder unable to fix a development process gone wrong.
  The problem with most approaches to agile is not a problem with agile; it's
  
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• State Dept. IT staff told to keep quiet about Clinton’s server

  26-05-2016 02:54
  
  Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's decision to use a private email server ran afoul of the government's IT security and record retention requirements, according to a report by the department's inspector general released today.
  This use of a private email server did not go unnoticed within the Department of State's IT department. Two IT staff members who raised concerns about Clinton's use of a private server were told not speak of it.
  Clinton was secretary of state from 2009 to 20
  
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• IoT security is getting its own crash tests

  26-05-2016 02:23
  
  The thousands of endpoints in IoT systems may have to protect themselves against thousands of dangers. A decades-old IT lab wants to tell you if they’re up to the task.
  On Wednesday, ICSA Labs announced a program to test the security features of IoT devices and sensors. If the products pass, ICSA will give them a seal of approval. It can also keep testing them periodically to make sure they’re still safe.
  Consumers and enterprises are wary about security in the Internet of Things, w
  
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• Salesforce picks AWS as preferred public cloud provider

  26-05-2016 01:22
  
  Salesforce has named Amazon Web Services its preferred public cloud provider for services like Sales Cloud, Service Cloud and App Cloud, expanding an existing partnership to provide the backend for the software-as-a-service provider.AWS already hosts several Salesforce services like Heroku, SalesforceIQ and the recently-announced IoT Cloud. This latest deal will help Salesforce to expand internationally without having to build its own data centers in order to comply with local data sovereignty l
  
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• This autonomous boat is trying to cross an ocean using only solar power

  26-05-2016 01:09
  
  The sun is a powerful source of energy. So powerful, in fact, that Damon McMillan is betting his boat can cross more than 2,000 miles of ocean using only its rays.McMillan is the captain of Seacharger, which is on a mission to become the first unmanned, autonomous boat to cross an ocean using only solar power. It’s a project that McMillan and three of his friends have worked on for two and a half years, after being inspired by a robotic sailboat competition. 
  Constructing the boat too
  
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• What's old is new again with MIT's latest bug finder

  26-05-2016 00:20
  
  Debugging code is a perennial headache for software developers, but scientists have announced a new technique that could make the process significantly easier.
  Developed at MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory and the University of Maryland, the method essentially bridges the gap between the traditional technique of symbolic execution and today's modern software, making it possible to debug code far more efficiently.
  Symbolic execution is a software-analysis techn
  
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