IT Executive news

• 10% off Bose SoundLink Color Bluetooth Speaker- Deal Alert

  03-06-2016 22:38
  
  The SoundLink Color from Bose is designed to be portable and durable, while still delivering the full, rich sound you would expect from Bose. Pairing is easy with simple voice prompts, and the unit can be paired with two devices, so when the first stops the second one can play. It comes in several stylish colors, has an auxiliary input jack for non-Bluetooth devices, and delivers up to 8 hours of music on a single charge. The speaker averages 4.5 out of 5 stars from nearly 5,000 customers (read
  
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• Microsoft continues campaign to shut down stupid software pirates

  03-06-2016 22:30
  
  Microsoft this week filed another lawsuit in federal court accusing unidentified individuals with stealing its software by illegally activating more than 1,000 copies of Windows 7, Vista and 8, and Office 2010 and 2013.
  The suit, filed with a Seattle court on Wednesday, was the latest in a string of cases opened by the Redmond, Wash. company in an effort to quash piracy.
  "Microsoft's cyberforensics have identified over one thousand product activations originating from IP address 66.51.73.111 ('
  
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• B2B marketers start to see value in social media

  03-06-2016 21:52
  
  Social media is becoming a preferred channel for business-centric sales and marketing professionals, according to a new report from Forrester Research. While B2C marketers have been using social for years, it is now a crucial access point for establishing new and rewarding relationships in the enterprise, the report says. B2B marketers still lag behind their consumer-focused peers, according to Forrester, but the gap is closing, and more businesses will likely follow the trend as the ROI of
  
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• Millennial CIO explores augmented reality, intelligent assistants

  03-06-2016 21:28
  
  SAP SE is exploring augmented reality and intelligent assistant software in initiatives intended to boost employee productivity, according to new SAP CIO Thomas Saueressig, who at 31 is the youngest CIOworking for a global 2000 company. More productive employees will ultimately improve the business software maker's ability to serve customers, one of the German company's core tenets.SAP's 31-year-old CIO Thomas Saueressig.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: 3 warning signs for a 'never-ending' ERP project

  03-06-2016 19:40
  
  Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) implementations are never easy. Many projects start with excitement and high levels of participation but quickly devolve into run-on projects with that are over budget and rife with change orders. Team members are deflated and often feel as if the project will be never-ending.
  Recovering and bringing the project to completion often costs as much as the original budget and end users do everything to work around the new system. ROI is nowhere near what was origi
  
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• 6 ways to do more with your Fitbit

  03-06-2016 19:36
  
  Did you know you don't need a Fitbit tracker to monitor your steps and compete with friends on Fitbit's leaderboard? During the past year or so, I talked to plenty of friends, many of whom are fairly tech savvy, and they knew about Fitbit — some even use a Fitbit device — but didn't know about the MobileTrack feature.MobileTrack is component of Fitbit's mobile app that uses your smartphone's sensors to track steps, distance and calories burned. As long as you carry you
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Your marketing data Is overrated

  03-06-2016 19:34
  
  “Data is king!”...Or is it?
  It’s estimated that nearly 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are created every single day. With all of this data being generated we’ve seen a monumental shift in not only the way marketers are retrieving this information, but also how much of it it they’re collecting and analyzing. Juggernauts like Facebook, Apple and Google continue to expand their tracking capabilities, allowing organizations large and small to take advantage of the explosi
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: HP’s OpenSwitch becomes a Linux Foundation Project

  03-06-2016 19:33
  
  HP's open source networking operating system, OpenSwitch, is now a Linux Foundation project.
  Many industry players are joining the project, including Broadcom, Cavium, Extreme Networks, LinkedIn, Mellanox, Nephos Inc., P4.org, Quattro Networks, SnapRoute and, of course, Hewlett Packard Enterprise.
  OpenSwitch is full-featured, Linux-based modular and modern network operating system that provides support for traditional and cloud networking environments.
  Commenting on the arrival of OpenSwicth Ji
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: CoreOS takes on container storage with Torus project

  03-06-2016 19:31
  
  CoreOS, makers of the open-source lightweight operating system by the same name, has launched an open source project called Torus that aims to deal with some of the storage challenges of containers.
  Torus is a fully open source distributed storage system that  provides storage primitives to containers and cluster orchestration platforms such as Kubernetes.
  It's not that there aren't any legacy storage solutions that can be used with container infrastructure; there are. But they kind of cre
  
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• Infrastructure monitoring products: Users pinpoint the best and worst features

  03-06-2016 19:19
  
  IT monitoring software probes various parts of the infrastructure -- servers, networks and applications -- and alerts IT about problems before they can cause an outage that affects the business. According to IT managers in the IT Central Station community, the most important criteria to consider when choosing infrastructure monitoring software include compatibility with existing infrastructure and customizable views.
  Four of the leading IT infrastructure monitoring solutions are CA Unified Infr
  
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• BrandPost: INEX Internet of Things IMPACT LABS Working to Deliver Solutions

  03-06-2016 19:10
  
  We hear about Smart City initiatives from large cities: the parking spot finders in San Francisco, the pothole detectors in Boston and smart trash cans in Philadelphia.
  So at first glance, New Bedford, Massachusetts is not an obvious place to locate an IoT Lab. Down the street from the Whaling Museum, in the shadow of closed textile mills, INEX IoT IMPACT LABS seems out of place in a town first settled in 1652.
  But often you can move faster in a smaller city. As global trends have big cities ge
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Weather or not: Thunderstorms and healthcare predictive analytics

  03-06-2016 18:55
  
  With the summer thunderstorm season now upon us, many Americans are checking the forecast with a fresh sense of urgency, hoping for good news and spot-on accuracy that helps them avoid a rained-out barbecue or unexpectedly soaked summer outing.Of course, the forecast sometimes gets it wrong. A storm that was supposed to “just miss us” instead settles in and drops two days of drenching rain—or, alternatively, a much-ballyhooed front turns out to be little more than cloud-cover t
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: 6 competitive IT strategy tips from state government CIOs and CxOs

  03-06-2016 18:51
  
  Even CxOs of state and local governments must stay competitive. But how can IT departments compete amongst budget constraints and red tape? Here are 6 mindful takeaways to be competitively strategic, even in tough conditions.Have good posture Smartphones are Thom Guertin’s main competition. As Rhode Island’s Chief Digital Officer, he knows that RI residents expect to transact with state government as easily as with large corporations. “When you start to get into health insuranc
  
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• Decline in slate tablets bigger than expected, IDC says

  03-06-2016 18:44
  
  Demand for slate-shaped tablets is declining even faster than expected.
  For all of 2016, global tablet shipments will drop by 9.6% over 2015, market research firm IDC forecast this week, marking the second straight year of decline. In March, IDC had forecast a decline of 6% for this year.
  The decline will occur even when newer detachable tablets, often called 2-in-1s, are included with slate tablets, IDC said.
  "The impact of the decline of slates is having a bigger impact, faster than we though
  
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• LTE equipment party is over, as carrier spending drops

  03-06-2016 18:23
  
  For the first time since LTE technology hit the mainstream in 2012, the worldwide market for carrier wireless equipment has declined, according to a report released today by IHS Technology.
  The decline, moreover, is a sharp one, the report said – the global market for macrocell infrastructure dropped by 18% in the first quarter of 2016, down to $10 billion overall. The mobile infrastructure sector in general was down 8% in the same time frame, and LTE equipment specifically dropped by 23%
  
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• Windows PC makers hang customers out to dry with flawed crapware updaters

  03-06-2016 17:50
  
  Prominent Windows PC makers, including Acer, Hewlett-Packard and Lenovo, have made "egregious" omissions in the software updaters they bundle with notebooks that leave customers at risk from attack by cyber-criminals, a security firm contended.
  "It's 2016," said Steve Manzuik, director of security research at Duo Security, in an interview. "[These updaters show] a lack of basic security measures that you should use."
  Earlier this week, Duo published a report detailing an examination of 10 Windo
  
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• Rapid review: Philips 276E6 quantum dot monitor

  03-06-2016 17:07
  
  Anyone who's recently shopped for a new display knows they typically don't come cheap.
  If you want a large HD display with the latest screen tech, you're very likely going to pay top dollar. However, Philips, known more for personal gadgetry and home appliances — such as beard trimmers, electronic toothbrushes and espresso machines — than PC hardware, came up with a unique compromise, using a new screen technology: the $299 Philips 276E6 QD display with "quantum dots" (QD).
  In short
  
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• EU and US officials sign 'umbrella' data protection agreement, but it's no Privacy Shield

  03-06-2016 17:04
  
  The European Commission has signed a landmark agreement with the U.S. in its quest to legitimize the transatlantic flow of European Union citizens' personal information.No, it's not the embattled Privacy Shield, which the Commission hopes to conclude later this month, but the rather flimsier-sounding umbrella agreement or, more formally, the U.S.-EU agreement "on the protection of personal information relating to the prevention, investigation, detection, and prosecution of criminal offenses."It
  
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• Lady Gaga, Intel, others team up to fight online harassment

  03-06-2016 17:02
  
  After over 40 years of government driven efforts to bring more women into tech, little change has been made. I have a fundamental belief that we are approaching this effort all wrong. My argument is that the core problem is that the tech market isn’t attractive to women, and why would it be? It has a history of abusing women. And recently it has gotten much worse with technology not only being a segment that is hostile to women but the developer of tools that are used as weapons against wo
  
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• Twitter briefly considered bidding for Yahoo

  03-06-2016 16:59
  
  Twitter briefly entertained the idea of a merger with Yahoo, and senior Twitter staff met Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer to discuss a possible deal.The companies met "several weeks ago," sources told the New York Post, but Twitter broke off the talks soon after, the newspaper reported Thursday night.Yahoo put its core Internet business up for sale in December, after giving up hope of finding a tax-efficient way of selling its 15.4 percent stake in Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba.com.To read this artic
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Paving the way for digital transformation

  03-06-2016 16:41
  
  In my previous blog post, I began telling the story of a CIO’s role in the business transformation of H. D. Smith to expand its core business of pharmaceutical products distribution to include innovative, integrated technology-enabled services. The leadership team had a vision of where they wanted the business to go. But they also recognized that the pharmaceutical distribution world was beginning to head into a digital future and, if they wanted to participate in that growth, they would h
  
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• 6 ways to be a better project manager

  03-06-2016 16:00
  
  Project managers wear many hats: facilitators, managers, problem-solvers and even interpreters -- translating business needs into actionable plans for teams and aligning resources. They must work around constraints, map skills and set timeframes to ensure positive outcomes for the business. In a “do more with less,” digital era, project managers are critical to the success of a business, especially in the fast-moving world of IT and software.Project management software firm Workfront
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: 2016 digital consumer trends

  03-06-2016 14:00
  
  Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers better known as KPCB focuses on early-stage ventures. They released the Internet Trends 2016 report on June 1, 2016. This report highlights global and macro business trends. KPCB identified five major growth drivers over the past two decades. First connectivity growth is slowing (internet users rose to 3 billion from 25 million in 1995). Second emerging country growth is slowing. Third, government debt is growing (government debt-to-GDP rose to 66 percent from 51 p
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Do your stakeholders know why your project exists?

  03-06-2016 13:22
  
  Sometimes languishing in relative obscurity is a good thing. Traveling under the radar. Everyone oblivious to what's goof on and why you're doing what you're doing. But on our own projects, with the individuals we expect to have some sort of vested interest in the outcome of our project...it usually isn't going to be a good thing to have some or many of them not fully understand the nature of our project.We need our stakeholders to be aware. After all, we are likely going to be assigning some pr
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Apple Pencil: 9 great note taking apps

  03-06-2016 13:00
  
  The Apple Pencil has already proven to be one of Apple's most popular new products, and it works incredibly well for taking notes. After the release of the Apple Pencil, many developers updated their note taking apps to work with it.In this roundup, I've gathered nine of the best note taking apps for the iPad Pro. Each of these apps has been enhanced to take full advantage of what the Apple Pencil has to offer.I've included the official description of each app from the iOS App Store, along with
  
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• Human error biggest risk to health IT

  03-06-2016 13:00
  
  In the race to digitize the healthcare industry, providers, insurers and others in the multi-layered ecosystem have failed to take some of the most basic steps to protect consumers' sensitive health information, a senior government official is warning.Servio Medina, acting COO at the Defense Health Agency's policy branch, cautioned during a recent presentation that too many healthcare breaches are the product of basic mistakes, ignorance or employee negligence."These are things that could be pre
  
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• 7 steps to hurricane-ready disaster recovery

  03-06-2016 12:32
  
  Batten down the hatchesImage by REUTERS/Alejandro AcunaHurricanes leave whole states, even entire regions of the country, boarding up windows, piling sand bags, and evacuating homes and businesses. So if your data is backed up to another section of your city, it’s probably not safe. Copy your data to an area that seldom sees hurricanes and has few natural disaster threats. Sungard AS provides the following seven disaster recovery (DR) tactics to put your data on even safer ground.To read t
  
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• Why PCs roared back to life at Computex 2016

  03-06-2016 12:30
  
  My, what a difference a year can make.
  Just 12 months ago, pundits were rushing to declare the PC’s death, and wielding word shovels to bury Computex—the premier PC industry trade show—alongside it. There was valid reason for concern! PC sales haven’t exactly been exploding recently. Big-name PC vendors like Acer and Asus spent almost more time showing off smartwatches and smart home gear than actual computers at Computex 2015. Intel and Microsoft’s CEOs didn&rsquo
  
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• 8 reasons why your security awareness program sucks

  03-06-2016 12:09
  
  As a person who primarily focuses on the human aspects of security and implementing security awareness programs, people are surprised when I am neither upset nor surprised when there is an inevitable human failing. The reason is that I have come to the conclusion that most awareness programs are just very bad, and that like all security countermeasures, there will be an inevitable failing.
  I have to admit that it is frustrating to have to argue with people who claim that awareness is always bad
  
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• The wildest and most powerful PC hardware from Computex 2016

  03-06-2016 12:00
  Computex gets realImage by Michael KanCES may be the show that gives you a glimpse of the future of computing, but Computex is where the gloves come off, year in and year out. The PC industry emerges in full force for the annual Taipei trade show, lugging all the nifty new goodies it hopes to sell during the crucial back-to-school and holiday seasons.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Q&A: Guido van Rossum on Python's next steps

  03-06-2016 12:00
  
  There's no doubt that Python, a 25-year-old open source, object-oriented dynamic language, has become a major tool for software developers in recent years. They love its programmer-friendliness, as well as its vast ecosystem of frameworks and libraries.
  InfoWorld Editor at Large Paul Krill spoke with Python's creator, Guido van Rossum, a principal engineer at Dropbox, about Python's performance, ecosystem, and prospects for both mobile development and the browser.To read this article
  
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• Land O'Lakes maps out farming's future with Google cloud

  03-06-2016 12:00
  
  Farmers looking for ways to increase their crop output are using more technology and relying a little less on intuition.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• New rules would make CEO Mark Zuckerberg lose control of Facebook if he quits

  03-06-2016 08:46
  
  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg would lose majority voting control of the social networking company if he quits his job or his services are terminated, according to new rules proposed by the board.The rules, which were first mooted as part of a reclassification of Facebook’s shares to help meet Zuckerberg’s philanthropy plans, will be voted on by shareholders at an annual meeting on June 20. The aim of the regulations is apparently to make it easier for the company to hire a top-quality
  
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• May the Replicas Be With You

  03-06-2016 03:02
  
  Darth DownImage by Reuters/Peter NichollsDon’t make dad feel like this on Fathers Day. One heck of an epic gift, if not intergalactically expensive, this foray into the darkside will set you back $3,500. This worker from the Propshop holds a replica of Darth Vader's melted helmet from "Star Wars: The Force Awakens".To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Dancing with IoT analytics

  03-06-2016 01:21
  
  When the Internet of Things (IoT) first started grabbing headlines, I thought of the Russian proverb about the dancing bear. "The marvel is not that the bear dances well, but that the bear dances at all." Who wouldn’t marvel at connected cars, smart houses, wearable devices, kitchen appliances that send and receive data to make us more efficient?But in the business world today the IoT bear is not only dancing, it is dancing well – albeit for targeted audiences. As Beth Stackpole
  
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• Dancing bears and IoT analytics

  03-06-2016 01:21
  
  When the Internet of Things (IoT) first started grabbing headlines, I thought of the Russian proverb about the dancing bear."The marvel is not that the bear dances well, but that the bear dances at all."
   
  Who wouldn’t marvel at connected cars, smart houses, wearable devices, kitchen appliances that send and receive data to make us more efficient?
  But in the business world today the IoT bear is not only dancing, it is dancing well – albeit for targeted audiences. As Beth Stackp
  
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• Feeling jammed? Not like this I bet

  03-06-2016 01:00
  
  That stuck feelingImage by Reuters/China Stringer NetworkReuters has collected a number of pictures of people and other things that have gotten stuck in strange places. Some days it doesn’t pay to get out of bed for people and animals alike.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Microsoft denies forcing Windows 10 upgrades by killing the reschedule option

  03-06-2016 00:52
  
  Has Microsoft taken the final step in its Windows 10 upgrade strategy and removed all opt-out options from its Windows 10 upgrade? Apparently not.
  The Register reported Thursday that once a Windows 10 upgrade is agreed to, Microsoft only allows you to confirm a time to schedule the upgrade, and not reschedule it afterward. The publication published a screenshot of the operation, with no option to click an “X” and opt out—in other words, the upgrade was locked in.
  PCWorld was u
  
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• Making IoT magic

  03-06-2016 00:10
  
  Fred and Ginger, peanut butter and jelly, the Internet of Things (IoT) and... analytics?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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