IT Executive news

• Tech culture still pushing out women, study finds

  15-06-2016 23:17
  
  Social dynamics and “culture fit” are a big reason that female engineers tend to stay in the profession at a lower rate than their male counterparts, according to a study released today by authors at MIT, University of California – Irvine, Michigan, and McGill.The research was conducted by having more than 40 undergraduate engineering students keep bi-monthly diaries, providing the study with more than 3,000 entries to analyze.+ALSO ON NETWORK WORLD: Chef’s open source to
  
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• 34% off Jabra Freeway Bluetooth Car Speakerphone - Deal Alert

  15-06-2016 22:56
  
  The Freeway speakerphone from Jabra is designed for the car, clipping neatly to your sun visor. It has 3 built-in speakers and virtual surround sound technology to deliver rich crisp sound while driving, and Blackout extreme noise reduction ensures your callers will hear clearly as well. You can use your voice to make and take calls, and the speaker can also be used to stream music or podcasts from your Bluetooth-enabled device. The Freeway even announces the name of the incoming caller. Battery
  
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• Use Office 365 or Outlook.com? X.ai's 'Amy' bot is ready to assist

  15-06-2016 22:46
  
  Ever since its beta launch two years ago, x.ai's "Amy Ingram" virtual assistant has been scheduling meetings through Google Calendar. Now, the bot -- along with her gender opposite, Andrew Ingram -- can work with Office 365 and Outlook.com, bringing the promise of automated scheduling to a vastly broader audience.“We knew from the start that enabling Amy and Andrew to work across the Outlook.com and Office 365 calendars would be one of the first things we did once we had trained
  
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• Why Apple’s Photos announcement should offend you

  15-06-2016 22:36
  
  The new Apple Photos now labels photos based on facial recognition and content such as landscapes and objects so that users can search and sort photos. Apple copied what Google announced last year. This is good news for Apple users. No one wants to deny iPhone users a better experience organizing their photos. But any of them with a lick of sense about scientific research should also be offended.
  Apple stood on the shoulders of giants to produce Photos. Photo labeling isn’t new. It was on
  
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• IT worker at Panama Papers firm arrested in Geneva

  15-06-2016 22:25
  
  An IT worker at Mossak Fonseca, the company at the heart of the "Panama Papers" leak, was arrested Wednesday in Geneva.The arrest was made as part of the investigation into the leak, which saw 11.5 million documents from the law firm leaked to the German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung.The documents detailed thousands of offshore companies set up by Mossak Fonseca on behalf of rich clients, sometimes for the purpose of tax avoidance.The identity of the worker has not been released, and t
  
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• Cisco platform lets IT rein-in disruptive data center operations, security, applications

  15-06-2016 22:24
  
  Two years in the making, Cisco today rolled out a turnkey, full-rack appliance that promises to do just about everything it takes to control a data center -- from easing IT operations and controlling security to application monitoring.
  The platform, Cisco Tetration Analytics gathers information from hardware and software sensors and analyzes the information using big data analytics and machine learning to offer IT managers a deeper understanding of their data center resources. The system will d
  
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• They're at it again: Senate panel votes to weaken net neutrality rules

  15-06-2016 21:38
  It's the issue that won't die: A Senate committee has voted to weaken the U.S. Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules.The Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee voted Wednesday to approve a bill that would exempt small broadband providers from rules requiring them to provide their customers with information about network performance, network management practices, and other issues.The rules are intended to give broadband customers data about actual spee
  
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• Starbucks launches its Outlook add-in for coffee fiends

  15-06-2016 21:29
  
  Nothing says "I vaguely appreciate you in a professional manner" quite like a Starbucks gift card. It's great for coworkers because Starbucks cafes are everywhere, and you don't actually have to spend time thinking about a personalized gift, or how you might go about giving the gift of actually good coffee.
  Starbucks and Microsoft are capitalizing on that with the launch Wednesday of an Outlook add-in that lets users easily send those ubiquitous gift cards to one another in an email. Users have
  
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• Insurer's drones offer a bird's eye view of property damages

  15-06-2016 21:24
  
  WINDSOR, Conn. -- The sound of a thousand angry hornets rings off of concrete and metal as the drone rises-- 10, 20 and finally 30 feet in the air and over the office building. Its camera eye searches for roof damage that it can stream to the flat-screen TV on the ground.[ View our slideshow: The drones are flying at Travelers ]The drone demonstration, conducted in a cavernous lab at insurance provider Travelers, was a snapshot of how the company hopes to routinely assess damages on roofs with i
  
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• Nikola Motor gets $2.3B worth of preorders for 2,000HP, electric semi-trailer

  15-06-2016 21:19
  
  After announcing last month it is building a 2,000 horsepower, hybrid semitrailer, the Nikola Motor Co. revealed this week it has more than 7,000 paid reservations that would translate into $2.3 billion in truck sales when it ships.
  Nikola Motor founder and CEO Trevor Milton also announced that the electric class 8 semi-truck, dubbed "Nikola One" will be unveiled Dec. 2 in Salt Lake City. The truck will retail for $375,000, which is nearly double the price for a standard diesel semi-trailer. Th
  
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• The drones are flying at Travelers

  15-06-2016 21:13
  
  How Drones help insurance firm survey property damage Drones have captured the attention of consumers and businesses alike. Despite stringent Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations that make drone use virtually impossible in populated areas, companies from a wide range of industries are experimenting with unmanned aerial vehicles to collect data, saving humans from the laborious task. And so it goes in the insurance industry, where Travelers is testing drones to take live video and ph
  
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• Huge FBI facial recognition database falls short on privacy and accuracy, auditor says

  15-06-2016 21:02
  
  The FBI has fallen short on assessing the privacy risks and accuracy of a huge facial recognition database used by several law enforcement agencies, a government auditor has said.A new report, released by the U.S. Government Accountability Office Wednesday, shows the FBI's use of facial recognition technology is "far greater" than previously understood, said Senator Al Franken, the Minnesota Democrat who requested the GAO report.The FBI's Next Generation Identification-Interstate Photo
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Why you can't win by focusing on software

  15-06-2016 20:27
  
  Boris Renski, co-founder and CMO of cloud computing services company Mirantis, wrote a blog post today sending a dire warning to the software industry. In his words: "numbered are the days of any company whose core business is pinned to selling licenses or subscriptions to infrastructure software bits."I interviewed him to understand more about what that means and how Mirantis is changing and evolving with the market. Here is an edited version of that interview.[ Also on CIO.com: The dirty dozen
  
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• Now when you play the 'world's smallest violin,' everyone can hear it

  15-06-2016 19:47
  
  There's no better way to express mock sympathy than by playing the "world's smallest violin," but the sad song you mime can now actually be heard.Enterprising minds at creative studio Design I/O have combined machine learning, radar and other technologies so that when you rub your thumb and forefinger together, it actually produces the sound of a violin.Google's Project Soli plays a key role in the magic. Soli is a purpose-built interaction sensor that uses miniature radar to track the
  
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• Apple tries to stymie malware with changes to macOS Sierra's Gatekeeper

  15-06-2016 19:34
  
  Apple will further lock down what apps can be run on Macs when it releases macOS Sierra this fall, according to a Tuesday session at the company's developer conference.
  The move is likely a response to revelations last year that Gatekeeper -- the feature and technology that restricts what applications can be run on a Mac -- could be easily bypassed by attackers to plant malware on machines. A patch Apple issued in October 2015 failed to fix the problem, contended the original researcher, Patric
  
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• Microsoft's big bet on LinkedIn not just about data

  15-06-2016 19:27
  
  Microsoft this week reached deep into its coffers and made a massive bet on social media in the enterprise. The company says LinkedIn, which it purchased for $26.2 billion, will be a semi-autonomous entity under its ownership, but LinkedIn data will eventually be integrated with Microsoft's collaboration and productivity tools."As Microsoft integrates profiles, preferences and other data more fully, business users will have a more consistent and personalized experience across the suite of Micros
  
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• A black market is selling access to hacked government servers for $6

  15-06-2016 19:16
  
  Want access to a government server? An online black market is selling access to thousands of hacked servers for as little as US$6.
  Known as xDedic, the market has a catalog of over 70,000 compromised servers for sale, Kaspersky Lab said Wednesday.
  The servers are in 173 countries and used by governments, businesses and universities. The owners likely have no idea they’ve been hacked, the security firm said.
  Hackers at xDedic breached many of the servers through trial-and-error using diffe
  
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• AT&T to support Wi-Fi calling on the LG G4

  15-06-2016 19:11
  
  Wi-Fi calling is becoming commonplace.
  AT&T announced Wednesday it will support calling over a Wi-Fi network from the LG G4 phone, with other Android devices to follow.
  Wi-Fi calls recently becameavailable to customers using iPhones and other iOS 9.3 devices on all four major U.S. carriers, which includes AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile. That iOS update first became available March 21.
  Wi-Fi calling is ideal for places were there is limited or no cell coverage.Many indoor spaces don'
  
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• Disposable robots can sprint, fly, and potentially save lives

  15-06-2016 18:02
  
  Sometimes, smaller is better, especially with robots.That's what researchers developing mini-robots have in mind. Robots that cost US$10 to $100 are cheaper to make and more useful to deploy in emergency situations than big robots with limited mobility.Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are developing sophisticated robots that are up to 10 centimeters long, and can run, climb, fly, and communicate with emergency personnel.Even better? Once the multi-leg robots serve
  
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• BrandPost: Who’s The Digital Transformation Boss, and Why Should it be the CIO?

  15-06-2016 17:27
  
  There is no doubt that the digital revolution is here to stay. From disruptive industry game-changers like Uber to innovative, incremental operational changes and new thinking about core business models, digital transformation has led the entire IT organization to shift and evolve. At the same time, the C-suite and board of directors increasingly sees digital as a top priority across all lines of business. In fact, more organizations have enterprise-wide digital strategies, up to 35 percent this
  
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• Chef’s open source tool lets applications automate infrastructure provisioning

  15-06-2016 17:15
  
  Chef, a company that has made a name for itself developing infrastructure automation software products, released a new open source project named Habitat this week that it says is defining a new category: Application automation.
  Habitat is a way of packaging an application in a way that lets the app provision the infrastructure it needs to run. This process gives Habitat the ability to run on any type of infrastructure, from physical to virtualized servers, in data centers or in the cloud.
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• Top 25 companies where millennials want to work; Google slips to No. 2

  15-06-2016 17:13
  
  Where do millennials most want to work? 3M, according to a survey of 13,000 high school students, college students and young professionals. Last year’s top-ranked company, Google, is second on the 2016 list of most desirable employers.
  This year’s Millennial Career Survey is the ninth annual report from the National Society of High School Scholars (NSHSS), an international honors organization that aims to advance the goals of high achieving students. The full report digs into e
  
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• Beginner's guide to virtual reality

  15-06-2016 16:45
  
  When you see a virtual reality game being advertised on a box of Froot Loops, you know the VR trend has hit the mainstream. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• SugarCRM is planning a Siri-like agent named Candace

  15-06-2016 16:15
  
  SugarCRM has put AI at the core of its product plans and is working on a new intelligence service along with a Siri-like agent named Candace.Tapping the company's recent acquisitions of Stitch and Contastic, the new technology will be designed to help businesses spend less time entering data into their customer relationship management software and more time learning from and acting upon it.SugarCRM is scheduled to demonstrate the new capabilities Wednesday at its SugarCon conference in San
  
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• Cisco names winners of Innovation Everywhere Challenge

  15-06-2016 15:54
  
  Innovation Everywhere ChallengeImage by CiscoNearly half of Cisco’s 74,000-member workforce got involved in the company’s recently completed Innovation Everywhere Challenge, designed to spark startup-like activity among its ranks. More than 1,100 ideas were submitted and 3 winners were selected.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Adobe warns: Cyberespionage group targeting critical Flash bug

  15-06-2016 15:37
  
  The hand-wringing over enterprises no longer being able to rely on Microsoft's Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit (EMET) to block software exploits appears to have been premature: A new cyberespionage outfit is targeting a critical vulnerability in Adobe's Flash Player and EMET is effectively mitigating the attacks.
  Adobe has warned that a critical vulnerability in Flash Player (CVE-2016-4171) is currently being exploited in limited targeted attacks. The flaw exists in the latest Flash vers
  
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• Splice Machine releases dual-engine RDBMS to open source

  15-06-2016 15:26
  
  Splice Machine, the startup behind a dual-engine relational database management system (RDBMS) powered by Apache Hadoop and Apache Spark, last week announced that it would release that technology to open source.Splice Machine uses resource isolation — separate processes and resource management for its Hadoop and Spark components — to ensure that large, complex online analytical processing (OLAP) queries don't overwhelm time-sensitive online transaction processing (OLTP) queries. The
  
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• Spirit AeroSystems CIO: Simplicity key to speedy IT

  15-06-2016 15:26
  
  Spirit AeroSystems Rich Richardson, CIO of Spirit AeroSystemsHow do you get your IT organization to deliver faster? You can introduce agile development, create a DevOps function, reorganize for better alignment with the business, and much more. However, while you are hard at work doing all of that, it pays to remember the one solid key to IT speed is simplicity.When Rich Richardson became vice president and CIO of Spirit AeroSystems in July 2014, he inherited an IT organization composed of commi
  
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• Gartner: DDoS defenses have been backsliding but starting a turnaround

  15-06-2016 15:23
  
  Distributed denial-of-service attacks have been getting bigger and lasting longer, and for the past few years defenses haven’t kept pace, but that seems to be changing, Gartner analysts explained at the firm’s Security and Risk Management Summit.
  Gartner tracks the progress of new technologies as they pass through five stages from the trigger that gets them started to the final stage where they mature and are productive. The continuum is known as the Hype Cycle.GartnerGartner analys
  
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• The next billion: How to best serve the Internet’s new users

  15-06-2016 15:06
  
  One billion. That’s how many new people are expected to start using the Internet in the course of 2016. With the vast majority of the residents of developed nations already online, the bulk of that huge growth (a 33% increase from the estimated 3 billion users currently on the Web worldwide) will be in developing nations. This will bring the need for consumer protections into sharper focus.
  Fraud is a large concern, but other issues, such as the need for transparency in matters such as on
  
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• Flare app crowdsources feedback on your next big idea

  15-06-2016 14:55
  
  If you think you have the next great business idea, you could launch a Kickstarter or Indiegogo campaign. However, you need a video to show off your vision, and that means you probably need a prototype, or at least a concept that's at least mostly-baked.Flare, a new, free iOS app from GoDaddy, is designed to let people or organizations post new business ideas that are still in conceptual phases. Some uncharitable types might call these ideas "half-baked," but you have to start somewhere. And sha
  
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• Microsoft fixes critical flaws in Windows, IE, Edge, and Office

  15-06-2016 14:54
  
  Microsoft has fixed more than 40 vulnerabilities in its products Tuesday, including critical ones in Windows, Internet Explorer, Edge, and Office.The vulnerabilities are covered in 16 security bulletins, six of which are marked as critical and the rest as important. This puts the total number of Microsoft security bulletins for the past six months to more than 160, a six-month record during the past decade.Companies running Windows servers should prioritize a patch for a critical remote code exe
  
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• Failure Fridays helps one company build a better customer experience

  15-06-2016 14:34
  
  You've heard the adage "practice makes perfect," but at PagerDuty, an organization focused on helping IT operations and DevOps teams manage incident resolution through software, failure makes perfect. Or at least practicing failure helps this company improve its products and services, keeping customers happy and engineers in control.
  This approach started in the fall of 2013 when an engineer at PagerDuty became fed up with the fact that his team couldn't discover product bugs early enough in the
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: 17 painful ways a major software purchase can go wrong

  15-06-2016 14:31
  
  In some ways selecting enterprise software is like painting a house - the key to success lies in the preparation. Rather than doing the work demanded by a mature software selection process, some organizations take shortcuts and create unnecessary pain for themselves. By the time they realize just how much pain they are in for, contracts are signed, and it is too late to do anything about it. This article lists many of the pains caused by partial or outright software failures to help you jus
  
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• 'Spam king' Sanford Wallace sentenced to 2.5 years in prison for Facebook phishing scam

  15-06-2016 14:28
  
  Self-styled spam king Sanford Wallace was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison on Tuesday for a phishing scam that resulted in the sending of over 27 million messages to Facebook users.Last August, Wallace admitted to compromising around 500,000 Facebook accounts, using them to send over 27 million spam messages through Facebook's servers, between November 2008 and March 2009.Sentencing had been scheduled for last December, but it has taken the court almost a year to reach a sentencing de
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Robotic process automation for healthcare

  15-06-2016 14:18
  
  Autonomics ultimately aims to develop computer systems capable of self-management and was started by IBM in 2001. These self-regulating autonomic components are driving the research of multi-agent systems (MAS). MAS are computerized systems composed of multiple interacting intelligent agents within an environment. Robotic process automation (RPA) is capable of automating activities (by creating software agents) that once required human judgment. This is the evolution of automation: the automatio
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: A lesson from facebook in developing inspiring goals that drive action

  15-06-2016 14:12
  
  Facebook screenshotSeasoned CEOs and CIOs know that there is a fine line between business goals that drive action and business goals that sit dead in the water. It seems to me, the differences between the two are subtle, but entirely too accessible for companies to ignore.There are three major points you need to hit when creating and, just as importantly, when explaining your company’s goals to your teams.To illustrate these points, I’ll be referring to a recent talk given by Faceboo
  
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• This company wants to take on Slack with video messaging for enterprises

  15-06-2016 14:00
  
  It's a rare consumer today who doesn't use a mobile video and messaging app like Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, or Vine, but such capabilities are still few and far between on the enterprise side.So argues Samba Tech, a Brazilian company that on Wednesday set out to fill that gap with a free mobile video app called Kast.Samba Tech is an independent distributor of online videos in Latin America, and it's gathered US $3 million in funding to support Kast's U.S. launch. It's also partnered with Mic
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: macOS Sierra: Change Siri’s default voice

  15-06-2016 14:00
  
  It’s been a long time coming, but Apple has finally added Siri to macOS, and that should make a lot of Mac users very happy indeed. Many have been waiting years to use Siri on their iMacs, MacBooks, and MacBook Pros.As always, Siri defaults to a female voice. But some folks prefer a different voice, and I’ll show you how to change Siri’s voice in this how-to.How to change Siri’s default voice in macOS Sierra
  Just follow these steps to change Siri’s voice in macOS Si
  
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• 9 ultrabook add-ons to power up your portable PC

  15-06-2016 14:00
  
  Must-have peripherals for your ultrabookYou can never have too many accessories for your ultrabook computer.USB hubs, custom charge cables, sleek and slick storage drives, high-end wireless earphones and mini memory cards with massive capacities — they all make great ultraportables even better. These nine peripherals are all new, they're unique, and they're all guaranteed to upgrade your ultrabook.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Diversity at the top can help attract tech talent

  15-06-2016 13:53
  
  Hiring a diverse workforce is proven to positively impact a company's bottom line and improve performance. But diversity, inclusion and equal representation also are increasingly factors job seekers consider when they're looking for employment. In other words, diversity and inclusion all the way up to the board level makes you a more attractive workplace."We started to see a trend emerge among our job seeker users who wanted to learn about particular hiring companies' diversity, inclusion and re
  
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• Randstad kiest TCS voor doorontwikkeling public cloud-markt

  15-06-2016 13:10
  Randstad Global IT Solutions heeft gekozen voor wereldwijde samenwerking met Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) voor de inrichting van een end-to-end public cloud-platform voor IT-netwerkdiensten.
   
  Onderdeel van de IT-strategie van Randstad is verbetering van de infrastructurele IT-activiteiten door optimalisatie... lees meer
  
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• Virtual reality no longer just a hobby for these Cisco employees

  15-06-2016 12:42
  
  It might surprise you that Cisco, one of the more acquisitive network companies around, hasn’t yet joined the fray of multi-million and multi-billion dollar virtual and augmented reality acquisitions and investments. Then again, Cisco now can look internally for a growing amount expertise in that field.
  Cisco’s recently completed Innovation Everywhere Challenge surfaced the Enterprise Virtual and Augmented Reality (EVAR) team, an ad hoc group with user experience, IT engineering and
  
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• Cisco unearths its inner startup culture via companywide innovation contest

  15-06-2016 12:42
  
  For a giant 30-plus-year-old company, Cisco has a reputation for keeping things fresh via spin-ins, buyouts and venture investments. But late last year, the vendor launched the Innovate Everywhere Challenge just to make sure it wasn’t overlooking any great new ideas among its 74,000 employees.
  “We have phenomenal innovation programs for engineers, IT people, marketing people and sales, but what we’ve never really done is mix them up across functions and geographies,” say
  
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• Microsoft bought LinkedIn for your relationship data

  15-06-2016 12:19
  
  If you think of LinkedIn as a social network or an online recruitment service, then you may well be scratching your head about why Microsoft would spend more on it than it has on any other acquisition. But consider that Microsoft has a graph that covers how you’re connected to people by email, documents, messages, meetings and address books, while LinkedIn has a graph that covers jobs, skills, colleagues, and professional connections. That’s two separate sets of information that wou
  
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• Review: SQL Server 2016 boosts speed, analytics

  15-06-2016 12:00
  
  Microsoft calls SQL Server 2016 the “biggest leap forward” in the 27-year evolution of the SQL Server database. As we’ll see, despite the excess of hype, the SQL Server 2016 database offers enterprises a number of attractive new capabilities, including built-in R analytics, querying of external Hadoop and Azure data stores, and neat management and data security features.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Laid-off with a non-compete? Bill would guarantee salary

  15-06-2016 12:00
  
  Non-compete agreements are controversial for many reasons, but what may be worst of all: Even if you are laid off from your job, a non-compete agreement may still apply.
  California has made non-compete agreements unenforceable, but Massachusetts has not. Some opponents say that's partly the result of lobbying by EMC, which has considerable clout as a major state employer, headquartered in the Boston suburb of Hopkinton.
  But the pending $67 billion merger of EMC with Dell, and the prospect of me
  
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• Cost of a data breach: $4 million. Benefits of responding quickly: Priceless.

  15-06-2016 12:00
  The bad news is that data breaches are becoming ever more common. The worse news is that the cost they represent for companies is going through the roof.Those are two conclusions from a study released Wednesday by IBM Security and the Ponemon Institute, which found that the average cost of a data breach has grown to US $4 million. That's a hefty jump compared with last year's $3.79 million, and it represents an increase of almost 30 percent since 2013."Data breaches are now a consistent 'cost of
  
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• Flash Player zero-day exploit is being used in the wild by a cyberespionage group

  15-06-2016 11:59
  Adobe Systems warned users Tuesday that an unpatched Flash Player vulnerability is currently being exploited in targeted attacks. The company expects to deliver a patch as soon as Thursday.
  The exploit was discovered by researchers from antivirus vendor Kaspersky Lab in attacks attributed to a cyberespionage group known in the security industry as ScarCruft.
  The group is relatively new, but is apparently quite resourceful, as this is possibly the second zero-day -- previously unknown and unpatc
  
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• Safari 10 to turn off Flash by default

  15-06-2016 08:51
  
  Apple's Safari is driving another nail in the coffin of Adobe Flash by no longer telling websites that offer both Flash and HTML5 that the plug-in is installed on users' Macs.The Mac maker is planning similar measures with other plug-ins like Java, Silverlight and QuickTime. This move will force websites with both plug-in and HTML5-based media implementations to use their HTML5, it said.When Safari 10, the new version of its browser,  ships this fall, it will by default behave as though com
  
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