IT Executive news

• China claims exascale by 2020, three years before U.S.

  16-06-2016 23:32
  
  China has set 2020 as the date for delivering an exascale system, the next major milestone in supercomputing performance. This is three years ahead of the U.S. roadmap.
  This claim is from China's National University of Defense Technology, as reported Thursday by China's official news agency, Xinhua.
  This system will be called Tianhe-3, following a naming convention that began in 2010 when China announced its first petaflop-scale system, Tianhe-1. The first petascale system was developed in the
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Goodbye rpm and deb. Hello Snaps!

  16-06-2016 23:16
  
  Mark Shuttleworth today announced that Snaps, a new method Canonical developed for packaging applications is coming to other distributions.
  A brief history of Linux's packaging mess
  Unlike Mac or Windows Linux applications share the same libraries across the system and the main job of a package manager is to to find dependencies (libraries) needed by the application to install it.
  Linux distributions are mainly divided into two packaging formats: rpm and deb. Distributions like Red Hat Enterpri
  
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• Social networks continue to eat news publishers' lunch

  16-06-2016 23:01
  
  The number of web surfers in the United States who use social media to find news nearly doubled since 2013, up from 25 percent to 46 percent, according to new research from the Reuters Institute for Study of Journalism (RISJ) at the University of Oxford. The organization commissioned market research company YouGov to query 50,000 online users in 26 different countries in late January and early February 2016. 
  The report's findings should come as no surprise to any publisher that's paying a
  
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• Apple will never bring iMessage to Android and you already know why

  16-06-2016 22:55
  Newsflash: Apple is using its software to convince people to buy new iPhones. That classic Apple strategy remains one of the reasons why Android users will never, ever get to use iMessage on anything other than an iPhone.
  Unnamed Apple executives confirmed that iMessage will never be expanded to Android. According to The Verge, Apple believes that making iMessage the top messaging service and keeping it iOS-only brings added value to owning an iPhone. Furthermore, iMessage already has one
  
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• Microsoft buys Wand to improve chat capabilities

  16-06-2016 22:34
  
  Satya Nadella wasn't kidding when he said earlier this year that he believed in using chat as a platform for computing. Microsoft just bought Wand, a chat app for iOS, to further that vision. The Wand team will be joining Bing's engineering and platform group, Corporate Vice President David Ku wrote in a post announcing the deal Thursday. The company's team members will be working primarily on Microsoft's push to enable the creation of intelligent chatbots and virtual assistants. 
  
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• ContainerX steps into the limelight with a new container platform for enterprises

  16-06-2016 21:39
  
  Enterprises interested in tapping container technology now have a brand-new option for managing it: ContainerX, a multitenant container-as-a-service platform for both Linux and Windows.Launched into beta last November by a team of engineers from Microsoft, VMware and Citrix, the service became generally available in both free and paid versions on Thursday. Promising an all-in-one platform for orchestration, compute, network, and storage management, it provides a single "pane of glass" for all of
  
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• Health IT adoption lags due to lack of patient interest

  16-06-2016 21:10
  
  For all the promise surrounding health IT, the adoption of new technologies to improve coordination between patients and care providers remains sluggish, according to new research from Nielsen Strategic Health Perspectives.In a survey of slightly more than 30,000 consumers and 626 physicians, Nielsen found only modest upticks in the use of technology in the healthcare arena, and also highlighted the stubborn tendency of providers to operate in siloes, rather than embrace the model of coordinated
  
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• Twitter is bringing an in-app Periscope button to all

  16-06-2016 21:04
  
  For those times when a 140-character text tweet just won't do, Twitter is making it much easier to broadcast your thoughts live.
  After an initial beta test, the social network is rolling out a new Periscope button inside the Twitter app on Android and iOS. When you go to compose a tweet, and then choose to insert media, you’ll see a new “live” option. 
  Ready to go live? Now everyone can tap a new button on iOS & Android to easily broadcast on #Periscope from Twitter!
  
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• BrandPost: The Path to Higher Performance with Scalable Machine Learning

  16-06-2016 20:57
  
  In an earlier post I explored the value of using scalable machine learning to extract value from huge amounts of data. In this post, I will dive down into the technical side of things, particularly the challenges and benefits that come with making algorithms scalable on large clusters of computers.
  Machine learning algorithms are written to run on single-node systems, or on specialized supercomputer hardware, which I’ll refer to as HPC boxes. They grew up in a world where they didn’
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Educational content: a key component of marketing success

  16-06-2016 20:30
  
  There’s a lot to consider when developing a content marketing strategy. There are dozens of different content mediums, hundreds of potential publishing platforms, and a variety of other brand specific issues to consider. Well, here’s something else to think about: educational content.The power of educational contentAt first glance, the idea of giving away free educational content seems like a counterproductive strategy. After all, the goal of content marketing is to cost-effectively
  
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• 26% off Patriot 128GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive With 150MB/Sec Speed - Deal Alert

  16-06-2016 20:20
  
  This 128GB Supersonic Boost XT flash drive from Patriot is built to be fast and rugged.  It supports USB 3.0 and transfers data at speeds up of up to 150MG/Sec, making it ideal for large files. It's durable rubberized exterior helps protect against shock and provides water resistance, so it travels safely wherever you take it. The unit is plug and play, and supports most major operating systems, so you can count on ease of use as well. It currently averages 4.5 out of 5 stars on Amazon from
  
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• HPE shows off a computer intended to emulate the human brain

  16-06-2016 20:18
  
  Intelligent computers that can make decisions like humans may someday​ be on Hewlett Packard Enterprise's product roadmap.The company has been showing off a prototype computer designed to emulate the way the brain makes calculations. It's based on a new architecture that could define how future computers work.The brain can be seen as an extremely power-efficient biological computer. Brains take in a lot of data related to sights, sounds and smell, which they have to process in parallel wit
  
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• BrandPost: Mobility, Data, and Security in Healthcare

  16-06-2016 20:18
  Mobile productivity continues to be a rising demand in healthcare as doctors, nurses, medical students, and other healthcare professionals need access to patient data. And health organizations must also address the fact that many healthcare professionals want to use their own devices to access this data. To balance mobile device productivity with patient privacy, endpoint security and compliance are critical for every healthcare organization.But challenges abound, and the diverse mix of mobility
  
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• Microsoft starts clock ticking on Office 2016's first upgrade

  16-06-2016 19:14
  
  Microsoft this week released the second upgrade for Office 365 commercial subscribers on the slow train, and warned those still running the original Office 2016 applications that they have four more months before they will be required to update.
  Alongside a large number of Windows security updates issued Tuesday, Microsoft also released build 1602 of the Office apps to corporate Office 365 subscribers who hew to the "Deferred Channel" track.
  Deferred Channel is the slower of the two main releas
  
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• Why help desk jobs are going unfilled

  16-06-2016 18:50
  
  Help desk jobs have long been seen as a stepping stone to other roles, but that perception is out of date. Today’s help desk professionals are taking on more complex work and they’re in high demand.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Visa moves to streamline chip-card processing certifications

  16-06-2016 18:41
  
  After months of frustrating delays for U.S. merchants that have been required to roll out payment systems that can accept new, more secure computer chip credit and debit cards, Visa on Thursday announced a series of remedies.
  The steps include streamlining Visa's testing requirements and simplifying the terminal certification process. Visa said it would also add resources and technical expertise to cut deployment times in half.
  Many retailers complained that it has taken several months to get a
  
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• Google revs its AI engines with a new European research group

  16-06-2016 17:49
  
  Google has made no secret of its AI ambitions, and on Thursday it announced the next step in its bold plans to realize them: a brand-new research group in Europe focused squarely on machine learning.Based in Google Research offices in Zurich, Switzerland, the new group will focus on three key areas of artificial intelligence: machine intelligence, machine perception, and natural language processing and understanding, according to a blog post by Emmanuel Mogenet, head of Google Research for Europ
  
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• Flaws expose Cisco small-business routers, firewalls to hacking

  16-06-2016 17:39
  
  Three models of Cisco wireless VPN firewalls and routers from the small business RV series contain a critical unpatched vulnerability that attackers can exploit remotely to take control of devices.
  The vulnerability is located in the Web-based management interface of the Cisco RV110W Wireless-N VPN Firewall, RV130W Wireless-N Multifunction VPN Router and RV215W Wireless-N VPN Router.
  It can be easily exploited if the affected devices are configured for remote management since attackers only nee
  
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• Asus challenges the iPad Mini with the less-pricey ZenPad Z8

  16-06-2016 17:20
  
  At $249.99, Asus' new Android-based ZenPad Z8 tablet could make you ponder why you should buy Apple's iPad Mini 4, which starts at $399.The Asus tablet will be available exclusively through Verizon Wireless, and will ship starting on June 23. It is ready for Verizon's LTE network in the U.S, and can be ordered online.The cellular-ready ZenPad Z8 will come with the latest Android version, Android M OS. A cellular-ready version of the iPad Mini 4 starts at $529.From a pure hardware standpoint, the
  
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• Gartner on doing business in China: Privacy? What’s that?

  16-06-2016 17:09
  
  Tim GreeneJie Zhang
  NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. -- Jie Zhang says that as a child in China she played a game picking up marbles with chopsticks and performing the delicate task of carrying them to another room without dropping them. That’s what doing business in China is like for Westerners, she told a breakfast gathering today at Gartner’s Security and Risk Management Summit.
  They have to get used to long-standing customs and practices that violate some basic business principles respected
  
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• Groei datacenter-economie mogelijk, overheid moet voortrekkersrol spelen

  16-06-2016 16:49
  Datacenters spelen een steeds belangrijker rol in de Nederlandse concurrentiepositie. Met een gemiddelde groei van 15% over de laatste vijf jaar is de sector in korte tijd in omvang verdubbeld. Deze groei kan doorzetten in de komende jaren, zegt de Dutch Datacenter Association in het deze week verschenen Dutch Data... lees meer
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: How the IT model impacts realities of changing economic conditions

  16-06-2016 15:22
  
  Businesses dealing with cyclical commodities face ongoing challenges from fluctuating market pricing forces. It’s easy to understand in the context of a business in the oil and gas industry today. The price of their product recently dropped from $110 a barrel to $30 a barrel. So they have an extreme need to scale down their IT and business environment to fit that new reality.But incremental steps won’t achieve enough savings. For instance, a labor arbitrage tactic of shipping more wo
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: iOS 10: No split-screen keyboard for the iPhone 6s Plus

  16-06-2016 14:00
  Apple has dubbed iOS 10 as “the mother of all releases” and the company is quite right that iOS 10 has tons of new features and improvements.However, there appears to be one glaring omission: the iPhone 6s Plus still does not have a split-screen keyboard in landscape mode.Apple made no mention of even the possibility of this feature in iOS 10 during the WWDC keynote, despite the fact that the current landscape mode keyboard on the iPhone 6s Plus is a horrible experience.I did a littl
  
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• 7 common pitfalls of corporate wellness programs

  16-06-2016 14:00
  
  Employee wellness programs that use activity trackers, such as Fitbits, are still fairly new. Many modern organizations simply learn as they go, regularly trying different health strategies and fitness challenges to motivate employees to take better care of themselves. The rewards of corporate wellness and fitness programs are well-documented, and they include reduced healthcare costs and absenteeism, as well as increased employee loyalty and satisfaction. But what about the missteps organizatio
  
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• Smart City Challenge: 7 proposals for the future of transportation

  16-06-2016 13:30
  
  Self-driving vehicles, traffic lights that adjust based on vehicle flow, bike sharing and smart pavement that provides public Wi-Fi access—those are just a few of the ideas for making cities smarter.
  Not only have municipalities embraced the smart city concept—using technology to manage a city’s assets, improve the efficiency of services, reduce consumption of resources, reduce costs and improve the quality of life—but many are making it a reality.
  The U.S. Department of
  
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• How technology made moving tolerable

  16-06-2016 13:14
  
  Next week, we're moving from Connecticut to the northern suburbs of Philadelphia. I'm stressed out, overextended and utterly exhausted, but compared to our move six years ago, this process has been significantly easier.Technology gets a lot of the credit -- from being able to view potential houses and take virtual tours online to ordering packing supplies to signing the never-ending stream of real-estate sale and purchase documents.Our first taste of this came when we sold our current house at t
  
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• Is open source a clear path to success for new grads?

  16-06-2016 13:01
  
  It's the catch-22 every new college graduate faces when looking for his or her first job: You need experience or a portfolio of completed work to prove your competency to a potential employer, but it's hard to get that tangible proof of your skills without having had a job first.That's one of the major benefits of the open source world, says Heidi Ellis, professor and chair of Computer Science and Information Technology at Western New England University in Springfield, Mass.Ten years ago, as a v
  
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• How to prevent data from leaving with a departing employee

  16-06-2016 12:21
  
  I’ll take thisImage by ThinkstockIt may come as a surprise, but more likely than not, when employees leave a company they’re taking company data with them. While it’s not always out of malicious intent, the amount of unprotected company information that walks out the door can result in bigger losses in the future.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Women use tablets, men prefer Smart TVs, says revealing U.S. data

  16-06-2016 12:01
  
  The U.S. government is collecting data about tech device use by age, education, sex, and other demographics and analyzing it -- and that data says some interesting things about technology use in America.
  Take, for instance, the Internet of Things. About 7% of Internet users at least 15 years of age have used the Internet to control a thermostat, light bulb, security systems or some other household equipment, according to a government analysis released Tuesday. That amounts to about 13 million p
  
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• Sears doubles down on the smart home with new Kenmore, Craftsman, and DieHard products

  16-06-2016 12:00
  Sears continues to shed its image as a staid, old-school retailer, introducing yet another line of new products for the smart home at an event in New York City on Wednesday. Among the 12 new products: A sensor-laden refrigerator that tracks how many times its doors have opened, a clothes washer that can be started from afar using a smart phone, a garage-door opener that sends alerts when you forget to close it, and a series of tool chests with Bluetooth locks. The company also extended its Kenm
  
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• Hack the hackers: Eavesdrop for intel on emerging threats

  16-06-2016 12:00
  
  In a sea of vulnerabilities clamoring for attention, it’s almost impossible to know which IT security issues to address first. Vendor advisories provide a tried-and-true means for keeping on top of known attack vectors. But there’s a more expedient option: Eavesdrop on attackers themselves.
  Given their increasingly large attack surfaces, most organizations tie their vulnerability management cycle to vendor announcements. But initial disclosure of security vulnerabilities doesn&rsquo
  
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• Facebook, Google, Twitter sued by father of Paris terror victim

  16-06-2016 08:16
  
  The use of social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Google’s YouTube by terrorist groups for propaganda, recruitment, fundraising and other activities has come into sharp focus recently.It seemed inevitable that these companies would at some point be blamed for the misuse of these forums and become targets of lawsuits from families of victims.A lawsuit filed in a federal court in California by the father of Nohemi Gonzalez, a victim of the Paris terror attack in November, charges that Tw
  
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• Samsung to acquire US cloud services firm Joyent

  16-06-2016 06:45
  
  Samsung Electronics is acquiring U.S. cloud services company Joyent as it builds its services business around mobile devices and the Internet of Things.The financial details of the transaction were not disclosed. Joyent will operate as a standalone subsidiary under the new dispensation and continue providing cloud infrastructure and software services to its customers.Samsung said Thursday the acquisition would give the smartphone maker access to its own cloud platform to support it in the areas
  
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• Microsoft's Project Bletchley will let companies add middleware to blockchains

  16-06-2016 02:14
  
  Microsoft is extending blockchain technology with a new set of tools designed to make it possible to build a new ecosystem of enterprise applications on top of it.On Wednesday, the company unveiled Project Bletchley, its term for a pair of tools to expand the potential uses of blockchains. It plans to get more utility out of the distributed ledger technology by using the new secure middleware.The first tool, known as "Cryptlets," is a set of services that let companies bring in data from outside
  
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• Hacker claims credit for DNC breach, posts files online

  16-06-2016 01:40
  
  A hacker claiming responsibility for the recent data breach of the Democractic National Committee apparently has posted the stolen files online.The hacker, who goes by the name Guccifer 2.0, leaked the files on Wednesday following a breach of DNC computers that has been blamed on Russian hackers.  The posted files include a 231-page dossier containing opposition research on presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. They also include documents concerning expected Democratic n
  
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• The Janus 360 drone shoots hi-def, all-around immersive video

  16-06-2016 00:53
  
  One thing that can pull you out of even the most high-resolution immersive video experience is visible equipment: looking down and seeing the camera tripod's legs beneath you, or glancing over your shoulder and spying the rig holding the camera up.That's a problem even with video shot on Nokia's pricey Ozo camera, which at the sky-high price of US$60,000 still cannot defy gravity.The Drone Volt Janus 360 can, though, at least for 15 minutes at a time, so immersive video shot with it really does
  
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• Companies pay out billions to fake-CEO email scams

  16-06-2016 00:00
  
  Email scammers, often pretending to be CEOs, have duped businesses into giving away at least $3.1 billion, according to new data from the FBI.The email schemes, which trick companies into wiring funds to the hacker, continue to bedevil companies across the world, the FBI warned in a posting on Tuesday.The amount of money they've tried to steal has grown by 1,300 percent since January 2015, it said.In the U.S. alone, victims have lost $960 million to the schemes over approximately the past three
  
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