IT Executive news

• Emojis: Now there's a movie coming

  20-06-2016 23:52
  
  Emojis have become an important and essential communication tool for hundreds of millions of people, so naturally, now there's a movie coming.Sony Pictures Animation said Monday that it will produce an animated movie about "the secret world of our phones and the beloved characters that have become daily necessities in global interpersonal communication.""Emojimovie: Express Yourself" is due in August 2017. It will be written by Eric Siegel and Anthony Leondis and directed by Leondis. H
  
  Read more

• A blockchain 'smart contract' could cost investors millions

  20-06-2016 23:23
  
  Investors in a "smart contract" built on the Ethereum blockchain platform may have lost cryptocurrency worth millions of dollars because they missed a loophole in the contract's fine print.The contract was written in Ethereum's Solidity programming language, and the fine print was the code that set out the rules for investing in, operating, and withdrawing from a crowd-sourced venture capital fund called The DAO (The Distributed Autonomous Organization.) .Ethereum, like other blockchains, is a d
  
  Read more

• Tech expectations for 2036: pizza delivery drones and avatar dating

  20-06-2016 23:18
  
  In 20 years, there will be more robots than humans, people will date through their avatars and drones will deliver pizzas.
  That's the vision many Americans have of the future, according to a study from the Imperial College of London, which surveyed more than 2,000 Americans about how they believe technology will transform their lives.
  The study, was released today to mark the beginning of Technology Week in London, shows that one in four adult Americans expect there will be more robots than peo
  
  Read more

• 3 reasons Twitter just bought machine-learning startup Magic Pony

  20-06-2016 22:22
  
  Twitter has made no secret of its interest in machine learning in recent years, and on Monday the company put its money where its mouth is once again by purchasing London startup Magic Pony Technology, which has focused on visual processing."Magic Pony’s technology -- based on research by the team to create algorithms that can understand the features of imagery -- will be used to enhance our strength in live [streaming] and video and opens up a whole lot of exciting creative possibilities
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• Under the hood of Cisco’s Tetration Analytics platform

  20-06-2016 22:18
  
  Cisco’s entrance into the data center analytics market with the introduction of Tetration is the culmination of two years worth of wrangling various open source projects and developing proprietary algorithms in the areas of big data, streaming analytics and machine learning.
  Tetration is an analytics platform that provides deep visibility into data center and cloud infrastructure operational information. Here’s a description from Network World’s story on Tetration:
  The platfor
  
  Read more

• Fujitsu drops SPARC, turns to ARM for Post-K supercomputer

  20-06-2016 22:03
  
  Alternative chip architectures are taking some thunder away from Intel's x86 at this week's International Supercomputing Conference in Frankfurt.China's TaihuLight, which was ranked the world's fastest supercomputer,  has a homegrown chip. And the ARM architecture, which dominates mobile-device chips, will appear in Fujitsu's next flagship supercomputer.The Fujitsu system, called Post-K, will succeed the K computer that is No. 5 on the Top500 list of the world's fastest supercomputers.Post-
  
  Read more

• Software-defined storage: Users reveal the best (and worst) features

  20-06-2016 21:30
  
  There is no standard definition of software-defined storage, but it typically involves decoupling the management software from the storage hardware (vs. the tight integration of traditional storage products). The goal is to make it easier for administrators to flexibly manage a variety of storage devices via software and automated policies.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
  Read more

• Apple purposefully avoids enterprise at WWDC

  20-06-2016 21:09
  
  Apple says it takes the enterprise more seriously today than ever before, and it has backed that claim with the release of a number of new business solutions during the past years. However, Apple's enterprise efforts were barely noticeable at the company's annual developer conference last week. 
  Apple did not completely ignore the enterprise at the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), but it also didn't make any significant business-focused announcements. The company mentioned enterpris
  
  Read more

• Advertisement

• These ultra-thin solar cells can be bent around a pencil

  20-06-2016 21:05
  
  Scientists in South Korea have developed solar cells thin enough they can be bent around a pencil. The cells, which were announced on Monday, could help usher in the use of solar energy in small portable gadgets where space is at a premium.The cells are fabricated onto a flexible substrate that is just a micrometer thick -- one-half to one-quarter the thickness of other "thin" solar cells and hundreds of times thinner than conventional cells. A human hair, by comparison, is about 100 micrometers
  
  Read more

• MasterCard joins Visa in streamlining chip card processing

  20-06-2016 20:52
  
  MasterCard on Monday announced plans similar to those made last week by Visa to speed up chip card in-store terminal testing and certification.
  The changes could reduce the certification and testing time to a couple of hours, down from a couple of weeks, said Chiro Aikat, senior vice president for product delivery-EMV for MasterCard.
  Under MasterCard's approach, banks will have more responsibility and flexibility for testing the new terminals.MasterCard also cut the number of needed tests by 58
  
  Read more

• The FCC is about to take a big step to superfast 5G networks

  20-06-2016 20:45
  
  The U.S. Federal Communications Commission will move to open up high-frequency spectrum to not-yet-available 5G mobile services in an effort to bring the superfast wireless connections to U.S. consumers.
  The FCC, during its July 14 meeting, will vote on a proposal to open up a whopping 14 gigahertz of high-band spectrum to unlicensed wireless use, Chairman Tom Wheeler said Monday. Wheeler didn't offer a lot of details about the proposal during his speech.
  "We will be repeating the proven formul
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: Addressing the agile 'fear factor' during ERP upgrades

  20-06-2016 20:07
  
  While companies are adopting agile, they have lots of concerns and questions. One recurring theme I’ve seen, is all these companies are really afraid of failure. – Managed Chaos, Agile FAQs
  ERP software helps organizations to collect, store, manage and interpret data from many business activities in a single system, integrate various business departments, ensure data sense and integrity and much more. So it is a given that it comes with a lot of responsibilities.
  What’s m
  
  Read more

• E-book buyers will soon get settlement payments from Apple price-fixing case

  20-06-2016 19:51
  
  Some buyers of e-books will begin to receive payments Tuesday as part of a settlement in a price-fixing case against Apple.
  People who purchased e-books between April 1, 2010, and May 21, 2012, will receive credits from e-book sellers, or will get a check if they opted out of receiving credits, according to Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro, a consumer-rights class-action law firm involved in the lawsuit against Apple.
  As part of the Apple settlement of the case, e-book buyers will receive
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: How to install Android apps on Chromebook

  20-06-2016 19:47
  
  A nice surprise landed on my Chromebook Flip when I checked for updates late last week. The dev channel running on Chromebook was ready with the much awaited 53.0.x update that brings the Google Play Store to Chrome OS devices. I updated it and I have been running Android apps on my Chromebook Flip since Friday.Which Chromebooks are supported?
  Chromebook Flip [ Find it on Amazon * ] is the first device to get Google Play support. Next will be the Acer Chromebook R11 [ Find it on Amazon ] and Go
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: Tips for creating relationships across IT and business boundaries

  20-06-2016 19:30
  
  In today’s fast-moving digital world, creating relationships that enable and sustain collaboration to solve problems or create new value is a key to success. And as I’ve blogged before, CIOs need to create relationships between their IT teams and the business stakeholders to achieve more effective communication. Not an easy objective, considering how siloed most organizations are these days. I want to share with you some of the successful strategies deployed at Jacobs Engineering to
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: How to avoid buyers’ remorse

  20-06-2016 19:08
  
  I work in IT. I’ve been using computers since 1979 when my school, Prairie Grove Elementary in Crystal Lake, Ill., purchased a Tandy/Radio Shack TRS-80. My Dad purchased a VIC-20 a few years later, and then every new PC that came down the pike. So, when I say I understand how many IT departments love to get new “toys,” I truly do understand.I tend to jump on new stuff fairly quickly, sometimes to my detriment. Part of the problem we face in IT project management is the speed of
  
  Read more

• Intel pits monster 72-core Xeon Phi chip against GPUs

  20-06-2016 18:30
  When introducing its monster 72-core Xeon Phi chip, Intel couldn't help but take a swipe at graphics processors for being sluggish for some tasks.
  Ironically, Xeon Phi is a byproduct of Larrabee, which was supposed to be Intel's first major GPU but was abandoned in 2009 after multiple delays.
  The swipe was a shot at Nvidia, whose GPUs are flourishing in the gaming and machine learning areas. But Nvidia's success has also raised questions about whether Intel should've been patient and pursued La
  
  Read more

• How big data is changing the game for backup and recovery

  20-06-2016 18:12
  
  It's a well-known fact in the IT world: Change one part of the software stack, and there's a good chance you'll have to change another. For a shining example, look no further than big data.First, big data shook up the database arena, ushering in a new class of "scale out" technologies. That's the model exemplified by products like Hadoop, MongoDB, and Cassandra, where data is distributed across multiple commodity servers rather than packed into one massive one. The beauty there, of course, is th
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: CIOs step inside the mind of a security hacker

  20-06-2016 18:02
  
  Does your board question the company's approach to security? It should. Understanding your opponents can help break the cyber kill chain. Think like your opponent in this multi-player game. Begin with a framework that covers policies, standards, guidelines, and procedures to ensure consistency – earn trust.Medical and healthcare breachesThe cost of a data breach is increasing The Ponemon Institute partners with IBM to produce the 2016 Cost of Data Breach Study: The Impact of Business Conti
  
  Read more

• China's secretive super-fast chip powers the world's fastest computer

  20-06-2016 17:53
  
  Fifteen years ago, China decided to build homegrown processors for PCs, servers, and supercomputers. Now the country's latest chip is powering the world's fastest computer.The Sunway TaihuLight at the National Supercomputing Center in Wuxi, China, was ranked as the world's fastest supercomputer on a Top500 list published on Monday. It runs on a homegrown ShenWei processor and is capable of 93 petaflops (million billion floating point operations per second) of sustained performance. Its peak
  
  Read more

• Do third-party vendors have a bullseye on their backs?

  20-06-2016 17:50
  
  Because there are so many different kinds of third parties, identifying whether they do or don’t have the right infrastructure or security protocols can be a challenge. Moreover, doing the proper due diligence needed to vet third-party vendors can be costly and time consuming.
  As so many organizations rely on a variety of different providers, third parties can become the gateways to the network. In order to mitigate the risk of a breach from a third party, enterprises need to design
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: How do you know if you are getting a team that is faking it?

  20-06-2016 17:47
  
  One the firms that I worked for had a methodology that we advertised as a proprietary, standardized approach that allowed us to deliver better and faster than the competition. CHRYSALIS 2.0* was the secret sauce behind every project. I completed the CHRYSALIS 2.0 training content by the time I finished brewing a pot of coffee.Meanwhile, my teammates and I were advertised and sold by business development teams as CHRYSALIS 2.0 practitioners. I was staffed on a project in Raleigh, NC as an expert
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: How to assemble a winning ERP team

  20-06-2016 17:43
  
  Angela Hewitt is my favorite Bach performer on the piano and I have listened to her recordings of the Well Tempered Klavier hundreds of times. I recently heard Sir Andrass Schiff’s performances of the D Minor Prelude from Book 1 and was stunned. Even though I play it, I didn’t initially recognize it. Ms. Hewitt’s performance sounds like Sauvignon Blanc and oysters by the lake on a sunny June day. Mr. Schiff’s version is more like a Côtes du Rhône with savory b
  
  Read more

• Massive Acer security breach exposes highly sensitive data of 34,500 online shoppers

  20-06-2016 17:42
  
  Computer maker Acer recently revealed to California’s Attorney General (AG) that hackers broke into the company’s online store and grabbed sensitive customer data. The leaked data includes information such as customer names, addresses, and credit card numbers including expiry dates and three-digit CVC security codes. The hack affects 34,500 customers based in the United States, Canada, and Puerto Rico, as first reported by ZDNet, which Acer later confirmed to PCWorld.To read this ar
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: Apple Watch is just a placeholder

  20-06-2016 17:30
  
  I was sailing the other day (we’ve had some great wind here in southern New England this spring) when the raison d'être for the Apple Watch hit me right between the eyes. I was sailing a 15’ Mercury Sloop, which is a reasonably stable boat, on a small lake in the area. The thing about the “Merc,” as they’re called, is that it has a mainsail and jib, but no block and tackle. So, you’re holding the full weight of both sails in your windward hand while main
  
  Read more

• IBM leverages machine learning for hyper-local weather

  20-06-2016 17:22
  
  It's been just about six months since IBM closed its acquisition of The Weather Company, but it's not resting on its laurels. This week Big Blue moved to leverage The Weather Company's go-to-market strength to launch Deep Thunder, a machine learning-driven weather model developed by IBM Research to help industries ranging from aviation and agriculture to retail better predict the business impact of weather."One of the greatest things about being part of IBM is having a relationship with IBM's Re
  
  Read more

• The 10 most powerful supercomputers in the world

  20-06-2016 17:12
  
  Looking like the world’s most important and uncomfortable furniture…It’s the six-month anniversary of the last list, which means it’s time for a new one. Terrible shelf-life, these supercomputer lists, but that means there’s a whole new hierarchy of unfathomably powerful computing machines ranked by Top500.org for our ooh-ing and aah-ing pleasure. Here’s a look at the top 10.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
  Read more

• 11 CRM best practices

  20-06-2016 17:07
  
  Today, most companies have some form of software to help them keep track of and manage customers. And while it is important to have a system to capture customer data, especially in today’s multichannel retail world, having a database of customer names, contact information and purchase history is not enough. If you truly value your customers, you need to not just focus on customer management but on building long-term relationships.[ Related: 6 CRM predictions for 2016 ]Following are 11 CRM
  
  Read more

• Meet KiloCore, a 1,000-core processor so efficient it could run on a AA battery

  20-06-2016 16:49
  
  If you were impressed by Intel’sfirst-ever 10-core consumer processor—and there was a lot to like!—well, check this monster out. Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have created a new processor with a ridonkulous 1,000 CPU cores. And the chip’s so power-efficient that it could be run by a single AA battery, the team claims.
  Seriously.
  That’s because the cores inside of “KiloCore” can be independently clocked to a maximum of 1.78GHz, and
  
  Read more

• Ethnic, gender imbalances plague computer science education

  20-06-2016 16:44
  
  For Obama administration officials, computer science education has become almost a moral issue.
  On the occasion of the release of a new report quantifying the economic benefit of the U.S. software industry, senior officials from the White House and the Department of Education described their efforts to expand computer science instruction for K-12 students, and even to introduce basic programming concepts at the preschool level.
  [ Related: New programs aim to boost computer science education ]To
  
  Read more

• Apple may finally get clearance for stores in India

  20-06-2016 16:16
  
  Apple may finally get clearance to set up its stores in India, following the Indian government’s decision Monday to liberalize rules requiring local sourcing of some products sold in foreign-owned, single-brand stores.The iPhone maker operates in the country through third-party owned, exclusive stores run by partners like Imagine, in addition to selling through retail chains and online e-commerce websites. But Apple considers the design and layout of its own stores a key element of its bra
  
  Read more

• Spearphishing attacks target boards

  20-06-2016 15:37
  
  With great power comes great responsibility -- and also a great big target painted on your head. At least, that's the case lately with corporate boards of directors and cybercriminals launching spearphishing attacks.
  "Since the beginning of the year we have serviced about 350 different clients that have had spearphishing attacks," said Michael Bruemmer, vice president for data breach resolution at Experian Information Solutions. "About a third were specifically targeted at board members."
  Board
  
  Read more

• How to make mobile apps with FileMaker 15

  20-06-2016 14:59
  
  The business world is full of inventories, catalogs and other lists that sit in spreadsheets or databases that would be more useful if you could take them out of the office. With FileMaker Go and FileMaker WebDirect, you can.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: Redefined reality: Our God-complex realized

  20-06-2016 14:57
  We are standing on the brink of a new reality. For some 200,000 years, all our energy has been focused on influencing the physical world around us. We built campfires to warm our caves, we farmed vegetables to nourish us and we built massive cities and infrastructure to make our lives more comfortable. All of this has taken place solely in the physical domain. This is about to change. The breakneck speed of technological developments in recent decades has enabled us to open up a whole new domain
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: IoT platform wars: The battle for the 4th enterprise platform

  20-06-2016 14:00
  
  Internet of Things (IoT) platforms are set to be an important component of the next decade of innovation in the enterprise. Just like the previous generation of platforms focused on connecting systems and people, IoT platforms are starting to power solutions that connect smart devices, enterprise systems, and people. From that perspective, IoT is raising a new set of challenges across the traditional enterprise spectrum in areas such as security, analytics, data storage, messaging, and many othe
  
  Read more

• IT talent biggest roadblock to digital transformation

  20-06-2016 13:24
  
  A global study from IDT, conducted in collaboration with SAP, surveyed 81 executives (65 percent of which identified themselves as CIOs) and found that 80 percent of businesses cite digital transformation as a priority. However, according to the report, only 35 percent of respondents said their business actually had a "clearly defined digital transformation strategy."Although digital transformation is important to businesses, companies are still dragging their heels on developing a strategy. One
  
  Read more

• Software AG en Dell brengen real-time streaming analytics naar rand netwerk

  20-06-2016 13:16
  De leverancier van onder meer oplossingen voor analytics en de hardware-maker introduceren een nieuwe Internet of Things-architectuur waarmee organisaties real-time streaming analytics kunnen uitvoeren ‘aan de rand van het netwerk’, dicht bij digitale apparaten en sensoren.Daartoe is de oplossing Apama... lees meer
  
  Read more

• 'Made in China' dominates Top500 supercomputer list

  20-06-2016 13:09
  
  China's Tianhe-2 supercomputer has just been overtaken as the world's fastest by another Chinese computer, the Sunway TaihuLight, capable of 93 million billion floating-point operations per second.
  But TaihuLight gives the Chinese another source for national pride: It's built using Chinese chips, unlike its predecessor, which used processors from Intel.
  And that's not all: The 47th edition of the Top500 supercomputer rankings now contains 167 Chinese systems, putting that country ahead of the U
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: What cybersecurity means to project management in 2016

  20-06-2016 13:06
  
  As 2016 rolls along, we are seeing more indications that the hackers and leaders in cybercrime are winning. More breeches are uncovered daily. More data is compromised in companies both large and small and it's all over the news, Facebook, Twitter...everywhere.The bottom line is this...hackers are at least one step ahead of us at all times. You think you and your data and your identity is safe due to some action you've taken or hardware you've implemented or software you've purchased. The real t
  
  Read more

• IDG Contributor Network: macOS Sierra: Anandtech’s excellent feature overview

  20-06-2016 13:02
  Apple’s introduction of macOS Sierra caught the attention of many Mac users, but the keynote at WWDC mostly covered certain prominent features. AnandTech has a great overview of everything that’s in macOS Sierra including some "under the hood" features.Ryan Smith reports for AnandTech:
  On the API side of matters, Apple’s Metal graphics API is receiving a major update with Sierra. A new GPU family is being introduced (OSX_GPUFamily1_v2), which enables a bunch of new features on
  
  Read more

• Inside a phishing attack

  20-06-2016 12:53
  
  Tracking down the phisherImage by REUTERS/Danish IsmailSeveral weeks ago, a key member of the WatchGuard Technologies finance team was targeted by a spear phishing attempt. Spear phishing is a type of phishing attack in which the perpetrator customizes their attack to a particular individual or group of individuals. The attacker gathers information on the victim and then tailors the attack to be more likely to fool the target. The would-be attack arrived as an email appearing to come from the fi
  
  Read more

• China builds world’s fastest supercomputer without U.S. chips

  20-06-2016 12:13
  
  China on Monday revealed its latest supercomputer, a monolithic system with 10.65 million compute cores built entirely with Chinese microprocessors. This follows a U.S. government decision last year to deny China access to Intel's fastest microprocessors.
  There is no U.S.-made system that comes close to the performance of China's new system, the Sunway TaihuLight. Its theoretical peak performance is 124.5 petaflops, according to the latest biannual release today of the world's Top500 supercompu
  
  Read more

• Windows 10 Anniversary Update: A guide to the builds

  20-06-2016 12:00
  
  This summer, one year after the initial launch of Windows 10, Microsoft will release its first major update: the Windows 10 Anniversary Update. It will be delivered in the usual way -- via Windows Update -- and will install automatically on its own.
  However, if you're curious (or apprehensive) about the upcoming update, you don't have to wait until the final release date to check it out. Microsoft has been releasing public preview builds, each one a little bit closer to the final version. Anyon
  
  Read more

• Tech pros share advice for new computer science graduates

  20-06-2016 12:00
  
  Computer science graduates are in demand. Last year, 76% of computer science graduates were working full time within six months of finishing school -- the highest full-time employment rate among new college graduates and well above the 58% average across all majors, according to a new report from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE).But as veterans in the tech world know, earning a degree is just the beginning of a new professional’s education. To help this year’
  
  Read more

• JavaScript specification gets official thumbs-up

  20-06-2016 12:00
  
  The latest version of the official specification underlying JavaScript, ECMAScript 2016, has been approved by ECMA International.
  Developed under a premise of providing more frequent but smaller updates to the specification, ECMAScript 2016 has been very limited in scope. New features include an Array.Prototype.includes method, to determine if an array includes a certain element, and an exponentiation operator, for working with variables. Browser vendors like Google and Firefox have been in the
  
  Read more

• High-end mobile VR is virtually here

  20-06-2016 12:00
  
  Wheeeee! You're riding a flying unicorn down a magic rainbow while kittens and cupcakes rain from the sky. It's all so real.
  Then, suddenly, everything goes black as you mindlessly take the final step in your living room to pull the cable from your virtual reality headset.
  Bummer.
  There's a virtual elephant in the living room, and here it is: High-quality virtual reality is going to be literally held back by the need to tether to a console.
  Last week's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los
  
  Read more

• 16 ways to build a better dev team

  20-06-2016 12:00
  
  For all the talk of rock-star developers, we all know it takes a strong, coherent team working in concert to get the best work done. So here’s the question: What does it take to establish a great team of developers who create great products and work well across departments?11. Keep connectedTo read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
  Read more

• How to beat the 'working-at-home-feeling-left-out' blues

  20-06-2016 11:50
  
  These days, it seems like there are two kinds of employees – those who work from home at least part of the time and those who want to.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
  Read more

• FAA expected to announce rules for commercial drones this week

  20-06-2016 08:19
  
  The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration is expected to announce this week rules for the commercial use of drones, but the new regulations will limit their flights to daytime and to within the line of sight of operators.
  The specifics of the rules, which will allow drones weighing about 50 pounds, could come as soon as Tuesday, The Wall Street Journal reported, quoting industry officials. But they are unlikely to please some proposed commercial operations of drones, which would like the aircraf
  
  Read more

• Nvidia's new Pascal GPU to supercharge deep learning

  20-06-2016 08:05
  
  Some of the world's fastest computers employ Nvidia's graphics processor for computer vision, deep learning and scientific calculations, and a new GPU will supercharge these applications.The Tesla P100 that plugs into the PCI-Express slots of supercomputers will speed up tasks like economic forecasting and weather modeling.The GPU is also targeted at servers, and will play a big role in helping self-driving cars, robots and drones identify objects.Deep-learning systems with the GPUs in data cent
  
  Read more

Follow @ITExecutiveNews on Twitter!