IT Executive news

• BrandPost: Quality Management: The Art of Manufacturing Success

  22-07-2016 23:45
  
  Without the right processes in place manufacturers face daunting challenges: Inaccurate order information, shipping delays, and incorrect inventory amounts, to name a few. Caltherm Corporation, a manufacturer of thermal and pressure control technologies, was up against a variety of such challenges on the plant floor. Cost-effective production and on-time delivery were essential to Caltherm’s goals, but the company couldn’t achieve the desired growth without high visibility into inven
  
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• More than half the world is still offline

  22-07-2016 23:21
  
  While it may seem like half the world is chasing Pokemon right now, the other half is not even on the Internet.About 3.9 billion people, or 53 percent of the population, will still be offline at the end of this year, the International Telecommunication Union estimates. Even in Europe, the most connected region, 20.9 percent of all people aren’t online. In Africa, the least connected continent, 74.9 percent are offline.Those figures are part of the annual statistical report from the agency,
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Context, basketball and the Golden Gate Bridge

  22-07-2016 23:07
  
  When my colleague Joe Czarnecki and I were given the opportunity to share our thoughts on how to improve your and your organization's ability to make strategy work, I started reflecting on all the times in my personal and professional life where I set out to execute against an established strategy.  There have been many — some of which I look back fondly upon, and others I would like to forget like a bad dream. With most projects and initiatives, I have been involved with either leadi
  
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• Consumer Office 365 subscription growth slows

  22-07-2016 22:22
  
  Microsoft this week said that consumer subscriptions to Office 365 topped 23 million, signaling that the segment's once prodigious year-over-year growth had slowed significantly.
  The Redmond, Wash. company regularly talks up the latest subscription numbers for the consumer-grade Office 365 plans -- the $100 a year Home and the $70 Personal -- and did so again this week during an earnings call with Wall Street analysts.
  "We also see momentum amongst consumers, with now more than 23 million Offic
  
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• Report: Apple Car launch date slips back a year to 2021

  22-07-2016 21:37
  
  Apple has not confirmed if it’s even working on a car, but rumors continue to come out at full speed.
  This week, The Information revealed that Apple’s forthcoming car has been pushed back to launch in 2021. The original rumors claimed that Apple hoped to have its Apple Car on the road by 2020. According to The Information, Apple’s super-secret team working on the car, known internally as Project Titan, has faced some roadblocks putting a vehicle together. Project Titan&rs
  
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• AMD mulls a CPU+GPU super-chip in a server reboot

  22-07-2016 21:03
  AMD emerged as a serious threat to Intel in servers more than a decade ago, but after a series of missteps and bad chips, the company's server business is hanging on by a thread.Now, AMD is rebooting its server chip business with the upcoming Zen CPU, which will also be used in PCs. AMD is getting creative with Zen and considering merging the CPU with a high-performance GPU to create a mega-chip for high-performance tasks."It's fair to say we do believe we can combine a high-performance CPU
  
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• Why a Verizon and Yahoo merger would be like Microsoft snapping up CompuServe

  22-07-2016 21:00
  
  Wait, what?If this rumor about Verizon buying Yahoo for $5B is true, we have an honest to goodness schadenfreude moment for me as someone who remembers the days of the Buddy List, giant banner ads (which is actually still common at Yahoo Mail for some reason), and those plastic discs they might still sell at Walmart for gaining “high-speed Internet” access.As you may know, Verizon also owns AOL. Those three letters, combined with the Yahoo exclamation mark, create some vivid memories
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: How to stay in the game when change is hard

  22-07-2016 20:46
  
  Last month I shared my insights into organizational and personal change, how challenging and sometimes difficult it can be to implement sustained change.Even when we know the change is the right thing to do, even when we can identify the benefits to be gained we still procastinate, prevaricate and come up with many reasons (read excuses) to help avoid the change. We become creative geniuses at inventing and identifying why the change will never work and fall back on a set of beliefs that tr
  
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• Columbus, Ohio focuses $40M DOT prize on transportation tech

  22-07-2016 20:09
  
  Columbus, Ohio recently snagged a $40 million prize from the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) for a series of proposals to use data and technology to reshape the city's transportation system.
  The city of 850,000 beat out six other finalists in the DOT's Smart City Challenge; the money will be matched by $10 million from Paul Allen's Vulcan Inc. and $90 million the city raised from private partners. In all, 78 cities applied for the grant, including nearly all of the nation's mid-sized ci
  
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• This Tinder scam promises to verify your account, but actually sells porn

  22-07-2016 20:00
  
  Tinder users beware. The popular dating app generally doesn’t verify most user accounts, but that hasn’t stopped spammers from pretending to offer the service.In recent weeks, automated bots masquerading as Tinder profiles have been telling real users to get “verified,” as part of a clever scam to sell them porn, security firm Symantec said on Thursday.The spam bots first send off flirty messages, like “Wanna eat cookie dough together some time?” only to then
  
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• Microsoft touts data harvesting tool as aid to enterprises upgrading to Windows 10

  22-07-2016 19:33
  
  Microsoft will preview a new service today that lets enterprises mine data that Windows collects, including software usage statistics, to accelerate adoption of Windows 10.
  The service, called Upgrade Analytics, was announced Tuesday by Marc-Andrea Klimaschewski, a company program manager, in a brief post to a company blog. He said that it would launch as a public preview Friday.
  Klimaschewski characterized the service as a tool that businesses can use to determine whether PCs -- in general or
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: When will Blizzard release World of Warcraft GO for the iPhone?

  22-07-2016 19:32
  
  Pokemon GO’s amazing popularity has millions of gamers running around in the real world trying to capture monsters on their phones. The game has quickly become an international phenomenon and has raked in tons of cash for its developer and for Apple.Of course they say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and that’s particularly true if there is big money to be made. We could soon see a huge glut of games that are very similar to Pokemon GO but set in different worlds.Aze
  
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• Pokémon Go and the demon-haunted world

  22-07-2016 19:03
  
  Are Pokémon monsters really "digital demons"?
  In Carl Sagan's 1995 book, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (Amazon price), the author makes the case that science makes it impossible to believe in a world of invisible beings.
  Now we can understand volcanic eruptions, for example, as natural phenomena caused by plate tectonics rather than the wrath of an angry volcano god lusting for human sacrifice.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click her
  
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• Verizon to heavy wireless data users: 'You’re fired'

  22-07-2016 18:48
  
  Just because Verizon Wireless has some customers on “unlimited data plans,” it doesn’t mean that Verizon wants them to actually use it.Throttling the speeds of so-called data hogs was a tactic Verizon used before the FCC passed the net neutrality rule. Since throttling is now frowned on by the FCC, the largest wireless carrier in the country has found a new way to keep those pesky customers in line: Subscribers on unlimited data plans who use more than about 100GB a month will
  
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• EU dual-use tech ban plan could classify smartphones as weapons

  22-07-2016 18:47
  
  European Union plans to extend export controls on so-called "dual-use" technologies to include cyber-surveillance tools could put the brakes on sales of smartphones.Dual-use technologies are those that can serve civil or military purposes, and some countries impose restrictions on their sale because of fears that they could be used to abuse human rights in the destination country. A draft of new EU export regulations could put smartphones in that category because of their location-tracking capab
  
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• Clinton wins, how analytics cost Trump the election

  22-07-2016 18:45
  
  During the last presidential election Barack Obama’s IT team shouldn’t have outperformed Romney’s team as massively as it did. At the heart of the Romney loss were three, as Donald Trump would say, huge errors.The first mistake was using analytics services that didn’t understand elections, the second was using multiple services that didn’t coordinate with each other and the third was not questioning the data because it told them what they wanted to hear. This last h
  
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• Gaming desktops with AMD Zen chips will be hard to come by this year

  22-07-2016 18:36
  
  If you're expecting widespread availability of gaming desktops with AMD's Zen chips by year-end, don't hold your breath.It's been a long wait for Zen since it was first announced in mid-2015. It's shaping up to be the best CPU from the company in more than a decade, and the AMD faithful are hungry to get their hands on a desktop with the chip.High-end desktops with Zen will be available, but in "limited volume towards the end of the fourth quarter," said Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, during an earnings c
  
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• Apple will release Olympic-themed Apple Watch bands, but only in Brazil

  22-07-2016 17:55
  
  Apple is gearing up for the summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro like everyone else in the world, and the company’s contribution is a little something special: limited edition nylon Apple Watch bands that pay tribute to 14 competing nations.
  Unfortunately, you can’t buy them anywhere Apple Watches are sold, or even order them online. Apple is selling these special straps only in Brazil, in just one store: the VillageMall Apple Store in Barra de Tijuca. That means if you happen to be in
  
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• A hackable election: 5 things you need to know about e-voting machines

  22-07-2016 17:44
  
  As the U.S. heads toward an especially contentious national election in November, 15 states are still clinging to outdated electronic voting machines that don't support paper printouts used to audit their internal vote counts.
  E-voting machines without attached printers are still being used in a handful of presidential swing states, leading some voting security advocates to worry about the potential of a hacked election.
  Some makers of e-voting machines, often called direct-recording
  
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• Verizon will cut off unlimited data users who use too much unlimited data

  22-07-2016 17:26
  
  Verizon's continuing its ongoing mission to pare down the number of customers on unlimited data plans by migrating them to ones with hard limits. Recently, the company came up with a way to get rid of its biggest data hogs.
  Verizon is notifying customers using an “extraordinary” amount of data per month that they must move off their unlimited data plan by August 31. If they don’t switch, the carrier will disconnect their accounts, though they’ll have 50 days to reactivat
  
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• Going cardless at the ATM catches on

  22-07-2016 17:06
  
  Several major banks in the U.S. now support the use of a smartphone to withdraw cash from an ATM -- many by way of Near Field Communication (NFC) technology -- instead of requiring customers to use a bank card.
  One of the early adopters, Bank of America, said this week it currently supports cardless technology at 2,800 of its ATMs. That number will reach 5,000 ATMs by year's end that rely on NFC and other technology. Bank of America, which has about 15,000 ATMs nationwide, created a video to sh
  
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• How and why to verify your Twitter account

  22-07-2016 16:31
  
  The equally vaunted and ridiculed blue checkmarks on Twitter are no longer exclusive to elites or those with connections who have an “in” at Twitter. The company this week opened the verified account designation up to all users and put some rules in place for consideration. Many of Twitter’s 310 million monthly active users don’t qualify for verification, but the company is opening the secretive and invite-only process up to anyone.Accounts of public interest, particularl
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Microsoft’s Ethereum Blockchain as a Service accelerates mobile development

  22-07-2016 15:53
  
  The Ethereum Blockchain as a Service provided by Microsoft Azure and ConsenSys allows customers to create private, public and consortium-based blockchain environments. The framework provides the foundation to add capabilities such as Cortana Analytics (machine learning), Power BI (data visualization tools), Azure Active Directory (identity and access management for the cloud), Office 365 (Office online) and CRMOL (CRM Online for Government). New development frameworks will ignite blockchain appl
  
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• Mars rover uses A.I. to decide what to zap with a laser

  22-07-2016 15:13
  
  NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity now has the ability to decide what targets it wants to capture with a camera or hit with its laser all on its own. No humans needed.
  The space agency announced this week that using artificial intelligence (A.I.) software, developed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the robotic rover is “frequently” choosing multiple targets per week all on its own.
  Most targets are still chosen by scientists curious about particular rocks or areas of soil t
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: How hackers are making products safer

  22-07-2016 14:35
  
  Jono Bacon, the former community manager of Ubuntu, recently left GitHub (his second job since leaving Canonical) to start his own consulting firm. He is currently working with HackerOne, which just announced its Hack the World competition. I spoke with Bacon about HackerOne, his role with the organization and the competition. Following is an edited version of the interview.
  What exactly is HackerOne?
  The idea is simple: companies want to ensure their products and services are secure. HackerOne
  
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• Cloud services now account for a third of IT outsourcing market

  22-07-2016 14:32
  
  In the latest reflection of cloud computing’s impact on the IT services market, outsourcing consultancy Information Services Group (ISG) for the first time expanded its quarterly market index to look specifically at the as-a-service segment of IT and business process services industry.The as-a-service market, which includes Infrastructure- and Software-as-a-Service (IaaS and SaaS) activity, now represents more than one third of the combined global market for sourcing services — nearl
  
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• Issa bill would kill a big H-1B loophole

  22-07-2016 12:09
  
  In 1998, Congress raised the H-1B cap and then set some controversial H-1B visa rules. It prohibited the largest users of H-1B visa -- firms employing 15% or more visa workers -- from displacing U.S. workers. They also are required to make a "good faith" effort to recruit a U.S. worker for a position.
  Congress then inserted a massive loophole.
  U.S. workers can be displaced by H-1B-dependent employers -- such as IT outsourcing firms -- provided the visa holder has a master's degree or the compan
  
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• CIOs: Shadow IT is actually great for your cloud strategy

  22-07-2016 12:00
  
  In a survey, cloud security broker vendor CipherCloud found that 86 percent of cloud applications used at workplaces are unsanctioned. That's a pretty big percentage. Obviously, the security vendors have an incentive to raise such fears about shadow IT, so take this claim with much salt. However, the issue merits attention.I don't see shadow IT as that big of deal. Moreover, I believe that CIOs can embrace, rather than fight, the rise of shadow IT for their own benefit. How?[ Download InfoWorld'
  
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• Researchers release free decryption tools for PowerWare and Bart ransomware

  22-07-2016 11:02
  
  Security researchers have released tools this week that could help users recover files encrypted by two relatively new ransomware threats: Bart and PowerWare.PowerWare, also known as PoshCoder, was first spotted in March, when it was used in attacks against healthcare organizations. It stood out because it was implemented in Windows PowerShell, a scripting environment designed for automating system and application administration tasks.Researchers from security firm Palo Alto Networks have r
  
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• Pokémon Go launches in Japan with McDonald’s as first sponsor

  22-07-2016 08:47
  
  Pokémon Go has launched in Japan with a new revenue stream -- corporate sponsorship from McDonald’s.The free-to-download augmented reality smartphone game already earns money from in-game purchases.“Trainers in Japan, thank you for being patient. Pokémon GO is now available to download in Japan!,” the Pokémon Go Twitter account wrote on Friday.The game developed by Niantic, in which Google, Nintendo and the Pokémon Company are investors, has been a r
  
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• Salesforce to acquire data center optimization startup Coolan

  22-07-2016 05:13
  
  Salesforce.com has signed a definite agreement to acquire Coolan, the developer of a platform for data center hardware analysis and optimization.The acquisition appears to be designed to help Salesforce boost its own infrastructure for its customer relationship management software.“Once the transaction has closed, the Coolan team will help Salesforce optimize its infrastructure as it scales to support customer growth around the world,” Amir Michael, Coolan’s cofounder and CEO w
  
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• How Apple and Facebook helped to take down KickassTorrents

  22-07-2016 02:01
  
  It turns out that a couple of purchases on iTunes helped to bring down the mastermind behind KickassTorrents, one of the most popular websites for illegal file sharing.Apple and Facebook were among the companies that handed over data to the U.S. in its investigation of 30-year-old Artem Vaulin, the alleged owner of the torrent directory service. Vaulin was arrested in Poland on Wednesday, and U.S. authorities seized seven of the site’s domains, all of which are now offline.Kickas
  
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• Scenes from San Francisco's massive Pokémon Go meetup

  22-07-2016 01:35
  
  Scenes from San Francisco's massive Pokémon Go meetupImage by Blair Hanley FrankPokémon Go is taking over the world, and players in San Francisco put together a massive gathering aimed at bringing fans of the game together in the high tech mecca. The journey started in two places at once: Mission Dolores Park, and the city’s waterfront, near the financial district.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Solutions for improving diversity in tech

  22-07-2016 00:51
  
  Recently, Facebook blamed its lack of progress in hiring women and minorities on the lack of talent, i.e. problems with the pipeline. Some experts disagree, citing statistics that show that the percentages of women and minorities graduating from computer science programs are higher than the percentages of women and minorities in tech workforces. We have work to do, and it starts with current leadership understanding that visibility matters when it comes to innovation today and improving the tale
  
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• At Black Hat: A free tool for spear phishing Twitter

  22-07-2016 00:04
  
  A spear phishing tool to automate the creation of phony tweets - complete with malicious URLs – with messages victims are likely to click on will be released at Black Hat by researchers from ZeroFOX.
  Called SNAP_R (for social network automated phisher with reconnaissance), the tool runs through a target Twitter account to gather data on what topics seem to interest the subscriber. Then it writes a tweet loaded up with a link to a site containing malware and sends it.
  More on Network World
  
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