IT Executive news

• 50% off Prime Membership After Free 6 Month Trial, For Students - Deal Alert

  27-07-2016 23:30
  
  If you know somebody headed off to college soon, or maybe you'll be attending yourself, you should know that Amazon is giving away 6 free months of Amazon Prime, followed by a 50% discount on a Prime Membership ($49 vs. $99). Just sign up, or have them sign up with an .edu email address and start accessing free two-day shipping, exclusive deals and promotions, unlimited photo storage, and unlimited TV & movie streaming through Prime Video. And students get $5 Amazon credit for every friend t
  
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• Iowa invests $1B in new wind farms

  27-07-2016 23:27
  
  Iowans can expect to get half a billion watts of new clean electricity after the state's governor signed a $1 billion deal to expand Iowa's wind energy operations.
  The deal will result in the largest wind farm project for Alliant Energy, the public utility holding company that will build and operate the farm. Currently, Alliant owns and operates 1,200 megawatts (mW) of wind-generated energy in Iowa under its Interstate Power and Light utility.
  When completed, the new project is expected to prod
  
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• Microsoft makes Windows 10 hardware change for PC security

  27-07-2016 23:19
  
  Microsoft is rolling out a change in minimum hardware requirements for Windows 10 PCs and mobile devices, and expects hardware makers to comply in order to make their devices more secure.Starting Thursday, PC makers should include a hardware-based security feature called TPM (Trusted Platform Module) 2.0 in Windows 10 PCs, smartphones and tablets.The TPM 2.0 feature will be beneficial for users as it will do a better job of protecting sensitive information on a PC. A TPM 2.0 security layer -- wh
  
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• Citrix & LogMeIn complete complicated, tax-free sort-of merger

  27-07-2016 23:18
  
  LogMeIn, the makers of the popular remote desktop software as well as IT security and conferencing offerings, will become part of a Citrix subsidiary in the wake of a complicated, $1.8 billion transaction announced Tuesday by the two companies.
  The transaction is what’s called a Reverse Morris Trust, which apparently allows the untaxed transfer of a subsidiary to new ownership by spinning off a new company and completing a merger. In this case, Citrix has created a wholly-owned subsidiary
  
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• 94% off the Complete Machine Learning Course Bundle - Deal Alert

  27-07-2016 22:46
  
  Machine learning is hot, and with good reason. For the uninitiated: it’s the use of pattern recognition and prediction that underlies important technologies like self-driving cars and speech recognition.Want to dive into the field? From learning to build financial models and utilizing Big Data, to coding Java and Python--the 10 courses in The Complete Machine Learning Bundle will get you up to speed on all things machine learning.Here are the courses included in your bundle:To read this ar
  
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• iPhone ASP decline shows Apple's Services strategy at work

  27-07-2016 22:29
  
  Apple yesterday said the 40 million iPhones it sold in the June quarter brought in an average of $595 each, the lowest number and the largest year-over-year decline in average selling price in two years.
  The drop in average selling price, or ASP, was largely credited to the introduction earlier this year of the lower-priced iPhone SE, which sells for $399 and up.
  "The magnitude of the [ASP] drop is an indication that the iPhone SE ... has been something of a hit," wrote Jan Dawson, principal an
  
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• Flaw with password manager LastPass could hand over control to hackers

  27-07-2016 22:05
  Even password manager LastPass can be fooled. A Google security researcher has found a way to remotely hijack the software.
  It works by first luring the user to a malicious site. The site will then exploit a flaw in a LastPass add-on for the Firefox browser, giving it control over the password management software.
  LastPass wrote about the vulnerability on Wednesday and said that a fix is already out for Firefox users.
  Google security research Tavis Ormandy first discovered the issue. When
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Want your startup to be paperless? These 8 tips will get you there

  27-07-2016 21:30
  
  When you’re embarking on a new business venture, paperwork has a tendency to pile up quickly. Going paperless will not only keep your files organized (and even searchable, depending on what software you use), but also frees up office storage space and even saves trees. Here are a few tips to kick things off:1. Purchase a document scanner
  If you plan to be paperless from the beginning and want to keep things that way, investing in a quality scanner should be your first step. You’ll be
  
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• Get $200 off Samsung KU6600 Curved 55-Inch 4K Ultra HD TV and a $100 Gift Card - Deal Alert

  27-07-2016 21:28
  
  Amazon is currently discounting the UN55KU6600 Curved 55-inch TV from Samsung, taking its typical list price of $1,148 down by 17% to just $947.99. And on top of that, they're giving you a $100 Amazon.com gift card along with it. The UN55KU6600 delivers 4K Ultra HD resolution and High Dynamic Range (HDR) content, with greater depth and clarity and a fuller spectrum of color with PurColor. It lets you access your favorite content quicker and easier with the new Samsung Smart TV platform powe
  
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• AI just co-wrote its first horror movie, and you can help make it real

  27-07-2016 21:26
  
  AI has already been dabbling in the arts for some time, but recently it took a big step further and helped write its first feature-length horror film. Now its co-creators are seeking funding to bring the movie to life.Titled "Impossible Things," the story focuses on a family that moves to a secluded country home following the death of a young daughter. Madeline, the mother, stays home to renovate the house and care for her remaining two children, but she begins to hear voices. She also sees visi
  
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• Microsoft just launched an iPhone camera app

  27-07-2016 20:59
  There's a new iPhone camera application on the block that's supposed to be better at taking pictures than the one Apple ships with its phones ... and it's built by Microsoft. The company's research arm launched Pix, which enhances the photos that users take in a variety of ways, on Wednesday morning. The app is  designed to make photos look better and even improves on Apple's Live Photos ability to capture scenes that have moving elements in them. It's part of Microsoft's continue
  
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• Dropbox aims for enterprise with new team and IT admin features

  27-07-2016 20:53
  
  Continuing its effort to better appeal to enterprise users, Dropbox Wednesday announced new features aimed at making its cloud-based storage and collaboration platform easier for teams of workers to use and IT administrators to centrally control.
  +MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: The CIA, NSA and Pokémon Go | 10 ways to celebrate Sysadmin Day +
  Dropbox was one of the pioneers of the cloud computing market, beginning in 2007 as a consumer-oriented storage service with a simple user interface and au
  
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• Samsung’s massive 15TB SSD can be yours -- for about $10K

  27-07-2016 20:52
  
  Samsung's industry-leading 15.36TB solid-state drive (SSD) began shipping to system makers back in March; now it's showing up on reseller websites with a price tag of  around $10,000.
  At least one retail website offers it for bargain basement price of $9,690.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: How can a CIO provide clarity in a messy world?

  27-07-2016 20:45
  
  Travelling abroad during the last few weeks with my two little girls, I have had to do a lot of explaining of truly “foreign concepts” to them in very simple terms. It felt like I was back in the office; IT leaders spend a lot of their time trying to provide clarity to a vastly diverse audience with limited knowledge and patience: explaining somewhat counter-intuitive business decisions and directions to their technical teams and/or trying to describe what “cloud” is to a
  
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• Kaspersky researchers love 'Mr. Robot' hacker but claim no Snowden ties

  27-07-2016 20:37
  
  Malware researchers for Kaspersky Lab took to Reddit’s IAmA chat today and pronounced an affection for the hacker-hero TV show “Mr. Robot” but not NSA hacker Edward Snowden.
  Responding to a question about how they like it, the team’s global director Costin Raiu says, “Mr Robot is a strong 9.5 for me. Most of the scenes are top class and the usage of tools, operating systems and other tiny details, from social engineering to opsec is very good. I guess having help f
  
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• How Wal-Mart enables 'innersource' with Github

  27-07-2016 20:37
  
  Talk to Wal-Mart software engineers and you’ll hear them speaking candidly about how open source technology influences virtually every project they undertake. What you may not know is that the retail giant’s programmers have also embraced the open source ethos of sharing code to run ecommerce, search, mobile payments and other digital functions. Known as enterprise source, internal open source and innersource, the twist on traditional open source has caught on at other organizations,
  
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• Dropbox levels up its features for administrators

  27-07-2016 20:12
  
  IT administrators managing Dropbox deployments are supposed to have an easier time with it soon, thanks to improvements that the company announced Wednesday.The company is rolling out a redesigned interface for examining logs of user activity within an organization, new folders that make it easier to create and manage a shared workspace for teams and mobile access management capabilities.The move is part of Dropbox's push to get its product used by more large organizations, in addition to its st
  
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• Donald Trump encouraged Russia to hack Hillary Clinton's email

  27-07-2016 20:12
  
  U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump has called on Russia to hack his rival Hillary Clinton’s email.“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” he said during a press conference Wednesday. “I think you’ll probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”Trumps remarks came as reporters questioned him about ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Security experts and government officials have s
  
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• Rival gang leaks decryption keys for Chimera ransomware

  27-07-2016 19:16
  
  Aside from the efforts of security researchers and antivirus companies, malware victims can sometimes also benefit from the fighting between rival cybercriminal groups.That happened this week when the creators of the Petya and Mischa ransomware programs leaked about 3,500 RSA private keys allegedly corresponding to systems infected with Chimera, another ransomware application.In a post Tuesday on Pastebin, Mischa's developers claimed that earlier this year they got access to big parts of the dev
  
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• After delays, Lenovo finally ships its first OLED laptop

  27-07-2016 18:27
  
  After months of delays, Lenovo's first laptop with an OLED (organic light-emitting diode) screen is now shipping, but it's unclear whether the PC maker will bring out additional OLED models anytime soon.The ThinkPad X1 Yoga with a 14-inch OLED screen is now shipping for US$1,682, which is a premium price compared to the same model with a conventional LED screen, priced at $1,394. Both laptops have Intel Core i5 Skylake processors.The laptop has the largest OLED screen available. HP's Spectre x36
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: 5 key steps to get a derailed project back on track

  27-07-2016 17:30
  
  "Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless." – Thomas Edison
  I have been lucky for the number of occasions where I was asked to put a derailed project back on track. The recovery of a troubled project is a great learning opportunity for any organization. When it goes wrong, it can go wrong really fast and oftentimes with severe impact. On the other hand, what's learned can be of value for a lifetime, not only when one is receptive to i
  
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• Surface Pro 3's massive battery drain is a software problem, Microsoft says

  27-07-2016 15:52
  Since May, a number of Surface Pro 3 owners have been dealing with surprisingly weak battery life for the two-year-old device. The problem hits some users so severely that their battery lasts only an hour or two after a full charge. Now, Microsoft says it thinks it can fix the issue.
  When the problems first hit Surface Pro 3, users wondered if the cause was a faulty battery; many people reporting problems had devices with a Simplo brand battery installed. Faulty battery recalls also aren’
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Helping co-workers: How helpful is it, really?

  27-07-2016 15:27
  
  Altruism is a great thing. Helping out our fellow human beings is what keeps the great wheels of society turning.But can we be too helpful? Is there a point at which giving assistance becomes detrimental, both to the party requesting help and to the party giving it?Surveys and studies conducted over the past few years seem to indicate there is such a point, and it might be easier to reach than we suspected.Let’s take a serious look at helping out our co-workers. We’re not here to sug
  
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• How to benchmark your IT outsourcing vendor management skills

  27-07-2016 15:21
  
  In the attempt to keep up with the pace of technology and business change today, most IT organizations are relying on a variety of external vendors. But orchestrating a mix of IT traditional providers, offshore outsourcing firms, and new cloud computing suppliers while keeping up with business demands requires a robust vendor management and governance practice.Outsourcing consultancy Alsbridge recently introduced a vendor management and governance self-assessment tool to help IT organizations ga
  
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• How 'citizen developers' are closing the skills gap

  27-07-2016 15:00
  
  Everyone's learning to code nowadays, but the rise of low-code development platforms are putting application and solution creation capabilities in the hands of even the least programming-savvy employees to help close the IT skills gap, drive efficiency and greater productivity. Welcome to the world of the "citizen developers."Power to the people
  In September 2015, QuickBase, an organization that has developed a low-code platform to allow for citizen development of enterprisurveyed 140 IT compani
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: 5 fun Hillary Clinton apps for iOS

  27-07-2016 14:00
  
  As I write this post the Democratic convention is underway in Pennsylvania, and it will make history by being the first such convention to ever nominate a woman for president. That woman, of course, is Hillary Clinton.Since I did a roundup of 5 fun Donald Trump apps yesterday, I felt it was only fair to do one for Hillary as well. She, like Trump, has a…er…large personality that certainly brings out the partisans on both sides.Full disclosure: I voted for Trump in my state’s
  
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• 9 must-have 'smart' gadgets for your connected office

  27-07-2016 14:00
  
  Must-have smart gadgets for your small officeImage by ThinkstockAre you setting up a new small office? Simply looking to revamp an existing location with some spiffy "smart" automation technology? We combed through piles of today's novelty IoT tech to find practical gadgets that can transform your workspace into a smart office that's sure to be the envy of all your coworkers and clients.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Will the Olympics ‘payment ring’ jumpstart NFC demand?

  27-07-2016 13:58
  
  Near Field Communication (NFC) – the “mobile wallet” technology – hasn’t exactly gone mainstream yet. And experts don’t expect it will anytime soon, even with some high-profile promo at the upcoming Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio.
  While it has been available to consumers for a couple of years from mega-vendors like Google, Samsung and Apple, it is a long way from displacing the legacy credit card. Google even dropped support for its Google Wallet Ca
  
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• Windows 10's free upgrade deadline will stretch into July 30, thanks to time zones

  27-07-2016 13:00
  
  Windows 10’s free upgrade deadline officially ends July 29. When we checked on the exact time with Microsoft, however, we learned that some lucky procrastinators will get extra hours to upgrade, thanks to international time zones. Here are the details. 
  The official deadline for the free upgrade is 11:59 p.m. UTC-10 on Friday, July 29. Time nerds know that UTC stands for Coordinated Universal Time and is the successor to Greenwich Mean Time as the standard for setting clock
  
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• Surefire security fail: One. App. At. A. Time.

  27-07-2016 13:00
  
  No one questions anymore that app security is critical, but leaving security to the app makers is asking for trouble. You need a centralized approach that makes sure all apps on your network are governed by the same rules.
  Think of it this way: If you concentrate your efforts on securing individual apps, your network will be as vulnerable as the weakest app in use at your company — and you don’t even know about all the apps in use at your company. In the age of BYOD, with your users
  
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• Xiaomi gets into laptops with Mi Notebook Air

  27-07-2016 12:55
  
  China’s Xiaomi has entered the laptop market with new, lightweight notebooks that run Microsoft’s Windows 10.The company, which has been getting into new markets including air-purifiers and drones, introduced on Wednesday its Mi Notebook Air, at prices ranging from RMB 3499, or around US$524, for the 12.5-inch model with the larger, flagship model at RMB 4,999, or about $749.Xiaomi is entering the Chinese laptop market at a time when the market for consumer laptops is shrinking. The
  
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• 7 strategies to avoid CSO burnout

  27-07-2016 12:24
  
  (Insider Story)
  
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• Why buying from small businesses offers big advantages

  27-07-2016 12:20
  
  There’s an old saying in corporate America that nobody gets fired for buying IBM. Buying from the big players is viewed as a safe move. And large companies have a reputation for stability and reliability.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Windows Server 2016 licensing and servicing options explained

  27-07-2016 12:15
  
  On July 12, Microsoft announced it will release Windows Server 2016 to the world as a final RTM edition at the company's Ignite conference in late September. The software, now in its fifth technical preview, continues to mature, and this date matches the estimations previously released from Redmond regarding the OS's completion date. There were other recent announcements regarding Windows Server as well, and this piece aims to demystify them.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, p
  
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• What Microsoft is taking away from Windows 10 in the Anniversary Update

  27-07-2016 12:00
  The Windows 10 Anniversary Update is full of great new features like a more powerful Cortana, deeper integration with mobile devices, and new inking features designed to make the stylus cool again. But as with any new version of Windows, the Anniversary Update also removes a few features and functionality that some of you might miss.
  Amid all the excitement over what's coming to AU, here’s a look at what Microsoft sent to the Recycle Bin.
  The impersonal login pageThe Windows 10 login page
  
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• Microsoft maps out F# language upgrade

  27-07-2016 12:00
  
  Microsoft's plans for the F# "functional first" language include an upgrade later this year that adds capabilities ranging from struct tuples to improved error messages. Backing for .Net Core, a multiplatform, open source version of the .Net programming model, also is in the works.
  F# 4.1 focuses on flexibility and incremental improvements, the Microsoft Visual FSharp team said. It features struct tuples and interoperability with Visual C# 7 and Visual Basic tuples.To read this article in full
  
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• First look: Google Cloud Machine Learning soars

  27-07-2016 12:00
  
  In the 2016 Google Founder’s Letter, CEO Sundar Pichai cited Google’s long-term investment in machine learning and AI. “It’s what allows you to use your voice to search for information,” he explained, “to translate the web from one language to another, to filter the spam from your inbox, to search for ‘hugs’ in your photos and actually pull up pictures of people hugging ... to solve many of the problems we encounter in daily life. It’s what
  
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• Qualcomm agrees to pay $19.5M to settle charges of bias against women

  27-07-2016 06:32
  
  Qualcomm has agreed to pay US$19.5 million to settle a gender discrimination class action lawsuit that alleged that women at the company get lower pay and have lesser chances of promotion under its current programs.The settlement on behalf of a class of about 3,290 female employees was reached before suit was filed, but still requires the filing of a class complaint and a move for preliminary approval of the agreement from a judge in a federal court in California, according to Sanford Heisler, t
  
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• BrandPost: Unlocking Business Value with a Modern Data Strategy

  27-07-2016 02:39
  
  Computing as we know it has changed: major advancements in processing, networking, and storage have opened the door to a whole new set of possibilities for how to leverage data. Whether it’s self-driving cars, automated financial planning, legal help, factory automation, medical diagnoses, or any number of other applications, data and advanced analytics are working their way into virtually every corner of our personal and professional lives.A common thread woven through all of these use ca
  
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• BrandPost: Big Data: Big Opportunities

  27-07-2016 02:13
  
  If you haven’t created and launched your big data and analytics strategy, you may already be behind your competitors. We asked CIOs, CEOs, and other IT professionals whether they’re using big data and analytics, and why or why not. The overwhelming majority of respondents are not only using big data and analytics, but consider it essential to their business operations.No Excuses – Now’s the Time At Broadsuite and V3B, CEO Daniel Newman (@danielnewmanUV) says there’s
  
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• In light of increased cyberattacks, White House sets defense plan with FBI in charge

  27-07-2016 01:48
  
  Faced with increasingly troubling attacks on its cyber infrastructure, the United States has outlined new measures intended to help it respond more effectively to attacks that might compromise public safety or its national security interests.On Tuesday, President Obama approved a directive that lays out how federal agencies will respond to “significant cyber incidents," with the FBI to be formally in charge of investigating.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, plea
  
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• Why hackers love health apps

  27-07-2016 00:42
  
  WASHINGTON—That handy health app on your phone—the one with access to your medical history, your doctor’s name, even your home address—may be vulnerable to hackers. Technology experts discussed the risks at a House hearing July 14 with the Energy and Commerce subcommittee.
  The fast growth of information technologies in the health care sector has outpaced the industry’s efforts to safeguard them. A report by IMS Health, a research and service provider for healt
  
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