IT Executive news

• 45% off Dictionary Hidden Book Safe With Lock - Deal Alert

  29-08-2016 23:05
  
  This very realistic looking book cleverly conceals a solid steel locking safe. Designed to look simply like a dictionary, the diversion safe is a good consideration for a college student or anyone looking for a creative way to hide electronics, money, documents and more. You could argue that this is safer than a real safe -- thieves just won't spend their limited time looking through your books. The dictionary safe averages 4 out of 5 stars from over 140 people (read reviews). It's typical list
  
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• As 5G heads for IoT, 4G is far from done

  29-08-2016 22:29
  
  The iPhone 7 expected to debut on Sept. 7 may offer a glimpse into the future of smartphones, but it won’t have 5G. And even though the next generation of cellular is due to launch in 2020, high-end handsets may be LTE-only for years to come.A new IHS Markit survey of mobile operators says they see 5G as a tool for industry more than for smartphone users. But consumers probably won’t have to worry about getting stuck in the slow lane, because LTE is still getting faster.Increasingly,
  
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• U.S. developers have the numbers, but China and Russia have the skills

  29-08-2016 22:06
  
  While the United States and India may have lots of programmers, China and Russia have the most talented developers according to a study by HackerRank, which administers coding tests to developers worldwide.
  The study looked at the results of 1.4 million of HackerRank's coding test submissions, called "challenges," during the last few years. "According to our data, China and Russia score as the most talented developers. Chinese programmers outscore all other countries in mathematics, functional
  
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• Ford, MIT use Bostonians’ cellphone location data for traffic planning

  29-08-2016 21:34
  
  By collecting the anonymous cellphone location data from nearly two million Bostonians, MIT and Ford were able to produce near-instant urban mobility patterns that typically cost millions of dollars and take years to build.
  The big data experiment holds the promise of more accurate and timely data about urban mobility patterns that can be used to quickly determine whether particular attempts to address local transportation needs are working.
  In making decisions about infrastructure development
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: My secret checklist and video for fall recruiting season

  29-08-2016 21:21
  
  It’s still August, but I'm already swamped by the September Recruiting Season — bombarded by inquiries about updating resumes, CVs and LinkedIn profiles, jump-starting job searches and personal branding.
  Are you are contemplating a career move this year or next?
  I think you will like what I am about to show you — my “secret” three-point checklist, revealed here for the first time. It will test your readiness for the recruiting season with three simple questions (ba
  
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• Microsoft's new Catapult v2 server design is targeted at AI

  29-08-2016 20:24
  
  For years, Microsoft has been delivering speedy and accurate Bing results with experimental servers called Project Catapult, which have now received an architectural upgrade.The Catapult servers use reprogrammable chips called FPGAs (field programmable gate arrays), which are central to delivering better Bing results. FPGAs can quickly score, filter, rank, and measure the relevancy of text and image queries on Bing.Microsoft has now redesigned the original Catapult server, which is used to
  
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• VMware ‘Cloud Foundation’ integrates virtual compute, network and storage systems

  29-08-2016 20:17
  
  At VMWorld this week the virtualization giant is announcing a new integrated system for building private clouds made up of the company’s virtualized compute, network and storage products packaged together with a new management software.
  VMware calls its new VMware Cloud Foundation product a hyperconverged infrastructure offering. It’s also meant to be the basis for VMware’s software defined data center (SDDC). Cloud Foundation will be available to run on customers’ premi
  
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• Digital transformation is giving IT spending a big boost

  29-08-2016 19:48
  
  Digital transformation may promise critical benefits for the companies undertaking it, but it's also delivering a major boost to IT spending around the world.That's according to market researcher IDC, which on Monday released new data indicating that global spending on IT products and services will grow from nearly $2.4 trillion in 2016 to more than $2.7 trillion in 2020. A big part of that growth, it says, will come from companies investing in cloud, mobility, and big data technologies as part
  
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• FBI warns that hackers are targeting state election systems

  29-08-2016 19:36
  
  The FBI has reportedly found evidence that foreign hackers breached two state election databases in recent weeks.An FBI alert warning election officials about the breach was leaked, and it was posted in a report by Yahoo News on Monday. Voter registration databases from both Illinois and Arizona were targeted in the hacks, according to the report.In the Illinois case, personal data on 200,000 voters was stolen. In July, an official with the state’s board of elections warned on Faceboo
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Nintex Hawkeye makes workflow analytics one step easier

  29-08-2016 19:30
  
  With the recent launch of Hawkeye, Nintex, the workflow process automation company, has made it that much easier for companies to achieve a global understanding of their workflow environment. For years, Nintex has been helping customers automate their workflows — all those necessary corporate processes that keep a company running — with software built on top of Microsoft SharePoint. Nintex has since extended its workflow platform, which now runs in the cloud and connects Office 365,
  
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• Apple's iPhone 7 event is confirmed for Sept. 7

  29-08-2016 19:27
  
  Apple will take the wraps off the newest iPhone(s) and perhaps a second-gen Apple Watch at an event on Sept. 7 at 10 a.m. Pacific/1 p.m. Eastern. The venue is a standard Apple pick, San Francisco’s Bill Graham Civic Auditorium.
  The invitation, which Apple emailed to media outlets on Monday morning, gives away absolutely nothing. “See you on the 7th,” it says. That’s it. But if history tells us anything, it’s that new iPhones are on deck next week. The invite’
  
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• Vintage Apple-1 sells for $815K to Hollywood couple

  29-08-2016 19:25
  
  An Apple-1 computer sold last week for $815,000, falling short of an aggressive auction estimate prompted by evidence that the antique was a unique pre-production model.
  The auction was run by CharityBuzz.com, with 10% of the proceeds pledged to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
  The gavel price didn't meet the $1 million estimate but was enough to slip the computer into second place for an Apple-1, behind only the 2014 record of $905,000 that The Henry Ford paid for a different model.
  9to5Mac.
  
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• Commercial drones take off to deliver new data and business models

  29-08-2016 17:20
  
  Commercial drones can take to the skies in the U.S. without needing a special waiver beginning today, and that will lead to a vast amount of new data and use cases built on that data, says Mark Miller, vice president of Global Aviation at The Weather Company.Today the Federal Aviation Administration released new rules governing the operation of commercial drones.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Nutanix gets hyperconverged with PernixData and Calm.io

  29-08-2016 16:31
  
  Nutanix has snapped up a couple of companies, PernixData and Calm.io, to extend its enterprise cloud platform.The company competes with the likes of Simplivity, Cisco Systems, EMC, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise on the delivery of hyperconverged infrastructure, a term it is credited with coining.The Calm.io acquisition will take Nutanix a step closer to its goal of delivering application and service orchestration, runtime lifecycle management, and policy-based governance across all applicat
  
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• 25% off Logitech K380 Multi-Device Bluetooth Keyboard (Blue) - Deal Alert

  29-08-2016 16:26
  
  The Logitech K380 Bluetooth Keyboard allows you to easily connect to and type on your computer, tablet, smartphone and more: Windows, Mac, Chrome OS, Android, iOS (iPhone and iPad) and even Apple TV 2nd or 3rd generation.  This keyboard allows you to connect to up to three devices simultaneously. Simply touch a button on the keyboard to start typing on another device. The keyboard recognizes each device and automatically maps keys to give you a familiar layout with your favorite
  
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• Microsoft makes it easier to report hate speech on Xbox and other services

  29-08-2016 16:13
  
  Microsoft may not have the social reach of Facebook or Twitter, but the company is nevertheless cracking down on hate speech that may crop up on its services with an easier way to report it.
  On Friday, Microsoft launched a simplified web form to report hate speech, as well as a separate petition to reinstate any content that may have been taken down. Microsoft is asking users of its consumer services to report incidents that advocate violence against or hatred of users based upon age, disabilit
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: 6 things you should know from Linux's first 25 years

  29-08-2016 16:08
  
  Red Hat was founded in 1993, two years after Linux was announced and the company has been one of the top contributors to Linux. There is a symbiotic relationship between the company and the project. Whitehurst pointed out that it’s hard to talk about the history of Red Hat without talking about Linux and vice versa.
  Creating a business model around open source
  Whitehurst said that a lot of Linux adoption was happening in the 90s but Linux, and Red Hat, didn’t really have a business
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Linus Torvalds reflects on 25 years of Linux

  29-08-2016 16:05
  
  LinuxCon North America concluded in Toronto, Canada on August 25th, the day Linux was celebrating its 25th anniversary. Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, and Dirk Hohndel, VP and chief of open source at VMware, sat down for a conversation at the event and reflected upon the past 25 years. Here are some of the highlights of that conversation.
  From nothing to something
  Hohndel asked Torvalds about the highlights of the 25 years and to his surprise, Torvalds didn’t point out any. Hohndel
  
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• Social media, the gateway for malware

  29-08-2016 15:41
  
  Easy to access, widely used, and outside of enterprise control, social media sites are gold mines for malicious actors. People share a lot of seemingly innocuous information, which is exactly the kind of data that hackers love to collect and use in phishing or spear phishing campaigns. 
  A recent NopSec 2016 State of Vulnerability Risk Management Report found that organizations use inadequate risk evaluation scoring systems. The report claimed that social media -- which often isn'
  
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• Beware technology that delivers less than its name promises

  29-08-2016 15:41
  
  Invisibility cloaks sound like a lot of fun, and the good news is that they really do exist. But the reality, for now at least, is not nearly as fantastical as what you imagine.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Opera warns sync users to change passwords for every website after hack

  29-08-2016 15:40
  
  Opera warned Friday that users who stored passwords and other data via its cloud services may have had that data compromised during a server breach.
  Opera said that it detected unauthorized access to the Opera sync system last week via an attack. Though the attack was “quickly blocked,” Opera said that it believed that “some of our sync users’ passwords and account information, such as login names, may have been compromised.”
  As a precaution, Opera reset all of the
  
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• Sophisticated malware possibly tied to recent ATM heists in Thailand

  29-08-2016 15:33
  Security researchers have found a sophisticated malware program that may have been used recently by a gang of hackers to steal more than US$350,000 from ATMs in Thailand.A sample of the new malware, dubbed Ripper, was uploaded to the VirusTotal database from an Internet Protocol address in Thailand last week, shortly before local media reported that hackers used malware to steal 12.29 million Baht from 21 ATMs in the country.The incident forced the state-owned Government Savings Bank to temporar
  
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• Up to 45% off Waterproof Compression Dry Bags - Deal Alert

  29-08-2016 15:15
  
  Infityle waterproof Dry Bag sacks & smart phone Case creates a perfect combination of waterproof bags for any adventurer, it's soft, flexible & strong, even in the harshest of conditions, whether you are in the freezing conditions of Alaska or in a desert keeping the dust out. Thermo welding technology ensures the strong seams are watertight. Reinforced construction at all stress points make it even tougher. 
  Don't worry about your outdoor gears and fishing gear -- its taken care o
  
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• 4 best new features in Fitbit Charge 2 and Flex 2

  29-08-2016 15:00
  
  I came away from a recent product briefing at Fitbit's San Francisco headquarters thinking its new Charge 2 and Flex 2 have the potential to be genuine blockbusters — blockbusters on the scale of its recent Blaze and Alta wearables, which accounted for 54 percent of the company's second quarter 2016 revenue. Both Charge 2 and Flex 2 add welcome new features, refinements, and design choices to Fitbit's mid-range product line.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, ple
  
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• Fake resumes, jobs, lead to real guilty plea in H-1B fraud case

  29-08-2016 14:57
  
  A Virginia couple has pled guilty to H-1B fraud charges in a scheme that made them millions, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Thursday.
  A married couple -- Raju Kosuri, 44, and Smriti Jharia, 45 -- created a visa-for-sale system involving some 900 H-1B visa petitions over a multi-year period, according to the U.S. attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia.
  Court records detail an elaborate operation that required a series of fictions to pull off.
  Through a series of shell companies t
  
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• By going private, Rackspace looks to fuel its cloud evolution

  29-08-2016 14:56
  
  Rackspace, a company that was an early player in the cloud market, is being forced to evolve or continue to be left behind.
  The cloud and web-hosting company announced today that it’s being acquired by Apollo Global Management, a U.S.-based private equity firm, and will become a private company. It's a move analysts say will enable Rackspace to make big changes without worrying about an anxious or angry response from shareholders.
  Under the $4.3 billion deal, Rackspace stockholders will r
  
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• Frustrated by Congress, Obama creates startup visa-like program

  29-08-2016 14:55
  
  There have been efforts in Congress to approve what's called a "startup visa," which would be given to entrepreneurs who commit to certain levels of investment and job growth. But as with other immigration bills, it's gotten nowhere.
  In the absence of congressional action, President Barack Obama's administration Friday said it will create a startup visa-like program, and said it can do so without congressional approval.
  Entrepreneurs who can deliver a startup plan backed by significant investme
  
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• Debunking the most common big data backup and recovery myths

  29-08-2016 14:55
  
  This vendor-written tech primer has been edited by Network World to eliminate product promotion, but readers should note it will likely favor the submitter's approach.
  Big data has become a priority for most organizations, which are increasingly aware of the central role data can play in their success.  But firms continue to struggle with how to best protect, manage and analyze data within today's modern architectures. Not doing so can result in extended downtime and potential data loss co
  
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• Twitter will soon let you use keyword filters to combat online harassment

  29-08-2016 14:54
  
  Online harassment on Twitter has gotten so bad that some users opt to never read their mentions, while others are driven to log off the platform forever.
  Now, Twitter is addressing the problem with a new anti-harassment tool, according to Bloomberg. Twitter is developing a feature that would allow users to filter out certain keywords from their timeline and mentions. This anti-harassment feature, which has been in the works for about a year, will give users the power to block certain offensive
  
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• Spotify is retaliating against artists with Apple Music exclusives

  29-08-2016 14:54
  
  Spotify users looking for the latest songs by Drake, Katy Perry, and Frank Ocean may have a harder time finding them—all because of those artists’ ties to rival Apple Music.
  Spotify is making it difficult for its users to find new music from artists who have signed on to Apple Music exclusives, according to Bloomberg. Spotify has told record labels that once new songs become available on its platform following the Apple exclusivity window, they will be less likely to be added to fea
  
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• 6 new Android 7.0 Nougat features to use now

  29-08-2016 14:53
  
  You've finally stepped up to Android 7.0 Nougat. Yay for shiny new toys (well ... OSes)! But with all these new features and options and goodies, where should you start?Greenbot has you covered. Here, Florence Ion walks you through the first six features you should try out. You'll definitely want to start with the Multi-Window, because running two apps on your screen at the same time means doubling the 'Droidy goodness. You'll also learn how to make the most of your data allotment, customize yo
  
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• Inside Amazon's, Facebook's and Google's self-serving 'philanthropy'

  29-08-2016 14:52
  
  Technology companies tend to couch their products not as businesses for profit, but as gifts to humanity.
  The HBO comedy Silicon Valley so thoroughly mocked this impulse that I heard companies in the valley ordered their spokespeople to stop using the phrase "making the world a better place."
  For the biggest tech giants, faux philanthropy masks an obvious customer acquisition strategy.
  Making the world a more literate place
  Amazon says a billion people in the world have no access to books. That
  
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• Facebook further automates trending topics, ditches human-written descriptions

  29-08-2016 14:51
  
  Facebook is a little closer to completely automating its trending topics feature. On Friday, the company announced that it would no longer have employees write short descriptions for each trending topic it displays.
  Instead, the trending topics box will simply show how many people are discussing a topic. When you mouse over a topic, it’ll show a description that pulls from a news story on the topic in question.
  According to Facebook, its “goal is to enable Trending fo
  
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• Hot products from VMWorld 2016

  29-08-2016 14:50
  
  Moving to VegasImage by ThinkstockFor the first time VMware has moved its domestic VMWorld conference to Las Vegas – and what better place than under the bright lights of the strip to talk about the latest in virtualization, SDN, containers, hyperconverged infrastructure and mobile management. Check out our compilation of the hottest new products and services being announced and displayed at VMWorld 2016. To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Deception technology grows and evolves

  29-08-2016 14:50
  
  Deception technologies such as honeypots are becoming increasingly popular with enterprises as the products get more flexible and the tools allow security analysts swamped with incident reports to zero in on cases of actual ongoing infiltration.
  According to a report released in August by research firm Technavio, the deception technology market is growing at a compound annual growth rate of 9 percent, and is predicted to reach $1.33 billion by 2020.
  The technology includes not only the traditio
  
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• Microsoft Pix iOS app uses AI to rival Apple’s Camera

  29-08-2016 14:49
  
  When you shoot with the iPhone’s built-in Camera app, there are various ways to tweak focus and exposure, both before and after you hit the shutter. You might first tap and hold or swipe to adjust and lock focus and exposure. After the shot, you have options for adjusting saturation, contrast, sharpness, and more. That’s in addition to the optional HDR, or Live Picture settings and effects filters.
  Microsoft Pix (free on the iTunes Store), a photo and video shooting and editing app
  
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• How software-defined everything will change outsourcing

  29-08-2016 14:47
  
  Software-defined everything (SDE) -- the use of software to provision and manage pretty much all IT infrastructure -- is poised to make outsourcing much easier for some customers and for some workloads.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• Top 10 free troubleshooting tools for Windows 10

  29-08-2016 14:46
  
  Top 10 free troubleshooting tools for Windows 10Into every Windows 10 user's life a little rain must fall. Sometimes it comes down in buckets.Windows itself has many built-in troubleshooting tools, but they can be tricky to find and even trickier to harness in ways that'll help you solve a problem -- instead of simply sitting there looking pretty and/or perplexed.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• Review: Top tools for preventing data leaks

  29-08-2016 14:46
  
  Most security tools are focused on keeping external attackers at bay. But what about the sensitive data that lives inside your network? How do you make sure it doesn’t get out, either intentionally or by accident?To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• New Google tool cuts JavaScript code down to size

  29-08-2016 14:45
  
  Working to improve mobile memory consumption in its V8 JavaScript engine, Google has developed Ignition, a JavaScript interpreter to cut overhead and boost execution of scripts. Google sees the technology offering other opportunities to increase web performance as well.
  Through Ignition, V8 compiles JavaScript functions to a concise bytecode that's 25 to 50 percent the size of equivalent baseline machine code, Ross McIlroy, Google engineer for Android software, said. "This bytecode is then exec
  
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• Are InfoSec vendors ‘sowing confusion’ and selling ‘useless’ products?

  29-08-2016 14:44
  
  As a journalist, you know the drill at media briefings. Hosted and paid-for by a vendor, and with speakers from the company - as well as (usually) an end-user or an academic, the idea is to bring journalists together with the experts to discuss the prominent matters in the industry. And if those issues and industry challenges can be resolved with one of the vendor’s solutions then everyone’s a winner.
  The vendor gets the business, the press coverage and the thought leadership, while
  
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• 5 apps to help you get more done in less time

  29-08-2016 14:10
  
  Do you ever feel like there aren't enough hours in a day? If you're looking to get more out of your work day, here are five apps -- recommended by Chris Battles, vice president and general manager, communications cloud division at Citrix, that he uses to improve his own productivity.Plan your days ahead of time
  According to best-selling time management author Brian Tracy, "The more time you take to make a list of everything you have to do, in advance, the more effective and efficient you will be
  
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• How to spot signs your project is about to fail

  29-08-2016 14:05
  
  Project management has many facets and anyone of them could derail even the best-laid plans. Recognizing the signs of an impending disaster can give a project manager the "heads up" before it happens. To help you spot the telltale signs, here are some of the more common signs grouped into three key categories.
  1. High-level objectives
  Missing strategic tie-in: Difficulty easily and clearly tie the project purpose and goals back to company-wide objectives is one of the biggest signals that projec
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: I've seen this one. This is a classic.

  29-08-2016 12:35
  
  Marty McFly: I've seen this one. This is a classic. This is where Ralph dresses up as a man from space.Milton Baines: What do you mean, you've seen this? It's brand new.Marty: Yeah, well, I saw it on a… rerun.Milton: What's a rerun?Marty: You'll find out.—  Back to the Future Every now and then it's interesting to look back, and on this, the occasion of my 25th post to CIO.com, I looked back at the past 15 months or so and came up with a handful of groupings of my posts. I
  
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