IT Executive news

• Tim Cook or Bill Gates as Clinton's VP? It was considered

  18-10-2016 23:54
  
  Apple CEO Tim Cook and Microsoft founder Bill Gates were both on a list of potential vice presidential candidates for Democrat Hillary Clinton, according to a leaked email published on Tuesday by Wikileaks.
  The email, apparently sent by campaign chairman John Podesta on March 17, named the two tech titans alongside 37 other people as "a first cut of people to consider for VP."
  Also on the list, published by WikiLeaks, was Gates' wife Melinda. She co-founded the charitable foundation that b
  
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• Facebook is leaking valuable younger users

  18-10-2016 23:05
  
  Facebook has been struggling to bring in younger users for several years now and it looks like the problem is getting worse.
  According to Piper Jaffray Companies, a recent survey of 10,000 U.S. teenagers showed that 52% used Facebook at least once a month this fall, compared to 60% who used it monthly in the spring.
  "Factoring out shifts in the population surveyed, core Facebook usage likely declined by three basis points, which indicates Facebook is gradually becoming less relevant versus Inst
  
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• 31% off Roost Smart 9V Battery for Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarms, 2-Pack - Deal Alert

  18-10-2016 23:05
  
  The Roost Smart Battery mimics the form of a 9V battery, installs in minutes, and lasts for more than 5 years. Using your home's WiFi, Roost will communicate when it's running low on power, so you can take action to avoid those dreaded middle-of-the-night interruptions. The Roost Smart Battery is designed to be used with your smoke or carbon monoxide detectors/alarms, so if you're following the US Fire Administrations's advice to change your batteries every time you change your clocks, this woul
  
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• Patriots coach Bill Belichick benches Microsoft's Surface, says it's undependable

  18-10-2016 22:56
  
  You have to feel sorry for Microsoft’s Surface tablets. After Microsoft won a contract to supply the devices to the NFL sidelines, they were first misidentified as iPads. Then they were abused. Now New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick has outright rejected them.
  In a six-minute rant captured by NESN reporter Zack Cox, Belichick opened his Tuesday press conference by declaring himself “done with the tablets”—presumably referring to Microsoft’s Surface tablets,
  
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• Hackers create more IoT botnets with Mirai source code

  18-10-2016 22:50
  Malware that can build botnets out of IoT products has gone on to infect twice as many devices after its source code was publicly released.The total number of IoT devices infected with the Mirai malware has reached 493,000, up from 213,000 bots before the source code was disclosed around Oct. 1, according to internet backbone provider Level 3 Communications."The true number of actual bots may be higher," Level 3 said in a Tuesday blog post.Hackers have been taking advantage of the Mirai malware'
  
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• Om nom Nomulus: Google open-sources TLD registry platform

  18-10-2016 22:36
  
  Google’s latest foray into open-source software is a cloud-based top-level-domain registrar platform called Nomulus, bringing a substantial chunk of the company’s gigantic internet infrastructure into the public eye.
  What Nomulus does, in essence, is manage the domain names under a top-level domain, or TLD, the largest divisions of the internet’s domain name system (.com, .org, .net, and so on). Nomulus tracks DNS and registry info, so that when domain names change hands, or s
  
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• Why CIOs should take mentor programs seriously

  18-10-2016 21:42
  
  Bill Wood, CIO of bookstore chain Barnes & Noble, has always incorporated a formal mentoring and coaching program into his leadership style. "As I was getting started as a manager, there were people who poured themselves into me and helped me grow as a leader," says Wood, who joined Barnes & Noble as CIO in December 2015. "As a result, I have always had a 'pay-it-forward' attitude."Wood knows that employees who have received negative feedback in the past can be reluctant to engage in men
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: How businesses address death, privacy and data quality

  18-10-2016 21:30
  
  I recently received a reminder from a social network to reach out to one of my friends. I’d love to do that, but the friend has been dead for many years, making the task very difficult. The reminder did get me to thinking about how we, as a business community, should consider treating personal information when we learn someone has passed on.The data quality principleThe Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD, established 8 basic principles for the processing of person
  
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• BrandPost: What Does PCI 8.3 Mean for Me?

  18-10-2016 21:01
  
  One of the key changes to the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) 3.2 is an update to Requirement 8.3. This update highlights what the security industry already knows: Passwords are no longer a sufficient means of controlling access to sensitive data. In a word, compliance with PCI DSS now requires organizations to bolster its access security with multi-factor authentication.
  While the new requirements, released by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council (PCI SSC
  
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• MIT reactor sets nuclear fusion record on the day it's closed down

  18-10-2016 20:53
  
  A fusion reactor at MIT that has repeatedly set world records over its 23-year lifespan broke one more the day before it was shuttered due to defunding by the federal government.
  MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) announced it achieved 2.05 atmospheres of pressure in its tokamak-type (doughnut-shaped) nuclear fusion device -- the Alcator C-Mod, or ARC. Pressure, which contains and concentrates superheated plasma, is key to creating a fusion device that is self-sustaining.MITA look at
  
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• Apple to refresh MacBook Pro, cull 11-in. Air this month

  18-10-2016 20:18
  
  Apple will update its Mac laptops this month by refreshing the MacBook Pro and culling the MacBook Air line, according to numerous online reports.
  The latest claim of impending Macs was made Monday by Japanese website Macotakara. Citing Chinese suppliers, Macotakara asserted that the 13- and 15-in. MacBook Pro models will feature the same USB-C port Apple introduced to considerable controversy in March 2015 with the MacBook. Macotakara also claimed that Apple would ditch the entry-level 11-in.
  
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• CloudVelox eases migration of core business apps to the cloud

  18-10-2016 19:51
  
  It’s easy to get all “cloud first” when you’re talking about new, greenfield applications. But how do you get the core business applications running in your data center – so-called brownfield apps – easily and efficiently migrated to the cloud? That’s the problem startup CloudVelox set out to solve, with the larger mission of helping CIOs build “boundaryless” hybrid data centers. IDG Chief Content Officer John Gallant spoke with CloudVelox C
  
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• Hackers hide stolen payment card data inside website product images

  18-10-2016 19:50
  
  Attacks that compromise online shops to skim payment card details are increasing and growing in sophistication. The latest technique involves hiding malicious code and stolen data inside legitimate files.A Dutch researcher reported last week that almost 6,000 online shops, most of them built with the Magento content management system, have malicious code that intercepts and steals payment card data during online transactions. The online storefront of the U.S. National Republican Senatorial Commi
  
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• WikiLeaks blames US for cutting Assange's internet connection

  18-10-2016 19:39
  
  WikiLeaks is accusing U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry of trying to stop the site from publishing stolen emails from Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign.
  Citing "multiple U.S. sources,"  the site tweeted on Tuesday that Kerry had asked the Ecuadorian government to prevent WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange from releasing more documents.  
  Assange is currently residing in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he has been helping to run the WikiLeaks site. But on Saturday, t
  
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• Microsoft’s Nadella takes on privacy fears about LinkedIn, Cortana

  18-10-2016 19:37
  
  ORLANDO, Fla. -- Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella faced sharp questions from Gartner analysts Tuesday about the privacy-invading implications of its $26.2 billion acquisition of LinkedIn, and its all-knowing virtual assistant, Cortana.
  Helen Huntley, one of the Gartner analysts questioning Nadella at a conference here, was particularly pointed about the fears.
  Cortana, said Huntley, "knows everything about me when I'm working. She knows what files I'm looking at, she knows what I'm downloading, she
  
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• 7 myths are derailing your recruitment program

  18-10-2016 19:24
  
  The world is flat. Bats are blind. The Great Wall of China can be seen from outer space. Myths have been around for as long as there have been people to create them. And while most are harmless, one place where myths can really wreak havoc is your company’s recruitment program. Outdated information, word of mouth or simple gut-based intuition have given birth to some of the most popular misconceptions in recruitment – and are causing major roadblocks to getting great talent in the do
  
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• CIOs move more dollars to digital transformation

  18-10-2016 18:54
  
  It's become fashionable for CIOs to drop the phrase "digital transformation" to describe their use of cloud, mobile, analytics and other emerging technologies to stimulate business growth. Researcher Gartner, after surveying 2,600 CIOs worldwide, has some numbers that lend empirical support to the digital deluge. CIOs are already spending 18 percent of their budget in support of digitalization but that number will set to increase to 28 percent by 2018, Gartner analyst Andy Rowsell-Jones tells CI
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Raspberry Pi-powered ghosts will haunt your house on Halloween

  18-10-2016 18:32
  
  I have been busy playing with Raspberry Pi, Arduino board and electronics lately. I have been building projects for Halloween as my 4 year old son is super excited about it. We created a graveyard scene in our back patio and installed a projection system that runs a spooky projection show featuring ghosts and spirits hanging out in the graveyard. This project is about building a fully automated projection system using Raspberry Pi, Linux and open source scripts. I purchased special effects
  
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• Esri and Waze join up to push road condition data in cities

  18-10-2016 18:11
  
  Digital mapping company has partnered with a crowdsourcing traffic app maker to help city governments and drivers communicate more efficiently about traffic conditions, including construction delays and accidents.
  Esri, a provider of digital mapping software to governments, on Monday announced a partnership with Waze, a commercial provider of a free, crowdsourced traffic and navigation app used by 65 million people globally. By using widely deployed Esri ArcGIS (Geographic Information System) s
  
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• Half of US adults are profiled in police facial recognition databases

  18-10-2016 18:03
  
  Photographs of nearly half of all U.S. adults -- 117 million people -- are collected in police facial recognition databases across the country with little regulation over how the networks are searched and used, according to a new study.Along with a lack of regulation, critics question the accuracy of facial recognition algorithms. Meanwhile, state, city, and federal facial recognition databases include 48 percent of U.S. adults, said the report from the Center on Privacy & Technology at Geor
  
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• Node.js 7 set for release next week

  18-10-2016 18:00
  
  The Node.js Foundation will release version 7 of the JavaScript platform next week. With the new release, version 6 will move to long-term support, and version 0.10 will reach "end of life" status.
  Node 7, offered in beta in late September, is a "checkpoint release for the Node.js project and will focus on stability, incremental improvement over Node.js v6, and updating to the latest versions of V8, libuv, and ICU (International Components for Unicode)," said Mikeal Rogers, Foundation comm
  
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• Self-learning supply chains? The store of the future? A conversation with an expert about what comes next

  18-10-2016 17:41
  
  JDA is a global supply chain and retail planning software company with 4,500 employees and almost a billion dollars in revenue.  Suresh Acharya heads JDA Labs, the company’s 50 person research group exploring the science, emerging technologies and user experiences that are critical to this complex field.  Network World Editor in Chief John Dix recently caught up to Acharya to talk about everything from customer segmentation to self-learning supply chains and the store of the fut
  
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• Cheap airfares: Google Flights helps you snag the best by predicting price changes

  18-10-2016 17:24
  Everyone wants cheap airfares, and Google Flights is adding new tools to help you buy smarter—whether it's adjusting your itinerary or holding out for a better deal. 
  Google Flights will show you several new alerts depending on where you are in the booking process. If you’re just starting to search, Google Flights will display tips (shown as tiles on mobile) that may recommend trying alternate airports or different travel dates. Click any tip to get greater detail, su
  
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• 57% off RAVPower FileHub Wireless Hard Drive, WiFi Bridge & Sharing Media Streamer - Deal Alert

  18-10-2016 16:51
  
  You may find many uses for this versatile and powerful file hub from RAVPower, currently discounted 58% on Amazon from $75.99 down to just $32.49. Let's run down the features:Let up to 5 devices wirelessly connect to the FileHub wireless network, to access its SD card and/or USB storage to share files
  Media server capabilities, allowing wirelessly connected devices to stream audio and video from any attached storage device
  Move files freely between all connected methods of storage and devices, i
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Is it safe to sell your iPhone on Craigslist?

  18-10-2016 16:15
  
  Whenever Apple releases a new iPhone, the owners of older iPhones will often opt to sell their devices. Craigslist is one of the most popular ways to sell older iPhones, but you should be careful if you decide to sell your phone that way.One Apple redditor found out the hard way that you can never be too careful when selling your iPhone to a buyer on Craigslist:
  I wanted to create a post to describe the nightmare I just experienced in hopes of deterring anyone from making the same mistakes that
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: 5 awesome online tactics for promoting events

  18-10-2016 16:08
  
  Organizing an event is one of the best ways to build brand awareness, engage existing customers, network with industry experts and industry leaders and attract new business. But in the mad rush to achieve all of these goals, many brands organize events that are half-baked and ill-planned. They pour resources into them without getting proportionate value out of them.The key to organizing a successful event and to market it even better lies in the brand itself — what it stands for, what it m
  
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• Nationaal eScience Symposium: Wetenschap zoekt digitale samenwerking

  18-10-2016 16:04
  Digitalisering heeft de wereld duidelijk een stukje kleiner gemaakt. Het uitwisselen en verwerken van gegevens was immers nog nooit zo makkelijk. Iedereen beschikt, ongeacht locatie en tijd, over de voor hem of haar relevante informatie. De maatschappelijke en economische gevolgen zijn in alle toonaarden bezongen, maar... lees meer
  
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• Critical flaws found in open-source encryption software VeraCrypt

  18-10-2016 15:44
  
  A new security audit has found critical vulnerabilities in VeraCrypt, an open-source, full-disk encryption program that's the direct successor of the widely popular, but now defunct, TrueCrypt.Users are encouraged to upgrade to VeraCrypt 1.19, which was released Monday and includes patches for most of the flaws. Some issues remain unpatched because fixing them requires complex changes to the code and in some cases would break backward compatibility with TrueCrypt.However, the impact of most of t
  
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• How technology is improving the hiring process

  18-10-2016 15:33
  
  In recent years, the concept of employer brand has taken hold as companies compete for talent. Just as a strong market identity gives a company the capability to charge premium prices — think Apple, American Express and BMW — a strong employer brand assists with recruiting in a competitive job market.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here(Insider Story)
  
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• What’s behind Amazon, Microsoft and Google’s aggressive cloud expansions

  18-10-2016 15:20
  
  It wasn’t long ago that the big spectator sport in IaaS cloud computing was to watch a leading provider such as Microsoft or Amazon Web Services announce price cuts and then ready for its rivals to follow suit.
  The new game in town plays out in a similar way, except now the vendors are matching or one-upping each other with new data centers and cloud computing regions.
  +MORE AT NETWORK WORLD: Winners and losers from the AWS-VMware deal | Mapping the cloud: Where does the public cloud actu
  
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• Review: Google's new Pixel XL is a fine phone -- but is it really special?

  18-10-2016 15:01
  
  Google’s new flagship phones, the Pixel X and XL, offer fast performance and the latest hardware. But do they meet expectations?
  
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• Why I love Google's Pixel XL and think it's worth $769

  18-10-2016 15:00
  
  The Pixel XL is the first Android phone to deliver an emphatic, cohesive, surprise-and-delight experience. Samsung and the other Android phone makers have tried to give users something magical before, but they never quite made fetch happen. Even Google itself has toyed with a unified software/hardware gestalt via its Nexus phones, but those devices could sometimes feel like stripped-down vessels for disconnected software services. 
  But in the Pixel XL we finally have an Android phone that
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Reinforcing healthcare delivery with a supply-chain management perspective

  18-10-2016 15:00
  
  It’s popular to repeat the Drucker mantra of “Do what you do best, and outsource the rest.” However, not all nonprofit hospitals have this option or can afford to pursue it. The result is they are stuck fixing the problems.Let’s assume EPIC is not practical, and the Cerner end-to-end solution is out of the budget. A recent study identified that only 45 percent of hospitals were profitable. U.S. healthcare spending increased 5.3 percent in 201
  
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• I switched to Google's Pixel phone and survived

  18-10-2016 15:00
  
  Google made a splash earlier this month when the company announced it would be shipping a dongle with every Pixel phone it sold that helps iPhone users migrate to its Android flagship.As a lifelong iPhone user, I decided to put Google to the test and find out how well that process really works. And after spending a weekend working through it, I came to a nuanced and messy conclusion. Broadly speaking, migrating works fine, but the nitty-gritty details of the process are painful to deal with.I ex
  
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• Gartner’s 10 strategic predictions for 2017….and beyond

  18-10-2016 14:16
  
  ORLANDO -- Claiming a 78% accuracy rate based on prior years’ results, chief of research Daryl Plummer delivered Gartner’s 10 strategic predictions for the next three-to-five years at the company’s Symposium/ITExpo yesterday.
  The overarching theme, Plummer said, is digital disruption, which is not only happening, but is increasing in scale over time. Here are the 10 predictions:1. By 2020, 100 million consumers will shop in virtual reality.Plummer says the Pokemon Go phenomeno
  
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• VMware embraces containers with latest vSphere, Virtual SAN updates

  18-10-2016 13:48
  
  New versions of VMware’s core management software including vSphere, Virtual SAN and the vRealize Suite expand support for application containers and make it easier for customers to manage workloads in IaaS public clouds from Microsoft and Amazon Web Services.
  The moves announced this week the company’s VMWorld Europe conference in Barcelona are significant because there’s been fodder in the market for years about what trends like increased use of the public cloud will mean fo
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: What does the P in your PMO stand for?

  18-10-2016 13:00
  
  Project, program or portfolio? Probably. How about power, potential and pioneer?While governance and process are vital to the smooth running of IT projects and their ultimate successful outcome, strong leadership is essential.“Essential to what extent?” you may ask.The answer is clear. The greatest project outcomes I've seen in my career, I wholeheartedly believe, are largely down to the leadership skills and capabilities of the project team running the show.Conversely, so too are th
  
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• How can good guys take advantage of DNS

  18-10-2016 12:04
  
  Helping out the good guysImage by ThinkstockDNS is a core infrastructure component that is often overlooked when thinking about security. It is often used by the bad guys to compromise an enterprise network. DNS Security is generally perceived as either securing DNS architecture and infrastructure from various attack vectors or maintaining a black and white website list to control access to malicious domains – while that is certainly an important part, there are far more security controls,
  
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• UML to be ejected from Microsoft Visual Studio

  18-10-2016 12:00
  
  Microsoft is cutting Unified Modeling Language (UML), the legacy modeling platform for visualizing software models, from Visual Studio 15.
  In explaining the decision, Microsoft's Jean-Marc Prieur, senior program manager for Visual Studio, said the UML designer tools were being used by very few customers -- a fact that was confirmed by consultation with sales and technical support teams. The company also was faced with investing significant engineering resources to react to changes happening in
  
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• On the road to Grace Hopper 2016

  18-10-2016 12:00
  
  Last year, on my way from the airport to my hotel before the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Technology, I shared a cab with a female software engineer who worked in R & D. We were chatting about our jobs and about what our plans were for the show, when the driver asked why we were in town.
  She briefly explained, and the driver shook his head and replied, "Why don't they have any of these software conferences just for men?! I mean, you're just leaving people out. That's not cool!"
  My ac
  
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• How to improve your odds of landing great talent

  18-10-2016 12:00
  
  In an IT market starved for talent, it's not easy to find qualified candidates. In fact, only one out of every 100 candidates is hired, according to new research from recruiting and ATS software company Lever.
  Increasing your odds of success
  What can you do to increase the odds in your organization's favor? Look at where your candidates are coming from. The research revealed that candidates referred to the company have a one-in-16 chance of getting hired; candidates submitted by a recruiting age
  
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• Gartner’s predictions -- a look at the top 10 tech trends

  18-10-2016 12:00
  
  ORLANDO, Fla. -- Three of Gartner's top 10 technology trends envision significant changes -- and problems -- with data centers.
  The number of systems managed on premise is on decline, as more work is moved to cloud providers, SaaS vendors and others. But that trenddoesn't mean that an IT manager's job is getting easier.
  "IT shops are realizing that as we move more work off-premise, it makes the job more complex," said David Cappuccio, the Gartner analyst who develops the research firm's annual
  
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• 6 tips to create your online career identity

  18-10-2016 12:00
  
  Just like companies need to maintain their public image and protect their brand, so does anyone with a career in technology -- or any industry, for that matter.
  "Your online identity is a form of capital, much like your intellectual capital and financial capital. To that end, it can be grown slowly and steadily over time, which will eventually produce the positive results you want," says Ford R. Myers, career coach, speaker and author of Get the Job You Want, Even When No One's Hiring.Technology
  
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• Asylum of WikiLeaks’ Assange not in question

  18-10-2016 08:59
  
  The asylum granted to WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange by the government of Ecuador is not in question, despite possible differences of opinion between the two on the release of controversial documents by the whistleblowing site.Late Monday, the Ecuadorian government said that in the wake of speculation, it reaffirmed the continuation of asylum that it had extended to Assange for the last four years. It said that the protection would continue as long  as the circumstances that had le
  
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• Qualcomm's 5G preview: high frequencies, 5-gigabit speed

  18-10-2016 04:13
  
  5G networks will be five times as fast as the quickest LTE technology by using the highest cellular frequencies ever, according to Qualcomm, which provided a glimpse of its next-generation modem plans on Tuesday.The X50 modem won’t ship until the first half of 2018, and 5G networks aren’t expected to go commercial until 2020. But Qualcomm will have a lot to say about the new technology at its 4G/5G Summit in Hong Kong on Tuesday. At the same event, it’s announcing plans around
  
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• Connected cameras will get smarter with new Qualcomm chips

  18-10-2016 03:30
  
  While most of IT is consolidating around the cloud, in some ways the internet of things is moving the other direction. Vendors are putting more computing power in devices near the edges of networks, like sensor modules and gateways.That's because it can be faster and less expensive to do filtering and analytics where the data is collected than to send it all the way to a distant data center. In some cases, this can reduce communications costs and help IoT respond to events more quickly.Connected
  
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• BrandPost: To the Cloud and Back (Part 2)

  18-10-2016 01:53
  
  In the previous edition of this blog, I focused on the challenges around data mobility for analytics, the culprit behind said challenges, data gravity, and the resulting data silos. In this edition, I will focus on the efforts Dell EMC is undertaking and how we are leveraging our storage roots to help vault to the clouds.Use CasesWe at Dell EMC have been helping clients leverage private and public clouds for several years now. Our on-premise hyper-converged solutions and our public cloud offerin
  
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• Graduation rates, student loans and big data

  18-10-2016 00:43
  
  I always feel a strong connection to the cover stories of CIO's monthly digital magazines, but September's topic really hit home. Improving graduation rates is an issue all colleges and universities grapple with. From a business perspective, mediocre graduation rates cost schools money, but as CIO.com senior writer Clint Boulton reports in our September 2016 cover story, "Big Data on Campus," analytics are helping universities and colleges identify and, when necessary, offer support to students
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Ensuring the quality of 'fit for purpose' data

  18-10-2016 00:18
  
  Pixabay Welcome back to our series on managing the data landscape and making sure you get the most value out of your data. In our first article in the series, "5 Critical Success Factors to Turn Data Into Insight," and the ones that follow it, we seek to define these five capabilities that play key roles in the success and repeatability of an actionable analytics program:To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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