IT Executive news

• AWS is cutting and simplifying its storage prices

  22-11-2016 23:55
  
  Amazon Web Services made a series of price cuts on Tuesday and simplified what customers pay for its storage products. The company's popular Simple Storage Service (S3) has had its six pricing tiers cut down to three, along with a corresponding price cut of roughly 16 percent to 25 percent.Glacier, AWS's storage service for data that doesn't need to be accessed frequently, now has a trio of retrieval options. Companies can have quicker access to their data if they pay more or get cheaper access
  
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• 12 tips for safer Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping

  22-11-2016 23:14
  
  During Black Friday and Cyber Monday 2016, consumers should watch out for scams that come through spam, insecure public networks and apps that might seem legitimate but could be taking over your phones and computers, experts say.
  + RELATED: How to dodge Black Friday schemes +
  Here are a dozen steps you can take to avoid becoming a victim.Only download or buy apps from legitimate app stores.
  Suspect apps that ask for too many permissions.
  Check out the reputation of apps and particularly the app
  
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• How to dodge Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping hackers

  22-11-2016 23:12
  
  Hackers are writing apps, setting up phony Wi-Fi networks and unleashing malware in attempts to turn legitimate Black Friday 2016 and Cyber Monday retailing into profits for themselves, according to security experts.
  Bad actors are stealing personal information like passwords and credit card numbers, compromising computers and phones, and blackmailing retailers with hopes of lining their pockets, researchers say.
  For example, researchers at RiskIQ found frequent cases of criminals linking the n
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Transformation is happening: Enterprise analytics helps give it shape

  22-11-2016 22:38
  
  Enterprising Analytics
  To be "enterprising" is to be eager to undertake or prompt to attempt. To show initiative and be resourceful. These are leadership traits, so to be enterprising is to lead. "Analytics" is how we use data to inform decision-making in the context of achieving business objectives. These are management practices, so analytics is about management."Enterprising Analytics" is about being creative, resourceful and adventurous with decision-making to achieve business objectives. It
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: B2B sales acceleration the cannabis industry needs

  22-11-2016 22:26
  
  So far, the cannabis economy has largely been event-based. It responds dramatically to the passing of legislation and, with liberalization erratic and geographically scattered, the subsequent sales have created an unpredictable market volatility.California just recently approved recreational use of marijuana, but Arizonans defeated a similar proposal. Both results drive lobbyists and private interests in different directions, and the subsequent sales ups and downs affect attempts to form marketi
  
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• More than half the world's people still off the Internet

  22-11-2016 22:04
  
  Less than half of the world's population still isn't using the Internet, although the numbers are improving, according to a United Nations report.
  A reportreleased this week by the United Nation's International Telecommunication Union (ITU) found that 47.1% of the population is online, an increase from 2015's figure of 43%.
  The spread of mobile networks around the globe has played an important role in increasing Internet connectivity, the report said. Mobile-broadband networks cover 84% of the
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Explaining the IoT buyer’s dilemma of propellers and propellerheads

  22-11-2016 22:00
  
  Today, computer savvy and other technically proficient people are sometimes pejoratively referred to as propellerheads thanks to the one-time popularity of the propeller beanie. – from Wikipedia
  Several media outlets have reported that GE is on an “IoT buying spree.” I took note a few months ago when GE bought a propeller company for about 8 times EBITDA (Earnings Before Interest, Tax, Depreciation and Amortization). I noted this because Softbank had just bo
  
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• Apple returns to Black Friday

  22-11-2016 21:40
  
  Apple today signaled that it will return to offering sales specials on Nov. 25, the day this year dubbed "Black Friday" in the U.S.
  Last year, the Cupertino, Calif. company skipped Black Friday discount pricing or other inducements. In 2013 and 2014, Apple did not cut prices but instead handed out gift cards with many purchases. The cards' value in 2014 were significantly lower than the year before.
  Today, Apple's website sported a page that declared "Friday can't come soon enough," and promise
  
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• Open-source hardware makers unite to start certifying products

  22-11-2016 21:09
  Four years ago, Alicia Gibb was trying to unite a fragmented open-source hardware community to join together to create innovative products.So was born the Open Source Hardware Association, which Gibb hoped would foster a community of hardware "hackers" sharing, tweaking, and updating hardware designs. It shared the ethics and ethos of open-source software and encouraged the release of hardware designs -- be it for it processors, machines, or devices -- for public reuse.Since then, OSHWA has gain
  
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• This survey drone takes safety seriously

  22-11-2016 21:02
  
  New Zealand-based drone manufacturer Altus Intelligence wants to make sure its US$39,000 survey drones don't end up as rubble.Most of Altus' customers use its flagship drone, the Long Range Extreme Weather (LRX), for construction and engineering surveying/mapping and expect a rugged, dependable vehicle to get the job done. That's where the LRX's three separate fail-safe systems come in.
  The first is a triple auto pilot design, meaning that if anything goes wrong with one of the GPS streams, the
  
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• Tesla flips switch on U.S. island now powered entirely by solar energy

  22-11-2016 20:32
  
  Tesla's SolarCity subsidiary today announced it has converted the entire island of Ta'u in American Samoa to solar power through a massive microgrid project.
  Ta'u, a 17-square-mile island and the most populous of the Manu'a Group of atolls, is located more than 4,000 miles from the U.S. West Coast. The island, which has about 785 residents, had been powered by diesel generators and struggled with regular power rationing and outages, SolarCity CTO Peter Rive stated in a blog about the project.To
  
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• Google acquires AWS training vendor Qwiklabs

  22-11-2016 20:31
  
  Google is acquiring Qwiklabs, a company that helps people learn how to use public cloud services to run applications without operating a data center.It's a helpful move for Google, which is trying to expand the use of its cloud platform and stands to gain when developers and IT professionals get a handle on making applications run in the cloud. The company will create tools to help get people up to speed on the Google Cloud Platform and G Suite productivity service, Jason Martin, the d
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: What's next for enterprise IT?

  22-11-2016 20:25
  Enterprise IT as we know it was designed to support businesses of the industrial era with efficient and reliable solutions. In the digital age, its mandate has become to lead as a competitive advantage through differentiating capabilities and speed. The overarching question is whether enterprise IT is facing a major disruption or if incremental achievements will be sufficient to evolve.As illustrated in Figure 1, there are several fundamental differences between traditional enterprise IT and dig
  
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• Apple's exit from wireless routers will have consequences

  22-11-2016 20:22
  
  Apple's exit from some fringe businesses -- external displays and more recently, wireless routers -- is probably nothing more than a refocus on its core competencies, analysts said today.
  But parting with such products, while they have been minor money makers, may have outsized consequences.
  "I don't think there's value in the business today," said Carolina Milanesi of Creative Strategies, referring to reports by Bloomberg that Apple had disbanded the division responsible for developing its wir
  
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• Google Maps will now tell you how busy a place is in real time

  22-11-2016 20:20
  
  So you want to head over to that trendy new taco stand, but you’re not sure if the line is going to be around the street corner.
  Well, Google Maps now has the answer. A new feature the company highlighted on its Keyword blog now estimates how busy or slow things are in real time, thanks to Google’s data powers.The Keyword
  Google Maps can estimate when a store is likely to be at peak busyness.To read this article in full or to leave a comment, please click here
  
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• BrandPost: Real-Time Networking Insights

  22-11-2016 20:16
  
  We recently partnered with industry-leading technology research firm IDG to learn more about today’s top networking trends and challenges. The feedback we received helps illustrate today’s latest networking trends. For example, when it comes to supporting wireless access, did you know the vast majority of organizations currently support wireless and plan to continue in the future?Today, wireless networks need to support two or three devices per person—all sending and receiving
  
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• Report: Google's Pixel is off to a roaring start on Verizon

  22-11-2016 19:26
  
  Google’s Pixel is apparently a hit over at Verizon. According to a report from Fiercewireless, Google’s first smartphone accounts for 7.5 percent of new activations during the last month.
  That’s a high number for a premium priced, first-time phone that isn’t from Apple or Samsung. It indicates that the $15 million Google spent on advertising and $12 million from Verizon during a campaign from Oct. 27 to Nov. 2 is paying off. Google’s ad campaign has played up the P
  
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• BrandPost: Top 5 Takeaways from SAP TechEd 2016

  22-11-2016 18:47
  
  For the 20th anniversary of TechEd, SAP put the party in Vegas! The Venetian-Palazzo Congress Center again served as the venue and this year’s event seemed more technically focused and less “big room, keynote session” filled, but no less content packed.
  Irfan Kahn, CTO SAP said in opening remarks, “The world has changed substantially. Every aspect of our environment is changing.” A key focus of the event would be, “How can you get Faster, Simpler, Smarter in
  
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• HP's EliteBook 705 laptops pack AMD's latest Pro chips

  22-11-2016 18:28
  
  PC makers can't wait to test AMD's mysterious Zen chip in laptops. For now, HP and other manufacturers are making the best out of AMD's current chip offerings, the latest of which target professional users.HP has announced the EliteBook 705 family of laptops with AMD's Pro chips, which were released last month. Starting at $769, the laptops seem pricey for AMD-based systems.The EliteBook 705 family includes the 12.5-inch 725, the 14-inch 745 and the 15.6-inch 755 models. These systems can be con
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Stupid people and iPhone selfie deaths

  22-11-2016 18:11
  
  Sometimes you really just have to stand back in awe of the dumb things people do with their iPhones. It never ceases to amaze me when I find out that somebody somewhere has come up with a new and amazingly foolish way of using the iPhone’s camera technology.So imagine the eye-rolling I did when I caught a recent story in the New York Post about people dying when trying to take selfies. The report did not specify which phones people were using, but the iPhone is one obvious tool given it&rs
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: The ambient customer experience: physical, digital, virtual and everything in between

  22-11-2016 17:51
  
  My company’s focus is on engaging customers. We work to help retail merchants better engage consumers to encourage loyalty and drive sales. Technology is at the heart of everything we do. In fact, Gartner identified the “ambient user experience” as one of the major technology trends of 2016. In it, “the experience seamlessly flows across a shifting set of devices and interaction channels blending physical, virtual and electronic environment as the user moves from one plac
  
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• Facebook's latest experiment: Helping you find free Wi-Fi hotspots

  22-11-2016 17:48
  
  Facebook says it’s not a media company, but it just might be turning into a Wi-Fi finder service. Users of the social network’s iOS app report seeing a new feature in the More section that lets them find nearby public Wi-Fi access points.
  The feature does not appear to be widely available at the moment, which means this is probably something Facebook is only testing. The social network tests numerous features all the time but this one is particularly notable.
  As The Next Web points
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Possible options for Trump’s immigration reform

  22-11-2016 17:30
  
  Once he takes office, I believe President Trump will need to choose between two scenarios for achieving his goals for job creation and immigration reform. I am not advocating that he take such actions; I’m just taking him at his word on the campaign trail as to what he will do and am considering how he could do it. I’ve blogged about immigration and H-1B visa reform for several years. Depending on how Trump conducts immigration reform, it could accelerate intellectual property creat
  
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• IBM will open the first of four new UK data centers next month

  22-11-2016 17:28
  
  IBM is opening four new data centers in the U.K., despite some of the gloomy forecasts for the country's economy following its vote to leave the European Union.It's five years since the company began offering cloud services in the U.K., and two years since it opened its second cloud data center there.The new data centers will raise the U.K.'s share of IBM's cloud capacity in Europe from one-sixth to more than one-third. That's an interesting bet on the U.K.'s future outside the E.U.Following Jun
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: Amazon Echo vs. Google Home: The choice is obvious

  22-11-2016 16:01
  
  Amazon Echo was launched almost two years ago and it marked the arrival of AI powered virtual assistants that were not tethered to a cell phone. We don’t have screens glued to our faces, we interact with each other through voice and words. Alexa was a very natural evolution of what a real virtual assistant should be. Echo’s always listening microphones gained acceptance in the home; Echo became a household phenomenon. The success of Alexa encouraged Google.  Then, Google Home wa
  
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• Wetsvoorstel Computercriminaliteit III overschrijdt grenzen

  22-11-2016 15:57
  De door de minister van V&J voorgestelde wet voor het hacken van computers van verdachten bevat onvoldoende waarborgen. Er is geen onafhankelijk toezicht geregeld en het ontbreekt aan transparantie. Dat concluderen onderzoekers van het Instituut voor Informatierecht (IViR) van de Universiteit van Amsterdam in een... lees meer
  
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• What Facebook's miscalculated metrics mean for marketers

  22-11-2016 15:45
  
  For the second time in as many months, Facebook admitted it misreported the metrics it provides to publishers and marketers to measure reach and engagement on their posts. The world's largest social network again blamed "bugs" for the discrepancies that resulted in undercounting or over-reporting of metrics related to marketers' posts and video views, as well as the time spent on publishers' Instant Articles. In late September, Facebook told its marketer customers that it had over-reported video
  
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• Ford CIO: IT is a ‘people business’

  22-11-2016 15:36
  
  When asked about her biggest priorities as CIO of Ford Motor Company, the $150 billion automobile manufacturer, Marcy Klevorn says, “It’s really a story of ‘and.’”Not long ago, Ford and its chief competitors made automobiles, and Americans bought American-made cars. But global competition took hold, and the decline of Detroit began. Then came the economic downturn of the late 2000s, which led to the U.S. government’s auto bailout. (Ford did not receive bailout
  
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• Why a cross-platform Microsoft is good for your business

  22-11-2016 15:32
  
  Microsoft has joined the Linux Foundation as a Platinum member. Google is joining not just the .NET foundation but the steering committee, alongside RedHat and Samsung, which is supporting .NET code on all of its Tizen devices, from smart TVs to wearables and IoT devices, running on ARM. The preview of SQL Server on Linux is ready for IT teams to try out and it has key security and data warehouse features, not just the basics. A version of Microsoft’s premier development tool, Visual Stud
  
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• BrandPost: My Big Data Commercial Applications Are Secure, Right?

  22-11-2016 15:01
  
  Security cannot be an afterthought when developing and deploying Big Data commercial applications. If you must ask whether your big data applications are secure, the answer is probably no. What’s the answer? Mitigating risks and ensuring security requires the ability to leverage existing identity infrastructure, control access privileges, and conduct user-level audits.Commercial applications are increasingly available on Big Data infrastructure, allowing the enterprise to leverage extremel
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: New CIO paradigms for cybersecurity and prevention

  22-11-2016 15:00
  
  You probably won’t believe it. The new approach to enterprise security is tectonic; traditional virus protection software is not required. You can stop doing your daily enterprise updates of new virus definitions. The premise that antivirus software is useful in the identification and removal of unauthorized software is flawed. Now introducing the new paradigm of prevention-based incident response.Past, present and future paradigms
  A new paradigm shift is changing the prevailing security f
  
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• GitLab looks to transform app testing

  22-11-2016 15:00
  
  GitLab is providing "ephemeral app environments" to enhance application testing on its code repository platform with its Reviews Apps capability being unveiled Tuesday.
  Review Apps lets developers create temporary applications to see how existing code works and to review merge requests before shipping into production. This way, code does not need to pulled down locally. An extension of GitLab's CI capabilities, the feature is being added in GitLab 8.14.[ Find out how to get ahead with our caree
  
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• How career mobility programs improve retention

  22-11-2016 14:29
  
  New research from HR executive network and research firm Future Workplace reveals that companies are increasingly investing in career mobility programs to improve employee engagement, productivity and teamwork.
  The Future Workplace Forecast: Navigating the Future of Work surveyed 2,147 global HR leaders and hiring managers and highlighted an emerging trend: Employers are offering internal career mobility opportunities to allow employees to "test drive" new roles and prepare them for the future w
  
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• Raspberry Pi roundup: Dangerous guided missiles, electric skateboards and the Internet of Licks

  22-11-2016 13:49
  
  The Raspberry Pi is a happy-go-lucky little gizmo, isn’t it? I always associate it with education, cheap ways to get kids into programming, innocent little hobbyist projects and general “the world is a nice place” activity. And not unreasonably.
  Surely nobody would turn such an innocuous gadget into something malicious or dangerous, ri-oh, wait I forgot what sort of world we were living in for just a moment:
  Yeah, it’s some sort of missile guidance system, according to t
  
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• IDG Contributor Network: 6 ways to protect your organization from IoT attacks

  22-11-2016 13:29
  
  A recent bulletin from the FBI to private enterprises stated that the “exploitation of the Internet of Things (IoT) to conduct small-to-large scale attacks on the private industry will very likely continue.” This bulletin came just five days after the Oct. 21 DDoS attacks that sent us all into a bit of a panic. Our favorite sites were down Twitter, Netflix Pinterest, Reddit, GitHub, Etsy, Tumblr, Spotify, PayPal, Verizon, Comcast and the PlayStation network. Beyond these high profile
  
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• Best laptop bags: Our favorites for commuting, traveling, and charging your devices

  22-11-2016 12:45
  
  Next to a laptop itself, a laptop bag is one of the most important purchases you can make. With so many laptop bags and backpacks to choose from, it would be an idle exercise to try to find the best laptop bag out there. Instead, we’d rather help you find the right laptop bag for any situation, like commuting everyday to work, traveling abroad, or charging your devices on the go.
  To be considered in this review of laptop bags, each product had to have a designated laptop sleeve or co
  
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• Why an iPhone could cost double under Trump

  22-11-2016 12:16
  
  President-elect Trump campaigned on a promise to get Apple to start manufacturing the iPhone in the U.S. But would you pay double the price for an iPhone if it helped make America great again?
  In this week’s episode of The iPhone Show, we break down why it’s unfeasible for the iPhone to be made in the U.S., instead of in China. Based on the labor costs alone, a new iPhone under Trump’s plan could cost upwards of $1,300. And that’s assuming the U.S. has the skilled workfo
  
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• Is the speedy Surface Book i7 too expensive for IT?

  22-11-2016 12:16
  
  The design of the Surface Book is essentially identical to last year's model, so if you've seen the original Surface Book, you've seen the Surface Book with Performance Base. This time around, Microsoft focused on evolving the Surface Book on the inside. As with last year's model, the 13.5-inch detachable tablet display features a 3:2 aspect ratio, which is taller than the typical display you'll find on a 13-inch notebook. Instead of the rectangular design that most notebooks adopt, the Surface
  
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• Who has the most impact in driving security advancement?

  22-11-2016 12:00
  
  Depending on the size of the organization, the person who has the most impact on driving security advancement could be a C-level or board member, but non-executive administrators, and sometimes the one man IT/security show is the person paving the path.
  Whoever it is, every business needs someone who makes security not only a line item on the budget but also a part of the overall culture. More often than not, though, organizations prioritize security for one of two reasons.
  Josh Feinblum, vice
  
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• Holiday shopping by mobile phone? Beware fake apps and bad Wi-Fi hotspots

  22-11-2016 12:00
  
  Black Friday and Cyber Monday holiday shoppers using smartphones should beware of fake commerce apps and fake Wi-Fi hot spots inside malls, two security firms have warned.
  Hackers use these fakes to grab account numbers and sensitive personal information.
  "Cyber criminals are increasing our risk of using mobile devices while shopping, whether it is Black Friday or Cyber Monday," warned Brian Duckering, mobility strategist for Skycure, an enterprise security firm, in a blog. "Going to physical s
  
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• Google's Go language takes on compilation speed

  22-11-2016 12:00
  
  Google's open source Go language will improve compilation time with the planned version 1.8 upgrade.
  Detailing planned tool chain improvements to Go, contributor Dave Cheney said the 1.8 release, due in February, is projected to improve compilation by an average of 15 percent over Go 1.7. This would help with increased compile times, which have dogged Go lately.[ Also on InfoWorld: Download the quick guide to Google Go today. | Keep up with hot topics in programming with InfoWorld's Application
  
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• Trump appoints critics of net neutrality rules to FCC transition team

  22-11-2016 07:46
  
  U.S. President-elect Donald Trump has appointed two opponents of current net neutrality rules to his team charged with overseeing the transition in the Federal Communications Commission.The FCC voted in February last year by 3-2 to reclassify broadband as a regulated, common-carrier service, thus prohibiting providers from selectively blocking or throttling or offering paid prioritization of traffic. The new president, who will be sworn in January, will likely undo some of the policies in the 20
  
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• On first day in office, Trump to attack visas that ‘undercut the American worker’

  22-11-2016 03:23
  
  President-elect Donald Trump on Monday sent out the strongest signal yet that the H-1B visa program is going get real scrutiny once he takes office.
  Trump listed five executive actions he plans to take on his first day in office. It includes asking the Department of Labor to investigate "all abuses of the visa programs that undercut the American worker."
  Trump did not get into details and didn't specifically mention the H-1B visa, but his intent is clear. During the campaign, he was critical of
  
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